by Tom Clancy
The team went to work efficiently gathering the information.
For a biography of Deputy Foreign Minister Richard Hausen and any information on his father, Smythe went online and executed FTPs— File Transfer Protocols— to acquire data from ECRC Munich, Deutsche Elektronen Synchotron, Gerniart Electro-Synchotron, DKFZ Heidelberg, Gesellschaft fr wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung GmbH, Konrad Zuse Zentrum fr Informationstechnik Konrad Zuse Center, and Comprehensive TeX Archive Network Heidelberg. Neuman used three computers to enter gopherspace on the Internet and accessed information from Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum Hamburg, EUnet Germany, the German Network Information Center, and ZIB, Berlin auf Ufer. With the help of an aide to Matt Stoll, Deputy Assistant Director of Operations Grady Reynolds, they hacked into tax, employment, and education records of the former Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic,
The records of many Germans, especially the former East Germans, existed as hard copy only. However, the educational and financial history of politicial figures would have to have been put on disk for filing with various government commissions. Moreover, many large corporations had scanned their books onto computer. Those, at least, might also be available.
Darrell McCaskey's office, which had dominion over contact with other agencies, put them on-line with the FBI, Interpol, and various German law enforcement agencies: the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA, the German equivalent of the FBI; the Landespolizei; the Bundeszollpolizei or Federal Customs Police; and the Bundespostpolizei, the Federal Postal Police. The Bundeszollpolizei and the Bundespostpolizei often caught up with felons who had managed to slip past the others.
As the two assistants word-searched data and retrieved blocks of information about Hausen, Dr. Benn wrote it up in essential, digestible chunks. Since Hood had requested a phone call, Benn would read it to him. However, the data would also be stored for downloading or hard-copy printout.
Reading the information which came in, and rereading the original request, he wondered if Hood had got things quite right. There seemed to be some confusion about which Hausen had done what during his career.
Nonetheless, Benn continued to work quickly in order to meet the deadline Hood had imposed.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Thursday, 3:01 P.M., Washington, D.C.
All requests for information from the RI-Search division were automatically given a job number and timecoded by computer. Job numbers were always prefixed by one, two, or three digits which identified the individual making the request. Since requests were frequently made by someone in a dangerous situation, other individuals were automatically notified when those requests came in. If anything happened to the person in the field, their backup would be required to step in and finish the operation.
When Hood asked for data from RI-Search, Mike dodgers was alerted by a beep from his computer. Had he not been present, the signal would have sounded once every minute.
But he was there, eating a late lunch at his desk.
Between bites of microwaved hamburger from the commissary, he examined the request. And he began to worry.
Rodgers and Hood were unalike in many ways. Chief among the differences was their worldview. Hood believed in the goodness of people while Rodgers believed that humankind was basically self absorbed, a collection of territorial carnivores. Rodgers felt that the evidence was on his side. If it were not, then he and millions of soldiers like him wouldn't have jobs.
Rodgers also felt that if Paul Hood had doubts about the Hausen clan, there must really be cause for concern.
"He's going into France to search for a terrorist group with Matt Stoll as backup," the General said to his empty office. He looked at his computer. He wished he could input ROC and have the Regional Op-Center, fully staffed and with Striker personnel on hand, on site in Toulouse. Instead, he typed in MAPEURO.
A full-color map of Europe appeared. He overlaid a grid and studied it for a moment.
"Five hundred and forty miles," he said as his eyes went from Northern Italy to the South of France.
Rodgers hit ESC and typed NATOITALY.
Within five seconds a two-column menu was onscreen, offering selections from Troop deployment to Transportation resources, from Armaments to Wargame simulation programs.
He moved the cursor to Transportation and a second menu appeared. He selected Air transport. A third menu offered a listing of aircraft types and airfields. The Sikorsky CH-53E was free. The three engined chopper had a range of over twelve hundred miles, and it had room enough for what he was planning. But at 196 miles an hour, it wasn't fast enough. He moved down the list. And stopped.
