Pandora's Curse

HEADQUARTERS OF KOHL AG, HAMBURG, GERMANY

Klaus Raeder waited a moment before answering Reinhardt Wurmbach’s question. He carefully unlaced his fingers and placed his hands palms down on the tabletop, fixing his stare as if pondering his response. “No,” he said at last.

“No, you won’t agree to pay the reconciliation commission two hundred and twenty-five-million-mark settlement, or no, you won’t counter with two hundred million like you promised before?”

“No to both,” Raeder replied, delighting in the veins that bulged like tumors on Wurmbach’s forehead. “Tell the lawyers that we’ll consider one hundred and seventy-five million.”

“Damn it, Raeder, what are you doing?” The lawyer did nothing to hide his anger. “We agreed at the last board meeting that we would pay out the two hundred and consider ourselves lucky. Why make this more difficult by prolonging the negotiations with the Jewish groups?”

“Because we have a fiduciary responsibility to pay as little as absolutely necessary,”

“What about our moral responsibility?” asked Reinhardt’s deputy counsel, Katrine Groener.

“Our shareholders don’t pay us for that,” Raeder answered, annoyed that the woman would ask such a ridiculous question. “Too bad if we offend some delicate sensibilities. This is a business decision.”

“Which is costing the company money,” Katrine persisted. “Our increased expenditures to marketing and advertisement have yet to stem the loss of customers. And in the past week we’ve seen NATO cast doubts over Kohl receiving the contract to build the computers for the Eurofighter unless we come to a quick resolution with the reconciliation commission.”

Raeder remained impassive, refusing to betray his anger over the possibility of losing the Eurofighter contract. That had come as a complete shock a week ago when a friend at NATO headquarters in Brussels had telephoned with the confidential decision. Now the deal was being openly discussed in capitals all over the Continent. The French especially were putting pressure on NATO to pull the contract from Kohl, a company they screamed had yet to make amends for its Nazi past. The irony was that the electronics firm in Toulouse that would fill the order if Kohl lost out had made a fortune selling radio gear to the wehrmacht right up until D day.

Katrine Groener waited for Raeder to respond, and when he didn’t, she continued. “Our warehouses are filling with products we have no buyers for as our market share diminishes. Kohl Heavy Construction has no new work lined up for the remainder of the year. And” — she sifted through some pages in front of her — “ah, here it is. While the corporation is hemorrhaging money, I’ve found we’ve spent roughly twenty million marks on a project with an accounting number I can’t find in any of our books: 1198-0.”

Wurmbach did a poor job hiding his astonishment that she knew about 1198-0. He wasn’t even sure what the code signified, only that it was being handled by Raeder’s pet fascist, Gunther Rath. “Katrine, that’s a special project still deemed too secret to put through normal channels. It, ah, has to do with, ah, a new steel-milling process,” he improvised lamely. “Forget you know about it.”

“Fine, whatever,” she said, looking from the sputtering Reinhardt to the glacially cool Raeder.

“Just to satisfy your curiosity,” Raeder said when he saw that the young attorney wasn’t impressed with Reinhardt’s pathetic explanation, “there will be no further expenditures on 1198-0. As to the Eurofighter contract, we’re not out of the running yet. Once we come to terms with the reconciliation commission, we’ll get that deal. If they won’t go for the one seventy-five, Reinhardt will give them two hundred million and they’ll leave us alone. It’s my decision to wait them out a little longer and save ourselves money we sorely need.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime we’ll be denounced by fringe groups and lambasted in the media for harboring Nazi secrets, but in a few weeks no one will remember any of this.” Raeder’s confidence wasn’t forced. He was as certain of his plan now as he was when it had been conceived. His intercom buzzed. “Yes, Kara?”

“Herr Raeder, I know you asked not to be disturbed, but Herr Rath is finally on the line from Greenland.”

“Thank you. Put him through.” He clamped his hand over the mouthpiece to address Wurmbach and Groener. “Excuse me please.” He didn’t speak again until the two lawyers had left his office. “Gunther, what the hell is going on out there? I’ve been getting panicked calls from Ernst Neuhaus at the Geo-Research office in Reykjavik. The plane with the Surveyor’s Society people and the other team is two days overdue. What happened to the evacuation?”

“The evac went as planned.” Rath’s voice was faint as the solar max stripped power from the radio he used to patch through to the Njoerd and then on to Hamburg. Raeder couldn’t be sure of the emotion in his special-projects director but it sounded like defiance. “They left right on time.”

“Where are they?” Raeder feared what he was about to hear.

“There was an accident on the flight back to Iceland. The plane was lost with all hands.”

