The Apocalypse Watch

  “What is that terrible thing, Miss McGraw?”

  “He’s the bigot of the world! He hates so many people, I can’t begin to tell you. Blacks, or as he says, those lousy niggers, and ‘Wops,’ and ‘Slopes,’—that’s Asians—the Spanish-speaking, the Jew bastards, anyone who isn’t pure white and Christian, and he’s definitely not Christian. He wants them all eliminated. That’s his credo.”

  Candidate Accepted

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon Paris time, the hour noted by the low, echoing chimes of a mantel clock in Ambassador Daniel Courtland’s living quarters at the American Embassy. The ambassador, coatless, the bandages across his chest and left shoulder visible beneath his open blue Oxford shirt, sat at an antique table that served as a desk, talking quietly on the telephone. Across the large, ornate room, Drew Latham and Karin de Vries were sitting opposite each other in brocaded armchairs, also speaking softly.

  “How’s the hand?” asked Drew.

  “It’s fine; it’s my feet, they still hurt,” answered Karin, laughing quietly.

  “I told you to take off your shoes.”

  “Then the soles of both feet would be scraped, my dear. How long did we walk from the Lacoste until you reached Claude to send transportation? Nearly forty minutes, I think.”

  “I couldn’t call Durbane. Even now we don’t know where he stands, and Moreau was busy with our Nazi minister.”

  “We saw three separate police cars. I’m sure any one of them would have accommodated us.”

  “No, Witkowski was right about that. There were five of us, which would have meant two of those small cars or a wagon. Then there was the problem of convincing them to take us to the embassy and not to a police station, a request they’d damn well refuse considering one of the neos was wounded. Even Claude was grateful that we waited for him. As he put it, ‘There are already too many cooks in the kitchen.’ We didn’t need police reports or the Sûreté.”

  “And the Deuxième found no one at the Château de Vincennes?”

  “Nobody with a weapon, and they swept the park clean.”

  “It’s surprising,” said De Vries, frowning. “I was sure that’s where the killing would take place.”

  “You’re sure and I can confirm it, straight from Koenig’s mouth. It’s the scenario he described.”

  “I wonder what happened.”

  “It’s pretty obvious. They never got the final go-ahead, so the kill was aborted.”

  “Do you realize we’re talking about our own lives?”

  “I’m trying to keep it clinical.”

  “You’re devastatingly effective.”

  The doorbell of the main entrance to the living quarters rang. Latham rose from the chair and glanced at Courtland, who nodded, still on the phone. Drew crossed to the door, opened it, and admitted Stanley Witkowski. “Any progress?” asked Drew.

  “We think so,” replied the colonel. “I’ll wait till the ambassador’s off the horn. He has to hear it. Did either of you get any rest?”

  “I did, Stanley,” answered Karin from the chair. “Ambassador Courtland was kind enough to let us use the guest rooms. I fell right to sleep, but my friend here couldn’t stay off the phone.”

  “Only after you swore it was sterile,” added Drew.

  “No phone up here could be tapped by Swie’ty Piotr himself, as my dear departed mother used to call him. Whom did you reach, chłopak?”

  “Back and forth with Sorenson. He’s made progress too.”

  “Any word on the Virginia assassin?”

  “He’s nailed him. That son of a bitch can’t go to the toilet without being heard.”

  Daniel Courtland hung up the telephone, awkwardly turning in his chair, wincing in pain as he greeted Witkowski. “Hello, Colonel, what happened at the hospital?”

  “It’s in the hands of British MI-Five, sir. A pulmonologist named Woodward from the Royal College of Surgeons showed up, claiming the Foreign Office had asked him to fly over and examine Mrs. Courtland—at your request. They’re looking into it.”

  “I made no such request,” said the ambassador. “I don’t know any Dr. Woodward, much less the Royal College of Surgeons.”

  “We know that,” said Witkowski. “Our French-American unit at the hospital stopped him just before he was about to inject the false Mrs. Courtland with strychnine.”

