The League of Night and Fog

  The embrace was the most intimate he’d ever experienced. Her urgent attempt to enfold his skin with her own, to thrust her heat into him, to meld her body with his, was a more complete union than he’d ever imagined was possible. Their bodies became the most sensitive organs each possessed, a totality of their separate senses. Saul didn’t know how long she pressed herself fully against him, skin to skin, soul to soul, but he gradually felt heat seeping into him, sinking toward his core. His stomach warmed first, then his lungs, his heart. When the nerves in his spine tingled with heat, he realized that his power to generate his own warmth had been revitalized.

  Breathing became easier. His chest expanded. He stopped shivering, smiled at Erika, touched her beautiful face, saw it blur before him, and drifted into unconsciousness.

  8

  When he woke, he was still in the sleeping bag, but he was fully dressed now in dry garments. He felt weak and yet amazingly rested. He stretched his legs against the soft interior of the bag, drew his hands out, rubbed his eyes, and in the glow from the lamp saw Erika and the woman leaning against the cave wall, studying him. Erika too was dressed now.

  “How long have I—?”

  “It’s ten A.M.,” she said. “Rise and shine.” She opened the cave door.

  He jerked a hand to his eyes and turned away. Outside, the sun was searing. “Rise and shine?” He groaned. “That isn’t the sun. It’s a laser beam.”

  “You can’t sleep your life away.”

  He groaned again. Water dripped in front of the cave door. Sunlight reflected blindingly off the snow. He pulled a corner of the sleeping bag over his face.

  “If you insist,” she said.

  When he peered up from beneath the corner of the sleeping bag, he saw the gleam of humor in her eyes. She eased the door almost shut. A few inches of daylight intruded, adding to the glow of the lantern.

  “You sure know how to put a guy to sleep,” he said.

  “My pleasure.”

  Saul shuddered, this time not from cold but emotion. “I love you.”

  The Swiss woman looked embarrassed by their intimacy and coughed. “Are you hungry? We made some freeze-dried soup.”

  “I’m starved.”

  He was strong enough to spoon the liquid to his mouth.

  “What happened out there?” Erika finally asked.

  “I killed them.”

  The Swiss woman paled. Erika merely nodded.

  He left out the details. “There’s a lot to be done.” He crawled from the sleeping bag, felt an ache in his back, and waited until his equilibrium became balanced and steady.

  Erika collected Saul’s wet clothes and gave him the packet that contained Avidan’s diary and the photographs. She picked up the rifle. After making sure that the heater, lantern, and stove were shut off, they stepped outside.

  The woman closed the door. “I’ll have to replace what we used.”

  “We’ll pay,” Saul said.

  “No. You’ve paid me well enough. Not just with money. You saved my life.”

  “But you wouldn’t have needed to be saved if we hadn’t come to your house. We’re still in your debt.”

  They stepped through melting drifts down the slope, sunlight stinging their eyes. Distressed, Saul sensed they were near the first man he’d been forced to kill.

  I don’t want to do this, he thought.

  But it has to be done.

  “You’d better wait here.”

  He continued downward toward a fir tree while Erika stayed behind to distract the woman. He reached the drooping pine boughs and stooped reluctantly beneath them to study the man whose spine he’d broken. Breath held, with difficulty he removed the ring on the middle finger of the corpse’s stiff left hand.

  The ring had a brilliant gold band, capped by a large gleaming ruby. An insignia upon the stone showed an intersecting sword and cross.

  He searched the corpse thoroughly, finding only a passport and a wallet. The passport was French, made out for Jean Lapierre, a neutral name that was probably a pseudonym. He checked the passport’s inside page, finding immigration stamps for Austria and Switzerland. The same route we’ve been following, Saul thought. Are these the men who attacked me in the park in Vienna?

  He examined the wallet, finding the equivalent of a thousand American dollars in various European currencies. Two credit cards and a French driver’s license had the same signature that was on the passport. The address was in Paris. A photograph of an attractive woman and a bright-eyed young daughter provided the proper personal touch to what Saul assumed was an expertly forged set of documents.

  It took him forty minutes, but he finally found the other bodies, removed the ring from each, and examined their wallets and passports. Neutral names. A Marseilles address. A Lyon address. Family photographs. The documents looked perfectly in order and, like the first set, were no doubt perfectly forged.

  He returned to Erika and the woman where they sat on a sun-dried rock. “The question is, do we hide the bodies or leave them where they are?”

  The woman reacted with alarm. “Hide them? But why would—?”

  “For your sake,” Saul answered. “To keep you from being implicated. In good weather, how far are we from your farm? An hour? The cave we stayed in suggests hikers like to come up this way. They’ll find the bodies. The authorities will question you. Can you convince them you don’t know anything about what happened here?”

  “If I have to … I can do anything.”

  “You’ve proven that. But think about what I’ve said. Make sure before we leave these bodies.”

  The woman trembled. “There’s a ravine above us. Hikers avoid it. Most of the year, it’s filled with snow. Hide them.”

  “You don’t have to help.”

  The woman didn’t make even a token effort to object. She merely stared toward the valley.

