The aura of German malevolence had faded.
Justus was now German in the same way that Jane was British. Even his German accent no longer grated on Alex’s ear; the German language was no longer a badge of dishonor. Alex had heard the phrase “the other Germany” more times than he could count. For the first time, he understood what it meant.
His body still ached from the abuse it had suffered, and he was totally drained. But strangely, his heart felt lighter. The heavy lid that had held his life in check had been lifted.
“Help me up,” Alex said.
Justus bent over and held out his arms. Alex clutched them. Clenching his teeth, he pulled himself up and immediately folded over in pain. Justus grasped him securely to keep him from falling. Alex straightened up as best he could and looked Justus in the eye. “You saved my life,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.”
He threw his arms around the German. Justus returned the embrace, careful not to hurt him.
“I also came to find out who informed on the Nibelungs,” Justus said, his voice cracking. “It appears that it was me.” He shook his head sadly.
Then he went into the toilet.
Doubled up in pain, Alex stumbled to the door of the crematorium and felt the heat. He looked through the thick glass window. Flames; a skeleton; the remains of a human body. The love of his life.
His chest rose and fell heavily. In despair, he wept silently, thinking of the days to come, of the love that wasn’t to be, of the chance for happiness disappearing in a column of smoke.
From the direction of the toilet, he heard glass shatter. “Scheisse . . .” Justus spat from behind the closed door.
Alex took a deep breath. In a shaking voice, he asked, “Is everything all right?”
“Yes . . . I broke the mirror,” Justus answered.
The black floor was covered with a layer of pale ashes. On the screen, the Führer was shrieking behind a dais and swastikas were waving in the wind. Sepp Mauser lay dead, not far from the body of Dr. Rauch. Oskar Schlaff was sprawled next to the gas chamber, his eyes wide open.
Alex had been through several circles of hell tonight. He had looked death in the eye and made peace with it, but he was desperate to get out of this dungeon of horrors.
What was taking Justus so long?
Alex stood in front of the bathroom door. “Are you coming?”
Silence.
“Justus?”
No answer.
He banged his fist on the door.
Silence.
Alex leaned on the handle. The door was locked.
He looked down at the space between the door and the floor.
A dark pool of blood was spreading toward his feet.
DAMASCUS, SYRIA | 07:26
In the Al-Malki district on the western outskirts of Damascus, about a mile and a half from his home, in the basement morgue of Shami Hospital, in the cadaver refrigerator, on a cold stainless-steel slab, lay the naked body of Alois Brunner.
The temperature gauge read four degrees Celsius. He had been there for a long time.
He refuses to die.
AFTERWORD
DAMASCUS, 1985
Alois Brunner, an infamous Nazi war criminal, was born on April 8, 1912. After serving as Adolf Eichmann’s second-in-command, he became commandant of the Drancy internment camp near Paris. He is considered personally responsible for the deaths of 125,000 Jews.
After the war, Brunner fled, finding a safe haven in 1954 in Damascus, where he collaborated with the Mukhabarat. He resided alternately in the Hotel Dedeman and in an apartment at 7 Hadad Street in the Abu Rumaneh district.
There is no record of his death, no grave, and no tombstone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book of this sort involves a substantial amount of solitary work. I am extremely grateful to Hannah Wood for her excellent editing work and for ironing out the wrinkles in the plot. My heartfelt thanks go out to all those who lent a hand and gave me the benefit of their time and knowledge:
Uri Adoni
Cobi Argov
Amitai Bar Am
Yotam Dagan
Lilach Dor
Nathan Dunevich
Ruthi Dunevich
Shirra Dunevich
Michael Eiser, Berlin
Yuval Golan
Amnon Jackont
Ephraim Karnon
Yaron Merchav
Yifat Niv
Ronen Orr
Ariel Pridan
Tal Ravid Stern
Navit Rosenzweig
Eyal Rosner
Nir Ruttenberg
Giovanni and Francesco Toscano, Bucine
And last, thanks to everyone who asked me during the past three years:
“Well, when?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RONI DUNEVICH was born in Tel Aviv in 1961. Before he began his literary career, he was a copywriter, art director, and strategic consultant. His first book featuring Alex Bartal, Hunted (not yet translated into English), received the Gold Prize. His second Bartal book, Unfinished Business (also not yet translated into English), was serialized in Israel’s biggest newspaper. He lives in Israel.
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COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
RING OF LIES. Copyright © 2016 by Roni Dunevich. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published as Amoḳ Mebifnim in Israel in 2011 by Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan.
First Harper Paperback edition published 2016.
EPub Edition August 2016 ISBN 9780062279798
ISBN 978-0-06-227978-1 (pbk.)
16 17 18 19 20 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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