The Apocalypse Watch

  “Forget the prayers, just bring about the Fourth Reich.”

  “We shall.”

  “Good day, Herr Lassiter.”

  Traupman and Kroeger left and walked up the corridor to the pristine anteroom. “You were right,” said the doctor from Nuremberg, sitting down. “It is remarkable!”

  “You approve, then?”

  “How could I not? Even to the pause in his voice, his clouded eyes. Perfect. You have done it!”

  “Remember, Hans, it is flawed, I cannot be dishonest about that. Conditions remaining stable in their abnormality, I can guarantee but five to eight days longer, no more than that.”

  “But you say London, Paris, and Washington insist it is sufficient, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, tell me about this nonexistence of the valley. It’s a shock. Why?”

  “We’re no longer needed. We’re dispersing. Over the past years we’ve indoctrinated—trained—more than twenty thousand disciples—”

  “You like that word, don’t you?” Traupman broke in.

  “It fits. They’re not only true believers, they are also leaders, both minor and potentially major.… They’ve been sent everywhere, mostly throughout Germany, but those gifted in foreign languages and with appropriate skills, to other countries, all financed, ready to take their places in carefully selected professions and occupations.”

  “We’ve progressed so far? I had no idea.”

  “Then in your haste you didn’t notice that we have far fewer people here now. The evacuation began weeks ago, our two mountain vehicles operating night and day to remove personnel and equipment. It’s been like a colony of ants deserting one hill for another—our destination and our destiny—the new Germany.”

  “About the American, this Harry Latham. Beyond staying in contact to learn what he learns, which probably could be accomplished with paid informers, what’s his function? Or is that it? That and proving your theory for future use.”

  “What we learn from him will have value, of course, and will require the use of a miniaturized electronic computer at close range. It can be easily concealed in a small object. But Harry Latham has a far higher calling. If you remember, I mentioned that he will send our enemies scurrying off in different directions. That, however, barely scratches the surface.”

  “You’re practically salivating, Gerhardt. Tell me.”

  “Latham said he was working on figures, numbers as they pertain to his making millions from the Chinese economic expansion, yes?”

  “He’s probably right.”

  “Wrong, Hans. Those figures have nothing to do with finance. They’re codes he’s devised so he’ll forget nothing after he escapes.”

  “Escapes?”

  “Naturally. He has a job to do, and he’s a professional. Of course, we’ll let him.”

  “For God’s sake, be clearer!”

  “During his weeks here, in our sessions and over lunches and dinners, we’ve fed him hundreds of names—French, German, English, American.”

  “What names?” Traupman interrupted impatiently.

  “Those men and women in Germany and abroad who silently support us, who contribute heavily to our cause—in essence, people of influence and power who actually work for the Brotherhood.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Among this silent, unrevealed elite,” continued Kroeger, overriding Traupman’s vehement interjection, “are American congressmen, senators, and captains of industry and the media. Also, members of the British establishment, not unlike the Cliveden set that gave Hitler his supporters in England, including clandestine policy-makers in British intelligence—”

  “You’ve lost your mind—”

  “Please, Hans, let me finish.… In Paris we have influential sympathizers in the Quai d’Orsay, the Chamber of Deputies, even the secret Deuxième Bureau. And finally in Germany itself, a number of Bonn’s most prestigious authorities. They yearn for the old days before the Fatherland was polluted by the screaming weak who want everything but contribute nothing, the inferior bloodlines that corrupt our nation. Latham has all of this information, all the names. As a trained deep-cover intelligence officer, he’ll report the vast majority.”

  “You are certifiable, Kroeger! I will not permit it!”

  “Oh, but you must, Dr. Traupman. You see, except for a small number of legitimate supporters who are expendable for establishing credibility, everything that Harry Latham carries out of our valley is false. The names he has in his head and concealed in his codes are, indeed, vital to us, but only in the sense that these people be discredited, even destroyed. For, in truth, they deeply oppose us, many stridently vocal in their opposition. Once their names are flashed secretly to the global intelligence networks, the witch hunts will begin. As the most sincere among them fall through official suspicion and manufactured innuendo, the resulting vacuums will be filled by many of our own … yes, disciples, Hans. Especially in America, the most powerful of our enemies, for it is also the most susceptible. One has only to recall the frenzied Red-baiting of the forties and fifties. It became a nation paralyzed by fear, thousands upon thousands tainted with the Soviet brush, whole industries caving in to the paranoia, the country weakened from within. The Communists knew how to do it; Moscow, as we have learned, secretly funneled both money and ersatz information to the zealots.… One man can start this process for us. Harry Latham, code name Sting.”

  “My God!” Traupman sank back in the chair, his voice barely above a whisper. “It is brilliant. For he’s the only person who’s penetrated the core, found the valley. They’ll have to believe him—everywhere.”

  “He will escape tonight.”

  4

  Heinrich Kreitz, German ambassador to the Republic of France, was a short, slender man of seventy years with a gaunt face, silklike white hair, and sad hazel eyes, perpetually creased. For years a professor of European political development at the University of Vienna, he had been plucked from academia and recruited into the diplomatic corps, due mainly to his numerous papers detailing the history of international relations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These lengthy articles were combined into a book entitled, quite naturally, Discourse Between Nations, a staple for diplomats in seventeen languages, as well as a foreign services text in universities across the civilized world.