  “A brave woman. What’s her name?”

  “Moskowitz, sir. From New York. Her late husband was a French rabbi. She volunteered for the assignment.”

  “Then we must volunteer compensation. Perhaps a month’s vacation, all expenses paid.”

  “I’ll forward the offer, sir.… And how are you feeling?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just a little torn skin, nothing serious. I was a lucky man.”

  “You weren’t the target, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” said Courtland quietly. “So let’s all get current, okay?”

  “Mrs. de Vries just told me how much they appreciate your inviting them to stay up here.”

  “Considering what they’ve been through, they’re quarantined up here for the duration if need be. I assume your full security’s in place.”

  “Practically a complete platoon of marines, sir. They hear a footstep or a sneeze, their weapons are drawn.”

  “Good. Sit down, fellas, we have to recap. You go first, Stanley. Where are we?”

  “Let’s start back at the hospital,” began Witkowski, lowering himself into a chair next to Karin. “It was a foul-up, but the British lung doctor, this Woodward, was cleared by the Quai d’Orsay as one of Mrs. Courtland’s physicians, only the clearance came too late. He’d already arrived.”

  “That strikes me as pretty sloppy for the neos,” said Courtland.

  “Paris is an hour ahead of London, sir,” offered Latham, sitting down. “It’s a common mistake, although you’re right, it was sloppy.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t,” said De Vries, and all eyes turned to her. “Is it possible we have a friend in the English neo ranks? What better way to draw attention to such a killer than by withholding clearance when it’s necessary and sending it suspiciously late?”

  “That’s overcomplicated, Karin,” the colonel disagreed, “and leaves too much room for error. The link in the chain’s too weak; a mole would be traced immediately.”

  “Complications are our business, Stosh, and errors are what we look for.”

  “Is that a lesson from on high?”

  “Come on,” persisted Drew, “she could be right.”

  “Indeed, she could be; unfortunately we can’t know at this juncture.”

  “Why not? We can put out a trace too. Who at the Quai d’Orsay gave Woodward clearance at the hospital even if it was late?”

  “That’s why we can’t know. It came from the office of an Anatole Blanchot, a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Moreau followed it up.”

  “And?”

  “There’s nothing. This Blanchot never heard of a Dr. Woodward and there’s no record of a telephone call made from his office to the Hertford Hospital. As a matter of fact, the only time Blanchot ever called London was over a year ago on his home phone to place a bet at Ladbrokes for the Irish Sweepstakes.”

  “The neos just picked a name, then.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Amen, chłopak.”

  “I thought you said some progress was made.”

  “It was, but not with Woodward.”

  “Then where?” Courtland broke in.

  “I’m referring to Officer Latham’s package delivered to the Deuxième in the early hours of the morning, sir.”

  “The Lutheran minister?” asked Karin.

  “Without knowing it, Koenig’s a songbird,” said Witkowski.

  “What’s the tune?” Drew leaned forward in his chair.

  “It’s an aria called ‘Der Meistersinger Traupman.’ We’ve heard it before.”

/>   “The surgeon from Nuremberg?” pressed Latham. “The big-wheel Nazi that Sorenson unearthed from—” He stopped, looking helplessly at the ambassador.

  “Yes, Drew,” said Courtland quietly, “from my wife’s legal guardian in Centralia, Illinois.… I spoke with Mr. Schneider myself. He’s an old man now with many painful memories and regrets, and whatever he says, I believe he speaks the truth.”

  “He’s certainly telling the truth about Traupman,” said the colonel. “Moreau met with Traupman’s former wife in Munich only a few days ago. She confirmed it in double swastikas.”

  “I’m aware of that also.” The ambassador spoke again softly, nodding his head. “Traupman was instrumental in implementing Operation Sonnenkinder all over the free world.”

  “What did Claude learn about Traupman from the Lutheran priest?” asked Karin.

