Rules of Deception (14 page)

28

The Villa Principessa sat
at the end of a gravel drive, a renovated eighteenth-century cottage with ivy creeping up pitted walls and geranium-filled window boxes decorating its upstairs bedrooms. A low stone-and-mortar wall surrounded the dormant rose garden that fronted the house. At nine a.m., the rain fell in a steady curtain, as pounding and relentless as a waterfall.

Simone buttoned up her coat and tucked her hair behind her ears. “So we’re just going to confront him? What if he says he didn’t send the bags? Then what are we going to do?”

“Why would he deny it?” said Jonathan. “Once he knows Emma’s dead, he’ll be happy to get his car back.”

“And his money?”

“And his money.” Jonathan opened the glove compartment and took out the cash-filled envelope. “I’ve been thinking about this all night…I mean about what Emma was up to.”

Simone’s eyes ordered him to go on.

“Medicine,” said Jonathan. “Emma was always talking about how aid never reached its intended destination. It drove her crazy. You know how it is where we operate. Half the time cargos are impounded by the government or stolen by customs officials who then try to sell it back to us at twice the price. If we get seventy percent of what’s meant for us, that’s considered good. I think it had something to do with that. I mean, look at this house. It had to cost a bundle. My guess is that Blitz is an executive at one of the big pharmaceutical companies. Together they were up to something. Bribing someone. A payoff. Emma always thought she wasn’t doing enough to make a difference.”

“And you expect Blitz to tell you about it?”

“A hundred thousand francs buys a lot of cooperation.”

“Or a lot of silence. It seems to me that you’re overlooking something. Have you considered that Blitz might have been the one who sent the policemen?”

“It doesn’t compute. First off, he’d have had to know about Emma’s accident, and that’s impossible. How do you see it? That he sent Emma the bags, then stuck some crooked cops on her to take the bags back as soon as she picked them up? No way. It wasn’t Blitz. It was someone else.”

“Someone who knew about Emma’s accident?”

“Or someone who was waiting for the bags all along.”

Jonathan left the car and passed through the wrought-iron gate. Simone caught up a moment later. “Gottfried Blitz” read the nameplate below the doorbell. Jonathan pushed the button and the bell chimed like the tolling of a campus carillon. No one answered. Digging in his pocket, he found the breath mints he’d taken from Eva Kruger’s overnight bag and popped one into his mouth. “Want one?”

Simone shook her head.

Jonathan pressed his ear to the door. Strains of classical music came from within. He rang the doorbell again. When no one answered, he threw a leg over the railing and craned his neck to look through the front window. Three dachshunds lay sleeping on the marble floor. He caught a shadow flitting at the periphery of his vision.

“Mr. Blitz,” he called. “I need to speak with you. Open up, please.”

He looked back at the dogs. His vision felt sharper than normal. He observed how still the animals were lying. Unnaturally still, to a doctor’s eye. He studied their torsos. It didn’t appear as if any of them were breathing. One, in particular, lay with its head cocked at a severe angle, its tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth.

Jonathan tried the door, but found it locked.

“What are you doing?” Simone asked. “You can’t just go inside.”

Jonathan banged on the door. “Mr. Blitz! My name’s Ransom. I think you know my wife, Emma. Please open up. It’s about the bags. I’ve got them. And the money.”

Just then, a door slammed inside the house.

“Keep knocking,” he said, turning and running down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Simone called.

“Around back. Something’s wrong here.”

“But…wait!”

He ran around the side of the house and came up the rear path through the garden. Somewhere behind him, Simone was calling for him to stop, but her words registered as a distraction. The back door was open. Music played from the stereo. “Ride of the Valkyries.” He stepped inside the house, finding himself in a narrow kitchen. He advanced across the floor, grimacing with every squeak of the parquet. He sensed an imbalance in the atmosphere, but instead of being frightened, he felt alert and exhilarated. Battle bright.

He left the kitchen and crossed the living room to where the dogs lay near the front door. None lifted a head as he approached. He bent to examine them. The dachshunds were dead, their necks broken. He stood, aware of his sharp breathing and his heart’s pistonlike contractions. Directly ahead, a flight of stairs led to the second floor. He heard something…something just ahead…and he continued down the hall. He threw open the door to his left. Guest bathroom: empty. The sound grew more distinct. A labored, arrhythmic wheezing.

It was then that he smelled the cordite and his eyes began to water.

He came to the study.

“Oh, God,” he said as he rushed into the room.

A man sat slumped over his desk. His mouth hung open, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. Blitz? He assumed so. There was an entry wound at the temple, a neat hole ringed by gunpowder. Was it a suicide? Jonathan stepped back, searching for a pistol, but he didn’t see one anywhere. He recalled the shadow flitting at the far corner of the living room. Not suicide. Murder.

Jonathan glanced toward the door, wondering if the killer might still be in the house, and if he himself might be in danger. He dismissed the thought and began talking to Blitz, telling him his name and that he was Emma’s husband. He instructed him to hang on, and stated that he was going to do everything he could to keep him alive.

