Dean Ing - Silent Thunder

by Silent Thunder(lit)

  Dean Ing - Silent Thunder

  ONE

  March, 1967

  Only a man destined for greatness, sergeant Walter Kalvin reflected, could keep his alertness up and his temper down on a night as cheerless as this. Even with mature chestnut trees for a windbreak in the gloom of the Stadtpark, Vienna's night wind could bite like a Doberman. The major stood slope-shouldered under his heavy European overcoat, with his furled umbrella hooked into a coat pocket. He had emptied his own packet of Pall Malls an hour before and was smoking one of Kalvin's Salems now, cursing the menthol in his lungs, the Viennese slush under his feet, and the man who might or might not contact the Americans as promised. He likes his vices unmentholated, Kalvin told himself, drawing some comfort from the major's inferior showing. Competitiveness had been part of Walter Kalvin's legacy from immigrant parents. If I had oak leaves instead of four lousy stripes, I could tell this guy to go buy himself some Austrian cigarettes. Well, some day....

  Neither man wore military insignia, though both carried Air Force ID. While civilian clothes of European cut did not assure freedom from surveillance, American uniforms would have drawn more attention than a bonfire in the Stadtpark's deepest shadows. Their flat little German-made, nine-millimeter automatics in shoulder holsters were government issue. Though he had been reposted to Air Force Intelligence for less than a year, after someone noticed his fluency in German, Walter Kalvin had heard his share of stories about Vienna during his familiarization with the pistol. A man who looked out of place in Central Europe might pick up a half-dozen tails: one KGB, one CIA, and four free-lancers who made precarious livings by selling tidbits to all sides. The free-lancers, it was said, rarely carried firearms. As the joke went, cloaks were out but daggers were definitely in.

  This was Sergeant Kalvin's fifth field sortie from the air base near Wiesbaden, but his first into Austria. He had drawn this duty only because the major did not speak German. And Dieter Mainz, the man who had made contact with a regular Air Force officer leading by stages to this peculiar rendezvous, had claimed to speak no English. Kalvin knew that the job should have been taken over by the CIA, but it seemed barely possible that Dieter Mainz could advance a few careers in Air Force Intelligence. At the moment, Kalvin did not dream that it would advance him far beyond a military commission. Mainz was just a contact, though a peculiar one from the start.

  According to the case file, 'Dieter Mainz' was probably a beard, a false name. The real Mainz, an audio engineer with the prewar Reichs Rundfimk group in Berlin, had disappeared on the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Mainz had been one of the many victims of Hitler's first great domestic massacre. To young Walter Kalvin it was the stuff of legend, a web of events that had spun out their courses before he was old enough to read. If the man had not resurfaced in over thirty years, in all likelihood he was long dead. Still, if they failed to make contact on this hitter night, Kalvin and the major would have to try again in seven days.

  The major stamped his feet and grunted in pain, the umbrella a ludicrous pendulum at his side. Goddammit, sergeant, any man who's two hours late is a man who is not going to show!

  Yes, sir, said Kalvin. Then, more softly: Should you be mentioning rank out here?

  The major, who tended to be lax about professionalism but knew very well when it was called into question, stared hard at Kalvin. Is that insubordination?

  No, sir, said Kalvin. At that instant he saw a two-U'Uged shadow crossing from a footpath in the distance, a slender silhouette that caused distant lights to wink as it approached. In low tones Kalvin added, This could be our man.

  To his credit, the major had seen it too. Mainz had been very specific, insisting on his own recognition signals. The major grabbed his umbrella, slung its furled length over one shoulder like a hunting rifle, and walked slowly forward with Kalvin beside him. The shadow began to re-solve itself into a man of slight stature, hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, hatbrim hiding his face. When they were ten paces apart, Kalvin began to talk conversationally but in German. The major swung the umbrella to his other shoulder according to plan, nodding as if he understood Kalvin.

  Herr Donner, said the man facing them, and stopped. It was a common surname.