  “Basically that Koenig and others like him in the upper levels are frightened of him, and curry favors whenever and wherever they can. Moreau understood that Traupman was a major player, but now he thinks he’s something else. He thinks Traupman has some kind of hold over the neo movement, a grip that keeps everyone where he wants them.”

  “The Nazi Rasputin?” continued De Vries. “The untouchable figure behind the imperial throne, controlling that throne?”

  “We know there’s a new Führer,” said Witkowski, “we just have no idea who he is.”

  “But if this new Hitler is the throne—”

  “That is where I must stop you, Karin,” Daniel Courtland interrupted, suddenly rising, slowly, painfully, from his chair behind the antique table.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Ambassador—”

  “No, no, my dear, the apologies are mine, so ordered by my government.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Cool it, Drew, just cool it,” ordered Courtland. “It may interest you to know that I’ve been on the phone with Wesley Sorenson, who has temporarily assumed the authority of certain covert activities. I’m to neither hear nor be a party to any further conversation on this subject. However, when I have left the room, you, Officer Latham, are to call him on this scrambled telephone and hear what he has to say.… Now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall retire to the library, where there is a well-stocked bar. Later, if you care to indulge in some innocuous chitchat, please join me.” The ambassador limped across the room and out an inner door, closing it firmly behind him.

  Drew leapt out of the chair and raced to the phone. Barely sitting down, he began pressing the numbered buttons. “Wes, it’s me. Why the voodoo?”

  “Has Ambassador Daniel Rutherford Courtland in Paris left the room?”

  “Yeah, sure, what is it?”

  “In the event this conversation is compromised, I, Wesley Theodore Sorenson, director of Consular Operations, take full responsibility for this action under Article Seventy-three of the Clandestine Activities Statutes as they apply to unilateral, individual decisions in the field—”

  “Hey, goddammit, that’s my line!”

  “Shut up!”

  “What is it, Wes?”

  “Mount a team, fly to Nuremberg, and take Dr. Hans Traupman. Kidnap the bastard and bring him to Paris.”

  34

  Robert Durbane sat at the desk in his office next to the sealed-off Communications Center, a troubled man. It was more than a feeling, for feelings were abstract, based on anything from an upset stomach to an early morning argument with one’s wife. His stomach was perfectly normal and his wife of twenty-four years was still his best friend; the last time they had argued was when their daughter married a rock musician. She was for it; he was not. He lost. The marriage was not only successful, but his long-haired son-in-law “hit” something called “the charts,” and made more money performing for a month in Las Vegas than Bobby Durbane would make in half a century. And what really rankled the father-in-law was that his daughter’s husband was a nice young man who drank nothing stronger than white wine, didn’t do drugs, had a master’s degree in medieval literature, and completed crossword puzzles faster than Bobby. It was not a logical world.

  So why was he so uncomfortable? he mused. It probably started with Colonel Witkowski’s requisition for a computer printout of all telephone and radio calls made from the comm center during the past seven days. It was then compounded by the subtle yet still fairly obvious behavior of Drew Latham, a man he considered to be a friend. Drew was avoiding him, and it was not like the Cons-Op officer. Durbane had left two messages for Latham, one at his rue du Bac apartment, which was still in the process of being restored, and one at the embassy message center. Neither had been returned, and Bobby knew that Drew was in the embassy, had been there all day, sequestered in the ambassador’s upstairs quarters. Durbane understood that calamitous events had taken place, that Courtland’s wife was so severely wounded during the terrorist attack the night before last that she was not expected to live, but withal, it was not Latham’s way to ignore messages from his friend “the egghead” who filled in those “detestable crossword puzzles.” Especially considering Bobby had saved his life several nights before.

  Something was wrong; something had happened that Durbane could not understand, and there was only one way to find out what it was. He picked up his telephone, a phone that could access any other in the embassy regardless of restrictions, and pressed the numbers for Courtland’s living quarters.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Ambassador, it’s Robert Durbane in the comm center.”

  “Hello … Bobby,” said Courtland hesitantly. “How are you?”

