The League of Night and Fog

by David Morrell

  “Shit!”

  The phone rang again.

  He tried to regain control, working with as much speed as caution would allow, removing the belt and the bomb from Erika’s waist. Careful not to disturb the wires he’d attached to it, he set the apparatus on a chair.

  The phone kept ringing.

  He grabbed it.

  “It’s Drew! For God’s sake, don’t try to take that bomb off your wife! Seth lied! The bomb’s rigged to explode if the belt’s opened!”

  Saul sank onto the bed and began to laugh. “Now you tell me?”

  “What are—?”

  Saul roared. He knew he sounded hysterical, but the release felt too good for him to care. “Everything’s fine. The bomb’s not on her anymore.”

  “How, sweet Jesus, did you manage that?”

  Saul’s laugh became one of affection toward his friend. Drew was the only person he knew who could make an expletive sound like a prayer. “With some help from a lamp cord. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. But are you okay? Arlene said you’d gone after Seth and Icicle.”

  “Yes … Seth’s dead. Icicle killed him.”

  “What?”

  “Icicle’s been wounded. If we help him, he promises to tell us anything we want to know.”

  At once Saul stood. “Where should I meet you?”

  “The park south of Constantine’s Arch. That’s where I left Icicle. We’ll be waiting along the Via di San Gregorio.”

  “Are you sure we can trust him?”

  “Yes. He was the one who told me not to try taking the bomb off your wife. He didn’t have to warn us. He didn’t have to help Erika. When we talk to him, I think we’ll get the last of our questions answered.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Saul set the phone back onto its receiver and hurried from the room toward Arlene, Gallagher, and the priest in the corridor. “Arlene, please stay with Erika. Take care of her.” He ran toward the elevator.

  “Just wait a damned minute,” Gallagher said. “I’m not through with you. Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To meet a friend and bring back an Icicle. Tell your medical team we’re going to need them again.” When the elevator took too long to arrive, Saul rushed down the fire stairs.

  9

  Dusk and the chaos of headlights made Saul despair of noticing Drew and Icicle as he sped past Constantine’s Arch, driving his rented car down the Via di San Gregorio. Pedestrians thronged the adjacent sidewalks. I should have asked Drew which side of the street he’d be on.

  But Drew was suddenly ahead of him, his arm around Icicle as if holding up someone who’d drunk too much. Saul steered in their direction, hearing angry car horns behind him, and skidded to a stop at the curb. The instant Drew helped Icicle into the back of the car and shut the door, Saul sped away.

  Icicle wore the jacket that Drew had been wearing this afternoon. The blond assassin’s face was as pale as his hair. Blood soaked through the arms of the jacket.

  “How badly is he hurt?” Saul asked.

  “Shot in both shoulders. One of the bullets passed through. As much as I can tell, the other’s still in him. He’s delirious.”

  “Halloway,” Icicle murmured.

  “Who’s Halloway?” Saul glanced back toward Drew.

  “I haven’t found out yet. Whoever he is, Icicle sure doesn’t like him.”

  “Pay the son of a bitch back,” Icicle mumbled.

  “Why?” Drew asked.

  “Sent Seth to kill my father,” Icicle said.

  “Why would Halloway … ? Is he an Israeli?”

  Icicle laughed. “No.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Saul steered around a corner. “If Halloway isn’t an Israeli, why would he be involved with the team that went after the Nazis?”

  “Night and Fog,” Icicle whispered.

  “And how does that fit in?” Saul asked. “The Night and Fog was a Nazi terror tactic during World War Two.”

  “I wonder if … Could it be he just explained the Israeli team’s method of revenge?” Drew asked.

  Saul shuddered as he steered around another corner. “Using Nazi tactics against their enemies? Abducting war criminals and making their families suffer as Jewish families suffered during the Holocaust. Erika’s father is involved in this insanity?”

  “A passion for revenge,” Drew said. “Because of the murder of my parents, I know all about hate. I was hate for many years. And I know when you borrow the tactics of your enemy you become your enemy. You learn to hate yourself.

