Time of Reckoning

by Walter Wager

  “Yeah, and I need your help.”

  “Any time,” assured Brieant, who knew that Merlin could and would destroy his military career without hesitation. Merlin was the worst. Everybody agreed on that.

  “I’m in one of your hospitals, Teddy, and there’s a sick guy here who really needs a good dose of pentothal. Clean him out—know what I mean? There’s a wonderful doctor here who’s been taking care of my friend, and it would be goddam decent of you if you’d tell him to give him this shot… Right. It’s for you, major.”

  Margolis took the instrument, and a great deal of abuse from a general who seemed quite unmoved by the description of Anderson’s serious wounds. Brieant pointed out nobly that national security was involved, instructed the surgeon to cooperate fully. Major Margolis did everything but salute as he pledged his allegiance and fidelity, and he was humming a patriotic air as he went to arrange for the drug.

  “What the hell was Sinbad?” Cavaliere wondered when they were alone.

  “Remember My Lai?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sinbad made My Lai look like an Easter-egg roll.”

  “So when you told him you knew where the bodies were buried—”

  A nurse entered to report that Major Margolis was ready, and that ended the discussion. It didn’t terminate Angelo Cavaliere’s shock and depression. Even his recognition that the armies of most major countries—and a lot of small ones—had similar massacres and atrocities buried somewhere didn’t do that. Cavaliere brooded during the long minutes before the injection took effect.

  “What’s bothering you, Angie? Metaphor?”

  “What’s Metaphor?”

  Merlin glanced around, whispered carefully, “Top secret.”

  Everything always was, Cavaliere thought. Even the toilet paper was classified in this weird world.

  “Should I close my eyes?” he answered irritably.

  Merlin ignored the sarcasm. “Top secret. The Berlin station has been penetrated.”

  First Cavaliere was frightened. That word—penetrated— always flushed terror through his system. Penetrated meant betrayed, which meant dead. There was a Sov in the woodpile, and that’s why Merlin had steered clear of the CIA’s local organization. First the shock of fear, then the relief of understanding and finally the Sinbad depression oozed back again.

  “He’s ready, I think,” the army doctor announced.

  “Thanks. Major—I hope you’ll understand—this is an intelligence matter, and it’s highly classified. Could you please step outside for eight or ten minutes?”

  The surgeon hesitated, recalled General Brieant’s instructions and struggled with his genuine concern for his patient. He looked at the man in the bed, found some encouragement in the regular breathing and visible effects of the earlier transfusion. Hell, those hadn’t been mere instructions. They were orders, from a general.

  Margolis left and the meticulous questioning began. The initial half-dozen inquiries tested whether the sodium pentothal was working, and then Merlin started probing about various employees—CIA and other—who frequented the Amerika Haus. Angelo Cavaliere could tell from Merlin’s face that the interrogation wasn’t producing much, but Merlin wasn’t discouraged. He kept questioning, thinking and hoping for some tiny clue. When there were no more clever questions to ask, he decided that it was time to gamble.

  This was the longest shot of all, but what the hell did he have to lose?

  “Victor. Victor,” he said into Anderson’s ear.

  No reply.

  “Victor—Victor,” Merlin repeated insistently in harsh but intimate tones. “Victor, it’s time to report.”

  “What?”

  “Victor, Moscow wants to know what happened this afternoon.”

  And Jeff Anderson began to describe the terrorists’ raid. Merlin was grinning broadly for a full twenty seconds before Angelo Cavaliere grasped the reason for his delight.

  “Him?”

  “Him,” Merlin confirmed.

  Jackpot.

  It was a fantastic coup. Merlin—that clever, intuitive and violent son of a bitch—had found the Sov agent, and the informer didn’t know he’d been identified. Both of the CIA operatives were smiling as they stepped out into the hall.

  “He’s all yours, doc,” Merlin said.

  “Fine. Say, I just heard something on the radio. The people who shot Mr. Anderson kidnapped some woman, and they’ve demanded a million-dollar ransom. Fantastic?”