The V-22 Osprey. A Bell and Boeing vertical takeoff and landing vehicle. Its range was nearly 1,400 miles at a cruising speed of 345 miles an hour. Perhaps best of all was the fact that one of the prototypes had been turned over to the Sixth Fleet for testing in Naples.
Rodgers smiled, then escaped from the menu and called up his phone directory on-screen. He moved the cursor to NATO Direct Lines and selected the Senior NATO military commander in Europe, General Vincenzo DiFate.
Within three minutes, Rodgers had pulled the General away from a dinner party at the Spanish Embassy in London and was explaining why he needed to borrow the chopper and ten French soldiers.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Thursday, 9:02 P.M., Wunstorf, Germany
"Stupid cripple!" Herbert had heard some strong epithets in his day.
He'd heard them being thrown at blacks in Mississippi, at Jews in the former Soviet Union, and at Americans in Beirut.
But what the young sentry shouted as he stalked toward Jody was one of the dumbest invectives he'd ever heard.
Weak as it was, though, it still pissed him off.
Herbert snatched the flashlight from his chair and took a moment to glance into the driver's side of the car he'd followed here. Then he scooted to the side lest someone shoot at his light. He watched from the darkness as the sentry reached Jody and she finally stopped walking. Then Herbert pulled the Skorpion from under his leg.
Jody and the sentry were about ten yards from Herbert and twenty-five yards from the line of neo-Nazis. Beyond them, the rally continued undisrupted.
Jody was standing directly between Herbert and the sentry.
The boy asked something in German. Jody said she didn't understand. He shouted to someone behind him for instructions about what to do. As he did, he stepped slightly to the left. Herbert aimed the Skorpion at the boy's right shin and fired.
The brawny youth went down with a shriek.
"Now we're both crippled," Herbert muttered as he stashed the gun in a worn leather pocket on the side of the chair. He rolled quickly toward the passenger's side of the car.
The crowd fell silent and the line of neo-Nazis hit the dirt well behind the wounded man. The rise in the terrain made it impossible for them to fire from where they were— though Herbert knew they wouldn't stay there for long.
As Herbert rounded the car he yelled to Jody, "Do your thing and then let's go!" The girl looked at him, then looked across the field of white faces. "You didn't beat me," she yelled in a strong voice. "And you won't." Herbert opened the passenger's side. "Jody!" The girl looked down at the wounded boy, then ran back.
"Get in the driver's side," Herbert told her as he started to pull himself in. "The keys are still in the ignition." Some of the ralliers had begun to shout. One of the neo-Nazis in the line had gotten up. She was holding a gun.
She aimed at Jody.
"Shit," Herbert said and fired through the window. Jody screamed and clutched at her ears. Hebert's shot struck the German in the thigh and she was thrown backward behind a splash of blood.
Herbert got back out of the car and into his wheelchair and covered her retreat from behind the open door. Jody got into the car, started the engine, and gunned it. The young woman was no longer composed. She was shaking and breathing heavily, exhibiting a classic post-stress breakdown.
Herber
t couldn't afford to lose her. "Jody," he said, "I want you to listen to me." She began to cry.
"Jody!" "What!" she screamed. "What, what, what?" "I want you to back the car away slowly." She was gripping the wheel and looking down. The mob was roiling like ants behind the prostrate front line. In the distance, Herbert could see the speaker talking with a woman. It was only a matter of time, maybe just seconds, before they were attacked.
"Jody," Herbert said patiently, "I need you to put the car in reverse and back away very slowly." Herbert knew that he wouldn't be able to get in the car without lowering the gun. And lowering the gun, they'd be attacked. He took a quick look back. As far as he could tell in the dark, the terrain behind him was clear for several hundred yards. His plan was to let the open car door move him and the chair backwards, allowing him to keep the gun trained ahead as they retreated. When they were a safe distance away, he'd pull himself in and they could drive off.
That was the plan, anyway.
"Jody, are you listening?" She nodded, sniffled, and stopped crying.
"Can you drive us back slowly?" With painful slowness and uncertainty Jody put her hand on the gearshift. She started to cry again.
