Dean Ing - Silent Thunder

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DEAN ING

-SILENT-

THUNDER

Other books by Dean Ing

Single Combat

Wild Country

Blood of Eagles

The Big Lifters

The Ransom of Black Stealth One

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or

events is purely coincidental.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Joe DeVito

ISBN: 0-812-50265-5

First edition: July 1991

Printed in the United States of America

0987654321

SILENT THUNDER by Dean Ing

For the brain trust: Tim, Tim, Ev, and Joe.

ONE

March, 1967

Only a man destined for greatness, sergeant Walter Kalvin reflected, could keep his

alertness up and his temper down on a night as cheerless as this. Even with mature

chestnut trees for a windbreak in the gloom of the

Stadtpark, Vienna's night wind could

bite like a Doberman. The major stood slope-shouldered under his heavy European

overcoat, with his furled umbrella hooked into a coat pocket. He had emptied his own

packet of Pall Malls an hour before and was smoking one of Kalvin's Salems now, cursing

the menthol in his lungs, the Viennese slush under his feet, and the man who might or

might not contact the Americans as promised.

He likes his vices unmentholated, Kalvin

told himself, drawing some comfort from the major's inferior showing. Competitiveness

had been part of Walter Kalvin's legacy from immigrant parents.

If I had oak leaves

instead of four lousy stripes, I could tell this guy to go buy himself some Austrian

cigarettes. Well, some day....

Neither man wore military insignia, though both carried Air Force ID. While civilian

clothes of European cut did not assure freedom from surveillance, American uniforms

would have drawn more attention than a bonfire in the

Stadtpark's deepest shadows.

Their flat little German-made, nine-millimeter automatics in shoulder holsters were

government issue. Though he had been reposted to Air Force Intelligence for less than a

year, after someone noticed his fluency in German, Walter Kalvin had heard his share of

stories about Vienna during his familiarization with the pistol. A man who looked out of

place in Central Europe might pick up a half-dozen tails: one KGB, one CIA, and four

free-lancers who made precarious livings by selling tidbits to all sides. The free-lancers,

it was said, rarely carried firearms. As the joke went, cloaks were out but daggers were

definitely in.

This was Sergeant Kalvin's fifth field sortie from the air base near Wiesbaden, but his first

into Austria. He had drawn this duty only because the major did not speak German. And

Dieter Mainz, the man who had made contact with a regular Air Force officer leading by

stages to this peculiar rendezvous, had claimed to speak no English. Kalvin knew that the

job should have been taken over by the CIA, but it seemed barely possible that Dieter

Mainz could advance a few careers in Air Force Intelligence. At the moment, Kalvin did

not dream that it would advance

him far beyond a military commission. Mainz was just a

contact, though a peculiar one from the start.

According to the case file, 'Dieter Mainz' was probably a beard, a false name. The real

Mainz, an audio engineer with the prewar

Reichs Rundfimk group in Berlin, had

disappeared on the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Mainz had been one of the many

victims of Hitler's first great domestic massacre. To young Walter Kalvin it was the stuff

of legend, a web of events that had spun out their courses before he was old enough to

read. If the man had not resurfaced in over thirty years, in all likelihood he was long

dead. Still, if they failed to make contact on this hitter night, Kalvin and the major would

have to try again in seven days.

The major stamped his feet and grunted in pain, the umbrella a ludicrous pendulum at

his side. Goddammit, sergeant, any man who's two hours late is a man who is not going

to show!

Yes, sir, said Kalvin. Then, more softly: Should you be mentioning rank out here?

The major, who tended to be lax about professionalism but knew very well when it was

called into question, stared hard at Kalvin. Is that insubordination?

No, sir, said Kalvin. At that instant he saw a two-U'Uged shadow crossing from a

footpath in the distance, a slender silhouette that caused distant lights to wink as it

approached. In low tones Kalvin added, This could be our man.

