control, and his lackeys were now in the same room, with easy access to Ostermann's personal bathroom - hostages needed such access, and there was no sense in denying it to them. Otherwise, it stripped them of their dignity and made them desperate. That was inadvisable. Desperate people did foolish things, and what Hans and Petra needed at the moment was control over their every action.
Gerhardt Dengler sat in a visitor's chair directly across the desk from his employer. He knew he'd gotten the police to respond, and, like his boss, he was now wondering if that was a good or a bad.thing. In another two years, he would have been ready to strike out on his own, probably with Ostermann's blessing. He'd learned much from his boss, the way a general's aide learns at the right hand of the senior officer. Though he'd been able to pursue his own destiny much more quickly and surely than a junior officer… what did he owe this man? What was required by this situation? Dengler was no more suited to this than Herr Ostermann was, but Dengler was younger, fitter…
One of the secretaries was weeping silently, the tears trickling down her cheeks from fear and from the rage of having her comfortable life upset so cruelly. What was wrong with these two that they thought they could invade the lives of ordinary people and threaten them with death? And what could she do about it? The answer to that was… nothing. She was skilled at routing calls, processing voluminous paperwork, keeping track of Herr Ostermann's money ably that she was probably the best-paid secretary in the country - because Herr Ostermann was a generous boss, ways with a kind word for his staff. He'd helped her and her husband-a stonemason-with their investment the point that they would soon be millionaires in their own right. She'd been with him long before his first wife had died of cancer, had watched him suffer through that, unable to help him do anything to ease the horrible pain, and then she'd rejoiced at his discovery of Ursel von Prinze, who'd allowed Herr Ostermann to smile again…
Who were these people who stared at them as though they were objects, with guns in their hands like something from a movie… except that she and Gerhardt and the others were the bit players now. They couldn't go to the kitchen to fetch beer and pretzels. They could only live the drama to its end. And so she wept quietly at her powerlessness, to the contempt of Petra Dortmund.
Homer Johnston was in his ghillie suit, a complex overall type garment made of rags sewn into place on a gridded matrix, whose purpose was to make him appear to be a bush or a pile of leaves or compost, anything but a person with a rifle. The rifle was set up on its bipod, the hinged flaps on the front and back lenses of his telescopic sight flipped up. He'd picked a good place to the east of the helicopter pad that would allow him to cover the entire distance between the helicopter and the house. His laser rangefinder announced that he was 216 meters from a door on the back of the house and 147 meters from the front-left door of the helicopter. He was lying prone in a dry spot on the beautiful lawn, in the lengthening shadows close to the treeline, and the air brought to him the smell of horses, which reminded him of his childhood in the American northwest. Okay. He thumbed his radio microphone.
Lead, Rifle Two-One.'
Rifle Two-One, Lead.'
'In place and setup. I show no movement in the house at this time.'
'Rifle Two-Two, in place and set up, I also see no movement,' Sergeant Weber reported from his spot, two hundred fifty-six meters from Johnston. Johnston turned to see Dieter's location. His German counterpart. had selected a good spot.
'Achtung,' a voice called behind him. Johnston turned to see an Austrian cop approaching, not quite crawling on the grass.Hier, ' the man said, handing over some photos and withdrawing rapidly. Johnston looked at them. Good, shots of the hostages… but none of the bad guys. Well, at least he'd know whom not to shoot. With that, he backed off. the rifle and lifted his green-coated military binoculars and began scanning the house slowly and regularly, left to right and back again. 'Dieter?' he said over his direct radio link.
'Yes, Homer?'
'They get you the photos?'
'Yes, I have them.'
'No lights inside…'
'Ja, our friends are being clever.'
'I figure about half an hour until we have to go NVG.'
'I agree, Homer.'
Johnston grunted and turned to check the bag he'd carried in along with his rifle case and $10,000 rifle. Then he returned to scanning the building, patiently, like staking out a mountain deer trail for a big muley… a happy thought for the lifelong hunter… the taste of venison, especially cooked in the field over an open wood fire… some coffee from the blue steel enamel pot… and the talking that came after a successful hunt… Well, you can't eat what you shoot here, Homer, the sergeant told himself, settling back into his patient routine. One hand reached into a pocket for some beef jerky to chew.
Eddie Price lit his pipe on the far side of the dwelling. Not as big as Kensington Palace, but prettier, he thought: The thought disturbed him. It was something they'd talked about during his time in the SAS. What if terrorists-usually they thought of the Irish PIRA or INLA - attacked one of the Royal residences… or the Palace of Westminster. The SAS had walked through all of the buildings in question at o time or another, just to get a feed for the layout, the security systems, and the problems involved - especially after that lunatic had cracked his way into Buckingham Palace in the 1980s, walking into the Queen's own bedchamber. He still had chills about that?
The brief reverie faded. He had the Schloss Ostermann to worry about, Price remembered, scanning over the blueprints again.
'Bloody nightmare on the inside, Ding,' Price finally said.
'That's the truth. All wood floors, probably creak, lots of places for the bad guys to hide and snipe at us. We'd need a chopper to do this right.' But they didn't have a helicopter. That was something to talk with Clark about. Rainbow hadn't been fully thought through. Too fast on too many things. Not so much that they needed a helicopter as some good chopper crews trained in more than one type of aircraft, because when they deployed in the field, there was no telling what machines would be used by their host nation. Chavez turned:
'Doc?'
Bellow came over. 'Yes, Ding?'
'I'm starting to think about letting them out, walk to the helicopter behind the house, and taking them down that way rather than forcing our way in.'
'A little early for that, isn't it?' '
Chavez nodded. 'Yeah, it is, but we don't want to lose a hostage, and come midnight, you said, we have to take that threat seriously.'
'We can delay it some, maybe. My job to do that, over the phone.'
'I understand, but if we make a move, I want it to be in the dark. That means tonight. I can't plan on having you talk them into surrender, unless you're thinking different?…'
'Possible, but unlikely,' Bellow had to agree. He couldn't even speak confidently about delaying the threatened midnight kill.
'Next, we have to see if we can spike the building.'
'I'm here,' Noonan said. 'Tall order, man.'
'Can you do it?'
'I can probably get close unobserved, but there's over a hundred windows, and how the hell can I get to the ones on the second and third floors? Unless I do a dangle from a chopper and come down on the roof…' And that meant making sure that the local TV people, who'd show up as. predictably as vultures over a dying cow, turned their cameras off and kept them off', -which then ran the risk of alerting the terrorists when the TV reporters stopped showing the building of interest. And how could they fail to note that a helicopter had flown thirty feet over the roof of the building, and might there be a bad gay on the roof, already keeping watch?
'This is getting complicated,' Chavez observed quietly.
'Dark and cold enough for the thermal viewers to start working,.' Noonan said helpfully.
'Yeah.' Chavez picked up his. radio mike. 'Team, Lead, go thermal. Say again, break out the thermals.' Then he turned. 'What about cell phones?'
Noonan could do little more than shrug. There were now something like three hundred civilians gathered around, well back from the Ostermann property and controlled by local police, but most of them had a view of the
