The Monkey Handlers

by G Gordon Liddy

“All right,” said Stone, “let’s launch. Saul, get the Mustang and take Eddie and our Mexican friend here to the hospital. Drop ’em off at the emergency room and don’t wait around to explain. Get back to the house as fast as you can. I’ll take Sara and the boys home in the van.”

  “No!” said Sara. “I go with Eddie!”

  At that moment, Eddie Berg saw in a monitor a man holding a pistol ease his way out of a fire-stair door. It was a wide-angle shot and on the other side of the hallway shown was an open elevator door. With a shock, Eddie realized the monitor covered that part of the entrance hall outside the view of the monitoring desk. The man was only feet away from appearing from behind them with a drawn gun. As Eddie shouted, “Look out!” the man came around the corner, pistol in front of him. Eddie Berg leapt at him, trying to knock the pistol away. With only one eye to use, his depth perception was off, and he missed. The gunman didn’t. Eddie took a 9 mm in the left shoulder and went down. Sara screamed. Michael Stone shot the man between the eyes with his .45 Colt, rushed to Eddie Berg, and helped him to his feet, asking, “Can you make it to the van, kid?”

  Eddie just nodded. Saul took him from Stone and Sara ripped her dress again to make a compress that she pressed into the hole in Eddie’s shoulder to stanch the flow of blood.

  “All right, Saul, take the van with Eddie and Sara. We’ll take the Mustang.” Sirens sounded in the distance. “Go!” Stone commanded.

  18

  Helmar Metz stood in front of the elevator and observed with disgust Foley, who was seated on the car floor gingerly testing his jaw to see whether it was broken. “Describe your attacker,” he said impatiently.

  “Sorry, sir. I never saw him. Put my head into the empty—well, it looked empty—car and wham! the lights went out.”

  Metz reached down and freed the car door by removing the half-crushed 7.62 cartridge casing wedged under it, but because of the alarm interlock, the door stayed open. He threw the casing down on the floor and said, “Find the nearest telephone. Call the fire department and cancel the alarm. Then use the fire stairs and get down to the alarm control and turn it off. Schnell! I want the elevators back in operation.”

  Foley, who didn’t speak German, had seen enough old war movies to know what Schnell meant, and he struggled to his feet and lurched off toward the fire stairs, several times almost falling down as his feet slipped on the rolling cartridge casings that littered the hall floor. Metz walked over to the door of the laboratory. One of his men was posted at the door. “Is it clear?” he asked.

  Assured that no enemies lurked in the laboratory, Metz entered and surveyed the carnage. He moved about without speaking, stepping carefully to avoid the more obvious clumps of entrails and puddles of blood, and observed the dead. Each corpse had two closely spaced bullet holes in the head. Some of the cartridge casings were 9 mm. Others were the big American military 11.25 mm, or .45-caliber as they called it. His men who had caught a glimpse of the AK-47 gunner had described him as having dark clothing, a painted face, and a bandanna. Coupling that with the precision marksmanship, the British Special Air Service trick of mixing animal entrails with the breaching explosive, and the skill with a knife displayed previously by the intruder convinced Metz he was dealing with professional Special Warfare types. SAS veteran mercenaries perhaps? His men, who had managed to hear a word or two spoken by the AK gunner, were not sufficiently familiar with English to be able to distinguish a British from an American accent. Or could it be Al Rajul’s people? If so, why the attack to free the American prisoners—and before the ship had sailed with what he had wanted so badly that he had kidnapped Hoess’s son? Nothing was making sense and that disturbed Metz most of all.

  Metz continued his inspection. Then, suddenly, it hit him. Where was Letzger? His body wasn’t to be found. Metz went into the acid-vat room and walked all around the vat. The exhaust hood hummed as it sucked off the toxic fumes. All appeared in order. Well, Letzger was a clever fellow; perhaps he had managed to escape. If so, he’d show up shortly.

  The telephone on the wall rang. Metz answered it. One of his men reported the death at the plant entrance of another of his men. “Bring the body here and clean things up immediately,” he said, and hung up.

