might reveal the nature of our shock wave."
"I came on my own. They don't know I'm here."
C'It's Oossible, for you were never a good liar. However, the irony is sweet. I said before that nothing could stop us, and that happens to be the truth. You see, like all great leaders, I delegate responsibility, especially in areas where I lack expertise. I'm given the outlines of a plan or a strategy, in particular the final results, but not the technical aspects, nor even the names of the personnel refining them. I wouldn't know whom to call should I want them myself."
"We know it concerns the three cities' water, the reservoirs or waterworks, whatever they're called."
"Really? I'm sure Monsignor Paltz was very technical in his disclosures. Ask him."
"It can't work, Frederik! Call it off. Everyone involved will be caught. There are troops by the hundreds prepared to fire at anyone or anything that gets near the water. They'll be captured and you'll be exposed!"
"Exposed?" asked JAger calmly.
"By whom? A senile old man who isn't even sure what year it is, much less the month or the day?
Don't be ridiculous."
"Frederik, there is a tape of last night's meeting. Everyone who was there has been arrested and kept in isolation! It's over, Freddie!
Chapter Forty
For God's sake, call off Water Lightning!"
"Water .. . Ligbtning? My God, you're telling the truth, it's in your voice, your eyes." Gunter JAger rose from the prayer stool, his face and his body like a Siegfried under an operatic spotlight.
"Still, my whore-wife, it changes nothing, for no one can stop the shock wave.
In less than an hour I'll be on a jet to a country that applauds my work, our work, and watch as my disciples throughout the Western world move into positions of power."
"You'll never get away!"
"Now you're naive, dear wife," said Jdger, walking to the center of the altar and pressing a button under the gold crucifix. Abruptly, with his touch, a square on the floor opened, revealing the splashing waters of the 'river below.
"Down there is a two-man submarine, courtesy of a boat works whose chairman is one of us.
It will take me up to K6nigswinter, where my plane waits for me.
The rest is history reborn."
"And I?"
"Have you any idea how long it's been since I've had aw oman
said Jager quietly under the altar spotlight.
"How many years I've had to assume the mantle of rigid monastic discipline, while inferring that others who succumbed to such temptations were vulnerable to compromise and corruption?" ,
"Please, Frederik, I'm not interested in your posturings."
You should be, wife! For over four years I've lived like this, proving that I, and only I, was the incorruptible supreme leader. I frowned on women who wore indiscreet clothing and would not even permit lewd anecdotes or jokes in my presence."
"It all must have been unbearable for you," said Karin, her gaze straying about the shadowed room.
"Whenever you returned from one of your forays into the Eastern bloc, you invariably carried an excess of condoms and various telephone numbers, women's names opposite them."
"You searched my clothes?"
"They usually had to be sent to the cleaners."
"You have an answer for everything, you always did."
"I answer honestly, what first comes to mind as my memory tells me.. .. Let's return to me, Frederik. What happens to me? Are you going to kill me?"
"I'd rather not, my wife, for that's what you still are, legally and in the eyes of God. After all, my courtesy submarine accommodates two people. You could be my consort, my companion, eventually, perhaps, the empress to the emperor, not unlike Fraulein Eva Braun to Adolf Hitler."
"Eva Braun committed suicide with her 'emperor," accomplished by cyanide and a gunshot. It does not appeal to me."
"You will not accommodate me, wife?"
"I will not accommodate you."
"You will in another way," said Gunter Jager, barely audible as he unbuttoned his white silk shirt and removed it, then began unbuckling his belt.
Karin suddenly lunged to her left, her body in midair as she tried desperately to reach Latham's automatic that she had dropped on the floor. Jager raced forward, lashing out his right leg, the toe of his boot crashing into her midsection with such force that she collapsed in the fetal position moaning in pain.
"You'll accommodate me now, wife," said the new Fahrer, taking off his trousers leg by leg and folding them, matching the creases and laying them over the prayer stool.
When did she go asked Latham, raising his voice to be heard in the downpour.