Security solutions, p.18
Security Solutions, page 18
“Keep it between us. Once we rescue Casimir, the polizei will search Sprunck’s apartment. Georg will have all the time he needs to find it, and Miss Kellarmännin will know what it means. And they will not have gotten it from us, so it will be admissible. Or perhaps admissible anyway, but carry more weight.”
As soon as they set out, Ditmar asked, “Storm it how, Neustatter? I have been out that way. With all the new construction, there is very little cover, other than the houses themselves. Und there are civilians everywhere, especially this week. We have to go in hard and fast, and if they are keeping any sort of watch, they will open fire before we can get close.”
“True,” Neustatter acknowledged. “If we come in from the back . . . ”
“We will still need a distraction in front,” Ditmar pointed out. “Like Hjalmar and I did at Sprunck’s apartment.”
“What if we just walk by?” Miss Boekhorst suggested. “Then run to the door?”
Neustatter shook his head. “If they have powerful enough rifles, they could shoot us right through the walls. We need actual cover to get close. And if we stay too far back, they will realize the group in front is a distraction.”
Miss Želivský’s eye lit up. She looked at Miss Boekhorst. “The tank!”
“What tank?” Hjalmar asked. “The water tanks at the fairgrounds?”
“A tank,” she repeated. “Well, an APC.”
“They are with the army, are they not?”
“The new one we have been building. We were going to unveil it in the Fourth of July parade.”
“You build APCs?” Neustatter demanded.
“We are trying,” she said. “Die Böhmen und Thüringen Dampfpanzer Gesellschaft. The Bohemian and Thuringian Steam Tank Organization. It is a joint venture. We will announce an IPO at the end of the parade.”
“Who knows you build APCs?”
“It uses steam so there are pipes. I trade information about pipes with Josyntjie and Václav.”
“Does Casimir have anything to do with it? Could Sprunck and Giovanni kidnapped him because he knows about APCs?”
“Neustatter, he knows my company is trying to build an APC. So what? Other companies are trying to build them, too. I do not think Casimir knows much about how they work, but he did give us suggestions about financing and how to set up the IPO.”
“Does any dollar amount connected to the company or the IPO match the ransom demand?” Neustatter pressed.
“Nein, not that I know of.”
“Then I have only one more question,” Neustatter said. “Does it work?”
4:30 p.m.
Neustatter turned left, into the fairgrounds. He passed the ticket booth and the first food booth before turning left again, taking the foot bridge across Buffalo Creek.
Mathew Woodruff spoke up. “Neustatter, I always had the impression D’Ambrosi lived further out than this.”
Neustatter nodded to the tall Englishman. “He does—in the new village called Happy Acres. We need a staging area, what up-timers call an objective rally point.”
“Neustatter . . . ” Ditmar Schaub began.
“Just like Reserves,” Neustatter assured him. “We need a place for everyone to meet up and go over the plan before we divide back up into our teams.”
“Why here?”
“Because the swimming pool has a telephone, and since we can tell the girl lifeguard who her stalker is and that we are going to go take care of him, I figure she will let us make a call.”
Grantville Swimming Pool
4:35 p.m.
Neustatter swung the gate open and entered the pool area, with Astrid, Ditmar, Miss Boekhorst, Mathew Woodruff, and Brother Václav following.
“Hey! You can’t go swimming like that!” The sudden yell brought them up short. A muscular young man clad in swimming trunks with a whistle on a lanyard around his neck stepped in front of Neustatter.
An up-timer, Astrid thought, but it was becoming harder to tell as more and more down-timers living in West Virginia County acquired a certain sense of . . . self-confidence. Neustatter, who had never lacked one, stared back at a young man whose posture was more arrogant than his experience was likely to warrant. Look at me, not so many years older and with my own share of . . . self-confidence, Astrid told herself.
“We do not want to swim,” Neustatter stated. “Who is in charge here?”
The fit young man turned his head and hollered, “Hawker!”
