David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  Saul said. Erika drove along a country road. Five kilometers farther,

  Saul told her to turn left again. The sun-bathed countryside was gentle hills, woods alternating with corn and pasture. "We ought to be close now," Saul said. The blacktop road curved. He pointed to the right toward a gravel lane that led up through trees toward a sloping lawn and a mansion on a bluff. "I think this is it. The layout's the same as

  Icicle's description. There should be a... Yes, see the silhouette of a greyhound on the mailbox at the side of the road."

  "Lots of people put decorations on their mailbox, and lots of those decorations are silhouettes of dogs," Drew cautioned. "Icicle said there'd be a metal bridge around a bend past the mansion." A minute later, Erika drove across such a bridge. "I'm convinced. It's almost three-thirty. Let's not waste daylight." She turned the car around and drove back across the bridge, stopping at the side of the blacktop.

  "Near the river, me abandoned car won't look suspicious. It'll seem as if somebody stopped to go fishing."

  "I wish we'd been able to bring our weapons," Saul said. "Through airport security? We'd still be back in Rome. In jail," Drew said.

  "It's just a wish. But I'm going to feel severely underdressed when we get to that mansion."

  "You never know. Weapons might not be necessary," Arlene said. "Halloway could be nothing more than a businessman."

  "Don't forget his connection with Seth and Icicle. It's better if we anticipate trouble." They got out of the car. On the opposite side of the road, woods obscured them from the mansion.

  16

  The woods were dense. Only on occasion did sunbeams pierce the canopy of leaves. Smelling fragrant loam. Drew followed a zigzagging game trail, stepped over a fallen trunk, and started up a more densely wooded slope. He glanced back toward Arlene, admiring her graceful movements, her obvious feeling of being at home in difficult terrain. We'll have to go rock-climbing, he thought. Just the two of us in a wilderness for a couple of weeks. When this is over. He concentrated only on the present and climbed higher through the trees. At the top, he waited for Arlene to join him and touched her shoulder lovingly. Beyond the clearing, a break in a line of trees revealed the mansion to the right on me continuation of this bluff. Saul and Erika were ahead of them, crouched among bushes. Even at a hundred yards. Drew could see a half-dozen armed guards in front of the mansion. Their attention was directed toward me entrance to the estate. Ten cars of different types were parked beside them. A man in a blue exercise suit strode out of the mansion's front door and stopped abruptly, appalled by what he saw. A truck arrived, raising dust as it sped up the gravel lane.

  17

  The previous evening, Halloway had felt so nervous about the impending munitions delivery that he'd decided to risk visiting his wife and children at the safe house in Kitchener. Three a. m. in Libya was 9 p.

  m.

  in Ontario, and allowing for the time required to transfer the arms from

  Medusa to the Libyan freighter and for the further time the Libyan freighter would need to get back to home port, he didn't expect to receive word about the transaction until the next morning. Though he wasn't religious, he prayed that the mission would be a success, for he now shared Rosenberg's tense misgivings about the Night and Fog's possible discovery of the shipment. The enemy had learned so much with which to terrorize them that perhaps they'd learned about Medusa too.

  But Halloway couldn't warn the Libyans about the potential information leak. Assured of maximum punishment for sending a shipment that might have been compromised, he took the gamble of not alerting his clients and hoped that nothing would go wrong. His hope was manifested by a toast at dinner. He raised a glass of wine and feigned a smile toward his wife and children. "I know you're confused about what's going on.

  The past few months have been a strain. You wish you were home. The bodyguards make you nervous. But sometimes international finance creates enemies. If it helps, I believe we'll soon see the end of the crisis. In the meantime, your patience and understanding have been remarkable." He sipped his wine and silently proposed another toast. To

  Medusa. To the satisfactory conclusion of a hundred-million-dollar agreement. He noted that it was precisely 9 p. m., the time for the

  Mediterranean delivery. A bodyguard came into the dining room and handed him a telegram. Halloway ripped open the side of the envelope and pulled out the message. He had to read it several times before he absorbed the impact of the words.

  ALL PROBLEMS SOLVED. YOUR FATHER SAFE. Returning

  HIM TOMORROW. YOUR TIME THREE P. M. YOUR ESTATE.

  ICICLE. SETH.

  Halloway exhaled, overcome with relief. For the first time in several months, he felt buoyant, liberated. True, he wondered why Seth and

  Icicle had sent a telegram instead of phoning, and why they'd sent the telegram here, to the safe house he'd told them about, instead of to the estate outside town. But after he phoned a guard at the estate and learned that a telegram had just arrived there as well, he felt reassured that Seth and Icicle had tried to contact him at both of the places where he'd probably be. They must have worried that a phone call, for whatever reason, would have endangered them. He instructed the security force at his estate to expect company tomorrow. "Your grandfather's coming home," he told his children. With a beaming smile toward his wife, he departed from his usual abstemious ness and poured himself a second glass of wine. By noon the next day, he felt so nervous he couldn't keep still. Protected by bodyguards, he drove out to his estate. A car had already arrived. Overjoyed, he rushed toward it But instead of his father, Rosenberg stepped out of the car. Halloway froze in astonishment

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Your telegram."

