Games Of State (1996) Read online

  "You didn't know?" Lankford yelled. "We're waiting to the tune of two thousand dollars a minute!" The director's chin rose from his red ascot and he began clapping. "That's thirty-three dollars," he said with a clap, "sixty-six dollars, ninety-nine dollars--"

  "I'm coming," Jody panted.

  "--one hundred and thirty-two--"

  Jody felt foolish for having believed Assistant Director Hollis Arlenna, who'd said that Lankford wouldn't be ready to shoot for another ten minutes. As a production assistant had warned her, Arlenna was a little man with a big ego, and he fed it by making other people feel small.

  As Jody neared, the AD stepped between her and the director. Breathing heavily, Jody stopped and handed him the dagger. He avoided her eyes as he turned and jogged the short distance to the director.

  "Thank you," Lankford said affably as the young man handed him the blade.

  While the director showed his actor how to hand the dagger to his son, the assistant director backed away from them. He didn't look at Jody, and stopped well short of where she was standing.

  Why am. I not surprised? she thought.

  After less than a week on location, Jody already knew how the film business worked. If you were smart and ambitious, people tried to make you look stupid and clumsy so you weren't a threat. And if you screwed up, people distanced themselves from you. It was probably that way in any business, though movie people seemed to have made a bitchy art form of it.

  As Jody walked back to the prop trailer, she thought about how much she missed the support system she and her friends had had back at Hofstra. But that was college and this was the real world. She wanted to be a film director, and she was lucky to have landed this internship. She was determined to come through it stronger and wiser. And as pushy as the rest of them, if that was what it took to survive.

  As Jody reached the trailer, the elderly German guard gave her a reassuring wink.

  "These bullies can't yell at the stars, so they yell at you," he said. "I wouldn't worry about it."

  "I won't, Mr. Buba," Jody lied, smiling. She picked up the clipboard hanging on the side of the trailer. Attached to it was a list of the scenes to be shot that day which detailed the props needed for every scene. "If that's the worst thing that happens while I'm here, I'll survive."

  Mr. Buba smiled back at Jody as she climbed the steps. She would have killed right now for a smoke, but it wasn't permitted in the trailer and there wasn't time to stand around on the outside. She had to admit she'd have killed right now for even less. For instance, just to get Hollis out of her hair.

  Upon reaching the doorway, Jody stopped suddenly and peered into the distance.

  "Mr. Buba," she said, "I think I saw someone moving around in the woods."

  The guard rose on the balls of his feet and looked over. "Where?"

  "About a quarter of a mile away. They aren't in the shot yet, but I'd hate to be them if they ruin one of Lankford's takes."

  "I agree," Buba said as he pulled the walkie-talkie from its belt-strap. "I don't know how they could have gotten through, but I'll have someone check on it."

  As he radioed in the report, Jody returned to the trailer. She tried to forget about Lankford and his snit as she re-entered a darker world, a world where the tyrants carried weapons, not shooting scripts, and attacked nations instead of interns.

  TWO

  Thursday, 9:50 A.M., Hamburg, Germany

  Paul Hood awoke with a start as the big jet thumped down on runway two at the Hamburg International Airport.

  No--! yelled something deep inside of him.

  His head resting against the sun-warmed shade, Hood kept his eyes shut and tried to hold onto the dream.

  Just a moment longer.

  But the engines screamed to slow the aircraft, and their roar blew the remnants of dream away. A moment later, Hood wasn't even sure what the dream had been, except that it had been deeply satisfying. With a silent oath, Hood opened his eyes, stretched his arms and legs, and surrendered to reality.

  The lean, forty-three-year-old Director of Op-Center was stiff and sore after eight hours in the coach seat. At Op-Center, flights like these were called "shorts"--not because that was where they hurt, though they did, and not because the flights were short. They'd gotten the name because they fell short of the thirteen-hour barrier, the minimum flight-time requirement for a government official to buy a spacious business-class seat. Bob Herbert believed that Japan and the Middle East received so much attention from the U.S. government because trade negotiators and diplomats liked flying in style. He predicted that the day twenty-four-hour flights earned officials a first-class seat, Australia would become the next trade or political battleground.

