The Apocalypse Watch

  “Okay,” said Karin, laughing quietly.

  “You’ve got to be our Mr. Cons-Op, right?” said Greenberg, shaking hands with Drew, then becoming suddenly serious. “My heart goes out to you, sir. You lose a parent, it’s kind of expected, you know what I mean? You lose a brother—yes, Jackman and I were told the scenario—well, it’s something else. Especially the way it happened. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “You’ve said it very well; it’s appreciated.… Who else down here knows what you just told me?”

  “Nobody, only Rowe and myself. We have two pairs of relief. The last left when the Jackman arrived, but none have the codes to invade our super bird. If either of us has an accident or a cardiac arrest, a sub is flown down from NATO.”

  “I’ve never seen you around the embassy,” said Witkowski. “And I’m sure I’d recall having seen you.”

  “We’re not permitted to fraternize, Colonel. We have a separate entrance and our own very small elevator.”

  “That seems rather excessive.”

  “Not when you consider what’s in Mother Bird. The only people accepted for this job are computer Ph.D.’s, male and unattached. That may be sexist, but it’s the way things are.”

  “Are you armed?” asked Latham. “Just curiosity.”

  “Two weapons. Both Smith and Wesson, nine millimeters. One in a chest holster and one strapped to the leg. Trained in usage, by the way.”

  “May we get to work,” said Karin firmly. “I believe your partner has inserted the information I need.”

  “It won’t do us any good until I repeat it,” said Greenberg, heading for his chair on the left of the giant equipment and sitting down, entering his code. “Print it up for me, Jackman, okay?”

  “Transfer in sequence,” answered Rowe. “It’s in your ballpark. Repeat and release on demand-print key.”

  “I’m with you.” Joel Greenberg swiveled in his chair and addressed the three intruders. “As I repeat his data, it’ll come out on the printer below the center screen. That way you won’t have to remember everything on the movie.”

  “The movie?”

  “The screen, Colonel, the screen,” said Jack Rowe.

  As the computer printouts spewed forth, page by page, date by date, Karin ripped them off and studied them. Twenty minutes passed. When the printouts were finished, she went back over each, circling items in a red pencil. Finally, she said softly but emphatically, “I’ve found it. The two occasions when I went back to Transport. I remember exactly.… Can you now bring up the names of the D and R personnel on the left side of the center aisle?” She handed the printouts with the data circled in red to Greenberg.

  “Sure,” said the Ph.D. with a ponytail, in concert with his associate. “Ready, Jack?”

  “Go ahead, Numero Duo.”

  “Asshole.”

  The names appeared on the screen before the ten-second delay for the printer. “You’re not going to like this, Mrs. de Vries,” said the computer Ph.D. named Rowe. “Out of the six days you specified, you were on three of them.”

  “That’s crazy—insane!”

  “I’ll bring up your data, see if you recall it.”

  The screen printed out the information. “Yes, that’s mine!” cried Karin, her eyes on the line of green letters as they first appeared. “But I wasn’t there.”

  “Big Bird doesn’t lie, ma’am,” said Greenberg. “It wouldn’t know how.”

  “Try the others, their inputs,” insisted Latham.

  The bright green letters appeared again on the screen, each from different offices. And again, the very data Karin had recognized was on two others.

  “What more can I say? I could not have been in three offices at once. Someone has penetrated your holy computers.”

  “That would require such a complex number of codes, including insertions and deletions, that it would take someone with more knowledge than Joel and I have to do it,” said Jack Rowe. “I hate to say it, Mrs. de Vries, but the info on you from Brussels made it clear that you were pretty expert in this department.”

  “Why would I implicate myself? With three insertions?”

  “You’ve got me there.”

  “Run down our top personnel, and I don’t care if it takes until the sun comes up,” said Drew. “I want to see every résumé from the Big Man on down.”

  The minutes passed, the printouts continued, studied by all, until an hour went by, then an hour and a half. “Holy shit!” exclaimed Greenberg, looking at his screen. “We may have a probable.”