Astrid spotted another young man, also wearing swimming trunks, already approaching. He was less bulky, wirier. And he seemed to have an air of authority about him.
Neustatter seemed to think so, too. “Are you the commanding officer?”
He laughed. “Never heard it put that way, but yes.” He held out a hand. “Hawker Baldwin.”
“Edgar Neustatter.” They shook.
“That’s lieutenant, if you’re going to use rank,” the other lifeguard cracked.
“Sir,” Neustatter added.
Hawker waved it away. “An up-time reference. I have eight men including myself. Uh, seven men and one woman.”
Neustatter smiled. “I started Neustatter’s European Security Services with eight men and one woman. But I understand she has a stalker?”
Astrid watched Hawker Baldwin’s expression darken.
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
“I accompanied Miss Barbara Kellarmännin on an assignment today. We know who the stalker is, and we are going to go get him . . . for additional reasons. May I use your telephone?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s right over here.” Hawker turned to the other lifeguard. “Acton, take the chair. Sunshine and I might be a while.”
While Neustatter was on the phone, Hawker stepped away and returned with the female lifeguard. Astrid could tell the blonde girl was in excellent physical shape because she wasn’t wearing very much. Astrid decided she would prefer something a little more . . . well, quite a lot more.
Astrid did a double-take when Miss Boekhorst greeted the girl with, “Fräulein Moritz.”
She smiled. “Frau Boekhorst. And it’s just Sunshine. No one else fell in, did they?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
While Miss Boekhorst brought Sunshine up to date, Astrid observed her cousin Ditmar was paying at least as much attention to Miss Boekhorst as he was to Sunshine. Interesting. Meanwhile, Woodruff and Brother Václav were talking with Hawker Baldwin.
Neustatter returned.
“Can I assume you called the police?” Hawker asked him.
“I will call them in a few more minutes,” Neustatter promised. “We need everyone in the right place, in the right order.”
“Neustatter,” Miss Boekhorst asked, “who did you call?”
“Teams One and Two.” Neustatter looked pleased with himself. “They will make good time on Sycamore Avenue. D’Ambrosi’s so-called embassy is at Number Eleven, Happy Acres, so Miss Želivský and Team One will go in the front way and keep D’Ambrosi and Sprunck distracted while Teams Two and Three use Len Trout Drive to come in the back. Team Two and I will breach the house and free Casimir.”
“You can’t blow up a Happy Acres hou—!” Sunshine bit off the protest mid-word. “Did you say the stalker is in Happy Acres?” she demanded.
“Ja, we believe so,” Neustatter told her. “He was not in his own apartment, so he may be at D’Ambrosi’s, along with Casimir Wesner, who has been kidnapped.”
Sunshine stared at him, open-mouthed and clearly horrified. “Happy Acres is my dad’s development,” she managed. “It’s on our farm. There’s no way to sneak up on a house until it gets dark.” She flushed. “I mean, if I kidnapped someone, I’d have henchmen watching from the hideout, not being complete idiots like on TV.”
“Sunshine—” Hawker began.
“She is correct,” Neustatter stated. “Where is Number Eleven Happy Acres?”
“It backs up against Buffalo Creek. Not right opposite Buffalo Street, but a little further along the bend in the creek.”
Neustatter grimaced. “Just the roads in, then. We can try to sneak along the tree line, but . . . ”
“Unless you cross Buffalo Creek,” Sunshine pointed out.
“We can ford a stream, but Buffalo Creek—”
“I can do it.”
“Sunshine—” Hawker began.
“C’mon, Hawker, how is this different from our rescue this afternoon?”
“You and I can swim across Buffalo Creek,” Hawker allowed. “But with a rope.”
“Hawker!”
“Sunshine, have you swum that stretch of Buffalo Creek before? Since the Ring of Fire, I mean.”
“Only jumped in to cool off,” she admitted.
“Both of us, with rope,” Hawker insisted.
“That will work,” Neustatter agreed. “Because once you are across, you can tie the rope to a tree, and we can slide across.”
