Felix Krueger walked up the damp sidewalk, brushing against the college kids marching down toward the old city on the east side of the Limmat, for a night of drinking. Children, he smiled. He was a benign man, at peace with the small world he inhabited.
The streets were clear and shining in the darkness, full of traffic, headlights glittering, stars above the mountains of the city in the clear, cold night. The fog was lifting, it would be clean winter again. Trams ground up the hill surely and slowly, as Krueger walked up the hill just as surely and inevitably.
“Guten Tag,” said a man who had not been there a moment before but who was now walking beside him.
Felix Krueger turned, his hands in coat pockets, his large head protected from the cold by a black beret. He smiled in friendly puzzlement. Many greeted him in his native city; people knew him because he had spent his life here. He could not possibly know them all, or their faces.
But he was certain he had never seen this man before.
“Good evening, sir,” he replied in simple German, uninflected, off guard, a German that called up the faces on the frescoes of Bavarian beer halls, all glowing and overfed and laughing.
“I have come to audit the books, Herr Krueger,” the man said, the German uninflected.
Almost said pleasantly.
“Do I know you, sir?” Felix Krueger said. He stopped on the slanting walkway and turned to the other man.
“No. But I’m the auditor.”
“Are you English?”
“No. Would you prefer to speak in English?”
“I can speak in many languages. It is—” He smiled broadly but too quickly. “It is the necessary gift of the Swiss to know many languages well.”
“Good,” said the American in his native tongue. “I put off seeing you for a long time.”
“Should I know you? Or who sent you?” Still a bit of a smile at the corner of his lips. He had felt so pleasant in the sudden thaw of the past two days. He had just eaten that night in the Kronenhalle on Ramistrasse, near the opera. The taste of sausages lingered on his breath with the smell of beer.
“Yes. You should. But we have not met before.”
The smile faded, slowly, to nothing. The evening was becoming colder, the brief thaw was chilling. Rivulets of sweat coated Krueger’s back beneath his heavy brown overcoat.
“Are we talking in riddles?” Felix Krueger said, annoyed, his voice rumbling slowly.
“No. It’s time to speak plainly,” Devereaux said. “I met a man named Morgan.”
Felix Krueger waited.
“And a man named Rimsky,” Devereaux said.
“And who are you? Who are these men you talk to me of?” His syntax was suddenly shaky. He felt his hand tremble.
“People who know you,” Devereaux said.
“And you are an agent?”
“Perhaps.”
“What is ‘perhaps’?”
“It means I may be what you think. Or I may not be.”
“Do you have an identity?”
Devereaux smiled. “Let’s go to your house, it’s just up the street. We can talk inside.”
“I prefer not to talk to you. I might call a policeman.”
“No.”
“What do you mean? This is my city.”
“And this is my gun.”
Felix Krueger clearly saw the pistol, clipped to the other’s belt, when Devereaux opened his coat.
“You understand?”
“Yes,” Felix Krueger said.
“Let’s go in. By the back door, I think.”
The two men entered the house as cautiously as burglars. The housekeeper was gone for the night. Felix Krueger, a man of solitary ways and solitary pleasures, kept a lonely house because he preferred it.
He led the other man to the library. The room, like the dining room opposite, was octagonal. The walls were stacked with shelves and thousands of books in several languages. An immense fireplace held a flickering wood fire. Krueger opened the glass screen and placed a new log on the fire. The birch crackled in the flames, filling the room with wavering light.
“The housekeeper always leaves me a fire before she goes,” Felix Krueger said. His eyes were wide with a child’s delight. He stared at the flames, saw stories in them. “I like a fire at night, especially a wet night,” he said. And he turned to the American.
“Would you like a drink? Schnapps?”
“Vodka.”
“Of course.” He smiled again. Why wouldn’t this other man smile at all? “Only the Russians like schnapps.” His little joke but the other man waited for the glass of vodka.
Krueger made the drinks, passed one over, led him to chairs set before a chessboard. A game was in progress. Krueger played with a man who lived in Bern and called him nearly every night with his next move.
“So, mister. Why have you come?”
“I came to audit the books,” Devereaux said.
“You are not serious, are you?”
“We pay you,” Devereaux said.
“We? I work for myself. I am paid commissions.”
“Fees for people. Rather, for slaves.”
“I do not believe in slavery,” Krueger said stiffly. “You are in my house and you insult me.”
“You are a slavemaster. You buy human beings and you sell them. How many times do you sell them?”
“What?”
“You buy them from the Soviets. You sell them their freedom. You collect from the Soviets, you collect from the slaves. Then you sell the slaves again. This time to Uncle. But is that the last time you squeeze a profit out of them?”
Said so reasonably. Said almost gently.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Zurich Numbers. Morgan told me that. At the end. At the end, he told me everything. About you and about Rimsky.”
“What do you—”
“Morgan is dead. Rimsky is dead. Do you want to be alive?”
“You cannot threaten me.”
