you’re really concerned about, is it?” she pressed. “I need more to go on!”
He shook his head. “It’s like trying to fashion a rope ladder out of gossamer. Nothing that we’ve ever been able to pin down. Half a century ago, something was hatched. Something . Something that involved vital interests. The Sigma list encompasses a curious collection ofindividuals—some were industrialists, we know, and there are others whose identity we haven’t been able to figure out at all. What they have in common is that a founder of the CIA, someone with enormous power in the forties and fifties, took a direct interest in them. Was he enlisting them? Targeting them? We’re all playing blindman’s bluff. But it would seem that an undertaking of enormous secrecy was launched. You asked what connects these men. In a real sense, we simply don’t know.” He adjusted his cuffs, the nervous tic of a fastidious man. “You might say we’re at the pocket-watch stage.”
“No offense, but the Sigma list—that goes back half a century! ”
“Ever been to the Somme, in France?” Bartlett asked abruptly, his eyes a little too bright. “You ought to go—just to look at the poppies growing among the wheat. Every once in a while, a farmer in the Somme cuts down an oak tree, sits down on the trunk, and then sickens and dies. Do you know why? Because during the First World War, a battle had taken place on that field, a canister of mustard gas deployed. The poison gets absorbed by the tree as a sapling, and decades later it’s still potent enough to kill a man.”
“And that’s Sigma, do you think?”
Bartlett’s gaze grew in intensity. “They say the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. I find the more you know, the more unsettling it is to come across things you don’t know about. Call it vanity, or call it caution. I worry about what becomes of unseen little saplings.” A wan smile. “The crooked timber of humanity—it always comes down to the crooked timber. Yes, I appreciate that all this sounds like ancient history to you, and perhaps it is, Agent Navarro. You’ll come back and set me straight.”
“I wonder,” she said.
“Now, you’ll be making contact with various law-enforcement officials, and as far as anyone knows, you’ll be conducting a completely open homicide investigation. Why the involvement of an OSI agent? Your explanation will be terse: because these names have cropped up in the course of an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent transfer of funds, the details of which nobody will press you to disclose. A simple cover, nothing elaborate required.”
“I’ll pursue the sort of investigation I’ve been trained to do,” Anna said warily. “That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Bartlett replied smoothly. “Your skepticism may be well founded. But one way or the other, I’d like to be sure. Go to Nova Scotia. Assure me that Robert Mailhot really did die of natural causes. Or—confirm that he didn’t .”
Chapter Four
Ben was driven to the headquarters of the Kantonspolizei , the police of the canton of Zurich, a grimy yet elegant old stone building on Zeughausstrasse. He was led in through an underground parking garage by two silent young policemen and up several long flights of stairs into a relatively modern building that adjoined the older one. The interior looked like it belonged in a suburban American high school, circa 1975. To any of his questions, his two escorts answered only with shrugs.
His thoughts raced. It was no accident that Cavanaugh was there on Bahnhofstrasse. Cavanaugh had been in Zurich with the deliberate intent to murder him. Somehow the body had disappeared, had been removed swiftly and expertly, and the gun planted in his bag. It was clear that others were involved with Cavanaugh, professionals. But who—and, again, why?
Ben was taken first to a small fluorescent-lit room and seated in front of a stainless-steel
He shook his head. “It’s like trying to fashion a rope ladder out of gossamer. Nothing that we’ve ever been able to pin down. Half a century ago, something was hatched. Something . Something that involved vital interests. The Sigma list encompasses a curious collection ofindividuals—some were industrialists, we know, and there are others whose identity we haven’t been able to figure out at all. What they have in common is that a founder of the CIA, someone with enormous power in the forties and fifties, took a direct interest in them. Was he enlisting them? Targeting them? We’re all playing blindman’s bluff. But it would seem that an undertaking of enormous secrecy was launched. You asked what connects these men. In a real sense, we simply don’t know.” He adjusted his cuffs, the nervous tic of a fastidious man. “You might say we’re at the pocket-watch stage.”
“No offense, but the Sigma list—that goes back half a century! ”
“Ever been to the Somme, in France?” Bartlett asked abruptly, his eyes a little too bright. “You ought to go—just to look at the poppies growing among the wheat. Every once in a while, a farmer in the Somme cuts down an oak tree, sits down on the trunk, and then sickens and dies. Do you know why? Because during the First World War, a battle had taken place on that field, a canister of mustard gas deployed. The poison gets absorbed by the tree as a sapling, and decades later it’s still potent enough to kill a man.”
“And that’s Sigma, do you think?”
Bartlett’s gaze grew in intensity. “They say the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. I find the more you know, the more unsettling it is to come across things you don’t know about. Call it vanity, or call it caution. I worry about what becomes of unseen little saplings.” A wan smile. “The crooked timber of humanity—it always comes down to the crooked timber. Yes, I appreciate that all this sounds like ancient history to you, and perhaps it is, Agent Navarro. You’ll come back and set me straight.”
“I wonder,” she said.
“Now, you’ll be making contact with various law-enforcement officials, and as far as anyone knows, you’ll be conducting a completely open homicide investigation. Why the involvement of an OSI agent? Your explanation will be terse: because these names have cropped up in the course of an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent transfer of funds, the details of which nobody will press you to disclose. A simple cover, nothing elaborate required.”
“I’ll pursue the sort of investigation I’ve been trained to do,” Anna said warily. “That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Bartlett replied smoothly. “Your skepticism may be well founded. But one way or the other, I’d like to be sure. Go to Nova Scotia. Assure me that Robert Mailhot really did die of natural causes. Or—confirm that he didn’t .”
Chapter Four
Ben was driven to the headquarters of the Kantonspolizei , the police of the canton of Zurich, a grimy yet elegant old stone building on Zeughausstrasse. He was led in through an underground parking garage by two silent young policemen and up several long flights of stairs into a relatively modern building that adjoined the older one. The interior looked like it belonged in a suburban American high school, circa 1975. To any of his questions, his two escorts answered only with shrugs.
His thoughts raced. It was no accident that Cavanaugh was there on Bahnhofstrasse. Cavanaugh had been in Zurich with the deliberate intent to murder him. Somehow the body had disappeared, had been removed swiftly and expertly, and the gun planted in his bag. It was clear that others were involved with Cavanaugh, professionals. But who—and, again, why?
Ben was taken first to a small fluorescent-lit room and seated in front of a stainless-steel
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