The Boy from Berlin

by Michael Parker

  ‘So the baby would have been registered here as the son of this couple. And no doubt he would have been registered with the consulate to the embassy as an American.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course, that was the way.’

  Demski had been leaning forward. He hadn’t realized it either, and as he relaxed he settled back in the chair. Now it was very clear; Bill Mason had agreed to accept the son of Eva Braun as his own. But the question that now puzzled Demski was whether Mason had known the identity of the baby’s mother. He asked Sister Maria.

  ‘Oh no,’ she replied, shaking her head vigorously. ‘It wouldn’t have done to release any of that information. It wouldn’t have helped anybody.’

  ‘Do you know, or did you know the identity of the woman who called herself Rosmaleen Demski?’ he asked.

  ‘No. As far as I was concerned, that was her real name.’

  ‘So nobody knew?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And no records were kept of this?’

  Sister Maria straightened up in the chair. ‘Sister Francesca was a stickler for keeping accurate records. It’s all recorded, but has never been made public.’

  ‘That’s tempting fate, isn’t it?’ he suggested.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘We don’t believe in fate.’

  Demski accepted that. ‘Of course you don’t. But if someone came across those records, it would become public knowledge.’

  ‘No one is likely to,’ she told him. ‘I’m the only one who knows where they are.’

  He almost felt sorry for her. Her naïvety was staggering. He had managed to get this far without too much effort beyond instinct and deduction. The Nazi thugs who tried to murder him and Gunter Haman may not have had that knowledge, but it was certain that their leaders knew. And that was the reason they were willing to kill to keep it secret.

  Now Demski knew what, but he didn’t know why.

  TWELVE

  BABS YAWNED, NOT from boredom, but from tiredness. The effort of recollecting such a traumatic period in her life seemed to be depleting her strength. The young writer was not bullying her into revealing personal and private moments because those moments were virtually public property. She had been drawn willingly into a plot to destabilize American foreign policy, re-write the Constitution and rid the American way of life of what her evil cohorts often referred to as the cancerous underbelly of the American nation. They meant the Jews and the Blacks, and anybody else who did not fit in with their zealous ideology.

  ‘What do you think was the reason it changed?’

  Babs covered her mouth as she finished yawning. ‘Two things, I should think. One was when Demski uncovered the facts about my husband’s birth, and the other was when a Jewish police officer was appointed captain at the 7th Precinct.’

  ‘Why would a Jewish policeman’s appointment have affected the organization’s plans?’

  Babs looked at her as though she was stupid. ‘It meant Lieutenant Amos had an ally. When Captain Holder was running the precinct, they had control, and people like Amos could not achieve anything that ran counter to the way the operation was proceeding.’

  ‘You mean Captain Holder could screw up any investigation he chose?’

  ‘What you have to realize is that my husband’s elevation was absolutely paramount to Die Spinne; if we had lived in California that is where their key strategy would have been implemented. They had Newark running like a Swiss watch; complete control. Other states were being drawn in slowly, but Newark was the key. They couldn’t have a police investigation drawing attention to them; it would have stopped the organization in its tracks.’

  ‘But the Nazis were prepared to stop others in their tracks?’

  ‘They had to!’ Babs gave her a withering look, then turned her face away and studied the far wall of her cell. ‘An ordinary cop and a Jewish gangster; who would have thought it?’ She glanced back at the young writer. ‘It should have been easy, but it wasn’t.’

  Amos was behind his desk wondering how he could bring his investigation out into the open when his new captain knocked on the door jamb.

  ‘Got a minute, Lieutenant?’

  Amos got up from his chair and nodded. ‘Sure thing Captain.’

  Captain Paul Dubrovski was a young, career policeman. Amos had not been impressed when he had been introduced to the precinct by the former chief of detectives, John Holder, now chief of police. He thought Dubrovski was a Holder clone, and would only be impressed by targets, discipline and subservience to his position in the precinct house. Amos had never aspired to rise any higher than the rank of lieutenant, even though he believed he would make a damn fine chief of detectives, and he couldn’t see any good coming of Dubrovski’s placement in the 7th Precinct.

