High Flight

by David Hagberg

  Louis looked to his half-brother, who smiled and nodded, then back to Mueller, his enthusiasm returning. “It was Mr. Reid’s articles that got me thinking, that and the fact that InterTech is owned, or at least controlled, by the Japanese.”

  “Could you duplicate this device for us?” Mueller asked.

  “You mean build it?” Zerkel asked. He shrugged. “I suppose so, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye, you know. It’s the new module they switched. Could be a receiver. Have to build a transmitter to find out. But this little baby could have brought down that jet in ’90. What do you think about that?”

  “Brilliant, Louis. It’s just brilliant. Would you be willing to come along to Washington with us and work it out?”

  “When?”

  “Right now. This morning.”

  “Holy Jesus.”

  “Mr. Reid would very much like to meet you and have you on our team. We’re assembling only the very best, because, as you certainly understand, this is very important.”

  “Don’t you know it,” Louis Zerkel said excitedly. “What do I tell my boss? Or Dr. Shepard?”

  “We’ll take care of all that for you. We’d just like you to pack a few things, perhaps take the disks on which you’ve stored the data you might need, and we’ll be on our way before the sun comes up.”

  “Holy Jesus, what do you think about that? It’s very important.”

  “Very important,” Mueller repeated.

  “Something’s got to be done.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “By God, I’ll help,” Zerkel said.

  Mueller took out the Beretta .380, wiped it down with his handkerchief, and held it out. “Have you ever used one of these, Mr. Zerkel?”

  Louis flinched and shied away. “No.”

  “Well, I’d like you to hold it, for just a moment, to see what it feels like.”

  Zerkel hesitated, but Mueller kept holding the automatic out to him, butt first. Finally he took it, hefted it, and then handed it back.

  “It’s heavy,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” Mueller agreed. “As soon as you’re ready we’ll leave for the airport.”

  “This’ll take about ten minutes,” Louis Zerkel said, turning back to his computer.

  Glen watched closely as Mueller stuffed the Beretta under a stack of computer printout on the floor, then using his handkerchief so that he would leave no prints, tossed one of Dr. Shepard’s business cards into a wastebasket. “What do you think about that?” he said to himself.

  The sun was coming up behind them as the Maryland National Guard C130 transport aircraft crossed over the city of Sacramento and started its long descent into Oakland International Airport on Bay Farm Island. Communications Technician Specialist 6 Luis Guerra called McLaren forward. “Your boss is on the horn. He wants to talk to you.”

  “A couple of things before you touch down,” John Whitman said. “Ballistics has an ID on Tallerico’s murder weapon. It’s a 7.65 mm German Luger. Probably a collector’s item. Registration is checking it out, but nobody’s holding their breath.”

  “We’ll be on the ground in twenty minutes,” McLaren said. “Anything else?”

  “The other face in the picture. The man with Glen Zerkel. But I don’t know what the hell to make of it. His name is Bruno Mueller. A colonel in the former East German Secret Service. A paid assassin. The French want him in the worst way. He’s the last surviving member of a gang of ex-Stasi officers who’ve been terrorizing the French for the past few years. Apparently he escaped after a shootout south of Paris, and they put his photo on the international wire.”

  “I think I saw it when it came in,” McLaren said. “I just couldn’t place it the other night.”

  “He’s one tough sonofabitch, Al.”

  “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Unknown.”

  “I’ll pass it along to Phil. Anything else?”

  “That’s it for now. Just watch yourself.”

  “Will do,” McLaren said, and he went back to tell Joyce the good news.

  NINE

  The meeting was held in the Council of Ministers building great hall inside the Kremlin. Chairs were placed around a highly polished oval table forty feet long and ten feet wide. David Kennedy took his place on one side of the table, his negotiating team of fifteen men and two women seated to his left and right. Opposite him, the Russian Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Affairs, Viktor Gregorevich Matushin, and his team of fifteen men and two women took their places. Coffee, tea, and carafes of iced mineral water were served by a team of efficient stewards. For the first ten minutes as everybody was settling down, photographers were allowed in the room. Finally, however, Minister Matushin made a signal, and they cleared out.

  “If this were Washington, D.C., I don’t believe we would have gotten rid of the media so easily, Mr. Minister,” Kennedy said pleasantly.

  Matushin’s translator provided the Russian simultaneously, and the minister smiled. “They’re my photographers,” he said in English. “Time enough for the news media later, don’t you agree?”

  “Wholeheartedly. We don’t need the international press trying to second-guess us.”

  “I understand the problems you are facing, Mr. Kennedy. So long as you understand mine we will come to an agreement.”

  Kennedy nodded. “I think I do.” Russia’s new metal-backed monetary system had not gained acceptance in the world marketplace. The shortages of hard Western currencies with which to purchase desperately needed foreign foods and American or German machinery were worse than ever. Three years ago they’d begun peddling weapons and weapons systems, but so aggressively that within forty-eight months the market was glutted. Prices dropped and finally the demand slowed. There were just so many emerging nations wanting war materials. Although the threat of global thermonuclear conflict was all but eliminated, never in human history had the world been so heavily armed. “Have you been given the authority to make a final agreement here?”

