The Bleiberg Project (Consortium Thriller)

by David Khara

  Without exception, the vanished bombers were all carrying enriched uranium. Besides the obvious danger of moving such sensitive materials by air, the transport of radioactive matter is by special permit only and strictly controlled. The military must, therefore, be involved in some kind of uranium-trafficking network, most likely linked to nuclear operations. So far, not completely surprising. National security transcends legal, administrative and even constitutional considerations. But when crews start disappearing, then we really are in murky waters…

  A whole month and not a single new lead. The initials BCI correspond to no known military department. This whole business is becoming an obsession. I can’t trust anyone on base. I’ve even started copying duty rosters to make sure nobody falsifies them. I have to get a grip. But I can’t get one question out of my head: Where have the bombers, fighters and the damn uranium disappeared to?

  I’m becoming irascible. Jeremy came home with a bad grade in math. I almost slapped him. That’s not like me at all. I need to move on, or I’ll lose my sanity and my family…

  I was right! I couldn’t put my hunch into words, but deep down I knew. I contacted Ed Jackson, a friend who works in the military’s legal department. He told me he’d been investigating networks of traffickers in military secrets and radioactive material for years. He even works from a special office set up to bypass usual procedures and reduce the risk of leaks. The Soviets, Arabs and even the Chinese have all headed the list of suspects at one time or another, but nothing has ever been proved. I have dived headfirst into a big stinking mess. I’ve been ordered to drop it, but I know that it all has to do with those three letters. What can BCI possibly mean?

  Ann and I had a big fight yesterday. I know she’s worried, but she doesn’t realize the importance of my investigation. She used Jeremy to make me feel guilty about never being home for him. I’ll make amends when the time comes. Maybe I should get in touch with Dean. I know where to look.

  Tomorrow, I head to D.C. for three days. The pretext is an air staff meeting to discuss the budget proposal going through Congress. We’ll have to put up with the White House apparatchiks. I’m taking the whole file with me. Jackson said he’d meet me at the bar at the Watergate Hotel. He has a very questionable sense of humor…

  The meeting never took place. I arrived late at the hotel, just in time to see paramedics carrying out Jackson’s body. Heart attack. Surprising for a thirty-three-year-old athlete with no medical history. Before I slipped away, a waiter came over with a piece of paper Ed asked him to give to me just before he died. The scribbled note contained just one word. A name, to be precise. Icarus…

  I’m making waves, rocking the boat. Requesting documents and asking questions wherever I go has attracted too much attention. Somebody’s out to stop me and will use any means necessary. I have to be doubly careful…

  Still no lead on BCI. It’s infuriating. That’s the key to the whole thing. I can sense it. I picked up the mail when I arrived home. In an envelope addressed to me, I found a bullet engraved with the word “Icarus.” I think it’s time to call Bernard Dean…

  I’m trained for action. Tough decisions don’t scare me. But nothing prepared me for the situation I’m in now. Bernard agrees with me. Whoever’s calling me Icarus doesn’t want me to get too close to the sun. My family’s in danger. I’ve gone too far, but I can’t turn back. Bernard offered to co-opt me into the CIA and put Ann and Jeremy under protection. He still wants nothing to do with my investigation, however. In the Secret Service, friendship has its limits. I’ll be reunited with my family when all this madness is over…

  I lay out the situation to Ann, frankly and honestly. She’s a brave, strong woman. When she married me, she understood the nation’s security couldn’t be jeopardized, and I had an obligation. I feel her pain behind all the talk about me having to do my duty. Actually, it’s about more than doing my duty to the country. I need to protect Ann and our son. He knows nothing. He wouldn’t understand. He’ll never understand. It’s heartbreaking, but deep down, I’m convinced it’s “see you later” and not “farewell…”

  Two years. Two long years, gathering and crosschecking dozens and even hundreds of documents about missing consignments of uranium. In the United States alone, the volume is preposterous—over one hundred pounds. The floor of my sleazy studio-apartment hideout is carpeted with piles of paper. The walls are covered with sticky notes and sprawling charts. The only good news is that I’ve found a lead on BCI. There’s a pharmaceutical company in South America with that name. I don’t see how it ties in, but I have to explore even the slenderest leads…

