Emerald

by Garner Scott Odell

  Servette told Max what Josef had found out from an Asian man named Tam who planed to bid on the emerald on behalf of a Hong Kong group.

  “without being able to speak, Joseph can get more information in a short time than I can talking all the time.” The Inspector laughed. “You’re right there, my friend.”

  “I will get in touch with our two Israeli friends and let them know about the auction time and make sure they know where it is to be held. I guess that’s about all we can do for now. Keep you ears open for anything else you hear from the streets and I’ll see you tonight for dinner as usual.”

  Locking and dead bolting the bedroom door and making sure her computer firewall was up and running, Miriam entered the password and in a moment the computer screen displayed two rows of jumbled letters. She pressed the encryption program’s key and a plain text message scrolled across the monitor:

  Emerald to be auctioned: Four Seasons Hotel des Bergue, Geneva: May 1: No other info available: Mayfly.

  Miriam secured the computer, checked to make sure her jet-black pony-tail was in place, unlocked the door and humming to her self, walked down the long hotel corridor toward the bank of elevators.

  “There must be a strange international company somewhere that only sells gaudy carpet to hotels. I can’t believe a designer would choose some of the carpet we walk on in hotels,” she thought. Exiting the elevator she found David in the hotel cafe eating a bagel with his coffee. Sitting opposite him she poured a cup from the pot on the table, and watched as he chewed.

  “Can’t believe your found bagels in Switzerland.”

  “What can I say? Guess the hotel has a Jewish baker.”

  “Did Malcolm have anything special to share with us this bright blue morning?”

  “Not much. He did say it might be difficult to get information from the bank about the emerald. Seems to be a vow of silence surrounding this auction.”

  A waiter suddenly appeared at the table and said there was a telephone call for Mr. Cohen and the concierge would help him in the lobby.

  Miriam smiled, reached for the half-eaten bagel and waved as David walked quickly toward the lobby.

  Lifting the receiver, David said, “Geneva here.”

  “We have a situation in Munich,” Levi responded quickly, “and I want you two there immediately. Dagger killed two of our operatives you know, Marvin and Herzog. They were working as undercover police officers in Munich. Take care of this and I don’t care how you do it.”

  “We trained with those two,” David said.

  “That’s why I want you on the case. Simon can back you up. I think their deaths may have a connection with Geneva.”

  “Plane tickets?”

  “Geneva airport, at the Lufthansa ticket counter under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Lowenstein,” replied Levi. “Give me a report as soon as feasible. Stay at the safe-house in Munich. Simon will meet you at the airport. And, by the way, they were killed in another safe house, so be careful. I’ll tell Piet where you have gone.”

  Miriam threw the laptop and a few changes of clothes into a soft over-sized bag, and with David took a cab to the airport. In Munich, Simon met their plane and drove them directly to the safe house.

  “This safe house hasn’t been used in a long time,” Simon said. “The sayanim have gone on their “annual vacation”. Check in with Chief, Bruno Beinschmidt. He is the head of an antiterrorist task force here in Munich h and he is being rather secretive about the murders. He doesn’t seem to be doing everything he can to solve their murders. At a news conference, he said everything was under control. Oh, and one more thing. Rumors are going around about some secret organization of skin heads causing trouble here in Munich. There are even rumors that Beinschmidt is involved somehow. I’ll work that angle. You tackle the double murder.”

  With a chuckle Simon continued, “Bruno was probably fourteen pounds at birth and now weighs about two hundred and eighty. When you see him you will see why his mother named him Bruno. He likes to think he always has things under control. He’s one tough character and someone who bears watching. I don’t trust him for a minute. Here’s a number where you can reach me, day or night and it’s safe. Good luck and glad to have you onboard!”

  Pulling to a stop, David and Miriam got their luggage, entered the small stone house with a sea of flowers bordering the walk up the front yard.

  “You think we should call our new friend Bruno? Miriam asked.

  “Just as soon as I check the house for bugs.”

  “Aren’t you being a little paranoid? Simon said this place hadn’t been used as a safe house for a long time.”

  And that’s why I’m going to check it out.”

  After a few minutes David came back into the living room and dialed the number Simon had given them. “Chief Beinschmidt, please.”

  “Just say, its friends of Levi. He will know who we are,” David answered.

  After a short wait a gruff voice growled, “Where are you Israeli hot-shots?”

  “In Munich, we’d like to find out more about that double Jewish killing you have just had.”

  “Better not talk over the phone. Why don’t you come to my office and I’ll fill you in. But I need to tell you, we can handle everything by ourselves and I don’t like outsiders getting involved with my business. However, I will cooperate because of my friendship with Benesche, and those agents, I suspect, were part of his group.”

  “When would it be convenient for you?”

  “No time is convenient. Come to my office at four.” He hung up.

  David relayed the conversation to Miriam.

  “How did he know Marvin and Herzog worked for the Office?” she asked.

  “That could be the reasons Simon thinks there is something fishy going on.”

