“A night-to-day change,” Jack replied.
“A remarkable transformation,” agreed Allemand. “But it was superficial. About five years ago Rostock began a campaign, a very quiet one, mind you, but a campaign nevertheless. I was, I believe, his first visit.”
“What did he want?”
“To wage war. Privately. His way. Of course, at the start he was more subtle about it, but that was the essence of his proposal.”
“Why come to you?”
“It was his belief that Western governments don’t have the stomach to deal with terrorism, at least not in a definitive way. I didn’t necessarily disagree with his assessment, but democracy is what it is, and for all its faults there’s no better form of government. If you’re going to claim to be a democracy, either you accept it warts and all or you don’t. What Rostock was proposing was antithetical to democracy.”
“You said, wage war ‘his way.’ Did he define that?”
“Private armies answerable to no government,” replied Allemand. “No laws, no rules of engagement, and a simple mandate: Root out terrorism and all its support structures by any means necessary.”
On its surface the concept had its appeal, Jack had to admit, but it was only practical if the laws you were willing to break were those at the very foundation of Western society. Without the checks and balances built into democracy, the dictate of “by any means necessary” was ripe for all manner of sins. It was a slope that would likely be slippery with blood in no time.
Jack suddenly realized what Rostock had proposed to Marshal Allemand was in broad terms not unlike The Campus’s own mission. The difference lay in scope and intention. To fight terrorism you sometimes had to get into the gutter. That was ugly reality. At its most basic, it was a matter of target discretion. Terrorists kill indiscriminately. Once the good guys started down that road with purpose and intention, the war was lost.
“What did he want from you?”
“To ‘sign on,’ as it were, to start softly ringing the warning bell and recruiting allies. For his plan to work he needed advocates in Europe and the United States, both civilian and martial. And money, of course. With those two things he believed he could prove his theory, starting small at first, making headway where governments had failed, establishing and running networks that would provide actionable intelligence, destroying cells and training camps. Don’t misunderstand me: I never had any intention of going along, but his presentation was impressive, right down to five-, ten-, and twenty-year plans and public relations strategies. Rostock was in it for the long haul, and I could see the fire in his eyes. He’s a true believer, Jack, and the most dangerous kind — someone with means and motivation.”
“I assume he didn’t quit his campaign after you said no?”
“Of course not. Since then he’s approached me a number of times, along with dozens of others across the EU and in the United States. I don’t know if he’s managed to gain any supporters, and if so how many.”
“Why is all this a secret?”
“Rostock is very careful about whom he approaches and how. Nothing is recorded and nothing is written down. If you’re going to accuse someone like Rostock of campaigning to be a private warlord, you’d better be ready for a fight, not just a legal one but a public relations one as well. Or worse. So far no one’s been willing to take him on.”
“Including you?”
“Sadly, yes. I assumed Rostock would eventually give up. Alone, the funds required for what he was proposing would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Jack said, “We think it’s possible Rostock was behind the Lyon attacks. What do you say?”
“Of course it’s possible. It’s an old trick, Jack, manufacturing the will to wage war. It happens more than people know. At its most benign, an organic, violent event is capitalized upon and used to massage national policy. At its most malignant, the event itself is fabricated. The fact that Lyon took place on my home soil, not long after the Paris attacks, is”—Allemand paused, considering his words—“disturbing.”
“Had René not run, Rostock would have him under his thumb.”
“Yes, I see that now. And don’t ask me whether that leverage would have been enough to change my mind about Rostock’s plan. I don’t know the answer, and I’d prefer to not think too much about it. Jack, can I ask you: Why are you involved in this?”
“You can ask,” he replied with a smile.
Allemand nodded. “I see. Where is René right now? Still in Zurich?”
“Yes. I have someone with him.”
“I will send a plane for him.”
“He won’t get on it — not willingly, at least. And if you try to force him it’ll make things worse. For him and for you.”
“So I do nothing?”
“For now. Marshal Allemand, what would it take for you to come forward and speak out against Rostock?”
“Jack, I’m not worried about the repercussions I would face, but we would need more than my voice.”
“What if I can bring you proof?”
“You bring me that, even the smallest thread I can tug on, and I’ll start calling every name in my address book, from here to Washington, D.C.”
32
While it was spring in Switzerland and Germany, it was late summer in Namibia. Having envisioned the country as nothing but a vast desert, Jack was surprised to see great swaths of lush grassland and scrub forest outside the plane’s window. According to their flight attendant, April was the end of Namibia’s rainy season, and this one had been wetter than normal. It showed. Watering holes and lakes dotted the terrain; interspersed among them, milky-brown rivers.
The plane touched down and Jack trotted down the stairs to the tarmac, followed by Effrem and René, who appeared more at ease, Jack thought, relieved. Though Namibia and Ivory Coast were separated by three thousand miles of coastline, he was concerned merely being on African soil again might throw Allemand for a loop. For similar reasons Jack hadn’t told René about his trip to Paris. The soldier already had enough on his fractured mind.
“I thought it would be hotter,” said Effrem.
The sky was a cloudless blue, the temperature in the mid-seventies. At the edge of the tarmac a light wind swayed the chest-high grass.
“Actually, it rarely gets over ninety Fahrenheit,” René replied. “It’s the garden spot of Africa.”
Along with the rest of the plane’s passengers, Jack and the others headed toward the terminal. Jack said, “Okay, guys, eyes open. We’re looking for a single-engine Pilatus PC-12 NG, tail number HB-FXT.” Both Jack and Effrem had seen Bossard’s private plane in Vermont, but René had not, so Jack showed him a stock photo on his phone.
“What makes you think it’s here?” asked René.
“I don’t, necessarily.” Bossard had used the plane to rescue Möller; it wasn’t a big leap to imagine that the lawyer made it available as needed to Rostock. It was just as likely Gerhard Klugmann had arrived by a commercial airliner.
“I don’t see it,” Effrem said.
“Neither do I,” René added.
“Three strikes,” Jack said. He powered up his phone and saw a text message from Mitch. In all caps it read, PROGRESS. CALL ASAP.
Once through customs, they picked up their rental car, a white Toyota Land Cruiser, and set out for Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, some twenty-five miles to the west. Effrem drove, with René seated behind him gazing at the passing landscape.
If Jack hadn’t already known about the country’s Germanic connections, the various place-name and other town signs along the two-lane highway would have given him a clue: Herbost, Kapps Farm, Hoffnung, Neudamm Railway Station… The combination of the mixed terrain with these distinctly European words strengthened the landscape’s otherworldly feel.