  “Who is it?” asked Witkowski, ice in his voice.

  “You’re not going to like this, any of you. I don’t like it.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Read it yourselves,” said Joel, arching his head, his eyes closed as if in disbelief.

  “Oh, my God,” cried Karin, staring at the center screen. “It’s Janine Clunes!”

  “Correction,” said the colonel. “Janine Clunes Courtland, the ambassador’s wife, his second wife, to be precise. She works in D and R, under her maiden name for obvious reasons.”

  “What were her qualifications?” asked the stunned Latham.

  “I can bring them up in a couple of minutes,” replied Rowe.

  “Don’t bother,” said Witkowski. “I can give you a fairly accurate picture; it isn’t often security’s told to clear an ambassador’s wife. Janine Clunes, University of Chicago, its think tank, Ph.D. and full professorship in computer science before marrying Courtland after his divorce about a year and a half ago.”

  “She’s brilliant,” added Karin. “She’s also the sweetest, kindest woman in D and R. If she hears somebody has a problem and thinks she can help, she’ll go right to her husband. Everyone adores her because, among other reasons, she never takes advantage of her position; to the contrary, she constantly covers for those who may be late, or can’t complete their assignments on time. She’s always offering to help.”

  “A real roving butterfly,” said Drew. “Christ, is Courtland now on our list, Harry’s list?”

  “I can’t believe that,” answered the colonel. “I’m not very partial to him, but I can’t believe it. He’s been too open with us, even gone out on a limb for us. I remind you and Karin that we wouldn’t be here without his giving us the go-ahead, because we shouldn’t be here unless we had clearance from the State Department, D.C., the CIA, the National Security Council, and probably the Joint Chiefs.”

  “The only people left out are in the White House,” said the irreverent Greenberg. “But then, what do they know? They’re too busy trying to get their free parking spaces back.”

  “I remember reading about Courtland’s divorce in The Washington Post,” interrupted Drew, looking at Stanley Witkowski. “As I recall, he gave everything to his wife and children, admitting that the constant relocations of a State Department officer were no way to bring up the kids.”

  “I can understand that,” said the colonel coldly, returning Latham’s look. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean his current wife is the other informer.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” broke in Jack Rowe. “My comrade in computer arms merely said he had a possible, right, Joel?”

  “I believe he said ‘probable,’ right, Joel?” Latham said.

  “Okay, Cons-Op, because I happen to believe it. The Big Bird fed us too much not to. Don’t tell me Courtland doesn’t know about our lady from NATO here, and please don’t tell me they haven’t talked about her. Her looks, her remoteness, her NATO duty—she’s high-quality fodder for the rumor mill. If anyone was a logical candidate for suspicion, I submit it’s Mrs. de Vries. At least it throws people off the scent for the real mole.”

  “What about languages?” said Latham, turning to Karin. “They’d have to be important.”

  “Janine speaks an acceptable French and Italian, but her German is completely fluent—” De Vries stopped, aware of what she just said.

  “A ‘probable,’ ” mused Drew softly. ?
??Where do we go from here?”

  “I’ve gone,” replied Greenberg. “I just sent a query to Chicago, asking for in-depth data on Professor Clunes. That stuff is all stored, so it should be coming back in a minute or two.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Karin. “It’s nearly midnight there.”

  “Shhh!” whispered the computer scientist in mock secrecy. “Chicago’s a government-funded database, like the earthquake equipment, but don’t tell anybody. Someone’s always there because no one on the taxpayer’s payroll wants to find his pants wet for withholding information from a machine like ours.”

  “Here it comes!” cried Jack Rowe as the screen lit up from Chicago.

  The woman named Janine Clunes held the position of full professor of computer science for a period of three years before her recent marriage to Daniel Courtland, then ambassador to Finland. She was highly regarded by both faculty and students alike for her ability to demystify computerese. She was active in campus politics, a staunch conservative when it was not popular, but her winning personality softened the negative reactions. It was rumored that she had several affairs while in residence but nothing of consequence or detrimental to her position. It was noted, however, that political events excepted, she was not known to frequent social occasions, living off campus in Evanston, Illinois, an hour’s drive from the university.

