Authors: Dan Simmons
“What else do you have?”
“Nothing,” said Aaron. “Nothing except some studio flack stuff, a photo of Herr Borden’s front gate in Bel Air . . . you can’t see the house . . . and the
L.A. Times
and
Variety
clippings about his death in that airline crash last Saturday.”
“Could I see those, please?” asked Saul.
When Saul had finished reading, Aaron said quietly, “Was he your German, Uncle Saul? Your Oberst?”
“Probably,” said Saul. “I wanted to know.”
“And you sent Francis Harrington out to find out the same week that Borden dies in an airline bombing.”
“Yes.”
“And your ex-student and both of his associates die during the same three-day period.”
“I did not know about Dennis and Selby until you told me,” said Saul. “I had no real idea that they could be in danger.”
“In danger from
whom
?” pressed Aaron. “I honestly do not know at this point,” said Saul. “Tell me what you do know, Uncle Saul. Perhaps we can help.”
“We?”
“Levi. Dan. Jack Cohen and Mr. Bergman.”
“Embassy people?”
“Jack is my supervisor but also a friend,” said Aaron. “Tell us what’s going on and we’ll help.”
“No,” said Saul. “No you can’t tell me or no you won’t?”
Saul looked back over his shoulder. “The restaurant will be closing up in a few minutes,” he said. “Should we go elsewhere?”
The muscles at the corners of Aaron’s mouth tightened. “Three of those people . . . that couple near the entrance and the young guy nearest you . . . are our people. They will stay as long as we need others here.”
“So you’ve told them already?”
“No, only Levi. He did the camera work anyway.”
“What camera work?”
Aaron slid a photograph out of the third and fattest dossier. It showed a small man with dark hair, on open-collared shirt and leather coat, dark, hooded eyes, and a cruel mouth. He was crossing a narrow street, his coat open and flying back. “Who is he?” asked Saul.
“Harod,” said Aaron. “Tony Harod.”
“William Borden’s associate,” said Saul. “His name was in the
Variety
article.”
Aaron slid two more photographs out of the dossier. Harod was standing in front of a garage door, holding a credit card, apparently ready to insert it in a small device set into the brick wall. Saul had seen such security locks before. “Where was this taken?” he asked.
“Georgetown, four days ago.”
“
This
Georgetown?” asked Saul. “What was he doing in Washington? What were you doing photographing him?”
“Levi photographed him,” said Aaron with a smile. “I attended Mr. Borden’s memorial ser vice at Forest Lawn on Monday. Tony Harod gave the eulogy. What small background check I had time for suggested that Mr. Harod was very close to your Mr. Borden. When Harod flew to Washington on Tuesday, I followed him. It was time to come home anyway.”
Saul shook his head. “So you followed him to Georgetown.”
“I didn’t have to, Uncle Saul. I’d phoned Levi and he followed him from the airport. I joined him later. That’s when we got the photos. I wanted to talk to you before we showed the photographs to Dan or Mr. Bergman.”
Saul frowned at the two photographs. “I don’t see any special significance to these,” he said. “Is the address important?”
“No,” said Aaron. “It’s a town house leased to Bechtronics, a subsidiary of HRL Industries.”
Saul shrugged. “Is that important?”
“No,” said Aaron, “these are.” He moved five more photographs across the tabletop. “Levi had his Bell Telephone van,” said Aaron with a tone of some satisfaction. “He was thirty feet up on a utility pole when he got these pictures of them leaving by the alley. The alley is perfectly shielded otherwise. These guys go down the covered back sidewalk here, open the gate, and step right into the limousine and go. Neighbors couldn’t see them. Wouldn’t be visible from the end of the alley. Perfect.”
The black and white photographs had caught each man in the same instant of stepping between gate and limousine; the prints were grainy from being greatly enlarged. Saul studied each one carefully and said, “They mean nothing to me, Moddy.”
Aaron cradled his head in his hands. “How long have you lived in this country, Uncle Saul?” When Saul said nothing, Aaron stabbed a finger at the photo of a man with small eyes, generous jowls, and a full head of wavy, white hair. “This is James Wayne Sutter, better known to the faithful as the Reverend Jimmy Wayne. Ring any bells?”
“No,” said Saul.
