The Nazi Hunter

by Alan Elsner

  I didn't know what to say. She hung up.

  When Jennifer showed up, I wasn't in the mood for conversation. I made the pretense of offering her coffee, but she was equally anxious to get this over with. It already felt like years since we had been together, and now we were strangers to one another. I handed over the discs, and she went on her way.

  That night, I had a new dream. I was in some kind of boot camp doing exercises to the tune of Schubert's “Military March.” “Schnell, macht schnell!” shouted the drill sergeant. “Faster, go faster!” I tried to jump up and down, but my body was heavy and awkward. Then I realized I was carrying something on my shoulders. I tried to shake it off. “No dancing, no singing!” shouted the drill sergeant, pulling out a pistol and aiming at me. The weight fell off my shoulders and crashed to the ground. It was a head wrapped in a white cloth. “No, no,” I yelled, jerking myself awake before I could see whose head it was. Even in my sleep, I knew I didn't want to know. In the half-light, disconcerted, I wondered if I would ever be free of these nightmares. At least now there was a reason to have them.

  I tossed and turned the rest of the night. When the alarm went off at six, I pondered whether I ought to be going to minyan. Some Nazi might be waiting for me on the street corner. Hell, this was no way to behave. I pulled myself together and drove the few blocks to shul, looking in the mirror every few seconds. I didn't see anyone following me.

  The minyan usually met in a small chapel rather than in the main sanctuary. It drew a smattering of people, many of them mourners saying Kaddish for a loved one. I slipped my tallis around my shoulders after kissing the corners of the embroidered neckband and saying the blessing. Then I put on my tefillin, or phylacteries, binding the first one on my left arm, strapping it once above the elbow and seven times between the elbow and wrist. Next I said the blessing, “Blessed are You, Adonai, God and Ruler of the Universe,Whose commandments make us holy, and Who commands us concerning tefillin. Blessed be that Sovereign Name for ever.” I lowered the second tefilla over my head until it rested just below my hairline and tightened the straps. Last, I took the remainder of the strap still lying loose below my left wrist and wound it around my second and third fingers and around the back of my hand to form the Hebrew letters shin, dalet, and yod, which form the word Shaddai—Almighty. I was ready to pray.

  I decided to stay after the service, joining the rabbi and half a dozen others for bagels, coffee, and a quick study session in the library to discuss the weekly Torah portion, which told of Joseph's travails and triumphs in Egypt. The section dealt with dreams, starting with Joseph's visions predicting how his brothers would all bow down to him and culminating in his prediction of the seven years of plenty followed by the seven years of famine in Egypt. I wished Joseph was still around to decode my own dreams.

  The 6-6-6 was, as I thought, still in my coat pocket. Back at the office, I made a few copies of the balled-up paper and messengered the original to Detective Novak. I went upstairs to show it to Eric. He was immediately grim. “This is different from regular hate mail. Whichever meshuga put that under your windshield took the trouble to find out where you live and what kind of car you drive.”

  “I'd already figured that out.”

  “I'm going to call the FBI again,” he said. “Perhaps now they'll take it more seriously. If it's any consolation, if they come after anyone, they'll come after me as head of the office.” Eric's monumental ego, again. It was amazing the way he twisted every situation—even a death threat—to emphasize that he was the head honcho. It was beginning to piss me off.

  “Actually,” I said, “I was thinking that everybody here could be in danger, not just Your Eminence. You ought to put out a bulletin to the entire office, laying out what's going on and warning people to take precautions.”

  “Good thinking. I'll do that.”

  “I'm going to call a friend who knows about neo-Nazis.”

  “Who's that?”

  “David Binder. I was at law school with him. He works for the Anti-Defamation League. Part of his job is tracking extremists.”

  “I think I've met him a couple of times. Let me know what he says.”

  I ran into John Howard in the corridor, as if he'd been waiting to corner me. “Mark, a word in your ear,” he said in a low voice, ushering me toward his office. He shut the door behind us and gestured for me to sit down. I remained standing.

  His thinning, fair hair was beating a rapid retreat across his head, leaving an expanse of forehead behind it. A bead of perspiration was sliding down his temple. He seemed nervous, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “What's up?” I asked.

  “Can I speak to you in confidence?” He glanced around the room. “Do you ever wonder about Eric?”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Whether he's the best man to lead this department, especially now that the Republicans have taken over Congress.” I stared at him in amazement. Eric had enemies outside the department, but it never occurred to me he had them inside as well.

  “No, I've never thought that. Eric is pretty nonpartisan. He doesn't care about politics, only about the department. He has good contacts in both parties.”

  “Come on, Mark. He's getting nuttier and nuttier,” Howard said and clasped his hands together. “Just look at the Bruteitis case. Eric's champing at the bit to file charges, whether we have the evidence or not. He would have done it if you and I hadn't stopped him at the last staff meeting.”

  So now we were allies? “Eric sometimes talks a bit wild, but he's pretty cautious when it comes to making decisions.”

