The League of Night and Fog

by David Morrell

  Saul was waiting for her at the bandstand.

  “Do you think they’ll agree?” she asked.

  “If they feel there’s something in it for them. I had to promise a favor for a favor.”

  Her voice sank in despair. “I’m sorry. I know how much you’d hate going back to work for them.”

  “But what’s the alternative? Do nothing to find your father and protect ourselves? I’d hate that even more. Only one thing matters. Doing what’s necessary to keep our family safe.”

  “The more I know you, the more I love you.”

  “Step closer when you say that.” He pulled down the hood on her jacket, joined his hands at the back of her neck beneath her long dark hair, and gently drew her toward him, kissing raindrops off her cheeks.

  But she sensed his nervousness. “What if they don’t give permission?”

  “I’ll have to go ahead anyhow.”

  “No,” she said. “We will.” She hugged him. “And God help whoever tries to stand in our way.”

  3

  “I’m staying at my father-in-law’s apartment. I’d give you the address and phone number, but I assume you already know them.”

  Exhaling cigarette smoke, the pockmarked man leaned forward from a leather-covered chair and shut off the tape machine positioned on the conference table. He turned to the CIA’s chief of station for Austria. “You want to hear it again?”

  Fluorescent lights hummed. Three other men in the oak-paneled room sat motionless, showing no reaction as the station chief tapped his fingers on the table.

  His name was Gallagher. A short wiry man in a blue pinstriped suit, he stopped drumming his fingers and splayed them firmly across the edge of the table. “No, the third time was sufficient. I’m clear about what he told you. But you were there. I wasn’t. You saw the expression in his eyes. Did Romulus mean what he told you?”

  “A gut reaction?” The pockmarked man stubbed out his cigarette. “Yes.”

  “Provided Romulus feels the mission isn’t suicidal, provided he doesn’t object to the mission’s objective, he’ll do anything for us?”

  “Again a gut reaction? Yes.”

  “My, my.”

  A balding man decided to risk a comment. “It’s a major shift in his position. The original agreement was—he promised to remain in exile, but we had to promise to leave him alone.”

  “A man of his talents,” Gallagher said, “he could be useful if he rejoined the game and no one knew he was working for us. A master operative. A world-class assassin. And he’s throwing himself on our mercy.”

  “But only once,” the pockmarked man reminded him.

  Gallagher lifted his callused fingers, the product of his black-belt karate training, and massaged his temples. “Well, then, if he wants to pursue a personal vendetta, let him do it. Something bothers me, though.”

  The men in the room waited to hear what it was.

  “This personal vendetta might have professional consequences. We don’t know who’s responsible for the attack on Romulus and his family, after all. Or who’s responsible for the disappearance of his wife’s father. We need to make sure he remains independent, unaffiliated.”

  “I don’t understand,” the pockmarked man said.

  “You will. Romulus must be impatient to hear from us. It’s time I got clearance from Langley.”

  4

  The rain had stopped. Streetlights reflected off wet grass and puddles. The night air smelled sweet. Scanning the shadows of the park, Saul left the walkway beside the Danube and once again approached the bandstand.

  Again the pockmarked man sat on the railing, waiting for him.

  “Romulus”—grinning, the man spread his arms in welcome—“it’s your lucky day. I’ve been authorized by Control to agree to your proposal.”

  Saul breathed out. “All right.” He steadied himself. “When I’ve settled my family concerns, I’ll wait to be contacted—so the network can have its half of the bargain.”

  “Oh, believe me, you’ll be contacted.”

  Saul turned to leave.

  “There’s just one problem, Romulus.”

  “Problem?” Saul tensed, looking back.

  “Well, maybe not exactly a problem. Let’s call it a condition. A stipulation.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can’t have any help from your Israeli friends.”

  “What?”

  “The way my superiors look at it, you’re valuable to them only if you’re perceived to remain freelance.”

  “Perceived to … ? Damn it, say what you mean!”

