Somewhere, some time in the last day or two he had seen this same
ruddy-cheeked man with the wheat-field eyebrows. In a crowd somewhere,
but where?
Or had he?
Was paranoia overcoming him? Was he seeing faces, imagining that his
enemies were everywhere?
Ben turned to look again, but the man had disappeared.
“My dear Ms. Navarro,” Alan Harriett said. “I wonder if we have
different conceptions of what the fulfillment of your brief consists of.
I must say I’m disappointed. You created high expectations.”
Anna had placed a call to Robert Polozzi, of ID Section, only to be
switched over, with no warning, to Bartlett.
“Listen,” she protested, phone handset vised between her neck and left
shoulder, “I think I’m on the verge–”
Bartlett talked over her words. “You are supposed to check in on a
regular basis, Agent Navarro. And not disappear like a college student
on spring break.”
“If you’ll listen to what I’ve turned up–” Anna began, exasperated.
“No, you listen to me, Agent Navarro. Your instructions are to wrap
this matter up, and that’s what you are going to do. We’ve learned that
Ramago has already been taken out. Rossignol was our last, best chance.
I can’t speak to what means you used to reach him, but it quite clearly
resulted in his death. Apparently I was misled as to your sense of
discretion.” Bartlett’s voice was an icicle.
“But the Sigma list–”
“You spoke to me of surveillance and preemption with respect to this
subject. You did not alert me that you meant to draw a large bull’s-eye
on him. How many times did I emphasize the delicacy of your charge? How
many times?”
Anna felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I apologize if
anything that I did had the effect of–”
“No, Agent Navarro, I blame myself. It was I who made the assignment. I
cannot say I wasn’t counseled against it. It was my own mulishness, you
see. Trusting you with this assignment was my mistake. I take full
responsibility.”
“Cut the crap,” Anna said, suddenly fed up. “You don’t have the data to
support your accusations.”
“You’re already facing administrative charges. I expect you in my
office no later than five o’clock tomorrow afternoon, and I don’t care
if you have to charter a private jet to get here.”
It was a few seconds before Anna realized he had hung up. Her heart
pounded; her face was flushed. Had he not ended the call when he did,
she’d have gone off on him, and no doubt finished her career once and
for all.
No, she told herself, you’ve already done that. It’s over. Dupree,
when he got wind that she’d run afoul of the Internal Compliance Unit,
would revoke her privileges within five minutes.
Well, at least go oat with a bang.
She felt a delicious sense of inevitability. It was like being on a
speeding train you couldn’t get off. Enjoy the rush.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
The office of the legendary and world-famous Jakob Sonnenfeld–the Nazi
hunter extraordinaire who had been on the cover of countless news
magazines the subject of innumerable profiles and documentaries, had
even made cameo appearances in movies–was located in a small, gloomy,
relatively modern building on Salztorgasse, an inelegant street of
discount stores and glum cafes. Sonnenfeld’s phone number had simply
been listed in the Vienna telephone directory without an address; Ben
had called the number at around eight-thirty that morning and was
surprised when it was answered. A brusque woman asked what his business
was, why he wanted to see the great man.
Ben told her that he was the son of a Holocaust survivor and was in
Vienna doing some personal research into the Nazi regime. Stick to what
you know was his principle here. He was further surprised when the
woman agreed to his request to meet the legend that morning.
The night before, Anna Navarro had suggested a few of what she called
“evasive measures,” to lose anyone who might be following. On his
circuitous way here, after seeing the ruddy-faced man with the
wheat-field eyebrows, he had doubled back a few times, abruptly crossed
the street, suddenly turned into a bookstore, and browsed and waited. He
seemed to have lost the tail, or perhaps, for some reason, the man
hadn’t wanted to be spotted again.
Now, having reached Sonnenfeld’s office building on Salztorgasse, he was
buzzed in and took the elevator to the fourth floor, where a solitary
guard waved him along. The door was opened by a young woman who pointed
him to an uncomfortable chair in a hallway lined with plaques and awards
and testaments in Sonnenfeld’s honor.
