Ring of Lies

by Roni Dunevich

  Text from Zengot: Contact Ancona. Urgent.

  Thank God Sammy had sent the right man. But what could be so urgent in the middle of the night?

  “We’re in Berlin,” Ancona informed him. There was the sound of a match being lit. Ancona blew out smoke. “I need you here.”

  “I’m in Barcelona.”

  “You have to get here fast,” Ancona said, drawing on his cigarette.

  “What happened?”

  “We grabbed someone from the Syrian Air office. We had a short conversation with her. She has information, and she’ll give it up.”

  “Where will I find you?”

  “Spandau. I’ll text you the details.”

  If he left right away, he’d have an hour or two in Berlin before the flight to Lyon in the morning.

  He called Paris from the plane, waking him out of a deep sleep, and filled him in on the events of the evening.

  “Do you want me to come to Barcelona?” Paris asked.

  “It’s a lost cause.”

  “I can help.”

  “I know. But at the moment there’s nothing we can do. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Be careful, Alex. They did not give up on Jane, and they will come looking for you again, too.”

  The lights of Barcelona faded from the window, and with them any hope he still harbored of finding Jane alive.

  The plane approached Spandau. A glimmer of hope flickered in the darkness. Ancona had sounded confident, and Ancona was as scarred as a street dog.

  SPANDAU, BERLIN | 05:41

  Three weary men were sprawled on the wooden floor of a cellar that reeked of mildew and diesel fuel. Not far away, a rusty iron anvil sat on a heavy worktable. One of the men was chewing gum, another was listening to music on his iPhone, and the third was chugging beer from a bottle and scratching his balls. They acknowledged Alex’s arrival with unsmiling nods.

  Akiva Ancona was standing next to a slender woman in a cheap blue suit seated on a straight-backed chair. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her feet were bound to the chair legs. The edge of a pale neck and dark purple scarf peeked out from under the burlap bag over her head.

  Ancona strode over to Alex silently, thanks to the soundproofing in the soles of his shoes. An unlit cigarette was stuck between his teeth. The men on the floor waited.

  “Let me introduce you,” he said quietly. “An intel officer in an airline uniform. She was posted to the Berlin station by Mukhabarat HQ in Damascus. We picked her up outside the Syrian Air office.

  “They’ve been working around the clock in shifts of six for the past ten days.”

  Ancona lit the cigarette with a bent match and inhaled. He crushed the filter between his teeth. Spirals of smoke issued from his nostrils as he gave Alex a nod.

  Alex swiveled around and stood with his back to the prisoner. The sounds of slapping and punching bounced off the walls of the cellar, followed by howling and groaning, crying and gasping. Ancona never uttered a single word. Saying nothing, asking nothing, he went on beating, punching, inflicting pain.

  Ancona pulled off the filthy burlap bag. Her eyes were closed. He poured a bucket of water over her head.

  She groaned. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail held by a simple blue rubber band. She had an olive complexion, high cheekbones, and well-defined features. Or at least, they had been before. Now blood was dripping from her nose, her mouth, and a cut above her right eyebrow. Her frightened eyes were half-closed to shield them from the light.

  Ancona leaned down and whispered something in her ear.

  She turned her head away.

  He grabbed her chin roughly and pulled her head back, repeating his whispered threat.

  The woman began mumbling a long monologue. Ancona held a small digital recorder to her lips, catching every word. Finally, she fell silent.

  With a loud snap of his fingers, Ancona summoned one of the men. The burly agent rose, set down his beer bottle, and came over. His massive muscles seemed slack, like those of an out-of-shape former bodybuilder. His limbs were chunky, his fingers short and square. He undid his zipper, pulled down his pants and boxers, and took hold of his limp cock with an awkward grin. He rubbed it until it was erect, tore open a packet of condoms with his teeth, and sheathed his dick hurriedly, as if he was afraid that the erection wouldn’t last. His pants were down around his ankles.

  The cellar shook from the woman’s bloodcurdling scream.