To his credit, the major had seen it too. Mainz had been very specific, insisting on his

own recognition signals. The major grabbed his umbrella, slung its furled length over

one shoulder like a hunting rifle, and walked slowly forward with Kalvin beside him. The

shadow began to re-solve itself into a man of slight stature, hands in the pockets of his

greatcoat, hatbrim hiding his face. When they were ten paces apart, Kalvin began to talk

conversationally but in German. The major swung the umbrella to his other shoulder

according to plan, nodding as if he understood Kalvin.

Herr Donner, said the man facing them, and stopped. It was a common surname.

Herr Sprache, Kalvin responded with an unlikely surname. Together, the names formed a

key word. As tradecraft it was dreadfully amateurish, but Mainz had called the shots.

Donnersprache, thunderspeak, was still among the unsolved mysteries of Hitler's Reich.

According to the best guesses of spook historians, Donnersprache had pertained to

electronics, probably an aid to eavesdropping, no doubt primitive by modern standards

but still an enigma. No mention of it had ever been found in official records, though the

two men closest to Adolf Hitler had at various times scribbled cryptic references to the

thing, or possibly the person, called Donnersprache.

A hand came out of the greatcoat, wearing a glove, and the Americans shook it. Rapidly,

in German, Kalvin explained that the gentleman beside him did not speak the language.

Was it possible for them to continue their discussion while riding in a BMW sedan with an

excellent heater?

Naturlich, of course, Mainz replied. But permit me to retrieve a traveling bag I left among

the bushes nearby. Later, Kalvin would report the old man's age as nearing eighty, his

speech halting and sometimes vague as might befit a man whose mind had begun to

fail. Kalvin's true impression was that this preternaturally alert little gnome of a man kept

all his mental bricks neatly stacked.

The major clearly loathed his role but accepted it anyway, hurrying off to retrieve their

rented BMW as the old man half-trotted back to the shadows of anonymous shrubbery.

Waiting alone for the car near the

Rechte Bahngasse, Kalvin felt that the old man had still

not decided to trust the Americans. One or both of those coat pockets, he judged, was

full of handgun?an infraction far more serious in Austria than in, say, the United States.

For Kalvin and the major, sidearms were more acceptable; above a certain level of

business such things were taken for granted.

Dieter Mainz returned before the major did, lugging an old leather valise that, Kalvin

presumed, held the secrets of Donnersprache. Kalvin tried not to stare at it, smiling

instead at his companion, who kept jerking his head away from the street to scan the

shadows. I think you need not fear for your life,'' Kalvin said, noticing the old man's

nervous glances. How important can Donnersprache be, in a time when a radio

transmitter can be hidden in the heel of a shoe?

Can that transmitter hypnotize ten million listeners?

Kalvin shrugged. I suppose it depends on what is Mid, he hedged, watching a bulky

shadow stroll into the street two hundred meters away. He tensed as the distant stranger

began to walk in their direction.

This old guy is getting to me, he admitted to himself.

No, it does not matter what is said when the machine makes one's words seem

absolutely true. What matters is the listener's capacity, and desire, to believe in

something. Mainz said it dogmatically, as if lecturing on fundamentals.

Before enlisting to avoid the draft and a rifleman's fate in Vietnam, Walter Kalvin had

been a mediocre student of rhetoric at NYU. The concept of charisma, the overwhelming

power of certain individuals to convince many others, had never seemed so real to him

as it did at this moment.

Maybe old Mainz himself has charisma, thought Kalvin.

He's

sure got my nerves twanging. Lord, what if it's

a kind of force field, and he has one in

his pocket? Chuckling at his own fanciful notion, Kalvin said, Perhaps you will tell me

exactly what Donnersprache is, and what it does. Do you have it with you, Herr Mainz?

I should not be offering to sell the machine to a man who docs not already know such

basic things, Mainz protested. The Bolsheviks know that much, at least.