  But cramped as Hood had been, at least he felt rested. Bob Herbert was right. The secret to sleeping on airplanes had nothing to do with whether one reclined. He hadn't, yet he'd slept wonderfully. The key was silence, and the earplugs had worked perfectly.

  Hood frowned as he sat up straight. We've come to Germany at the invitation of Deputy Foreign Minister Hausen to look at millions of dollars of hi-tech equipment, and fifty cents worth of Brooklyn-made silicone makes me a happy man. There had to be a moral in that.

  Hood removed the plugs. As he poked them into their plastic container, he tried to capture at least the contentment he'd felt in his dream. But even that was gone. Hood raised the window shade and squinted into the hazy sunlight.

  Dreams, youth, and passion, he thought. The most desirable things always fade. Could be that was why they were so desirable. In any case, he told himself, what the hell did he have to moan about? His wife and kids were happy and healthy and he loved them and his work. That was more than many people had.

  Annoyed with himself, he leaned toward Matt Stoll. Op-Center's portly Operations Support Officer was sitting in the aisle seat to Hood's right. He was just removing his headphones.

  "Good morning," Hood said.

  "Good morning," Stoll said as he stuffed the headphones in the seat back. He looked at his watch, then turned his big, Kewpie-doll face toward Hood. "We're twenty-five minutes early," he said in his precise, clipped tones. "I really wanted to hear Rockin' '68 cycle through a ninth time."

  "That's all you did for eight hours? Listened to music?"

  "Had to," Stoll said. "At thirty-eight minutes in, you get Cream followed by the Cowsills and Steppenwolf. It's like Quasimodo's beautiful ugliness--'Indian Lake' sandwiched between 'Sunshine of Your Love' and 'Born to Be Wild.' "

  Hood just smiled. He didn't want to admit that he'd liked the Cowsills when he was growing up.

  "Anyway," Stoll said, "those earplugs Bob gave me melted right out of my head. You forget, we heavy people sweat more than you skinny people do."

  Hood glanced past Stoll. Across the aisle, the gray-haired Intelligence Officer was still asleep.

  Hood said, "Maybe it would've been better if I'd listened to music too. I was having this dream and then ..."

  "You lost it."

  Hood nodded.

  "I know the feeling," Stoll said. "It's like a power failure which takes your computer data with it. You know what I do when that happens?"

  "Listen to music?" Hood guessed.

  Stoll looked at him with surprise. "That's why you're the boss and I'm not. Yeah, I listen to music. Something I associate with good times. That takes me right to a better place."

  From across the aisle, Bob Herbert said in his high Southern drawl, "Me? I rely on earplugs for peace of mind. They're worth stayin' skinny for. How'd they work for you, Chief?"

  "Fantastic," said Hood. "I was asleep before we passed Halifax."

  "Didn't I tell you?" Herbert asked. "You oughta try 'em in the office. Next time General Rodgers is in a funk or Martha goes into one of her bootlick rants, just slip 'em in and pretend to listen."

  Stoll said, "Somehow, I don't think that'd work. Mike says more with silence than he does with words, and Martha's been E-mailing her screeds all around town."
r />   "Gentlemen, cool it on Martha," Hood cautioned. "She's good at what she does--"

  "Sure," Herbert said. "And she'll haul our asses into court for racial and sexual discrimination if we suggest otherwise."

  Hood didn't bother to object. The first aspect of leadership he'd learned during his years as Mayor of Los Angeles was that you didn't change people's minds by arguing with them. You just shut up. That put you above the fray and gave you an aura of dignity. The only way your opponent could reach that high ground was by surrendering some of the low ground, which meant compromise. Sooner or later, they all came around to that. Even Bob, though it took him longer than most.

  As the jet came to a stop and the passenger bridge was swung over, Herbert said, "Hell, it's a new world. I guess what we need are electronic earplugs. If we don't hear what we don't like, we don't run the risk of being politically incorrect."

  "The information highway is supposed to open minds, not close them," Stoll said.

  "Yeah, well, I'm from Philadelphia, Mississippi, and we didn't have highways back there. We had dirt roads that flooded in the spring, an' everyone pitched in to clean 'em up."