  “What you’re about to do has to stay on a personal basis. If you accept help from Israeli intelligence, it’ll look as if you’re cooperating with them, working for them.”

  “My father-in-law used to be in their network, for God’s sake! Of course I’m cooperating with them! They want to find out what happened as much as I do!”

  “Then I’ll say it again. You can’t accept Israeli help. Or any other network’s help, for that matter. Our plans for you require an absolute detachment from every organization. You have to be totally disaffected. Otherwise, if the mission we send you on is compromised, if you’re compromised, the enemy could blame the Israelis, and then the Israelis would blame us, and we’d be in the same shit as if you were still on our payroll. You said this matter was personal. Keep it that way. No outside help. If you don’t agree to this condition, we’ll be forced to punish you for breaking your original bargain with us.”

  “Bastards. I should have known better than to—”

  “Negotiate with us? Romulus, for what it’s worth, you had no other option. Otherwise you’d be dead.”

  “And how am I supposed to—?”

  “Use the talents you’re famous for. I’m sure Israeli intelligence has already compiled information that gives you leads. By all means, take advantage of it. The professional community wouldn’t be surprised if Mossad got in touch with you about your wife’s father, one of their former operatives. But from here on, reject them. You’re on your own.”

  “And who’s supposed to believe this?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “This park. This bandstand. We meet here twice in one day. No attempt at concealment. Other networks must be watching us by now.”

  “That would be my assumption. I certainly hope so.”

  Furious, Saul raised his hands.

  “Excellent, Romulus. It’s time to put on a show.”

  Bewilderment made Saul lower his fists.

  “You’re supposed to try to attack me,” the pockmarked man said. “My backup’s supposed to try to shoot you. To demonstrate your disaffection. To prove to the other networks you’re still divorced from us. Here, let me make it easy for you.”

  The pockmarked man stood from the railing and punched Saul—hard—in the stomach.

  Unprepared, Saul doubled over, gasping.

  The pockmarked man braced himself, drawing back a fist to punch Saul’s face.

  Instinct overcame surprise and pain. In a blur, pivoting angrily to avoid the blow, Saul thrust the palm of his hand against his assailant’s shoulder. Cartilage cracked.

  The man fell, groaning, his shoulder dislocated.

  “You stupid son of a bitch!” Saul said. “I could have killed you!”

  A gunshot shattered the silence of the park. A bullet slammed against a post that supported the roof of the bandstand. Saul dove to the floor.

  The pockmarked man lay near him, holding his shoulder, in agony. Through gritted teeth, he murmured, “Welcome back to the shadow game, Romulus. Get out of here.”

  “That sniper’s one of you?” Saul demanded in disgust.

  “I said get out of here!”

  A bullet splintered the bandstand’s railing. Saul scrambled across the floor. A third shot walloped the banister on the steps leading down from the bandstand. He lunged toward the railing on the opposite side of the bandstand and vaul
ted it, landing on rain-softened grass. With the bandstand between him and the supposedly serious sniper, he raced through darkness toward a carousel. The way he’d been manipulated enraged him. His contact’s readiness to suffer if his network ordered him to suffer was sickening. “Welcome back to the shadow game,” the pockmarked man had said. Exactly. Shadows. Illusions, Saul thought with revulsion. In the night, the sniper—no matter how skilled—could easily have made a mistake and not have missed.

  A shot roared behind him, blowing off the nose of a spotted horse on the carousel. That’s enough! Saul mentally shouted. You’ve made your point!

  A murky figure appeared ahead of him, from behind the carousel. For an instant, Saul thought it was Erika, who, not understanding the show the network had choreographed, was coming to help him. The figure raised a handgun.

  It’s not Erika! I’m the target!

  Misha Pletz had given him a Beretta. He yanked it from his dark Windbreaker, but instead of firing toward the enemy ahead of him, he darted toward the right, hoping to blend with trees and bushes. A gunshot, much closer, made his ears ring. A bullet slashed the leaves of a bush beside him. He dove behind a concrete bench and spun to fire at the figure near the carousel.

