Alex hugged his stomach, gasping for breath. Then he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and walked out of the room. Striding calmly, he passed the guards at the front door, the Financial Times under his arm. He exited onto the Ku’damm, the chilly wind whipping at his face.
DIARY
17 JULY 1944
The commandant came to the café this evening and neither ate nor drank. He simply stared at me with that chilling glance of his. I buried my trembling hands in my pockets.
He knows, and he is waiting.
When he left with his evil entourage, I slipped away to the flour pantry and let the deputy commandant out of his hiding place.
18 JULY 1944
How much longer must Jasmine endure the commandant’s brutish urges? He defiles her body and sullies her honor. And I hide behind the counter and, ashamed, bury myself in the order slips.
If I stab him in the heart with a kitchen knife—we will all die.
I cry out to the heavens, but they are empty.
21 JULY 1944
I have removed my diary from its hiding place in the yard and I carry it with me.
So far, we have not managed to do anything.
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 18:00
At six o’clock sharp, the iron gate finally opened. The blind dog emerged, sniffing at the air, and the old man followed it out onto Hadad Street. They headed south, toward Subchi Park.
Paris was dozing, his face weary. Orchidea touched his shoulder. He opened his eyes and straightened up.
“What’s going on?”
“We have to get going.”
Paris stood up, stretched, and yawned. He was momentarily taken aback by his own attire.
She cracked the door open and peered out into the stairwell. Male voices were coming from below. She went out wrapped in her burka and looked down at the bottom of the stairs. Two brawny moving men were struggling with an ancient refrigerator that was blocking the hallway. In their apartment there was no refrigerator!
Paris came up behind her, only his eyes exposed. He pulled at her arm. She followed him back into the empty apartment.
“They’re coming here,” she said.
“Let’s leave the clothes here. They might talk to us in Arabic,” Paris said, removing his burka and bra. Orchidea followed suit. She looked through the blinds at Hadad Street. It was getting dark. The old man was getting farther away, his figure growing smaller. The men’s voices became louder and rougher, their breathing heavier. A curse word was sent into the air.
“We can’t lose him,” Paris said. As they descended the stairs to the second floor, they came face-to-face with the older of the two men with the wide, dingy refrigerator. They were wasting time. The face of the stocky older man was shiny, and his mustache was stiff. The younger man peeked out from behind the refrigerator. He was just a boy. He looked at them apologetically. The older man said something.
“We’re late for dinner. Can we get by?” Paris said in French.
No response.
He said it again in English.
The stout Arab took a deep breath and repeated himself in Arabic, louder this time.
Just get out of there.
Paris climbed up on the handrail and came down on the outer edge of the steps, sticking his feet between the wrought-iron posts. The older man gaped. Orchidea followed, climbing onto the handrail and taking care not to look down. She passed the Syrian moving men and the refrigerator. The youngster burst out laughing in astonishment.
They ran down the last flight and a half, the older man calling out to them from behind. Ignoring him, she left the building first and walked quickly toward the park. There was no sign of the old man. Bile rose in her throat. When she reached the corner, she turned around. Paris was right behind her.
“How are we going to find him?” she asked.
The Frenchman scanned the streets. Traffic was heavy.
“There he is!” he said.
They passed the park. The old man picked up the dog and turned into Hafez Ibrahim Street, entering a smoke-filled local café. They followed him in.
The large space was crowded with elderly men, lifeless drones, and young men in cheap leather jackets. Dice bounced off a wooden frame, coffee and tea were sipped noisily, and men with glassy eyes puffed on narghiles. A female singer keened, and violins wailed. The rancid air was filled with green flies buzzing around semolina cakes topped with pistachio nuts and dripping with honey.
The old man wiped off a rickety wooden chair with his hand, grumbling to himself, and sat down at a turquoise table, cradling the mangy dog in his arms.
An obese waiter with a pockmarked face approached the table with an air of deference, a stained kitchen towel over his shoulder. They spoke briefly.
Pockmarked Face moved off. After a while he returned and placed a glass of hot water on the table.
The old man did not remove his dark sunglasses, cap, or leather gloves. He took a bundle wrapped in newspaper from his pocket and opened it on the table. It held an herb Orchidea couldn’t identify. Pulling off a few leaves, he tossed them into the glass. Then he drank the green infusion silently.
Pockmarked Face returned again and smiled, revealing discolored teeth. They spoke in Arabic, the old man gesturing with his hands.
Pockmarked Face ran from table to table, carrying a beat-up copper tray. He brought Paris and Orchidea the black coffee they’d ordered, and Paris paid the bill on the spot.
A cell phone rang deafeningly. The locals froze, staring. The old man stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a phone. The ringing got even louder. He nearly lost hold of the dog.
He raised his dark glasses for a moment to examine the screen.
Her stomach constricted. His left eye socket was empty.
The camera in Paris’s cap was snapping one close-up after another. The old man had a brief conversation, disconnected, and brought the glasses back down over his eyes.
