Ring of Lies

by Roni Dunevich

  “No!” Sammy shouted. “The chopper’s roof is too low!”

  Assessing the width of the opening and mouthing a prayer, she raced in. Something shattered. She braked. The ambulance skidded to a stop. Shards of red plastic fell from the roof. The headlights lit up the interior of the chopper, revealing several masked figures. Two of them quickly secured the ambulance to the floor as the four shooters ran back inside. The engine roared louder immediately and the chopper detached itself heavily from the ground, leaned forward, and rose into the night. The ramp whooshed closed.

  The lights of As-Suwayda twinkled on the left.

  A field hospital had been set up in the front of the chopper. A medical team rolled the gurney out of the ambulance, and she was right beside them. Gerard’s face was white. They set to work at once.

  As she climbed out of the ambulance, all eyes were on her. Someone held out a canteen of water, but she waved it aside, hurrying after the doctors. She touched Gerard’s cold face. His eyes were shut. “Don’t die . . .” she whispered. “Please don’t die . . .”

  Behind a clear plastic curtain, a surgeon held a stethoscope to Gerard’s chest and listened intently before grabbing the paddles of a defibrillator.

  The Frenchman’s body jerked.

  They tried again.

  She burst into tears.

  DIARY

  9 AUGUST 1961

  My hair is once again acrid with smoke. The deputy commandant has had a nervous breakdown. I sit at his bedside at the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu in Île de la Cité.

  You will not break, Roger, he whispered to me today when he awakened for a moment. I will give you money again.

  I told him that I read in the newspaper that a Syrian tourist has been arrested on suspicion of having committed the crime.

  His breath caught. Do you know who lives in Syria now? he asked.

  I did not.

  The commandant.

  The room spun around me.

  I remember a nurse and a glass syringe.

  You are suffering, sir, the doctor whispered to me. We can help.

  Not me, I replied. I am lost.

  10 AUGUST 1961

  Old wounds reopened. The fire department ruled that it was arson. The Syrian tourist confessed that he set fire to the café at 5:15 in the morning.

  Less than three hours before the opening. There had been hope in my heart.

  The smell of smoke and damp earth. My fresh grave.

  GRUNEWALD, BERLIN | 23:54

  Exodus called.

  “Remember the deposit of one million, two hundred thousand euros we found?” The tension in her voice was tangible.

  “Dopo Domani Holdings. I remember,” Alex said.

  “We traced the owner. Are you sitting down?”

  What more did this night have in store for him? “Who is it?”

  “Someone you know, Alex. Someone we all know.”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Reuven.”

  “What!? Reuven?! Are you sure?”

  “A hundred percent.”

  Alex paced the kitchen, his mind in turmoil.

  “Could it have something to do with the funding of the Ring?”

  “Financially speaking, the Ring is totally autonomous. It has no links to Mossad whatsoever. It’s funded directly by donations from Jewish communities in North America. If they needed more money, Erlichmann reached into his own pocket. We’ve found quite a lot of transactions like that.”

  “When was the deposit made?”

  “Eighteen days ago.”

  “What could it be?”

  “Only a bribe, Alex. That’s what bribes look like.”

  GRUNEWALD, BERLIN | 23:59

  Ever since the beginning of the crisis, there had been something fishy about Reuven’s behavior. He’d put a spoke in every wheel; he’d lied and sabotaged their efforts—and failed them.

  He’d even messed with Alex’s personal life by making the call to Daniella.

  Reuven was garbage. Reuven was a piece of shit. But Reuven wasn’t a traitor. There was a difference.

  He was about to be brought down—an earthquake—but strangely, Alex didn’t have any feeling of schadenfreude, nor pity for the man. Mostly, he was disappointed. Reuven was dirty, and he wasn’t a mere union rep in a factory in a forgotten town.