While he waited, he took out his digital phone and left a message for
Oscar Peyaud, the Paris-based investigator. Then he called the hotel he
had so unceremoniously abandoned the night before.
“Yes, Mr. Simon,” the hotel operator answered with what struck him as
undue familiarity. “Yes, sir, there is a message for you it is, if you
will wait, yes, from a Mr. Hans Hoffman. He says it is urgent.”
“Thank you,” Ben said.
“Please, Mr. Simon, can you hold on, please. The manager has just
signaled me that he would like to speak with you.”
The hotel manager got on the line. Ben ignored his first instinct,
which was to disconnect immediately; more important by far was to
determine how much the hotel management knew, how comp licit they might
be.
“Mr. Simon,” the manager said in a loud and authoritative basso prof
undo “one of our chambermaids tells me that you threatened her, and
moreover, there was an incident here last night involving gunfire, and
the police wish you to return here immediately for questioning.”
Ben pressed the End button.
It was not surprising that the manager would want to talk to him. Damage
had been done to the hotel; the manager was duty-bound to call the
police. But there was something about the man’s voice, the suddenly
bullying self-assurance of a man who is backed by the full weight of the
authorities, that alarmed Ben.
And what did Hoffman, the private investigator, want so urgently?
The door to Sonnenfeld’s office opened and a small, stoop-shouldered old
man emerged and gestured feebly for Ben to enter. He gave Ben a
tremorous handshake and sat behind a cluttered desk. Jakob Sonnenfeld
had a bristly gray mustache, a jowly face, large ears, and red-rimmed,
hooded, watery eyes. He wore an unfashionably wide, clumsily knotted
tie, a moth-eaten brown sweater-vest under a checked jacket.
“Many people want to look at my archives,” Sonnenfeld said abruptly.
“Some for good reasons, some for not so good. Why you?”
Ben cleared his throat, but Sonnenfeld rumbled on. “You say your father
is a Holocaust survivor. So? There are thousands of them alive. Why
are you so interested in my work?”
Do I dare level with the man? he wondered. “You’ve been hunting Nazis
for decades now,” he began suddenly. “You must hate them with all your
heart, as I do.”
Sonnenfeld waved dismissively. “No. I’m not a hater. I couldn’t work
at this job for over fifty years fueled by hate. It would eat away at
my insides.”
Ben was at once skeptical and annoyed at Sonnenfeld’s piety.
“Well, I happen to believe that war criminals should not go free.”
“Ah, but they are not war criminals really, are they? A war criminal
commits his crimes to further his war aims, yes? He murders and
tortures in order to help win the war. But tell me: Did the Nazis need
to massacre and gas to death millions of innocents in order to win? Of
course not. They did it purely for ideological reasons. To cleanse the
planet, they believed. It was wholly unnecessary. It was something
they did on the side. It diverted precious wartime resources. I’d say
their campaign of genocide hindered their war effort. No, these were
most certainly not war criminals.”
“What do you call them, then?” Ben asked, understanding at last.
Sonnenfeld smiled. Several gold teeth glinted. “Monsters.”
Ben took in a long breath. He’d have to trust the old Nazi hunter; that
was the only way, he realized, to secure his cooperation. Sonnenfeld was
too smart. “Then let me be very direct with you, Mr. Sonnenfeld. My
brother my twin brother, my closest friend in all the world was murdered
by people I believe are in some way connected with some of these
monsters.”
Sonnenfeld leaned forward. “Now you have me very confused,” he said
very intently. “Surely you and your brother are much, much too young to
have been through the war.”
“This happened not much over a week ago,” Ben said.
Sonnenfeld’s brow furrowed, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “What can you
be saying? You are making no sense.”
Quickly Ben explained about Peter’s discovery. “This document drew my
brother’s attention because one of the board members was our own
father.” He paused. “Max Hartman.”
Stunned silence. Then: “I know the name. He has given much money to