by By Jon Land
“Let them. A little war’s good for the soul. Hardens it, I reckon.”
“Walter Henley wasn’t the only one,” Danielle told him. “Neither was Victoria or her brother. Thirteen members of your Evacuation Unit have been murdered in the past two months, the most recent only last night.”
“And just how do you know that?”
“Because I was there. At Charlie Corstairs’s greenhouse.”
Phills’s face lost a degree of intensity, eyes growing suddenly furtive and darting. “Damn flower farmer.”
“I think you know more about the other veterans of the 121st than you’ve been alleging.”
“Only good thing about Charlie Corstairs was that he was a Reb too. Kind of man I used to be able to talk to.”
“He’s dead, they’re all dead, because of those steel storage cases your unit found in Buchenwald.”
Phills mouthed that word under his breath. He yanked off the jacket top of his Confederate uniform, revealing a sleeveless shirt below. He was short, yet incredibly well built for a man his age. He had so much mass that his skin seemed to have lost its elasticity. The result was a knobby, unnatural look that featured long knotted bands of muscle pressing up against his flesh. His head was shaved bald and his face was lean to the point that his cheeks angled inward, hollowed where they met bone. His blue eyes were powerful and piercing, relentless in their intensity.
“Charlie Corstairs told me he had those cases hoisted out of the ground and into a truck,” Danielle explained. “But they weren’t picked up for three days afterward. What happened to them in the meantime?”
Phills and Colonel Henley opened the cases together, using the expertise of a surgical technician in the 121st who was a locksmith by trade. Reams and reams of documents and photographs were found on four separate shelves in each of the three larger cases. Both Phills and Henley immediately suspected an intelligence bonanza, though it was impossible to say for sure since neither of them spoke German. Neither did anyone else in the unit, at least not well enough to adequately translate what it was exactly that the Nazis had squirreled away in Buchenwald.
But they had another day before military intelligence was coming to pick the cases up, coincidentally the same day General George Patton ordered the residents of nearby Weimar to be paraded through the camp’s grounds to see the atrocities perpetrated by their countrymen. The locals had steadfastly denied knowledge of what was transpiring in the camp. This wasn’t the case, of course, but their reactions clearly showed that the level of depravity caught even them off guard.
Colonel Henley told Phills to select three of the locals, who also spoke English, to translate a few of the documents prior to the material being handed over the following day. It was the next logical step since clearly standard procedure had already been violated when they opened the cases themselves. They expected secret war plans, material sensitive to the Third Reich if nothing else. They were wrong.
“What was inside?” Danielle asked John Henry Phills.
“Documents. And not just any documents either. What do you know about Hitler, Yank? His fascination with the supernatural, the occult, foretelling the future?”
Danielle frowned. “Not very much.”
“Then try this. For years Hitler had sent agents scouring the world for artifacts believed to have magical, at least majestic properties. The Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, Pandora’s Box, the goddamn boogeyman and Frankenstein’s monster for all I know.”
“You’re telling me you found something like that inside those cases?”
“Not at all. What we found, according to our Kraut translators from Weimar, were the reports on the progress made by various agents in filling the shopping list Hitler had sent them out with.”
“Anything pertinent?”
Phills shook his head and Danielle saw for the first time how tense his neck muscles had grown. “There were maps, some historical documents, transcriptions of interviews conducted with experts, records of every find uncovered at the archaeological digs they financed. Testimony of experts in the field promoting their own theories. Some near misses. A few of the teams believed they were getting close. One was convinced the Lost Ark was in Ethiopia of all places. Others had filed massive reports just to appear they were doing their job.”
“Only the material was never delivered in Berlin.”
Phills got up from his chair and moved to the bar where he poured himself a glass of whiskey. “Or if it was they dumped it into the shitter.”
“Because someone didn’t want Hitler to see it.”
“That would be my take.”
“Even though, according to these translators, it didn’t amount to much, if anything.”
“True enough,” Phills agreed and took a hearty sip from his glass. “But maybe the connection in Berlin didn’t know that. For whatever reason, he didn’t want Hitler to get his hands on the contents of those three cases.”
“Four,” Danielle corrected. “The three larger cases were transferred to military intelligence. There’s no record of the fourth, a smaller one, anywhere.”
“Some things are better off going unrecorded, I suppose.”
Danielle took a step closer to Phills and watched him take a smaller sip of his drink. “What was in that last case, Major?”
“Not for me to say, Yank.”
“Then who can?”
