Games of State o-3 Read online

  Stoll drove his palm into his forehead. "Sorry," he said.

  "Loose lips sink chips." Ballon nodded.

  As Nancy gave Stoll some passwords to try, Hausen wandered over to Ballon.

  "Colonel, what are we going to do about Dominique?" "We wait." "For what?" Hausen asked.

  Ballon faced the German. He moved close to his ear.

  "For Dominique to get nervous. As I indicated to M. Stoll, Dominique is certainly observing us. Hopefully, we'll find something in the computer." "And if we don't?" Ballon said, "I have you." "Me?" "I'll ask M. Stoll and Ms. Bosworth to send out a message on the computer; your account of the murders in Paris. In either case, we will cripple Dominique." Ballon grinned. "Although there is a third possibility. Dominique has waited twenty-five years for you. If he fears that you may finally reveal secrets about his past, the temptation will be great not to let you walk out that door." "You really think he'd send his New Jacobins against us?" "I've ordered my men to stand back," Ballon said. "If Dominique thinks he can get you before they can move in, he'll surely be tempted. Once he does that, I'll get all of you out and bring this place down." He winked charmlessly. "As I've said, I've waited a long time for Dominique as well. I intend to have him." Ballon withdrew then to watch what Stoll and Nancy were doing. Hausen remained where he was, as though he were bolted to the hardwood floor.

  Hood was standing beside Stoll. He could tell from Hausen's expression that all was not well. The normally impassive face was taut, the brows dipped in concern. But he decided not to ask Hausen about it. The German liked to think things through before speaking. If he had anything to share; he'd share it.

  So Hood just stood there, silently watching with a mixture of fear and pride as the fate of the world was decided by a perspiring young man at a computer keyboard.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Thursday, 5:05 P.M., Washington, D.C.

  When data began coming into Eddie Medina's computer from Matt Stoll in France, the young man took off his coat, sat back down, and told his evening replacement, Assistant Deputy Operations Support Officer Randall Battle, to notify General Rodgers.

  Battle did, just as Stoll's:-) signature faded. It was replaced by a screen which announced a big file called L'Operation Ecouter.

  Rodgers had Battle send the material to his own computer. Then he too watched the feed with Darrell McCaskey and Martha Mackall.

  First up was a note from Stoll.

  Eddie: I don't want to eat up too much line-time with notes.

  Bulldozer cracked the Demain files. Primaries were erased but backups weren't. I'm going to download everything from this file.

  Following the note were photographs of people who served as models for characters in the game. After these came test segments showing white men chasing black men and women. White men raping a black woman. A black man being torn apart by dogs. Then there was a note from Stoll.

  Real games being hatched from a nest somewhere else. Point of origin well hidden.

  There were different angles of black men and women hanging from trees. A bonus round in which a kid raced against a clock while he used black boys on swings for target practice. Martha was stone-faced. McCaskey's lips were rolled tight, his eyes narrow.

  Ed— I must've set off an alarm of some kind. People running all around. Our French escort Colonel Ballon has got his hand full of gun.

  I'm supposed to get down— bye.

  The images continued to come in for a few moments longer but Rodgers wasn't watching them. He had switched to an alternate computer line, and within seconds had been patched through to the cockpit of the V-22 Osprey.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Thursday, 11:07 P.M., Toulouse, France

  "Get away from that keyboard!" Using his left hand, Colonel Ballon pushed Matt Stoll to the floor and then pressed a button on his radio as the gunmen entered. In his right hand was his own weapon. It was the only weapon of any kind among the five of them.

  Squatting on the floor beside the others, Hood counted twelve… fifteen… a total of seventeen men passing by the door and taking up positions albng the corridor wall. Except for the high windows which would require a small ladder to reach, that door was the only exit.

  Hausen was lying face-down between Hood and the crouching Ballon. "Congratulations, Colonel," he said.

  "Dominique has swallowed your bait." Hood knew he'd missed something which had passed between the men. Not that it seemed to matter at the moment. Certainly Ballon didn't seem to care. Alert and cool, he was preoccupied with watching the new arrivals.

