A Room Full of Night

by TR Kenneth

  He took out the original silk key. The map of the Königssee seemed to be clearer and clearer now that he thought he’d identified it. But there was more to this hellacious chase than diamonds. It had to be the weapon, and the answer had to be in that apartment. It lay with Heydrich and the SD and with Isolda Varrick.

  He had little hope she was still alive. Obituary notices in Germany had held nothing of an Isolda Varrick. But if she disappeared before 1945, there was a good chance she simply vanished into the cloud of war, never to be found.

  He looked out at the ocean, now blooming in pink and gold. There was one last entry to the diary. It would tell all. Or he would be left as stumped as Tarnhelm.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  THERE WAS NO pomp and circumstance for the meeting in Potomac. No black SUVs and limos, no mic-wearing men in suits. Just a lone figure in a chauffeur-driven Ford, pulling into the circular drive with all the status of an Uber arrival.

  But Sadler made sure he waited for this man at the door. While he did not look as if he was due the status of diplomacy, the man was the Surrogate himself. In fact, if you saw him on the street, with his handsome, youthful face and crisp blue blazer, you’d dismiss him as a baby lawyer—just another Damien all grown up from The Omen and now working for an investment bank. But, like Hitler’s crippled dwarf of propaganda, what you might dismiss could be fatal.

  When the two men settled in his office, Sadler waited for him to be the first to speak.

  “As we discussed, he invested heavily in a billionaire’s suburb outside of Moscow. Every oligarch has a place in his Sputnik Luxe in Barvikha. Every. Oligarch,” he said with meaning.

  “How heavily?” Sadler asked.

  “Fifty.”

  Sadler knew this meant billion. Fifty billion.

  “They’re calling in his loans. He’s terrified. He won’t eat; he won’t drink. He’s convinced they’re going to sneak polonium in his Diet Coke, and you know how he feels about his hair. Fuck. If he loses that …”

  This, Sadler thought, from the man who once pointed at his head and told the world, “I have a very, very good brain. The best brain.” Like he wanted to be rewarded with a cookie.

  “He’s going to need diapers soon, he’s so freaked out,” the Surrogate said.

  “The man just has to put his name on everything, doesn’t he?” Sadler commented acidly.

  “No US banks would do business with him. He had no choice but to chum up with the Russians. Then, after he orchestrated the deal with Rosneft, he flooded the oil market, and Tesla sealed his doom with their new battery. Now this over-the-top suburb is being abandoned like rats off a sinking ship. The default rate is breathtaking.”

  “Therefore in order to pay the loans …”

  “He wants total destruction of the community. It’s the only way to get the insurer Allianz to pay him—and more importantly, to pay off his loans.”

  “We can guarantee total destruction. Certainly.”

  “It needs to look like Daesh. Act of God. All that stuff. Or Allianz won’t pay.”

  “Of course.”

  The Surrogate paused. “You know we’re not looking for a lot of casualties here. Just property destruction.”

  “Complete property destruction is impossible without collateral casualties. Certainly, we could destroy a compound or two safely, but an entire suburb? With plausible deniability? No.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We have a unique opportunity on the horizon. May I get you a drink and explain it to you? I think this is just what your man is looking for.” Sadler rose and went to the bar to make the drinks.

  Angelika Aradi took a seat at the bar. Below her sandaled feet, a beautiful spotted cat shark slid by beneath the glass floor. The Bali Orchid was a spectacular tiny resort with private over-the-water bungalows and the best chefs from four continents. Maguire picked well. She would have to remember the place. She ordered a gin and tonic.

  She bet that he would stay in the hotel instead of taking a tuk-tuk into Kuta. He was nothing but problems for her. First and foremost, he was not a dupe. Lonely men subject to flattery were easy prey, particularly for a woman, but Maguire was a different species. To get to him, you had to get to his mind first. All of which was proving far more difficult than anyone imagined.

  She thought of Portier’s expression when they’d last Skyped. She’d never seen him as angry and frustrated as he was then. Maguire was getting the best of everyone.

