Free The Apocalypse Watch by Robert Ludlum

Within seconds a uniformed nurse appeared, a surgical mask in her hand. “Greta, this is the famed Dr. Hans Traupman.”
    “Yes, I know,” said the nurse. “A privilege to see you again, Doctor. Please, your mask.”
    “Yes, of course I know you!” exclaimed Traupman warmly. “Greta Frisch, one of the finest surgical nurses ever in my operating room. My dear girl, they said you had retired, and for one so young it seemed not only regrettable, but quite unbelievable.”
    “I retired into marriage,
Herr Doktor
. With this one.” Greta nodded at Kroeger, who was grinning.
    “I wasn’t sure you’d remember her, Hans.”
    “Remember? One doesn’t forget a Nurse Frisch, who anticipates your every demand. To tell you the truth, Gerhardt, your credibility just went up the scale.… But why the mask, Greta? We’re not operating.”
    “My husband will answer you, sir. These things are beyond me, no matter how often he explains them.”
    “The ROM, Hans, the Read-Only Memory. With this patient we don’t care to have too many images of identifiable faces, and yours could fall into that category.”
    “Way past me too, Nurse Frisch. Very well, let us proceed.” The trio walked through the doors, entering a long, wide, pale green corridor with succeeding large, square glass windows on either side. Beyond the windows were pleasantly appointed rooms, each having a bed, a desk, a couch, and such items as a television set, a radio, and a door that led to a bathroom with shower. Also, there were other windows on the outside walls that looked over the meadows, profuse with weaving high grass and springtime flowers. “If these are the patients’ hospital rooms,” continued Traupman, “they’re among the most pleasant I’ve seen.”
    “The radios and the television sets are preprogrammed, naturally,” said Gerhardt. “It’s all innocuous fare, except for the radios at night, when we transmit information as it pertains to the individual patients.”
    “Tell me what I’m to expect,” said the neurosurgeon from Nuremberg.
    “You’ll find an outwardly normal Harry Latham who still believes he’s fooled us. He answers to his cover name, Alexander Lassiter, and he’s extremely grateful to us.”
    “Why?” interrupted Traupman. “Why is he grateful?”
    “Because he believes he was in an accident and barely escaped with his life. We used one of our huge mountain vehicles and staged the event most convincingly, overturning the truck, ‘pinning’ him under it and employing surrounding bursts of fire.… Here I did permit the use of drugs and hypnosis—immediately, so as to erase his first minutes here in our valley.”
    “Are you
sure
they’re erased?” They stopped in the corridor, the Nuremberger’s gaze fixed on Kroeger.
    “Completely. The trauma of the ‘accident,’ along with the violent images, as well as the pain we induced, superseded any memories of his arrival. They’re blocked out. Naturally, we reemployed hypnosis to make certain. All he remembers are the screams, the excruciating pain, and the fires he was dragged through while being rescued.”
    “The stimuli are psychologically consistent,” noted the neurosurgeon, nodding his head. “What about the time factor? If he’s aware of it, how did you explain the passage of time?”
    “The least difficult. When he awoke, his upper skull was heavily bandaged, and while under mild sedation he was told—over and over again—that he’d been severely injured, that he had gone through three separate operations while in a prolonged coma during which he remained completely silent. It was explained to him that had his vital signs not remained remarkably strong, I would have given up on him.”
    “Well phrased. I’m certain he’s grateful.… Does he know where he is?”
    “Oh, yes, we withhold nothing from him.”
    “Then how can you send him out? My God, he’ll disclose the whereabouts of the valley! They’ll send in planes; you’ll be