3rd World Products, Book 17 (26 page)

Once a twenty-foot-thick slab of molten rock had filled the bottom of the cavern, I had them cool it. Water immediately began to spread across the new rock. The flitter below monitored the cap for leaks as the others returned to grinding.

They finished excavating the general shape of the crater I wanted, then began grinding away the material above the cavern. Some fifteen minutes later, the remains of the complex and some of the surrounding mountain collapsed inward. Another great gout of dust rose and I called the job finished.

“Athena,” I said, “Please erase all recordings of my activities regarding Fordow nuclear facility. All anyone needs to know is that a hole formed below it and I was here to observe, as requested.”

Marie gave me a fisheye and started to speak, but Athena appeared by the console and startled her to silence.

Athena asked, “Are you sure, Ed?”

I chuckled, “Oh, yes, ma’am. You betcha. Very sure.”

Nodding, she replied, “Done.”

“Thank you. Care to join us?”

“No, I’m assisting Stephanie. Perhaps later.”

“But I’ll feel so deprived, ma’am.”

She grinned. “You’ll probably survive. Bye.”

Chapter Eighteen

Athena vanished. Changing the display on the screen to a satellite view, I pinged Angie.

Her return pings indicated she had company, then she put up a screen and answered, “Yes, Ed?”

With her were Wallace and Haver and half a dozen people in and out of uniform. I gave the whole herd a wave and looked at Angie.

“Hi, there, Colonel Horn. And company, of course. I thought you’d like to know the whole place just collapsed.”

“So we see. We have a live satellite feed. How high are radiation levels in the area?”

Bringing up the flitter’s monitor, I studied it and replied, “Pretty low, really. Barely above ambient normal inside the crater and only normal at the parking lots. It’s like all the hot stuff just dropped through the floor. There was some kind of a hole under the place for a little while. Now there’s just a good-sized crater, but the water table seems intact and uncontaminated.”

One of the uniforms — an Army colonel — leaned forward and asked, “Do you know what happened down there?”

Switching my gaze from Angie to him, I said, “I just told you what happened. The place
collapsed
. I’m not a geologist, Colonel.”

The guy looked at Wallace and asked, “Why’d you send him? Didn’t you have anyone more qualified?”

Wallace rather dourly replied, “Someone once said ‘we go to war with the army we have, not the army we wish we had’.”

Angie kept her gaze firmly fixed on mine and bit her lip as she fairly obviously struggled to stifle a laugh, then she turned and said, “He was only half an hour away and he was available.”

Marie’s snort turned into a cough. She hid her grin behind her hand as she faked another cough. Taking a breath, she said, “Excuse me,” and got up to step out of the screen’s view.

GI Joe turned to face me again and sighed with disgust as he sat back in his chair.

Wallace took a breath and glanced at Angie. She nodded and turned back to me. After another stifling lip-nibble, she spoke.

“Ed, our probes agree with yours about radiation, so we can monitor the situation from here. Just send us whatever you can and keep in touch. And thanks for making the effort.”

With a sloppy salute, I replied, “No problem, ma’am.”

Angie tapped her ‘off’ icon and I sat back to take a sip of coffee.

From the bathroom field came a chuckle, then a laugh. Marie said, “I can see the resemblance.” When I looked at her, she added, “Angie. Linda. They’re a lot alike.”

Grinning, she said, “I loved what Admiral Wallace told the Army colonel. ‘
We go to war with the army we have, not the one we wish we had.
‘ I almost burst out laughing. I’m surprised Col. Horn didn’t.”

“Yeah, she’s tough.”

Looking over the side, she asked, “Are we really done here?”

“Yup. Got your passport on you?”

Giving me a fisheye, she replied, “Of course.”

“Wanna have a late lunch in Germany?”

She grinned hugely and chirped, “Sure!” Pausing for thought, she glanced down at herself and said, “But let’s not go anywhere too fancy. Remember those wonderful little Rotwurst stands?”

“Bet we could find one. Gotta warn you, though; don’t look too hard for the old places. Some are gone and some look so different they might as well be gone.”

Marie sat and sipped a moment, then said, “Let’s find some of the wall. I know they saved some. Is there any of it left in any of the places we crossed?”

