But would he have dared reveal this sanity-threatening truth?
I have to be wrong, Miller thought. I looked at this same SS officer two days ago. It never occurred to me he might be my father.
Or maybe I didn’t want the thought to occur to me.
But the thought insisted now. Miller’s vision focused more narrowly onto the photograph, more intensely toward the SS officer’s forehead, just below the peak of the ornate military cap.
He tried to believe that what he saw on that forehead was an imperfection in the photograph itself, a scratch on the negative, but he couldn’t convince himself. The scar was identical to the one on his father’s forehead, the consequence of a near-fatal car accident when he’d been ten.
How is it possible to love a monster?
But how is it possible to know if someone you love is a monster?
Before he realized what he was doing, Miller picked up the phone.
5
“The U.S. Justice Department? Who told you this?” Halloway pressed the phone harder against his ear.
“An Associated Press reporter.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He said my father was a Nazi war criminal,” Miller said. “The commander of a goddamned SS extermination team.”
“But that’s absurd!”
“Is it? I’m beginning to wonder. Some of the things he told me—”
“You mean you actually believed him? He’s a reporter! He’ll tell you anything!”
“But I took another look at those photographs and—”
“You were supposed to destroy the damned things!”
“One shows my father in a Death’s Head SS uniform! In front of civilian corpses!”
“A photograph from World War Two? How do you know what your father even looked like back then? That photograph proves nothing!”
“My father had a scar on the top right corner of his forehead! So does this SS officer!”
“Coincidence!”
“That’s not a good enough explanation!” Miller’s voice rose. “I have to know! Was my father in charge of a Nazi extermination squad? What about all the other fathers? Were they mass murderers too?”
“If you’re suggesting my father … ? That’s ridiculous! It’s insulting! I don’t have to listen to—!”
“Stop evading the question, Halloway! Answer it!”
“I won’t dignify—!”
“Were they Nazi war criminals?”
“Of course not! They were SS, yes! Waffen-SS! Legitimate soldiers! Not the Death’s Head–SS who killed the Jews! But outsiders don’t understand that distinction! Civilians think all SS were war criminals. So our fathers had to lie. The Night and Fog made the same mistake we feared the immigration authorities would make, the same mistake the U.S. Justice Department and the Associated Press reporter are making.”
“You’re trying to tell me the Justice Department can’t tell the difference between Waffen-SS and Death’s Head–SS? Bullshit!”
“Then how did they make this mistake?”
“My father, your father, and the other members of the group used to phone each other on days that were special to them. April twentieth. November eighth. January thirtieth. Do those dates mean anything to you?”
“Of course,” Halloway said. “They were birthdays for some of the members of the group.”
“You bastard,” Miller screamed, “if only you hadn’t lied!”
“Lied? About what?”
“April twentieth was someone’s birthday, all right. In 1889. Hitler’s birthday. November eighth is the anniversary of the so-called beer-hall rebellion, Hitler’s first attempt to take over the German government. That was in 1923. The rebellion failed. But ten years later he did gain control. On January thirtieth. Those are the three most sacred dates in Nazi tradition. And the three dates on which our fathers, despite the risk, couldn’t resist getting in touch with each other.”
“All right,” Halloway said, “so I didn’t realize the significance of those dates.”
“I don’t believe you. You know what those dates mean. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Obviously, you’re determined to believe what you want. But I assure you—”
“I’ve got another question,” Miller interrupted. “Our fathers were all senior officers. That means they didn’t serve together. They commanded separate units. When the war ended, they’d have been widely divided. What’s the basis of their bond? What makes them a group?”
“My father said they trained together,” Halloway answered.
“But the Nazi army was spread all over. The eastern front, the western front, the North African front. Russia, France, Italy, Egypt. If our fathers trained together, they probably never saw each other again throughout the war. You bastard, you lied again. The bond had nothing to do with their having trained together. Why, out of all the German soldiers who tried to conceal their war records, did this group get in touch with each other? They hid all over the world. But they stayed in touch. Goddamn it, why?”
Halloway didn’t answer.
“Who were they paying blackmail to?” Miller demanded. “Why?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“I think the reporter was right,” Miller said. “I think there’s a hell of a lot my father didn’t tell me and you didn’t tell me either. But you will. I’m coming up there, Halloway. I’m coming to Canada to choke the answers out of you.”
“No! That’s crazy! You can’t come here! If the Justice Department is watching you, you’ll draw their attention to me and—!”
Halloway didn’t finish his sentence. Miller had slammed down the phone.
6
Halloway slowly set down his own phone. For several seconds, he wasn’t able to move. With effort, he turned toward his father’s acrylic landscapes, which he’d been nostalgically studying when the phone rang. The row of paintings was broken periodically by patio windows through which he saw his guards patrolling the grounds.
As a rule, he would never have accepted Miller’s call at this number; instead, he would have gone to the secure phone in the nearby city, Kitchener. But he didn’t feel it was wise to risk leaving the estate, not even to visit his family at the safe house in the city. Achingly, longingly, he missed his wife and children, but he didn’t dare endanger them by bringing them back here.