  It was 9:25 in the morning and Kreitz, seated in front of the American ambassador’s desk, stared in silence at Drew Latham, who stood to the left of Ambassador Courtland. Against the wall, on a couch, sat the Deuxième’s Moreau. “My shame is my country’s guilt,” said Kreitz finally, in his voice a sadness that matched his eyes, “the guilt of having permitted such monsters, such criminals, ever to have ruled our nation. We will increase our efforts, if that’s humanly possible, to root them out and destroy whatever nucleus they have. Please understand, gentlemen, my government is dedicated to exposing them, to eliminating them, if it means building a thousand new prisons to contain them. We, above all, cannot afford their existence, surely you know that.”

  “We know it, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,” said Claude Moreau from the couch, “but it seems you have a strange way of going about it. Your Polizei are aware of the leaders of these disrupting fanatics in a dozen cities. Why are they not incarcerated?”

  “Where violence can be proved against them, they are. Our courts are filled with such indictments. But where mere dissent is concerned, we are also a democracy; we have the same freedom of speech that permits you your peaceable strikes, the Americans their rights of assembly, frequently producing marches on Washington, where men and women harangue their followers from platforms and—how is it said? oh, yes—the ‘soapboxes.’ Many of both your countries’ statutes allow such displays of antigovernment displeasure. Are we then to silence everyone who disagrees with Bonn, including those who crowd the squares against the neo-Nazis?”

  “No, goddammit!” roared Latham. “But you do silence them! We didn’t create concentration camp
s, or gas chambers, or the genocide of an entire people. You bastards did that, not us!”

  “Again in our shame we permitted it … just as you permitted the enslaving of an entire people and stood by while black men were hanged from ten thousand trees in your Southern states, and the French did much the same in Equatorial Africa and their Far East colonies. There is both horror and decency in all of us. In all our histories.”

  “That’s not only nonsense, Heinrich, it doesn’t apply here, and you know it,” said Ambassador Courtland with surprising authority. “I know it because I’ve read your book. You called it ‘the perspective of historical realities.’ What was perceived to be the truths of the times. You can’t justify the Third Reich in such terms.”

  “I never did, Daniel,” rejoined Kreitz. “I strenuously condemned the Reich for creating false truths, all too acceptable to a devastated nation. The Teutonic mythology was a narcotic that a weak, disillusioned, famished people plunged irrationally into their veins. Did I not write that?”

  “Yes, you did,” acknowledged the American ambassador, nodding. “Let’s say I just wanted to remind you.”

  “Your point is well taken. However, as you must protect the interests of Washington, I have my obligations to Bonn … So where are we? We all want the same thing.”

  “I suggest, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,” said Moreau, getting up from the couch, “that you allow me to put under surveillance a number of the upper-level attachés at your embassy.”

  “Beyond the intrusion of a host government on a diplomatic level, what can that serve? I know them all. They’re decent, hardworking men and women, well trained and trustworthy.”

  “You cannot really know that, monsieur. The evidence is beyond debate: There is an organization here in Paris dedicated to the new Nazi movement. All the signs indicate that it may well be the central organization outside of Germany, conceivably as important as the one inside your country, for it can operate beyond German laws, German eyes. Further, it has been all but confirmed, lacking only the specifics of transfer, that millions upon millions are being funneled to the movement by way of France, no doubt through the efforts of this organization whose origins may go back fifty years. So you see, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, we have a situation that goes beyond narrow diplomatic traditions.”

  “I’d need the approval of my government to give you that, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Moreau.

  “Information of a financial nature could be relayed over our secure channels by someone on the embassy staff to those here in Paris who are aiding these psychopaths,” said Kreitz pensively. “I see what you mean, as disturbing as it is.… Very well, I’ll give you an answer later in the day.” Heinrich Kreitz turned to Drew Latham. “My government will, of course, absorb all costs for the damages you sustained, Herr Latham.”

  “Just get us the cooperation we need, or your government will be responsible for damages you could never pay for,” said Drew. “Again.”

  “He’s not here!” cried Giselle Villier over the telephone.

  “Monsieur Moreau of the Deuxième Bureau was here four hours ago and told us about the horrible things that happened to you and Henri Bressard last night, and my husband appeared to accept his instructions not to interfere. Maintenant, mon Dieu, you know actors! They can convincingly say anything and your ears and your eyes believe them even while they’re thinking something entirely different.”

  “Do you know where he is?” asked Drew.

  “I know where he isn’t, monsieur! After Moreau left, he seemed resigned, and told me he was going to the theater for an understudy rehearsal. He said—and he’s said it many times before—that his presence at such rehearsals lends enthusiasm to the minor players. I never thought to doubt him, then Henri called from the Quai d’Orsay, insisting that he talk with Jean-Pierre. So I told him to call the theater—”

  “He wasn’t there,” interrupted Latham.

