The Sigma Protocol

  “They must be afraid their names will get out,” she said.

  “But which of them can be alive after all these years?”

  “There are also the inheritors. Powerful men can have powerful successors.”

  “And some who aren’t so powerful. There must be a weak link somewhere.” Ben broke off. “It’s madness, all of this. The idea that anyone would care about a corporation set up half a century ago—it just sounds insane!”

  Liesl laughed, bitterly, without mirth. “It’s all relative, isn’t it, this question of what makes sense and what does not? How much of your own well-ordered life makes sense any longer?”

  A week ago, he was spending his days in the “development” department of Hartman Capital Management, cultivating old clients and new prospects, flashing on his charm like high beams. It was no longer a world he could inhabit; so much of what he’d grown up knowing was a lie, part of a larger deception he could scarcely hope to penetrate. Cavanaugh was assigned to you, Peter had said. The Corporation—this Sigma group, whatever it was—seemed to have operatives everywhere. Was that why his mother had been so insistent that he return to the family firm after Peter’s death? Had she believed that he would be safer there, protected from dangers, from threats, from truths he could only begin to fathom?

  “Did Peter ever learn anything more about this Sigma Corporation? About whether it had an ongoing existence?”

  She pushed her hair back nervously, her bracelets jingling. “We learned very little that was concrete. So much remained conjecture. What we believe—believed—is that there are shadowy corporations and private fortunes that are devoted to erasing their origins. They’re ruthless, these firms, as are the men funded by these companies. They’re not troubled by such details as morality. Once they learned, somehow, that Peter had a paper that could reveal their involvement in Sigma, or that of their fathers—maybe expose these complicated corporate arrangements that were made during the war—once they learned this, they didn’t hesitate to kill him. They will not hesitate to kill you, or me. Or anyone else who threatens to expose them or stop them, or who simply knows too much about their existence. But Peter also came to believe that these individuals had gathered together for larger purposes. To… orchestrate matters in the world at large.”

  “But when Peter and I spoke, he merely speculated that some of the old board members were protecting their own fortunes.”

  “If he had had time, he would have told you more of his theories.”

  “Did he ever talk about our father?”

  She grimaced. “Only that he was a hypocrite and a world-class liar, that he was no Holocaust survivor. That he was actually a member of the SS.” She added sardonically: “Apart from that, of course, Peter loved him.”

  He wondered whether the irony didn’t conceal a kernel of truth. “Listen, Liesl, I need you to tell me how to get in touch with your cousin, the lawyer. Deschner—”

  “Matthias Deschner. But for what?”

  “You know why. To get the document.”

  “I said, for what?” She sounded bitter. “So you can be killed too?”

  “No, Liesl. I don’t plan to be killed.”

  “Then you must have some idea of why you must have this document that I can’t possibly think of.”

  “Maybe so. I want to expose the killers.”

  He braced himself for an angry barrage, but was surprised when she answered quietly, serenely: “You wish to avenge his death.”

  “Yes.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. Her mouth was contorted, twisted downward, as if to hold back another spell of weeping. “Yes,” she said. “If you’ll do it—if you’re careful—as careful as you were in coming here—nothing would make me happier. Expose them, Ben. Make them pay.” She pinched her nose between thumb and forefinger. “Now I must go home. I must say good-bye.”

  She seemed outwardly serene, but Ben could still detect the underlying fear. She was a strong and remarkable woman, a rock. I’ll do it for me and for you, too, he thought.

  “Good-bye, Liesl,” Ben said, kissing her on the cheek.

  “Good-bye, Ben,” Liesl said as he got out of the car. She looked at him for a long time. “Yes, make them pay.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Asunción, Paraguay

  The taxi from the airport was a rattling old Volkswagen Beetle, not as charming as it had first appeared. It seemed to have no muffler. They passed graceful Spanish colonial mansions before entering the traffic-choked downtown, tree-lined streets crowded with pedestrians, antique yellow trolley cars. There were more Mercedes-Benzes than she’d ever seen outside of Germany, many of them, she knew, stolen. Asunción seemed frozen in the 1940s. Time had passed it by.