“I did. Now. Tell me about the Zurich Numbers and tell me how far they go. And tell me what happened to Stefan Kolaki. You know, don’t you?”
“I know nothing, I—”
“Tell me.” Gently. Insistently. The voice of a lover. “Tell me.”
How frightened he was. In his city. In his own house. In this library with the familiar books waiting for him like old, welcoming friends. Before the fire, sitting in his chair, listening to the stories of the crackling logs.
“I know nothing.”
“Where do you keep the books?”
Krueger got up suddenly, with a little angry burst, and went to the wall. He pulled down a red leather book, similar to the other red leather books on the same shelf. He turned, smiling viciously for the first time.
“You are an auditor? An accountant? Then audit my books, friend without a name. Here. Here is the information you want. Here, take it, it won’t bite you. Open it up and see all of Felix Krueger’s secrets and then tell me what you will do with them.”
Devereaux stood up slowly, walked across the room, took the red book. He glanced at Krueger a moment before he opened it. In the light of the fire, he turned to the first page. He thought: I am born.
Numbers.
Endless numbers. Some in rows, some in columns. Columns from the top of the page to the bottom. No signs of currency, no dollar symbol or pound symbol. Just numbers.
Numbers that stood for names, lives, terms of slavery, terms of bondage, whatever terms were set. Set by this man. By the Soviets. By American agencies.
The numbers ran into each other without spacing. No lines underscored any numbers. No totals were final. Some numbers were clearly symbols for units of money. Others might be for names, for years to be spent in bondage.
In the end, Morgan had told him they were called Numbers because that is all they were; that’s what the network was called within NSA. Morgan had not been afraid, not at first. He had been as brave as his masters would have expected him to be. Morgan had endured a great deal before he spoke of the Zurich Numbers.
Devereaux turned the pages slowly. What could he do to Krueger? Kill him? Threaten him with pain? There was plenty of that. Morgan only understood pain, even as Devereaux would only have understood pain.
He glanced at Krueger. He would tell him so much and it might be all there was. Or there might be more. He had to be certain. He did not want Krueger to lie to him. And Krueger might lie if it was only pain.
Devereaux tore the first page from the book.
Felix Krueger stared at him, transfixed by horror.
Devereaux crumpled the page in his hand. The paper was expensive, thick and stiff under his touch. He threw the crumpled ball into the fire.
The flames leaped to the paper like devils greeting one of their own. Devereaux stared at the paper as it turned black beneath the flames, as parts of it broke off and floated up the chimney flue, light as angels.
He glanced at Krueger.
“Mein Gott in Himmel,” Krueger said slowly.
“Yes,” Devereaux said and tore a second page along the binding. Again he crumpled the paper. Again he flung it into the fire. Another rush of flames, a burst of light.
Krueger stood on unsteady legs. “That is valuable only to me. What do you do to me?” The accent had thickened, the syntax collapsed under the weight of stress.
“When it’s done, it won’t be valuable to anyone,” Devereaux said and tore a third page quickly.
“No.” Krueger charged blindly, his fists doubled, throwing his large body against Devereaux. The American took the weight of the charge, turned his body into it, felt a fist against his face. He pushed Krueger over, slamming his bulk against the bookcase, sending him crashing to the carpet. A splash of blood appeared on Krueger’s forehead.
For a moment, the two men were fixed in a tableau before the footlights of the flames. Then Devereaux dropped the torn page into the fire.
Tears welled in Felix Krueger’s eyes.
“What do you want?” he said. A child’s tearful question.
“Information.” Softly again but without gentleness now. “I want to know everything.”
“I cannot. It is everything I—”
“It is nothing now,” Devereaux said and tore a fourth page from the red book.
“Bitte,” Krueger pleaded, stretching out his hand.
“No. No tears, Herr Krueger, no pleas for mercy.
They mean nothing. No more than Teresa Kolaki’s tears would move you.”
“I meant her no harm.”
“No, perhaps not. But she is harmed. And Mary Krakowski.”
“It was an accident. The child. It was a stupid accident, and everything that has happened happened because of that—”
“Act of fate.”
“Yes. Stupid and senseless. Mein Gott.”
“Tell me,” Devereaux said.
“I meant them no harm.”
“The gentle master. You only took away their years, their loved ones, gave them dreams that weren’t going to come true.”
“Not all,” Krueger said.
Silence. Then, “Tell me.”
“Who are you? I must know this.”
“The auditor,” Devereaux said.
“If you destroy all those books, you harm your own side. Where does the accounting for one side end and another side begin? Tell me that.” Krueger rose, slowly and painfully, from the carpet.
“There are no more sides,” Devereaux said.
“Is this true?”
“Yes. Now. Tonight. The sides are down.”
Krueger stared at him a moment, turned, walked to the window, looked down on the darkened street. A man in an absurd homburg waited on the walk across the way. A stupid hat, a stupid senseless accident in Vienna and…
He stared at the glass, stared at the clear night in Zurich, nestled in the ring of mountains that stretched all the way to Italy and France.
