by Tom Clancy
Still personable but subdued by the news of the attack on the film set, Lang said, "Employees work from eight to five with two half hour and one full hour breaks. We have a gymnasium and a pool in the basement, as well as small rooms with cots and showers for anyone who wants to rest or freshen up." Stoll said, "I could just see cots and showers at the workplace in Washington. Nobody would ever get any work done." After showing his guests around the smallish first floor, Lang took them to the more spacious second level. No sooner had they arrived than Hausen's cellular phone beeped.
"It may be news about the attack," Hansen said, walking toward a corner.
After Hausen left, Lang showed the Americans how the chips were mass-produced by quiet, automated machines.
Stoll lingered behind the group, studying control panels and watching as cameras and stamping machines did work that used to be done by steady hands, soldering irons, and jigsaws. He set his backpack on a table and chatted with one of the technicians, an English-speaking woman who was using a microscope to spot-check finished chips. When Stoll asked if he could take a peek through the eyepieces, she looked at Lang, who nodded. Stoll had a quick look, and complimented the woman on her very fine-looking sounddigitizing processor chip.
After the second floor tour was finished, the group went to the elevator to wait for Hansen. He was hunched over his telephone, a finger in his ear, listening more than he was talking.
Meanwhile, Stoll peeked into his backpack. Then he scooped it up and rejoined the group. He smiled at Hood, who winked back.
"Alas," said Lang, "I won't be able to take you to the third-floor laboratories where research and development is being conducted. It's nothing personal, I assure you," he said, looking at Stoll. "But I fear our stockholders would revolt. You see, we're working on a new technology which will revolutionize the industry." "I see," said Stoll. "And this new technology— it wouldn't happen to have anything to do with quantum bits and the superposition principle of quantum mechanics.
Would it?" For the second time that day, Lang paled. He seemed to want to speak but couldn't.
Stoll beamed. "Remember that rotten bread slicethrower- outer I was telling you about?" Lang nodded, still speechless.
Stoll patted the backpack he held in his tight fist. "Well, Herr Lang, I just gave you a little taste of what it can do." In the corner of the laboratory, the world seemed to disappear for Richard Hausen. Even as he listened to a voice from the past, a nightmarish past, he couldn't believe it was real.
"Hello, Haussier," the voice greeted him in a thick French accent. It had used the nickname Hausen had had as an economics student at the Sorbonne is Paris— Haussier, the financial bull. Very few people knew that.
"Hello," Hausen replied warily. "Who is this?" The speaker said softly, "It's your friend and classmate.
Gerard Dupre." Hansen's face melted into pasty blankness. The voice was less angry, less animated than he remembered. But it could be Dupre, he thought. For a moment Hausen wasn't able to say anything else. His head filled with a nightmare collage of faces and images.
The caller intruded on the vision. "Yes, it's Dupre. The man you threatened. The man you warned not to come back. But now I have come back. As Gerard Dominique, revolutionary." "I don't believe it's you," Hausen finally said.
"Shall I give you the name of the caf‚? The name of the street?" The voice hardened. "The names of the girls?" "No!" Hansen snapped. "That was your doing, not mine!" "So you say." "No! That's how it was." The voice repeated slowly, "So you say." Hausen said, "How did you get this number?" "There's nothing I cannot get," the caller said, "no one I cannot reach." Hausen shook his head. "Why now?" he asked. "It's been fifteen years—" "Only a moment of time in the eyes of the gods." The caller laughed. "The gods, by the way, who now want to judge you." "Judge me?" Hausen said. "For what? Telling the truth about your crime? What I did was right—" "Right?" the caller cut him off. "You ass. Loyalty, Haussier. That's the key to everything. Loyalty in bad times as well as in good. Loyalty in life and loyalty at the moment of death. That is one thing which separates the human from the subhuman. And in my desire to eliminate subhumans, I plan, Haussier, to begin with you." "You are as monstrous now as you were then," Hausen declared. His hands were sweating. He had to grip the phone tightly to keep from dropping it.
