Rules of Deception (25 page)

52

“Is this a complete list
of his postings?” Marcus von Daniken was seated in a cramped windowless office deep in the corridors of DWB headquarters. The heat was roaring, and every minute that he sat there he felt another grain of his patience slip away.

The medical organization’s director faced him across the desk. She was a fifty-year-old Somali woman who had immigrated to Switzerland twenty years ago. She had a shaved head and gold hoop earrings, and she made no effort to hide her hostility as she leaned over the shantytown of papers littering her desk and lectured him at the point of a very long, elaborately painted fingernail.

“Why shouldn’t it be a complete list?” the woman asked as she handed him Jonathan Ransom’s file. “Do I look as if I have something to hide? Ridiculous, I tell you. The whole thing. Jonathan Ransom, a murderer! It is crazy.”

Von Daniken didn’t bother to answer. The Graubünden police had preceded him by a day, and it was obvious that they’d ruffled some feathers. He’d be better off having a word with them than trying to argue with her. He accepted Ransom’s file and took his time leafing through the papers. Beirut, Lebanon. Team leader for an immunization-vaccination program. Darfur, Sudan. Director, Refugee Operations. Kosovo, Serbia. Chief medical officer leading an initiative to construct local trauma units. Sulawesi Island, Indonesia; Monrovia, Liberia. It was a list of all the world’s political hellholes.

“Is it normal for your physicians to spend so much time abroad?” he asked, glancing up from the folder. “I see here that Dr. Ransom spent two years in some of these places.”

“That’s what we do.” A disdainful sigh. Eyes to the ceiling. “Jonathan prefers the more challenging assignments. He’s one of our most committed physicians.”

“How do you mean?”

“Often the conditions are arduous. The doctor tends to lose sight of the bigger picture and gets caught up in the suffering. The futility of it can be overwhelming. We have quite a few cases of post-traumatic stress, similar to battle fatigue. But Jonathan never shied from the rougher assignments. Some of us think that it was because of Emma.”

“Emma? You mean his wife?”

“We took the view that she tended to sympathize a bit too closely with the population. ‘Going native,’ as it were.”

“Is it common for husband and wife teams to work together?”

“No one wants to get married only to leave their spouse thousands of miles behind.”

Von Daniken considered this for a moment. He was beginning to see how it might work. The postings to foreign countries. The constant travel. “And how is it decided where the doctors are sent?”

“We match their strengths to our needs. We’ve tried to lure Dr. Ransom to our Swiss headquarters for a long time. His experience in the field would inject a much-needed dose of common sense into our project evaluations.”

“I see, but who
exactly
decides where Dr. Ransom is assigned?”

“We do it together. The three of us. Jonathan, Emma, and I. We look at the list of openings and decide where they will be of most help.”

Von Daniken hadn’t known that Ransom’s wife was so intimately involved in aid work. He asked about her position on these assignments.

“Emma did everything. Her title was logistician. She set up the mission, made sure that the medicine got there on time, coordinated the local help, and paid off the bully boys so they’d leave us in peace. She ran the place so Jonathan could save lives. One of her was worth five ordinary mortals. What happened to the woman is a tragedy. We already miss her.”

A wife who involved herself in her husband’s work. A competent woman. A woman who asked questions. Von Daniken wondered if she’d asked one too many. “And what is Dr. Ransom working on at the moment?” he inquired.

“You mean before he started murdering policemen?” The Somali woman gave him another smirk to show what she thought of his investigation. “He’s supervising an anti-malaria campaign we’re mounting in coordination with the Bates Foundation. I don’t think he’s terribly happy. It’s an administrative job, and he prefers to be in the field.”

“And how long is the posting to last?”

“Normally, this kind of thing is open-ended. He would remain in his position until the program was implemented, at which time he’d brief his successor and turn over the reins. Unfortunately, I recently received a complaint about his comportment. Apparently, he’s been a bit brusque with the American side of this…the money side,” she whispered. “Mrs. Bates doesn’t like him. A decision has been taken to remove him from his post.”

