The Final Reckoning (34 page)

‘On one condition.’

‘What? What condition?’

‘That you let me examine your left arm.’

The features of Viren's face remade themselves, from initial confusion to horrified indignation. He
looked aghast. ‘How dare you suggest such a thing. Do you have any idea who you are addressing? I am the elected representative of the entire world community!’

But still he didn't leave. What was he frightened of? Did he fear that if he stormed out, Rebecca would rush into the lobby of the UN and start shouting that the SG was a Nazi war criminal? She would be bundled out by Security and that would be the end of it. Why did he care what she said?

Was he waiting for something that would change her mind? And then a new thought struck. The SG was waiting for
him
, for Tom. If he, her escort on this trip to New York, agreed that Rebecca was just a traumatized, grieving daughter, then her claims would be discarded. But if he, a former senior lawyer at the UN, lent her any credence then the charges would gain at least some currency. And mud like this needed to be hurled only once to stick. Tom wondered if the new Secretary General was one of the few people in this building who did not know Tom Byrne's history: otherwise, he surely would have known what the Israeli president had known – that any claim Tom Byrne made about anything could be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
Mafia hack.

Now Tom understood. He had been forced into the role of referee; the SG wanted Tom to agree with him that Rebecca Merton was a maniac. Only then would he risk stepping back into the outside
world, letting this woman rant and rave with her accusations.

‘I think you should let her see your arm,’ Tom said softly. ‘Then this thing can be over.’ And he stepped forward and took hold of Viren's left wrist. The Secretary-General desperately tried to remove his arm from Tom's grasp. But he did not shout or scream.

‘OK, Rebecca,’ Tom said, suddenly aware that he was assaulting an innocent, eminent old man – an old man with a shocking degree of strength. ‘Take a look at his arm.’

She stepped closer, her own nervousness clear. She couldn't look Viren in the eye, focusing instead on his wrist. Slowly, with great care, she pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, then began to unbutton the cuff of his shirt. She was cautious, like someone handling a suspicious package.

‘What are you looking for?’ Tom said, the words squeezed out between short breaths as he struggled to keep the older man restrained.

‘I'm looking for a scar,’ Rebecca said, her voice low and steady, a doctor in surgery. And then she looked up, so that she might fix the writhing Viren in her gaze. ‘I'm looking for the scar my father's sister left on the arm of a young man who raped her, a young man who terrorized the children of the Kovno ghetto – a young man they called the Wolf.’

Tom wasn't sure he felt Paavo Viren's muscles go rigid at the mention of that word. It could have been another trick of the mind, Tom imagining what was not there. But now Rebecca had the old man's sleeve rolled up to his elbow and she was staring hard.

Wolf.
It had taken Tom a beat, no more, to remember that name. It had been one of the most chilling details in the Kovno journal of Gershon Matzkin. Indeed, it had been one of the few occasions when the Nazi enemy had a face.

As Tom felt the strain in his arms from keeping Viren immobilized, he tried to see again those handwritten lines. The Wolf had not been German; Gershon had been describing the son of one of the Lithuanian guards in the ghetto. The Jewish inmates had feared him especially – or perhaps that was, as Rebecca had suggested just now, merely the memory of those who had been children at the time. It was easy to see why the young
would fear him so intensely, a killer and tormentor with the face of a boy.

When Tom had sat in the cafe around the corner from Rebecca's flat, reading the faded pages of Merton's journal, he had tried to picture the cruelty of this Wolf, the smiling, teenage sadist who had asked for the pleasure of punishing Gershon's sister, Hannah, for the crime of smuggling a crust of bread. He had stripped off the clothes of a girl his own age, beaten her with a truncheon, then forced himself inside her.
Hannah was wounded. Not just her face, which was no longer hers. But her soul.

So this was why Gershon had broken his own rule, ending his retirement from the work of DIN. The Wolf was a special case, a personal score to settle. What had the torn pages, concealed in Rebecca's pen, said?
A long time ago, I made another promise, a promise to a young woman just as full of life and of beauty as you are today. I never thought I would have the chance to honour my word to her. I thought it was too late.

