Special Forces commandos were on their knees, flanking them, Witkowski scrambling up from the terrace patio.
"That wasn't too smart, Mrs. de Vries," said Captain Dietz angrily.
"You don't know who may be standing by one of those glass doors, and there's a fair amount of moonlight tonight."
"I'm sorry, truly sorry, but it's important to me, so important.
You mentioned a priest, a blond priest .. . must look at him!"
"Oh, my .. . God!" whispered Drew, staring at Karin, seeing the panic in her eyes, the trembling of her head.
"This is what you wouldn't tell me-"
"Ease off, cb1opak!" ordered the colonel, interrupting and gripping Latham's left arm.
"You," said Drew, turning his head and looking hard. at the lined, stern face of the G-2 veteran.
"You know what this is all about, don't you, Stosh?"
"I may or I may not. However, I'm not the issue. Stay with her, young fella, she may need all the support you can provide."
"Follow us," said Lieutenant Anthony.
"We swing to the right and reach the corner, then sidestep our way to the first door. We slip tripped the latch and opened it an inch or two, enough to hear what's going on beyond the drape."
Half a minute later the five member unit was huddled by the corner of the estate's ground floor, at the edge of the upper terrace.
Witkowski tapped Latham's shoulder.
"Go with her," he whispered.
"Keep your hands free and quick. There may be nothing, but be prepared for anything."
Drew gently pushed Karin forward, holding her shoulders, until they reached the first sliding glass door. She peered around the edge of the inside drape and saw the man at the spotlighted lectern, heard the blond priest exhorting the crowd into hysterical shouts of Sieg Heil, Gtinterjdger! Her mouth agape, her eyes wild, she started to scream. Latham clamped his hand over her mouth while the roars of Sieg Heil filled the ballroom, and spun her around back to the corner of the mansion.
"It's he!" choked De Vries.
"It's Frederik!"
"Get her back to the boat," the colonel fairly yelled.
"We'll finish up here."
"What's to finish? Kill the son of a bitch!"
"Now you're not acting like an officer, lad. There's always a follow-up."
"And we're following up, Colonel," said Captain Christian Dietz, gesturing at his lieutenant, who held a miniaturized video camcorder in his hands and was recording the frenzied event taking place inside.
"Get her out of here!" repeated Witkowski.
The ride back across the river was made mostly in silence, in deference to the shock sustained by Karin. For a long time she preferred to stand alone at the bow, staring in the moonlight at the opposite shoreline. Halfway across she turned and looked pleadingly at Latham, who got up from the gunwale and walked over to her.
"Can I help?" he asked quietly.
"You already have, but can you forgive me?"
"For God's sake, for what?"
"I lost control, I could have killed us all. Stanley warned me about losing control."
"You had every reason to.. .. So this was your secret, that your husband was alive and-"
"No, no," interrupted Karin.
"Or I should say, yes, but not this way, not what we saw tonight. I was sure he was alive and I believed he had turned and was part of the Nazi movement-willingly, or unwillinglye but nothing like this! " '
"What did you think
"So many things, so many possible explanations. Before East Berlin fell, I left him, telling him that we were finished unless he put his very odd life back together. His drinking was never a problem, for alcohol only made him pleasant, expansive, and full of fun. Then he changed, drastically, and became horribly abusive, striking me and throwing me into walls.
He wouldn't admit it, but he had gravitated to drugs, which was antithetical to everything he believed."
"What do you mean?"
"He believed in himself, liked himself. Drinking sporadically was a now-and-then enjoyment, not an addiction. If it had been, your brother wouldn't have tolerated him-for both personal and professional reasons."
"I'll grant you that said Drew.
"Harry liked good wine and a fine brandy, but he had no use for anyone who drank himself into a stupor. Neither do I, as a matter of fact. "
"That's my point, neither did Freddie. Anything that altered who he was for any length of time was abhorrent to him. Yet he changed, as I say, drastically. He became an enigma, a monster one minute, contrite the next. Then one night in Amsterdam, having convinced myself that Harry was right, that Frederik was dead, I got. an obscene phone call. It was