by Peter Nealen
We had a breather. I dashed back to the front as fast as I could, jumped into the passenger seat, and barked, “Go!”
Elias was obviously scared stiff, but he responded quickly and smoothly. He backed rapidly out of the alley, twisting the wheel to the right as soon as he could, making a quick, three-point turn back onto the street and heading for the bridge as fast as the van could move.
Chapter 13
I didn’t say much until we were out of town. Elias needed to concentrate on driving, and I had to keep an eye out for attacks, obstacles, and alternate escape routes if we did run into obstacles. But despite the chaos that had apparently gripped Regenstauf, the periphery still seemed calm. We got away cleanly, as far as I could tell, and in minutes we were heading north again, the lights of Diesenbach behind us.
“Do you have a way to contact Pascal in case of emergencies?” I wasn’t sure if I had much confidence, given what I’d seen of Elias’s level of knowledge and training, but I hoped that Pascal, if he was in charge of the Verteidiger in Bayern, knew a bit more.
He nodded, a quick, jerky motion, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead. “Yes, there is a backup phone number. It is not supposed to be used unless something has happened.”
“What is it?” I was already hauling my own burner phone out of the pack.
But Elias shook his head. “He will not answer unless the call comes from a specific phone number. If you call the number from any other, he will throw away the phone and the number will be useless.”
I nodded. “Good. Means he knows what he’s doing.” It occurred to me a moment later that Elias might take that as me saying that he didn’t. But he didn’t react. He’d already gotten a good number of shocks that night, and I knew that he’d seen some of my rampage in the rear-view mirror. Frankly, for a rank amateur, he was holding it together pretty well.
“Where can we go that’s safe?” He’d just turned off the main road outside of Hagenau, and we were heading for an underpass below the autobahn.
“There is a farm outside of Kürnberg.” He slowed a little as we went under the autobahn and passed into another stand of woods. The dark of the forest closed in around the van quickly, even though the patch of woods could only be a couple miles wide at most. “We do not use it much. Pascal and Torsten think that too many of us meeting in a remote location might draw attention. They thought that if we stuck to the towns and cities, we might get… what is the term? ‘Lost in the noise.’”
I nodded. “They’re not wrong. But until we have another solid meeting place, we need somewhere to lay low.”
“Why not stop here in the woods?” Scott’s voice drifted out of the darkness in the back of the van. “If there’s signal, you can call Pascal on the emergency number from here, Elias. And there’d be less of a chance that they can pin down the location out here in the boondocks, such as they are.” Germany—hell, Western Europe as a whole—really didn’t have “boondocks” as we Americans are used to the term. But the rural areas probably had a lower cell tower density, meaning that the bubble where an IMEI number popped up would be correspondingly larger.
“Good call.” I started to look around for a turnout or a clearing. Turnouts seemed to be next to impossible, but I noticed that there appeared to be regular patches where the trees were thinner. I realized that this was a tree farm, not just a patch of woods.
Well, we’d hidden in a tree farm in Germany before.
“What about here?” Elias pointed to a small clearing with only five trees growing in it up ahead.
“That should work.” I realized that the kid was scared out of his mind and at this point, he was relying on the men he presumed were professional soldiers to tell him what to do.
He pulled in and killed the van. I got out immediately, dragging my pack with me and pulling the Rattler and the PS-31s out. The rest of the team did the same, quickly forming a tight perimeter around the van. It might look odd to any locals driving past in the wee hours of the morning—it had to be almost 0530—but after what had just happened, I don’t think any of us were comfortable just sitting in the dark and waiting.
Elias stayed in the van. I guessed that he was more comfortable with some sort of walls around him. He probably didn’t have a weapon, anyway. I saw his face light up as he started the phone.
The call didn’t take long. He was talking, so somebody had answered the emergency number. That was a good sign. Even if Pascal had been killed, it meant that the Verteidiger had contingency plans in place.
That still didn’t explain why Elias, the primary contact, was such an apparent babe-in-the-woods. Unless Pascal, whoever he was, was deliberately keeping outsiders at arm’s length by keeping them ignorant of the group’s actual extent and capability.
That could be good news or bad news. Because we still didn’t know jack about the Verteidiger’s true capability or aims, and that could get very, very dangerous when you’re talking an unconventional warfare alliance.
Elias hung up the phone, and shifted over to call softly to me out the open passenger side door. “We have a meeting place. Pascal is safe; he got out before they set his house on fire.”
I circled my hand over my head to signal the rest of the team to load up again. Only once they’d started to climb back into the rear of the van did I get up and climb back in. “Where are we going?”
“Nuremberg.”
***
I didn’t think that the Nuremberg Opera House was exactly what I’d call a “low profile” meeting spot, but I could kind of see why Pascal might have picked it. Precisely because it was so public, it lessened the chance that we’d manage to trap him.
Unfortunately, there were more drawbacks than advantages.
“I can count four cameras just from here.” Scott was up front, leaning between the seats. “And unless I miss my guess, they’re not there just so the Polizei can check the recordings after a crime is committed.”