Von Daniken nodded, but inside him, a bell sounded and he was aware that he’d located the unseen hand that guided Ransom’s moves from country to country. It started with a complaint voiced to the personnel director. A suggestion. Maybe something stronger, but the woman would get the idea.
Jonathan Ransom needs to go to Beirut. He must be sent to Darfur.

“Any ideas where he’ll be going next?”

“I was hoping Pakistan. We have an immediate opening at a new mission in Lahore. The director dropped dead of a heart attack. Only fifty, the dear man. He’d scheduled an important meeting with the minister of Health and Welfare for Tuesday. I’d rather hoped that I could convince Jonathan to fly out on Sunday in time to make it.”

“This Sunday?”

“Yes. On the evening flight. I know it’s asking rather a lot of a man who just lost his wife, but knowing Jonathan, I think it would do him good.”

“Sunday,” von Daniken repeated, as it all began to sink in.

Seventy-two hours.

Von Daniken’s theory was simple.
Ransom was a trained agent in the pay of a foreign government. His position as a physician working for Doctors Without Borders offered ideal cover to move from country to country without attracting undue attention. The way to figure out who Ransom worked for was to discover what he’d done in the past. That was why von Daniken was seated at a computer in the watch room of the Geneva police on Rue Gauthier, staring at a picture of a gravely wounded woman being freed from a pile of rubble inside a bombed-out hospital. The picture came from the front page of the
Daily Star,
Lebanon’s English-language newspaper, and was dated July 31 the past year.

The article was titled “Blast Kills Police Investigator,” and it concerned an explosion that had killed seventeen persons, including a prominent policeman who had been leading the investigation into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister. At the time of the explosion, the investigator was undergoing weekly dialysis to treat a failing kidney. A detective at the scene revealed that he suspected that the bomb had been planted in the floor of the clinic during a renovation completed three months earlier. He estimated that the blast was equivalent to one hundred pounds of TNT.

The article went on to say that no responsibility had been claimed for the attack and that the police were following up reports that Syrian agents had been seen at the hospital prior to the blast.

Von Daniken looked up from the computer. A bomb planted during renovation three months prior to the attack. One hundred pounds of TNT. The scope of the attack sent a chill down his spine. The people involved had to number in the dozens. Builders, contractors, city officials who’d granted permits, someone in the doctor’s office to pass on details of the victim’s appointments. As a policeman, he was impressed. As a human being, he was horrified.

Before Lebanon, Darfur…

A United Nations C-141 transport carrying leaders of the Muslim Janjaweed and the indigenous Sudanese en route to Khartoum to discuss a government-sponsored cease-fire explodes in midair. There are no survivors. Evidence is discovered showing that a bomb had been planted in one of the engines. Both sides claimed that the other was responsible for the calamity. Civil war intensifies.

And before Darfur, Kosovo. Page two of the
National Gazette:
“An explosion has claimed the life of retired General Vladimir Drakic, known familiarly as ‘Drako,’ and twenty-eight others. At the time, Drakic, 55, was attending a secret meeting of the outlawed right-wing Patriots Party, of which he was rumored to be a top leader. The subject of an international manhunt for over ten years, Drakic was wanted by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in connection with the massacre of two thousand men, women, and children near the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Evidence at the scene pointed to a ruptured gas main as the cause of the blast. Police are investigating claims that a rival Albanian organization was involved. Two men have been taken into custody.”

The three attacks bore similar hallmarks. All involved targeting a highly placed, well-protected individual. All were the product of meticulous planning, extraordinary intelligence, and long-term engagement. And in each case, evidence was found pointing to a third party.

But what finally convinced von Daniken of Ransom’s participation was the timing of the three incidents. The bombing in Beirut took place four days before Ransom left Lebanon for Jordan. The downing of the Sudanese jet occurred two days before Ransom left the country. And the attack in Kosovo just one day before Ransom returned to Geneva.

Still, he was at a loss as to who would gain most from the attacks.
Cui bono?
Who would benefit? Motive was the investigator’s touchstone, and none was readily apparent.

