Bodyguard of Lies

CHAPTER 19

The desk in Nero's office was now covered with Braille folders. Racine had said the women wanted a trade. Nero had been right so far. She had Gant's videotape or knew where it was. It’s exactly what Nero had predicted Gant would do. The tape and papers had been sitting for over ten years; a few more hours would be inconsequential. Indeed, what was difficult was reining in Mister Racine. He had apparently put the women on his ever-growing personal vendetta list. Nero wondered again how such an emotional man could have functioned so long in his profession.

While all appeared to be developing the way he had planned, there was an aspect about this that bothered Nero. He had thought he’d known the full story so many years ago. But he considered one of his greatest strengths to be the ability to admit that he was wrong. Maybe something had escaped his notice. He was disturbed by the Racine-Collins connection. The Senator would not have pulled Racine out of a hat to do the job in Baltimore. That indicated a prior relationship; perhaps one outside the province of the chain of command of the Cellar at even an earlier date. He had thrown the Sudan connection at the Senator to probe for more. What else had the two done together? Had the Senator been riding his own agenda for the past couple of decades, and if so, what was the agenda, and was it good for the country or just Collins?

Had they been together as early as the Sudan or even before? Nero had never considered the possibility before recent events because things had turned out the way they should in the long run from that event. Until 9-11 that was.

Nero saw a definite connection between what happened in Mogadishu and 9-11. Even Bin Laden had admitted as much, saying on record how he had felt seeing the Americans turn tail and run after a handful were killed in Somalia. Nero now felt there was more to Collins being in the Sudan and Racine disappearing for several months around that time. He had to wonder if an extension could be drawn to Mogadishu.

This angle was why he had brought Racine in on this operation, rather than another operative. He’d always found that thrusting someone into a crisis tended to expose their true nature. If Mogadishu had not been as he thought, then many subsequent events that had wavered from the path Nero had aimed for could be explained.

All Nero had been able to find so far was that Racine had been seen in Berlin later that October in 1993. Gant had been in Berlin also then, as he worked under a cover of a covert Special forces unit there. In fact, that was when Gant had ‘resigned’ and brokered his deal with Nero.

There was something interesting in Senator Collins classified file. The French Directorate of Territorial Security, the DST, had a flag on a bank account the Senator held in Geneva. Regular withdrawals were made from the account at a French bank in Paris and it was assumed that Collins had a mistress he was paying so no further inquiries had been made. Collins was a United States Senator after all.

Nero checked further into Collins file but if the Senator had a mistress in France, he saw very little of her unless she came to the States. Nero considered it, then pressed the intercom, instructing Mrs. Smith to get a hold of his contact in the DST. He wanted to know who the money was going to.

Nero lit another cigarette. It was early morning in Paris and he knew it would take Mrs. Smith a little bit of time to track the man down. Nero’s doctor had left the office earlier, still preaching about imminent death due to smoking, high blood pressure, bad diet and some words too long for Nero to consider. Nero found the idea of death not disturbing in the least. He had the contented repose of the lifelong atheist who had lived without the threat of hell and would die basking in the surety of his convictions.

All his life, Nero had believed that religion was merely a vehicle to protect man from his true nature. That without the shackles of the spirit, one could thoroughly indulge himself in the task of living which was a nasty business when done correctly, except very few could do it correctly, thus the need for religion.

In fact, Nero had very much appreciated the purpose of religion. He liked Jung who said that if God did not exist, then man would have had to invent him. Religion was very important. The break-up of the Soviet Union, Nero laid to the fact that the communists had ignored the very effective purpose of religion. Much more effective than communism for keeping the masses in their place.

Man was an animal, Nero believed. Left to their own devices, the majority of men and women would destroy themselves rather quickly. Religion helped. So did the Cellar. It kept the country on the straight path of sanity against the powerful people driven by emotion who would just as easily destroy it for their own selfish, short-sighted reasons.

There had often been times in his life where Nero had pondered the difference between him and his fellows. At an early age he’d simply accepted that differences existed. Then he’d accepted he wouldn't change. Even that he didn’t want to change. What could have been a distressing turbulent existence became instead a rather calm, calculated life with the occasional turbulent event.

What had happened to him in France at the hands of the Gestapo had only deepened this belief system. He’d felt no resentment upon his return to the States and meeting the man who had occupied this office and agreed with the decision that had cost Nero his eyes and his teammates their lives. It had been a smart decision with a large pay-off in favor of the United States and its allies that clearly outweighed the handful of men knowingly parachuted into the meat grinder. Those who had thrown tens of thousands onto the beaches of Normandy knowing many of them would die had been hailed as heroes and been feted with ticker tape parades after the war. Numerous statues had been cast in their honor. What was the difference? His predecessor had accomplished so much more with less loss of life. As had Nero over the decades since. Only for the Cellar there were no statues or parades or medals, nor was there any desire for them.

Knowing he might be so close to ending this entire messy business put Nero in an oddly reflective state of mind. He found it odd because it was new to him. He had simply never dwelt on the past to heal wounds or relive joys. And this was not because he had problems with the past; it was because he felt nothing. Nero had lived his entire life without feeling any emotion except for occasional anger, which seems the one human emotion able to birth itself in a void. Nero felt no real joy to be sure, but he had also never really experienced emotional pain or regret. A person like that was capable of amazing things, or nothing at all.

Nero, by accepting his lack of humanity, had made himself indispensable to that same humanity. Every country needed a few men who could accomplish what was necessary and unlike the sociopaths whom he passingly resembled and frequently employed, Nero could stop when that was necessary. That's why he could anticipate having the tape and papers but not feel the anxiety of not having them. After all, they were minor compared to what was really at stake here.

The phone rang and his contact in the DST, an old-timer who had been part of the Resistance team that rescued Nero so many years ago was on the line. Without preamble or giving a reason, Nero made his request.