I had the screen switch from a view of the crater to a map of Germany, then had it color the old Eastern section yellow and add spots to indicate remnants of the wall. Most were in and around Berlin, a city in which we’d never moved people.

Taking control of the screen, Marie zoomed in on the Fulda region and said, “Look. There’s Point Alpha.” As the picture magnified to show what had been saved of the barrier, she yelped softly, “Is that all that’s
left
of it?! A little bit of fence and concrete, the watch tower, and a goddamned
fake dog?!
”

I sighed, “They prolly took out the land mines, too. Damn.”

Giving me a sharp glance, Marie growled, “Maybe you don’t care, but I do.”

Sipping, I said, “I just don’t see any point in caring too much. The brave new world people cleaned up the mess, put up a few memorials, and moved on. That’s what they always do.”

Panning the view, Marie said, “And now there’s nothing to show for all we did. All those people we pulled out of there.”

“Beg to differ, ma’am. Remember Emily Bruner?”

I watched her eyes as the gears turned in her head and attached the name to a five-year old blonde girl crying in the back seat of a ‘borrowed’ East German government-issue sedan.

Marie sat down and said softly, “Yeah, I remember her.”

So did I. The kid had rather stark eyes and hadn’t said much. Carla Bruner, her mother, had sat silently holding her and staring hard at the dark road ahead. It had been raining and we couldn’t use the headlights. I drove and Marie read off the odometer until we reached nineteen kilometers, then I slowed.

We’d practically crawled the last five klicks as we’d searched for a leaning tree that marked a turnoff into the woods. Luck was with us in that we encountered no other traffic.

After a time we found the tree — or thought we had — and I got out to verify. Running my hand along the downside of the trunk, I found three small nails, each an inch apart in a neat little row. All good. Any other pattern would have meant to keep moving.

Once we were into the concealment of the woods, I opened the trunk to cut and tape the wires to the rear lights, then turned on the parking lights and walked around the car. Only the front parking lights worked. I put duct tape over the top halves of the big amber lenses and we followed the logging trail deeper into the forest.

Marie had reset her watch to be on the hour. When we started moving, she pushed in the stem and listened to the watch. After a couple of seconds, she put it back on her wrist. We’d figured the meeting point would be about forty minutes up the trail. What seemed like a lot longer time passed until she said, “Forty.”

We kept going another couple of minutes and two quick flashes ahead made me stop the car. I put a hand on the .45 in my lap and thumb-checked that the safety was off on general principles. Using the cover of engine noise as I slowly got moving again, Marie eased her door open as quietly as possible and slithered out.

“Carla,” I said in a conversational tone, “You and Emily get down on the floor now, please.”

“Yah, wir…” she hissed, then, “Yah. Fertig.”

“Gut. Bleiben sie, bitte.”

I turned off the lights and we approached the area where the light had flashed at a walking pace. Several seconds later we were ordered to halt by someone to our left and slightly behind us.

Will’s voice said, “Twenty-seven.”

I replied, “Twenty-three.”

A shadow nonetheless approached the car very cautiously, stepping from tree to tree. Remaining mostly behind the nearest one, he raised a flashlight and flicked it on and off, illuminating the interior of the car for half a second.

After another second, he asked, “How many?”

I said, “Two and two,” meaning two ops and two clients.

“You’re short one.”

From behind and to his left, Marie said, “No, he isn’t. You are.”

From a tree somewhat ahead of the car on the right, Connie replied quietly, “No, he isn’t. Any surprises?”

I said, “Not a one. How about you?”

“Just one,” said Connie, “We ran into a guard. He decided to come with us.”

Carla hissingly shrieked in German, “
A guard?! Here?!
”

“Don’t panic. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t worth keeping.” Opening my car door, I asked, “And just out of curiosity, what made him worth keeping?”

Will said, “He handed me his rifle and asked to come with us.”

“If you had your gun on him at the time, that might be the expected response.”

Connie chuckled, “He seemed pretty sincere to me.”

Will flicked his flashlight on to his left and showed me a guy in uniform sitting on the ground at the base of a tree. His hands were tied on the other side of the tree. Beyond him I saw the vague outline of another car.

