when it was being destroyed, but the family still holds that Deutschland to be holy. We have passports;
we can fly there and the family will give us sanctuary."
"It's better than execution," said Seven.
"Unwarranted execution," added the Blitzkrieger at the table solemnly.
"But can we be unreachable for five hours?" asked the killer accounts manager.
"We can if we tear out the phones and leave," replied Four.
"We'll pack whatever we need, burn what has to be destroyed, and get out of here. A long day and night lie before us. Hurry! Crumple the files and any other papers there are, stuff them into the metal wastebaskets and light them."
"I'm rather looking forward to it," said a relieved Zero Seven.
The ultimate believers had found a convenient crack in their sacred covenant, and as the first wastebasket was set on fire, the bookkeeper opened a window to let out the smoke.
Knox Talbot, director of the CIA, opened the front door for Wesley Sorenson. It was early evening, the Virginia sun descending over the fields of Talbot's property.
"Welcome to these humble lodgings, Wcs."
"Humble, like hell," said the head of Consular Operations, walking inside.
"Do you own half of the state?"
"Only an itty-bitty part. The rest I leave for the white folk. "
"Really, it's very beautiful, Knox."
"I won't argue," agreed Talbot, leading them through an extravagantly appointed living room to a huge glass enclosed sun porch.
"If you like, and if you have time, I'll show you the barn and the stables. I have three daughters Who fell in love with horses until they discovered boys."
"I'll be damned," exclaimed Sorenson, sitting down.
"I have two daughters who did the same."
"Did they leave you when they found husbands?"
"Well, they come back now and then."
"But they left you with the horses."
"Yea so, my friend. Fortunately, my wife adores them."
"Mine doesn't. As she frequently points Out, growing up on 145th Street in Harlem didn't exactly prepare her for an estate with stables. She allows me to keep them cause they draw the kids back, sometimes too often.. .. Can I get you a drink?"
"No thanks. My cardiologist allows me three ounces a day, and I've already had four. Then I'll get home, and it'll be a total of six with my wife."
"Then to business." Talbot reached down to a wicker magazine rack and pulled up a black-bordered file folder.
"First, the AA computers," he said.
"There was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could go on. I'm not questioning Harry Latham and his source, but if they're right, it's so buried, it would take an archeologist to pull him or her out."
"They're right, Knox."
"I don't doubt it, so while I continue to dig, I've replaced the whole unit as a matter of a new rotation policy. Expanding the venues of upper-level personnel is the way I explained it."
"How did that go down?"
"Not well, but with no discernible objections, which, of course, I was looking for. Naturally, the former team is under a microscope."
"Naturally," said Sorenson.
"What about this Kroeger, Gerhardt Kroeger?"
"Far more interesting." Talbot flipped several pages in the file folder.
"To begin with, he was apparently some kind of genius in the brain surgery field, not only in removing delicate tumors, but in eliminating 'subcutaneous pressures , that made mentally sick people well again."
"Was?" asked Wesley Sorenson.
"What do you mean, was?"
"He disappeared. He resigned his post as associate chief of cranial surgery at the Hospital of Nuremberg at the age of forty three claiming he was burnt out, psychologically unfit to continue operating. He married a prominent surgical nurse named Greta Frisch, and the last anyone heard-the last trace, in fact-was that they immigrated to Sweden."
"What do the Swedish authorities say?"
"That's what's interesting. They have him entering Sweden, at G6teborg, four years ago, ostensibly on a pleasure trip. The hotel records show that he and his wife spent two days and departed.
The trail ends there."
"He's back," said the director of Consular Operations.
"In reality, I suppose, he never went away. He found another cause beyond making sick people well."
"What in hell could that be, Wcs?"
"I don't know. Maybe making well people sick. I just don't know."
Drew Latham opened his eyes, annoyed by the sounds from the street, louder because of the smashed window in the bedroom.
Witkowski, along with marine guards, had taken the captured Nazis to the airport under cover, and someone had had to stay in the colonel's room. An open window was too inviting. Slowly, Drew slid over to the other side of the bed and got to his feet, cautiously avoiding fragments of glass. He grabbed