The Tristan Betrayal - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,117

cavalry divisions, twenty-two mechanized brigades far fewer than the Germans believed. The famous Soviet strategic second echelon, particularly the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Armies and their mechanized corps, was simply a disaster; they lacked modern medium and heavy tanks. Soviet military aircraft were obsolete. The shortage of weapons and equipment was disastrous; the equipment the army did have was aging. Parts were inter-rifyingly short supply: there were parts available to arm only 15 percent of the tank and armored units. There was no central military communications system; in any war, the Red Army would be forced to use nineteenth-century methods such as couriers and wires. In all, these documents told a story of an alarming deficiency that must, at all costs, be concealed.

It was not true.

Metcalfe knew enough to see that the thoroughly plausible picture evoked by these forged documents bore no basis to reality. The Red Army was going through an upheaval, he knew, but it was far stronger, far more modern far more powerful than the story that was told here.

"Weakness is provocative," Corky liked to say. Arrayed on the birch tabletop before him was a thoroughly convincing pointillist landscape of a feeble nation. Hitler's generals would see this and an opportunity, a brass ring that must be grabbed. They would decide to invade Russia; for Nazi Germany, there would be no question.

It was a brilliant deception.

As Metcalfe carefully restacked the papers, he glanced again at the blank top sheet. Strange: it wasn't an ordinary piece of foolscap but a creamy sheet of high-quality, high-rag-content British stationery of the sort that Corky favored. He inspected it closely. It bore the watermark of Smythson of Bond Street: Corky's favorite stationer. It also gave off the faintest odor of chemicals and peppermint. Pep-O-Mint Life Savers. Corky had handled this sheet of paper more than the others.

The chemical smell indicated something else entirely. Metcalfe took out a miniature vial of crystalline potassium ferricyanide, one of the items he usually carried on his person while in the field. He located a ceramic serving bowl in the kitchen, tapped out a small quantity of the chemical, and dissolved it in a few ounces of water. Then he immersed the blank sheet of paper in the solution. Within a few seconds the spidery indigo script appeared. Corky's distinctive handwriting.

He pulled out the wet sheet of paper, placed it on the kitchen counter, and began to read.

Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But such questions are child's play, my boy, and the time has come to put away childish things. Sooner than you can imagine, the questions will get harder, the answers harder still. Preserving civilization can be such an uncivilized pursuit. But then, someone must practice the dark arts, so that our apple-cheeked compatriots may enjoy the light. It was always thus. Remember. Rome wasn't built in a day. It was built at night.... Herewith the materials for Operation WOLFSFALLE.

Remember, truth is a shattered mirror. Don't cut yourself on the shards. A

Metcalfe understood at once. He was accustomed to Corky's riddles. Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? But they don't reverse at all, Corky was always pointing out; they merely show what's in front of them. The confusion lies with the viewer.

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The irresistible force, Metcalfe knew, was the Nazi war machine. The immovable object was the Russian bear. What would happen when the two met?

They would destroy each other.

And then there was the phrase Corky had used: "Operation WOLFSFALLE."

Die Wolfsfalle.

The Wolf trap.

Metcalfe realized at once the significance of the code name Corky had chosen. Wolf referred to Adolf Hitler.

Hitler often used the cover name Wolf in his early days. It was his pseudonym, his nom de guerre, probably because the name Adolf was Teutonic for "wolf." In 1924, shortly after his release from prison for his attempted coup, he took a room at the Pension Moritz in Obersalzberg, Bavaria, registering under the name Herr Wolf.

Wolf was the pet name that Eva Braun, Hitler's putative lover, called him. His deputy, Rudolf Hess, had even named his son Wolf in Hitler's honor. And then this past June, Hitler had moved his headquarters to an idyllic Belgian village, Bruly-de-Pesche, which Hitler promptly named Wolfsschlucht, or Wolf's gorge. This was the Fuhrer's command post from which he oversaw the defeat of France. It was there that he