  “Sooner or later he's going to cut one corner too many and land us all in serious trouble.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I have friends on the Hill you should talk to. If Eric has lost your confidence as well…”

  It was time to cut this short. “No, John, he hasn't. And I don't think we should be having this discussion. The president nominated Eric for his position, and as far as I know the president and the attorney general still have full confidence in him. If you don't, I suggest you resign.”

  “Oh, come on, Mark, get real. With Conroy running Congress, Eric's days are numbered. That's a fact. We ought to be looking to the future. If Eric goes, you're next in line, but you need to make your intentions clear. If you're not interested in taking over, plenty of others are.”

  I stalked out of the office without another word. It took me a couple of minutes to regain my composure. The problem was, there was some truth to what John had said. Eric could be unpredictable; he didn't always go by the book. Look at the way he was handling the Delatrucha inquiry. And I was going along with him. But Eric had been like a father to me, or at least like an uncle. For a second, I thought about calling him to report the conversation, then decided not to. I had agreed to keep it confidential, and I had to honor that commitment. But John Howard would bear careful watching in future.

  Getting back to business, I phoned David Binder, the neo-Nazi expert. When I told him about the 6-6-6, David told me to come right over to his office. It was a cold sunny day, and normally I would have enjoyed the walk across town. But I took a taxi. I didn't even try to come up with an excuse; I knew I was nervous. As I stood on the sidewalk waiting, I kept glancing around to see if anyone seemed suspicious, though I wasn't sure what to look for. People walked past me, their shoes and boots clattering on the cold sidewalk like distant thunder, my senses on red alert.

  David poured us both some coffee and hauled out the latest pictures of his budding young sports stars competing at pee-wee soccer. It had been several weeks since we'd spoken. We saw each other rarely since he had joined the growing club of proud, sleep-deprived fathers, while I remained in the opposing camp of frustrated singles still looking for love.

  “You should come to dinner on Friday. There's someone Judy and I would like you to meet,” he said, peering at me through spectacles even thicker than my own.

  “Not another introduct
ion, David. I'm hardly in the mood.”

  “This one's different. She's a couple of years older than you and getting over a rough divorce. But she's charming and intelligent. She works in the library of the Holocaust Museum. You'll have a lot in common.”

  “Please. I can just see us spending romantic evenings talking about Bergen-Belsen. Moonlight walks through Babi Yar. A romantic honeymoon at Treblinka. No thanks.”

  “Come on, what do you have to lose? You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. It's just dinner with friends, not a date. The worst that can happen is you get a good meal out of it. If you like each other, you can meet again. If not, then don't.”

  “Great, now I'm your charity project.”

  “A guy like you needs to be married. I don't know why you're not. You're bright, you're kind and decent, and you're not bad looking. I'm no fashion model, but even I managed to find someone.”

  “Thank you, David. That's a real morale booster.”

  “Maybe it's that aura of sadness you carry around with you. And anger, too. Your own personal Mark of Cain.”

  “Ha, ha. Very original. The first time I heard that joke was in the third grade.”

  “A family would be good for you. It would give you something to think about other than yourself and all your troubles.”

  “Why do you married people always pity us singles so much? We're the ones having all the fun.”

  “So you'll come?”

  “All right. At least she sounds like a grown-up. Most of the dates they keep pushing on me at the shul are shy, demure little religious girls barely out of high school who know nothing about the world and want to get married as quickly as possible and start having babies. What's her name?”

  “Sara Barclay. She's perfect for you. Now, tell me about this note you received.”

  I showed him a photocopy of the “6-6-6” written on it and explained how another had been found in Sophie Reiner's pocket.

  “That's all? No message? No warning?”

  “Wouldn't you call this a warning? I just don't know what they're warning me against. Why do they call it the mark of the beast?”

  “It's from the Book of Revelations,” David said. “It's a symbol used by several extremist groups. Some of their guys have it tattooed on their bodies, along with swastikas and the like. It's like a sign of membership in the club.”

  He rummaged in his desk and pulled out a battered, well-read Bible. Flicking through the pages, he came to the relevant passage. “Here it is, chapter 13, verse 16. ‘Let him who hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred, three score and six.’”

  “Strange. What does it mean?”

  “For that, you need to talk to a Christian theologian. It's way out of my league.”

  “And they murder people, these Aryans?”

  “There's a lot happening on the extreme right these days, and nobody is paying attention. Not the FBI, not the police, nobody,” he told me. “These groups are getting more and more violent and organized. And increasingly, the federal government is their prime target. That means people like you, Mark. I'm surprised your department hasn't been threatened before. You're a natural enemy for them. You're in the government, you go after Nazis, and you're Jewish.”

  “I have had the weird feeling lately that someone's been watching me.”

  David looked a little worried. “Can you be more specific, Mark? What does he look like?”

  “I'm not sure—a little skinny guy. I think I've seen him maybe a couple of times. It may be my imagination working overtime.”

  “This isn't good.”

  “You don't believe they'd actually kill?”

  “They do kill; they have killed.”

  “I knew there were neo-Nazis around, but I thought they were just mouthing off.”

