The Apocalypse Watch

  “I believe your American agents call it ‘solo,’ ” clarified the senior deputy of the Etranger. “I gave no reason for removing them—in concert with what my friend Stanley told me. Mon Dieu, neo-Nazis in the most secret areas of the government! The Deuxième itself. Incredible!… I took considerable risk, but if we can find this traitor, Bergeron, my superiors can only applaud me.”

  “And if we don’t?” asked Lieutenant Anthony, his sling across the table like a webbed claw.

  “Well, I acted on behalf of a distraught subordinate of the leaderless Deuxième and our dearest allies, the Americans.”

  “Have you ever been in deep-cover incursion, sir?” asked Captain Dietz.

  “Non, Capitaine, I am an analyst. I direct, I do not engage in such activities.”

  “Then you’re not going with us?”

  “Jamais.”

  “C’est bon, sir.”

  “All right,” Witkowski interrupted, flashing a disagreeable glance at Dietz, “let’s get down to business. Have you got the maps, Clément?”

  “More than simple maps. Elevations that you asked for, faxed from the zoning and assessment bureaus of the Loire.” Cloche opened his briefcase, lifted out several folded pages, and spread them across the table. “This is Le Nid de l’Aigle, the château known as Eagle’s Nest. It comprises three hundred and seventy acres, certainly not the largest but hardly the smallest of the inherited estates. It was originally granted by royal decree to a minor duke in the sixteenth century, to the family—”

  “We don’t need the history, sir,” interrupted Latham. “What is it now? Forgive me, but we’re in a hell of a hurry.”

  “Very well, although the history is relevant in terms of its fortifications, natural and otherwise.”

  “What fortifications?” said Karin, standing up, her eyes on the map.

  “Here, here, here, and here,” said Cloche, also standing, as everyone else suddenly did, and pointing to sections on the unfolded map. “They’re deep-trenched, soft-bedded canals surrounding three-fifths of the château and fed by the river. They are filled with reeds and wild grass, as if crossing the waters were simple, but those ancient nobles who constantly were at war with each other knew the instruments of defense when under attack. Any army of bowmen and cannoneers who rushed into those seemingly shallow streams sank into the mud and drowned, taking their artillery with them.”

  “That’s pretty damned strategic,” said Witkowski.

  “Kind of awesome for so many centuries ago,” agreed Captain Dietz.

  “How many times have I told you to look at the past?” said Lieutenant Anthony, nudging the captain with his right arm and then wincing in pain. “They worked with what they had, and history repeats itself.”

  “I believe that’s an oversimplification, Gerry,” objected Karin, her eyes still on the map. “Those canal streams would have dried up years and years ago by attrition and sediment because they were not natural. They were dug out and constantly re-dredged. But you were right, Lieutenant, whoever owns this château studied its history and channeled them again, dredging out the old sources to the Loire River.… Am I right, Monsieur Cloche?”

  “It is what I determined, madame, but no one gave me a chance to explain.”

  “You have it now,” said Latham, “and I apologize. We’ll take anything you can give us.”

  “Very well, merci. There are basically two avenues of entry, the front gates, of course, and the northeast side. Unfortunately, at ground level, a twelve-foot-high stone wall surrounds the entire château with only one break in addition to the gates. It is at the rear, a strolling path leading to a large open patio that overlooks parts of the valley. It is the wall that will give you the most difficulty. Incidentally, it was built forty-nine years ago, shortly after the liberation of France.”

  “It’s probably tripped at the top with angled barbed wire, possibly electrified,” mused Captain Dietz.

  “Undoubtedly, Capitaine. The assumption must be that the entire compound, grounds and all, are heavily guarded.”

  “Even the old canals?” interrupted the lieutenant.

  “Less so perhaps, but if we learned about them, others could also.”

  “What about the strolling path?” asked Drew. “How can it be reached?”

  “According to the elevations,” replied Cloche, pointing to a green-and-gray-striped area of the map, “there is a promontory, the edge of a steep hill, to be exact, that looks down on the path roughly three hundred meters below. Crawling down it is one way, but even if there are no alarm wires, which there probably are, there is still the wall.”