  Alex felt sick to his stomach. The time had come to bring the ax down on Reuven, but he didn’t intend to stoop to his level. Exodus had him pegged. If the tables were turned, Reuven would never give him the benefit of the doubt, but Alex felt that he had to hear his side of the story first.

  Reuven picked up on the third ring. “I was just about to call you,” he said.

  “Were you?”

  Reuven remained silent.

  “We know that you took money from Justus Erlichmann, Reuven. One million, two hundred thousand euros deposited in the account of Dopo Domani Holdings. You’re the sole owner.”

  “Alex?”

  “Go to the prime minister and submit your resignation.”

  “Is this some kind of sick joke? Are you bored?”

  “What was the money for?”

  “That’s enough, Alex. It’s not funny anymore!”

  “I don’t have time to play games, Reuven. Resign now, or I’ll contact the PM myself.”

  “What do you mean, resign?”

  Glass striking glass. A bottle being opened. A gulp.

  “Reuven, it’s over.”

  “You don’t decide what’s over and what’s not over!”

  “You took a bribe.”

  “Why would Justus Erlichmann give me a million euros?”

  “One million, two hundred thousand. This is your last chance, Reuven. I have to deal with Schlaff.”

  “Justus passed his last polygraph. If he gave me anything, Drucker would know, wouldn’t he?”

  “When did you start believing in polygraphs? All they’re good for is putting the fear of God in junior agents. Squeeze your ass at the right time, and the fucking machine is blind.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Resign now, and the press might never discover the real reason. You’ll still have a future.”

  If Reuven went straight to the prime minister, things would take their course. The PM would call security, and the head of Mossad would not be allowed to return to his office. He’d be put under house arrest and stripped of his rights, he would be barred from leaving the country, and he would undergo interrogation. That seemed like enough for the time being.

  “You can’t stomach the thought that I’m Daniella’s real father,” Reuven said.

  “Reuven, the only person who can’t stomach that thought is Daniella.”

  DIARY

  4 JULY 1967

  I placed my hand on Arianne’s hard, round belly. I felt the heartbeat of my child, his young heart lusting for life. I am fifty-six today, the age my father was when he died of heart disease.

  Please, let me live long enough.

  13 JULY 1967

  The doctors say that my heart is functioning at 40 percent capacity. My breathing is labored, and simple tasks tire me out. Six years have passed since the café burned down for the second time, right before it was supposed to open. I am sated with disappointment and tragedy and pain. I do not have the strength to try again.

  8 AUGUST 1967

  I am the happiest man in the world. Our son was born this morning. A green bud in the black, smoking embers.

  My Arianne is young and healthy. She will be his anchor in the world. Please, God, watch over her.

  Arianne, my love, how were you able to pull me out of the grave?

  16 AUGUST 1967

  My comrades from the Resistance came to the circumcision ceremony in the synagogue. The deputy commandant and his wife arrived from Berlin and brought their son. The boy is ten. During the ceremony he never laughed or played or made any noise; he simply watched as if hypnotized by Gerard, the baby.

  I held my son in my arms,
and tears wet my prayer shawl.

  You were there with me, my scorched roots.

  GRUNEWALD, BERLIN | 00:26

  Once again the image of the machine gunner in Leipzig tried to rise from the dead.

  His first order of business was to confront Oskar Schlaff face-to-face. Soon he would go to the cellar of the modern-day Nazi. Soon he would go there and rip out his heart.

  Alex oiled the Glock and wiped it down with a kitchen towel. Then he checked the chamber. It was empty. He snapped a full magazine in place and cocked the gun.

  His phone vibrated.

  Reuven said falteringly, “Do I have your word?”

  “About what?”

  “The press.”

  A deep swallow.

  “Are you going to the prime minister now?”

  “I’m counting on you,” Reuven said, his voice choked.

  The call was disconnected.

  Text message from HQ in Glilot: Gerard’s condition critical but stable.

  Oh God!

  He slipped the Glock into his jacket pocket. Its heaviness was reassuring.

