“Damn if that ain’t the truth. I think those ASROCs are going to be needed, skipper.”
“I’m afraid you’re right.”
CROFTON, MARYLAND
“To sea?” Martha Toland asked.
“That’s where they want me, and it’s where I belong, like it or not.” Bob had trouble meeting his wife’s eyes. Listening to the brittle edge on her voice at the moment was bad enough. It wasn’t his job to bring fear into her life, but that was precisely what he’d just done.
“Bob, is it as bad as I think?”
“There’s no telling, babe. It might be, but there’s no telling. Look, Marty, you remember Ed Morris and Dan McCafferty, right? They both have their own commands now, and they have to go. Am I supposed to stay in a nice safe place on the beach?”
His wife’s reply was devastating.
“They’re professionals, you’re not,” she said coldly. “You play weekend warrior and serve your two weeks a year just to pretend that you’re still in the Navy, Bob. You’re a civilian spook, you don’t belong out there. You can’t even swim!” Marty Toland could give lessons to sea lions.
“The hell I can’t!” Toland protested, knowing that it was an absurd thing to argue about.
“Right! I haven’t seen you in a pool in five years. Oh, dammit, Bob, what if something happens to you? You go out there to play your damned games and leave me behind with the kids. What do I tell them?”
“You tell them I didn’t run away, I didn’t hide, I—” Toland looked away. He hadn’t expected this. Marty came from a Navy family. She was supposed to understand. But there were tears on her cheeks now, and her mouth was quivering. He took a step forward to wrap his arms around her. “Look, I’m going to be on a carrier, okay? The biggest ship we have, the safest, best-protected ship we have, with a dozen other ships surrounding her to keep the bad guys away, and a hundred airplanes. They need me to help figure out what the bad guys are up to so they can keep them as far away as possible. Marty, what I’m doing is necessary. They need me. The Admiral asked for me by name. I’m important—at least somebody thinks so.” He smiled gently to hide his lie. A carrier was the best-protected ship in the fleet because she had to be: the carrier was also the number-one target for the Russians.
“I’m sorry.” She broke out of his grasp and walked to the window. “How are Danny and Ed?”
“A lot busier that I am. Danny’s sub is somewhere up—well, right now he’s a lot closer to the Soviets than I’ll ever be. Ed’s getting ready to sail. He’s got a 1052—an escort ship—and he’ll probably be out protecting convoys or something from submarines. They both have their own families. At least you get a chance to see me before I go.”
Marty turned and smiled for the first time since he had unexpectedly walked through the door. “You will be careful.”
“I’ll be damned careful, babe.” But would it matter?
13
The Strangers Arrive and Depart
AACHEN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
It was the traffic that did it. The envelope came as promised to the proper post office box, and the key worked as he’d been told to expect. Minimum personnel involvement. The major grumbled at having to expose himself in the open this way, but it wasn’t the first time he’d had to work with the KGB, and he needed this up-to-date information if his mission were to have any chance of success. Besides, he smiled briefly, the Germans are so proud of their postal service . . .
The major folded the oversized envelope and tucked it into his jacket pocket before leaving the building. His clothing was entirely German in origin, as were the sunglasses which he donned on opening the door. He scanned the sidewalk in both directions, looking for anyone who might be trailing him. Nothing. The KGB officer had promised him that the safe house was totally secure, that no one had the least suspicion that they were here. Perhaps. The taxi was waiting for him across the street. He was in a hurry. The cars were stopped on the street, and he decided to go straight across instead of walking to the corner. The major was from Russia and not accustomed to the unruly European traffic where the pedestrians are expected to follow the rules too. He was a hundred meters from the nearest traffic cop, and the nearby German drivers could sense that the cop’s back was turned. It should have been as much a surprise to the major as to American tourists that, when driving, the orderly Germans were anything but. He stepped off the curb without looking, just as the traffic started moving.
