Jonatha's Truth: A Prophetic Novel

By Hal von Luebbert

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2006
• ISBN: 9781450069519

Hal von Luebbert

Hal von Luebbert is a retired soldier, private detective, bodyguard, and - recently - high school teacher. In 1978, the US government in its IRS avatar destroyed his business and family. In 1985, when he had recovered and remarried, they did it all again, this time driving a teenage son to three attempts at suicide. A war ensued, and when von Luebbert counterattacked federal murder attempts with electronic and personal surveillance proving massive governmental crime, a US District Court protected their federal employers by ruling his records exempted under the Freedom of Information Act by the national secrets exemption. US Senators and national media forwarded proof of federal crime like mayhem, murder, rape, and extortion to commit rape protected their masters by concealment of the evidence and personal silence. Protected still by evidence of federal crime, together with the fact of large numbers of remaining witnesses available for subpoena, von Luebbert lives mostly in the wild in Texas and states where concealed handgun laws make it possible for him to defend himself with lethal force. He is also a sixth degree black belt and three time national judo champion “Letters” is his second novel.

Book preview

Jonatha’s Truth

A Prophetic Novel

Hal von Luebbert

Copyright © 2004, 2006 by Hal von Luebbert.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: JudoKnightErrant Enterprises, 2101 E. Trant Road, #305, Kingsville, Texas 78363.

Title page by Hal von Luebbert.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

von Luebbert, Hal

        Jonatha’s Truth, a Prophetic Novel—First Edition

        Registration Number Tzu-207-845

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

PRELUDE

-ONE-

-TWO-

-THREE-

-FOUR-

-FIVE-

-SIX-

-SEVEN-

-EIGHT-

-NINE-

-TEN-

-ELEVEN-

-TWELVE-

For the kids, and for Kay and Karen. I wish it could have been better.

And for Beverly . . . my heart ripped out and thrown into the sun.

PRELUDE

The FBI Hostage Rescue Team is something more than its name suggests. Created in 1978, the Hurt Team, as they are pointedly referred to by their law enforcement brethren, do indeed, train ostensibly to rescue from their captors persons being held against their will. Ostensibly: training to rescue hostages is in fact training to do a lot of things that are similar on the surface. As someone apparently knowledgeable about things similar once said, the devil is in the details.

Special Weapons And Tactics operations, to use the civilian soldier—police title, are in fact done by men who have shown themselves able—and willing—to kill. The 1957 brainchild of an eighteen-year-old U.S. Army lieutenant, the S.W.A.T. concept drew nothing but scorn and ridicule from superiors in both the military and civilian professions. Until 1967. That year, 96 minutes of carnage inflicted from a tower on the campus at the University of Texas by a brain-tumor demented rifleman named Charles Whitman brought rationality. Within a year, one Darryl F. Gates of the Los Angeles Police Department had formed a special operations team based on the concept 2nd Lt. Harland Lübbert originally dubbed The Mongoose Tactic. No credit for the idea was ever afforded the youthful soldier, of course. Any idea, someone observed, must go through four stages—ridicule, tolerance, acceptance, and theft.

Fundamental to the Mongoose Tactic and method are surprise, speed, and extreme violence of action." Like the firearms they employ, special operations teams like Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, and FBI HRT are designed, organized, and intended to kill instantly, so suddenly that their victims literally never know what hit them.

That much anyone with interest enough to visit the library or access the Internet can learn. Beyond that, the devil, again, is in the details. Men who do ops for a command structure like those of NSA, CIA, FBI, ATF, and the federal bureaucracy in general, are controlled by tactics that prevent by means of enforced ignorance their breach of mission security. Directed, for instance, from what is called Strategic Operations Center on the fifth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., FBI HRT and SpecOps troopers generally know nothing of their mission or objectives except what they themselves call shootin’ n’ lootin’, hoppin’ ‘n’ poppin’. They are truly little more, in other words, than a very lethal weapon in the hands, scrupled or otherwise, of a superior or superiors. Weapons are not killers; weapons are used by killers.

*     *     *

On this occasion, October 6, 1978, the weapon known as HRT Richards was aimed at 1745 Waco Drive, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Upon arrival of the latter at his parents’ home, Jonathon Kleist and son had been speaking only briefly. They had, in fact, just moved away from the front door of the residence when it was blasted inward, lock and latch mechanism, doorframe and trimwork exploding into flying splinters under the impact of the hand-wielded battering ram designed especially for entries like this one. Behind the battering ram, door, and flying splinters came a torrent of men—armed, shouting, and aiming weapons. Simultaneously the rear door of the dwelling likewise exploded inward, more armed men bursting into the home.

Chip Kleist—Jonathan Klaus Kleist, Junior—was less than six feet from the door. Six feet, two inches in height, two hundred and ten pounds in weight, and trained since five years of age in aikido, judo, and the latter’s Soviet and Russian form, sambo, his reaction when the muzzle of a Heckler and Koch MP-5K submachine gun was thrust into his side was just that, purely reaction.

The MP-5K changed possession even more suddenly than the HRT assault had begun, its original owner spinning propeller-like in the air to smashing impact with the man behind him. The men were hurled to the floor, leaving Chip standing in the center of the room with the MP-5K in his hands.

The penetrator—the SWAT designation for the first man into the room under assault—entering from the rear of the residence fired, the burst of 9mm MagSafeLethal frangible ammunition striking Chip in the side of the head, nearly decapitating him and spraying the room with bone, brains, blood, and—needless to say—killing him instantly.

No! his father roared, whirling to meet the attacker. Jonathan Kleist’s hands came up instinctively, perhaps to seize the weapon, or to shield himself from the next burst of fire. However. The third man in the tactical queue entering from the front door saw only the movement, such that he was somehow willing to swear in being deposed that he saw a weapon in the bereaved father’s hands. Like his son, Kleist died instantly from a burst of automatic weapons fire to the head, his brains and blood splattering the walls and ceiling of their home in a manner similar to those of his decedent son.

