The Apocalypse Watch by Robert Ludlum
“Spell it out for him then,” ordered Sorenson. “If he still insists, let him go.”
“Do we want his potentially shortened future on our slate?”
“Tough decisions are called tough because they’re not easy. You want to find Harry, and I want to find a rotten cancer that’s growing in Germany.”
“I’d like to find both,” said Latham.
“Of course. I would too. So if your actor wants to perform, don’t stop him.”
“I want him covered.”
“You should, a dead actor can’t tell us what he’s learned. Work it out with the Deuxième, they’re very good at that sort of thing. In an hour or so I’ll call Claude Moreau. He’s head of the Bureau and will be in his office by then. We worked together in Istanbul; he was the best field agent French intelligence ever had, world class, to be exact. He’ll give you what you need.”
“Should I tell Villier?”
“I’m one of the old boys, Latham, maybe that’s good and maybe that’s bad, but I believe that if you’re going to mount an operation, you go the whole nine yards. Villier should also be wired; it’s an added risk, of course, and you should spell out everything to him. Let him make a clean decision.”
“I’m glad we’re in sync. Thank you for that.”
“I came in from the cold, Drew, but I was once where you are now. It’s a lousy chess game, specifically when the pawns can get killed. Their blips never leave you, take my word for it. They’re fodder for nightmares.”
“Everything everybody says about you is true, isn’t it? Including your predilection for having us in the field call you by your first name.”
“Most of what they say I did is totally exaggerated,” said the director of Consular Operations, “but when I was out there, if I could have called my boss Bill or George or Stanford or just plain Casey, I think I might have been a hell of a lot more candid. That’s what I want from you people. ‘Mr. Director’ is an impediment.”
“You’re so right.”
“I know. So do what you have to do.”
Latham walked out of the embassy on avenue Gabriel to the waiting armor-plated diplomatic car that would take him to his flat on the rue du Bac. It was a Citroën sedan, the rear seats far too shallow, so he chose to sit in the front next to the marine driver. “You know the address?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, sir. Surely I do, certainly.”
An exhausted Drew looked briefly at the man; the accent was unmistakably American, but the juxtaposition of words was odd. Or was it simply that he was so tired that his hearing was playing tricks on him. He closed his eyes, for how long he did not know, grateful for the nothingness, the blank void that filled his inner screen. For at least several minutes his anxiety was put on hold. He needed the respite, he welcomed it. Then suddenly he was aware of motion, the jostling of his body in the seat. He opened his eyes; the driver was speeding across a bridge as though he were in a Le Mans race. Latham spoke. “Hey, guy, I’m not rushing to a late date. Cool it on the accelerator, pal.”
“Tut mir—sorry, sir.”
“What?” They sped off the bridge and the marine swung the car into a dark, unfamiliar street. Then it was clear; they were nowhere near the rue du Bac. Drew shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”
“It is a shortened cut, sir.”
“Bullshit! Stop this fucking car!”
“Nein!” yelled the man in the marine uniform. “You go where I take you, buddy!” The driver yanked an automatic from his tunic and pointed it at Latham’s chest. “You give me no orders, I give you orders!”
“Christ, you’re one of them. You son of a bitch, you’re one of them!”
“You will meet others, and then you will be gone!”
“It’s all true, isn’t it? You’re all over Paris—”
“Und England, und die Vereinigten Staaten, und Europa!… Sieg Heil!”
“Sieg up your ass,” said Drew quietly, leveling his left hand in the rushing shadows beneath the weapon, his left foot inching across the Citroën’s floorboard. “How about a big surprise, blitzkrieg style?” With those words Latham jammed his left foot against the brake pedal while simultaneously smashing his left hand up into the elbow of his would-be captor’s right arm. The gun spun in the neo-Nazi’s hand; Drew grabbed it and fired into the driver’s right kneecap as they crashed into the corner of a building.
“You lose!” said Latham breathlessly, opening the door and grabbing the man by his tunic. Stepping outside, he yanked him across the seat, throwing him to the pavement. They were in one of the industrial sections of Paris, two- and three-story factories, deserted for the night. Beyond the dim street lamps, the only brightness came from the damaged Citroën’s headlights. It was enough.
“You’re going to talk to me, buddy,” he said to the false marine curled up on the sidewalk, moaning and clutching his wounded leg, “or the next bullet goes right through those two hands around your knee. Shattered hands never fully recover. It’s a hell of a way to live.”
“Nein! Nein! Do not shoot!”
“Why not? You were going to kill me, you told me so. I’d ‘be gone,’ I distinctly remember. I’m much kinder. I won’t kill you, I’ll just make your staying alive a mess. After your hands, your feet will be next.… Who are you and how did you get that uniform, that car? Tell me!”
“We have uniforms … amerikanische, französische, englische.”
“The car, the embassy car. Where’s the man whose place you took?”
