The Blood Flag

by James W. Huston

  “Of course. We have access.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Florian folded the paper and turned toward the graveyard. There was an iron fence with a sidewalk passing through an opening in the fence, but no gate. The fence was black iron, probably eight feet high with freshly painted ornate curved tops. The sidewalk was well maintained. As we followed Florian, I said quietly, “Is there a caretaker, a night guard?”

  “No. They have weekly maintenance, mostly gardeners, but this cemetery is full. There are no open spaces. Nothing happens here; no need for security.” Alex touched my arm and pointed. There was one large gravestone that had a top that was shaped like a World War I helmet with a spike on it. I nodded and looked for other distinctive markings. There was no pattern, but there was a notable lack of religious symbols. There were a few crosses, but not many, and no Stars of David. The trees were old and thick and contributed to the darkness and the spookiness. It was probably five acres that got deeper and wider the farther in we went. I had assumed another street would be on the other side in a hundred feet or so, but that was not the case. There were no buildings at the far end of the cemetery, but rather a field or meadow.

  Florian and Patrick walked on, glancing at headstones for orientation. It was hard to see in the dark, but Florian used his own flashlight to compare what he was finding to the diagram he’d brought. There were actually two cemeteries with the same name. One old, one new. Friedl’s grave was supposed to be in the “new” one; new meaning less than two hundred years old. We crossed other sidewalks that led to different areas of the cemetery, which were divided into numbered sections.

  Florian looked around, and shined his flashlight onto the large headstone in front of us, just on the other side of a fork in the sidewalk. We approached slowly. The headstone appeared even larger as we got closer. I put my flashlight beam on it and walked directly up to it. Patrick and I started rubbing dust and dirt off the stone, to see if there was anything readable. It was very readable. You could see four-inch tall letters that had been chiseled into the mahogany colored marble. FRIEDL. There were four names, including Jens. I stared at the lettering. I said to Patrick quietly, “I thought you said it was supposed to be unmarked.”

  “It was. Looks like the family had a different idea.” He studied the stone. “They’re all buried here,” he said. “The father, the mother, Friedl himself, and it looks like his . . . probably his sister.”

  Alex came up behind me. “How will we know which skeleton is Jens’s?”

  Florian heard her question. “Maybe we can tell from the caskets. If not,” he said staring at the names on the marble, “we’ll have to take all of them.”

  “That sure complicates things,” I added.

  I examined the surroundings. It was as remote as you could be in a city cemetery. There were no buildings or apartments that overlooked this area of the cemetery. We could work here at night without being seen. Whether we’d be heard was a different question. I looked at Patrick. “Any chance a police officer might walk through here at night?”

  “Not likely,” he replied.

  I walked around behind the large stone, then to the sides. I knelt down and felt the dirt. Not too hard. I stood. “Let’s go find somewhere to talk about how we’re going to get this done.”

  We started walking out of the cemetery. Alex walked beside me and said quietly, “I still don’t understand what exactly you have in mind.”

  “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  The four of us sat at a table in a busy restaurant with red-checkered tablecloths. Patrick ordered a pitcher of beer and some French fries. The restaurant was full and loud with people laughing and drinking all around us. No one was paying any attention to us.

  Alex asked, “Okay. Let’s hear it. How do we do this?”

  I drank my beer deeply. “If we can get blood off the flag, and dig up Friedl, we can compare the DNA. But the trick is to make this all look like Jedediah’s idea. Because the person we’re trying to persuade is Eidhalt. If we bring Jedediah over here with the flag, we can get the testing done. But how do we get Jedediah to dig up Friedl so Eidhalt knows what is happening? If he just gives him DNA samples, Eidhalt will think the whole thing is fake. Anybody can phony up DNA test results. Anybody can make it look real, but it has to be real. The funny thing is, we’re not even trying to fake it. We have the real stuff.”

  I looked up at Florian. A thought had just occurred to me. “You said that somebody from the Verfassungsschutz was asking around.” I said softly, “Any chance we can make him believe we’re on the other side? His side?”

  Alex said, “That would mean that Jedediah would have to tell this guy what he has right now.”

  I nodded. “We’re there already. Jedediah has to dig up this grave. It’s time to make our play. We just have to make sure our plan is thought through. We have more moving parts than I had expected.” I looked at the others. “I think we have Jedediah tell Eidhalt he has the flag, and he’s going to authenticate it. And he wants Eidhalt involved in the entire thing, so he knows. So he sees.”

  Alex got it. “We can get Jedediah to say whatever we want him to say. Give him a good backstory. I’m still adding background to your new existence, and by now I don’t think anyone could find any flaws.”

