“But all that gold…” Manny pressed.
“I don’t care about any of it. Besides, I don’t know where it is.”
“You don’t?”
“No, but I know what it feels like to have forty dead men on my conscience, and they’re all dead because of me. That’s why Eric Bruckner’s a hero — the real Eric Bruckner. He tried to save my life, and it cost him everything.”
“Hey, I thought that British bomber had something to do with it?”
“No, he’d have never been caught on the surface in shallow water, if he hadn’t been trying to put me ashore.”
“Mike, you can’t carry that whole load. It’s going to crush you. It’s survivor’s guilt. That’s when you live, for some crazy reason, and everybody around you gets killed.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, each of them gathering his thoughts. “Going down to South Carolina and seeing his old man like that, I bet it was tough.”
“I promised Eddie I would. I told Earl about Bruckner and the U-boat, but I didn’t say much about what was inside.”
“And his sister?”
“No, I couldn’t do that. Eddie was her hero. I told her all the rest, and that I was with Eddie when he died; but I couldn’t tell her about the gun. I couldn’t.”
“No, I guess you couldn’t,” Manny nodded, understanding completely. “But look, you spent three years in Sweden working on that trawler, fishing those same waters. You must know them pretty good.”
“Do I know where the U-boat is? No, I don’t, Manny. Oh, maybe the general area, but there’s a lot of coves up there, a lot of water.”
Manny picked up the mangled copy of the Charleston newspaper Michael was carrying in the hotel. He pointed to the top left-hand column on page three about Admiral Bruckner’s visit to New York. “This is what got your juices going?” he asked. “And you hopped the midnight flyer and came all the way up here to see him?”
“What else could I do? I had to see him, to thank him. All those years I had been blaming myself, and to read now that he got out…” Michael leaned closer, so their faces were only a foot apart. “On the U-boat, I was this close to the Kapitan. I looked him in the eyes, and we talked, a couple of times, face to face, man to man. His eyes, the way he laughed and moved; I’m telling you, Manny, the man in that hotel lobby this morning is not Eric Bruckner. Oh, he looks a little like him, I’ll give him that. It’s close; but when I looked into his eyes, I knew it wasn’t him.”
“It’s been six years, Mike. Time does strange things. You sure? I mean really sure?”
“I’m telling you, it’s not him!” Randall slammed his fist on the table. “When I said something to him about his boat being sunk off Sweden, he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, but he sure turned scared. You saw his face, his eyes; he was scared. Why, Manny? What scared him?”
“I don’t know. But his own people think he’s Bruckner. The West Germans, our State Department, our own Navy, even the goddamned FBI, they all thinks that’s Bruckner; and the FBI never believes anything.”
“Well, they’re wrong, all of them. That guy’s a phony.”
“Whoa! You got any idea what you’re saying? What you’re really saying? A West German Admiral? NATO? A phony?” Manny shifted uncomfortably in his seat and leaned forward. “Mike, I wasn’t just sitting out in the hall killing time until Hennessey and Pedralski finished pounding on you in here. I made a couple of phone calls to Washington and there’s one real big freakin’ hole in your story. Bruckner’s U-boat wasn’t sunk off Sweden. They say it went down off Poland, hundreds of miles to the east.”
“Poland? That’s impossible,” Michael answered. “We went west from Königsberg for five, maybe six days, before he put me ashore on the south coast of Sweden. That’s where Person’s trawler found me. Off Sweden, not off Poland. How do you explain that?”
“Explain it? I can’t explain a goddamned thing about you! But while you say you were in Sweden, Bruckner was in a Russian POW camp. That’s what he says, and that’s what the Russians say too. So, if his U-boat didn’t sink off Poland, how the hell did he get back there and get himself caught by the Russians?”
Michael leaned forward, his black eyes blazing, trying to think. “What about the British? It was one of their bombers that sank his U-boat. Don’t they have records?”
Manny smiled. “Sure. Did they sink any U-boats in the Baltic about that time? You bet they did. But the Brits don’t know the U-boat numbers, and you don’t know the day it happened, much less where. So it comes down to, ‘you said, he said,’ and you ain’t gonna win that one.”