"No," the caller said. "I am more monstrous. Very much more. Because not only do I have the desire to execute my will, but now I have established the means." "You?" Hausen said. "Your father established those means—" "I did!" the caller snapped. "Me. All me. Everything I have, I earned. Papa was lucky after the war. Anyone with a factory became rich then. No, he was as foolish as you are, Haussier. Though at least he had the good grace to die." This is madness, Hausen thought. "Dupre," he said, "Or should I say Dominique. I don't know where you are or what you've become. But I, too, am more than I was. Very much more. I'm not the college boy you remember." "Oh, I know." The caller laughed. "I've followed your moves. Every one of them. Your rise in the government, your campaign against hate groups, your marriage, the birth of your daughter, your divorce. A lovely girl, by the way, your daughter. How is she enjoying ballet?" Hausen squeezed the phone tighter. "Harm her and I'll find you and kill you." "Such rough words from so careful a politician," the caller said. "But that's the beauty of parenthood, isn't it?
When a child is threatened, nothing else matters. Not fortune nor health." Hausen said, "If you have a fight, it's with me." "I know that, Haussier," the caller said. "Alors, the truth is I've tried to stay clear of teenage girls. Such trouble.
You understand." Hausen was looking at the tile floor but was seeing the young Gerard Dupre. Angry, lashing out, hissing his hate. He couldn't succumb to fury himself. Not even in response to calculated threats against his girl.
"So you plan to judge me," Hausen said, forcing himself to calm down. "However far I fall, you'll fall farther." "Oh, I don't think so," said the caller. "You see, unlike you, I've put layers upon layers of willing employees between myself and my activities. I've actually built an empire of constituents who feel the way I do. I even hired one who helped me follow the life and works of Richard Hausen. He is gone now, but he provided me with a great deal of information about you." "There are still laws," Hansen said. "There are many ways in which one can be an accomplice." "You would know, wouldn't you?" the caller pointed out.
"In any case, on that Parisian matter time has run out. The law can't touch me or you. But think of what it would do to your image when people find out. When photographs from that night begin appearing." Photographs? Hansen thought. The camera— could it have captured them?
"I just wanted you to know that I plan to bring you down," the voice said. "I wanted you to think about it. Wait for it." "No," said Hausen. "I'll find a way to fight you." "Perhaps," said the caller. "But then, there is that beautiful thirteen-year-old dancer to consider. Because while I have sworn off teenagers, there are members of my group who—" Hausen punched the "talk" button to disconnect the caller. He shoved the phone back in his pocket, then turned.
He put on a shaky smile and asked the nearest employee where the lavatory was. Then he motioned for Lang to take the others down without him. He was going to have to get away, think about what to do.
When he reached the bathroom, Hausen leaned over the sink. He cupped his hands, filled them with water, and put his face in it. He let the water dribble out slowly. When his hands were empty, he continued to hold them to his face.
Gerard Dupre.
It was a name he'd hoped he never hear again, a face he never wanted to see again, even in his mind's eye.
But he was back, and so was Hausen— back in Paris, back on the darkest night of his life, back in the shroud of fear and guilt it had taken him years to shake.
And with his face still in his hands he cried, tears of fear… and shame.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thursday, 8:16 A.M., Washington, D.C.
After dropping Billy at school and giv
ing himself a couple of minutes to shake off the adrenaline rush of two games of Blazing Combattle, Rodgers used his car phone to call Darrell McCaskey. Op-Center's FBI liaison had already left for work, and Rodgers caught him on his car phone. It would not have surprised the General if the two of them passed each other while talking. He was beginning to believe that modern technology was nothing more than some huckster's way of selling people two tin cans and a string for thousands of dollars. Of course, these tin cans were equipped with scramblers which switched high and low voice tones at one end and restored them at the other. Signals inadvertently picked up by another phone would be meaningless.
"Morning, Darrell," Rodgers said.
