The Apocalypse Watch Read online

  “It’s Courtland, Drew. I’m sorry to call at this hour, but it’s necessary.”

  “What happened?”

  “The German ambassador—”

  “He knew about tonight?”

  “Nothing at all. Sorenson called him from Washington and apparently raised hell. Shortly thereafter Claude Moreau did the same.”

  “They’re pros. What’s going down?”

  “Ambassador Heinrich Kreitz will be here at nine o’clock this morning. Sorenson and Moreau want you here too. Not only to corroborate the reports, but obviously to protest vigorously the personal attack on you.”

  “Those two old veteran spooks are mounting a pincer assault, aren’t they?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “In the Second World War it was a German strategy. Close in on both sides, squeeze the enemy so he has to run north or south or east or west. If he chooses wrong, he’s finished, which he will be because the points are covered.”

  “I’m not military, Drew, but I really don’t think Kreitz is an enemy.”

  “No, he’s not. In fact, he’s a man with a historical conscience. But even he doesn’t know who’s in his ranks here in Paris. He’ll damn well stir up the waters, and that’s what Sorenson and Moreau want him to do.”

  “Sometimes I think you people speak a different language.”

  “Oh, we do, Mr. Ambassador. It’s called obfuscation in the interests of deniability. You might say it’s our lingua franca.”

  “You’re babbling.”

  “I’m dead tired.”

  “How long does it take you to get from your place to the embassy?”

  “First I have to go to the garage where I keep my car—”

  “You’re in a Deuxième vehicle now,” Courtland interrupted.

  “Sorry, I forgot.… Depending on the traffic, about fifteen minutes.”

  “It’s ten past six. I’ll have my secretary wake you at eight-thirty and I’ll see you at nine. Get some rest.”

  “Maybe I should tell you what happened—” It was too late, the ambassador had hung up the phone. It was just as well, thought Latham. Courtland would want details, prolonging the conversation. Drew crawled up on the bed, managing at the last to replace his telephone. The only good thing to come out of the night was the fact that he’d be spending a week, or however long it took to restore his flat, at a very fine hotel, and Washington would pick up the bill.

  The white glider swept down in the late afternoon cross-currents into the valley of the Brotherhood. Upon landing, it was immediately hauled under a covering of green screening. The Plexiglas canopies of both the forward and aft cockpits sprang open; the pilot in pure white coveralls emerged from the former, his very much older passenger from the latter.

  “Komm,” said the flyer, nodding toward a motorcycle with a sidecar attached. “Zum Krankenhaus.”

  “Yes, of course,” replied the civilian in German, turning and lifting a black leather medical bag out of the aircraft. “I presume Dr. Kroeger is here,” he added, climbing into the sidecar as the pilot mounted the seat and started the engine.

  “I would not know, sir. I’m only to bring you to the medical clinic. I do not know any names.”

  “Then forget I mentioned one.”

  “I heard nothing, sir.” The motorcycle raced into one of the screened corridors and, making several turns, sped across the valley to the north end of the flatland. There, again covered by the screening, was the usual one-story structure, but somehow different. Where the other structures were basically solidly built of wood, this was heavier, sturdier—cinder block layered with concrete—with an enormous generator complex on the south side, the continuous hum low, powerful. “I’m not permitted inside, Doctor,” said the pilot, stopping the motorcycle in front of the gray steel door.

  “I’m aware of that, young man, and I’ve been told how to proceed. Incidentally, I’m to leave in the morning, at the earliest light. I trust you know that.”

  “Yes, I do, sir. The winds then are the best.”

  “They couldn’t be any worse.” The doctor got out of the sidecar; the flyer sped off as his passenger walked to the door, looked up at the camera lens above, and pressed the round black button to the right of the frame. “Dr. Hans Traupman by orders of General von Schnabe.”

  Thirty seconds later the door was opened by a man in his forties dressed in white hospital attire. “Herr Doktor Traupman, how good to see you again,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s been several years since the lectures in Nuremberg. Welcome!”

