The Apocalypse Watch

by Robert Ludlum

  “Where was this place?”

  “We never found out. In the beginning she was only given sweets, ice cream, and so on while blindfolded. Later, as she grew older, she simply told us that she was being trained in our ‘glorious heritage,’ those were the words she used and, naturally, we knew what they meant.”

  “Why are you telling me this now, Mr. Schneider?”

  “Because I’ve lived in this country for fifty-two years. I cannot say it is perfect, no nation is, but it is better than what I came from. Do you know who lives across the street from me?”

  “How could I?”

  “The Goldfarbs, Jake and Naomi. Jews. And they were Johanna’s and my best friends. And down the block, the first negro couple to buy a house here. The Goldfarbs and we gave them a welcoming party, and everyone came. And when a cross was burned on their lawn, we all got together, hunted the hooligans down, and had them prosecuted.”

  “Hardly the agenda of the Third Reich.”

  “People change, we all change. What can I tell you?”

  “How long has it been since you were in contact with Germany?”

  “Mein Gott, those idiots keep calling twice, three times a year. I tell them I’m an old man and to leave me alone, for I am no longer involved. I must be in their computers or whatever the new technical machines order them to do. They keep track of me; they never let go, never stop threatening me.”

  “There are no names?”

  “Yes, one. The last caller a month ago was nearly hysterical, shouting at me that a Herr Traupman might order my execution. ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘I’ll be dead soon anyway and your secret will die with me.’ ”

  Claude Moreau was driven down the Leopoldstrasse by his man in Munich who had reconnoitered the apartment house where Elke Mueller, the former Frau Traupman, lived. To save Moreau’s time, the secret Deuxième office in the Königinstrasse had telephoned Madame Mueller, explaining that a high-ranking member of the French government wished to discuss a confidential matter with her which could be to her financial advantage.… No, the caller had no idea what the confidential matter was, except that it would in no way compromise the eminent lady.

  The apartment house was grand, the apartment itself grander still, a fulsome mixture of baroque and art deco. Elke Mueller matched her surroundings, a tall, imperious woman in her seventies, her coiffed dark hair streaked with whitish-gray, her face angular, her features aquiline. She was obviously a woman not to be trifled with; it was in her eyes, wide and bright and bordering on the hostile or suspicious, or both.

  “My name is Claude Moreau, madame, and I’m with the Quai d’Orsay in Paris,” said the chief of the Deuxième Bureau in German, having been ushered into a sitting room by the uniformed maid.

  “It’s not necessary to speak die Deutsche, monsieur. My French is fluent.”

  “You greatly relieve me,” lied Moreau, “for my German is barely adequate.”

  “I suspect it’s more than that. Sit down across from me and explain this confidential matter if you will. I can’t imagine why the government of France has the slightest interest in me.”

  “Forgive me, madame, but I suspect that you might.”

  “You’re impertinent, monsieur.”

  “I apologize. I only wish to be clear and speak the truth as I perceive it.”

  “Now you’re admirable. It’s Traupman, isn’t it?”

  “Then my gentle suspicion was correct, no?”

  “It was, of course. There could be no other possible reason.”

  “You were married to him—”

  “Not for long, as marriages go,” interrupted Elke Mueller swiftly, firmly, “but far too long for me. So his filthy little chickens are coming home to roost, is that it?… Don’t look so surprised, Moreau. I read the papers and watch television. I see what’s happening.”

  “About those ‘filthy chickens’? May I inquire about them?”

  “Why not? I left the incubator coop over thirty years ago.

  “Would it be impertinent of me to ask you to amplify—only what’s comfortable for you, naturally.”

  “Now you’re a liar, monsieur. You’d prefer that I be terribly uncomfortable, even bitterly hysterical, and tell you what a horrible man he was. Well, I can’t do that, whether it’s true or not. However, I can tell you that when I think of Traupman, which is rarely, I’m filled with disgust.”

  “Oh …?”

