Stan Nathan lost his balance and fell backward as the realization of what was transpiring hit him full force. He thought he heard his wife scream, but he couldn’t be sure. He heard a car start and as he fell on his backside he thought he heard the backfiring of another car. That was when he felt the first sting of being shot.
Horn had taken several strides toward the fallen engineer and now stood within five feet. He placed a trembling hand on the .38, aimed, and fired.
“We cannot allow the blasphemers to spit in the eye of God!” he cried out. He fired twice more, finally hearing the hammer hit on nothing but an empty shell casing.
The last two bullets were more than enough to do the job. The fifth round had caught the aerospace engineer in the side of the head after careening off a large Texas Instruments calculator inside his briefcase. The sixth and final bullet hit him directly in the heart.
Mrs. Nathan screamed again as she watched her husband die in front of her. The one neighbor who had started his car heard the shots but had reacted far too slowly to stop the inevitable. When he saw the assassin standing close over his neighbor, the man threw his car in reverse and peeled rubber on his way out of the driveway. He was under the impression that the maniac would soon turn his attentions to the woman and her child. The car bounced as it careened into the roadway and then it bounced again over Stan Nathan’s driveway. Before the neighbor fully realized what he was doing, the rear bumper struck Joe Horn and sent him flying into the shrubbery Stan had planted when he and his young wife had moved into this, their first home, years before. The neighbor knew he had hit the killer of his friend hard enough, so he just sat there after bringing the car to a stop on the manicured front lawn. He was shaking badly as he heard Nathan’s wife screaming and his daughter crying.
TEMPELHOF INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, BERLIN, GERMANY
The U.S. Air Force C-22B transport aircraft sat next to the American consulate hangar at Berlin’s busiest airport. The aircraft was on loan to Department 5656 from the U.S. Air Force, but to Jack Collins’s frustration it had become nothing more than a large mobile hotel. They hadn’t moved or disembarked since their arrival in Germany.
Jack sat in one of the large seats near the back of the aircraft while Carl was in the plane’s galley making them lunch. The plane and its occupants had been sitting at Tempelhof for the past sixteen hours while Pete Golding, with the assistance of Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III, stumbled through the elusive Columbus files that Europa had been able to uncover from German and Allied reports and documents. So far they’d hit a stone wall, and it was driving Jack crazy, especially knowing that Sarah, Mendenhall, and Ryan had flown out of Nellis bound for Houston and the training regimen that had been set up for them.
Everett cleared his throat and Jack opened his eyes. He heard the sound of Ellenshaw and Golding arguing over some fine point or the other from their station at the midway point of the aircraft. Collins shook his head and finally focused on Everett.
“It’s rough waiting for something to break, I know.”
“Yeah, so how do you handle it?” Jack asked as he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face.
“I eat,” he said, shoving a sandwich toward Jack.
Collins shook his head and accepted the offering. “What about Pete and Charlie. Are they hungry?”
“I offered them something when I took the flight crew some food. All they did was look at me as though I was asking if they’d like to dance. I think they’re out to prove their worth to you. They’re just grateful to be asked along on one of Colonel Collins’s excellent adventures.”
Jack took a large bite out of the sandwich. He chewed twice and then stopped. The look on his face was one of abject horror as he spit the single bite into a napkin.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, looking at the sandwich in his hand.
“Sardines, tortilla chips, and cheddar cheese,” Everett answered, taking a bite of his own concoction.
Collins didn’t say anything. He gently lay the sandwich down as though it were in danger of exploding. He took a long drink from his bottled water, his eyes never leaving Carl’s.
“Hmm, look at this,” Everett said, laying his own sandwich down and pulling the television monitor around for Collins to see. On the screen, it looked as though several thousand people had gathered in what the caption was telling them was Rio de Janeiro. Bottles, rocks, and other objects were being hurled toward a police barricade surrounding government buildings. The scene switched to a view of Los Angeles where the same sort of rioting and unrest was taking place. Then there was another scene, this one in London. Everett reached over and turned up the sound on the television:
“… the unrest has been repeated in countries the world over as religious fundamentalist groups have organized to halt the missions to the Moon, where they feel their beliefs will be undermined by the significance of humanlike remains discovered there.” The scene again switched. This time the caption at the bottom was Los Angeles. “Clearly the leader of this discourse is the Reverend Samuel Rawlins. His Faith Ministries has been at the forefront of this movement that has spread so quickly that it caught most government law enforcement agencies totally unaware. Reverend Rawlins, the leader of the largest privately funded evangelical organization in the world, is calling for civil disobedience to halt the advancement of what he calls a declaration of war on organized religion. The Reverend Rawlins has been rebuked by the pope and the World Evangelical Council, which he has pulled away from in the past month, declaring his own…”
“Who is this nut?” Everett asked.
Jack sat silently and watched the scenes of rioting unfold across the screen. The BBC reporter signed off. The bumper for the next segment showed a picture of a tall man with silver hair pounding a golden pulpit and looking for all the world like someone who took lessons from Adolf Hitler himself.
