shouted.
"Stop it, Frederik! I'll kill you!"
"You couldn't, wife!" screamed Gunter jdger, fending off Latham's blows, trying to angle his gun into Drew's chest as Latham pinned his wrist to the floor beside the square hole and the waves of the river below.
"You adore me! Everyone adores me, they worship me!" The Nazi thrust his right arm behind him, beyond Drew's reach. He arced his hand to his left, then his right; it was free, he could shoot.
Karin fired.
The commandos raced through the open door, Witkowski at their heels. They stopped abruptly, staring at the scene in front of them under the spectral wash of the reflector lamp shining on-the misplaced altar. For a few seconds the only sounds were those of the downpour beyond the door, and the heavy breathing of the five individuals of the N-2 unit.
"I assume you had to do it, cb1opak," said the colonel finally, a at jdger's body, his shattered forehead.
"He didn't, e I did!" cried Karin.
"It was my fault, Stanley, I caused it," Latham corrected her, gazing at the veteran G-2 officer, the death of Ginter jAger an acknowledged defeat of immense proportions.
"I lost control and he grabbed the advantage. He was about to kill me with my own gun."
"Your own gun?"
"I took a swing at him with it. I shouldn't have, I know better.
"It wasn't his fault at all, Stanley!" Karin exclaimed.
"Even if the circumstances were different, I would have shot him! He tried to rape me, and if Drew hadn't shown up, he would have succeeded and left me dead. He said as much."
"Then that'll be our report," said the colonel.
"Things don't always work out, and I wouldn't care to attend Officer Latham's funeral. Did you learn anything, Karin?"
"Primarily how he got to where he was-the deal with the Stasi, his new identity, his oratorical talents discovered by Hans Traupman. About Water Lightning, he claimed no one could stop It, not even him, because he didn't know the technical details or the specific personnel involved. Then, again, he was a consummate liar."
"Goddammit!" yelled Latham.
"I'm a pissant fool!"
"I don't know, lad. If I'd found someone attempting such an obscene act on a good friend, I don't think I'd have behaved much differently.. .. Come on, we'll tear this whole place apart and see if we can find anything."
"What about the German detail out there?" asked Christian Dietz.
"They could help us, maybe."
"I don't think so, Captain," said Karin quickly.
"Frederik made it clear that the Polizei,-even those whose sympathies were with the Nazis, could not monitor every radio frequency. That could mean the ncos have infiltrated the authorities as they have the Bundestag.
I suggest we do the-search ourselves."
"It'll be a long night," added Lieutenant Anthony.
"Let's get started."
"What about the other two guards?" asked Drew.
"Or the first, for that matter?"
"They're bound and fast asleep," answered Dietz.
"We'll check them now and then, and when we're finished, we'll turn them over to whomever you say."
"You fellows ransack the rest of the house, we'll concentrate on the living quarters," ordered the colonel.
"There are three rooms and a bath here, an office, a bedroom, and this unholy holy place.
One for each of us."
"What are we looking for, sir?" said Gerald Anthony.
"Anything that could possibly pertain to Water Lightning-and anything else that has numbers or names.. .. And one of you find a sheet and cover the corpse "
They left nothing to chance, and as the summer dawn broke over the eastern Rhine, cartons, discovered in the supply room, were filled with materials and brought to 'the chapel. Most of the contents were probably worthless, but there were experts with far more experience than anyone in the N-2 unit to make that determination. Except, perhaps, Karin de Vries.
"Flugzeug .. . gebaut-there's nothing else, the writing's ripped away," said Karin, studying a torn scrap of paper in her late husband's handwriting. ""Aircraft made," that's all it says."
"Anything that connects it to Water Lightning?" asked Witkowski, taping up several other boxes.
"No, not on the surface."
"Then why spend time on it?"
"Because he wrote it in an excited state, the I's and the b's look alike, the rest is slurred, but the impressions are hard. I know that handwriting; he'd leave lists for me, things I should buy or make sure were available before he went under cover. He'd be on a high, his adrenaline flowing.1)
"If you're suggesting what I think you are, I'm afraid it doesn't make sense," said Drew, standing beside the square hole in the floor that led to the miniature submarine