by Tom Clancy
Soon after getting the information on the helicopter, one of his people turned up the flight crew, one at home, one at Schwechat International Airport doing some paperwork with the manufacturer’s representative for an aircraft modification. Good, Willi Altmark thought, the helicopter wasn’t going anywhere just yet. But by then the fact that Erwin Ostermann’s house had been attacked had perked up to the senior levels of government, and then he received a very surprising radio call from the head of the Staatspolizei.
They barely made the flight—more precisely, the flight hadn’t been delayed on their account. Chavez tightened his seat belt as the 737 pulled back from the jetway, and went over the preliminary briefing documents with Eddie Price. They’d just rolled off the tarmac when Price mated his portable computer with the aircraft’s phone system. That brought up a diagram on his screen, with the caption “Schloss Ostermann.”
“So, who is this guy?” Chavez asked.
“Coming in now, sir,” Price replied. “A money-lender, it would appear, rather a wealthy one, friend of the prime minister of his country. I guess that explains matters so far as we are concerned.”
“Yeah,” Chavez agreed. Two in a row for Team-2 was what he thought. A little over an hour’s flight time to Vienna, he thought next, checking his watch. One such incident was happenstance, Chavez told himself, but terrorist incidents weren’t supposed to happen so closely together, were they? Not that there was a rulebook out there, of course, and even if there were such a thing, these people would have violated it. Still . . . but there was no time for such thoughts. Instead, Chavez examined the information coming into Price’s laptop and started wondering how he’d deal with this new situation. Farther aft, his team occupied a block of economy seats and spent their time reading paperback books, hardly talking at all about the upcoming job, since they knew nothing to talk about except where they were going.
“Bloody large perimeter for us to cover,” Price observed, after a few minutes.
“Any information on the opposition?” Ding asked, then wondered how it was that he was adopting Brit-speak. Opposition? He should have said bad guys.
“None,” Eddie replied. “No identification, no word on their numbers.”
“Great,” the leader of Team-2 observed, still staring sideways at the screen.
The phones were trapped. Altmark had seen to that early on. Incoming calls were given busy signals, and outgoing calls would be recorded at the central telephone exchange—but there had been none, which suggested to Captain Altmark that the criminals were all inside, since they were not seeking external help. That could have meant they were using cellular phones, of course, and he didn’t have the equipment to intercept those, though he did have similar traps on Ostermann’s three known cellular accounts.
The Staatspolizei now had thirty officers on the scene and a tight perimeter fully formed and punctuated by a four-wheel armored vehicle, hidden in the trees. They’d stopped one delivery truck from coming in with some overnight express mail, but no other vehicles had attempted to enter the property. For one so wealthy, Ostermann did indeed lead a quiet and unassuming life, the captain thought. He’d expected a constant parade of vehicles.
“Hans?”
“Yes, Petra?”
“The phones have not rung. We’ve been here for some time, but the phones have not rung.”
“Most of my work is on computer,” Ostermann said, having noted the same discrepancy himself. Had Gerhardt gotten the word out? If he had done so, was that good? He had no way of knowing. Ostermann had long joked about how cutthroat his profession was, how every step he took had danger, because others out there would try to rob him blind if they ever got the chance . . . but not one of them had ever threatened his life, nor had any ever pointed a loaded gun at him or a member of his staff. Ostermann used his remaining capacity for objectivity to realize that this was a new and dangerous aspect to the world that he’d never seriously considered, about which he knew very little, and against which he had nothing in the way of defenses. His only useful talent at the moment was his ability to read faces and the minds behind them, and though he’d never encountered anyone even vaguely close to the man and woman in his office now, he saw enough to be more afraid than he’d ever been before. The man, and even more the woman, were willing to kill him without any pangs of conscience whatsoever, no more emotion than he showed when picking up a million dollars of American T-bills. Didn’t they know that his life had worth? Didn’t they know that—
—no, Erwin Ostermann realized, they did not. They didn’t know, and they didn’t care. Worst of all, what they thought they did know wasn’t true, and he would be hard-pressed indeed to persuade them otherwise.
