Brandenburg: A Thriller

by Glenn Meade

  “Franz Lieber.”

  “Who is he?”

  “All I know right now is that he was an acquaintance of Tsarkin’s. But the name’s obviously German.”

  Sanchez glanced toward the sunlit gardens and the cheerful knots of visitors. Maria was comparing dresses with another girl. His wife stood among a circle of female friends, laughing. He loved that woman, loved her to distraction. Many times he wished he weren’t a cop, had chosen a different vocation so that he could spend more time with his family.

  He turned to Cavales. “Give me an hour. I’ll meet you at the office. I want Lieber’s address and information on his background.”

  “I’m checking already. Two of the day shift are working on it.”

  Sanchez nodded. “An hour then.”

  Cavales left quietly without finishing his beer; Sanchez moved closer to the window.

  Sunshine swamped the lawn. The sound of laughter reached him. A day to enjoy. Rosario wouldn’t like it if he left, but he had work to do. He checked his watch; half an hour, then he’d drive to the office.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and went to rejoin his guests.

  4:35 P.M.

  The pickup bar wasn’t far from the Plaza Uruguaya.

  Despite its shabby exterior, inside the décor was sumptuous. Coral-blue stucco walls, expensive cotton-print drapes. Upstairs were private rooms with silk-sheeted beds. Saunas and steaming showers for clients.

  The women were equally attractive, reputedly the prettiest in Asunción. And the most expensive.

  Lieber and his male companion sipped their champagne as they enjoyed the array of gorgeous women seated around the bar. Two dusky-skinned beauties approached.

  Lieber found his wallet, peeled off some notes. “Not now, later, after we’ve discussed our business.”

  The women smiled, took the money, blowing departing kisses as they left their customers in peace, for now.

  “Well, Pablo . . . happy?”

  The man opposite Lieber was small, wiry, and seedy-looking. His name was Pablo Arcades. For ten of his thirty-five years he had been a police officer, an invaluable acquaintance of Lieber’s. Especially since the man had two universal vices: money and women. As vices, they were weaknesses to be exploited.

  Arcades grinned, his weasel eyes fixed on the women’s curvy, retreating figures.

  “You know me. I could hang out in places like this all day. You brought the money?”

  “Afterward. First, let’s talk.”

  6:02 P.M.

  Lieber drove back through the darkening Asunción streets.

  He slammed shut his mobile phone after he made the call. He remembered the woman’s name from the list. He verified that. Yes. She was one of those in the web. She would need to be contacted as a matter of urgency, of that much Lieber was certain. And decisions would need to be made: take her out of the web or keep her in.

  The rest of Arcades’s information he would pass on. It would have to be acted on at once, Volkmann and Sanchez dealt with. Volkmann’s part he couldn’t understand: a British DSE officer, and not German. If anything, it should have been German. Lieber shook his head in confusion; the woman would be able to explain. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t been contacted before now. What was she up to?

  In his mind he went through the checklist of what needed to be done. First contact security, then Kruger in Mexico City, to fill them in. There was business to be discussed with old Haider and the Brazilian, Ernesto. And there would be visitors, old faces calling to pay their respects, and offering their advice for the days ahead.

  Lieber turned the Mercedes into the driveway of his house, tires skewing the gravel.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of two men standing behind the open gates. Lieber, startled by their presence, was about to slam on the brakes when he saw the lights were on in the porch. Two more men stood there, a white car parked outside the front door.

  Panic gripped him as he came to a sharp halt in front of the car.

  Lieber climbed out warily as the two men came quickly forward.

  “What’s going on? Who are you?” Lieber demanded.

  One of the two was a large, hulking man, his grubby suit loose on his oversized body.

  “Señor Lieber, I presume?”

  Lieber said nothing.

  The big man smiled thinly. “My name’s Sanchez. Captain Vellares Sanchez.”

  28

  ASUNCIÓN. 6:32 P.M.

