by TR Kenneth
4EVER made sure of it now, stating in his memo to Vanderloos that Farnsworth was a clean agent as far as Interpol and the authorities were concerned. That meant: no fingerprints on file, no DNA on file, no mug shots. Anywhere. Farnsworth’s body would go to the unidentified remains department at the morgue until they were compelled to give him an anonymous burial as a homeless indigent. For anyone who knew Farnsworth in another capacity, Vanderloos would instruct the PD arm of Tarnhelm to concoct an artful story about his untimely end or disappearance. A swaggering, entitled asshole like Farnsworth was easy to get rid of—his failed attempt at Everest—just like him!—without oxygen!—and he’s still lying up there! Or—his heroic—and losing—battle to sail the cross sea at Tierra Del Fuego alone. The PD stood for the Pollution Department. On paper, it specialized in environmental cleanup of wars and other disasters. But on the inside, everyone knew it stood for Plausible Deniability. They cleaned up all right. We are the Dustbin of the World. The entire incident would be just that—a curiosity—with all parties silent and blessedly uncurious.
He rubbed his jaw, still tight with anger over the botched assignment. It was unlike him. With every word he wrote, he made clear that Maguire was getting no more chances. Still, it wasn’t good for him. The way the current left Farnsworth, it had skittered across the carpet in a haze of static. 4EVER’d been actually paralyzed for a moment, and it took all his strength to get out of there. Now as he wrote in his memo, he mentioned that Maguire had either been the luckiest man in the world to have his lock short out on him, or he was much more wily than they first believed.
A knock came at the door.
“Who is it?” 4EVER snapped, irritated that his housemaid would interrupt him.
“Sir. Monsieur Portier’s asked for you.”
The voice was familiar. The door opened. 4EVER’s eyes narrowed in recognition at who stepped into the bathroom.
“What are you doing here?” he said, shock on his face.
“We’ve heard you and Mr. Vanderloos have been driving outside your lane,” was all the figure said before a black-clad assassin drove a dagger below 4EVER’s left clavicle.
Blood oozed into the bathwater, the smell of iron mixing with the pungent smell of bath salt. 4EVER slumped to the right over the beautifully draped towel. With the table next to him, his writings in one hand, and the pen languishing on the floor by the black man’s outstretched fingers, the scene looked strangely familiar.
“Another one for the PD,” the assassin said to his companion, matter-of-factly. He stepped to the tub and placed the end of a silencer against 4EVER’s temple. But he was stopped from pulling the trigger by his boss.
“Don’t ruin the tableau. It’s The Death of Marat. Don’t you see?”
“The death of who?”
“The Death of Marat. The painting by Jacques-Louis David. ‘N’ayant pu me corrompre ils m’ont assassin—Unable to corrupt me, they murdered me.’”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. He was not corrupted?” the second said, gesturing to 4EVER’s artfully collapsed body.
Quoting a speech, the first figure said, “‘Like Jesus, Marat loved ardently the people, and only them. Like Jesus, Marat hated kings, nobles, priests, rogues, and, like Jesus, he never stopped fighting against these plagues of the people.’”
There was a strange momentary silence while the two of them looked down at 4EVER.
“Where the hell’s that from? He’s no fucking Jesus.”
“It was Marat’s eulogy,” the first said simply. “Given by the Marquis de Sade.”
Stag couldn’t get his mind off of her. She followed him into his dreams that night. A rare occurrence. Usually Stag’s nights consisted of nightmares of Holly. Her desperate pleas torturing him as he watched her die in that pool of arterial blood and, lastly, the stench of excrement. But when he woke the next morning, he realized he’d dreamed of Red Riding Hood. And the strangest moment of all was when he realized that he—not Portier—was the Big Bad Wolf.
The edition of Mein Kampf was next to him in his bunk in the hostel. He’d gone back there after several subway switches and a long walk through the dark Tiergarten. Another night and he was still breathing. Today was the day to go to the Bundesarchiv. He rose. It was time to carpe diem. There was one thing he wanted to look into before he left Berlin.
“I can get your information,” Angelika Aradi said into the LCD screen to Portier. “But you have to give him room. I know the Tarnhelm board has the urge to strong-arm him, but I’m telling you, that won’t get you what you need. We’ll just end up killing him and lose the opportunity forever.” She frowned. “What’s the time frame?”
“The corrosion rate of aluminum is eighty years, solder far, far less,” he said acidly. “There’s your time frame.”
“I understand.”
Portier looked at her through the screen. “May I inquire about darling Genevieve?”
The question hung in the air for a moment.
“Vieve is very well, thank you,” Angelika answered, her voice scrubbed of emotion.
“Did she start school this year?”
“Kindergarten.”
“Kindergarten! What a charming age. I suppose there were days you never thought she would make it to kindergarten. The leukemia is undetectable, is it?”
“Yes,” she breathed, running her hand through her hair. “I will never be able to thank you enough.”
“I’ve always thought Switzerland had the best doctors. Imagine my surprise when I found that clinic in Norway. Absolutely the best. It was worth any expense.”
“It cost you millions. You’ll forever have my gratitude.” She kept her expression implacable.