Michael stared across the table, angry at Manny and his answer. “Manny, you saw that guy. Did he look like a battle-hardened U-boat commander to you? Christ, he almost wet his pants when I said ‘Sweden’ and touched his shoulder.”
“He almost did at that,” Manny chuckled. “So what’re you gonna do now? Go after him again?”
“Go after him?” Michael reflected for a moment. “I don’t know. I didn’t get very far the last time, but I’ve got to do something.”
“They won’t let you within a mile of him now, Sport. Even if you did, what would it prove?”
“Prove? Well, at least you believe me now, don’t you?”
“Me? Yeah, Mike, I guess I do.”
“Then what are YOU going to do?’
“Me? You mean Manny Eismer or the New York City Police Department?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Fortunately for you, there is. Nobody wants to screw with a war hero, but nobody wants a big international incident either, especially our Navy and the State Department, so they’ll land on you hard if they hear you’re going after him. So stay away from him. If you can agree with that, then you can walk out the door. If not, a lot of people are going to be forced to take sides; and you’ll lose. Your choice, you got that?”
“Yeah, okay,” Michael reluctantly had to agree as he picked up the silver cigarette case. “But if I made this whole thing up, how do you explain this? And how do you explain me? Sweden? How could I have even gotten out of Germany?”
“I don’t know, Mike, I don’t know. Bruckner’s a German war hero. They haven’t got very many they can brag about, much less even talk about, so he’s big stuff over there. He’s also a big anti-Communist. McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover love him and you know how that sells in Washington these days. That’s why the FBI won’t touch him. If I ask them again, they’ll start calling ME a communist. We even made a few backdoor contacts with the CIA. They talked to State and to the West Germans, but that’s all they’ll do. They don’t think much of your story, and neither does State, Defense, and for sure not the freakin’ West Germans.”
“I’m not nuts, Manny, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t think you are. But if he isn’t Bruckner, then he’s working for somebody, and I need a little time to figure out the who and the why. You got that? And we don’t need somebody rolling around the deck like a freakin’ loose cannon until we do.”
“Who says I’m rolling anywhere?”
“I’m not stupid. I’ve listened to you dance around this thing all morning and we both know you aren’t finished with it. You’re gonna go out and prove you are right, aren’t you?” Manny asked, but Michael said nothing. “Of course, you are; but he’s not going to tell you a damned thing. The only way you can prove you’re right and prove that U-boat is lying off Sweden is to go back there and find it.”
“Go back to Sweden?” Michael stared at him as he thought it over.
“Look, give me a little time; there’s some people I need to talk to. Maybe they can figure something out.”
“I thought you said the government wasn’t going to help me.”
“Well, maybe not our government,” Manny shrugged innocently. “So give me the rest of the day to see what I can learn.”
“Then you do believe me.”
“It’s like this,” Manny pushed his big gut up a
gainst the table. “If you’re wrong, who gives a shit? But if you’re right… Well, a whole lot of people will have a big problem on their hands. So stick around, kid. It can’t hurt, can it?”
“You aren’t charging me with anything?”
“Me? Nah. Neither are Hennessey or Pedralski. I don’t think they ever were.” Manny put his notebook away.
“Then, I can go?”
“Yeah. Besides, there’s somebody waiting for you downstairs.”
“Waiting for me?”
“Yeah, a really cute little thing named Leslie Hodge from Rock Creek, South Carolina. I spent some time talking to her before I came up here.”
“Leslie’s here? I told her…”
“Yeah, she said that’s what you’d say. And you, Michael Randall, are missing a few screws. She’s a sweetheart and she is very concerned about you.”
“I told her not to come up here.” He shook his head.
“Doesn’t look like she listens any better than my wife. So, here,” he said as he put a ten-dollar bill on top of the blue slip of paper. “I’m releasing you in her custody. Take her out for a late lunch on me. Go walk around the city. You’ll probably hate it; but meet me back here in front of the building at five, and we’ll talk some more. Okay?”
“Okay,” Michael answered with a thin smile. “I guess there’s no harm in staying long enough to have lunch.”
