Ratlines

by Stuart Neville

  His hand felt cold on Ryan’s shoulder.

  “Where are Wallace and Gracey?” Ryan asked.

  WHEN THEY MOORED at the rear wall of Balbriggan harbour a little more than an hour later, a mist lay heavy over land and water. The Bedford van stood waiting above, parked sidelong to the sea, the raised bridge of the railway line climbing beyond it, dark grey concrete and stone surrounding them on three sides.

  Quiet hung over the harbour, the local fishing boats gone to sea, the pleasure boats tied up and idle. Ryan guessed Weiss and Carter had stolen the cabin cruiser from here. Waves hissed and rumbled against the beach beyond the northern wall.

  Carter climbed the rusted ladder, and Ryan hoisted crates up to him. His shoulders and back screamed with pain by the time they had all been loaded onto the back of the van. The three men leaned against the van for a time, chasing their breath.

  Carter said, “If I’d known it was going to be such hard work, I never would have started this.”

  Weiss spat on the ground. “You’ll never have to work again. Come on, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Carter packed his rifle into a canvas sack and stowed it beside the crates. They stood at the rear doors of the van, each regarding the load.

  Weiss took a last look around, then climbed up into the van. He pulled a long-bladed screwdriver from the small toolbox that rested on the plywood flooring. He wedged it beneath the lid of the nearest crate and pulled up.

  Ryan heard wood creak and crack.

  The lid fell away and he saw the colour drain from Weiss’s face. His smile widened for a moment, flickered, then faded. He shook his head.

  Carter asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Weiss lifted a dim grey obelisk from the crate, then another.

  Carter leaned in. “What in the name of …”

  Weiss dropped them to the van’s floor. They clanked together. Carter lifted them, tested their weight.

  “What’s this?” he said. He turned to Ryan. “What the fuck is this?”

  Weiss laughed once, a deep guffaw that rose from his belly. But it rang hollow in the van. He laughed again, a high peal edged with madness.

  Carter’s voice wavered as if he verged on tears. “What’s going on? Where’s the fucking gold?”

  Weiss brought his hands to his face, the laughter coming thick and strong now, rolling from him, his shoulders shuddering.

  “Where is it?” Carter asked.

  But Ryan knew. Before Weiss reached down into the crate, Ryan knew, but he had no desire to laugh.

  Carter leaned into the van, grabbed the edge of the crate, pulled it away from Weiss. “For Christ’s sake, where’s the gold?”

  He peered into the crate, shook his head. “No.”

  Weiss hooted and cackled. “Oh, yes, my friend. Oh, yes.”

  He lifted another two bars of lead from the crate, clanked them together, and laughed until his eyes watered.

  CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN

  WEISS’S SIDES ACHED and his vision blurred with tears.

  Giddiness washed through him and his stomach threatened to empty itself.

  He dropped the bars to the van’s plywood floor and pushed the crate away. It toppled and spilled onto the ground outside, Carter and Ryan skipping aside to save their toes. Fifteen blocks of worthless metal scattered on the ground.

  Weiss grabbed the next crate, rammed the screwdriver beneath its lid, and heaved. The wood splintered and cracked. Inside, the same, nothing glittering, only the dull sheen of lead.

  He collapsed back against the van’s wall, the air gone from his lungs, the strength deserting his legs. Still he laughed, wave after ridiculous wave, he couldn’t stop it, even as it all went to shit before his eyes, all he could do was laugh.

  A sharp hot sting across his cheek.

  He wondered for a moment who had struck him before realising it had been his own open hand. He slapped himself again, bit down on the clarity it brought.

  “Goddamn it,” he said.

  He reached beneath his coat, seized his pistol, and brought it up to aim at Ryan’s forehead. He blinked the tears away.

  “Goddamn it, Albert, didn’t you check?”

  Ryan’s face showed no emotion, not even surprise.

  “I only saw a few crates. I saw the gold. It said Credit Suisse on them. Skorzeny’s courier checked. I wasn’t allowed into the vault to see them up close.”

