“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“The problem was, some of the people they wanted to keep had been real Nazis-I mean Party members. And the U.S. had laws against the immigration of former Nazis. So Dulles and his boys basically drew up fake dossiers on those guys. The really, really bad Nazis had to be smuggled in through the ratlines and given false identities. The program went on for years, even after presidents like Truman and Eisenhower thought it had been shut down.”
“How many scientists are we talking about?”
“The official number is sixteen hundred. But who knows? A lot of the relevant documents are still classified.”
“After sixty years? But…why?”
Jax gave a soft laugh. “The government likes to pretend it classifies stuff for ‘national security’ reasons. But the truth is, most of that shit is kept under wraps because it’s embarrassing-either to some very important people or to the government itself.”
“But Kline wasn’t a nuclear physicist. He was just a doctor. Why would they want him?”
“Because we had a huge chemical and bioweapons program going ourselves. It wasn’t quite as crazy as what happened in Germany under Hitler, but there was some pretty ugly stuff going on.”
He expected her to say, I don’t believe it. Instead, she was silent for a moment, her gaze fixed on the thick white clouds on the other side of the window. When she spoke, her voice was a hushed whisper. “This is starting to sound really, really scary.”
“No shit.”
Washington, D.C.: 31 October, 6:25 A.M. local time
Rodriguez pushed through the doors from Customs and Immigration into a nearly deserted corridor, and put in a call to Boyd.
“It’s about time you got here. Colonel Lee is becoming a problem,” said Boyd, his voice gravelly with annoyance. “He’ll be at Boulder Bridge in Rock Creek Park at 0730. Can you make it?”
Rodriguez glanced at his watch. “I can make it.”
64
By the time their connecting flight from Berlin touched down at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., it was Saturday, October 31.
Halloween.
A Company car whisked them off to Langley, where Matt handed them mugs of steaming coffee and said, “I know you guys are tired. But we’re running out of time.”
Jax leaned back against Matt’s steel table and blew on the vile brew in his cup. “Have you looked at the calendar? I’d say we’re out of time.”
“And the DCI and Homeland Security still aren’t buying any of this.” Matt’s mop of curly, gray-streaked dark hair looked wilder than ever, and dark circles ringed his eyes. “I even went to the VP with the report you sent from Berlin on Tobie’s last viewing. But without something more definite…” He shrugged. “I’m afraid we’re on our own. Everything we do from here on out is off the Company clock.”
Tobie took one sip of her coffee and quietly set it aside. “What did you find out about Martin Kline?”
“Looks like the Russians were right: from what I can figure, the U.S. government brought Dr. Kline over here in the fall of ’forty-five. But after that, he just disappears. Everything related to him is still classified. Even the DCI couldn’t access it if he wanted to. That kind of clearance needs to come from the Secretary of Defense, and he’s not playing ball.”
Tobie said, “I can’t believe they brought that guy over here. He was a war criminal!”
Matt let out his breath in a harsh huff. “Ever hear of Arthur Rudolph? He built the V-2 rocket for Hitler at the Mittelwerk factory, where something like twenty thousand prisoners they used as slave labor died. We brought him over and put him to work designing the Saturn V rocket we used in the Apollo moon landings.”
Jax rubbed his forehead. “So where did Kline go?”
“That’s anybody’s guess.” Turning away, Matt picked up a sheaf of papers. “I had better luck with this stuff.”
Jax looked up. “What’s that?”
“I ran the fingerprints your buddy Andrei sent. Do you have any idea how much shit I’m taking around here for receiving a fax from the Russian SVR?”
“Andrei is not my buddy.”
“Maybe. But you owe him on this one. Turns out we had all four sets of prints in our files. The shooter with the Special Forces tattoo was a guy from Nebraska named Ben Salinger, while his buddy was an SAS vet, Ian Kirkpatrick. Both left the service several years ago for the big bucks to be had in the private warfare sector.”
“And the Chechen?”
“He was on the CIA payroll up until about eight years ago, when he went private.” Matt reached for another file and held it out. “All three of them worked with this guy.”
Peering over Jax’s shoulder, Tobie found herself staring at a photograph of the lean, dark-haired man she’d originally remote viewed standing in a dark garden in Kaliningrad. “He’s the one who got away. How’d the Russians get his prints?”
“Off one of the cars.”
“Major Carlos Rodriguez,” read Jax. “U.S. Army Rangers. Retired.”
“Let me guess,” said Tobie. “He’s gone private, too.”
“You got it,” said Matt. “These guys were all mercenaries.”
“So who are they working for now?”
Matt scratched the beard under his chin. “I don’t know. But this guy Rodriguez has been doing a lot of contract jobs for the U.S. government lately. His last assignment was to put together a twenty-man team to train some Ukrainian Special Forces guys.”
Tobie said, “What do you mean by ‘contract’ jobs?”
“Basically, they’re no-bid contracts executed at the specific direction of the commanding general in charge of an operation. But here’s the interesting thing: in the last two years, Rodriguez and his boys have worked on six contracts. And five of those contracts were all for the same guy: Lieutenant General Gerald T. Boyd.”
Jax swore softly under his breath.
Tobie said, “Who’s General Gerald Boyd?”
“The Deputy Commander of SOCOM-the U.S. Special Operations Command.”
She sank into one of the battered chairs beside the table. “Are you telling me we’ve stumbled into some kind of black U.S. military project?”
Matt shook his head. “Not necessarily. Most people don’t realize how little accountability there is on what these black ops people do. Once they slap a project ‘Top Secret,’ there’s no oversight. They’ve always had trouble with this kind of shit-Special Forces guys running their own secret projects without any authorization from above. Even the men working for them didn’t know their dirty little tricks weren’t really authorized.”
Jax’s eyes narrowed. “Hang on there. Just because Boyd used Rodriguez in the past doesn’t mean he’s the one using him now.”
Matt tossed him another file. “I’ve been looking into our general. The guy’s a real loose cannon. He’s been linked to everything from coordinating the activities of unauthorized assassination squads to funding black ops that were off the books. He also has a bad habit of shooting off his mouth in public. It was mildly embarrassing when he was going around calling the ‘War on Terror’ an Apocalyptic Crusade against the forces of the Antichrist. But then he came out with a few statements that teetered on the edge of anti-Semitism, and some key people in Washington decided that enough was enough. They’re retiring him at the end of the year, which means no fourth star for our man Boyd. From what I understand, he’s pretty bitter about that. He’s been making noises about finally doing what he says should have been done a long time ago.”
Tobie said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Matt shrugged. “The guy’s not stupid. He hasn’t spelled it out.”
Jax leafed through the General’s file. “Have you asked him about Rodriguez?”
“I tried to make an appointment to get in to see him, but his aide, Phillips, basically told me to take a flying leap.”