by Paul Kenyon
"John," she said, "either I'm getting poor reception or you have a defective tape. The static is terrible. This is no fun. But thanks for trying to cheer me up, darling."
"Sorry, Penny," he said. "Look, my dear. Take my advice. Have some fun tonight. Go out, have a few drinks. I'll see what I can do about getting you a fun photo assignment. How about Brazil?"
"Anywhere, John, as long as it isn't Rome in February."
After hanging up, Penelope switched the cassette player to run at normal speed. She fitted a pair of earphones around the sweep of shiny black hair framing her face. She curled up like a kitten on the couch and listened to her instructions for the next thirty minutes.
* * *
In a third-floor conference room in a U-shaped steel-and-concrete building at Fort Meade, Maryland, a small group of men sat around a conference table in a locked room that was as secure against eavesdroppers as the anti-bugging electronics experts could make it. They were he members of the decision-making body called the "Special Group," or, as a few insiders referred to it, the "54/12 Group" after the number of the secret Presidential order that had created it.
They were a very special group indeed. The FBI was excluded. So were Army, Navy and Air Force Intelligence. The National Security Council had not been able to control the activities of the Special Group for years. And the Special Group no longer bothered to inform the United States Intelligence Board of its decisions.
"Next on the agenda," said the President's personal representative, "the Heidrig affair. Want to brief us, Sam?"
The general who ran the National Security Agency stood up and went to the easel at the head of the table. He flipped the heavy cards till he came to a map of South America.
"First the background," he said. "Wilhelm Heidrig was an Obergruppenführer in the Nazi SS, and an intimate of Hitler himself. He and some cronies escaped to Brazil in 1945. They had plenty of loot to set themselves up with. Heidrig surrounded himself with other former SS men, and began to smuggle high-ranking Nazis from hiding places all over the world to his estate in Brazil."
He tapped the map with a pointer. "His estate is a former coffee plantation deep in the jungle, on a tributary of the Amazon called Rio das Mortes." He grimaced. "That means 'River of Death. He's been building a private army there. It's composed of die-hards from both West and East Germany and young men of German descent living in Brazil. He's got the tacit support of right-wing elements in the Brazilian government."
"What are we worried about, Sam?" said the Deputy Secretary of Defense. "That a few aging Nazis might try to take over the world again?"
The NSA director gave him a thin smile. "Hardly. We're worried about nuclear materials."
"Nuclear materials?" The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency sat up straight in his chair. "Why wasn't I informed?"
"There was no reason for you to know — then. Now there is. We've got a decision to make today."
The President's man broke in hastily. "Dick, we're getting to your part in this. What do you have to tell us?"
The CIA director spoke without getting up. He smiled sourly at his NSA counterpart and said, "We were alerted by the AEC. Their own analysts keep close track of anything, worldwide, that suggests any kind of developing nuclear technology."
"You gentlemen will recall," the President's man said in his slight German accent, "that it was the AEC who told us about the Chinese plutonium reactor near Paotow by sniffing traces of xenon and argon in the upper atmosphere and pinpointing the source."
"Thank you, Henry," said the CIA head. "To get back to Heidrig, he set up a dummy chemical firm in Sao Paulo to funnel shipments of lithium-6 and hydrogen-2 into the Brazilian interior. Those are the two prime ingredients of a possible recipe for hydrogen bombs."
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency whistled. "A hydrogen bomb! And in the hands of a bunch of Nazis!"
"It doesn't add up to a hydrogen bomb — yet. He'd need an atomic bomb to set it off. A fission trigger. But we were worried enough to plant a couple of agents inside Heidrig's estate. A dining hall waiter named Carlos. And a houseboy named Humberto."
"And that's where the problem comes in," said the NSA head from his place at the easel. "The CIA men haven't been reporting."
"Carlos is a good agent," the CIA director said hastily. "We're afraid he may be in trouble."
"That's what we thought, too," said NSA. "That's why we've got a man of our own watching the place."
CIA spun on him, his face flushed. "You've been tailing my agents?"
