Games of State

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

The call was put through to Rodgers as he was waiting for an update from Colonel August.

Bob Herbert was on a cellular phone. Rodgers switched on the speaker phone so Darrell, Martha, and Press Officer Ann Farris could hear.

"I'm in the middle of a dark forest somewhere between Wunstorf and a lake," Herbert said. "The good news is, I've got Jody Thompson." Rodgers sat up straight and triumphantly drove a fist into the air. Ann jumped from her chair and clapped.

"That's fabulous!" Rodgers said. He shot McCaskey a look. "You've done it while Interpol and the FBI are still asking questions and pissing off the German authorities.

How can we help you, Bob?" "Well, the bad news is we've got a bunch of Nazi wannabes on our butts. You've got to find me a phone number." Rodgers leaned toward the keyboard. He alerted John Benn with an F6/Enter/17. "Whose number, Bob?" Herbert told him. Rodgers asked him to hold on as he typed Hauptmann Rosenlocher, Hamburg Landespolizei.

McCaskey had swung over to take a look. While Rodgers sent the number over to Benn, McCaskey jumped to another phone and called Interpol.

"This Rosenlocher is a burr in the fur of the head Nazi," Herbert said, "and he may be the only man you can trust.

From what I overheard he's in Hanover, I think." "We'll find him and get him over to you," Rodgers said.

"Sooner would be better than later," Herbert said.

"We're pushing on, but we're losing ground to these guys. I can hear the cars. And if they find the bodies we left in our wake—" "I read you," Rodgers said. "Can you stay on the line?" "As long as Jody holds out I can," he said. "She's dead on her feet." "Tell her to hang on," Rodgers said as he switched to the Geologue program. "You too." He brought up Wunstorf and looked over the terrain between the town and the lake.

It was just as Herbert had described it. Trees and hills. "Bob, do you have any idea where you are? Can you give me any landmarks?" "It's black here, Mike. Far as I know, we may even have done a W.W. Corrigan." Wrong Way Corrigan, Rodgers thought. Herbert didn't want Jody to know they might be headed in the wrong direction.

"Okay, Bob," Rodgers said. "We'll get you a fix on everyone's positions." McCaskey was still on the line with Interpol, so Rodgers called Stephen Viens himself. Even with light-intensification capabilities for night surveillance, Viens told him that the NRO satellites would require up to a half hour to pinpoint Herbert exactly. Rodgers pointed out that their lives might be at stake. Viens said, not dispassionately, that it would still take up to a half hour. Rodgers thanked him.

The General studied the map. They were really out in the boondocks. And if Herbert could hear the pursuers, it was unlikely a car or even chopper could get to them in time.

Rodgers looked over at McCaskey. "Have we got anything on that police officer yet?" "Working." Working. Rodgers always had a visceral reaction to that word: he hated it. He liked things to be done.

He also hated giving bad news to people in the field.

But bad news was better than ignorance, so he got back on the line.

"Bob, NRO is trying to spot you. Maybe we can keep you moving away from the enemy. Meanwhile, we're still looking for the officer. Thing is, even if we find him it doesn't look like you're any place easy to get to." "Tell me about it," Herbert said. "Goddamn trees and hills everywhere." "Would it be better if you tried to flank the enemy?" "Negative," Herbert said. "The terrain is rough here, but it looks rockier on either side. We'd literally be crawling." He was silent for a moment. "But General? If you can at least find Rosenlocher, there is one thing you can try." Rodgers listened while Herbert extemporized. What the intelligence chief proposed was creative, ghoulish, and unlikely to succeed. But in the absence of anything else, it became their marching orders.