  "Telegram?"

  "You didn't send one?" 'Tor Christ's sake, no!"

  "But it's got your name on it." Rosenberg took the telegram from his suitcoat pocket Halloway yanked it away from him. His heart shrank as he read it.

  PHONE CAN'T BE TRUSTED. ALL PROBLEMS SOLVED. OUR

  FATHERS SAFE. ARRIVE TOMORROW. MY TIME THREE P. M. MY ESTATE. HALLO

  WAY

  "And you believed this?" Halloway crushed the paper. "What was I supposed to do? Phone when you told me I shouldn't? Stay in Mexico when I hoped my father was here in Canada?"

  "You stupid bastard, I received a telegram as well! The message was almost the same! My father was supposed to be here."

  "Then you're as stupid as you think I am!"

  "They did this!" Halloway pivoted toward the entrance to his estate.

  "They set us up!"

  "They?" Rosenberg's knees bent. "The Night and Fog?"

  "Who else would... ? They must be watching us right now!"

  Halloway and Rosenberg retreated toward the mansion. But Halloway pivoted again, hearing a car roar up the gravel lane. As guards rushed toward it, Halloway recognized Miller behind the steering wheel. "I told you not to come here!" Miller's car crunched to a halt on the gravel. The angry architect surged from his car. "And I told you I was coming! You knew what my father was! You knew what all the fathers were! I tried to convince myself I'd only be sinking to your level if I came here and strangled you. But God help me, even knowing my father's crime, I wanted him back! And then you sent me this telegram!

  My father! You said he'd be here! Where is he?" Halloway grabbed the piece of paper with which Miller gestured in fury. The message was the same that Rosenberg had received. 'They're out there," Halloway cried.

  "I know it I'm sure of it. They're out there."

  "Out there?" Miller's anger rose. "What are you--? Out there? Who?"

  "We've got to take cover. Quickly. Inside." Halloway scurried toward the front steps. He shouted orders to the captain of his guards. "Pull your men in from the perimeter! Protect the house!" But at once he spun again, hearing a car roar up the lane. Oh, Jesus, he thought. Not another one.

  18

  It went on like that for the next two hours, c
ars rushing up to the mansion, men scrambling out, each clutching a telegram. From around the world, they'd been summoned. Prom Mexico, America, England, Prance,

  Sweden, Egypt, and Italy, they'd rushed to be reunited with their fathers, only to learn of the trick that had brought them to Halloway's estate. Sheltered in his study while guards watched the mansion, they raised frightened angry voices. They shouted, accused, complained.

  "I'm getting out of here!"

  "But it isn't safe to leave!"

  "It isn't safe to stay!"

  "What's supposed to happen at three o'clock?"

  "Why was that time specified in the telegram?"

  "What if our fathers will be returned?"

  "What if we'll be attacked" The appointed time passed. Halloway heard another vehicle enter the lane. He rushed outside, hoping he was wrong about the Night and Fog, praying this was Icicle and Seth. But instead of a car, he saw a truck. With wooden slats along its sides, a tarpaulin covering the top. It looked like... Halloway shivered... a cattle truck. God have mercy, he thought, filled with a sickening premonition. The threat was all the more horrifying because it was vague. But of this he was certain--the end had begun.

  19

  "What's happening down there?" Saul asked. Crouched beside Erika,

  Drew, and Arlene, he watched from the bluff as the truck approached the nine cars parked in front of the mansion. The man in the blue exercise suit gestured frantically to his guards, who raised their rifles toward the truck. Drew's voice was strained. "We have to get closer."

  "Now. While the guards are distracted," Erika said. Beyond the bushes in which they hid, a waist-high barbed wire fence separated them from the lawn of the estate. Erika hurried toward it. There were no glass insulators on the posts; the wires weren't electrified. She didn't see any closed-circuit cameras. There might be hidden sound and pressure detectors, but need made her take the risk. She climbed a post, tumbled to the lawn, and crawled. To her right, a hundred yards away, she saw the man in the blue exercise suit shouting orders to Iris guards, who aimed toward the cattle truck. It reached the top of the lane, approaching the cars parked in front of the mansion. Impelled by a horrible foreboding, Erika crawled faster. She turned toward Saul, who was squirming through the grass in her direction. Drew and Arlene were farther to her left, spreading out so there'd be less chance of anyone seeing them. With the sun on her back, she hurried toward a garden plot filled with tall orange snapdragons that would give her more concealment on the way to the mansion. Abruptly she stopped. Two guards at the back of the mansion had scrambled toward the commotion in front They joined their counterparts and aimed at the cattle truck, which had turned so that its hatch was pointed toward the group in front of the mansion. She took advantage of the guards' preoccupation and hurried closer to the mansion. But on her left she saw a sentry.

