The League of Night and Fog

by David Morrell

  He did hear screaming. Not his own. A woman’s. Arlene’s. And his urgent loving need to save her brought him back to the flames in the devastated room.

  Smoke made him gag convulsively. Crawling toward Arlene’s anguished screams, he felt someone grab him. He struggled and cursed but couldn’t stop himself from being lifted and dragged away. Outside in the hot, dusky, narrow street, encircled by a crowd, he couldn’t hear Arlene screaming any longer. He made a final frantic effort to free himself from the arms that encircled his chest, to lunge back into the ruined building.

  Instead he collapsed. Through swirling vision, he peered up, convinced he was hallucinating, for the face above him belonged to Arlene.

  6

  “I was afraid you were dead.”

  “The feeling was mutual,” Arlene said.

  He squeezed her hand.

  They sat on metal chairs in a sandy courtyard enclosed by a high stone wall. Beyond the walls, the din of Cairo intruded on the peacefulness of one of the few churches in this Arab city. A Greek Orthodox church, its bulbous spires in contrast with the slender minarets of a mosque.

  It was early the following morning. Shadows filled one side of the courtyard. The heat was not yet oppressive.

  “When the fire started, I heard you screaming.” He continued to squeeze her hand.

  “I was screaming. Your name.”

  “But you sounded so far away.”

  “I sounded far away to me as well. But after the blast, I wasn’t hearing anything that didn’t sound far away. Even my breath seemed to come from outside. All I knew was, I could move better than you could. And both of us had to get out of there.”

  He laughed. The laugh made his ribs hurt, but he didn’t care. It felt too good to know that Arlene was alive. “How did we escape?”

  “Father Sebastian had a backup team.”

  “Professional.”

  “They got us away from the restaurant before the police arrived,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot after we reached the street, but I do remember both of us being carried through the crowd and lifted into the back of a truck. After that, things got fuzzy. The next thing I recall is waking up in our room in the rectory of this church.”

  “Where’s Father Sebastian?”

  “Very much alive,” a voice said.

  Drew turned. Father Sebastian, looking more Italian than Egyptian now that he wore a priest’s black suit and white collar, stood in the open doorway. He held a handkerchief to his nose. When he stepped from the rectory’s shadows into the sunlit courtyard, the handkerchief showed spots of blood, a consequence of the explosion, Drew assumed.

  The priest brought over a metal chair and sat down. “I apologize for not joining you earlier, but I was celebrating morning mass.”

  “I could have served for you and taken communion,” Drew said.

  “You were still asleep when I looked in on you. At the time, your bodily needs seemed more important than your spiritual ones.”

  “Right now, my psychological needs are even more important.”

  “And those are?”

  “I get miserable as hell when someone tries to blow me up. Under other circumstances, I might believe we simply happened to be where terrorists decided to set off a bomb. In Israel, say. In Paris or Rome. But in Cairo? It’s not on their itinerary.”

  “That isn’t true any longer. While you were away in the desert, Cairo too became a target of terrorists.”

  “But in an unimportant restaurant, in an out-of-the-way part of the city? What political purpose would the explosion have served? That bomb wasn’t placed at random. We didn’t just happen to be there when the blast went off. We were the targets.”

  “For the second time in two days,” Arlene added.

  Father Sebastian straightened in his chair.

  “That’s right. For the second time,” Drew said. “While Arlene and I were crossing the desert …”

  He told the priest about the two Arab gunmen in the pass. Arlene elaborated.

  “You don’t think they were simply marauders?” Father Sebastian glanced toward Arlene. “You mentioned an earlier attack by two would-be rapists. In that same pass. Possibly the second pair … They could have been relatives out to avenge …”

  “The first two were amateurs,” Arlene insisted. “But the second pair …”

  “If not for the grace of God and a cobra, we’d have been killed,” Drew said. “Those men were fully equipped. They were pros.”

  “Someone knew I’d been sent to get Drew. But I told no one,” Arlene said.

  “So the leak could have come only from within your organization,” Drew said.

  Father Sebastian rubbed his forehead.

  “You don’t seem surprised. You mean you’d already suspected—?”

  “That the order had been compromised, that someone in the Fraternity was using his position to gain his own ends?” Father Sebastian nodded.

  “How long have you—?”

  “Merely suspected? Almost a year. Became virtually certain? Two months. Too many of our missions have ended badly. Twice, members of the order have been killed. If not for our backup teams, the bodies of our fallen brethren would have been found by the authorities.”

  “And their rings,” Drew said.

  “Yes. And their rings. Other missions were aborted before such disasters could occur. Our enemies had been warned they were in danger and changed their schedules, increased their security. All of us in the Fraternity fear we’re in danger of being exposed.”

  Arlene’s eyes blazed with resentment. “So that’s why you sent me to bring back Drew. You wanted an outside operative, someone not associated with you but nonetheless controlled by you.”

  Father Sebastian shrugged. “What’s the gambler’s expression? An ace in the hole. And indeed,” he told Drew, “apart from your skills and reputation, you do seem to have a gambler’s luck.”

  “We all do,” Drew said. “For sure, we didn’t survive that blast because of skill, but only because the bomb was placed in the only likely hiding spot, away from us, behind the counter in back.”