  In the quick glimpse he'd had of the gunmen, Hood made them out to be a ragtag bunch. They were dressed simply, in several cases shabbily, as if they didn't want to stand out in the street. And they were holding a variety of weapons. Hood didn't need Ballon to tell him that these were New Jacobins.

  "I guess these guys are the kind of evidence you were looking for, huh," Stoll said anxiously.

  "Levez!" one of the men shouted as they trained their weapons around the room.

  "He wants us to get up," Ballon whispered. "If we do, they may shoot us." "Wouldn't they have shot us already?" Nancy asked.

  "They would have to come in for that," Ballon said.

  "They don't know which of us might be armed. They don't want to take casualties." He leaned toward them and said more quietly, "I've signaled my men. They will be moving toward us, taking up positions." "By the time they're ready it may be too late," Hausen said.

  "Not if we keep concealed," Ballon said, "make the enemy come to us. We're prepared for this." "We're not," said Nancy.

  "If it happens that you're caught in cross fire," Ballon said, "and my men don't see you, shout 'Blanc,' 'White.' That will let them know there are unarmed personnel." Hausen said, "I'm going to give these animals a chance to shoot. Let's see what they're made of." With that, he stood.

  "Herr Hausen!" Ballon hissed.

  The German ignored him. Hood didn't breathe. He could only hear his heart thudding in his ears as he waited to see what happened.

  Nothing happened for a long moment. Finally one of the New Jacobins said, "Allons donc!" "He wants Hausen to leave," Ballon told Hood.

  "This room or the building?" Hood asked.

  "Or maybe this mortal coil?" Stoll added.

  Ballon shrugged.

  Hausen began walking forward. His courage impressed Hood, though a part of him couldn't help but wonder if it was courage or confidence. The confidence of a collaborator.

  Ballon was also waiting. When Hausen was through the door, his footsteps stopped. They listened, heard nothing.

  He was apparently being detained.

  The New Jacobin called for the rest of the people to come out. Hood regarded Ballon.

  "You've dealt with these terrorists," Hood said. "What do they do in situations like this?" "They beat up or murder people in every situation," Ballon said. "Mercy is not a word they understand." "But they didn't kill Hausen," Nancy said.

  "Maintenant!" shouted the New Jacobin.

  "Until they get our weapons, they won't," Ballon said.

  "Then we should get Nancy and Matt out of here," Hood said. "Maybe they can get away." "And you," Nancy said.

  Ballon said, "It's probably worth a try. The danger is that they may use you as hostages. Shoot you one by one until I come out." "How do we prevent that?" Nancy asked.

  "If that happens," Ballon said, "I'll signal my men by radio. They're trained for situations like that." "But there are still no guarantees," Hood said.

  The New Jacobin shouted again. He said he would send his people in if everyone else didn't come out.

  "No," Ballon agreed, "there are no guarantees. But if that happens, they'll have to put each hostage in the doorway so I can see. And if I can see, I can shoot. And if I shoot, whoever is holding the hostage will go down. Then you had all better run." Hood envied the Frenchman his gall. From Mike Rodgers, he had learned that that was what it took to run an operation like this.
He himself wasn't so confident right now.

  His thoughts were with his wife and children. He was thinking about how much they needed him and how dearly he cherished them. How it all could end here because of one wrong word or a misstep.

  He looked over at Nancy, who was wearing a sad halfsmile.

  He wished he could make it all up to her, his part in the turns her life had taken. But there wasn't much he could do right now, and he wasn't sure there would be a later. So he just smiled at her warmly and her own smile broadened.

  For now, that would have to do.

  "All right," Ballon said to the others. "I want you to get up and walk slowly toward the door." They hesitated.

  "My legs aren't moving," Stoll said.

  "Make them," Hood said as he rose, followed by Nancy and very reluctantly by Stoll.

  "Here I thought we were the good guys," Stoll said. "Do we raise our hands or just walk? What do we do?" "Try and calm down," Hood said as they made their way between the banks of computers.