  I’ve traveled across Europe and Africa, pored over archives, visited embassies and consulates, met cultural attachés, the catchall word for our secret agents. Without any possible doubt, the network stealing radioactive material has a global reach. But I still have no lead on who controls it…

  The collapse of the Soviet Republic is a blessing. The Berlin Wall fell less than six months ago, and already thousands of secret documents have emerged from the offices of the KGB. One document that that has reached us spells out the exchange of two U.S. Air Force planes equipped with experimental aiming systems in return for uranium. My planes. In the recipient box, no name, just a single word: Consortium…

  1996. The Olympic Games are going to be held in Atlanta. While the world focuses on the athletes, I wander alone in a universe that scares me. A few weeks ago, I got a job working in the warehouse of a BCI subsidiary in Belgium. The company has expanded massively in the last twenty years to become a leader in its field. But the few records I got my hands on told me nothing new. I’m missing the key that unlocks the whole mystery, and I’m worried I’ll never find it. These people know how to cover their tracks…

  When I arrived at work this morning, a letter was waiting for me with an address in Zaventem, a suburb of Brussels. I’ll pay a visit, but I have to be careful. My cover may be compromised…

  I met an old man named Planic. He claims to have learned about my inquiries in the late eighties. He says he worked for the Consortium, and BCI is only a facet of it. He seems trustworthy. According to Planic, there’s an organization deep in the corridors of power that’s pulling the strings of history with terrifying cynicism and efficiency. Christ, these guys are nuts. I need to gather evidence to put a stop to them…

  2001. The new millennium. I’ve lived in the same seedy hotel in a low-rent neighborhood in Paris ever since I left Brussels. Planic’s revelations radically changed the course of my investigation. To understand the present and glimpse the future, I have to explore the past…

  Years go by, and I become more and more decrepit. I glimpsed my reflection this morning while I was waiting for a bus to take me to a crucial meeting with an antiques dealer from London. Disheveled, bearded, bags under my eyes, moth-eaten coat—I looked like a bum. I’ll have to get myself back in shape before I’m reunited with Ann and Jeremy. Tomorrow I fly to Florida to meet a specialist in objects that belonged to Nazi dignitaries. Without Planic, I’d never have stumbled across the SS lead…

  My inquiries have left me in possession of a box and a key, priceless relics from the Second World War. The photo I found in the box sent shivers down my spine. Now all I need to do is put the finishing touches on my final report, the result of twenty-four years of stubborn research, discreet meetings, sleepless nights and constant glances over my shoulder. I’ll give the most important pieces of evidence to Bernard for safekeeping until the federal government corroborates my conclusions and acts. Then I’ll be able to be reunited with my family and get back to a normal life…

  The walls of my studio rental in Paris are covered with press cuttings and archive documents. The Project is there, before my eyes. Danger is all around also. The woman in the bakery looks at me more and more strangely. Could she be one of them?

  This morning, I ripped the wallpaper off my bedroom wall and drilled into it in places. The walls have ears. I’m sure of it. Day
or night, I never drop my guard. Suspicious noises have convinced me that the demons are closing in on me…

  I spend my nights in a cyber café and my days wandering the streets. I’ve outsmarted them. I’ve hidden my documents in a supermarket cart covered with cardboard boxes. Mumbling and grumbling, I push it along. People steer a wide berth around me. I’ve found the perfect cover.

  Thanks to the Internet, I’ve been able to access the accounting spreadsheets that prove the Project’s imminent implementation. Jeremy will be able to understand them. He has to!

  I’m screwed. They’ve infiltrated my own government. They’re everywhere. By making contact with my CIA liaison officer, I’ve signed my death warrant. I have absolutely no trust in this Pettygrow guy. He’s working for them. It’s obvious. My last chance to get the report into the right hands is Planic. Two people will have access to the documents that lead to this book. Bernard and Jeremy. If you’re reading this, then I’m dead. I’m relying on you to finish what I started. Go to the address indicated in the contents, and find Planic. He’ll put you on the right track. Don’t forget that the Consortium is an underground organization. To find it, you’ll have to dig.