No more than a boy, Gershon must have promised his older sister that he would avenge her, that he would, one day, make the Wolf pay for what he had done. Somehow he had kept alive the memory of that single act of brutality, even amidst all the killing and carnage he was to witness in the weeks and months and years that followed. He had seen such horrors, yet this one act had burned inside him.

Rebecca was peering intensely at Viren's forearm. Tom was trying to work out the expression on her face. Finally she spoke, uttering words that seemed to suck the air out of the room.

‘There is no scar.’

He tried to remember what this feeling was like and the comparison, when it came to him, was a surprise. But the combination of anxiety and anticipated relief – the sense that while he was about to endure something painful and risky, things would be better afterwards – was indeed similar. Jay Sherrill felt now just as he had when he first stepped into the office of the therapist who had counselled him after the death of his brother. Now, as then, he had concluded that the very act of taking action had to be better than enduring another anguished, unending night.

It was good that he had had so little time to prepare. He had contacted Henning Munchau late last night, asking to see him urgently. He didn't like going over Tom Byrne's head, but he had little choice: he hadn't been able to get hold of Byrne since yesterday lunchtime.

Munchau had seemed reluctant to take his call. Maybe he didn't like to undermine Byrne: more
likely, he wanted arm's length deniability on the whole Gerald Merton business. Doubtless that was why he had contracted out the case to a lawyer who had left the UN more than a year ago. ‘I'll see what I can do,’ was the most Munchau had promised. Besides, he had no reason to bother with Sherrill: by now he would have had word from the DA's office that there were to be no charges in the Merton case. No crime had been committed; the UN was off the hook.

And then a call from Munchau twenty minutes ago, saying that a window in his schedule had suddenly opened up. If Jay could be in UN Plaza in the next fifteen minutes, they could have coffee in the delegates' lounge.

‘Sorry to spring that on you like that,’ the German said, in an accent Sherrill struggled to place. Was it European or Australian?

‘Not at all. Just glad you could make the time.’

‘Unusual situation. Secretary General just asked me to clear an hour of his schedule, which suddenly gave me an hour I didn't have.’

‘Right.’

‘He's meeting Rebecca Merton, as it happens. One on one.’

‘She's in New York?’

‘Didn't Byrne tell you? They flew in together.’

‘So he's alive then.’

Munchau arched an eyebrow.

‘It's just I've had no word from him for twenty-four hours. Despite multiple messages.’

‘That's Tom for you. So: what can I do for you?’

‘This conversation is strictly confidential, yes?’

‘If you want it to be.’

‘Well, my career – which is probably over – might depend on it.’

‘What's on your mind, Detective?’

‘Two days ago I had a meeting with the head of the NYPD Intelligence Division.’

‘With Stephen Lake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I'm listening.’

‘He said something I barely noticed at the time, but which I can't quite figure out.’

‘What was it?’

‘It could have been a simple slip of the tongue …’

‘Detective?’

‘He said,’ Sherrill read from his notebook, ‘“We may have had our eye on the UN for a while, with evidence of a ticking time-bomb over there”.’

‘He said that?’

‘“Or we may not.”’

‘Are you saying that the intel division knew there was a terror threat to the UN and didn't pass it on?’

‘No, sir, I'm not. That's what I thought it meant too. But listen to the exact wording. Lake didn't say a “a ticking time-bomb
on its way
to the UN” or “a bomb
aimed
at the UN”. He said “a bomb
over there”.’

‘As if it were already here.’

‘Exactly.’

Henning looked around, watching delegates chat and smoke. ‘But NYPD wouldn't sit by and let this place be blown up. It would be their fuck-up, apart from anything else.’

‘I agree, Dr Munchau. Which is why I think he didn't mean it literally. He was using the phrase metaphorically.’

‘So intel knows something about this place that counts as a time-bomb.’

‘Something that could destroy the UN, yes, sir. That's what I suspect.’

The look of recognition and then alarm that spread across Henning Munchau's face meant that when he silently got to his feet, Jay Sherrill knew he had no option but to follow.

‘What do you mean there's no scar?’ Tom instinctively loosened his grip.