Von Daniken pushed his chair away from the computer, the words of the director ringing in his ears.

“We have an immediate opening in Lahore. I was hoping he could fly out this Sunday.”

53

A two-man patrol
responded to the report of an intruder at Waldhoheweg 30. The officers rang the caller’s bell and were admitted to the building. They were not unduly concerned. A CrimeStat analysis ranked the street and neighborhood as one of the safest in the city. Only two burglaries had been reported in the last ninety days. There had been no reported instances of armed robbery, rape, or murder in the past year.

“He’s inside,” said the aggrieved tenant, after shepherding the policemen into her apartment. “I’ve been watching since I called. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“And what makes you think he’s a burglar?”

“I didn’t say he was a burglar. I said he was an intruder. He shouldn’t be in the building. First he said he was waiting for Eva Kruger. He wanted to come inside. But he was bleeding here…” She pointed at her neck. “I told him that since I didn’t know him it would be better if he waited outside for his sister-in-law. A minute later, I heard him on the landing. He had a key to her apartment. I watched him enter.”

“His sister-in-law is Miss Kruger?”

“That’s what he said. He could be lying. I’ve never seen him here before.”

The police took turns asking her questions. “Did you see the woman who normally lives there…this Miss Kruger?”

“No.”

“Did you ask him about his injury?”

“He said it was an accident. He said he was a doctor and would take care of it once he was inside the apartment.”

Exasperation was writ clear on the policemen’s faces. “Did this doctor threaten you in any way?”

“No. He was polite…but he shouldn’t be here if Miss Kruger isn’t here. I’ve never seen him before. He frightened me.”

The policemen exchanged glances. Another snoop with too much time on her hands. “We’ll have a word with the gentleman. Did he, by any chance, give you his name?”

The woman frowned.

“Stay here, ma’am.”

Jonathan stood in the bathroom,
chin raised high, studying his neck. The gash had begun to congeal, the torn flesh slowly hardening into place. In the field, he saw injuries like this on a daily basis. The only way to repair it without permanent scarring was to reopen the wound and stitch it closed when the hurt was fresh, but that wasn’t an option today.

He poured himself a shot of the buffalo grass vodka and drank it for courage.

“Keep still,” he whispered to himself, bringing needle and thread to his throat.

Drawing a breath, he set to work. The needle wasn’t bad for something he’d found in a sewing kit. Reasonably sharp. Reasonably sterile. He’d worked with worse. Using the fingers of his left hand to hold the folds of the cut close together, he drew the stitch.

It had been a lie from the very beginning. Emma wasn’t Emma. To some degree, his life had been a charade. A play directed by some unseen director. Surprisingly, he felt more liberated than disappointed. The blinders had been removed from his eyes, and for the first time he could see things as they really were. Not just what lay in front of him, but what existed on the periphery. It was a damning vista. Jonathan as pawn. Jonathan as puppet. Jonathan as a government’s ignorant, enthusiastic marionette.

Who was it? he wondered. Who put her up to this?

He drew the third stitch. The thread chafed, making his eyes water. He tugged the needle and drew the suture clear.

Angry. That’s what he was. Angry at Emma. Angry at Hoffmann. Angry at whoever had had a hand in stealing his life from him and fashioning it to achieve their ends. It was theft of an unforgivable order.

And the rest of it? The part of his life that was just the two of them. Was that an act, too? He was tempted to anoint their private moments as special, divorced from Emma’s higher duty. Their lovemaking. The secret glances. The touch of her hand and the moments of unspoken connection.

Eight years…how was it possible?

He lowered the needle, throwing a hand onto the sink for support.

He lifted his eyes to the mirror.
You just don’t get it. She never told you her real name.
She saw to it that they moved around Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, so she could do her job. She had an entire secret life. Look at this apartment. Look at that itty-bitty dress. She brought men here. She drank vodka with them. She seduced them.

He looked deep into his own eyes and faced the truth.