  The seatbelt sign was turned off and everyone rose except Herbert. As people collected their carry-on luggage, he leaned his head back, his eyes fixed on the overhead reading light. It had been fifteen years since he'd lost the use of his legs in the Beirut Embassy bombing, and Hood knew he was still self-conscious about not being able to walk. Though no one who worked with Herbert gave his handicap a thought, Herbert didn't like to make eye contact with strangers. Of all the things Herbert disliked, pity was at the head of the list.

  "Y'know," Herbert said wistfully, "back home, everyone started from the same end of the road and worked together. Differences of opinion were settled by trying it one way. If that didn't work you tried it another way and the job got done. Now," he said, "you disagree with someone and you're accused of hating whatever minority they happen to belong to."

  Stoll said, "Opportunism knocks. It's the new American dream."

  "Among some," Hood pointed out. "Only among some."

  After the door was opened and the aisle had emptied, a German flight attendant came over with an airline wheelchair. Herbert's customized chair, with its cellular phone and built-in laptop, had been sent along as baggage.

  The young attendant turned the chair around beside Herbert. She leaned across the chair and offered him a hand, which he declined.

  "Not necessary," Herbert huffed. "I've been doing this since you were in grade school."

  With his powerful arms, Herbert lifted himself over the armrest and dropped into the leather seat. As Hood and Stoll fell in behind, toting their carry-ons, he led the way through the cabin, wheeling himself.

  The heat of the Hamburg summer permeated the passenger bridge, but it was mild compared to what they'd left behind in Washington, D.C. They entered the bustling, air-conditioned terminal, where the flight attendant turned them over to a government official Lang had sent to help them through customs.

  As the attendant turned to go, Herbert grabbed her wrist.

  "Sorry I snapped at you," he said. "But me and these"--he patted the armrest--"we're old friends."

  "I understand," the young woman said. "And I'm sorry if I offended you."

  "You didn't," Herbert said. "Not at all."

  The woman took off with a smile as the government official introduced himself. He told them that a limousine was waiting to take them to the lakeside Alster-Hof Hotel once they were through customs. Then he pointed the way, standing well back as Herbert began wheeling through the terminal, past the window which looked onto busy Paul Baumer Platz.

  "Well," Herbert said, "I think it's damned ironic."

  "What is?" Hood asked.

  "1 can't find a square inch of common ground with my own people, yet I'm in an airport the Allies bombed to hell along with half of Hamburg. I'm here making nice with a flight attendant and getting ready to work on the same end of the road with guys who shot at my dad in the Ardennes. Takes some getting adjusted to."

  "Like you said," Hood remarked, "it's a new world."

  "Yeah," Herbert said. "New and darin' me to keep up with it. But I will, Paul. God in heaven help me, I will."

  So saying, Herbert picked up the pace. He scooted around Americans, Europeans, and Japanese--all of whom, Hood was sure, were running the same race in their own way.

  THREE

  Thursday, 9:59 A.M., Garbsen, Germany

  Werner Dagover's lip curled with disgust when he rounded the hill and saw the woman sitting behind the tree.

  That was fine, fine work by the road team, he thought, letting someone through. There was a time in Germany when careers were destroyed by slipups like this.

  As he approached, the barrel-chested sixty-two-year-old security guard vividly recalled being seven years old and having his Uncle Fritz come to live with them. The master saddler of an army riding school, Fritz Dagover had been the ranking official on duty when a drunken army sports instructor snuck a Generalmajor's horse from the stable. He took it for a midnight ride and broke its leg. Though the instructor had committed the infraction without Fritz's knowledge, both men were court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. Despite the fact that civilian manpower was scarce during the war and Uncle Fritz was a trained leather-worker, he was unable to get work. He ended his life seven months later, swigging arsenic-laced ale from his canteen.

  It's true, Werner reflected, great evil was committed during the twelve-year Reich. But a high value was placed on personal responsibility. In purging everything from the past, we've also cast out discipline, the work ethic, and too many other virtues.

  Today, few guards were willing to risk their lives for an hourly wage. If their presence on a movie set, at a factory, or in a department store was not a deterrent, then it was too bad for the employer. The fact that they'd agreed to do a job didn't matter to most guards.