That the entire HRT contingent could swear later that when Sarah Kleist entered the Kleist living room from the kitchen she was running and holding a meat cleaver in her right hand, was similarly possible for the federal officers. More, when the implement in question proved upon examination at the scene to be a soup ladle, it was likewise possible to later replace it rhetorically with the instrument that embellished subsequent federal testimony more suitably.

Ladle or cleaver, fire from two MP-5K submachine guns nonetheless ended Sarah Kleist’s life, too, her brains, blood, and skull fragments added to the residence’s now gruesome décor.

Upstairs, on her way to her room, Jonatha Sigrid Kleist reacted to the thunderous noise of HRT Richards’ assault on the Kleist residence with nearly uncontrolled, hysterical terror. The teenager started down the stairs. The roaring of a second and third burst of automatic weapons fire drove her before it, back up the stairs and down a hallway to her room, the only sanctuary she could think of. There, she stood momentarily, raising her hands to her ears against the noise and her own terror. At the sound of men on the stairs, she went to her closet, climbed to the opening in the ceiling there, and pushed her way into the crawl space under the roof.

Hearing movement, the stealthy footsteps of men coming down the hall, she replaced the covering over the ceiling door, and pulling herself into a fetal ball, lay there on a piece of plywood nailed atop the ceiling joists, quivering with fear, sobbing silently, and listening.

Jonatha heard a great deal. When the first of the men had retired from the place, so ordered by another with such authority, others took their place. There were snarled and shouted curses, accusations, and recriminations. The second group of men, and a couple of women, literally tore the interior of the home to pieces, breaking into the walls, ceilings, and floors. Drawers crashed to the floor, chairs and tables were overturned. Nothing escaped damage or destruction. Even bedding, quilts and blankets, were slashed and torn to pieces. When at length they came to the attic, the invaders’ prey had forced her slim form into a heating duct. While an HRT agent crawled about the space under the roof, the girl lay motionless, nearly strangling in her effort to suppress breathing she was sure would betray her hiding place.

Despite continual operation from the heating system raising the temperature of her sanctuary to near suffocating proportions, Jonatha Kleist remained in the ductwork for the rest of the night and the next day, until the crowds of police and news people had finally vacated the premises. Forced finally from her refuge by raging thirst, the girl crawled and climbed down from her hideaway only when the house below had gone completely silent. Tears had stopped now, but she continued listening intently.

Nothing. In the now vacant home, nothing but devastation remained. Drying pools of blood, feces, and urine—relaxation of sphincter muscles is a common result of violent death—stained the living room carpet, brain matter mixed with blood still defaced walls and ceiling. The sickening odor of death drove Jonatha from the room.

Still shuddering with revulsion, Jonatha paused only at the kitchen sink for desperately needed water. On the floor near the counter there, her foot encountered a portable tape recorder her mother had been using earlier, kicking it hard against the wall. The recorder bounced and opened, flinging away the cassette inside. The rectangle of plastic slid across the floor, to stop against another wall. Jonatha stared.

Mom’s voice—my mother’s voice is on that tape!

Miserably, she went over, picked the cassette up and put it in the pocket of her shirt. Seized by yet another spasm of horror and fear, Jonatha went to a window. Using the tactic she had often employed to escape parental grounding, she opened it, unlatched the screen, and slid stomach-down over the sill into the bushes against the house. Keeping to the shrubbery, she worked her way to the alley, and ran to flee the neighborhood and the men who had slaughtered her family.

 -

ONE-

8:40 P.M., October 6, 1978, 1745 Waco Drive, Cedar Falls, Iowa

"Didn’t he mean that everybody who works for the government is rotten?" Jonatha Kleist was pretty, and smiled with the easy confidence of women with perfect teeth. She moved like the already accomplished gymnast she was, strong, yet graceful. More, while she was the youngest of her family, she was nonetheless voluptuous beyond her years.

Jonatha in fact might easily have been the most popular student at Cedar Falls High School, were it not for her surpassing intelligence, an intellect coupled with principles as high as her IQ. She did not make friends casually, or easily. Most of her peers found her matter of fact and contentious, overwhelmingly so, and in the manner of the today’s who-needs-it youth, sought associations less challenging. Even now, locked in intense debate with her father in the kitchen of her parents’ home, Jonatha found it impossible to conceal her relish for verbal and intellectual combat. Green eyes intense, she leaned across the table in the Kleist kitchen, searching her father’s amused face.

Well, Thomas Jefferson may have been nearly as idealistic as a certain young lady of my brief acquaintance. Jonathon Kleist, Sr. chuckled.

Jonatha scowled mightily, thrusting out her lower lip in a manner calculated to represent high dudgeon. Mom, she mused without taking her eyes from her father’s face, don’t you just l-o-o-o-ve it when men are so cutesy wise like that?

Jonatha’s mother, Sarah, turned smiling from where she had been considering ruefully the contents of their refrigerator. Tonight’s leftovers would have to be homeless, nowhere to go.

Honey, I think Mr. Jefferson lived in a very different time. Of course, if you hear the news and read the papers, it’s hard to refute what he said entirely. But you’re talking about your brother’s new job. Sweetheart, I don’t think there’s any danger Chip is going to be corrupted. Your brother is, if anything, as idealistic as you are.

Finding her husband’s eyes with her own, she added, And your dad, ‘cutesy’ and evasive though he may be sometimes, is very proud of you both in that respect.

Yes, but— Jonathan started.

But why does he want to work for people who are so corrupt? Jonatha snapped. It wasn’t a question. Frustrated and genuinely concerned, the young woman could not let the subject go unresolved.

Jonatha Kleist, you interrupted your father! Sarah said sternly.

Kleist chuckled, frowning in feigned dismay. Yes, he went on indulgently, As a matter of historical fact, Thomas Jefferson did say people who want government jobs turn rotten. Matter of fact, another guy, an Englishman, I think, once said any kind of political power corrupts people. Pushing his chair away from the table, he put his hands thoughtfully behind his head. But—

Interrupting again, Jonatha pounced. "That was Lord Acton, father. Lord Acton. Emmerich Edward Dalberg, First Baron of Aldenham. English and German Historian. Born 1834, died 1902. Studied the effect of politics and power on individual and social behavior. A brilliant man. In fact, they said then that he was the smartest man on earth. And what he said was ‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’."

