The Octopus Deception, page 4
“Only too well, as I recently found out. Having duly noted his answer, Army interrogators, under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order, classified the report Double Top Secret. Prosecutors at the Tokyo War Crimes trials were warned off. A curtain of secrecy was lowered.”
“Not unlike the Iron Curtain, and certainly more durable and longer lasting,” interrupted Frej.
“For over sixty-five years the activities of Golden Lily remained the most enduring secret of World War Two. For over sixty-five years, the U.S., the British and Japanese governments routinely denied these events took place. Until suddenly, fate intervened.”
“Fate?” asked Frej with a doubtfully arched eyebrow. He reached for a diminutive bronze cowbell on the Commissioner’s table, cupped it and jangled it gently for emphasis.
She nodded.
“Kanda district, on the outskirts of Tokyo, is a Mecca of second-hand bookshops, comparable to London’s Charing Cross Road and frequented by university students in search of bargain basement prices.”
Louise Arbour leaned across the table, and with her hand outstretched asked Frej to pass her the oddly evocative object.
“In 1984, a student browsing through a box of old, discarded papers belonging to a former military officer first discovered the appalling secret of Golden Lily. The documents revealed detailed reports on every town razed and every person buried alive by the advancing troops from the inception in 1936 through to its excruciating conclusion in 1942.”
“Was Shimada’s name in the report?”
“No. It was another twelve years, before a two-column article appeared in one of Japan’s national papers. Even though it was published on page 16, it immediately became front-page news across the entire globe.” She stubbed her cigarette out. “According to the article, Shimada has tried to bring himself to tell the story for over half a century.”
Frej again picked up the manila folder. “A frail widower living near Osaka in Japan who worked with the Emperor’s Golden Lily from 1936 until 1942. How did the world become aware of Akira Shimada?”
“He got in touch with the journalist who had written the article on the subject.” She paused, again and then nodded stonily. “When did the Committee on Prevention of Torture announce the breakthrough in their investigation of Second World War crimes against humanity involving Japanese concentration camps?”
“Less than four months ago. ”
She lit another cigarette, in a small fate-defying gesture.
Although all were obviously elderly, sixteen out of seventeen Japanese witnesses prepared to testify to the UN High Commission for Human Rights as to the nature of scorched-earth strategy used by the advancing Japanese Imperial troops, had died within a short period of time.
The sun had risen to the midpoint of the surrounding trees, streaming through the windows and passing away like colors on a drying palette. Louise stood up. Cigarette smoke spiraled above the table. The U.N. High Commissioner looked like she had her hooks in something. Lost … no, rather found, in thought, Frej concluded.
“Someone out there is fast-tracking this thing to its premeditated and horrifyingly unfathomable conclusion. This someone might be one of our people.” She felt a cold wave of anxiety in her stomach.
“I am going to Rome, Frej.”
Chapter 9
Novodevichy, Moscow – three years earlier.
The centuries-old cemetery, “New Maidens Convent” in English, is the most venerated cemetery in Moscow. Founded by Vasily III in 1524, to commemorate the recapture of Smolensk from the Lithuanians in 1514, it is the resting place for some of Russia’s most venerated writers and poets. Chekhov was one of the first to be buried there, in 1904. Gogol’s remains were re-interred from Danilov Monastery not long after. Gogol’s tomb is symbolically linked with that of another famous writer, Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita.
One of the cemetery’s ironies is that victims of the Soviet regime – rejected, jailed, exiled and condemned by the State to work in special prison camps for researchers and scientists – are buried next to the State executioners. Thus, the cemetery houses Grigory Nikulin and Mikhail Medvedev, members of the Soviet Secret police who took part in the murder of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family in Yekaterinburg.
Many other prominent Russians are buried in the Novodevichy – Decembrists Matvei Muravyov and Sergei Trubetskoi; composers Sergei Prokofyev and Dmitry Shostakovich; singer and actor Fyodor Chaliapin, the greatest Russian basso ever to appear in Western opera houses.
