The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER SIXTY

Tom tried to make a calculation, to work through his options, but he kept colliding with a wall of fog. His brain felt soupy, still thick from sleep and sedative. It was easier when he simply had to listen to and prompt the President, but this was different. Now he needed to think fast, for his sake and, more important, for Rebecca's.

The word Tochnit had thrown him, but Aleph was now familiar enough for him to work it out. He had guessed there would be a Hebrew expression for Plan A and this had to be it. So this was the aspect of DIN's work that had given this man sixty years of sleepless nights.

If they said nothing, who knew what extra punishment he could inflict on them? He had already shown what he was prepared to do. To defy him could spell calamity; he would surely find a way to make them speak.

And yet, to say what they knew was to give away whatever leverage they currently held. At this moment, the President needed something from them: once he had it, what other protection would they have? He had already confessed his yearning to be the only man in the world with this secret knowledge: once he was sure of that, he would rest easy. If Tom and Rebecca told him what they knew, he would have every incentive to ensure they went the way of Gershon Matzkin and Aron, DIN's leader, or at least the way of Sid Steiner, their memories obliterated. How would the President achieve that? Tom had no idea. But that he would be prepared to do whatever it took, he had no doubt.

His heart was beginning to thump. He needed to think of another way. He somehow had to make the old man believe Tom and Rebecca were speaking the truth, that they were saying all they knew, and yet supply him with an incentive for keeping both of them alive.

‘We've seen the papers,’ Tom said.

‘What papers?’

‘The blueprints. The blueprints of the city waterworks. Of Munich, Weimar, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Wannsee.’

‘So you know.’

‘We know.’

‘And you know about me?’

Tom stared hard. He didn't want to go for an outright bluff: no one would be better at sniffing out bullshit than a veteran politician; bullshit was their most traded commodity. But Tom wanted at least to keep the old man guessing.

‘Do the papers point to me in any way?’

‘I think that if someone knew what they were looking for, they could work it out.’ He had crossed the border into the danger zone, the land of the lie.

‘That's what I supposed. And where are these papers now?’

‘I think you can understand why we'd be reluctant to tell you that.’

The President assessed the faces of the two people before him. He lingered over Rebecca and then directed his next sentence to her. ‘I think you need to hear what happened. Then perhaps you'll see this differently.’

Tom exhaled silently. This is what he had wanted: for the President to start spilling.

‘I was not a member of DIN. I was not even in Europe during… during those times. I left Russia in 1936. I got out in time. I came to Palestine: to be a pioneer. Our aim was to create the Ivri, the Hebrew. A wholly new Jew. Strong, a worker, a soldier: no more cowering, no more passivity in the face of our enemies. We used to say that all that awaited the Jews of Europe was death.’ He dipped his head. 'We had no idea how right we were.

‘So I arrived in Palestine as a teenager. I went to university there: I studied chemistry. And of course, I joined the youth movements and before I knew it, I was elected to this and then that. I was a politician even then. But I learned from the best. People don't realize this about me. They call me arrogant, but they don't understand I was always a student of great men. I showed them only humility and respect. Which is why they trusted me. Including him.’

Tom raised a quizzical eyebrow, a gesture he immediately regretted. He should have pretended to know.

But the President had passed the point of no return; he was not about to stop the flow now. ‘The professor at Rehovot: the man who had brought us to the Promised Land. Imagine it, the Moses who had led the Jewish movement for a homeland. He had returned to his laboratory and I was one of his students. So what do you think I said when he asked me to make up this mixture? What would you have said? Would you have denied him? I was a child, in my early twenties. Of course I said yes.’

The fog was beginning to clear. Tom could see Rebecca was sitting stiff and upright. ‘So you made up the poison.’

‘What can I say? That I was only obeying orders? As you know, that line of defence is rather discredited.’

The air in the room was heavy; Tom could feel it pressing down on him. He spoke: ‘Did you know what it was for?’

The President gave him a smile. ‘It would be nice to say I didn't. But it would be nonsense. What else could such a request be for? The note from the professor was clear. “Give this man a toxin that has no colour and no smell, and yet will not lose its power in water.” What else could it be? And the volume! Only an idiot would not have realized that this was designed for a mass water supply. And it was Aron who bore the note. Even if you had never heard of DIN, everyone knew about him. He was the hero of the Jewish resistance, one of the few who had emerged from the fire. You only had to look at that cadaver of a face to know what business he had with me and my poisons.’

‘But you did it.’

‘I did it.’

‘And this is your great secret.’

The old man took a sip from the glass of water that sat on the table between them, until now untouched. 'Not just my secret. Think of the State of Israel. There are many in the world who hate my country, who believe its very existence is a crime. Imagine what they would do with this information: that the founders of the state – including the man who is today the country's president – were ready to cause so much death. Would we ever recover?

‘But I do not deny there are personal considerations here. I don't know how much you know of my career, Mr Byrne. I am the advocate of peace and reconciliation. I am the man who has preached putting war and violence behind us. I have been garlanded in every capital, in Bonn and Berlin especially. I am the holder of the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz, the first non-German ever to be awarded that title. My honorary rank is Kommandeur. Try to imagine what happens to that reputation if now, more than sixty years later, the world finds out that I was an accomplice to an attempt at mass murder. You've seen those blueprints, both of you. You know what Tochnit Aleph would have meant. Death at the turn of a tap. To a million people. Not just Nazis, but children and women, too. Random, senseless killing.’

Rebecca leaned forward: ‘Why didn't it happen?’

‘For the reason I've just said. In the end, cooler heads prevailed. The leadership in Palestine realized that Tochnit Aleph would be a disaster for the Jewish people: we would no longer be the victims of the greatest crime in human history. We would be guilty of mass murder. Tochnit Aleph would have destroyed our moral advantage. And, remember, this was 1945: the moral high ground was the only ground we had.’

Rebecca spoke again: ‘Did the leadership order DIN to call off the operation?’

The old man stretched, his first sign of fatigue. ‘It wasn't quite as simple as that. DIN was a movement that had the highest righteousness on its side: it spoke for the six million. What were a few politicians in Tel Aviv next to that?’

‘So how did they stop it?’

‘Aron was on a boat leaving Palestine, on his way back to Europe with three canisters of my poison in his bag. British military police boarded the ship and arrested him. Threw him into solitary confinement.’

‘Somebody had tipped off the British authorities?’

‘That's right.’

‘Do you know who that was?’

‘Of course I know.’ He paused and took another sip of water. Then he looked back at Tom and Rebecca with an expression of mock puzzlement. ‘It was me.’