The Fourth Rising (Peter Brandt Thrillers Book 3)

by Martin Roy Hill

  “So?”

  “So, I was just wondering…”

  “About what?”

  Jo shrugged with an exaggerated nonchalance.

  “About this Cindy,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  “Have you slept with her?”

  My fork, loaded with omelet, stopped halfway to my mouth.

  “Why do you ask?” I said, then continued the fork’s journey.

  “Just curious,” Jo said, adding, “Professor Pete.”

  I chewed a while, considering my answer, before saying, “Yes, I have.”

  Jo’s eyes turned so icy they would have made the Titanic’s iceberg feel warm.

  “You had sex with one of your students?” she demanded. “Here. In our bed?”

  “Here, in my bed,” I said, “while you were married to Frank. What did you expect me to do, join a nunnery?”

  “Nunneries are for women.”

  “Okay, a monastery. Did you?”

  “No, but a student? She must be ten years younger than you. Even more.”

  I looked Jo coldly in the eyes and said, “You never slept with one of your professors in college?”

  Jo straightened her shoulders and crossed her arms. “Of course, not!”

  “Really?” I said. “A lot of young college women do. Some professors consider it one of their official perks. So, come on now. Did you?”

  Jo’s mouth formed into a pout, then slowly morphed into her lopsided grin.

  “All right, yes, I did,” she said. “That was different, though. We were in a relationship.”

  “A relationship with one of your professors,” I said. “I see. And was he married?”

  Jo glared at me again and, for an instant, I thought if she were armed, she might shoot me. Instead, she tossed down her fork, stood, and marched into the front room. I followed. She was pacing again, and I wondered how I’d explain to the rental agency why I needed a new carpet. Her pacing slowed. She found her purse, took out a tissue, and dabbed her eyes.

  “Damn, I have the worst luck in men,” she said. “Yes, he was married. I didn’t know at first. Later, I didn’t care. He finally broke it off when he took an interest in one of his other students.” She shook her head. “And then there’s Frank. Christ …”

  I took her in my arms and kissed her. “If it matters, I never had a relationship with Cindy. It just happened. Once. We bumped into each other at a local bar and got drunk together. One thing led to another. But we’re only friends and neighbors.”

  I held her, and she held me, and Jack, not wanting to be left out of it, wrapped himself between our ankles, purring.

  ☼

  It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and I was in no hurry. I abandoned the northbound I-5 freeway at Del Mar and took the coastal route north to Encinitas. A small, arty beach town, Del Mar hosted expensive shops and hotels that crowded the Pacific Coast Highway—also known as Highway 101—as it bisected the city. Expensive homes climbed the coastal hills on the leeward side of the road. It was the home of the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds, where, as a well-known commercial announced, “the surf meets the turf.”

  Del Mar gave way to Solana Beach, an eclectic collection of shops and boutiques housed in WWII-surplus Quonset huts. From there, the Coast Highway moved into Encinitas and its century-old downtown center of surf shops, coffeehouses, and nurseries. It led me straight to the Ashram Center and Meditation Gardens.

  The gardens stood on an ocean bluff over Swami’s State Beach, a popular surfing spot named after Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship and the Meditation Gardens. Since I couldn’t imagine Jonathan Glasgow on a surfboard or wearing—I shuttered at the thought—a skin-tight wet suit, I assumed he meant to meet me in the gardens.

  A Mughal dome that looked like a miniature Taj Mahal crouched over the entrance. The gardens themselves were a tribute to the beauty of nature, a walk through a cornucopia of flora, with a spellbinding panoramic view of the ocean. I found Glasgow sitting on a bench overlooking the beach, still dressed in black, and so entranced by the vista he didn’t hear me approach.

  “Jonathan?”

  Glasgow looked at me and blinked twice before recognition hit him.

  “Ah, Peter!” he finally said. “Forgive me, but this view is so…hypnotic.”

  I admired the view, watched the sea birds gliding and swooping over the waves, smelled the briny scent of the sea, and felt myself giving way to tranquility.