“I would like more, my angel. I was never able to have children. And now …” His voice wandered off.
“I don’t think an angel is what you want.”
“Then be my devil. You already are.”
“I’m indebted to you. I always will be.”
“You’re the woman I need. The one to cure me of my afflictions. I’m sick of shallow, stupid beauty. I need mental stimulation … as well as physical to heal me. You could give me both.”
“You know I will do whatever you ask.” Again, her voice was meticulously wiped clean.
“Ah, but always there’s work to be done. And you are the very best I have.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t give you very much time.”
“I can be quick.”
“Then be quick. I have better things I’d like you to be doing.”
“I shall do my best.”
“I know you will. You always have.”
She hit the disconnect. Her screen went blank.
She stood and went to the window. Her room across from the Adlon looked right out over Brandenburg Gate and the Quadriga. In the distance, the horses pounded forward with the conundrum of frozen perpetual motion. “Victory” held her laurel wreath aloft for all to see.
Peace was upon them.
For now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“YOU’RE IN LUCK. We do have some documents under the name Isolda Varrick.” The Bundesarchiv researcher leaned closer to the screen. “Letters … aaahhh …” She squinted. “It looks like you are the first to ask about them. They’ve been in a private collection and just arrived. They’re being manually documented now.” She wrote down some numbers on a Post-It.
“What file will they be placed in?”
“The Red Army liberation of Auschwitz.”
“Auschwitz?” Stag felt the punch to his gut, but he wasn’t quite surprised. “Was Isolda Varrick taken there?”
“Let me see. We have the Death Books online in our database.” The researcher took up her glasses that dangled onto her blouse by a cord. She typed in a few more strokes. “No. Isolda Varrick is not among the names in the Death Books. But, as you know, given what went on at the time and the destruction of documents, our records are far from complete. She certainly could have
been there.”
“Does it say in whose possession the letters were when they were found?”
She looked at the screen and cross-referenced a few items. “All it says here is that the letters were donated by the family of a Soviet liberator.”
Stag ruminated on the idea that Isolda was shipped off to Auschwitz. But where was the logic of her being caught there with letters written by herself to another? No, it was probably someone else who’d somehow had them on themselves in the final hour.
“The copies have been ordered. You may collect them at the desk.” The middle-aged woman gave him a smile. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. With a nod, he headed to the main desk.
He did not see the Interpol Special Agent behind him saunter to the desk and pull out his badge on the clerk.
Stag had the copies of the three Auschwitz letters tucked into Isolda’s Mein Kampf. They were all three addressed to a man named Eduard Schulte in Berlin. He burned to hole up somewhere and read them, study them, correlate them to the diary, but right now, he didn’t have time. He had people to evade and housekeeping to do. And a trip to plan.
He assumed he was being followed. The only way to shake it was to head to Alexanderplatz Station. He spent two hours getting on and off departing trains until he was sure no one could be on him. The next stop was back to Marzahn to get his supplies. He’d collected a large amount of cash at Deutschebank from a wire transfer of his US account. In exchange for a mere 15,000 Euros, he was able to collect all the documents he’d ordered when he’d gotten the P83.
He was now set.
He walked into Citibank with the rest of the cash of the wire transfer, and all the pages he’d translated out of the diary along with the copies of the white silk key. At the International Customer Desk, he whipped out his “British passport” under the ironic name of john Dedman, and said, “I’d like to open an account and safety deposit box.”
When the friendly young clerk asked if it would be cash or check, he answered, “Cash.” He dumped a stack of 500-euro notes on the desk. The clerk’s eyes widened, but she was only too happy to be of service.
PART THREE
The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
WALTER BENJAMIN
In his Theses on the Philosophy of History, which he wrote shortly before he killed himself, in 1940, while attempting to escape from the Nazis.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE FLIGHT TO Zürich was pleasant. First class was certainly the way to travel. Not knowing how much time one had, had its advantages. There was no reason to cut corners now.
“More champagne, Mr. Dedman?” the svelte airline attendant asked.
He waved it away, still ticking down his list. Nacht und Nebel. He was now invisible to a cyber search for Stag Maguire. He’d left everything he had in his room at the Adlon in case Tarnhelm had placed a GPS on his belongings. He had a new iPhone, iPad, debit card, and bank account, all untraceable to him. From now on there would be no passport movement, no IP addresses from his old devices, no debits from his accounts, no receipts. He was off the grid. As scrubbed as a felon with new DNA and fingerprints.
He pulled out the Ziploc bag holding his book and letters. He began with the first letter.
23 February 1942
Dearest Eduard,
I thank you for the beautiful silk! My dream has been answered! I have it packed carefully away until the day comes to send myself to you. I shall arrive as a bride and my dress shall be white with many secret layers. Your gift is a lifesaver in these days of want. I would like you to know I have listened to your every instruction. I will pay attention to every detail. I will make no errors. I will not waste an inch of my precious, precious bridal silk.
I hope you received my first letter, which was sent through our friends. I confessed all in it, all my secret longings. I shall write as often as I can!