"Morning, General," McCaskey replied. He was his usual surly morning self as he said, "And don't ask me about last night's volleyball game. DOD nuked us bad." "I won't ask about it," Rodgers said. "Listen, I've got something I need you to check on. A group named WHOA— Whites Only Association. Ever hear of them?" "Yeah, I've heard of them. Don't tell me you got wind of the Baltic Avenue. That was supposed to be a deep secret." "No," Rodgers said, "I didn't know about it." A Baltic Avenue was the FBI's current code for an action being taken against a domestic adversary. They took the name from the game of Monopoly. Baltic Avenue was the first deed after passing "Go" — hence, the start of a mission. The codes changed weekly, and Rodgers always looked forward to Monday mornings when McCaskey shared the new ones with him. In recent months his favorite gocodes had been "Moses," which was inspired by "Let my people go," and "Peppermint Lounge," which came from the famous "go-go" discotheque of the 1960s.
"Is WHOA the subject of the Baltic Avenue?" Rodgers asked.
"No," McCaskey replied. "Not directly, anyway." Rodgers knew better than to ask McCaskey more on this particular mission. Even though the line was scrambled, that was only effective against casual listeners. Calls could still be monitored and descrambled, and some of these white supremacist groups were pretty sophisticated.
"Tell me what you know about WHOA," Rodgers said.
"They're big time," said McCaskey. "They have a couple of paramilitary training camps in the Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest. They offer everything from make-your-ownbullet classes to afterschool activities for the tykes. They publish a slick magazine called Phrer, spelled like Fhrer, which actually has news bureaus and ad sales offices in New York, L.A., and Chicago, and they sponsor a successful rock band called AWED— All White Electric Dudes." "They're also on-line," Rodgers said.
"I know." McCaskey asked, "Since when do you surf the net?" "I don't," Rodgers said, "but Charlie Squires' kid does.
He picked up a hate game about blacks getting lynched." "Shit." "That's how I felt," Rodgers said. "Tell me what you know." "Funny you should ask," said McCaskey. "I was just talking to a German friend in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Dsseldorf. They're all worried about Chaos Days, when all the neo-Nazis over there gather— the closeted ones in the open and the open ones in hiding, if you follow." "I'm not sure I do." McCaskey said, "Since neo-Nazism is illegal, admitted Hitlerites can't hold gatherings in public. They meet in barns or woods or old factories. The ones who pose as mere political activists, even though they're advocating Nazi-like doctrine, are able to meet in public." "Got it," Rodgers said. "But why aren't the admitted Hitlerites under surveillance?" "They are," said McCaskey, "when the government can find them. And even when they are found, some— there's this guy Richter, for example, who did jail time— go to court, claim harassment, and have to be left alone. Public sentiment against skinheads is high, but they feel that articulate, clean-cut jerks like Richter deserve to be left alone." "The government can't afford to alienate too many voters." "That," said McCaskey, "and make the neo-Nazis look like victims. Some of the Hitler wannabes have got sound bites and charisma that'd curl your toes. They play very well with the evening news crowd." Rodgers didn't like what he was hearing. This mediaplaying- into-the-hands-of-criminals thing was an old beef of his. Lee Harvey Oswald may have been the last killer to protest his innocence on TV and get blamed in the court of public opinion anyway— though even that jury didn't come back with a unanimous verdict. There was something about the hangdog face of a suspect and the determined face of a prosecutor that drove the underdog-loving public to the suspect.
"So what about this German friend of yours?" Rodgers asked.
McCaskey said, "The OPC is worried because in addition to Chaos Days, they've got this new phenomenon called the Thule Network. It's a collection of about a hundred mailboxes and bulletin boards which allow neo-Nazi groups and cells to communicate and form alliances. There's no way of tracking the correspondence to its source, so the authorities are helpless to stop it." "Who or what is Thule?" Rodgers asked.
"It's a place. The legendary northern cradle of European civilization." McCaskey laughed. "When I was a kid, I read a lot of fantasy novels, and a whole bunch of barbarian-type adventure stories were set there. Ursus of Ultima Thule, that sort of thing." "Manliness and European purity," Rodgers said. "That's an irresistible symbol." "Yeah," said McCaskey, "though I'd never have believed that a place which seemed so wondrous could come to stand for something so corrupt." Rodgers asked, "I take it this Thule Network has made inroads to America?" "Not per se," said McCaskey. "We've got our own homegrown demons. For about two years now, the Feds, the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have been closely monitoring the inroads hate groups have been making on the information highway.