  “I think it’s my place to ask you that, sir.” Something was wrong. The usually unflappable State Department man was uncomfortable. “I refer to your wife, of course. I hear she was taken to a hospital.”

  “They’re doing everything possible, and that’s all I can ask. Other than your well-known courtesy, which I appreciate, is there anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. I know no one’s supposed to know Drew Latham is alive, but I work closely with Colonel Witkowski. Therefore, I also know that Drew is up there, and I’d like very much to talk to him.”

  “Oh … you rather startle me, Mr. Durbane. Hold on, please.”

  The line went on Hold, the silence unnerving, as if a decision was being made. Finally, Drew’s voice came on the phone. “Hello, Bobby?”

  “I left a couple of messages for you. You didn’t call me back.”

  “I didn’t write either. Besides having been shot and gone on to a far better world, I’ve been up to my ass in confusion, plus a few other less attractive things.”

  “I can imagine. However, I think we should talk.”

  “Really? About what?”

  “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

  “Is this double crostics? I’m no good at those, you know that.”

  “I know I want to talk to you, and not on the phone. May I?”

  “Wait a minute.” Again the silence was pervasive, but shorter than the previous one. “All right,” said Latham, back on the line. “There’s an elevator I never knew about that stops on your floor. I’ll be on it, escorted by three armed marines, and you’re to clear the corridor. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “It’s gone this far?” asked Durbane quietly. “Me? I’m suddenly a danger zone?”

  “We’ll talk, Bobby.”

  Seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds later, Drew sat in the single chair in front of Durbane’s desk, his office having been swept by the marine contingent, and no weapons found.

  “What the hell is this?” said the comm center’s chief of operations. “What in God’s name have I done to warrant these Gestapo tactics?”

  “You may have used the right word, Bobby. Gestapo, as in the Nazi lexicon.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Do you know a woman named Phyllis Cranston?”

  “Certainly. She’s the secretary to what’s-his-name, the third or fourth attaché below the ambassador’s chargé d??
?affaires. So what?”

  “Did she tell you who a Colonel Webster was and where he was staying?”

  “As a matter of fact she did, but she didn’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who do you think set up the communications between the embassy and the wandering Colonel Webster? Two, or was it three changes of hotels. Between your movements and Mrs. de Vries’s, even Witkowski couldn’t keep it all straight.”

  “Then everything was kept under wraps?”

  “I believe the overused phrase, ‘maximum classified,’ was affixed to the equally abused ‘order of the day.’ Why do you think I was so harsh with Cranston?”

  “I didn’t know you were.”

  “I demanded to know how she knew. I even threatened her with exposure, which wasn’t easy for me because my mother was an alcoholic. It’s a rotten disease.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She fell apart, crying and mumbling some religious claptrap. She’d been on a binge the night before and her defenses were nowhere.”

  “You must know her pretty well.”

  “You want it straight, Drew?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Bobby.”

  “My wife and I went to one of those embassy receptions, and Martha—she’s my wife—saw Phyllis hanging around the bar and lapping up the booze. I figured, how else could a normal person get through one of those functions without an edge on, hell, I’ve done it myself. But Martha knew better; she’d lived through my mother’s last years with us. She told me to try to help her, that she needed help due to ‘low self-esteem’ and phrases like that. So I tried and obviously failed.”

  “Then you never mentioned to anyone else who I was or what hotel I was at?”

  “Good God, no. Even when that prick Cranston works for came sniffing around about your staff and resources, I told him I hadn’t the vaguest idea who was taking over for you. I was grateful that Phyllis had gotten my message about keeping her mouth shut.”

  “Why was he sniffing around?”

  “That part sounded legitimate,” replied Durbane. “Hell, everyone knows Consular Operations doesn’t oversee the embassy’s kitchen menus. He said he’d been approached by a French developer and asked to invest in some hot real estate. He thought your staff might check out the guy’s legitimacy. It’s par for his course, Drew. Cranston says he spends more time lunching with Paris businessmen than with those who could do us some good over here.”