Curtain of Death Read online

  BOOKS BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  HONOR BOUND

  HONOR BOUND

  BLOOD AND HONOR

  SECRET HONOR

  DEATH AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  THE HONOR OF SPIES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  VICTORY AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  EMPIRE AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BROTHERHOOD OF WAR

  BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS

  BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS

  BOOK III: THE MAJORS

  BOOK IV: THE COLONELS

  BOOK V: THE BERETS

  BOOK VI: THE GENERALS

  BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED

  BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS

  BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS

  CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS

  BOOK I: TOP SECRET

  BOOK II: THE ASSASSINATION OPTION

  THE CORPS

  BOOK I: SEMPER FI

  BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS

  BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK

  BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND

  BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE

  BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT

  BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES

  BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH

  BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE

  BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!

  BADGE OF HONOR

  BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE

  BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS

  BOOK III: THE VICTIM

  BOOK IV: THE WITNESS

  BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN

  BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS

  BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS

  BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE

  BOOK IX: THE TRAFFICKERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK X: THE VIGILANTES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XI: THE LAST WITNESS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XII: DEADLY ASSETS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  MEN AT WAR

  BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES

  BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS

  BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES

  BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VI: THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: THE SPYMASTERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE

  BOOK III: THE HUNTERS

  BOOK IV: THE SHOOTERS

  BOOK V: BLACK OPS

  BOOK VI: THE OUTLAWS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: COVERT WARRIORS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VIII: HAZARDOUS DUTY

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by W.E.B. Griffin

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Griffin, W. E. B., author. | Butterworth, William E. (William Edmund), author.

  Title: Curtain of death : a clandestine operations novel / W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV.

  Description: New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, [2016] | Series: Clandestine operations ; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008422 | ISBN 9780399176739 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698410534 (ePub)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States. Central Intelligence Agency—Fiction. | Intelligence officers—United States—Fiction. | Espionage—Fiction. | Cold War—Fiction. | GSAFD: Spy stories. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3557.R489137 C87 2016 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008422

  p. cm.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  26 July 1777

  “The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged.”

  George Washington

  General and Commander in Chief

  The Continental Army

  FOR THE LATE

  WILLIAM E. COLBY

  An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant who became director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  AARON BANK

  An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant who became a colonel and the father of Special Forces.

  WILLIAM R. CORSON

  A legendary Marine intelligence officer whom the KGB hated more than any other U.S. intelligence officer—and not only because he wrote the definitive work on them.

  RENÉ J. DÉFOURNEAUX

  A U.S. Army OSS Second Lieutenant attached to the British SOE who jumped into Occupied France alone and later became a legendary U.S. Army intelligence officer.

  FOR THE LIVING

  BILLY WAUGH

  A legendary Special Forces Command Sergeant Major who retired and then went on to hunt down the infamous Carlos the Jackal. Billy could have terminated Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s but could not get permission to do so. After fifty years in the business, Billy is still going after the bad guys.

  JOHNNY REITZEL

  An Army Special Operations officer who could have terminated the head terrorist of the seized cruise ship Achille Lauro but could not get permission to do so.

  RALPH PETERS

  An Army intelligence officer who has written the best analysis of our war against terrorists and of our enemy that I have ever seen.

  AND FOR THE NEW BREED

  MARC L

  A senior intelligence officer, despite his youth, who reminds me of Bill Colby more and more each day.

  FRANK L

  A legendary Defense Intelligence Agency officer who retired and now follows in Billy Waugh’s footsteps.

  AND

  In Loving Memory Of

  Colonel José Manuel Menéndez

  Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired

  He spent his life fighting Communism and Juan Domingo Perón

  OUR NATION OWES THESE PATRIOTS A DEBT BEYOND REPAYMENT.

  CONTENTS

  Books by W.E.B. Griffin

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Part I ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  Part II ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  Part III ONE

  TWO

  TH
REE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  Part IV ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  Part V ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  Part VI ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  Part VII ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  Part VIII ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  Part IX ONE

  TWO

  Part X ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  Part XI ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  Part XII ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  About the Authors

  I

  [ ONE ]

  The WAC Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club

  Munich Military Post

  Munich, American Zone of Occupied Germany

  0005 24 January 1946

  Two women, both wearing the olive drab uniform of an “Ike” jacket and skirt, came out of the club and started to walk through the parking lot. They had come to the club late and had had to park at just about the far end of the lot.

  One of the women, a somewhat stocky dark-haired thirty-five-year-old, had the chevrons of a technical sergeant on her sleeves. The other, who was a trim, twenty-nine-year-old blonde, had small embroidered triangles with the letters “U.S.” in them sewn to her lapels. That insignia identified her as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army.

  At the extreme end of the parking lot were two ambulances parked nose out. One had large red crosses on its sides, rear doors, and roof of the body. On its bumpers the white stenciled letters “98GH” and “102” identified it as the 102nd vehicle assigned to the motor pool of the 98th General Hospital, which served the Munich area.

  The red crosses on the second ambulance had been painted over, and on its bumpers had been stenciled “711 MKRC” and “17,” which identified it as the seventeenth vehicle assigned to the 711th Mobile Kitchen Renovation Company.

  When they reached the 711th vehicle, the WAC tech sergeant started to get in the passenger seat beside the driver, and the woman with the civilian triangles insignia started to climb in behind the wheel.