  Ancona walked over to Alex. “They’ve got more than fifty operatives on surveillance detail all over Europe. She knows about the Zionist agents who were crossed off the list. The operatives have been sending the intel they gathered to the Syrian Air office. She says the basement belongs to the Mukhabarat’s Berlin station.”

  “Where does the Berlin station send the intel?”

  “The operation was halted yesterday. She says that seven Syrian trackers reported being blown.”

  “I asked where they send the intel.”

  “She doesn’t know, Alex.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “I will be in a minute.”

  Ancona’s man was rubbing his cock against her face. Her eyes were bulging in terror. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her thighs were as narrow as a young girl’s. A dark wet stain spread over her legs. Urine dripped to the floor.

  Ancona went up to the eager agent and touched his shoulder. The man moved off with glazed eyes. The woman’s face was damp with tears and blood.

  “Where did you send the intel?” Ancona demanded.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want to suck his cock?”

  She swung her head wildly, terrified.

  “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “I don’t know . . . I swear.”

  Ancona gestured to the agent, who came closer and used his thick fingers to pry the prisoner’s mouth open. He shoved his cock in. The woman gagged and he pulled out and retreated. Coughing, she vomited on herself. Ancona again whispered in her ear.

  She was no longer crying, just shaking her head with a chilling detachment.

  Ancona went back to Alex and gazed at him with his huge, sad eyes. He stank of cigarettes, sweat, and alcohol. “She has nothing more to give us.”

  “Sorry. One last nudge,” Alex said.

  With a nod, Ancona walked over to the man whose pants were still around his ankles and spoke to him softly. Alex saw the flash of the switchblade in his hand. With quick thrusts, he cut the ropes binding the prisoner’s hands and feet.

  Once again the cellar shook from the screams of the slender Syrian woman as the man tore off her clothes, threw her down on her stomach on the grimy wooden floor, and climbed on top of her.

  “Stop!” Alex shouted.

  The agent froze. The expression on his face reminded Alex of a sex doll’s.

  Ancona looked at him quizzically.

  “That’s far enough!” Alex ordered.

  But the woman was already at the depths of the abyss, muttering, choking, pleading, her legs beating at the floor. She was trembling, her breathing shallow. Ancona put on a callous expression and held the recorder up to her mouth. “Talk.”

  She shook her head. Ancona landed a slap. She uttered two unintelligible words before white foam spilled from her mouth, along with a wail of despair. She shuddered violently, and then her arms and legs convulsed and her body curled up into a ball, twitching as if an electric current was running through her.

  The agent recoiled. He pulled his pants back up and tossed the condom onto the floor. The red rubber he had shed leaked shame.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Ancona asked nervously.

  “She’s having an epileptic seizure. What was the last thing she said,” Alex asked stiffly.

  “Two words: Mud Man.”

  The two men went outside. Dawn was about to break. A cold morning wind was blowing, biting at thei
r faces. It was growing lighter. Ancona was silent. His mouth was curled down and there were deep lines around his eyes. He crouched down and spat, then lit a cigarette and inhaled, squinting to avoid the smoke. He spat again, stuck the cigarette between his teeth, and folded his arms over his chest.

  They stood there side by side, staring unseeingly into the dark courtyard.

  “Too bad about her,” Ancona said, drawing deeply on the cigarette. The end glowed orange. He didn’t exhale. “Too bad, that’s all,” he said sadly.

  In the distance, a bird called out to the empty sky.

  “What are you going to do with her?” Alex asked.

  TEGEL AIRPORT | 07:37

  Alex pushed away his untouched breakfast tray. The plane climbed into the gray sky until it was above a floor of pillowy clouds. The light outside grew brighter. They were heading southwest, toward Lyon in France.

  The satphone chirped. Alex took a deep breath, gathering up the last crumbs of his patience.

  Reuven said, “Orchidea is waiting for you in Crémieu, outside Lyon. She runs the Orchid Farm.”