  “How high is that promontory?” pressed Latham.

  “I just told you, three hundred meters above the path.”

  “What I mean is, could someone see over the wall from that vantage point?”

  The Etranger deputy leaned forward and studied the geometrics on the map. “I would say yes, but that judgment is based on the accuracy of what I am reading. If one draws a line from the height of the hill to the elevation of the wall, a downward straight line, it would appear to be so.”

  “I can read you like a book, boss man,” said Lieutenant Gerald Anthony. “That’s my perch.”

  “Right on, Thin Man,” agreed Drew. “Observation Post Number One, or whatever you military types call it.”

  “I think it should be mine,” said Karin with conviction. “If there’s trouble, I can fire a weapon, Gerry can barely hold one.”

  “Come on, Mrs. D.V., you got shot too!”

  “My right shoulder, and I’m left-handed.”

  “We’ll discuss that among ourselves,” admonished Witkowski, turning to Latham. “It’s my turn to ask what your point is.”

  “I’m surprised I have to explain it, Colonel Great Spy. We’re back in the water again, only this time, instead of a big river, we’re in the narrow channel of an old canal, reeds and tall wild grass are our cover. We hit the bank below the strolling path, and our experienced scout on the high ground lets us know when we can scale the wall because no guards are patrolling beyond it.”

  “Scale it with what?”

  “Grappling hooks,” answered Captain Dietz. “What else? The solid, thick lucite types with hard rubber tips. They’re quiet, stronger than steel, and the ropes can be short, only six to eight feet.”

  “Suppose the hooks hit barbed wire?” said Witkowski, glowering. “That wall’s a bitch.”

  “It’s not the cliffs at Omaha Beach, Stanley, it’s only twelve feet high. Stretching our arms over our heads, our hands are within four feet of the top. Given ten or twelve seconds, Dietz and I can be over and on the ground, taking time to negotiate any wire.”

  “You and Dietz?”

  “We’ll discuss that later, Colonel.” Latham hurriedly turned to Cloche. “What’s beyond the wall?” he asked quickly.

  “Look for yourself,” said the Etranger deputy, again gesturing at the map and leaning forward, his index finger poking at specific areas. “As you can see, in every direction the wall is roughly eighty meters from the château’s foundation, allowing for a pool, several patios, and a tennis court, all surrounded by lawns and gardens. Very civilized as well as secure, with what must be a lovely scenic view of the rising hills beyond the wall.”

  “What’s in the area behind the strolling path gate?”

  “According to these schematics, there is the pool with a row of cabanas on both sides, beyond which are three entrances to the main structure, here, here, and here.”

  “Right, center, and left,” said Lieutenant Anthony. “Where do the doors lead to?”

  “The right leads to what appears to be an enormous kitchen, the far left to the closed-in north veranda, and the central door opens into a very large common room.”

  “Like a big living room?”

  “A very large one, Lieutenant,” agreed Cloche.

  “Are these schematics, as you call them, up-to-date?” asked Drew.

  “Within two
years. You must remember, monsieur, that under a Socialist regime, the rich and especially the very rich are under constant scrutiny by the Bureau of Taxation, which bases its levies on zoning and assessment.”

  “Bless ’em,” said Latham.

  “The cabanas?” mused Dietz.

  “They’d be the first to be searched, with weapons on rapid fire,” said Anthony.

  “Then once over the wall, the captain and I will head for the right and left doors, keeping in whatever shadows we can find after throwing the hooks back over the wall.”

  “What about me?” said Witkowski.

  “I just told you, Colonel, we’ll discuss that later. What’s our backup, Monsieur Cloche?”

  “As we agreed, ten experienced agents du combat will be concealed just a hundred meters down the road, prepared to assault the château at your radio command.”

  “Make sure they’re completely out of sight. We know these people; even the slightest hint of intruders and they’ll torch every document in the place. It’s vital that we bring out whatever’s there.”

  “I share your concerns, monsieur, but a two-man operation strikes me as—how would you Americans say it?—the opposite of ‘overkill.’ ”

  “Underkill,” said Dietz. “He’s right, Cons-Op.”

