by A. W. Mykel
It was full of code names and dates that he didn’t understand. It was headed by the title, “Operation Raptor.” It meant nothing to Justin. The next item was “Niederlage—1941.” A long list of code names followed with dates, right up to the present. He didn’t understand it yet, but he knew it was important. Anything dating back to 1941 scared him, especially when they were also hunting for a journal, one written in German. Then he remembered the rest of the missing bags—and the other bathroom off Bridges’s bedroom.
Moments later he was lifting the lid in the other bathroom. He had found the rest of the bags.
TWENTY-THREE
The world realized that we were right about the Russians when the war was over. They rebuilt Germany as quickly as possible, to be the stronghold against communism in Europe.
They didn’t know that the new Germany was being built by old Nazis and that the Hitler youth were coming of age. It was the Americans who used their influence and money to get top Nazis quietly back into positions of control in Germany. They understood that only we could build a strong Germany.
Besides, to the rest of the world, only “good Germans” were left. I think many believed that…because they were afraid not to.
Entry No. 39 from the partially
recovered Wolf Journal
The darkness was lifting from New Jersey, yielding to the wakening rays of morning. It would be a clear, cool morning in the Garden State.
The big Mack tractor pulled its long, refrigerated trailer off Interstate 80 into the small rest area in Roxbury Township. The truck had driven through the night from Beloit, Wisconsin. It had taken a swift route down I-90 right into I-80 and hammered its way through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and into New Jersey in just over twelve hours.
Its two occupants emerged from the tractor and made their way down a gentle slope, back into the trees, moving away from the highway. Fine drops of moisture kicked up as they walked through the long brown weeds. About ten yards into the bare trees, they stopped. They opened their flies in unison and began long, gratifying relief.
The driver was a skinny, spidery-looking fellow. His head was small and narrow. The closely cut hair made him look almost bald. The ragged growth of facial hair was nearly the length of the graying hair on his head. His long, hooked nose seemed to point to the spot where his stream was concentrated. The small, squinty eyes were dull and tired. He had the appearance of a coarse, uneducated man.
To his left, an almost comical figure stood. Short, wide, his shoulders hunched in directing the stream against the side of a young tree. He released the instrument with his right hand, continuing the directional supervision with the left. The free hand eased into the coat pocket and settled onto the familiar wooden handle.
He finished before his spidery companion and backed away a pace. He took the weapon from his pocket and removed the sheath. The handle and its shaft were raised to striking position. The driver’s eyes were still concentrating on the endless streak of urine.
The thrust was cobra quick. The driver was dead before he ever realized the short, sharp pain. He fell to the ground, the piss still trickling from him.
Ten Braak walked back to the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. He pulled the truck onto I-80 and rolled on toward New York.
Another man had been left behind who would never identify his face.
It was 0800 hours on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. The small underground complex was an impressive feat of engineering. Because the water table on St. Simon’s Island is very high, such an installation should not have been possible to build, but it had been. It was very similar to an undersea environmental chamber, only enormously larger. Its existence would never be suspected in such a location; that’s why it had been built there.
This location was not a branch office of SENTINEL, actually, more like a subbranch. It was much smaller than Alpha and was specialized in its purpose. It was a medical technological research installation, totally equipped to handle any medical emergency. It was also used as a debriefing station for those rare instances when it was necessary to take an individual, such as Dmitri Chakhovsky, whose identity and location it was desirable to keep secret from the other intelligence agencies within the United States.
The man in charge was Dr. Becker Dials, MD, an eminent heart specialist. He was also the director of the cardiac clinic bearing his name located above the secret complex.
Dr. Dials was just picking up the special security line to Alpha.
“Hello, this is Dr. Dials. Is that you, Irv?”
“Hi, Buck,” Honeycut’s graveled voice said. “Hope you don’t mind my getting you up so early?”
“Not at all, not all,” Dials said. “We’ve already put in an hour’s work around here,” he said.
“Good to hear that you guys are working so hard,” Honeycut quipped. “We’ve all been pretty busy the past few days. What have you got on Chakhovsky?” he asked.
“Well, Irv,” Dials began, “I’m afraid it’s not very encouraging. We haven’t had enough time to finish all of our tests on him yet, but we’ve got a pretty good handle on it.
“As you may probably know, angina pectoris is usually caused by a blockage of major coronary and epicardial branches of two or more major coronary vessels or a severe involvement of the left main coronary artery. There are several types of angina that we’ve been able to eliminate.
“His EKG shows elevated ST segments, suggesting myocardial injury, but returns to the isoelectric line after a brief period.”
“Just tell me what’s wrong with him, Buck,” Honeycut said, sounding some impatience.
“He has variant angina. We’ve put him on Holter monitoring now, to document the occurrences. This form of angina is not like the others, that is, caused by atherosclerosis of a few major coronary arteries. Instead, in variant angina, the coronary arteries are entirely normal, with the cause being a reversible spasm of a single artery. The vessel involvement can be determined by the ST-segment elevation.”