  The notes ended there. The novel resumed in the next chapter. How Daniel incorporated his notes into the book mattered little. Jeremy stared at his father’s last words. Cold, impersonal, reflecting the obsession that had overwhelmed him to the detriment of his family. He had hoped to find something else. A phrase, a mark of affection, anything that would reassure him of his absent father’s love and convince him, however late in the day, that feelings always win out over national security.

  What Jeremy held in his hands had a name. Insanity.

  CHAPTER 33

  Zaventem, Belgium, Saturday, 6:30 a.m.

  The mind-numbing rows of sad redbrick houses remind me how much I like buildings that reach for the sky, textures, crowds you can blend into without fear. The city that never sleeps. Here, there are more cars than humans. The sidewalks are deserted. It reeks of boredom and suburban routine. Major companies apparently judge the area sufficiently alive to locate their R&D and logistical centers—even their head offices—here. And they say Manhattan is inhuman. If I could choose, I’d rather die anywhere that’s not Zaventem!

  For the last ninety minutes, we’ve been staking out, as the spies say, Planic’s house. Eventually, the new day will dawn. Jackie’s and my drawn features testify to complete exhaustion, but Eytan looks ready to compete in the Olympics. We watch the house windows, waiting for a sign of life. Finally, a light filters through the curtains in an upstairs window. Then another one downstairs.

  Without a pause for thought, Buffy and the Jolly Green Giant leap out of the car, with me not far behind. Obviously. It’s a long one-way street near a four-lane freeway and hotel for get-ahead executives. It’s ugly. Which confirms my intuition that this place is a dump. On the other hand, it must be a great place to lie low. The houses all look the same. Four windows upstairs, four downstairs, a vast front yard with perimeter fence. Plain, efficient and pukeworthy. I fire one up. The two spooks teamed up to stop me smoking in the car.

  Eytan opens the gate and heads for the front door with Jackie right behind. I’m puffing away five yards behind. I miss New York. I miss Mom. Bernard, too. I’m tired. Jackie calls to me. I crush the butt underfoot. Eytan motions to me to move it. I speed up. A woman in her sixties opens the door, dressed to match the neighborhood. Black cardigan, gray blouse, dark pants.

  “Can I help you?” she asks softly.

  Let’s leave this to Jackie. “We’d like to see Mr. Planic.”

  “And you are?” She scans our faces. Apparently dawn visitors are a novelty.

  Eytan intervenes. “We’re friends of Daniel Corbin.”

  The old lady asks us to wait and closes the door. Smart. For human interaction, a petite angel-faced blonde is better than a Golem over six feet tall. The Belgian Jane Doe appreciates good manners. And speaks good English. Not everything stinks around here.

  Ten seconds later, the old lady reappears. The Belgian Jane Doe is a little too efficient for my taste. The others don’t seem to share my suspicions. They’re the specialists. We file straight into the living room. The house is opulently furnished in a style a retired British colonel would like. The kind of guy who collects random stuff on his travels to flaunt to his guests that he’s seen the world. Bottom line, it’s a tad overpowering. Three cracked brown leather Chesterfield sofas form a U around a teak Indonesian-style coffee table. The open northern hemisphere of a globe, held by a black statue of a naked woman with a prominent bust, reveals a well-stocked bar. It’s undeniably tasteless. The walls are covered in still lifes with no real harmony of color or style. The ornately carved gold frames attest to a sickening snobbishness. Three corner tables laden with trinkets, ranging from Chinese statuettes to an antique clock, stand next to the three sofas. Two floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the house offer a view of the wooded yard, hidden from the street. They’re the only appealing aspect of this dark, sinister house. Lamps feebly illuminate the room in an ill-conceived attempt to provide a cozy atmosphere. Claustrophobia sufferers would hang themselves from the huge fan on the ceiling.