  “Danke, but I wish there were a less arduous way of getting here.”

  “You would dislike the mountain approach even more, I assure you. One walks for miles, and the snow gets heavier with every few hundred meters. Secrecy has its price.… Come, have some schnapps and relax for a few minutes while we chat. Then you’ll see our progress. I tell you, it’s remarkable!”

  “Drinks later, and we’ll chat as we observe,” countered the visiting physician. “I have a lengthy meeting with von Schnabe—not a pleasant prospect—and I want to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. He’ll ask for judgments and hold me accountable.”

  “Why am I excluded from this meeting?” asked the younger doctor resentfully as both sat down in the clinic’s anteroom.

  “He thinks you’re too enthusiastic, Gerhardt. He admires your enthusiasm but he doesn’t trust it.”

  “My God, who knows more about the process than I do? I developed it! With all respect, Traupman, this is my field of expertise, not yours.”

  “I know that and you know that, but our nonmedical general can’t understand it. I am a neurosurgeon and have a certain reputation in cranial operations, therefore he turns to that reputation, not to the real expertise. So convince me.… As I gather, according to you it’s theoretically possible to alter the thought process without drugs or hypnosis—that theory somewhere in the ozones of parapsychological science fiction, but then so were heart and liver transplants not too many years ago. How is it actually done?”

  “You practically answered that yourself.” Gerhardt Kroeger laughed, his eyes bright. “Take the ‘trans’ out of ‘transplant’ and insert the letters i and m.”

  “Implant?”

  “You implant steel plates, don’t you?”

  “Of course. For protection.”

  “So have I.… You’ve performed lobotomies, not so?”

  “Naturally. To relieve electrical pressures.”

  “You’ve just said another magic word, Hans. ‘Electrical,’ as in electrical impulses, the brain’s electrical impulses. I simply microcalibrate and tap into them with an object so infinitesimal compared to a plate that it would be a mere shadow on an X ray.”

  “What in hell would that be?”

  “A computer chip entirely compatible with an individual brain’s electrical impulses.”

  “A what …?”

  “Within years, psychological indoctrination will be a thing of the past. Brainwashing will be history!”

  “Come again?”

  “Over the past twenty-nine months I’ve experimented with—operated upon—thirty-two patients, often with five or more in varying stages of development—”

  “So I’ve been given to understand,” interrupted Traupman. “Patients provided by suppliers, from prisons and elsewhere.”

  “Scrutinized, Hans, all male and all with above-average intelligence and education. Those from the prisons were sentenced for such offenses as embezzlement, or selling inside corporate information, or falsifying official government reports for personal gain. Crimes of subterfuge requiring some degree of expertise and sophistication, not violence. The violent mind as well as the less intelligent can too easily be programmed. I had to prove that my procedure could succeed above those levels.”

  “Did you prove it?”

  “ ‘Sufficient unto the day,’ as the Bible says.”

  “Why do I hear a n
egative, Gerhardt?”

  “Because there is one. To date, the implant functions for not less than nine days or more than twelve.”

  “What happens then?”

  “The brain rejects it. The patient rapidly develops a cranial hemorrhage and dies.”

  “You’re saying the brain explodes.”

  “Yes. Twenty-six of my patients so expired; however, the last seven lasted progressively from nine to twelve days. I’m convinced that with further microsurgical techniques I can eventually overcome the time factor. Ultimately, and it may take years, it will function permanently. Politicians, generals, and statesmen everywhere can disappear for a few days, and thereafter become our disciples.”

  “But for the present circumstances, with this American agent Latham, you believe he’s ready to be sent out, am I correct?”

  “Without question. You’ll see for yourself. He’s in his fourth day, leaving a minimum of five left and a maximum of eight. As our personnel in Paris, London, and Washington inform us that he is needed for no more than forty to seventy-two hours, the risk is minimal. By then we’ll know everything our enemies know about the Brotherhood with the much more important benefit of Latham sending them all off in wrong directions.”