  “Who mentioned anything about a two-man operation?” an agitated Witkowski interrupted.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Stanley!” Latham glared at the G-2 veteran. “I checked. You’re over sixty and I’m not going to be responsible for you catching a bullet in your skull because you didn’t duck in time.”

  “I can take you on anytime, chłopak!”

  “Spare me the machismo. We’ll signal you to come over when it makes sense.”

  “May I return to my objection,” broke in the deputy director of the Etranger. “I have managed like assaults in the Middle East—Oman, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and elsewhere—when we employed the Foreign Legion. At minimum, you should have two additional personnel, if, for nothing else, to cover your rear flanks.”

  “He’s got a damn good point, sir,” said Lieutenant Anthony.

  “Anything less would be ludicrous, if not suicidal,” added Karin.

  Drew looked up from the map at Cloche. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking too clearly,” he said. “Okay, two others. Who have you got?”

  “Any one of the ten would be more than adequate, but there are three recruited from the Legion who have worked for the United Nations Security Forces.”

  “Pick two of them and have them here in a couple of hours.… Now, let’s get to our equipment, and help me out here, Stosh.”

  “Outside of the grappling hooks and the rope, those new MAC-Tens with auto-repeat silencers, thirty rounds a clip, four clips a man,” began Witkowski. “Also a black PVC raft, small blue penlights, UHF military radios, camouflaged fatigues, night binoculars, weighted hunting knives, garrotes, four small Beretta automatics, and in case of real trouble, three grenades apiece.”

  “Can you handle that, Monsieur Cloche?”

  “If it is repeated slowly, it is done. Now, as to when—”

  “Tonight,” Latham broke in, “when it’s darkest.”

  43

  The ancient château was a Gothic remnant, an eerie silhouette against the clear night sky, the moonlight of the Loire Valley glancing off its turrets and spires. It was, in essence, more a small castle than a château, the egotistical manifestation of a lesser noble who aspired to greater lineage. It was made of ragged stone interspersed with precision brickwork, the centuries layered upon one another, constantly remodeled as the generations progressed. There was something hypnotic about the juxtaposition of large, high television dishes with stone walls built in the 1500s, something even awesome, as if civilization were on an inevitable march from the earth to the sky, from crossbows and cannons to space stations and nuclear warheads. Which was better and where would it end?

  It was shortly before two o’clock in the morning, the breezes soft, the sounds of nocturnal animals muted, as the N unit plus two agents du combat, formerly of the French Foreign Legion, moved into their positions. Following a terrain map under the dim blue wash of his pen-light, Lieutenant Gerald Anthony led Karin de Vries through the underbrush of the steep hill toward the promontory. Along the way Karin whispered, “Gerry, stop!”

  “What is it?”

  “Look, down here.” She reached into the branches of a shrub and pulled out a soiled old cap, more rag than headpiece. She turned it over, her blue penlight shining inside the torn lining. She gasped at what she saw.

  “What’s the matter?” whispered the lieutenant.

  “Look!” Karin handed the cap to Anthony.

  “Jesus!” gasped the commando. In shakily written print, inked deeply as in an act of intense possessiveness, was the name Jodelle. “The old guy had to have been up here,” whispered the lieutenant.

  “It certainly fills in a few empty spaces. Here, give it back and I’ll put it in my pocket.… Let’s go!”

  Far below, in the shallow, swamplike marshes and hidden by the reeds of tall grass, the five men huddled together in the cramped black rubber life raft. Latham and Captain Dietz were at the bow, behind each his Etranger agent du combat, named simply One and Two, as such personnel preferred anonymity. At the stern of the small craft was an angry Colonel Stanley Witkowski, and if looks could explode an environment, they would have been blown out of the marsh water.

  Drew parted the bulrushes, his eyes on the promontory of the steep hill. The signal came. Two flashes of dim blue light. “Let’s go!” he whispered. “They’re in place.”

  Using the two miniature black paddles, the Etranger agents propelled the PVC raft through the reeds and into the relatively open, shallow stream of the ancient canal. Slowly, stroke by stroke, they made their way to the opposite embankment roughly sixty yards away, past a circular brick tunnel that allowed the diverted water from the Loire River to flow into the marsh.

