David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  The victims tumbled from overcrowded cattle cars, relieved to be off the train that had brought them from the Jewish ghetto inWarsaw. Some with whom they'd traveled had smothered or been crushed to death. The survivors tried not to look at the bodies. Instead they squinted at the painful but renewing sunlight, finally able to free their lungs of the poisonous fumes of vomit and excrement. Signs said Treblinka, cashier, and transfer here for eastbound trains. Fear was offset by hope: this wasn't a camp. The SS soldiers, with their twin lightning-bolt insignia, were to be expected--though another insignia, a death's head on their caps, aroused apprehension. The clock on the station had hands that were painted on and didn't move. Soldiers blurted commands to enter the railway station, to strip, to proceed to the showers. A shower would be welcome, but the victims wondered why such a luxury was being granted. A guard seemed to read their thoughts: "We can't stand your filthy stench!" Herded into the station, they took off their clothes and surrendered their valuables. "To protect your keepsakes while you're in the shower," they were told. They were given haircuts, down to the scalp, and this too made them fearful. Guards burst into the station, lashing their victims with whips, chasing them out the back, where naked they were urged along a path, which the SS had nicknamed "the Road to Heaven." Other guards struck them with clubs.

  "Faster! Run faster!" The victims stumbled over fallen companions. At the end of the path, there was only one direction in which to go--to the right, up five concrete steps, through a huge open door. When the last of the group of five hundred had been squeezed inside the chamber, the door was slammed shut and locked. Instead of shower nozzles, there were vents. Outside, an engine roared.

  Exhaust filled the room. As the victims struggled not to inhale, they didn't realize that they'd been chased so that their lungs would rebel against the attempt not to breathe. They didn't realize that their clothes and valuables would help the Germans fight the war, that their hair would be stuffed inside military mattresses and pillows, that the gold fillings in their teeth would be extracted to pay for guns and ammunition. All they knew was that they couldn't hold their breath any longer. They died standing up.

  In the pit of brutality, the human spirit managed to triumph. During

  August of 1943, Jews who'd been forced to do work at Treblinka that even the SS and their Ukrainian assistants couldn't endure--dragging corpses from the gas chambers, arranging them on railway ties in trenches, and setting fire to them--revolted. Using makeshift weapons, they killed their guards and raced toward the nearby forest. Many were strafed by machine guns, but others, possibly as many as fifty, reached the cover of the trees and escaped. The Nazis abandoned the camp. With the

  Russians approaching from the east and most of the Jews inPoland already exterminated, the SS hurriedly destroyed the evidence of their obscenities. Treblinka's phony railway station, its Road to Heaven, its gas chambers and incineration pits were all plowed beneath the earth. A farmer and his cattle were positioned over them. But despite the flames that had charred one million corpses, the victims insisted on bearing witness even in death. The gases from so much decay made the earth heave five feet into the air. The gases dispersed. The earth settled--five feet below its former level. More gases heaved the earth.

  Again it sank. And rose again. The cattle fled. So did the farmer.

  BOOK ONE

  SUMMONS

  icicle

  CARDINAL'S DISAPPEARANCE

  REMAINS A MYSTERY

  rome,ITALY, February 28 (AP)--Vaticanofficials andRome police remain baffled five days after the disappearance of Cardinal Krunoslav Pavelic, influential member of the Roman Catholic Church's administration group, the Curia. Pavelic, seventy-two, was last seen by close associates after celebrating a private mass in the chapel of hisVatican living quarters

  Sunday evening. On Monday, he had been scheduled to give the keynote address to a widely publicized conference of Catholic bishops on the subject of the Church's political relations with Eastern European communist regimes. Authorities at first suspected right-wing terrorists of abducting Cardinal Pavelic to protest a rumored softening of the

  Vatican's attitude toward any communist regime willing to ease restrictions on Church activities. However, no extremist group has so far claimed responsibility for Pavelic's disappearance.

  St. ftui,Minnesota. March. For the second time that night, the cards

  Frank Miller held became a blur. Though red and black were distinct, he couldn't tell the difference between a heart and a diamond or a spade and a club. Trying to subdue his concern, he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and massaged his aching forehead. "Something the matter?" Sid Henderson asked across the table from him. Like Miller,

  Hendersonwas in his seventies. Indeed all the bridge players in this room in the St. Paul community service center were either that old or just slightly younger. Miller strained to focus on his cards. "The matter? Nothing."

  "You sure? You look kinda sick."

  "It's too hot in here. They've turned up the thermostat too high.

  Somebody ought to open some windows."

  "And give us all pneumonia?" his Glickman asked to Miller's right. She claimed she was only sixty-seven. "It's freezing outside. If you're hot, take off your suitcoat" But Miller had already loosened his tie. He couldn't allow himself to ignore decorum completely and play cards in his shirtsleeves. "Maybe you should go home," Harvey Ginsbeig said on the left. "You're awfully pale." Miller dabbed his sweaty brow with a handkerchief; his stomach felt queasy. "You need four players. I'd ruin the game for everybody."