The problem is, like in Germany, the bad guys usually obey the law. Plus, they're fully protected by the First Amendment." "The First Amendment doesn't give them the right to incite violence," Rodgers said.
"They don't. They may stink to the bone, but these people are careful." "They'll slip up somewhere," Rodgers said confidently.
"And when they do, I want to be there to nail them." "So far, they haven't," McCaskey said, "and the FBI has been watching all the neo-Nazi Web sites— their five Internet playgrounds as well as the eight national computer bulletin boards. We've also got a reciprocal agreement with Germany to trade any information they pick up on-line." "Only Germany?" Rodgers asked.
"Germany, England, Canada, and Israel," said McCaskey. "No one else wants to shake things up. So far, there's been nothing illegal." "Only immoral," Rodgers said.
"Sure," said McCaskey, "but you know better than anyone that we've fought a whole lot of wars to give free speech to all Americans, including WHOA." "We also fought a war to prove that Hitler was wrong," Rodgers said. "He was and he still is. As far as I'm concerned, we're still at war with these dirtbags." "Speaking of war," McCaskey said, "I got a call from Bob Herbert before I left home. Coincidentally, he needs information on a German terrorist group named Feuer. Did you hear about the attack this morning?" Rodgers said that he hadn't watched the news, and McCaskey briefed him. The murders reminded him that neo- Nazis were as cold as the monsters who inspired them, from Hitler to Heydrich to Mengele. And he could not believe, would not believe, that people like these were on the minds of the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution.
"Have we got anybody looking into what Bob needs?" Rodgers asked.
"Liz has more info on Feuer," McCaskey said. "I'm going to meet with her when I get to the office. I'll go over it and get the essentials right over to Bob, the CIA, and Interpol. They're looking for the perpetrators as well as the missing girl." "Okay," Rodgers said. "When you're done with that, bring the data and let's you and Liz and me have a talk. I don't think my meeting with Senator Fox will last very long." "Ouch," said McCaskey. "I've got to meet you after you see her?" "I'll be okay," Rodgers said.
"If you say so," McCaskey said.
"You don't believe that." "Paul's a diplomat," McCaskey said. "You're an asskicker.
I've never seen a senator who responded to anything other than lips on their butts." "Paul and I talked about that," Rodgers said. "He felt that since we've proven ourselves in Korea a
nd Russia we should take a harder line with Congress. We feel that because of Striker's performance and sacrifices, Senator Fox will have a tougher time saying no to me on the budget increase we've requested." "An increase?" McCaskey said. "General, Deputy Director Clayton at the Bureau tells me he's got to whack nine percent from his budget. And he got off lucky. Rumor is, Congress is talking a twelve-to-fifteen-percent cut for the CIA." "The Senator and I will talk," Rodgers said. "We need more HUMINT out there. With all the changes going on in Europe and the Middle East and especially Turkey, we need more assets in the field. I think I can make her see that." "General," McCaskey said, "I hope you're right. I don't think the lady has had a reasonable day since her daughter was murdered and her husband put a gun in his mouth." "She's still on a committee whose job is to help safeguard the country," Rodgers said. "That has to come before anything." "She also has taxpaying constituents to answer to," McCaskey said. "Anyway, I wish you luck." "Thanks," Rodgers said. He did not actually feel as confident as he'd sounded, nor did he bother to tell McCaskey what A. E. Housman said about luck: "Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure." And whenever the thorny Fox was involved with a project, trouble was sure.
Two minutes later, Rodgers was off the expressway and headed toward the gate at Andrews AFB. As he drove the familiar roads, he phoned Hood on his cellular phone for the short morning check-in. He briefed him on what had happened with Billy, and told him that he was putting Darrell on the case to find out who was behind the game. Hood agreed completely.
After hanging up, Rodgers thought about the hate groups and wondered if they were more pervasive than ever, or if the instant media coverage simply made people more aware of them.
Or maybe it's both, he thought as he passed the sentry at the gate. The media coverage of these groups inspired like-minded racists to form their own groups, causing the media to report on the "phenomenon" of hate groups. One dirty hand washes the other.