Earlier, Rosenberg—dangerously out of control—had called from Mexico City, babbling that the authorities there had discovered the truth about his father. Similar frightened calls had reached him from the sons of the other fathers in the group. The past was being peeled away. The Night and Fog had managed its reprisal well, twisting its vengeance ever tighter and deeper.
But Halloway had a foreboding that the screw had not yet been fully turned, that another more forceful twist was yet to come. The ship, he kept thinking. By now, it would have passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea. Halloway wished he’d paid attention to Rosenberg’s second thoughts about that ship. He wished he’d acquiesced to Rosenberg’s fears and ordered the ship to return. Too late now. Even if Halloway tried, he wouldn’t be able to get through the complex system of contacts to warn the ship in time.
Whatever would happen now was out of his control. But if the Night and Fog knew about the ship just as they knew about everything else, if the truth about that ship were revealed, we’ll face two enemies, the Night and Fog and our clients, Halloway thought, and I’m not sure which is worse.
7
The cargo ship Medusa had a registry as tangled as the snarl of snakes associated with her legendary namesake. Her ostensible owner was Transoceanic Enterprises, a Bolivian corporation. But a close examination of Transoceanic Enterprises’ incorporation papers would have revealed that the company, whose office address was a post office, was owned by Atlantis Shipping, a Liberian corporation, and in Liberia the company’s office was as difficult to find as the mythical continent after which Atlantis Shipping was n
amed.
This company was in turn owned by Mediterranean Transport, a Swiss concern owned by a Mexican concern owned by a Canadian concern. Many of the officers did not exist. Those who did were paid to provide no other service than that of allowing their signatures to be used on legal documents. Of the handful of actual directors, one was Aaron Rosenberg of Mexico City Imports; another was Richard Halloway of Ontario Shipping.
Medusa regularly crisscrossed the Atlantic, carrying textiles, machinery, and food to and from Greece, Italy, France, Spain, England, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. But the profit from these shipments was minimal, and if not for another cargo that was often hidden among the textiles, machinery, and food, neither Aaron Rosenberg nor Richard Halloway would have been able to maintain his luxurious lifestyle.
That cargo was aboard the Medusa as she proceeded toward her rendezvous with a freighter whose registration was equally tangled and whose owner had an opulent estate on the Libyan coast. Tomorrow night, off the coast of northern Africa, crates would be transferred. Medusa would continue toward Naples to deliver Brazilian coffee, her waterline higher now that she no longer carried plastic explosives, fragmentation grenades, antipersonnel mines, pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, portable rocket launchers, and heat-seeking missiles.
Under usual circumstances, these weapons would have been smuggled out of Belgium, the principal European supplier of black-market arms, and transported under various disguises to Marseilles. There, Medusa would have picked up “medical supplies” and distributed them to various terrorist groups along the southern European coast.
But recent antiterrorist surveillance, the result of increased terrorist bombings, made Marseilles and other European ports too dangerous for arms smuggling. The alternative was to bring the arms from South America, where various civil wars had resulted in ample stockpiles of Soviet and American munitions, most of which were readily for sale. Thus Medusa had brought Brazilian coffee piled on top of Contra weapons supplied by the CIA across the Atlantic to meet a Libyan freighter in the Mediterranean thirty-six hours from now. Whatever Libya chose to do with the arms was not Transoceanic’s concern. The hundred-million-dollar fee was all Rosenberg and Halloway cared about.
8
Tel Aviv, Israel. The instant the helicopter touched down, Misha Pletz scrambled out. He ran toward the smallest of several corrugated-metal buildings at the south corner of the airport. A burly man in a short-sleeved white shirt waited for him.
“Did you bring it with you?” Misha shouted.
The burly man gestured toward a briefcase in his hand. “Do you want to read it in the car or—?”
“No. Right here,” Misha said.
They entered the air-conditioned building.
“We received the message forty minutes ago,” the man said, pulling a document from his briefcase. “When I saw the code name, I contacted you at once.”
Misha took the paper. He’d been at a kibbutz twenty miles outside the city, fulfilling his promise to Erika and Saul to ensure that their son was protected. Leaving Christopher with Mossad-affiliated guardians had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever been required to do. “Your parents love you, and they’ll be back soon,” Misha had said. “I love you, too.” He’d kissed the boy, and unsure if Erika and Saul were even alive, afraid his emotion would distress their son, he’d hurried toward the waiting helicopter.
Flying back toward Tel Aviv, the pilot had told Misha to put on his earphones—headquarters wanted him. Though the helicopter’s radio was equipped with a scrambler, Misha’s assistant had refused to reveal the nature of the urgent message they’d received, but he had revealed its source. The Coat of Many Colors.
The code name had the force of a blow. It belonged to Erika’s missing father, Joseph Bernstein.
His eyes accustomed to the shadows of the building, Misha studied the document. “How did this come in? Which station, which country?”
“Our embassy in Washington,” the assistant said. “One of our people there was trained by Joseph ten years ago. So our man’s in a coffee shop this morning. He looks next to him at the counter and guess who’s sitting there?”