  "Screw the game,"

  Harveysaid. As usual. Iris pursed her lips in pretended shock at

  Harvey's vulgar language. Miller's forehead throbbed. "You won't think

  I'm a poor sport?"

  "What I'll think. Prank, is you're a damned fool if you're sick and you don't go home." Miller smiled. "Such good friends."

  "I'll call you tomorrow and make sure you're feeling better,"Harvey said.

  The instant Miller stepped from the hall, an icy wind stung his face.

  Shocking snow pelted him as he trudged toward the parking lot across the street, clutching his overcoat. At least he didn't feel ill anymore.

  The gusts revived him, affirming his suspicion that his headache and nausea had been caused by excessive heat inside the hall. He fondly remembered the winters of his youth. Toboggan rides and ice-skate races. My mind's still spry, he thought. It's this damned body that's let me down. The street was deserted; the arc lamps in the parking lot were shrouded by falling snow. He reached his car--an Audi, a gift from his son--unlocked the driver's door, and heard a voice behind him.

  Frowning, he turned, straining to see through the swirling snow. The voice had been muffled by the shriek of the wind. A man's voice, he thought, but when he didn't hear it again, he began to wonder if his ears were playing a trick on him. He shrugged and gripped the latch on his car door. But again he heard the voice behind him, closer, though still not distinct. It seemed to be saying a single word, a first name, his first name. Once more, he turned. "Is someone there?" No answer. He opened the Audi's door. A hand grasped his shoulder, preventing him from getting in. Another hand slammed the door shut. A third hand spun him with such force that he almost lost his glasses. Three men. The snow obscured their faces. "Please. I'm old. Take my wallet. But just don't hurt me."

  "Wallet?" One of them laughed. The snow lessened. When he saw their faces and understood what they really wanted, he despaired.

  Sounds we don't hear can sometimes wake us. So it was that William

  Miller, unconsciously aware of the silence outside his bedroom windows, began to squirm in his sleep. Like a father whose rest is not complete until his teenage son or daughter comes home from a date that shouldn't have lasted pastmidnight , he felt uneasy because no car had entered the driveway, no automatic garage door had rattled as it opened and shut.

  But he wasn't a father who waited for his son. The
opposite--a son, who waited for his father. His mental alarm went off. He opened his eyes and blinked at the digital clock beside his bed.2:38 a. m.

  Taking care not to wake his wife, he eased from bed and peered out a window toward the driveway below. A distant streetlight glinted off falling snow. Fir trees were cloaked with white. There weren't any tire tracks in the driveway. "What's the matter, hon?" He turned to his wife. "Sorry. I tried to be quiet."

  "I couldn't sleep either. What are you looking at?"

  "It's what I'm not looking at that bothers me."

  Miller explained. "No tire tracks?" She slipped from bed and put on a robe. "Maybe it snowed after he got in."

  "Yeah... maybe." He left the bedroom, passed his children's rooms, and reached his father's room at the opposite end of the hallway. When he didn't see a form on the bed, he flicked on the light. The room was empty. His wife appeared beside him. "Let's think a minute. This might not mean anything. He might be downstairs asleep in front of the television."

  "Maybe." They went downstairs but couldn't find him. "Car trouble?"

  "He'd have phoned,"

  Miller said. "Unless he's with a friend."

  "This late? He hardly ever stays out pastmidnight."

  "I said with a. friend. He might have decided to spend the night."

  "With a womon?" She smiled. "Why not?"

  "It doesn't make a difference. He'd still have phoned."

  "Unless he felt embarrassed."

  "What?"

  "You know, with your mother dead a year now and..."

  "Hey, I loved my mother, and I'm sorry she's gone. But if he's still interested in women at his age, more power to him."

  "Maybe he doesn't know that's how you feel. Have you ever talked about sex with him?"

  "With my seventy-three-year-old father? Give me a break." He studied the kitchen clock. "It's close to three. If he isn't home by three-thirty, I'm calling the cops." But his father wasn't home by three-thirty, and Miller did call the cops. No auto accidents involving an Audi had been reported. No old men had been admitted to the local hospitals aftermidnight , and none of those admitted earlier had been

  Miller's father. The Audi, covered with snow, was discovered in a parking lot across the street from the community service hall. The keys had been dropped and somehow kicked beneath the car. But Miller's father was never found.

  Mexico City. April. Martin Rosenberg, seventy-two, stepped out of the synagogue, tucked his yannulka into his suitcoat pocket, and surveyed the cobbled street. From two blocks away, the drone of traffic along the Paseo de la Refonna disturbed his sense of tranquility. To his right, the lights of the ancient castle onChapultepec hill gleamed against the darkened sky. He exchanged shaloms with a group of young people coming out of the synagogue and turned left toward a corner. His son's home was five blocks away, one of the historic Spanish mansions interspersed with high-rise apartments in this affluent section of

  Mexico City. As usual, his son had offered to have him driven to and from the synagogue, butRosenberg had insisted that walks were essential to his health, and besides, the scenery throughout this district never failed to give him pleasure. He rounded the corner, proceeding toward the well-lit broad avenue that connectedChapultepec hill with government buildings. 6

  "I don't care how old he is!" Aaron Rosenberg said. "It's never taken him more than an hour to walk back home!" He paced in front of the arched windows that took up one wall of his living room. "But it's been more than two hours, not one!" With his pencil-thin mustache, aquiline nose, and dark burning eyes, Rosenberg looked more Spanish than Jewish.

