“The plan is to go in, secure the location, and set up a perimeter. Nothing will get in or out. Second priority is to find out what happened to the communications systems. Given what we've seen of the crane, it's possible it could just be a downed com tower. Regardless, our technician should be able to repair the damage. If not, we have the ability to communicate via cell phone. Even if the sub-sea repeaters are down, we can fly over sea until we're within range of the shore.”
“Excellent,” Sinclair said. “And what do you need from us?”
“Aside from money?” Johnson said under his breath.
“We'll need blueprints, layout plans, a structural analysis of the underwater supports in case we have to look for tampering. We'll also need a complete employee roster so we can verify identities if anyone is still there and in hiding. Or if we find any bodies, of course. Oh, and we'll need some basic instructions on the drilling machinery and power circuits in case we have to shut the place down more than it already is.”
Sinclair nodded. “You'll get everything you need.”
“Good. Then I assume we're done?”
Everyone stood up. Kate tried but found her rear end glued to her chair. She felt like she should say something more, should ask something more, but she couldn't. The wheels of the political machine were turning too fast.
Michael grabbed her arm. “Meet me back upstairs.”
4
As the crowd filtered out, Kate pushed into the nearby ladies' room. She looked at herself in the mirror, a question surfacing in her mind. How far are you willing to go, kid? The question had come unbidden, but here it was. The world was spinning around her, and she was caught in the middle. But as to the answer, it was simple: she would do what had to be done. She would go all the way. She would find what her father wanted her to find, because that's what this was about, wasn't it? He had left the envelope for her and her alone.
Several minutes later, she finished washing up and headed out, single-minded as she walked back to Michael's office.
Chapter 2: The End of Romance
1
Harald glanced up from the picture in his hand and looked out over the ford. The taste of salt brushed his lips, the breeze picking up on the water. He could just make out the train yard across the inlet, the silhouette of Kiel's opera house beyond. He could smell smoke and industry, the exhaust fumes of the harbor ships. It soothed him somehow. His father had been a shipyard worker for most of his life — until he dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty-two — and being here brought memories of the man. When Harald was young, his father would come to the dinner table covered in soot, still dressed in his blue work shirt and brown coveralls. He would bathe after, but never before. It was as if he were afraid his family would go hungry if they didn't eat the moment he walked in. Harald remembered sitting at the table, next to his mother and his younger brother Burt, and smelling the man. It was never strong, never enough to interfere with his appetite, but it was there: the faint odor of smoke and steel. Even back then, Harald remembered thinking it was the smell of what a man should be doing with his life.
“Do you think we're doing the right thing, Jan?” he asked, looking back to his companion.
Jan only grunted.
The other was a tall, wiry soldier in his mid thirties, as blunt and talkative as a stone. Harald could never sense how resentful Jan was that a man ten years his junior was giving the orders, but it didn't matter. Jan was the sort to take a bullet for a superior officer he hated because he believed it was his duty. And he didn't hate Harald.
“I can't believe we'll be away from our homeland for six months. Six months! God's fury, man, I never thought we'd be leaving this soon. I suppose it could be worse. We could be going overseas to Spain or Portugal for a year.”
Jan grunted again, flicking a spent cigarette butt over the railing and lighting another.
Harald smiled at the woman in the picture. The woman smiled back, her blue eyes shining so brightly they almost defied the black-and-white limitations of the photograph. He ran his fingers over the picture, remembering what it was like to run them through her soft brown hair. She was four years younger than him at twenty-three, and at twenty-three, waiting for someone could be difficult.
A cloud of smoke wafted into Harald's face, and he looked up to see Jan standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.
“You don't make any noise when you walk, Jan.”
“I guess you could say I'm always in character, sir.”
“Is that right?”
Jan grimaced, his beard stubble reflecting in the moonlight.
“Do you think she'll wait for me? She pledged that she would. But do you think women mean it when they say such things?”
“What do you think, sir?”
“She has never known another man besides me. So yes, I think she will. It's only a few months. Isn't that right?”
“Odysseus was away from his wife for twenty years, and she took him back when he returned from war.”
“I never read that one,” Harald said, reflecting on the small pile of books he had kept stashed under his bed as a child. It was one of the few, if tenuous connections he shared with the sergeant. “Did he have to do anything to prove his worth after all that time?”
“He had to murder the hundred and eight sons of bitches who had lined up to fuck her.”
Harald stared at him. “Do you think that was justice, Sergeant Eichmann?”
“Nothing worse than trying to take advantage of a lady, if you ask me.”
It was Harald's turn to grunt; the exchange was more than he'd gotten out of the man in weeks. He opened his mouth to continue, but across the inlet, he saw the beam of a hand torch flash. It was their signal.
He tucked the picture into his uniform and turned, motioning for Jan to follow. They began to walk south towards the highway through the pitch of night. When they reached the road, they only had to wait a few seconds before a black Mercedes 260 rounded the bend and slowed. A young man in uniform stepped out of the driver's side door and saluted. Harald returned the gesture, then climbed in the rear door and settled himself next to the prisoner inside.
“You don't have to be afraid of me, you know. I'm not here to hurt you or your family. In a way, I'm here to help you. You see, your presence here is a matter of national security. It's a matter of patriotism.” He waited. “I've been asked by my superiors to derail you from your current course of action. I am to remind you of your citizenship and obligations to The Republic. You were born a German man in spite of your… other heritage.” Harald turned to look at the prisoner and found him staring back, his eyes shifting uneasily behind his spectacles. His suit was a clean gray, all straight lines and angles. His thin mustache was perfectly even on both sides. Harald thought this was a man obsessed with detail, and perhaps, with appearances. A man such as this would not be difficult to control.