  Every light inside the house appeared to be on, the mestizo butler nowhere to be seen.

  They were in the study. The two detectives and Lieber. The big detective smoked a cigarette as his companion sifted through the contents of Lieber’s walnut desk. The locks had been forced; papers and documents lay scattered on the floor.

  Lieber looked at the big detective palely. “You have no right . . .”

  “Señor, I have every right.”

  “May I remind you that I am a personal friend of the police commissioner’s . . .”

  “And might I remind you that my search warrant is in order.”

  Lieber examined the warrant, signed by a magistrate. “If you’d only tell me what it is you’re looking for . . . ?”

  “I told you already.”

  “I don’t know what photographs you’re talking about. All I know is that my property has been damaged. And that this is a flagrant abuse of—”

  “Please, señor. Spare me.” The hooded, sleepy eyes regarded Lieber carefully. “If you simply tell us where the photograph albums are, it would help matters.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Sanchez ignored the faked innocence on Lieber’s face. “As I explained already, they were taken from the house of a friend of yours the day after he killed himself. Tsarkin’s butler already told us. Really, señor, you’re wasting my time.”

  Lieber swallowed. “I refuse to speak until I’ve contacted my lawyer.”

  “As you wish. You have a safe in the house?”

  “A safe?”

  “A safe for personal belongings. Businessmen usually have one, and you own several businesses in Asunción, señor. An import-export agency. A property-development company.” Sanchez paused, letting Lieber know he’d done his homework, saw the man’s eyebrows rise. “So, do you have a safe here in the house?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Señor, you can be agreeable and cooperate. To do otherwise will certainly not help your situation.”

  “And what is my situation?”

  The big man scratched his ear. “If I’m unsatisfied with your replies, I will arrest you on suspicion of being an accessory to the murder of one Rudi Hernandez, journalist. And two other murders also.”

  “That’s quite ridiculous,” Lieber said hoarsely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The detective ignored Lieber’s words. “You haven’t answered my question. You have a safe?”

  Lieber considered, then slowly took a set of keys from his pocket. “In the bedroom upstairs facing onto the driveway, you’ll find a painting. A Vermeer copy. Behind it you will—”

  Sanchez took the keys. “I know.”

  He handed them to the detectives. The men left. Lieber heard their footsteps ascend the stairs.

  Left alone with the big man, Lieber glanced around, said amicably, “Amigo, there must be some mistake. You know, I have friends in high places, people who could—”

  The detective raised his hand to silence Lieber. “Please. Spare me.” He sat down, produced a cigarette, lit it. “My men will search the rest of the house again. This may take some time.”

  “My lawyer—”

  “I suggest you remain silent,” Sanchez interrupted, smiling thinly. “I’m sure you are quite happy to do that.”

  Lieber pursed his lips and said nothing.

  • • •

  It took almost an hour of waiting, yet he felt strangely confident. There wasn�
��t a shred in the house to incriminate him. Nothing to connect him to the journalist and the woman.

  He saw the two detectives come into the room as he sipped a scotch. One of them carried an album of photographs. Lieber frowned. It was an old album he kept in his bedroom. It hadn’t been added to in years.

  He saw Sanchez flick through the cellophaned leaves. He pursed his lips and looked up, walked over to where Lieber stood.

  Sanchez held up the album. “This is yours?”

  Lieber hesitated, then said, “Yes, it belongs to me.”

  Sanchez pointed to a photograph in the album. Lieber swallowed.

  “This snapshot,” Sanchez said. “Where was it taken?”

  The picture was of a white house. Three men together, Lieber one of them. Jungle cutting in on the right of the frame.

  “I can’t remember,” he said hoarsely.

  “Think. In the Chaco perhaps?”

  “I told you. I can’t remember. It’s an old photograph.”

  The detective saw the look on Lieber’s fleshy face and pointed again to the photograph. “The man on the left is you. The other two . . . who are they?”