  Carter fought his own breathing. “I knew he’d shaft us. I told you, didn’t I? I told you, but you—”

  Weiss shifted his aim to Carter. “Shut up.”

  “I knew it was too easy,” Ryan said.

  “Don’t point that at me,” Carter said.

  Weiss held his aim steady. “Both of you, shut up and let me think.”

  “I said, don’t point that at me.”

  “Shut your mouth, Carter, or I swear I will shoot you in the face.”

  Carter grabbed for Weiss’s wrist, but Weiss snatched his arm away. He brought the pistol back around, squared it on Carter’s forehead, pressure on the trigger.

  “Don’t push me, Carter. You know I’ll—”

  “Everyone away from the van.”

  The voice came from above, a harsh distorted bark followed by a squall of feedback.

  “This is Chief Inspector Michael Rafferty, Garda Síochána. You’re surrounded. I’ve got a dozen Guards here, all armed, and an army sniper team. Any messing about, and I’ll give the order to fire. Now, everyone out of the van.”

  Weiss leaned out, looked up, saw the hulk of a man standing on the railway bridge above, a loudhailer in his hand. Two policemen stood alongside him, pistols drawn and aimed, the mist hazing them.

  Further along the bridge, a prone man, a rifle’s telescopic sight trained on them. In the shadows beneath the bridge, in the dark pools between the arches, more cops, more weapons.

  “Lieutenant Albert Ryan, make yourself known.”

  “Bastard,” Carter said. “You bastard.”

  Weiss looked at Ryan, saw the shock on his face, and said, “He didn’t know.”

  Carter glared. “My arse, he didn’t.”

  Ryan said nothing. He stepped away from the van, his hands up.

  Carter’s eyes went to the canvas bag he’d wrapped his automatic rifle in.

  “Don’t,” Weiss said. He dropped his pistol, put his own hands above his head, and edged towards the van’s rear.

  “Bastard,” Carter said.

  The loudhailer crackled again.

  “Down on your knees, Ryan, your hands on your head. The rest of you, step away from the van.”

  Carter kept his back to the cops, his hands busy undoing the canvas.

  “Don’t,” Weiss said. “They’ll kill us both.”

  Carter freed the rifle from the bag, hoisted it up, spun towards Ryan, his finger going for the trigger.

  His skull cracked open a fraction of a second before Weiss heard the shot and felt the warm spatter on his face. Carter fell, his limbs loose, his eyes and mouth wide open.

  “All right,” Weiss called. “I’m coming out.”

  The loudhailer squealed. “How many are there?”

  “Just Ryan and me. That’s all.”

  “Get out of the van, your hands on top of your head.”

  Weiss eased out, got his feet under him, and took half a dozen steps, avoiding Carter’s blood on the wet concrete.

  “On your knees, beside Ryan.”

  He did as he was told. Ryan stared ahead, his expression blank.

  “I have a suite at the Shelbourne,” Weiss said, his voice low. Ryan turned his head towards him. “Under the name of David Hess. Everything I have on Skorzeny is there, locked in a metal file box. If I don’t get out of custody, if they deport me, you go there, you get it. Bring it to Hedder and Rosenthal, a law firm in Ballsbridge. Give it to Simon Rosenthal. No one but him. You hear me?”

  Ryan did not reply.

  Policemen advanced from the shadows, fear on their faces,
their weapons quivering in their hands.

  “You hear me, Ryan? Bring the information to Simon Rosenthal. Get Skorzeny for me.”

  “No,” Ryan said. “I’ll get him for myself.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

  RAFFERTY LOWERED HIS bulk into the chair opposite Ryan, huffing as he did so, his face red. He set one mug of steaming tea on the table, took a sip from the other.

  “Jesus, this is a bit too much like hard work,” he said. He nodded at the mug in front of Ryan. “Go on, drink up.”

  Ryan reached for it, brought it to his lips.

  “There, now, isn’t that better?”

  The policeman fell silent, watching from across the table. Moisture beaded on the bare concrete walls of the interview room. A tape recorder sat idle between them, no reels loaded on its spindles.