  A Chinese man walked by her and said in Mandarin, “Pillow lace,” referring to her blond hair. She took a deep sip of her drink, and pondered the world’s fascination for hair. It was nothing but a mass of dead strands, and yet men went mad for it, the blond kind especially, and Asian men in particular.

  But there was only one color of hair that she cared about. Nothing made her think of her duty more than seeing hair—or rather the stark lack of it—on her four-year-old’s head. When Genevieve had been desperately sick, she’d read to her over and over again, The Velveteen Rabbit. Until you were used and worn and loved, you cannot be Real. Angelika looked down at the fraying of the white cuff of her linen suit. It was why she was drawn to vintage. The clothes had become Real after all this time. Each moth hole, each deconstructed lapel, told a story. And now, after the ordeal of Genevieve’s sickness, she and her daughter had their story. They had become Real.

  Angelika was wild about the thick dark brown locks that now covered her child’s head. No fraying or deconstruction there any longer.

  But there was a limit to it. Like the world itself, you could not pull the stuffing from the Velveteen Rabbit, leave it like an abandoned cicada shell, and expect it to revive.

  Her only choice in this life was to stay focused on hair. She would calm her nerves with gin and her daughter’s fine health, and she would tread this tightrope for now, letting Tarnhelm know she would do her duty.

  You have sent your bomb into hiding. What schemes are you working on? Are you hiding it from the Führer or the Wehrmacht? Or both? You give me no clues, so I wait here, hoping my messages get through. But with all your diamonds surrounding me, I fear I will be unable to do anything until the end.

  As much as I want to live, I no longer dream it’s possible. The Jews are not long for this earth, and as one of them, I think it is my fate to join them. I suspect I have been seen by a Jew catcher and identified. Many U-boats when they get rounded up by the Gestapo turn Jew catcher. One can never predict who will stick by his fellow man and who will be traitor. Or did you intercept one of my letters to Shulte? I don’t know and no longer have the luxury to care. I have no delusions about your sudden coolness.

  I want you and the world to know one thing at the end: Even though there was no hope or dignity to my situation, I created those things anyway. It was my intention to pick this horrible book and write upon it. I pray my words break the words printed inside, and that my words may live and tower above the madness that is rich upon every printed page.

  People will wonder in the future why we Jews did not fight more when we were staring down the barrel of a gun or standing in the shadow of the gas chamber. It is because we have looked into the eyes of man whose soul is so dark and deep, we no longer wish to remain within his vision. It tells us things about our own humanity we did not wish to know. And when one is naked and broken, there is no longer any ability to deny it. It is a disease of the human heart. It has nothing to do with Germans and Jews. Until we as humans stand up and say, “I will not do this,” then it will happen again. And again.

  In the end, I tell you, my evil Hangman, my Butcher of Prague, my Blond Beast, the joke is on you. For it is purest salvation to remove one’s clothes and stand peacefully in line that we may escape that stare. Death is preferable. A mercy like none other.

  I will go peacefully too. For I understand the horror of that stare well by now. In my dying moment, I shall cling to the memory of my parents. And to that shadow figure of hope, my unrequited love, the
man who never arrived; the man who does not need his shirt. Perhaps in the end I will finally have a clear vision of the children that were never to be. I don’t know if what I have done has helped the survival of the Jews, but in the end, this fight is not about the Jews anyway. It is for the survival of the human soul. There is still good inside me, in spite of all that I’ve been through. It is smaller now, but brilliant and less fragile. Truly and sincerely earned. My last words will be, “I will NOT do this.” And while this warrior will go meekly toward her demise, the good inside her proves she did not concede defeat. And that will be enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  STAG WAS UP early the next morning. He didn’t sleep well, thinking of Isolda Varrick. She had been right. There was a tipping point inside every man: when one could go on, and when one had finally had too much. His tipping point had been Harry. He’d been stuck in the misery of his anger and grief over Holly, but Harry’s death had transformed him. First, he wanted to know why they’d killed him. Now, he wanted to take them down or die trying. Not just for Harry, but for everyone Heydrich had murdered. Including, with all probability, Isolda.