Then, finally, a phone rang. The woman gestured for him to answer it.
“Hier ist Ostermann,” he said on picking up the receiver. His male visitor did the same on another extension.
“Herr Ostermann, I am Captain Wilhelm Altmark of the Staatspolizei. You have guests there, I understand.”
“Yes, I do, Captain,” Ostermann replied.
“Could I speak with them, please?” Ostermann merely looked at Hans Fürchtner.
“You took your time, Altmark,” Hans said. “Tell me, how did you find out?”
“I will not ask you about your secrets if you do not ask me about mine,” the captain replied cooly. “I would like to know who you are and what you wish.”
“I am Commander Wolfgang of the Red Workers’ Faction.”
“And what is it you want?”
“We want the release of several of our friends from various prisons, and transport to Schwechat International. We require an airliner with a range of more than five thousand kilometers and an international flight crew for a destination which we will make known when we board the aircraft. If we do not have these things by midnight, we will begin to kill some of our . . . our guests here in Schloss Ostermann.”
“I see. Do you have a list of the prisoners whose release you require?”
Hans put one hand over the receiver and held the other out. “Petra, the list.” She walked over and handed it to him. Neither seriously expected any cooperation on this issue, but it was part of the game, and the rules had to be followed. They’d decided on the way in that they’d have to kill one hostage certainly, more probably two, before they got the ride to the airport. The man, Gerhardt Dengler, would be killed first, Hans thought, then one of the women secretaries. Neither he nor Petra really wanted to kill any of the domestic help since they were genuine workers, not capitalist lackeys like the office staff. “Yes, here is the list, Captain Altmark . . .”
“Okay,” Price said, “we have a list of people we’re expected to liberate for our friends.” He turned the computer so that Chavez could see it.
“The usual suspects. Does this tell us anything, Eddie?”
Price shook his head. “Probably not. You can get these names from a newspaper.”
“So, why do they do it?”
“Dr. Bellow will explain that they have to, to show solidarity with their compatriots, when in fact they are all sociopaths who don’t care a rip for anyone but themselves.” Price shrugged. “Cricket has rules. So does terrorism and—” Just then the captain of the airliner interrupted the revelation, and told everyone to put the seat backs up and tray tables away in preparation for landing.
“Showtime soon, Eddie.”
“Indeed, Ding.”
“So, this is just solidarity bullshit?” Ding asked, tapping the screen.
“Most likely, yes.” With that, Price disconnected the phone line from his computer, saved his files, and shut the laptop down. Twelve rows aft, Tim Noonan did the same. All the Team-2 members started putting on their game faces as the British Airways 737 flared to land in Vienna. Someone had called ahead to someone else. The airliner taxied very rapidly indeed to its assigned jetway, and out his window Chavez could see a baggage truck with cops standing next to it waiting alongside the terminal.
&n
bsp; It was not an invisible event. A tower controller noted the arrival, having already noted a few minutes before that a Sabena flight scheduled in a slot ahead of the British aircraft had been given an unnecessary go-around order, and that a very senior police officer was in the tower, expressing interest in the British Airways flight. Then there was a second and very unnecessary baggage train with two police cars close by the A-4 jetway. What was this? he wondered. It required no great effort on his part to keep watch to learn more. He even had a pair of Zeiss binoculars.
The stewardess hadn’t received instructions to get Team- 2 off more quickly than anyone else, but she suspected there was something odd about them. They’d arrived without having been on her computerized manifest, and they were politer than the average business travelers. Their appearances were unremarkable, except all looked very fit, and all had arrived together in a single bunch, and headed to their seats in an unusually organized way. She had a job to do, however, as she opened the door into the jetway where, she saw, a uniformed policeman was waiting. He didn’t smile or speak as she allowed the already-standing passengers to make their way off. Three from first class stopped just outside the aircraft, conferred with the policeman, then went out the door to the service stairs, which led directly to the tarmac. Being a serious fan of thriller and mystery novels, it was worth a look, she thought, to see who else went that way. The total was thirteen, and the number included all of the late-arriving passengers. She looked at their faces, most of which gave her a smile on the way out. Handsome faces, for the most part . . . more than that, manly ones, with expressions that radiated confidence, and something else, something conservative and guarded.
