The Vengeance of the Tau, page 18
Gunthar Brandt.
Beneath the name was what must have been his home address. The street was indecipherable, but the hometown had fluoresced clearly: Arnsberg, Germany.
She slid the first page over so it was in direct line with the black light and began to read. The first six pages of Gunthar Brandt’s notebook yielded a bit of inconsequential information. The handwriting resembled chicken scratches, and the German dialect used was filled with slang. It seemed to Melissa that this was actually some sort of diary or journal, penned by someone of average intelligence, at best.
Worse yet, this journal seemed to be a continuation of another, so it picked up in the middle: April 1944; the precise date was indistinguishable. It opened with complaints about the weather and the horrible food. Brandt wrote that he spent many nights crying. But his company was headed for the valley of Altaloon in the Austrian plains, where they had been chosen to fight a monumental battle. The mood in the camp was somber. Rumors of the war already being lost were running rampant. Desertion rates were increasing. The diehards, the most strident, feared that another company would be chosen for the battle of Altaloon.
To gauge that much, Melissa had to read between the lines and piece together fragments of sentences. The feeling in the pages remained, even if the words were gone. She had read war journals before. Her stomach panged with disappointment, for, unfortunately, this seemed no different from any of them. Perhaps it had been discarded within the secret chamber on purpose and had nothing at all to do with the mysterious missing crates. Still, she read on, progress slowed by the black light’s inability to make a dramatic enough impact upon the book’s poor state of preservation.
The further she got into the diary, the worse the deterioration became. The black light was able to reveal less and less with each flip of the page. She began skimming what little she could decipher, eager to find anything that might help her decipher the secret of the underground cache at Ephesus.
More than halfway in, a pair of words at the top of the page capitalized in bold print like a tide grabbed her attention:
The Battle
Melissa leaned closer to the journal and began to read. The early pages in this section were in decent condition, and she found her eyes glued to them. What she couldn’t decipher, her mind filled in for her, and it read like a novel. Brandt’s prose was clumsy and his use of German slang continued to make some of it incomprehensible. But he was able to relate his own fears and anxieties brilliantly. His description of their camp, of the fervor and agitation in the final hours leading up to the battle, were mesmerizing. She came to the bottom of a page and stopped, men reread a line that was actually whole to make sure she had gotten it right:
We are marching to our deaths. Only a hundred and fifty in number, we must confront a force of two thousand. The logistics of the valley will help, but for how long? We are but an infantry unit. We have no artillery. Air support is questionable. We are lost. The war is lost. …
Melissa’s hands were trembling when she shifted to turn the page. The condition of the next several pages frustrated her anew. It was like coming to the end of a mystery and finding the pages missing. She grasped what she could, which wasn’t a whole lot.
The company had reached Altaloon and taken up positions looking down into the valley. Several deserters were shot. Men were crying, praying. Some of these were shot as well. The writer made his own final peace.
The Allied troops entered the valley. The writer could barely watch. Not only were they formidable in number, but they were accompanied by a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Germans were going to be cut to shreds.
Two thousand against even less than a hundred and fifty now. …
Brandt repeated that phrase again and again. What was the purpose of this? Brandt wanted to know. Why was his company being sacrificed? Resigned to his own death, Brandt steadied his gun in trembling hands and waited for the order to fire.
As Melissa had feared, here in these final pages the writing became even more undecipherable. She could grasp his words only in fitful stops and starts.
The order to fire was delayed.
The enemy regiment entered the valley in a continuous stream, walking like men who knew their war was won. Suddenly an order was passed along the German lines. The words faded again here, but apparently Brandt’s company was being ordered to put something on.
Melissa turned the page.
Out of nowhere … the sound … an airplane. I thought … theirs and … my pain would … quickly. The plane … low. I looked … Ours? Ours? …
The next four pages contained nothing but fragments of words and phrases. All her attempts to fill in context failed. Melissa felt the frustration gnaw at her. To have read this far only to—
Wait, the last pages of Gunthar Brandt’s diary grew nearly legible again. Melissa made out the word massacre and read on.
Her mouth dropped, eyes gaping. She read the legible paragraphs over a second and then a third time. She drifted back in her chair, certain she had it wrong.
She had to be reading this wrong! It was incredible, impossible!
Melissa found herself just staring at the pages now, going over what she had already read three times. She had to be missing something, getting the context wrong because so much was indecipherable. Had to, because this couldn’t be!
After a large gap of lost pages, Gunthar Brandt wrote of the order to fire finally being given. Something important must have been lost, because he kept referring to the “chaos below” in the valley of Altaloon. But what did that mean? More lost space was followed by descriptions of bodies falling without offering resistance, hopelessly outgunned and overmatched, bodies falling everywhere.
The massacre …
But the members of Brandt’s company weren’t the victims; they were the victors! A hundred and fifty against a regiment of two thousand …
And the hundred and fifty had prevailed.
The knock on the room’s door felt like a kick in the stomach to Melissa.