  “Two customers and a waiter died in the explosion,” Arlene said. “If you hadn’t sent us there …”

  Father Sebastian sighed. “Their deaths were regrettable—but unimportant compared to protecting the Fraternity.”

  “What’s important to me is survival,” Drew said, “the chance for Arlene and me to live in peace, someplace where you and your colleagues can’t get to us.”

  “Are you certain there is such a place? Your cave wasn’t it.”

  “I want the chance to keep looking. I asked you yesterday. What do I have to do to stop being threatened by you? You mentioned a priest. You wanted me to—”

  “Find him. His name is Krunoslav Pavelic. He’s not just a priest. He’s a cardinal. Extremely influential. A member of the Vatican’s Curia. Seventy-two years old. On the twenty-third of February, a Sunday evening, after celebrating a private mass in the Papal city, he disappeared. Given his important position within the Curia, we consider his abduction to be a serious assault upon the Church. If Cardinal Pavelic wasn’t safe, no other member of the Curia is. We believe it’s the start of an ultimate attack. But because the Fraternity seems threatened from within, we need your help. An outsider, an independent but motivated operative.”

  “What if he can’t be found? What if he’s dead?” Drew asked.

  “Then punish those who took him.”

  Drew flinched inwardly. He’d vowed to himself—and to God—that he’d never kill again. He concealed his abhorrence. Though determined to keep his vow, he negotiated.

  “What do I get in exchange?”

  “You and Ms. Hardesty are relieved of your obligation to us, your need to atone for your part in the death of one of our members. I consider this condition to be generous.”

  “That’s not the word I’d have used.” Drew glanced toward Arlene, who nodded. With a silent crucial qualificati
on, he continued. “But you’ve got a deal.”

  Father Sebastian leaned back. “Good.”

  “There’s just one thing. Break your word, and you’d better keep praying an Act of Contrition. Because, believe me, Father, when you least expect it, I’ll come for you.”

  “If I broke my word, you’d have every right. But as far as an Act of Contrition is concerned, my soul is always prepared.”

  “Then we understand each other.” Drew stood. “Arlene and I could use some breakfast. A fresh change of clothes. Travel money.”

  “You’ll both be given an adequate amount to start with. In addition, a numbered bank account will be opened for you in Zurich, along with a safe-deposit box. The Fraternity will have a key for it. We’ll use the box as a way to send messages between us.”

  “What about travel documents? Since the enemy knows we’re involved, it isn’t smart for us to use our own.”

  “To leave Egypt, you’ll be given Vatican passports, under different names, for a nun and a priest.”

  “We’ll attract attention in an airport filled with Arabs.”

  “Not if you leave with other nuns and priests who’ve been in Egypt on a tour. You’ll fly to Rome, where a priest and a nun will attract no attention at all. If you choose to switch to lay identities, other passports, American, several, under various names, will be placed in the Zurich safe-deposit box.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Before you leave Egypt, you’ll give me the ones you have. When you reach Rome, others will be supplied to you. Weapons will also be left in the Zurich safe-deposit box.”

  “Fair enough. As an added precaution …”

  Father Sebastian waited.

  “I don’t want to test my luck a third time. Our weapons, our passports—make sure they’re supplied by an outside contractor, not someone in your network. Open our Zurich bank account yourself.”

  “Agreed. The leak in my network makes me as nervous as it does you.”

  “One thing you haven’t told us.”

  Father Sebastian anticipated. “Where do you start to look? The same place your predecessor narrowed his search and failed.”

  “Predecessor?”

  “The priest who contacted Ms. Hardesty in New York and sent her to find you. Father Victor. I said he’d been called away on an urgent assignment. He was. To his Maker. He was killed in Rome, two days ago. Take up the hunt where he left off. He must have been very close.”

  7

  In the room where they’d slept in the rectory, Drew and Arlene put on the religious costumes the priest had supplied. Except for Drew’s black bib and white collar, he looked as natural as if he’d put on a dark business suit. But he’d been concerned that Arlene, with her athletic grace, would seem awkward in a nun’s robe. Quite the contrary. The black garment flowed in rhythm with her figure. The white cowl that hid her auburn hair and framed her green eyes turned worldly beauty into innocent loveliness.

  “Astonishing,” Drew said. “You look like you’ve found your vocation.”

  “And you could be a confessor.”

  “Well, let’s just hope no one asks us for religious counseling.”

  “The best advice is ‘go in peace and sin no more.’”

  “But what about us?” Drew asked. “What we’re about to do—for the second time I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to face the decision—will we sin no more?”

  She kissed him.

  “Just one more assignment,” she said. “We’ll watch over each other and do our best.”

  “And if our best is good enough …” he said.

  “We’ll be free.”

  They held each other.

  BOOK THREE

  PINCER MOVEMENT

  DEATH’S HEAD

  1

  Halloway stood on the granite steps before his mansion, watching Icicle and Seth get into the Cadillac. The three of them had spent the night and morning making plans. Now at last, in midafternoon, the plans were ready to be activated. Seth would drive Icicle to the rented car he’d hidden down the road the night before. Icicle would follow Seth to Toronto’s international airport. This evening, the two assassins would fly from Canada to Europe. Soon—yes, soon, Halloway thought—normality would be reestablished.

