She was back home in Tehran. With a few innocuous phone calls, she’d be back in touch with the NCRI network. They’d taken a beating during the recent protests against the government, and some of them had wound up either shot to death on the street or taking classes for extra credit at Evin University, but the mullahs couldn’t get them all.
She’d be in Qom in couple of hours. But there was something she had to do first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Baku
Dawn over the Caspian was a beautiful sight, but Emanuel Skorzeny was not contemplating that kind of beauty. Instead, he lay dreaming—not of resurrection but of death.
Later, when he awoke from his uneasy slumbers, he would realize that these dreams were coming more often now. Skorzeny didn’t believe in signs from the heavens; he knew they were messages his own brain was sending to him, not communications from some imaginary higher power. Nevertheless, they disturbed him, and he was not a man who enjoyed being disturbed.
He was back in Dresden, in 1945. Winter. Mid-February. Very cold. Working with Vater Otto in rooting out the hidden enemies of the Reich. And who better than him, since his parents had once been among those hidden enemies?
They were in a restaurant. Everyone was singing—Schubert’s “Erlkönig.” That’s when they heard the sirens.
You rarely heard sirens in Dresden. The beautiful city on the Elbe was far inland, far removed from the western front. True, the Americans and the British were flying relentless sorties over the other major German cities, pounding the Reich into rubble while Goering’s useless Luftwaffe sat on the ground, unable to attack and unable to defend. Teenaged boys, he had heard, boys his age, were manning the antiaircraft guns in Berlin.
But in Dresden they didn’t worry much about bombing raids. True, there had been a couple of attacks on the rail yards, but the Florence of the Elbe had no military targets to speak of, and its status as one of the architectural wonders of Europe, the visible manifestation of all that was great about German Kultur, would certainly spare it from destruction. The real worry was the Russians to the east. They were coming and, since the epic defeat at Stalingrad, there was no one to stop them. That had been two years ago, almost to this day, and the rest was commentary. Indeed, Father Otto was already making arrangements for their escape.
He knew, because at night, asleep upstairs in their small house, he could hear voices, talking treason. The war was lost, they all said, and now the only question was what to do about it, and where to flee. After all, Father Otto was among the most-wanted men in the Reich, but he had got out of tougher spots than this in the past. He would think of something. And he would not leave his Sippenhaft son behind.
They were celebrating Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent, not that either he or Father Otto cared about such things. Religion was something that had abandoned him with the death of his parents, a death they forced him to watch as part of his reeducation as a loyal and dedicated citizen of the Reich.
It was just before ten o’clock in the evening; at midnight, it would be Ascher Mittwoch, the beginning of the penitential season that would culminate with Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday forty days later.
At the sirens, Father Otto knew right away what was coming, that much was clear. He rose immediately and, without a hint of concern, took Emanuel by the arm and led him into the cellar. And then he did a remarkable thing. He picked up one of the chairs and smashed right through the foundation of the building, opening a hole into the next building.
That was impossible. German cellars were famous for their thick stone walls. But in many of the Dresden buildings, the cellar walls had been replaced by mere partitions, so that people would not get trapped in them if the house above collapsed after a bombing. Father Otto knew that. Father Otto knew everything.
But in the dream, Skorzeny did not know that. In the dream he watched in wonder as the wall vanished and they dashed through where the stones once had been.
The bombs were already falling as they emerged into the street. Not ordinary bombs. Firebombs. Much of the city center was already in flames.
“Run, Kurt, run!” commanded Father Otto. Kurt was his new name, the one they gave him when they placed him with Father Otto. He could barely remember his old name.
They ran.
Over dead bodies, past people aflame. The heat was already incredibly high, so high that those closest to the center of the raid had simply burst into flames. Others toppled over from lack of oxygen, which was being sucked into the vortex.
The bastards above knew this was going to happen. They knew, and yet they did it anyway. They had done it to Hamburg, Bomber Harris and the others, and now they were doing it to Dresden.
They were doing it to him, personally. And he would hate them forever for it.
The car was nearby. Emanuel jumped into the front seat as Father Otto landed behind the wheel. People were rushing toward them, imploring them to help them escape, but they had no time for people. They barely had time for themselves.
The attack had come from the east, so it was to the east they fled as the flames roared up behind them.
Father Otto sang as they drove:
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind
Er hat den Knaben wohl in den Arm
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm
Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?
Siehst Vater Du den Erlkönig nicht?
Der Erlkönig mit Kron’ und Schweif?
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif
Something hit the roof, hard. It sounded like one of the balls from the Kegelbahn. “Why are they throwing things at us, Father?” he cried.
Another bowling ball hit the roof, only this time it wobbled and then rolled down the windscreen and onto the hood. It wasn’t a bowling ball, it was a human head.
Then another, and then another.
Not only heads but limbs were flying through the air, some of them on fire. Arms and legs and hands and feet. A legless, headless, and armless torso hit the street right in front of them, but Father Otto just drove right over it.
