In the Evil Day (37 page)
‘THERE’S INSURANCE,’ said Baader. ‘Tilders’ wife and children will be looked after, I’ll make sure.’
Baader looked away, fleetingly touched his desk blotter, the computer mouse, pulled fingers away from them as if they were hot.
‘I signed as a witness when they got married,’ he said. ‘He gave the boy my name. Well, he never said it was for me, but I always thought, well, you know…’ Anselm wanted to tell him that Tilders had not been on the firm’s business. He wanted to confess. But he could not bring himself to.
Later. He would tell him later.
Baader shook his head, gathered himself. ‘What does O’Malley say? This is his business. Fucking around with Kael.’
‘I’ll find out today.’
‘We’ve never…This prick in Munich shot Fat Otto but that was a mistake…’ Baader looked away again. It was a tired face, the signs of too much and too little. ‘On the doorstep, too. That’s so fucking, I don’t know. I can’t…’ Baader shook his head. He made hand movements.
Anselm caught himself doing the same. Language has failed us, he thought. We have no way to express the ache. He went to his office.
The logs stood on his desk, high, two stacks, sixty or seventy files, the records of twenty-four hours, the doings of strangers, their comings and their goings, their gettings and their spendings. He sorted, found Inskip’s pile, found the one he wanted.
The eight names.
Diab, Joseph Elias.
Fitzgerald, Wayne Arthur.
Gressor, Maurice Tennant.
Galuska, Benjamin Lincoln Garner.
Kaldor, Zoltan James.
Macken, Todd Garvey.
Rossi, Anthony Raimond.
Veldman, Elvis Aaron.
He felt something stir in a far corner of his mind, something in a crevice, stuck. He read the names again:
Diab, Joseph. Fitzgerald, Wayne. Gressor, Maurice. Galuska, Benjamin.
Kaldor, Zoltan. Macken, Todd. Rossi, Anthony. Veldman, Elvis.
Nothing came to him. He turned to the next page.
Inskip’s notes, in his sloppy hand, ballpoint, some letters upright, some slanting to the right.
Found five. With Diab, six.
Fitzgerald. Dead, suicide, gunshot, Toronto, Canada, 9 October 1993.
Gressor. Dead, drug overdose, Los Angeles, California, 7 October 1993.
Galuska. No trace.
Kaldor. Dead, apparent road-rage victim, Miami, Florida, 8 October 1993.
Macken. No trace.
Rossi. Dead, motor accident, Dallas, Texas, 14 July 1989.
Veldman. Dead, shot by intruder, Raleigh, North Carolina, 7 October 1993.
Early October 1993 was a really bad hair time for this bunch. Have some
birth dates, could check horoscopes. Is this unusual mortality for a group of soldiers
of average age forty? How would I know?
A good thing Baader didn’t read the logs anymore. He disliked frivolity. Except in its place. Anselm looked at his slice of view, not seeing it. Early October 1993 was certainly a bad time. They had been kidnapped on 5 October. Within a few days, Kaskis, Diab, and these five American soldiers, probably ex-soldiers, died violently.
There were two more pages from Inskip. The abbreviated biography of Donald Trilling, president of Pharmentis Corporation, fourth largest US pharmaceutical company.
Born Boston 1942, graduate of Stanford, PhD Cambridge, chemist, military service in Vietnam, founder of Trilling Research Associates of Alexandria, Virginia, developer of anti-depressants Tranquinol and Calmerion, consultant to the US Defense Department. Many more achievements. It was an impressive career, capped by the Pharmentis takeover of Trilling Research in 1988 and Trilling’s rise to head of the corporation. There was a quote from
Time
magazine in 1996: ‘…scientist, corporate strategist, and, as convenor of Republicans at Work, one of the most influential men in America’.
At the bottom of the page, Inskip had written:
Not just consultant to US Defense Department. Congressional hearing in 1989
told Trilling Research received Defense contracts worth more than $60 million
between 1976 and 1984. No details. Classified.
May be more about this elsewhere.
Was this the Trilling? The only connection was that Bruynzeel and this Trilling were in the same trade, roughly. Bruynzeel and Speelman sold chemicals. Lourens was a chemist, like Trilling.
Bruynzeel said to Serrano:
Trilling’s connections, there’s no problem.
If it was this Trilling, what connections was Bruynzeel referring to?
With the US Defense Department?
And Serrano had said something to Spence/Richler about needing to worry because ‘the Belgian’s one of yours’.
Bruynzeel and the Israelis? Was this the Trilling? It was a thicket, hard to get in, easy to be trapped, no way out.
What exactly did Lourens do? He’d never bothered to find out. He swivelled to the machine.
There wasn’t much about Dr Carl Lourens on the electronic record. The Johannesburg
Weekly Mail & Guardian
had a 1992 story that the Office for Serious Economic Offences, a branch of the Attorney-General’s Department, was investigating his company, TechPharma Global, for currency and other offences under the apartheid regime.
The Johannesburg
Star
reported his death. It called him an importer of chemicals ‘with links to the South African Defence Force’. The report said:
The body was burnt beyond recognition in a fire that destroyed the premises of
TechPharma Global outside Pretoria. Police said gas cylinders and chemicals
exploded, making it too dangerous to approach the blaze. It had been allowed to
burn out.
It was rumoured in 1993 that Dr Lourens would be charged with serious
offences relating to the apartheid era, but these never eventuated.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department said yesterday that Dr
Lourens had been questioned in recent weeks over allegations made by a former
employee of TechPharma Global.
