“We’ll find them, Matt.”
“You’re running out of time.”
“I know.”
After he got off the phone with Matt, Jax sat at a small, round table overlooking the Weser. The thick bank of clouds building overhead hid the moon and turned the water sliding past into something black and cold. After a moment he got up, rummaged around in his bag, and found a sweater to pull over his head.
Halloween was just over forty-eight hours away. Somehow, knowing exactly what kind of attack they were facing made that date seem to loom even closer. And they still had no idea where the attack was going down, or who was behind it.
Twisting the top off a bottle of springwater, he went to lean against the window frame, his gaze on the river below. Somehow, it all kept coming back to the Russian connection. The Yalena. Kaliningrad. The Russian archives that had kept the German scientists’ records buried for the last sixty years. If only there were some way-some way to…
Reaching for his phone, he put in a call to Colonel McClintock. “Colonel? Jax Alexander here. I want October to do another remote viewing.”
46
Washington, D.C.: Wednesday 28 October
4:00 P.M. local time
Vice President T. J. Beckham stood behind his wide, well-polished desk and waited for the Director of Central Intelligence to walk up to him.
Beckham liked to think of himself as a down-home kind of guy, easy and approachable. Normally, he went out of his way to make folks feel comfortable, to keep from overawing people with the authority of his position.
Today, he wanted to reinforce it.
“You asked to see me, Mr. Vice President?” said Gordon Chandler.
“Yes, Gordon; I did.” Beckham waited while Chandler settled in the comfortable leather club chair on the far side of the desk, then he rubbed his nose with his knuckles and eased out a perturbed sigh. “I’ve just received a somewhat disturbing report, Gordon.”
Chandler’s eyebrows rose in a parody of innocent inquiry. “Sir?”
“About U-114. It seems that submarine wasn’t carrying gold, after all. Word is, it had a real live atomic bomb on it. And you knew about it.”
Chandler blinked, but kept silent.
Beckham flattened his palms on the surface of the desk and leaned into them. “Why wasn’t I told?”
Chandler cleared his throat. “Up until now, it was just a theory, and not one we tended to give much credence to.”
“A theory. Where exactly did this theory come from?”
“Some of the files we seized from Germany at the end of the war-combined with reports from certain captured scientists-suggested that Germany was actually farther along in their atomic program than is generally believed.”
Beckham studied the other man’s smooth, handsome face. “You obviously had more than that. Something that led you to focus on U-114.”
Chandler shrugged. “We knew the Nazis had secretly commissioned one of their XI-Bs. It seemed reasonable to assume they were using it for something important. And the timing was right-March of 1945.”
“So we knew U-114 was an XI-B, rather than an XB?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how did we know that?”
Chandler’s complacent expression never slipped. “We’ve returned most of the archives we seized to the Germans, but not quite all of them. Some sensitive material is still classified. We knew U-114 sailed for South Africa and Japan as part of Operation Caesar, and we knew that amongst its other cargo it carried an unidentified weapon referred to only as ‘die Klinge von Solomon.’”
Beckham frowned. “What’s that?”
“It’s German for ‘the Sword of Solomon.’”
Beckham felt a chill run up his spine.
Chandler said, “It all seemed to fit.”
Beckham pushed away from his desk to stand and look out the window. It was a moment before he spoke. “None of this explains why I wasn’t told the truth.”
“The President made a strategic decision to limit the number of people with access to the intelligence.”
Beckham swung to face him again. “Why?”
“Why?” Chandler huffed a soft laugh. “If this information gets out, it’ll rewrite the history books-and not in a way that would reflect well on the United States.”
“My God, man. You think that’s more important than preventing some terrorist outfit from detonating an atom bomb on our soil?”
A muscle tightened along Chandler’s jaw. “We have over fourteen hundred crews fanning out all over the country, sir. If those sons of bitches have brought that device into the States, we’ll find it.”
Beckham studied the other man’s smooth, handsome face. “Your confidence is inspiring. But I can’t help thinking that, thanks to you, I sent two brave young people into danger without even knowing what I was asking them to face.”
Chandler pushed to his feet. “We plan to bring them home tonight, sir.”
Beckham shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’ve done pretty darn good, so far. I say, let ’em run with it.”
“Sir-”
“You heard me. I want Guinness and Alexander to keep following this thing wherever they think it’s leading them. At least for now.”
Chandler’s jaw tightened. But he simply inclined his head and turned toward the door. “Yes, sir.”
47
Bremen, Germany: Wednesday 28 October
11:05 P.M. local time
“This isn’t going to work,” said October. Wrapped in one of the guesthouse’s big, fluffy white bathrobes, she sat on the edge of the bed, her wet hair hanging straight about her shoulders.
“Why not?” said Jax.
“There’s a protocol”
“I know. I talked to the Colonel. I’ve selected the target myself. It’s written down, here.” He laid a folded square of paper on the table before him. “When we’re ready, I’ll give the Colonel a call. He doesn’t know what the target is, so he can do the tasking from New Orleans, over my speakerphone.”
“This isn’t something you can do over a speakerphone.”
“Why not?”
She ran the splayed fingers of one hand through her wet hair, raking it off her forehead. “I don’t know. It just isn’t.”
“I don’t see why it should make a difference.”
She stared at him with wide, luminous brown eyes. “I thought you didn’t believe in remote viewing.”
“I don’t. But, for some reason I can’t begin to understand, it works.” He hesitated. “Sometimes.”
“See. You don’t believe in it.”
He pushed away from the table. “You saw that U-boat in Kaliningrad. I don’t know how or why, but I can’t deny the fact that it was there, right where you said it was.” He went to put his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the tension thrumming through her like fine little tremors. “You need to do this, October,” he said more gently. “We have just over two days left until Halloween. Right now, we don’t know who these guys are, or where they’re going to hit. About all we do know is that if we don’t stop them, a lot of innocent people are going to die. Horribly.”
She gazed up at him. “What if it doesn’t work? Then what will we do?”
He shifted his hands to her neck, kneading the tight muscles. The truth was, they’d reached a dead end, and time was running out. But all he said was, “We’ll figure out something. But we need this viewing, October. Will you do it?”
He felt her draw in a deep breath that shuddered her small frame. “Let me get dressed.”
While he dimmed the lights, she pulled on a turtleneck and a pair of sweatpants, then went to sit cross-legged in a darkened corner of the room, her hands resting on her knees, her eyes closed. Part of her success as a remote viewer came, he knew, from this-this rare ability to sink so easily and deeply into the required state. Her vegetarian diet, and the years she had spent practicing yoga and meditating, all helped. But the last few days had been chaotic and frightening; how would that affect her ability to reach her “Zone”?