League of Night and Fog Page 24

"Good faith?"

  "You have my word. I might have manipulated you, Romulus. But I never lied to you. Tell me something more."

  "The three men who wore the rings." Romulus hesitated. "The men I killed."

  "What about them?"

  "I think they were priests."

  BOOK FIVE

  IMPACT

  medusa

  Washington, DC. Though it was only 9:16 a. m. and the kosher restaurant had not yet opened its doors to the public, eight elderly men sat at a banquet table in a private room in the rear. The room was usually rented for Bar Mitzvah parties and wedding feasts, but the present occasion was not a celebration. Memories of death and despair pinched each face, though solemnity did not preclude grim satisfaction as each man raised a glass of wine and drank ceremoniously. To retribution. To vindication. Their first names were Abraham, Daniel, Ephraim, Joseph,

  Jacob, Moshe, Nathan, and Simon. Each man was in his late sixties or early seventies, and each had a number tattooed on a forearm. "Has everything been arranged?" Ephraim asked. He studied his comrades. They nodded. 'The mechanisms are in place," Nathan said. "All that remains is to set the final process in motion. A week from today will see the end of it"

  "Thank the Lord," Abraham said. "Yes, that justice will finally be achieved," Jacob said. "No, that our part in achieving justice will have been concluded," Abraham answered. "What we've done is distressing enough. But now we go farther."

  "What we do is necessary," Moshe objected. "After all these years, what good is served?"

  "It doesn't matter how much time has gone by. If justice had value back then, it must have value now," Simon insisted. "Or do you question the value of justice itself?"

  "Do you urge passivity and forgiveness?" Joseph asked. Abraham answered with force. "Passivity? Of course not. To be passive is to risk extinction." He paused. "But forgiveness is a virtue. And justice is sometimes merely a word used to hide the ugliness of revenge. God's chosen people must defend themselves, but do we remain His chosen people if we become obsessed by ignoble motives?"

  "If you don't approve of what we're doing, why don't you leave?" Jacob asked. "No," Joseph said. "Abraham is right to raise these issues. If we act without moral certainty, we do become ignoble."

  "I confess to hatred, yes," Ephraim said. "Even now, I can see the corpses of my parents, of my brothers and sister. What I want--what I crave--is to punish."

  "I have as much reason as you to hate," Abraham said. "But I resist the emotion. Only feelings that nourish have worth."

  "And we respect your opinion," Ephraim said. "But it's possible for each of us to do the same thing for different reasons. Let me ask you two simple questions." Abraham waited. "Do you believe that those who profited from our suffering should be allowed to retain those profits, to enjoy them?"

  "No. That isn't justice."

  "So I believe as well. Do you believe that the sins of the fathers should be allowed to be repeated by the children?"

  "No, evil must not be permitted to thrive. Weeds must be destroyed before they can reproduce."

  "But in this case, they have reproduced, and once again our people are threatened. We must act, don't you see that? Whether some of us do so for revenge doesn't matter. The end is what matters, and this end is good." The room became silent. "Are we all agreed?" Joseph asked. They nodded, Abraham reluctantly. "Then let us eat together,"

  Ephraim said. 'To symbolize our united resolve, the beginning of a too-long-postponed end."

  Mexico City. Aaron Rosenberg sat between two bodyguards in the backseat of his bulletproof Mercedes sedan, staring past the driver and the bodyguard in the front seat toward the Oldsmobile filled with more security personnel ahead of him. He turned to peer through the rear window toward the Chrysler van behind him filled with yet another team of guards. His imagination was tortured by images of what his wife and her bodyguard were probably doing with each other now that he'd left the house. At the same time, he dreaded whatever other threats the Night and Fog might leave at his home while he was gone. He'd tripled his security precautions, both at home and while away. He now refused to go anywhere unless his Mercedes was flanked front and back by protective vehicles. Nonetheless, he would never have left the house today if it hadn't been absolutely necessary, if he hadn't been summoned by one of the growing number of men he couldn't refuse. There's no question about it, Rosenberg thought. My life's out of my control. The caravan proceeded along the Paseo de la Reforma, maintaining a constant moderate speed, keeping a close formation Soon the group drove south, leaving the sweltering city, heading toward the cool air of the estates at Lake

  Chalco. The compound through which his Mercedes passed was familiar to him. The red died roof on the sprawling main house had been reconstructed at Rosenberg's expense. The large swimming pool in back, with its stunning view of the lake, had been Rosenberg's gift to the occupant. The many gardeners and servants no doubt received their salaries through the special bank account into which Rosenberg deposited a considerable sum the first of every month. The cost of doing business,

  Rosenberg thought, again reminded him of how much his life was out of control. Depressed, he stepped from the car and approached the house. A high-ranking member of Mexico City's police force stepped outside to greet him. His last name was Chavez. He wore sandals, shorts, and a bright red shirt open to his pudgy stomach. When he smiled, his pencil-thin mustache somehow maintained its straight horizontal line.