“He was told not to come—”
“By whom?”
“I do not know! The car was brought to the front. The Schlüssel—the key, I mean—was in it. I was ordered to drive you.”
“Who ordered you?”
“My superiors.”
“The people you were taking me to?”
“Ja.”
“Who are they? Give me some names. Now.”
“I do not know any names! We are reached by codes, by numbers and letters.”
“What’s your name?” Drew crouched by the impostor, the barrel of the gun jammed against the nearest hand around the bleeding kneecap.
“Erich Hauer, I swear it!”
“Your code name, Erich. Or forget about your hands and feet.”
“C-Zwölf—twelve.”
“You speak much better English when you’re not scared shitless, Erich-buddy.… Where were you taking me?”
“Five, six avenues from here. I would know by the Scheinwerfer—”
“The what?”
“Headlights. From a narrow street on the left.”
“Stay right where you are, Little Adolf,” said Latham, rising and sidestepping to the car door, his weapon on the German. Awkwardly, he backed down into the front seat, his left hand thrusting below the dashboard until he found the car phone with a direct line to the embassy. As the transmitting mechanism was in the trunk, the odds were favorable that it would be operational. It was. Glancing quickly, Drew pressed the zero button four times in rapid succession. The signal for emergency.
“American Embassy,” came Durbane’s voice over the speaker. “Your status is Zero Four. On tape, go ahead!”
“Bobby, it’s Latham—”
“I know that, I’ve got you on the grids. Why the big Four 0?”
“We were sandbagged. I was on my way to a fast execution, courtesy of our Nazi nightmare. The marine driver was a phony; somebody in the transport pool set me up. Check that whole unit out!”
“Christ, are you all right?”
“Just a tad shaken; we had an accident and the skinhead didn’t fare too well.”
“Well, I’ve got you on the grids. I’ll send a patrol out—”
“You know exactly where we are?”
“Of course.”
“Send two patrols, Bobby, one armed for assault.”
“Are you crazy? This is Paris; it’s French!”
“I’ll cover us. This is an order from Cons-Op.… Five or six blocks south, o
“Who are they?”
“Among other things, my executioners.… There’s no time, Bobby. Do it!” Latham slammed the telephone back into its receptacle and lurched out of the car to Erich Hauer, who could lead them to a hundred others in Paris and beyond, whether he knew it or not. The chemicals would open the doors of his mind; it was vital. Drew grabbed his legs as the man screamed in pain.
“Please …!”
“Shut up, pighead. You’re mine, you got that? Start talking, it’ll be easier on you later.”
“I do not know anything. I am only C-Zwölf, what more can I say?”
“That’s not good enough! I have a brother who went after you bastards; it was the last leg of a rotten trip. So you’re going to give me more, a lot more, before I’m finished with you. Take my word for it, Erich-buddy, you really don’t want to deal with me.”
Suddenly, out of the deserted dark street, a black sedan came screeching around the corner. It slowed down rapidly, briefly, as the gunfire erupted, a deadly fusillade, slaughter for everything in its path. Latham tried to pull the Nazi behind the shell of the armor-plated diplomatic car; he could not do it and save himself. As the sedan raced away, he looked over at his prisoner. Erich Hauer, his body riddled, blood covering his face, was dead. The one man who could supply at least a few answers was gone. Where was somebody else, and how long would it take to find him?
3
The night was over, the early light creasing the eastern sky as an exhausted Latham took the small brass elevator to his flat on the fifth floor in the rue du Bac. Normally he would have used the stairs, figuring it was physically good for something or other, but not now; he could barely keep his eyes open. The hours between shortly past two and five-thirty had been filled with diplomatic necessities as well as providing Drew with the opportunity of meeting the head of the powerful and secretive Deuxième Bureau, one Claude Moreau. He had called back Sorenson in Washington, asking him to reach the French intelligence officer at that hour and persuade him to go immediately to the American Embassy. Moreau was a middle-aged, medium-size balding man who filled out his suit as though he lifted weights for a good part of every day. He had an insouciant Gallic humor that somehow kept things in perspective when they were in danger of getting out of control. The potential loss of control first came about with the unexpected appearance of a furious and frightened Henri Bressard, First Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of France.
“What the hell is going on?” demanded Bressard, walking into the ambassador’s office, instantly surprised yet accepting Moreau’s presence. “Allô, Claude,” he said, reverting to French. “I’m not entirely stunned to see you here.”
“En anglais, Henri.… Monsieur Latham understands us but the ambassador is still with his Berlitz.”
“Ah, American diplomatic tact!”
“I did understand that, Bressard,” said Ambassador Daniel Courtland, behind his desk in a bathrobe and slippers, “and I’m working on your language. Frankly, I wanted the post in Stockholm—I speak fluent Swedish—but others thought differently. So you’re stuck with me as I’m stuck with you.”
