Then they were gone. Lawson didn’t bother to look at the first MP, knowing full well he was quite dead. He first checked Liza and then Winchell, both of whom were no more than scared. Then he checked the other MP, who was slowly dying from the bullets in his chest. Finally, Lawson stared helplessly at the taillights growing dimmer in the distance. He had caught no more than a glimpse of the gunner’s face, but he’d seen it somewhere before, and he burnt it into his memory.
Somehow, somewhere, he promised himself, that asshole’s time will come.
Griffin and Stern froze in the ballroom doorway.
Bodies lay draped grotesquely across tables, on the dance floor, and at the head table. The six members of the off-duty soldier band had died on their instruments. Robin’s egg-blue tablecloths slowly soaked up a steady flow of bright red blood. The U.S. Army Europe commander, battalion commanders, the general officers and their aides, and a hundred other of the most powerful military men and women in Europe — and their spouses and dates — all lay as equals. The fire had spread from the head table and was licking hungrily at both the window and the stage curtains. The smell of burning flesh grew stronger. For a minute Griffin and Stern could do no more than stare.
“Get the fire extinguisher, Mark!” Stern’s shout broke their reverie.
Griffin quickly found it and came back. He hosed the flames, but it was a losing battle. They heard sirens and cars pull up outside. Lieutenant Travers and an MP sergeant froze beside them a moment later.
“I want a fire truck here in five minutes,” Stern commanded. “There’s a phone at the bar in the next room.”
The MP sergeant went, halting at the sight of the dead bartender on the floor. The sergeant called the post fire department, gave the information, hung up, and then managed to break away from the dead man’s stare to retch into the bar sink.
The fire crew stopped short — just as Stern, Griffin, the MP sergeant, and Travers had before — the ballroom full of death paralyzing them. The smoke and stench grew thick, but before he coughed his way out, Stern yelled and shoved the crew into action. Griffin followed close behind, dodging a fire fighter who was wrestling a tan python of hose into the room. At the MP car, where they sucked in clear air, Lieutenant Travers stood in awe.
“Sirs, you must have had one hell of a fight with them.”
The two colonels surveyed themselves, then each other. In the macabre mixture of police and fire strobe lights and the glow from the burning club, each gave the other the smallest, but most understanding, of grins. Each nodded gently.
“Lieutenant,” Griffin said, “someday we might tell you about it.”
“Yeah, S3, someday.” Stern thought for a moment. “We need to get back to headquarters. Travers, you stay here with the fire department. Let me know how it goes.” He climbed into the back of the HMMWV, motioning for Griffin to take the front.
“You go up front, Colonel,” Griffin said quietly. “The front seat is for commanders. You’re in charge of the 195th now.”
The trucks and HMMWVs lumbered into the parkplatz and stopped. A few seconds passed before the soldiers roused themselves to dismount and urinate. All they were to do there was check maintenance and change drivers — no more than ten minutes’ worth of rest stop to keep on schedule. Seven miles earlier Tim Tuttle’s bladder had woke him, demanding to be emptied. He was out the door of his HMMWV before it fully stopped, heading for the wood line.
Because Tuttle was in one of the lead vehicles and was ten steps ahead of the others, he lived thirty seconds longer.
The plan had been to hold fire until the Americans remounted and were ready to leave, but the thin line coming toward the woods, with an officer leading, had threatened the ambush leader, Capt. Wilhelm Schneck. First he saw small clumps of soldiers outside the trucks, then the clumps seemed to disperse in a ragged line, almost like a skirmish line, coming right toward him.
We’re compromised, Schneck thought in panic. Somehow they know. His yell of “Fire!” could be heard by his men at both ends of the ambush. Most of the sleepy Americans didn’t understand German, but all stopped at the sound. Then the bullets in the crisscrossing lines of tracers killed them before they could think of anything else. Some died as they sought the most basic of human comforts, others died swearing as the ambush party shifted its fire- and caught them trying to clear out of their trucks. Drivers fell at the wheel; unseen bullets tore through truck canvas, killing others. Then the firing stopped. The ambush leader waved a signal, and the clearing party moved quickly but cautiously, just as rehearsed, to the trucks. They shoved the bayonets attached to their rifles into each American, whether still or moaning. At last all were quiet. They gathered up the Americans’ weapons, tossing them in the back of a van, which moved methodically from vehicle to vehicle.
Schneck walked quickly from truck to truck, his pistol drawn, lest one of his men had missed someone.
Stern gave all the orders he could think of, including calling an early-morning meeting of the senior surviving officer in each brigade unit, deploying the reaction force around the ammo storage area, issuing a recall of off-post personnel, setting out the MP company, closing the post, and calling for Cooper. He’d given other orders too — orders suggested by Griffin. When Travers returned to tell him the fire was out in the heavily damaged club, Stern had told Travers to go to his room and Griffin’s room and bring each colonel’s battle dress uniform, boots, alert bag, and toilet kit. He smiled grimly to himself at the sudden change in his relationship with his operations officer. Griffin now suggested (forcefully suggested, anyway), rather than demanded, and Stern listened carefully. As he took what he knew to be a few precious minutes for himself in the latrine and scrubbed the dirt and blood from his face, Stern thought about calling Veronica. She was good in a crisis, and now all her talents as mother and comforter would be needed. Stern thought of the smoldering club. The parents inside were not going home to their children. Ever. Veronica could organize something to take care of the kids. Got to take care of the children, he thought. She’d always said she wanted to be involved in my work. She helped the wives when I was in ’Nam, especially those whose husbands didn’t make it home. Maybe a crisis is what we need to bring us back together; she could be on a plane in a few hours.
Presentable, he went to his office, picked up the phone and dialed. It took a moment for the connection to go through. Their number rang. And rang. And rang. Finally, he hung up. Alex truly realized she was “on call” no longer. Veronica Stern was out for the night.
In her dream, an alarm clock rang. Through her haze she came to understand the ringing was her phone.
“Major O’Hara.”
“Maggie, it’s Mark. We’ve been hit. Could be terrorists, but I think something else’s involved and I can’t talk about it.”
“Huh?”
“I think there’s a threat to your place too. Maybe a big one. You need to up your security level to the max.”
“Mark, are you okay?”
“I’m okay, I’m okay. But something is up, something that you should…”
The phone went dead.
Maj. Maggie O’Hara stared at the receiver. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs, then called the Kriegspiel depot duty officer.