They decided to split up: she would follow their target while Paris hurried back to the man’s house on Hadad Street. It was nearly dark out, and getting chilly. Hafez Ibrahim Street was cast in blue, the shadows black.
The old man packed up his things and left the café, Orchidea on his tail. The streetlamps had just been lit. He entered Subchi Park, which was filled with children at play, and paused in front of a fenced-in bed of gladioli. Then he walked home and disappeared through the iron gate.
Behind a wooden blind on the fourth floor, a light came on.
Paris joined her. “It’s getting dangerous. We’ve been here too long. We have to talk to him.”
“There’s at least one guard,” she said. “Maybe two.”
Paris was silent. Going back to the apartment they had commandeered was too risky. They climbed up to the roof of the house across the street.
“Let’s go,” Orchidea said.
“Where?”
She spelled out her plan. Paris smiled, and then his face grew serious. “Are you sure?”
Orchidea nodded. She reached behind her back and undid her bra, pulling it out through the sleeve of her blouse. The cold made her flesh tingle.
They went back down to the street. Orchidea rang the bell on the iron gate. Paris waited across the street.
No response.
She pressed the button again.
No response.
She smiled up at the camera above.
Still no response.
Her heart pounding, she pressed down on the button and held it there.
A buzzer sounded. Orchidea pushed the gate open. A young, dark-complexioned man in a blue sweater was already coming toward her from the far end of the walkway. His eyes homed in on her blouse and the abundant jiggling flesh beneath it. Entering the courtyard, she met him halfway down the path. “I’m looking for the Polish embassy,” she said with a flirty smile. “They told me it was here.”
The guard’s eyes were glued to her blouse. He shook his head. “Follow m
e,” he said. As he circled around her, he rubbed up against her right breast, seemingly by accident. He led her back to the gate.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
She shot him in the back of the neck.
“I didn’t say.”
Her hand trembled as she lowered the silenced gun.
Paris appeared and dragged the body into the stairwell while she covered the bloodstain on the walkway with dirt. At the security desk inside, she found an old-fashioned black-and-white monitor divided into six squares. There was no recording device and no computer, merely real-time camera images that weren’t saved.
There was no name on the last mailbox.
Nor on the dark wooden door on the fourth floor. Paris kicked the door, causing the frame to shake and a lump of plaster to fall at their feet. Something gave way, but the lock remained intact. The second kick did the trick. Guns pointed, they rushed in. The apartment was lit dimly by a few bare bulbs. The blinds were all closed. They checked it out room by room. The floor was painted.
“This isn’t possible,” Paris muttered.
The old man wasn’t there.
KURFÜRSTENDAMM, BERLIN | 17:57
The envelope was throbbing in Alex’s pocket. Taking the S-Bahn was too dangerous. There were security cameras everywhere.
The obese cabdriver’s body spilled over the seat. His chubby fingers were strangled by gaudy rings. The radio chattered quietly, and pale lines of text flickered on the display unit. Traffic was inching westward along 17th of June Street. It was dark in the back of the cab. The answers were waiting for him in the envelope. He would have to be patient.
The cabbie’s round eyes glanced at him in the mirror. Alex ordered him to stop in Charlottenburg, just before the on-ramp to the A100 autobahn. He paid the fare and climbed out, and then rode southward in the company of an elderly Turkish driver who hummed to himself the whole way.
Alex got out in Grunewald center and made it the rest of the way by foot, the envelope and its secrets blazing in his pocket. He entered the yard of the late Justus Erlichmann, and rain mixed with snow began falling. The Glock was still in the doghouse. He opened the door, kept still, and listened.
A quick check of the large house revealed nothing. He sat down at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, opened the sealed envelope, and spread out the folded sheets of paper.
The clock on the wall ticked solemnly.
The dozens of items in Justus’s estate were listed in meticulous detail over two pages. This was followed by a clause relating to Gunter: a large sum was to be set aside to provide for the care and burial of his elderly father should he outlive his son.
The shocker was contained in the next clause: Justus Erlichmann willed his entire estate to two individuals.
Alex instructed Butthead to find out who they were and to pass the information on to Exodus. It would take time.
He went over in his mind what he’d discovered, but he could find no logical explanation. A man and woman were about to learn that they had each come into more than half a billion euros in real estate, artwork, and German government bonds. Alex stared at the two names on the sheet of paper in front of him.
They meant nothing to him.
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 19:09
“Turn the place upside down,” Paris said, his eyes flashing. “I’m going to find him.”
“Maybe he has another apartment in the building?” Orchidea suggested.
“I don’t think so,” he said as he left. She heard his footsteps running up the stairs.
Inside the apartment, time had stopped in the seventies. The sparse furnishings conveyed a sense of emptiness.
The spartan bedroom contained nothing more than a bed, a chair, and a wardrobe. On the floor by the bed was a pile of three books, with a rectangular magnifying glass on top. She moved them apart with her foot. One was Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in the original German, another a German guide to medicinal herbs. The last book was missing its cover, the tattered pages held together with a thick orange rubber band. Scraps of newspaper marked several pages. She bent down and picked it up. In small letters at the top of the page: Adolf Hitler. On the opposite page: Mein Kampf.