  The telephone call snapped Metz out of his reverie and he barked a series of commands: “All corpses into the acid. The same with any other organic matter. Get all of these spent casings up. I don’t want a single one found later under a piece of furniture. Then clean it up so we can get the carpenters and painters in without their wondering what happened here. Remove the door to the fire stairs and get a new one sent up. Putty up all bullet holes out there and paint over them. Schnell, or we’ll have some extra bodies for the acid!” He turned and made his way back to the elevator bank and cursed to see that the door was still open, indicating that, although the alarm had been silenced, Foley had not yet figured out how to reset the elevator interlock. He was about to check his watch when Foley huffed and puffed his way through the remnants of the fire-stairs door after climbing the twelve flights back up. “Out of condition at your age?” Metz snapped as the breathless guard approached him. Foley was too tired to respond to the gibe.

  “I got the alarm off, sir, but I couldn’t reset the interlock on the elevators. It’ll take an elevator mechanic. And the fire department’s coming. They said they were already on their way and have to make a report.”

  Metz frowned. He was tempted to stand up to the firemen himself but concluded that things would look more normal if a uniformed guard handled it. “Tell them when they arrive it was a false alarm and that the company takes responsibility. Thank them for being so prompt and so on. And straighten yourself up. Look presentable.”

  “Yes, sir. I got a description for you, sir. Whittle, the outside guard? They had him all handcuffed up and gagged, but he got a good look at them. Big, tough guys. Very professional. Dark clothing. Bandannas. Camo paint on their faces. Handguns, mostly. Very cool. Christ knows how they got up there. They sure as shit didn’t go through the front entrance.”

  “I see,” said Metz. “Very well. Now get going and keep those firemen out of here.”

  Metz didn’t wait for a reply. He turned on his heel and made for the fire stairs, taking the six floors up to the eighteenth floor with ease. When he arrived, he went straight to his accommodations in Kramer’s office, walked over to the scrambler telephone, then hesitated. On the one hand, he was obligated professionally to keep his employer fully informed of important developments. On the other hand, he lacked the information to respond to Hoess’s questions as to who was behind the attack. Lastly, Hoess had already given him his ultimate priority: See to it that the ship sailed as scheduled with its precious cargo so as not to endanger Hoess’s son. Metz glanced at his watch: 0539. He must assume a worst-case situation … that the mission of the ship was known and an attempt would be made to stop it from sailing, the presence of the gas betrayed and a failure to deliver responsible for the death of Hoess’s boy. His opposition was clearly professional, no matter who they were or for whom they were working. The best thing to do was to put himself in his opponent’s place. How would he, Metz, ensure that the ship did not sail? To a veteran Kampfschwimmer, the answer was obvious: Disable the vessel. The opposition had already proven it had access to explosives. Limpet mine? Perhaps. But if they were really sophisticated, they would go for the propeller-shaft support.

  His decision taken, Metz turned away from the telephone. His next report to Hoess would be to signal success. If he failed, it would be up to others to convey it. He went to the equipment he had sent over from Germany. He knew exactly where to look because he had packed it himself. Within moments, he retrieved a Draeger rebreather unit. Worn on the chest instead of the back as is normal scuba gear, the Draeger unit would allow him to breathe underwater without leaving any telltale bubble trail. When whoever they were came to disable the ship, Metz would be ready for them, lying in wait, with nothing to betray his presence, no matter
how professional they were. Metz smiled a mirthless smile to himself. It wasn’t all that long ago that he was the best frogman in the German navy. Once in the water, he’d show them what it meant to be a professional!

  * * *

  “Where’s Sara?” Stone looked past Saul Rosen out the door to his home to see whether she was trailing behind for some reason.

  “She’s at the emergency room with Eddie Berg. Wouldn’t leave until she’s sure he’s gonna be okay.” He stepped into the front hall just as the grandfather clock intoned the three-quarter hour at 5:45 A.M.

  “Goddamn it!” Michael Stone fumed. “They’re sure to question her about how he was injured. The Mexican, too, for that matter. Just what I wanted to avoid.”

  “I know, Mike, but she’s operating on feelings right now, not intellect. There was no use arguing. I told her to say she found them wandering around outside of Riegar, the blind leading the blind. That she was there getting ready for today’s protest. Then to take a cab to her place when she left, not here.”

  “Why didn’t you stay and bring her back yourself?”