“Au revoir, madam,” the last one said as he passed, with a very Gallic evaluative sweep of her figure and a charming smile.
“Christ, Louis,” an American voice observed on the way out the side door. “You don’t ever turn it off, do you?”
“Is it a crime to look at a pretty woman, George?” Loiselle asked, with a wink.
“Suppose not. Maybe we’ll catch her on the flip-side,” Sergeant Tomlinson conceded. She was pretty, but Tomlinson was married with four kids. Louis Loiselle never turned it off. Maybe it came along with being French, the American thought. At the bottom, the rest of the team was waiting. Noonan and Steve Lincoln were supervising the baggage transfer.
Three minutes later, Team-2 was in a pair of vans heading off the flight line with a police escort. This was noted by the tower controller, whose brother was a police reporter for a local paper. The cop who’d come to the tower departed without more than a danke to the controllers.
Twenty minutes later, the vans stopped outside the main entrance to Schloss Ostermann. Chavez walked over to the senior officer.
“Hello, I am Major Chavez. This is Dr. Bellow, and Sergeant Major Price,” he said, surprised to receive a salute from—
“Captain Wilhelm Altmark,” the man said.
“What do we know?”
“We know there are two criminals inside, probably more, but the number is unknown. You know what their demands are?”
“Airplane to somewhere was the last I heard. Midnight deadline?”
“Correct, no changes in the past hour.”
“Anything else. How will we get them to the airport?” Ding asked.
“Herr Ostermann has a private helicopter and pad about two hundred meters behind the house.”
“Flight crew?”
“We have them over there.” Altmark pointed. “Our friends have not yet asked for the flight, but that seems the most likely method of making the transfer.”
“Who’s been speaking with them?” Dr. Bellow asked from behind the shorter Chavez.
“I have,” Altmark replied.
“Okay, we need to talk, Captain.”
Chevez headed over to a van where he could change along with the rest of the team. For this night’s mission—the sun was just setting—they wore not black but mottled green coveralls over their body armor. Weapons were issued and loaded, then selector switches went to the SAFE position. Ten minutes later, the team was outside and at the edge of the treeline, everyone with binoculars, checking out the building.
“I guess this here’s the right side of the tracks,” Homer Johnston observed. “Lotsa windows, Dieter.”
“Ja,” the German sniper agreed.
“Where you want us, boss?” Homer asked Chavez.
“Far side, both sides, cross fire on the chopper pad. Right now, people, and when you’re set up, give me radio calls to check in. You know the drill.”
“Everything we see, we call to you, Herr Major,” Weber confirmed. Both snipers got their locked rifle cases and headed off to where the local cops had their cars.
“Do we have a layout of the house?” Chavez asked Altmark.
“Layout?” the Austrian cop asked.
“Diagram, map, blueprints,” Ding explained.
“Ach, yes, here.” Altmark led them to his car. Blueprints were spread on the hood. “Here, as you see, forty-six rooms, not counting the basements.”
“Christ,” Chavez reacted at once. “More than one basement?”
“Three. Two under the west wing—wine cellar and cold-storage. East wing basement is unused. The doors down to it may be sealed. No basement under the center portion. The Schloss was built in the late eighteenth century. Exterior walls and some interior ones are stone.”
“Christ, it’s a frickin’ castle,” Ding observed.
“That is what the word Schloss means, Herr Major,” Altmark informed him.
“Doc?”
Bellow came over. “From what Captain Altmark tells me, they’ve been pretty businesslike to this point. No hysterical threats. They gave a deadline of midnight for movement to the airport, else they say they will start killing hostages. Their language is German, with a German accent, you said, Captain?”