Now Viren spoke. ‘Good. I'm glad this farce is over. I should, of course, report you—’

Rebecca cut him off. ‘Or rather there is not the obvious scar.’

The Secretary-General tried to shake himself free. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You see,’ Rebecca said, pointing at the pale skin of his forearm, ‘there is no line there. But, unluckily for you, plastic surgery was not able to do then what it can do now.’

‘You're talking nonsense.’

‘Back then, when they did skin grafts like this one, to cover up a scar, they couldn't help but leave a mark around the edges, where the new skin was placed. It's like the outline of a patch sewn on a suit. See it? Right here.’ She was being unnervingly calm.

‘So what if I did have a skin graft? It was for a burn I had twenty years ago.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes. It was an, an, an accident. At home. With a stove.’

‘Well, that's very odd. Because, in fact, the marks you have on your skin in this area are clear signs of stretching. And the only way you could have got those is if you had a skin graft when you were young, when your skin was still growing. And you weren't growing twenty years ago, Mr Viren, were you?’

At that, Viren shook Tom off, so that he was now inches away from Rebecca. He raised his hand, high so that it was level with his ear, and it was about to come down on Rebecca when Tom grabbed him around the middle, a crude wrestling move that left the older man's fist flailing in the air.

And then Viren let out a shriek.

Tom's view was obscured at first by the body of the man he was restraining, but now he could see the source of his alarm. Rebecca had produced from somewhere, a sleeve or a pocket, a hypodermic syringe. She was now raising it into the air, at eyelevel, so that she could test it against the light.

Tom gasped. ‘Rebecca, what the hell are you doing?’

She ignored him, addressing only the Secretary-General. ‘Your great misfortune is that I'm a doctor. I know about scar tissue and skin grafts
– and I also know about poisons. This one, for example, is odourless, clear and instantly effective. I don't know how painful it is but, given its source, I'm an optimist. Which means I hope it's very painful.’

‘Rebecca, where did you get that?’

‘Let's say it was a gift from someone we just met. A former comrade in DIN.’

In an instant, Tom pictured the lingering farewell he had witnessed between Rebecca and the Israeli president: how he had muttered to her in Hebrew, how he had held her hands in a double-grip, one that could easily have concealed the handover of, say, a needle and a measure of deadly fluid.
Now I would like to have a private word of remembrance with Dr Merton, in honour of her father.

If Gerald Merton had been able to work out the truth of Paavo Viren's past, it would not have eluded Israeli intelligence. Once the President was reassured Merton had not been after him, and once he had heard Rebecca request her face-to-face meeting with the Secretary-General, it would have confirmed it: Viren had been DIN's last target. And what better way to assuage his guilt over Aron than to give DIN what it needed from him once again – a vial of deadly poison? Even if Rebecca had been caught, the President would have known that this young woman – a daughter of the Shoah and a daughter of the Avengers – would not
have betrayed him. She would have been bound by the code of DIN.

Viren was making a half-hearted effort at writhing out of Tom's grip. But his eyes were only on Rebecca. ‘There must be a way we can resolve this. If you insist, we could have an independent review, to examine the claims you've—’

‘Oh no, I'm far too unreasonable for that. You see, your second great misfortune is that you picked the wrong people to murder and maim. You raped and nearly killed my aunt, Hannah Matzkin, who, thanks to you, I never met.’ She squeezed the syringe, holding it still as it squirted a brief jet of fluid. ‘And you took part, an eager part from what I hear, in the massacres at the Ninth Fort. I wonder if you remember any of the thousands of people you and your friends shot into those pits. My aunts were three of them.’

Tom was frozen, still holding the old man but doing so now out of sheer paralysis. He was watching Rebecca as if he were viewing events at a distance, played back on a video monitor. Perhaps it was the near-darkness of this room. More likely it was the shock of everything that had happened, everything he had heard, over the last few minutes. He seemed to be on some kind of delay, each new item of information taking a few seconds to register. Now though he realized that he had been co-opted into what was about to become an act of homicide – without even having a moment to consider it. He was
restraining Paavo Viren, holding him down so that Rebecca could inject him with poison.