“No harm at all. And I’m looking forward to spending more time with Leslie, even if you aren’t.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sucre, Bolivia
It was nearly midnight. Señor Martin Perez, as he was now called, sat alone in the cavernous study of his grand chalet listening to a treasured pre-war recording of Lohengrin playing softly on the phonograph. The air was thin and crystal clear at this altitude, the moon full and bright, and the view magnificent. From his red-leather armchair, he could look through the tall, floor-to-ceiling windows and see the flickering lights of the old mining town of Sucre and the snow-capped peaks of the Andes beyond.
Wagner’s music always put him in the proper mood to think and plot. What ever happened to that odd fellow Martin Bormann, he wondered. The Führer’s secretary? He was a decent enough clerk, quiet and reclusive, but little more than a footnote to the historic events that swirled around him. They say he died in the flames and rubble of Berlin, running across the Weidenhammer Bridge ahead of the Russians. That was what everyone said. There were witnesses. They found bones and checked his dental records, so it must be true. A neat, clean ending to that sordid business. Finis. In the end, Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann… all of them were dead. That was what everyone said.
He loved his new home with its high beamed ceilings, dark paneling, and crackling fires in its massive stone fireplaces. He had picked the spot himself almost twenty years before, on a Party trip to South America. It was on a steep slope where the Andes were their highest and most rugged. To make it perfect, he imported the finest German craftsmen to graft it onto the side of the mountain like a classic Swiss chalet, perched above the deep valley with views in three directions. Hundreds of acres of rocks, deep ravines, and impenetrable forest surrounded it; and there were only three ways anyone could get up to the house. One was via a narrow, dusty one-lane road that wound its way up the mountainside through dozens of switchbacks in full view of the keen eyes of his men at the top. The second was by the private airstrip carved onto the top of the hill behind the house. Only an expert pilot or a fool would dare a landing there; and anyone who came uninvited would be blown out of the air before his wheels touched down. The third was to climb hand over hand up the rugged mountainside from the valley below. Only the most venturesome would even try, because the penalty for being caught was a painful death.
Bolivia wasn’t his first choice, but it was a good location from which to control his expanding international operations. The arid upland plateaus and unpaved roads made life hard for the native Indians who worked in the silver and copper mines that dotted the lower hills. Still, the country was incredibly beautiful. Wildflowers filled the high mountain meadows and the rushing waters reminded him of his own beloved Bavarian Alps, which he knew he would never see again. No amount of wishful thinking could ever turn Bolivia into Bavaria, or Sucre into Salzburg, but Bolivia had its advantages. The poor had no power or influence, and the wealthy — wealthy foreigners in particular — could buy all the power and influence they wanted from the revolving gang of Army colonels who controlled the place. Strangers stood out, and nosey strangers asking unwelcome questions found only silence and open hostility.
Yes, given where he started in late April 1945, no one could say Martin Bormann had done badly these past six years. His thin black hair was noticeably thinner and grayer now, his round, rosy face was more wrinkled, but his determination was undiminished. It was by force of his will alone that the capital of his new empire had been carved from these crude South American peaks. From this red-leather chair, he could reach halfway around the globe and touch anyone. But he had no guns or tanks. His soldiers didn’t wear black uniforms, death’s-head insignias, or gaudy medals. They wore custom-tailored British suits, Italian shoes, and the finest Swiss watches. They could pass for prosperous Frankfurt bankers, lawyers, industrialists, and international money managers, which is precisely what they were; because his was a war of whispers where his battles were won or lost with gold marks, political influence, and thin, polite smiles. Intimidation? Violence? Murder? Not when he could use the convenient corporate tentacles of Thyssen, BASF, Bayer, Dresden Bank, Krupp, Hoechst, Zeiss, Mercedes, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and many, many more where he had placed his money and key people years before.
