The Bleiberg Project (Consortium Thriller) (9 page)

Yad Vashem Memorial, Jerusalem, six months earlier.

T
he greenery reached up to
embrace the clear blue cloudless sky. The contrast was more striking than ever. The wood and steel cattle car on a stretch of rusty track clashed with, no, insulted its location—a mechanical ode to man’s folly, its horror echoing into infinity. The trees’ shadows played cat-and-mouse on the rocky ground scattered with thousands of needles, spilled like so many tears by the garden’s conifers. The bolder branches brushed the steel. The chill of winter was gradually giving way to the warm herald of spring. Birdsong wafted on a welcome breeze.

The agent didn’t know the names of the trees. Sadness overwhelmed him. By what irony could he name the most insignificant component of a gun and be so ignorant of the natural habitat that had protected him so long? It was the price he had to pay for absolute devotion to his mission.

Pulling his knees up under his chin, gazing at the single car that symbolized so many more, giant Eytan was reminded of his insignificance. By his actions, however, he contributed to keeping the memory alive. Knowing and so never forgetting. Understanding and so never repeating. The Garden of the Righteous made him strong, consoled him when his task seemed insurmountable. Nobody could bring back the victims, but he had the power to punish their persecutors. For many years, he had hunted down and eliminated the scum. Like it or not, in more than one respect, Eytan Morg belonged to history. It gave his tragedy meaning. It had to have meaning. For the sake of those who died. For the sake of generations to come.

Deutsche Reichsbahn, München, 11689.
A cattle car. How many terrified humans had been packed into the death trains? The number wasn’t enough to grasp the agony. You had to feel it, experience the pressure of the tangled, crumpled bodies, hear the children sobbing, crushed against the legs of incredulous adults. In terror, the air fled, escaping toward a freedom those wretches would never know again.

The odious vehicle loomed over a cliff, pointing toward the precipice. Eytan knew pain and drew from it the remorseless strength to go on. Giving up would be like killing the martyrs of the Jewish nation and all the other victims of the holocaust a second time. How he hated himself for not being able to cry.

The husky voice of a chain smoker jerked him out of his reverie. “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Grave and deep, the words seem to rise from the soil. The man approached and stood behind the seated giant, who replied, without taking his eyes off the car, “Churchill knew and understood everything. I sometimes think he must have been seeing the world from the sky to have so much perspective.”

“He saw it through the bottom of a glass. How are you, my friend?” The agent rose, dusting off his combat pants. He peered at the old man for signs of fresh wrinkles on his rugged face. At every one of their rare meetings, the passing of time seemed etched deeper in his features. Aged sixty-five, the scholar looked eighty. But under his bushy white eyebrows, his small blue eyes were as alert and piercing as those of any curious child.

“Fine. As always,” said Eytan. “And you, Eli?”

“Better. As long as the doctors stay away from me. If you listen to them, I’m already dead. But old branches are the toughest, aren’t they, my friend?”

“Don’t I know it!”

Eli reached out and grasped Eytan’s shoulder. Physical contact with the giant was the privilege of the keeper of Mossad’s archives. “How did your mission in Iceland go?”

“Kurt Wetenhauser won’t need dialysis three times a week anymore,” Eytan replied tersely. Eli Karman dug into the pocket of his black pants and drew out a pack of cigarillos. Eytan clucked in disapproval. Grinning, his friend made a show of lighting it and gently exhaling a long blast of smoke. “Physical intervention, Agent Morg?”

“Violence has no place in the Garden of the Righteous. Nor has smoking.” Eli’s smile faded. “Why do we always meet here, Eytan? Why do you have to torture me?”

“I like it here. I am myself here. Whole. Like nowhere else on earth. I remember who I am.”

“I understand. So, Wetenhauser, one of the butchers of Dachau, is no more. Pity we couldn’t bring him to trial.”

“He gave me no choice.” Eytan threw a pebble and watched it skitter down the arid slope, bouncing off the rocks.

“Naturally. They all fear a trial more than death. Their logic will always be a mystery to me.”

“They’re monsters, Eli. We can never understand them.”

“Don’t fall into that trap, Eytan. The butchers are human beings, no more, no less. Seeing them as anything else would amount to ducking our responsibility as a species. That’s why we prefer to take them alive. In order to expose their true, horrific nature. Ours.”

“You haven’t rubbed shoulders with them as I have. You’re right, I know that. But being convinced they’re monsters stops me slipping into fatalism with no way back. I want to believe in goodness. I’ve known it. It saved me. Allow me to believe it’s anchored in the human soul. Allow me to hope that evil is the exception.”

Eli Karman took a deep breath. He motioned toward the trees. “The Garden of the Righteous testifies to that. But I didn’t come here for a philosophical debate, Eytan. I fear that your services are required once more.”

“What’s it about this time?”