“What’s the prognosis?” Honeycut asked.
“About fifty percent die within the first year,” Dials said. “He’s going to be in that fifty percent, if we don’t correct it very soon.”
“How?”
“The best choice—the only choice in his situation—is to bypass the affected area using a saphenous vein graft.”
“How risky is it?” Honeycut asked.
“Well, there’s a certain amount of grave risk with any operation of this—”
“How risky is it?” Honeycut repeated.
“If we can reduce myocardial oxygen consumption and reduce the incidence of attacks, I’d say about five percent risk is involved here,” Dials said.
“That doesn’t sound too bad. How soon could you do it?”
“Well, we’d have to perform a coronary arteriograph first, to determine the coronary artery anatomy and adequacy of left ventricular function. The reduction of his myocardial oxygen consumption will require at least two weeks of total bed rest. I’d say in three weeks, if we can satisfactorily stabilize his condition,” Dials answered.
“Can he be debriefed during that time?” Honeycut asked.
“No,” Dials answered.
“He can’t even talk?” Honeycut asked incredulously.
“He can talk, but the things you want him to talk about will undoubtably cause considerable stress. He might as well run up a hill. He needs total bed rest,” Dials explained.
“Buck, there are certain things that we must learn from him, and quickly. We need that information now. The rest of it can wait. If we restrict our questions to only that information, can we debrief him?” Honeycut asked.
Dials pursed his lips in contemplation. “Well, I guess it would be all right. Just spread it out, so as not to tire him.”
“Thanks, Buck. I promise we’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Could we start today?”
“He’s scheduled for tests this morning. Give him a few hours to re
st after lunch. Then start slow. But I warn you, don’t excite him. The longer it takes for his condition to stabilize, the later we’ll be able to operate. And, in his condition, every day counts.”
“We’ll remember. Thanks, Buck,” Honeycut said, placing down the phone. We’ll get what we need regardless, he thought.
Justin had risen about an hour earlier than the meeting time that he and Fanning had established. He used the time to leave the club to post a large manila envelope to himself at an old post office box he had maintained from his college days. He was taking no chances with carrying around the information he had discovered at Bridges’s apartment.
He and Fanning enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the club. Then the limousine came for them and drove them to Alpha.
After passing through security, they proceeded directly to the seminar room that Elizabeth Ryerson had used in her briefing on SENTINEL. Honeycut saw them shortly and said that he and Dr. Ryerson would be right with them. The men waited patiently.
Meanwhile, Honeycut and Elizabeth were having a short meeting in the room just off the seminar theater.
“Are you sure?” Honeycut asked.
“Positive,” Elizabeth said. “He left the club last night at about oh-forty hours. SENTINEL monitored his movements. He definitely went to Bridges’s apartment.”
Honeycut squinted off into space. He wondered what Justin could be looking for at Bridges’s place. “What theories has SENTINEL projected?”
“A search,” Elizabeth answered. “He definitely went through the place. Over three hours’ worth, too. Then this morning he left the club for a few minutes. He returned and met with Badger for breakfast before coming to Alpha,” she reported.
“But no other theory was projected?”
“No. There was one unusual discovery, however. While examining the information packet that was brought back from Beloit, we discovered fibers on the round head clip holding the sheets together. There had apparently been one extra sheet. It was not of the same bond construction as the schematics, but did match the bond of the blank cover sheet,” Elizabeth said.
“Could Pilgrim have removed it at the crime scene before placing it in the evidence box?” Honeycut asked.
“No. We’d have heard that. Besides, dust particles taken off the back sheet matched those taken off the table and dresser tops. It was definitely missing before he got there.”
Honeycut shook his head. “We’ll just have to ride on it until we can figure out what he was up to. In the meantime, get Division Two into the apartment to see what they can find.”
Division Two wouldn’t find much concerning Justin. He had put the heat sealing device away along with the box of sealing bags. He removed the tabs from the newly opened box from the garbage, as well. The clues wouldn’t be so obvious to them.
Elizabeth and Honeycut joined Justin and Fanning in the seminar theater.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Honeycut said. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep. You’re going to have another very busy day today.” He looked at Justin. He looked remarkably well-rested for a man who had been up most of the night.
“The autopsy report is in, and Division Two has completed its analysis of its findings. Beth, would you like to fill them in on the results?” Honeycut asked.
Elizabeth nodded. For a brief instant, her eyes met Justin’s. There was an odd play of emotions in her for a moment, feelings of revulsion and shame forced above a distant longing that she would not consciously acknowledge. But Justin’s eyes stared back as blank and cold as granite. There was not the slightest trace of remembrance, or sharing that a part of her brain searched for. He was like all the rest who had penetrated that barrier in those painful years. He was not to be trusted. Her brain began twisting the smothered attraction to him into hatred. He would never penetrate again.
