Brandenburg: A Thriller

by Glenn Meade

  Even in the fading light, he saw that the old man had turned pale again, and he stared into Volkmann’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

  Volkmann said, “Is something the matter? Did something I said surprise you?”

  “Everything you have said so far about Erhard Schmeltz has surprised me.” Busch looked away, stared out into the fading light. His face was as white as chalk. “Do you know who sent him the money from Germany?” he asked.

  “I don’t. But I’d guess it had to be someone with authority if the Reichsbank was involved.”

  “Why do you think the money was sent?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Volkmann looked at Busch. “But it surprises you that Schmeltz was sent such large sums?”

  “Of course. He wasn’t a wealthy man. At least not while I knew him. And I can’t think of a reason why he would have received such amounts.”

  “You think it’s possible Schmeltz was helping someone to put away money secretly? Someone high up in the party?”

  Busch shrugged. “It’s possible. After the war, Germans abroad helped Nazis set up secret bank accounts. But that happened toward the end of the war, when defeat was inevitable. Not before. And most of those accounts were kept in Switzerland.”

  Something seemed to be troubling Busch, but he remained silent, his brow furrowed.

  Volkmann said, “Did you ever hear of something called the Brandenburg Testament?”

  Busch’s wrinkled face came up sharply. “Has this got something to do with what we’re discussing?”

  “Let’s just say it came up in conversation. Why? You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s just old Nazi propaganda, Herr Volkmann.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In February 1945, two months before the war ended, a meeting was held in Hitler’s bunker, near the Brandenburg Gate. It was supposed to be top secret, but we heard rumors about it afterward in the Abwehr. Hitler’s most loyal SS were present. Mostly Leibstandarte SS, his bodyguard. Even they knew defeat was imminent, but none would dare admit it publicly. Instead, they talked about regrouping to carry on the war. The Testament was said to have been a legacy sanctioned by Hitler.”

  “What kind of legacy?”

  “Herr Volkmann, it was really only propaganda nonsense, I assure you.”

  “Tell me anyhow.”

  “In the event of the Reich being defeated, gold and bullion held by the Reichsbank and SS were to be secretly shipped to South America and also hidden in parts of Germany. The belief was that when the time was right again, the party would be resurrected. You could say it was a blueprint to secretly reestablish the Nazi Party.” Busch paused. “When we heard about the plan in the Abwehr, we laughed. It was the foolish hope of desperate men. The Testament came to nothing. Certainly gold and other bullion made its way to South America after the war. It was often used simply to keep a chosen few in comfort and security for the rest of their lives. But the amounts of money Schmeltz received and when he received it, that would eliminate him from any connection, surely?”

  Volkmann nodded.

  For a long time, Busch was silent. It was growing cold in the garden; he finally looked at his watch and stood. “I’m afraid I must take my leave of you. I have things to attend to.”

  Volkmann rose. “Thanks for your help.”

  Busch led him to the front door. “The smuggling operation you spoke of, you think it’s gold?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  Busch hesitated. “There is one more thing you should know. I don’t know if it’s relevant, and I meant to say it earlier, but our discussion was somehow deflected.” The old man paused. “According to your information, Erhard Schmeltz went to South America with his wife and child, is that correct?”

  “That’s what the records in Asunción say.”

  “The boy’s name again?”

  “Karl.”

  “And when was the boy born?”

  “The records say four months before Schmeltz arrived in Paraguay.”

  Busch shook his head vigorously. “Herr Volkmann, it couldn’t have been Erhard Schmeltz’s wife, and it couldn’t have been his son.”

  Volkmann stared back at the old man in confusion.

  “Why?”

  “Because Erhard Schmeltz never married. At least not in Germany. Nor did he have any children that I knew of. And the woman who emigrated to South America with him would have been his sister. I thought perhaps it was she in the photograph you showed me, but it wasn’t. Her name was Inge, I remember. She was a rather unattractive, awkward countrywoman who never married or had children. She lived with her brother as his housekeeper, and she disappeared at the same time as Erhard Schmeltz.” Busch paused, shook his gray head. “So whoever the boy was that you say they took with them to Paraguay, he wasn’t their child.”

  40

  MEXICO CITY. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 12:00 A.M.

  It was warm in the basement interview room, the atmosphere charged with tension.

  Tension and frustration.

  The gray walls were awash with bright light, and Gonzales gritted his teeth as he stared down at the Brazilian, Ernesto Brandt, seated behind the table. The man’s left shoulder was bandaged, and he looked to be in pain.

  Gonzales himself had been attended to by a paramedic at the villa; the man gave him a couple of yellow pills and told him to see a doctor immediately. The throbbing in Gonzales’s arm wouldn’t go away, but the doctor would have to wait.

  He stared down at the Brazilian.

  The man wore metal-framed glasses with thick lenses. His high forehead made him look like a professor. He sat impassively—except when his face showed pain—but silent throughout the one-sided conversation, which had gone on for almost three hours.

  Gonzales put his two best interrogators on the job, and they questioned Brandt before Gonzales arrived. Now he glanced at his watch. After midnight.