“One of our agents in London was contacted by the Brits over some kind of archive trafficking at MI6. In recent months, a mysterious buyer has been acquiring confidential documents on contacts between the British secret service and the
Abwehr
, German military intelligence. Apparently, the officer in charge of the World War II files, which are of little interest to the British government now, has a bank account in Luxemburg. Large sums have been wired to it. As soon as Mossad has identified the source of the funds, you will go to meet the buyer to learn his motives. You will use all means necessary.”

“If you thought he was a collector, you wouldn’t ask me to intervene. Somebody high up thinks this is serious, right, Eli?” Eytan had known Karman too long. He could interpret every twitch of the old man’s features. He’d never seen his superior look so horribly ill at ease.

“Certain documents concern secret SS operations at Stutthof camp. Does that ring a bell?” Over half a century since the fall of the Third Reich, the world had begun a new millennium, and yet history continued to repeat itself with a morbid stammer. Eytan looked down and spat out a sad laugh. So much suffering, so many wounds, only to see the ghosts of the past hold on and resurface. He clenched his jaw and then his fists. How could anyone keep their faith in humanity?

B
uffy’s climbing the walls. I
suppose crossing the Atlantic and escaping at least two killers—I have no idea how many were in the car that went boom—all for some accounting spreadsheets could cause some frustration.

“Crap, damn and shit!” Exasperation even.

“One hundred and twenty pages of incomprehensible figures. I don’t believe it! We risked our lives for some stupid numbers and a crappy box. What the hell am I going tell Bernard? I have to call him in ten minutes.”

She flops angrily on the bed, head in hands. That’s the third time in an hour.

Pissed off, she scares me. Sprawled on the bed, she turns me on. I don’t know why, but she does. Even so, I share her frustration. Traveling thousands of miles—not to mention fighting off all those attackers—for reams of cryptic figures leaves a sour taste. Looks like we’re headed home to hand all this over to the CIA’s number crunchers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation drags on for months. In a word, we’re screwed.

Meanwhile, my mother’s murderer is still on the loose. I can’t bring myself to believe my dad brought us over here as some kind of sick joke. There’s only one cynic in the family, and that’s me. The documents lie in a pile on the bed, next to my cute little blonde. I lean over, pick them up and flick through them. Jackie’s hot, but she’s no auditor.

Slumped on the couch, pen in hand, I go through one page after another for five minutes.

The crybaby deigns to tune back into the world. “I have to call Bernard. What are you doing?”

“Reading. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Forget it. We’ll ask Bernard to get some experts to take a look at them.”

Silly girl. “Actually, this is my specialty.”

“What?”

“Account analysis. That’s what I do. But to study these figures, I need some silence. If you could hit the mute button, you’d do us all a favor.”

She gets up, brushes the hair off her face and comes over. “This jumble of numbers makes sense to you?”

She’s trying my patience. “I’m a trader. I made a fortune making sense of jumbles of numbers, as you put it. Weapons and hand-to-hand combat are your line of work. Transactions and profit and loss are mine. Capone went to Sing Sing for tax evasion, remember. Guns don’t solve everything.”

She perks up and sits cross-legged on the bed, looking at me with a big grin. “Well, what have you found?”

“For now,” I sigh, “major transfers of funds between bank accounts in Virginia, California and D.C. Tens of thousands of dollars every time. At least thirty recipients. The cash comes from several sources in Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Japan. From early this year through late June, so the last ones are pretty recent. I’ll jot down the names of the recipients.”

“I’ll text Bernard to ask for a little more time.”

I nod. A good idea, at last. “A lot more time. We have another problem. After the transfers of funds, there’s a complete balance sheet for the first half of 2010. Companies buying up colossal amounts of chemicals. The names mean nothing to me, but we should be able to track them down online.”

“How colossal?”

“Hundreds of millions of units over a six-month period. If those kinds of volumes were normal, I think we’d know…You idiot, Jay! You total idiot!”

“Jeremy, hello…”

“Yes. Sorry, Jackie. What a prick I am!”

“You didn’t know?”

“Thanks, pumpkin.” Jackie’s cheeks flush. She coos like a high school student who just got an A.

“The chemicals. I know why the quantities are so huge.”

“How come, Mr. Smartypants?”

“Simple. I bought a ton of stock in pharmaceutical firms earlier this year. They were receiving gigantic orders and needed investment capital fast. Their stock price hasn’t stopped rising since. So I know who’s selling. And finding out who’s buying will take one phone call. We have our lead. But why was my father so interested in these companies? And what’s it got to do with the swastika on the key? Which opens what, by the way? It’s hard to see where all this goes. I have another fifty pages to go through. In a couple hours, when I’m done, I’ll make my calls.”

Jackie lets out a low whistle. Admiration tinged with mockery. I don’t care, I’m the best.