  “Your friend, the American fella. Or Israeli or whatever the hell he is.” Rafferty placed his mug back on the table and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “All he’ll tell me is his name. He keeps asking for some lawyer called Rosenthal. What’s he up to? What’s he doing here?”

  “He’s Mossad,” Ryan said.

  “He’s what?”

  “Mossad. Israeli intelligence.”

  “Like a spy?”

  “Something like that.”

  Rafferty snorted. “Holy Mother of God. Here?” He pulled a cigarette from the packet and lit it. “I tell you, this is too much excitement for me. The worst I’m used to dealing with is a spot of livestock theft or a fight in a pub. Not this sort of carry on. I don’t get paid enough to be doing with spies and smuggled gold. Well, more lead than gold, as it happens. Five of the crates had three gold bars on the top. Anyway, my point is, do I look like James bleeding Bond?” He leaned forward, his cigarette held between fat fingers. “Did you see that film?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  “I took the missus. She put her hand over my eyes when that lass came out of the sea, all wet like. I gave her something to smile about that night, I can tell you.”

  Rafferty’s belly jiggled as he laughed, smoke leaking out between his teeth.

  Ryan cleared his throat. “I need to speak with Ciaran Fitzpatrick at the Directorate of Intelligence”

  “I was told you’d say that.” Rafferty took a folded piece of paper from the cigarette packet. “Unfortunately, Mr. Fitzpatrick isn’t available at the moment. But you do have friends in high places.”

  He unfolded the piece of paper, revealing a few typewritten sentences and a looping signature.

  “This here is a note from none other than the Minister for Justice, Mr. Charles J. Haughey, the very same man who ordered that van to be followed and its occupants to be arrested after they came back ashore. This arrived by courier about twenty minutes ago. It says you aren’t to be questioned about all this, that no statement of any kind should be recorded, and I should release you at my own discretion. He wants things to be handled on the quiet. Just in case we upset the Americans and they decide President Kennedy isn’t going to pay us a visit after all. What do you think of that?”

  “I think you should let me go.”

  Rafferty nodded. “I could do, I suppose. But it does say at my discretion, and my discretion says not just yet. I think I’ll let you stew a while, Mr. Ryan.”

  The policeman hauled his bulk out of the chair, wheezing at the strain.

  “Why?” Ryan asked. “You can’t question me, so why keep me here?”

  Rafferty leaned across the table until Ryan felt the heat of his breath.

  “Because I don’t like trouble on my doorstep, and I especially don’t like government bastards telling me my job in my own bloody station. But mostly, I’m going to keep you here just because I can. Is that good enough for you?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

  THE OPENING OF the cell door shook Goren Weiss from his shallow slumber. He turned his head, expecting to see the fat cop back for more clumsy attempts at interrogation. Instead, three suited men entered, none of whom he recognised.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Stand up,” the eldest said. He closed the door behind him. A man of around fifty, cropped hair greying, his charcoal-coloured suit neat across his broad shoulders. The other two were younger, mid thirties, but had that same physique.

  Weiss’s gut tightened as he stood. “I want to speak with my lawyer, Simon Rosenthal at Hedder and Rosenthal.”

  The two younger men each came to Weiss’s sides, each took a wrist.

  “I suggest you contact him right now, or I can promise you, there will be trouble.”

  The younger men tightened their grips on Weiss’s arms. The older man went to the bed Weiss had just got up from. He tugged at the sheet until it came free.

  Weiss tried to jerk his right arm away, but the young man’s grip was solid like a manacle.

  “Goddamn you, the Israeli government will not sit still for this. You are bringing a war upon yourself.”

  The older man stretched the sheet out and rolled it into a thick rope.

  Weiss kicked at one of the younger men’s legs. They shifted their feet, avoided his, then pushed him down on the floor. Concrete slammed into his cheek.

  The older man made a loop at one end of the sheet, tied a crude slipknot.

  “Hold him steady,” he said as he crouched down.