  “Yes, I have,” Matushin answered. “What about Mr. Vasilanti and your board of directors? Will they need to vote their approval?”

  “Normally, yes,” Kennedy said. “But in this instance I have been given the full voice of the company. Unless I blunder badly, there’ll be no problem.”

  Matushin and his translator exchanged some words, and Kennedy leaned over toward his translator Sally Fine.

  “Mr. Matushin has asked for the correct meaning of ‘blunder,’” she said.

  Matushin grinned broadly. “Let us hope that neither of us blunder, Mr. Kennedy. Frankly speaking, we need this factory as badly as Guerin Airplane Company needs success with its new design.”

  Kennedy’s ears perked up. McGarvey had warned him about just this. Ask the Russians for hard intelligence and their first move will be to gather information about the customer—the agency, or in this case, the company asking for help. Matushin had his experts advising him. Around the table this morning would be at least two FIS officers posing as either government or financial experts. He wished McGarvey were here now, if for nothing else than balance. He’d come in early this morning and had gone back out just before this meeting started. Kennedy hadn’t had a chance to speak with him, nor apparently had any of the others. There was no telling where he was or what he was doing.

  The Russians probably knew just how close to bankruptcy Guerin was, and therefore how important the P/C2622 had become. They also understood that the Japanese were offering the biggest threat to them, and that if Guerin went down the Russians stood to lose a substantial source of foreign exchange. But in one sentence Matushin had admitted knowing all of that. He had laid his cards on the table: We need each other. There couldn’t be any other interpretation. Kennedy decided that he would never make it as a politician, but he was learning.

  “Speaking just as frankly, Mr. Matushin, it’s our opinion that since Russia’s need for our factory is so acute, your managers, engineers, and emp
loyees will do a good job for us.”

  Again the Russian aerospace minister exchanged a few words with his translator, but this time they kept their voices too low for Sally Fine to catch anything. Matushin stiffened slightly, but then smiled wanly and nodded. He was a bulky man with thick eyebrows and thick, black hair, his face pockmarked by childhood chicken pox or teenage acne.

  “Won’t giving us this opportunity make matters worse for you with your union in Wichita?”

  Bingo. There were no problems with the union at their Kansas facility. McGarvey had called it a “flag,” to prove that the Russians were listening to their conversations in the hotel.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, Mr. Minister, I assure you. Nor will securing the necessary export licenses from my government.”

  “Have you already spoken with your State Department?”

  “Our legal people have, and they see no impediments,” Kennedy said.

  Matushin and his translator spoke. “Very well, Mr. Kennedy. Will your company be posting a performance bond with us? I’m told ten percent is the norm. After all, we are exposing ourselves to just as big a risk as you are. Possibly even a bigger risk considering the tension between us and Ukraine.”

  Jeff Soderstrom started to object, but Kennedy held his CFO off. “That would be a point of negotiation, Mr. Matushin. Can I take it that we are agreed in principle to proceed?”

  Matushin smiled. “Of course, let’s proceed.”

  “Where is he, Bruno?” Reid asked. It was shortly after midnight.

  “Upstairs setting up his computers. Apparently they’re adequate,” Mueller replied. Before leaving the West Coast, he’d telephoned Reid at the special number from a pay phone at the airport in San Francisco with Zerkel’s list of needed computer equipment. It was extensive, but everything was waiting when they arrived at the farmhouse.

  “It’s hard to believe that they’re brothers. The sheer coincidence is stunning, although it does have a certain internal logic, if you know what I mean. Is this one just as crazy as Glen?”

  “Crazier.”

  “Where is Glen?”

  “Upstairs watching his brother. Helping him, I think. They haven’t seen each other for a long time, although it doesn’t seem to bother Louis. He’s only interested in his theory that the Japanese are going to purchase America outright.”

  “He may be correct.”

  “I don’t care,” Mueller said mildly.

  “I care enough to pay one million dollars in gold if what I’m trying to do comes to pass.”

  Mueller turned his full attention to the older man. “What is that, Reid?”

  “I’m a crusader.”

  Mueller dismissed the comment with a smirk. “On your white horse. First the Russians and now the Japanese. Could have been any country. Maybe Germany.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What exactly is it you want?”

  “Guerin Airplane Company driven to its knees so that the Japanese will make the buy-out attempt, and for my government to stop the deal.”

  “Creating a conflict between Japan and the U.S.”

  “Yes,” Reid said. He was half-drunk again, his face puffy, his complexion mottled and his eyes watery.

  “Manipulating governments would seem to be a tall order.”

  “Frighteningly simpler than one would expect,” Reid answered. He poured another Irish whiskey at the sideboard in the living room and looked at Mueller’s reflection in the mirror. “Tallerico’s murder will not be connected to Louis, I presume. We’re okay on that account?”

  “That one will be a mystery.”

  Reid turned back. “Has there been another?”

  “Tallerico’s California contact was Louis’s psychiatrist. Her murder will be blamed on him.”

  “The police will eventually catch up with him.”

  “When we no longer have need of his services, he will commit suicide.”

