by Gary Jonas
Kelly rolled her eyes.
“Think about it,” I said. “I could grow some stubble, trade in my Glock for a revolver, don a fedora and a brown leather jacket, and as a bonus, we get to fight Nazis.”
“What’s so magical about Hitler’s skull?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you trust the congressman?”
“Not especially.”
“Do you trust Maria?”
“Not especially. She doesn’t trust me either.”
“I think she’s the cat’s pajamas,” Esther said.
“Really?” Kelly asked.
Esther nodded. “She has a warm energy about her.”
We stopped at an intersection. I said, “Esther was drawn to her when she was doing her mystical crap.”
“She’s legit,” Esther said.
“Maybe,” I said, “but she was hamming it up.”
“Don’t be a wet blanket, Jonathan. I think she’s a daisy.”
“She’s playing things close to the vest,” Kelly said.
“So are we,” I said.
“Because we have good reason.”
“Maybe she does, too.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the taxi dropped us off at the airport, a slender woman with short, graying hair waved to me.
“Mr. Shade. A moment?” she said. Her voice was deeper than it should have been.
“You guys go on in,” I said. “I’ll see you at the gate or on the plane.”
Kelly and Esther moved through the doors into the airport terminal, and I walked over to the older woman. She wore a gray business suit—jacket and pants.
“Congressman Class sent me,” she said, seeming to disguise her voice. “This is for you.”
She handed me a small padded envelope.
“What is this?”
“Magical permit,” she said. “The spell will last a week, but it will work for a variety of identification purposes, including gun permit, passport, driver’s license, official identification for entry to any guarded building, badge to show you belong to any security team or law enforcement, or, well, anything you might need.”
“Just flash it?”
“Hold it up so they can see it. The magic works on the optic nerves. Anyone who looks at it will see whatever they need to see to convince them you’re legal.”
“Handy,” I said. “Can I get one with a permanent spell?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know these exist, Mr. Shade. If my superiors caught me giving this to you, they’d strip me of all magic privileges for life.”
A man with a large suitcase stumbled toward us and bumped into the woman. “Excuse me, sir,” he said.
She glared at him. “Watch where you’re going.”
“Sorry, sir,” the man said.
I realized she was casting a spell to look like a man to everyone, and speaking in a lower register to help carry off the illusion. As her magic didn’t work on me, I saw her as she really was.
“You should catch up with your friends,” she said.
“Thanks for the magic pass,” I said.
She darted off into the crowd without another word. I made a note to say I got the pass from a man should any wizards ever ask about it.
***
When I reached the gate, Maria was already there with her three men. She wasn’t trying to hide the extra security guy anymore. She sat in the center of a row of three connected chairs with Curtis and Carl on either side, and the extra guy off to the left, where he could see down the walkway.
I walked up to them, set down my carry-on bag, looked at the guy who had been wearing a pea coat earlier. Now he wore a navy blue suit with a light blue shirt, and a red tie decorated with black diamonds. “You’re pretty good,” I said. “I didn’t make you outside the Next Whisky Bar.”
He gave me a polite nod. When he extended his arm for a handshake, he placed his left arm on top of his right forearm about halfway up.
I shook his hand. He had a solid grip, but wasn’t a dick about it.
“Silat?” I asked.
“His name is Cole,” Maria said.
“Of course it is,” I said, suspecting none of her C-guys were using their real names. “I was referring to his martial art of choice.”
“Correct,” Cole said. “I studied in Indonesia.”
“I don’t understand,” Maria said.
“His handshake,” I said. “He put his left hand on top of his forearm. This indicates that he’s not armed, but it’s also a sign of respect because that’s the hand he would use to block a bladed attack from me should I be interested in trying to slash him with a weapon of my own.”
“I don’t pay attention to you men and your silly displays of violence.”
“And yet, you keep violent men around you for protection from other violent men,” I said.
“I let them pay attention,” she said.
“Are you going to introduce me to Ms. Chan?” Cole asked.
“Somebody’s been looking into me,” I said.
“It’s my job,” he said.
I nodded behind him. “Kelly?” I said. “Come meet our associates.”
Esther popped over. “Me too,” she said, but from the lack of reaction on the part of the men, I knew she hadn’t allowed them to see her.
Kelly moved around the men to stand with me.
“This is my friend, Kelly,” I said, gesturing to her. “Kelly, I think you know Curtis with the scar, Maria, Carl, and Cole.”
Kelly gave them a slight bow.
“Is she Japanese?” Curtis asked.
“Chinese,” I said.
“But she bows like she’s Japanese.”
“She was testing you,” I said. “Hate to break it to you, Curtis, but you failed.”
“I don’t care if I fail at stuff like that. I ain’t here to impress anybody. I’m here to keep my empress alive.”
“Empress?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “I just thought she was a medium. You’d think that her psychic powers would preclude the necessity for three bodyguards. Surely one would be sufficient.”
“Dropping the word psychic is a bit insulting. She don’t like that.” He didn’t raise his voice; he was simply stating a fact.