  But it mattered to Werner Dagover of Sichern. The name of the Hamburg-based company meant "security." Whether it was a woman accidentally interrupting a shoot or a gang of thugs celebrating Hitler's birthday during this week's insidious Chaos Days, Werner would see to it that his beat was secure.

  After notifying the dispatcher that there was a woman in the woods, apparently alone, Werner shut off his walkie-talkie. Drawing back his shoulders, he made sure his badge was on straight and pushed stray hairs under his hat. As he'd learned during his thirty-year tenure as a Hamburg police officer, one couldn't wield authority without looking authoritative.

  As Sichern's guard-at-large for this operation, Werner had been stationed in the command trailer on the main road of the small town. When the call came from Bernard Buba, he'd biked the quarter mile to the movie location and parked by the prop trailer. Then he'd made his way inconspicuously around the crew, past the hill, and headed into the twenty acres of forest. Beyond the woods was another road where Sichern guards were supposed to be watching for picnickers or birdwatchers or whatever this woman was.

  As Werner neared the tree, his back to the sun, he stepped on a nutshell. The slender young woman rose with a start and turned. She was tall, with aristocratic cheekbones, a strong nose, and eyes that seemed like liquid gold in the direct sunlight. She was wearing a loose white blouse, jeans, and black boots.

  "Hello!" she said breathlessly.

  "Good morning," Werner replied.

  The guard stopped two paces from the woman. He tipped his hat.

  "Miss," Werner said, "a film is being shot just around the hill and we must keep the area clear." He extended his hand behind him. "If you'll come with me, I can escort you back to the main road."

  "Of course," the woman said. "I'm sorry. I wondered what those men were doing on the road. I thought perhaps there had been an accident."

  "You would have heard an ambulance," Werner noted.

  "Yes, of course. " She reached behind the tree. "Let me just get my backpack."

  Werner
called his dispatcher on the walkie-talkie and explained that he was escorting a woman back to the main road.

  "So--a movie," the woman said, slinging the backpack over her left shoulder. "Is anyone famous in it?"

  Werner was about to tell her he didn't know much about movie actors when he heard leaves rustle above him. He looked up in time to see two men, dressed in green and wearing ski masks, jump from the lowest branch. The smaller man landed in front of him, holding a Walther P38. Werner couldn't see the larger man who dropped behind him.

  "Don't speak," the gunman told Werner. "Just give us your uniform."

  Werner's eyes shifted to the woman as she removed a folding-stock Uzi from the backpack. Her expression was cool now, impervious to the contemptuous look he gave her. She stopped beside the gunman, nudged him aside with her knee, and pressed the gun muzzle under Werner's chin. She glanced at the name tag on his breast pocket.

  "Just so there's no misunderstanding, Herr Dagover," she said, "we kill heroes. I want the uniform now."

  After hesitating a long moment, Werner reluctantly undid his belt buckle. He pressed down on the walkie-talkie to make sure it was snug in its loop, then laid the big leather belt on the ground.

  As Werner began undoing the big brass buttons on his uniform, the woman crouched and scooped up the belt. Her eyes narrowed as she removed the walkie-talkie and turned it over.

  The small red "transmit" light was glowing. Werner felt his throat go dry.

  He knew it had been a risk to turn it on so the dispatcher could hear them. But sometimes the job required risks, and he didn't regret having done it.

  The woman touched the "lock" button with her thumb, taking it off transmit. Then she looked from Werner to the man behind him. She nodded once.

  Werner Dagover gasped as the man slipped two feet of copper wire around his throat and pulled tight. The last thing he felt was a ripping pain which girdled his neck and shot down his spine....

  Short, powerfully built Rolf Murnau of Dresden, in what was formerly East Berlin, stood at ease beside the oak. The nineteen-year-old was armed and attentive as he watched the hill that lay between them and the film set. He held the Walther P38 in one hand, but that was only his most obvious weapon. The ski mask tucked in his belt was lined with washers, making it a devastating and unexpected bludgeon in a fight. A sharpened hat pin hidden beneath the collar of his shirt was perfect for slitting throats. Stick in the point, drag it quickly to the side. And the crystal of his wristwatch made a surprisingly effective weapon when dragged across an opponent's eyes. The bracelet he wore on his right wrist could be slipped over his hand and used as brass knuckles in a fistfight.