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Authors: Preston Fleming
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to use often without being noticed.
This morning Werner bought a tabloid newspaper and took his coffee at 8:15 to a window stool in a deli overlooking Congress Street just north of Purchase. By now he had spotted clear patterns in vehicular traffic entering the parking garage. The tenants of the commercial floors who drove to work tended to own vintage luxury cars, mainly of European and Japanese origin, though some used electric minicars. Most government employees arrived on bicycles or on foot from nearby South Station. Nearly all senior government officials, however, drove to work in government-owned automobiles, most of which were domestic Government Motors models. Except that Agency heads and a handful of senior deputies arrived in chauffeured Fords and Nissans from a special motor pool. And these officials could be counted on not to arrive until a few minutes before office hours commenced at 8:30 a.m.
It was just after 8:25 when Werner noticed a polished maroon Ford Galaxy sedan approach from the north on Congress Street and reduce speed to make the turn onto Purchase Street. Deciding to take a chance, he finished his coffee and set out toward the side entrance to 99 High Street and made a beeline for the lobby.
He knew that the parking elevators were programmed to stop in the lobby, which required passengers to transfer to a second bank of elevators to reach their offices. Regardless of where someone parked under the building, he would emerge near the newsstand and switch elevators. So Werner took up position among the magazine racks and watched as the parking elevators arrived one by one to disgorge their passengers. If the maroon Ford belonged to Fred Rocco, Werner would spot him.
At 8:36 the door opened and Werner’s heart stopped. He had seen Rocco at close range on at least three or four occasions at Kamas and knew the face well. But he had underestimated the effect of seeing him outside the camp. Inside the wire, it was natural for a nameless political prisoner to view the warden, the most powerful person in camp, as someone extraordinary, holding the awesome power of life and death. But in his eagerness to identify Rocco beyond any shadow of a doubt, Werner had not even considered that seeing this man again, and at such close range, might disturb him. He felt a sudden unnerving vulnerability. Would Rocco recognize him? Or perhaps sense that Werner was watching him?
Werner averted his gaze and pulled another magazine from the rack as Rocco walked past. The warden remained an imposing figure in his freshly pressed blue wool blend suit. He stood several inches above six feet in height and remained fit for his fifty-three years, with broad shoulders and a trim waist and hips. Though he had grown jowls and his wavy black hair now had turned mostly gray, his blue eyes still darted from left to right like a reptile’s.
At the same time, Werner sensed a strange vacancy in those shifting eyes, and a sallow slackness in Rocco’s face that matched his languid gait. Though this was certainly Fred Rocco, ex-warden of the Corrective Labor Camp at Kamas, he seemed a lesser man than the godlike creature that Werner remembered from years ago. Hannah Arendt’s famous observation about Adolph Eichmann and the authors of the Nazi Holocaust seemed to apply here as well: Rocco appeared to be cut from the same nondescript cloth, revealing the banality of evil.
Having accomplished his surveillance mission for the morning, Werner entered a parking elevator and descended to level P1. There he found, only fifteen meters from the elevator, a gleaming maroon Ford Galaxy parked in a numbered FEMA parking spot. He took a mental note of the license number and parking space as he walked past, then exited the building onto Congress Street from the same stairwell where he had entered.
****
Boston’s Central Library at Copley Square was only two stops along the Green Line from the Boylston Street station, where Werner had
This morning Werner bought a tabloid newspaper and took his coffee at 8:15 to a window stool in a deli overlooking Congress Street just north of Purchase. By now he had spotted clear patterns in vehicular traffic entering the parking garage. The tenants of the commercial floors who drove to work tended to own vintage luxury cars, mainly of European and Japanese origin, though some used electric minicars. Most government employees arrived on bicycles or on foot from nearby South Station. Nearly all senior government officials, however, drove to work in government-owned automobiles, most of which were domestic Government Motors models. Except that Agency heads and a handful of senior deputies arrived in chauffeured Fords and Nissans from a special motor pool. And these officials could be counted on not to arrive until a few minutes before office hours commenced at 8:30 a.m.
It was just after 8:25 when Werner noticed a polished maroon Ford Galaxy sedan approach from the north on Congress Street and reduce speed to make the turn onto Purchase Street. Deciding to take a chance, he finished his coffee and set out toward the side entrance to 99 High Street and made a beeline for the lobby.
He knew that the parking elevators were programmed to stop in the lobby, which required passengers to transfer to a second bank of elevators to reach their offices. Regardless of where someone parked under the building, he would emerge near the newsstand and switch elevators. So Werner took up position among the magazine racks and watched as the parking elevators arrived one by one to disgorge their passengers. If the maroon Ford belonged to Fred Rocco, Werner would spot him.
At 8:36 the door opened and Werner’s heart stopped. He had seen Rocco at close range on at least three or four occasions at Kamas and knew the face well. But he had underestimated the effect of seeing him outside the camp. Inside the wire, it was natural for a nameless political prisoner to view the warden, the most powerful person in camp, as someone extraordinary, holding the awesome power of life and death. But in his eagerness to identify Rocco beyond any shadow of a doubt, Werner had not even considered that seeing this man again, and at such close range, might disturb him. He felt a sudden unnerving vulnerability. Would Rocco recognize him? Or perhaps sense that Werner was watching him?
Werner averted his gaze and pulled another magazine from the rack as Rocco walked past. The warden remained an imposing figure in his freshly pressed blue wool blend suit. He stood several inches above six feet in height and remained fit for his fifty-three years, with broad shoulders and a trim waist and hips. Though he had grown jowls and his wavy black hair now had turned mostly gray, his blue eyes still darted from left to right like a reptile’s.
At the same time, Werner sensed a strange vacancy in those shifting eyes, and a sallow slackness in Rocco’s face that matched his languid gait. Though this was certainly Fred Rocco, ex-warden of the Corrective Labor Camp at Kamas, he seemed a lesser man than the godlike creature that Werner remembered from years ago. Hannah Arendt’s famous observation about Adolph Eichmann and the authors of the Nazi Holocaust seemed to apply here as well: Rocco appeared to be cut from the same nondescript cloth, revealing the banality of evil.
Having accomplished his surveillance mission for the morning, Werner entered a parking elevator and descended to level P1. There he found, only fifteen meters from the elevator, a gleaming maroon Ford Galaxy parked in a numbered FEMA parking spot. He took a mental note of the license number and parking space as he walked past, then exited the building onto Congress Street from the same stairwell where he had entered.
****
Boston’s Central Library at Copley Square was only two stops along the Green Line from the Boylston Street station, where Werner had
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