Given what we’d seen the last time we’d been in Germany, I had to agree. The Chinese had their nasty little Communist fingers deep in the EDC, and so they probably had backdoors into every surveillance feed in the country, at the very least.
“There he is.” Elias pointed, and I slapped his hand down. If we were under surveillance, a demeanor hit would be a bad thing. “The short man in the dark jacket.”
I saw him. Short, thickset, with blond hair combed neatly, he was wearing a dark windbreaker, his hands tucked into the jacket’s pockets. He didn’t look around as he climbed up out of the subway station, though even from a distance, sitting outside the Green Goose across the Frauentorgraben, I could pick up the aura of watchfulness.
“All right.” I opened the door. “Remember the signals. I’m going to go have a chat with our boy.”
I stepped out, my pack on my shoulders. It looked like just about any other tourist’s backpack, as few tourists as there were in Nuremberg at the time. I had the Rattler well concealed. I hoped and prayed that I wouldn’t need it as I walked down the pedestrian sidewalk, under the Grasersgasse, and up the steps to the crosswalk that led to the square in front of the Opera House.
It took a couple of minutes to get across. Pascal was sitting on one of the benches under the carefully trimmed trees that lined the brick square in front of the Opera House’s entryway. He was studying his phone as I walked up and sat down, unslinging my pack and putting it on the bench next to me, my hand resting on top, within easy reach of the Rattler inside.
“It is rare to meet a Deacon in Bavaria these days.” Pascal’s voice was deeper than I’d expected, just from looking at him. But a closer inspection revealed that while he looked small at first glance, there was a lot of muscle packed onto his frame, under the jacket and the decidedly Eurotrash skinny trousers.
“Can’t say I expected to meet a Bavarian with a French name, either.” We hadn’t worked out any kind of challenge and pass. Elias had been the only one to talk to him, and he hadn’t thought of it. But the exchange seemed to be enough.
On the surface, Pascal appeared perfectly unassuming. He wasn’t a big man, and he was dressed in the stereotypical Eurotrash style that would tend to make someone like me dismiss him at first glance. But despite his relaxed posture, there was a coiled-spring alertness to him, and his eyes were never still, moving from street corner, to window, to pedestrian, to moving car. Unlike Elias, this man had training. He was as dangerous as any of us. My guess was this Pascal really was KSK.
Which opened up a whole different can of worms, that we hadn’t brought up before, especially when it had become evident that Elias wasn’t military at all. The Kommando Spezialkräfte, Germany’s primary special operations unit, had had a rocky history over the last couple of decades. Hell, we’d had a rocky history with them recently. I was pretty sure that some of Vogt’s people who had tried to launch the coup over the winter had been KSK. They’d been purged at least twice for “far right extremism,” which was always painted as Fourth Reich neo-Naziism. But again, who knew for sure, given how quick the left in the Western world was to label anyone to the right of Mao Zedong a “fascist?”
Even more risky was the possibility that he was still KSK, or that I was reading him wrong, and he was, in fact, GSG-9, the German rough equivalent to the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, their domestic counter-terrorism force. This whole thing could be an elaborate setup. Hell, there were still stories floating around back Stateside about white supremacist terror groups, whom it turned out were almost all undercover FBI. Or the undercover narcotics cops posing as drug buyers trying to arrest the undercover narcotics cops posing as drug dealers…
This wasn’t going to be nearly that entertaining if the Verteidiger in Bayern turned out to be a GSG-9 front to draw out domestic or foreign enemies of the EDC.
“What brings you to Bayern, Herr Deacon?” Pascal still wasn’t looking at me, but was watching the Richard-Wagner-Platz, surrounded by a weird combination of classically German and stark modern buildings.
“We thought we should take a look around at how things are going in Germany, and along the way, see how we could help each other. You know, in a spirit of international cooperation.” I couldn’t help but be a little sarcastic. Neither one of us were going to openly talk about insurrection and guerrilla warfare in public, especially when neither one of us could be entirely certain we could trust the other.
Pascal didn’t react immediately, but kept watching a bicyclist as she walked her bike through the Richard-Wagner-Platz. “That would depend on several factors. Not the least of which is what you hope to accomplish with this ‘help.’”
“What would you hope to accomplish?” We were feeling each other out. He didn’t know me from Adam, and I knew even less about the Verteidiger.
He thought for a moment, and his eyes rested on me for the first time. They were cold and calculating, as I was sure mine were as I met his gaze. This was neither the time nor the place to be friendly and trusting.
“We want to live our lives, with our culture, traditions, and religion. We don’t want to be forced into some new multicultural mold. We don’t want our livelihoods pillaged to support people who hate us. Above all, we do not want all of Germany to be turned into the reincarnation of the DDR.” The Deutsche Demokratische Republik had been the formal name for Communist East Germany. Which Bavaria had not been a part of, but clearly the concerns about the hard-left turn of both the German government and the EDC ran deep. “And that makes me and many of my compatriots wonder about the wisdom of trying to work with your government.” He rubbed his chin as he let his eyes drift back to scanning our surroundings. “You Americans do not have a good track record when it comes to supporting your friends after they have stopped being useful.”