  “Oh, yes, your amplification. Very well, you shall have it.… I married Hans Traupman rather late. I was thirty-one, he thirty-three, and a very successful surgeon even at that age. I was struck by his medical brilliance and believed there was a good man beneath his rather cold exterior. There were flashes of warmth that excited me, until I soon realized it was all an act. Why he was attracted to me became evident quite rapidly. I was a Mueller from Baden-Baden, the richest landowners in the area, also socially prominent, and gave him access to the circles he so desperately wanted to be a part of. You see, his parents were both doctors, but not really attractive people, and certainly not very successful, their practices relegated to clinics serving the lower economic classes—”

  “If I may,” Moreau broke in, “did he use his position as your husband to further his social ambitions?”

  “I just told you that.”

  “Then why did he risk a divorce?”

  “He didn’t have much to say about it. Besides, after five years he had made the inroads he needed, and his skills accomplished the rest. In deference to the Mueller family, I agreed to a so-called amicable divorce—simple incompatibility, neither party charged with anything. It was the biggest mistake I made, and my father, before he died, soundly criticized me for it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “You don’t know my family, monsieur, and Mueller is a common name in Germany. I will explain for you. The Muellers of Baden-Baden opposed the criminal Hitler and his gangsters. The Führer didn’t dare touch us because of our holdings and the loyalties our several thousand employees accorded us. The Allies never understood how frightened Hitler was of domestic dissent. Had they understood, they might have developed tactics within Germany that could have shortened the war. Like Traupman, the little thug with a mustache reached far beyond his grasp, mixing with people he had admired from afar, but who never accepted him. My father always claimed Hitler’s diatribes were the rantings of a frightened man, driven to eliminate by murder the slightest opposition, as long as there were no consequences. However, Herr Hitler, through conscription, made sure my two brothers were sent to the Russian front, where they were killed, more likely by German bullets than Soviet.”

  “Hans Traupman, please?”

  “He was the total Nazi,” said Madame Mueller quietly, turning her face toward the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the window. “It was strange, almost in-human, but he wanted power, simply power, beyond the rewards of his profession. He would recite the discredited theories of a superior Aryan race as if they were considered infallible, although he had to know they were not. I think it was the bitter resentment of the rejected young man who could not walk among the elite of Germany, in spite of his growing reputation, because he simply was a coarse, unlikable person.”

  “You’re leading to something else, I think,” said Moreau.

  “Yes, I am. He began to hold meetings at our house in Nuremberg, meetings with people I knew were unreconstructed National Socialists, Hitler fanatics. He sound-proofed the cellar, where they met every Tuesday—I was not permitted to attend. There was a great deal of drinking and from our bedroom I could faintly hear shouting and ‘Sieg Heils’ and the Horst Wessel song, over and over. This went on for three years, until the fifth year of our marriage, and finally I confronted him—why I did not do so earlier, I simply don’t know.… Affection, no matter how dwindling, does involve protection. I shouted at him, accusing him of dreadful things, of trying to bring back the horrors of the past. And on a Wednesday morning, after one of those terrible nights, h
e said to me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you think, you rich bitch. We were right then and we’re right now!’ I left the next day. Does that amplify enough for you, Moreau?”

  “It certainly does, madame,” replied the head of the Deuxième. “Can you recall any of the men or women at those meetings?”

  “It was more than thirty years ago. No, I cannot.”

  “Even one or two of the ‘unreconstructed Nazis’?”

  “Let me think.… There was a Bohr, a Rudolf Bohr, I believe, and a former, very young colonel in the Wehrmacht named Von Schteifel, I think. Other than those two, my memory leaves me. I remember them only because they were frequent visitors for lunch or dinner, where no politics were discussed, but I saw them getting out of their cars through my bedroom window.”

  “You have been of enormous help, madame,” said Moreau, getting up from his chair. “I’ll not disturb you any longer.”

  “Stop them,” whispered Elke Mueller harshly. “They’ll be the death of Germany!”

  “We’ll remember your words,” said Claude Moreau, walking into the foyer.

  At the Deuxième headquarters in the Königinstrasse, Moreau exercised his privileges and ordered Paris to reach Wesley Sorenson immediately.