Altmark nodded. “Ja, they are German, not Austrian. We have only one name, Herr Wolfgang—that is generally a Christian name, not a surname in our language, and we have no known criminal-terrorist by that name or pseudonym. Also, he said they are of the Red Workers’ Faction, but we have no word on that organization either.”
Neither did Rainbow. “So, we don’t know very much?” Chavez asked Bellow.
“Not much at all, Ding. Okay,” the psychiatrist went on, “what does that mean? It means they are planning to survive this one. It means they’re serious businessmen in this game. If they threaten to do something, they will try to do it. They haven’t killed anyone yet, and that also means they’re pretty smart. No other demands made to this point. They will be coming, probably soon—”
“How do you know that?” Altmark asked. The absence of demands to this point had surprised him.
“When it gets dark, they’ll be talking with us more. See how they haven’t turned any lights on inside the building?”
“Yes, and what does that mean?”
“It means they think the darkness is their friend, and that means they will try to make use of it. Also, the midnight deadline. When it gets dark, we’ll be closer to that.”
“Full moon tonight,” Price observed. “And not much cloud cover.”
“Yeah,” Ding noted in some discomfort when he looked up at the sky. “Captain, do you have searchlights we can use?”
“The fire department will have them,” Altmark said.
“Could you please order them brought here?”
“Ja . . . Herr Doktor?”
“Yes?” Bellow said.
“They said that if they do not have those things done by midnight they will begin to kill hostages. Do you—”
“Yes, Captain, we have to take that threat very seriously. As I said, these folks are acting like serious people, well-trained and well-disciplined. We can make that work for us.”
“How?” Altmark asked. Ding answered.
“We give them what they want, we let them think that they are in control . . . until it is time for us to ta
ke control. We feed their pride and their egos while we have to, and then, later, we stop doing it at a time that suits us.”
Ostermann’s house staff was feeding the terrorists’ bodies and their egos. Sandwiches had been made under the supervision of Fürchtner’s team and brought around by deeply frightened staff members. Predictably, Ostermann’s employees were not in a mood to eat, though their guests were.
Things had gone well to this point, Hans and Petra thought. They had their primary hostage under tight control, and his lackeys were now in the same room, with easy access to Ostermann’s personal bathroom—hostages needed such access, and there was no sense in denying it to them. Otherwise, it stripped them of their dignity and made them desperate. That was inadvisable. Desperate people did foolish things, and what Hans and Petra needed at the moment was control over their every action.
Gerhardt Dengler sat in a visitor’s chair directly across the desk from his employer. He knew he’d gotten the police to respond, and, like his boss, he was now wondering if that was a good or a bad thing. In another two years, he would have been ready to strike out on his own, probably with Ostermann’s blessing. He’d learned much from his boss, the way a general’s aide learns at the right hand of the senior officer. Though he’d been able to pursue his own destiny much more quickly and surely than a junior officer . . . what did he owe this man? What was required by this situation? Dengler was no more suited to this than Herr Ostermann was, but Dengler was younger, fitter . . .
One of the secretaries was weeping silently, the tears trickling down her cheeks from fear and from the rage of having her comfortable life upset so cruelly. What was wrong with these two that they thought they could invade the lives of ordinary people and threaten them with death? And what could she do about it? The answer to that was . . . nothing. She was skilled at routing calls, processing voluminous paperwork, keeping track of Herr Ostermann’s money so ably that she was probably the best-paid secretary in the country—because Herr Ostermann was a generous boss, always with a kind word for his staff. He’d helped her and her husband—a stonemason—with their investments, to the point that they would soon be millionaires in their own right. She’d been with him long before his first wife had died of cancer, had watched him suffer through that, unable to help him do anything to ease the horrible pain, and then she’d rejoiced at his discovery of Ursel von Prinze, who’d allowed Herr Ostermann to smile again. . . .