  Reid recoiled at the utter callousness of the East German. Life meant absolutely nothing to the man. Once again he was given pause to wonder if he was doing the right thing. But this was war, after all. He was fighting for nothing less than the survival of the United States of America as an entity, if not an ideal. In war there were casualties. But, like a general in the opening moments of a battle, Reid felt sorry for the destruction his plan would cause. Yet there was no other way.

  “Does he know about his psychiatrist?”

  “No, but if he finds out I will speak with him. Or you can. He believes you’re the only man in the country who knows the truth about the Japanese.”

  Reid glanced toward the stairs. “He says he can actually build this device? It actually exists?”

  “He says he can. But apparently there’s more to it than that. Something about a transmitter, perhaps a remote control of some sort. He isn’t very coherent.”

  “But he said the Japanese were behind it? He told you that?”

  “He said InterTech, the company he works for, is either owned by the Japanese or controlled by them.”

  “This device he’s talking about is built by InterTech?”

  “Yes. On contract with Guerin.”

  Reid nodded thoughtfully. “My guess is that Guerin knows nothing about the Japanese connection. They’ve always made the claim that except for the Rolls-Royce engines they use, their airplanes are wholly American designed and built.”

  “Companies have lied before.”

  “Not this company,” Reid said with assurance. “It may be one of the reasons they’re in trouble.” He glanced again toward the stairs. “I’ll go up and meet him now.”

  “He’s expecting you, but do you think it’s wise?” Mueller asked. “To this point he has no valid claim to a connection with you. He’s never met you. In case something should go wrong.”

  “As you say, when he is finished he will commit suicide.” Reid finished his drink and set the glass down. “Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

  All of his life Reid had been a doer, a fixer, an arranger, the man who could come up with whatever was needed, whenever it was needed, with a minimum of lead time. This applied to the information that he used for his Lamplighter newsletter, as well as people who were attracted to him and who did him favors (for which he helped make them money), and of course things, physical objects, such as the Lugers in Germany and the sophisticated computer equipment Zerkel had ordered.

  He hesitated for a moment at the head of the stairs. The equipment that Reid’s supplier had acquired for him in under six hours was mostly IBM gear designed for scientific and engineering applications. The main central processing unit was the new 18340, with a complex ultra-dense memory system of more than 950 gigabytes and the ability to handle several million operations per second, as well as ten completely different functions simultaneously. A half-dozen keyboard terminals and screens were connected to the CPU, along with two high-speed drafting machines, an ultra-high-speed modern for talking directly to other sophisticated computers, an auto-pen input, a direct-feed document reader, and a voice recognition board that would allow the operator to control many of the machine’s functions with voice commands. It had cost him more than a half million dollars, but eventually he would get that back and then some, because when Guerin’s stock took the plunge he was going to be one of them waiting at the bottom to buy. He would make a hundred million dollars. But even more satisfying was the thought that he’d be taking the money away from the Japanese. He would be hitting the bastards where it hurt them the most.

  Louis Zerkel, his left sneaker untied, his shirt half untucked, and his long hair in disarray, was hunched over one of the terminals in the front bedroom. All the furniture had been stacked in the hall or moved to one of the other bedrooms to make room for the equipment. The window was wide open to keep the heat down, and printouts were spewing from every printer. His half-brother Glen leaned against the door frame from the adjoining bedroom, a beer in his hand. He looked up when Reid appeared at the corridor door.


  “Mr. Reid is here to see you, Louis,” he called softly. At first Reid didn’t think Louis heard his brother, but then the man whirled around and threw up his hands. For just a moment Reid was afraid that the man was going to attack him. Mueller said the Zerkels were crazy, but if appearances were any judge, that was an understatement in Louis’s case.

  “Oh, wow, you’re actually here,” Louis Zerkel cried. “If it wasn’t for your Lamplighter, Mr. Reid, I would never have figured out what was going on. It’s just fate, that’s all. But we’ll beat the bastards. What do you think about that?”

  Reid crossed the room and shook Zerkel’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your brother speaks highly of you.”

  “They’ve been planning this shit since right after the war, you can bet on it,” Zerkel gushed. “From tin whistles to computer chips, what do you think about that?

  “Have you got everything you need?”

  “No,” Zerkel said. He turned and plucked a half-dozen sheets of computer printout from atop one of the machines and handed them to Reid. “I’m going to start with the transmitter. It’s that replacement chip I don’t understand. I need to make an experiment.”

  Listed on the printouts were hundreds of electronic components, by name, function, rate value, and tolerance, along with test equipment and dozens of tools.

  “Whoever got this stuff for you knows what they’re doing. It’s not bad. Have them pick up that shit too.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No,” Zerkel said. “Not for now.” He turned back to the terminal, brought something up on screen, and was immediately lost in some incomprehensible diagram.

  Finding Louis Zerkel was more difficult than McLaren or Joyce thought it would be. They wanted to keep their investigation low key in case they stumbled upon something unexpected. More than one line of inquiry had unraveled because some ham-fisted agent had unknowingly flushed the partridge or had ruined the case because of faulty evidentiary procedures. As a result it had taken them all day.