“Miss Hazelhurst,” a voice called from beyond the door, “are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, no. I’m just finishing up.”
Melissa wasn’t reading anymore. The final page in the journal had been open on the counter before her for ten minutes now. The black light had saved its best magic for last. This final entry must have been made the day after the massacre, or perhaps even longer afterward. She was trying to understand the final words, at the very least believe what could not be.
Two thousand against a hundred and fifty at most … The hundred and fifty had dominated, had slayed them like it was target practice.
Melissa continued to reread the final entry.
… Not a single man left that valley alive. Only four of my comrades fell in the battle and all these, it was believed, to our own fire. A massacre … It had been so enjoyable, so fulfilling, that none of us realized then what had made it possible. But I realize now. The White Death … I didn’t care then. I care now. This must be the last entry in my journal. What I had hoped could be shared with the world must never be shared with anyone. I am embarrassed. I am ashamed. I am terrified. …
That was as far as she could read. At the bottom of the last page, though, was an unreadable line that looked as though it was the name “Gunthar Brandt” again. His rank and company followed in readable form on the next lines. Here was an eyewitness to what had happened at Altaloon, and Melissa felt certain that event was directly related to the contents of the mysterious crates.
The White Death …
What was it? Might Brandt still be alive, and if so, could he tell her?
McCracken would find him. McCracken would know how.
Melissa gathered up all the notes containing her creative translation of the text and moved for the door.
The Büyük Efes Hotel was still buzzing with activity when Melissa returned at three o’clock. She didn’t notice the congestion of official vehicles and the terrible damage done to the hotel’s front until she was less than a block away. She quickened her pace, heart racing. She was fearing the worst, expecting it. The main entrance had been closed, two sets of side doors replacing it. Melissa cautiously slid into the lobby past Turkish police officers.
The level of destruction shocked her. There was still blood all over the floor and the rugs. Glass and debris were being swept up. Furniture and decorations lay in pieces. The windowed walls had been reduced to splinters, and even now boards were being nailed over where glass had been only a few hours before.
Melissa felt a hand grasp her at the elbow.
“I did not mean to startle you,” the assistant manager said.
“What hap—”
“Please,” he interrupted. “Walk with me. We must make this fast.”
“McCracken.”
“He escaped. Plenty of others did not.”
“How many?”
“Dozens. I don’t even know myself. I don’t want to know.”
Melissa looked at the bloodstains again, the randomness of them. Many bodies had fallen, by all indications slain indiscriminately.
“I have your passport and the money left in your deposit box,” the assistant manager said, producing a manila envelope from his pocket. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”
Melissa’s legs suddenly felt very heavy.
“Keep walking. Please.”
It was hard, but she managed.
“McCracken knew where you were going, yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, you must return there. That is where he will look for you.”
“No,” she said, thoughts forming with her words. “Whoever did this might know that. They’d be waiting.”
The assistant manager nodded in agreement. The nod gave way to a shrug.
“You must leave now. You are not safe here.”
His voice was laced with dismay and disgust. He wanted her out of the hotel. Clearly he blamed her and McCracken for what had happened here today and, by connection, himself for assisting them.
“I will escort you to the service entrance,” the assistant manager was saying.
All Melissa could do was nod, cold sweat beginning to soak into her clothes. Never had she felt more alone, more lost.
But she wasn’t lost. There was a direction to go in, a beacon to follow.
Unraveling the mysteries of the journal, of the White Death, would go a long way toward unraveling the mysteries of the missing crates. If Gunthar Brandt was still alive, she would find him. The resources and friends of her father would be utilized. More favors would be called in.
Once she reached Germany.
“They’re all assembled, sir,” Arnold Rothstein’s assistant informed him.
Rothstein maintained a residence in Herzliyya, a posh suburb of Tel Aviv, but for security reasons this meeting had been set up in a suite at the Tel Aviv Hilton. His assistant ushered him in through the service entrance and up to the eighth floor by private elevator. It hadn’t been easy coming up with the men he needed for this mission; in fact, it had proven almost impossible on such short notice. Many favors had had to be called in, even more to keep people from asking questions. It was only last night that Rothstein had approved all the dossiers submitted to him.
Recalling their contents sent a chill through him. In his years of fighting for Israel, he had come to know men whose ruthlessness and capacity for violence was unmatched. But these ten men represented another level. The newer generations had proven even more militant and less yielding than the older ones, a process Rothstein felt certain would continue. After all, while the men waiting for him in the suite had grown up in the shadow of the Six Day War, the next would grow up with the memories of gas masks donned from fear of Scud missiles. Israeli history did not move in traditional cycles. It simply ascended on a constant diagonal, each era building upon the one that preceded it.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Arnold Rothstein said after entering the living-room portion of the suite and taking a seat.
The ten faces barely acknowledged him. If anyone was surprised that it was Rothstein who had summoned them, he didn’t show it. All of them simply kept to their chairs as caged predators do to their bars.