“Neustatter—” It was Astrid’s turn to protest the plan.
“We tie ropes around our waists and hook onto the main rope,” Neustatter explained. “Then pull ourselves along.”
“If you had carabiners, it might work,” Hawker allowed.
Neustatter just smiled.
“I do not know what that is,” Astrid admitted, “but if those are the little metal loops with the hinged opening, Neustatter had Karl make several and makes us carry them in our saddlebags.”
Neustatter shrugged. “After the Fire Department had to rescue a woman partway up the Ring Wall last year, it seemed prudent we be able to climb if needed.”
“I think we should call the police now,” Hawker stated.
“Sprunck and D’Ambrosi will panic even faster if they see polizei than if they see us,” Neustatter pointed out. “And if they panic, they might kill Casimir. We can rescue him if you can get us across Buffalo Creek.”
Hawker sighed. “Fine—if you’ve got the rope and carabiners. For whatever reason, I hung onto the walkie-talkies.”
“Did you now?” Neustatter grinned. “Miss Moritz, tell me about the layout of these Happy Acres houses, bitte.”
Buffalo Creek
6:00 p.m.
As the carillon bells tolled six times, Sunshine Moritz and Hawker Baldwin slipped into the water. They struck out across Buffalo Creek in the lifeguards’ crawl stroke, heads above water. Each trailed a rope. Hjalmar and Karl watched the coils, making sure the rope played out evenly. The near ends were already tied around a couple trees.
Neustatter whirled and pointed at Brother Václav. “Go to the police station. Tell Chief Richards, Georg, and Miss Kellarmännin everything.”
The Premonstratensian monk was unhappy at being sent away from the action, but he had agreed he was the logical choice.
A steam engine rumbled on Buffalo Street, and Neustatter’s walkie-talkie crackled.
“Team One, in the APC,” came Ditmar’s voice.
“Team Two, east bank,” Neustatter replied.
“Team Three. We have the back road closed,” Astrid reported.
“Who is this? Get off the fire department channel!” a fourth voice ordered.
“Sorry, meine herren. I need your channel. Tell Herr Chief Matheny I’m good for beers later.”
Neustatter ignored the response and watched the lifeguards. They had started upstream of where they meant to reach shore. The current carried them downstream. Although Buffalo Creek was wider here than in the park, the drift amounted to only a few feet.
Sunshine touched right where she’d said she would and scrambled partway up the bank. She stopped, and Neustatter saw her head turn from side to side. Hawker pulled himself up next to her, and they went over the top together. Seconds later, they untied the ropes from around their waists, pulled them taut, and secured them around a pair of trees. Neustatter waited until both of them flashed the up-time okay sign, then he clipped a carabiner to the rope wound around his waist and legs. Next, he clipped it around one of the ropes now spanning Buffalo Creek.
Neustatter grabbed the rope with both gloves, slipped below it, and swung first one leg, then the other, over the top. Then he started pulling himself along, hand over hand. He looked back to see Hjalmar handling the process more awkwardly—because he had a rifle slung across his chest.
Neustatter kept going. He felt the rope shake as Jakob swung on. He couldn’t see him, but he could see Karl click onto Hjalmar’s rope.
“Almost. You’re doing fine.”
Neustatter tipped his head back and saw Hawker standing on the bank, about seven yards away. He continued to pull himself along.
“Okay, you’re there,” came Hawker’s voice. “Let me get the carabiner.”
Once it was released from the rope, Neustatter let go with his legs and dropped to the ground.
“Nice climb,” Hawker told him.
“Nice swim,” Neustatter returned.
Hjalmar made it across. Sunshine and Neustatter got him unhooked from the line. He nodded his thanks, unslung his rifle, and dropped to the grass.
“Still no one at the back windows,” he reported.
Neustatter turned his attention back to the first rope. Jakob’s speed shinnying across made him wonder whether the man had done something like this before—which was good, because Jakob was the key to the whole operation.