  But the figure was gone. Behind him, urgent footsteps ran along a sidewalk, from the direction of the bandstand. Ahead, he saw a shadow step from behind a tree and aim. Saul fired.

  But the figure ducked behind the tree.

  A bullet cracked against the bench, chunks of concrete making Saul flinch. The bullet had come from a third sniper in the park! Not from behind him or ahead! But to his right! He charged past a fountain. Someone shouted. Sirens wailed. His lungs burning, he surged from the park. The trees ended. The walkway beside the Danube appeared before him. He spun to the right. Fifty yards away, a figure raced out of bushes. He spun to the left. Another figure! Gripping the metal guardrail, his lungs protesting, he heaved himself over.

  Cold water enveloped him. He couldn’t be sure, but swimming under the surface, resisting the weight of his sodden clothes, struggling toward the middle of the river, he thought he heard a bullet strike the water.

  5

  Erika hid among shadows on the street side of the park, watching the murky bandstand. She stiffened when she saw Saul’s contact punch him in the stomach. Rushing forward, handgun drawn, determined to protect her husband, she noticed Saul pivot to avoid another blow and knock the man to the bandstand’s floor. A shot. Saul scrambled off the bandstand. Chaos. First one, then two, then three gunmen raced through the shadowy park. More shots. Sirens wailed in the distance. Erika’s only thought was to get to Saul, to help him. But the chaos intensified as Saul charged through the darkness, burst through bushes at the edge of the park, and vaulted the guardrail next to the Danube. A gunman shot at the water, turned, and saw other figures racing toward him. Firing repeatedly toward the shadows, not aiming so much as providing distraction, the gunman hurried along the walkway, vanishing into the night. The sirens wailed louder. Figures darted in separate directions out of the park.

  She was one of them. She couldn’t guess where Saul would surface along the river. Knowing he’d do everything possible to save himself, she had her own obligation. Indeed she took for granted that Saul would expect her to do what she now intended. Retreating from the park in the direction from which she’d arrived, she raced across the street and into an alley, reaching its far end just as police cars stopped at the park. She sprinted across another street and into a farther alley, her mind repeating the same frantic thought. Yes, Saul would understand she couldn’t find him; he had to try to save himself on his own. She had to save …

  A restaurant glowed before her. Lunging into its lobby, barely registering the smell of sauerkraut, she shoved coins into a pay phone.

  She dialed her father’s apartment. One buzz. Two. But nobody answered. Three.

  She shuddered with relief when she heard a familiar, reassuring voice say, “Hello.”

  “Misha, it’s Erika! I don’t have time to explain!” She struggled to catch her breath. “It’s bad! Wake Christopher! Don’t even bother dressing him! Get out of there!”

  No response.

  “Misha!”

  “Where shall I meet you?”

  “Where my father was supposed to go but didn’t!” she said. “You understand? Every morning and evening.”

  “Yes,” Misha said. “I’ll wake the boy at once. He’ll be safe.”

  “I pray to God.”

  “Just make sure you remain safe.”

  “Get moving!”

  She hung up the phone and turned to see startled patrons of the restaurant staring at her in the lobby. She rushed past them, leaving the restaurant.

  But what about Saul? she worried as she ran along the street. Would he remain alive to reach the rendezvous they’d agreed upon?

  6

  Gallagher’s voice had the force of a shout. “Were they ours?” The pockmarked man winced, adjusting the sling on his dislocated arm. “Not unless you assigned another team to cover this. They sure as hell weren’t on my team.”

  “Jesus.” Gallagher sat rigidly at the head of the conference table. Two other men waited in nervous silence. Gallagher drummed his fingers. “Three of them?”

  “In addition to our own man, yes,” the pockmarked man said. “We played it exactly as you wanted. I punched him. He defended himself. Our marksman opened fire, pretending to want to kill him.”