The senior Kleist rolled his eyes in comic wonderment.

Honey, history and sociology are inexact sciences. Men like Jefferson and Lord Acton, and things they say, have to be considered in light of context—what was happening at the time, and the individual or specific people they were talking about. Your brother isn’t going to become a bad guy. His new job is with the FBI, and he had to work hard to get there. Still, it’s just his job, not his character and not his personality. It isn’t who he is. It’s his chance to prove himself, to be somebody, that’s all.

"Yeah, somebody corrupt! My big brother is a genius. He was on the Dean’s List. He could get a position anywhere. How come he doesn’t just get a civilian job? Geez—it’s just ridiculous! May I be excused?"

Kleist stood, to begin clearing the table of dinner dishes. Of course. But why don’t you talk with Chip? He’ll know everything about the new job and he’ll be glad to know how interested you are. I think you’ll find that things aren’t as bad as you might think.

Jonatha turned where she had stopped in the doorway. "Yeah, r-i-i-i-ight! she drawled derisively. I’d love to hear the federal explanation of why the places they besiege always burn down!" Waving an index finger in a small circle above her head, she pivoted theatrically, then posed momentarily before making her thespian departure from the stage.

With his daughter’s exit, Kleist gave vent to the mirth he had been suppressing. My God, Babe—what gets into that kid?

Sarah laughed aloud. My dearest, your daughter is very close to being a woman. She tries everything with her heart first, like a baby tries everything with its mouth. And she loves her brother. She’ll be okay.

"Yeah, r-I-I-I-ght!" Kleist mimicked playfully. When he had finished stacking dishes, Jonathon walked into the living room of the family’s two-story condominium apartment. At the sound of the doorbell, he turned that way, went to the door and opened it.

Hey, Chipper! he exclaimed. Speak of the devil!

Father and son shook hands warmly. The Kleist men, father and his two sons, engaged in the custom of salutatory and valedictory handshake at each and every occasion. Germans shake hands more than anyone else on earth, Jonathan Kleist told his children. It was their German Thing.

What—?

Your sister, it seems, has misgivings about the new job.

Jonathon Kleist, Junior, Ph.D., was thirteen years his kid sister’s senior. When he laughed, it wasn’t without knowing and sympathetic pleasure. In a very close and supportive family, none of the three Kleist siblings were closer than the youngest and eldest. When his mother’s late pregnancy had resulted in a much longer than normal recovery from childbirth, it was Chip who had stepped up to fill the void for a father whose military career and responsibilities made him unavoidably absent. There was a bond between Jonatha and Chip Kleist, one that made them joined at the heart, as their mother had once put it.

The younger man shrugged, then winked. I think I can handle it—where is the little demon?

*     *     *

0115 hours, October 7, 1978; 1745 Waco Drive, Cedar Falls, Iowa

"Jesus H. Christ! God damn son of a bitch!" Furiously, FBI Hostage Rescue Team Commander Roger Richards fingered the keyboard of a computer in the lavishly equipped HRT operations van. There had been nothing of what they expected inside the residence at 1745 Waco. There were no missing kids, no guns, no drugs, no contraband in any form. At first realization that something had gone hideously wrong, Richards checked his Intel. Everything checked. The warrant was good. The address was correct. They were at the right place.

Then why the hell isn’t anything else right?

Richards did next what the good soldier does. He called his supervisor. After all, it was Field Commander Eugene Glenny who had authored the operations plan and rules of engagement they had operated under. Whatever bad Intel had caused this goatfuck, it was Glenny’s.

"Ah, bullshit! Glenny reacted. This deal came down all the way from SOG—you know fucking well they know what they’re doing. SOG doesn’t make mistakes!

Swell, Richards said sardonically. Maybe they can explain why there’s not a goddamn thing here. Sure as hell no kids. There isn’t so much as a fucking hunting knife in that goddamned place. The only drug is aspirin. We’ve damned near reduced the building to nails and lumber.

I’ll be there shortly. He was, and once there, it took the veteran special agent only minutes to realize that his subordinate was right. Picking up a phone in the operations van outside the Kleist home and preparing another call, his mind raced.

What the—! Not another clusterfuck. Christ—all I do anymore is cover up fuckups!

The gears were turning now. The FBI Field Commander, stunned at being informed by his Team Commander of the situation, sought to learn from the massive and convolute system they served what had gone wrong. At length, totally unable to find either the error in communication or the person or persons responsible, Glenny reported to his own superior, FBI Criminal Division Assistant Deputy Director Perry Lotts.

The news landed on the fifth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., to quote one resident, Like a tub of shit in a Chinese laundry—I never saw so much phony posturing in all my life. There was a blizzard of bullshit fault-finding and recriminating you wouldn’t believe.

Nevertheless, the FBI had been in heat like this before. It is a most resilient agency, perhaps the most resilient among agencies of a government dedicated absolutely to its own preservation. While it would take time to learn what had occurred, immediate action of another nature had been built into the system. Even before it had learned definitively what had occurred, FBI Strategic Operations would swiftly begin what is known in the new lexicon of federalspeak as damage control.

So swiftly, in fact, did FBI Special Operations react to the situation reported by Field Commander Gene Glenny that HRT Commander Roger Richards was engaged in coverup within minutes of notification. In the J. Edgar Hoover years, and even for some time thereafter, Richards reflected, all that would have been necessary for an agency of government as powerful as the FBI was a quickly trumped-up story and the collusion necessary to make it stick. Stone-walling, the Nixon era people called it. Until just lately, it had always been enough, too.

But that was before a goddamned torrent of FUBAR operations, Richards thought. Fucked up beyond all recognition, he snarled aloud.