  He went up to the workroom and selected several tools. Coming downstairs for the last time, he switched off the lights in Justus Erlichmann’s home and left. As he trod through the snow on the street, he turned and took a final look at the house, knowing that he would never be back.

  He drove south toward Wannsee, the dark forest emerging from between the fancy houses.

  On Am Grossen Wannsee, the street leading to the grill house, he suddenly shuddered. Just down the road was the villa where Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and their cohorts had plotted the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

  Here, on January 20, 1942, the Holocaust was born.

  The curling neon letters of SCHLAFF were reflected on the ice that covered the parking lot. Alex parked the Mercedes behind a row of trees and watched the restaurant complex from a distance. The single-story structure aboveground was about a quarter of the area of the cellar. It was painted a mustard yellow. There were eleven cars in the lot. The elegant curves of a white Porsche Carrera stood out among the other vehicles.

  An older couple came out, the wife supporting her husband’s weight. His legs were like jelly. The woman burst into raucous laughter. The man slipped on the ice, losing his balance and nearly falling from her arms. They stumbled into a car and left.

  One down.

  Butthead called. “Do you have time for a quick profile?”

  “Let’s hear it,” he whispered.

  “Oskar Schlaff was born in 1957 under the name Fritz Jungbluth. His mother was Alois Brunner’s sister. His father left when he was a year old. His mother died of cancer when Fritz was five. He was sent to an orphanage in Munich and thrown out before the age of ten. Reason unknown. He was transferred to a home for orphans and juvenile offenders in Nuremberg.”

  Alex cracked the window.

  “At fourteen, he was gang-raped by six boys. Two weeks later, the body of the gang leader was found in the showers. He’d been strangled by a steel cable.”

  Alex took a deep breath.

  “Listen to this, Alex: the other five all vanished and have never been found. Schlaff was questioned repeatedly by the police, but they were never able to tie him to their disappearances.”

  Chills ran up and down his spine.

  “In 1975, on the day he turned eighteen, he officially changed his name to Oskar Schlaff. He had a number of short-lived jobs before he opened the restaurant in ’79. He expanded it in ’86 and then renovated it to look like it does now in 2005. It does very well.

  “Schlaff also owns three pig farms. Their website says they mix special herbs into the feed to give the meat a flavor uniquely suited to the European palate. He operates a huge slaughterhouse about forty miles north of Berlin, and he’s now negotiating a contract to market his pork outside Germany. He has a fleet of twenty-six trucks of different sizes.”

  Alex hit the steering wheel.

  “He’s about to go public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. A leading Berlin law firm is preparing the company prospectus for an IPO. He has a line of credit of around three million euros from a number of banks for business development. All his enterprises are profitable and financially stable.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m just getting started. In the early years, his restaurant was patronized by Americans working at the NSA listening station on Teufelsberg. They stopped coming when Schlaff was caught recording their conversations. Later he was suspected of subversive activity for the far right and for neo-Nazis. He took part in right-wing demonstrations in the late ’70s and was picked up three times, first by the police and then by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The last time he was arrested was in 1981. His record is clean after that. It’s possible he became an informant. Mud Man could be his code name.

  “Schlaff was also suspected of working for the Stasi right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1993 they uncovered a tunnel leading from East Berlin—near Checkpoint Bravo on the Glienicke Bridge—to the west. It came out in a pigsty Schlaff owned. According to records in the Stasi archives, his restaurant was the staging area for quite a few assassination attempts.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Alex croaked. Afraid he was about to puke, he breathed in and out deeply.

  “Okay, go on.”

  “For the past thirteen years, he’s been flying to Damascus once a month. But in the last six weeks, he was there five times.”

  “Is there much more?”

  “Seven pages.”

  “I’ll get back to you later.”

  “Finish him off, Alex. He smells like an informant for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution; that means he’s got immunity. The piece of garbage could walk away from this without a scratch.”