The group, meanwhile, was anything but homogeneous. Several of those gathered were among the largest, most powerful men Rothstein had ever encountered. Several others were quite small and might have even appeared frail at first glance. What held them together had nothing to do with appearances.
It was the contents of their dossiers.
The ten individuals gathered before him were the most efficient killers Israel had to offer. Their skills were expertly refined and regularly practiced, first with the deadly and secretive Sayaret, and then later on specially selected missions that routinely went unlogged.
“Allow me to get right to the point,” the old man continued. “You have been chosen for a mission of grave importance to the state of Israel and beyond.”
“There is no beyond,” one of them said.
“There is now,” Rothstein said, and began to explain.
Part Four
White Death
The World: Friday, seven A.M.
Chapter 22
“VERY WELL, THEN. Let us move on to the subject you have all been waiting for.”
Introductory remarks complete, the mechanically synthesized voice prepared to get to the business at hand. Across the world, men and women waited with receivers clutched to their ears for the final instructions that would forever change the face of civilization. Thanks to sophisticated translating equipment at the speaker’s source, each heard the words in their own native language.
In Vienna, and Moscow, and Stockholm.
In London, and Dublin, and Prague.
In Tokyo, and Seoul, and New York.
In Los Angeles, and São Paulo, and Montreal.
In Cairo, and Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg.
Just to name a few. The time had come.
“Our successes of the past seven days have set the stage for the achievement of a destiny so long in coming,” the voice continued. “The world begs for what we have to offer it on a scale grand enough to rid it at last of squalor and rot. We are justified in the task we are about to undertake. Our mission is a holy one. You are the messengers of a new order, dispensing wrath to those for whom civilization has exhausted all other options. Because of our work, evil will cease to be, and we will maintain our vigil without pause to make sure it never returns.”
A brief staticlike sound filled the many lines as the network was rerouted once again to make tracing the caller’s origin impossible.
“You all know what your roles are. You all know what you must do. In four days’ time, distribution will take place in our western sector. Distribution will follow one day later in our eastern sector. Then, one week from today, at your specified times, your work will begin in your designated areas. I estimate it will take two weeks before saturation is achieved in the primary sites, and we will then move on to the secondary ones.”
The voice stopped this time for no reason at all. Nothing filled the line in its place, not even static.
“A glorious dawn is about to break, the dawn of a new world purified of evil. Today, the evil grows and festers unchecked, affecting everything and everyone, while the world stands passively by, accepting. We will not accept. We will stand and face it, as is our destiny. The tens of millions we destroy will stretch perhaps into the hundreds of millions before we are through. Let the number grow to whatever it must. Our goal is clear, our resolve immutable. The world cries out for us, begs for the tonic only we can supply. Survival—that is what this is about.”
Static replaced the voice again, as the network automatically rerouted itself one final time.
“Go now and brief your teams on the timetable I have placed before you. There is no turning back. Say good-bye to the world you have regarded with revulsion and disgust. The new world begins in seven days’ time.
“Our world,” the voice finished, and the connection was broken.
“Well, lookee what we got here. …”
The bartender, a half-foot over six, leaned across the bar toward Johnny Wareagle.
“What can I get for ya, Crazy Horse?” he asked, and the few inhabitants of Cooter Brown’s, a bar on South Carrollton Avenue in the center of New Orleans, didn’t bother to smother their laughter. According to Sal Belamo, this was the virtual second home of Jersey Joe Watts, the man who had been with Heydan Larroux just minutes before the attack she had managed to escape.
Johnny’s expression remained unchanged. His eyes slid to a corner where a man was feeding change into a compact disc jukebox. Against the far wall the bar’s oyster shucker had stopped slicing and was simply holding his knife.
“I have come for Jack Watts,” Wareagle told the bartender.
The man grinned, and buried a chuckle. “Never mixed one of them before. How’s about a beer? Indian lager.”
Johnny heard more laughter, this time from behind him. “I wish to speak to Jack Watts. I have been told he comes here. Often.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was here yesterday. And the day before.” Wareagle’s eyes roamed behind the counter. “His name is in the book where you keep track of bets.”
The bartender leaned farther across the counter. His right hand disappeared beneath it.
“I lost plenty of ancestors to you injuns. Don’t see much of your kind in these parts and don’t miss ’em none neither.”
Johnny saw the ax handle the instant it crossed the bar and snapped his right hand out against the bartender’s to keep it from going any farther. At the same time, he heard the chair scratching backward against the floor behind him and whipped his knife out with his left hand. A quick glance that way was all that he needed to spot the pistol rising in the hand of one of Cooter Brown’s patrons. The knife whirled out of Johnny’s fingers and sliced into and through the man’s wrist. The tip of the blade emerged on the other side. The gunman’s hand jerked upward. A harmless shot rang out, the sound of it swallowed by his screaming. The rest of the patrons were still. They had guns; Johnny could feel that much. But no one else had any intention of drawing one.