  Three men, all wearing dark clothing, erupted from the 98th General Hospital ambulance. One of them came out the passenger side, ran around to the front of the other ambulance, where he pulled the woman with the triangles out of her ambulance, and after giving her a good look at the knife he held, placed it across her throat.

  The other two men came out the rear of the ambulance. As one opened the second of its doors, the other ran to the 711th ambulance, pulled the technical sergeant from it, and, as the other had, showed her a knife and then placed it across her throat.

  He then marched her to the rear of the hospital ambulance. By then, both doors were open, and the man who had opened both doors was inside.

  “Get in!” the man holding the knife against the sergeant’s neck ordered.

  When she was halfway in, the man inside the ambulance, now wielding the same kind of knife as the others, ordered her: “Get on the forward stretcher. On your stomach. And don’t move.”

  The sergeant complied, crawling on her hands and knees to the stretcher, which was on the left side of the body, and then onto it.

  The man who had brought her to the rear of the ambulance then ran to the passenger seat and got in.

  The man who had pulled the woman from behind the wheel of her ambulance now marched her up to the open ambulance doors. His knife was still against her throat.

  “Get in!” he ordered. “On your belly on the lower stretcher in the back.”

  She complied.

  The man then shut the left door, climbed into the ambulance, and, kneeling on the floor, pulled the right door closed.

  “Go!” he shouted to the driver.

  Then, still on his knees, he made his way forward to the front. There he stopped, turned his head, and called out, “If you make a sound when we pass through the gate, he will slit your friend’s throat.” Then he turned his head forward and again shouted, “Go!”

  The driver ground the gears as he revved the engine.

  The man in the aisle pushed aside the curtain separating the stretcher portion of the body from the driver and passenger seats.

  The blond woman with the civilian triangles began to slowly move her right hand from her side to the neck of her Ike jacket.

  The ambulance began to move.

  The blond woman unbuttoned her second and third khaki shirt buttons, and then put her hand in the opening. Then she pushed aside the top of her slip. Finally, she put her hand inside her brassiere.

  And then she slowly removed it.

  It now held a small, five-shot, snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Special caliber revolver.

  She pushed herself off the stretcher onto the floor and, supporting herself on her elbows and holding the pistol in both hands, took aim.

  The man holding the knife against the tech sergeant’s neck was trying to look though the small opening the other man had made. He heard, or sensed, her movement and started to turn for a look.

  Her first shot hit him just below the ear, and the bullet exploded his brain before making a large exit wound in the upper portion of his skull.

  The technical sergeant began to scream.

  The woman wearing triangles fired a second shot. It hit the man who had opened the curtain just below the left eye, exploded his brain, and then created a large exit wound in his cranium.

  She fired two more shots, first one to the left, where she hoped the bullet might find the driver, and then one to the right, where she hoped it might find the man in the passenger seat.

  Her third shot apparently missed, for the ambulance kept moving. The fourth, to judge by someone screaming in pain, had hit, but was not immediately fatal.

  The driver, perhaps not wisely, pushed the dividing curtain aside to see what was going on in the back. She fired her fifth shot, the last she had, and it hit the driver just about in the center of his forehead.

  Moments later the ambulance crashed into something and stopped.

  The technical sergeant was still screaming hysterically.

  “Florence!” the woman wearing triangles called. “It’s over! Shut the fuck up!”

  Then she crawled back onto the stretcher.

  Get your little ass out of the line of fire.

  The sonofabitch in the passenger seat may be alive, and he probably has a gun.

  She realized her ears were ringing painfully from the sounds of five shots going off in the confines of the ambulance.

  And then she felt dizzy.

  And then she threw up.

  [ TWO ]

  Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten

  Maximilianstrasse 178

  Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0215 24 January 1946

  Chief Warrant Officer August Ziegler, who was thirty-one but looked younger, walked down the nicely carpeted third-floor corr
idor and stopped before the double doors of Suite 507. Above the door a neatly lettered sign announced XXVIITH CIC.

  There was a brass door knocker on each of the double doors, so Ziegler lifted the one on the right and let it fall, and then did the same with the knocker on the left.

  After he lifted the first knocker, he thought he heard a faint ringing of a bell, not inside 507 but somewhere close, and when he lifted the second knocker he knew he heard it again.

  There was no response to Ziegler’s rings from inside 507, so he lifted and dropped both knockers again.

  This time he heard both bell rings and then the sound of an opening door. Then he saw someone coming down the corridor. It was a plump young man in his twenties. He was wearing a rather luxurious red silk dressing gown, very cheap cotton shower shoes, and he had around his waist a leather belt supporting a Colt Model 1911A1 pistol in a holster Ziegler instantly recognized to be a “Secret Service High Rise Cross Draw” holster.

  He knew it because few people anywhere—except of course the Secret Service—had such holsters. Augie Ziegler was one of the few people who did. He was wearing one right now under his Ike jacket, the lapels of which bore triangles, the idea being that people would think he was a civilian employee of the Army, and that he was not armed.

  He was in fact not only a chief warrant officer but also a supervisory special agent of the Criminal Investigation Division—called the CID—of the Provost Marshal General’s Department.

  Aware that on general principles he and others in the CID did not think much of the CIC—and that the reverse was true—Augie smiled, and turned on cordiality.

  “Sorry, sir, to disturb you at this hour,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it, sir, if it wasn’t important.”

  When he spoke, sort of a German accent was apparent. It was not a German accent precisely, but a Pennsylvania Dutch accent. Augie was from Reading, Pennsylvania.