The Sigma Protocol (44 page)

“You’re already facing administrative charges. I expect you in my office no later than five o’clock tomorrow afternoon, and I don’t care if you have to charter a private jet to get here.”

It was a few seconds before Anna realized he had hung up. Her heart pounded, her face was flushed. Had he not ended the call when he did, she’d have gone off on him, and no doubt finished her career once and for all.

No, she told herself, you’ve already done that. It’s over. Dupree, when he got wind that she’d run afoul of the Internal Compliance Unit, would revoke her privileges within five minutes.

Well, at least go out with a bang.

She felt a delicious sense of inevitability. It was like being on a speeding train you couldn’t get off. Enjoy the rush.

The office of the legendary and world-famous Jakob Sonnenfeld—the Nazi hunter extraordinaire who had been on the cover of countless newsmagazines, the subject of innumerable profiles and documentaries, who had even made cameo appearances in movies—was located in a small, gloomy, relatively modern building on Salztorgasse, an inelegant street of discount stores and glum cafés. Sonnenfeld’s phone number had simply been listed in the Vienna telephone directory without an address; Ben had called the number at around eight-thirty that morning and was surprised when it was answered. A brusque woman asked what his business was, why he wanted to see the great man.

Ben told her that he was the son of a Holocaust survivor and was in Vienna doing some personal research into the Nazi regime. Stick to what you know was his principle here. He was further surprised when the woman agreed to his request to meet the legend that morning.

The night before, Anna Navarro had suggested a few of what she called “evasive measures,” to lose anyone who might be following. On his circuitous way here, after seeing the ruddy-faced man with the wheat-field eyebrows, he had doubled back a few times, abruptly crossed the street, suddenly turned into a bookstore, and browsed and waited. He seemed to have lost the
tail, or perhaps, for some reason, the man hadn’t wanted to be spotted again.

Now, having reached Sonnenfeld’s office building on Salztorgasse, he was buzzed in and took the elevator to the fourth floor, where a solitary guard waved him along. The door was opened by a young woman who pointed him to an uncomfortable chair in a hallway lined with plaques and awards and testaments in Sonnenfeld’s honor.

While he waited, he took out his digital phone and left a message for Oscar Peyaud, the Paris-based investigator. Then he called the hotel he had so unceremoniously abandoned the night before.

“Yes, Mr. Simon,” the hotel operator answered with what struck him as undue familiarity. “Yes, sir, there is a message for you—it is, if you will wait, yes, from a Mr. Hans Hoffman. He says it is urgent.”

“Thank you,” Ben said.

“Please, Mr. Simon, can you hold on, please? The manager has just signaled me that he would like to speak with you.”

The hotel manager got on the line. Ben ignored his first instinct, which was to disconnect immediately; more important by far was to determine how much the hotel management knew, how complicit they might be.

“Mr. Simon,” the manager said in a loud and authoritative basso profundo, “one of our chambermaids tells me that you threatened her, and moreover, there was an incident here last night involving gunfire, and the police wish you to return here immediately for questioning.”

Ben pressed the
End
button.

It was not surprising that the manager would want to talk to him. Damage had been done to the hotel; the manager was duty-bound to call the police. But there was something about the man’s voice, the suddenly
bullying self-assurance of a man who is backed by the full weight of the authorities, that alarmed Ben.

And what did Hoffman, the private investigator, want so urgently?

The door to Sonnenfeld’s office opened and a small, stoop-shouldered old man emerged and gestured feebly for Ben to enter. He gave Ben a tremorous handshake and sat behind a cluttered desk. Jakob Sonnenfeld had a bristly gray mustache, a jowly face, large ears, and redrimmed, hooded, watery eyes. He wore an unfashion-ably wide, clumsily knotted tie, a moth-eaten brown sweater-vest under a checked jacket.

“Many people want to look at my archives,” Sonnenfeld said abruptly. “Some for good reasons, some for not so good. Why you?”

Ben cleared his throat, but Sonnenfeld rumbled on. “You say your father is a Holocaust survivor. So? There are thousands of them alive. Why are you so interested in my work?”

Do I dare level with the man?
he wondered. “You’ve been hunting Nazis for decades now,” he began suddenly. “You must hate them with all your heart, as I do.”