The major was taking an infernally long time, and it seemed to Kalvin that the old man

was rethinking his decision. To keep him engaged, Kalvin asked, How can you be certain

the Russians know something I don't?

Because they have no other reason to ensure that poor, addled Rudolf Hess rots alone in

Spandau Prison, the old man said.

The man walking toward them seemed to loom, now, though he was a hundred paces

away. I don't understand, said Kalvin, reaching into his coat for his Salems, caressing the

butt of the pistol for added confidence. He decided he did not need the cigarette.

A sigh. Last October, the Nazi criminals in Spandau were released; von Schirach and

Speer, the old man went on. All but Hess, whom everyone knows has lost his mind. But

even a crazy man can make sense at times. That is what the Bolsheviks fear. Schirach

was a fool, and Speer only a hapless architect. If that swine Hitler would not trust his

own Gestapo with Donnersprache, why would he entrust its secrets to such as those?

No; only a few knew. Those of us who developed it, and of course Goering?and Hess.

Sergeant Walter Kalvin began to feel as if he was floundering in a nightmare, one

dreamed many times before but only partly remembered. This old German was rattling

off the names of men who had produced and directed the most savage war in human

history. It was true, Speer and Schirach had recently been freed from Spandau to great

hubbub in the German press. Now, jailers of four nations continued to operate the

castle-like Spandau Prison for a solitary inmate: Rudolf Hess. Three of those nations

claimed that they would be happy to release Hess, a man they did not regard as a war

criminal. Only the Soviet Union insisted that Hess remain imprisoned in that vast pile of

stone on the outskirts of Berlin without possibility of parole. To Kalvin, the issue had

never seemed very important until now.

Was it imagination, or was the hulking stranger walking more slowly? Gazing at the face

of Dieter Mainz, Kalvin asked his question softly: Can Donnersprache be that important

today?

For the first time, Mainz turned to scan Kalvin's face at close range, and in the lined old

face Kalvin thought he could read utter despair. You would not ask, he said slowly, if you

had seen its effect on an audience. Perhaps you are immune; some are. Some more,

some less.

Kalvin's chill had become internal by now. I'd like to see this gadget, he said. Does it still

work?

No. Only a vacuum tube, I suspect, but the case is?you would say, boob-trap? To open

it conventionally is to blow it, and yourself, to pieces. Now, headlights swept across

them, high beams flicking twice, the moan of the BMW a familiar voice to Kalvin, who

took the old man's arm and stepped toward the street.

But someone did not want them in that car. The big stranger was no longer strolling, but

running forward now, holding a small device to his mouth with one hand as he fumbled

in his coat with the other.

As the major sizzled past the running man, he must have seen Kalvin draw his pistol. He

made the right move, swerving onto the walkway as he braked heavily so that the

running man caromed off the right front fender. The man fell hard, cursing in a

language Kalvin did not recognize, and came up sitting ten feet from Kalvin, a silenced

handgun in his right hand.

The major was shouting, leaning over to fling the front passenger door wide, and Kalvin

took two steps as if adjusting his paces for a field goal before he kicked the man's

weapon in an arc that sent it spinning far into the darkness.

Kalvin heard a sound like a fist striking a melon, and old Dieter Mainz collided with him

from behind. Get in, get in, he snapped to Mainz, aiming his pistol at the prostrate

stranger. At the instant Mainz fell into the front seat, the BMW windshield resounded with

an impact that left a hole in its center. Kalvin fought to open the locked rear door, and he

saw the yellow wink from a distant line of shrubs a split second before a portion of the

windshield imploded, the major's torso slamming back into the seat. The BMW engine

began to roar, impotent.

Kalvin raced around the car, hearing another impact as he squatted to open the driver's

door, and with the help of Mainz he somehow managed to thrust the major's body aside

enough to huddle low at the controls.