  “It certainly is, Jonathan,” I said, sitting next to him.

  “I come here often,” Glasgow said, “to cleanse myself of the despicable evil my work requires me to immerse myself in. Do you ever come here?”

  “First time I’ve been here,” I said. “In fact, I had to do a bit of research to understand what you meant by Swami’s.”

  Glasgow slapped his thigh. “Of course! My apologies, Peter. Swami’s is an all-encompassing name used by locals for the gardens and the beach below.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I appreciate you meeting me half way. These days the freeway traffic can be awful.”

  “Don’t I know,” Glasgow said, glancing over my shoulder. “But I didn’t suggest this place because I needed fresh air nor as a travel compromise.” A young couple walked by and stopped to admire the view. Glasgow’s brow knitted as he eyed them. “Let’s walk, shall we?”

  We walked until we were out of earshot of the couple. Glasgow glanced around and in a low voice said, “In response to my inquiries came a warning from a colleague that I should take great care to not be overheard discussing this gold bar of yours or the mysterious sea captain, Herr Müller.”

  I stopped and turned to him. “Are you saying your house is bugged?”

  Glasgow prodded me on. “Purely precautionary,” he said. “But advice well heeded, I assure you.”

  “Who warned you?”

  “A colleague,” Glasgow said. “A man I turn to often when I need information of a sensitive nature. Someone who is quite aware of your work, by the way, and who intends to meet with you when he considers the time appropriate.”

  “You make him sound like a spook,” I said, thinking of Fred Danbury.

  “Let’s simply call him a colleague,” Glasgow said. “A friend with whom I share mutual interests.”

  “And what did your friend say about my gold bar and the mysterious sea captain?”

  Glasgow found another bench with an equally impressive view and sat with a weary grunt.

  “Enough exercise,” he said. “Sit and I will show you.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I SAT. GLASGOW REACHED into his jacket pocket, produced a folded piece of paper, and handed it to me. It was a photocopied picture of a cargo ship from the 1930s or 1940s. It had a low-sitting deckhouse with a single smoke stack amidships, two tall masts fore and aft, and a rakishly tall prow. I looked at Glasgow and shrugged.

  “It looks like an old tramp steamer from a Bogart movie,” I said.

  “That tramp steamer, as you call her, had a vicious bite,” Glasgow said. “That is the HK Danzig, though she sailed under many names and many flags. HK stands for hilfskreuzer, or auxiliary cruiser. She was a merchant ship converted by the Germans to be a commerce raider. Despite looking like an unarmed merchantman, she actually held an arsenal of cannon, machine guns, even torpedo tubes—all well-hidden until needed. She even carried an aircraft below decks for reconnaissance. And she was commanded by Kapitän zur See Ludwig Müller.”

  “Müller from the radio messages?” I asked.

  Glasgow nodded. “Müller was a U-boat officer during the First World War. Between the wars he served in the German Handelsmarine—their merchant navy—until recalled to active service in the Kriegsmarine in 1939. He took command of the Danzig in 1940 and had two very successful raiding cruises, first in the South Atlantic, then in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific.”

  “The Kriegsmarine operated that far from home?”

  “An
d then some. With the use of secret supply ships—also disguised as innocent cargo ships—or cargo-carrying U-boats called milch cows, auxiliary cruisers could roam virtually any sea. The Danzig’s ruse de guerre was to approach Allied cargo ships disguised as a merchant ship from a neutral country. Once they were close enough, they would raise the Nazi flag, uncover their weapons, and sink their unfortunate prey.”

  “So, how does this—” I gestured to the photo of the Danzig. “This ship and Müller end up in Mexico?”

  Glasgow frowned and shook his head.

  “I wish I knew, Peter,” he said. “For several weeks during his second cruise, the one that took him to the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, Müller maintained radio silence—except for those three messages you found. It is conceivable that the Danzig crossed the Pacific Ocean and reached Mexico, then later returned to its designated patrol station in the South Pacific.”