  Merlin stopped smiling. “Keep an eye on Anderson,” he told his partner.

  “Where are you going?”

  Merlin didn’t answer. He walked away, somewhat more rapidly than usual.

  31

  The man in the luggage shop was frightened the instant that Merlin entered.

  That was logical, for Merlin’s expression and the hunter’s tension in the way he moved were bluntly frightening.

  “Good-day,” the German said hopefully.

  “Good-bye,” Merlin replied and jerked his head toward the door.

  It was arrogant and outrageous and didn’t make any sense, and “Alexander” was about to say so when he saw the Magnum in the American’s fist. Persuaded by the metallic logic, the man behind the counter shrugged and started for the street.

  “Where’s the recorder?” Merlin demanded.

  The intelligent German stopped dead in his tracks, for the muzzle of the .357 was now pointed at his face.

  “What recorder?”

  “The one rigged to the telephone.”

  The click of the release of the handgun’s safety sounded very loud in the quiet shop.

  “That recorder? Please, upper right drawer of the desk…Can I go?”

  Merlin considered the “standard procedures.”

  “If there’s another one, you’d better tell me—unless you’re a plastic-surgery freak,” he warned.

  “Behind the counter, next to the cash register,” blurted the terrified merchant.

  “Don’t come back for twenty minutes, and don’t make any funny phone calls. I hate jokes,” Merlin said.

  Fighting down an unpleasant choking sensation, “Alexander” hurried out, and Merlin locked the door with the awareness that the luggage vendor would call his CIA contact. It might take ten minutes, but the German was a competent professional who wouldn’t stay intimidated very long. Merlin turned off the recorder behind the counter, removed the cassette from the one hooked to the phone in the back room. He was speaking to the CIA communications center in Bonn ten seconds later.

  “Sales manager, extension fifty-nine,” he said.

  That meant headquarters in Virginia.

  “Busy, sir,” tested the switchboard operator.

  “Try his private line.”

  Use the secret CIA communications satellite that the air force put up in ’73.

  “A very large shipment is involved,” Merlin added. That was the correct phrase, so he had Smith on the line in the Langley command post in less than two minutes.

  “I need troops,” Merlin announced.

  “We’re getting the money. Don’t worry. We’re taking care of it right now.”

  Could they really be that dumb at headquarters?

  Didn’t they know anything about terrorists like the Martians?

  “I’m taking care of this myself,” Merlin said.

  He could visualize the scene in Smith’s electronically protected office: the scrambler whirling, the tape machine rolling smoothly and at least a couple of desk heroes listening over the speaker phone.

  “This isn’t your kind of deal, Merlin,” Smith reasoned. “We have experienced people who—”

  “Shove it. Your people will get her back dead. Don’t argue with me. I’ve got all the goddam chips.”

  Several seconds of silence followed.

  Merlin knew exactly what they were doing.

  Smith was trying to figure out the reference, and he was signaling one of those Langley mothers to trace the call.


  “Now what the hell does that mean?” Smith finally asked.

  “I’ve got Victor. How’s that for openers?”

  Harper and Parks leaped to their feet, unable to control their excitement.

  The wild man had done it. He’d found the Sov infiltrator in the Berlin station.

  “That’s terrific!” Smith congratulated.

  “There’s more. Victor doesn’t know that we know.”

  Fantastic.

  If Victor didn’t realize that he/she/it/who cares had been “burned,” the CIA could use the double agent to feed false information to the other side.

  “Great work!” Smith exulted. “Listen, here’s what we’re going to—”

  “You listen,” Merlin broke in rudely. “You’ll do it my way, or you don’t get Victor.”

  Parks looked dazed. Not even Merlin talked that way to senior headquarters executives.

  “Impossible,” he assured Smith, who then glanced at Harper for his opinion.

  “He’s got us by the nuts, John,” judged Bill Harper, who’d always had a gift for language.