Anyway, it now fell to him the task of learning what was necessary to build the great, fucking stone wall. To do that, he’d need Intel—not only the reasons they had raided the wrong residence, but everything he could learn about the Kleist family.

Damned shame better Intel wasn’t done before this clusterfuck came together, that’s for sure—that’s for goddamned sure.

Richards surrendered himself to the seething rage inside him, snarling a litany of invective into the empty room around him.

Didn’t somebody famous—Mark Twain, maybe?—say once that cursing is good for the soul? Well, no problem, he mused—there was damned little he couldn’t learn about anybody. Beginning in the fifties with a program coded Operation Shamrock and followed by Operation Minaret and a half dozen more, the federal government of the United States set out to completely compromise and destroy the privacy of its citizenry. Now, funded by scores of billions of its victims’ own money, there was ECHELON, then ECHELON II. Using systems like the National Security Agency’s KH-12 spy satellites and their magnetic, seismic, infrared, strain, electromagnetic, and neurophonic sensors, together with literally a hundred more technologies, officials like Richards could locate and maintain surveillance on anyone.

And that ain’t all, Richards chuckled aloud. If it came to that, we’ve got laboratory technology that could fabricate enough evidence to convict the Blessed Virgin of fucking the Pope.

You’d think the asshole public would realize, but shit no, they’re too fucking busy with their soap operas, their pro wrestling, golf, pizza, horsepiss beer, and the like. Just give ’em their ‘bread and circuses.’ That’s all the fucking idiots care about. Jesus!

Inside the Kleist residence, the preparation for plausible denial of yet another Ruby Ridge or Waco, Texas was well underway. Whether it would be necessary for the place to burn—as had the MORE compound, the refuge of Gordon Kaul, the Davidian compound at Waco and twenty more like them—had not yet been decided.

In less than twenty minutes, Richards knew everything pertinent there was to know about Jonathon B. Kleist and family. "God fucking damn it!" he raged. The second Kleist kid, Erich-Dieter, was away, in college. But the youngest, Jonatha, must be away from home for the night

Or she was in that goddamned house somewhere!

Scrambling from the ops van, Richards hurried to the house and HRT Team Commander Gene Glenny. We’ve searched every crack and cranny, Glenny asserted. The kid has to be somewhere for the night—otherwise, she’d have come home by now.

Mebbe. Even if she came home while this goatfuck was going down, or any time later, she might not have heard or seen anything we couldn’t cover, anyway.

Yeah. The only problem we’d have would come up if she was in the house and overheard something. Glenny rubbed the back of his head contemplatively. "Actually, even that wouldn’t be that hard to cover. What would really be a pain in the ass is if she or somebody in the neighborhood had one of those goddamned video cameras that keep popping up all over the place. There ought to be a law against the public carrying those goddamned things around, just like there is with handguns."

"F-u-u-u-ck! Wouldn’t that roast our asses?! Tell you what, pal—I’m not taking any chances at all. We don’t have to explain what we’re doing here, anyway. The local PD’s got to cover for us. They got us here—it’s their problem. You arrange for the locals to find some narcotics in there. We can run off the paperwork we’ll need for one like this in a few fucking minutes. Washington wants damage control—we’ll give ’em damage control."

It took the two men less than an hour to do the necessary preparations, then create the record. In the Nation of laws, the record, after all, is the truth. Only two loose ends remained, Richards reflected. He picked up the secure, inter-agency telephone.

*     *     *

Once in the alley, Jonatha Kleist ran as she had never run before in her young life. Sobbing continually, she stopped only when exhaustion overcame her. Finding a dumpster near an apartment complex, she crawled inside. Exhausted, she slept.

In the morning, awakened by the roar of the dumpster truck’s engine, she scrambled with youthful agility from the steel box just in time to avoid being dumped into the truck and its compactor. Now she ran again, feeling more vulnerable and helpless than ever before.

With several sightings of police cruisers, Jonatha realized that she must get out of the city. And she must talk to Erich-Dieter!

But the police would be listening to the phones, she thought dismally. They would kill her brother, too! Whatever happened, she must warn him! No money. How would she get money? Silly, she thought—I’ll call collect. At a phone booth inside a Seven-Eleven, she made the call. Kleist, the familiar voice said.

Dieter, Jonatha cried, using the name her family had from birth used with her brother. Dieter, you’ve got to get away! Jonatha blurted, weeping bitterly. They killed Mom and dad, and Chip, and—

Erich-Dieter Kleist was not different from his father or brother in his iron self-discipline and control. Despite the fact that less than an hour ago, he had been informed of the death of his parents and brother, Erich-Dieter maintained icy calm. The FBI, a man named Glenny, said that Jonathon, Jonathon III, and Sarah Kleist had been killed while resisting a federal drug raid. Now as he spoke to his sister, Erich was waiting for police who would take him into custody for questioning. He, too, was a suspect, it seemed . . .

Jonatha! Dieter said firmly. Stop crying! You have to stop crying! I’ve heard. You’ve got to tell me what happened. How could this be? Were you there?

Jonatha actually heard the second man speak. Get off the phone, the voice snarled.

I’m talking to my kid sister. She’s all alone, she’s scared—naturally—and she’s crying.

"Get off the fucking phone!" the man’s voice roared.

Sir, my sister needs my help. You’ll have to wait a minute. Sigi-

There was a loud grunt, and another sound, this one unintelligible. Erich-Dieter had used the diminutive of her middle name, Sigrid. It was an endearment her youngest brother, alone among the family in that regard, had always reserved for her. It was to be the last word Jonatha Kleist would ever hear her brother say.

*     *     *

The United States’ National Security Agency, during a Nixon Administration operation code-named Sandwedge, began listening to each and every telephone conversation in the country. Using then unimaginable technology that includes voice print identification, the system is able to identify any voice designated by a bureaucracy which includes a secret federal court. That court, established by what was styled at the time the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1975, and before which only the FBI, ATF, and IRS may appear, seeks to provide an appearance of constitutional legality for such matters. Damage control, of course, is one such matter.

