…HAMBURG…
‘There’s insurance,’ said Baader. ‘Tilders’ wife and children will be looked after, I’ll make sure.’
Baader looked away, fleetingly touched his desk blotter, the computer mouse, pulled fingers away from them as if they were hot.
‘I signed as a witness when they got married,’ he said. ‘He gave the boy my name. Well, he never said it was for me, but I always thought, well, you know…’ Anselm wanted to tell him that Tilders had not been on the firm’s business. He wanted to confess. But he could not bring himself to.
Later. He would tell him later.
Baader shook his head, gathered himself. ‘What does O’Malley say? This is his business. Fucking around with Kael.’
‘I’ll find out today.’
‘We’ve never…This prick in Munich shot Fat Otto but that was a mistake…’ Baader looked away again. It was a tired face, the signs of too much and too little. ‘On the doorstep, too. That’s so fucking, I don’t know. I can’t…’ Baader shook his head. He made hand movements.
Anselm caught himself doing the same. Language has failed us, he thought. We have no way to express the ache. He went to his office.
The logs stood on his desk, high, two stacks, sixty or seventy files, the records of twenty-four hours, the doings of strangers, their comings and their goings, their gettings and their spendings. He sorted, found Inskip’s pile, found the one he wanted.
The eight names.
Diab, Joseph Elias.
Fitzgerald, Wayne Arthur.
Gressor, Maurice Tennant.
Galuska, Benjamin Lincoln Garner.
Kaldor, Zoltan James.
Macken, Todd Garvey.
Rossi, Anthony Raimond.
Veldman, Elvis Aaron.
He felt something stir in a far corner of his mind, something in a crevice, stuck. He read the names again:
Diab, Joseph. Fitzgerald, Wayne. Gressor, Maurice. Galuska, Benjamin.
Kaldor, Zoltan. Macken, Todd. Rossi, Anthony. Veldman, Elvis.
Nothing came to him. He turned to the next page.
Inskip’s notes, in his sloppy hand, ballpoint, some letters upright, some slanting to the right.
Found five. With Diab, six.
Fitzgerald. Dead, suicide, gunshot, Toronto, Canada, 9 October 1993.
Gressor. Dead, drug overdose, Los Angeles, California, 7 October 1993.
Galuska. No trace.
Kaldor. Dead, apparent road-rage victim, Miami, Florida, 8 October 1993.
Macken. No trace.
Rossi. Dead, motor accident, Dallas, Texas, 14 July 1989.
Veldman. Dead, shot by intruder, Raleigh, North Carolina, 7 October 1993.
Early October 1993 was a really bad hair time for this bunch. Have some birth dates, could check horoscopes. Is this unusual mortality for a group of soldiers of average age forty? How would I know?
A good thing Baader didn’t read the logs anymore. He disliked frivolity. Except in its place. Anselm looked at his slice of view, not seeing it. Early October 1993 was certainly a bad time. They had been kidnapped on 5 October. Within a few days, Kaskis, Diab, and these five American soldiers, probably ex-soldiers, died violently.
There were two more pages from Inskip. The abbreviated biography of Donald Trilling, president of Pharmentis Corporation, fourth largest US pharmaceutical company.
Born Boston 1942, graduate of Stanford, PhD Cambridge, chemist, military service in Vietnam, founder of Trilling Research Associates of Alexandria, Virginia, developer of anti-depressants Tranquinol and Calmerion, consultant to the US Defense Department. Many more achievements. It was an impressive career, capped by the Pharmentis takeover of Trilling Research in 1988 and Trilling’s rise to head of the corporation. There was a quote from Time magazine in 1996: ‘…scientist, corporate strategist, and, as convenor of Republicans at Work, one of the most influential men in America’.
At the bottom of the page, Inskip had written:
Not just consultant to US Defense Department. Congressional hearing in 1989 told Trilling Research received Defense contracts worth more than $60 million between 1976 and 1984. No details. Classified.
May be more about this elsewhere.
Was this the Trilling? The only connection was that Bruynzeel and this Trilling were in the same trade, roughly. Bruynzeel and Speelman sold chemicals. Lourens was a chemist, like Trilling.
Bruynzeel said to Serrano:
Trilling’s connections, there’s no problem.
If it was this Trilling, what connections was Bruynzeel referring to?
With the US Defense Department?
And Serrano had said something to Spence/Richler about needing to worry because ‘the Belgian’s one of yours’.
Bruynzeel and the Israelis? Was this the Trilling? It was a thicket, hard to get in, easy to be trapped, no way out.
What exactly did Lourens do? He’d never bothered to find out. He swivelled to the machine.
There wasn’t much about Dr Carl Lourens on the electronic record. The Johannesburg Weekly Mail amp; Guardian had a 1992 story that the Office for Serious Economic Offences, a branch of the Attorney-General’s Department, was investigating his company, TechPharma Global, for currency and other offences under the apartheid regime.
The Johannesburg Star reported his death. It called him an importer of chemicals ‘with links to the South African Defence Force’. The report said:
The body was burnt beyond recognition in a fire that destroyed the premises of TechPharma Global outside Pretoria. Police said gas cylinders and chemicals exploded, making it too dangerous to approach the blaze. It had been allowed to burn out.
It was rumoured in 1993 that Dr Lourens would be charged with serious offences relating to the apartheid era, but these never eventuated.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department said yesterday that Dr Lourens had been questioned in recent weeks over allegations made by a former employee of TechPharma Global.
There was one more reference.
A man found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in a Sandton City carpark yesterday has been identified as Dr Johan Scheepers, 56, a chemist of Craighall Park.
Dr Scheepers was found with a pistol. He was a former employee of TechPharma Global, whose director, Dr Carl Lourens, died in a fire two days ago.Dr Scheepers had been assisting the Attorney-General’s Department with inquiries into the affairs of TechPharma.
Lourens, Shawn, this man, Serrano, Kael…he didn’t want to go through the list again. No end to the number of deaths. He was sick at heart and stomach and the twenty-four-hour logs were waiting.
Jessica Thomas, the name added to the Mackie file, had used a credit card to buy petrol at a stop on the A44.
TIME OF EVENT: 12.42 a.m., Thursday, 13/10.
The CLIENT NOTIFIED box was ticked. TIME: 3.27 p.m.,Thursday, 13/10.
In the COMMENTS box, Jarl had written: Checked long delay in central transaction recording-Amex computer problems, system down.
Lafarge looking for Niemand. Was Niemand with Jessica Thomas? Why not, she had picked him up on her bike. Lafarge looking for the film Niemand had. Dead soldiers. Dead Tilders.
Anselm’s mind was sick of the puzzle, slid away to Alex. She had left the bed before dawn. He had woken but kept still, lying on his side, eyes closed, listening to her dressing, the fabric sounds, pulling, sheathing. She had come to the bedside, bent over, tried to place a soft kiss on his face, and he had taken her, caught her, pulled her down to him.
‘This is over-compensation,’ she said in his chest, breathless. ‘You don’t have to prove anything. It works.’
‘It’s not doing anything.’
‘Are you sure? Let me check…’ Riccardi. He should have spoken to him earlier. What did Riccardi know?