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Authors: Peter Temple

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In the Evil Day (43 page)

BOOK: In the Evil Day
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The film moving again. Lourens is speaking to the person next to him, a short man, balding, a mole on his cheek. The man shakes his head, gestures, palms upward.

Freeze. Enlargement.

This man is Donald Trilling, president of Pharmentis Corporation, fourth
largest US pharmaceutical company, convenor of Republicans at Work. He is often
described as one of the most influential men in America. When this film was taken,
Trilling, a Vietnam veteran, was head of Trilling Research Associates of
Alexandria, Virginia.Trilling Research was taken over by Pharmentis Corporation
in 1988 and Trilling became head of Pharmentis. In 1989, a Congressional
hearing was told that Trilling Research received US Defense Department contracts
worth more than $60 million between 1976 and 1984. The details remain classified.
These contracts are now believed to have been for research into chemical
weapons, including one called Eleven Seventy, apparently a ricin-like poison.

It is now clear that millions of dollars found their way from the US Defense
Department to Trilling Research and then to bank accounts linked to Dr Carl
Lourens.

They are thought to be payment for the manufacture and testing of chemical
weapons developed by Trilling.

The film moving again. The soldier is turning towards the camera when the picture goes dark.

Here film analysts think that the cameraman is trying to avoid being seen.

When the film resumes, the tall soldier is standing at the bodies lying around the water trough. He moves a man’s head with his boot.

The man on the ground is alive.

The man moves his arm, his fingers move. The soldier shoots him in the head from a few inches, gestures with his left hand, a summoning gesture.

The soldier takes off his dark glasses, wipes his eyes with the knuckle of his index finger. His face is seen clearly.

Freeze.

Enlargement.

This is the Special Forces Delta Force officer in command of Special
Deployment on this mission.

A still photograph of five smiling young soldiers in dress uniform. One head is circled.

This is the same young soldier photographed on graduation day with other
members of his West Point class.

A montage, the soldier in the film side by side with the smiling West Point graduate.

This young American soldier is Michael Patrick Denoon, later a four-star
General and, until three days ago, US Defense Secretary and aspirant Presidential
candidate.

Michael Denoon resigned as Defense Secretary of State shortly after being
shown parts of this program. He will not be seeking the Republican nomination.

The Angolan film running again, Denoon and the soldiers going around shooting people where they lie, shooting them in the head— men, women, children, a baby.

The Angolan village is believed to have been targeted by mistake. Fifteen
kilometres away was an encampment housing hundreds of military personnel. It is
believed that no one in the village survived, dying either from the chemical weapon
used or executed by the men of Sudden Death. The bodies are thought to have been
loaded onto C-47 transport aircraft by the unit and dropped at sea off the South-
West African coast.

There is today no trace of the nameless village. Not a sign that people, families,
lived there. The victims have no monument. Documents we have seen place the
blame for this terrible experiment, this atrocity, squarely with the military in the
United States, South Africa and Israel.

The program went on, putting together the pieces. Kaskis, Diab, Bruynzeel, Kael, Serrano, Shawn, all had their moments.

‘No mention of O’Malley,’ said Baader. ‘Why I am I not surprised?’

In the last minutes of the television special, they watched Caroline Wishart, tall and elegant in chinos and a leather jacket. Ringing a bell in a white wall beside a wooden gate. No one comes but the camera peers over the wall and, for a moment, captures a picture of a tall, grey-haired man with a moustache standing by a swimming pool and shouting something, angry.

Then Caroline:

This millionaire’s villa in Madeira is owned by a company called Claradine.
Its directors are two Swiss lawyers. The man in the picture calls himself Jürgen
Kleeberg. His real name is Dr Carl Lourens and he has been staying in this luxury
home since shortly after his death in a fire was reported in South Africa.

‘I take it that’s the Jürgen Kleeberg once a guest at the Hotel Baur au Lac, Zurich,’ said Inskip.

‘That is the Jürgen,’ said Anselm.

The program finished. The credits described Caroline Wishart as the chief investigative reporter of her newspaper.

‘Well, you’ll probably live,’ said Baader. ‘For a while.’

He left the room.

‘Sound of polite cough,’ said Inskip. ‘What did that mean?’

‘He thinks I may see Christmas,’ said Anselm.

‘I wasn’t told this job was life-threatening.’

‘Only for the living,’ said Carla. ‘You have nothing to fear.’

87
…BIRMINGHAM…

 

HE WAS dreaming about walking down a mountain path. There was someone ahead of him, talking to him in Greek, a boy, his cousin Dimi. And then Dimi started speaking in Afrikaans. He stopped and turned, and it wasn’t Dimi. It was his father, the lined brown adult face on a boy’s body. The sight frightened Niemand, brought him awake. He opened his eyes, blinked, his vision blurred.

