And what about after his rescue? Rostock had made no effort to return René to his loved ones. And then there was the constant moving about, the vague, looming threats to René’s life, the insinuations about his father. And through all of this, Jürgen Rostock and his men were the only ones looking out for him, the only ones who could keep the boogeymen at bay.
Seeing it now with fresh eyes, Jack recognized René Allemand’s odyssey for what it was: an elaborately choreographed brainwashing program. But to what end? To answer that question, Jack had to first determine whether René understood the true nature of what’d happened to him. There was a larger worry as well: How reliable was he at all? He’d been kidnapped, that much was fact, but they had only his account of what happened after he was thrown into that van in Abidjan.
“What happened next?” asked Jack.
René replied with a proud grin, “Rostock offered me a job.”
Effrem leaned forward. “What? What do you mean?”
“A job in his company. He offered me a position as a field officer. I’d heard of RSG and knew of its reputation, but I’d always assumed my career would be in the French Army. What happened in Abidjan and then what Jürgen and I talked about made me reconsider. I took the job.”
“And you never thought to contact your father or the Army to let them know you were alive? Why, for God’s sake?”
“At first, it was at Rostock’s suggestion. I was going to be doing undercover work, he said, and the training and transition were going to be intense. Once I was past that, Rostock was going to help me get my old life back. Later, well, I’m not sure why.”
Effrem’s mouth was hanging open. He said, “Are you suggesting you participated in faking your own death to join RSG? That you were going to be part of some secret . . . what, exactly? What was Rostock asking you to do?”
Allemand stared vacantly at Effrem, his face a mask of frustration and confusion. Clearly he wanted to, and should have been able to, answer Effrem’s question, but there was a disconnect somewhere in Allemand’s brain, related either to his addiction or to his treatment at the hands of Rostock, or a combination of the two.
Effrem said to Jack, “Christ Almighty, this guy is out there—”
Jack cut him off. “We’re just having trouble following this, René.”
“Yes. Of course. These are not simple issues we’re dealing with. The world, I mean. We’re on the brink of a precipice.” Again Allemand’s words trailed off, as though he’d lost his place in a script.
Jack felt a wave of sympathy for René, but it was tainted by a gut punch of fear. He’d already felt he and Effrem had dropped into the rabbit hole. Sitting across from René, Jack now felt like he’d met the Mad Hatter. Or the White Rabbit. None of this was René’s fault, of course, but Jack now realized they’d joined forces with a highly trained soldier who not only had lost touch with reality, but was probably suffering from a narcotics addiction and PTSD as well.
Abruptly, René stood up. “I need the restroom.”
“Down that hall and left,” Jack replied.
Allemand walked away.
Effrem leaned across the table at Jack and rasped, “The man is insane, Jack.”
“Hold on—”
“No! I’ve spent a long time on this story, maxed out my credit cards, and almost gotten myself killed chasing a lunatic. We’ve got to get out of here. I’m done, Jack. Let’s go.” Effrem moved to stand up.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Jack snapped. “Sit down. You’re not seeing it, are you?”
“What?”
“René was kidnapped and he was held and he was rescued, but it’s all Rostock.” Jack spent the next two minutes explaining his theory until slowly Effrem’s expression softened.
“Jack, brainwashing? That’s Manchurian Candidate stuff. Science fiction.”
“You’d be surprised. I think what happened to René is an extreme form of operant conditioning combined with drug therapy. Negative reinforcement, isolation, threat of extinction, desocialization, a skewed version of Stockholm syndrome—it’s all there. It’s what he went through, from the time he was kidnapped until Rostock offered him a job.”
“If that’s the case, why is he on the run from Rostock?”
“I think he knows something’s not right about all this, but he can’t pin it down. It’s like trying to grab a fistful of water. One minute he’s suspicious of Rostock, the next praising him. Allemand either saw or heard something that spooked him—something that contradicted his conditioning—so he bolted.”
“Let’s just assume you’re right. Why him? Aside from his famous name, right now he’s just another soldier. Why would Rostock go to all this trouble?”
“I don’t think it’s got anything to do with René. This is about his father, Marshal Allemand.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know yet. But as a coercion technique, what Rostock’s done is brilliant. If you kidnap a child your leverage lasts only as long as you have control of that child. Same with threatening the child’s life. But what happens when you take the child’s mind and turn it against the parent?”
“A puppet,” Effrem replied.
“A puppet whose narrative and fate you control,” Jack added. “René is either a heroic French soldier who survived a horrendous experience, or he’s a traitor to his country. To someone like Marshal Allemand, that’s a powerful lever.”
The question was, a lever to accomplish what?
Effrem’s eyes had glazed over. “Kidnapping,” he murmured.
“What?”
Effrem held up his finger for Jack to wait. He got out his cell phone, browsed for a minute, then said, “Son of a bitch! I knew I’d read something about this. René wasn’t Rostock’s first victim. Five years ago Alexander Bossard’s daughter, Suzette, was kidnapped in Brazil. RSG rescued her.”
“Save a man’s child and you could own him for life.”