  Sorenson was on the plane back to Washington when his Sky-Pager buzzed. He got out of his seat, walked up to the telephone on the first-class bulkhead, inserted his card, and reached his office.

  “Hold on, Mr. Director,” said the operator in Consular Operations. “I’ll call Munich and patch you through.”

  “Allô, Wesley?”

  “Yes, Claude?”

  “It’s Traupman!”

  “Traupman’s the key!”

  They had spoken simultaneously. “I’ll be in my office in roughly an hour,” said Sorenson. “I’ll call you back.”

  “We’ve both been busy, mon ami.”

  “You can bet your French ass!”

  22

  Drew lay beside Karin in the bed in her room at the Bristol Hotel, their being together a reluctant concession on the part of Witkowski. They had made love, and were now experiencing the comfortable after-glow of lovers who know they belong with each other.

  “Where the hell are we?” said Latham, having lighted one of his infrequent cigarettes. The smoke curled above them.

  “It’s in Sorenson’s hands now. You have no control.”

  “That’s what I don’t like. He’s in Washington and we’re in Paris and that goddamned Kroeger is on another planet.”

  “Drugs could extract information from him.”

  “The embassy doctor says we can’t do anything in that area until he stabilizes from the gunshot wounds. The colonel’s as mad as I’ve ever seen him, but he can’t override the medicine man. I’m not exactly sanguine either; every twenty-four hours we lose makes the bastards harder to find.”

  “Are you so sure of that? The neos have been entrenching themselves for over fifty years. What difference can a single day make?”

  “I don’t know, maybe another Harry Latham. Let’s say I’m impatient.”

  “I can understand. Is there any strategy where Janine is concerned?”

  “You know as much as I do. Sorenson said to keep cold and silent, and let the Antinayous know we had Kroeger. We’ve done both and left word at Wesley’s office that his instructions were carried out. Signed, Paris.”

  “Does he really believe the Antis have been infiltrated?”

  “He told me he was covering all our flanks; it can’t do any harm. We’ve got Kroeger and nobody can get near him. If anyone tries, we know we’ve got an exposed flank.”

  “Could Janine be an asset there?”

  “That’s Wesley’s job. I wouldn’t know how to get near it.”

  “I wonder if Courtland told her about Kroeger.”

  “He had to say something after we got him up at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “He could have said anything, not necessarily the truth. All ambassadors are schooled in what and what not to tell their immediate families. Most of the time for their own protection.”

  “There’s a flaw in that argument, Karin. He put his own wife in D and R, a hornet’s nest of classified information.”

  “His marriage is relatively recent, and if what we believe is true, Janine wanted to be put there. It wouldn’t be very difficult for a new wife to persuade her husband. Heaven knows she had the qualifications, and no doubt she put it in terms of wanting to make a patriotic contribution.”

  “True, or at least I have to take your word for it, Eve and the apple being your foundation—”

  “Male chauvinist,” interrupted De Vries, laughing and gently jabbing his thigh.

  “The apple wasn’t our idea, lady.”

  “You’re being pejorative again.”

  “I wonder how Wes is going to handle it,” said Latham, grabbing her hand and holding it while extinguishing his cigarette.

  “Why not call him?”

  “His secretary said he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, which means he went somewhere. He mentioned that he had another problem, a heavy one, so perhaps he went after it.”

  “I’d think Janine Courtland would take precedence.”

  “Maybe she did. We’ll know tomorrow—actually today. The sun’s coming up.”

  “Let it come up, my dearest. We’re not allowed near the embassy, so let’s consider this our holiday, yours and mine.”

  “I like that idea,” said Drew, turning to her, their bodies touching. And the telephone rang. “Some holiday,” added Latham, reaching for the abusively intruding phone. “Yes?”

  “It’s one-something in the morning here,” said the voice of Wesley Sorenson. “Sorry if I woke you, but I got your hotel number from Witkowski and wanted to keep you up to speed.”

  “What happened?”

  “Your computer whizzes were on the mark. Everything panned out. Janine Clunitz is a Sonnenkind.”