  “Let’s go back, if you please,” said Traupman, shifting his legs in the white plastic chair. “Before we get to the procedure itself, what exactly does this implant of yours do?”

  “Are you familiar with computer chips, Hans?”

  “As little as possible. I leave that to my technicians, as I do the application of anesthesia. I have enough to be concerned about. But I’m sure you’ll tell me what I don’t know.”

  “The newest microchips are barely three centimeters in length and less than ten millimeters wide, and they can hold the equivalent of six megabytes of software. That’s sufficient to contain all the works of Goethe, Kant, and Schopenhauer. By using an E-PROM Burner to insert the information into the chip, we then activate the ROM—Read-Only Memory—and it reacts to the sonic instructions delivered to it in the same way a computer search reacts to the codes a programmer enters into a processor. Granted, there is a slight delay as the brain, the thought process, adjusts to the interception, the alternate wavelength, but that in itself can only persuade the interrogator into believing the subject is truly thinking, preparing a truthful response.”

  “You can prove this?”

  “Come, I’ll show you.” The two men got up and Kroeger pressed a red button to the right of the heavy steel door. Within seconds a uniformed nurse appeared, a surgical mask in her hand. “Greta, this is the famed Dr. Hans Traupman.”

  “Yes, I know,” said the nurse. “A privilege to see you again, Doctor. Please, your mask.”

  “Yes, of course I know you!” exclaimed Traupman warmly. “Greta Frisch, one of the finest surgical nurses ever in my operating room. My dear girl, they said you had retired, and for one so young it seemed not only regrettable, but quite unbelievable.”

  “I retired into marriage, Herr Doktor. With this one.” Greta nodded at Kroeger, who was grinning.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d remember her, Hans.”

  “Remember? One doesn’t forget a Nurse Frisch, who anticipates your every demand. To tell you the truth, Gerhardt, your credibility just went up the scale.… But why the mask, Greta? We’re not operating.”

  “My husband will answer you, sir. These things are beyond me, no matter how often he explains them.”

  “The ROM, Hans, the Read-Only Memory. With this patient we don’t care to have too many images of identifiable faces, and yours could fall into that category.”

  “Way past me too, Nurse Frisch. Very well, let us proceed.” The trio walked through the doors, entering a long, wide, pale green corridor with succeeding large, square glass windows on either side. Beyond the windows were pleasantly appointed rooms, each having a bed, a desk, a couch, and such items as a television set, a radio, and a door that led to a bathroom with shower. Also, there were other windows on the outside walls that looked over the meadows, profuse with weaving high grass and springtime flowers. “If these are the patients’ hospital rooms,” continued Traupman, “they’re among the most pleasant I’ve seen.”

  “The radios and the television sets are preprogrammed, naturally,” said Gerhardt. “It’s all innocuous fare, except for the radios at night, when we transmit information as it pertains to the individual patients.”

  “Tell me what I’m to expect,” said the neurosurgeon from Nuremberg.

  “You’ll find an outwardly normal Harry Latham who still believes he’s fooled us. He answers to his cover name, Alexander Lassiter, and he’s extremely grateful to us.”

  “Why?” interrupted Traupman. “Why is he grateful?”

  “Because he believes he was in an accident and barely escaped with his life. We used one of our huge mountain vehicles and staged the event most convincingly, overturning the truck, ‘pinning’ him under it and employing surrounding bursts of fire.… Here I did permit the use of drugs and hypnosis—immediately, so as to erase his first minutes here in our valley.”

  “Are you sure they’re erased?” They stopped in the corridor, the Nuremberger’s gaze fixed on Kroeger.

  “Completely. The trauma of the ‘accident,’ along with the violent images, as well as the pain we induced, superseded any memories of his arrival. They’re blocked out. Naturally, we reemployed hypnosis to make certain. All he remembers are the screams, the excruciating pain, and the fires he was dragged through while being rescued.”

  “The stimuli are psychologically consistent,” noted the neurosurgeon, nodding his head. “What about the time factor? If he’s aware of it, how did you explain the passage of time?”

