“This is the right spot, William,” Hughes said. “The phone call this morning originated from right here.”
“Then we’d better take a closer look—” Lane said, when Hughes’s computer chirped.
“Hold on,” Hughes said. His fingers raced over the keyboard. “It’s an incoming call from Thomas Mann. Encrypted.”
“Incoming here?”
Hughes looked up and nodded. “Right here, William. Thomas Mann is having a conversation with someone in this house at this moment.”
“Stay here. If there’s any trouble beep the horn.” He and Frances got out and, guns in hand, went into the house, holding up in the entry hall.
Stairs were to the left, living room to the right, dining room and kitchen farther back. The place was deserted, there was no doubt of it, yet the computer was telling them that Thomas Mann was talking to someone here and now.
Lane motioned for Frannie to cover him as he went back and eased open the door to the cellar. Light came from two broken-out windows. The stairs were gone, and the basement floor was under at least a half-foot of water.
They quickly checked the rest of the ground floor, leapfrogging from room to room; first Lane in the lead and then Frances.
Finding nothing, they took the stairs to the second floor as quickly and as quietly as possible. In a back bedroom Lane pulled up short. An electronic unit, about half the size of a VCR, was wired to a six-inch dish pointed out a broken window. Several green lights flickered on the front panel.
“Damn,” Lane said, pushing Frances back out into the corridor and out of any sight line through the window.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“They’re across the creek. Tommy was right, this place is being used as a blind.” He holstered his gun at the small of his back and hustled her back downstairs. “That was a microwave relay for telephone calls.”
“They know we’re here.”
“Unless they stationed someone on this side of the house they wouldn’t have gotten a clear look at our faces. They might think that we’re doing nothing but looking at a piece of property for sale.”
“That explains why the driveway hasn’t been used recently. They came over here on foot to set up the equipment. What do you want to do?”
“We’re here to look at property. So that’s what we’re going to do. When we’re done, we’ll drive off and come back tonight.”
“Let’s not make them nervous,” Frances said.
“Anything but,” Lane agreed.
It seemed like a waterfall was roaring inside of Speyer’s head. It was hard to think, to keep on track. What Thomas Mann was telling him seemed to be nothing short of impossible. “There’s been no mistake, Herr General, you’re certain of it?”
“I don’t have all the details because Konrad is on the run now, and he won’t surface until he’s sure that he’s in the clear,” Mann said. “But that fool cop of his in Kalispell was shot dead this morning by the FBI.”
“But why? What happened?” Speyer felt the pressure increasing inside of his head.
“I don’t know, Helmut. My contact inside of the Bureau is just as much in the dark as we are. But the FBI was investigating him because of the shooting of that Jew in the Grand Hotel. For whatever reason, Mattoon decided to shoot it out.”
“Then there’s no problem, Herr General. Mattoon was a loose cannon. Now that he’s dead he can’t do us any harm.”
“You’re wrong,” Mann roared. “Mattoon’s death is a problem. Not only your problem, but mine as well. When the connection between him and Aden is made, it will undoubtedly lead back to me. Which is why I am going to ground myself.”
“But there’s no direct connection to my operation. At least nothing that would lead the authorities out here.”
“You’re wrong again,” Mann said. “It’s the old Jew. The shooting was faked by your Mr. Browne.”
“Browne is dead. I saw him go down with the ship with my own two eyes.”
“It’s likely that Browne was an impostor. He either worked for the American government or for the Germans. Either way he wasn’t working alone, which means that your name is known and almost certainly known in connection with your little project.”
“Shit. Shit,” Speyer said. He wanted to lash out, hit something, destroy somebody, anybody.
“Take my advice, Helmut, and get out of there while you can. Forget the project, just run.”
“I can’t—” Speyer said, but he was talking to a dead line. Mann had hung up.
Because of the angles Baumann could only see the back half of the Rover that was parked in front of the Hansen house. The man in the rear seat was large, but that’s all Baumann could tell from this distance and because of the way the sun reflected off the windows.
“How long has it been parked there?” he demanded.
“Just a couple of minutes,” Sergeant Meitner replied.
Baumann swung his glasses to the open bedroom window again. He’d thought he’d seen a movement, but it had been just a fleeting glimpse and now he wasn’t sure if he’d seen anything. He could see that the microwave dish had apparently not been disturbed, however.
If they were in fact real estate agents and had spotted the equipment, they wouldn’t know what to make of it. Maybe a college experiment. Something to do with a physics class, perhaps, though it didn’t matter. This mission would be fully developed by tomorrow evening, and if the authorities showed up the entire operation could be moved out with just a few minutes’ notice. Any cops unlucky enough to cross the creek would run into a maelstrom.
Baumann turned back to the Rover in time to see it back up and head left. He caught a quick glimpse of the front passenger, but he was unable to tell anything except that the passenger was female, or at least a person of very slight build.
