Collision of Evil Page 26

  My climbing days are behind me. I am still fit, but the ascent from the valley was trying. At first the climb was gradual, on a seldom trodden trace through abandoned meadows. The grade of ascent changed markedly once these open spaces were behind us. The way through the forest was steep, and my heart pounded from the exertion. My companion, as silent now as during the ride, did not appear to suffer from the exercise. We continued our ascent into mid-afternoon. The forest was thick with growth and the ground a tangle of fallen branches, forcing us to pick our way with caution. “I know where we are,” I said to Rashid at one point, “it’s not far.”

  He nodded his dark head at my words.

  And then, shortly after the terrain leveled, we were at the entrance to the cavern. An eruption of dolomite stone rising from the soil formed a massive wall in front of us. With effort, I brushed aside some stubborn clinging vines, revealing the yawning entrance to the cave. Taking a flashlight from my pocket, we moved into the darkness. We proceeded gingerly, visibility imperfect in the play of moving light and shadow. After a few minutes maneuvering along the uneven walls of the cavern, we entered a large natural chamber, formed in prehistory. The flashlight played across the expanse. The pale beam illuminated stacks of wooden crates, coated with dust, but otherwise looking no different than they had in 1945. I could make out the stenciled cautions emblazoned on the crates. Achtung! Vorsicht!Attention! Be careful!

  There was a flash and I recoiled, wartime training taking over. I recognized in a second that the flash was only Rashid taking a photograph. He held an expensive-looking camera in his hands and took a sequence of shots, the flash engaging with each advance of the film. He glanced at me for a moment, simply explaining, “For the prince.”

  He was finished in minutes and ran a hand over his beard, staring at the crates. “Are you sure these have not been disturbed? Are all of them here?”

  The question struck me as odd. “This is everything.” Nothing has been touched. I’m sure of it.”

  “I want to make certain,” he announced. Before I could react, Rashid slipped a mean-looking knife from his leather jacket, bounded to one of the crates, and urged the blade between two wooden slates. There was a creak of resistance and the boards separated, revealing gray packing paper beneath. Rashid pushed this aside.

  “What are you doing?” I asked with some alarm, unsure as to Rashid’s intentions.

  “Inspecting the goods, as the prince instructed,” he said. “Inspecting for what?”

  Rashid busied himself widening the opening into the crate, carefully removing paper from the interior. “I want to make sure that the equipment is here. I need to be certain that it seems functional.” It was in this moment evident to me that Rashid’s—or the prince’s—interests went beyond historical curiosity.

  Rashid’s hands revealed a gleaming metal surface. It looked to me to be one of the component chemical storage tanks. Then came another surprise.

  “Is this nickel or silver lined?” Rashid asked me as his hands stroked the surface of the vessel. It was apparent that Rashid was no simple servant. He knew something about the anti-corrosive requirements of Sarin production equipment.

  “Silver lining,” I heard myself reply.

  “Good,” Rashid said. “Nothing seems damaged. No corrosion. Excellent.” He replaced the slats as best he could.

  It was now all clear to me. History did not concern Rashid or his prince. Their interests were in the present. Rashid had uncovered some lined tubing and was nodding approvingly at its condition.

  “Rashid, I can see that you know what you’re looking at. I’ve gone to some effort to take you here, which reflects the trust I’ve placed in you and the prince. I expect you’ll speak frankly to me.” I was aware that I was taking a chance. After all, Rashid was thirty years younger than I and in excellent condition. He was also wielding a knife and we were alone in a remote cavern. Rashid placed the knife on top of the crate, pushed his hands into his jacket, and stared at me.

  “Mister Bergdorfer, you’re right; I should be honest with you. But there had to be precautions. The prince is interested in history but more interested in political events, especially in the Middle East, where we face a determined Zionist enemy. Israel has crushed Arab people underfoot and we need to level the playing field. Upon meeting you, the prince believed he had found a sympathetic soul who could help us in our defensive requirements. Do I make myself clear?”

  He had made himself abundantly clear. “Yes, Rashid. The prince wants to remove this equipment to the Middle East to employ against the Israelis, right? You want to make sure that this isn’t just corroded junk. Your inspection also ensures that I’m no charlatan. I understand.”

  “Good,” he said, raising his thick eyebrows. “It’s easier this way. When you left the Kingdom, the prince made inquiries. Through some sources we were able to determine your former identity. You were previously called Kaltenberg, Mister Bergdorfer, if I am not mistaken. We also confirmed your accomplishments with the SS and in chemistry. This made the prince increasingly interested in the story about the equipment. I am an employee of the prince, as I told you, but my profession, like yours, is chemistry. He selected me for this assignment to determine if the equipment remains functional.”

  “You want to bring these crates to Saudi Arabia and produce stocks of Sarin to use against Israel?”

  “Things aren’t that simple. We want the equipment, true. If we can ship it back to the Kingdom with no one knowing, fine. But that will require great care. If the European authorities ever found out, they would halt the shipment. As for attacking the Israelis, I don’t know about that. I don’t involve myself with politics.”