  “I shouldn’t have left Berlin,” Alex said. “The Syrian woman confirmed that they’re working with someone called the Mud Man. He must be the one responsible for the deaths of the Nibelungs—Parsifal also told me to look for the Mud Man. Berlin is where it’s going down, Reuven. Not on some orchid farm.”

  “The farm is just a front,” Reuven said.

  “For what?”

  “Orchidea will fill you in.”

  Alex didn’t reply. Everything he said was falling on deaf ears.

  “What are you doing about the meeting in Damascus tomorrow?” Reuven asked.

  “We’ll send our people in.”

  “Too risky. You need the PM to sign off on it.”

  The head of Mossad was hiding behind the PM’s skirt. “Sign off on it yourself,” Alex snapped. “What’s so special about the Orchid Farm?”

  “The Hothouse.”

  “Go yourself, Reuven.”

  There was a pause before Reuven answered with forced civility, “If you gave me a second, I’d have a chance to explain. The Hothouse is the Ring’s training facility. It’s a very sensitive site.”

  “What’s so urgent about it now?”

  “Orchidea will fill you in.”

  “What does she know?”

  “That Justus is dead. That’s all.”

  “Berlin is the key.”

  “Berlin can wait.”

  He hung up.

  The patch of sky outside the small window was gray.

  Butthead called.

  “The man who attacked you in Tuscany was Bruno Mauser. He had a twin brother named Sepp. They were assassins for the Stasi until the wall came down. They were known as die Mauser Zwillinge, the Mauser twins. It’s believed that they were responsible for the deaths of thirty-seven people. Dangerous men.”

  “The Stasi?” Alex said.

  “That’s right.” Candy wrappers rustled, followed by the sound of biting and vigorous chewing.

  “It fits,” Alex said. “The Stasi used acid to burn the prints off their assassins.”

  “There’s just one tiny problem,” Butthead said.

  “What?”

  “Their apartment in Berlin burned down in April 1990.” Butthead paused before adding, “The Stasi twins were burned alive.”

  DIARY

  3 DECEMBER 1943

  Even if I pierced the commandant’s heart with a white-hot knife, the Nazi monster would whelp another devil to take his place.

  I am a defeatist. There is no forgiveness.

  12 DECEMBER 1943

  My shoes make noise. The Wehrmacht has stolen our entire supply of leather to make occupiers’ jackboots. The soles of my shoes are pieces of wood held together by rubber strips. They are clumsy but they provide good insulation against the terrible cold that escapes from the winter earth.

  20 DECEMBER 1943

  The SS officers clink glasses lustily. Drunk, they boast of their crimes, releasing bits of precious information. I write everything down in pencil on pieces of the dried parchment paper that Président butter comes wrapped in and give it to my comrades in the Resistance.

  21 DECEMBER 1943

  My diary is hidden in the yard. Dear diary, my refuge from a wretched reality.

  FLIGHT TO LYON, FRANCE | 08:02

  Jane is close to him, her skin touching his. Her body gives off heat. She is upset, crying and apologizing. He strokes her face. Blood spurts out of her neck, spilling on them both.

  Alex awakened from the short nap in a daze. His shirt was stuck to his back. He was alone. He got up, hunched over, and made his way to the cockpit.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  The epaulets on the pilot’s blue sweater were dotted with dandruff. “Between Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. Twenty-seven minutes out of Lyon.”

  Alex sank back down in his seat, feeling totally drained.

  When the Berlin Wall fell, the Stasi twins set their apartment on fire and disappeared, expunging their murderous past. In the bureaucratic chaos surrounding the reunification of Germany, the unreliability of the new population registry would have made it relatively easy for them to pop up somewhere else under new, untarnished identities.

  But the Stasi twins were only the executive branch of the operation. They weren’t the brains behind it. Were they taking their orders from the Mud Man?

  The satphone chirped, interrupting Alex’s train of thought.

  It was Exodus.