“I apologize, Mr. Ambassador. It’s been a difficult night.… I tried calling you, Drew, and when all I got was your machine, I assumed you were still here.”
“I should have been home an hour ago. Why are you here? Why did you have to see me?”
“Everything’s in the Sûreté report. I insisted the police call them in—”
“What happened?” interrupted Moreau. He raised an eyebrow. “Your former wife is not becoming hostile, surely. Your divorce was ultimately amicable.”
“I’m not sure I’d want it to be she. Lucille may be a devious bitch, but she’s not stupid. These people were.”
“What people?”
“After I dropped off Drew here, I drove to my apartment on the Montaigne. As you know, one of the few privileges of my office is my diplomatic parking space in front of the building. To my surprise, it was occupied and, adding to my irritation, there were several other nearby open spaces. Then I saw that there were two men seated in front and the driver was on his car phone, not exactly a normal sight at two o’clock in the morning, especially when the driver was subject to a five-hundred-franc fine for parking where he did without a government plate or the Quai d’Orsay emblem on the front window.”
“As always,” said Moreau, nodding his head appreciatively, “your diplomat’s penchant for introducing an event with perception and suspense is evident, but please, Henri, the personal insult to you aside, what happened?”
“The bastards started shooting at me!”
“What?” Latham leapt out of his chair.
“You heard me! My vehicle is naturally protected against such assaults, so I backed up quickly, then smashed into them, pinning their car to the curb.”
“Then what?” cried Ambassador Courtland, now standing up.
“The two men got out the other side and raced away. My heart pounding, I called the police on my car phone, demanding that they alert the Sûreté.”
“You’re something else,” said an astonished Drew softly. “You rammed them while they were firing at you?”
“The bullets could not penetrate, even the glass.”
“Believe me, some can—like full jackets.”
“Really?” Bressard’s face grew pale.
“You were quite right, Henri,” said Moreau, once more nodding his head, “your former wife would have been much more efficient. Now, shall we all calm down a bit and look at what our brave hero has achieved for us? We have the vehicle, a license plate, and no doubt several dozen fingerprints which we will immediately deliver to Interpol. I salute you, Henri Bressard.”
“There are bullets that can penetrate bulletproof automobiles …?”
The connection to Jodelle’s suicide and the subsequent meeting at the Villier house on Parc Monceau was all too obvious. Coupled with the attack on Latham, the situation demanded several decisions: Both Bressard and Drew would be protected around the clock by Deuxième personnel—the Frenchman conspicuously, Latham less obviously, at his own instructions. Which was why the unmarked Deuxième car would remain across the street from Drew’s building until relief came to replace it or the American emerged in the morning, whichever happened first. Finally, under no conditions could Jean-Pierre Villier, who would also be guarded, be permitted to prowl the seamier sections of Paris in search of anyone.
“I myself will make that absolutely clear to him,” said Claude Moreau, chief of the Deuxième Bureau. “Villier is a treasure of France!… In addition, my wife would either kill me or have numerous affairs in our own bed if I permitted anything to happen to him.”
The disturbing doubts about the embassy’s transport pool were resolved quickly. The dispatcher was a substitute no one knew, but he had been accepted for the night shift because of his credentials. He had disappeared minutes after Latham’s car drove off down the avenue Gabriel. A French-speaking American in Paris was part of the Nazi movement.
The hours before dawn had been taken up with endless analyses of the situation—the question of who and who not to include being a priority—as well as lengthy conversations on open scrambler between Moreau and Wesley Sorenson in Washington. The two specialists in deep-cover intelligence sounded like dual practitioners of the darkest arts, creating a scenario of deep-cover pursuits. Drew approved of what he heard. He was good, not as coldly intellectual as his brother Harry, but surely superior when it came to quick decisions and physicality. Moreau and Sorenson, however, were the masters in deception and penetration; they had survived the unpublicized slaughter of spies during the bloody depths of the Cold War. He could learn from such men, even as they programmed him.
Latham walked sleepily out of the elevator and down the hall to his flat. As he started to insert his key, his eyes were sudden
He rummaged in one of his closets, sardonically amused to find an object that intruders would have taken or smashed had they recognized what it was. The twenty-six-inch steel bar had large rubber caps at either end, each cap holding an alarm mechanism. When he traveled and stayed in hotel rooms, he invariably braced it against the door and the floor, activating the alarms by twisting the caps. If whatever door he shoved it against was opened from the outside, a series of ear-shattering whistles went off that would shock the interloper into racing away. Drew carried it to the lockless door of his flat, activated the alarms, and, anchoring it to the floor, braced it against a lower panel. He walked into his destroyed bedroom, threw a sheet over the ripped mattress, removed his shoes, and lay down.
Within minutes he was asleep, and within minutes after that his telephone rang. Disoriented, Latham lurched off the unbalanced surface of the bed, grabbing the phone from the bedside table. “Yes?… Hello?”