  Saul remembered the hate with which he’d stalked and killed his foster father to avenge his foster brother’s death. But getting even for Chris hadn’t brought satisfaction, only a terrible hollowness. “I’ve got to find Erika’s father. I’ve got to stop him.”

  “Halloway,” Icicle murmured.

  “Who is he?” Drew asked. “If he isn’t Jewish—”

  “The Painter’s son.”

  “Oh, my God,” Saul said. “The Painter was the nickname for the assistant SS commandant at the Maidanek death camp. Day after day, he processed—that was his word, that was how he thought of it, a system, a disassembly line—thousands of prisoners through the gas chambers and the ovens. At night, he painted idyllic scenes of forests and meadows.”

  “Was Halloway’s father the assistant commandant at Maidanek?” Drew asked Icicle.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did Halloway want Seth to kill your father?”

  “To force me to join them. To make me think the Night and Fog had kidnapped my father.”

  “Where is Halloway now?”

  Icicle didn’t answer.

  “If that bullet isn’t removed, if he doesn’t get a transfusion,” Drew said, “we’ll never get an answer.”

  “You’re right. He’ll die. And his jacket’s soaked with blood now. We’ll never be able to sneak him into the hotel. We need a safe house. Gallagher has to tell us where to meet his medical team.” Saul stopped at the curb and scrambled from the car toward a phone booth.

  But not before he heard Drew ask Icicle again, “Where is Halloway?”

  “Kitchener. Near Toronto. In Canada.”

  10

  Despite the sourness in his stomach, Misha Pletz swallowed yet another mouthful of scalding coffee and restrained his impulse to hurry down to the communications room in the basement of Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. It was only 11 P.M., he reminded himself. Operation Salvage wouldn’t occur for another hour, and in the meantime its team was under orders to obey radio silence. Besides, I’d only get in the way down there, he thought. I’ve done my job. The plan’s been checked repeatedly.

  Nonetheless, he worried that the information Joseph had given him might be incorrect. Verification of the contraband, the time and place of delivery, and the identification codes had been impossible. With an informant other than Joseph, with a threat less critical to Israel’s existence, Misha would not have risked acting. But under the circumstances, to do nothing was a worse risk. His superiors had reluctantly agreed with him.

  The door to his office came open. Misha’s assistant hurried in, his exhausted features flushed with excitement. “Romulus just made contact.”

  Misha’s shoulders straightened. “I’ve been hoping. Where is he?”

  “Rome.”

  “How did he get in touch with us?”

  “Through the CIA.” The assistant gave Misha a piece of paper with a number written on it. “He wants you to phone him as soon as possible.”

  The message was puzzling. When Misha had last seen Saul, the Agency had possibly been involved in an assassination attempt against him, and even if the Agency hadn’t been involved, it had made Saul promise to stay away from them. Then why was Saul now using one of their contacts? Was Saul in trouble with them? Was this message a hoax?

  But though puzzling, the message was also a double blessing. Not only was he anxious to talk with Saul and Erika, but he felt grateful to be dis
tracted from waiting for news about Operation Salvage. He picked up his safe phone and dialed the number. Trans-Mediterranean static crackled. At the other end, the phone rang only once before Saul’s distinctively resonant husky voice said, “Hello.”

  “This is Sand Viper. Can you talk freely where you are?”

  “I’m in an Agency safe house. They tell me the phone’s secure.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “With the Agency? No, they’re cooperating. It’d take too long to explain.” Saul’s voice hurried on. “I’ve learned some disturbing things about Erika’s father.”

  “So have I,” Misha said. “Twice in the last two days he sent messages to me. I’ve had visual confirmation—he’s alive. Tell Erika. Her father’s alive, and he isn’t being held captive. He wants to stay out of sight, though. He eluded two attempts to follow him. The messages he sent me—”

  “About the Nazis?” Saul sounded surprised. “He actually told you?”

  “Nazis?” Misha pressed the phone hard against his ear. “What are you talking about?”

