ONE
Atlantic coast Florida in mid-July lived up to its reputation as hot and muggy, the wind off the ocean doing nothing except increase the humidity, which Dieter Zimmer, driving north from Miami International, found almost unbearably oppressive. It was a few minutes after noon, and although he had the rental Impala's AC cranked up to the maximum, he was sweating profusely and hating every second of it.
At around six feet, with a thick barrel chest and a broad circular face under a spectacularly bald and shiny head, he stood out. It was something every trainer he'd had in the German army and for five years starting in '96 with the Kommando Spezialkräfte-the elite special forces-promised would make him stand out.
"You're the first stupid son of a bitch that the enemy will shoot," Sergeant Steigler told him the first day of training. "You're going to die for your country."
"No, sir, that dumb son of a bitch will be the first one I shoot. He'll die for his country."
"Ah, we have a General Patton amongst us," the sergeant said, and the name had stuck, finally shortened to Patton.
He turned off I-95 at the Fort Pierce exit and on the other side of the town drove across the bascule bridge onto Hutchinson Island and headed north on A1A, the Atlantic almost ominously calm, big thunderheads off in the distance to the east. Past a spate of condominium towers right on the beach, and a mobile home park on the land side of the highway, he slowed for a driveway to the right. The sign on the fence read UDT/SEAL MUSEUM.
Parking just outside the chain-link fence, the gate onto the grounds open, he sat for a moment watching as a Mercedes sedan passed on the highway. His target, he was told, would be driving a Ford pickup, dirty green with Florida tags, and wasn't expected to show up down here from Tampa until between one thirty and two. He was bringing something for the museum, and he definitely wanted no announcements. Since he'd gotten out of SEAL Team Six he'd supposedly wanted nothing to do with any publicity.
"I just want to get on with you, you know," he'd said. He'd been talking to an old friend and neither of them had any idea their phone call was being recorded.
Dieter had listened to the entire conversation two months ago in a hotel room in downtown Munich with the others. They'd been in the final planning stages for the first part of the operation they were calling die Vergeltung-the Retribution.
And he was here now, the countdown clock to the start at less than minus sixty minutes.
It was a Tuesday, and the only cars were those of the two attendants inside. No maintenance was scheduled for Tuesdays or Thursdays, and the likelihood of a casual visitor dropping by was slim. But Dieter was ready for that possibility.
He'd always hated the U.S. and everything about it. The prejudice came from his father who'd been an ordinary soldier and complained constantly about the American occupation forces with boots all over Germany. Taking up valuable real estate with their bases, especially the massive one at Ramstein.
"Fucking our women. Driving fancy cars. Paying twenty-five cents-one mark-for an entire four liters of gasoline while we have to pay fifteen times as much. Eating enough meat in one meal, which they buy at their commissaries, to feed a German family for a week."
He'd felt the esprit de corps in the KSK, which solidified his resolve, Germany for Germans, and had hoped in those end days of the cold war for the Russians just to try to come across the border. They would kick some serious ass all the way back to Moscow.
Getting out of the car, the heat slammed at him, especially at the top of his bald head. He realized that he should have worn a hat after all. Something else to be bitter about. And there was a long list in his mind.
He wore a Cuban-style guayabera shirt, yellow and a little thicker than the normal cotton ones, to hide the silenced subcompact conceal-and-carry Glock 26 with a suppressor. The pistol fired the small 9 × 19 mm round, but the magazine held ten shots, plenty for a close-order gun battle, which he intended this one to be.
Inside the gate a crushed-gravel path led through the grounds, toward the low-slung building. River patrol assault boats made of plywood and painted olive drab that had been used in Vietnam were set up on concrete stands, as were an original towed submersible that had been used in World War II to ferry the underwater demolition teams to find and blow up the mines just below the water line, a Huey chopper-also Vietnam era-and even a Mercury capsule, which had splashed down in the Pacific and was secured by a SEAL team.
A curved ramp led up the side of the museum's main building. There used to be a huge brass globe on the roof, on which all the countries were engraved. It had symbolized the battlefields since World War II on which the UDT teams, and later the SEALs, had fought and died. A lot of them heroes, some of them Medal of Honor winners. But it was gone now and Dieter couldn't understand why it had been removed.
Less than ten meters to the east, beach installations of the sort that had been used in World War II to repel the Allies from landing in places like Normandy-the ones the UDT guys were sent in to blow up-were on display to show what an impossible job they had. In fact this stretch of the barrier island had been used to train U.S. forces for the landing.
Dieter was a solider-or had been one-and a very large part of his thoughts were with these guys. They had balls, no doubt about it, and he had a real admiration for them. The only problem was they were Americans.
He had been taught to hate them, and yet sometimes when he tried to really examine his true feelings, he couldn't say why his hatred had become so intense, especially in the past couple of years working with Pam Schlueter. But she was a convincing woman, with connections to big money and a track record to prove her worth among men. He thought that she was probably nuts; they all did. But all of them thought they understood why her hatred ran so deep, and none of them could find any fault with her. Anyway it was because of her that they were in the business of killing-a business that all of them loved.
At the bottom of the ramp he walked past models of a pair of World War II UDT operators in bathing trunks, fins, and round masks. Their equipment had been crude at best, but they'd gotten the job done.
Inside he went straight back to the reception area behind a glass case displaying books and patches and other souvenirs that were for sale. A stack of the book No Easy Day, written by one of the SEAL Team Six assaulters who'd taken out Usama bin Laden, was laid out on the counter next to the cash register. An old man seated behind the counter looked up from a newspaper he was reading and smiled pleasantly. He was dressed in khakis and a blue polo shirt with U.S. NAVY embroidered over the pocket.
"Did you sign in? The book is by the door."
"I'll catch it on the way out," Dieter said.
"You're German."
"Yeah. No longer the bad guys."
The old man's name tag read PAVCOVICH. "Ain't it the truth."
Dieter figured the man was in his mideighties, maybe older, and had probably fought in the war. "You alone here today?"
"Charlie's out back. Doing some painting this morning. We've got a VIP coming in today. One of the SEAL Team Six guys who blew bin Laden away."
"I heard."
It took a moment for the old man to understand something wasn't right-the visit was supposed to be a secret. He started to open his mouth.
Dieter pulled out his pistol. "Let's go back to the office."
"You fucking kraut."
"Now," Dieter said, the pistol pointed directly at the old man's face.
"Screw you."
"If I have to kill you I will. But all I want is to duct-tape you to your chair and tape your mouth shut."
"And then what?"
"Then I'm going to have a talk with your VIP."
The old man got up from his stool and shuffled from behind the counter and down a corridor that led to the displays, to a small office. The door was open.
"Have a seat," Dieter told the man.
"You don't have any duct tape."
"Nein," Dieter said, and he fired one shot into the back of the man's head.
Copyright © 2014 by David Hagberg