  “Not only was he not there, the understudy rehearsal isn’t today, but tomorrow!”

  “You think he went on with his own plans, as he described them last night?”

  “I’m sure of it, and I’m frightened to death.”

  “Maybe you don’t have to be. The Deuxième has him under protection. They’ll follow him everywhere.”

  “Again, our new friend, Drew Latham, and I hope you are a friend—”

  “Completely. Believe that.”

  “You really don’t know talented actors. They can walk into a building looking like themselves, then reappear on the street as someone else. A shirt stuffed under their jackets, their trousers baggy, their walk different, and God forbid there’s a clothes shop inside.”

  “You believe he might have done something like that?”

  “It’s why I’m so frightened. When we spoke last night, he was very strong in his decision, and Jean-Pierre is a strong man.”

  “That’s what I told Bressard when he drove me to the embassy.”

  “I know. It’s why Henri insisted on speaking to him, to lend his voice against any involvement.”

  “I’ll check with Moreau.”

  “You will call me back, of course.”

  “Of course.” Drew hung up the phone in his embassy office, checked his index for the Deuxième Bureau, and called its chief. “It’s Latham,” he said.

  “I was expecting your call, monsieur. What can I say? We lost the acteur; he was too clever for us. He went into Les Halles, a circus of confusion to begin with. All those stalls—meats, flowers, chickens, légumes—total chaos. He passed through a butcher market and not one of our people saw him come out either side!”

  “They were looking for someone he wasn’t. What are you going to do now?”

  “I have units checking out the less desirable of our streets. We must find him.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s the best actor in France. But he’s got to show up at the theater tonight. For Christ’s sake, be there, and if you have to, put him under house arrest tomorrow … If he’s still alive.”

  “Please, do not suggest …”

  “I’ve been down in those streets, Moreau; I don’t think you have. You’re too elite; your sophisticated strategies have nothing to do with the sewers of Paris, where he probably is.”

  “Your insult is unwarranted; we know more about this city than anyone on earth.”

  “Good. Then go look.” Drew hung up the phone, wondering whom else he could call, what else he might do. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door. “Come in,” he said impatiently.

  An attractive dark-haired woman in her early thirties and wearing large tortoiseshell glasses walked in, carrying a thick file folder. “I believe we’ve found the materials you asked for, monsieur.”

  “Excuse me, but who are you?”

  “My name is Karin de Vries, sir. I work in Documents and Research.”

  “A euphemism for everything from ‘sensitive’ to ‘maximum classified.’ ”

  “Not all of it, Monsieur Latham. We also have road maps, as well as schedules for airports and rail transport.”

  “You’re French.”

  “Flemish, actually,” corrected the woman, her accent soft but unmistakable. “However, I’ve spent a number of years in Paris, including studies for my degrees at the Sorbonne.”

  “You speak excellent English—”

  “Also French and Dutch, including the Flemish and Walloon dialects, of course, and German,” interrupted De Vries quietly, “with equal reading skills.”

  “That’s some talent.”

  “It’s not at all unusual, except perhaps the in-depth reading, the abstractions and the use of idioms.”

  “Which is why you’re in Documents and Research.”

  “It was a requirement, naturally.”

  “Naturally.… What did you find for me?”

  “You asked us to research the laws of the Ministère des Finances, explore
whatever cracks might exist with respect to foreign investment, and bring the information to you.”

  “Let’s have it.” The woman came around the desk, placed the file folder in front of Drew, and opened it, revealing a sheaf of computer printouts. “That’s a lot of data, Miss de Vries,” said Latham. “It’ll take me a week to go through it, and I haven’t got a week. The world of high finance isn’t one of my strong suits.”

  “Oh, no, monsieur, most of this contains extracts from the laws supporting our conclusions, and case histories of those caught violating those laws. Their names and short summaries of their manipulations are on only six pages.”

  “Good Lord, it’s far more than I asked for. You did all this in five hours?”

  “The equipment is superb, sir, and the ministry was extremely cooperative, even to the point of intercoding our modems.”

  “They didn’t object to our invasion?”

  “I knew whom to contact. He understood what you were after and why.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m neither blind nor deaf, monsieur. Enormous funds are being transferred through Switzerland into Germany to unknown illegitimate individuals or accounts using the Swiss procedure of subjecting handwritten numbers to spectrographs.”

  “And the identity of those numbers?”

  “Wired instantly back to Zurich, Bern, or Geneva, where they are inviolate. Neither confirmed nor denied.”

  “You know a great deal about these procedures, don’t you?”

  “Allow me to explain, Monsieur Latham. I worked for the Americans in NATO. I was cleared by the American authorities for the most highly classified materials because I frequently saw things and heard things that escaped the Americans. Why do you ask? Are you suggesting something else?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed by your efficiency—you’re responsible for this folder, aren’t you? I mean you alone, correct? I can ask others in D and R.”

  “Yes,” said Karin de Vries, walking slowly around the desk and standing in front of Latham. “I saw your request—flagged red—in our department chief’s file. I opened it and studied it. I knew I was qualified to expedite it, and so I removed it.”