“TV evangelist,” said Aaron. “Started with a drive-in movie church in Dothan, Alabama, in 1964, and now has his own satellite and cable channels and tax-free corporate income profits of about seventy-eight million dollars a year. His politics are a little to the right of Attila the Hun. If Reverend Jimmy Wayne announces that the Soviet Union is Satan’s instrument— which he does every day on the tube— about twelve million people say ‘Hallelujah.’ Even Prime Minister Begin makes overtures to the schmuck. Some of their love donations end up coming to Israel in the form of weapons purchases. Anything to save the Holy Land.”
“It’s no news that Israel has made contacts with these fundamentalist right-wingers,” said. Saul. “So this was what worked you and your friend Levi up? Maybe Mr. Harod is a believer.”
Aaron was agitated. He set the photos of Harod and Sutter back in the folder and smiled at the waitress as she came over to refill his coffee cup. The restaurant was almost empty now. When she moved away, Aaron said with some excitement, “Jimmy Wayne Sutter is the least of our worries here, Uncle Saul. Do you recognize this man?” He touched the photograph of a thin-faced man with dark hair and deep-set eyes.
“No.”
“Nieman Trask,” said Aaron. “Close adviser to Senator Kellog from Maine. Remember? Kellog almost got the nod for the vice-presidential slot on the party ticket last summer.”
“Really?” said Saul. “Which party?”
Aaron shook his head. “Uncle Saul, what do you
do
if you don’t pay any attention to things going on around you?”
Saul smiled. “Not much,” he said. “I teach three undergraduate courses each week. Still serve as faculty adviser even though I don’t have to. Have a full research schedule at the clinic. My second book is due at the publishers on January sixth . . .”
“All right . . .” said Aaron. “I still contribute at least twelve hours of direct counseling at the clinic each week. I traveled to four seminars in December, two of them in Europe, delivered papers at all four . . .”
“OK,” said Aaron. “Last week was unusual because I only hosted the one university panel,” said Saul. “Usually the Major’s Commission and the State Advisory Council take up at least two evenings. Now, Moddy, why is Mr. Trask so important? Because he is one of Senator Kellog’s advisers?”
“Not
one
,” said Aaron, “
the
adviser. The word is that Kellog doesn’t go to the bathroom without checking with Nieman Trask. Also, Trask was the big fund-raiser for the party during the last campaign. The saying is that wherever he goes, money flows.”
“Cute,” said Saul. “What about this gentleman?” He tapped the forehead of a man who bore a slight resemblance to the actor Charlton Heston.
“Joseph Phillip Kepler,” said Aaron. “Ex-number three man in Lyndon Johnson’s CIA, ex-State Department troubleshooter, and currently a media consultant and commentator on PBS.”
“Yes,” said Saul, “he did look familiar. He has a Sunday evening program?”
“
Rapid Fire
,” said Aaron. “Invites government bureaucrats on to embarrass them. This one”— Aaron tapped the photograph of a short bald man with a scowl—“is Charles C. Colben, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Interesting title,” said Saul. “It could mean nothing or everything.”
“It means a hell of a lot in this case,” said Aaron. “Colben is about the only one of the middle-level Watergate suspects that didn’t serve time. He was the White House contact in the FBI. Some say he was the brains behind Gordon Liddy’s antics. Instead of being indicted, he became even more important after all the other heads rolled.”
“What does all this mean, Moddy?”
“Just a minute, Uncle Saul, we’ve saved the best for last.” Aaron put away all the photographs except for that of a thin, exquisitely tailored man in his early or mid-sixties. The gray hair was distinguished, its styling impeccable. Even in the grainy black and white print, Saul could see the combination of tan and clothes and subliminal sense of command that only great wealth could bring.
“C. Arnold Barent,” said Aaron, paused for a second, and went on, “the ‘friend of presidents.’ Every First Family since Eisenhower’s has spent at least one vacation at one of Barent’s hideaways. Barent’s father was in steel and railroads . . . a mere millionaire . . . poverty-stricken compared to Barent Jr. and his billions. Fly over any section of Manhattan and pick a skyscraper, any skyscraper, and odds are better than even that one of the corporations on the top floor is owned by a parent company that is a subsidiary of a conglomerate that is managed by a consortium that is principally owned by C. Arnold Barent. Media, microchips, movie studios, oil, art, or baby food Barent has a part of it.”
“What does the ‘C’ stand for?” asked Saul. “No one has the foggiest idea,” said Aaron. “C. Arnold, Sr., never revealed it and the son isn’t talking. Anyway, the Secret Ser vice loves it when the president and his family visit. Barent’s homes are usually on islands . . . he owns islands all over the world, Uncle Saul . . . and the layout, security, helipad facilities, satellite links, and so forth are better than the White House’s.