  “You realize that this equipment is not your property. It doesn’t belong to you.”

  Rashid smiled coldly with a display of teeth; I thought of a shark. “You’re right. The equipment is not ours. It is also not yours. It belongs to the former German government. Possibly the present German government constitutes the new legal owner, but I am, I fear, no lawyer.What to do? The prince has suggested the basis for an understanding, if you would care to hear it.”

  “Please continue,” I said, curious as to what proposition would be forthcoming.

  Rashid began walking the confines of the chamber, illuminated in the beam of the flashlight. “It’s simple and reasonable. The prince is prepared to regard you as the rightful owner of the equipment. He would like to obtain it from you without fuss. The prince is willing to pay you for the equipment and for your surrendering all interest in it.”

  “Sounds reasonable so far,” I replied, truthfully.

  “Good. As for the compensation, the prince has given this much thought”.

  I waited, saying nothing, one hand on my walking stick and the other holding the flashlight.

  “There is, of course, the simplest way—paying you an amount of money for the goods. That might not be wise, however, under the circumstances. A bank transfer to your account can be traced. Cash is also not optimal, especially if you were caught with undeclared income by the tax authorities. The prince proposes another possibility. He is aware that you own a portion of the firm you work for. The prince is prepared to use his influence in the Middle East to guarantee you sales there. You win commissions from your firm, stock value increases, and profits will be considerable. All will appear normal business.The prince is prepared to be generous. He can guarantee you sales of ten million marks annually for the next five years. I ask you to calculate your personal gain from such an arrangement.”

  “It’s certainly an interesting proposition,” I commented, not yet wanting to signal my willingness to accept the offer.

  “There is one other thing,” Rashid said at length. “You are proud of your race from Berlin, understandably so. But what did you accomplish? Those who were supposed to employ the equipment later never materialized. The mission was incomplete. Unfinished. You must feel that yourself. What Prince Hafiz offers you is fulfillment. The fruits o
f your labor will be turned over to those who appreciate your sacrifices. For a man like you, that should mean more than money. More than this I cannot offer you.

  It was enough, of course. I heard his words like an epiphany. It occurred to me that I had been carrying emptiness with me all these years. Now I felt that burden lifting. I was delivering the equipment into the hands of history. I told Rashid that I accepted his offer. This entry is the only record I leave of this momentous transaction, the consequences of which, I expect, the world will one day learn.

  Hirter replaced the papers on the desktop.

  “We have our link,” Waldbaer said.

  “Most of it,” agreed Hirter. “Kaltenberg passed nerve gas equipment to some anti-Semitic Arabs in exchange for money and his need to have a place in history. I’ll ask my people to trace Prince Hafiz. He has to be the final figure leading to al-Assad.”

  “Fine,” Waldbaer noted. “Now, let’s go to Munich. I’m supposed to brief the Bavarian security coordinator on where we stand.”

  Chapter 52

  Sayyid kept his eyes to the sidewalk as much as possible, not only to preserve his anonymity, but to avoid having to glance at the garish array of strip joints and pornographic video stores lining the streets near the Munich main train station. It had rained all day, and the wet evening pavement reflected the gaudy flashing lights advertising their carnal wares. It was Sayyid’s turn to purchase food and bring it to his comrades in the hotel. He welcomed the opportunity to break up the suffocating boredom of sitting for hours in his room, long stretches of time interspersed only with briefer stays in the hotel coffee shop. He rejoiced in the fresh air, even if it was city air, its purity sullied, defiled even, by the readily discernable scent of hops emanating from the vents of the city’s several breweries.

  He had one stop to make before ordering kebab at the little Turkish carry-out. The stop was unauthorized, the one act that he had to conceal from his comrades. It is not a bad thing I am doing, Sayyid told himself, even though the others would not approve. It was just that Fatima, his wife, was so young and their parting had been so abrupt and final. He needed to assure her, to let her know one last time that all was well with him, so that she would understand later, after he had become shahid. Sayyid felt great affection for his wife and intended to include her in his company of the elect in paradise, along with the harem of dark-eyed virgins. It was a private matter, a last settling of his affairs.

  What harm could a single phone call do? He made his way to a yellow telephone booth, entered its cramped space, and pulled the heavy metal-and-glass door shut behind him, dampening the traffic noise from the street. He slipped three euros into the stainless steel slot and dialed a familiar series of numbers.

  Chapter 53

  The wind picked up speed over the North Atlantic, turning the vast grey expanse of water into angry whitecaps. The waves were driven mercilessly toward the English coast, ultimately slamming with a hollow roar into the churning gravel at Dover beach. The wind did not stop at the water’s edge but swept over grassy meadows and country lanes, urging pedestrians deeper into their rain macs. The gusts blasted over rolling countryside, punching the last, intransigent autumn leaves from surrendering branches. Eventually, the stream of air slammed into the Yorkshire region and clawed at the array of parabolic satellite dishes covering the verdant landscape of Menwith Hill Station, a sprawling communications monitoring facility jointly operated by the United States and a British counterpart, GCHQ—Government Communications Headquarters.

