“Sure.”
“Right, gentlemen, shall we go?” she asked in fluent German.
Ernst looked at the tall English woman with mild curiosity. The voice was the same as the girl on the bus, and not dissimilar to the DDR Police lieutenant. He then saw her eyes.
“You!” he said.
She smiled at him, and he shook his head vacantly. He remembered having a silly thought, but then it had gone. He simply picked up his suitcase and followed the others to a parked Mercedes, which the efficient young woman opened and drove them to the British Embassy.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
July 1972
“Sit down, Captain, please.”
Captain David G. Robbins, US Military Police, sat, placing his cap on the floor by the chair. He stared at the man behind the large mahogany desk. The large seal of the US army was emblazoned on the plaque behind the man, together with the stars and stripes. This was the flag that, many years ago, the seated man once carried ashore on an island in the pacific during the second war.
David was unused to wearing his uniform. He rubbed the back of his neck, as the white area signified that he’d recently had a haircut. He’d spent the many of the last few years working in plain clothes investigating serious crimes, such as fraud and corruption, by military personnel in the Far East. At thirty-three, he’d been in the army for eight years now, but he’d been a Chicago detective before being head hunted by this same General, as there was a problem with whom to trust in army in the region. Given a commission, he’d risen to the challenge and exceeded the General’s expectations. However, his success was at some personal cost, as his wife had not relished the service life and had divorced him some months before the end of the third year.
General Walter Goldman was a seasoned veteran of WW2, Korea and the Cold War. His chest was a myriad of colour, as his many rows of medal ribbons illustrated just how much he had achieved in his thirty-four years in the U.S. military. He was also a hawk of the first order, having encouraged the late J.F. Kennedy to call the Russian’s bluff over Cuba and the missiles.
As a result, the establishment were wary of him, arranging for him to be ‘promoted’ to a top-secret project that proved to be a cul-de-sac in the avenues of power.
The General was reading a document that lay on the desk, with his balding head bent down. His steel grey hair was cut very short, and David waited patiently looking at the many black and white photographs that littered the walls. He recognised three presidents and many famous men from history, including McArthur, Churchill, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Bradley and Kennedy.
Finally, the General looked up.
“How was the flight?”
“Okay, I guess, thanks General.”
“I’m sorry to cut into your R and R. How was Tokyo?”
“Pretty good. It’s changed since I was there six years ago.”
“Everything’s changing, David. The decks get shuffled so often, I guess it’s hard to keep track.”
David waited for the General to get to the point.
“You’ve done one heck of a job, David.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you know what aspect of this whole messy business I like the best?”
“No sir.”
“Not one squeak leaked to the press or the outside world, you run a tight operation, young man, a very tight operation.”
“As I told you sir, I do the job as it needs to be done. You told me no waves, so no waves.”
“It was a pity about General Finnegan.”
“He was dirty, sir, by rights I shouldn’t have given him the way out.”
“No, but he’d been a good soldier. Hell, we’d fought the Nazis and the Japs together!”
“Sir, there was no excuse for what he did in Cambodia, or what he allowed to be done.”
The General passed over the Star and Stripes newspaper, in which General Finnegan’s obituary had been published. He’d taken his own life for reasons that had yet to be discovered.
David read it, not appreciating that a criminal was permitted to die a hero.
“Son, that man gave of himself many times over, so don’t judge him too harshly.”
David smiled, as the old warhorse could read him like a book.
“Still, that’s not why you’re here. I expect you’re wondering why I’ve asked for you to be re-assigned?”
“I guess I do, sir.”
“What do you know of Project Omega?”
“Very little, sir. It was set up in the fifties to ascertain whether the Soviets were using telepaths to spy on us. There was a scandal when some US military personnel were given drugs to heighten their ESP potential and became mildly psychotic. I understand the project was closed down in 1962.”
“I’m impressed, for a supposedly secret project, you seem to know quite a bit.”
“Sir, I was given the task to deal with some of the fall-out from the lawsuits initiated by the victims’ families. I was permitted a brief need-to know summary in order to investigate the claims and produce a report for the joint chiefs.”
The General nodded.
“That’s why you’re here. We have evidence that the Soviets have been successful and have infiltrated the US with several gifted individuals who may even now be transmitting classified information to the enemy.”
David frowned.
“Sir, why me?”
“You’re a good cop, you’re squeaky clean and I know that I can trust you. And this needs a man I can trust completely.”
“Yes sir.”
“This is a job for an investigator, who also happens to be a soldier. The FBI is worried, as it’s supposed to be their job to protect us from foreign powers. Yet they don’t even know where to start. The CIA can’t and won’t operate inside the USA, so I’ve been asked by the President to see what we can resurrect from the ashes of Omega.”
David frowned.
“Ashes, you mean there’s something left?”
The General stood up, walking round the desk to a large antique cabinet in the corner.
“Drink, Captain?”
“Thank you, no sir.”
The older man poured a generous measure of Scotch into a crystal tumbler and took a sip. He looked thoughtful.
“Omega closed down. Project Chameleon is my baby, but it’s a shadow of its former glory. There are no original subjects left, and the specialists and scientists have flown to the four winds. I was given the name of a professor at UCLA who is way ahead of his field in ESP. He is Simon Haddow, professor of paranormal studies. The problem is, when I sent someone to get him, I’m told that he’s been persuaded to go back to England by the Ministry of Defence. I want to know why. The British are hardly key players in this game; so how do they manage to persuade this man to give up a highly paid position at UCLA to return to England? It can’t be the money, so what else?”
David kept quiet, correctly judging that the General was not expecting answers at this time.
“I think they’ve stumbled on something. Have you ever heard of Project Chrysalis?”
“No sir, should I have?”
“I’d be very surprised and upset if you had. This was the British equivalent of Omega, but they started during the war. Churchill was of the opinion that the Soviets would try just this, so he initiated a similar project to counteract whatever they were doing. Churchill actually asked Ike for pointers on the damn thing.”
“Is it still going, sir?”
“Project Chrysalis? No. The left wing, labour government cut funding and caused the main people to disperse. One of them was Professor Simon Haddow. It seems that the British have now got some of the original team back together. Now, I still have contacts in the British General staff, and a little bird told me that an old chum, Brigadier William Wallace had been put out to pasture, like me, but somehow has managed to gain some success in the intelligence world. There is a whisper that the wily old sod has managed to find some gifted individuals to assist in the defection of key people from East Germany. Now, if he can do it, then, Goddamn it, so can I!”