  After lunch they took a taxi took to the central Munich Police station. Waiting in the booking area for twenty minutes, a uniformed officer finally said the chief would see them in his office up-stairs. David looked at Miriam shrugged, climbed the stairs and knocked a battered door with ANTITERRORABTEILUNG painted in white letters.

  A gruff voice from within shouted, “Kommen Sie herin.”

  They entered the office, which was in direct contrast to Piet Servette’s, neat as a pin, everything dusted, polished, nothing out of place. A bear of a man, in a meticulous gray uniform, complete with black Sam Browne belt and a large head that looked like it had been polished like everything else in the room, sat behind a massive desk. He looked up and glowered and pointed to chairs in front of his desk.

  “I have just re-read this case you’re interested in and I find several items that may be relevant.” His voice was like the rasp of a large, predatory animal, and he was obviously not very happy about having to share information with David and Miriam.

  Ignoring Miriam, he turned to David. “We have an interesting situation here. It seems one of the victims was shot from a distance of more than fifty yards. The other was shot at point blank range, the first, from a rifle, the second, a 38. Why your headquarters thinks this ties in with someone you’re looking for, I have no idea. No one we have interviewed has been of any help and there are no eyewitnesses. A silencer may have been used both times. They had been dead for two hours before an anonymous female reported it. We don’t even know who she was. According to my forensic team, the victims were in their thirties, good physical shape, and found with no identification except, and I suspect you already know, they had just been hired as officers in this department. I’ll be honest with you, and believe me I have nothing against Jews, but rumors suggest that’s the reason they were killed. They were the first Jews in the Munich police force. The house where all this took place is at 401 Welschlag Street. That’s all I have to share with you.”

  David, jotting down the address, responded, “There may be nothing to connect these killings to the murders in Germany and Switzerland, but we still would like to explore that possibility. Would you mind if we went to the murder house and
looked around? And, by the way, why do you think they were from Israel?”

  “Why in hell would you be here to investigate two dead Germans? We aren’t dumb. And just so we understand each other, I don’t know what you can find that my people haven’t found out already.”

  “We will try not to get in your way.” David and Miriam rose from their chairs, and started for the door. Miriam turned and asked, “By the way Chief, did Marvin and Herzog have slash marks on their bodies?”

  “Get out of my office,” Bruno snarled. The phone rang. He grabbed the telephone and growled, “Ja, Bruno hier,” Then shouted, “Shut the door.”

  “I guess our fact-finding mission is over,” Miriam said as the pair left the office.

  “I don’t think he has much use for women in law enforcement.”

  Miriam laughed as they exited the station.

  Just outside the police station, David found a pay phone, figured out how to use the German instrument, and called Levi.

  After David hung up the receiver, he turned to Miriam, “Seems the safe house where the murders took place had also been sanitized by Simon. Levi said they were going to work within the police department to gather intelligence on that group called the GRS or German Retirement Society. Rumors were it was a Nazi skinhead group plotting to overthrow German city governments. Members could have been involved in the killings of Jewish businessmen throughout Germany. Marvin had indicated just before they were killed, they were about to discover the identity of the group’s leader. He told Levi that many of these skin-heads seem to hang out at a club in the where- house district called the Cobra Club. Levi swears Simon can be trusted, and he thinks the Dagger may be connected to these Munich murders, somehow.”

  “That information doesn’t help much. Now what?” she asked.

  “Let’s rent a car and look around, get the layout of this city. It’s been a while since I was in Munich,” David remarked, then tonight I suggest you and I have a date at the Cobra Club.”

  Miriam laughed and looked at David, “A date, David, a real date?”

  “Sure, why not? Didn’t you say you have been to Munich before?”

  “I knew the city fairly well a few years ago,” Miriam responded, “I came with my father on several of his business trips. With her head in a city map she continued, “If I’m not mistaken, there was a car rental office in Hotel Jedermann, about five minutes from the central train station, not too far from here.” After a few minute walk through the business district they found the hotel stuffed between two larger buildings on Landsbergerstrasse. Half an hour later they drove the new Volkswagen out of the hotel parking lot and headed along Welschlagstrasse, to get their bearings in the city.

  Miriam’s cell phone tweaked and when she answered it and mouthed the word “Malcolm” to David. David found a parking space, pulled over and parked.

  After listening for a few minutes Miriam said, “Yes Malcolm, Josephine Kratz in the Department of Eastern Europe of the Bavarian State Library on Ludwigstrasse. I’ve got it, and thanks. We’ll check it out right away.”

  Miriam shut her cell phone and turned to David who gave her a questioning look.

  “Malcolm thinks that one of our sayan’s here in Munich might be able to give us some information on the background of this Hans Huber, if he’s the one we’re looking for. She works at…”

  “Yes I heard,” David started the car and as he pulled out on to Welschlagstrasse.

  “get your head out of that map and check the GPS on you cell and give me directions to the Library.”

  “Ok, take the next right and which should lead you to Ludwigstrasse and the library will be shortly on our right.”