  The field of antenna dishes in the Yorkshire countryside pulled in information from a series of high-range satellites concealed in the heavens above. The satellites picked up voice and data transmissions from several countries, including telephone calls. Some calls were intercepted due to the presence of key words, such as “Al-Qaeda” or “Shahid.”

  A number of antenna dishes were concealed within radomes: large white spherical units that looked like giant golf balls deposited on the terrain. It was one of these dishes with a diameter of over a hundred feet facing due east that down-linked telephone intercept data from Germany, despite the howling interference of the storm.

  Spencer Pryce-Ashton, the lean GCHQ official in charge of the evening shift, walked the long corridor of Building 122 with a distinct military gait, carrying a yellow folder and a reel of audio tape. Even through the concrete walls of the bunker-like structure he could hear the ill-tempered assault of the wind. He smiled to himself, reflecting that he loved a good storm, a view common to inhabitants of the British Isles. He located the office he was looking for, and entered the open door past the nameplate that marked it as belonging to Mr. George Cienfuegos, NSA.

  Cienfuegos, a squat and broad middle-aged man, looked up from his word processor at his British colleague. He yawned into a pudgy hand and his features settled into a pleasant smile. “Spencer, what can I do for you on such a crappy night?”

  The GCHQ officer smiled in return. “Don’t disparage the weather, George, nothing to be done about it. If you’d bother to take a stroll outside you’d find it invigorating, I expect. Sadly, it’s not the joys of Yorkshire weather that bring me here.”

  “To what do I owe the honor?” Cienfuegos asked, his voice taking on a more professional tone as he settled into his swivel chair.

  “It’s those telephone numbers in Germany that your Maryland betters alerted us to last week. We’ve had no hits to date, as you know. All the phone activity on those numbers has been entirely mundane. Until now.”

  Cienfuegos leaned forward, hands entwined on the government-issue desk in front of him. “Okay, Spencer, don’t be a tease. What’s up?”

  “Quite. Well, it appears there was a phone call from a chap who seems to have been speaking to his wife. The caller referred to a ‘holy mission’ of some sort that he must fulfill. The female implores him to return home. The caller relates that she’ll be proud of him ‘once we have struck.’ There’s a bit more in this vein, the woman finally seems to accept that the chap isn’t coming back, there’s an exchange of ‘Allah akhbar,’ and he rings off. I imagine that your friends at Fort Meade will want to give a listen.”

  Pryce-Ashton deposited the folder and reel of tape into Cienfuegos’s hands. “Tape of the original conversation. I thought you might want to alert Fort Meade yourself to ensure this gets the proper attention. That should do it, George; I expect I can leave you to your business.”

  “Don’t worry, Spencer, I’ll send a cable to the fort and let them do their thing. By the way, where did this guy call from?”

  “Munich. From a public phone, as one might expect.”

  Outside Building 122 the wind picked up as the storm rushed over the Yorkshire hills. Hundreds of miles away in Munich, Sayyid had returned to his charmless spaces in the Rote Adler Hotel after delivering warm Doener kebab to his comrades. He looked into the mirror above the stained sink and rubbed a hand over his beardless face. At least, he comforted himself, Fatima understood why he had vanished, and she would honor his martyr’s death. Other than fulfilling the mission by unleashing the contents of the canister, there was nothing left to be done.

  Chapter 54

  “Munich is the source of the call,” Caroline said, reading the transcript that had been forwarded to CIA from NSA in Maryland.

  Warren Stockbridge sat stern faced and attentive across the table from her. “Munich,” he repeated.

  “That’s interesting,” Caroline continued. “Munich isn’t far from Rosenheim. Sixty miles or so. I’m surprised that al-Assad and company didn’t put more geography between their new lair and the warehouse where they produced the Sarin. My guess was that they headed for Berlin, it’s the capital and Germany’s largest city. That struck me as the optimal place to conduct a terrorist attack. I was wrong.”

  Stockbridge smiled briefly. “Your logic is good. Berlin makes sense from a targeting perspective. Still, Munich is big enough. This intercept is watertight. The phone call was made to this
Fatima, the wife of one of al-Assad’s accomplices, Sayyid. The content refers to a pending suicide attack that Sayyid will be a part of. Most importantly, this call originated from a public phone in downtown Munich. Now for some supposition. I can’t imagine that al-Assad or any terrorist employing good security would have sanctioned this call. I expect that Sayyid did it without authorization, which means that we got lucky. The Germans need to pull out all the stops in scouring Munich for this group.”

  Caroline nodded. “I’ll place a secure call to Robert Hirter. He can pass the info to his police kommissar, and they can hit the Munich streets running.”

  Stockbridge adjusted his burgundy wool tie. “Caroline, it’s not quite that easy, I’m afraid.”

  She stared at him blankly, awaiting clarification. “Here’s our problem. The intercept people have declined permission for us to pass the communications intercept information to the Germans.”

  Caroline raised her eyebrows and slammed the palms of her hands audibly on the tabletop. “What? Have they gone crazy? This is a terrorism case for God’s sake, it’s actionable intelligence.”