The Dark Place: A historical suspense thriller set in the murky world of fugitive war criminals, vengeful Nazi hunters and spies

by Damian Vargas

  Blackman strode to the garage. She jogged after him. ‘It’s the boy,’ he said, without making eye contact.

  ‘You have him here?’ she asked. ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere they’ll never find him.’

  ‘You have to let him go, Harry. He’s only a child. Whatever his parents and grandparents did, it’s not his fault. He’s an innocent.’

  ‘I know that.’ The Englishman peered back at her, started towards the open garage doors. ‘Grab what you need from upstairs. We’ll take your car.’ He reached to a shelf on the wall for a metal torch, turned it on, the bluish light highlighting his desperate features. She thought of the haunting painting by her compatriot, Edvard Munch - Skrik, its Norwegian name, or “The Scream” as they referred to it in English.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Johansson said.

  ‘To get the boy.’ He turned away, limping past the garage, towards the orchards to the rear. ‘There’s money in the chest next to my bed,’ he shouted. ‘My passports too. Get yours as well. We’ll need them. And you need to destroy all those surveillance logs you made. I don’t want the Spanish police finding them.’

  She did as he had instructed, running into the house, up the stairs to his bedroom. She collected the bundle of banknotes and his passport, saw his old army revolver, left it. She ran back down the narrow wooden staircase, started towards the garage, but then froze, his last words replaying in her head.

  And you need to destroy all those surveillance logs you made. I don’t want the Spanish police finding them.

  How could he have possibly known about that? Unless—

  Her heart raced. A wave of nausea enveloped her. She peered into the darkness between the two buildings. To the orchards, to where Blackman had gone. She let the money and the passport fall to the floor, gripped the pistol.

  Behind her, the sound of a shoe scuffing along the ground. She spun around, bringing the gun with her, but it was knocked from her hand by something heavy. Something metallic, striking from out of the darkness.

  A second powerful blow. To her cheek, her head filling with bright lights. Like a lightening strike. She started to fall, then managed to steady herself, launched at her assailant, succeeded in digging her fingernails into his neck. But he was strong, and her strength had abandoned her. Her legs gave way. His right hand wrapped around her head, holding something. A syringe. He yanked her head to one side, jabbed the needle into her neck. She tried to resist with the last of her energy, grabbing at his hair, but the narcotic had already taken effect. The lights from the garage were morphing into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. She collapsed, her face driving into the gravel.

  The shadow of her attacker leaned over her, then moved away. His slow footsteps the last thing she heard before falling into unconsciousness.

  57

  The reunion

  Police Station, La Mesita Blanca.

  All Saints’ Day, 1970.

  8:45pm.

  ‘How long until your friends at the secret police get here?’ asked Harry Blackman.

  Inspector Jesus Garcia decided that he would take the bait. ‘Those people are no friends of mine.’ He glanced at his watch. It was nearing nine o’clock. ‘Not long, now,’ he said, as he peered through the small window of the cell door. The desk sergeant was at the entrance door, a bunch of keys in hand, conversing with one of three figures standing outside.

  Blackman struggled to his feet, his discomfort plain to see. ‘Is that him?’

  ‘It is.’

  Garcia had instructed that only the man who called himself Joseph Navarro was to be allowed into the police station. The German’s two minders were not to be permitted inside. ‘Tell them to go back and wait in the bar,’ Garcia had instructed. ‘We will call for them once we are finished.’

  One of the muscular men was remonstrating with the desk sergeant, but to Garcia’s surprise, the Spaniard stood firm. The tall figure of Joseph Navarro stepped forward and said something to his bodyguard, who nodded, then stepped back.

  The Inspector turned back to look at the Englishman. ‘It seems you will get what you wanted, after all.’ He knocked on the door and Officer Ramos appeared on the other side, unlocked the cell door. ‘Wait here. One of my men will come for you.’