  She crouched behind a shrub. The sentry, rifle at the ready, approached a shed, only to lurch back as if struck. He plucked at something on the side of his neck and suddenly collapsed. Baffled, Erika watched two elderly men emerge from behind the shed. One of them held a gun whose distinctive shape she recognized--it was used to shoot tranquilizer darts. Despite their advanced age, the men worked with surprising speed, dragging the sentry into the shed. One shut the door while the other grabbed the sentry's rifle. They hurried toward the back of the mansion and disappeared. Erika's bewilderment increased when she looked to her right, toward the front of the mansion, and saw an elderly man get out of the passenger door of the truck. The man walked toward the truck's back hatch and joined another old man, who'd gotten out on the driver's side and unseen by Erika had walked to the back. They braced themselves in front of the guards' rifles. With a mixture of fear and dismay, Erika crawled faster. Her heart pounded. Her premonition worsened. The elderly man who'd just appeared from the blind side of the truck was her father.

  20

  Rage had made him incapable of fear. Joseph Bernstein stopped at point-blank range from the rifles and turned toward Halloway. "Is this any way to welcome visitors?"

  "Who are you?"

  "I think you already know," Ephraim Avidan said. Standing next to

  Joseph, he lifted his hand toward the tarpaulin that covered the truck's back hatch. 'Tell your guards to lower their guns." Ephraim yanked the tarpaulin to the side of the truck. The back hatch slammed down. A bearded elderly man sat in the truck, aiming a machine gun. "Since munitions are your business, you're no doubt aware I've pulled back the cocking bolt on this weapon," he said. "You also know the devastation rapid-feed thirty-caliber bullets can accomplish. Even if someone shot me right now, my nervous reflex would pull the trigger. I'm aiming directly at your chest Please do what my associate requested and order your guards to lower their rifles."

  "If you need further incentive, look deeper into the truck," Joseph said. Lips parted with apprehension, Halloway squinted toward the ulterior. "Step closer. We want you to see every detail," Ephraim said.

  Halloway took two nervous steps forward and paled when he saw what was in there. Dragged, ashen, hollow-cheeked, the fathers were chained together, eleven of them slumped on toe floor of the truck. An elderly man guarded the prisoners, pressing an Uzi against the forehead of

  Halloway's father. "Dear God." Halloway clutched his stomach, as if he might vomit

  "Tell your guards to put down their rifles or we'll shoot the prisoners," Joseph said. He pulled a Beretta from a windbreaker pocket

  "Do it," Halloway said. The guards set their rifles on me lane.

  Joseph searched them, found several handguns, and told the guards to lie facedown on the gravel.

  "Why are you doing this?" Halloway asked. "What do you want?" 'Isn't it obvious by now?" Ephraim said. "We're here to discuss Nazi racial theories." The large front door to the mansion came open. One by one, me other members of Halloway's group stepped out their hands raised, their faces pinched with fear. Two elderly men holding just followed them. "Ah," Ephraim said, "the rest of our audience has consented to join us."

  "I don't know what you think you're doing," one of Halloway's group shouted, "but--!"

  "Mr. Miller," Joseph said, "please shut your mourn."

  "You can't keep something like this a secret! You can't--"

  Joseph struck him across the head with the Beretta. Miller fell to the gravel. He moaned, clutching his bleeding scalp. "Would anyone else like to say something?" Joseph asked. The group stared appalled at the blood streaming down Miller's face. "Very good," Joseph said. Other old men, aiming Uzis, appeared from each side of the house. "Did you restrain the rest of the guards?" Ephraim asked. "The perimeter's been secured. We searched every room in the house."

  "In that case, it's time to begin." Ephraim stepped toward the truck.

  "Whatever you plan to do, it's wrong," a Mexican-looking man said.

  "Rosenberg, don't presume to tell me about what's wrong. You and

  Halloway are perfect proof that the vices of the fathers are inherited by the sons."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The weapons you sold to Libya to be used against Israel."

  "You know about--?"

  "The weapons are now in Israeli hands." Rosenberg gasped. "It's only fitting that, even if you didn't intend to do so, you helped protect my race, me race your father tried so hard to destroy," Ephraim said. He reached into the truck and threw shovels onto the gravel. "Pick them up. All of you." He threw out more shovels. "We brought enough for everyone. We mustn't take all day about this. Efficiency is something your fathers always recommended. Teamwork. Organization."

  "Shovels?" Halloway blanched. "What do you--"

  "Dig a hole, of course. A large deep hole."

  "You're insane!"

  "Were your fathers insane when they forced Jews to dig pits for me bodies of other Jews? Or is killing Jews a perfectly rational thing to do? Is it only insane when the executioners are executed? Pick up the shovels." Prodded by Uzis, the group stumbled forward. "
We'll dig the pit behind the house, out of sight from me road down there,"

  Ephraim said. "I'm sure you're all wondering what we intend to do with you when the hole is ready. Will we force you to watch the death of your fathers and men shoot you just as your fathers shot those they ordered to dig burial pits? We offer you the same temptation your fathers offered their victims. Cooperate with us, and we'll let you go. Dig the pit--we'll be understanding. How much do you love your fathers? Many

  Jews were faced with mat question during the war. If your father's going to die, is it a useless sacrifice to resist and die along with him? Or does it make more sense to cooperate with your persecutors and take the chance that you'll be spared? An interesting dilemma. If you refuse to dig the pit, we'll kill you. If you obey..." Ephraim raised his hands, expressing a quandary. "Who knows?