  Her hotel downtown was a small, shabby place on Colón. Her guidebook had awarded it three stars. Evidently, the guidebook’s author had been paid off. The reception clerk warmed to her considerably when she began speaking to him in fluent Spanish.

  Her room had high ceilings and peeling walls, and, since its windows opened on to the street, was incredibly loud. At least she had a private bathroom. But if you wanted to keep a low profile, you didn’t stay where the gringos stayed.

  She drank an agua con gas from the “honor bar,” a minuscule refrigerator that barely cooled its contents, then called the number she’d been given for the Comisaria Centrico, the main police station.

  This was no official contact. Captain Luis Bolgorio was a homicide investigator for the Paraguayan policía who had sought the American government’s help by telephone on a few murder cases. Anna had obtained his name, outside channels, from a friend in the FBI. Bolgorio owed the U.S. government a few favors; that was the extent of his loyalty.

  “You are in luck, Miss Navarro,” Captain Bolgorio said when they spoke again. “The widow has agreed to see you, even though she’s in mourning.”

  “Wonderful.” They spoke in Spanish, the language of business; the everyday language here was Guaraní. “Thanks for your assistance.”

  “She’s a wealthy and important lady. I hope you’ll treat her with the greatest respect.”

  “Of course. The body…?”

  “This isn’t my department, but I’ll arrange for you to pay a visit to the police morgue.”

  “Excellent.”

  “The house is on the Avenida Mariscal López. Can you find your way there in a taxi, or do you need me to pick you up?”

  “I can get a taxi.”

  “Very well. I’ll have the records with me that you asked for. When shall we meet?”

  She arranged with the concierge for a cab, then spent the next hour reading through the file on the “victim”—though she had difficulty thinking of such a criminal as a victim.

  She knew that the manila file folder Alan Bartlett had provided her was probably all the information she was going to get. Captain Bolgorio was helping only because the occasional technological assistance he got from the U.S. government’s NCAV bolstered his own success here, made him look good. One hundred percent quid pro quo. Bolgorio had arranged to have Pros-peri’s body held in the morgue.

  According to Bartlett, Paraguay was notoriously uncooperative on extradition cases and had been a popular refuge for war criminals and other international fugitives for decades. Its odious and corrupt dictator, “President for life” General Alfredo Stroessner, had seen to it. There had been some hope for improvement after Stroessner was toppled in 1989. But no. Paraguay remained unreceptive to extradition requests.

  So it was an ideal place of residence for an aging villain like Marcel Prosperi. A Corsican by birth, Marcel Prosperi essentially ran Marseilles during and after World War II, controlling the heroin, prostitution, and weapons dealings there. Shortly after the war ended, as the ICU file detailed, he escaped to Italy, then Spain, and later Paraguay. Here, Prosperi set up the South American distribution network for heroin out of Marseilles—the so-called “French connection” responsible for putting snow-white Marseilles heroin o
n the streets of the United States, in collaboration with the American Mafia drug-kingpin Santo Trafficante, Jr., who controlled much of the heroin traffic into the U.S. Prosperi’s accomplices, Anna knew, included some of Paraguay’s highest officials. All of this meant that he was a very dangerous man, even after death.

  In Paraguay, Prosperi maintained a respectable front business—the ownership of a chain of automobile dealerships. For the last several years, however, he had been bedridden. Two days ago, he had died.

  As she dressed for her meeting with the widow Prosperi, Anna mulled over the details of the Prosperi and Mailhot cases. Whatever she found out from the widow, or from the autopsy, she was willing to bet that Marcel Prosperi didn’t die of natural causes, either.

  But whoever was murdering these men was resourceful, well connected, clever.