Yes, Martin Bormann was still the undefeated master of the game. One by one, he had outmaneuvered each of his old rivals: Ribbentropp, Kaltenbrunner, Goebbels, Göring, even Himmler, but none of that gave him any satisfaction. They were the old guard. Strip away the bravado, the garish uniforms, and the jackboots, and all one found underneath were street thugs with no vision or focus. In time, even the Führer himself had become a liability. Other than official martyr, his only lasting contribution was his own death, which Bormann had so easily arranged. That allowed him to make a fresh start and bring up a new cadre of far better men. They were fierce, able adventurers like his personal aide, Heinz Kruger — smart, instinctive, and decisive. Like seeds, he planted them one by one and carefully nurtured them. Now the harvest was drawing nigh and it looked like it would be a bumper crop. Nothing could stop him now — nothing and no one.
Bormann picked up the small yellow slip of paper lying in his lap, and read it again from beginning to end. It was a radiogram from Seidlitz, his man in Bonn, who was quoting one of his agents. The man was a reporter traveling in America on special assignment; and he told a puzzling story about an incident in a hotel lobby in New York that very morning. Bormann read it word by careful word; but his eyes kept returning to the name in the subject line, Rear Admiral Eric Bruckner. Even after all these years, after all his many triumphs, that one name galled him — Eric Bruckner, and the U-582!
Like a worm in an apple, that damned submarine Kapitan had burrowed deep into Bormann’s skull, and he wouldn’t go away. Bruckner! The Reichsleiter stared at the paper, but he no longer needed to read the words. He knew them by heart, “I’m with the Admiral on his trip to America… in New York City… in the hotel lobby a man yelled out from the crowd claiming he had been there the night the U-boat was sunk off Sweden… an American named Randall… will try to learn more.”
Try to learn more? Try? Bormann’s eyes focused on that one word, Sweden. Sweden? Sweden! Indeed, we shall learn more, my good man. Indeed, Bormann vowed as he pressed the button on his intercom. “Lupe,” he called to his Indian housekeeper. “Ask Señor Kruger if he would join me in my study, por favor.”
Moments later, he sensed a powerful presence enter the room behind him, something raw and elemental like an icy draft on the back of one’s neck on a cold wint
er’s night. Without bothering to look up, Bormann knew it was Kruger. No longer the bright-eyed boy, Kruger had aged like fine vintage wine, growing mellow and more subtle. Tanned and even more powerfully built now, he still had his distinctive blond hair and high Nordic cheekbones. The first hints of crow’s feet might be showing at the corners of his eyes and mouth, yet Kruger could still cross a hardwood floor with the silent grace of a big cat.
Kruger took his usual position at the right side of Bormann’s chair.
“You read the message, Heinz?”
“Jawohl, Herr Reichsleiter.”
“Strange, isn’t it? The words this fellow shouted at our old friend Bruckner. ‘Sweden,’ the fellow said, ‘When the U-boat was sunk off Sweden.” And coming from the mouth of an American.”
“Someone is toying with us, Herr Reichsleiter,” Kruger answered. “Perhaps I should go see the Admiral and find out why?”
“You mean, pay him a final visit?” Bormann chuckled as he saw the hungry glint in Kruger’s eyes. “Always the impatient one, Heinz; always the impatient one. Yes, you shall visit our old friend Bruckner, but not quite yet, not until I get some answers.”
Kruger smiled. “You remember I have some unfinished business with him.”
“Yes, from that trip you took to Königsberg, as I recall,” Bormann snorted. “You may indulge yourself later, Heinz, after I get my U-boat back.”
Bormann rose and walked over to the tall bank of windows that looked out across the valley to the snow-capped mountains. “In those last few months, I sent eight submarines across the Atlantic. They all made it, all except one. That one! Oh, don’t misunderstand me, Heinz. This is not about the gold— well, not entirely, anyway. We’ve managed well enough over the years without that one shipment, but there is a principle involved. It’s mine, and I want it back!”
He turned and glared at Kruger for emphasis, his face dark and sinister in the red glow of the fireplace. “When the U-582 never arrived, I assumed Bruckner and that gold were lost forever. I pictured it lying on the bottom of the North Atlantic after a desperate battle with an American destroyer, pounded to pieces by depth charges. Then in 1948, as if by a miracle, who should come strolling out of a Russian prisoner-of-war camp but our long-lost friend, Kapitanleutnant Eric Bruckner, risen from his watery grave.”
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