“See, sir, they’re from a real estate company,” Meitner said.
Baumann could read the RE/MAX sign on the Rover’s passenger door, but that meant nothing. What were they doing out here at this moment? Why not next week? Why today? He did not trust coincidences.
“Does anyone else have a twitchy feeling between their shoulder blades?” Hughes asked as they drove over to the barn.
“They know that we’re here, all right,” Lane said. “The question is what are they going to do about it?”
“I’d rather not remain long enough to find out,” Frances put in.
Lane drove around to the front of the barn, putting it between them and the hill across the creek where the microwave dish was pointed. He pulled up and stopped.
“If the fiction is holding, we have a couple of minutes while they think that we’re checking the barn,” he said. “We know where they’re holed up now, but we still don’t know the layout up there.”
“If the Marines come barging in, he’s just likely to release the virus, isn’t he,” Frances said.
“In a perverse way that might be the least horrible thing he could do,” Hughes told them. “If he gets it to Washington, tens of thousand of people, maybe more, are going to die. But if he releases it here, depending on which way the wind is blowing, maybe only a few hundred or a thousand will be infected. One wonders if the president will take that as an acceptable trade-off.”
“He’s not going to pay the ransom, so it might be his only real option,” Lane said.
“Does he actually think that he can get away with this?” Frances asked.
“I think so.”
“If he does plan on releasing the virus over Washington tomorrow night as he says he will, then he’s facing another problem,” Hughes said. “Mainly how to make his escape. He must have a plan.”
“His Gulfstream is being watched; he’ll have to accept at least that much,” Lane said. “So unless he has another plane stashed somewhere he’ll have to go commercial at some point. Baltimore would be the first guess, about the same time the gas is being released and everyone’s attention is focused on getting survivors out of there.”
“If he is as devious and heartless as you say he is, there is another option open to him,” Hughes suggested. “He might send his men in one direction while he gets out in another.”
“Sacrifice them?”
“It would be tidy for him.”
“We’ll have to find that out as well,” Lane said. “Tonight.”
Baumann watched them through the binoculars as the Range Rover emerged from behind the barn and headed up the driveway. When the car made the turn toward the hill there was a moment or two when he got a good look at the driver and passenger. He thought that he was hallucinating, that the strain of these past few months on the project had finally gotten to him. The business aboard the ship had been a nightmare, but it was nothing compared to what the captain was planning for the people of Washington.
His knuckles turned white and his hands shook so that he had to lower the glasses.
“What’s wrong, Sergeant?” Meitner asked, concerned.
Baumann took a moment to frame his answer. “Nothing. Alles ist in Ordnung. Do you understand?”
Meitner nodded uncertainly. Did Baumann mean the language or the situation?
“If they come back, or if anyone else shows up, radio me immediately.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
The highway followed the valleys through the hills for another mile before it crossed over the creek and took a jog to the north. They came to a gravel driveway leading into the woods. This one was well traveled.
“That’s it,” Lane said, as they passed without slowing.
“I didn’t see anything down there,” Frances said.
“You wouldn’t have. But they saw us.”
Three-quarters of a mile farther, Lane pulled off to the side of the road. Hughes was working at his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Here it is,” he said. “Purchased three years ago by Donald Smith, Redman, Arizona. Damn. My mistake, William, I should have caught it earlier. The brownstone in New York was purchased about the same time by a Robert Smith, Redman, Arizona.”
Lane used his cell phone to speed-dial a special White House number. “Don’t beat yourself up, Tommy. There had to have been tens of thousands of real estate transactions around the country in that month, or any other month for that matter. And don’t forget, it was I who told you to look for a rental.”
The president himself answered. “Yes.”
“Mr. President, Bill Lane. We’ve found them. I’m in my car on Maryland Highway 144 a few miles west of West Friendship. The farmstead we thought they were using turned out to be a blind alley. But we know where they are now. I’m going to send you an email with a map showing their exact location.”
“Good work, Bill. What do you want us to do?”
“We still don’t know their set-up. But we still have a little time. I’m going in after dark to see what I can find out. In the meantime, have the place put under surveillance. But they’re going to have to stay out of sight, because if Speyer’s people spot me they might shoot it out. But if they spot the Marines I think they’ll release the virus.”
“It’s going to be the same deal as before, Bill. I want to know the exact moment you go in, and if you’re not back at a specific time I’m sending in the Special Forces.”
“Yes, sir. Has Speyer tried to make contact again?”
“No. Just the once.”
“If he does, please let me know,” Lane said. “I think that we were probably spotted up here. But if we’re lucky they think we’re real estate people looking at property.”
“You know what’s at stake,” the president said. “Godspeed.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Baumann came up to the farmhouse from the western perimeter on the run. Speyer was hunched over maps spread out on the dining room table and Gloria was in the kitchen. Everyone else was either on guard duty or down at the barn.