In this instance, the court’s ruling required only a phone call, such that Jonatha Kleist, now a fugitive from the federal version of justice, had been added to the voluminous roster of persons designated enemies of the state—such that mere speaking on a telephone would swiftly and surely draw police response.

As the police cars began to flood the convenience store parking lot, their prey fled down a nearby alley. Luckily, the teenager fugitive found an open door after running only a few yards. The police helicopter summoned to provide aerial spotting arrived only moments later.

Jonatha raced down one hallway, then another. Finding another open door, she found herself in a store. The building she had chosen was an old slaughterhouse and meat processing facility. Converted into a kind of mall, housing more than thirty stores, it was crowded with people. Acting on intuition and instinct alone, Jonatha stayed there the entire day, dodging from store to store and restroom to restroom, hiding among dresses on racks and clothing displays, in cabinets and dressing rooms, time after time evading swarms of police looking for her. Wearily, she at length forced herself to think.

Jonatha, you have got to get out of the city!

At length, the girl found a storeroom. There, among a large number of boxes and packing crates, she found a large cardboard box. Burrowing under a quantity of dresses, she curled up at the bottom of the box.

What had happened to Dieter? Dare she call him again? No way! The police obviously were listening. They would probably answer the phone, and they would surely trace the call to her immediately. Why was all this happening? How could they do this to her and her family? To whom could she now turn for help? There were only her aunt, Martha, and her grandparents. She had no idea how to reach Aunt Martha. Jonatha’s grandparents, her mother’s folks, were very old. Should she try to reach them? The police would anticipate her. Same problem . . . They would be waiting at Opa and Oma’s when she called. Had Dieter been arrested? Was Dieter dead?

They might kill the old people, too!

Finally, weary from her physical and emotional exertions, Jonatha slept again.

*     *     *

Erich-Dieter Kleist sat in the corner of a police cruiser’s rear seat, striving to hear the conversation of several men standing outside. His swollen cheek and eye throbbed dully, the result of the stunning blow he had taken from der Schupo, the cop. Apparently stoic, the youth was in fact very angry.

Jonatha! What was happening to her? What had she said? They killed Mom and dad and Chip . . . ! They! Unmöglich! Impossible! She couldn’t have meant the police. There had to be a logical explanation. This was the United States of America. This was the nation of laws, of a constitution that forbade anything like what this appeared to be.

He mustn’t lose his head! Nothing remotely like this had ever happened in all his twenty years of living, but he was rigidly certain, like his father, his brother and sister, of the fundamental righteousness of his country. There must be a mistake!

Alone among his family, in order that he might converse with Opa and Oma Kleist in the old country tongue, Erich-Dieter had learned the German language. There was something atavistic, something comforting and assuring, in the language of his ancestors. Now he began to think in German, raging inwardly against his circumstances.

Es ist zum aus der Haut fahren! This is insane. Ganz verrückt! Jetzt platz mir aber der Kragen! I’ve had all this I’m going to stand. Ja, Erich-Dieter, aber etwas ist selbstverstandlich schief gegangen! Something has obviously gone very wrong. Why are the police behaving like this? Certainly, they have no right to prevent my talking to my sister at a time like this. Es ist unerträglich! Unbearable!

Halt die Klappe, he thought. Shut up and think.

Calmer now, Kleist began to look around, saw that there were, in fact, four men outside now. Their manner, he realized, was furtive. They were doing wrong, and they knew it. That had to mean it would be necessary to escape from them, get to a police station and legitimate authority. Fine, he mused. Great. Even with his already extensive experience in judo and wrestling competition, he reflected, there were four of his captors to overpower. Worse, and decisively, he was manacled. Why should he need to fight, anyway? They had no right whatever to have used him like this. The law—

The door nearest him was flung open. Get out of the car! One of the men, one among those who had come to his room during Jonatha’s call, snarled the command.

Handcuffed hands behind him, Kleist squirmed from the car. Once erect, he spoke. This has gone far enough. I demand to know what this is about, and I want to talk to my lawyer—

You’re a fucking idiot, asshole. The last thing you need now is a fucking lawyer. You need a priest, if anything!

Wh-a-a-t?! What are you talking about?! There has obviously been a mistake!

Another of the men spoke—almost ruefully, Kleist thought. Yeah, you’ve got that right. Unfortunately, you’re going pay for the mistake even though you didn’t make it. Shit, they say, happens. Hey, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. You’re no different from any of the hundreds of thousands of young studs your country picks to lose it all in a thing they call a ‘war.’ Some general fucks up, the troopers die. The political assholes in D.C. need bodies for the shield they hide behind. Same difference here, really. You’ve been picked by your great society to be one of the virgins they sacrifice to appease their gods. And in this country, Fritz, god is government. Same difference.

The man cleared his throat loudly, spat a huge oyster of mucous on the ground.

Cold terror seized Erich-Dieter. Gross Gott! They meant to kill him! His mind raced desperately. Momentarily. You can’t possibly hope to get away with anything as desperately stupid as that, he intoned resolutely. I have an impeccable record. My grades in school are perfect. You may have killed my family, but that will make my death at the hands of the FBI even more obvious.

Now Kleist played his last, desperate card. My sister, you know, saw what happened. She may be young, but she is also very strong and brave. She will have gotten help by now, and she knows that I was alive when she called me. My face is swollen. I have marked my wrists with the handcuffs. There’s no way you can cover that up. When I am found, killed while under arrest and in custody, there will be no doubt about her truthfulness . . . .

FBI Hostage Rescue Team Commander Roger Richards smirked. Nice try, kid. You’d have made a helluva trooper. Too bad! At Richards’ nod, another of the federal officers, this one standing behind the younger man, drove a syringe into his buttock.

The end had come for the last of the men in the Jonathan Kleist family.