  “Conceivable?” I said. “You don’t know for sure?”

  “There was nothing in the Kriegsmarine archives about the Danzig sailing toward Mexico,” Glasgow said. “As for the Danzig, several weeks after those three messages were sent—apparently after returning to her patrol station in the South Pacific—she encountered a Royal Australian Navy cruiser and was sunk with the loss of all hands.”

  “No survivors,” I said. “No one to ask.”

  “Unfortunately, true.”

  “So, we’re at a dead end when it comes to Müller and the gold,” I said.

  Glasgow placed a beefy hand on my shoulder.

  “Only a temporary setback,” he said. “I still have inquiries out.”

  “What about Kran?” I asked. “Anything on him?”

  “Another disappointment, I fear,” Glasgow said.

  He pulled another photocopy from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. The picture showed a young man grinning at the camera, his hat set at a rakish angle, a glint in his youthful eyes. He could have been any soldier of any country except for his black tunic and the silver death head on his cap.

  “This is Sturmbannführer Hans Kran,” Glasgow said. “A major in the Allgemeine SS. A real up-and-comer in the Schutzstaffel. In German-occupied Russia, he was the commander of a special SS team that rooted out Soviet ‘stay behinds’—covert operators who spied on the Germans and committed acts of terror and sabotage. By all accounts he was quite ruthless. The Allies declared him a war criminal at the end of the war, but he never stood trial. He was believed killed in action in Berlin days before the Russians marched in.”

  “Another dead end,” I said.

  “Very,” Glasgow said.

  “So, how does his SS ring end up in San Diego?”

  Glasgow’s heavy shoulders shrugged. “Like I said, it could be war booty. Or…”

  “Or?”

  “Perhaps Herr Kran actually survived the war and somehow made his way to this country.”

  “You think that’s possible?”

  “Of course, it’s possible,” he said. “Thousands of hard-line Nazis escaped punishment after the war—more than anyone wants to admit. Many were recruited by the Allies—again, more than anyone wants to admit.”

  “Operation Paperclip,” I said.

  Glasgow nodded.

  “As I said, I still have inquiries out,” he said. “Perhaps something will turn up.”

  I mulled over my next question, not certain I should bring up the subject, and decided I would.

  “Jonathan, in your book you mention various think tanks that are false fronts for Nazi and fascist organizations. One of them was the League for Freedom and Responsibility. What do you know about them?”

  “The League?” Glasgow gave a solemn shake of his head. “Bad news there. I’ve traced their lineage to the American Freedom League founded in New York in 1932. Unlike the German American Bund, which patterned itself after the Sturmabteilung—commonly referred to as the Nazi Brownshirts or SA—the Freedom League based itself on the Nazi Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft—the Circle of Friends of the Economy. The Circle was a group of German capitalists whose job was to strengthen ties between the Nazi Party and German businesses and industries. The Freedom League did the same in the United States. Instead of holding rallies and marching down main street in Nazi mufti like the Bund, the Freedom League quietly lobbied industrialists, financiers—even politicians—to support the Nazi Party, portraying it as the last holdout against communism. It also established strong ties between German and American businesses. In fact, two of the leaders of the German Circle of Friends were executives with the American-owned ITT.”

  Glasgow paused, taking time to reflect on what he just told me, then continued.

  “The American Freedom League was never large, but it had powerful and wealthy friends. There was a rumor at the time—never proven—that it was behind the American Putsch that tried to overthrow FDR in 1933. As it was becoming obvious in 1940 that America would be dragged into the European war, the federal government began rounding up the leaders of the Bund, imprisoning some and deporting others back to Germany. But no one from the League was ever arrested or expelled. They had too many powerful friends. However, the League dissolved in 1941 and its members faded into the woodwork.

  “Then in 1955, the League for Freedom and Responsibility was founded by many of the same people who formed the pre-war Freedom League. And, despite the years, their message was the same as before. Theirs is an insidious form of nationalist propaganda and anti-democratic rhetoric, using code words for the sentiments they would never express in public but had no problem supporting in secret, backroom meetings.”