  "Senor Rosenberg, how good of you to come."

  "It's always a pleasure. Captain." Rosenberg followed the captain from the shadow of the house into the glaring sunshine beside the pool. He considered it significant that he hadn't been offered a drink and began to feel apprehensive. "Wait here, please,"

  the captain said. He went through a sliding glass door at the back of the house and returned with a slender packet. "I've received information of importance to you."

  "A problem of some sort?"

  "You tell the." The captain opened the packet and withdrew a large black-and-white photograph. He handed it to Rosenberg. Fear squeezed

  Rosenberg's heart. "I don't understand." He raised his eyes toward

  Chavez. "Why would you show me a photograph of a German soldier from

  World War Two?"

  "Not just a soldier, an officer. I'm told the rank... excuse my poor

  German accent... was Oberfuhrer, or senior colonel. He belonged to the

  Totenkopfverbande, the so-called Death's Head formation. You can see the silver medallion of a death's head on his military cap. You can also see the twin lightning bolts on the sleeve of his jacket--the symbol for the SS. The photograph is so detailed you can even see the unit's personal pledge to the Fuhrer on his belt buckle--'My loyalty is my honor" Note carefully in the background--the mounds of corpses. The

  Death's Head division was in charge of exterminating the Jews."

  "You don't need to tell me about the Holocaust." Rosenberg bristled.

  "Why are you showing me this photograph?"

  "You don't recognize the officer?"

  "Of course not. Why should I?"

  "Because he bears a striking resemblance to your father, whose photograph you gave me when you asked me to investigate his disappearance a few months ago."

  "That man is not my father."

  "Don't lie to me!" Chavez snapped. "I've compared the photographs in detail!

  Add facial wrinkles! Take away some hair! Add gray to the rest!

  Allow for minor reconstructive surgery! That man is your father!"

  "How could a Jew be an SS officer?"

  "Your father wasn't a Jew, and you're not either! Your real family name is Rodenbach! Your father's first name was Otto! Yours is Karl!"

  Chavez took documents from the packet.

  "That officer's picture appeared on SS identification records and on immigration forms when he came to Mexico. The face is the same, though the name is different. Government authorities will soon be to
ld who he really is! The United States authorities will also be told, and as both of us know, the United States bolsters its relations with Israel by pretending indignation toward Nazi war criminals!" Rosenberg couldn't move. "Who told you these things?"

  "You don't expect me to reveal my sources." Chavez spread his arms in a gesture of goodwill. "But I wonder, how much are you willing to pay for me to neutralize my informants, to assure the authorities there's been a mistake?"

  Rosenberg wanted to vomit. Blackmail never ended. It only bought time.

  But time was in limited supply. It would last only as long as his money did. He thought of the cargo in the ship headed toward the

  Mediterranean and what he assumed now was certain disaster. "How much do you want?" he asked. The glint in the captain's coal-black eyes didn't reassure him.

  St. Paul, Minnesota. William Miller feigned a polite smile of greeting as he crossed the cocktail lounge and approached the man in the left rear booth. On the phone, the man had said his name was Sloane. He was with the Associated Press, he claimed, and wanted to talk about Miller's father. Now Sloane imitated Miller's smile of greeting, stood, and extended his hand. They surveyed each other.

  "Somebody sent you what?" Sloane asked. "On the phone, you said something about filth."

  "You're really a reporter?"

  "Cross my heart."

  "Shit." Miller swallowed, disgusted at himself. "I'm sorry I lost my temper when you called. I thought for sure..."

  "That's why we're here. To talk about it." Sloane gestured toward the booth. They sat across from each other. Sloane was in his midthirties, short, heavy-chested, with dark thin hair and intelligent eyes. "What do you mean by filth?" he asked. "Photographs."

  "Of?"

  "Nazi concentration camps. Corpses. Ashes." Miller massaged his forehead. "God. My father disappeared. Then somebody painted a death's head on the bottom of my swimming pool."

  "Death's head?"

  "Now you show up..."

  "And you assumed..."

  "Well, wouldn't you assume? My wife doesn't know about the photographs."

  "Slow down," Sloane said. "What you're telling me connects with what I came for. I'll give you my side, and we'll see what we come up with."

  "Credentials."

  "What?"

  "You're an AP reporter. Prove it." Sloane sighed and pulled out his press card. "Anybody can have a card printed up," Miller said. "There's a phone number. The AP central office."

  "And anybody can hire a voice to claim he's in the AP office."

  "Right. And I bet you've got all kinds of fascinating theories about the JFK assassination. The UN's controlled by drug dealers. Satan's responsible for heavy-metal rock." Reluctantly, Miller laughed.