  Her background is quite conformist for the times. She emigrated from Bavaria in the late forties as an infant, her parents deceased, and was brought up by relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schneider, in Centralia in the county of Marion, Illinois. Her records show that she was an outstanding student in high school, won a Merit Scholarship to the University of Chicago, and upon completion of her bachelor’s degree, master’s, and doctorate, was offered a position on the faculty. She made frequent trips as an unpaid political consultant to Washington, D.C., where she met Ambassador Courtland. That’s about it, Paris. Regards, Chicago.

  “That’s not ‘about it,’ ” said Witkowski quietly as he read the bright green letters on the screen. “She’s a Sonnenkind.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Stanley?”

  “I thought the Sonnenkinder theory was discredited,” said Karin softly, nearly inaudible.

  “To most people,” replied the colonel, “not to me, never has been. Look what’s happening now.”

  “What’s a Sonnen—whatever?”

  “A concept, Drew. The premise was that before and after the war, the zealots of the Third Reich sent out selected children to chosen ‘parents’ throughout the world, whose mission was to raise the Kinder to positions of influence and power so as to pave the way for a Fourth Reich.”

  “That’s fantasyland, it couldn’t happen.”

  “Maybe it did after all,” said Witkowski. “Christ, the world’s gone crazy!” exploded the embassy’s chief of security.

  “Hold it,” said Joel Greenberg at the computer, over-riding Witkowski’s outburst. “There’s an addendum coming in from Chicago. Catch the movie.” All heads turned to the screen and the bright green letters.

  Additional information re Janine Clunes. While championing conservative causes, she violently opposed the Nazi march through Skokie, Illinois. She went on the parade’s rostrum at her own peril and denounced the event as barbarism.

  “What do you make of that, Stanley?” asked Drew.

  “I’ll tell you what I make of it,” interrupted De Vries. “What better way to support an ultimately horrible agenda than by denying it? You could be right, Colonel. The Sonnenkinder operation may be alive and well.”

  “Then tell me, how I can approach the ambassador? What the hell can I say? He’s living with, sleeping with, a daughter of the Third Reich?”

  “Let me handle this, Stanley,” said Latham. “I’m the coordinator, right?”

  “Who are you going to lay it on, youngster?”

  “Who else? A man we both appreciate. Wesley Sorenson.”

  “May God have mercy on his soul.”

  The telephone rang on Rowe’s computer. He picked it up. “S-Two here, what is it?… Yes, sir, right away, sir.” He turned to Witkowski. “You’re to go right up to medical, Colonel. Your ‘prize’ is awake and talking.”

  21

  Gerhardt Kroeger, strapped in a straitjacket, was on the narrow bed, crouched against the wall, his body curled up and pressed into the wood. He was alone in a room at the embassy’s infirmary, his wounded legs bandaged underneath his medical pajamas, his eyes wide, glaring, roving everywhere but focused on nothing. “Mein Vater war ein Verräter,” he whispered hoarsely. “Mein Vater war ein Verräter!… Mein Leben ist vorbei, alles vernichtet!”

  Two men watched him through a false mirror in an adjoining office—one, the embassy physician, the other, Colonel Witkowski. “He’s getting real squirrelly,” said the chief of security.

  “I don’t understand German. What’s he saying?” asked the doctor.

  “Something about his father being filth, a traitor, and that his life is over, everything destroyed.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Only what I hear. He’s a basket case, carrying a ton of guilt that’s driving him up the wall he can’t climb.”

  “Then he’s suicidal,” concluded the doctor. “He stays in the jacket.”

  “You’re damn right,” agreed the colonel. “But I’m still going in and try to question him.”

  “Be careful, his blood pressure’s almost out of sight. Which, I suppose, is natural, considering who he is—or was. When the mighty fall, they crash with a bang.”

  “You know who he is—was?”