  But as he squinted from the bright June sunlight, watching Icicle and Seth drive away, Halloway wondered if his life could in fact ever again be normal. His father had disappeared seven weeks ago, abducted while sketching a river gorge at a nearby painters’ community called Elora. The assailants had left his father’s materials—sketch pad, charcoal, and equipment case—on a picnic table a hundred yards from his father’s car. With no word about him since then, Halloway was forced to suspect, with grim reluctance, that his father was dead.

  He watched from the steps of his mansion till the Cadillac disappeared among the trees on the road below him. Turning toward the large double doors of the mansion, he reconsidered the thought. His father dead? He paused, exhaled, then continued morosely up the steps. All he could do was hope. At least he’d done what he could to protect his family and himself, to stop the madness. If his father indeed had been killed, this much consoled him—Icicle and Seth were perfect weapons. The enemy would pay.

  He entered the mansion, proceeded along the shadowy hallway, and reached the telephone in his study. Though he didn’t want to think about it, other decisions, other arrangements had to be made. Four months ago, before the Night and Fog had been reinstituted, he’d made a business commitment that no amount of personal pressure could allow him to ignore. He’d demanded a fortune, guaranteeing delivery of merchandise the deadly nature of which was exceeded only by the homicidal tendencies of his clients. To fail to abide by his agreement would be fatal. With no alternative, Halloway drew on resources ingrained in him by his father and picked up the phone.

  2

  Mexico City. For the third time since he’d started making love to his wife, Aaron Rosenberg’s erection failed him. He attempted to arouse himself, but his wife restrained his hand. At first, he suspected she’d become impatient with his repeated failure and intended to ask him to give up. Instead she kissed his chest, then his stomach, murmured “Let me do the driving,” and shifted lower.

  Sunlight gleamed through the parted drapes of the bedroom windows. A breeze cooled the sweat on his body. Closing his eyes, feeling his wife’s hair dangle over his groin, he barely heard the roar of traffic outside on the Paseo de la Reforma.

  His inability to perform had many causes: concern about his missing father, fears for his family and himself. Despite bodyguards, he felt apprehensive every time he went out and as a consequence left the house less often than was good for his business. Ironically, he’d stayed home today precisely because of business. Since early this morning, he’d been waiting for a phone call about such sensitive information he didn’t dare receive it at his office. For that matter, even the phone in his house and indeed the house itself, both of which were tested daily for eavesdropping devices, couldn’t be fully trusted.

  As his wife continued, his penis responded. He made a determined effort to ignore yet another reason for his earlier impotence. For the past two months, he was certain, she’d been having an affair with her bodyguard, Esteban. Glances between them couldn’t be ignored, nor could her newly expanded catalogue of sexual techniques, one of which was her sudden fondness for “doing the driving.” At least he had one thing to be thankful for—the affair was discreet. Otherwise, to maintain respect among the police and his business contacts in this city of Spanish values, Rosenberg would never have been able to pretend to be unaware of his wife’s infidelity.

  He admitted he was partly to blame for her actions. Since his recent troubles, his sex drive had virtually disappeared, and even before then, his business had kept him away from home so much that she spent more time with Esteban than she did with him. All the same, he thought with a brief flare of anger, if his business required her to be lonely, didn’t she have the compensatin
g reward of luxury? Her solid-gold watch, her imported French-designed clothes, her $100,000 Italian sports car.

  His penis began to fail once more. She moaned in what seemed genuine disappointment. She’d been the one to suggest making love this afternoon; he wondered if there was still a chance to salvage his marriage.

  The phone call, Rosenberg thought. When would that damned call come through? The truth was, if it weren’t for his wife’s expensive needs, if it weren’t for his own need to impress her, he would never have allowed himself to become involved in the terrible risk that the call represented.

  But what was the alternative? To confront his wife about her affair? If the scandal became public, honor would require him to divorce her, which he did not want to do. His wife was stunning, a descendant from Indian royalty. Apart from his pride in being married to her, she added to his attempt to look Mexican—his hair dyed black and combed straight back, his skin cosmetically treated to look swarthy, his eyes fitted with non-corrective contact lenses to make them look dark. He needed her to help him be a chameleon. And as for Esteban, the giant was too formidable a bodyguard for Rosenberg to feel safe without him during the present emergency.

  His penis began to respond again.

  The phone rang. He pulled away from his wife and lunged toward the bedside table. “Hello?”

  The male voice wasn’t Halloway’s, but it did have a southern Ontario accent, a vague Scottish burr. Rosenberg realized the sequence he was part of. Halloway had made an untraceable local call to a conduit, who in turn had used a secure phone to relay the message. “Maple trees.”

  “Chaparral.”

  “Be ready to talk in forty minutes.” A click concluded the call.

  Rosenberg shut his eyes with a mixture of relief and nervousness. “I have to leave.”

  His wife nuzzled him. “Right now?”

  “I need to be somewhere in forty minutes.”

  “How long will it take you to get there?”