  Saul glanced toward Erika, who stood. After ninety minutes and three unnerving trips to the ravine, they returned to the woman.

  Saul’s voice was taut. “It’s done.”

  The woman hadn’t changed her position. She continued to stare toward the valley. As if coming out of a trance, she blinked at them. “My husband and I used to come up here. It once was my favorite spot.”

  They went down toward the valley.

  9

  At the sun-bathed farmhouse, cows bellowed in pain, needing to be milked. The woman ran to them. Saul sensed that her eagerness to get away was based only partly on her concern for her animals. We’re pariahs, he thought. He peered toward the mountains from which they’d descended. The snow-covered peaks were massive gravestones. He walked with Erika toward the Volkswagen they’d driven here.

  He showed her an ignition key he’d taken from one of the corpses. “Follow me. I’ll drive this Renault. We’ll go to Zurich. That’s far enough that no one will link the bodies—if they’re discovered—to the car. Give me a couple of minutes, though. I assume it’s a rented car, but I still haven’t found the receipt from the agency. It’s probably in the glove compartment. I want to check the trunk, then copy the license number and the serial number that’s on the motor block. No matter how many buffers they used, someone had to pay for using that car, and I want to find out who.”

  “But we don’t have access to a network for that kind of information. Remember your bargain.”

  “To do this on our own? Sure. But I think I’ve found a way to make the Agency cooperate, to make them agree I’ve done them a favor. At the same time, I’ll get their help.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “This is how.” Saul pulled one of the ruby rings from his pocket. “I wanted to be away from the woman before I showed you. It would only have confused her.”

  Erika examined the ring. “I’ve never seen anything like it. A gold band. A perfect ruby with an inset sword and cross. The design’s medieval, right?”

  “But the surfaces are smooth. The manufacture’s recent.”

  “Sword and c
ross.”

  “Religion and violence. All three of the men had rings like this. It’s obviously a symbol for a group. A recognition device for those who understand. It’s probably the ring the hiker took off before he came to this farm.”

  Saul tugged at the gleaming ruby on the ring. With a snick, the ruby swung up on a hidden swivel, revealing a compartment.

  In the compartment, Erika saw a capsule. It was yellow. She raised it to her nostrils.

  “Cyanide.”

  “Or something even quicker.” Saul pressed the ruby cap down on the poison. “My guess is, if those men had lived they’d have swallowed the poison before I could question them. I think we’re dealing with a death cult. Very old, and very skilled. Between us, you and I have almost thirty years of experience in the profession. But neither of us has seen this ring or this insignia. Another network exists, one we don’t know about and I’m betting no one else does either.”

  “But how could that be possible?”

  “I don’t know how they stayed secret so long or why they’d risk exposing themselves. But clearly they exist. And clearly they’re expert. So wouldn’t you think, if I offered this information to the Agency, they’d cancel my obligation to do them a favor?”

  “As long as I find out what happened to my father and see my son again.”

  “Our son.” Saul’s voice rose; he thought of bloody snow. “And if they accept my offer, maybe I won’t ever have to kill again.”

  UNNATURAL CONJUNCTION

  1

  Zurich. In his former profession, Drew had often sought refuge here; it was one of his favorite cities. But on this warm clear morning, as he walked with Arlene along the river that divided the city, he barely noticed the quays and pleasure boats or the gardens and guildhouses on the opposite shore. Instead, in his memory, he saw the dead security men at the villa outside Rome and Gatto’s tortured corpse sprawled on a lounge beside his swimming pool. After discovering the massacre site the night before, Drew and Arlene had at once made arrangements to leave Rome, flying to Zurich as soon as possible. Now they left the sidewalk beside the river and, without a word, proceeded along a street of imposing buildings, approaching the Swiss Zurichsee Bank. It was here that Father Sebastian had said he’d open a safe-deposit box for them. In a trouser pocket, Drew had the key—in his memory, the code words “Mother of God”—that would give them access to the box.

  As they reached the entrance to the bank, Arlene’s green eyes flashed with apprehension. “Suppose the code words don’t work. Or the key. Suppose Father Sebastian didn’t plan to back us up as he said he would.”

  “So far he’s kept his word. He met us at the Vatican gardens. He supplied us with weapons, passports, money, and Father Victor’s research about Cardinal Pavelic’s disappearance. There’s something terribly wrong for sure, but I don’t think Father Sebastian’s to blame.”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  They entered the bank. Its marble floor, massive pillars, and high curved ceiling reminded Drew of a church. Echoing voices had the awe of parishioners responding at mass. They passed guards and clerks, desks and counters, found a sign in German, French, Italian, and English that directed them toward safe-deposit boxes in the basement, and descended as if to a crypt.

  “Mother of God,” Drew said in German to a severe-faced woman, the guardian of the sanctum, and showed her the number on his key.

  She examined a list of box numbers and code words, then directed her narrow gaze toward Drew. “Very good, sir.”

  Drew suppressed his tension while the woman escorted him into a vault of safe-deposit boxes and used Drew’s key, along with her own, to open a metal slot. She pulled out an enclosed tray and, with the reverence of a priestess conferring a sacrament, handed it to him.