Like all things Russian, the cemetery is vast – well over 150 acres – and poorly organized. The places of burial of famous Russians, indicated on the map with red numbers, often do not correspond to the places where they are actually buried.
Michael Asbury sighed as he approached a white marble bust of a woman enclosed in glass. He looked dejectedly at the map. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” he mumbled to himself.
A slenderly built woman with long, silky black eyelashes and a ready-made smile standing several meters away turned to him. “Dante,” she said, giving the most radiant smile Michael had ever seen.
“Nice to meet you, Dante.” He extended his hand. “I am Michael
Asbury. I’m a Religious historian.”
She laughed and shook his hand. “Simone Casolaro. I teach Italian Renaissance literature.
They stood silent for a moment. “It’s quite confusing, isn’t it?” “What is?” asked Michael.
“The map, I mean. It’s quite confusing.” She smiled and looked at him quizzically, studying his features.
Michael sensed in her demeanor a natural curiosity for everything in life, and smiled back.
“You are an American?”
“Yes, and you are British?”
“No, I’m Australian. But I live in London.” He paused. “ Well, if you consider three days a month to be actually living there.”
They both laughed.
“Two strangers, standing in front of the grave of Stalin’s ex-wife. You know,” Simone went on, pointing to the white Italian marble bust in front of her. “This is one of the most haunting memorials in the cemetery. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was Stalin’s second wife.” She stood silently for a second or two, contemplating something. “Nadezhda means ‘hope’ in Russian.”
Michael ran his hand along the base of the finely chiseled monument.
“Nadezhda Alliluyeva’s death is still veiled in mystery. Some say she killed herself. Others, that she was murdered on her husband’s orders. The legend says that Stalin would come at night and sit here, weeping for his beloved Nadezhda.” She smiled again.
“I guess our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay,” she said pensively.
For the next three hours they meandered through the nooks and alleys of Novodevichy, up and down sodden turf, cobbled walkways, smoothly paved asphalt and pillared walkways of limestone and slate. She told him about her love of Italian literature and Russian culture, about her brother Danny, her parents, their trips to some of the most exotic destinations the world over. He told her about his quest for the long-lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot.
At odd moments of silence, there were tentative rushes of warmth, and something else, too.
They kept walking and talking and looking at each other, the looks becoming warmer and longer. The something else was growing too, getting stronger.
They came to a semi-enclosed arcade, a round dome over a huge portico. It was a miniature columbarium, erected to house cinerary urns. Simone consulted her map.
“Anna Pavlova, indisputably one of the great ballerinas of the twentieth century, is buried here. Her ashes have been brought back almost seventy years after her death.” She gazed at Michael.
“In 1931 she contracted pleurisy. Doctors could have saved her life with an operation, but it would have damaged her ribs and left her unable to perform, so Pavlova chose to die rather than give up dancing. As she lay on her death-bed, she is said to have opened her eyes, raised her hand and uttered these last words: ‘Get my swan costume ready.’ A few days later, at show time at the theatre where she was to have per- formed The Dying Swan, the house lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and while the orchestra played Saint-Saëns’ familiar score, a spotlight moved around the empty stage as if searching for the great Pavlova.”
They stood motionless, contemplating that moment. The light was fading rapidly. Simone shivered, only partly because of the cold. She stood beside him, looking down, and then, suddenly, raised both her hands, cupping his face. Michael stood still, transfixed. She leaned forward, brushing her lips against his. Her gaze was steady and unafraid, fixed on him. He reached for her waist and pulled her into him. The air around them filled with the excitement of discovery. They kissed and embraced with the intensity of two people who somehow knew that all of this was temporary.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the final approach to John F. Kennedy International airport…” A metallic voice jolted Michael into the here and now, dispersing his memories like dandelion seeds.