She dropped the book in repulsion and wiped her fingers on her coat. Gripping her gun, she aimed it ahead of her at a low angle as she opened the wardrobe. Cheap, old clothes and the smell of plain laundry powder and mothballs.
In the kitchen she found a small table and a single straight-backed chair. The corner of the refrigerator door was held together with a wide strip of masking tape. It was empty except for a few fruits and vegetables and some odd-looking seeds in a glass jar.
A transistor radio stood on the yellowing marble countertop, its brown leather casing scratched and cracked. Two bowls were on the floor, one holding water and the other a few scraps of dog food.
The bathtub was stained with rust. The cabinet revealed medicine bottles and suppositories, a red first-aid kit, and a tub of Vaseline.
The living room was bare save for an ancient television perched on a wooden crate in front of a worn upholstered armchair. A door led out to the balcony, but it was covered by a dusty blind; the pull tape was torn.
The study was furnished solely with a desk and a wooden chair. On the corner of the desk sat a pile of papers and documents arranged in perfect order, all the edges lined up. Beside it was a magnifying glass the size of an appetizer plate and an older-generation computer with a boxy monitor. The computer wasn’t on. The only up-to-date item in the whole apartment lay next to the keyboard: a flash drive.
Orchidea downloaded the contents onto her phone. The drive held a single PowerPoint file.
She opened it.
Paris reached the top of the stairs, turned on his flashlight, and held it alongside his silenced gun. He pushed on the creaking door and stepped out onto the dark roof. As he spun to the right, the flashlight picked up a jumble of small satellite dishes. He shifted to the left. The old man was sitting on a stool, trapped in the sudden beam of light. He was gazing at a wooden cage with rusty metal netting.
He turned toward Paris slowly, and his jaw dropped.
Paris rushed at him. The sunglasses were gone. The man’s left eye socket was empty.
Paris swallowed.
The old man raised his hands in the air, mumbling in Arabic.
Paris remained silent.
“No money,” the man stuttered in English. The open door to the stairs shed murky light on the roof.
Paris gestured with his gun for the man to get up and stand by the wall of the stairwell.
The old man didn’t move.
Paris came closer, pressing the silencer to his throat.
“No money!”
“Shut up and get going!”
The old man rose. From up close he looked shorter, older, and frailer. His clothing smelled of old age. Paris searched his skeletal body. Touching him made his flesh creep. Skin and bones and empty pockets, aside from the old cellphone. Two simple keys hung from a rusty ring attached to his belt.
“What do you want?” the old man asked, his chin trembling.
“Sit down.”
The old man didn’t move.
“Sitz!” Paris commanded.
He sat down. “Who are you?”
Paris took up position behind him and remained silent.
“What do you want?”
“Take off your gloves!”
“What?”
Paris pressed the silencer to his scrawny neck and bent over. “Take off your gloves and stop asking questions.”
The beam of light quivered around the old man as he slowly removed his right glove. His hand was shrunken, dotted with dozens of liver spots.
“Your bodyguard is dead,” Paris informed him. “There’s no point trying to buy time.”
A look of disgust spread over the old man’s face. He removed his left glove.
Paris’s heart started racing.
The only fing
er that remained on the left hand was the thumb.
The gun was shaking in Paris’s hand. He looked into the distance and hugged himself. The red warning lights on top of Mount Qasioun were blurred by his tears.
DIARY
27 JULY 1944
We were in the Catacombs. Charlotte burst in, agitated, and shouted, Get back to the café, fast!
What happened? I asked.
She handed me a gun.
I flew up the stairs and ran as fast as I could. A Gestapo truck was standing in front of the café behind the commandant’s black car.
Didier the shopkeeper grabbed my arm. Don’t go, he said. It would be a shame to remember Jasmine this way.
Did he hurt her? I asked.
Didier burst into tears and embraced me.
And the children?
I am so sorry, Didier wept. Run, Roger, run! At least save yourself, he called after me. I ran off and, mad with despair, climbed to the roof of the building that overlooked the café. I crawled to the edge of the roof and saw the commandant below, screaming, throwing objects around, and smashing tables and chairs.
Jasmine and Sophie and Albert were nowhere to be seen.
The Gestapo men climbed back into the truck. The commandant came out of the café carrying a tin container. He sprayed the remainder of its contents over the smashed tables and straw chairs lying on the sidewalk. He screamed something in German, and everyone moved back. Then he tossed the butt of his cigar over his shoulder into the dark puddle. Everything burst into flames. The fire climbed rapidly up to our apartment and began to consume everything.
Curious onlookers stared. Acquaintances wrung their hands. The firemen arrived too late. I lay on the edge of the roof and cried as the water flowed black from the burning café to the sidewalk, carrying with it the remains of my dear ones; of what I once was; of my life and my family—of all that I loved. A terrible pain cut through my heart. I have no country, no home, no family.
Ring of Lies Page 25