I grimaced. “Can’t really argue with that.” I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the first touchy partisan linkup I’d done, but they never got much friendlier or easier. I had to step carefully while also taking certain risks without any guarantee how well they’d go. “And if I was an official government representative, that might be a bit more of a concern.” I turned back to look him in the face. A faint frown had set in across his features. “I don’t know how much y’all have heard on this side of the pond, but things Stateside have gotten a bit…complicated in recent years. There isn’t just one group calling all the shots anymore.”
His eyes narrowed as he thought that over, studying me, the square and the traffic momentarily forgotten. “You are one of these…” He paused, searching his memory. “Triarii? The paramilitary group?”
I nodded. “We’ve been in Europe for several months, now.” My mind flashed back to the nightmare of running, hiding, and fighting in Slovakia. “Just like back home, we’ve been trying to fill gaps where policy fails.”
He nodded slowly, though he still clearly wasn’t convinced. “Do your superiors know that you are here, talking to me?”
I smiled coldly. “My superiors? Of course. The US government?” I shrugged. “They know that we’re in Germany. That’s all they need to know at the moment.”
He eyed me narrowly for a long moment. “So, what assistance can your organization provide? I cannot imagine that you have a bottomless supply of materiel.”
I shook my head. “No, we don’t. What we do have is a lot of very recent experience in unconventional warfare, against both governmental and insurgent threats. Let’s face it, something’s going to break, and soon. There are a lot of people looking for a quick fix, a get-out-of-jail-free card. I’ve been fighting this kind of war long enough that I know—and I have a feeling you do, too—that there is no quick fix, and that unless somebody is playing the long game, any attempt to wrap things up fast is only going to make matters worse. A lot of the people who will be pushing any kind of quick fix plan already saw that sort of thing go disastrously in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Kosovo, and a dozen other places, but haven’t learned their lesson.”
“And you have?”
I met his gaze levelly. “Like I said, we’ve been doing this for a while.”
He thought for a moment. Finally, he nodded slightly. “I need to discuss this with some of my compatriots. Tell Elias to take you to the house in Ingolstadt and wait. I should have an answer for you within a day.” His expression grew colder, if that was possible. “If we decide to cooperate, you understand that there will have to be certain steps taken to test your sincerity?”
“And you understand that if your answer turns out to be ‘no,’ then we’re not going to be sitting still to be turned over to GSG-9 or the Euro Defense Corps?” I might have unconsciously patted the day pack on the bench next to me. His eyes flicked to it, then back to me. He had to suspect some of what I had in there.
“Of course.” His voice was still cool. He stood up and touched a finger to his eyebrow in a sketchy, ironic sort of salute. “We will be ‘in touch,’ as you Americans say.”
I stayed where I was as he walked away, letting him get some distance. I pulled a small camera out and took some pictures before I stood and slung the pack back on my shoulder. I scanned the square as nonchalantly as I could as I adjusted the strap on my shoulder, then started to stroll back toward the crosswalk and the stairs. If we had been under any kind of active surveillance—and I had to assume that the CCTV cameras I could see were being used as active surveillance, then there would be no disguising the fact that a meeting had just happened, even though we hadn’t been close to each other, or even looked at each other much. I was probably in the clear, but if Pascal was on somebody’s list…
I tried not to dwell too much on the foreboding sense of déjà vu that nagged at me as I crossed the street and headed back to the van. Our last experiment in unconventional warfare in Germany hadn’t gone well. But with resources as thin as they were, and the powers that be determined to take a sh
ot at knocking the EDC out of the war, unconventional was the only way to go.
I just hoped that this worked out better than the last time.
Chapter 14
The house in Ingolstadt wasn’t particularly roomy or fancy, but it did the job. And we weren’t there nearly as long as I’d been afraid that we might be.
Pascal showed up about a day and a half after our meeting in Nuremberg, with two younger men. One of those had the same controlled, predatory aura as Pascal; he was either KSK or GSG-9, was my guess. The third man was noticeably softer, slightly pudgy and looking around the lot of us as if he was way out of his depth.
“We have decided that working with you might be our best course of action.” Pascal’s voice was still as even and cold as ever. “However, we first need to make sure that we can trust each other.” He raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Agents provocateurs have been inserted into less-than-left-wing political movements in Europe before. Especially over the last few years.”
I nodded. “Agreed. We’ve had to deal with some local contacts—in Germany, too—who were, shall we say, less than trustworthy.”
If Pascal was offended, he hid it pretty well. “There are many factions at work in Europe these days. Not all of them are working toward exactly what they say they are.”
He had probably heard about Vogt’s abortive coup, and had put two and two together.
“I assume that you are here to prepare for a soon-to-be launched offensive.” When there was an uneasy stir among my team, he spread his hands. “We hear things. We have ears in more high places than you might think. Some of our members were part of Alternativ fur Deutschland before it was outlawed. They still have contacts in high places, including the Defense Ministry. Some of them still work in the Defense Ministry. So, when American and Polish forces are massing in the south, and the European Defense Council orders Bundeswehr forces to Görlitz to prepare to defend the border, we hear about it.”