  Smith closed his eyes to consider the insanity of the situation.

  “Merlin,” he began soberly, “I know that you have a personal involvement with—”

  He never finished the sentence.

  You couldn’t reason with Merlin.

  You certainly couldn’t argue with him.

  Everyone, even the Chinese, knew what Merlin was like. The bastard always did everything his own way.

  “What the hell do you want?” Smith asked warily.

  “The Band!”

  It figured. The “Band” was the CIA’s best assault unit, the vicious varsity of combat types. They knew Merlin from at least two earlier operations, Smith reflected as his stomach twinged, and he wondered whether his ulcer might be returning.

  “We’ll pay the money, for Christ’s sake,” Smith pleaded. “You don’t need the Band for this.”

  “All six pieces, day after tomorrow,” Merlin ordered.

  He knew about Smith’s ulcer.

  He didn’t care.

  “I don’t think the director’s going to be crazy about this,” the Langley executive predicted gloomily.

  “He doesn’t have to be. I’m the crazy one, remember?”

  Then Merlin told him where and when to deliver the Band, and what to tell General Brieant.

  “Brieant? How much does he know?” Smith wondered in tones laden with jurisdictional rivalry.

  “The first three lines of the national anthem and the multiplication table up to eleven. He doesn’t know a damn thing about Metaphor or Victor, if that’s what you mean.”

  At least the goddam army didn’t know.

  That was some consolation.

  “I’ll try it on the director, but he’s going to want more about what you’re planning. Isn’t there something else I can say, Merl?”

  “Happy birthday’s always good,” the sardonic man in Berlin answered—and slammed down the phone.

  Now the entire CIA network in West Berlin would be looking for him—and Victor. His step quickened as he left the luggage shop, for it was only a matter of minutes before armed men ringed the store.

  32

  It was extraordinary.

  Fourteen minutes after Merlin left the store, a portly and subtly creepy man named George Lomas laughed—directly into Smith’s face. Devious and dedicated as the agency’s chief of counterintelligence should be, Lomas was serious and mysterious and just a trifle paranoid. He was fascinated by puzzles, enigmatic in conversation and rarely smiled.

  He never laughed.

  “Our people in Berlin are looking for him,” Smith had concluded—and then Lomas laughed and laughed.

  Fantastic.

  “Nobody finds Merlin when he doesn’t want to be found,” chuckled the CIA security executive. “If your people got that lucky, they might also get dead. Merlin does that sort of thing, rather well.” The fat man who was always so grim was amused.

  “You like Merlin?” Smith wondered incredulously.

  “No, I respect his cunning, his reflexes and superb animal instincts,” replied the man in the button-down shirt and Harvard tie.

  Lomas hadn’t gone to Harvard, of course. Deception was part of his life-style.

  “Should we give him the Band?”

  Lomas wasn’t smiling anymore. Naїveté always depressed him.

  “For Victor I’d give him Barbra Streisand, all the Nadelmans in the Hirshhorn collection and the city of Boston.”

  The DCI didn’t laugh. The director of central intelligence was responsible to the President, and he listened very soberly when Lomas reported to him half an hour later.

  “You think he’ll deliver Victor?” he asked.

  “Merlin kills, but he doesn’t lie.”

  “The Germans aren’t going to like this. It’s their turf,” the director thought aloud.

  “They’ll hate it,” agreed Lomas, who knew that the director was rather hostile toward Bonn’s intelligence chief at the moment. It had something to do with recent operations designated Axhead and Carport which had gone sour.

  “Wish you hadn’t bothered me with this administrative problem, George.”

  Lomas got the message.

  “I never did. Sorry you were out when I came to brief you. Too bad there was no time to wait.”

  The director smiled benignly, looked at his watch.

  It was ten to eleven on Tuesday morning.