  Eytan immediately sprawls on a couch and props his lumberjack boots on the table. Classy. I like it. Jackie frowns and whistles disapprovingly. Bald Eagle sighs and removes his feet. Jackie rolls her eyes. I’m surrounded by wackos. Nobody dares to utter a word that would shatter this house’s religious silence, for fear of bringing bad luck.

  A motorized hum comes from the stairs. I know that sound. A lift glides down a railing on the wall. Infomercials for these contraptions air all night long back home. The owner of the house must be disabled. Sitting on the gray metal seat, a man with parchment skin, a tuft of unruly white hair and tinted glasses slowly descends in the slender beam of light from upstairs. When it reaches the bottom, the lift motor cuts out, causing Pops to sway uncontrollably. He seems no longer human, but made of straw.

  The old lady hurries down and fusses around this pale imitation of a man, releasing the straps that hold the seat in place. She presses a button on the back, and four wheels fold out. The ingenious device means people don’t have to drag wheelchairs around the different floors of their home. The chair and its occupant take up a position at the far end of the table, facing us.

  “Go make the bed, Annick. I’ll call if I need you. Thank you.” There’s a surprise.

  The moribund old fellow has the voice of a young man.

  Annick impassively goes upstairs. The door clicks shut. When we are alone, Jackie speaks up. “Mr. Planic?”

  “That’s me. Please take a seat. If you’d like a drink, help yourself. Unfortunately, I can’t do the honors myself.”

  He glances mournfully at his chair. He speaks excellent English, with just the hint of an accent. Slav, perhaps. I don’t wish to jump to conclusions, but given his name…

  Like two well-mannered children, Jackie and I sit side by side on a couch. God, she smells good. Eytan is the bad boy, sprawled defiantly on a couch all of his own.

  “What brings you to my home?”

  “We found this book in your bookstore. We’re investigating…”

  Before Jackie can finish, he interrupts, “You’re investigating the death of Daniel J. Corbin. You found the book with his notes. At his request, I told my employee—I still own the store—to put the book on a shelf and never move it or sell it.”

  “Jeremy here is Lieutenant General Corbin’s son. In his notes, Corbin mentions that you were a member of a secret society, which, as we have found out at a great cost of lives, has very sinister intentions.”

  Wow, she’s smoking. Talking like a professor now. Beautiful, athletic, funny and smart. If I get out of this alive, I’ll marry her. Or propose, at least.

  “I broke off contact with the Consortium in 1995, when I moved here. The bookstore has been my cover for the last fifteen years. Every day, I expect to get a
bullet in the brain. Every night, when I go to bed, I expect never to wake up. Yet I’m still here. I worked diligently for the organization for fifty years. My role was limited to keeping files on potential recruits. No more. At the time, my name was Andrei Kourilyenko.”

  As the old man tells his story, our jaws drop.

  CHAPTER 34

  Your father came to see me a few weeks ago. He knew he was going to die. The Consortium’s name for him was Icarus. Nobody before him had ever gotten so close to the truth. And like the courageous mythological Greek hero, he burned his wings. Daniel had unraveled the whole story. He held one end of the thread and couldn’t help pulling it to see what he’d find. He soon realized that important government departments had been infiltrated. Anybody could be working for the organization. Some agents are never activated. Others are purposefully sacrificed. It’s a cluster organization that is carefully compartmentalized to make those at its heart inaccessible. I call it a work of genius—sufficiently discreet to go unnoticed and powerful enough to influence the fate of humanity through its cunning maneuvers.

  “Shortly after I was recruited by Bleiberg, at our first and only meeting, I began fastidiously researching the Consortium. It was impossible to put the chain of command down on paper, so I concentrated on an area that would arouse less suspicion, because it was the reason I had been hired—the recruitment of scientists, particularly those with an SS background. I also took the opportunity to expand my investigation into the history of the Nazi party.”

  Eytan interrupted. “Excuse me, but you said you met Professor Bleiberg in Berlin in 1945. He had been declared dead in the explosion that destroyed his research lab in 1942.”

  “Yet another maneuver to conceal his existence, Mr.…Morg?” The Israeli agent frowned and nodded. “Please go on.”