  Lieber shook his head as he saw the detective’s finger point out the men in the photograph, taken many years before, one stocky, dark-haired, and young, the other older, tall, silver-haired, handsome.

  “I told you. It was taken a long time ago. I don’t recall.”

  Lieber saw the detective stare at him, frustration on his face. The man was unsure of himself, Lieber could tell. Searching. But lost.

  “Señor, on the evening of November twenty-fifth and the early morning of November twenty-sixth, where were you?”

  Lieber frowned. “I was at home, attending to important paperwork.”

  “Alone?”

  “Apart from one of my staff, yes.”

  “No doubt your staff will attest to this if necessary?”

  “No doubt, yes.”

  Sanchez glared at the man.

  One of the detectives to whom Sanchez had given the keys to the safe returned, shook his head as he handed them back. Sanchez grimaced, placed the keys on the coffee table in front of Lieber.

  Lieber said, “Have your men finished?”

  “For now. Sí.”

  “You intend on arresting me?”

  “No.”

  “Then I want you and your people off my property.” Lieber stood to his full height, towering over the other man. “Your commissioner will hear about this intrusion of my privacy. Now leave. At once.”

  Sanchez put down the album on the study desk. “Señor, I will be back. Again and again, if necessary. I wish to assure you of that.”

  “That’s harassment.”

  “No, señor.” Sanchez smiled grimly. “I prefer to call it thoroughness.”

  Lieber felt the anger rise in him. “Be assured, your commissioner will hear from me.”

  Sanchez’s smile broadened. “Yes, I’m certain he will. But you see, señor, there is a certain matter of a tape. A tape recording of a conversation in a certain hotel. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. So be assured, you will see me again.”

  The smugness vanished. Perplexed, Lieber felt the blood rise uncontrollably to his cheeks, saw the detective’s hooded eyes stare at him, search for a reaction.

  He checked himself, then said hoarsely, “Go.”

  • • •

  Forty minutes later, Lieber was on the Plaza del Héroes. He parked the Mercedes and observed the street. So far as he could tell, he wasn’t being followed. He decided a public phone would be safer.

  He found one in a hotel near the plaza. He made two calls, listened to the incredulous voices as he sweated in the hot kiosk. He kept the conversations as short as possible, all the time his eyes searching the hotel lobby to make sure he wasn’t being watched. He told them his plans and received their immediate approval.

  The third call he made to an unlisted number on the outskirts of the city. Lieber told the man what he wanted done, then put down the telephone and waited for the reply call.

  It came less than five minutes later. He listened to the voice and noted the instructions. A minute later, he stepped from the hotel and walked back toward his car. His eyes scanned the busy streets for anyone following him.

  No one did.

  • • •

  Sanchez stood at the office window looking down at the fronds of the palm trees along the calle, a mug of steaming coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

  Almost nine o’clock. Traffic streaked below, the blue-and-whites pulling up outside every now and then, disgorging their nightly cargo. Hookers. Pimps. Thieves.

  He heard the door open loudly and turned. Cavales came in.

  Sanchez said, “Well?”

  “It was just like you said, he went to make a call. I had four teams following him. Twenty minutes after we left, he drove to the Plaza del Héroes and went into a small hotel, the Riva. We think he made just a couple of telephone calls, but we can’t be sure. The woman watching him said he was pretty uncomfortable, so she didn’t push it.”

  “Go on.”

  “He drove back home, stayed half an hour. Then he had his manservant drive him to the outskirts. He walked for five minutes, then hailed a taxi. He changed taxis twice. The second took him to the airport, where he picked up a suitcase at the left luggage. We tailed the servant, too. He drove to the airport after he dropped Lieber off and stashed the suitcase in the left luggage, where Lieber picked it up.”

  “You managed to check the suitcase?”

  Cavales nodded. “It contained a couple of shirts and a suit. Underwear and toiletries. The usual stuff. Nothing interesting.” Cavales paused. “But there’s something else.”