  Herr Sprache, Kalvin responded with an unlikely surname. Together, the names formed a key word. As tradecraft it was dreadfully amateurish, but Mainz had called the shots. Donnersprache, thunderspeak, was still among the unsolved mysteries of Hitler's Reich. According to the best guesses of spook historians, Donnersprache had pertained to electronics, probably an aid to eavesdropping, no doubt primitive by modern standards but still an enigma. No mention of it had ever been found in official records, though the two men closest to Adolf Hitler had at various times scribbled cryptic references to the thing, or possibly the person, called Donnersprache.

  A hand came out of the greatcoat, wearing a glove, and the Americans shook it. Rapidly, in German, Kalvin explained that the gentleman beside him did not speak the language. Was it possible for them to continue their discussion while riding in a BMW sedan with an excellent heater?

  Naturlich, of course, Mainz replied. But permit me to retrieve a traveling bag I left among the bushes nearby. Later, Kalvin would report the old man's age as nearing eighty, his speech halting and sometimes vague as might befit a man whose mind had begun to fail. Kalvin's true impression was that this preternaturally alert little gnome of a man kept all his mental bricks neatly stacked.

  The major clearly loathed his role but accepted it anyway, hurrying off to retrieve their rented BMW as the old man half-trotted back to the shadows of anonymous shrubbery. Waiting alone for the car near the Rechte Bahngasse, Kalvin felt that the old man had still not decided to trust the Americans. One or both of those coat pockets, he judged, was full of handgun-an infraction far more serious in Austria than in, say, the United States. For Kalvin and the major, sidearms were more acceptable; above a certain level of business such things were taken for granted.

  Dieter Mainz returned before the major did, lugging an old leather valise that, Kalvin presumed, held the secrets of Donnersprache. Kalvin tried not to stare at it, smiling instead at his companion, who kept jerking his head away from the street to scan the shadows. I think you need not fear for your life,'' Kalvin said, noticing the old man's nervous glances. How important can Donnersprache be, in a time when a radio transmitter can be hidden in the heel of a shoe?

  Can that transmitter hypnotize ten million listeners?

  Kalvin shrugged. I suppose it depends on what is Mid, he hedged, watching a bulky shadow stroll into the street two hundred meters away. He tensed as the distant stranger began to walk in their direction. This old guy is getting to me, he admitted to himself.

  No, it does not matter what is said when the machine makes one's words seem absolutely true. What matters is the listener's capacity, and desire, to believe in something. Mainz said it dogmatically, as if lecturing on fundamentals.

  Before enlisting to avoid the draft and a rifleman's fate in Vietnam, Walter Kalvin had been a mediocre student of rhetoric at NYU. The concept of charisma, the overwhelming power of certain individuals to convince many others, had never seemed so real to him as it did at this moment. Maybe old Mainz himself has charisma, thought Kalvin. He's sure got my nerves twanging. Lord, what if it's a kind of force field, and he has one in his pocket? Chuckling at his own fanciful notion, Kalvin said, Perhaps you will tell me exactly what Donnersprache is, and what it does. Do you have it with you, Herr Mainz?

  I should not be offering to sell the machine to a man who docs not already know such basic things, Mainz protested. The Bolsheviks know that much, at least.

  The major was taking an infernally long time,
and it seemed to Kalvin that the old man was rethinking his decision. To keep him engaged, Kalvin asked, How can you be certain the Russians know something I don't?

  Because they have no other reason to ensure that poor, addled Rudolf Hess rots alone in Spandau Prison, the old man said.

  The man walking toward them seemed to loom, now, though he was a hundred paces away. I don't understand, said Kalvin, reaching into his coat for his Salems, caressing the butt of the pistol for added confidence. He decided he did not need the cigarette.

  A sigh. Last October, the Nazi criminals in Spandau were released; von Schirach and Speer, the old man went on. All but Hess, whom everyone knows has lost his mind. But even a crazy man can make sense at times. That is what the Bolsheviks fear. Schirach was a fool, and Speer only a hapless architect. If that swine Hitler would not trust his own Gestapo with Donnersprache, why would he entrust its secrets to such as those? No; only a few knew. Those of us who developed it, and of course Goering-and Hess.