  Garcia made his way to the interview room and sat down in his chair. A compact tape recorder had been left on the table for him. He checked that it had a cassette in it, then reached into his pocket, removed the notebook and pen, and placed them on the table before pouring himself a glass of water. He stared at the empty steel seat opposite him - the ‘chair of the guilty’ he had often called it - and to the rather more comfortable chair that had been borrowed from his office and been positioned to the right of the table, for the German. His eyes drifted up to his wife’s painting of the pueblo hanging from the wall. ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ he whispered, then lifted the glass to his lips, swallowing the water as he contemplated what was about to happen.

  The door opened behind him, and Officer Ramos guided Harry Blackman past Garcia’s left to the seat opposite him. Ramos waited for Blackman to sit, then secured the Englishman’s right hand to the metal chair with a pair of handcuffs. Keeping his stare on Blackman as his colleague left the room to fetch Navarro, he said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

  A minute later, the figure of Joseph Navarro entered into the room, the young police officer directing him to the wood and leather chair to the right of the table. The Englishman sat still, his eyes following Navarro like a hunter tracking a stag through a dense forest, waiting for the moment to shoot.

  The German was tall, his hairline receded, thin and grey - thinner and greyer than the Inspector the remembered. The German lowered himself down, his knuckles white as he gripped the arms of the chair, his arms shaking, his jaw tight. His skin was impossibly pale for a man who lived in southern Spain. The colour of a man who rarely leaves the shadows of his home, thought Garcia. A prisoner to his past.

  ‘A glass of water, Señor Navarro?’

  Navarro coughed to clear his throat, shook his head, and snapped at Garcia. ‘I am fine.’

  ‘Thank you for coming. I appreciate that it cannot have been an easy decision for you.’

  Navarro had his hands clenched together on the table. He leaned to face Garcia, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, his pupils black and empty. ‘I am here for one reason, and one reason only…’ He angled his head slightly towards Harry Blackman. ‘For my son.’

  Blackman remained still, with no sign of emotion save for a slight twitch of one cheek.

  ‘That is understood,’ Garcia said. He reached forward, his thumb and index finger hovering over the record and play buttons of the tape recorder. He peered at Navarro. ‘Now, as you were previously advised, this…meeting is at the behest of Mr Blackman here. His first condition is that it is recorded. Do you accept this condition, Señor Navarro?’

  ‘Yes, Garcia. I accept the fucking conditions. All of them. Start this.’

  The Inspector pressed down on the plastic buttons and the machine whirred into life, a red light blinking. He waited a few seconds for the magnetic section of the tape to reach the device’s recording head, then peered through his glasses at his watch. ‘Ok, it is approaching nine o’clock in the evening of Sunday, the first of November. All Saints’ Day. My name is Captain Jesus Garcia of the Guardia Civil based, here, at La Mesita Blanca police station. I have with me, in this room, a British national, Mr Harry Blackman, and a member of the local community, Señor Joseph Navarro. For the record, Mr Blackman has been detained on suspicion of being involved in the death of a Mr Peter Stangle and in the disappearance of Conrad Navarro, the son of Señor Navarro.’

  Garcia paused, glanced at the Englishman who remained impassive, his eyes locked on the German to his left. ‘This meeting between Mr Blackman, Señor Navarro and myself, was…requested by Mr Blackman as a condition to his subsequently providing us with the exact location of Conrad Navarro. Mr Blackma
n also insisted that this meeting be recorded, and that the tapes be provided to the British Ambassador in Madrid.’

  Garcia took a long breath, looked to the German. ‘Mr Navarro, has already indicted to me that he accepts these conditions and so, with that, we shall proceed.’ The Inspector reached for his notepad and pen, sat back. ‘Mr Blackman. You have twenty minutes, as agreed. Please begin.’

  The German remained staring at a space on the table in front of his clenched hands, his lips slightly open, his lower jaw making slight movements back and forth, evidencing him grinding his teeth.

  Blackman remained silent and still, simply staring at the German.

  After twenty seconds or so, Garcia decided he could stand it no longer, ‘Mr Blackman, you have what you wanted. Señor Navarro is here, please—’

  ‘His name is not Navarro,’ Blackman snapped. ‘His name is Joachim von Ziegler. SS Oberführer Joachim von Ziegler, and if we’re going to continue here, the first thing I want is that he acknowledges that fact.’