  “I want to know about the others,” Gallagher said.

  “The first was hidden behind a carousel. The other two seemed to come out of nowhere. They tried to catch Romulus in a pincer movement.”

  “And they weren’t pretending? You’re certain they meant to kill him?”

  “Romulus surely believed it—he returned their fire. Before the police could arrive, the intruders fled. Of course, so did we.”

  Gallagher’s lips tightened. “If only Romulus had managed to kill one. Then at least we’d have a body. We’d be able to find out who else was in the game. Damn it, your team should have kept closer watch on the park!”

  “We couldn’t. You said you wanted witnesses from other networks. The point of the demonstration was to convince every organization that Romulus was still an outcast. We had to back off, to let our audience take position.”

  “Great. The operation worked so well it failed.”

  “Maybe it didn’t fail,” the pockmarked man said.

  Gallagher raised his eyebrows in question.

  “If anything, since Romulus almost was executed, the other networks will be even more convinced he’s not involved with us,” the pockmarked man said. “Nothing’s changed. He can still pursue his vendetta. He still has to give us the favor he promised.”

  “Does he? Will he? What if Romulus believes the intruders belonged to us? Suppose he decides the mission went out of control and your men did try to kill him? He won’t repay any favor. What he might do is turn against us. What a mess! To keep him on our side, to use him later, we might be forced to help him.”

  “On the other hand,” the pockmarked man said, “we don’t even know if he survived.”

  7

  Chilled and exhausted, Saul waded from the murky Danube. It had taken him fifteen minutes to swim out of range down current and then across the river. The lights along this opposite shore glinted coldly. He plodded from mud to a concrete ramp, passed a boathouse, and finally reached a narrow street beyond a warehouse. No one had pursued him across the river. For the moment, he felt safe. But questions tortured his mind. Who’d tried to kill him? Had his former network decided to punish him after all? He shook his head, not believing it. The pockmarked man wouldn’t have put himself in the line of fire. Then had the mock-assassination become too realistic? Or had his as-yet-unknown enemies been waiting for an opportunity to make another attempt against him? If he’d been killed back there in the park, his former employers would have seemed responsible. They’d never convince other n
etworks of their innocence. And the actual assailants would go undetected.

  Shivering, Saul mustered strength for an even more distressing concern. Erika and Christopher. His wife, having seen the attack against him, realizing she was powerless to help, would have gone to protect their son. He counted on her doing so, that reassuring thought his only consolation. Erika’s mandatory first step would have been to contact Misha Pletz and warn him to rush Christopher to safety. He trudged ahead with greater determination. For the moment, a single goal obsessed him—the fall-back site he and Erika had agreed upon. He had to get there.

  8

  Christopher’s eyes still ached from his abrupt awakening. His blue pajamas were covered by a sweater that the stoop-shouldered man named Misha Pletz had made him put on. His nostrils felt pinched by thick clouds of tobacco smoke, but his mouth watered from the sweet cocoa smell in this room of many tables and red-cheeked, laughing men. He recalled the urgency with which Misha had carried him down the stairs. The rush of the taxi ride. The scurry into this “coffee house,” as Misha called it. His mother suddenly appearing, her eyes red with tears as she hugged him. All bewildering.

  He sat on a bench against a wall, his mother on one side, Misha on the other. Their conversation confused him.

  “If he isn’t here in fifteen minutes,” his mother said, “we can’t risk staying any longer.”

  A hefty man wearing a white apron leaned his head down toward his mother. “Come into the kitchen. We’ve just received a rare form of coffee.”

  More confusion. His mother carrying him through a swinging door, Misha leading them. Glinting metal counters. Steaming pots. His father, clothes wet, stepping out of a room. Misha laughing. His mother sobbing, embracing his father. “Thank God.”

  9

  “Quickly. We have to go,” Misha said.

  “Where?” Saul asked.

  “Back to Israel.”

  “No,” Erika said. “Not us.”