“It’s a hell of a debt to repay,” Effrem said. “So what do we do with René?”
“In the long term, that’s a question for a psychologist. In the short term, René’s going to keep going until he assembles the puzzle in his head or Rostock kills him. If we keep him close we can at least steer him a bit.”
Allemand returned to the booth and sat down. He drummed his fingers on the table and looked at each of them in turn. “You have more questions, yes?”
“You said you and Rostock talked,” Jack replied. “About what?”
“What else? Islamic terrorism. It has to be stopped.”
Jack didn’t disagree, but René’s tone had been condescending, as though Jack had asked what should be done with a lawn that needed to be mowed. You mow it, idiot.
“How?”
“Not the way we’ve been doing it here, or in the United States, for that matter. It’s time to remove the gloves, as you might say. We root them out, wherever they are, and kill them all. If you help a terrorist, you are yourself a terrorist. If you sympathize with a terrorist, you are yourself a terrorist. We’ve been treating this like a conventional war. That’s ludicrous. We need to go nuclear.” As he’d been speaking, René’s tone had become increasingly strident, and now he punctuated this last statement by jabbing the table with his index finger.
“You mean literally or figuratively?” asked Effrem.
“Whatever it takes. Nation-state armies are worthless in this kind of fight. Too many laws, regulations, rules of engagement. Governments come and go, as does political will. Terrorists don’t bother with those things; we can’t afford to, either. It has to stop, don’t you see that? We have to stop them before it’s too late. Rostock’s approach is the only one that can work.”
Jack thought: The looming threat, the ticking clock, and the savior. Three more operant-conditioning techniques.
“What approach?” asked E
ffrem.
Allemand was gazing out the window. After a couple seconds he snapped his head toward Effrem. “What?”
“I said—”
Jack broke in: “Maybe you can help me understand something. If you believe in Rostock’s message, why are you running from him?”
“Schrader,” Allemand replied simply. “I didn’t trust him. He was my contact, my training officer, but there was something about him. I started following him.”
“And?” asked Effrem.
“Did you follow the Lyon attacks?”
Both Jack and Effrem nodded.
“Do you remember the bomb maker’s apartment they found a week later, near that pharmacy, and the makeshift shooting range outside Montanay? A few days before the attacks, Schrader visited both places.”
Jack was stunned. Provided this wasn’t a delusion of René’s, Eric Schrader, one of Jürgen Rostock’s operatives, had been involved in the Lyon attacks.
“But Schrader was working for Rostock,” Effrem said.
“No, I think he turned. I was trying to get proof to take to Jürgen. I didn’t know who else at RSG might be allied with Schrader, so I decided to handle it myself. And it’s a good thing I did. Schrader and Alexander Bossard met a number of times with Rostock present.”
Once again Allemand’s reasoning was muddled. Schrader was a rogue agent and Rostock a terrorist-fighting savior who couldn’t see what was happening under his own nose. Jack suspected part of René’s mind was pushing him toward the truth about both Rostock and what had happened to him in Abidjan, but he couldn’t yet make the leap. What would happen when the man had no choice but to face that chasm?
WÄDENSWIL, SWITZERLAND
Halfway through Allemand’s revelation Jack had decided it was time to get Belinda Hahn out of harm’s way. He’d been leaning in that direction already, but René’s instability forced the issue. Plus, Allemand’s trust of Jack and Effrem was tenuous. Belinda’s presence might be too much for the soldier.
As it turned out, Allemand van had been serving as his command post and mobile living quarters. Jack convinced him to follow them back to the motel, then sent Effrem up to the room while he and Allemand sat in the van. During the drive Effrem had called his mother in Brussels to arrange for Belinda’s safekeeping.
Effrem called a few minutes later. “She’s ready to go. There’s a red-eye leaving in a few hours. I’ll drive her, then come back. We’re coming down now.”
“Good. Drive safe.”
Jack waited a few minutes to ensure Effrem and Belinda were gone, then led René up to the room. Jack ordered pizza, and then while René took a shower he plugged the flash drive into his laptop and uploaded the data to Mitch’s private server. Mitch called a few minutes later as René emerged from the bathroom.
Mitch said, “Jack, there were no documents of interest on that computer, but I did find something interesting in the browser history—looks like a business portal. Is this guy an attorney? In Zurich?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yeah, it fits. I don’t know what kind of encryption and firewalls I’ll find on the portal’s server side, but I’ll get started and keep you posted. Anything specific I should be keying on?”
“For starters, any mention of Jürgen Rostock or Rostock Security Group, or similar combinations. Throw my name in the mix, too.” Jack lowered his voice, then added, “And any mention of a Janine Périer. She may have worked for the Red Cross.”
“Got it.”
Jack disconnected.
Allemand asked, “Who was that?”
“We’ve got a guy working on the data from the villa,” Jack replied.
“Why are there three toothbrushes in the bathroom?”
“What?”
“There are two of you, but three toothbrushes,” said René. “Is there someone else staying with you?”
“No,” said Jack. “I must have packed two by mistake.”