  The German’s eyes drifted momentarily towards the tape recorder and its flashing red light. There was no hiding the inner rage simmering within him. His teeth were gritted, nostrils flared, his fingers interlocked, and his forearms taught, twitching.

  ‘Señor Navarro. Will you respond, please?’ said Garcia in a soft tone.

  Eyes still glowering at the table, the German inhaled through his teeth, then finally responded, ‘I am Joachim von Ziegler.’

  Garcia saw a momentary hint of satisfaction flash across the Englishman’s face.

  ‘We met before, you and I. Do you remember?’ said Blackman.

  The German inhaled through his mouth once more. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Of course you do. But do you know why I am here?’

  The German angled his head towards Blackman, their eyes meeting for the first time since December 1945. ‘The war was twenty-five years ago. So no, I do not know why you are here. Why don’t you tell me?’

  Blackman grinned. ‘I want a confession. I want you to acknowledge your sins.’

  The German snorted with derision, droplets of saliva projecting from his mouth onto the table. He wiped at his lips with the back of his hand, inhaled, coughed, holding a hand to his chest. ‘Sins? I committed no sins. I was a soldier. It was war.’

  Blackman shook his head. ‘A quarter of a century later and still you refuse to admit what you did, what you were.’

  ‘I was a soldier.’

  ‘You were SS. Schutzstaffel. You were not a soldier.’

  ‘I did my duty, for my country. Just as you did for yours. We are the same.’

  Blackman sat back, as if the air between the two men had become polluted. Poisonous. ‘We are not the same.’

  The German, one hand still held to his chest, lifted the other hand, pointed a bony white finger towards the Englishman. ‘We wore uniforms. We received orders. We followed those orders. We are the same.’

  Garcia, conscious of the urgency of the situation, interrupted. ‘Señor…von Ziegler. For the sake of your son, I would advise a course of…acquiescence.’

  The German’s eyes snapped towards the Spaniard. ‘Acquiescence? What? State here, on a fucking tape recording, that I am a sinner? A monster? When I was merely a soldier, doing my duty? Never.’

  ‘Not even for your child’s sake?’

  The German glared at the tape recorder, his head shaking once more. ‘If you fucking Spanish had done your fucking jobs, we would not even be here having this fucking conversation. So, don’t you try to take the high road here, Garcia. I know you. I know your past, and I know you’re just days from retiring on a fat pension, to spend the rest of your days enjoying life in that pretty little house of yours…the house bought with German money.’

  It was now the Inspector’s turn to direct an uncomfortable glance at the tape recorder.

  ‘My only priority here, sir, is to find your son.’

  The German smacked an open hand down onto the table, eyes darting between the Inspector and the Englishman. ‘Fine. I’m a sinner. There, I admit it. It’s on your cursed tape recording. I sinned, just as each of you have sinned. Just as millions of men sinned in that war and in every other war since the dawn of time.’ He stared at Blackman. ‘Now, tell me where my son is.’

  The Englishman shook his head. ‘Not good enough.’

  The German eyes narrowed. His chest heaved as he inhaled through his teeth, arms recoiling to the arms of the chair, and started to rise.

  ‘Sit down,’ Garcia shouted, reaching to grab the German’s bicep. ‘Sit down, or I’ll have you restrained too.’

  ‘You would not dare,’ Navarro hissed.

  ‘Fail to control yourself again, and you will find out.’ Garcia held the man’s angry stare for several seconds, glimpsing the German’s true nature, a cold shiver flowing from the Spaniard’s feet to his chest. He released his grip on the German, turned to the Englishman. ‘An innocent boy’s life is in the balance. If something should happen to him I, for one, would not want to go to my grave with that on my conscious.’

  ‘There are other ways to make this bastard tell us where Conrad is,’ said Navarro.