*     *     *

Jonatha Kleist awoke to utter silence. The mall was now deserted, save for a number of security guards. Listening again, she determined that all were unmoving, probably seated and, more than likely, in some stage of slumber. Jonatha could also hear the street. Traffic there was occasional. This was her best chance to leave unnoticed

Freeing herself of the clothing she had used for concealment, she clambered from her refuge, and, breathing a silent and swiftly answered prayer that she might find a door unlocked, left the storeroom. It was only necessary to slip past two slumbering security guards in order to reach the street. Once there, she hesitated, finding a doorway from which to watch and listen. It was near morning, she decided. She must get out of the city! And she must find someone to help her.

Her spirits sank. How—? She was alone. She had no money. She was desperately hungry. Tears came again, but this time, she bit her lip hard. Tears would accomplish nothing except to make her noticeable. In a window reflection, Jonatha checked her appearance.

God! She was disheveled and dirty, her face and eyes swollen from weeping. Walking, moving carefully, Jonatha found another Seven-Eleven. In the ladies’ room, she washed her face, combed her hair and pee’d. Refreshed somewhat, she turned her attentions to another problem—hunger.

Only a few feet away, she realized, on the shelves and counters of the convenience store, there was food and drink. Exiting the rest room, Jonatha rehearsed the burglary a meal would require. Beside the rest room, and near it, another door led to a storage area. At the rear of it was another door, this one to the outside. It was locked from the inside. No alarm. Her reconnaissance foray undetected, she retraced her steps.

Back inside the store proper, the woman clerk at the counter remained oblivious, sleepily watching the street and the gasoline pumps outside. It was unlikely now, Jonatha decided, that the woman even remembered that anyone had entered the store.

Watching the overhead mirrors to assure that the clerk was looking outside, Jonatha studied a map from several she found in a display rack, then took several hotdogs and a carton of milk before slipping back into the ladies’ room. In a stall with the door locked, she ate and drank ravenously. Refreshed, her spirits soared. Now, she thought craftily, for my getaway.

It was easy. Watching again for the clerk to look outside, Jonatha opened the storage area door, crossed the room, and went outside. When she had looked around to check her bearings, she began walking briskly along a sidewalk. In a few minutes, she was in a residential neighborhood she had located on the convenience store map.

Now you’ve got to find someone who will help you, Jonatha, and it’s got to be somebody you can trust!

That, she thought hopelessly, would be all but impossible.

When she had walked in the residential area for what seemed a very long time, Jonatha came to a Laundromat. Inside, she used the ladies’ room, then sat resting. After a time, she saw a bulletin board on a sidewall near the rear. Getting up, she went back and began scanning its contents. Most were advertisements by individuals hoping to sell a miscellany of items of no longer needed personal property. One, though, a business card, caught her eye.

The card’s blazon was a black chess knight on a diagonal stripe of brilliant red. "Knight Errant," the legend said. There was a toll-free phone and a FAX number. Jonatha turned the card over. On the back, she read the small print there. If you are in great trouble and no one will help, I will. No charge—just be a good person and don’t lie to me.

It was astonishing, like a redemption from heaven. Could it be? Jonatha took the card, put it in her pocket with the tape cassette. But how would she make the necessary call? She couldn’t. The police would hear, be there in minutes, and ruin everything. She would have to use the mail. But how long would that take?

Get a grip, Jonatha—you have to do this!

Desperate but resolute now, she sat considering her options. A couple came in. They were elderly, kindly appearing—harmless, at least. Should she? Jonatha realized that the police would have put her picture on television. Anyone might recognize her as the fugitive girl, and report her to the police.

But if I use the mail, there’s no way to know how long it would take to make contact with Knight Errant. I’ll have nowhere to stay, and nowhere to hide, that long. It’s got to be this way.

Approaching the old couple, Jonatha spoke politely. Excuse me, but I have to make a phone call, and I don’t hear very well. I wonder if you would be good enough to make the call for me. It’s a toll-free number . . .

For a minute, the old people seemed in doubt. Are you in trouble? the old man asked.

Yeah, I got off the bus by mistake, and now I don’t know where I am. I just have to call my guardian, and have him come get me.

Momentarily cautious, the old people looked her up and down. This was only a girl. Her clothing, if a little rumpled and soiled, was expensive and new. On her feet, she wore modish sneakers. Her hair was stylish, neat, and clean. Well, all right, honey, the old woman said. What’s the number?

Jonatha recited the number, then waited while the old man made the call. When he had listened for a moment, he said, The man wants to know how he can help.

Just tell him it’s Jonatha, and where this is, Jonatha rejoined. She held her breath.

The man says to wait for him; he’ll be here in a minute.

Thank you so much for your help. You’re very kind. With great effort, Jonatha held back tears again. Was this smart? Could this be possible? It didn’t seem so. Was there any other way? There wasn’t, she decided with determination.

If this doesn’t work, it doesn’t make any difference. There’s nothing else left to do.

Jonatha went to the rear of the laundry, then found a place near an exit door where she could watch the front without being seen from the street and parking lot outside. She slumped in her seat, then pulled her knees up to hug them and hide her face, and waited.

After a very little while, Jonatha thought, a vehicle pulled up, a Jeep Renegade. The man who got out was young. Oh, wow—he’s not that much older than me, she thought with disappointment. But he was also tall and powerful looking. The long sleeves of a pullover shirt he wore stretched to contain massive shoulders, bulging biceps and triceps. He wore a pair of white casual slacks. They, too, were stretched around powerful muscle. Wow, Jonatha thought with some pleasure, he looks a lot like that movie star, Matt Damon.

The blond youth swung easily from the Jeep, bounded powerfully to the door of the laundry, and came in. Once inside, he looked around quickly, saw Jonatha, and came back to where she sat, striding swiftly.

Still hugging her knees, she raised her face to gaze hopefully at him. The eyes that met hers were deep brown, intense and serious. He squatted easily before her, smiling slightly.

Are you Jonatha? he asked. How can I help?

"You are Knight Errant? Jonatha blurted with obvious disappointment. I thought you’d be somebody a lot older."

He shrugged. Actually, Knight Errant is my dad. But he started this to help me, and now I help him a lot. Look, I think I know what this is about, and maybe it would be a good idea if we got out of here right away. Are you okay?