"Just watching Heidrig's estate from outside," NSA said blandly. "We assigned one of our Chinese-American agents. The Tupi Indians in that neck of the Brazilian jungle look just like Chinese. The early explorers commented on it; there may be a genetic connection. Our man shaved his pubic hair, painted his peter red, tattooed his cheeks — and you can't tell him from a Tupi."
"Now just a damn minute, Sam…" CIA began.
"Gentlemen, please," the President's man broke in. "Sam, will you tell us the rest of it?"
"Heidrig's been importing a lot of West German optical experts," said NSA. "And eighteen months ago, Amsterdam's top diamond cutter disappeared. A master artisan named Pieter van Voort. We traced him to Heidrig's estate in Brazil. He's being kept under lock and key. Large sums of money have been deposited in a Swiss bank account under van Voort's name."
"What have diamonds got to do with hydrogen bombs?" Defense said, a puzzled look on his face.
"That's what we want to find out," said the President's man. "Gentlemen, by the President's authority, I am giving this matter the highest priority."
The intelligence chiefs exchanged glances. CIA got to his feet. "That may mean covert operations. It's mine."
The President's representative shook his head. "We're not going to risk that kind of thing in a friendly state." He turned to NSA. "The job's yours. Call Key."
NSA smiled. "I thought you'd say that. I already called Key. And Key contacted Coin. Coin'll be setting up the mission about now."
"Who the hell, or what the hell is this Key?" CIA protested, his face growing red. "This is too delicate an operation to be put into the hands of some spook who isn't answerable to direct authority."
"There's only one person in this room who knows who Key is," the President's man said quietly. "And that's the way I want it. Gentlemen, I don't want to know who Key is. And even the President doesn't want to know who Key is."
"Key is just that," NSA said. "He unlocks the communications conduit. He operates Coin. And gentlemen, even I don't know who Coin is. I suppose I could find out, but I prefer not to. Results are what count. And we've been getting results from Coin."
The President's man pushed back his chair. "Well, we've got our penny in the slot," he said. "Let's hope Coin can find out what happened to Carlos."
Chapter 2
The man's eyes were wide with terror. He ran stumbling through the wet underbrush, panting like a dog, his face glistening with sweat in the chalky moonlight.
He was incongruous in the jungle foliage: a sallow-faced man in a white waiter's jacket, the black bow tie hanging undone at his throat. His thin patent leather shoes were ruined by the swampy ground, his black trousers shredded by thorns.
Above him, remote and uncaring, the brilliant constellations of the Southern hemisphere riddled the sky. Around him, the night was alive with the sounds of the jungle: the click and hum of insects, the croaking of frogs, the nocturnal chatter of monkeys, the call of an owl. From somewhere nearby came the low cough of a jaguar.
The running man stopped to orient himself. He risked a glance over his shoulder. There were no sounds of pursuit. Gratefully he sank to his knees and paused for breath, gulping great lungfuls of air.
And a quarter-mile behind him, the jungle suddenly grew garish with artificial light. A siren went off. A searchlight beam probed the sky, then swept down to reach its finger into the jungle. Even at this distance, he could hear the sound
of men's voices, the faint clink of metal. Dogs began to bark.
With a sob, he struggled to his feet again and began blundering onward. Around him, the jungle had gone quiet, its hidden life intimidated by the lights and the sirens.
He was almost to the river bank when he tripped on a root and fell. Before he could rise, the dogs caught up with him.
They came running out of the thick undergrowth, a pair of magnificent black Dobermans, their sleek coats dappled by moonlight. They weighed at least seventy-five pounds apiece. The man knew. He had helped feed them.
They moved silently and purposefully toward him. Their silence was more frightening than any barking or growling could have been. The man in the waiter's uniform was careful, very careful, not to move. He held himself rigid against the bole of the tall babassu palm whose root had tripped him.
He was still sitting in the same awkward position when the men arrived. There were five of them, in green uniforms with shiny black boots and pillbox hats with leather visors. They all carried submachine guns, flat ugly weapons with skeleton stocks. The dogs whimpered, but kept their eyes fixed on their prisoner.