  Sanchez raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “He picked up a package at the information desk, along with the ticket for his luggage. Two of our people followed him to the departure area.”

  “They didn’t stop him?”

  “There was something much more interesting to consider.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He had a passport in a different name and checked onto a flight for São Paulo, with the first connection to Mexico City tomorrow night. I guess the passport was the package he picked up. He must be running scared.”

  “The name he used?”

  “Monck. Julius Monck.”

  Sanchez blinked.

  Cavales said, “You want me to get immigration in São Paulo to pick him up?” He checked his watch. “The flight doesn’t land for another hour. Possession of an illegal passport is one thing. Using it is another. On that alone, he’s got some questions to answer.”

  Sanchez’s eyebrows knit closely together, as if the act of thinking was painful. “Bring me the map from the wall.”

  Cavales unhooked the large hanging map of South America, placed it on Sanchez’s desk.

  The big detective stared down at the multicolored patterns on the laminated, nicotine-stained cardboard, then traced a finger from the northeast, Chaco, to the Brazilian border.

  “The report from the radar people at Bahia Negra. They said the flight they vectored disappeared toward Corumba, over the border.”

  “Sí.”

  Sanchez’s finger traced a line on the map. “It’s only a short distance from there to Campo Grande. There’s an airport at Campo Grande. With a shuttle service to São Paulo, I believe.”

  Cavales scratched his chin. “I don’t see the point.”

  “From Paulo there’s a connecting flight to Mexico City. Lieber’s destination. Maybe the people from the Chaco house took that route. Maybe they went to Mexico City also. Now Lieber’s worried. He needs to talk to them. In person.”

  Cavales smiled. “Either that or Lieber’s running for good.”

  Sanchez shrugged. “He’s pretty scared about something. You saw the look on his face when I mentioned the taped conversation—it really worried him.” Sanchez thought for a moment, then said,
“Get onto Chief Inspector Eduardo Gonzales in Mexico City. Inform him of Lieber’s likely arrival there in the name of Monck.”

  “Is Gonzales a friend of yours?”

  Sanchez nodded. “We met at a police conference in Caracas. Have a photograph of Lieber wired to him. Lieber’s connecting tickets are in the name of Monck, but just in case he has another passport, they should be able to identify him from the photo. And get onto São Paulo, too. Ask them to watch Lieber when he arrives, make sure he makes the connecting flight he’s booked on. Ask them to use their best undercover people. I don’t want it blown.”

  “You want this Gonzales to pick up Lieber?”

  “No. Simply followed. I want to know where he goes. Who he meets.”

  Cavales nodded, went to leave.

  “And Cavales—”

  “Sí?”

  “The first available connecting flight to Mexico City. Book two seats.” Sanchez smiled thinly. “But not the same route as Lieber, obviously.”

  Cavales smiled back, and left.

  Sanchez opened his wallet and stared down at the photograph. It was the one he had removed from the album in Lieber’s house. He had pocketed it deftly. Theft, but justifiable. He doubted that Lieber had noticed; the man had been too distracted.

  Now he placed the picture on his desk and blinked. He studied the two men flanking Lieber. From the cut of the clothes, he guessed Lieber hadn’t lied; the photograph was taken a long time ago. Ten years at least, but difficult to say. He saw a veranda behind the three men, painted white like the house in the Chaco jungle. His gut told him it was the same house.

  He ran a hand through his thinning hair and sighed now as he thought of the work ahead. He would telephone his wife and tell her of his plans. No more than a day or two in Mexico City, if he was lucky. He stared down at the photograph of the three men once more as he picked up the receiver and went to dial his home number.

  Rosario would understand.

  This one was for Rudi Hernandez.

  This one was personal.

  29

  BERLIN. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14

  Volkmann telephoned Jakob Fischer at Berlin homicide, but the policeman who answered said that Fischer was out of the office and wouldn’t return until late that afternoon. Volkmann left a message saying he would call back later.