“I don’t know, but someone better start taking him seriously, especially after the murder of the Jet Propulsion engineer this morning,” Jack said. He reached out and shut off the view of the Reverend Samuel Rawlins.
“Well, security will be tight from here on out,” said Everett.
“Colonel, we may have something,” Charlie Ellenshaw said, leaning over Jack’s seat. As the professor was getting ready to turn away, his nose wrinkled and he looked down at the tray in front of Collins and Everett. “What is that smell?” he asked.
“Lunch. You want some?” Everett asked.
“Not on a bet,” Ellenshaw said in disgust. Jack and Carl walked past him toward the communication shack. Charlie was about to turn away, but instead looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then he reached down and took the remains of Jack’s lunch. He took a bite. His eyes widened and he made a face, then he chewed and nodded. “Not bad,” he said to himself, turning to follow the two officers with his newly acquired lunch in hand.
Collins peered into the large communications area and saw Pete Golding sitting in front of a large monitor. He was examining an old document that Europa had brought up on the screen.
“What have you got, Pete?” Jack asked anxiously.
“Ah, Colonel. Please have a seat,” Pete said. He pulled one of the rolling chairs out for Jack. “This may be what you would call a long shot, but Europa believes the men here are definitely connected.”
Jack sat as Everett and Ellenshaw also took seats.
“As you see, we have General Heinz Goetz. I believe you said he was the antagonist of Senator Lee.”
“Yes, he was involved in Operation Columbus.”
“Well, I’m sure it will surprise no one that our dear general was a confidant of none other than Heinrich Himmler himself.”
“Oh, Mr. Wonderful,” Everett said, as Europa brought up a picture from the war years showing Goetz and Himmler standing together outside one of the smaller buildings at Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Eastern Front headquarters in Poland.
“Goetz was what you would call a special projects coordinator for H
immler.”
Jack looked at Pete. “Special? You mean beyond the horrible historical connotations that word brings to mind?”
“Yes, Goetz had nothing to do with the Final Solution. His talents were more appropriate for the protection of projects like the Vengeance rocket program at Peenemünde. It says nothing, however, about his participating in anything called Operation Columbus.”
Jack studied the picture of the small, heavyset general. He knew that it was his old boss, Garrison Lee, and Alice’s first husband, Ben, who had dispatched the man from the world of the living.
“But there’s this,” Pete said. He ordered Europa to bring up a series of pictures of General Goetz. The photos had been taken at various places around the Third Reich and Russia. “Are you seeing what we saw, Colonel?” Pete asked. He turned around and looked at Ellenshaw and what he was eating. He made a sour face and turned back to the screen.
“This man right here,” Jack said, pointing to a small, bookish-looking officer in an SS uniform. “He’s the common denominator in every photo.”
“Very observant, Colonel. His name is Joss Zinsser, a corporal. We suspected he might be an assistant to Goetz or possibly a secretary. We cross-referenced the corporal’s name against the report filed by the FBI field office from the site where they found the empty train. While the bodies of Goetz and several others were positively identified, there was no mention of our little corporal. It seems our friend Zinsser escaped into the night, you might say.”
“And?” Jack asked.
“He disappeared after the war. He was finally captured with false papers by the British in 1947. He was convicted of assisting in the war crimes of General Goetz and was sentenced to twenty years. He was sent to Spandau Prison and released in 1956 after serving eight years of his sentence. He was a low-priority prisoner and very much ignored by the Western media at the time.”
“Okay, anything else?” Collins asked. He nodded at Everett and gestured for him to get organized. Carl immediately turned and disappeared.
“Yes, there is,” Pete said. He turned and spoke to Europa. “Please bring up the cell allocations for Spandau Prison in the years 1948 thru 1956.”
As Jack watched, several frames flashed before his eyes. Cell assignments started scrolling down until Europa locked on cell number 117. There was the name Joss Zinsser. However, it was the second name that caught his attention, the name of the man’s neighbor for almost eight years.
“Albert Speer,” Jack said, nodding.
“Exactly, Colonel. Unless you believe in happenstance, I would say that these two men who shared breathing space were the only two left after the war who’d had anything to do with a top secret project known as Operation Columbus.”
“Tell me this man is still alive,” Collins said, standing and carefully avoiding Ellenshaw and his lunch.
“That he is. He’s a spry man of ninety-one years and the best part is that he never left Berlin. He lives with his daughter in a small apartment, 236 Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse, part of a large apartment complex.” Pete handed Jack a slip of paper. “Here are the directions,” he said.
“It’s a start, Pete. Good job. You and the Doc stay put and we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
“You mean we don’t get to go?” Golding asked, removing his glasses.
“No, you two keep trying to get hold on any other links to Goetz in case this doesn’t pan out.”
Golding deflated at the prospect of being left behind. He looked at Ellenshaw, who took the seat Jack had just vacated.
“They do this all the time. I never got used to it either,” Ellenshaw said. He took another bite of the fast dwindling sandwich.
“Maybe they wouldn’t have left us behind if you didn’t smell like crap. Just what in hell are you eating?”