  Garcia peered at Blackman. The Englishman looked back at him. What would it take to break such an individual? The man had taken a beating - his collarbone broken, has arm in a plaster cast, his face bruised and scratched, his skin pallid. But yet he sat tall, his eyes telling the real story. He remained resolute, confident, and certain in what he was doing. If this man could be broken, thought Garcia, it would take time. And time was not something Conrad Navarro had. Nor, with the secret police almost upon him, did Inspector Garcia. ‘That is not an option,’ he said. ‘Mr Blackman. Please, tell us what you want.’

  ‘I want the details.’

  ‘What details?’ said von Ziegler.

  ‘You murdered thousands.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘Men, women…children. You killed them.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have their blood on your hands, that is your sin. That’s what I want you to admit.’

  ‘I did not personally kill a single person in the whole war. Not an Allied soldier. Not a German, a Pole, a Slav or even a fucking Jew.’

  ‘I was there, at Mittlebau. I saw your work. You killed them.’

  ‘It is not true.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You murdered them.’

  ‘I murdered nobody.’

  ‘You ordered it.’

  ‘I did nothing but pass on the orders of others, higher up. I did not do it.’

  ‘You admit it?’

  ‘That I followed orders? Of course, I followed orders. I was a soldier.’

  ‘A soldier?’

  ‘Yes, a soldier.’

  ‘A Colonel of the SS?’

  ‘Yes, I was a soldier.’

  ‘You were a monster.’

  ‘No. I was a soldier. I followed orders. I just did my duty.’

  ‘It was your duty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your duty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To kill all those people.’

  ‘Ja, gottverdammt. Yes, my duty.’

  ‘To execute people?’

  ‘There were revolts, we had to maintain discipline.’

  ‘By hanging thirty workers from a crane? Leaving their bodies suspended in the air for days? While you forced the rest to work?’

  ‘Those swines were criminals who committed acts of sabotage. It was the penalty. They knew that when they did it.’

  ‘And the beatings? The torture?’

  ‘I do not know of this.’

  ‘How can you not know? The bodies littered the floors of the tunnels. I saw them with my own eyes. How could you have not? As you escaped? As you ran away to save your own miserable skin? The piles of corpses on open trucks and in cattle wagons, across the fields…how could you not have seen those? How could it be possible you
did not know?’

  ‘That was the guards. They would lose control.’

  ‘The guards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your guards. Men under your command. Your men. Men that you ordered to set fire to the huts full of the sick and the infirm. Men who then machine-gunned anyone who tried to climb out.’

  ‘Yes, my men, but you cannot know what it was like. We were under pressure. From Speer. From Himmler. And from the Führer, personally. We had deadlines. Targets. They could not be achieved any other way. It was intolerable. I did what I could.’

  ‘You did what you could?’

  ‘Yes, but it was impossible to make their targets, the shipments. There was no other way. If I did not meet these targets, I would have been shot.’

  ‘Thousands died so you could live?’

  ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘You had no…choice?’

  ‘Ja, exactly. I had no choice.’

  ‘Every man has a choice, Obergruppenführer von Ziegler. You had a choice. And you chose.’

  Garcia sat back, watching the German whose eyes darted between the Englishman and the Inspector. He saw the same face, but a different man now. The arrogant, assured persona gone, an individual willing to do and say anything to save his own skin.

  ‘So,’ he said, holding his chest, left hand gripping the edge of the table. ‘So, are we done? Are you satisfied? Will you tell me what you have done with Conrad now?’

  ‘No,’ said Blackman. ‘There’s one more thing I need to know.’ He leaned forward as much as his shackles would allow. ‘Did you have Gus Ferguson murdered?’

  Navarro peered at Blackman, his Brough furrowed, his eyes uncertain. ‘I do not know this name.’

  ‘Gus Ferguson. He was one of the men in my unit. One of the few that survived the war to return to their families. He came to me, a year ago. He asked for my help. He said he’d found you, living here in your perfect little sanctuary. He wanted my help, but I refused.’ Blackman’s voice faltered for a moment. He coughed, then continued. ‘I failed him. And then you had him killed.’

  ‘I did no such thing. I told you, I have no idea who this man, Ferguson, is.’