Richart, on the other hand, was struggling. He was the third and final man on the first rope. He’d gotten hooked up okay but was struggling to pull himself along.
Neustatter studied him and spotted why. “Richart!” he hissed. “Use your legs. Don’t just grab the rope with them.”
He spared the second rope no more than a glance. Karl Recker’s sheer bulk might have hindered him a bit, but his powerful blacksmith’s arms more than made up for it.
Richart paused halfway across.
“Come on, you got this!” Hawker called. “Slide your feet up and push.”
It wasn’t how Neustatter would describe it, but the lifeguard’s advice seemed to help.
Static crackled, and from somewhere on Neustatter’s belt came the words, “The APC is crossing the bridge.”
Neustatter pulled the walkie-talkie free. “Two. West bank.”
“Three. In position.”
Neustatter’s other hand came down on Jakob’s shoulder, and he pointed with the walkie-talkie. Jakob sprinted to the back door of #11 Happy Acres while Hjalmar and Karl covered the windows with their rifles.
“We will get your last man,” Hawker whispered.
Neustatter nodded his thanks and dashed after Jakob.
Car Three
6:09 p.m.
Officer Blake Haggerty had been assigned Car Three today and was pretty happy about it. Instead of keeping an eye on the crowds in Grantville, he was out in “the county.” He was north of Sundremda with intentions of swinging past Castle Hills and the developments on the Rudolstadt road before easing past just enough pedestrians to grab dinner at the Freedom Arches. He’d eat leaning against his vehicle so he didn’t spill anything inside. He had to turn the vehicle over to Stoltz and Vorkeuffer for the overnight shift.
The squad car radio crackled. “All units, report of an APC in the town square turning onto Buffalo Street. Car Two, Car Three, all downtown patrols respond.”
Haggerty rolled his eyes. The Army was probably just checking out the July 4 parade route.
“Dispatch, Patrol Six. I have the APC in sight. That is not a coal truck.”
“10-9, Patrol Six.”
“I say again, it is not one of the Army’s coal trucks.”
“Car Two, Car Three, 10-39 Grantville.”
Haggerty sprayed gravel as he made a quick three-point turn.
Police Station
6:11 p.m.
Having parked his vehicle and hit the restroom, Chief Preston Richards sank into the chair behind his desk at what he hoped was the end of a long day. He reached for the stack of paperwork. The stack was getting taller, but at least there weren’t any reports of unidentified horsemen. And Melanie had gotten off shift on time so she could pick up the kids. They both knew this was going to be a tough week, but he hoped to get home while dinner was still warm and play with the kids for a while.
Jill McConnell stuck her head into his office.
“Press, there’s a report of an APC headed west on Buffalo. Mimi said to tell you right away.”
Chief Richards looked up from his stack of papers. “Call Camp Saale and ask what they’re doing.”
Jill was back in less than two minutes.
“It’s not a coal truck, and Camp Saale says it’s not theirs.”
Press froze for an instant. “Get the nearest officers over to the National Guard artillery battery at the fairgrounds! Then get Lane Grooms on the phone!”
Jill jumped back out of his way. By the time he finished speaking, Press was two steps from the office door and moving fast.
He collided with Brother Václav in the hallway.
“Herr Chief! We think we know where they have Casimir!”
Len Trout Road
6:13 p.m.
Astrid Schäubin’s horse was as impatient as she was. The horse just had to turn halfway around. She tweaked the reins in her left hand. The mare had just decided that meant she could try to circle in the other direction when the walkie-talkie in Astrid’s right hand crackled.
“Team One. APC approaching Number Eleven.”
“Two, door is open. Entering.”
Astrid spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Three approaching.”
She, Wolfram, and Phillip nudged their horses forward. A shot rang out, then another, and another. A full-fledged gunfight broke out at the front of #11.
#11 Happy Acres
6:14 p.m.
Jakob was a lot faster with lockpicks than Neustatter was. He turned the knob and swung the door open. It didn’t squeak at all.