Sonnenfeld waved dismissively. “No. I’m not a hater. I couldn’t work at this job for over fifty years fueled by hate. It would eat away at my insides.”

Ben was at once skeptical and annoyed at Sonnenfeld’s piety.

“Well, I happen to believe that war criminals should not go free.”

“Ah, but they are not war criminals really, are they? A war criminal commits his crimes to further his war aims, yes? He murders and tortures in order to help win the war. But tell me: Did the Nazis need to massacre and gas to death millions of innocents in order to win? Of course not. They did it purely for ideological
reasons. To cleanse the planet, they believed. It was wholly unnecessary. It was something they did on the side. It diverted precious wartime resources. I’d say their campaign of genocide hindered their war effort. No, these were most certainly not war criminals.”

“What do you call them, then?” Ben asked, understanding at last.

Sonnenfeld smiled. Several gold teeth glinted. “Monsters.”

Ben took in a long breath. He’d have to trust the old Nazi hunter; that was the only way, he realized, to secure his cooperation. Sonnenfeld was too smart. “Then let me be very direct with you, Mr. Sonnenfeld. My brother—my twin brother, my closest friend in all the world—was murdered by people I believe are in some way connected with some of these monsters.”

Sonnenfeld leaned forward. “Now you have me very confused,” he said very intently. “Surely you and your brother are much, much too young to have been through the war.”

“This happened not much over a week ago,” Ben said.

Sonnenfeld’s brow furrowed, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “What can you be saying? You are making no sense.”

Quickly Ben explained about Peter’s discovery. “This document drew my brother’s attention because one of the board members was our own father.” He paused. “Max Hartman.”

Stunned silence. Then: “I know the name. He has given much money to good causes.”

“In the year 1945, one of his causes was something called Sigma,” Ben continued stonily. “The other incorporators included many Western industrialists, and a small handful of Nazi officials. Those included the
treasurer, who is identified by the title
Obersturmführer
, and by the name Max Hartman.”

Sonnenfeld’s rheumy eyes did not blink. “Extraordinary. You did say ‘Sigma,’ yes? Dear God in heaven.”

“I’m afraid it’s an old story,” said the visitor in the black leather jacket.

“The wife,” suggested the private detective, Hoffman, with a wink.

The man smiled sheepishly. “She is young and very pretty, yes?”

A sigh. “Yes.”

“They are the worst of all, the pretty young ones,” Hoffman said, man to man. “I’d advise you to simply forget her. You’ll never be able to trust her anyway.”

The visitor’s eye seemed to be caught by Hoffman’s fancy new laptop computer. “Nice,” the man said.

“I don’t know how I ever used anything else,” Hoffman said. “I am not so good with technical things, but this is easy. Who needs filing cabinets anymore? Everything is here.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?”

Hoffman hesitated. A man come in off the street—he could easily be a thief after all. He glanced at him again, took in the man’s broad shoulders, narrow waist, not a gram of body fat. Quietly he nudged open the long metal desk drawer next to his lap an inch or two and checked for the Glock.

“Maybe another time,” Hoffman said. “All of my confidential files are there. So, please give me the details about your pretty young wife and the bastard she’s fucking.”

“Why don’t you turn it on?” the visitor said. Hoffman looked up sharply. This was not a request but a demand.

“Why are you here?” Hoffman snarled, and then realized he was staring into the barrel of a Makarov attached to a silencer.

“Put the computer on,” the man said softly. “Open your files.”

“I will tell you one thing. This document was never meant to see the light of day,” Sonnenfeld said. “It was a legalism intended for internal Swiss bank use only. For the gnomes of Zurich alone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sigma has long been the stuff of legend. Not a scintilla of evidence has ever emerged to give body to the shadow of supposition. I would know. Believe me.”

“Until now, correct?”

“So it would seem,” he said softly. “Clearly, it is a fictional enterprise. A front, a ruse—a means for industrialists on both sides to secure a separate peace, whatever the terms of armistice might be. The paper your brother uncovered may be the only material reality that it has.”

“You say it was the stuff of legend—what was the nature of that legend?”