He was thousands of kilometers across the world and three years removed. He gently gathered up the broken pieces of recollection. Novodevichy … three years crumbled between his fingers.
He looked out the window. New York City, the Big Apple, lay beneath him, its immensity best appreciated from the air. He never thought of New York as just another city, but rather as a separate entity, a self-contained country in itself, a living and breathing organism unlike any other he, one of the world’s most prolific travellers, had ever seen.
His thoughts returned to Simone. How long had it been? His mind raced back to their last night together. Last June. London. She was on her way to a symposium in Florence. He needed to be in Cairo the following day. God, that was eight months ago. He felt a pang. Could it be so long? Michael blinked hard, and thought back once again.
* * *
“Simone?” he remembered it as both a question and a futile attempt to postpone the inevitable. “What if we …” He stopped, not sure how to continue.
She had sat motionless on the couch. “Michael,” she had said, gazing at him, her eyes imploring. There was pain in her eyes and something like real love, too. She stood up and gently put her head on his shoulder. “If we try to create a normal relationship, we will destroy the most beautiful of romances.” She stared into his eyes. “ We are not normal people. What we have between us is a dream, a fantasy, if you wish.”
“Simone,” he had repeated, thickly.
“Michael, it can’t get better than this.”
“It can get different.”
“Different is not necessarily better, just different.” Simone said with conviction.
“Simone—”
“Please, please hear me out. The weekends we are together, we get to be who we really are.” She paused. “If we try and fail it might ache in places you didn’t know you had inside you.”
“Just your quarterly sex partner. This is way past complicated.”
* * *
From sheer exhaustion, they had dropped the subject and said their sad goodbyes. Had it all been lost in that moment of lethargy? Michael smiled ruefully and struggled to hold back tears.
Real life. Of course, she was right. It could never be real in a real-
life sort of way. They both needed space. He let go.
The plane effortlessly touched down on the tarmac and began its final approach to the terminal.
When he emerged from the tunnel, there she was. His mouth felt dry. The next thing he knew, they had enveloped each other. The cheek he intended to kiss was supplanted by the passion of her mouth. Guilt and tenderness mixed with an aching desire washed over him. For a brief moment, the world stood still. Then he remembered why she had called him.
“Michael, I need you. They killed my brother.”
Chapter 10
Caroni sat on top of a desk in his apartment on Via de Coronari, his head forward, his brows knitted together, studying a map of Rome. The quickest way to the train station would be through Via di Cuattro Fontane, take a left on Via de Tritone, past Via del Corso, circumvent Piazza Colonna and zigzag his way through. He frowned and checked his watch. Five to eleven. Stay out of sight. He had twenty minutes to reach the train station, five to buy a ticket and fifteen to make sure he wasn’t followed. He threw a wary glance at the clock behind him, adjusting his Ruger .44 sidearm.
He had spent most of the previous day fast asleep, and a long, rambling, dreary dream had repeated, in a kind of pointless parody, his strenuous last evening with Danny Casolaro, and that ominous morning when he received the news of Casolaro’s murder with incomprehensible calmness. Casolaro’s drone of complaints, his suspicions of sordid betrayals that obsessed him.
Caroni stepped outside, strained his eyes against the sun, scanning left, right and center. All clear. He turned left, then right on the next side street, and headed towards the piazza and large crowds. People. Safety.
Then, it came, a narrow chasm of silence, broken by an abrupt, seemingly casual collision, but the eyes that stared at him were not startled; they were the cold eyes of a seasoned killer. Caroni lurched forward, then spun to his left just as the man attempted to clamp his hand down on Caroni’s shoulder, missing his grip by a split-second. Zig-zagging left, then right, Caroni pulled his knife, its corrugated blade an extension of the hand that gripped it. Where is he? Where? An arm shot forward, surging in toward his ribcage. At the last moment, Caroni swung his right forearm up and blocked. The man’s wrist glanced off his ear. The impact was deafening. As he reeled away, his eyes swept desperately for the assailant. Nothing. God damn it!
