Ilse reminded herself why she was here. To help the SEAL team spy, and then escape, if espionage and escape were really possible. In any case, to help make very sure to thoroughly destroy the place. Beyond that, because of ARBOR's arrest, they didn't have much of a plan, and she had no idea what to expect from moment to moment. Ilse glanced up. At the top of the ladder, SEALs One and Two worked to unfasten the manhole cover from underneath. Clayton kept eyeing his wristwatch.
'Ready,' One said.
Clayton cleared his throat. 'This is when we find out if they're waiting for us…. Weapons free.'
The team poured out of the manhole as fast as they could and formed a perimeter. Jeffrey saw they were in a utility space. It was large and hot and humid, and deserted. Air whistled as it was drawn into the accessway. SEAL One used a handheld chemical sniffer.
'Air's clean.'
Quickly the team retrieved their packs. SEALs One and Two resealed the manhole.
'We're here,' Montgomery said. 'ARBOR was supposed to have hidden a package.'
'I don't see anything,' Jeffrey said.
'Find it,' Clayton said.
The team searched, systematically at first, then with increasing desperation. Inside storage cabinets, behind equipment, on top of pipes hung from the overhead. Jeffrey warmed up, then began to sweat. He opened his flak vest and unzipped the front of his dry suit.
'Trouble,' SEAL One hissed. Jeffrey heard footsteps approaching steadily from around the corner of a drab, ill-lit corridor.
Everyone lifted their packs and hid them and knelt behind the pumps and transformers. Jeffrey pulled a dental mirror from his load-bearing vest, and peeked around the corner of an electrical switching cabinet. The cabinet bore the international symbol for DANGER — HIGH VOLTAGE: big red lightning bolts. Jeffrey wondered if he'd fry if a bullet hit the cabinet.
A guard entered the utility space. He approached the manhole, casually at first. He noticed the wet footprints. He reached for his walkie-talkie mike. Jeffrey pulled his K-Bar and charged the man. The guard turned and raised his carbine. Montgomery charged from the other direction, also knife in hand. The guard turned toward Montgomery.
Jeffrey was on the man in a flash and Montgomery grabbed him from the other side. Simultaneously they plunged their fighting knives into the base of the German's' neck, Jeffrey from the left and Montgomery from the right. Jeffrey flicked his K-Bar one way to sever the spine and the other way to cut the heart in two. He withdrew his knife the same time Montgomery pulled out his. Montgomery lowered the body to the floor, holding the head by the hair so blood wouldn't drip.
Montgomery flashed Jeffrey a grin. 'Now who's who with knives, Skipper?'
'Any life-signs sensor?' Jeffrey snapped.
'We're clear.'
Jeffrey and Montgomery wiped their knives on the guard's uniform blouse. From the uniform, Jeffrey could tell he was German naval infantry — not a marine, but a sailor who guarded a shore activity.
Clayton pulled a body bag from his pack; the team came prepared. 'Help me get him in this. We need to lock in the body fluids and smells.'
Jeffrey did as he was told. Around him, utility equipment whirred and hummed. He smelled steam and ozone and lubricant, hot metal and warm oil-based paint.
'Trouble,' SEAL One said. More footsteps, more tentative than before. A security alert?
Everyone took cover. Again Jeffrey watched from his hiding place, using the dental mirror.
A man came around the corner. He wore a dirty orange coverall. Over his shoulder he carried a black plastic garbage bag. A point man in camouflage? A decoy?
The man saw the wet footprints. He knelt, and Jeffrey saw him notice drops of blood. Montgomery charged with his K-Bar.
Jeffrey charged out, too. 'No!' Jeffrey waved his arms at the chief. Montgomery pulled up short.
There was something odd about this man. He was old, and shuffled stoop-shouldered, more like a prisoner than a guard — he wore plastic sandals like beach clogs. He had a thick black mustache, so large and bushy Jeffrey wondered how he could eat or drink. In fact, the man looked malnourished. Strangely, he had a dark suntan. No. His skin was brown. Jeffrey studied his face.
He's a Turk, Jeffrey realized. A Gastarbeiter, a so-called Guest Worker…. So the Germans are using forced labor after all.
The man said something in fluent German. Montgomery responded, barking questions. The man put down the garbage bag and stepped back. He gestured for the chief to open it. Montgomery covered him with his rifle, and told him to do it himself. Clayton ordered everyone else to stay behind cover. It might be a bomb.
The man knelt and untied the bundle. Out, poured blank ID cards, a portable retinal scanner and a digital camera, a floor plan, two sausages, and a pretzel. SEALs One and Nine defended the bend in the corridor while the rest of the team parleyed. The Turk squatted on the floor; there was no place to sit except on bare concrete.
Montgomery spoke out of earshot of the man. 'He says there's about a hundred of 'em in here. A lot of them lost their relatives in the big earthquake in Turkey in the nineties. They came to Germany to get away and find work.'
'But why?' Clayton said. 'The Axis keeps claiming they're not racist; they say even in Africa they're restoring law and order. Turkey's neutral, like in World War Two. Why would Germany possibly take the chance on antagonizing them like this?'
'Let me try,' Ilse said. She walked over and sat down next to the Turk.
'Wie heissen Sie?' she said. In formal address: What's your name?
'Gamal Salih. Und Du?' And you?
He used Du, not Sie, a sign of affection in German. Ilse felt drawn to him at once, as to a kindly uncle, in spite of his tattered dress and smell. The Turk seemed remarkably poised, surrounded by commandos armed to the teeth. Up close, he didn't look as old as she'd first thought.
'Ilse,' she said, touching her chest. 'Ilse Reebeck.'
'Sud Afrikaner?' South African?
He picked that up right away. 'Eine guter Afrikaner.' A good South African. Jeffrey came over. Salih pointed to the rest of the team. 'Kampfschwimmer?'
'Ja.' Then Ilse said slowly in English, 'U.S. Navy SEALs.' Salih nodded, as if they'd passed some kind of test.
'Why do they keep you here?' Ilse said in German.
Salih shrugged. 'Labor shortage,' he said in English. 'The white Germans go to the Army. White Germans, they don't like cleaning garbage, washing toilets, sweeping floors. Instead, we wipe up their lubricant spills, pick up the shav ings from their lathes.' He made a gesture with his fingers, as if to say Ouch. Ilse realized the metal shavings must be razor sharp.
'So you're like janitors?' Jeffrey said.
'Slave janitors.'
'They don't let you out?' Clayton said.
'Never.' Salih grew angry. 'My father was born in Germany. So was I. We were citizens. I was a building engineer, at an office tower in Frankfurt.'
'Your English is good,' Jeffrey said. 'What did you expect? Everybody studies it in school. Then I went to technical college.
You don't speak German?'
'No,' Jeffrey said. 'Just Arabic, and Russian.' 'Prepared for the wrong wars, didn't you?'
'How'd you end up here?' Ilse said.
Salih sighed. 'German antiaircraft winged one of your Tomahawks. It crashed near my house…. My family.. They're all gone now.'
'How'd you survive?'
'I was at the office.'
Ilse hesitated. 'I know how you feel, Mr. Salih. The survivor guilt, for being alive when they're not. I lost my