  “Janine who?”

  “Clunitz is her real name—the Clunes is anglicized. She was brought up by the Schneiders in Centralia, Illinois.”

  “Yes, we read that. But how can you be sure?”

  “I flew out there this afternoon. Old Schneider confirmed it.”

  “What the hell do we do now?”

  “Not ‘we,’ me,” replied the director of Consular Operations. “The State Department is recalling Courtland for thirty-six hours for an emergency meeting with several other European ambassadors, the subject to await their arrival.”

  “State agreed to this?”

  “State doesn’t know about it. It’s a Four Zero directive, issued back-channel through this office to avoid any traffic interception.”

  “I trust that makes sense.”

  “Who gives a damn? We’ll pick him up at the airport and he’ll be in my office before Secretary Bollinger orders his eggs Benedict.”

  “Wow, I think I hear an old case-officer talking.”

  “Could be.”

  “How are you going to handle Courtland?”

  “I’m trusting he’s as bright as his service record says he is. I recorded Schneider—with his permission—and had him vocally confirm a very complete deposition. I’ll present Courtland with everything, and hope he sees the light.”

  “He may not, Wes.”

  “I’m prepared for that. Schneider’s ready to be flown to Washington. He really doesn’t like where he came from—his words, incidentally.”

  “Congratulations, my honcho.”

  “Thanks, Drew, not bad, if I do say so.… Also, there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “Contact Moreau. I spoke to him a few minutes ago and he expects your call this morning—your time.”

  “I’m not comfortable going around Witkowski, Wes.”

  “You won’t be, he knows everything. I reached him too. It’d be stupid to freeze him out; we need his expertise.”

  “What’s with Moreau?”

  “He and I went
in different directions but came back with the same information. We’ve found our tunnel to the Brotherhood. It’s a man, a doctor in Nuremberg, where the trials took place.”

  “Ironic. What goes around comes around.”

  “Talk to you later, after you speak to Moreau.”

  Latham hung up the phone and turned to Karin. “Our holiday’s been cut a tad short, but we’ve still got an hour or so.”

  She held out her arms, her bandaged right hand lower than her left.

  The night was dark and still, as, one by one, ten minutes apart, the speedboats swung into the long dock in the Rhine River. A dim red light on the highest pylon was their point of arrival, the erratic moon not helpful, for the sky was overcast. The operators of these swift craft, however, were familiar with the waterways and the estates they frequented. Engines were cut a hundred or so feet from the dock, the river tides gently ushering the boats toward their slips, where a two-man crew caught the thrown ropes and pulled them silently into their resting places. And, one by one, the men attending the conference walked up the dock and onto a flagstone path that led to the mansion on the river.

  The arrivals greeted one another on a huge candlelit veranda where coffee, drinks, and canapes were served. The conversation was innocuous—golf scores and tennis competitions, nothing of relevance; that would change abruptly. An hour and twenty minutes later the group was complete, the servants dismissed, and the formal meeting began. The nine leaders of Die Brüderschaft der Wacht sat in a semicircle facing a lectern. Dr. Hans Traupman rose from his chair and walked to it.

  “Sieg Heil!” he shouted, thrusting his right arm forward in the Nazi salute.

  “Sieg Heil!” roared the leaders in unison, rising as one and shooting out their arms.

  “Sit, if you please,” said the doctor from Nuremberg. Everyone did so, their posture straight, their concentration absolute. Traupman continued. “We have glorious news to report. Across the globe, enemies of the Fourth Reich are in disarray, they tremble in fear and confusion. It is now time for another stage, an assault that will plunge them further into bewilderment and panic, while our disciples—yes, our disciples—are prepared to move cautiously but firmly into positions of influence everywhere.… Our action will require sacrifices from many in the field, risk of imprisonment, even death, but our resolve is strong, our cause mighty, for the future is ours. I shall turn the meeting over to the man we’ve chosen to be the Führer of the Brüderschaft, the Zeus who will guide our movement to fulfillment, for he is a man without compromise and with a will of steel. It’s an honor to ask Günter Jäger to address you.”