* * *
The rental car eased slowly past the massive demonstrations. As Carl drove, Jack read the banners. They not only protested the cost of ESA’s attempt to land on the Moon but complained that it was a slap directly to the face of God. The two groups, though different in makeup, had the same goal in mind—making the German government pull all funding from the European Space Agency’s attempt at a Moon landing.
“With the pope and the other heads of organized religion calling for calm while this mystery is solved, where are all of these fundamentalist movements getting their gas from?” Jack asked. Outside, several men and women slammed their hands and fists against their car.
“In my opinion, most people don’t need a leader anymore to show that they’re idiots,” Everett said. He reached through the car’s window and pushed one of the protesters away. The long-haired man dropped his placard, which read in both German and English: “Hoax! America is once again perpetrating the greatest fraud against God!”
As the car slowly moved through the multitude, Jack saw a large group of skinheads gathering on the street corner not far from the center of the throng. He could see immediately that these men and women were here not to demonstrate but to do what they did best—start a riot.
“This could get ugly real fast,” he said, pointing to an empty side street. “Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse is right up there. Let’s dump the car down that alley and walk the rest of the way.”
Everett saw where Jack was pointing and steered in that direction. Several protesters refused to move, but apparently decided against any action when Everett’s eyes bore into them. They gradually moved out of the way.
Everett finally made it to the alley. Both he and Jack got out and returned to the street. The mass of humanity was growing by the thousands and the mood was becoming angrier by the minute. Sirens and the sounds of police bullhorns could be heard further down the street as authorities started ordering the protesters to disperse.
“There,” Jack called out over the noise of the chants. Voices had just started calling for a break with the United States and the European Community.
A large set of stairs fronted the apartment complex. The large structure was one of the remaining vestiges of an era long gone in Germany. It was one of the last buildings that had been owned by the Nazi Party and had once been used to house VIPs, but now housed the poorer residents of downtown Berlin, with each of the original apartments cut into three.
They pushed their way through the crowd, drawing angry looks from some very large men with shaved heads. As they made it through the first group, Jack and Carl both saw that a second line of neo-Nazis had formed a cordon at the front entrance. They stood with arms crossed, as though they were guarding the building.
“Did I ever tell you I hate these guys, Jack?” Everett said. They came to a stop ten feet in front of the group of thirty men. Everett reached behind and under his leather jacket and made sure the Beretta nine-millimeter was secured, in case he was jostled on the way in.
“I don’t particularly care for them myself, Mr. Everett, and they do seem to be blocking the exact area we need to go.” Jack started making his way to the man who looked like he was in charge.
Collins had to reach around a large man with a bandanna across his forehead to get to the first set of door handles, but the man attempted to block him. Jack’s hand remained where it was.
“Möchten Sie lhre Kugeln wo sie sind?” he asked the young German, just loud enough that only the man blocking his hand could hear. At the same time Jack allowed his jacket to part enough so that the man could see the gun tucked in his waistband.
Everett watched the man blocking Jack lick his lips and then was amazed when the black-jacketed youth stepped away from the door. He followed Jack inside as the group of Nazis crowded around wondering why their leader relented so easily.
“What in the hell did you say to that guy?” Carl asked as they went for the large staircase.
“I just asked him if he liked his balls where they were.”
Everett smiled as they started up to the next floor, taking the stairs three at a time.
“Evidently he did.”
As they went up t
he stairs Jack had the distinct feeling that they were being observed. He slowed to take the stairs one at a time, swiveling his head to look for security cameras. The dilapidated building didn’t seem like the type of operation that could afford much security, so he figured it must be a human element watching them. As they gained the second floor and stepped onto the scratched marble that was once a glory to behold, Jack saw the apartment they were seeking—Number 236.
Jack pulled Everett aside. He looked up and down the long hallway, then reached into his jacket and pulled out the nine-millimeter. “We have company,” he said as Everett also pulled his weapon out.
“Inside or out?” he asked, going to Jack’s left.
“Don’t know,” he answered. He knocked on the door.
Everett looked in both directions but the hallway was empty. The only sounds were the yells and chants coming from the street below.
“Ja?” a female voice answered from the other side of the door.
The voice was that of an older woman. It sounded strange, out of the norm, as if whoever answered was frightened.
“Wir sind hier, um zu sehen, Herr Zinsser,” Jack said in German.
There was no immediate answer.
“Sind Sie die Tochter von Herrn Zinsser?” he continued, asking if he was speaking to Zinsser’s daughter.
“Ja,” the voice answered.
Jack heard a shuffling from behind the door.
“Laßt uns in Ruhe, geh weg!” the deep voice of a man said loudly.
“What was that?’ Everett whispered.
“He said leave them alone and go away.”
“Friendly,” Everett said. “But that doesn’t sound like a ninety-one-year-old man.”
Jack leaned closer to the door. He heard a woman softly sobbing. He shook his head as he stood back and examined the door.
“Well, there’s no sense in standing on ceremony,” Jack said. He raised his right foot and kicked as hard as he could. The door caved in and Jack saw a large man with a shaved head go flying backward with the door covering most of his frame. He entered with his gun held high. Everett, watching Jack’s every move, quickly followed through the empty door frame.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 21