As gently as possible, he lifted Blitz off of the desk and laid him on the floor, taking care to keep his air passage open and unobstructed. He turned Blitz’s head and studied the exit wound. He’d seen too many like it before. Large caliber. Hollow point. He was not optimistic about Blitz’s chances. Still, at that moment, the man was alive. Nothing else mattered.

Running into the living room, he snatched the phone and dialed 144 for Emergency Services. When the operator asked what had happened, he said, “Life-threatening head injury with a large loss of blood.” When he realized that he was speaking English, he repeated the words in Italian.

“Jon, what is it? What happened?” Simone stood at the entry to the living room, concern etched across her forehead. “You have blood on your hands.”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall. Soak some towels in hot water and bring them to me.”

“Towels? What happened? Why—”

“Do it!”

Jonathan returned to the study and knelt down beside Blitz. There was little he could do until the paramedics arrived except make sure that the man’s heart continued beating. Blitz’s pupils were dilated and his respiration was shallow. Jonathan took the man’s wrist, but was unable to find a pulse. He commenced CPR. Three plunges, then two breaths. Simone barreled into the room. Seeing Blitz, she let out a cry and dropped the towels onto the floor.

“I called EMT,” he said. “They should be here any minute. Put the towels beside his head.”

“But why?” Reluctantly, she picked up the towels and deposited them on the floor next to Jonathan. She stood quickly, teetering as she viewed the blood spreading across the carpet. “He’s dead.”

“Not yet, he’s not. If I can keep his heart beating until the paramedics arrive, he’ll have a chance.”

“He’s been shot in the head. Just leave him.”

Jonathan put his head to Blitz’s chest. There was no heartbeat. Respiration had ceased. He looked up at Simone and shook his head.

“Who did this?” she asked.

“I thought I saw something…a shadow…I heard a door slam. He must have run away.”

“The police will be here any minute. We have to go.”

Jonathan stood. Suddenly, the light seemed to be exceedingly bright and he had to blink. He took a breath, waiting for the remorse that inevitably accompanied death. But it didn’t come. If anything he felt fresh, almost happy, and much too energetic for someone who hadn’t slept a wink the night before. He ran a hand through his hair. His fingertips bristled at the touch. All his senses were enhanced. Sight. Touch. Sound. His mouth, though, was dry and pasty. He checked his image in the mirror hanging on the wall. His eyes stared back, wild and accusing, the pupils almost fully dilated.

The buzz was coming on stronger now, and he recognized what it was: high-octane, clean-burning amphetamine, with a little something special thrown in to heighten the senses.

He dug the package of mints from his pocket. How many had he consumed in the last hour? Two? Three?

“Come, Jonathan. Right now.” Simone grabbed his arm and tried to guide him toward the door, but Jonathan shook himself free. “Give me a minute,” he said, taking stock of the situation. “I’m not leaving until I find out something about this guy.”

“But, Jonathan…”

“Did you hear me?” he snapped. “Do you think we’re supposed to just keep running?” He took a breath, calming himself, fighting the manic voice in his head. “Blitz knew Emma,” he said. “They were working together. This is our one chance to discover what it was.”

A laptop sat opened on the desk, the screen a blizzard of warring pixels. He hit a few keys, but the image failed to clear up. He turned his attention to the desk and its contents. He opened the top drawer and came eye to eye with a semiautomatic pistol. He was well enough acquainted with handguns to recognize it as a SIG-Sauer, the sidearm favored by military officers across the Third World. The rest of the drawer held a mess of papers, pens, and pencils. He spilled the contents on the desktop and rummaged through it. Notes with names and telephone numbers. Assorted bills. Matchbooks.

The filing drawer was locked. He snapped a letter opener in two trying to pry it open, before giving up. He turned his attention to the “in” and “out” trays on the credenza behind the desk. He flipped through the papers. “ZIAG” read the header on an office memorandum, and beneath it the company’s full name: Zug Industriewerk AG. It was from a Hannes Hoffmann to Eva Kruger, and cc’d to Gottfried Blitz. Subject: Project Thor.

Eva Kruger.

There it was: his proof in black and white. As if the corpse with a bullet in his brain wasn’t enough.

The memo read, “Completion is foreseen for late first quarter 200–. Final shipment to client will be made on 10.2. Disassembly of all manufacturing apparatus to be completed by 13.2.”

“I hear a siren,” pleaded Simone. “Please, Jonathan. Let’s get out of here.”

“In a second.”

Several buff envelopes lay beneath the memo. Inside the first, he found three passport-sized photographs of Emma, similar to the one on the fake driver’s license. A second envelope held more photographs, this time of a wan blond man more or less Jonathan’s age. “Hoffmann” was printed on the back in the same masculine block letters used to address the letter to Emma. He stared at the photograph.
Hannes Hoffmann.
Issuer of the memo to Eva Kruger.

“Cover,” Jonathan murmured, remembering a word he’d picked up from one of the spy novels he’d devoured as a teenager. Everything is cover. Emma who isn’t Emma. Amphetamines made to look like breath mints. To everything and everyone, a disguise. He looked at the body sprawled on the floor. And Blitz? Who was he when he wasn’t Blitz?

