The other man, shorter than Janson, and perhaps in his early forties, smiled at him. “Voos hurst zich?” he said, bowing his head a little. His hair was reddish, his eyes a watery blue beneath plastic National Health spectacles. A small leather portfolio was tucked beneath an arm.
Janson bobbed his head, clutching his briefcase, and gave him a cautiously friendly smile, a smile constrained by the imperfect plasticity of the facial adhesive he had employed. How to respond? There were people who had a gift for acquiring new languages, sometimes with uncanny fluency; Alan Demarest was one. Janson, though he had decent German and French from his days as a student, and a certain amount of Czech, gleaned from his Czech-speaking mother, was not among them. Now, he racked his brain, trying to dredge up some scrap of Yiddish. It was an eventuality he should have foreseen. Rather than venture a simpering “shalom,” he would be safest discouraging any conversation. He had a fleeting fantasy of hurling the inconvenient interloper over the side. After a moment, he gestured toward his throat, and shook his head. “Laryngitis,” he whispered, in some approximation of an East End accent.
“Ir filt zich besser?” the man said with a kindly look. He was a lonely soul, undeterred in his attempt to bond with someone he took to be spiritual kin.
Janson coughed explosively. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Very contagious.”
The other man took a few steps back, alarmed. He bowed again, clasping his hands together. “Sholem aleichem. Peace and blessings be upon you,” he said, and shakily raised a hand in farewell, retreating politely but swiftly.
Once more, Janson surrendered himself to the cooling head wind. We know more than we know, Demarest used to admonish. Janson believed that it was true in this case—that he could make progress if only he could properly assemble the data points he already had.
He knew that a covert branch of the U.S. government sought his death. That a staggering sum had, through elaborate electronic manipulations, been deposited in his account. That the result was to create a perception that he had been paid to kill Novak.
Could he put that money to use in some way? A voice inside him cautioned him not to—not yet. Not while its true origins remained mysterious. It could prove crucial as evidence. And—the possibility gnawed at him—it could, in some high-tech fashion, be booby-trapped so that any attempt at withdrawal would notify his enemies of his location. Which simply returned him to the question of who these enemies might be.
Whose side are you on, Márta Lang? Before boarding, he had once again tried to contact her, without success. Was she part of a murderous intrigue? Or had she been kidnapped, even killed—a victim of the intrigue that had cost Peter Novak his life? Janson had called upon an old friend of his who lived in Manhattan—a veteran of the intelligence services, now retired—to keep a lookout for her at the New York offices of the Liberty Foundation, where Lang ostensibly was based. So far, there had been no sign of her having returned to the Fortieth Street building. She had to be somewhere else—but where?
Then, too, Janson found it as curious as Fielding had that the news of Novak’s death continued to go unreported. As far as the general public knew, none of it—not the kidnapping, not the killing—had even happened. Was something afoot, some plan involving insiders at the Liberty Foundation, that made it inopportune to divulge the momentous tragedy? Yet how long did they really think they could conceal such a thing? Janson knew of rumors that Deng Xiaoping’s death had been covered up for more than eight days, while the matter of succession was resolved: the regime decided it could not risk even a brief period of public uncertainty. Was something similar at stake with the Liberty Foundation? Novak’s enormous wealth, or most of it, was already bound up with the Liberty Foundation. Therefore it was not clear that his passing should directly affect its finances. At the same time, Grigori Berman told him that the wire transfer had originated from Amsterdam, specifically from a Liberty Foundation account of Peter Novak’s. Who within the Foundation might have been able to arrange that?
