Lane, Frances, and Hughes sat in the coffee shop watching what little traffic there was pass by. The few regulars having their morning coffee paid them little or no attention. Lane was obviously brooding about something.
“What's the matter, William?” Frances asked.
“We can't wait here like this all day,” he said. “They could just as easily go the other way and we'd miss them.”
“Do you think they're starting to get nervous because they saw us out at the farm?” Hughes asked.
That's exactly what Lane had been thinking about. “It's a possibility,” he said. He put down some money for the bill. “I'd rather wait out there where we can keep an eye on the driveway.”
“I think you're right,” Hughes said.
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Sergeants Heide and Rudolph were holding up the convoy, talking to the men, when Speyer emerged from the barn.
“Why are they still here?” he shouted to Baumann. His nerves were jumping all over the place.
“They were just wishing us good luck, Herr
Kapitän
âRudolph said. Speyer cut him off.
“Get them out of here, Ernst.” He turned to Heide and Rudolph. “Do you have your papers and travel documents?”
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of the men had mounted up. They pulled away and headed up the driveway toward the highway. They would be at the Baltimore Airport within the hour.
“You're clear on your orders?” Speyer asked. “No questions? You know exactly what is expected?”
“Of course, sirâ”
“I want you in the barn with the airplane ready to fly the mission the instant you receive my radio message. Is that also clear?”
Heide and Rudolph stiffened to attention. “
Jawohl, Herr Kapitän
,” they said.
“
Güt
,” Speyer snapped. “
Denn, gehen Sie. Jetzt!
”
Both men saluted, turned on their heels, and hurried down to the barn as the last of the convoy disappeared up the hill into the woods.
“They haven't thought it out,” Baumann said. “The plane will be contaminated with virus. No one will be able to approach it.”
“There must be sacrifices in war. Every soldier understands that fundamental fact.” Speyer smiled sadly. “We will make a toast to them in Havana.”
“Only two casualties is an acceptable price to pay.”
“Only two, Ernst,” Speyer said. They started to the back of the house where the SUV with their things was parked.
“What about Mrs. Speyer?” Baumann asked. “Is she ready to leave?”
“She won't be coming with us.”
Baumann gave Speyer a worried look. “If she remains here won't she present a danger? If she is arrested she can be made to talk. It will come out where we've gone.”
“Not to worry, my friend, I have taken care of it,” Speyer said. “She won't talk. Not to anyone, ever again.”
Baumann was struck more by Speyer's matter of fact tone of voice than what he said. “Yes, sir,” he said softly.
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They stopped to remove the RE/MAX signs from the passenger and driver's doors. Without them the Rover would be slightly less obvious to anyone who'd seen it earlier. Lane drove fast, worried that he was going to be late. He was probably wrong about them moving out so soon just because they'd seen someone at the next door farm. But warning signals were jangling all along his nerves, and he had learned to trust his instincts; they were right more often than not.
“I'm in the ASSAF squadron's database,” Hughes said from the backseat, his computer up and linked to the mainframe at The Room. “They're mounting up now. Pair of Iroquois assault helicopters.”
“Noisy beasts,” Frances said. “If they get close the game will be up.”
“Do they have a landing zone?” Lane asked.
“About three miles from the farm. They'll be well out of sight until they're neededâ”
They came around a curve as two minivans and a pair of Toyota SUVs came from the opposite direction. There was nothing Lane could do except keep driving and keep his eyes straight ahead on the road. But it was obvious from the glimpses he caught that these were Speyer's men. They had the look. He thought that he might even have recognized a couple of them from the Kalispell ranch.
“Speyer and Baumann are not with them,” Hughes said.
“Neither is Speyer's wife,” Frances said.
Lane sped up around the curve. “Did they pay any special attention to us?”
“They didn't seem to be,” Hughes said. “Should I give ASSAF the heads-up?”
“Not yet. I want you to follow them. My guess is that they're going to the Baltimore Airport to get out of the country. Which means that this is going down today, not tomorrow night.”
“Why?” Frances demanded.
“I don't know. Maybe he thinks we won't pay him.” Lane made a U-turn about fifty yards from the driveway to Speyer's farm. “It leaves the airplane,” he told them, pulling over to the side of the road. “It's either still here with Speyer and Baumann, or his troops are heading to wherever it's hidden.”
He got out of the Rover and Frances slid over to the driver's side. “Be careful, William.”
“You, too,” Lane said. “As soon as you find out where they're headed call in the Special Forces. But Speyer's people mustn't be allowed to reach the plane, if that's where they're going. And it'd be better if we could avoid a firefight in or around the Baltimore Airport if that's where they're headed. A lot of innocent people could get hurt.”
“There's a lot of that going around these days,” Frances said.
Lane slammed the door, stepped back, and waved them off. As Frances headed away he crossed the road and entered the woods, drawing his pistol as he went.
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Baumann drove along an old horse path at the base of the hill behind the house that led down to the shallow creek and up the other side to the Hansen farmstead. The summer morning was delightful; warm, bright, only a few puffy white clouds in the sky, a gentle breeze and the smells of the country in the air. He decided that he
could have been happy here. Far happier than in Montana or even in Germany. This was good land. He could have been a farmer.