  The interpreter, a shy, young, bespectacled man, sat opposite, his presence a waste of time because Brandt was saying nothing. He had been read his rights, in Portuguese, by the translator. Gonzales spoke a little Portuguese himself, enough to get by.

  There would be no lawyer until Brandt spoke. No food, no water, no painkillers. Nothing. But Gonzales might as well have been talking to a mute.

  Brandt had already been interviewed by the two senior detectives using the translator.

  “I’m talking to myself,” one of the frustrated detectives said afterward.

  “Tell me,” Gonzales almost spat.

  “His name’s Ernesto Brandt.”

  “He told you?”

  “He told us nothing. Not a single word. Just sits there. When we searched him, we found a key card for the Conrad Hotel. I had a man go over and check out the room.”

  “And?” Gonzales asked.

  “Our dumb friend checked in two days ago off a flight from Rio. We found a Brazilian passport in the name of Ernesto Brandt. Age fifty, born in Rio. The passport looks good.”

  “You confirmed it with the Brazilian embassy?”

  The detective nodded. “They’re checking with Brasilia. They’ll get back to us as soon as they have anything. Any luck with the roadblocks?”

  Gonzales sighed, shook his head. But of course, they didn’t know what they were looking for. A disadvantage in a city of more than 20 million. Brandt would know how many persons were in the villa at the time of the shooting and who they were. He would know what type of car the people who murdered Sanchez had escaped in.

  The only ones at the villa who possessed identification were Lieber—the false passport in the name of Monck—and the two butlers.

  The second butler, who survived, could tell them nothing. A business card in his wallet suggested he worked for a catering company used by Haider. But the butler was in a state of shock. Immediately after the villa shooting he swallowed a bunch of pills—a strong cocktail of tranquilizers. Now he was sedated to the eyeballs
in the Valparaiso Hospital. A zombie. He wouldn’t be able to talk for many hours.

  And time was one thing Gonzales did not have.

  The old man named Haider had suffered a heart attack. He was already dead as they stretchered him to the ambulance, just like Juales.

  The detective nodded toward the interview room. “You want to try with Brandt? The guy’s got glue on his lips. Personally, I think it’s a waste.”

  Gonzales scowled. “We’ll see.”

  • • •

  The man watched him enter the room. Watched and said nothing. Gonzales wanted to beat the silence out of Brandt with angry fists. Juales dead. Cavales dead. Sanchez dead. And ten others. A bloodbath.

  And yet this man said nothing. Calm. Controlled, despite his pain, despite hours of threats, and pounding the table in front of him.

  Gonzales tried again. “Your name?”

  Silence.

  “Why were you at the villa?”

  Brandt continued to look straight ahead at the far wall. Gonzales gritted his teeth. “Tell me the names of the men at the villa.”

  Brandt licked his upper lip, but his eyes didn’t move.

  Gonzales said, “The charges against you are serious. Complicity in the murder of six police officers. Resisting arrest. Attempting to flee the scene of a crime. I could go on but I’m losing my patience.” Gonzales pounded his fist on the table. “So talk! Why were you at the villa? Who were the men meeting Lieber?”

  Gonzales reached over, wrenched Brandt from his seat by the lapel nearest his wounded shoulder. Then he made a fist, clenched into a tight, angry ball.

  For once, Brandt reacted. He screamed in agony.

  Gonzales let fly.

  The fist halted a hairsbreadth from the man’s face. Gonzales let out a long sigh of frustration. Grudgingly, he let go of the Brazilian’s lapel.

  Brandt’s face was contorted in pain. Slowly he sat down. Still no sign of fear, but a little anxious now.

  Controlled again, Gonzales said, “Listen to me, Brandt, or whoever you are. Listen well. Thirteen men are dead. Some were policemen, close friends of mine. Good friends. Good men.”

  Gonzales took a deep breath, let it out, then went on: “The charges you face are serious. But if you help me I’ll make certain it’s considered by the court. Understand?”

  Gonzales left the words hanging, waited for a response. In the silence that followed, he could hear his own breathing.

  Finally, after what seemed like an age, there was a brief flicker in Brandt’s eyes. He stared up at Gonzales.

  He’s going to talk, thought Gonzales.

  Then Brandt opened his mouth, and the words came out in Spanish, contempt in every syllable. “I have nothing to say. Except that I want to speak with a lawyer.”

  Gonzales exhaled with a terrible frustration.

  • • •

  The man was tall and wore an expensive, well-tailored suit. His face was tanned and handsome.

  They sat in Gonzales’s office, the city’s winking lights sprawling beyond the window.

  In his left hand Gonzales held the gold-embossed personal card the man had handed him in the basement hallway minutes before. Gonzales ran a finger across its shiny rough-smoothness.

  FIRST SECRETARY TO HIS EXCELLENCY, THE AMBASSADOR OF BRAZIL. The man’s name below his title. When Gonzales met him in the hallway, he asked to see the prisoner, Brandt, but not to talk with him. The diplomat stared at Brandt silently for a long time. His face turned pale, then he nodded to Gonzales before being led back upstairs to the office.