Jonatha gulped, fought back tears again. Suddenly, she was very afraid. Inwardly, she raged at herself.

Damn it, Jonatha, you have got to get a grip!

Sobering, she demanded, How do I know I can trust you?

He shrugged again. You don’t. It’s like believing in anything. Dad calls it ‘walking on the water.’ You do or you don’t, and you take your chances either way. Look, I don’t want to scare you, but I suspect you’re out of choices. And if I understand what’s going on, and we don’t go soon, we might run out of choices. Both of us! He put heavy emphasis on the both.

I think I’d like your dad.

You would. He’s the greatest man you’ll ever meet. Now, can we go?

Suddenly, Jonatha felt a great need to be away from there. Nodding gratefully to the old couple who seemed totally unaware of anything amiss, she jumped to her feet and hurried toward the Jeep.

At the door, Jonatha’s protector stopped her with a hand on her arm. Holding out what looked like a cellular telephone, he said tersely, Please put this on your belt or waistband. Don’t take it off unless I say it’s okay.

Taking the device, Jonatha noticed a dim green light blinking rhythmically at its center.

When he had pulled out of the parking lot into the alley behind the Laundromat, Jonatha’s rescuer said, I’m Aaron-Dieter. Pleased to meet you.

"Your name is Dieter? That’s my brother’s name. He . . . He was— Jonatha choked at the pain of her memory, then started again. His name is Erich-Dieter!"

Are you the girl they’ve been talking about on the news?

Yeah, I suppose so . . .

Thought so. Okay. Here’s what we have to do. They can read our license plates from outer space. They can find us by identifying our voiceprints and the electromagnetic waves from our brains and nervous systems. They can track us by detecting the heat our bodies generate. Under some conditions, they can even tell what we’re saying and thinking. They have every form of communication bugged, and they can identify your voice on a telephone. In other words, they can ID you or me almost anywhere we are. They can shoot us on sight and get away with it, too. They can fabricate any kind of evidence they need. And they will. What I’m saying is that the first thing you need to do is get over any idea you may have had about ‘truth, justice, and the American Way’. It’s a lie. It has been for a long time now.

They slowed suddenly, turned through the open doors of a garage facing the alley. Another car waited there, one Jonatha recognized as an older version of the Porsche Spider. Once in it and in motion again, they once more stayed in the alleys, the driver maintaining reasonable speed.

I just don’t understand, Jonatha murmured dully. "I don’t see how it all can be. I mean, I’ve been told all my life, in school and everywhere, my parents—everybody—that we’re free, we have rights . . . the government is controlled by the people . . . democracy; it’s a democracy—" They killed my family! We didn’t do anything wrong!" Tears came, to flow unattended down her cheeks.

But, her companion noted, Jonatha Kleist did not sob. You can tell us about that later, Aaron-Dieter said gently. And maybe you’d rather call me ‘Aaron’? Anyway, none of that is exactly news to my dad and me. Have you ever heard the expression Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely?"

Lord Acton, Jonatha breathed. She took several deep breaths. My dad and I were talking about that when everything happened.

"Wow, I guess I keep reminding you. Sorry. So you know what ‘absolutely’ means."

I do now. Yeah.

The Porsche had reached the outskirts of the city. Now it accelerated swiftly to seventy miles per hour, the posted speed limit, and stayed there.

Okay, Aaron-Dieter said, we’re pretty safe now. The little cellular phone thing camouflages your nervous system’s electronic signature from satellite and aerial surveillance systems. That’s called a cyber-mask, and it makes you look like someone else to computerized scanners. This car shows up on all their gadgets as a car belonging to a policeman. The sissy—that’s what we call it—can take the flags off our voiceprints and disguise our neurophonic and electronic signatures, too. The Jeep we left behind will screw up the feds’ computers and electronics for days before they can get somebody to figure it out. When they find it, its cyber-mask will turn into a crispy critter.

For the first time in days, Jonatha attempted laughter. How can you do that?

"Kind of a long story. Boring. A guy named Clive does most of it. And another guy dad helped, an old lieutenant colonel named Richard, who was once the chief cryptographer at the Pentagon, helps him. Suffice it to say we have a lot of friends who are very bright."

Is your dad?

My dad’s amazing. Seven foreign languages, including Mandarin and Japanese, fluently, does complicated math like calculus in his head, thinks and makes decisions faster than anybody you’ll ever meet. Seventh degree master of judo, shoots coins out of the air with a pistol or rifle. And don’t try to hide anything from him—he makes Sherlock Holmes look like the village half-wit.

You love him a lot.

Yeah, but not so much for that stuff. I love my father because he has honor. He practices what all the preachers preach and the politicians promise and don’t know anything about. He never lies. Never. You can trust him. He put heavy emphasis on the word trust.

After a time, Jonatha realized they were making frequent turns and changes of direction. At once, almost as though he had read her thoughts, her companion spoke. Don’t worry. This is all just to be sure they haven’t found us, and that they don’t know where we are. You can’t fool the human eye on the street like you can a computer eye in the sky. We’re going to wind up, actually, just a little ways from where we started.

He was silent for a minute, then spoke again thoughtfully. You know, I used to hate all this. Now it’s a lot of fun, the ultimate game. You keep your wits about you, extend yourself, and do whatever is necessary to win—which is to survive. Never a dull moment.

Wow, Jonatha breathed. "Fun?"

Yeah. And we help people. A few years ago, I tried to kill myself. Three times. The headshrinkers couldn’t do anything to make me stop. Finally, when my mom had spent about a quarter of a million dollars on the great minds of psychology and psychiatry, it dawned on her that she knew another pretty good mind, too. She called my dad—they were divorced by then—and he came and got me. We traveled around the country for seventeen months while he took my head apart, put it back together, and screwed it on straight. We camped out the whole time, in the mountains, on the riverfront in St Louis and down the Mississippi, and in all the parks and forests all around the country. We practiced—my dad taught me—survival and the oriental martial arts, especially judo and aikido. We dodged goons the federal government sent to harass us, fought in the streets, went through a Rocky Mountain blizzard in a tent, and did things most people wouldn’t be able to believe. We even tangled with the defensive line of the St. Louis Cardinals football team once—and we won.