  Before them rose a three story Romanesque Revival building of granite and yellow brick. Three rows of arched windows broke the straight facade from one corner to the next. Its red tile roof tiles stood out in sharp contrast to the blue Bavarian sky.

  “Holy smoke, look at the size of that building! If that’s the library, It’s the largest one I’ve ever seen. It must take up the whole city block.”

  Enquiring at the front reception desk for the Department of Eastern Europe they we given directions and walked up a very wide stairway to the second floor and through a cavernous reading room filled with rows of tables illuminated by lengths of light shaded by green shades. Only a few people were at work in the room and the silence of study filled the huge space. Shafts of sunlight filtered into the room from a row of arched windows near the ceiling. At the other end of the room a door opened and a tall slender woman completely dressed in black, her white hair tied in a bun, walked toward them.

  “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Cohen. I am Josephine Kratz. The front desk called and said you were looking for me. If you follow me I will see what I can do for you.”

  The two from Israel followed Ms. Kratz as she left the reading room and seemed to flow down another corridor and enter a door half way down the hall on their right. She motioned for them to sit on one side if a long, low table covered with books of all sizes and shapes.

  “I understand from Malcolm that you are looking for some information about the family of one Hans Huber. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. We think it’s possible that he has been murdering Jews in Europe for a number of years and we would like to know why?”

  “I understand, and after Malcolm’s call to me I did a little digging in our stacks. What I have here,” picking up a large leather-bound book, “Is the personal diary of one Hartmut Huber, who I believe is the Grandfather of this man you are looking for. Well, in fact it is much more than one man’s personal diary, for it contains quite a bit of his knowledge of his family even before he was born. I had a chance to read it this morning before you arrived and let me briefly give you some of the Huber family history.’

  After several minutes of family history, Miriam whistled and said, “So what you are saying is that “our” Hans’ father, the SS maniac, was disinherited by his father when he joined the SS back in the thirties. Hartmut’s diary clearly indicates that the family was fractured by his son’s involvement with Hitler.”

  David joined into the conversation, “And this Hartmut person was very wealthy and the family goes all the way back into the court of King Ludwig in the 19th century.”

  “Yes and his diary indicates, the most valuable artifact in the Huber family estate was a extremely large emerald, purchased at one time, from the Bavarian National Treasury when their government was in financial trouble. Not only that,” Josephine continued, “The ruling family at that time was part of the Wittlesbach dynasty.” This very library was started in the 16th century and known as the Wittlesbach Court Library until the name was changed in 1919.”

  “This may be too much of a stretch, but I remember that there is some jewel named Wittlesbach or something being auctioned in Geneva in a couple of weeks.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of this auction because Christies International in Geneva asked this Library if we could do some verification of the provenance of this emerald.”

  “You have been most helpful, Josephine. I’m not sure how all these bits and pieces fit together, especially as a motive for all these killings, but we will take this information with us back to Geneva and see if we can fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

  Later that night while Miriam combed her computer for more information on the Wittelsbach dynasty in Bavaria, David lay on one of the beds with his hands behind his head.

  “You don’t think our killer is after this emerald, do you, Miriam?”

  “What, David, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Listen, oh quiet one, I said I wonder if he is after the emerald for some reason?”

  “Why would he be doing all this killing if all he wanted was that emerald? He could just steal it or buy it. After all, evidently he is quite wealthy.”

  “You don’t suppose he thinks it should be his even thought his Grandfather disinherited his father?”

  “So now you are a psychiatrist d
elving into the brains of people.”

  Miriam shut off her computer, closed the lid and said, “David I’m tired and want to go to bed. We can explore some of your weird ideas tomorrow. Please go to your own room, Mr. Cohen, and let me get ready for bed.”

  “But Mrs. Cohen, this bed is so comfortable.”

  “David, go!”

  CHAPTER 14

  Munich

  David and Miriam left the library and headed back to the safe house in their rented VW.

  Miriam said, “I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense. What does all that Huber family history have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know either, but let’s talk about what we found out. We know the Huber family goes back over a hundred years here in Munich and one member was something in King Ludwig’s government in the 19th century.

  “Yes, and Josephine said that the family acquired the emerald, when the government put some property up for sale because of financial problems.”

  “Right, that’s when it came into the hands of a Hartmut Huber, evidently the grandfather of this man we’re supposed to be looking for. Remember his diary, that Josephine showed us told of this Hartmut disinheriting his son who joined the Nazi party in the early 30’s.”

  “And Josephine thinks Hartmut’s son was the bodyguard of Eichmann, Hans Huber, to one our agents killed in Argentina, and the father of the one we’re looking for.”

  “If this is the family line, what are Hans’s reasons for all this killing?”

  “You don’t suppose the Wittlesbach Emerald is the key to the whole thing, do you?”

  “That’s a possibility, but why the killing? Why not just steal the emerald and be done with it?

  “I don’t know, that would seem logical to me.”

  Miriam excitedly pointed at a restaurant they were passing and shouted, “Stop, David. There’s a restaurant I remember from when I was here with my father, and the food was wonderful. Find a place to park and let’s have lunch, I’m famished.”