“Me,” a voice announced from the loft that ran the length of the rear portion of the A-frame.
Danielle turned toward the stairs and saw a man descending from the darkness, his face hidden until he came into the spill of the first-floor light.
“I can,” said Colonel Walter Henley.
* * * *
Chapter 38
W
alter Henley walked down the stairs slowly, as if bearing a weight far greater than the steel lockbox held under his right arm. He looked terribly worn and sad. Danielle recalled the photo his daughter Victoria had showed her picturing a vibrant older man standing proudly between his two children, an arm over each of their shoulders. This man bore little resemblance to that one.
“You said my daughter’s dead,” he said, his voice cracking as he reached the foot of the stairs. “Is it true?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“How?” Henley barely managed to say.
“An explosion at a hotel in Israel,” Danielle said.
Henley fought to steady himself. “Then if you’re here, she must’ve told you about Buchenwald, about the 121st.”
Danielle nodded. “You had Major Phills let me in even though you knew I wasn’t your daughter. Why?”
“I thought you might be one of . . .”
“One of who, Colonel Henley?”
Henley dabbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. “They won’t stop until we’re all dead. They couldn’t be sure who knew anything, so they’re killing everyone they can find.”
“They didn’t kill you.”
“They tried,” Henley said, his lips trembling.
“You let your daughter believe you were dead.”
“To protect her, for God’s sake! I thought she was safe. I thought Matt was safe. The massacre made me realize how wrong I was. I tried to reach Vicky, to tell her the truth, but I couldn’t track her down.” Henley sank down heavily on the bottom step. “What have I done? What in God’s name have I done?”
Danielle stared at the steel lockbox now held on his lap. “Vicky told me you were dead, Colonel Henley. Mugged at an ATM machine.”
“I was. I struggled with my attacker. His gun went off into his face. Large caliber. You understand?”
Danielle shrugged.
“He was about my same height and weight. I’d gone there to take enough money out to run anyway, and now I had the chance. I planned to contact Vicky eventually, but before I could they killed Matt and she took off across the world. She knew what I knew, you see. She knew that members of the 121st have been dying mysteriously all across the co
untry for weeks.”
“And she seemed to have a very good idea why your son was murdered. She was going to tell me the day before yesterday.”
“Did my daughter tell you what my son’s job was before he was forced to disappear?”
“A linguistics expert,” Danielle recalled. “Pioneered a new software application.”
“Specifically to be used to replace human beings in hard case translation. Right now, the F.B.I. has a six-month backlog of Arabic correspondence and files because they haven’t got the manpower to handle it. My son’s software will eventually change all that. It’s groundbreaking.” A soft sad smile crossed Henley’s lips. “It will probably save thousands of lives someday.”
“What does that software have to do with Buchenwald?”
“My son used it to translate what we found there, Inspector,” Henley explained. “That’s why my children and my friends are dead. But they’re not alone. Plenty more, thousands and thousands, are about to join them.”
Then he unclasped the lockbox and began to open its lid.
* * * *
Chapter 39
T
he scene looked like many other scenes played out in Israel all too often. The rocket had slammed into the bus broadside as it was moving down the road under military escort. The force of the explosion spun it around, then toppled it over, leaving it half on the road and half off, the back end angling down an embankment. The bus must have slammed into one of the escort Jeeps at one point because the Jeep’s twisted carcass stood on the opposite side of the highway, roasting in the sun.
From their raided outpost, the Hilltop Youth had been taken to a military substation to be processed. Of course, they hadn’t realized that the procedure was meant to help them, facilitate the misplacement of records and the like so these transgressions in behavior could be more easily “forgiven.” Instead they had made such a show with their continued protesting that ultimately they were incarcerated at the substation to maintain a measure of calm while the processing continued through much of the night. The efforts of an Israeli lawyer finally convinced them that climbing on the bus was far more advantageous than staying off it.
Ten minutes later, the missile had slammed into the bus’s side.
Sammy Barr jumped out of Ben’s SUV before it had come to a complete halt and rushed toward the stretchers that had been laid across the now closed road, the shapes upon them all covered by plastic sheets. The wounded had all been taken away by now, only the dead left behind.
Ben counted twenty-one bodies, tried to recall how many Hilltop Youth had been staying at Meitza Farm. Then he thought of his interview with the outpost’s young leaders and wondered if their bodies were among those lined up neatly on the pavement.
Colonel al-Asi met Ben near the United Nations SUV. “This is not good, Inspector.”