Jonathan shuddered as the scale of the deception grew clearer. This was no one-time subterfuge. Emma was not bribing African health ministers or buying pharmaceuticals on the gray market. This was something bigger. Something on an entirely different scale. This was the world of “Go” pills and false identities and perfectly doctored driver’s licenses.

“Jonathan, please!” Simone clutched the chair back, as if to keep herself from running away.

Sirens. At least two of them. He lifted his head, and in that second, he could tell that they were getting closer, not farther away, and that they were approaching at warp speed. Sweeping his arm across the desk, he gathered all the papers and stuffed them into a leather briefcase next to the credenza. “Go,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

“Hurry!”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, pushing her out of the room. “Go out the back!”

Simone ran from the room.

Jonathan stood in the doorway. The sirens were just outside. Agitated voices punched through the relentless patter of rain. Instead of leaving, he ran to Blitz’s desk and opened the top drawer. He stared at the pistol, then picked it up and slipped it into his waistband.

In the hall, he slowed long enough to see the police cars next to the curb, officers with guns drawn rushing the house. A short, determined man in a black overcoat was leading them up the gravel path.

Police? Where was the ambulance he’d phoned?

Questions. Too many questions.

Jonathan ran through the house, catching up to Simone at the back door. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her through the garden.

“Where are we going?” she asked, struggling to keep up with him. “The car’s the other way.”

“Forget the car. We can come back for it.”

They didn’t stop at the dirt road, but continued up the hillside. Ignoring the wind and the rain and the chest-high brush, Jonathan carved a path to the crest. Simone huffed and wheezed and swore, but somehow she stayed with him. When he finally looked back, they’d gained four hundred feet in altitude and the villa was a half mile away.

“I can’t go on,” said Simone, clamoring for breath. “I need to rest.”

But it was Emma’s voice he heard, and for a moment, he swore he saw her, dressed in red and black, standing on the slope beneath them. He grabbed Simone’s hand. “Come on,” he said. “There’s only one way.”

And clutching the briefcase to his chest, he turned and headed higher into the mountains.

29

Milli Brandt walked briskly
down the snowy path, surrounded on both sides by tall, manicured hedges. In better times, she had enjoyed visiting the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace. Stretching more than a mile in each direction, the immaculately groomed grounds spoke of an earlier era when royalty meant unbridled power. For good and evil.

It was shortly after her arrival from Israel that she had first visited the palace gardens. Along with her parents and her sister, she had spent the day walking from one end of the grounds to the other, climbing the hill to the Gloriette, the immense colonnade built in 1775 by the Emperor Joseph and his wife, Maria Theresa. Even then, the two girls had been ambitious. Milli dreamed of being a prominent judge. Tovah had planned a career as a diplomat. Of the two, Tovah was quicker to achieve her goals. By the age of twenty-five, she had moved back to Jerusalem and earned a position as a spokeswoman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Married and the mother of a baby girl, she was a regular fixture on the nightly news.

One evening, Tovah and her husband drove to Tel Aviv to enjoy a seafood dinner at one of the fine restaurants that lined the coast. She was in a celebratory mood. Earlier that week, her doctor had informed them that she was pregnant with a second child.

Realizing that it might be their last chance in a long while, they decided to go dancing at Teddy’Z, an outdoor discotheque. Sometime near midnight, a tanned, handsome youth named Nasser Brimm entered the disco and pushed his way to the center of the dance floor. By the time anyone noticed that his formal attire and woolen blazer were out of place for a sultry spring evening, it was too late.

Afterward, the police figured that Tovah had been standing next to the bomber when he had detonated his belt charge of C-4
plastique
layered with thousands of nails, nuts, and bolts. Her head, strangely unscathed, was the only part of her body ever found.

The death toll for the attack counted sixteen young men and women. Two others were blinded. A third lost both his arms. A fourth was paralyzed from the neck down. In fact, the final toll was higher. No one had counted the new life growing in Tovah’s womb.

“Miss Brandt.”

Milli spun at the sound of the deep, accented voice. A slim, academic-looking man stood a few feet behind her, smiling. She had not heard him approach. “Mr. Katz?”

“I see you have the paper. I appreciate your following our directions.”

The man linked arms with her, and in the manner of husband and wife, they strolled through the deserted gardens. As they walked, Milli informed him about the emergency meeting held in the Viennese woods the night before and the findings delivered by Mohamed ElBaradei.

“Enriched to ninety-six percent. You’re certain about that?”

Milli said that she was.

“And what chance is there of an error in measurement?”

“It would be the first time. I’m sorry to bring such news. I thought it was my duty.”

“‘Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.’ I’m alone on this, but I’m convinced Shakespeare was a Jew.” A timid smile as he stopped and turned to her. “No one likes to betray a trust.”

Milli watched the tall, thin figure disappear among the snowcapped topiaries. A sharp wind stirred, filling her ears with the rush of desolation. She’d expected him to say that she’d done the right thing. She wanted a speech about how he would take immediate action and that she had saved thousands of lives, but he’d said none of those things.

In parting, he simply requested that she call the number she’d been given should she learn anything of further importance. Not even a thank-you.