For a moment, he was without memory. Then he saw the tubes in his arms and chest, tubes taped down, realised. Joy at being alive flooded him until he thought of Jess. He had sent her away, hoping that they were not watching the farmhouse, not waiting beside the lane. But even if she had got away from the farm, they would have found her. They could find anyone.

He closed his eyes and tears welled behind the lids, broke through the lashes, ran down his face, down his neck.

‘You’re crying,’ said the voice, the lilting voice. He could not believe he was hearing it. He opened his wet eyes and she was there, leaning over him, inches from him, and then she was kissing his eyes, kissing his tears, he felt her lips and he hoped he was not dreaming. Life could not be that cruel.

‘Crete,’ said Jess. ‘I’m going to take you to Crete. Get you well.’

‘Yes,’ said Niemand. ‘I love you. You can take me to Crete.’

88
…HAMBURG

 

FRÄULEIN EINSPENNER’S last rites were at the crematorium in Billstedt. Anselm, four elderly women, and a middle-aged man were the only mourners. He knew one of them, Fräulein Einspenner’s neighbour, Frau Ebeling.

Afterwards, she came up to him and they shook hands. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

‘It was very peaceful,’ she said. She had a round face, curiously unlined.

‘I’m glad,’ said Anselm.

‘She went to the doctor and in the waiting room, she was sitting there, and she closed her eyes and she died. They didn’t notice for a while. Her heart.’

Anselm nodded.

‘It was as if she didn’t expect to come home again. Everything was packed. Her clothes, everything.’

Anselm didn’t know what to say.

‘She was so fond of you,’ said Frau Ebeling, putting her head to one side and studying him as if to find the reason.

‘I was very fond of her,’ said Anselm. ‘I loved her.’

‘Yes. Your whole family was very dear to her. She spoke often of them. Frau Pauline and Herr Lucas. Frau Anne and Herr Gunther and Herr Stefan and Fräulein Elizabeth and Herr Oskar. I know all the names, I heard them so often.’

‘Did she ever speak of Moritz?’

‘Moritz? No, not that I can recall.’ She held out the package. ‘This has your name on it. Perhaps she was going to give it to you when you visited again.’

Herr John Anselm
was written on the top in a fine crabby hand, big letters.

It was almost dark when he got back to the office. He parked outside the annexe. Cold but no wind, it was going to be a clear night.

In his office, he unwrapped the parcel. A cardboard box, the size of two shoeboxes. It held five framed photographs of different sizes, unframed photographs, a dozen or more, old letters tied with a blue ribbon.

The face jumped out of all the photographs. A blond boy growing into a tall, fair-haired young man. In one of the framed pictures, he was in a dinner jacket, elegant, laughing, cigarette between long fingers. The dark-haired young woman at his side had a nervous look, as if she wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

The unframed pictures would fit the empty spaces in the old albums, fit neatly back into the corners that once held them.

It would be restoring the albums, Anselm thought, filling the gaps, making the record whole. He could put Moritz back into the family memory.

He untied the ribbon around the letters. They were all addressed to Fräulein Erika Einspenner in a slashing hand.

Not only letters. There was a photograph.

A group of soldiers, hands on each other’s shoulders, a truck behind them.

Moritz was in the centre, bare-headed, smiling.

Anselm turned the picture over. On the back was written in the same bold handwriting:

Dienst bei die Fahne. Riga, August 1943. Moritz.

On service with the colours.

What colours?

He went down the passage. Baader, one leg on his desk, was reading a file.

‘What do you know about World War Two uniforms?’ said Anselm.

Baader looked at him, at the picture he was holding. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘A photograph.’

Baader held out his hand, looked at the picture. ‘Himmler’s scum,’ he said. ‘
Waffen SS SD
. See the collar tabs on the
Sturmbahnführer
, this blond one in the middle? Black felt with silver piping.’

He turned the photograph over. ‘Even worse.
Einsatzkommando
. Extermination squad. Scum’s scum.’

He turned it back, studied it, looked at Anselm, back at the photograph. ‘Looks a bit like you, the blond major. What’s the interest in these murderers?’

Anselm held out his hand, took the photograph.

‘Just something I found,’ he said.

He went onto the balcony and smoked a cigarette. He stood in the corner, looked at the winter city, the white tower and the glowing skyscraper, the low lights of the Pöseldorf shore, a ferry heading for the Rabenstrasse landing. The light from Beate’s desklamp lay across the balcony in a shaft, lay on him. His smoke drifted across it, sheet white, met the darkness, vanished in a straight line.

He took the final draw, arched the stub into the night, a dying star falling on the old, forgotten roses. Roses without names.

In his office, the phone rang.

‘Are you running?’ she said.

‘I’m running.’

‘When?’

‘Five minutes.’

He waited for her to say it.

‘Don’t let me pass in the dark,’ she said.

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘You can,’ she said. ‘You can.’

BOOK: In the Evil Day
6.67Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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