"Dean Ing - Silent Thunder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

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