  “Sure. Most anybody who got through medical school would. Especially the head sessions.”

  “Enlighten me, Doctor,” said Witkowski, looking at the physician.

  “He is, or was, a famous German surgeon—I haven’t heard of him for a few years now—but his specialty was brain disorders. It was said at the time that he cured more mentally dysfunctional patients than anyone else in the field. With a scalpel, not drugs, which are overloaded with side effects.”

  “So why was this goddamned genius sent to Paris to kill someone when he couldn’t hit the side of a barn with buckshot?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Colonel, and if he said anything about it, I wouldn’t understand.”

  “Fair enough, but not good enough, Doctor. Let me go inside, please.”

  “Sure, but remember, I’ll be watching. If I see him reaching an apex—the jacket is wired to blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen—you’re out. Understood?”

  “I don’t take lightly to orders like that where a killer is concerned—”

  “You’ll take them from me, Witkowski,” the doctor interrupted curtly. “My job is to keep him alive, perhaps even for your benefit. Do we understand each other?”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “No, you don’t. I’d advise talking quietly.”

  “That advice I don’t need from you.”

  The colonel sat in a chair in front of the bed; he remained immobile until the unfocused Kroeger realized he was there. “Guten Abend, Herr Doktor. Sprechen zie Englisch, mein Herr?”

  “You know perfectly well I do,” said Kroeger, struggling against the constricting jacket. “Why am I in this undignified attire? I am a doctor, a surgeon of repute, so why am I treated like an animal?”

  “Because the families of two of your victims at the Hotel Inter-Continental no doubt consider you a vicious animal. Should we let you free to face their wrath? I assure you that death at their hands would be far more painful than execution at ours.”

  “They were an error, a mistake! A tragic event brought about by your hiding an enemy of humanity!”

  “An enemy of humanity …? That’s a very serious charge. Why is Harry Latham an enemy of humanity?”

  “He’s insane, a violent schizophrenic who must be relieved of his tortures, or given medication so he can be institutionalized. Hasn’t Moreau
told you?”

  “Moreau? The Deuxième Bureau?”

  “Of course. I explained everything to him! He did not reach you? Of course he’s French, and they keep things to themselves, don’t they?”

  “Perhaps I overlooked the communication.”

  “You see,” said Kroeger, still struggling, but sitting up straight on the bed, “I treated Harry Latham in Germany—where, it does not matter—I saved his life, but you must bring me to him so I can inject him with the drugs that were in my clothes. It’s the only way he can stay alive and serve your purposes!”

  “A tempting scenario,” said Witkowski. “He brought out a list of names, you know, several hundred names—”

  “Who knows where he got them?” interrupted Gerhardt Kroeger. “He traveled with the drug-infected scum of Germany. Some could be right, many could be wrong. That’s why you must bring me to him in neutral quarters so we can learn the truth.”

  “My God, you’re desperate enough to cover all the bases, aren’t you?”

  “Was ist?”

  “You know goddamned well was ist, Doktor.… Let’s talk about something else for a minute, okay?”

  “Was?”

  “Your daddy, your Vater, do you mind?”

  “I never discuss my father, sir,” said Kroeger, his eyes blank, unfocused, staring at nothing on the wall.

  “Oh, I think we should,” insisted the colonel. “You see, we ran a check on you, the whole you, and we considered your father a hero, an enlightened hero of Germany.”

  “Nein! Ein Verräter!”

  “We don’t think so. He wanted to save lives, German, English, and American. He finally saw through the hollow crap of Hitler and his thugs and decided to make a statement at the risk of his life, if not certain death. That’s a real hero, Doctor.”

  “Nein! He betrayed the Fatherland!” Kroeger writhed in the straitjacket, bouncing back and forth on the bed, a man in agony, as tears fell from his eyes. “Throughout the Gymnasium, then through the Universität, the schoolboys would come up to me—frequently they beat me. ‘Your father was a traitor, we all know it!’ and ‘Why did the Americans make him the Bürgermeister when none of us wanted him?’ Mein Gott, such tortures!”