Who wanted him dead?
Was it the Boss? The Agency? Octopus? All of the above?
Something stirred to his left. He caught it at the last instant, turning instinctively to his right, but it was too late. The heavy punch landed on his right triceps, sending electric shock waves up and down his arm. His blade shot out of his hand. As he tried to pull his Ruger, something brushed against his throat, a cold, slicing period. Rivulets of sweat popped out and drenched his forehead.
His legs buckled under him as he crashed to the sidewalk with a dull thud. He looked across the piazza.
Blood was gushing from his mouth. Still, he wanted to know. Who the hell are they? And then he knew nothing.
Chapter 11
Fitzgerald felt a sharp twinge of pain. There were muffled voices somewhere above him. Where am I? He could hear squeaky footsteps. Rubber soled shoes. A whitish figure flitted across his vision like a spirit. Something plastic fell to the floor.
“Can you hear me?” A female voice asked quietly.
Army Ranger Curtis Fitzgerald nodded.
“You are hurt, but you will be all right.”
“Where am I?” Curtis could hear his voice; it was weak, but he could hear it.
“You are safe and out of danger.”
The voice floated in the air. Curtis tried forcing his eyelids open. God, that hurt. A shape came slowly into focus, a blurry form in a white coat. “Who are you?” he asked.
“A friend,” said the voice, softly.
“Friend? Who are you?”
“I am a nurse, your nurse.”
The door opened, and then was near-silently shut. Fresh set of footsteps. Someone had entered the room.
“He is awake, Madame.”
Finally, his eyes focused. He was in a large, white room, sunlight streaming through half-open Venetian blinds.
Curtis squinted and with great effort made his head move ever so slightly to his right. Another woman was saying something to him, slowly, methodically. She had straight auburn hair parted in the middle, arched eyebrows, middle-aged but still beautiful, in an Earth-mother kind of way, with high cheekbones, hazel eyes.
“Where am I?” he asked again.
“You are safe and you are with friends. That’s all that matters.” She looked at Curtis and smiled. She was dressed in a blindingly white shirt and black pants.
Curtis looked straight ahead, desperately trying to remember something.
“How badly am I hurt?”
“Shrapnel in the midriff and neck and two wounds in the thigh. The wound to the stomach was deep and possibly fatal. It required two operations, but the neck wound was the real miracle. The metal missed the carotid artery by two centimeters. You’re a lucky man.”
“Relatively speaking. How long have I been here?” Curtis blinked, orienting himself. She glanced at the nurse, who looked at her watch, and then smiled back.
“Ten days, one hour and twenty six minutes.”
“What is your name?” the doctor asked him.
“What?”
“I asked you what your name was.” Curtis closed his eyes for a moment. “Curtis, Curtis Fitzgerald.”
The doctor and the nurse looked at each other. “Nurse, could you please leave us for a moment.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She walked out and quietly shut the door behind her. “Curtis, do you remember what happened?”
“Bagram.”
“Yes, Bagram. W hat can you tell me about what happened?”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am the medical officer in charge,” she said.
Chapter 12
The limousine, a burgundy-colored soundproofed Rolls-Royce Corniche, pulled up in front of the Roosevelt Hotel at Forty-fifth Street, just off Park Avenue. Named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, with its copper-edged cornices and its upscale galleries and boutiques, the hotel was a throwback to a bygone era, a grand old lady in the epicenter of the Big Apple.
A tall, well-built, elegantly dressed man sporting a healthy tan walked unhurriedly across the faded red carpet through the foyer, an enormous room with a 45-foot ceiling encrusted with gold leaf, and past the curved marble staircase. Its appearance had hardly changed since it opened in 1924. A single chandelier dropped on a long cord from the center illuminating the room with its two-hundred fluted bulbs.