The full horror telescoped in on Raeder so quickly he felt like he was going to be ill. He knew there had been no accident. Gunther Rath had killed those people, murdered them in cold blood. Oh, God, it isn’t supposed to be like this. Raeder and Rath had done many illegal things in their career together but nothing approaching murder. Yes, there had been that arson early on, but that was the only time. And since then their tactics had lost any trace of brutality. Industrial espionage and veiled threats were one thing, but this?

What have I done? Raeder finally saw that he didn’t control Gunther Rath, never had. Thinking he was using Rath’s special propensities in the business world, Raeder had allowed the neo-Nazi into corridors of power he’d never known existed, showing him the real meaning of strength. Now Rath was turning the tables, unveiling to Raeder what depravity actually lurked in his heart. And Raeder had handed Rath the tools he needed to execute the plans of his fascist masters.

“We are proceeding with the rest of the operation,” Rath continued, misunderstanding Raeder’s silence as tacit approval for his actions. “From corporate records we have the general area of the air vent, but a weather front has delayed our establishment of the northern base. Using the rotor-stat and Sno-Cats we’ll find the tunnel in a day or two.”

What is the man talking about? He’s killed a dozen people and thought that everything was going according to plan. How could I have possibly thought that I could civilize a man like Rath? He’s an animal who worships a cult of evil and death. Raeder knew he had to put a stop to this. He couldn’t let Rath continue. Not like this. He made his decision quickly. It was an effort to keep revulsion from his voice when he spoke. “I’m leaving for Greenland immediately, Gunther.”

“Why? We haven’t found the cavern yet.”

“Watch what you say! This is an open channel.” Like facing a rabid dog, Raeder had only one choice: put the animal down. He would send Rath back to Germany and take over the recovery of the Pandora boxes. Once that was done, he would decide what to do with his special-projects director.

“I will be there sometime tomorrow,” Raeder snapped. “I don’t want you to take any more actions until I arrive. Is that clear?”

“Klaus, I’m close. You don’t need to be here.”

He had another agenda, Raeder realized. The only thing that made sense was that Rath wanted the boxes for his Nazi bosses. He’d told them what was in that cavern and was under orders to recover them so they could either be used or sold. Either option was too horrifying to consider

Raeder softened his voice. He had no idea what the neo-Nazi hierarchy had in store for him if he interfered. “I know I don’t need to be there, my friend. It’s just that I want to be. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He killed the connection before losing control of his emotions. He raced for the private bathroom next to his office because he thought he was going to vomit. He heaved and heaved but nothing came out. Responsibility and remorse couldn’t be so easily purged. He studied himself in the mirror above the gold-and-marble vanity. He looked the same. His hair was in place, his complexion smooth, his teeth brilliantly white. It was in his eyes that he saw the corruption.

“Get through this and you’ll be fine,” he told himself. He liked how that sounded so he repeated it, adding, “I didn’t kill those people. He did. It was his choice, not my order. No matter what, I am not a murderer. We’ll pay the commission, destroy all the Pandora boxes, and I’ll fire Rath. He’ll remain silent because to reveal what he knows would be an admission of guilt. He’s trapped himself.”

He drank a palmful of water and went back to his desk, hitting the intercom. “Kara, is Reinhardt still out there?”

“Yes, Herr Raeder. Would you like me to send him back in?”

“No. Tell him to pay whatever the commission is currently asking for. I think it’s two hundred and twenty-five million marks. Then page our pilots and have the company jet ready for an immediate flight to Iceland. Have my car brought around to the front of the building.”

“Yes, sir.”

Raeder dialed his summer house in Bavaria, hoping to reach his wife. His eleven-year-old son, Jaegar, answered the phone. “Papa!” the boy cried before restraining his emotions as his father had taught him. “How are you, sir?”

Squeezing his eyes at hearing how he’d turned his son into an automaton, Raeder needed a moment to answer. When this was over, a lot of things in his life were going to change. Oh, God, please let me see them one more time. “I miss you. I miss all of you. Is your mama home?”

“No. She went shopping with Frau Kreiger from next door. Fatima is watching Willi and me.” Willi was Jaegar’s six-year-old brother; Fatima, their Turkish housekeeper.

“I need you to take a message for me. Tell Mama that I had to go away this weekend on a trip.”

“You aren’t coming to Bavaria?” The boy’s en-grained reserve could not contain his fierce disappointment.

“I’m sorry, son. I just can’t.”

“When will you be coming?”

Reader considered his reply, knowing a lie would only add to his family’s disillusion. “Not for a long time, I’m afraid. I love you, Jaegar. I’m sorry. Tell your brother that I love him too. And your mother” — God, this hurt — “give her a big hug for me.”

Raeder knew his uncommon burst of concern would confuse the boy. But if things didn’t go as planned in Greenland, he’d be glad he’d made the call. It could be the last his family heard from him. On his way out of the office, he opened his safe to retrieve his licensed pistol, a holdover from the kidnapping threats he’d received before coming to Kohl.