  Weiss screamed. He threw his weight to one side, then the other. A knee pressed into his back, pinning his chest to the floor. He screamed again, a word that might have been “No.”

  The loop slipped over his head, snagging on his nose and mouth. Cool fabric tightened beneath his chin, choking the curses from his mouth.

  The noose gripped his neck, closing his throat. Pressure built inside his head. He felt it swell behind his eyes. His vision reddened. A roaring in his ears.

  The cell door opened. Weiss saw the fat cop’s boots, along with two other pairs.

  The pressure in Weiss’s head eased.

  The fat cop asked, “What in the name of Christ is going on?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  “WE HAVE A mutual friend,” the man said.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets. Ryan noticed the grime on his knees.

  He had entered the interview room alone, carrying a leather satchel, closed the door behind him, and grunted as he hoisted the satchel on the table. It had settled on the wood with a muted clunk.

  “Who are you?” Ryan asked.

  “My name is James Waugh. Your young lady friend Celia Hume has run a few errands for me in the past.”

  The words glided across the soft contours of his accent, southwest of Dublin, northeast of Cork.

  “She mentioned you,” Ryan said. “You told her to report on me.”

  Waugh sat down across the table, the satchel between them. “Truth be told, I wish I hadn’t. If I’d known the kind of mess the minister was getting mixed up in, I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

  “Who do you work for?” Ryan asked.

  “I run my own department, very small, less than two dozen on the staff. We don’t answer to the Directorate of Intelligence or the Department of Justice, but we do odd jobs for them now and again. Imagine us as handymen, doing the dirty work for other departments so they don’t have to.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To tell you you’re free to go, for one thing.”

  “What about Weiss?”

  Waugh pursed his lips. “Mr. Weiss attempted suicide in his cell about an hour ago. He tried to hang himself with a bed sheet. Thankfully we intervened in time to save him.”

  Anger flared in Ryan’s chest. “I think that’s a lie.”

  Waugh’s eyelid flickered. He took a breath. “Mr. Weiss has been taken to hospital for treatment. Now, the Minister for Justice has asked that you bring all materials relating to your investigation to his office tomorrow afternoon at two. You will give your final debriefing, and that will be an end of it.”

  “Does Haughey know you
tried to kill Weiss?”

  Waugh smiled. “As I explained, Mr. Weiss attempted suicide. But I’ll repeat, neither I nor my staff report to the Department of Justice. I act independently with my own objectives. Does that answer your question?”

  Ryan watched Waugh’s face, the eyes grey and cold like slate. “You said ‘for one thing.’ What else did you want?”

  Waugh stood and fetched a business card from his pocket. He placed it face up on the table, next to the satchel, pushed it towards Ryan with his fingertips. It bore only Waugh’s name and a telephone number.

  “I have an opening in my department,” he said, a warm smile on his lips that did not soften his stare. “More interesting work than the Directorate of Intelligence has to offer. I could use a man like you.”

  Ryan looked down at the card. He pushed it away. “No thank you.”

  Waugh pushed it back. “Think about it.”

  He went to the door, paused, turned, as if he had remembered some minor detail. He pointed to the satchel.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do with that. I suppose you ought to take care of it.”

  Waugh exited, closed the door behind him.

  The satchel’s leather glowered in the interview room’s fluorescent lighting. Ryan undid the single buckle, pulled back the flap.

  He saw the yellow glistening within, felt his mouth dry.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

  “I THOUGHT YOU IRISH cops didn’t carry guns,” Weiss said. The words rasped in his throat like sandpaper.

  Rafferty sat down at the foot of the hospital bed, the only other person on the ward. He had dismissed the lone Garda officer as he entered. His hand went to the pistol at his hip.

  “We do the odd time,” he said. “If the situation calls for it.”

  “And this one does?”

  Rafferty smiled. “I’d say so, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would.”

  Weiss put his right hand behind his head, lay back on the bed. A pair of handcuffs bound his left hand to the bed frame. He wore his vest and trousers, socks on his feet. His neck had already begun to bruise.