  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The line from John 8:32 rang through his head, supplanted with the louder line that said: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall piss you off.

  Back to work, he sat down to breakfast overlooking the radium blue of the Indian Ocean. He checked his bank account on his phone app, and a knot of satisfaction tightened his belly.

  He was richer by twenty-five million dollars.

  It was amazing what you could accomplish when you had not one fucking thing to lose.

  He went back into Kuta to make another trip to the safety deposit box. There was no longer any point in carrying the diary around, so he scanned the pages onto his tablet and placed it in his box. After he left the bank, he opened a mailbox at TIKI, a private postal service. There he deposited his letter ceding ownership of the Zurich Cantonal Bank account to Save the Children. After all, what was he going to do with twenty-five million dollars? He wasn’t the millionaire type. Besides, someone had to get these Indonesian kids off the ngelem.

  I will not do this.

  Isolda’s words clung to his thoughts like the gossamer of a spider’s web that you couldn’t see, only feel brush against your skin with maddening endurance. He burned to find out what had happened to her. As soon as he could, he was determined to make it back to Berlin and reenter the Dresdenhof. Apartment 12A.

  He ate in a small cafe in one of Kuta’s most notorious little back alley drug bazaars. He ordered mie goreng, the local fried noodles, with shrimp, and a Bintang beer, then sat back to watch the local sights of mopeds and street deals.

  “Bintang or Anker, mate?” A man in a Hawaiian shirt of neon orange hibiscus sat down at the table next to him.

  “Bintang,” Stag offered. “Is Anker better?”

  “Dunno. I’m a goddamned Kiwi. Malcolm’s the name.”

  Stag nodded. “First time in Bali?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yup.” He wondered if Malcolm was in Bali for the beach or the drugs. Probably both.

  “What brings you ’ere?” the man asked, settling on a Bintang.

  “Journalist.”

  “Ah, writing about Bali?”

  “I might. What about you?”

  “Honeymoon. The wife’s out shopping. Dunno what there is to buy. Everything’s shyte as far as I can see.”

  Stag smiled. He remembered his honeymoon with Holly on St. Kitts. The beach was black sand, the tourist items only some local batik and rum. It had been devoid of cheesy tourist traps and rip-offs. Besides, there’d only been room for the two of them on that big, beautiful island. If there were others, he couldn’t remember seeing any of them.

  “What’re you really writing about? The Bali Nine?” Like the Aussies, the Kiwis were outraged by the current Indonesian president’s hard stance on drugs. The Bali Nine were Aussies who’d been jailed or executed for drug smuggling in spite of Australia’s protest and diplomatic sanctions. True to his word, Widodo had given zero clemency.

  “Should I write about it?”

  “You should, mate. It’s bullshit! Who does that bloke think he is?”

  “Well, he was definitely sincere.”

  This brought the Kiwi up short. He seemed surprised, and then released a loud boisterous laugh. “You got me there, mate!”

  Stag ordered another Bintang. His food arrived, and he and the Kiwi had a lively discussion of the American use of the word football.

  When he was full, he stood and put all the rupiahs in his pocket onto the table.

  “You looking for a party later, I can hook you up with some good arak,” Malcolm said, referring to the Balinese liquor made from toddy palm leaves.

  Stag told him he’d think about it, suddenly wondering if the guy was on his honeymoon at all and not an illicit arak dealer who specialized in selling tourists illegal alcohol laced with methanol.

  For being inexpressibly beautiful, he thought, Bali could be a total shithole.

  Stag took his time walking through the tourist section of Kuta. It was like a cheesier version of Cancun but with more Aussies and vomit. He stopped to observe a couple of Kiwi women—teenagers pretty much—drunkenly wobble through a tee shirt shop that had gems like Back Door! No Baby! and What Part of Deep Throat Don’t You Understand? He had to squelch the fatherly urge to put them in a taxi and get them home.

