Rainbow Six

More paintings on the staircase, she saw, far larger than anything she'd ever done, paintings of men, probably the men who'd built and lived in this massive edifice, this monument to greed. and exploitation:.. she already hated its owner who lived so well, so opulently, so publicly proclaiming that he was better than everyone else while he built up his wealth and exploited the ordinary workers. At the top of the staircase was a huge oil portrait of the Emperor Franz Josef himself, the last of his..wretched fine, who'd died just a few years before the even more hated Romanovs. The butler, this worker for the evil one, turned right, leading them down a wide hall into a doorless room. Three people were there, a man and two. women, better dressed than the butler, all working away at computers.

"This is Herr Bauer," the butler said in a shaky voice. "He wishes to see Herr Ostermann."

"You have an appointment?" the senior secretary asked.

"You will take us in now, " Petra announced. Then the gun came into view, and the three people in the anteroom stopped what they were doing and looked at the intruders with open mouths and pale faces.

Ostermann's home was several hundred years old, but not entirely a thing of the past. The male secretary - in America he would have been called an executive assistant - was named Gerhardt Dengler. Under the edge of his desk was an alarm button. He thumbed this hard and long while he stared at the visitors: The wire led to the schloss's central alarm panel, and from there to the alarm company.

Twenty kilometers away, the employees at the central station responded to the buzzer and flashing light by immediately calling the office of the Staatspolizei. Then one of them called the schloss for confirmation. "May I answer it?" Gerhardt asked Petra, who seemed to him to be in charge. He got a nod and lifted the receiver.

"Herr Ostermann's office."

"Hier ist Traudl, " the alarm company's secretary said.

"Tauten Tag, Traudl. Hier ist Gerhardt," the executive assistant said. "Have you called about the horse?" That was the phrase for serious trouble, called a duress code.

"Yes, when is the foal due?" she asked, carrying on to protect the man on the other end, should someone be listening in on the line..

"A few more weeks, still. We will tell you when the time comes," he told her brusquely, staring at Petra and her pistol.

"Danke, Gerhardt. Auf Wiederhoren." With that, she hung up and waved to her watch supervisor.

"It is about the horses," he explained to Petra, "We have a mare in foal and-"

"Silence," Petra said quietly, waving for Hans to approach the double doors into Ostermann's office. So far, she thought, so good. There was even some cause for amusement. Ostermann was right through those double doors, doing the work he did as though things were entirely normal; when they decidedly were not. Well,-now it was time for him to find out. She pointed to the executive assistant. "Your name is?…" "Dengler," the man replied.

"Gerhardt Dengler"

"Take us in, Herr Dengler," she- suggested, in a strangely childlike voice.

Gerhardt rose from his desk. and walked slowly to the double doors, head down., his movements wooden, as though his knees were artificial. Guns did that to people, Dortmund and Furchtner knew. The secretary turned the knobs and pushed, revealing Ostermann's office.

The desk was huge, gilt like everything else in the building, and sat on a huge red wool rug. Erwin Ostermann had his back to them, head down examining some computer display or other.

"Herr Ostermann?" Dengler said.

"Yes, Gerhardt?" was the reply, delivered in an even voice, and when there was no response, the man turned in his swivel chair

–"What is this?" he asked, his blue eyes going very. wide when he saw the visitors, and then wider still when he saw the guns. "Who-"

"We are commanders of the Red Workers' Faction," Furchtner informed the trader. "And you are our prisoner.".

"But what is this?"

"You and we will be taking a trip. If you behave yourself, you will come to no harm. If you do not, you and others will be killed. Is that clear?" Petra asked. To make sure it was, she again aimed her pistol at Dengler's head.'