Novak was a powerful man, and his enemies would be powerful as well. He had to accept that Novak’s enemies were his enemies, too. And, the most infernal part of the infernal equation, they could be anyone. They could be anywhere. Fielding, before he turned, had spoken incisively about Novak’s opponents. The “oligarchs” of corrupt plutocratic regimes, especially those of Eastern Europe, could have found common interest with a cabal of planners within the United States who had regarded Novak’s growing influence with dismay and envy. Ask yourself why America is so hated: Andros’s words. The answers were complex, encompassing the rancor and resentment of those who felt displaced by its dominance. Yet America was no toothless innocent: its efforts to protect its global preeminence could be ruthless indeed. Members of its foreign-policy establishment might well feel threatened by the actions of a truly benevolent figure, simply because those actions were beyond its control. Fielding: Everyone knew that he’d spurned America’s advances, that he’d angered its foreign-affairs establishment by steering his own course. His only polestar was his own conscience. Who could predict the rage of Washington’s planners—shortsighted unilateralists blinded by a zeal for control they mistook for patriotism? This was not America’s best face, not the better angels of its nature. But it was sheer naïveté to pretend that the establishment was incapable of such actions. Lieutenant Commander Alan Demarest, he sometimes reflected, believed himself to be a true American. Janson had long considered that a noxious figment of self-delusion. Yet what if the Demarests of the world were right? What if they did represent not America, no, but a strain of America, an America that foreigners in troubled lands were more likely to encounter than most? Janson closed his eyes but could not banish the piercing, vivid memories that transfixed and haunted him even now.
“No, don’t bring them in,” the lieutenant commander had told Janson. Faintly, even in the weather-befouled headphones, he could hear choral music. “I’ll come out there.”
“Sir,” Janson replied. “There’s no need. They’re securely bound, as you requested. The prisoners are unharmed but immobilized.”
“Which I’m sure took some doing. I’m not surprised you rose to the challenge, Janson.”
“Transport would not present any difficulties,” Janson said. “Sir.”
“Tell you what,” Demarest said. “Take them to Candle Bog.”
Candle Bog was what the Americans had named a clearing in the jungle four clicks north of the main army encampment. There had been a skirmish there a month earlier, when American sentinels came upon a couple of hooches and three men they identified as VC couriers. One American was shot in the engagement; all three Viet Cong were eventually killed. An injured member of the American party had corrupted the Vietnamese name of the area, Quan Ho Bok, to Candle Bog, and the appellation stuck.
Transporting the prisoners to Candle Bog took two hours. Demarest was waiting for them when they arrived. He was in a jeep, with his executive officer, Tom Bewick, behind the wheel.
Janson saw that the prisoners were thirsty; because their arms were bound to their sides, he held his canteen to their lips, dividing its contents between the two. Despite their terror and uncertainty, the prisoners slurped the water down gratefully. He let them rest on the ground between the two hooches.
“Good work, Janson,” Demarest said.
“Humane treatment of prisoners of war, just like the Geneva Convention says,” Janson replied. “If only the enemy followed our lead. Sir.”
Demarest chuckled. “You’re funny, schoolboy.” He turned to his XO. “Tom,” he said. “Could you … do the honors?”
Bewick’s tawny face looked as if it were carved of wood, with crude gashes for eyes and mouth. His nose was small, narrow, and almost sharp in appearance. The overall effect was reinforced by the streaky tan that somehow suggested wood grain. His movements were swift and efficient, but jerky rather than fluid. It added to Janson’s sense that Bewick had become a mannequin of Demarest’s.
&nbs
p; Bewick strode over to the first of the prisoners, withdrew a large knife, and started sawing through the restraints that kept their arms to their sides.
“They need to get comfortable,” Demarest explained.
It soon became clear that comfort was not precisely Bewick’s objective. The XO fashioned a sling of nylon cord, tightly knotted it around the prisoners’ wrists and ankles, and then snaked it around the central beams of each hooch. They were splayed, spread-eagled, their limbs extended outward by the taut rope. They were utterly defenseless, and knew it. That realization of their defenselessness would have psychological effects.
Janson’s stomach furled. “Sir?” he began.
“Don’t speak,” Demarest replied. “Just watch. Watch and learn. It’s the old rule: See one, do one, teach one.”
Now Demarest approached the prisoner who rested on the ground nearest him. He ran a caressing hand over the young man’s cheeks, and said, “Tôi mén ban.” He tapped himself on his heart and repeated the words: “I like you.”