  Three minutes later, he and Arlene were alone behind the closed door of a cubicle. Drew opened the lid, finding two pistols, two passports, and an envelope that, as Father Sebastian had promised, contained money.

  “He kept his bargain,” Drew said. “It’s good to know a priest who belongs to the Fraternity can be trusted.”

  “So far,” Arlene said.

  They concealed the weapons behind their jackets. Before they’d passed through the metal detectors in Rome’s airport, they’d rented a locker and hidden the handguns Father Sebastian had earlier given to them. Oppressed by the weight of the pistol against his spine, Drew pocketed the money and passports, then pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, printing boldly IMPERATIVE WE MEET WITH YOU SOONEST POSSIBLE. LEAVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR TIME AND PLACE. THE PENTITENT.

  He set the note in the tray, closed the lid, and opened the cubicle door. The guardian came to attention as if about to receive a holy relic. The tray safely locked away, the key in his pocket, Drew followed Arlene from the temple of the money changers. He scanned the busy street, found no indication that he and Arlene were under surveillance, and walked back toward the river.

  “So now we wait,” Drew said. “We’ll come back this afternoon and tomorrow morning and however many other mornings and afternoons it takes. Maybe a miracle will happen, and we’ll never be contacted. This isn’t our fight. We were forced into it. We’ve done our part for now. After this, it’s up to Father Sebastian, and if he doesn’t get in touch, we can’t be blamed. I could gladly wait here forever with you.”

  “But you know it won’t happen that way,” she said.

  In despair, Drew nodded. “The Fraternity never lets up. Until we accomplish what they want, we won’t be free of them. I hate the things I was trained to do, but I’ll use those skills to finish this. So we can start our lives together.”

  Arlene held his hand. “We already have started our lives together. All we can count on is now.”

  2

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Drew opened the safe-deposit box for the second time that day. Instead of the note he’d left, he found a different one, its printing more forceful than his own. The instructions were clear, professional, precise. Below them, in a melted drop of wax, an insignia had been indented, a sword intersecting with a cross.

  This time, he’d entered the bank alone. He left, walked in the opposite direction from the river, and reached the Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich’s main business district, where he paused to peer at flowers in a window. A moment later, Arlene stood beside him. He saw her reflection in the window. She’d been following him since he’d left the bank.

  “No one showed any interest,” she said.

  That didn’t prove they weren’t being watched. Nonetheless, they’d have been foolish not to take the precaution. They joined the stream of shoppers along the street.

  “We got a message,” Drew said. He didn’t show it to her. Couldn’t. In the cubicle at the bank, he’d torn the note into minuscule pieces and kept them in a pocket of his trousers. While he’d walked to the Bahnhofstrasse, he’d surreptitiously dropped the bits here and there along the sidewalk.

  “Assuming the message was actually from Father Sebastian,” Drew said, “he gave us a time and place for a meeting tonight. He also gave us two fallback times and places for tomorrow in case we didn’t get his message today.”

  “Thorough.”

  “No more than I’d expect from a member of the Fraternity.”

  Again her eyes flashed with apprehension. “Where do we meet him?”

  3

  At 1 A.M., they emerged from the darkness of an alley, crossed the narrow stone expanse of the Rathausbrucke, and reached an ornate fountain. Mist from the river drifted toward them.

  “I can think of better places for a meeting,” Arlene said.

  “One less exposed?” Drew asked. “On the other hand, anyone following us would have to cross the bridge. This late at night, hardly anyone else around, we’d be sure to notice him.”

  The instructions had been to reach the fountain at five minutes after one, but they knew that the rendezvous might not occur until as long as a half hour later. Father Sebastian would want to satis
fy himself that they hadn’t been followed before he showed himself.

  But a half hour later, the priest had still not arrived.

  “I don’t like what I’m feeling. We’ll try the fallback time and place tomorrow morning,” Drew said. “We’d better get out of here.”

  Arlene didn’t need encouragement. She walked from the fountain, but not back toward the bridge, instead toward the street along this side of the river. Drew followed.

  The mist thinned. Reaching a murky side street, they passed a restaurant, its windows dark. Ahead, a young man drove a motorcycle through an intersection, the noise so loud that for a moment Drew didn’t hear the car behind him. He spun toward its headlights. The car raced toward them. Drew pressed Arlene back toward a doorway and reached for his pistol. The car was already stopping.

  Through an open window, Father Sebastian said, “Get in. Quickly.”

  They did. Drew barely had a chance to close the door before Father Sebastian stepped on the throttle and urged the car down the street.

  “What took you so long?” Drew said. “Why didn’t you meet us?”

  Father Sebastian sped around a corner. “I’ve been watching you from a block away. In case you’d been followed, I wanted to make it seem the meeting had been aborted and you’d given up. I waited till contact was least expected, with little chance of anyone catching up to us.”

  The priest wore dark slacks, a dark zipped-up Windbreaker, and dark driving gloves. The ring on the middle finger of his left hand made a bulge in the glove.

  “I’m surprised you got our message as soon as you did. We left it at the bank only this morning,” Drew said. “Are you staying here in Zurich?”