  The young captain asked Amos to sit down. He closed the door and settled himself behind his desk, facing Amos.

  ‘We haven’t had a great deal of time to talk, have we?’ he began.

  Amos pushed out his bottom lip and gave a shrug in acknowledgement. ‘Been busy, Captain,’ was all he said.

  Dubrovski hunched forward. ‘Tell you what; how about, when that door’s closed, I call you Amos and you call me Paul?’

  Amos’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘Sure thing, Paul; if that’s what you want.’

  Dubrovski nodded vigorously. ‘It might not make us friends, Amos, but it sure is a hell of a lot more comfortable. You want a coffee?’

  Amos was thinking carefully, not wanting to be drawn into a cosy, contrived relationship that might impact on his police work and his ability to work without preconditions.

  ‘I’ll take a rain check on the coffee, Paul. I’ve just had one,’ he lied.

  ‘Fair enough. Now,’ he said with the manner of someone keen on getting down to business. ‘What case are you working on, Amos?’

  Amos wondered where this was going. It was a strange question. ‘A couple of homicides, an arson attack, a hold up at a drug store.’ He opened his hands in an empty gesture. ‘Plenty of cases around.’

  Dubrovski’s head bobbed up and down in small, rapid movements. ‘But what about the …’ He paused and lifted his chin slightly, giving him a thoughtful look. ‘What about the special case you’re working on?’

  Amos felt the skin on his face tighten. ‘Special case?’

  ‘Yeah, you know; Bill Mason’s accident.’

  Dubrovski had thrown him a curved ball. He hadn’t seen it coming. ‘Just clearing up a few loose ends,’ he muttered unconvincingly. ‘Nothing special, really.’

  ‘You want to tell me about it?’

  Amos shrugged. ‘Not a lot to tell, really. It was an accident and somebody got killed. It’s standard procedure to follow it up.’

  ‘By a lieutenant? Couldn’t uniform handle that?’

  Amos felt he was being painted into a corner. ‘They are. I was just poking around. Probably shouldn’t have been, but sometimes you get a gut feeling about these things.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Your gut feeling, Amos. What does it tell you?’

  Amos didn’t know where or how far to take this. He could try and make up a weak excuse and wriggle out of it, or he could come clean with the captain. If Dubrovski was indeed a Holder clone, then he would be in the chief’s pocket, and Amos’s investigation would be dead in the water. He knew that the Masons had powerful friends and he was convinced they were involved in the deaths of Senator Ann Robbins, Bill Mason and the chief medical examiner for the county. He had no proof and only circumstantial evidence which would never hold up in a court of law. So how could he expect Dubrovski to sanction his own, private investigation? He decided to bite the bullet and see how far Dubrovski would run with it.

  ‘I believe Bill Mason was murdered.’

  Dubrovski didn’t show any reaction other than a slight change in his facial expression. Then he said, ‘What makes you think that?’

  So Amos told him about the smear of paint and the bull
bars. ‘Why didn’t you point that out to the investigating officer at the time?’

  Amos shrugged. He couldn’t tell Dubrovski the truth that he couldn’t trust anybody in the police department when investigating anything to do with the Masons.

  ‘Amos,’ the captain went on, ‘you’ve either got to trust me or not work here at all.’

  Amos decided to try a different tactic. ‘How well do you know Chief Holder?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine officer, credit to the force, could do with more like him,’ he replied. Then he added: ‘And all that bullshit.’

  Amos put his head down and laughed quietly to himself.

  ‘I know you’ve been conducting an investigation into Mason’s murder.’

  Amos looked up sharply. ‘How…?’ The unfinished questioned died on his lips as Dubrovski held up his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t be any good at my job if I didn’t know what my officers were up to.’

  Amos stared across the desk at his captain whose facial expression was like granite. There was a hardness there that belied the captain’s young years. Amos thought he recognized a kinship in that face.

