David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  "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 Hauoway?"

  "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 worded 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 her

  "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 ho ugh 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 distracted 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 me modest living room of this safe house, a farm on the outskirts of Rome.

  It had been converted into an emergency medical faculty. 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?" Sam 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, here'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 explosive, grenades, ammunition, portable rocket launchers, and heatseeking missiles. Two members of the assault force followed 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 (he 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." Drew smiled.

  "Saul was right about how smart you are."

  "If I'm so smart, why aren't I cheering my father on?" Erika asked.

  "Part of me wants him to get even."

  "Part of me feels mat way, too," Saul said. "Maybe that's why I'm so angry about trying to protect them."

  "That's just the point,"

  Drew said. "Part of you wants vengeance. But only part of you. I feel like an outsider--without a right to an opinion. My relatives weren't killed in the Holocaust. My race wasn't hunted and almost exterminated.

  But when I think about the SS, I feel so outraged I want to..." He sighed. "Some of them weren't even crazy enough to believe in what they were doing. They just complied with the craziness around them. To earn a living. To feed their families. If enough of the hypocrites had objected with sufficient force..."

  "But the world isn't like that," Erika said. "We are," Drew said.

  "That's why we refuse to condone Nazi methods being used against Nazis.

  Because we refuse to become like Nazis. Isn't that what the Nuremberg trials were about? Not vengeance but reason and law. Believe me, I want to see these war criminals punished. I don't care how old they are.

  They must be punished. Death in my opinion. An absolute crime requires absolute penance. But not by individuals, not on the basis of anger alone, not without the sanction of society."

  "But how... ?" Erika faltered, reaching for the bed. "Are you all right?" Saul hurried over and put his arm around her. She nodded, anxious to ask her question. "How are we going to stop my father?"

  "Toronto," Saul said. "Halloway lives nearby. Your father was last seen there. Do you feel strong enough to travel?"

  "Even if I didn't, I'd say I did. For my father's sake."

  "But do you?"

  "Yes. Get two tickets on the first plane you can."

  "Pour," Drew said. Erika glanced up quickly at him in surprise. Arlene, who'd listened in silence, stepped forward. "I agree with Drew. Four tickets. We're coming along."

  "But you don't..."

  "Have to? Is that what you wanted to say?"

  "It's not your problem." Erika gestured in frustration. "That sounds rude. I don't mean it that way. But he's not your father."

  "Right,"

  Drew said. "We're not obligated. AH me same, we're coming along."

  "You don't even know me."

  "We will." 14

  Joseph Bernstein sat alone in the dark living room of the house-turned-into-a-prison in Toronto. He tried to relax before the tension of tomorrow. A few minutes' quiet I'm seventy, he thought.

  Other old men--my comrades-- sleep upstairs. Equally old men--my enemies--are our prisoners. Tomorrow, after more than forty years, I fulfill a vow I made in my youth. To avenge my family. To punish monsters as they punished me.

  15

  The Air Canada DC-10 landed in Toronto shortly after 2 p. m. Saul's body was still set for Rome time, where the sun would be setting, not blazing above him. He'd slept little the night before and felt exhausted. His legs ached from lack of exercise. Arlene and Drew said they felt as he did. But Erika had an excess of energy. Concern about her father prompted her to take charge as soon as they passed through immigration and customs. She found a car-rental booth and twenty minutes later drove the group out of the airport complex, merging with Highway 401.

  Traffic was considerable, most drivers ignoring the hundred-kilometer-an-hour speed limit. But Erika didn't want trouble with the police and, despite her impatience, maintained the legal maximum. The afternoon sun was oppressive. She switched on the sedan's air conditioner and stared straight ahead, oblivious to the farm fields tha
t flanked the highway. Saul watched the exit numbers and, fifty minutes later, pointed. "Here. Take this one." He regretted that he hadn't been able to wait for Misha Pletz's phone call in Rome. Misha had insisted he had something important to say, and Saul had suspected the information was related to Halloway. But when it came to a choice between waiting in Rome, or catching the earliest plane to Toronto, speed had dictated which decision to make. "Turn here. To the left,"