The leader of the patrol absently patted each dog in turn, not bothering to look at them. "Gut Fritzi," he murmured, "gut hund, Siegfried." One of the dogs wagged its stump of a tail.
The leader was a slight, slope-shouldered young man in his twenties, undersized and unimpressive, with pale face, pale hair, pale eyes. The other men grouped around him respectfully, deferentially, waiting for orders. All four were older men, in their sixties at least.
"Well, Carlos," the young man said in unaccented Portuguese, "you've led us a merry chase, haven't you?"
"Please, Senhor Horst," the man in the white jacket said. Perspiration was streaming down his forehead.
"Quiet, pig!" the man named Horst said. One of the dogs growled. "Give it to me!"
"Senhor Horst," the man pleaded, "I have nothing!"
Horst smiled, showing a row of soft irregular teeth, like pale kernels of corn. "What a pity," he said. He took a step forward and probed with the toe of his boot between Carlos' legs.
Carlos' face grew waxy. "Please," he whispered.
Horst drew his foot back no more than a few inches. He jabbed it forward again with no apparent effort. Carlos screamed.
"Now, where is it?" Horst asked in a soft, almost girlish voice. Carlos trembled but said nothing. Horst probed with his boot again, then put his weight forward on the foot. A strangled cry came from Carlos, and he began retching. The four elderly men with the submachine guns watched with polite interest.
Horst waited until the retching ceased. Then he said, "Really, Carlos, my patience has limits." He sighed and looked at one of the dogs. "Seine hand, Fritzi." The Doberman looked at him inquiringly and made a small whining sound. "Schlage, schlage," Horst said encouragingly.
The dog trotted up to the man in the white jacket and began sniffing at his hand. Trembling, the man tried to draw back, pressing himself against the tree at his back. With a movement too fast to follow, the black Doberman had the man's hand in his mouth. There was a delicate crunching sound. Carlos made a gagging noise in his throat.
"Genug, Fritzi," Horst said. The dog backed away from Carlos, whining with excitement. The hand was a shapeless piece of meat, streaming with blood.
Horst nodded to one of the uniformed men. "Willi!" The man handed his submachine gun to one of the others, then bent stiffly over Carlos. He said something in a low voice, and Carlos answered. Willi reached in the pocket of the waiter's jacket and retrieved something. He handed it to Horst and saluted.
Horst studied the object in his hand. It was an uncut diamond of at least six carats, marked along its cleavage lines with India ink.
Horst nodded. "Gut, gut," he said, smiling at Carlos, who was staring at his ruined hand and moaning rhythmically. He wrapped the diamond in a handkerchief and put it in his shirt pocket, buttoning the flap carefully.
Then he looked at Carlos a long time, pursing his lips in concentration. The four elderly men in the green uniforms watched him expectantly.
"Fritzi, Seigfried!" Horst said. "Zwischen seine Bein!"
Obediently the Dobermans trotted up to where Carlos lay, their stubs of tails wagging, little eager whining sounds coming from deep in their throats. Carlos tried to drag himself away from them, but a warning growl made him freeze. His body was rigid with fright. One of the dogs began nosing and sniffing between his legs. Desperately, Carlos tried to roll away from it.
"Schlage!" Horst said.
An awful scream came from Carlos. It tore through the jungle night, silencing the monkeys and the birds. The dogs made hardly any sound at all, just little grunts and snuffles as they worked. One of the elderly men turned away, but Horst watched avidly, a pale sheen of perspiration suddenly springing out over his cheeks and forehead, one hand unconsciously straying to his own groin. Another one of the elderly men turned away from Carlos and the dogs to vomit efficiently into a clump of bamboo. Carlos went on screaming and screaming, hoarse bleats that no longer sounded human.
When it was over, Horst's face had a slack, puffy look. He moved with extreme lassitude. "Willi, Heinz!" he said, "take this carrion to the pool."
Two of the old men handed their weapons to the other two. They gripped what was left of Carlos fastidiously by the ankles and began to drag the body toward the distant searchlights, leaving a trail of blood and an occasional gobbet of flesh.