  “Because of this, Mike, remember?” Saul held up the bloody notebook. Pappy Saye and Arno wandered in from the kitchen, drinking coffee. “Wings is making pancakes, Mike. When do we debrief for the after-action report?”

  “Please, Mike,” Saul said urgently, “listen to me first. This is a scientific notebook of a guy named Letzger, back there in the lab. First, it confirms what I told you about what the GB on the bottles of gas meant. Look.…” Saul had the blood-splattered notebook open to an early page. At the top it read: Monographie Nr. 62 zu Angewandte Chemie und Chemi-Ingenieur-Technik (Verlag Chemie 1951) Schrader, G. Die Entwicklung neurer Insektizide auf Grundlage organischer Fluor- und Phosphor-Vervindungen.

  Michael Stone furrowed his brow. “I can’t read this stuff, Saul. Hey, Arno. Take a look at this.”

  Arno Bitt took the notebook, saying, “I speak German pretty good, but I’m not so hot at readin’ it. Anyway, looks like this guy is starting out with a known. What’s in a monograph, number 62, by a chemical and technical engineer named Schrader, written in 1951, about a new insecticide made by combining phosphorus and fluorine.”

  “Insecticide,” said Pappy Saye. “Isn’t that what the Nazis used to kill all them Jews in the gas chambers?”

  “You’re right,” said Saul. “Zyklon B. It was formulated originally as a commercial insecticide. Proved so toxic, they decided to use it on the Jews. But that stuff’s nothing to this stuff. Here, I told you, Mike, I’m in the technology-gathering business. Here’s something I can read.” He pointed down the page toward where appeared:

  “That,” said Saul heatedly, “is isopropyl methylphosphonoflouridate, the chemical formula for Sarin. Military symbol, GB. The deadliest nerve gas in the world. One two-hundred-fifty-millionth of an ounce is enough to kill you: You don’t even have to breathe it in, just let that microscopic amount get on your skin and you die, your muscles twitching, vomiting and shitting at the same time, drooling, in convulsions, coma and death from respiratory failure. Nice, huh?”

  “Jesus!” said Pappy. “That shit was in that lab where we was at?”

  “No,” said Saul.

  “But you just said…” Pappy protested.

  “Lemme lay it out for you,” Saul said. “First of all, that German study Arno read out for us was made way back in 1951. Sarin is nothing new. The United States has eight stockpiles of quarter-ton bombs and artillery shells full of the stuff. They’re mostly in the South and West. The closest to us is in Aberdeen, Maryland.”

  “Man, how do you know that shit?” asked Pappy.

  “It’s my job to know. Mike’ll explain later. At any rate, the United States is getting rid of it. It’s just too damn dangerous. One leak, and you wipe out a major city, if there’s one around. It’s just not politically feasible in this day and age to keep something like that around in this country anymore. You’ve gotta have poison gas that’s environmentally safe. How’s that for an oxymoron?”

  “Man,” said Pappy, “any kinda moron would know better’n to have that shit around.”

  “Right,” said Saul. “The solution was binary gases. Like the atom bomb. You take two subcritical mass–sized pieces of uranium two thirty-five. So long as they’re apart, nothing. Slam ’em together and wham! Mushroom city. Same thing in the new gas technology approach. You have two chemicals, harmless when apart. Mix ’em up and it’s all over. So both superpowers have it. Shit, even Iraq claims to have it now.”

  “So, what’s the big deal?” asked Wings.

  “Sarin has one limitation. It disperses very quickly. It’s so deadly so fast that’s usually not a problem. But an attacker can’t deny an area for any time at all with it, unless the weather is very cold. That’s the only condition under which it’ll linger. So, naturally, both superpowers have been working on an all-weather lingering Sarin. Only, guess what, friends and neighbors? Riegar just won the race. And it’s binary. Remember those two bottles in the lab with the tubing from each leading into one tube where it could mix? Remember the markings on the bottles? The L in parentheses after the GB? Well, look here in the notebook.” Saul held his finger under a word in German.

  “Man!” Pappy exclaimed in exasperation. “What’s it say?”

  “Langwierig,” Saul answered.

  “Lingering,” Arno Bitt translated. “Jesus H. Christ!”

  “To forty-five degrees Celsius. That’s one hundred and thirteen degrees Fahrenheit.”