  He seldom went to the synagogue anymore, but he donated generously to it and knew the rabbi, whom he'd telephoned forty-five minutes ago, learning that his father had left the synagogue at dusk.

  "Perhaps he stopped to visit with someone," his wife said. Her face was deeply tanned. Thirty-eight, lithe from daily tennis workouts, she wore a solid-gold watch, a turquoise necklace, and a bright red designer version of a peasant skirt and blouse. "Who? And surely not/ or two hours." He saw the headlights of a Mercedes sedan pulling up at the curb. "Esteban's come back. Perhaps he's found him." But Esteban reported that he'd driven along every route that the father would have used to return from the synagogue. Then he had widened his search to every street within a twenty-block grid. Other servants, having searched on foot, came back with the same disturbing report. ; "Go back out again! Keep looking!" Rosenberg called every hospital in Mexico

  City. Nothing. ; At midnight, when the servants again returned without his father, he sacrificed a cardinal rule of his import-export.

  business--never deal with the police except to bribe them-- I and phoned a captain whose home on Lake Chaico, eight miles south of the city, had recently been renovated thanks to Rosenberg. One month later, his father had still not been found.

  Toronto. May. From the window of his first-class seat in the Air

  Canada 727, Joseph Kessler peered down at the glinting expanse of Lake

  Ontario. Even at twenty thousand feet, he could see the distinctive length of a Great Lakes freighter. Ahead, close to shore, he saw the smaller outlines of barges, the gleam of wind-swollen sails. Despite the brilliance of the day, Kessler knew that the water would be numbingly cold. The crews of the sailboats down there had to be fanatical about their sport. He nodded with approval. Because of his own ability to harness his obsessions, he'd developed a small Providence electronics firm into a thriving corporation that had made him a millionaire by the age of forty. But at the moment, his obsession was not related to business. It was personal, fueled by rage. He didn't allow himself to show it. Throughout the flight, he'd maintained composure, studying business documents while inwardly he seethed.

  Patience, he told himself. Success depends on patience. Keep control.

  For now. Below, he saw the sprawl of Toronto, its flat residential subdivisions stretching along the lake shore, its skyscrapers projecting from the heart of the city. He felt a change in pressure as the jet began to descend. Six minutes later, it landed at Toronto's international airport. He went through customs. "Nothing to declare.

  I'm here on business." His briefcase and carry-on bag were not inspected. He proceeded through a sliding glass door into the noisy concourse, scanned the crowd, and approached a muscular man who wore the same blue-and-red striped de that Kessler did. "How much did you pay for that tie?" Kessler asked. "How much did you pay?"

  "Someone gave it to me."

  "I found mine." The code completed, the muscular man added, "Have you got any luggage?"

  "Just what I'm carrying."

  "Then let's get out of here." The man's Canadian accent made "out"

  sound like "oot" From the terminal, they entered a parking lot, got into a station wagon, and soon reached a divided four-lane highway, heading west on Highway 401. Kessler looked behind him toward the receding skyline of Toronto. "How soon till we get there?"

  "An hour."

  "Everyone showed up?"

  "You're the last," the man said. "Good." Kessler felt his fury blossom.

  To distract himself, he pointed toward the farm fields and stands of timber at the sides of the highway. "Something's missing."

  "What?"

  "No billboards."

  "Right. They're against the law."

  "Three cheers for Canada." Kessler put on his sunglasses and stared straight ahead. The small talk was over. 8

  Eighty kilometers farther, they reached the exit ramp for Kitchener.

  Instead of entering the city, the driver used side roads to head deep into farm country, finally turning up a zigzag gravel driveway toward a mansion on a bluff above a river. Kessler stepped from the station wagon and studied the estate--surrounding wooded hills, a nine-hole golf course, a tennis court, a television satellite receiver, a swimming pool. He turned toward the five-car garage, then toward the mansion.

  With its dormer windows, towers, and gables, it looked like it belonged
in New England more than in Ontario. "Mr. Halloway knows how to live well," the driver said. "Of course, he owes it all to--" One of the double doors at the mansion's entrance came open. A lithe man of medium height, wearing a perfectly fitted exercise suit and expensive jogging shoes, stepped out. He was in his early forties, had thick wavy hair, and beamed with health. "Thank you, John. We won't be needing you for the rest of the day. If you like, you can use that new set of exercise machines in the gym. Have a steam bath. A drink. Relax."