“Bernard told me you were good at what you do. I’m impressed. You have two hours to get the juice, and then we call him up. Get to work, sweet cheeks.”

I’ve got my hands on a loose thread. Will I be able to unravel the entire cloth?

T
he sounds coming through his
headphones amused Eytan. Dean’s baby spy was very entertaining, and Jeremy was showing talent. They were clearly caught up in this as victims, not criminals. The baddies hadn’t been very efficient so far. But that wouldn’t last. The closer they got to the truth, the bigger the obstacles and the more acute the danger would become. Eytan knew this from long experience, and this mission wouldn’t be an exception to the rule.

The suction cup microphone on the wall between the two rooms relayed the tiniest ruffling of papers with astonishing clarity. Digital technology had revolutionized not only mass culture, but also the espionage trade. In fact, most mainstream hardware started out as a military application. Eytan always had the latest hi-tech gadgetry well before Joe Public had even heard of it.

He made the most of a momentary silence to try to fit what he had learned with the information already at his disposal. The puzzle began to take shape. It all made sense. But how? By what aberration were echoes of a painful past, an indelible scar on the whole of humanity, resonating in the present, seventy years later?

Eytan removed his headset, got up and pulled on a khaki shirt. He pulled the tight sleeves down over his repulsive forearms. He trudged into the bathroom and leaned forward to inspect his reflection in the mirror. Freshly shaven, the color of his facial hair remained totally undetectable. His smooth complexion and perfectly symmetrical features were those of a thirty-year-old. For several long minutes, he gazed at himself with growing nausea.

He felt his phone vibrating in one of his pants pockets. Grabbing it, he read the message he had been hoping for since speaking to Eli ten minutes earlier.
New data on server. Read and acknowledge. Permission to continue with phase two. End of message.

The fun was just beginning.

“Jeremy, not only
is Bernard going to be going ballistic, but we’ll never get on a flight tonight if you don’t wrap this up in five minutes.”

I take a last series of notes. Hang up. Three calls for all that information. Good value. “OK, Jackie. I’ve got all I need. It’s absolutely wacko.”

“Talk.” She sits down next to me.

“Here goes. In January, several pharmaceutical companies placed orders for millions of units of products needed to make vaccines—basically, diluents, stimulants and additives. My father’s figures alone detail transactions involving five hundred million units.”

“That sounds enormous.”

“Not if you take into account the population of developed countries. Until now, it never struck me as crazy. Not anomalous, at least. I called some guys I know in the city, guys I work with every day. The accounts of the major labs’ suppliers are going through the roof. They spread orders across different companies and periods to keep it from drawing attention. If you add the volumes ordered in the last six months to the figures for January, you hit two billion doses. Now that is crazy.”

“Crazy a lot?”

“Crazy staggering, Jackie. Especially since no health scare has necessitated the mass production of vaccines since the start of the year.”

“Wrong.”

The deep voice comes from the doorway. Like two synchronized swimmers, Buffy and I spin around. I knew it. I don’t know why, but I knew it. Baldy stands there, hands in pockets. Wearing the same duds as when we met in New York. Jackie draws and points her gun at him. “Freeze! Not very smart, showing up unarmed. Especially a pro like you.”

There’s a mocking, vengeful edge to her voice. The guy seems to rub everyone the wrong way. Even so, the threat doesn’t seem to worry him. In fact, he smiles.

“Hands up!” Jackie orders. His hands slip out of his pockets and rise toward the ceiling. That twinkle in his eye isn’t a good sign. On the mark again! He unfolds his massive fingers. They’re gripping a grenade. If Jackie fires, we all blow.

“I’m here to talk, not to pick a fight. Put your gun down. I don’t mean you any harm.” Jackie glances at me. Waits for my approval. I’m no secret agent or bodyguard. If the guy wanted to kill us, he would already have done so. With his wrong hand, too, for all I know.

I nod. Jackie lowers her gun hesitantly. The big clown has an annoyingly smug grin on his face. He slips the grenade back into his pocket. Morg—as Jackie called him on the phone with Bernard—ambles across the room and takes a seat on the couch, legs crossed, arms outspread.

“I was listening to you from next door. Good work, Jeremy. If you get bored with finance one day, I can get you a job with Mossad, no problem.”

“Why not? As long as the salary isn’t paid in knuckle sandwiches.”

Jackie glances at me from the corner of her eye and frowns. I love that pretty face.

The Jolly Green Giant seems to have a better sense of humor. “I wasn’t supposed to run into you. Just protect you. That’s why I decked you. Sorry.” He should be. My nose will remember our meeting for a long time.

Jackie chimes in. “Why did you say ‘Wrong’ when Jay said there had been no health scares?”

Morg takes his arms off the back of the couch and leans toward us. “Don’t you read the newspapers?”