“Why not?” I asked, trying not to grin.
“Because all mediums are psychic, but all psychics ain’t mediums.”
“He’s baiting you,” Maria said.
“He thinks I’m not that bright,” Curtis said.
“I didn’t hire you for your intellect,” Maria said, patting his arm.
She didn’t need to pat his arm. He showed zero sign of being offended. He was clearly devoted to her safety, as were Carl and Cole.
She’d done well with her choices. Carl never looked at me, choosing instead to let his eyes constantly sweep the waiting passengers.
Cole, meanwhile, didn’t mind engaging, but most of his attention was directed at the passersby.
All three held themselves well. Curtis played up the big guy danger. Carl played the quiet danger. Cole played practically invisible. He was the most dangerous of the three. I’d completely missed him at the bar, and even standing before him, he presented no outward sign of danger. He was someone you’d look right past because he didn’t trigger anything.
Even knowing he was dangerous, I found my guard not as up toward him as the others. He wasn’t as big as the other guys, and if Kelly hadn’t pointed him out on the street, I’d have missed him there, too.
Maria leaned back in her chair. “We won’t board for another twenty minutes, so I think I’ll nap.”
“We have a long-ass flight ahead of us,” I said.
“And I plan to sleep through most of it,” she said. “If you want to work out any protection plans, speak with my C-men.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Kelly smacked my arm. “That’s not what she meant.”
“That makes it funnier.”
“What?” Maria aske
d.
“I’ll let Curtis explain it to you,” I said. “We’re going to go sit down.”
“What did I say?” she asked Curtis.
I didn’t wait for him to explain it to her, but I suspected she’d call the guys something else from that point on.
***
First class gave us additional leg room, and better service, but it was still a long night and day of being cooped up in a metal tube hurtling through the sky.
Esther kept going into the cockpit to watch the pilot and co-pilot fly the plane, and she liked the view out the front windows.
Kelly spoke with Cole for a bit, and later told me she was impressed because he didn’t miss much. Kelly wasn’t easily impressed.
Maria sat with me for a while, and we chatted a bit about our lives, but neither of us was anxious to reveal anything, so all our attempts to dig in for more information skipped off the surface without even a scratch.
I slept when I could, and read some of the declassified FBI reports about Hitler still being alive in late 1945. I’d downloaded them onto my iPad for easy access. The reports were heavily redacted letters. The first was dated 9-21-45, and the synopsis read, “REDACTED reports contact with REDACTED (phonetic). Claims to have aided six top Argentina officials in hiding ADOLPH HITLER upon his landing by submarine in Argentina. HITLER reported to be hiding out in foothills of southern Andes. Information obtained REDACTED from REDACTED unable to be verified because REDACTED disappearance. Attempts to locate REDACTED negative. No record of him in police or IRS files.”
There were also handwritten notes including one that read as follows:
Dear Sir:
I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut that Hitler is located right in New York City!
There’s no other city in the world where he could so easily be absorbed. No doubt you have considered this possibility, but I mention it for what it is worth anyway.
And there were initials to sign it.
So while there were reports of sightings, I wasn’t convinced that J. Edgar Hoover was taking them all that seriously. I kept reading, but notes about having received a letter where the pertinent information about the letter was all redacted didn’t really help, and made for boring material.
Then more letters from people who believed Hitler was alive and well, but with nothing substantial to report as far as evidence.
But then there were letters to Hoover with the sender’s name redacted claiming to have read an enclosed article that to the sender seemed plausible and that Hitler really might be alive and well in Argentina.
Some of them seemed outlandish, like a letter where the sender’s name was redacted, but claimed that Hitler was with two doubles at a “great underground establishment beneath a vast hacienda 675 miles west from Florianopolis.” The letter went on to say, “The western entrance to elevators leading to Hitler’s new underground is a wall operated by photo-electric cells, and that by code sign is of even dim flash lights, wall slides to left, lets Autos speed in, and instantly slides back into place. Do not believe the British lie that Hitler is dead. I am a full blooded American and think this should be investigated at once.”
So Hitler was a James Bond villain with an underground lair. Now it was at least interesting.
And then we were back to things like, “Thank you for your letter of November 7, 1945, the contents of which have been carefully noted by me.”
I guess Bond-type villains didn’t rate. Oh well.
We ate our meals, had a few drinks, gazed out the window at the clouds, and wished the flight would be over.
When we landed in Buenos Aires, we had a long wait for the next flight. Not long enough for us to venture out and explore La Boca or anything, so we stuck to the airport.
In one duty-free gift shop, Kelly and I looked at ugly T-shirts, hats, and sunglasses. Kelly pointed to some tan cardboard tubes with red markings.
“Cigar holders?” she asked.
I had no clue, so I picked one up and pulled off the lid. I grinned and turned to show her.
“Colored pencils,” I said.
There were seven pencils in a variety of colors. Kelly took the tube from me. “Nice and sharp,” she said with a bright smile. “Good weapons.”
She put the lid back on the tube and carried it to the cashier. One thing Kelly never passed up was the opportunity to buy weapons that looked innocuous.