He glanced over at Speyer. Staying here was not possible, of course, no matter how right the area felt.
“We've been through a lot together, old friend,” Speyer said, completely misinterpreting Baumann's expression. “Now we've just about made it to the payoff.”
Baumann nodded. “No more casualties then.”
Speyer's expression darkened. “Don't be tedious, we've already covered that.”
“No, sir. I mean Carl and Hans.”
“They're dead menâ”
“Only if you send them the code red and they release the virus. We don't have to do this. Send the code blue and we can all walk away from this with clear consciences.”
Speyer laughed. “Only a fool has a conscience, Ernst.” He shook his head. “You know the consequences in the German army for not following orders.”
Baumann looked away. “Yes, sir,” he said. He automatically scanned the treeline above the farmstead for any sign that Browne had come back and was up there watching them. In a way he wished that it were so, and that this insanity would end.
“You worry too much,” Speyer said. “Leave that part to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Baumann replied. He drove up from behind the ramshackle old house and parked in front, out of sight from the creek. They would wait here until the agplane appeared above the trees on its way to Washington. Speyer would push the button and they would drive immediately to the airport at Frederick, about twenty-five miles west, where a charter bizjet and pilot were waiting for them.
Nothing could be simpler, Baumann thought, than to follow orders. Except he couldn't shake the vision of tens of thousands of people filling the hospital emergency wards, too weak even to stand, dying horrible, painful, bloody deaths.
Speyer set up his laptop computer on the SUV's open rear hatch. He made the telephone link through the equipment in the upstairs bedroom and was connected with the first of his off-shore banks in less than three minutes. A minute later, after entering the proper identification code, he came up with his account, which showed no new transactions.
His lips compressed. He looked up at Baumann watching him.
“Nothing yet, Herr
Kapitän
?”
Speyer shook his head and brought up the next account. There had been no deposits to it in seventeen months. He tried a third and a fourth account with the same results.
“They have more than twenty-four hours to act,” Baumann said.
“They're not interested in dealing with me, Ernst,” Speyer said. He backed out of his account search, and brought up the White House number. “Sending Browne and that woman here after me proves that much, so before we give the code red we'll supply them with a little misdirection.”
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From where Lane crouched just within the woods he had a good view of the farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings. Nothing moved, which didn't mean a thing. At the very least Speyer and Baumann were down there and could be waiting out of sight. The airplane, if it was here, could be locked away in the barn. And there could be one or more of Speyer's men left behind to watch over it.
He was to the east of the driveway, the house one hundred yards directly below him, and the barn and other buildings on the other side. Keeping low, he emerged from the woods on the run, zigzagging left and right in an irregular pattern in case a marksman was trying to take a bead on him. He had run out of time for not taking chances. If they saw only one man coming they might not release the virus just yet, thinking instead that they could take care of him.
He reached the back corner of the house without shots being fired, however, and he stopped to catch his breath. The morning was very quiet. Only a few birds were singing, and if he held his breath and listened hard enough he thought that he could hear the gurgling of the small creek.
His eyes fell on a rutted track through the grass that led down the hill away from the house. The grass had been flattened very recently. As he watched, some of the taller blades started to spring back. Someone had gone that way just minutes ago. Speyer and Baumann, to the next door farmstead where the telephone equipment was set up.
Whatever they had planned was starting now. But he had to make sure that no one had been left behind. He didn't want to take a bullet in the back.
Around front he mounted the porch and tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it, held up for a moment to see if he was going to draw any fire, then slipped inside, sweeping his pistol left to right.
Everyone was gone. The house was deathly still, though he could still smell the lingering odors of breakfast. If anyone was left at this farm they would probably be in the barn. He turned and started for the door when he heard a noise from somewhere upstairs. He spun around, his pistol at the ready, all of his senses alert. He held his breath.
It sounded like a kitten mewing, perhaps a small animal crying weakly. Whatever was making the noise, he decided, was in pain. As he started up the stairs he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he might know what it was.
Gloria, the side of her head beaten to a bloody pulp, a big pool of blood on the floor between her legs and smeared back across the floor to the middle of the bedroom, lay curled in a fetal position halfway out into the hall. Somehow she had managed to get the door open and crawl this far. Now she could only lie there and cry.
Lane holstered his pistol and dropped down beside her. Her eyes were open and when she saw who it was, she reached out for his arm.
“Who did this to you?” Lane asked, keeping his voice soft. A very hard knot had formed in his stomach. “Was it your husband?”
She blinked her eyes and managed to give a very slight nod. Her grip tightened on Lane's arm. “Is he gone?” she whispered.
“I think he went next-door with Ernst. Where is the airplane? Do you know?”
She blinked furiously as a spasm of pain hit her, and she coughed up a big glob of blood and mucus.
“I don't know how soon I can get you help, Gloria,” he told her. “I think that they're going to use the virus soon, maybe even this morning. You'll have to hold on.”
“Hereâ” she whispered.
He leaned closer to her. “I'll try to do what I can for you, but we have to stop them.”
“Here,” she whispered again. “The airplane is here.”