  “You were right, Cons-Op,” said the commando captain, his voice low. “Look over there, two strings of wire on the poles going across the opening. Five’ll get you ten both are tripped with magnetic fields. River refuse can get through, but not the density of a human body.”

  “It had to be, Dietz,” whispered Latham. “Otherwise there was an open route along the bank to this crazy half-medieval-castle, half-estate.”

  “Like I said to Mrs. D.V., you’ve got the real smarts.”

  “The hell I do. I had a brother who taught me to study a problem, then study it over and over, and finally to look at it again and figure out what I missed.”

  “That’s the ‘Harry’ we’ve heard about, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the Harry, Captain.”

  “He’s why you’re here, right?”

  “Half right, Dietz. The other half is what he found.”

  The PVC raft pulled into the embankment. Silently, the unit lifted the coiled ropes and grappling hooks out of the bottom and waded into the muddy bank of the marsh canal below the strolling path roughly twenty feet above them. Drew pulled the UHF radio out of the side pocket of his camouflage fatigues and pressed the transmission button.

  “Yes?” came Karin’s whispered voice over the tiny speaker.

  “What’s your visibility?” asked Latham.

  “Seventy, seventy-five percent. With our binoculars we can scan most of the pool area and the south section, but only a partial on the north side.”

  “Not bad.”

  “Very good, I’d say.”

  “Any signs of movement? Any lights?”

  “Affirmative to both,” the lieutenant’s whisper broke in. “Like clockwork, two guards lockstep around the rear area then circle back to the midsections of the north and south sides. They’re carrying small semis, probably Uzis or German adaptations, and have radios attached to their belts—”

  “What are they wearing?” interrupted Drew.

  “What else? Paramilitary black trousers and shirts and
those crazy red armbands with the lightning bolts through the swastikas. Regular delinquents playing Soldaten, butch haircuts and all. You can’t miss ’em, boss man.”

  “Lights?”

  “Four windows, two on the first floor, one each on the second and third.”

  “Activity?”

  “Other than the two guards, only the kitchen area, that’s the south side, first floor.”

  “Yes, I remember the maps. Any ideas about our penetration?”

  “Definitely. Both patrols head into the midsection shadows out of sight for not less than thirteen seconds nor more than nineteen. You get by the wall, I give you two shots of the transmitter, and you go over—fast! There are three open cabanas, so I take back what I said before; split up and head into them. Wait for the guards to return, take

  them out however you can, and hoist the bodies over the wall or drag ’em into the cabanas, whatever’s the quickest and easiest. When that’s done, you’ve got limited free access and can signal the colonel.” “That’s damn good, Lieutenant. Where are the delinquents now?”

  “Separating and heading back to the sides. Get up to the wall!”

  “Be careful, Drew!” said De Vries.

  “We’ll all be careful, Karin.… Come on.” Like disciplined ants climbing a mound of dirt, the five men scrambled up the embankment to the high brick wall and the even higher iron gate of the strollers’ path. Latham crawled forward and examined it; the “gate” was made of thick, heavy steel, rising above the wall, no slits or spaces for keys. It could be opened only from inside. Drew lurched back to the others, shaking his head in the moonlight. Each nodded, accepting the foregone conclusion that the wall had to be scaled.

  Suddenly they heard the sound of boots on stone, and then two voices floated above them.

  “Zigarette?”

  “Nein, ist schlecht!”

  “Unsinn.”

  The tattoo of boots continued; the French agents du combat stood up, stepped back, and lifted the grappling hooks and the short coils of rope from the ground. They braced themselves and waited; silently, without breathing, they all waited. Then it came, the two short, muted bursts from Latham’s radio. The Frenchmen hurled the solid plastic hooks over the wall, tugged at them, then held the ropes taut as Drew and Captain Dietz lunged up like primates, their weapons strapped across their shoulders, climbing hand over hand with pounding knees against the brick until their bodies disappeared over the top. The instant they did so, the Etranger agents leapt up, clamoring after the Americans; four seconds later the grappling hooks came flying back, embedding themselves in the moist dirt of the embankment and narrowly missing a furious Witkowski.