The final flight to Córdoba itself was only an hour and a half, but it felt like twelve hours.
Maria had booked us an Airbnb overlooking a park. We had a cozy apartment on the twelfth floor of a fancy building, with two bedrooms and five single beds. There was a nice terrace with a grill, though I knew we weren’t going to be cooking.
A woman named Josefina met us in front of the building. “Welcome,” she said in English. “You are from United States. We are hoping you to have a wonderful vacation.”
She looked at our group of four men and two women, and did her best not to look judgmental. Esther kept out of sight.
Maria explained that we were a film crew scouting locations for a movie, and Josefina brightened. “I hope it stars Antonio Banderas. I do so love Evita.”
Josefina introduced us to the doorman, an older man named Pedro who sported a thick mustache, and a big smile.
“You will speak the English to me,” he said. “I have been practicing so very much.”
We were still on Washington D.C. time, so it felt two hours earlier, but we’d also been traveling for most of the past day, and we were all exhausted.
Well, all of us except Kelly and Esther. It was too late to start our search for Hitler’s resting place, so we had a few drinks and went to bed early.
The beds were all singles, but there was also a sofa. Kelly and Maria slept in one room. The C-triplets took the other room, and I got the sofa, which was surprisingly comfortable. I spent an hour going through more FBI reports.
Esther knelt beside the couch, and whispered, “I’ll keep an eye on the torpedoes while you get some shut-eye.”
“Thanks, Esther,” I said keeping my voice low. “And hey, I’m glad you’re back.”
She shrugged and looked at me for a time. I half-expected her to tell me to be nicer to her this time, but instead, she simply said, “Me too.”
She took up a position in a chair across the room.
I gazed at her for a few minutes. She didn’t seem upset with me even when she didn’t know I was looking. She seemed like her old self, and that was great. I still felt guilty for breaking her heart. I didn’t ever want to see pain in her eyes again.
I considered her a little longer, then drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“After breakfast, we’re taking a bus to La Falda,” Maria said.
We’d all showered and dressed. It was time to face the day, and to begin the actual legwork to find Hitler’s skull.
Curtis and Carl stood in the small kitchen drinking coffee. Cole leaned against the railing on the terrace, gazing down at the traffic on the street. Kelly kicked back in the chair Esther had occupied the previous evening. I sat on the sofa with Esther beside me while Maria paced the floor outlining her plan.
“Where is La Falda?” I asked. “And why does it sound familiar?”
“The Eden Hotel is there, and while it doesn’t operate as a hotel anymore, it was in business back in 1947 when Adolf Hitler was a guest.”
“And you think he died there?”
“No, but because I know he stayed there, I’m hoping I can make contact with his spirit from there to get a better line on where we need to go.”
And then it hit me. La Falda sounded familiar because it was mentioned in the FBI files. I went to my iPad, and opened the files I’d downloaded. Sure enough, there was a letter Hoover sent to the American Embassy in Buenos Aires about a prominent Nazi sympathizer who owned the largest spa hotel in La Falda, who offered Hitler a place to hide out.
We were on the right track, but I sure hoped Maria
could get some information that would jump us ahead. The letter mentioning La Falda was in the first section of the Hitler FBI files.
An hour later, I strapped on my shoulder holster with my Glock, and tugged on my leather jacket to cover it up. We went downstairs, and Pedro held the door for us.
“Have a pleasant day,” he said, bowing his head and smiling from ear to ear.
“You too, Pedro,” I said, and tipped him for holding the door. He made the money disappear.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“No, thank you,” he said, the smile still there.
“We could do this all day,” I said.
“Only until the bus arrives.”
We had to wait a few minutes for the bus Maria hired, so I didn’t follow the others out to the curb.
“Can I ask you something, Pedro?”
“You just did, sir.”
His ubiquitous smile widened a bit as he winked.
I grinned. “May I ask you some questions then?”
“Of course, sir. How can I be of your service?”
“The movie we’re going to film has Nazis in it, and I was told that after World War II, a lot of Nazis came to Córdoba.”
“This is very true, sir. Adolf Hitler himself came to Córdoba with his friend Martin Bormann. If you are looking for a very good location, you should go to the secret village of La Cumbrecita.”
“That’s a tourist town,” I said.
“You have done your research, sir.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ I’m Jonathan.”
“I do not use first name basis, sir.”
“Why not?”
He tapped his head. “My memory is not so good, sir. I might call you by the incorrect name.”
“Can you tell me where in Córdoba I might find actual Nazis?”
His smile vanished and he shook his head. “I do not speak of such things, sir. You would be wise to not ask such questions so openly.”
“So there are still Nazis here?”
He looked around, and loosened his collar with one finger. “Your bus is here, sir. You do not want to miss it.”
“Thanks, Pedro.”
“Enjoy your visit, sir.”
I joined the others on the bus. Kelly sat in the back row with Esther standing on the seat beside her. Esther’s head and shoulders poked through the roof of the bus. I guessed she wanted to watch the scenery.