  The man said in perfect, cultured Spanish, “Perhaps you better explain the situation to me.”

  Gonzales ignored the niceties and told it straight. Thirteen people dead at the villa.

  The diplomat reacted to the body count.

  Gonzales finished, and the diplomat said, “After your detective phoned the embassy, we contacted police headquarters in Brasilia. The passport this man Brandt carried is legitimate. I believe our chief of police in Brasilia will be contacting his opposite number here in Mexico City to discuss the matter.”

  The diplomat hesitated, and Gonzales saw the perspiration on his upper lip. He was worried.

  “Go on,” prompted Gonzales.

  The diplomat paused, uncertain. “This is a rather . . . sensitive matter. I believe I ought to speak with your commissioner first.”

  Gonzales took a deep, angry breath, then looked the man in the eye.

  “I’m in charge of this case. You talk only to me. Thirteen people are dead, and your countryman downstairs is implicated. I want answers, fast. Who’s Brandt? Why are you people so interested that the first secretary himself comes here? Tell me, and tell me quickly.”

  The diplomat’s face flushed red. He wasn’t used to being talked to in this way. But still worried. Perspiration glistening on his upper lip.

  Gonzales said impatiently, “I haven’t got all day, señor.”

  “Very well, Chief Inspector. Your superior will no doubt confirm this once he’s spoken with our chief of police. However, I will tell you myself. What you are about to hear is highly classified and sensitive information.” He paused, then added, “You may be aware that during the time the military was in power, Brazil developed a program for the production of nuclear weapons. After the return of democracy, the program was canceled, but not before several kilos of weapons-grade plutonium were produced. This material was not disposed of.”

  Gonzales watched the man without replying.

  “Señor Brandt was involved in that program,” the diplomat continued. “And it has come to light that he managed to steal some of that material . . . in small quantities. But over time, the small quantities add up.”

  “You’re saying someone out there has enough Brazilian plutonium to build a bomb?”

  “In short, yes.”

  Gonzales made a sign of the cross. “In the name of heaven . . .”

  The story continued for several more minutes, the enormity of what the diplomat was saying making Gonzales understand Brandt’s reluctance to talk.

  When the diplomat finished, and Gonzales was satisfied that the man had told him everything, he thanked him and led him to the door, then moved back to his desk.

  The call from the commissioner came immediately.

  The conversation lasted for almost two minutes; then Gonzales tapped the receiver and made the necessary phone calls at once. All border posts, all air and sea ports—on alert.

  As for the plutonium, the diplomat had no idea of where it was. Perhaps still in South America. Perhaps radical Muslims had it. Perhaps it was in Europe or North America. The proper, international authorities would have to be notified. Meanwhile, Sanchez’s people in Asunción might have more immediate leads.

  Gonzales swore.

  In a moment he tried the number of the Central Police Office in Asunción himself, but the lines were busy. He called the operator on the ground floor, gave him the number, and told him to keep trying until he got through. He checked his watch. In a little while he would have to drive out to Tacubaya and tell Juales’s widow of her husband’s death. An unpleasant thought and deed. The man had been a good and competent policeman, and a close friend.

  Sanchez’s and Cavales’s widows must be told, too.

  His head ached. He lit a cigarette, inhaled as he crossed to the window. His arm throbbed, but he tried to ignore the discomfort.

  Beyond the glass, stardust lights stretched to the Chapultepec Hills and the Sierra de las Cruces. So many places to hide in a city of more than 20 million souls, so many routes of escape. He didn’t hold out much hope. People like Haider had connections, and there were other Haiders. What did they call it in the old days? Die Spinne. The Spider. He remembered hearing the stories told to him by the old detectives when he was a rookie. The Germans who came to Mexico with gold and money after the war and bought the big villas in the Chapultepec Hills and down along the coast. And their organization, the Spider, which w
as secretive and efficient in the extreme.

  The chances of catching the men were slim. Without question, he would try—but something was telling him that the men from the villa were already gone. Still, he had to make the effort. For Juales and his men, for a dead Sanchez and his compatriot, all of them lying now in the police morgue.

  The telephone buzzed. He turned, startled.

  Asunción, he hoped. His call to Paraguay.

  They would need to know about Sanchez and Cavales, how they died. And just as important, why.

  And now that he himself knew, he shook his head in disbelief. No wonder the men were so desperate to escape the villa. No wonder they were prepared to flee at any cost. He crossed back to his desk, stubbed out his cigarette, and picked up the phone.

  41

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21

  It was almost five-thirty when Volkmann’s Ford drove up the gentle slopes toward Waldweg.

  He consulted Ivan Molke’s drawing. It placed the monastery eight miles going southeast.

  Volkmann found it on a desolate road as the Ford’s headlights swept across a narrow granite bridge. Beyond it were two massive wooden doors of the monastery entrance, set in high sandstone walls.

  Some instinct told him to take the Beretta. He slipped the pistol in his pocket, and took the flashlight and the spare batteries.

  The sandstone walls around the old monastery looked pretty solid. A metal crucifix hung above the ancient wooden gates. A judas gate was set in the middle, and Volkmann doused the headlights.