  “War criminals. That’s why Joseph disappeared. He and Ephraim Avidan and the other former operatives whose names were on the list you gave us—they learned where war criminals were hiding. They formed a team and went after them.”

  Misha felt too astonished to speak.

  Saul’s voice became more urgent. “If Joseph didn’t tell you, what was in his messages?”

  “Even on a phone as secure as this, I can’t risk telling you. He had information vital to Israel. That’s all I can say. By noon tomorrow, I’ll be free to explain.”

  “But tomorrow could make all the difference. Joseph might already have done things that’ll haunt him for the rest of his life. For his sake, for Erika’s sake, I’ve got to stop him. You said he disappeared again. Haven’t you any idea where he is?”

  “He keeps moving. His messages came from different countries. First the United States, then Canada.”

  “Did you say Canada?”

  “Is that important?”

  “Where in Canada?” Saul demanded. “What city?”

  “Toronto.”

  “I thought so!”

  “What’s wrong?” Misha asked. “Do you know why Joseph would have gone there?”

  “The son of one of the Nazis lives near there. The father was the Painter, the assistant commandant at Maidanek. The son’s name is Halloway.”

  The name made Misha inhale as if he’d been struck. He wanted to tell Saul that Halloway was one of the arms merchants Joseph had revealed in his message. But he didn’t dare discuss it until Operation Salvage had been brought to a close. When the team was safely back home, he’d leak information that would make the Libyans think Halloway was implicated in the mission, and then he’d be free—but only under guaranteed secure conditions—to explain to Saul.

  “I have to hang up,” Misha said. “I’ll call you again at noon tomorrow. This is important. Don’t do anything further. Just wait for my call. I have information for you.”

  Misha broke the connection.

  11

  A dial tone. Distraught, Saul set down the phone and turned toward the modest living room of this safe house, a farm on the outskirts of Rome. It had been converted into an emergency medical facility. Icicle, his skin almost the literal color of ice, lay on a foldout bed, a bottle of plasma suspended above a tube leading into his arm. The same doctor who’d attended to Father Dusseault had disinfected and now was suturing the wound in Icicle’s left arm. He applied a dressing and bandaged it.

  “Now comes the hard part,” the doctor said. He assessed the readings on portable monitors. “His heartbeat’s arrhythmic. His blood pressure’s low. His respiration’s … Keep giving him oxygen,” he told an assistant.

  “You think he might die?” Saul asked.

  “With two bullet wounds, he tried for a record in the hundred-yard dash. Every move pumped more blood out of him. Die? It’s a miracle if he doesn’t. And he still has to go through the trauma of my probing for the bullet in his other arm.”

  “He can’t die!”

  “Everybody dies.”

  “But I still need information from him!”

  “Then this is the time to ask him. Before I put him under. In fifteen minutes, even if he lives, he won’t say anything till tomorrow night.”

  Conscious of the doctor and his two assistants, of Gallagher hovering tensely behind them, of Drew standing uneasily in an open doorway behind which Arlene watched Erika and Father Dusseault, Saul leaned over Icicle. He used a cloth to wipe sweat from Icicle’s pain-ravaged face.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Icicle nodded weakly.

  “They say you might die. But if you hang on, I guarantee once you’re well they’ll let you go.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Gallagher said, “that promise isn’t yours to make.”

  Saul pivoted toward Gallagher. “I’ll promise anything if it gets me the answers I want. From the start, I told you this was personal. But it isn’t just about my wife’s father any longer. It’s also about my wife. When she learns what her father’s up to, she’ll never forgive me if I don’t do everything I can to stop him. Try to stop me and I’ll …”

  “What would you do to me? And what would that make you? Another version of her father?” Gallagher asked.

  Saul hesitated, aware of the truth in what Gallagher said. But his devotion to Erika made him press on. “No, there’s a difference. This isn’t hate. It’s love.”