Misha tingled. “Is our man positive? There’s no possibility of doubt?”
“None. It was Joseph for sure. That’s probably why Joseph chose him for a relay—because they knew each other well. Apparently Joseph wanted to guarantee that the source of the message wasn’t suspicious to us. Contact lasted no longer than a minute. Joseph told our man we weren’t to worry about him. He was taking care of unfinished business, he said. The end was near.”
“And what was that supposed to mean?”
“Our man asked. Joseph refused to elaborate. Instead he passed a note to our man. It was solid information, he said. He wanted you to know about it. He expected you to act upon it. The next thing, he was gone.”
“Just like that? Didn’t our man try to follow him?”
“ ‘Try’ is the word. Joseph knows every trick there is. He lost our man within two blocks.”
“Did he say how Joseph looked?”
“Terrible. Pale. Thin. Shaky hands. The eyes were the worst, he said.”
“What about them?”
“They seemed—and I quote—our man lapsed into subjectivity here—tormented.”
“By what?”
The assistant shrugged.
Misha shook his head. “We’ve been searching for Joseph everywhere, and all of a sudden he shows up in a coffee shop in Washington.”
“At least we know he’s still alive.”
“For that I’m grateful, believe me. But what’s he been doing all this time? Why was he in Washington?” Misha tapped on the document. “How did he get this information?”
“You always said he was one of the best. I emphasize he told our man in Washington it was solid information.”
Misha reread the message. “A cargo ship, the Medusa, will rendezvous tomorrow night with a Libyan freighter for the transfer of munitions intended for terrorist attacks against Israel.” The message provided the scheduled time of delivery, the coordinates for the rendezvous in the Mediterranean Sea, and the codes each ship would use to identify itself to the other.
“How did he get this information?” Misha asked again.
“The more important question is, what do you intend to do about it?”
Misha felt paralyzed. Despite Joseph’s assurances about the validity of the message, there was still a chance he’d made a mistake. Standard procedure required other sources to corroborate the information before countermeasures could be considered. But there wasn’t sufficient time to confirm what Joseph claimed. If the weapons existed and if something wasn’t done by tomorrow night, the transfer would occur. The munitions would be distributed. The attacks against Israel would take place. On the other hand, if the weapons did not exist and Israeli planes destroyed the ship …
Misha didn’t want to imagine the international consequences.
“What do you want to do?” his assistant asked.
“Drive me back to headquarters.”
“And?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
The truth was, Misha still didn’t know. As they left the building, he distracted himself with the wish that he could contact Erika and Saul.
Erika, your father’s alive, Misha wanted to tell her. He was seen in Washington. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but from what I’ve learned, it’s important, and I can’t decide what to do about it. Find him. Help me. I need to know what’s going on.
Saul, you’re not in this alone now. Your former network can’t stop you from getting our help. We insist on helping. We’re invoking professional protocol. Our national security’s at stake. Your search is our search in a way we never imagined. We’ll back you up.
Misha got into his assistant’s car. He registered almost nothing of the drive toward Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. But just before they arrived, he made his decision.
D
o you trust Joseph?
Yes.
Do you believe his message is true?
On balance? Yes.
Are you going to order an air strike?
No. Not an air strike. I’ve got a better idea. It solves a lot of problems. It avoids an international incident. Besides, what’s the point of blowing up those weapons? We’ve got better uses for them than the Libyans do.
He must have been speaking out loud. His assistant turned to him, frowning. “What did you say?”
“I always wanted to be a pirate.”
9
With growing dislike for the son of his father’s enemy, Icicle sat in a Rome hotel room, watching Seth read what he called his reviews.
The red-haired assassin had bought a copy of every major European, English, and American newspaper he could find. His versatility in languages was considerable, and for the few in which he wasn’t fluent he’d asked Icicle’s help.
“I knew we’d make the Italian papers,” Seth said. “Paris and London, I expected. Athens and West Berlin. But Madrid even picked it up. So did New York and Washington.”
Icicle didn’t bother hiding his mixture of boredom and disgust.
“I admit it isn’t front-page,” Seth said. “I didn’t expect it to be.”
The newspaper stories were basically similar. The body of an Italian underworld figure known as Medici had been discovered outside Rome, floating in the Tiber River. Medici, who reputedly had ties to international terrorist organizations, had been killed with what authorities suspected was a lethal drug overdose. The results of an autopsy were not yet available. Rome police theorized that Medici’s criminal associates had turned against him for reasons still to be determined.
As such, the story would not have had sufficient scope to merit being reported on an international scale. But investigators had raised the question of whether the discovery of Medici’s corpse was related to the much more sensational discovery of nine bodies in a villa outside Rome. Eight of the victims, all shot to death, had been identified as security personnel. The ninth victim, an Italian underworld figure known as Gatto, had been tortured prior to having his throat slit. Gatto, reputed to have ties with international terrorism, had recently retired from criminal activities for reasons of poor health. Reliable but unnamed sources alleged that Medici had taken Gatto’s place as a black-market arms dealer. The murders of both men caused authorities to speculate that a gang war was in progress, with obvious international implications.