They hurtled away in the damaged car, Kalvin obeying the curt instructions of Mainz as

he turned this way and that. Once over the Donau Canal, Kalvin turned onto the

Praterstrasse. No one is following us, he said, blinking in the breeze through the ruined

windshield. To his amazement, the BMW had not yet attracted the

polizei.

The gentleman is dead, Mainz replied, and coughed. Soon, I shall be.

I got you this far, Kalvin seethed, trying to recall the telephone number he must call only

in a situation like this.

They shot me, you fool, Mainz said. Someone hidden in the park.

No, they wouldn't work alone, Kalvin thought aloud. I'll get you to a hosp?

Quiet, let me talk, said Dieter Mainz with soft urgency. The decision has been made for

me. Have you a recorder?

Try the major's pockets, Kalvin said. You must tell me where the nearest hospital is.

Mainz told him, coughing occasionally, fumbling with the little tape recorder until Kalvin

punched the right button for him. Mainz spoke for perhaps three minutes before he

began to labor for breath, describing a concrete storm drainage sump on the outskirts of

Innsbruck, and how a man assuredly would be crushed to death if he failed to observe

certain precautions as he climbed down below the grating. The old man began, then, to

talk about Donnersprache, and the ways it had been used to weld Germany into a

monolith of hatred. Past a certain point of unified public opinion, Mainz was saying, it

was no longer a necessary. . . . Mainz left that sentence forever unfinished. Kalvin did not

know Mainz was dead until he saw the staring eyes and felt for a pulse.

Accompanied by two dead men in a BMW that featured several obvious bullet holes,

Walter Kalvin parked in shadows and made the necessary telephone call. While waiting

for help, he hefted the old man's leather bag. It seemed very light, its contents soft, and

its brass hasp came loose while Kalvin was handling it. Since the thing had not blown up

then, Kalvin checked inside.

It held a change of clothes and a passport. No device with radio tubes, not even a

schematic drawing.

Kalvin thought about charisma while he replayed the last testament of Dieter Mainz. Then

he replayed it again, starting to hope that the damage assessment team would take its

time. Sergeant Walter Kalvin knew, now, where the last surviving Donnersprache device

lay hidden. Incredibly, the city of Innsbruck was near enough to his father's beloved

Tirol that Kalvin's own accent might go unremarked there. Using the gloves of Dieter

Mainz, Kalvin found spare tapes in the major's coat, exchanged the used tape, and wiped

the recorder down with great care before cupping the major's dead hand around it. With

one gloved hand, he inserted the recorder back into the major's coat. If anyone doubted

his initial story, Kalvin knew, he was destined for the tribulations of a lifetime.

If no one did, and if he managed a vacation as far as Innsbruck?and if the last living act

of Dieter Mainz was not merely the fantasy of an old man?then Walter Kalvin was

destined for greatness.

TWO

May, 1997

The water was clear and numbingly cold, most of it fresh runoff from the snow that still

clung to peaks of Wyoming's Absaroka Range. Secretary Bowden let one of his matched

pair of State Department men hold his boron fiber flyrod as he began to tighten the

straps of his chest-high waders. Very spendy waders, the latest mid-nineties technology.

Very spendy bodyguards as well, both dressed for fly-fishing in clothes similar to the

secretary's.

Nothing's too good for the Secretary of State, Bowden thought,

except being

allowed to do my job.

I wouldn't, Mr. Secretary, said his third companion, a dark, wiry national parks man

named Martin. Keep the straps loose enough that you could get out of those waders in a

hurry.

Bowden's glance was more quizzical than irked. Most of his trout fishing had been done

from powerboats in tame lakes while politicking for Harrison Rand's candidacies over the

years, so these waders were a new experience for Bowden. Kenneth Bowden had

selected this outing, in part, because he felt deeply in need of some kind of experience

that took little thought, and no politicking. And for another reason, too, a contact who

had not yet surfaced....