"Jody," Herbert said calmly, "we've really got to go." She moved the lever just as the front tires exploded.
The car left the ground as they blew up, chewed apart by a burst of gunfire from somewhere ahead. The open door flopped back, slapping Herbert toward the rear of the car. A moment later gunfire from a semi-automatic began eating into the open door. The crowd had parted to make a path and a woman was holding the weapon under her arm. As Lang had said— was it only that morning? — "This can only be Karin Doring." Herbert rolled back. He opened the rear door, got behind it, and fired a burst from around the side. That kept the front line pinned down though it didn't stop the woman.
She was coming as inexorably as winter.
Jody was crying. Herbert saw the guns in the backseat.
He also saw something else there, something he could use.
He fired another few rounds at the mob, then said, "Jody. I need you. to cover me." She shook her head. He knew she had no idea what he was saying.
Bullets slammed into the front door. A couple more bursts and they're goin' right through, he thought. Then they'd penetrate his door and after that they'd penetrate him.
"Jody!" Herbert screamed. "You've got to reach through the partition, take the guns from the backseat, and shoot.
Shoot, Jody, or we're dead!" The young woman was squeezing the wheel.
"Jody!" She continued to cry.
Desperate, Herbert turned toward her and put a round into the seat beside her thigh. She screamed and jumped as feather-light padding flew up, then drifted down.
"Judy," he repeated. "Take the guns and shoot Karin Doring or she will goddamn own you!" The student turned to him, wide-eyed. Apparently that she understood. Turning determinedly toward the back, Jody stretched through the open partition and grabbed the two guns.
"Release the safeties," Herbert said, "the little latches on the—" "Got them," Jody said.
He looked at her as she sniffed back tears. Then he watched as she fired a burst at the windshield, leaned back against the seat, and kicked out the shattered expanse of glass with a yell.
"Amazing," he said under his breath. "Gauge your fire!" he cautioned as he leaned into the car. "Conserve ammo!" He kept an eye on the front line of neo-Nazis as he picked up the six sparkling water bottles and put them. in the leather pouch of his chair. As Karin Doring neared, the line grew bolder and one of the men rose.
"Bastard!" Jody screamed and shot at him.
The shot went wide, but the German dropped.
Herbert shook his head. I've bred myself a little killer here, he thought as he twisted the bottle caps from two of them and spilled the contents onto the ground. When they were empty, he rolled back a few feet and used his Urban Skinner to cut a section of gray tubing from the left wheel of his chair. Even Karin Doring wouldn't be able to walk through a wall of fire.
Bullets scudded across the hood of the car and ricocheted off. Jody threw herself to the far left. Obviously realizing she'd trapped herself against the door, she dropped to her right side. A moment later bullets ripped through the car and buried themselves in the backseat.
"Jody," Herbert yelled, "push in the cigarette lighter!" She did, then ducked back down. Herbert knew she wasn't going to be getting up again.
Karin was about three hundred yards away. Apparently sensing that they were safe, the other Germans began moving forward.
By this time, Herbert had opened the gas tank and was siphoning fuel into the bottles. Bullets began striking the car with greater frequency. Flashes rose from different parts of the crowd. In about half a minute, he and Jody were going to be Mr. and Ms. Frankenstein in the hands of angry villagers.
He heard the click of the cigarette lighter. Jody wasn't going to be able to help him. Rolling forward quickly, seeing far too much firelight through the perforated front door, Herbert reached through the front passenger's side and pulled up some of the stuffing from the bullet-ridden seat.
He set one of the bottles on the floor and jammed the stuffing into the other. Then he snatched the cigarette lighter from the dashboard, touched it to the padding, watched as nothing happened.
And realized with horror that the damn stuff was flame resistant.
With an oath, he pushed the padding in partway. Then he dropped the lighter into the bottle and threw it with a high, arcing stiff arm. He prayed the wadding would fall.
It did. The Molotov cocktail exploded in mid-flight, showering the front of the mob with flaming droplets and shards of glass. Screams rose from where the burning splashes struck flesh or eyes.