  “Code words?” I asked.

  “As a journalist, you would call them political dog-whistles,” Glasgow said. “Ronald Reagan never openly denigrated blacks, but he complained of so-called ‘welfare queens driving Cadillacs.’ The voters he was trying to reach understood what he meant. The nationalist movement has a whole lexicon of seemingly innocent words or phrases that, to them, have pointedly odious meanings.”

  “Like saying ‘world hegemony’ instead of ‘world domination,’” I said.

  Glasgow nodded. “Precisely.”

  “Did you know they’re based in San Diego?”

  “Of course,” Glasgow said. “Not surprising at all. Despite its reputation as a bastion of liberal thinking, California is home to more white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups than any other state.”

  “They must like the state’s liberal welfare programs,” I muttered.

  “No doubt,” Glasgow said, “So, what is it about the League that interests you, Peter?”

  “They might be connected to that gold bar,” I said.

  Glasgow frowned and shook his head again.

  “That,” he said, “is very worrisome. They already are quite wealthy. Like the Nazis of the Thirties and Forties, the League has spent much of the decades since the Fifties acquiring wealth for themselves—usually at the expense of the so-called ‘little man’ they claim to represent—and using it to, shall we say, persuade politicians and others to do their bidding. If they have access to a large amount of Nazi gold—assuming there is a hidden cache—there is no telling what they could do with so much unreported and untaxed wealth. It would make Nixon’s slush fund look like a piggy bank.”

  “You think they would use it to buy off politicians in this country?” I asked.

  Glasgow harrumphed. “Oh, undoubtedly, Peter,” he said. “They’re already doing that with the wealth they have. But that’s through quasi-legal means such as political action committees. With a large quantity of undeclared gold, they could easily increase their bribery without the need to report their bribes—excuse me, I mean their political contributions.”

  Glasgow allowed himself an uncharacteristic smile at his small joke. He waited for me to laugh, but I simply nodded.

  “But the danger is not only in this country, it’s abroad as well,” the big man said. “The League has affiliates in dozens of countries, just as the German Nazis had the
Bund, the Silver Shirts and, of course, the American Freedom League in the U.S. before the war. A large quantity of gold could be used to raise private armies to launch coups and topple democratic governments around the world. They’ve already done that on a lesser scale in Latin America. It is a very frightening scenario, Peter.”

  It was frightening, I thought. And it was enough motivation to torture and kill someone over.

  “Jonathan,” I said, “do you think the League might resort to torture or even murder?”

  Glasgow turned toward the ocean and took a deep breath, then released it. The big shoulders sagged beneath the cloth of his black coat.

  “What on earth, Peter,” he said, “would make you think they haven’t?”

  CHAPTER 16

  I LEFT GLASGOW STARING out to sea, trying to cleanse his soul of the malevolence he’d known, and walked back to my car. I passed a bench on which a man sat reading a newspaper. The paper was opened wide and held high so all I could see was the crown of a blue hat. The hat made me do a double-take, but I didn’t have the slightest idea why, so just I walked on.

  Back in the Mustang I called Jo on my cell phone and gave her a synopsis of what Glasgow told me, but I got the feeling she wasn’t listening. I asked her, “Jo, is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know, Peter,” she said with a mirthless chuckle. “Maybe I’m just getting paranoid, but I have a feeling I’m being watched.”

  “World-Wide does have a guard watching your place,” I said.

  “No, not that,” she said. “When I left your place today, I thought I was being followed by a dark sedan. Then when I looked out the window a little while ago, I saw the same car parked down the street.”

  “A dark sedan with tinted windows?”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “Outside my place the last couple of nights,” I said. “I wasn’t certain either until you just mentioned it.”

  “But who?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “World-Wide? They drive dark sedans, don’t they? Like the one your house guard was sitting in the other day.”

  “World-Wide exclusively uses black Chevies,” Jo said. “This one is a dark-blue Lincoln.”