  DIARY

  17 AUGUST 1967

  Yesterday, during the ceremony at the synagogue, the deputy commandant placed a hand on my shoulder. I am creating a secret Zionist organization, he said. Give me your son, your only son.

  Gerard is a baby, only eight days old, I replied.

  So we will wait, he said.

  What will this secret organization do? I asked.

  It will make sure that it doesn’t happen again, he replied.

  Gerard is yours, I said.

  22 JULY 1970

  My days are numbered. I lie in bed in the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu. The deputy commandant does not leave my bedside. Arianne comes with our Gerard. He will be three soon. He kissed me on the lips.

  Papa is crying, he said.

  7 AUGUST 1970

  Gerard is enchanting, small but strong. Tomorrow is his third birthday. He gets his beauty from my Arianne, and the space between his teeth from me. I hope that when he grows up, he will rebuild the Café Trezeguet, construct a proofing cabinet, and create a starter dough. I hope that he will once again fill the air with the scent of yeast.

  WANNSEE, BERLIN | 00:59

  A sudden gust of icy wind. Leafless branches swayed wildly. The air was charged with electricity. A bolt of lightning cut through the black sky, blinding him and lighting up the parking lot. A waitress in a white apron locked the front door of the restaurant from inside, turned off the neon sign and the lights on the first floor, and then disappeared down the stairs.

  Moonlight shone on Wannsee’s large lake. Cracking chunks of ice floated on the surface like sleeping animals. The narrow bank was crowded with boats wrapped in protective tarps. Mounds of dirty snow were piled up alongside the footpaths and roads.

  Hunched down in the backseat of the Mercedes, Alex kept his eyes on the restaurant. The staff had finished their shifts and were exiting through a back door, puffing on cigarettes; the wind swallowed up the smoke. The last five cars pulled out together.

  Only the white Porsche remained.

  Alex called Butthead. “Block cell transmissions around the restaurant and cut off the landlines.”

  “F
or how long?”

  “Just do it.”

  Alex got out of the car and listened to the night. The strong wind roared and a loose sheet of metal banged against a wall. There was a hum in the air as the storm gathered force. He pulled his jacket tighter, made his way to the restaurant, and began searching. On the other side of the door, everything seemed dark and lifeless.

  He didn’t see any sign of an alarm system or security cameras. The stairs going down to the back entrance and the kitchen were slippery with ice. The door was locked. He climbed back up and stopped next to a windowless structure about forty feet—the size of a shipping container. He checked the door. Locked.

  The entrance to the restaurant consisted of two sets of doors with a small vestibule between them. The interior doors were locked. He took out the tools he had collected from Justus’s workroom, chose two small screwdrivers, and started fiddling with the lock. The tools kept slipping from his fingers.

  At last, he heard a click and the door opened. He froze and held his breath, listening for sounds from the sleeping restaurant. He pulled out a flashlight, held it with the Glock in a combined grip, and went in.

  It was dark inside. The rough wooden floor was still damp from the mop. In the beam of his flashlight he saw wood benches upturned on the long tables.

  Suddenly he heard a strange gurgling coming from the direction of the bar. He spun around, his finger tightening on the trigger, and walked quickly toward the sound.

  No one there.

  More gurgling. It was the movement of air in the beer taps.

  He passed the beam of light over the bare brown brick walls and the large wine cooler with its heavy lock.

  The stainless-steel counters in the kitchen gleamed. Blasts of cold, dry air washed over him as he opened the refrigerators. Slabs of pink meat were hanging silently from sharp hooks. The fire was out in the long, freshly cleaned grill. He rested his palm on it. Lukewarm.

  The restrooms were painted mustard yellow and reeked of air freshener. He found a shiny black door he hadn’t noticed before and aimed the Glock straight at it. The flashlight’s reflection was blinding. He kicked the door open, burst in, and quickly scanned the room: desk, office chair, adding machine, files, documents, telephones, and a letter opener. Everything was in perfect order.