day of reckoning was coming and you hired me to protect you.”
Anna didn’t deny it. “The question is, can you?”
“Yes.” Raeder saw Anna slump in relief. “For the past twelve months I’ve determined our strategy for minimizing the amount of money we will have to pay. I’ve estimated that a payout of two hundred million marks won’t interfere with our long-term growth while satisfying the commission that we are cooperating.”
A wave of murmurs and sighs washed across the table.
“I arrived at that number after a lot of exhaustive research,” Raeder cut through the dissenting voices. “It’s the very minimum we can get away with.”
“Have you prepared documents that we can give them that will lead them to this figure?” asked Konrad Ebelhardt.
“Everything’s ready now. I’ve had Gunther Rath and his staff gather one hundred thousand pages of correspondence, shipping orders, and the like. It’s all original material, carefully edited so that the commission will determine that we should be responsible for paying roughly a quarter billion marks in reparations.”
“You just said two hundred million.”
“We’ll negotiate down to that number after they have made their findings public. They would be suspicious if we didn’t.”
“How much of our wartime activity are we keeping from them?” Anna asked.
“Very little, actually. Kohl certainly did profit from the use of slave labor at a few factories, but the practice was not as widespread as in many other companies. If it weren’t for one project in particular, I would have felt comfortable disclosing everything to the commission.” Raeder noticed the quick glance between Konrad and Anna. He could even read her lips as she mouthed a single word.
He paused, waiting to see if Konrad would dismiss the rest of the board. He wasn’t surprised that the chairman did.
“Gentlemen,” Ebelhardt said, looking around the table, “could you please excuse us for a few minutes? Anna and I need to speak with Klaus alone.”
Wurmbach shot Raeder a deadly look as he led the three others toward the door. When they were gone, Anna was the first to speak.
“My father intentionally shielded me from the Pandora Project, Klaus, and I ask you to show me the same courtesy. Please don’t mention specifics in my presence.”
“I can’t believe Volker left any records even remotely connected to Pandora.” Ebelhardt’s face was red with ill-disguised fury. “The damned fool.”
“Konrad! He was my father.”
“Anna, I only read a bare outline of what was involved,” Raeder said, keeping his true sense of horror out of his voice. “Even that little bit was shocking. I have to agree with Konrad. That material should have been destroyed decades ago. God, it shouldn’t have been written down in the first place.”
“We can’t correct past mistakes.” Ebelhardt leaned forward, his sharp eyes boring into Raeder.
“We can bury them though.” Raeder let his statement hang in the air. “All the paperwork linking Kohl to the Pandora Project has been burned but I don’t think that’s enough.”
“What do you propose?”
“I’ve made arrangements to have the original site obliterated and any remaining physical evidence destroyed.”
“How do you know that by going back to” — Ebelhardt glanced at Anna — “by going back there, we won’t give away the secret ourselves? Its location is so remote and has remained undiscovered for more than sixty years.”
“Risk management. Just because we burned our evidence doesn’t mean there isn’t some diary or journal written by somebody involved in Pandora. It could be lying in some musty attic right now, waiting to go off like a time bomb. Our surviving war veterans are all in their seventies and eighties. We can’t chance family members discovering such a written record when they go through their fathers’ possessions. By hiding Pandora from the reconciliation commission now, we have to make certain that even if a diary is discovered, nothing remains to support the story. By destroying the site, all verifiable links to Kohl are severed.”
Konrad looked unconvinced.
“We’re about to lie to the reconciliation commission in order to conceal a despicable crime, and we have to make sure that the lie is never revealed. If the world finds out about Pandora and our involvement in it, Kohl’s bankruptcy will be the last thing on our minds. They would be fully in their right to seek criminal charges against all of us.”
Anna gasped. “Is it that bad? The Pandora Project, I mean.”
“It’s worse than you can possibly imagine,” Konrad answered, placing one of his hands over hers.
“I can make this work,” Raeder stated. “I have to. In the current environment, we are liable for billions in reparations, and if people learned what really happened during the war, the company would lose every customer it ever had. The alternative to covering up Pandora and paying the two hundred million is losing everything. Our ten thousand employees would be out of work. Our shareholders would go broke. It’s not that inconceivable that the shock waves of Kohl’s collapse would severely damage Germany’s economy.”
“It’s not fair,” Anna spat. “Why should we be forced to pay for the sins of our fathers? I was a teen when the war ended. I didn’t force anyone into slavery. I didn’t put anyone into a gas chamber. I’ve done nothing wrong. There isn’t one person left in the company from those days.”
“Other than a few old ladies, none of our shareholders were alive then either,” Konrad added.
“None of us are responsible,” Anna said petulantly.
“It’s been determined that all of us are responsible, Anna,” Raeder said. “How do you think I feel? I have even less to do with this than either of you. My parents were toddlers in 1945.”
When Konrad and Anna hired Raeder, they’d made him aware that Kohl would need to negotiate a settlement with the reconciliation commission, but they had not told him the depths of the company’s Nazi involvement. They had specifically withheld Pandora from him, rightly fearing that he wouldn’t have joined if he’d known. His reputation for ruthlessness in the business world was richly deserved, but what he’d read about in the old files went far into the realm of the obscene. Now, he knew, he was in too deep to walk away. It was a matter of pride. And ego, he thought. Raeder was equally disturbed by what he’d learned about Kohl and by how easily he’d been manipulated. He’d explore this circumstance once he’d gotten the company out of its present crisis.
“What kinds of steps are you taking to destroy the Pandora site?” Konrad Ebelhardt asked abruptly. “And how sure are you they will work?”
“I don’t think you need to know the details, but I assure you that, other than eradicating evidence of Kohl AG’s culpability, we will do nothing illegal.”
“No one will be harmed?”
“No, nothing like that will happen.” Raeder gave a sharp laugh. “My tactics stopped short of physical injury many years ago. Other than a minor setback, my plan is actually nearing the final phase. I bring this up because now is the time we can call the whole thing off and ‘come clean,’ as the Americans say. Thirty million marks have already been spent getting everything to this stage. A small loss compared to what would happen if we tell the reconciliation commission about Pandora. However, that alternative is still open. I can cancel the destruction of the Pandora site.”
He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his blond hair. By skirting the morality of what they were doing and making this a purely financial decision, Raeder was confident that Anna and Konrad would agree with his plan. Raeder was no more pleased about this situation than either of them and yet he’d cut through the emotions to make the right choice. He had also had a few months to dampen his conscience.
“Do it!” Anna shouted as if she’d been listening to a raging debate in her mind and wanted it to end. She didn’t look at Konrad when she continued, confirming Klaus Raeder’s instinct that she was the real power behind the company. “Destroy whatever remains to link us to Pandora. I won’t allow anything to hurt Kohl.”
“Are you sure, Anna?” Ebelhardt asked. “This is a dangerous gamble.”
“I’m convinced that Klaus is right. Erasing our ties to Pandora is the only chance we have to save ourselves from financial ruin. You’ve made it clear that if the commission learns about it, through our own disclosure or from some other source, we are finished. We have to make sure they never do.”
“Very well.” Raeder nodded. “It will be done.”