  "Good," Sloane said. "As long as you can laugh at yourself, you're in control."

  "Sometimes I wonder. You said you wanted to talk about my father. Why?"

  "I have contacts in the Justice Department. It's what you might call a symbiotic relationship. I do them a favor, write stories that bolster their public image. They do me a favor, let me know when they're working on something I can use."

  "I still don't understand. What does the Justice Department have to do with my father?"

  "Someone sent them documents that made them decide to investigate him."

  Miller clutched his drink so hard he feared the glass would break. "This gets more and more insane."

  "And since your father disappeared--"

  "You already knew that?"

  "I figured the only other person to talk to was you."

  "Okay," Miller said wearily. "Give it to me all at once. Worst case.

  Bottom line."

  "Your father's name is Frank Miller. The theory is, he's really Franz

  Muller, a German officer in World War Two. He's supposed to have been an

  Obersturmbannfrihrer." Sloane spoke the German haltingly. "In English, that means lieutenant-colonel. During World War Two, Franz Muller commanded a unit in an SS formation known as Einsatzgruppen. They were a special military task force that followed regular Nazi soldiers into newly invaded German territory--Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia, for example--where they executed every Jew they could find, shot them where they stood or herded them into pits to make it easy to bury them after the firing squad was finished. Their body count in Russia alone was a half million."

  "And you're telling me the Justice Department suspects my father was part of that insanity? A Nazi mass murderer?"

  "They more than suspect. They're convinced of it. They claim they've got proof. And they think your father disappeared because he'd been warned about their investigation. As far as they're concerned, your father ran from them. Are you all right? You just turned pale."

  "My whole fucking world's falling apart, and you ask me if I'm all right? Jesus, I... Look, somebody has to stop this craziness. Just because my father's name is similar to Franz Muller..."

  "No, there's more than that. The Justice Department wouldn't base an investigation on something that tenuous. Your father emigrated here from

  Germany. You knew that?"

  "Sure. After the war. A lot of Germans did. There wasn't anything illegal about it."

  "But did you also know he changed his name?" A muscle twitched in

  Miller's cheek. "My God, you did know," Sloane realized. "Let me explain. I knew. But not the specifics. All he told me was he'd

  Americanized his name to avoid anti-German feelings here after the war."

  "Did he tell you he'd been a German soldier?"

  "I don't have to listen to this crap." Miller stood. Sloane reached out, careful not to touch him. 'Tor sure you'll have to listen when an investigator from the Justice Department comes around. If I were you,

  I'd think of this as a dress rehearsal, and while I was at it, I'd think about this. It would do your family a lot of good to be treated sympathetically by the press." Miller hesitated. "Sympathetically?"

  "The past comes back to haunt a family that didn't even know about the past. I can build an effective human interest story out of that A story in your favour. Assuming, of course, that you're telling the troth about your father."

  "I meant what I said." Miller sat down. "I can't believe anybody would accuse my father of--"

  "Accusing him's one thing. Whether you knew anything about his past is another. You truly believe he's innocent?"

  "Damn it, yes!"

  "Then answer my questions. Did he tell you he'd been a German soldier?"

  Miller thought about it

  "Sometimes, as he got older, he talked about the war. He said, toward the end every male he knew, even kids, had been conscripted. Despite his inexperience, he was made a sergeant and ordered to defend a bridge. When the Allies invaded, he hid till the worst was over and then surrendered."

  "You didn't think it strange that a German soldier was allowed to come to America? That was hardly standard procedure."

  "He explained about that too. German soldiers were placed in POW camps.

  The Allies didn't exactly take kindly to them, and none of the German soldiers knew how long the imprisonment would last So the trick was, before the Allies picked you up, you had to find a civilian corpse and exchange domes and identity papers with it. My father managed to get himself placed in a refugee camp, not a POW camp. He lived there for more than a year before some administrator paid attention to his repeated applications and allowed him to emigrate to America. If what you've told me is true, it sounds like it was my father's bad luck that the dead civilian whose papers he exchanged with his own was named Franz

  Muller. I mean, Franz Muller's a common German name. There must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of Franz Mullers. But only one of them was this SS hit-squad leader." Sloane drew his finger through a circle of moisture his glass had made. "The Justice Department has photographs of the SS officer we're talking about. It also has a photograph from your father's immigration file. The face is the same.

 
; Why did he disappear?"

  "I don't know! Christ, he's seventy-three years old. Where would he run? The Justice Department's absolutely wrong about him!"

  "Good. You stick with that attitude, and when the Justice Department decides to go public, you can count on a story that makes you look sympathetic. Even if the Justice Department proves its case, you'll still be presented as an innocent bystander, a loving but misinformed son. On the other hand--I warn you--if you've held back, if you're lying, I'll turn the story around. You and your family will be part of the conspiracy."

  "I haven't lied."