  At 3 P.M. on Thursday, the regular U.S. military shuttle flight unloaded twenty-nine uniformed men at Tempelhof. The plane was nearly an hour behind schedule, a delay caused by some defective fuel pump at the U.S. air base near Heidelberg. Twenty-two of the soldiers and airmen believed this, and they climbed into a khaki-colored bus with their baggage. The other seven knew that this was a lie, that the plane had been held until their special jet had arrived from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. They had B-bags, assorted instrument cases and bored expressions, all of which they carried into the van that was waiting for them.

  The corporal behind the wheel looked at the chubby officer expectantly.

  “Yes?” asked the lieutenant.

  “Ira.”

  “Gershwin,” confirmed the officer grumpily.

  There was no further conversation as the van rolled out of the airport, and not a word was spoken until it stopped more than twenty minutes later outside the movie theater that served the U.S. forces in West Berlin. Even then only a single word was uttered.

  “Wait,” the man with the gold bars on his shoulders said.

  All seven entered the building with their gear, and the driver unbuttoned his tunic. He seemed even more relaxed than most noncommissioned officers. He wasn’t. He wasn’t relaxed and he wasn’t a corporal in the U.S. Army, and the automatic in his shoulder holster wasn’t the standard army gun either. He waited tensely and he watched, and he saw Merlin approach ten minutes later.

  It was cool and dark inside.

  Thank God for American air conditioning.

  Merlin strode through the lobby, opened a door and slipped inside—just a step. He stopped to let his eyes adjust, looked. There on the stage were four men. The theater was obviously also used for live entertainment, and the footlights made it easy for Merlin to recognize the quartet.

  “Hey, Luther,” he called out as he walked down the center aisle—slowly.

  There was no point in taking too many chances. His stand on Victor could have irritated some of those people at Langley.

  “Hey,” answered Luther, a rangy North Carolinian with a talent for knives and a kid brother playing offensive guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

  “Don,” Merlin said pleasantly to a stocky man seated beside a drum case on the edge of the stage.

  “Hey,” the demolition specialist replied with a yawn and a tired smile.

  Roosevelt Allison didn’t wait to be addressed. The trim, muscular black man was a cipher expert, cat burg
lar and karate black belt—and a fan of Merlin’s.

  “You’re looking good, Merl,” he announced as he spun the bass case for emphasis.

  “Glad you’re here, Rosie. You too, Ed.”

  Ed Budge didn’t have to smile, because he was always smiling. Blonde and tan with the regular features of a California surfer, he enjoyed life. He enjoyed driving all kinds of cars exceedingly well, firing a variety of machine guns even more precisely. He flashed the “thumbs up” salute and waved his guitar case.

  Suddenly Merlin felt uneasy.

  “Just like the old gangster pictures,” Budge pointed out cheerily.

  Something didn’t add up—not quite.

  He was less than ten yards from the stage when he drew his Magnum and whirled.

  There was a gun pointing at him from the left section of the darkened balcony. It took him a second to spot the night sight, the infrared device clamped to the barrel that let the weapon’s owner shoot accurately in the blackness.

  “That you, Country?” he challenged in as casual a voice as he could muster.

  “Heelll, yahs. How’re ya doin’, boy?”

  Country Binks was—among other things—a sharpshooter. He was the long gun on this team, a hunter who worked from the edges to cover and protect the others. He was also the loving father of three children, a real artist at making pancakes and barbecuing ribs and, like his father, who’d been a justice of the peace in Chisholm County, a keen judge of human character.

  “As well as can be expected. Where’s Jesse?”

  “Here.”

  There they were—inseparable as always.

  Jesse McAlester and his sawed-off automatic shotgun were resting comfortably in the shadows that obscured the right wall of the orchestra section.

  That was it, all six. Merlin put his gun back in its holster, stepped forward to speak.

  “There’s one more,” Roosevelt Allison said.

  “What?”

  “They threw in the Godfather, Merl.”

  Lomas strode out of the wings backstage, moving almost defiantly and looking a bit like an overfed schoolboy in the tight army uniform.