“Once a year— usually in June— Barent’s Heritage West Foundation runs its ‘summer camp’— a week-long bash for some of the biggest little boys in the Western Hemi sphere. The thing is by invitation only and to be invited you have to be at least cabinet level and up-and-coming . . . or over the hill and a legend in your own time. The rumors that’ve come out the past few years tell of German ex-chancellors dancing around the campfires singing bawdy songs with old American secretaries of state and an ex-president or two. It’s supposed to be a place where the leaders can let everything hang out . . . is that the American phrase, Uncle Saul?”
“Yes,” said Saul. He watched as Aaron put the last photograph away. “So tell me what it means, Aaron. Why did Tony Harod from Hollywood go to a clandestine meeting with these five people whom I should—God knows— have known, and didn’t?”
Aaron put the dossiers in his briefcase and folded his hands. The corners of his mouth pulled tight. “
You
tell
me
, Uncle Saul. An ex-Nazi producer, you think he is your ex-Nazi, is killed in an airline crash that probably was the result of a bomb. You send a rich college boy playing detective to Hollywood to look into the producer’s history and your friend is abducted . . . almost certainly killed . . . as are his two amateur colleagues. A week later your Nazi-producer’s associate . . . a man who, by all accounts, combines all the charm of a charlatan and a child molester . . . flies to Washington and meets with the strangest assortment of insiders and shady powerbrokers since Yassir Arafat’s first Executive Council meeting. What’s going
on
, Uncle Saul?”
Saul took his glasses off and cleaned the lenses. He did not speak for a full minute. Aaron waited. “Moddy,” Saul said at last, “I do not know what is going on. I was interested only in the Oberst . . . in the man I believe to have been William D. Borden. I have never heard of
any
of these people before today. I had no idea who Borden was until I saw his photograph in the Sunday
New York Times
and felt sure that he was Oberst Wilhelm von Borchert, Waffen SS . . .” Saul stopped, put his glasses on, and touched his forehead with shaking fingers. He knew that he must look to his nephew like a shaken, confused old man. At that moment it was not an act.
“Uncle Saul, you can tell me what is wrong,” Aaron said in Hebrew. “Let me help.”
Saul nodded. He felt tears come to his eyes and he looked away quickly. “If it could possibly have any importance to Israel,” pressed Aaron, “be any threat . . . we need to work together, Uncle Saul.”
Saul sat straight up.
Be any threat.
He suddenly could see his father carrying little Josef in that line of pale, naked men and boys at Chelmno, feel the sting of the slap and humiliation on his own cheek again, and knew precisely . . . as his father had known precisely . . . that saving family sometimes
had
to be the first priority, the only priority. He took Aaron’s hand in both of his. “Moddy . . . you must trust me in this. I think many things are happening here that have nothing to do with one another. The man I thought was the Oberst I had known in the camps probably was not. Francis Harrington was brilliant but unstable . . . he dropped out of every responsibility the way he dropped out of Princeton three years ago. I gave him an embarrassingly large advance on expenses so that he could look into William Borden’s background. I am sure that Francis’s mother . . . or secretary . . . or girlfriend will get a postcard from him, postmarked Bora Bora or somesuch place, any day now . . .”
“Uncle Saul . . .”
“Please, Moddy, listen. Francis’s friends . . . they died in an accident. You’ve never known anyone who died in an accident? Your cousin Chaim, maybe, driving his Jeep down from the Golan to see a girl little better than a
nafkeh
. . .”
“Uncle Saul . . .”
“
Listen
, Moddy. You’re playing James Bond again the way you used to play Superman. You remember? The summer I visited . . . you were nine . . . too old to be leaping from the terrace with a towel around your neck. The whole summer you couldn’t play with your favorite uncle because of the cast on your left leg.”
Aaron blushed and looked down at his hands. “Your pictures are interesting, Moddy. But what do they suggest? A conspiracy against Jerusalem? A cell of Arafat’s Fatah ready to ship bombs to the border?
Moddy
, you saw rich, powerful people meeting with a pornographer in a rich, powerful city. Do you think that was a
secret
meeting? You said yourself, C. Arnold Barent owns islands and homes where even the president is safer than in his own home. This was just not a
public
meeting. Who knows what dirty little movie deals these people put money into or what dirty little movies your Born-Again Reverend Wayne Jim bankrolls.”