by Peter Temple
‘Well,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s the place. Here’s hoping.’
‘Yes. There’s a light on.’ They sat for a moment.
‘Cold to have the front door open,’ said Anselm.
‘Yes.’ She shivered. Her clothes made a sound, her chin against the fabric of her coat.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Since we’re here.’
He got out. Black night, cold wind whining in trees somewhere nearby. They were high here, clean air, it felt like the Balkans.
He went to the front door, reached across the threshold, held the doorknob and knocked.
Nothing. Not a sound.
‘Mr Niemand,’ he said loudly.
Nothing.
‘Jessica.’ Louder.
Nothing. Just the wind, the keening wind.
He felt the hair on his neck. He looked around. He could see Caroline in the car, her outline. His chest hurt.
She saw him looking at her and got out, came across the gravel, a tall woman, not unhandsome.
He tried again.
‘Mr Niemand. Constantine.’
Nothing.
He pushed open the door and went in. A small hallway, coats and hats. The light was coming from a door to the left.
A smell of something. No quite of burning, something more acrid. He looked around. Caroline was biting her lower lip.
‘I don’t know about this,’ she said quietly.
Anselm thought he would like to turn and leave, drive down the hill, along the winding road, through the cluster of buildings, get back to the highway.
Too late for that. It occurred to him that he had no panic symptoms. He was uneasy, he was close to fearful, but he was not showing the symptoms.
Caused by fear and violence, cured by the same.
Hair of the dog.
He went through the door, saw the legs first.
A figure in black, absolutely dull black, no head. No, a hood on his head, face down, his black hands around a black weapon, a machine-pistol. In the middle of the room, a shotgun tied to a chair was pointing at him. Anselm was too shocked to move.
Caroline made a noise, a deep, sobbing intake of breath.
On the other side of the room lay another figure in dark clothing, a man lying on his side, blood run from him over the stone floor to the edge of the carpet, soaked up by the carpet, blotted, blackish blood.
The man made a sound like a hiccup. Again.
Anselm did not think, he went to the man, pulled his poloneck down, put an index finger against his throat, in the collarbone cavity. The faintest pulse.
‘He’s alive,’ he said. ‘We’d better do something.’
For want of anything better to do, he took off the man’s rolled up balaclava.
‘It’s him,’ said Caroline in a voice without timbre. ‘It’s Mackie. Niemand.’
‘And a terrible fucking nuisance the man is too,’ said O’Malley from the doorway.
85
…WALES…
He came into the dim room, bent over and picked up the machine-pistol lying near Niemand’s head.
Anselm stood up. ‘Jesus, Michael,’ he said. ‘What the fuck is this? What exactly the fuck is this?’
O’Malley had the magazine out, looking into it. He dropped it on the floor and took another one out of his coat pocket. It made a precise snick as it locked in.
‘What the fuck is this, John?’ echoed O’Malley, looking around the room like a real estate agent being asked to sell something nasty. ‘Why do rich people crave this sort of thing? A croft in the Welsh wilderness, wind never stops howling, natives slathered in sheepshit and woad, incomprehensible tongue, nasty secessionist tendencies.’
O’Malley walked over to the shotgun tied to the chair, ran a hand over the trigger guard, pulled at something. It caught the lamplight and Anselm saw that it was nylon fishing line that ran to the leg of an armchair.
‘A booby trap so cheap, so primitive, so old. And here lies dead of it a killer with the most expensive and sophisticated training the modern world can provide.’
He tested the triggers with a black-gloved finger. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Knew how to make this work, did your Mr Niemand. Breathe hard on the buggers and Bang.’
‘Michael, what?’ said Anselm. ‘Tell me. It’s late, I’m tired and sober and I’ve got a knife wound nine inches long. What?’
O’Malley had the Heckler amp; Koch in his left hand. He transferred it to his right.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Sorry about this too.’ He ran a hand over his curly head. ‘Truly, I wish it were another way.’
It came to Anselm, as it had come to him in Beirut, that something had ended, something was over and gone. A still moment, the highest point of the pendulum’s swing, the end of momentum, the dead point.
‘Kaskis,’ he said.
O’Malley was looking at Caroline. She was frozen, hands at her sides, holding herself like a Guardsman on parade, waiting for the Queen.
‘I saved you, John,’ said O’Malley. ‘You and Riccardi. They wanted to kill all three of you, I talked them out of it. I said it wasn’t necessary, you knew nothing, the idiot Riccardi less. I’ve given you eight good years. Well, eight years. Think of it that way. And I told you you weren’t a journalist anymore. I tried to warn you off.’
Anselm thought that he had never seen this look on O’Malley’s face. His handsome poet’s face was sad. He was going to kill both of them and he was sad that he had to do it.
O’Malley raised the weapon, held it on its side, weighed it in his hand, bounced it.
‘This is awkward,’ he said. ‘I would really rather not. But. Necessitas non habet legum. Know the expression, boyo?’
Anselm nodded. He felt nothing. No panic this time.
‘Yes, well…’ O’Malley raised the weapon and pointed it at Caroline.