Ben frowned and shook his head at the sight before him. “I’ll say.”
“It’s even worse than it looks. Already this is going to be called Palestinian retaliation for the massacre in Bureij. The Israeli army is preparing to roll into the West Bank in unprecedented numbers and to utilize unprecedented force.”
Ben looked at the still-smoldering remains of the bus, the charred and blackened side where the rocket had impacted facing the sky now. He could see part of the jagged hole the rocket had left behind. Moving tentatively closer with al-Asi, his shoes crunched over glass that must have been from the bus’s blown-out windows.
Ben noticed a trio of unarmed, white-uniformed United Nations observers talking to a pair of Israeli officers, one of whom looked to be taking copious notes.
“The observers were the first on scene,” al-Asi noted. “Their outpost is on the other side of that hill. According to the observers’ story, they heard the sound of the rocket firing. On their way outside they heard the bus explode and then the screaming. Two men wearing masks were already rushing off down the hill into the olive groves on the other side. Two of the observers gave chase, while the third called for help and went to the bus to see if there was anything he could do.” Al-Asi paused and focused on the charred husk of the bus again. “There wasn’t very much.”
Ben saw Sammy Barr approaching and excused himself. What was left of Barr’s hair blew wispily in the wind. He looked determined and remorseful at the same time, his eyes still watery and red-rimmed. Barr brushed past Ben, slowing just enough to direct a few words at him.
“We need to talk.”
* * * *
Chapter 40
I
t’s my fucking fault,” Sammy Barr said, seated in the passenger seat of Ben’s U.N.-issued SUV. Beyond them, more stretchers were laid next to the dead lined up across the center of the road.
“Were you involved in the massacre, Mr. Barr?” Ben prodded.
“No! I mean, well, yeah, three kids from Meitza Farm came to me. Said they wanted to avenge a friend who was beaten to death outside Ramallah. Stupid fucking kid had an e-mail relationship with some Arab girl. One day they finally decide to meet. He shows up and gets his skull bashed in.” Sammy Barr shook his head, blew his nose. “You can’t blame them.”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone.”
“You should know.”
“Me?”
“If it couldn’t work for you and your Israeli girlfriend, how’s it supposed to work for anyone else?”
“We’re doing just fine,” Ben said, more defensively than he had intended.
“Sure, because you hightailed it out of here. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you.”
“Neither of us had much of a choice.”
“And what does that tell you? You try to make a difference, look where it gets you. Don’t bother’s what I say. The only difference I want to make is one that helps Israelis find peace, with or without Palestinian help.”
Ben felt his pulse starting to race, forced himself to stay calm. “And that’s why you gave these kids the money they needed?”
Sammy Barr continued to focus his gaze out the windshield. He looked numb. “They were talking about forming an outpost militia.”
“Kids with guns.”
“There are kids with guns on both sides, Kamal.”
“I’m all too aware of that. So they asked you for money,” Ben said to Sammy Barr.
“Not just money. What they really needed were details on troop deployments, so they’d have freedom of movement. Kind of stuff my contacts can provide.”
“And you gave it to them. . . .”
“Hey, we’re at fucking war here.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“You got a better word, Inspector?”
Ben gestured out the window toward the last of the bodies. “You’re looking at it.”
“Revenge for Bureij,” Sammy Barr said softly. “That’s what it must have been.”
“You think Palestinians blew up that bus?”
Barr turned away from the road long enough to spot Colonel al-Asi standing by himself in the meager shade of some thin trees. “You tell me.”
“That’s not the way he works.”
“You tell him about the kids?”
“I may have mentioned it.”
“Could have just as easily been you, I guess. Doesn’t matter a fucking bit, though, because I’m putting a stop to it. I didn’t approve this massacre. Killing innocent people’s not what we’re about.”
“No, you prefer stealing their land.”
“I’m trying to work with you here, Kamal. I had those kids watched. I had their calls monitored. I’m going to make some myself, set up a little meet for the two of us. Put an end to things before they get out of hand.”
“Things been out of hand for a long time.”
“Lots more villages in the West Bank, Kamal.”
“And lots more buses, Mr. Barr.”
Barr nodded, accepting Ben’s point. “That’s why I’m going to hand over the leaders of this outpost militia to you tonight.”
* * * *
Chapter 41
T
his is the very same box we found buried under that trench in Buchenwald, Inspector Barnea,” Henley said, looking down at his lap as if visualizing its contents for the first time.
“The one you never turned in to military intelligence.”