Martin, whose coloring and high cheekbones suggested he might be part American

Indian, went on, The Yellowstone's not much over crotch deep here, gents, but it has a

stiff current and the rocks are rounded. If those waders fill with water, you'll want to

shuck them in a hurry.

The senior agent frowned. In three feet of water?

People drown, Martin shrugged to the agent. But not with me beside them. Anyway,

that's where the lunkers are, out there in the current. Of course I'll go first. Part of my

job, he added.

The younger agent sighed audibly and stared at his hiking boots. I'll go, he said.

Bowden waved the men away. No. Martin's dressed for it, gentlemen, and I promise we

won't go more than fifty feet out.

They didn't like it, but they permitted it, moving downstream at Martin's suggestion. If

Bowden went under, his bodyguards would already be in position to scramble for a

rescue. This was Bowden's first three-day vacation since Congress had voted to accept

him as Harrison Rand's Secretary of State, and he was tiring of it before he'd even tied

into his first trout. Bowden knew he had become physically soft, and at age sixty he did

not want to feel ashamed to grip Martin's shoulder as they edged out, feeling the tug of

the Yellowstone River.

Nonetheless, he felt shame.

Just one more little reminder of impotence on top of all the

rest, he admitted to himself.

My God, I haven't even made it with Lucille in over a

month. Bowden wondered if the sex lives of the Secretaries of Defense and Commerce

were suffering as well. Who would have believed that an outsider like that goddamned

Walter Kalvin could usurp so much power, so fast, from the position of White House

Chief of Staff?

Let the river carry your fly, Martin suggested, as Bowden tried a sweeping backcast. The

guide stood facing away from shore, his voice barely audible in the white noise of

rushing water. That way we can attend to business.

Bowden glanced around, read Martin's faint smile, and pretended he was still interested

in fishing. What business is that? he asked.

Without preamble: I'm your contact, sir. We're convinced that Undersecretary Parker's

death was a deliberate hit, Martin said, seeming to study the river. We're not questioning

whether Parker was killed by that mugger: he was. But we've done a careful profile on

the mugger, and he'd been a suspect on two previous contract killings. He became an

addict, but he wasn't the kind to take a deliberate overdose. Needle mark in his arm was

a nasty one, too; maybe the guy was struggling. In any case, he can't give his end of it

now that he's safely dead.

Safe for whom? Richard Parker was a good man. He resigned as a protest on my behalf,

Martin. If he wasn't safe, who is?

Everyone at cabinet level, we think, so long as they don't step out of the game.

Now, Bowden drew in slack line and glanced at Martin as he made another leisurely cast.

You mean, if I should resign, I might wind up like poor Dick Parker?

Any member of President Rand's cabinet who walks out complaining that he's a rubber

stamp for Walter Kalvin could wind up on a slab, sir. I wouldn't tempt fate by trying it if I

were you. Just hang in there. These things take time.

Whose time is it taking? All I have from you people is a handshake and a promise,

Bowden said.

That handshake's been good enough for centuries, Martin replied. If it makes you feel

any better, this little meeting is expensive for me; it's my last day as Cody Martin, and I'd

got to where I liked it here. I was DIA for twelve years before I became a sacrificial

lamb.

The Defense Intelligence Agency was an arm of the Defense Department, therefore not

under control of State or Treasury. Bowden made a test connection: You're telling me

Secretary Canales runs your group?

No, sir, said Martin; because he doesn't. Consider us privately funded, and please don't

imagine that we're some kind of radical death squad. Where due process is concerned

you can think of us as a

life squad. We've all been professionals in one agency or

another. But someone botched the job badly for Mr. Parker. We don't believe in

coincidence. Somebody left Mr. Parker unprotected.

You'd think, Bowden said, a man in my position would have some muscle of his own he

could call on.

