The DDA put down the phone and wiped his hands on his pyjamas. The phone call had made him sweat.
'How the hell did they get to England?' the Exec Director had asked him on the phone. It was the first the DDA knew about it. 'Fuck it, you said they were still in New Orleans.'
'We presumed…'
'Weren't we watching all the airports and ports?'
'Yes, sir. The DDI had his men there, too.' He quickly tried to shift some of the blame. 'We even had the roads covered. I don't see how…'
'Well, they did. Get on to our embassy there. Get them to ring this number.' The Exec Director gave the DDA a number that he had just received from his bureau chief in London. 'That's British Intelligence. Guy called Coy. You just get on with it and come back to me in the morning.'
The DDA went downstairs to his study and dialed the number in England. It was engaged. While he waited he switched on the television, flicked it onto CNN. There was an item on a big drugs haul in Seattle and then the President's face came up on the screen.
'The President left last night for a series of visits to Europe…' the picture cut to the President boarding Air Force One at Charles De Gaulle Airport, '…which will culminate in a private meeting with the Russian President in Germany. His first port of call will be London where he is to meet with the British Prime Minister. After that, he flies to Paris to see the French President, then on to Germany for the first historic conference with the Heads of all the NATO, European Community and Warsaw Pact countries. This meeting, seen by many as the first step towards a united Europe spanning east and west, is…'
The DDA had left the phone on automatic redial and now it was ringing back from London. He picked up the receiver, listened, then introduced himself.
'My name's Coy,' came the answer. 'Our man's done a runner.' He wasn't about to tell the Yank that he'd also been duped, that he'd sat on the information for nearly twenty-four hours.
'Runner?' queried the DDA.
'Yes. Bolted. He got back to his flat and our people spotted him. I spoke to him, on the phone, and he said he would come in this morning. Next thing I know, he'd driven out of there, hell for leather, in a bright red sports car, and headed south. We're trying to trace him now.'
'Was the woman with him?'
'Yes.'
'Did he say why?'
'No.' Coy lied back. 'I would've found that out this morning. I think the best we can do is wait until we find them.'
'I can't understand how you…'
'Listen. This was your show. We were there to help. You lost them in the first place. I'll contact your embassy when something turns up. Goodbye.'
The phone went dead in the DDA's hand. He slammed the receiver down.
On the television he saw the President waving at the cameras before the doors on Air Force One closed.
He also saw behind the President the smiling face of the DDI.
The bastard had gone with him.
He suddenly felt very alone.
Shit to the British. Shit to them all. They'd destroyed his career and he didn't even know if he'd ever find out why.
It was time to start digging. Go back into the files. He'd salvage it somehow. Dig into everything. Something always turned up.
Ch. 61
Their feet crunched on the brittle undergrowth, leaving sharp footprints where the early morning frost had taken hold. Kragan and another senior Stermabeitalung officer, in the standard mustard brown shirts, dark brown riding breeches and black leather boots, led their leader through the woods. It was an important time for them, they had to prove that they were on target and ready to execute their task successfully.
Frick was proud as he walked between them, his long black leather coat reaching to the ground. Their military insignia excited him. He imagined it as it would be, centred in red and gold on a black flag, high on a standard, waving in the wind over the stadiums where they would hold their rallies, a symbol of a proud and new Germany, the Fatherland in its true glory.
The wood cabin with its chalet style sloping roof, some forty metres long and twenty wide, was in the middle of a clearing. It was sheltered from prying eyes by trees, in the very heart of that section of the Dresden Heidi that Mitzer had purchased for the Party. It was far enough from anywhere to be unnoticed, far enough for the loudest of to be muffled and lost to passers-by.
As they approached, storm troopers stepped out from cover of the trees. All were armed; two of them had machine guns. It was not a place that unexpected prowlers would ever escape from. Round here, security was tight.
When they saw Frick, whom they had been told to expect, the Stermabeitalung snapped to attention, their arms held out in the traditional Nazi salute.
'Heil, heil.' The salute was repeated, different from the old Nazi one that had been discredited when Germany lost the last war. In their wisdom, the Council had decided that to repeat all the slogans, wear the same swastika insignia and copy all the other mannerisms of the old Nazi party would simply create a credibility gap. So things were changed, honed down, made to appear not quite so militaristic. Frick said nothing. He could live with it. Until it was time to change and emerge as the Party it really was.
He returned the salute as he passed the guards. They had a common cause. It was imperative that they looked up to him, feared him, respected him, loved him.
A Stermabeitalung opened the door that led into the cabin and Frick walked through, the others following. It was dark inside. A long narrow corridor ran down the middle of the building with doors leading off it. Each door had a single glass pane in it. This was ostensibly a centre for the teaching of self defence and disciplined order; in truth it was a training ground for killing and subversive terrorism. Its sole purpose was the development of the Stermabeitalung.
Frick idled his way along the corridor, looking in this window, then that. He saw the storm troopers practising karate, crowd control, baton practice, skills with the knife and their knuckle duster.
Near the end of the corridor was a fully equipped modern shooting range with ten bays. They didn't keep the weapons or ammunition here, however. They were hidden elsewhere in the Dresden Heidi, in a safe place. All the equipment here could be explained away; this was no more than a training ground for those interested in self defence, martial arts and war games, It was, to the outsider, a complete survival centre.
The door of the last room, beyond the range, had no window in it. Kragan excused himself as he pushed past Frick and opened it. His leader and the other officer entered and Kragan closed the door solidly behind them. You could tell it was a heavier than normal, probably wooden clad on a solid steel frame surrounded by high ratio sound proofing. The rest of the room was similarly protected. A single electric bulb dangled from the ceiling. In the middle there was a Formica covered kitchen table on spindly metal legs. Three chairs were pulled up at it. One was empty, the other two occupied by men in civilian clothes. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were gagged. Behind one of them was a shop window dummy dressed in a military uniform. Another dummy was placed by the window on one of the walls. Beyond the window there was another wall. In all, there were three other windows in the room, and one further door. It was a room within a room, with windows looking out onto the cabin walls beyond. A third dummy was in a seated position on the fourth chair that was set away from the table.
'Please don't cross the white line,' Kragan warned Frick as he handed him a set of noise excluders. The white line, painted on the floor, ran across the room, no more than three feet from the door and parallel with it. 'We shall be another two or three minutes,' Kragan added nervously; he knew Frick hated being kept waiting.