Wow—but why did you try to kill yourself? Are you okay now?

He swung the steering wheel, shifted gears, and made yet another turn. I’m great. But back then, I found out in the space of about three days that my country, the god I believed in, and my mother were all faithless liars. Kind of heavy, you know? I couldn’t see any reason to hang around a shitty world like that.

Jonatha was enthralled. Why did your mother lie? she asked.

She was venal. When the IRS attacked my dad, she didn’t want to lose all their property and money. It turned out that she had been stealing from their marriage all the time, building herself a small fortune. When it looked like the government would take it all away, and they needed her help to get my father, she colluded with them. She lied, and got caught at it. The IRS lost, but mom got to keep all the money she had saved, and today she’s rich. If you can call that rich—

Oh, wow—your dad must hate her!

"Uh-uh. Dad doesn’t hate. It’s what he taught me, besides survival. Mom was helping IRS take everything he’d worked all his life to build, helping them chase him, helping them try to kill him, and helping them force him to live off the land like a bum. With all of that going on, she called him for help, and he went to her. He came and got me. Another time, when she got herself in trouble with some Mafia types, he went to her assistance, too. When my dad says he loves you, you can bet your life on it.

One night, when I was really bad in my head, he told me when I got up in the morning I should go find somebody who was in trouble, and help them. A human being can only think of one thing at a time, he said, so if you’re thinking about someone else’s trouble, you can’t be thinking about your own. Not possible. I did what he said and it saved my life.

Geez, that’s incredible.

I hope not, because it’s the truth.

They had returned to the city now, and a residential neighborhood very like the one where Jonatha had found the Laundromat and where her rescuer had found her. Presently, meeting a car that turned its lights on briefly, Aaron slowed. So did the other car. When they were opposite one another, the two drivers stopped.

The driver of the second car wore a closely clipped, grizzled beard. His hair was crew cut, also grizzled and closely clipped. The man smiled, said, Good work. He held up a hand, fingers and thumb spread, then saluted in a fashion Jonatha recognized as military. He drove away.

Aaron followed for a block, then made a left turn. In a few minutes, Jonatha recognized the approaches to the municipal airport. At a large hanger, they stopped momentarily as a big overhead door was raised. As they entered the building, the car they had met a few minutes before pulled up behind them.

In the hangar sat a strange looking aircraft. Very small compared to even the light planes Jonatha’s father and brothers had flown ardently, the craft had both its propeller and wing in the rear, and sat on tricycle landing gear.

Following her gaze, Aaron said, Very easy. V-E-R-I-E-Z-E. Tremendous fuel economy and range, ‘way too small, fast, and maneuverable to shoot down. They can be armed with rockets, and they can make themselves invisible . . . We have two of them. We’re getting more.

They got out of the car, to find the driver of the second car waiting. This is my dad, Aaron said. "Hans-Eugen Wilhelm, Freiherr von Paulus. Our family calls him ‘Han’. Dad, this is Jonatha Kleist."

Han von Paulus wore hiking shorts, a tight fitting pullover shirt like the one Aaron wore, hiking boots, and Alpine stockings. He was slightly shorter than his son, with a similar muscled build. The grizzled hair and beard fringed a heavily tanned face. Black brows, brown, nearly black eyes, and a long, Germanic nose gave him a decidedly aquiline look. Inwardly, Jonatha gave a start.

Wow—Aaron’s dad looks like Sean Connery!

But there was something else, too, and it took but a minute to decide what it was. This man, Jonatha realized, could easily be terrifying.

Von Paulus was, however, smiling pleasantly. Miss Kleist, how are you?

The effect of the man’s personality was astonishing. When she reflexively put out her hand, he took her fingers and bowed slightly and quickly over them, while putting his heels together sharply and audibly. Jonatha had seen Opa Kleist do that very thing frequently, and it made her feel suddenly at ease. I guess I need a lot of help, she said simply.

Von Paulus released her hand after holding it only momentarily. You’re among friends now. We’re very, very sorry to hear what has happened, and you need not be afraid any more. And by the way, Jonatha Sigrid Kleist, you are a very brave and resourceful girl. I congratulate you. I also congratulate your parents for the courageous and proud young lady they have made of you.

Do you know what has happened to my brother? Jonatha pleaded.

Aaron seemed to stiffen. He looked away. His father turned to face Jonatha, putting out both hands, palms up, an entreaty. Trustingly, she put her hands in his, eyes searching the aquiline features before her. Fierce eyes met hers, softening.

And then she knew. Sobbing, Jonatha collapsed against the man, accepting his enfolding arms. When her knees sagged, he put a hand behind her knees and picked her up effortlessly. Walking a short distance to a wooden bench, he sat and cradled her while she wept piteously against his chest.

At length, when she had subsided sufficiently, she realized that Aaron-Dieter von Paulus was crouched close by, seated on his heels in the posture he had used at their first meeting. Real concern was evident on his handsome features.

I’m sorry to be such a baby, Jonatha wailed.

There’s no need, the senior von Paulus said firmly. Neither is there anything to be ashamed for. You have been through enough to destroy most people, and, as I said, you are to be congratulated for your character and will. Now. We need to get you some clean clothes, a chance to take a bath and the like, and something to eat. This is, unfortunately, a men’s club, with few facilities for a lady. We’ll make do, nonetheless. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be wise to contact your grandparents now—your aunt, either. It happens that we’re at the moment also assisting another lady, and it may be that she can help us with you. We’ll see. Meanwhile, there are a number of matters I must attend to. My son will get you everything you need for now, and show you where you can wash up. He is a gentleman, and, rest assured, you may trust him completely. Bowing slightly again, he clicked his heels, and turning away quickly, left them.

When Jonatha had showered, she found herself disconcertingly alone in the big hangar. On a table near the shower stall was a large bath towel and a