“The autopsy was performed about five hours after the discovery of the body. It showed natural causes, as we expected it would. But we know the cause to be prussic acid inhalation. The hairs that you plucked out of Bridges’s nose held a residue of the acid. The solution in the bottle preserved that evidence by forming a stable, detectable derivative of the poison. Had you arrived on the scene about an hour later, we’d have had nothing.
“The information was recovered intact. It contained enough prints, along with those found in the room, to give us an identification of one of the contacts that Bridges met with,” she explained.
“Eh, excuse me,” Justin interrupted. “One of the contacts? There was definitely more than one?”
“Yes, SENTINEL has projected a theory based on several small bits of evidence. Our second man was really smart. He left almost no traces of his being there, except for some fibers on the second chair. But an interesting tidbit SENTINEL turned up was that the fingerprints found on the schematics were all upside down. That means that they had to be right side up for somebody. The packet was too bulky and awkward to remain open and in a desirable position for photographing without being held down, and analysis of the clip showed that it had not been opened to separate the sheets.
“Our first man was easy to trace. Not only were his prints in the room, they were also found on the jack and the trunk lid of the car that the body was found in. So, it’s pretty evident who did the killing.”
Justin looked at Fanning, then to Elizabeth Ryerson.
“Do you think Fromme could be the second man?” he asked.
“At first we thought that to be a good possibility. But his story was absolutely airtight. We’ll be going into his room after he’s left it for the day, to take fiber samples from his clothes. I doubt it will turn up anything, though,” she answered.
“SENTINEL has gone through a number of possibilities,” Elizabeth continued, “but has definitely concluded that there was a second man. And his plan is a very good one. At first analysis, it seemed that the intent was to make us believe that Bridges had died of natural causes before making contact. But the fingerprint evidence was too easy to find. SENTINEL has put through a proposal that sounds very good to us. It suggests that the true objective of the plan was to try to pull that first theory off, if possible, but was backed by traceable evidence pointing to one of the two contacts. This would lead to an identification of the one agent, whom we’d pursue hotly, leaving the other free to beat a hasty retreat out of the country,” Elizabeth explained.
“Then he may already be out of the country,” Fanning said.
Elizabeth nodded. “He could be, but we don’t think so. The information would probably be put on microdots first and several copies made. This way, two or three other agents not even involved in this phase of the plan would stand a good chance of getting them safely back to Russia. The film would be processed in this country, or possibly in Canada, then distributed. Most probably in a direction opposite to that in which our known suspect is going,” she said.
The situation seemed grim to Justin. It didn’t seem possible to stop them.
“Fortunately, we know a great deal more about their intelligence network than they think we do. We know where most of their film-processing labs are located and who runs them. Almost all of them, in fact. We’ve pulled every available SENTINEL agent in on this. The labs are all covered, and we’ve prepared to bust every one of them at the same time. And we will, to render them inoperable.”
Honeycut looked at his watch. “In fact, gentlemen, it’s already been done, about fifteen minutes ago. And their people have been ‘neutralized.’ ”
Elizabeth looked back to the two agents. “That should leave our unknown agent holding film and a busted plan. He’ll have to improvise,” she said.
“What about the other one, the one we’ve identified?” Justin asked.
Elizabeth looked at Honeycut. “Pegasus will tell you about him.”
“This one should interest you, Badger,” Honeycut started off. “It’s Otto Ten Braak.”
Anxiety shot through Fanning in a hot flash. He had run into Ten Braak before, six
years ago—and lost. He was left for dead, and nearly was, in a mission that had claimed the life of another SENTINEL agent. It took almost a full year to recuperate before he could get back to active duty. One of the things he wanted more than anything in life was to get another crack at Ten Braak. But that encounter had left its mark on Fanning. He had learned respect for the man—and feared him.
“Where do we go from here?” Justin asked.
“New York,” Honeycut answered. “We were also able to pick up some very important information in Moscow. Our man there has a very highly placed contact who discovered Ten Braak’s assignment in the United States. He was to make contact in New York, on Tuesday. We have a reliable list of possible safe houses where he could be hiding, also the code name of the agent he’s to make contact with.”
“Fortunately, the identity of that agent is known to us. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“And the other agent?” Justin asked.
“We’re working on that one now. Our man in Moscow is one of our best, the best we have inside of Russia. He stands a good chance of discovering his identity. We feel that this second agent will be stranded here for at least a few days, until something is worked out for him to get out of the country. He’s going to have to expend valuable time to try to get the microdots made. And we’ll have considerable manpower searching for him. Our chances are really much better than they seem,” Honeycut said.
“When do we leave?” Justin asked.
“Right now,” Honeycut answered. “The Lear is fueled and waiting for you at Meigs. Your car has been brought from Newark to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey,” he said to Justin. “You’ll get instructions before touching down at Teterboro,” Honeycut concluded.
Thirty-five minutes later, the Lear was roaring off the runway at Meigs Field. They would proceed at maximum speed to Teterboro.
The first part of the manhunt had begun.
TWENTY-FOUR