The two men seemed bewildered.
“Do you speak English? It doesn’t matter if you do, because I speak Vietnamese.”
The first one spoke, at last. “Yes.” His voice was tight.
Demarest rewarded him with a smile. “I thought you did.” He ran his index finger down the man’s forehead, over his nose, and stopped at his lips. “I like you. You people inspire me. Because you really care. That matters to me. You have your ideals, and you’re going to fight until the bitter end. How many nguoi My have you killed, do you think? How many Americans?”
The second man burst out, “We no kill!”
“No, because you’re farmers, right?” Demarest’s tones were honeyed.
“We farm.”
“You’re not VC at all, are you? Just honest, ordinary hardworking fishermen, right?”
“Dúng.” Right.
“Or did you say you were farmers?”
The two looked confused. “No VC,” the first man said pleadingly.
“He’s not your army comrade?” Demarest indicated his bound companion.
“Just friend.”
“Oh, he’s your friend.”
“Yes.”
“He likes you. You help each other.”
“Help each other.”
“You people have suffered a lot, haven’t you?”
“Much suffering.”
“Like our savior, Jesus Christ. Do you know that he died for our sins? Do you want to know how he died? Yes? Well, why didn’t you say so! Let me tell you. No, better idea: let me show you.”
“Please?” The word came out like plis.
Demarest turned to Bewick. “Bewick, it’s downright uncivil to leave these poor young men on the ground.”
Bewick nodded, allowing a grin to flicker on his wooden features. Then, rotating a wooden stick twice, he winched the rope tighter. The tension of the rope lifted the prisoners off the ground; the weight of their bodies was supported by their tightly bound wrists and ankles. Each emitted a loud, panicked gasp.
“Xin loi,” Demarest said gently. Sorry about that.
They were in agony, their limbs hyperextended, their arms straining at their sockets. The torsion of the position made breathing extraordinarily difficult, requiring a tremendous exertion to arch their chests and extend their diaphragms—an exertion that only increased the torque on their extremities.
Janson flushed. “Sir,” he said sharply. “May I have a word with you, alone? Sir?”
Demarest walked over to Janson. “What you’re watching may take some getting used to,” he said quietly. “But I will not have you interfering with the exercise of executive discretion.”
“You’re torturing them,” Janson said, his face tight.
“You think that’s torture?” Demarest shook his head disgustedly. “Lieutenant First Class Bewick, Lieutenant Second Class Janson is upset right now. For his own protection, I need you to restrain him—by any means necessary. Any problems with that?”
“None, sir,” Bewick replied. He leveled his combat pistol at Janson’s head.
Demarest walked over to the nearby jeep and pressed the PLAY button on his portable tape cassette. Choral music spilled from small, tinny speakers. “Hildegard von Bingen,” he said to no one in particular. “Spent most of her life in a convent she founded, in the twelfth century. One day when she was forty-two years old, she had a vision of God, and with that she became the greatest composer of her age. Each time she sat down to create, it was always after she had suffered the most excruciating pain—what she called the scourge of God. For only when the pain brought her to the point of hallucination did her work pour from her—the antiphons and plainsongs and religious treatises. Pain made Saint Hildegard produce. Pain made her sing.” He turned to the second man, who was starting to sweat profusely. The prisoner’s breath came in strangled yelps, like a dying animal’s. “I thought it might relax you,” he said. He listened to a few bars of the plainsong, pensively.
Sanctus es unguendo
periculose fractos:
sanctus es tergendo
fetida vulnera.
Then he stood over the second prisoner. “Look into my eyes,” Demarest said. He pulled a small knife from a waist holster and made a small slice in the man’s belly. The skin and the fascia beneath immediately sheared, pulled apart by the tension of the ropes. “Pain will make you sing, too.” The man screamed.