Jody looked up from the seat. Her fear was replaced by amazement. Her gaze shifted from the fireworks to Herbert.
"I'm out of bombs," he said as he pulled himself in. "I suggest we move." Herbert shut the door as best he could as Jody backed the limousine away. Ahead, Karin Doring pushed through the crowd, firing after the car. Other guns joined in.
"Oww—" Herbert looked to the left as Jody moaned. She slumped toward him. The car slowed, then stopped.
He leaned over, saw that she'd been hit in the shoulder. Outside the rib, it looked like, under the clavicle.
She was panting, her eyes pressed tightly together. He tried to shift himself so her arm was resting on his shoulder and there was no pressure on the wound. As he moved himself and her, he saw the cigarette pack in the pocket of her blouse. He quickly removed it, and his heart jumped when he saw the matches tucked in the cellophane wrapper.
Laying Jody down on the seat, he scooted to the right, picked up the second bottle from the floor, and nestled it between his thighs. Kann had cleared the mob and was reloading her semi-automatic. Herbert pulled out his handkerchief, jammed it in the bottle, and struck a match.
He touched it to the fabric, which flamed and disintegrated faster than he had expected.
"Either they don't burn or they freakin' immolate you," he said as he leaned out the door and chucked the bottle toward Karin.
The glass cracked audibly as the gasoline spread. A flame sparked, spread, and rose up. Like organ music, Herbert thought.
He turned immediately to Jody. She was holding her shoulder. He knew that the area would pretty much have gone numb, and the worst pain she would feel was when she moved.
Herbert folded his chair and pulled into the car, largely so he could have the phone if he needed it. He wasn't sure if the phone in the limousine had survived the gunplay. Then he helped Jody up.
"Judy," he whispered, "I need you to do something.
Can you hear me?" She nodded once, weakly.
"I can't step on the gas. You'll have to do that for me.
Do you think you can do that?" She nodded again.
He wedged himself behind her slightly and took the wheel. He looked ahead and caught glimpses of a man holding Karin back fro
m charging through the curtain of fire.
"Judy? We don't have much time. I'll take care of you, but we have to get out of here first." She nodded again, licked her lips, and gasped as she extended her leg. Jody's eyes were shut, but Herbert watched as she felt around for the gas pedal.
"There," he said. "You've got it. Now push." Jody did so, gently, and the car started back. His right arm across his chest, his hand on the steering wheel, Herbert turned around. He guided them along the roughhewn path, through the trees, as the orange glow of the fire flashed dully on the rear window.
Bullets clanged against the front of the car, but with less force than before. They were shooting through the fire, blindly, as somebody shouted for everyone to calm down.
Chaos on Chaos Days, Herbert thought with some satisfaction. Feuer stopped by fire.
The ironies would have been delicious if he had time to savor them.
The car continued to move backward. The steering was awkward and they jerked on the broken front wheels and slammed the occasional tree as they retreated. Soon, the camp was just a glow reflected against the low-lying clouds of the evening sky. Herbert was beginning to think that they might actually get out of the woods alive.
And then the car died.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Thursday, 9:14 P.M., Wunstorf, Germany
Karin Doring coolly brushed away the fiery beads of gas which rained down on her. Her mind was on the cowardly behavior of her followers, but she refused to allow that to distract her. Like a fox, her eyes were on her prey.
She watched the retreating car through the flame and smoke, through the rushing, tumbling mass of her followers.
Clever man, she thought bitterly. No headlights. He was backing away, driving by the dull glow of his braking lights. And then those lights went off. The SA dagger dangled from her belt hook by its metal clasp. The gun she held would be for the man. The dagger: that was for the girl.
Manfred grasped her shoulder from behind. "Karin! We have wounded. Richter needs your help to restore—" "I want those two," she sneered. "Let Richter deal with the bedlam. He wanted to lead. Let him." "He can't lead our people," Manfred said. "They won't accept him yet." "Then you do it." Manfred said, "You know they'll only march into Hell for you." Karin rolled her shoulder to throw off Manfred's hand.