  ‘My inquiry into Senator Ann Robbins’ death was terminated pretty quickly,’ he told Dubrovski. ‘I knew she’d been murdered but Captain Holder pushed for a verdict of natural causes. Heart attack, something like that. The chief medical examiner came up with the right report, of course, but not until he’d been persuaded into it.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  So Amos told him about Doctor Robertson’s daughter and the clip of hair.

  ‘Shit!’ Dubrovski let out the expletive and looked genuinely aggrieved as he tossed his head back. ‘Then he committed suicide, right, Amos? Wasn’t that what the report said?’

  ‘It was rumoured that he couldn’t live with his own deceit. He spoke to me about it and said he wanted to come clean but he feared for his daughter’s life. We couldn’t prove he was murdered.’

  Dubrovski shook his head sadly. ‘Corrupt bastards.’ A thought struck him. ‘Is this why you’ve been keeping your investigation under wraps?’

  Amos told him about the syringe and how he had planted the information in Judge Lawrence’s mind. ‘Took them less than a couple of hours, I reckon, to switch the syringes.’

  ‘You still got the original?’

  ‘In my deep freeze at home.’ Suddenly Amos had an overwhelming feeling of doom and wished he’d never said it, but Dubrovski managed to read his downcast expression and reassured him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Amos, I’m not about to raid your freezer.’

  Amos smiled and felt a little better. ‘I hope not.’

  Dubrovski leaned forward, an earnest look about him. ‘I want you to trust me, Amos. I want you to carry on with this investigation and I want a full report on your progress every couple of days. Believe me, I know a little more than you do and I know there’s something going on; just can’t nail it, though.’

  ‘Well I don’t know what they’re up to, Paul,’ Amos admitted. ‘It doesn’t seem right; just to get a guy elected.’

  ‘It’s political corruption, Amos. And if it’s worth money and power, it’s worth killing for. World never changes,’ he added, shaking his head.

  Then he stood up suddenly and pushed his chair back. Amos realized the interview was over and took Dubrovski’s offered hand. At last he felt he had an ally in the Precinct. He would be putting that to the test now because his next move was to interview Babs Mason.

  Isaac Demski stepped from the cab outside the offices of the American Jewish Council on Fifth Avenue in New York, his mind still dealing with his son Jack’s call from Switzerland. He couldn’t come to terms with the fact that the Nazis were still active and were resorting to their traditional methods of intimidation and murder. What soured him the most was the fact that Jack believed that the thugs were operating not only in Europe, but in the United States as well.

  Isaac had contacted an old friend of his who had worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Organization in the hunt for Nazis who had fled Germany at the end of the war. He had passed on a name and hoped his friends could come up with any information that would help the Jewish community to discredit the Neo Nazis in America.

  Jack had called a week ago with an incredible story about the baby switch at the sanatorium in Switzerland. He had given Isaac a name and then said he would be travelling back to Germany to find out how Gunter Haman was. He told his father that he would be in touch but for now he wanted to keep his head down.

  The cab pulled away from the kerb and was lost in the flow of traffic as Isaac walked through the double doors of the impressive looking entrance at ground floor level. He walked up to the reception desk and produced his card, telling the young woman behind the desk that he had an appointment to see Maria Jankowski.

  Maria Jankowski had arrived in America about the same time as Isaac. They had grown up together in the Bronx. Many of their friends believed they would marry and spend the rest of their lives together. But Maria had suffered terrible abuse at the hands of the Nazi prison guards, even though she had been a child, and had never recovered from the horror inflicted on her by sexually enraged men. As much as she liked or even loved Isaac, she had been turned off ardent, physical contact with men and remained single all her adult life. And Isaac’s chosen lifestyle did not help either.

  Maria welcomed Isaac into her office, accepting his kiss on her cheek and the traditional greeting of ‘Shalom’, genuinely pleased to see him.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to help me, Maria,’ Isaac said to her as he released her from his gentle embrace.