“We must leave now, Herr Kapitän.”
Speyer looked up, his complexion pale, an ugly expression in his eyes. He had already received some bad news. “What is it?” he demanded, his voice hard.
“Someone showed up at the Hansen farm, masquerading as real estate agents. They went into the house and the barn and then drove off. I think that it is a very good possibility that they saw the telephone relay equipment in the upstairs bedroom.”
Speyer considered it for a few moments, then started to shake his head. But something in Baumann’s expression stopped him cold. “What else, Ernst?”
“There were three of them. A man in the backseat, and a man and a woman in the front. The woman was the same one in the glider, the one who is probably a British intelligence agent, Frances Shipley.”
Speyer put down the map. “Her being here now is no coincidence. Who was the man with her?”
“John Browne.”
The news physically staggered Speyer. For a second it seemed as if his legs were going to buckle beneath him. “I’m not going to ask if you are certain—”
“It’s either Browne or his twin,” Baumann said. “We have no choice now, Captain. We must leave this place immediately.”
“I don’t understand how they could have found us.”
“That doesn’t matter. We have to abandon the mission and leave for Havana before we’re trapped here.”
Speyer’s brain was going at light speed. His old look of cunning came back. “You’re right, of course, Ernst. We’re moving out immediately. But not to Cuba, not quite yet.”
“Captain—”
Speyer turned back to the maps on the table and began feverishly rummaging through them. “Have Sergeants Heide and Rudolph report to me on the double, and then get the men packed up and ready to move out.”
“To where?” Baumann demanded.
“I’ll tell you that in thirty minutes.”
Gloria came to the door five minutes later. She had a glass of champagne in her hand and she was already half drunk. Her lips curled into a sly smile.
“Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear Ernst say that John had come back from the dead?” she said.
Speyer had the solution, he was once again on track, in charge. He could see how the entire operation was going to work, no matter what anyone tried to do to them. He looked up from the maps. “Either that or someone who looked something like him. It doesn’t really matter.”
“No?” Gloria asked. She laughed. “He got your precious diamonds, or whatever they are, for you in the first place. And now he’s come to get them back. And do you know what, Helmut?”
Speyer smiled at her. His decision was made about everything, and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction. “No, Gloria, what?”
“I don’t think that there’s a thing you can do about it now. I think that you’re scared silly.”
Speyer went to her and took her arm before she could back away. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said gently. “There’s something I have to tell you, and then we’re going to pack. We’re leaving within the hour.”
“Where are we going?”
Speyer led her to the stairs and they went up to the master bedroom. He took the champagne glass from her and set it aside. Gloria had an uncertain look on her face. She had been playing a dangerous game over the past couple of years, goading her husband, but she couldn’t help herself.
“I asked you a question, Helmut—” she said, when he punched her in the face with his fist, breaking her nose and jaw, and knocking her to the floor. There was no pain, just a flat, very dull feeling in her face and neck, and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Without a word, or change of expression, he kicked her in the side just below her left armpit, next to her breast. This time the pain was immediate and immense, causing her to cry out with a muffled gasp.
He kicked her again, this time in her kidney. It felt as if her spine had been ripped out of her body. He stomped on her pelvis, she could feel the bones breaking, and on her stomach and chest, the pain mercifully fuzzing out with each
blow.
She looked up at him, all of her hate and sarcasm gone. She felt a sense of wonder at how one human being could do something like this to another human being.
She saw the blunt toe of his boot coming toward the side of her head, but she couldn’t do a thing to defend herself, and then the lights went out.
14
WASHINGTON, D.C.
President Reasoner and his hastily assembled National Security Council were seated at the long table in the White House situation room. It had taken less than a half hour since the phone call from Lane to get them here and up to speed with the latest development.
“We know where they are, but the problem still exists: How do we handle it?” the president said.
“With all due respect to Mr. Lane, he’s acted like a maverick through all of this,” National Security Agency Director Air Force Major General Thomas Roswell said. “He’s ignored a lot of resources.”
“I agree with you, he’s all but thumbed his nose at us. But he’s the only one who’s gotten any results. And he’s my maverick. If he tells us to move with care because this madman may release the virus at the slightest hint that we’re getting close, then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
The president looked around the table. No one challenged him.
“How do we proceed?” he asked.
“Unfortunately we don’t have a satellite in position, but we’re going to have to throw a cordon around the farm and put a surveillance platform up,” Roswell said. “I would suggest an Aurora out of Kelley in Texas. We can have it up here in ninety minutes which includes prep and actual flying time.”
“Will Speyer’s people be able to detect it?” the president asked.
“No, sir. It’ll orbit the area at about one hundred fifty thousand feet. Even our Washington defense radars won’t detect it. We’ll get real-time images downlinked, which should help level the playing field somewhat.”
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