The guy started to speak just as the light went off. In a shaky, teen-aged voice, he said, “Ah… hallo? I wish only to go with you to the west. Please. I am but eighteen and I do not wish to die. Please?”

Connie said, “Like I said; he sounds sincere. He says his name is Wilhelm and he learned English from his mother.”

“She must be a good teacher.”

The guy at the tree said, “She was. My mother died. Uh… may I speak more?”

Walking over to him, I hunkered a few feet away and said, “Sure. Quietly. What’s on your mind?”

He studied me with more than a little fear and glanced at the others, then said, “I was to be in my… I don’t know the English word… where Army men live together… by midnight.”

“Barracks.”

“Barracks? I don’t know that word.”

“That’s where Army men live. Is that all you wanted to say?”

“I… I thought it to be important.”

Standing, I said, “You’re right. It is.”

Looking at the others now standing near us, I asked, “Well? Take him or not? Last call for votes.”

There was silence for a moment, then Will and Connie spoke almost at the same time. Will deferred to Connie and she said, “Take him. If he’s real, great. If he does anything stupid, he’s dead.”

Will said, “Same here.”

Carla and Emily stood staring sullenly at the kid, likely due to his uniform more than anything else.

In German I said, “Not all who serve are volunteers, Carla.”

She looked at me and said flatly, “Yes, I know. But it is hard for me to wish him well.”

“That’s the uniform talking.” Looking at Will, I said, “And speaking of that, let’s find him something else to wear that won’t attract attention.”

Will untied the guy. Rooting through my luggage turned up some pants that would fit him. Will contributed a shirt and a pair of socks. Using the last can of medium-brown spray paint that had changed the look of the car, I lightly sprayed the guy’s uniform overcoat and cautioned him to stay away from open flames for a while.

After we took a few minutes to eat, drink, and relieve ourselves, we got into both cars and followed the winding logging road to the next town. I was thankful not to have Wilhelm in my car; paint fumes always set off my allergies.

We weren’t trying to get closer to the border. We were going to a small airfield east of the village. We parked the cars in the woods and headed down the hill toward the airfield’s perimeter fences. A guard truck circled the airfield inside the fence at nine-thirty. As soon as it passed, we began cutting barbed wire to get to the fence.

At ten thirty-five, an old Douglas A-20 with Russian markings landed and five guys got out of it. One stayed with the plane as the others headed for the office. A sedan left the field about the same time the guard truck began another round of the fence line.

We’d cut the barbed wire, but attached the ends to tree limbs that held it more or less where it had been. As soon as the truck went by, Will and I cut a panel of the eight-foot chain link fence between its support posts. At a height of about six feet, we simply tossed the curtain of loose fencing over itself twice and signaled up the hill with the flash light.

Will and I each grabbed a tree limb and hauled the barbed wire out of the way as the two cars rolled down the hill toward us. Connie drove one and Marie drove the other. Wilhelm held the door of Connie’s car open for Will and Carla held the door of Marie’s car open for me.

Will and I hopped in as the cars rolled by and the ladies started the engines as we reached the fence. We dashed across the airfield to the Douglas and slid to a halt between it and a hangar.

The guy by the plane raised his hands and rapidly whispered, “Boston! Boston!”

Will said, “Okay. Good,” and followed the guy toward the hangar.

They tilted a big drum slightly and put something under it, then Will tied the man’s hands around a light pole and gagged him. As Marie and Connie got everybody stashed aboard and Will moved the chocks, I ran a quick flight check, then fired up the engines.

We started moving and I turned the plane toward the runway as Marie slid into the copilot’s seat and strapped in.

She said, “Everybody’s in. Somehow. This thing looked a lot bigger before we all crammed into it.”

“It was made for three guys and a ton of bombs. They’re heavy, but they don’t take up much space.”

Glancing at the dash, she asked, “Are we good?”

Taxiing to the runway, I replied, “Oh, yeah. We’re fine. Hear those engines? They took care of it.”

“Jeez. This crate must be thirty years old, Ed.”

“Prob’ly every day of that, ma’am. They were part of the Lend-Lease deal in the early forties.”