  “We used to think that, too, but not anymore. There are dozens of these groups—Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Liberty Lobby—the list goes on. Some of them have started doing military-style training and building homemade bombs. They liaise with each other and form cells like a real underground army. Sooner or later, one of them is going to do something big and kill a lot of people.”

  “Why do they hate the government so much?”

  “They see our government as part of a vast international conspiracy to take away American independence and put us all under the United Nations, which according to them is controlled by so-called international Jewry.”

  “The UN keeps passing anti-Israel resolutions all the time.”

  “They would say it's all part of an incredibly devious plot to fool people.”

  “They're nutty.”

  “But the threat is real. I hope I'm wrong, because we're all so vulnerable. We don't know the meaning of the word security in this country. Even one person acting alone could be extremely dangerous and do a lot of damage. Have you heard of the Unabomber?” There was real passion and urgency in his voice.

  “No. Who's he?”

  “Nobody knows. He sends very dangerous, intricately crafted, booby-trapped parcels through the mail to people, mostly science professors at major universities. At least one person has been killed, and several others seriously injured. The FBI has been after him for years, but they still know hardly anything about him. One person with some technical expertise can defy the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world. And his bombs are quite sophisticated. There are lots of easier ways to build massive bombs, out of common materials that are easily available, like fertilizer, for example.”

  “Stink bombs?”

  “Real bombs, capable of killing hundreds of people.”

  There was a pause while I let all this sink in.

  “What do you know about the Aryan Brotherhood?” I asked.

  “Up to now, they've mainly been organized inside the prison system, but they're trying to grow on the outside. They're into drug trafficking, extortion, sex rings—classic organized crime.”

  “And they've murdered people.” I was feeling queasy again.

  “Lots of people. They would go after anyone who challenges them or betrays them. They've also been known to do contract work—killing for hire,” David said.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Rent a bodyguard?”

  David chuckled mirthlessly. “Too expensive to keep up for more than a week or two, unless the government's paying. But there are some things you should do.”

  “Such as?”

  “Get a good alarm system on your apartment and your car. Keep your eyes open when you're walking around or driving. Vary your routine. Maybe get a gun.”

  I still couldn't believe all this was happening.

  “You can take a course. Local gun clubs or the NRA give them. Or if you don't want a gun, you could buy pepper spray. Carry a whistle so you can summon help if needed. Always try to let other people know where you are and where you'll be.”

  I didn't hear any more from the police for the next couple of days, though I called several times. I tried to follow David's advice and had an alarm system put in my car. I bought a whistle and ordered a few canisters of pepper spray from a mail order outfit I found in the yellow pages. They had a bewildering array of items for sale. I opted for a dispenser guaranteed to work at a range of eight feet. I asked the salesman how it worked. He said it would swell an attacker's mucous membranes almost instantly, force his eyes closed, and make breathing difficult. “It will put him flat on his back and out of action within seconds. Guaranteed or your money back,” he assured me. The effects would wear off after twenty to thirty minutes.

  I found myself calming down as I buried myself in work and no further threats materialized. The week passed in an endless series of meetings, which were comforting for a change for being so boring.

  On Thursday, we had our weekly staff meeting, poorly attended this time because staffers were already away on vacation. John Howard had spoken by phone with Janet, who had arrived in Li
thuania and accessed the archives.

  “Sounds promising,” he said. “She said she's already found some documents mentioning Bruteitis that we've never seen before.”

  “Has she found anything with his signature?” Eric asked.

  “Not yet.”

  I listened carefully, but there was no hint of any hostility between them. Howard ignored me completely, which suited me just fine.

  On Thursday evening, we had the annual Christmas party, now officially known for reasons of political correctness as the “seasonal party.” I found myself sitting next to Lynn, sharing a bottle of below-average chardonnay in a darkened restaurant. I wasn't quite sure how I got there. Had she maneuvered herself next to me, or had I maneuvered myself next to her?

  “Tell me, Mark,” she said, somewhere between her second and third glass. “What does a Nazi hunter do for fun?” Her eyes shone in the candlelight. Her dangly earrings swinging, she leaned closer to me. She smelled delicious. My glasses were steaming up. I took them off to clean them, rendering her fuzzy, but still lovely.

  “Not much,” I said. “I like to work out, I run a lot and bike. I read, eat out, go to the movies once in a while, read Nazi-hunting magazines—that sort of stuff.”

  “God, how staid,” she said. “Like those white shirts you always wear. Every day, white, white, white. You should loosen up a bit. Try wearing blue for a change. It would accentuate those beautiful blue eyes of yours that you hide behind your glasses. Aren't you religious types ever allowed to have fun?”

  Beautiful blue eyes? I was blushing like a teenager. Lynn looked at me and giggled. “Oh, God, I must be really tipsy, talking to my boss like this. I'm embarrassing you. And myself. Forget I said that. It's not me talking, it's the wine.”

  “No, it's okay. I like it,” I said. “And for your information, although I don't eat bacon or shellfish, there's nothing at all in Judaism about not having fun. I like all the same stuff as you do—movies, theater, parties, good food…” And sex, I thought.

  There was an awkward silence. “So what kind of music do you like?” she asked.