Yet he had not wanted to let Viren go. He wasn't sure about Rebecca's analysis of the scar tissue on his arm. But the old man's reaction had settled it. His tone had changed. He had stopped protesting his innocence and begun pleading for a deal. When innocent people were faced with punishment for a crime they did not commit, they did not start plea-bargaining: they insisted all the more loudly that they were innocent. It took time, often a long stretch of it, to grind down people's essential belief in fairness; only then were they ready to negotiate a compromise penalty for something they had not done.

Viren had required no such time. He had been ready to deal within a few seconds. Tom was an experienced enough lawyer to know that that – along with his failure to walk out as soon as Rebecca started making her charges, his unexplained decision to stay and listen – was not the action of an innocent man.

Tom was still holding Viren in place, frozen, as Rebecca carried on speaking.

‘You killed the wrong people, Mr Viren. You killed the family of Gershon Matzkin and he was not the kind of Jew you bargained for. He was one of the Jews who refused to die. He was one of the Jews who were determined that their blood be avenged. He was part of DIN, the movement whose Hebrew name means judgment. But
it also stands for three words.
Dam Israel Nokeam.
“The blood of Israel will take vengeance”.’ She was speaking faster now, the urgency in her voice accelerating. She held the syringe vertically between her index and middle finger, as if it were a cocked weapon. ‘He was an avenger, Mr Viren – and I am his daughter.’

With that, Rebecca leaned forward and placed the tip of the needle on Viren's neck, expertly finding the jugular vein.

The certainty of that action, the finality of it, seemed to snap Tom out of his state of disconnection. Rebecca intuited immediately what he was about to do.

‘If you make any sudden movements now, Tom, the needle will go in. Really, even a slight jerk and Viren will be dead.’

Tom could see that she was right. His job now was to hold the SG stock-still – for his own sake.

Viren managed to squeeze out a few words. ‘What do you want from me? If you want to kill me, just kill me. Get it over with.’

‘Oh, but that wasn't your way of doing things, was it, Mr Viren? From what I understand, you and the men from the Lithuanian militia enjoyed the whole performance. Get the Jews to come to the collection point, packing all their bags as if they were off on a journey. Then a long wait. Then a long truck ride. Then another long wait. Then a march to the pits. Then watching the women undress, lining them
up by pits you'd made the Jews dig for themselves. And then only a single bullet, so that – what, one in ten, one in five? – did not even die straightaway, but had to choke to death, buried alive under a pile of corpses. So don't start bleating about “getting it over with”. If this is trying your patience, Mr Viren then I don't apologize.’

Tom was wincing, watching Rebecca standing so close to the SG, her finger capping the plunger of the syringe as if it were a detonator.

‘My father would have done the job much faster, that's true. The way he'd worked it out, getting you on your own meant there would be no time to speak to you: he'd have had to kill you in a split-second. But that was not the normal DIN way.’

‘Rebecca, listen to me. You can't do this.’

‘Shut up, Tom.’

‘I mean it. This is not right. Not like this.’

She didn't take her eyes off Viren. ‘For DIN it was very important that the target know the identity of his executioners, to know that the Jews had sought justice. But I want something more. I want an admission. I want you to tell me the truth.’

Viren began to stammer. He could surely see that this woman would not be swayed by a confession into an offer of clemency; she had already made clear that she was going to kill him. Tom suspected that her father would have been more skilful, tricking his victims into believing they had an incentive to talk.

‘Listen to me, Rebecca. This can't work. You'll be caught. Even if people sympathize with you, you'll spend years in jail. Is that what your father would have wanted, to see his beloved daughter behind bars?’

‘I could get away.’

‘Come off it, Rebecca. Henning knows you're here. He'll be here soon. If he finds the Secretary-General dead, you'll be blamed.’

‘We'll say he had a heart attack.’

‘There'll be a needle mark. Bruises on his arms where I've held him. Please, Rebecca. Think what your father would say, the idea that the Nazis would destroy the life of another woman in the Matzkin family.’

