The Lie (10 page)

Afterward, he spent an hour doing some of the busywork that was part of being an academic. He completed it judiciously and
without complaint; the fact was, he liked it. He found the work to be just about the only area of normalcy he had ever experienced
in the course of his less than normal life. It allowed him the brief illusion of a continuing existence unthreatened by sudden,
violent death; neither his own nor anyone else’s.

Early that evening, about two hours after his last class of the day, Klaus Logefeld drove a short distance outside Rome and
parked behind a small stone house that boasted a faded, peeling locksmith sign. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and an
iron-gray moustache and hairpiece, which he carefully adjusted in the rearview mirror. Satisfied with his disguise, he left
the car, crossed a littered, weed-choked backyard, and knocked on the rear door of the house.

The locksmith, a fat man with sagging jowls and a dead cigarette butt clenched between nicotine-stained teeth, let him in.

“Mr. Fagione,” he said. “You’re exactly on time.”

“I’m always on time, Guido. You have my keys?”

“Sure. Why not? I’m always on time too. A few tricky problems with the wax impressions, but that’s all part of it, right?”

Klaus followed the man down a flight of stairs into a cluttered cellar workshop so crowded with equipment—metal forms, vises,
grinding tools, molds, electric ovens—there was barely room to move around.

The locksmith took a brown envelope from a cabinet drawer and emptied its contents onto a workbench.

“Here are your keys and your wax impressions, Mr. Fagione. If I do say so myself, as perfect a job as you’ll find anywhere.
Pick them up. Hold them. Look at them.”

Klaus examined the keys. The workmanship was indeed meticulous, and the material was the best.

“Excellent. Would you put them on a ring for me, please?”

The locksmith rummaged through a drawer, found a key ring of suitable size, and slid all nine keys into place. Klaus pocketed
them along with his wax impressions and took out his wallet. “I gave you a hundred and twenty-five thousand lire deposit,
so there’s an equal amount due. Correct?”

“That’s it.”

Klaus Logefeld counted out a wad of bills and handed them over. “Please count the money yourself so there’s no mistake.”

Guido did as instructed.

“Exactly,” he said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Fagione.”

Klaus shook the locksmith’s hand. “I must say it’s a pleasure to do business with you, Guido.”

The fat man grinned. It broke his face into soft folds. “Just recommend me to your friends.”

“What friends?”

They laughed.

The sun was red and still sinking as Klaus drove away from the house.

It was slightly before 8:00
P.M.
when he parked his car at Rome’s international airport.

Forty minutes later he was aboard an Alitalia flight taking off for Berlin.

The Wannsee Museum and Conference Center contained nothing of great material value. Whatever worth was attached to the landmark
villa lay in its history and mystique, which could not be carried off and sold. The center’s nighttime security reflected
this, with only a single guard on duty at the gatehouse and none at all in the museum or on the grounds.

Klaus Logefeld knew all this and more from the documentation he had taken from Captain Oberman’s study just after he’d killed
him. Still, there was an air, a mood to the place in the moonlit dark that belied its casual security. Klaus sensed it as
he worked his way through a patch of woods, climbed over a concrete wall, and edged in and out of shadows toward the villa.
Even the damp night seemed to invade his lungs like a message of alarm.

Here, in this dark mansion, was where it had all started on a truly systematized basis. Of course the mass murder of Jews
had already been going on for several years, but never following any broad overall plan, and never on the kind of scale that
would eventually defy all rational belief.

On January 20, 1942, what was to become known as the Wannsee Conference was held in this particular villa in Wannsee, Berlin,
to discuss and coordinate the implementation of the Final Solution. The villa, Am grossen Wannsee 56–58, was a former Interpol
property confiscated by the SS. The conference was hosted by Heinrich Himmler’s top deputy, Reinhard Heydrich.

Klaus Logefeld knew every fact, every detail, every element of this landmark event. Heydrich had invited the state secretaries
of the most important German government ministries to attend the conference, which was significant for two reasons: first,
it was the only meeting to involve such prominent members of the ministerial bureaucracy; second, it was the moment at which
Adolph Hitler’s decision to murder every last Jew in Europe—from Ireland to the Urals and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean—was
officially announced to this bureaucracy, whose cooperation was considered necessary. It was not a meeting at which this decision
was argued. Those present talked about the implementation of a decision already made for the “final solution to the Jewish
question.”

Here in this place
, thought Klaus. Heading across a stretch of freshly mowed grass whose sweetness was still in the air, Klaus approached the
rear of the museum. He had the villa’s schematics folded in his pockets, but he had memorized many of the main features and
had no need to check anything at this point. He found the outside alarm box on a wall beside a dry well and neutralized the
entire system with the appropriate key on his ring. Then he paced off twenty meters to the right, came to a short flight of
covered steps leading down to a cellar door, opened the lock with another of his newly minted keys, and entered the blackness
beneath the building.

Klaus switched on a small flashlight. He unfolded the necessary diagrams and spread them on the floor to orient himself. This
was only a dry run, strictly for planning. But the success or failure of whatever might take place here on September 13 would
depend greatly on what he charted now.

According to his blueprints he was directly under the main conference room. He began checking out the walls and ceilings.
Much of this area had been converted into reference rooms, with bookshelves lining knotty pine walls, and the ceilings made
up of acoustic squares. Either material would serve his needs; both could easily be removed and replaced undetected. Assuming
a final security check a day or two before September 13, Klaus planned on having everything in
place by September 9. Any later, and he might run into additional night guards. Any sooner, and there was always the added
possibility of his charges being discovered.

As for the explosive itself, Klaus had decided on French
plastique
rather than the comparable American C-4, which was a bit more stable but less malleable and not nearly as powerful. Not that
the power factor really mattered; if things ever reached the point of actual detonation, the relative size of the resulting
catastrophe would hardly be all that important.