Emanuel turned back to look at the city, which was now a gigantic fireball. The planes were coming in ranks, their progress barely disturbed by the antiaircraft fire.
“I hope that fat pig Goering burns in hell,” said Father Otto.
They were leaving the city. There was no urban sprawl in the Germany of that time; the city simply ended and the countryside began. Soon they were in a deep forest, the big Benz bouncing over potholed and damaged roads but making good time, speeding, speeding always toward the east. He saw a sign for Görlitz.
Then, even in his dream, he fell asleep.
When he awoke they had stopped somewhere in a clearing. There were no signs of life anywhere near them. Father Otto was rooting around in the trunk of the car, searching for something.
“What is it, Father? What are you looking for.”
Instead of answering, Father Otto turned his gaze past his foster son, to the west, toward where the proud baroque jewel had once stood on the banks of the Elbe, and wept.
This was an extraordinary thing. The great Skorzeny, the rescuer of il Duce, the bravest man in the Reich, a dashing figure in his SS uniform, his face creased by a dueling scar, was weeping. Emanuel could scarcely credit his eyes.
“It’s over,” he said. “And now it’s time for Operation Greif.”
He handed Emanuel a rucksack. “Everything you’ll need is in there. Clothes, new identity papers, some dried beef. You know how to find food in the forest, I know you do. Keep away from the bears and the boars and you’ll be safe enough.”
“You’re not leaving me here, Father!” he cried.
“I have to. Where I go now you cannot follow. The war is lost and soon all Germany will be under the boots of the Russians and the Americans. We are too far from the western front for me to get you to the Americans, who wo
uld take care of you. So I must leave you here for the Russians to find.”
Now it was his turn to weep. “No, Father, no! Don’t leave me here alone in the forest.”
“I must. But don’t worry. Your new identity papers are your old identity papers—do not show them to any German, lest they shoot you on sight. Instead, when the Russians come, and they will, ask for the officer and show him your papers. You are the son of one of the July plotters against the life of the Führer. They will respect and honor you for that.”
Father Otto turned to him. For a moment, Emanuel thought he was going to embrace him, as a real father would, but of course he did not. He had already shown enough weakness for one day.
“You have greatness in you, boy,” he said as he got back into the car and fired up the engine.
“But much anger, Father.”
“Hold on to that anger. Nurture it. Let it nourish you through the long nights ahead. Love nothing except your own hatred, lest you become soft and weak. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?” Who rides so late through night and wind?
Emanuel answered: “Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.” It is the father with his child.
Otto Skorzeny smiled. “May God be with you, Emanuel,” he said, and drove off.
Emanuel watched for a long time until the car was no longer visible. Then he turned back into the forest.
The Erlking, the evil creature who lived in the woods and preyed on children, was waiting for him there. He would find a welcome ally.
Skorzeny was still sleeping when he became aware of the ringing of the secure telephone. Mlle. Derrida lay beside him, indifferent as ever.
He found the phone and looked to see who was calling. It was her. He knew it would be. She had not let him down. He might have just hung up, the information duly conveyed and noted, but he enjoyed the sound of her voice. “Yes?” he said.
“The package has been delivered,” came her voice. The connection must be bad, for it was muffled. But it was unmistakably her.
“And you?”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Excellent. I shall have Mlle. Derrida prepare us a splendid lunch.”
“What a wonderful idea. See you then.”
She rang off.
Skorzeny rose, pulled on his robe, slipped the phone in its pocket, and stepped out onto the balcony. How different this sunshine was from that horrid winter in Dresden, the winter that haunted his dreams—which were, of course, not dreams at all but memories, the ghosts of the dead summoned up from the eternal wellspring of hatred that yet burned in his soul....
The Russians had found him a few weeks later, cold and hungry. They had treated him about as well as he could have expected, which was to say not well at all—which was why he treated them not at all well in his business dealings with them. Scores were always meant to be settled, right up to the day of final reckoning.
And now that his package was in Tehran, that day was hastened.
His hand brushed his pocket and bumped into the phone. He remembered that he had not turned it off, so he extracted it and pushed the off button.
Half a world away, at the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, the Black Widow made a note of the duration of the phone call, its origin, and its reception; transmitted the audio to one secure destination and initiated a complete transcription, which it encoded; and then signaled to a human operator that its task was complete.
The tech specialist on duty noted the alert and sent it straight to the top, to General Armond Seelye, the DIRNSA, who in turn relayed it to the one man who needed to know about it.
WE’VE FOUND THE BASTARD
In California Devlin looked at the readout and punched back: WHERE?
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. BUT WAIT—THERE’S MORE
GET TO IT, OLD MAN
HE WAS TALKING TO HARRINGTON. SHE’S IN TEHRAN MARYAM?
NO CLUE
WILL BE BACK IN WASHINGTON LATER TONIGHT. GOOD. YOUR HOUSE, AFTER 11. EYES ONLY
WHY?
BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU PERSONALLY AND EVEN YOU AREN’T THAT RUDE DON’T BE LATE. I NEED MY SLEEP
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kaduna, Nigeria
Mobi Babangida was one of the richest men in Kaduna, from one of the richest families. Of course, here in Kaduna, about one hundred miles north of the capital city of Abuja, rich was relative.
“Babangida,” in the Hausa language, meant “master of the house,” and Mr. Babangida very much considered himself to be just that. Since the founding of the colonial city by the British in 1913, the old provincial capital had been a center of agriculture and trade in central Nigeria, and for a long time, so long as peace was maintained between the Muslims and the Christians, there were fortunes to be made.
But then came the troubles, the riots, the installation of sharia as the provincial law, and things had changed. Neighbor distrusted neighbor. When a newspaper columnist idly wrote of an upcoming Miss World pageant in Abuja years ago that even the Holy Prophet, Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, would be tempted by the contestants’ great beauty to take another wife, twenty churches were burned by the Muslims and eight mosques destroyed by the Christians. These were tense, unhappy times.
Still, Mr. Babangida felt no qualms or unease about moving freely between the Muslim north of the city and the Christian south, for in this it was a mirror of Nigeria itself. One could not be a prosperous businessman if one were not willing to visit both sides of town. Whether in mosque or church, Mobi Bagangida, the master of the house, was among his people.
Besides, that’s what well-armed bodyguards were for.
His first thought, when he saw the crowd gathered across from the petrol station at Mohammed Buhari Way and Independence Way, was that there was some sort of official ceremony going on, perhaps a procession coming down from Lugard Hall, where the Assembly met. But as he drew nearer, he could see that the people were looking up at the sky.
Now the sky was not where Mr. Bagangida normally looked. There was nothing to see in the sky except the occasional cloud or the planes coming in and out of the airport or the government helicopters monitoring the populace whenever another riot broke out and, occasionally, strafing them. But he looked anyway—
—and saw the holy Prophet, or someone who looked very much like him.
Mr. Bagangida had never seen the Prophet, except in a few ancient pictures from the infidel Iran. While it was not forbidden to show the sacred likeness, representations of the holy visage were frowned upon, as was representational art in general. The human form was the highest work of divine Art, and mere man could not hope to improve upon Allah. In fact, thought Mr. Bagangida, looking around Kaduna, there was not very much that man could get right; already parts of the city were returning to the nature that the British had found a century ago and, soon enough, he expected, much of the country would follow it into the countryside. The devil was afoot in Nigeria, but it did not much matter, for within a few years, Mr. Bagangida planned to be living in New York City.
Now, face-to-face with the Prophet, he was not so sure. Mohammed’s lips were moving, but no sound emerged; he seemed to be floating in the sky, shimmering yet corporeal, imparting instructions to the Faithful, instructions that Mr. Bagangida was not holy or purified enough to hear.
An imam from a nearby mosque must have come on the scene, because suddenly the crowd of men fell to the ground, many of them carrying their prayer rugs, and turned toward Mecca and began to pray while, above them, Mohammed kept talking.
And then—this was something Mr. Bagangida never would have believed had he not seen it with his own eyes—another apparition appeared, this one hovering over the Christian side of the city. She was a beautiful lady, standing atop a bed of fresh rose petals. She said nothing, but merely smiled a smile of a million sadnesses. Soon enough, people noticed her as well, and
Christians poured out of their houses by the hundreds to see the holy sight.
And here was Mr. Bagangida, caught in the middle.
He was not sure what to do, or where to turn. The streets were filling up with humanity very rapidly, and he had witnessed firsthand many times what happened when one half of an explosive and restive population came into contact with the other half. He was the master of the house, and so it was high time for him to put aside his business affairs for the day and retire to his domicile.
Now a roar came up from the Muslim crowd. He could hear shouts of “blasphemy” in several tribal languages; as luck would have it, at that moment his eyes turned back to the Lady. Something was happening to the rose petals at her feet. Something unseen was slithering through them, knocking them aside—
A snake. No, a dragon. But the Lady kept her feet on the dragon’s neck and, squirm though it might, she would not relent. Still with her smile, she was slowly crushing the life from the dragon, and its death throes were terrible to watch. The beast writhed in agony, but the woman was immovable, and a great cheer went up from the Christian crowd.
He turned back to look at the Messenger of God. A great rage had come across his noble and holy features, like the rage he felt when confronted with the stubbornness of the Jews of Medina. In response to his blessed wrath, a chant went up from the Muslims: “Kill the blasphemers. Kill the infidel. Allah commands it. Allahu akbar!”
The Muslim crowd rose to its feet. He could see many machetes flashing. Some had rifles. There was going to be bad trouble.
Surrounded by his bodyguards, Mr. Bagangida backed away, trying to get back to his car. He was very proud of that car. It was a splendid, if used, Mercedes-Benz that he had bought from a German for a trifling sum. It was in tip-top running condition, and he employed several of the neighborhood boys to keep it clean at all times. It would never do for the master of the house to be seen in a dirty vehicle.
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