  Sergeant Walter Kalvin began to feel as if he was floundering in a nightmare, one dreamed many times before but only partly remembered. This old German was rattling off the names of men who had produced and directed the most savage war in human history. It was true, Speer and Schirach had recently been freed from Spandau to great hubbub in the German press. Now, jailers of four nations continued to operate the castle-like Spandau Prison for a solitary inmate: Rudolf Hess. Three of those nations claimed that they would be happy to release Hess, a man they did not regard as a war criminal. Only the Soviet Union insisted that Hess remain imprisoned in that vast pile of stone on the outskirts of Berlin without possibility of parole. To Kalvin, the issue had never seemed very important until now.

  Was it imagination, or was the hulking stranger walking more slowly? Gazing at the face of Dieter Mainz, Kalvin asked his question softly: Can Donnersprache be that important today?

  For the first time, Mainz turned to scan Kalvin's face at close range, and in the lined old face Kalvin thought he could read utter despair. You would not ask, he said slowly, if you had seen its effect on an audience. Perhaps you are immune; some are. Some more, some less.

  Kalvin's chill had become internal by now. I'd like to see this gadget, he said. Does it still work?

  No. Only a vacuum tube, I suspect, but the case is-you would say, boob-trap? To open it conventionally is to blow it, and yourself, to pieces. Now, headlights swept across them, high beams flicking twice, the moan of the BMW a familiar voice to Kalvin, who took the old man's arm and stepped toward the street.

  But someone did not want them in that car. The big stranger was no longer strolling, but running forward now, holding a small device to his mouth with one hand as he fumbled in his coat with the other.

  As the major sizzled past the running man, he must have seen Kalvin draw his pistol. He made the right move, swerving onto the walkway as he braked heavily so that the running man caromed off the right front fender. The man fell hard, cursing in a language Kalvin did not recognize, and came up sitting ten feet from Kalvin, a silenced handgun in his right hand.

  The major was shouting, leaning over to fling the front passenger door wide, and Kalvin took two steps as if adjusting his paces for a field goal before he kicked the man's weapon in an arc that sent it spinning far into the darkness.

  Kalvin heard a sound like a fist striking a melon, and old Dieter Mainz collided with him from behind. Get in, get in, he snapped to Mainz, aiming his pistol at the prostrate stranger. At the instant Mainz fell into the front seat, the BMW windshield resounded with an impact that left a hole in its center. Kalvin fought to open the locked rear door, and he saw the yellow wink from a distant line of shrubs a split second before a portion of the windshield imploded, the major's torso slamming back into the seat. The BMW engine began to roar, impotent.

  Kalvin raced around the car, hearing another impact as he squatted to open the driver's door, and with the help of Mainz he somehow managed to thrust the major's body aside enough to huddle low at the controls.

  They hurtled away in the damaged car, Kalvin obeying the curt instructions of Mainz as he turned this way and that. Once over the Donau Canal, Kalvin turned onto the Praterstrasse. No one is following us, he said, blinking in the breeze through the ruined windshield. To his amazement, the BMW had not yet attracted the polizei.

  The gentleman is dead, Mainz replied, and coughed. Soon, I shall be.

  I got you this far, Kalvin seethed, trying to recall the telephone number he must call only in a situation like this.

  They shot me, you fool, Mainz said. Someone hidden in the park.

  No, they wouldn't work alone, Kalvin thought aloud. I'll get you to a hosp-

  Quiet, let me talk, said Dieter Mainz with soft urgency. The decision has been made for me. Have you a recorder?

  Try the major's pockets, Kalvin said. You must tell me where the nearest hospital is.