‘Sorry, darling’ he said. ‘But think what you did to that poor old bugger Brechan on behalf of MI5.’
Grunts, not loud, several quick grunts.
O’Malley’s face below the high cheekbone blew apart, his face seemed to break in two, divide, an aerosol spray of red in the air around his head, a piece of scarlet veil floating.
They stood.
The woman came in, went to Niemand, put her head down to his head, seemed to kiss him.
She jerked her head up.
‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘For fuck’s sake do something.’
Anselm looked at Caroline. She was grey-white, the colour of cemetery gravel. She shook her head and put her hand in a coat pocket and took out a cellphone.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Right.’
And then Caroline, holding the tiny device towards the light to see the keys, she moved her head, her long hair moved, she looked up and said to Jess in her upper-class voice:
‘I don’t suppose, I don’t suppose you know where the film is?’
86
…HAMBURG…
In the blue underwater gloom of the work room, Anselm and Baader and Inskip and Carla watched the big monitor.
The television anchor was too old to pull her hair back like a twelve-year-old Russian gymnast. She tested her lips swiftly. They worked. Collagen and cocaine did terrible things to lips.
All front teeth showing, she went through the preamble. Then she said:
We warn that the film contains images of violence that will shock. Please ensure that children are not watching.
The aerial view of wooded sub-tropical country, late in the day.
Angola, 1983. The oil-rich African country is in the grip of a long-running civil war in which the United States has intervened, spending millions of dollars in an attempt to counter Russian influence. This film was taken from a helicopter.
Analysts say from the co-pilot’s seat. They believe the film was unauthorised and the person filming took care not to be seen.
A village burning, thatched huts burning, several dozen huts, cultivated fields around them marked by sticks.
> This nameless village is in northern Angola. There is no evidence of military activity.
On the ground now, another helicopter in view, no markings visible.
The filming is through the open door of the helicopter. Notice the dark edge to the right. The other helicopter is a Puma of a type used by the South African Defence Force.
Now a long panning shot, bodies everywhere, dozens and dozens of bodies. An enlarged still of a group of bodies.
These people have been overcome by something. There are signs of vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea.
Another enlarged still. At least a dozen people lying near a crude water trough. Black people in ragged clothes, mostly women and children, a baby. Some have their hands held to their faces, some are face down on the packed dirt.
Medical experts say the signs of poisoning are even more apparent here. They are consistent with those produced by the biological poison ricin, which is made from a toxic protein found in castor oil seed.
Motion again, white men in combat gear carrying automatic weapons, standing around, six of them, relaxed, weapons cradled.
The frame held still, enlarged.
These men are American soldiers, part of a super-secret unit called Special Deployment, also known as Sudden Death. They were drawn from Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta Airborne stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.Although they wear no insignia, they are armed with the Heckler amp; Koch MP5K, first issued in 1977. The man on the left carries a Mossberg Cruiser 500 shotgun, and Beretta 9mm handguns are visible on three of them. Their boots are Special Forces tropical issue.
We also know the names of four of these soldiers.
Circles around four heads.
Enlargements.
From the left, Maurice Tennant Gressor, Zoltan James Kaldor, Wayne Arthur Fitzgerald, and Joseph Elias Diab. These men are all dead, in circumstances that can only be called suspicious. It is thought that all except two of the Special Deployment members in this shot are dead.
The film moving again, two men in coveralls talking to a tall soldier, the only one without headgear, his back to the camera. The camera zooms in on the group, the soldier is talking to one of the civilians, a man with a moustache.
Freeze.
Enlargement.
This man is Dr Carl Wepener Lourens, then head of a South African company called TechPharma Global, an importer of chemicals. Lourens moved in white South Africa’s highest military and political circles and travelled the world, frequently visiting Britain, the United States and Israel. His death in a fire at his company’s premises outside Pretoria was reported recently. He was under investigation for currency and other offences committed under the apartheid regime.
Dr Lourens is also linked with an Israeli company called Ashken, said to be an Israeli military front engaged in defence research.
The film moving again. Lourens is speaking to the person next to him, a short man, balding, a mole on his cheek. The man shakes his head, gestures, palms upward.
Freeze. Enlargement.
This man is Donald Trilling, president of Pharmentis Corporation, fourth largest US pharmaceutical company, convenor of Republicans at Work. He is often described as one of the most influential men in America. When this film was taken, Trilling, a Vietnam veteran, was head of Trilling Research Associates of Alexandria, Virginia.Trilling Research was taken over by Pharmentis Corporation in 1988 and Trilling became head of Pharmentis. In 1989, a Congressional hearing was told that Trilling Research received US Defense Department contracts worth more than $60 million between 1976 and 1984. The details remain classified. These contracts are now believed to have been for research into chemical weapons, including one called Eleven Seventy, apparently a ricin-like poison.
It is now clear that millions of dollars found their way from the US Defense Department to Trilling Research and then to bank accounts linked to Dr Carl Lourens.
They are thought to be payment for the manufacture and testing of chemical weapons developed by Trilling.