  The fact that each of the victims had been in Alan Bartlett’s Sigma files was significant, but what did it reveal? Were there others who had access to the names attached to those files—whether in the Justice Department, in the CIA, or in foreign countries? Had the list somehow been leaked?

  A theory was beginning to emerge. The killers—for there had to be more than one—were probably well financed and had access to good intelligence. If they weren’t acting on their own, then they’d been hired by someone with money and power—but with what motivation? And why now, why so suddenly?

  Once again, she was back to the question of the list—who exactly had seen it? Bartlett had spoken of an internal CIA audit, and of the decision to bring in the ICU itself. That suggested researchers, government officials. What about the Attorney General himself—had he seen it?

  And there still remained several salient questions. Why were the murders disguised as natural deaths? Why was it so important to keep the fact of the murders secret?

  And what about—

  The phone rang, yanking her out of her reverie. The taxi was here.

  She finished applying her makeup and went downstairs.

  The taxi, a silver Mercedes—probably stolen, too—hurtled through the crowded streets of Asunción with apparent disregard for the sanctity of human life. The driver, a handsome man in his late thirties with his olive complexion nicely set off by his white linen tropical-weight shirt, brown eyes, and close-shaven hair, glanced back at her periodically as if hoping for eye contact.

  She pointedly ignored him. The last thing she needed was some Latin Lothario taking an interest in her. She stared out the window at a street vendor selling fake Rolexes and Cartiers, holding up his goods for her as they stopped at a light. She shook her head. Another vendor, an old woman, was peddling herbs and roots.

  She hadn’t seen a single gringo face since she’d arrived here. Maybe that was to be expected. Asunción was not exactly Paris. A bus in front of them belched foul-smelling smoke. There was a burst of instrumental music.

  She noticed the traffic had thinned, the streets were wider, tree-lined. They were on the outskirts of town, it appeared. She had a city map in her handbag, but didn’t want to unfold it if it wasn’t necessary.

  She remembered Captain Bolgorio mentioning that Prosperi’s house was on Avenida Mariscal López, which was in the eastern sector on the way back to the airport. She had traveled down it on the way into town, the street with all the beautiful Spanish Colonial mansions.

  But the streets she saw out the window didn’t look at all familiar. She certainly hadn’t seen this part of town before.

  She looked up at the driver and said, “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t reply.

  She said, “Hey, listen to me,” as he pulled the car over to the shoulder of a quiet, untrafficked side road.

  Oh, Jesus.

  She didn’t have a weapon. Her pistol was locked in her drawer at the office. Her training in martial arts and self-defense would scarcely—

  The driver had turned around and was pointing a large black.38 at her.

  “Now we talk,” the man said. “You arrive at the airport from America. You wish to visit the estate of Señor Prosperi. Do you understand why some of us might find you interesting?”

  Anna focused on remaining calm. Her advantage would have to be psychological. The man’s one disadvantage was the limits of his knowledge. He did not know who she was. Or did he?

  “If you are a DEA whore, then I have one set of friends who would enjoy entertaining you…before your final, unexplained disappearance. And you won’t be the first. If you are an American político, I have other friends who will enjoy engaging you in, let us say, conversation.”

  Anna composed her features into a look of boredom mixed with contempt. “You keep speaking of ‘friends,’” she said, and then hissed in her fluent Spanish: “El muerto al hoyo y le vivo al bollo.” Dead men have no friends.

  “You do not wish to choose how you will die? It is the only choice most of us ever get.”

  “But you will have to choose first. El que mucho habla, mucho yerro. I feel sorry for you, taking on an errand and making such a botch of it. You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “If you’re smart, you’ll tell me.”

  She curled her lips in scorn. “That is the one thing I will not do.” She paused. “Pepito Salazar would not want me to.”

  The driver’s expression froze. “Salazar, you said?”

  Navarro had mentioned the name of one of the most powerful cocaine exporters of the region, a man whose trading enterprise outstripped even that of the Medellín kingpins.

  Now the man looked suspicious. “It is easy to invoke the name of a stranger.”