  “The least difficult. When he awoke, his upper skull was heavily bandaged, and while under mild sedation he was told—over and over again—that he’d been severely injured, that he had gone through three separate operations while in a prolonged coma during which he remained completely silent. It was explained to him that had his vital signs not remained remarkably strong, I would have given up on him.”

  “Well phrased. I’m certain he’s grateful.… Does he know where he is?”

  “Oh, yes, we withhold nothing from him.”

  “Then how can you send him out? My God, he’ll disclose the whereabouts of the valley! They’ll send in planes; you’ll be bombed out of existence!”

  “It will not matter, for as von Schnabe will undoubtedly tell you, we won’t exist.”

  “Please, Gerhardt, one thing at a time. I will not take another step until you explain yourself.”

  “Later, Hans. Greet our patient first, then you’ll understand.”

  “My dear Greta,” said Traupman, turning to the wife. “Is this husband of yours the same logical human being I knew before?”

  “Yes, Doctor. This part, the part he will explain to you, I do understand. It’s brilliant, sir, you’ll see.”

  “But first see our patient; he’s the next window, the next door on the right. Remember, his name is Lassiter, not Latham.”

  “What should I say to him?”

  “Whatever you like. I’d suggest congratulating him on his recovery. Come along.”

  “I’ll wait by the desk,” said Greta Frisch Kroeger.

  The two physicians walked into the room where Harry Latham, his head bandaged around his temples, stood by the large outside window. He turned and smiled; he was dressed in shirtsleeves and gray flannel trousers. “Hi there, Gerhardt. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Have you been for a walk, Alex?”

  “Not yet. You can damage a businessman, but you can’t take the business out of the man. I’ve been playing with figures; there are fortunes to be made in the Chinese mainland. I can’t wait to fly over.”

  “May I present Dr.… Schmidt from Berlin?”

  “Glad to meet you, Doctor.” Latham walked over, his hand extended. “Also glad to see another doctor in our amazing complex here, just
in case Gerhardt louses me up.”

  “I gather he hasn’t so far,” said Traupman, shaking hands. “But then, I hear you’re an exceptionally good patient.”

  “I don’t think I had a choice.”

  “Forgive the mask, Herr … Lassiter. I have a slight cold and the resident surgeon is a stickler, as you Americans say.”

  “I can say it in German, if you like.”

  “Actually, I like to practice my English. Congratulations on your recovery.”

  “Well, I’ll give Dr. Kroeger some credit.”

  “I’m curious, from a medical point of view. If it’s not too difficult for you, what do you recall when you reached the flatland of our valley?”

  “Oh.” Latham/Lassiter paused briefly while his eyes were momentarily glazed, unfocused. “You mean the accident.… Oh, Christ, it was terrible. A lot of it’s a blur, but the first thing I remember is the shouting; it was hysterical. Then I realized that I was stuck under the side of that truck, and a heavy piece of metal was pressed against my head—I’ve never felt such pain. And people were all around, trying to lift whatever it was off me—finally freeing me, and dragging me across the grass, where I screamed because I saw the fires, felt the heat, and thought my whole face was going to be burned. That’s when I passed out—for a hell of a long time, as it happened.”

  “A terrifying experience. But you’re on your way to full health, Mr. Lassiter, that’s all that matters.”

  “If in the new Germany you can find a way to get Gerhardt a mansion on the Danube, I’ll pay for it.” Latham’s eyes were now totally clear, completely focused.

  “You’ve done enough for us, Alex,” said Kroeger, nodding at Traupman. “Dr. Schmidt here merely wanted to say hello to our generous benefactor, and to make sure I performed as he taught me to.… Take your walk anytime you like—after you’ve finished figuring out how to extract many more millions from Asia.”

  “It’s not that difficult, believe me. The Far East doesn’t merely like money, it worships it. When you decide I’m ready to leave, Gerhardt, the Brotherhood will be richer for it.”

  “You are forever in our Teutonic prayers, Alex.”