HARRY LATHAM
aka
MR. LASSITER
CREATED BY:
Robert Ludlum
PORTRAYED BY:
John Shea
AS SEEN IN:
"The Apocalypse Watch"
TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time
From Wikipedia:
"The Apocalypse Watch" is a novel by Robert Ludlum. A TV movie
based on it aired in 1997. This was Ludlum's second novel to focus on a neo-Nazi
conspiracy to take over the world, the other being "The Holcroft
Covenant".
The plot concerns Drew Latham, a special officer for consular operations, who must discover why his brother was killed after a covert mission. He impersonates his brother, and uncovers a web of neo-Nazi supporters with members at high levels of the U.S. government and its allies. Latham must stop the neo-Nazis plot to take over Europe through terrorism and biological warfare.
The plot concerns Drew Latham, a special officer for consular operations, who must discover why his brother was killed after a covert mission. He impersonates his brother, and uncovers a web of neo-Nazi supporters with members at high levels of the U.S. government and its allies. Latham must stop the neo-Nazis plot to take over Europe through terrorism and biological warfare.
A running joke concerns the French being unable to pronounce "Latham" correctly.
From the Publisher:
Deep in the Hausruck Mountains of Austria, there is a remote hideaway—the fortress-like nerve center of an ominous movement, the Brotherhood of the Watch. American agent Harry Latham has penetrated the movement, a neo-Nazi organization that was born in the days after the Third Reich's defeat and whose deadly tentacles have spread to the United States and beyond. Now, after three years in deep cover, and on the eve of his most spectacular success, Harry Latham has disappeared.
Drew Latham, Special Officer for Consular Operations in Paris, is frantic to discover his older brother's fate. But when he receives the sudden good news that Harry has surfaced, gut-twisting doubts arise. Has Harry's cover been blown? And if so, why has the Brotherhood of the Watch let him live?
For Harry Latham has emerged with an explosive list: the secret supporters of the movement, among them some of the highest-ranking officials in the United States and its allies, names synonymous with honorable service to their nations. It is a document that could topple governments—but is the list legitimate? Can Drew Latham trust his own brother?
To find the answer, Drew Latham decides to take on his brother's identity, stepping directly into the crossfire between the assassins gunning for Harry Latham—and those who want Drew himself dead.
From a hushed Alpine valley to the backstreets of Paris, from the ruling chambers of Washington and London to the casinos of Monte Carlo, The Apocalypse Watch is vintage Robert Ludlum, a superb international thriller from the writer who created the standard for a new kind of entertainment.
From the Source:
Thirty-two months of grueling serpentine work were about to
bear fruit, thought Latham. Nearly three years of building a life, a life that
was not his, were about to come to an end. The incessant, maddening, exhausting
travels throughout Europe and the Middle East, synchronized down to hours, even
minutes, so he'd be at a specific place at a given time, where others could
swear on their lives that they had seen him. And the scum of the world he had
dealt with--arms merchants without conscience, whose extraordinary profits were
measured by supertankers of blood; drug lords, killing and crippling generations
of children everywhere; compromised politicians, even statesmen, who bent and
thwarted laws for the benefit of the manipulators--it was all finished. There
would be no more frenzied funneling of gargantuan sums of money through
laundered Swiss accounts, secret numbers, pectrograph signatures, all part of
the deadly games of international terrorism. Harry Latham's personal nightmare,
as vital as it was, was over.
"We are here, Herr Lassiter," said Latham's German companion as the mountain vehicle pulled up to a barrack door under the roped green screening high above. "It is much warmer now, much more pleasant, nicht wahr?"
"It certainly is," answered the deep-cover intelligence officer, sitting down from the rear seat.
"I'm actually sweating under these
clothes."
"We'll take the outerwear off inside and have yours dried for return."
"I'd appreciate it. I must be back in Munich by tonight."
"Yes, we understand. Come, the Kommandant." As the two approached the heavy black wooden door with the scarlet swastika emblazoned in the center, there was a whooshing sound in the air. Above, through the translucent green screening, the large wings of a glider swooped in descending circles into the valley. "Another wonder, Herr Lassiter? It is released from its mother aircraft at an altitude of roughly thirteen hundred feet. Naturlich, the pilot must be extremely well trained, for the winds are dangerous, so unpredictable. It is used only in emergencies."
"I can see how it comes down. How does it get up?"
"The same winds, mein Herr, with the assistance of disposable booster rockets. In the thirties, we Germans developed the most advanced glider aircraft."
"Why not use a conventional small plane?"
"Too easily monitored. A glider can be pulled up from a field, a clear pasture. A plane must be fueled, be serviced, have maintenance, and frequently, even a flight plan."
"Phantastisch," repeated the American. "And--of course--the glider has few or no metal parts. Plastic and sized cloth are difficult for radar grids to pick up."
"Difficult," agreed the
new-age Nazi. "Not completely impossible, but extremely
difficult."