Numb to the pain, he completed his work quickly and diligently, tying off the thread and cutting it with the vanity scissors he’d found in the sewing kit. It was a good job, all things considered. He dabbed the sutures with alcohol, then put a Band-Aid over the wound. Picking up his shirt, he walked into the kitchen and poured himself another shot of vodka. He made a mental note to look for the brand in the future.
Zubrowka.
Polish for “dumb trusting asshole.”

He threw on his overcoat and dropped his hands into the pockets of his trousers. His right hand came up with the wedding ring. He made a promise to carry it at all times as a reminder. He turned off the kitchen lights and strolled into the living room. He turned a circle, surveying the apartment. All of it was an illusion. No more than a stage.

Just then, a fist pounded on the door. “Police. We’d like to speak with you.”

Jonathan froze. It was the woman from downstairs. She must have raised the alarm. He imagined how events would unfold. A request for identification. A routine check for outstanding warrants. The response would be immediate: Dr. Jonathan Ransom wanted for the murder of two police officers. Suspect to be considered armed and dangerous. They’d have him cuffed and spread-eagled on the ground in the blink of an eye.

More pounding on the door.

“Police. Please, Herr Doktor, we know you are inside. We’d like to speak with you about your sister-in-law, Miss Kruger.”

Jonathan had come too far to give up. If he was in it, he might as well be in it all the way.

Running into the bedroom, he pried open the French doors onto the balcony. He looked from side to side, up and down. The closest balcony was two floors down. The wall was flat and featureless. There was no way he could lower himself.

The pounding on the door grew angrier.

He returned to the living room, then ran to the office, the bedroom again, and then the kitchen. He stopped, angered by the futility of his efforts. There was nothing to find. The only way out was through the front door.

If he couldn’t get out, he had to force them in…

He walked to the kitchen. He was no longer hurrying. Never once did he look behind him or consider responding to the increasingly violent knocks. He went directly to the oven. It was a modern convection unit, with stainless-steel frontage and touchpad controls. No use there. The range, however, was a gas appliance. He pulled off the burner rings. Taking a knife from a drawer, he bashed in the pilot light. Then he turned the knobs on all five burners to high. Gas hissed from the main, a faint, sickly sweet scent filling the room.

The pounding had stopped. Heated voices drifted from the corridor. The doorknob jiggled. A moment later, there came the scribbling of metal on metal. The police were trying to pick the lock.

“I’m coming,” called Jonathan. “Give me a moment.”

“Please hurry,” came the response. “Or we’ll enter by force.”

“One minute,” he yelled. He closed the pocket door to the kitchen and hustled to the office. He found some paper on the desk and rolled it into the shape of a cone. In the bathroom, he stuffed toilet paper into the cone. Setting the cone to one side, he took a large bath towel and ran cold water over it. He wrung the water from the towel, folded it, and carried it over one arm. He found a book of matches in an ashtray in the living room.

The pounding started up again. Through the door, he heard the squawk of the policemen’s two-way radio.

By now, gas was seeping from under the kitchen door. One sniff forced him to recoil. Taking up position with his back pressed to the wall outside the kitchen, he draped the towel over his head and shoulders, struck a match and lit the paper cone. He waited, holding it away from his body until it blazed like a torch.

Now!
he told himself.

Opening the pocket door, he tossed the torch into the kitchen and threw himself to the floor.

A billowing fireball exploded inside the confined area, blowing the stacked china off the counters, shattering glasses, breaking windows and roaring like an express train through the doorway into the living room, before being sucked right back into the kitchen.

Jonathan crawled across the floor to the entry and hid in a closet next to the front door. Barely a second later, a gunshot sounded. The door was flung inward on its hinges. Two policemen entered the apartment, guns drawn, rushing the source of the conflagration. All this Jonathan watched through the crack of the closet door.

One of the policemen ventured near the flames. “He went through the window.”

The other stepped over the ruined furniture and ducked his head into the kitchen. “He’s gone.”

Jonathan crept from the closet, slid out the front door, and ran down the stairs.

In a minute, he was clear of the building.

Five minutes after that, he was in the Mercedes, gunning the engine, and heading for the autobahn.