“The Zurich Numbers,” he began as flatly as though he were reciting a poem again as a child. “The Numbers are the people inside who wish to be outside. I am the guarantor. I am neutral. I am a functionary, an insurance broker. I am the honest dealer. After they serve their old masters, they are free. Most of them. Some just acquire new masters.”
Devereaux waited, holding the book tightly in his large fingers.
“The new masters are you. The Americans. Who use them again against the old masters. Some even serve willingly.”
“And others?”
“Others must do as they are told. There are slaves in this world, yes. But you do not seem to understand that there are people who are not unwilling slaves. You do not seem to understand that. Take the dog without a leash who stays at the heel of its master. The horse who responds to the slightest touch of the reins. They are animals, they are trained to do this. And then there are people who long for the shackles, who long for the master’s reins on them. Slaves. All slavery exists only because slaves permit it.”
“But that’s not everything.”
Felix Krueger turned, a little drunk, a little insane in that moment. His head throbbed with pain. “You wish to be God? Only God can know everything.”
Devereaux waited, poised as delicately as a cat on a branch, waiting, not willing to upset the prey.
“Of course they know everything.”
Felix Krueger blinked. “Who knows everything?”
“The Opposition,” Devereaux said.
“Is that what they are to you? The Opposition? How amusing. They send spies to your country and you turn these spies into your own agents. They steal trash and send it back and sometimes you make certain the trash is exactly what you wish to have stolen. And then, when the time comes, when the slave is let out of his slavery, you lock the manacle on him again. You, Mr. American. You do this. And you come to me, Felix Krueger, and you ask me: How can I use this slave again inside? How can I place my own slaves inside the enemy? You have your slaves as well, Mr. American, if you didn’t know that. Criminals. Those whom you blackmail. They work for you unwillingly as Teresa Kolaki works unwillingly. All are slaves.”
“We turn people and we create new slaves, too.”
“Yes. Let us call it what it is. A slave trade. All right. I accept this.” Krueger walked around the room suddenly in a manic burst of energy. “I have numbers. Three young men from California who sold computer secrets to the Soviets. Arrested and tried and convicted. And after the horrors of life in prison, after only one year, they are willing to risk everything to be spies for your side as well. And I am the guarantor. I give them a written guarantee. I am the honest broker. Are you going to reveal this? To whom? This is for the good of your country.”
Devereaux studied the large man for a moment and then put the book down, carefully, on the mantel. He had been telling the truth. All of it.
Felix stopped and stared at him. “Now, who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Devereaux said. “What matters is the child.”
“Stefan Kolaki? One child balanced against all of this?” Felix Krueger shook his head. “I am amazed.”
“Where is he?”
“Look at me. What is dirty in this business is you and people like you, not me. It is Morgan and Rimsky and their masters, not me. I am Swiss. I choose to be a free man, not a slave. Let others do as they wish. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I give you honest counting, each side. In the Middle Ages the Jews were despised because they were money lenders, but why did they lend money at all? Because they were needed, because even men in Christendom needed a loan broker and because the Christians were forbidden to practice usury.”
“This is not usury. This is slavery.”
“You, Mr. American. Do you act for your own sake? Do you do as your own will commands or as others command?”
“I make the choice.”
“No. You are not free, I can see it in your eyes. You are nothing more than Teresa Kolaki with a different name. You have something to lose too, eh? You have a hostage, eh?”
Devereaux did not speak for a moment because his voice could not be trusted. He saw Rita Macklin clearly in his mind’s eye and the words of Felix Krueger seemed to frame her.
Krueger grinned. “I am right, American.”
“Perhaps,” Devereaux said. “Perhaps the reason I ask you about Stefan Kolaki is that our plans have changed.”
“I know nothing of your schemes. Cross and double-cross each other, that is not my concern.”
“It is now,” Devereaux said. “You told me nearly everything. Except about Stefan. Perhaps you don’t know, perhaps you are forbidden to tell me. In that case, it isn’t everything. So I’m going to end your life.” Gently, almost sadly.
“You are insane.”
Devereaux removed the pistol as effortlessly as a man glancing at his watch, one fluid movement of his wrist.
Felix Krueger took a step back. He held out his hands. “They need Teresa back in Poland, they won’t harm her. They need her to keep the arrangements going—”
“To recruit more numbers for your red accounting books,” Devereaux said.
“Some of the numbers belong to your side.”
“And you sell them, don’t you? Our side? You sell them to the Soviets after a while.”
Krueger’s eyes widened in horror. It was the last answer, Devereaux thought. Krueger sold out both sides, again and again, until the slave had no more use to anyone. The honest broker, the guarantor. The trader in human beings.
“Let me live,” Krueger said.
“On my terms,” Devereaux replied.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about Stefan. And the Numbers, all of it.”
For a minute—no less than that—neither man spoke. They both could hear the logs crackling stories. Only one man listened, though. In the end, he began his own story, above the words of the burning logs.
“He is in America,” Felix Krueger said.