The film moving again. The soldier is turning towards the camera when the picture goes dark.
Here film analysts think that the cameraman is trying to avoid being seen.
When the film resumes, the tall soldier is standing at the bodies lying around the water trough. He moves a man’s head with his boot.
The man on the ground is alive.
The man moves his arm, his fingers move. The soldier shoots him in the head from a few inches, gestures with his left hand, a summoning gesture.
The soldier takes off his dark glasses, wipes his eyes with the knuckle of his index finger. His face is seen clearly.
Freeze.
Enlargement.
This is the Special Forces Delta Force officer in command of Special Deployment on this mission.
A still photograph of five smiling young soldiers in dress uniform. One head is circled.
This is the same young soldier photographed on graduation day with other members of his West Point class.
A montage, the soldier in the film side by side with the smiling West Point graduate.
This young American soldier is Michael Patrick Denoon, later a four-star General and, until three days ago, US Defense Secretary and aspirant Presidential candidate.
Michael Denoon resigned as Defense Secretary of State shortly after being shown parts of this program. He will not be seeking the Republican nomination.
The Angolan film running again, Denoon and the soldiers going around shooting people where they lie, shooting them in the head- men, women, children, a baby.
The Angolan village is believed to have been targeted by mistake. Fifteen kilometres away was an encampment housing hundreds of military personnel. It is believed that no one in the village survived, dying either from the chemical weapon used or executed by the men of Sudden Death. The bodies are thought to have been loaded onto C-47 transport aircraft by the unit and dropped at sea off the South-West African coast.
There is today no trace of the nameless village. Not a sign that people, families, lived there. The victims have no monument. Documents we have seen place the blame for this terrible experiment, this atrocity, squarely with the military in the United States, South Africa and Israel.
The program went on, putting together the pieces. Kaskis, Diab, Bruynzeel, Kael, Serrano, Shawn, all had their moments.
‘No mention of O’Malley,’ said Baader. ‘Why I am I not surprised?’
In the last minutes of the television special, they watched Caroline Wishart, tall and elegant in chinos and a leather jacket. Ringing a bell in a white wall beside a wooden gate. No one comes but the camera peers over the wall and, for a moment, captures a picture of a tall, grey-haired man with a moustache standing by a swimming pool and shouting something, angry.
Then Caroline:
This millionaire’s villa in Madeira is owned by a company called Claradine.Its directors are two Swiss lawyers. The man in the picture calls himself Jurgen Kleeberg. His real name is Dr Carl Lourens and he has been staying in this luxury home since shortly after his death in a fire was reported in South Africa.
‘I take it that’s the Jurgen Kleeberg once a guest at the Hotel Baur au Lac, Zurich,’ said Inskip.
‘That is the Jurgen,’ said Anselm.
The program finished. The credits described Caroline Wishart as the chief investigative reporter of her newspaper.
‘Well, you’ll probably live,’ said Baader. ‘For a while.’
He left the room.
‘Sound of polite cough,’ said Inskip. ‘What did that mean?’
‘He thinks I may see Christmas,’ said Anselm.
‘I wasn’t told this job was life-threatening.’
‘Only for the living,’ said Carla. ‘You have nothing to fear.’
87
…BIRMINGHAM…
He was dreaming about walking down a mountain path. There was someone ahead of him, talking to him in Greek, a boy, his cousin Dimi. And then
Dimi started speaking in Afrikaans. He stopped and turned, and it wasn’t Dimi. It was his father, the lined brown adult face on a boy’s body. The sight frightened Niemand, brought him awake. He opened his eyes, blinked, his vision blurred.
For a moment, he was without memory. Then he saw the tubes in his arms and chest, tubes taped down, realised. Joy at being alive flooded him until he thought of Jess. He had sent her away, hoping that they were not watching the farmhouse, not waiting beside the lane. But even if she had got away from the farm, they would have found her. They could find anyone.
He closed his eyes and tears welled behind the lids, broke through the lashes, ran down his face, down his neck.
‘You’re crying,’ said the voice, the lilting voice. He could not believe he was hearing it. He opened his wet eyes and she was there, leaning over him, inches from him, and then she was kissing his eyes, kissing his tears, he felt her lips and he hoped he was not dreaming. Life could not be that cruel.
‘Crete,’ said Jess. ‘I’m going to take you to Crete. Get you well.’
‘Yes,’ said Niemand. ‘I love you. You can take me to Crete.’
88
…HAMBURG
Fraulein Einspenner’s last rites were at the crematorium in Billstedt. Anselm, four elderly women, and a middle-aged man were the only mourners. He knew one of them, Fraulein Einspenner’s neighbour, Frau Ebeling.
Afterwards, she came up to him and they shook hands. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
‘It was very peaceful,’ she said. She had a round face, curiously unlined.
‘I’m glad,’ said Anselm.
‘She went to the doctor and in the waiting room, she was sitting there, and she closed her eyes and she died. They didn’t notice for a while. Her heart.’
Anselm nodded.
‘It was as if she didn’t expect to come home again. Everything was packed. Her clothes, everything.’