Horst patted the shirt pocket containing the diamond. "Schnell, schnell!" he said. "Herr Heidrig will be worrying. We must not keep him waiting."
* * *
On the other side of the river that Carlos had been trying to reach, a naked man sat perched high in the branches of a Brazil nut tree, his body concealed by the broad leaves. He had the typically oriental appearance of the Tupi Indian: straight, jet black hair and almond-shaped eyes. Instead of clothes, his stocky, muscular body was decorated with festive designs in red and black paint. Tribal marks had been tattooed onto the flesh of either cheek.
The Indian watched the party of uniformed men as they dragged their grisly burden through the jungle. Despite the dim moonlight and the extreme distance — over a mile — he could see them in sharp detail through the big nightfighter scope he was looking through, a bulky battery pack powering the light-amplifying device that was built into it.
He twisted a knob to refine the focus. Horst's face came into view as he stopped to look back along the trail. For a moment, the Indian had the illusion that Horst was staring directly at him. He moved the crosshairs of the scope to the bulge in Horst's shirt.
The Tupi kept the scope trained on the patrol for the next quarter-hour, losing them occasionally when they were shielded by overhanging foliage, turning up the light amplification when they entered a shadowy patch of jungle. The image was always clear — the scope was capable of gathering enough light from the stars alone to make a picture, and tonight the moon had increased this factor by at least a hundred.
When the men reached the outer perimeter of the walled estate, they turned off to one side. The Tupi inspected the defenses of the estate again, as he had many times before: the twelve-foot concrete wall topped with broken bottles; the inner mesh fence with the barbed wire strands along the top; the pack of Alsatians that roamed the space between, setting up a howl now that they sensed the approach of the five men and the Dobermans; the watchtowers with their armed guards. The Tupi showed his teeth in an oddly un-Indian grimace, then focused on Horst's patrol again.
They were letting themselves through the gate of a vast enclosure whose wire screen fence followed the estate wall for some hundreds of feet; along its length, it formed what amounted to a third line of defense, and that perhaps accounted for the fact that there was no watchtower along that expanse. Inside the enclosure was a large artificial lagoon, fed by a concrete-lined trench dug from the nearby river. The bars of an iron gate at the head of the trench prevented anything larger than a min
now from entering or leaving the lagoon.
The Tupi could see Horst gesturing now, giving some sort of command. The uniformed men tipped Carlos' body — what was left of it — into the lagoon.
Almost immediately the water began to boil with life. There was nothing visible above the surface except the churning wavelets in a circle of about twenty feet around the spot where the body had been thrown in. The Tupi moved the scope to Horst's face. The blond youth was laughing with excitement, grabbing one of the older men by the arm and pointing toward the lagoon.
After a minute or two the water grew smooth and calm again. Carlos' white jacket, a few long rips in it and the cuffs shredded where the Dobermans had been gnawing at his hands, came floating to the surface. One of the men got a long pole to fish it out. When the pole touched the water, there was a sudden flurry of splashes. The man hastily yanked the pole out. Its end had been bitten off.
Horst laughed and made a gesture. The man tried again, and this time he succeeded in getting the jacket. He handed it to Horst. In a strange gesture, like a child with a Teddy bear or a girl with a new fur coat, Horst buried his face in the jacket. He whistled to the Dobermans and, still carrying the jacket, led the men toward the main gate.
Carefully, the naked man in the tree put the nightfighter scope into its waterproof case and lashed it to the crotch of a branch, where it could not be seen from below. Brushing away the biting borochuda flies that had begun to be attracted to his bare skin, he shinnied down the tree and began to head east at an easy trot.
Chapter 3
The big green eyes looked coolly back at her from the mirror. They were clear, sparkling. They didn't look at all as if she'd missed a night's sleep.
Penelope studied her naked body with a professional eye. Her skin was pink and glowing from the needle shower and the massage Inga had given her. Her belly was flat, her breasts high and firm. There wasn't an ounce of fat at waist or thighs; the graceful curves of her body were as functional as the lines of a jet aircraft.