  "Why do people always say that?" Stoll asked. "If I could, I would." Nancy said, "Matt, now you're getting on my nerves.

  Can it." He did, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Hood watched the New Jacobin who had spoken, the man closest to the door. He had a thick black beard and mustache and was dressed in a gray sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. An assault rifle was tucked under his arm. He looked like he wouldn't hesitate to use it.

  The three were quiet until they walked through the doorway. Hood saw Hausen facing a brick wall, his hands pressed against it, his legs spread. One of the men was pointing a pistol up against the base of his skull.

  "Oh, shit," Stoll said as he entered the small, dark corridor.

  The three Americans were grabbed by two men each and pushed against the wall. Guns were placed against the backs of their heads. Hood moved his head slightly so he could see the man in charge. The New Jacobin was cool, standing sideways so he could see his prisoners and also look into the room.

  Beside him, Nancy was trembling slightly. To her right, Stoll was trembling even more. He was looking down the corridor as though weighing an escape.

  "We have a search warrant," Stoll said softly. "I thought this was all legal." The leader barked, "Tais-toi." "I'm not a commando," Stoll said. "None of us is. I'm just a computer guy!" "Quiet!" Stoll's mouth closed audibly.

  The New Jacobin leader studied them for a moment and then turned back to the doorway. He shouted for the last man to come out.

  Ballon yelled back in French, "When you let the others go, I'll come out." "No," said the New Jacobin. "You come out first." Ballon didn't answer this time. Clearly, he intended to leave the next move up to the enemy. And the next move was for the leader to nod toward Hausen. The New Jacobin standing behind the German grabbed his hair. Nancy screamed as the man walked him toward the door. Hood wondered if they were even going to give Ballon the chance to come out, or if they were just going to shoot the German and throw his body in and threaten to throw someone else in text.

  A gunshot popped from somewhere in the darkness, toward the door which led to the main corridor. It took a moment of searching before Hood could see that with all the shouting and shuffling, no one had heard Ballon's men remove the ornate knob from the door. They had a clear shot at everyone in this corridor.

  The man holding Hausen had fallen. He was squeezing his right thigh and crying. Hausen seized on the moment of confusion to run toward the door, in the direction from which the shot had come. None of the New Jacobins fired.

  Obviously, they feared being cut down if they did.

  Hausen opened the door and disappeared. There was no one on the other side. They must have seen him coming and taken cover.

  Hood didn't move. Though the man behind him was looking away, he still felt the pressure of the front sight and muzzle on the top of his neck.

  Perspiration trickled down his armpits and along the sides of his chest. His palms grew clammy against the cold brick wall and he promised himself that if he survived this he'd not only hug each member of his family for a good long time, but also Mike Rodgers. The man had spent his life surviving situations like these. Hood's respect for him suddenly grew very, very deep.

  As he was thinking that, his hands began to vibrate.

  No, Hood thought. Not just my hands. The old bricks themselves were beginning to tremble. Then the sky outside the barred windows brightened. The air itself seemed to rattle. And the New Jacobin leader shouted for his men to finish the job and leave.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Thursday, 11:15 P.M., Wunstorf, Germany

  The footsteps were gaining on them. But as Herbert wheeled himself through the woods, he wasn't thinking about them. He wasn't thinking about anything except what he had overlooked in the pressure of escaping from the camp. The key to survival, to victory.

  What the hell was that name?

  Jody grunted as they moved slowly through the dark.

  Herbert almost asked her to get behind him and kick him.

  I can't remember.

  He would. He had to. He couldn't let Mike Rodgers win this one. Rodgers and Herbert were both fans of military history, and they had debated the point many times over. If you had a choice, they had asked each other, would you rather go into battle with a small band of dedicated soldiers or an overwhelming force of conscripts.

  Rodgers invariably favored greater numbers, and there were strong arguments for both points of view. Herbert pointed out that Samson beat back the Philistines using only the jawbone of an ass. In the thirteenth century, Alexander Nevsky and his poorly armed Russian peasants repulsed the heavily armored Teutonic knights. In the fifteenth century, the small band of Englishmen who fought beside Henry V at Agincourt defeated vastly superior numbers of Frenchmen.