  Mainz told him, coughing occasionally, fumbling with the little tape recorder until Kalvin punched the right button for him. Mainz spoke for perhaps three minutes before he began to labor for breath, describing a concrete storm drainage sump on the outskirts of Innsbruck, and how a man assuredly would be crushed to death if he failed to observe certain precautions as he climbed down below the grating. The old man began, then, to talk about Donnersprache, and the ways it had been used to weld Germany into a monolith of hatred. Past a certain point of unified public opinion, Mainz was saying, it was no longer a necessary.... Mainz left that sentence forever unfinished. Kalvin did not know Mainz was dead until he saw the staring eyes and felt for a pulse.

  Accompanied by two dead men in a BMW that featured several obvious bullet holes, Walter Kalvin parked in shadows and made the necessary telephone call. While waiting for help, he hefted the old man's leather bag. It seemed very light, its contents soft, and its brass hasp came loose while Kalvin was handling it. Since the thing had not blown up then, Kalvin checked inside.

  It held a change of clothes and a passport. No device with radio tubes, not even a schematic drawing.

  Kalvin thought about charisma while he replayed the last testament of Dieter Mainz. Then he replayed it again, starting to hope that the damage assessment team would take its time. Sergeant Walter Kalvin knew, now, where the last surviving Donnersprache device lay hidden. Incredibly, the city of Innsbruck was near enough to his father's beloved Tirol that Kalvin's own accent might go unremarked there. Using the gloves of Dieter Mainz, Kalvin found spare tapes in the major's coat, exchanged the used tape, and wiped the recorder down with great care before cupping the major's dead hand around it. With one gloved hand, he inserted the recorder back into the major's coat. If anyone doubted his initial story, Kalvin knew, he was destined for the tribulations of a lifetime.

  If no one did, and if he managed a vacation as far as Innsbruck-and if the last living act of Dieter Mainz was not merely the fantasy of an old man-then Walter Kalvin was destined for greatness.

  TWO

  May, 1997

  The water was clear and numbingly cold, most of it fresh runoff from the snow that still clung to peaks of Wyoming's Absaroka Range. Secretary Bowden let one of his matched pair of State Department men hold his boron fiber flyrod as he began to tighten the straps of his chest-high waders. Very spendy waders, the latest mid-nineties technology. Very spendy bodyguards as well, both dressed for fly-fishing in clothes similar to the secretary's. Nothing's too good for the Secretary of State, Bowden thought, except being allowed to do my job.

  I wouldn't, Mr. Secretary, said his third companion, a dark, wiry national parks man named Martin. Keep the straps loose enough that you could get out of those waders in a hurry.

  Bowden's glance was more quizzical than irked. Most of his trout fishing had been done from powerboats in tame lakes while politicking for Harrison Rand's candidacies over the years, so these waders were a new experience for Bowden. Kenneth Bowden had selected this outing, in part, because he felt deeply in need of some kind of expe
rience that took little thought, and no politicking. And for another reason, too, a contact who had not yet surfaced....

  Martin, whose coloring and high cheekbones suggested he might be part American Indian, went on, The Yellowstone's not much over crotch deep here, gents, but it has a stiff current and the rocks are rounded. If those waders fill with water, you'll want to shuck them in a hurry.

  The senior agent frowned. In three feet of water?

  People drown, Martin shrugged to the agent. But not with me beside them. Anyway, that's where the lunkers are, out there in the current. Of course I'll go first. Part of my job, he added.

  The younger agent sighed audibly and stared at his hiking boots. I'll go, he said.

  Bowden waved the men away. No. Martin's dressed for it, gentlemen, and I promise we won't go more than fifty feet out.

  They didn't like it, but they permitted it, moving downstream at Martin's suggestion. If Bowden went under, his bodyguards would already be in position to scramble for a rescue. This was Bowden's first three-day vacation since Congress had voted to accept him as Harrison Rand's Secretary of State, and he was tiring of it before he'd even tied into his first trout. Bowden knew he had become physically soft, and at age sixty he did not want to feel ashamed to grip Martin's shoulder as they edged out, feeling the tug of the Yellowstone River.