There was one more reference.
A man found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in a Sandton City carpark
yesterday has been identified as Dr Johan Scheepers, 56, a chemist of Craighall
Park.
Dr Scheepers was found with a pistol. He was a former employee of
TechPharma Global, whose director, Dr Carl Lourens, died in a fire two days ago.
Dr Scheepers had been assisting the Attorney-General’s Department with inquiries
into the affairs of TechPharma.
Lourens, Shawn, this man, Serrano, Kael…he didn’t want to go through the list again. No end to the number of deaths. He was sick at heart and stomach and the twenty-four-hour logs were waiting.
Jessica Thomas, the name added to the Mackie file, had used a credit card to buy petrol at a stop on the A44.
TIME OF EVENT:
12.42 a.m., Thursday, 13/10.
The CLIENT NOTIFIED box was ticked. TIME:
3.27 p.m.,
Thursday, 13/10.
In the COMMENTS box, Jarl had written:
Checked long delay in
central transaction recording—Amex computer problems, system down.
Lafarge looking for Niemand. Was Niemand with Jessica Thomas? Why not, she had picked him up on her bike. Lafarge looking for the film Niemand had. Dead soldiers. Dead Tilders.
Anselm’s mind was sick of the puzzle, slid away to Alex. She had left the bed before dawn. He had woken but kept still, lying on his side, eyes closed, listening to her dressing, the fabric sounds, pulling, sheathing. She had come to the bedside, bent over, tried to place a soft kiss on his face, and he had taken her, caught her, pulled her down to him.
‘This is over-compensation,’ she said in his chest, breathless. ‘You don’t have to prove anything. It works.’
‘It’s not doing anything.’
‘Are you sure? Let me check…’ Riccardi. He should have spoken to him earlier. What did Riccardi know?
‘WE’RE PRETTY much in a holding pattern,’ said Palmer. The small windowless room on the top floor of the embassy was overheated, and it made him feel tight in the chest.
‘It’s getting close for me, Scottie. I’d hoped things would be tidy by now.’
‘I’m not taking this lightly.’
‘No, I know you’re not. What help have our friends given you.’
‘Some. They’re on the case. Could hear something any time.’
‘Not a big country.’
‘Big enough. Plus there’s water around it.’
‘Is that a thought?’
‘We’ve got it covered, I hope.’
‘There was something in Hamburg.’
‘Yes. People did some housekeeping.’
‘Simpler ways, surely?’
‘They apparently thought it would be more surgical.’
‘They think Hiroshima was surgical. Sorted out the clown problem?’
‘An all-professional show next time.’
‘Call me any time.’
‘I will.’
‘And not a loose thread, Scottie. Not a fucking thing.’
‘Understood, sir. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Scottie.’
Palmer dialled the other number. There were two rediallings.
‘Yes.’ It was Casca.
‘Palmer. Anything of interest?’
‘The present matter, sir,’ said Casca. ‘We put together a bunch of stuff, bits and pieces, mostly from the one place. It adds up and it’s not helpful. You might want to do something about it, sir.’
‘Tell me.’
RICCARDI SOUNDED groggy, as if woken from a deep sleep.
‘What time’s it?’ he said.
‘It’s morning,’ said Anselm. ‘What sort of hours are you keeping there? Still up all night?’
‘Yup but now I’m getting paid for it. Got a job. Night job.’
‘What kind of job?’
‘In a call centre. I answer customers’ questions about software problems. From all over the world.’
‘What do you know about software?’
‘Fuck all. I’ve got an FAQ sheet, that won’t do it, I say we’ll get back to them.’
‘Do you?’
‘No. How you been?’
‘Alive. Listen, there’s something I want to ask you. Kaskis had a photograph.’ Anselm described it.
‘Yup. I saw it. The guy, he was in it.’
‘Diab?’
‘Yup. Diab. That woman get hold of you?’
‘In every sense. Did Kaskis say anything about the picture?’
He could hear Riccardi yawn, a sound a bear might make in spring.
‘She’d be an A1 fuck, I thought. Good legs. See her legs?’
‘She appeared to have legs. She was walking. What did Kaskis say about the picture?’
‘I turned it over and on the back was written SD and a date, I can’t remember, 1980-something, early eighties.’
‘SD?’
‘I asked him and he said, “Special Deployment, Sudden Death, the funny guys”.’
‘Slowly, I’m slow. Say that again.’
‘Special Deployment, Sudden Death. That’s what he said. And he said, “There but for the grace.” It stuck in my mind.’
‘I’m amazed. Drugs are doing you good. You asked what he meant?’
‘He said, just people who don’t exist.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Yup. Wildly talkative, Kaskis, notice that?’
‘I did. He said, “But for the grace”?’
‘That’s what he said. Listen, you raking over all the shit again? Baby, it’s history. Get on with life. Take drugs. Get a job in a call centre.’
‘I’ll pencil that in for tomorrow. Anything else about the picture?’
‘The one musclehead was called Elvis—not a name you forget.’
Elvis.
‘How do you know that?’
Riccardi said, ‘Written on the picture. Guy next to Diab. Elvis. On his big fucking chest.’
Anselm had the log open, he found Inskip’s list
. Elvis Aaron Veldman.
Dead, shot by intruder, Raleigh, North Carolina, 7 October 1993.
This was the something that had moved in a crevice of his mind. The names on the list were the men in Kaskis’ photograph.
Most of them dead. Five of them killed in the space of a few days in October 1993.