“Powerful businessmen and powerful politicians, meeting secretly to transfer immense, stolen state assets out of the Fatherland. Not everyone who opposed Hitler was a hero, you might as well know that. Many were cold-eyed pragmatists. They knew the war effort was doomed, and they knew who was to blame. What concerned them more was the prospect of repatriation, nationalization. They had their own empires to look after. Empires of industry. There is abundant evidence of such plans. But we’ve always believed that the plan remained just a plan. And almost everyone involved has since gone to their graves.”

“You said ‘almost everyone,’” Ben repeated sharply.
“Let me ask about the few board members who fall under your professional purview. The Nazis. Gerhard Lenz. Josef Strasser.” He paused before pronouncing the final name. “Max Hartman.”

Sonnenfeld fell silent. He cradled his head in his large craggy hands. “Who are these people?” he said to himself, the question purely rhetorical. “That is your question. And here, always, is mine: who is asking? Why do you want to know?”

“Put your gun down,” Hoffman said. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Close the desk drawer,” the intruder said. “I am watching you very closely. One wrong move and I will not hesitate to kill you.”

“Then you’ll never access my files,” Hoffman said triumphantly. “The computer is equipped with a bio-metric authentication device—a fingerprint scanner. Without my fingerprint, no one can log on. So you see, you would be very foolish to kill me.”

“Oh, I don’t need to go quite that far yet,” said the visitor serenely.

“But do you know the truth about my father?” Ben asked. “It strikes me that you might have assembled a file on such a high-profile survivor and—forgive me—potential benefactor to your efforts. You, more than anyone, would have been in a position to see through his lies. You have all the lists of concentration-camp victims, a more exhaustive storehouse of records than anyone else. That’s why I have to ask: Did you know the truth about my father?”

“Do you?” Sonnenfeld returned sharply.

“I’ve seen the truth in black and white.”

“You have seen in black and white, yes, but you have not seen the truth. An amateur’s error. Forgive
me, Mr. Hartman, but these are never black-and-white matters. You’re dealing with a situation whose ambiguities are very familiar to me. Your father’s case, I can tell you only a little about it, but it is a sadly familiar story. You must be prepared to enter a realm of moral chiaroscuro, however. Of shadow, of ethical vagueness. Begin with the simple fact that if a Jew had money, the Nazis were willing to deal with him. This was one of the ugly secrets of the war that people seldom talk about. Often enough, the rich ones bought safe passage. The Nazis would take gold, jewels, securities, whatever. It was outright extortion, plain and simple. They even had a price schedule—three hundred thousand Swiss francs for a life! One of the Rothschilds traded his steel mills for his freedom—gave them to the Hermann Goering Works. But you won’t read about any of this. No one ever talks about it. There was a very rich Hungarian-Jewish family, Weiss—they had businesses in twenty-three countries around the world. They gave their entire fortune to the SS, and in return they were escorted safely to Switzerland.”

Ben was flustered. “But an
Obersturmführer
…”

“A Jewish
Obersturmführer?
Can that possibly be? Bear with me for a moment.” Sonnenfeld paused before resuming. “I can tell you about an SS colonel, Kurt Becher, who was in charge of making deals like this for Eichmann and Himmler. Becher made a deal with a Hungarian, Dr. Rudolf Kastner—seventeen hundred Jews at a thousand dollars each. A whole train full. Jews in Budapest fought to get on that train. You know your family had money before the war, didn’t you? The way it worked was very simple, if you were Max Hartman. One day
Obergruppenführer
Becher comes to see you. You make a deal. What good was your fortune if you were all going to die anyway? So you ransom your family out. Your sisters and you. This
was hardly a moral conundrum. You did whatever you could to stay alive.”

Ben had never thought of his father as a young man, frightened and desperate. His mind reeled. His aunt Sarah had died before he was born, but he remembered his aunt Leah, who passed away when he was in high school: a small, quiet, gentle soul, who had lived quietly as a librarian in Philadelphia. The affection she had for her brother was real, but so, too, was her recognition of his strength of character; she deferred to him in all things. If there were secrets to be kept, she would have kept them.

But his father—what else was he keeping inside?

“If what you’re saying is true, why did he never tell us?” Ben asked.