  He cut through a small quiet street, hoping it would be a shortcut to the beach. There he would get a tuk-tuk and take a leisurely ride back to his resort. But when he got halfway, he had the distinct feeling he was being followed.

  From a plate-glass reflection, he recognized the flash of neon orange in the Hawaiian shirt that the man Malcolm had worn.

  It could be coincidence.

  But he doubted it.

  Ducking into a dead-end alley, abandoned save for the copious amounts of trash picked through and discarded even by the street children, he waited, Glock in hand.

  “Who the fuck are you working for?” he demanded, cheered by the surprise on the Kiwi’s face as he stood in the street facing him.

  “Ease up, mate!”

  “How did you find me? GPS? Or is the word out to look for a white guy with a limp?” Stag readjusted his finger on the trigger.

  “Whoa! I dunno what you’re talking about!” Malcolm took several steps toward him. “Just thought you might want a little something better than arak. Let me show you.” Malcolm pulled something out of the back of his cut-offs.

  Stag barely registered the glint of metal before a shot rang out. The Kiwi slammed into the wall of the alley, then dropped, stone cold dead in a pile of polychrome plastic. A bullet went clean though his head. His Kel-Tec handgun had skittered over to his left and now lay atop a pile of blown-out flip-flops and Snickers wrappers.

  The only problem was Stag hadn’t shot him. Someone else had.

  His hackles up, Stag stood motionless, unable to find a hiding place in the alley. He waited, expecting. But seconds passed.

  Nothing came.

  He could hear crowds gathering outside of various shops along the street, everyone curious about the gunshot. He shoved the Glock into his waistband and slowly made his way out of the alley. With his nerves on fire, he casually made his way down the street. He was long gone before the first siren.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  BACK AT HIS hotel, Stag tried to figure out what had happened. But nothing made sense. Had he somehow, someway acquired a guardian angel? It was hard to believe Portier could fit that role, but if Portier wanted him dead, he’d be dead. Since Portier wanted him alive for now, he was going to be protected.

  So who the hell was the Kiwi working for? NATO? He doubted it. They weren’t in the business of assassination, nor would they want him dead with that bomb out there for anyone to find. No, the only conclusion he could come to was there were play
ers in this game he didn’t know yet, but he had no doubt he would meet again. The notion didn’t set well. He had enough to worry about.

  Shrugging off the stress, he decided to keep working. After he booked a flight back to Berlin, he messaged Jake to see if he was finally set up on WhatsApp.

  When Jake called, Stag was sitting beneath the palm-thatched over-water lanai, still enjoying the sunset.

  “Stag?” Jake’s voice came through. The fuzzy video grew crisp. “Wow! Look at that!” the older man exclaimed.

  “How are you, Jake? See what technology can do for you?”

  “There’s three feet of snow here and there you are, being a beach bum. That water behind you—is that the South China Sea?”

  “Indian Ocean.”

  “Beautiful. Just beautiful.” Jake took a moment to appreciate the picture, then he looked down at something. “I’ve got that research for you.”

  Stag could hear the trepidation in Jake’s voice. But right now, he couldn’t comfort him.

  “Okay. There were three WWII-era atomic bombs: Trinity, Little Boy, and Fat Man. They all used uranium 235, but if the Germans had a nuclear device, it most likely involved a gun-type bomb like the one that took out Hiroshima.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because, unlike the other two, Little Boy didn’t require plutonium. Plutonium is man-made. It needs a cyclotron and a good bit of work to make it. And that’s a lot of people who might know about what they’re up to. If Heydrich had the Katanga deposit of U-235, that’s all that would be needed to make a Hiroshima-type device.”

  “Then he really could have kept the lid on it.”

  “Yes,” Jake answered. “With his unexpected death, information got lost perhaps and buried or bombed, and now we don’t know what the hell he had or where it might be.”

  “How big would this thing be? What would it look like?”

  “I would venture to say it would be smaller than Little Boy, but not much. Less than ten feet long. A bit less than 9000 lbs. Aluminum casing.”