  “When I return to the Palaquinto this evening, it is your name I will be invoking,” Anna said provocatively. The Palaquinto was the name of Salazar’s mountain retreat, a name known only to the few. “I regret we were not formally introduced.”

  The man spoke with a tremor in his voice. To make trouble for a personal courier of Salazar was more than his life was worth. “I have heard stories of the Palaquinto, the faucets of gold, the fountains of champagne…”

  “That’s only for parties, and if I were you, I wouldn’t count on any invitations.” Her hand dipped into her small purse for her hotel keys.

  “You must forgive me,” the man said urgently. “My instructions came from people with incomplete knowledge. None of us would dream of dishonoring any member of Salazar’s entourage.”

  “Pepito knows that mistakes will be made.” Anna watched the.38 dangling loosely in his right hand, smiled at him encouragingly, and then, in a swift movement, dug her keys into his wrist. The jagged steel stabbed through flesh and fascia, and the gun dropped into Anna’s lap. As the man howled in agony, she scooped it up in one deft movement and placed the muzzle at the back of his head.

  “La mejor palabra es la que no se dice,” she said through gritted teeth. The best word is the one that is not said.

  She ordered the man out of the car, made him walk fifteen paces into the scrubby roadside vegetation, then got into his seat and roared off. She could not afford the time, she told herself, to replay the terrifying encounter; nor could she allow panic to seize her instincts and intellect. There was work to do.

  The house that had belonged to Marcel Prosperi was set back from the Avenida Mariscal López. It was an immense Spanish Colonial mansion surrounded by extravagantly landscaped property, and it reminded her of the old Spanish missions back home in California. Instead of a simple lawn, though, the expanse of land was terraced with rows of cacti and lush wild-flowers, protected by a high wrought-iron fence.

  She parked the silver Mercedes some distance down the road and walked toward the entrance, where a taxicab was idling. A short, potbellied man emerged from it and ambled toward her. He had the dark skin of a mestizo, a drooping black bandito mustache, black hair combed straight back with too much hair goo. His face gleamed with oil or perspiration, and he looked pleased with himself. His short-sleeved white shirt was translucent in places where sweat had soaked through, revealing
a mat of dark chest hair.

  Captain Bolgorio?

  Where was his police cruiser? she wondered as his cab drove away.

  He approached her, beaming, and enveloped her hand in his two large clammy ones.

  “Agent Navarro,” he said. “A great pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Come, Señora Prosperi is not used to being kept waiting. She is very rich and very powerful, Agent Navarro, and she is accustomed to getting her way. Let’s go right in.”

  Bolgorio rang a bell at the front gate and identified themselves. There was a buzz, and Bolgorio pushed the gate open.

  Anna noticed a gardener hunched over a row of wildflowers. An elderly female servant was walking down a path between ledges of cacti holding a tray of empty glasses and open bottles of agua gaseosa.

  “We’re all set to go to the morgue after this interview?” Anna said.

  “As I said, this is really not my department, Agent Navarro. A magnificent house, is it not?” They passed through an archway into cool shade. Bolgorio rang the doorbell at the side of an ornately carved blond wooden door.

  “But you can help arrange it?” Anna asked, just as the door opened. Bolgorio shrugged. A young woman in a servant’s uniform of white blouse and black skirt invited them in.

  Inside was even cooler, the floor tiled in terra-cotta. The servant led them to a large, open room that was sparely decorated with woven primitive rugs and earthenware lamps and pottery. Only the recessed lighting in the stucco ceiling seemed out of place.

  They sat on a long, low white sofa and waited. The maid offered them coffee or sparkling water, but both of them declined.

  Finally a woman appeared, tall and thin and graceful. The widow Prosperi. She looked around seventy but very well taken care of. She was dressed entirely in mourning black, but it was a designer dress: maybe Sonia Rykiel, Anna thought. She wore a black turban and outsized Jackie Onassis sunglasses.