  ‘We don’t see each other enough, Isaac,’ she told him. ‘And helping you is something I enjoy doing.’

  She pointed to a leather armchair. Isaac walked over to it and made himself comfortable. Maria sat in a similar chair that had been placed at an angle, separated by a low coffee table.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Thank you, no. I’m fine.’ He looked around the office. It was well appointed and reflected the position Maria had become entitled to, working within the Jewish community. ‘You’ve done well, Maria. It’s good to see.’

  She didn’t blush, but felt a little self-conscious as Isaac paid the compliment. ‘We’ve both come a long way, Isaac,’ she reminded him. ‘Thank God. Now, I do have some information for you, but you promised to tell me something that you couldn’t tell me over the phone.’

  He nodded. ‘My boy Jack has uncovered something extremely disturbing. It’s the reason I asked you to trace Heinrich Lörenz.’ He began by telling her about Gunter Haman and the recurring dream, and his search for the truth about Rosmaleen Demski, Isaac’s mother. ‘I assumed, quite naturally that she had died in Buchenwald, but the SS brought her to Berlin, to the Reich Chancellery, in ’45.’ He knew that what he was about to say would not shock Maria, because she was beyond being shocked by anything the Nazis were capable of. ‘She had been chosen, because of her age and her size, to die beside Adolf Hitler in place of Eva Braun.’ He went on to explain briefly what had happened. ‘Rosmaleen Demski was taken to the Chancellery by Hauptmann Heinrich Lörenz and his driver, Franz Weber. Gunter Haman was there. He was a boy soldier; Hitler Youth. Naturally he was unaware of what was about to happen. He told me that merely being in the presence of powerful Nazis frightened the life out of him. But what he saw …’ He paused, allowing compelling images of his mother to fill his mind. He felt incredibly sad at that moment, remembering what his mother looked like before they were dragged away to become part of the planned slaughter in the camps. He shook his head and his breath caught in his throat. He put a hand up. ‘I’m sorry, Maria, even now I am overwhelmed by the memory of my poor mother.’ He took a deep breath to compose himself. ‘After my mother had been murdered, Gunter was ordered to burn the bodies. He followed orders, naturally, and eventually was able to live his life without thinking too much about what he had done. But when the dreams s
tarted it all came flooding back to him.’

  ‘So he went in search of your mother’s family,’ Maria interrupted, stating the obvious.

  Isaac gave a lopsided smile. ‘He doubted that she had any family left, but he wanted to do it. He found me. I didn’t think there was any more we could do, but it was Jacob, that’s my son, Jack,’ he explained, ‘who wanted to know why Eva Braun had been spirited away from the Bunker and my mother selected to die in her place. He went to Germany to see Haman.’ He thought of what he was about to reveal to Maria, and how incredible it seemed. ‘They found the driver, Franz Weber, the man who took Eva Braun away from the Chancellery with Hauptmann Lörenz. He was being cared for by a nurse. He was quite old and infirm. They didn’t get too much out of the old boy, but Jack went back to his house that night and found the two of them had been murdered.’

  Maria’s hand flew to her face. She certainly hadn’t been expecting the dramatic change in events. ‘Murdered?’ she repeated.

  Isaac nodded. ‘Jack is convinced it was the Neo Nazis. He believes the old man was murdered to prevent him telling more than he already had. But Jack discovered that Weber and Lörenz had taken Eva Braun to a sanatorium in Switzerland. He found postcards and photos in Weber’s home. He went to the sanatorium and learned about something that is absolutely incredible.’ He then told her about the baby switch.

  Maria had been listening with growing amazement at Isaac’s account of Eva Braun’s demise. Once he had finished, she stood up and walked across to the window. She stood there for a while, looking down at the traffic running along Fifth Avenue and the pedestrian hordes flowing like worker ants along the sidewalks. How many of them, she wondered, harboured secrets such as she had just heard that would rock the world? Precious few, she decided. But how many men in positions of power in the United States were privy to such a truth; a truth that they would use to change the course of American politics and the destiny of a nation?