"Amazing," said Herr Lassiter as his companion opened the
door of the valley's headquarters. "You are all to be congratulated. Your
isolation is matched by your security. Superb!"
Feigning a casualness he did not
feel, Latham looked around the large room. There was a profusion of
sophisticated computerized equipment, banks of consoles against each wall,
starchy-uniformed operators in front of each, seemingly an equal mix of men and
women.... Men and women--something was odd, at least not normal. What was it?
And then he knew; to an individual, the operators were young, generally in their
twenties, mostly blond or light-haired, with clear, suntanned skin. As a group
they were inordinately attractive, like models corralled by an advertising
agency to sit in front of a client's computer products, conveying the message
that potential customers, too, would look like this if they bought the
merchandise.
"Each is an expert, Mr. Lassiter," said an unfamiliar,
monotonic voice behind Latham. The American turned abruptly. The newcomer was a
man about his own age, dressed in camouflage fatigues and wearing a Wehrmacht
officer's cap; he had silently emerged from an open doorway on the left.
"General Ulrich von Schnabe, your enthusiastic host, mein Herr," he continued,
offering his hand. "We meet a legend in his own time. Such a
privilege!"
"You're far too generous, General. I'm merely an
international businessman, but one with definite ideological persuasions, if you
like."
"No doubt reached by years of international
observation?"
"You could say that, and not be in error. They claim that
Africa was the first continent, yet, while others have developed over several
thousand years, Afrika remains the Dark Continent, the black continent. The
northern shores are now havens for equally inferior people."
"Well said,
Mr. Lassiter. Yet you've made millions, some say billions, servicing the dark
and darker skins."
"Why not? What better satisfaction can a man like me
have than by helping them slaughter each other?"
"Wunderbar! Beautifully
and perceptively stated...You were studying our group here, I watched you. You
can see for yourself that these, every one, are of Aryan blood. Pure Aryan
blood. As are those everywhere in our valley. Each has been carefully selected,
bloodlines traced, their commitment absolute."
The dream of the
Lebensborn," said the American quietly, revially. "The breeding farms estates
actually, if I'm not mistaken, where the finest SS officers were bred to strong
Teutonic men--"
Eichmann had studies done. It was determined that the
north Germanic female had not only the finest bone structure in Europe and
extraordinary strength, but a marked subservience to the male," interrupted the
general.
"The true superior race," concluded Lassiter admiringly. Would
that the dream had come true."
"In large measure it has," said Von
Schnabe quietly. "We believe a great many here, if not a majority, are the
children of those women. We stole lists from the Red Cross in Geneva, and spent
years tracing down each family where the Lebensborn infants had been sent.
These, and others we shall recruit throughout Europe, are Sonnenkinder, the
Children of the Sun. The inheritors of the earth!"
"It's
incredible."
"We're reaching out everywhere, and everywhere those
selected respond to us, for the circumstances are the same. Just as in the
studies, when the stranglehold of the Versailles and Locarno treaty led to the
economic collapse of the Weimar Republic and the influx of undesirables
throughout Germany, so has the collapse of Berlin Wall led to chaos. We are a
nation in conflagration, the low-born non-Aryans crossing our borders in
unlimited numbers, taking our jobs, polluting our morals, making whores of our
women. Because where they come from it's perfectly acceptable. It's totally
unacceptable and it must stop! You agree, of course."
"Why else would I
be here, General? I have funneled millions into your needs through the banks in
Algiers by way of Marseilles. My code has been FrÞre--Br³der--I trust it is
familiar to you."
"Which is why I embrace you with all my heart, as does
the entire Br³derschaft."
"So now let's conclude my final gift, General,
final, for you will never need me again...Forty-six cruise missiles appropriated
from Saddam Hussein's arsenal, buried by his officer corps, who felt he would
not survive. Their warheads are capable of carrying massive explosives as well
as chemical payloads--gases that can immobilize whole areas of cities. These are
included, of course, along with the launchers. I paid twenty-five million,
American, for them. Pay me what you can, and if it is less, I will accept my
loss with honor."
"You are, indeed, a man of great honor, mein
Herr."
Suddenly the front door opened and a man in pure white coveralls
walked into the room. He glanced around and saw Von Schnabe, and marched
directly toward him, handing the general a sealed manila envelope. "This is it,"
the man said in German.
"Danke," replied Von Schnabe, opening the
envelope and extracting a small plastic pouch. "You are a fine Schauspieler--a
good impersonator--Herr Lassiter, but I believe you lost something. Our pilot
just brought it to me." The general shook the contents of the plastic bag into
his hand. It was the transponder Harry Latham had shoved between the rocks of a
mountain road thousands of feet above the valley. The hunt was finished.
Harry swiftly raised his hand to his right ear. "Stop him!" shouted Von
Schnabe as the pilot grabbed Latham's arm, yanking it back into a hammerlock.
"There'll be no cyanide for you, Harry Latham of Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
U.S.A. We have other plans for you, brilliant plans."
BCnU!