  There was a stunned silence. Saul Rosen let the full impact sink in on the others, then continued: “And now we jump to the back of the book, where, in the midst of the German, we suddenly find some Japanese: Aka Maru. Every Japanese ship I ever heard of was the somebody Maru. Want to take a crack at it, Arno?”

  Arno Bitt held the book as if the notebook itself might be a deadly poison. He read for a minute, then said, “Holy shit. They loaded two fifty-kilogram cylinders—one of GB (L) One and one of GB (L) Two—last night on a ship named the Aka Maru. That’s a hundred and ten pounds each. Deduct the weight of cylinders strong enough to hold that much liquid under inert gas pressure and you’d still have almost a hundred pounds of liquid, lingering Sarin when combined!”

  “Lethal,” Saul emphasized, “at a dose of one two-hundred-fifty-millionth of an ounce per person. I don’t want to have to do the arithmetic, and I don’t know where that ship in the Riegar dock is supposed to be going, but anyone wanna bet its name isn’t Aka Maru, or speculate on what might happen if that stuff ever gets into the hands of Qaddafi?”

  “Or Iran?” offered Arno.

  “Or Iraq?” Pappy submitted.

  “That fuckin’ ship’s going nowhere,” said Stone. The grandfather clock boomed out the hour of 6:00 A.M. “Jesus,” he said, “where’s the morning paper?”

  Wings Harper strolled in from the kitchen to announce flapjacks were ready, ignorant of the conversation that had taken place. The others glared at him. “Okay, okay!” he said. “I’ll go bring in the paper. Little postop nerves, huh?”

  The paper had been left on the steps outside the door. Michael Stone grabbed it, turned the pages rapidly, stopped at the weather, then hit it with his hand in frustration. “Damn! Tide’s an hour from now. No way we’ll get anybody to listen to our story in time.”

  “Does this,” said Wings Harper, “mean we don’t get to have breakfast?”

  * * *

  “How much longer,” said Stephanie Hannigan, “to this mystery restaurant of yours?”

  Brian Sullivan looked over at her from behind the wheel of his rental sedan and smiled mischievously. “Restaurant? And who said anythin’ about a restaurant?” He negotiated a turn down a street still deserted at 6:00 A.M. along the river industrial district.

  Stephanie’s face clouded over, Naomi’s reservations leaping to mind. “You said you had this terrific place to have breakfast with a great view of the river, and if you’ve got something
dumb in mind like your apartment or something, you can just let me out right here. A morning walk will do me good.”

  “For heaven’s sake, lass. Why of a sudden do y’take me for a fool or a rake?”

  “Because when you ask someone to breakfast, they assume you’re going to take them to a restaurant, especially when you build it up the way you did, and my friend Naomi Fine suspects your intentions, and here we are in the worst part of town, and you admit there’s no restaurant, and—”

  Sullivan cut her off. “Do I know yer fine friend, no pun intended? Does she know me?”

  “No, but—”

  “Have I ever done or said anythin’ to you was untoward?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then can y’not spare me just a little trust? We’re almost there and … hello, what’s all this?”

  They were on the street that would take them past the Riegar plant, but the way was blocked by fire apparatus and police. An ambulance was directly outside the entrance, and the flashing lights of all three types of emergency vehicles added to the garishness of the early-morning hubbub. Brian Sullivan pulled over. “Excuse me fer just a moment, please,” he said to Stephanie, “me reportorial duties come before all.” Before Stephanie could reply, he was out of the car and on his way over to a police officer whose face bore the map of Ireland. Sullivan displayed his Reuters press credentials and asked, “‘Marnin’, Officer. Could you be assistin’ me in makin’ me honest livin’ and tell me what it is is goin’ on here?”

  The police officer’s face lit up at the lilt of Sullivan’s accent. “It’s from Derry, y’are, is it?”

  “Originally, it is so.”

  “Well, then, if y’won’t let on to the black prods it was O’Shea who told ya, we’ve got a bit of a mystery goin’ on. The fire alarm was pulled in the lobby, yet when the firemen got here, the rent-a-cops denied all. Only there was a telephone call ta the police sayin’ there was a man with a hole in him stuck in an elevator in the basement, an’ sure enough, there was. Had a regular winda in him, he did. They’re in there tryin’ ta figger out how to move ’im now.”