  “Maybe that makes it worse.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to threaten you. But you’ve got to understand.” Saul leaned over Icicle again. “Tell me what I need to know. Use all the strength you can manage. Live. And you’ll go free. Or I’ll die trying to protect you.”

  “A hell of a promise,” Icicle murmured.

  “Count on it.”

  Icicle licked his dry lips. “What … do you need to know?”

  “In the car, as we drove here, you told me Halloway lived near Toronto. A place called Kitchener. Concentrate. How do I get to Halloway? Where is … ?”

  “Kitchener?” Icicle’s voice was faint, like the rustle of dead dry leaves. “He lives”—a painful swallow—“just outside it. Highway four-oh-one … west of Toronto … eighty kilometers … exit number …”

  Saul strained to remember every word.

  12

  Midnight. The Mediterranean. South of Crete, north of Libya. The captain of the cargo ship Medusa felt uneasy about the signal light flashing from the darkness off his starboard bow. His rendezvous with the Libyan pickup ship wasn’t due until 3 A.M. It was three hours early, and he hadn’t been alerted about a change in schedule. Since 11 P.M. he’d been maintaining radio silence, just as the Libyans were supposed to, lest enemies learn about the delivery. So if there had been a change in schedule, he wouldn’t have been told. The important thing was that the signal being flashed to him was the agreed-upon code. He gave orders for the confirmation code to be flashed, waited, and relaxed when the Libyans flashed a further confirmation code. The sooner he got rid of his cargo, the better.

  The smokestack of a ship loomed out of the darkness and stopped a close but safe distance from where Medusa lay still in the water. Boats disembarked from the opposite ship, their engines roaring. The captain told his men to lower rope ladders and ready the ship’s crane to unload the cargo.

  The pickup boats pulled up against Medusa. Men scurried up the rope ladders. The captain’s welcoming smile dissolved when he saw that they wore masks, that they held automatic weapons, that they were subduing Medusa’s crew, forcing them into lifeboats. A pistol barrel was rammed against his head. He screamed.

  Adrift in a lifeboat, he watched Medusa gain speed, disappearing into the night, with her one-hundred-million-dollars’ worth of machine pistols, assault rifles, plastic explosives, grenades, ammunition, portable rocket launchers, and heat-seeking missiles. Two members of the assault force fo
llowed Medusa in the long-distance speedboats that had brought them here. What he’d mistaken for the Libyan ship was actually a canvas silhouette of a smokestack that the marauders had hoisted above one of the boats. He suspected that a similar silhouette would be raised above Medusa’s deck to change her profile and make it difficult for pursuers to identify her. A new name would probably be painted over her own. By tomorrow morning, the pirates could reach a safe harbor. The captain touched his head where the pistol barrel had been rammed against it. He asked himself how in hell he was going to explain to the Libyans when they arrived, and blurted orders for his crew to row as fast as they could. To where? What difference did it make? As long as it was away from here. Away from the Libyans, who weren’t renowned for their understanding and certainly not for their mercy.

  13

  Fully conscious now, Erika tried to overcome her confusion, to assimilate everything Saul told her: how he, Drew, and Arlene had joined forces, and what had happened after she’d been abducted. Bewilderment turned into shock as she listened to what they’d learned.

  “A hit team? My father and Avidan and the rest … seventy-year-old men … disappeared because they’re out for revenge against Nazi war criminals?”

  “That might not be all they’re doing.”

  “Worse?”

  Drew helped Saul explain. “In the car, Icicle mentioned the Night and Fog. He didn’t mean the Nazi Night and Fog. He meant … We think your father and his team weren’t satisfied with punishing the war criminals they learned about. We think they decided to terrorize the children of the Nazis. To pay the fathers back in kind.”

  Sudden understanding gave Erika strength to stand from the bed. “But don’t you see? If the point was to torture the fathers by terrorizing the children, the fathers must still be alive. Otherwise the vengeance isn’t complete. The Nazis have to know their children are being terrorized. They have to suffer by realizing their loved ones are suffering. There’s still a chance to stop my father’s team before they kill.”