“Now, that’s torture,” Demarest called to Janson. “What would you like me to say? That it hurts me as much as it hurts them?” He returned to the screaming man beneath him. “Do you think you’ll be a hero to your people by resisting me? Not a chance. If you’re heroic, I can ensure that nobody ever learns of it. Your bravery will be wasted. You see, I am a very bad man. You think Americans are soft. You think you can wait us out. You think you can watch while we ensnare ourselves with our silly bureaucratic regulations, like a giant tripped up by his own shoelaces. But you think all these things because you’ve never come across Alan Demarest. Of all Satan’s forms of trickery and deceit, the very greatest was persuading man he did not exist. Look into my eyes, my fisherman friend, because I exist. A fisherman like you. A fisherman of men’s souls.”
Alan Demarest was mad. No: it was worse than that. He was all too sane, too in control of his actions and their controllable consequences. At the same time, he was wholly devoid of the most elemental sense of conscience. He was a monster. A brilliant, charismatic monster.
“Look into my eyes,” Demarest intoned, and leaned closer to the man’s face, which was already stretched in agony, an agony beyond words. “Who’s your ARVN contact? Which South Vietnamese do you deal with?”
“I farm!” the man whimpered, barely able to catch his breath. His eyes were red, his cheeks wet. “No Viet Cong!”
Demarest pulled down the man’s pajama trousers, exposing his genitals. “Prevarication will be punished,” he said in a bored tone. “Time for the jumper cables.”
Janson heaved a few times, leaning forward, and a hot flow of vomit surged up the back of his throat and splattered on the ground before him.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, my son. It’s like surgery,” Demarest said, soothingly. “The first time you see it done, it’s a little rocky. But you’ll get the hang of it in no time. It’s as Emerson tells us, when a great man ‘is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.’”
He turned to Bewick. “I’m just going to juice up the motor, make sure there’s plenty of jump in the jumpers. We’ll give him every chance to talk. And if he doesn’t, he’ll die the most painful death we can contrive.”
Demarest looked at Janson’s stricken face.
“But don’t worry,” he continued. “His companion will be kept alive. You see, it’s important to leave somebody to spread the news among the VC: this is what you get when you fuck with nguoi My.”
And, horrifyingly, he winked at Janson, as if to invite him into the debauchery.
How many other soldiers, burned out and callused by too much time in the combat zone, had responded positively to that invitation, finding a club of genuine zealots, losing their souls? An old refrain echoed in the dim recesses of his mind. Where you going? Crazy—want to come along?
Want to come along?
Prinsengracht, perhaps the most gracious of the old canal streets of old Amsterdam, was built in the early seventeenth century. The streetfront facades had, at first glance, all the regularity of accordion-folded paper dolls. When one looked more closely, one saw all the ways each tall, narrow brick house had been painstakingly differentiated from its neighbors. The gables atop each house had been carefully designed: step gables, zigzagging to a flat top, alternated with the swooping curves of neck gables and spout gables. Because the staircases within were narrow and steep, most of the houses had projecting ledges that allowed furniture to be brought to higher floors by means of hoists. Many houses boasted fake attics and intricate entablatures. Festoons hung from simple brick. Behind the houses, he knew, discreet hofjes, or inner courtyards, were hidden away. To the extent that the burghers of Amsterdam’s golden age prided themselves on their simplicity, it was an ostentatious simplicity.
Janson strode down the street, attired in a light zippered jacket and sturdy brogues, like so many of his fellow pedestrians. He kept his hands in his pockets, and his eyes regularly scanned his surroundings. Was he being followed? So far, there was no sign of it. Yet he knew from experience that if his presence was detected, a team could be assembled and deployed with impressive rapidity. Always have a backup plan: Demarest had said that, and however appalling its source, the injunction had served him well. File it next to Management Secrets from Genghis Khan, Janson reflected bitterly.
A few blocks from the so-called golden curve, he encountered a cluster of houseboats, anchored on the rust-and-silt-tinctured waters of the canal. These floating domiciles had been a feature of Amsterdam since the 1950s, the result of a housing shortage; a few decades later, the city council passed measures against them, but the existing waterborne dwellings were grandfathered in, tolerated as long as an annual fee was tendered.
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