Your blushing bride-to-be,
Isolda
He leaned back and thought about the cryptic writing. Isolda Varrick was no blushing bride. The wedding silk was the spy technology of using it as a code pad for secret messages. What those messages were that she sent, penned onto white silk and tucked behind the lining of a garment, could now only be guessed at. They were long gone, either in a sable coat later purloined by the neighborhood German “citizen” or, perhaps, sorted and shipped with the stories-high piles of garments that left the death camps during the Holocaust.
What remained now were these letters, long held and forgotten in the Byzantine network of the old Soviet Union. She’d been taking a risk to write in her name to this Eduard Schulte. But it must have been she’d had no choice. It had been the only way to get the letters through.
He pulled out the second letter by date. It made less sense than the first.
7 April 1942
My dearest Eduard,
I urge you to hear my pleas! I cannot be silent any longer, nor should you! I want the world to know (that you are mine, of course!) and I have given you the messages that proclaim ALL. Your family in Geneva will listen to our cries (and see us married, forthwith!)
Today I received my honeymoon suit. It is made of a beautiful shade of Berlin blue. Everything they say about it is true! If you aren’t familiar with the color, it will soon be all the RAGE for thousands. Hundreds of thousands perhaps!
To marry, we must, my darling. I cannot bear to go on like this and I demand you tell all now, so that we and those who love like us may plan our salvation from this hell.
Your very loving,
Isolda
It was an awkward letter, but there seemed nothing to it. Just a dull, little obscure missive of unrequited love. Stag could almost see the Nazi censors falling asleep over the pheromonal pleas of a fiancée to speed along the nuptials. One thing that did stand out, however, was her urging the recipient to look up Berlin blue.
He typed in Berlin blue. The definition came up as follows:
Prussian blue, also known as Berlin blue, is a dark blue color that is artificially made. It is one of the first pigments made synthetically. It was accidentally found in 1704 by two chemists in Berlin. The dark blue uniforms of the Prussian army were dyed this color. It is produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts.
Ferrocyanide.
Which made Prussic acid.
Known by its more infamous name, Zyklon B.
It didn’t take him long to find photographs online of the interior of a gas chamber. At Madjanek, the walls were stained with the distinctive intense blue. Beautiful Berlin blue.
He took the research further. He began with the name Eduard Schulte. The name wasn’t unusual, particularly in Germany. He expected there to be thousands, and certainly there were. But the first search astounded him.
Eduard Schulte (4 January 1891 in Düsseldorf–6 January 1966 in Zürich) was a prominent German industrialist. He was one of the first to warn the Allies and tell the world of the Holocaust and systematic exterminations of Jews in Nazi Germany occupied Europe. In August 1942, the Reigner Telegram notified the Allies through the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, that 3.5 to 4 million Jews were to be exterminated by the planned use of hydrogen cyanide. The Allies largely ignored Schulte’s information as not believable.
He next Googled the Reigner Telegram and read what Reigner wrote:
August 8, 1942
Received alarming report stating that, in the Führer’s Headquarters, a plan has been discussed, and is under consideration, according to which all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany number 3 1/2 to 4 million should, after deportation and concentration in the East, be at one blow exterminated, in order to resolve, once and for
all the Jewish question in Europe. Action is reported to be planned for the autumn. Ways of execution are still being discussed including the use of prussic acid. We transmit this information with all the necessary reservation, as exactitude cannot be confirmed by us. Our informant is reported to have close connexions with the highest German authorities, and his reports are generally reliable. Please inform and consult New York.
Stag’s blood began to boil. August 1942. So much for the excuse of, “We didn’t know till after the war.” He found it sickening how much could have been done with that knowledge. There were none higher than Heydrich when it came to implementing the Final Solution. Goering, too fat and addicted to run even the Luftwaffe properly, had passed the baton of Hitler’s Mein Kampf vision to Heydrich, who’d dutifully streamlined it at the Wannsee conference. If Isolde had tried to warn the world of Heydrich’s plans, it was beyond credible. It was from the source itself.
Now all he could think of was the waste of Isolda’s effort to get the word out. Even if her other missives had reached Schulte—she was writing him in April 1942, before the mechanization of death had really gotten under way—these letters had either been waylaid or ignored, like the Reigner Telegram itself.
And the rest, as they say, was history.
Holding down his fury and nausea, Stag reread the second letter. What had seemed mundane at first glance now sent ice through his veins.
Hear my pleas! Your family in Geneva will listen to our cries! Berlin blue… All the RAGE for thousands. Hundreds of thousands perhaps!
Schulte could have gotten some of his information through Isolda, and she obviously got hers directly from the pillow talk with Heydrich. Now Isolda’s early demise seemed more and more likely. She’d been playing a dangerous game, writing Shulte as his fiancée while playing mistress to Heydrich. Had that gotten her killed—not being discovered as a spy, but out of a lover’s jealousy? The letters were found in Auschwitz after the liberation, and Schulte didn’t die in the Holocaust. It must’ve been a courier who’d had them. The courier had handed the information down the line, but had been unable to unload the three letters until he or she was deported to Poland. Perhaps Isolda herself had been instrumental in giving the information in the Reigner Telegram, but all he knew for sure was that these three letters had reached a dead end in Auschwitz.