wash of his penlight, Lieutenant Gerald Anthony led Karin de Vries through the underbrush of the steep hill toward the promontory.
Along the way Karin whispered, "Gerry, stop!"
"What is it?"
"Look, down here." She reached into the branches of-a shrub and pulled out a soiled old cap, more rag than headpiece. She turned it over, her blue penlight shining inside the torn lining. She gasped at what she saw.
"What's the matter?" whispered the lieutenant.
"Look!" Karin handed the cap to Anthony.
"Jesus!" gasped the commando. In shakily written print, inked deeply as in an act of intense possessiveness,
was the name jodelle.
"The old guy had to have been up here," whispered the lieutenant.
"It certainly fills in a few empty spaces. Here, give it back and I'll put it in my pocket.. .. Let's go!"
Far below, in the shallow, swamplike marshes and hidden by the reeds of tall grass, the five men huddled together in the cramped black rubber life raft. Latham and Captain Dietz were at the bow, behind each his Etranger agent du combat, named simply One and Two, as such personnel preferred anonymity. At the stern of the small craft was an angry Colonel -Stanley Witkowski, and if looks could explode an environment, they would have been blown out of the marsh water.
Drew parted the bulrushes, his eyes on the promontory of the steep hill. The signal came. Two flashes of dim blue light.
"Let's go!" he whispered "They're in place."
Using the two miniature black paddles, the Etranger agents propelled the PVC raft through the reeds and into the relatively open, shallow stream of the ancient canal. Slowly, stroke by stroke, they made their way to the opposite embankment roughly sixty yards away, past a circular brick tunnel that allowed the diverted water from the Loire River to flow into the marsh.
"You were right, Cons-Op," said the commando captain, his voice low.
Chapter Forty-Five
"Look over there, two strings of wire on the poles going across the opening. Five'll get you ten both are tripped with magnetic fields. River refuse can get through, but not the density of a human body."
"It had to be, Dietz," whispered Latham.
"Otherwise there was an open route along the bank to this crazy half medieval-castle, half estate
"Like I said to Mrs. D.V." you've got the real smarts."
"The hell I do. I had a brother who taught me to study a problem, then study it over and over, and finally to look at it again and figure out what I missed."
"That's the "Harry' we've heard about, isn't it?"
"That's the Harry, Captain."
"He's why you're here, right?"
"Half right, Dietz. The other half is what he found."
The PVC raft pulled into the embankment. Silently, the unit lifted the coiled ropes and grappling hooks out of the bottom and waded into the muddy bank of the marsh canal below the strolling path roughly twenty feet above them. Drew pulled the UHF radio out of the side pocket of his camouflage fatigues and pressed the transmission button.
"Yes?" came Karin's whispered voice over the tiny speaker.
"What's your visibility?" asked Latham.
"Seventy, seventy-five percent. With our binoculars we can scan most of the pool area and the south section, but only a partial on the north side."
"Not bad."
"Very good, I'd say."
"Any signs of movement? Any lights?"
"Affirmative to both," the lieutenant's whisper broke in, "Like clockwork, two guards lockstep around the rear area then circle back to the mid sections of the north and south sides. They're carrying small semis, probably Uzis or German adaptations, and have radios attached to their belts-"
"What are they wearing?" interrupted Drew.
"What else? Paramilitary black trousers and shirts and those crazy red armbands with the lightning bolts through the swastikas.
Regular delinquents playing Soldaten, butch haircuts and all. You can't miss 'em, boss man."
"Lights?"
"Four windows, two on the first floor, one each on the second and third."
"Activity?"
"Other than the two guards, only the kitchen area, that's the south side, first floor."
"Yes, I remember the maps. Any ideas about our penetration?"
"Definitely. Both patrols head into the midsection shadows out of sight for not less than thirteen seconds nor more than nineteen.
You get by the wall, I give you two shots of the transmitter, and you go over-fast! There are three open cabanas, so I take back what I said before; split up and head into them. Wait for the guards to return, 6kc them out however you can, and hoist the bodies over the wall or drag 'em into the cabanas, whatever's the quickest and easiest.
When that's done, you've got limited free access and can signal the