Rebecca's eyes were on fire, two braziers of flame in the murk of this room. ‘How dare you talk to me about what my father would have wanted.’

Tom's arms were tiring from keeping his captive dead still. ‘Your father never got caught, Rebecca. None of them ever did. I bet that was important to them: that a Jew would not suffer again because of the Nazis, not even for one more day.’

‘I need to hear him say it, Tom.’ She was staring at him, hard. ‘There needs to be a reckoning.’

‘I understand.’ His voice softened. ‘But this is not the way.’

‘But I heard you in Goldman's office. Saying that DIN was right, that the law had always failed the victims. “The bigger the crime, the worse it
is,” that's what you said. I remember it because I agreed with you. “There is no law,” you said, “just politics”. Remember?’

Tom found it unbalancing, to be reminded of his own words like this. It was true, he had said those things, angered by Goldman's pettifogging, pedantic deference to the law when he, Tom, had seen the law's failure again and again, in Rwanda and East Timor and God knows where else.

Yet at this moment, an elderly man in his grip, holding him still while a needle at his neck threatened his life, Tom could not stand by what he had said. The prospect of killing a man like this repelled him. Theory was one thing; the actual physical deed was quite another. This was not justice. It was everything the law was meant to stop: the descent into barbarism.

‘Rebecca. It can't be like this. DIN killed people because there was no other way. But you have evidence. You can take this to a court. There could be a trial.’

She made a snort, her head tilting back in mockery. Tom waited for Viren himself to say something, to agree that, yes, he would submit himself to a trial. His silence suggested he was as smart a politician as his reputation promised: he understood that if he endorsed any strategy of Tom's it would be the kiss of death. Rebecca would reject it.

‘You think they would ever put this man on trial?’ she said. 'They would come up with the
same bullshit they always come up with. “He's too old. The evidence is cold. The witnesses are dead. The statute of limitations has passed. It didn't take place on our soil.” I've heard every argument in the book.

‘Even so, Rebecca, the alternative is to sink to their level. You won't be killing them; you'll be turning into them. Remember, Plan A? It didn't happen. In the end, the Jews couldn't do it.’ He sighed. ‘The law is all we've got, Rebecca. It's not perfect. Christ, I know that better than anyone. But it's all we've got.’

‘I need to end this.’ She was trembling now, her whole body shaking. ‘I've lived with this my whole life, Tom. Can you imagine that, knowing your own life is trivial compared to everything that happened? Can you imagine that? Of course you can't. No one can.’

In a brief change in the light, Tom could see there were tears slipping slowly down her cheeks. He wanted desperately to touch her.

‘Your life is not trivial. It matters.’

She said nothing.

‘Your life mattered to your father, Rebecca. He named you after his mother for a reason.’ He swallowed. ‘I think you were meant to be her second chance.’

She reeled back, her clenched hand finally coming away from Viren's neck. The old man now seized his opportunity, using all his strength to shake Tom off. As Tom fell backwards, he stumbled, hitting his
head on the edge of one of the benches. He was stunned.

In that same instant, Viren lunged at Rebecca. He reached for her wrist, pulling it upward. She was still clasping the syringe, now terrified that the old man was about to turn the needle back on her. She let out a scream as he tugged at her arm.

The light in the room suddenly changed. Two men had come into the doorway, casting new shadows. Viren looked up to see Henning Munchau staring at him, his face aghast. The Secretary-General seemed frozen.

That moment of delay, of paralysis, was all Tom needed. He hauled himself up and surged forward, crashing into the space between Viren and Rebecca, pushing the pair apart. Rebecca staggered backwards, at last out of the old man's reach. But the needle was no longer in her hand.

Tom turned, only to find Viren coming at him, his eyes wild, clutching the syringe and aiming it directly at Tom's heart. Tom reached for Viren's wrist, but the old man had remarkable strength. Even in Tom's grip, he was pressing forward, the tip of the needle getting closer and closer until it was no more than an inch from Tom's chest.

With an almighty surge, Tom shoved Paavo Viren's wrist backward – listening to the roar of horror as the Secretary-General of the United Nations realized he had plunged the needle deep into the jugular vein of his own neck.