No sir, beyond your Bureau of Intelligence and Research. What I think is, all your men

but one could be yours, and you'd still be in trouble. Same with Defense, Treasury, and

Interior. It's a bitch, he said, smiling as Bowden turned a vexed glance on him. That's

why I'm here, sir.

Bowden nodded and remembered to wave a thumbs-up toward the men on the river

bank before he tried another cast. Why haven't you simply gone to the President about

the problems with Walt Kalvin?

Why haven't

you, Mr. Secretary?

Bowden's laugh was short and mirthless. Good point. We don't know what else Dick

Parker was hinting about to the press, and he didn't see fit to confide in me with it. First

damned thing Harry Rand would do is call good old Walt Kalvin in and ask him.

Exactly. Both men glanced across the shallow river as another fisherman played a hefty

trout. Better reel in and let me change flies, Mr. Secretary. It could look odd if you don't

get a strike.

By God, that's right, Bowden said. Why haven't I?

Something I smeared on the fly, Martin said, and laughed as Bowden cursed. Figured we

needed to concentrate on business.

Martin selected a fat black-and-yellow fly from the assortment stuck into his shapeless

hat as Bowden retrieved the end of his line. This McGinty should get you some action,

sir.

So far I haven't heard what other kind of action I can expect, Bowden said.

You may not believe this, sir, but we really do believe in the system. I was told to ask

you for a decision. Because of Mr. Parker, it's your decision?and whatever you say,

believe me, we will do.

That smacks of power I'm not sure I want, but ask away, Bowden said, holding a scarlet

and black Royal Coachman fly that seemed suspiciously oily and, even after it's dunking,

exuded an unpleasant musk.

Mr. Parker was a computer hacker; a hobby of his, said Martin, running the loop of the

new fly onto mono-filament leader. If he had anything on Kalvin that was important

enough to get him offed, he just might have put it into his private disk files.

Surely they've been collected, Bowden exclaimed.

Not from his girlfriend's apartment.

Bowden stared. Dick Parker was a model husband! We had him checked six ways from

Saturday, Martin, and he wasn't into hanky-panky.

He was into an old classmate, is what he was into, Martin said, releasing the McGinty as

if he expected it to fly away of its own volition. Good friend of long standing; she just

didn't remain standing when he visited her apartment. Actually, he sometimes went

there without her, alone; that's why we thought the place might be worth a subtle toss.

Bowden made a cast, let out more line; cast again. Well, I hate to say it, but if you can

find any of Dick Parker's loose files, go ahead. Just try to do it legally.

We've already copied everything, sir. That wasn't the decision. The decision will come if

and when we do

find something Mr. Parker hid away on disk files. We have computer

hackers, too.

Bowden thought he felt the faintest hint of resistance on his line before the sudden

shock, almost electric, of pure energy down sixty feet of fishing line. He set the hook and

saw the rocketing response as a sliver of light danced into the air for one jump, then

another, then a third, shedding a spray of droplets in dazzling bursts.

Nice one, sir, Martin commented. The two agents stood in the distance, shading their

eyes as they watched. Keep that line taut. Play him awhile and think this over: where do

we take such information?

For the next three minutes, Secretary of State Kenneth Bowden fought a rainbow the

length of his forearm and loved every second of it. Then: Reel in, he's making a run

toward us, Martin exclaimed, Bowden hurrying to comply but too late.

Damn; lost him, Bowden said, flicking the line, both men staring at the bright

bumblebee shape still attached to the leader. He cast again. I'd like to tell you to bring

the information to me, Martin, but that would put me into an ethical bind.

Depending on the kind of information, sir, it could put you into a casket. We just don't

know yet. But I don't think anyone would put out a contract on a major newspaper,

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>> DEANING -SILENT-THUNDER OtherbooksbyDeanIngSingleCombatWildCountryBloodofEaglesTheBigLiftersTheRansomofBlackStealthOne Thisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictitious,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleoreventsispurelycoincidental.SILENTTHUNDERCopyright1991byDeanIngAl...

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