He never even saw the accelerating Peugeot. It was not moving fast, only twenty-five kilometers per hour. Fast enough. The right fender caught him on the hip, spun him around, and catapulted the major into a lamppost. He was knocked unconscious before he knew what had happened, which was just as well, since his legs remained in the street and the Peugeot’s rear wheel crushed both ankles. The damage to his head was spectacular. A major artery was cut open, and blood fountained onto the sidewalk as he lay motionless on his face. The car stopped at once, its driver leaping out to see what she had done. There was a scream from a child who had never seen so much blood, and a postman raced to the corner to summon the police officer standing in the traffic circle, while another man went into a store to call an ambulance.
The stopped traffic allowed the taxi driver to leave his vehicle and come over. He tried to get close, but already a half dozen men were bending over the body.
“Er ist tot,” one observed, and the body was pale enough to make one think so. The major was already in shock. So was the Peugeot’s driver, whose eyes were already dripping tears as her breaths came in irregular sobs. She was trying to tell everyone that the man had stepped right in front of her car, that she hadn’t had a chance to stop. She spoke in French, which only made things more difficult.
Pushing through the spectators, the taxi driver was almost close enough to touch the body by now. He had to get that envelope . . . but then the policeman arrived.
“Alles zurück!” the cop ordered, remembering his training: first, get things under control. His training also enabled him to resist the instinct to move the body. This was a head injury, perhaps a neck injury also, and those were not to be moved except by Experten. A bystander called out that he had summoned an ambulance. The policeman nodded curtly and hoped it would arrive soon. Making traffic accident reports was far more routine than watching an unconscious—or dead?—man bleed untidily on the sidewalk. He looked up gratefully a moment later to see a lieutenant—a senior watch supervisor—pushing his way in.
“Ambulance?”
“On the way, Herr Leutnant. I am Dieter, Gunther—traffic detail. My post is down the street.”
“Who was driving the car here?” the lieutenant asked.
The driver stood as erect as she could and started gasping out her story in French. A passerby who had seen the whole thing cut her off.
“This one just stepped off the curb without looking. The lady had no chance to stop. I am a banker, and I came out of the post office right behind this one. He tried to cross at the wrong place and stepped into the street without looking at the traffic. My card.” The banker handed the lieutenant his business card.
“Thank you, Dr. Müller. You have no objection to making a statement?”
“Of course. I can come directly to your station if you wish.”
“Good.” The lieutenant rarely had one this clean-cut.
The taxi driver just stood at the edge of the crowd. An experienced KGB case officer, he’d seen operations go bad before, but this was . . . absurd. There was always something new that could ruin an operation, so often the most simple, most foolish thing. This proud Spetznaz commando, cut down by a middle-aged Frenchwoman driving a sedan! Why hadn’t he looked at the damned traffic? I should have gotten someone else to fetch the envelope, and screw the damned orders. Security, he swore behind an impassive face. Orders from Moscow Center: minimum personnel involvement. He walked back across the street to his cab, wondering how he’d explain this to his control. Mistakes were never the Cen
ter’s fault.
The ambulance arrived next. The sergeant removed the victim’s wallet from his pants. The victim was one Siegfried Baum—wonderful, the lieutenant thought, a Jew—from the Altona district of Hamburg. The driver of the car was French. He decided he had to ride in to the hospital with the victim. An “international” accident: there’d be extra paperwork on this. The lieutenant wished he’d stayed in the Gasthaus across the street and finished his after lunch pilsener. So much for devotion to duty. Then there was his possible mobilization to worry about . . .
The ambulance crew worked quickly. A cervical collar was fitted around the victim’s neck, and a backboard brought in before they rolled him over onto the stretcher. The broken lower legs were immobilized with cardboard splints. The paramedic clucked over them. Both ankles looked to be badly crushed. The whole procedure took six minutes by the lieutenant’s watch, and he boarded the ambulance, leaving three police officers to manage the rest of the incident and clear the accident scene.
“How bad is he?”
“Probably fractured his skull. He has lost a lot of blood. What happened?”
“Walked out into traffic without watching.”
“Idiot,” the paramedic commented. “As if we don’t have work enough.”
“Will he live?”