Climbing on a chair and using a pocketknife for leverage, the professor carefully eased a square of acoustic board out of
the ceiling and flashed his light into the opening. The exposed space was wide and deep enough to allow him more than enough
room for the charge he would be using. He replaced the acoustic board and repeated the same procedure in three other sections
of the basement, identifying possible backup positions.

When he was finished in the basement, he climbed an interior stairway to the first floor, which was where he would begin his
operation.

Since he would enter the museum on the thirteenth unarmed because of the security check, he would need quick and easy access
to a small handgun. The men’s room off the main entrance lobby seemed the most viable location for such a cache, and he followed
the pinpoint beam of his flashlight through its swinging doors.

The individual toilet stalls were enclosed by ceiling-high walls, perfect for his needs. Not only would he have privacy if
others were in the washroom, but a small, removable ventilator grill was set into the ceiling, behind which he could tape
a loaded automatic. Klaus felt an instant lift in his spirits. A good omen, he thought, and he decided to cache his remote
detonator right here with the gun so he could pick them both up at the same time.

Klaus unlocked and entered the surveillance room, which was dark, deserted, and nonfunctioning tonight but would be the pulsing
heart of the place on September 13.

It had no windows, so he made bold use of his flash to look everything over. He studied the banks of television screens, the
audio and video controls. He figured out the rooms corridors, and other areas covered by the cameras and microphones. He located
the main and individual unit power switches, the fuses, and the circuit breakers and made notes on the color-coded wires connected
to each.

Depending upon how well or how badly things went, the room could be a help or a liability. That was a judgment he would have
to save for later. Still, when it finally came time for him to act, the decision and the wire-pulling would be his.

All right, what else?

He could think of nothing else.

For a moment, Klaus Logefeld found himself enjoying a shining little fantasy in which everything he planned went off beautifully,
no one had to die, and his message finally reached a threatened world and helped light prevail over darkness.

A
GLITTERING, FULL-DRESS AFFAIR
was in full swing at the Naples home of Count Enzo Bonamotti, a world-class shipping mogul. Soft string music played in the
background and everyone appeared rich, distinguished, powerful, or at the very least beautiful.

Nicko Vorelli stood with the Italian foreign minister and a group of naval and military officers, none of whom were below
the rank of admiral or general. Kate sat off to one side, watching. Catching her eye at one point, Nicko motioned her over
but she shook her head. She needed a respite from high-level chatter.

Earlier that evening, as power, wealth, and gold braid shimmered around them, Nicko had gripped her arm and whispered, “Do
you have any idea how wonderful it makes me feel just to have you here beside me?”

He was standing close, head cocked to one side, staring down at her very seriously.
He means it
, she thought,
he actually means it
. She felt disturbed, tender, and guilty all at the same time.
After what I’ve just made it possible for an obviously dangerous man to be able to do to him
.

A short while later Nicholas Vorelli broke away from the foreign minister and his potpourri of admirals and generals and came
over to where Kate was sitting.

“I guess you’re having a pretty terrible time,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry, Nicko. It’s my own stupid fault. I feel like the original specter at the feast.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Kate hesitated.

“Well?” he said.

“Is it all right for you to leave?”

“All right? My dear young woman, if the count dares say a word, I’ll buy up all his little ships and close him down.”

Nicko took Kate to his villa in Sorrento, where she tried to make amends in bed.

In a way, she supposed she did, although even there she found distractions, not the least of which were her thoughts of Paulie.
This was the first time she had ever loved one man and gone to bed with another. It was not a matter of infidelity: no vows
had ever been exchanged with either man. The truth was, her body still responded to Nicko’s practiced touch, as it had every
right to do after so many years. Flesh was still only flesh, and the rest was nothing but friction.

Or so they said.

She held Nicholas Vorelli for one last embrace. Then they were finished.

“You have to stop brooding and beating yourself over this crazy German,” Nicko said.

“I just feel so stupid and used. Worst of all is the hold I’ve given him on
you
.”

Nicko lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “It’s not all that cataclysmic.”

“Maybe not now, but as long as he has those pictures and tapes of me, who knows what he’ll ask for next?”

“You’re worrying too far in advance,” Nicko said. “All your friend has asked so far is to come along to Wannsee on the thirteenth.
He’s better qualified than most to be there.”

“He’s a zealot.”

“Of course he’s a zealot.” Nicko smiled. “But zealots do have a way of getting things done.”

Kate lifted herself on one elbow to stare at him. “You said yourself he scared the hell out of you. Twice you actually wanted
to kill him. What’s suddenly happened?”

Nicholas Vorelli sighed. “The thing is,” he said, “I see your German as a very real threat, to the point where I’ve had people
watching him around the clock. A couple of evenings ago Alfred Mainz left his university and went to see a locksmith just
outside Rome. When he left the man’s workshop a while later, Mainz took off on a flight to Berlin, where he picked up a car
and drove directly to the Wannsee Museum.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“At exactly 1:50
A.M.
”

“And then?”

“He parked his car in some woods, scaled a wall, switched off Wannsee’s central alarm system—probably with one of the keys
the locksmith had made for him—and entered the museum through a cellar door he unlocked with another key. He remained inside
for more than an hour. Then he left the building and flew back to Rome on the first available flight.”

A lock of hair fell across Kate’s eyes and she stared at Nicko through it. “What do you suppose he was doing in there all
that time?”

“Reconnoitering. Preparing.”

“For what?”

“Christ only knows. I had someone call Wannsee’s curator yesterday. I wanted to find out if any of the building’s keys had
been lost or stolen.”

“And?”

“Nothing. But apparently the museum’s chief of security had been found dead at home with all his keys still on his belt.”