  “We’re starting to fill in the blanks about Justus Erlichmann, Alex. Immediately after the wall fell, he purchased two massive apartment complexes on the eastern side, one on Karl-Marx-Allee and the other on Leipziger Strasse. More than a thousand units altogether. He renovated the buildings and resold them at a huge profit a year and a half ago. We’ve found cash and assets totaling more than a billion euros, and we’re not done yet. He had dozens of bank accounts. We’ve already located accounts at Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole, HSBC Trinkaus, Credit Suisse, and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

  “Back in the 1950s, his father, Gunter, purchased works by artists who had not yet made names for themselves. He didn’t pay more than a few thousand dollars for any of them. Similar artworks have recently sold at auction for tens of millions. We’re talking artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Henry Moore, and Alexander Calder. He also acquired three sculptures by Giacometti. Not long ago, one of the pieces in the Walking Man series sold for more than one hundred million dollars. Justus had sold two of the three in his collection. He was liquidating his assets. He had a lot of ready money.”

  Alex was stunned by the extent of Justus’s fortune. “Find out what you can about the neo-Nazi organization he was funding.”

  Beyond the windows on the left, the majestic peaks of the Swiss Alps soared into the sky. Alex felt pressure in his ears. The plane was making a left turn, swinging around as it began its descent into Lyon’s Saint Exupéry Airport.

  The sky was like a midwinter black. A heavy rain battered down on the roof of the rental car.

  The GPS directed him eastward to the town of Crémieu, thirteen miles from the airport. Alex stopped the car in a puddle at the side of the road and called Orchidea.

  Her voice was soft and pleasant, like a cat rubbing up against its owner’s leg. She’d meet him at the Café des Touristes in the center of town at nine thirty.

  CRÉMIEU, EAST OF LYON| 09:26

  The rain was coming down in buckets. The streets of Crémieu were flooded. A stooped old lady in black tried to escape from the deluge by taking cover against the wall of a building, shielding the baskets she was carrying.

  Reuven called.

  “The PM refuses to let us send anyone to Damascus. Too dangerous, he says. It’s an election year. He doesn’t want Israeli hostages in Syria. It would spell the end for him.”

  “Our people will be there,” Alex said.

  “Forge
t it!”

  “Why don’t you want me in Berlin?”

  Reuven hung up.

  On the corner of Rue Lieutenant-Colonel Bel, Alex saw a building as orange as a cheap hotdog. The facade was decorated with white line drawings of artisans from the Middle Ages.

  Three tipsy old men were sitting near the door, their empty beer mugs pushed to the center of the table. The game of dominoes in front of them had reached a standstill. Each of the men was gazing off in a different direction. Aside from them, the café was empty.

  Alex passed his fingers through his wet hair. Where was she?

  The middle-aged woman behind the bar smiled and pointed to the coatrack behind him. He sat down at a corner table in the back facing the door and waited.

  The espresso tasted of sand. He asked for a glass of water and set his phone and Justus’s spare BlackBerry on the table.

  The head of one of the elderly men drooped. His chest rose and fell in time with his snores.

  Where was she?

  Alex leafed through a copy of L’Équipe that had already seen a lot of hands that morning. Then the door opened and an unusually tall woman with a stunning figure walked in. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a red Jack Wolfskin coat spotted with rain. Her lips matched the color of the coat, and her hair was as golden as ripe wheat.

  When she caught sight of him, her red lips turned up in a charmingly crooked smile. Alex stood up, and she reached out a cold hand and surprised him with the firmness of her handshake. She sat down without a word. Her eyes sparkled like an untamed animal’s. They examined each other in silence, the smile never leaving her face.

  A television was chattering in the distance. The waitress brought over a mug of café au lait the size of a soup bowl and a small basket of croissants. Orchidea picked up the huge mug with both hands and took a sip of the pale liquid without taking her eyes off Alex.

  The image of a fig opening, dripping with juice, floated up before him.

  He ordered another double espresso. Orchidea still hadn’t spoken. She scrutinized him unashamedly, studying him with her brown eyes. The silence stretched out until talking seemed almost impossible.