“Depends on the head injury.” The ambulanceman shrugged. “The surgeons will be working on him within the hour. You know his name? I have a form to fill out.”
“Baum, Siegfried. Kaiserstrasse 17, Altona District, Hamburg.”
“Well, he’ll be in the hospital in four minutes.” The paramedic took his pulse and made a notation. “Doesn’t look Jewish.”
“Be careful saying things like that,” the lieutenant cautioned.
“My wife is Jewish. His blood pressure is dropping rapidly.” The ambulanceman debated starting an IV, but decided against it. Better to let the surgeons make that decision.
“Hans, have you radioed in?”
“Ja, they know what to expect,” the driver replied. “Isn’t Ziegler on duty today?”
“I hope so.”
The driver horsed the ambulance into a hard left turn, and all the while the two-tone siren cleared traffic ahead of them. One minute later he halted the Mercedes and backed it into the emergency receiving area. A doctor and two orderlies were already waiting.
German hospitals are nothing if not efficient. Within ten minutes the victim, now a patient, had been intubated to protect his airway, punctured for a unit of O-positive blood and a bottle of IV fluids, and wheeled up to neurosurgery for immediate surgery at the hands of Professor Anton Ziegler. The lieutenant had to stay in the emergency room with the registrar.
“So who was he?” the young doctor asked. The policeman gave the information over.
“A German?”
“Does that seem strange?” the lieutenant asked.
“Well, when the radio call came in, and said you were coming also, I assumed that this was, well, sensitive, as though a foreigner were injured.”
“The auto was driven by a Frenchwoman.”
“Ach, that explains it. I thought he was the foreigner.”
“Why so?”
“His dental work. I noticed when I intubated him. He has a number of cavities, and they’ve been repaired with stainless steel—sloppy work.”
“Perhaps he originally comes from the East Zone,” the lieutenant observed. The registrar snorted.
“No German ever did that work! A carpenter could do better.” The doctor filled out the admission form rapidly.
“What are you telling me?”
“He has poor dental work. Strange. He is very fit. Dressed well. Jewish. But he has miserable dental work.” The doctor sat down. “We see many strange things, of course.”
“Where are his personal effects?” The lieutenant was a naturally curious type, one reason he’d become a policeman after his service in the Bundeswehr. The doctor walked the officer to a room where the personal effects were inventoried for secure storage by a hospital employee.
They found the clothing neatly arranged, with the jacket and shirt separate so that their bloodstains would not damage anything else. Pocket change, a set of keys, and a large envelope were set aside for cataloging. The orderly was filling out a form, looking up to list exactly what had come in with the patient.
The policeman lifted the manila envelope. It had been mailed from Stuttgart yesterday evening. A ten-mark stamp. On an impulse he pulled out a pocketknife and slit the top of the envelope open. Neither the doctor nor the orderly objected. This was a police officer, after all.
A large and two smaller envelopes were inside. He opened the large one first and extracted the contents. First he saw a diagram. It looked ordinary enough until he saw that it was a photocopy of a German Army document stamped Geheim. Secret. Then the name: Lammersdorf. He was holding a map of a NATO communications headquarters not thirty kilometers from where he stood. The police lieutenant was a captain in the German Army Reserves, and held an intelligence billet. Who was Siegfried Baum? He opened the other envelopes. Next he went to a phone.
ROTA, SPAIN
The transport jet arrived right on time. A fair breeze greeted them from the sea as Toland emerged from the cargo door. A pair of sailors was there to direct the arrivals. Toland was pointed to a helicopter a hundred yards away, its rotor already turning. He walked quickly toward it, along with four other men. Five minutes later he was airborne, his first visit to Spain having lasted exactly eleven minutes. No one attempted conversation. Toland looked out one of the small windows available. They were over a patch of blue water, evidently flying southwest. They were aboard a Sea King antisubmarine helicopter. The crew chief was also a sonar operator, and he was fiddling with his gear, evidently running some sort of test. The interior walls of the aircraft were bare. Aft was the sonobuoy storage, and the dipping sonar transducer was caged in its compartment in the floor. For all that, the aircraft was crowded, most of its space occupied by weapon and sensor instrumentation. They’d been in the air for half an hour when the helo started circling. Two minutes later, they landed on USS Nimitz.