René considered this, then nodded. “Mind if I use one? I have no running water in the van. My teeth feel like they’re wearing socks.”
—
Effrem returned three hours later. René had fallen asleep in the armchair an hour earlier, which Jack took as a good sign. You don’t sleep around people you can’t trust, especially someone in Allemand’s condition.
Jack was sitting at the table, willing his phone to ring. “There’s a few pieces of pizza left,” he whispered, nodding at the box. Effrem sat down, fished out a piece, and took a bite.
Jack asked, “What do you think about Lyon?”
“You mean about Schrader being involved in the attacks? If it’s true, there’s no way a guy like Schrader could orchestrate something like that. Rostock could, though.”
“I agree.” Rostock’s kidnapping and rescue of Allemand was a type of false-flag operation. Staging a terrorist attack and then pinning it on another group, though more complex in scope, wasn’t dissimilar in principle. “The group that claimed credit, the Sahrawi Islamic Liberation Army, dropped off the radar, didn’t it?”
Effrem nodded. “Officials I talked to in both Lyon and Paris claimed to know nothing about SILA. Then again, it’s not uncommon for smaller factions to dissolve, then reconstitute under a different name.”
“True, but after the second-deadliest attack on French soil? I don’t buy it.”
“Me neither, come to think of it.”
Jack wondered if there was a part of René’s mind that had already come to a similar conclusion: SILA was a construct of Jürgen Rostock’s, both fuel and another target for antiterrorist rage in Europe. There was, Jack thought, already plenty of that to go around—and rightly so. No Western nation would deny that the threat of Islamic terrorism was dire. Hell, the majority of the Muslim world felt the same way, so said all the intelligence he had analyzed.
If Lyon had been a Rostock operation, there had to be more to it than simple pot-stirring. What, though? And again, the as yet unanswered question that had been nagging Jack from the beginning: Why did Rostock want him dead?
—
Mitch called an hour later. The ringing of Jack’s phone woke Effrem and René. Jack put Mitch on speaker.
“I’m not calling about Bossard. But I can tell you where to find Gerhard Klugmann.”
Allemand asked, “Who the hell is Gerhard Klugmann?”
“A hacker we think works for Rostock,” Jack replied. “Where can we find him, Mitch?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
Effrem replied, “I haven’t liked much of anything in the past few weeks, so what’s the harm? Where is he?”
“In Windhoek, Namibia.”
“Namibia,” Effrem repeated. “What the hell’s in Namibia?”
PARIS, FRANCE
As for the deeper answer to Effrem’s question, Jack had no idea, but a few minutes on Google offered a possible superficial answer: Namibia was home to almost thirty thousand German speakers, a holdover from Germany’s almost two-hundred-year history with the country, which had even been called German South-West Africa from 1884 until the middle of World War I.
Rostock’s possible presence in Namibia was no coincidence, Jack felt. Rostock had shown a preference for German employees. If Klugmann was there as part of RSG’s operation, Namibia’s German population would offer a deep pool of resources.
However, before he picked up his group and left Europe, Jack needed to satisfy his curiosity about the true reason for René’s kidnapping. To do this, Jack left Zurich a few hours after Mitch’s call and landed in Paris shortly after noon. In his absence, Effrem would do his best to keep René occupied and even-keeled.
Marshal Hugo Allemand, though many years into retirement, was a fixture on Paris’s social and political scene. As had Jürgen Rostock, Marshal Allemand had parlayed a celebrated military career into a civilian life of luxury and influ
ence. Subsequently Jack had little trouble finding the Allemand estate, a working horse farm an hour north of the city near Montmorency Forest.
Jack pulled his rental car up to an iron gate festooned with stylized fleurs-de-lis and pushed the intercom. “Oui?” a male voice replied.
“Parlez-vous anglais?” Jack asked. His grasp of basic French was serviceable, but he’d found that outside the country’s tourist hubs the locals preferred visitors either speak proper French or not try at all.
“Yes, I speak English,” came the reply.
“I’m here to see Marshal Allemand.”
“The marshal has no appointments scheduled for today. Please contact his secretary and she will—”
“I’m here about the marshal’s son, René.”
“The marshal has said all he cares to about his son’s disappearance. All press inquiries should be directed to—”
“His secretary, I know.” Jack placed his cell phone up to the intercom box and tapped the play button. After ten seconds Jack hit stop and said, “I made that recording less than eight hours ago. I’ll wait.”
The intercom was silent for a bit, then: “One moment, please.”
It took five minutes. When the voice returned, Jack was directed to follow the driveway to the main house, where he would be met. Once through the gate, Jack did as instructed until he pulled to a stop before a ten-thousand-square-foot French-Georgian-style mansion. The colonnaded front steps were bracketed by a pair of bronze stallions rearing back on their hind legs.
A fit-looking man in a black suit was waiting on the walkway. By the time Jack climbed out of the driver’s seat, the man was standing at his door. “I am Claude. Please raise your arms to shoulder level.”
Jack did so. Claude ran a magnetic wand up and down Jack’s body, then expertly frisked him before asking, “What is your name, please?”
“Jack.”
“Your surname?”