The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

entirely devoid of emotion. A professional face that measured his as quickly as
he –
It was time to –
'Hello. I was just about to leave.'
'Who is he?' Traudl didn't get a chance to answer.
'I'm a reporter with – ' It was too late. A pistol appeared from nowhere. 'Was
gibt's hier?' he demanded.
'Where is your car?' the man behind the gun asked.
'I parked it down the street. I – '
'All those spaces right in front? Reporters are lazy. Who are you?'
'I'm a reporter with the – '
'I think not.'
'This one, too,' the one in black said. The captain remembered the face from
somewhere . . . He told himself not to panic. That, too, was a mistake.
'Listen closely. You will be going on a short trip. If you cooperate, you will
be returned here within three hours. If you do not cooperate, things will go
badly for you. Verstehen Sie?'
They had to be intelligence officers, the captain thought, making a correct
guess. And they had to be German, and that meant that they would play by the
rules, he told himself, making the last mistake of what had been a promising
career.
***
The courier arrived from Cyprus right on schedule, handing off his package to
another man at one of five preselected transfer points, all of which had been
under surveillance for twelve hours. The second man walked two blocks and
started up his Yamaha motorcycle, tearing off into the countryside just as fast
as he could in an area where motorcyclists were all certifiably mad. Two hours
after that, he delivered the package, certain that he had not been followed, and
kept going another thirty minutes before circling back to his point of origin.
Günther Bock took the package and was annoyed to see that it was to all
appearances a movie cassette – Chariots of Fire – rather than the hollowed-out
book he'd requested. Perhaps Erwin was delivering a message along with the
cassette. Bock inserted it in a player and switched it on, catching the first
few minutes of the feature movie, which was subtitled in French. Soon, he
realized that Keitel's message was on what intelligence professionals really
did. He fast-forwarded through ninety minutes of the film before the picture
changed.
What?
'Who are you?' an off-camera voice asked harshly.
'I am Peter Wiegler, I am a reporter with – ' The rest was a scream. The
equipment used was crude, just an electrical cord ripped off a lamp or
appliance, the insulation trimmed off the free end to expose a few centimeters
of copper. Few understood just how effective crude instruments could be,
especially if the user possessed some degree of sophistication. The man who
called himself Peter Wiegler screamed as though his throat would split from the
effort. He'd already bitten through his lower lip in previous efforts to keep
silent. The only good thing about using electricity was that it wasn't