The flight deck was hot, noisy, and stank of jet fuel. A deck crewman motioned them toward a ladder which led down to the catwalk surrounding the deck, and into a passageway beneath it. Here they encountered air conditioning and relative quiet, sheltered from the flight operations going on overhead.
“Lieutenant Commander Toland?” a yeoman called out.
“Here.”
“Please come with me, sir.”
Toland followed the sailor through the rabbit warren of compartments below the flight deck, and was finally pointed to an open door.
“You must be Toland,” observed a somewhat frazzled officer.
“Must be—unless the time zone changes did something.”
“You want the good news or the bad news?”
“Bad.”
“Okay, you’ll have to hot-bunk. Not enough berths for all of us intel types. Shouldn’t matter much, though. I haven’t slept for three days—one of the reasons you’re here. The good news is that you just got another half a stripe. Welcome aboard, Commander. I’m Chip Bennett.” The officer handed Toland a telex sheet. “Looks as though CINCLANT likes you. Nice to have friends in high places.”
The message announced tersely that Lieutenant Commander Robert A. Toland, III, USNR, had been “frocked” as a commander, USNR, which gave him the right to wear the three gold stripes of a commander, but not to collect a commander’s pay just yet. It was like a kiss from one’s sister. Well, he reflected, maybe a cousin.
“I guess it’s a step in the right direction. What am I going to be doing here?”
“Theoretically you’re supposed to assist me, but we’re so friggin’ overwhelmed with information at the moment that we’re divvying the territory up some. I’m going to let you handle the morning and evening briefs to the battle group commander. We do that at 0700 and 2000. Rear Admiral S
amuel B. Baker, Jr. Son of a B. He’s an ex-nuc. Likes it quick and clean, with footnotes and sources on the writeup to read afterward. He almost never sleeps. Your battle station will be in the CIC with the group tactical warfare officer.” Walker rubbed his eyes. “So what the hell is happening in this crazy world?”
“What’s it look like?” Toland answered.
“Yeah. Something new just came in. The space shuttle Atlantis was pulled off the pad at Kennedy today, supposedly for a computer glitch, right? Three newspapers just broke a story that she was taken down for payload replacement. They were supposed to loft three or four commercial communications birds. Instead, the payload is reconnaissance satellites.”
“I guess people are starting to take this seriously.”
AACHEN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
“Siegfried Baum” awoke six hours later to see three men wearing surgical garb. The effect of the anesthesia still heavy on him, his eyes could not focus properly.
“How are you feeling?” one asked. In Russian.
“What happened to me?” The major answered in Russian.
Ach so. “You were struck by a car and you are now in a military hospital,” the man lied. They were still in Aachen, near the German-Belgian frontier.
“What . . . I was just coming out to—” The major’s voice was that of a drunken man, but it stopped abruptly. His eyes tried to focus properly.
“It is all finished for you, my friend.” Now the speaker switched to German. “We know you are a Soviet officer, and you were found in possession of classified government documents. Tell me, what is your interest in Lammersdorf?”
“I have nothing to say,” replied “Baum” in German.
“A little late for that,” the interrogator chided, switching back to Russian. “But we’ll make it easy for you. The surgeon tells us that it is now safe to try a new, ah, medication for you, and you will tell us everything you know. Be serious. No one can resist this form of questioning. You might also wish to consider your position,” the man said more harshly. “You are an officer in the army of a foreign government, here in the Federal Republic illegally, traveling with false papers, and in possession of secret documents. At the least, we can imprison you for life. But, given what your government is doing at the moment, we are not concerned with ‘least’ measures. If you cooperate you will live, and probably be exchanged back to the Soviet Union at a later date for a German agent. We will even say that we got all our information due to the use of drugs; no harm could possibly come to you from this. If you do not cooperate, you will die of injuries received in a motor accident.”