  But Rodgers had his examples as well. The brave band of Spartans were defeated by the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.; the Alamo fell to Santa Anna; and then there was the British 27th Lancers cavalry, the "Light Brigade" which was cut down in its self-defeating charge during the Crimean War.

  Add to the list of the doomed Robert West Herbert, he thought as he listened to the footfalls and cracking twigs.

  The guy who didn't have the goddamn brains enough to write down the name that could have saved them. At least he would die in good company. King Leonidas. Jim Bowie.

  Errol Flynn.

  Thinking about Flynn helped him stay loose as he psyched himself up to make a stand against all these enemies. He only hoped that Jody would run. The thought of fighting to save her gave him extra adrenaline.

  And then, because he wasn't thinking about it, the name he'd been trying to remember came back to him.

  "Jody, push me," he said.

  She had been walking beside him. She stopped and got behind him.

  "C'mon, push," he said. "We're going to get out of this.

  But we'll need time." Jody put her tired back and wounded shoulder into the effort. Herbert reached for his weapon.

  Unlike Flynn's doomed Major Vickers, Herbert was going to hold the enemy off. Though unlike Samson, he wasn't going to use the jawbone of an ass to do it.

  He was going to use a cellular phone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Thursday, 5:15 P.M., Washington, D.C.

  The call was put through to Rodgers as he was waiting for an update from Colonel August.

  Bob Herbert was on a cellular phone. Rodgers switched on the speaker phone so Darrell, Martha, and Press Officer Ann Farris could hear.

  "I'm in the middle of a dark forest somewhere between Wunstorf and a lake," Herbert said. "The good news is, I've got Jody Thompson." Rodgers sat up straight and triumphantly drove a fist into the air. Ann jumped from her chair and clapped.

  "That's fabulous!" Rodgers said. He shot McCaskey a look. "You've done it while Interpol and the FBI are still asking questions and pissing off the German authorities.

  How can we help you, Bob?" "Well, the bad
news is we've got a bunch of Nazi wannabes on our butts. You've got to find me a phone number." Rodgers leaned toward the keyboard. He alerted John Benn with an F6/Enter/17. "Whose number, Bob?" Herbert told him. Rodgers asked him to hold on as he typed Hauptmann Rosenlocher, Hamburg Landespolizei.

  McCaskey had swung over to take a look. While Rodgers sent the number over to Benn, McCaskey jumped to another phone and called Interpol.

  "This Rosenlocher is a burr in the fur of the head Nazi," Herbert said, "and he may be the only man you can trust.

  From what I overheard he's in Hanover, I think." "We'll find him and get him over to you," Rodgers said.

  "Sooner would be better than later," Herbert said.

  "We're pushing on, but we're losing ground to these guys. I can hear the cars. And if they find the bodies we left in our wake—" "I read you," Rodgers said. "Can you stay on the line?" "As long as Jody holds out I can," he said. "She's dead on her feet." "Tell her to hang on," Rodgers said as he switched to the Geologue program. "You too." He brought up Wunstorf and looked over the terrain between the town and the lake.

  It was just as Herbert had described it. Trees and hills. "Bob, do you have any idea where you are? Can you give me any landmarks?" "It's black here, Mike. Far as I know, we may even have done a W.W. Corrigan." Wrong Way Corrigan, Rodgers thought. Herbert didn't want Jody to know they might be headed in the wrong direction.

  "Okay, Bob," Rodgers said. "We'll get you a fix on everyone's positions." McCaskey was still on the line with Interpol, so Rodgers called Stephen Viens himself. Even with light-intensification capabilities for night surveillance, Viens told him that the NRO satellites would require up to a half hour to pinpoint Herbert exactly. Rodgers pointed out that their lives might be at stake. Viens said, not dispassionately, that it would still take up to a half hour. Rodgers thanked him.