  “Good.”

  Alex said, “You’ll have to get an iron cross tattooed on your throat though.”

  “Very funny. I don’t think so. I just don’t know if we’ll be able to sell it.” I said to Florian, “What do you think? If your Verfassungsschutz guy is with them, can you make him believe you’re sympathetic? That you’re ready to help the neos penetrate the BKA?”

  Florian looked at Patrick and frowned. “I doubt it. I don’t have any history like that. He wouldn’t believe me. I’ve done my own checking on him. It will be quite a game of what I think you call cat and mouse. He will wonder where my sympathies are, and I will try to feel him out. I don’t know if he’s actually involved with them. I just know some in his organization are. He may be where we are, trying to root them out. And if he thinks we’re sympathetic, he may do what he can to have us arrested. I’m not sure how to go about this.”

  “Refer him to me,” I said. “He can’t have me arrested. I’ll tell him what I’m thinking, and feel him out.”

  Patrick, who had been mostly quiet, looked at Florian and then said, “Not too sure about that. I think we should leave him out of it.”

  I could feel his hesitancy. I said, “What if we assume he is with them, but that he’s interested in us from an official position? We pretend like his interest is appropriate and we then proceed to tell him what we want him to know.”

  “Which is what? What do we tell him about you? What about Jedediah?” Florian asked.

  I said, “You tell him that you’ve been following Jedediah, that you’ve heard about this meeting with Eidhalt, and that Jedediah not only has the Blood Flag but has money. That he’s being funded by a reclusive American rancher who has picked the Southern Volk as the neo-Nazi group to back. That he’s giving them millions of dollars and is building their following all over the country. That he’s thinking big, and they now have the Blood Flag. That he’s ready to pay to have the best DNA testing in the world done to prove this flag is authentic, and is ready to unite their energy with other groups from around the world, and Germany is their first public step.”

  Florian smiled, “And you are the rancher?”

  I nodded and smiled back. “That’s me.”

  Patrick put up his hand. “Wait, if we don’t know you, if you’re his financier, how do we know what we know. What is our role?”

  “You know of me. You know Karl. And he doesn’t tell you his sources, but he tells you about me, and what the Southern Volk is up to: that we have the flag, that we got it in Argentina, and that we’re coming over here to show it to Eidhalt. And we’r
e going to get it authenticated.”

  Patrick understood, but he had another question, “I understand all this, but what is the point of all this? Why do we care about him?”

  “Because he may give that final bit of authenticity to Eidhalt we need for Eidhalt to take the bait.”

  Patrick nodded, understanding. “So if we get Jedediah into this meeting, then what?”

  I said, “We take advantage of the German laws against Nazism and arrest them all. Put them in prison for the maximum punishment available.”

  Florian interjected, “Yes, we could do that, but that assumes they’ll display Nazi—”

  “They’ll have to show the Blood Flag. That’s good enough, right?”

  He nodded, “Yes, but it’s not a huge crime. After minimal jail time they’ll be out doing it again, calling themselves something else.”

  “That’s it?” I pondered that for a moment. “Well then I don’t know.” I sat back. “Shit. That’s it? A few months of jail time?”

  “What would you have us do? Execute them? We don’t even lock away mass murderers for life.”

  “So that’s all we have? A few months of jail time?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “That’s not how this is going to end. I’m telling you that right now,” I said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I woke up the next morning before dawn to someone banging on my door with his fist. I picked up my Glock, kept the lights out, and went to the door. I peered through the peephole but couldn’t see anything. I checked my watch. It was five thirty in the morning. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Jedediah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Step to the middle of the door so I can see you.” He put his face in front of the peephole so I could see him. He looked peeved. I undid the chain and opened the door. I had told him to come right away, but hadn’t expected him to fly overnight.

  “Any trouble getting the flag into Germany?”

  “Nope. They didn’t even look at it.”

  “Good.”

  “Not an issue. But if I’d worn a T-shirt I’d still be there.”

  “How are you supposed to contact Eidhalt?”

  “A one-time-only number to use when I arrive in Germany. I got a prepaid cell at the airport.”

  I told him to get some rest. He agreed and went to his room. I went downstairs to meet Alex.

  Alex got on the wireless in the lobby on her computer and checked my identity on the Internet to see whether anyone had been looking at the pages she’d set up. They had. But the story looked seamless to me. Very well done. She looked up and saw Jedediah. “Over here.”

  He came to where we were then pointed to the bar. We followed him in as he ordered a beer, never asking us if we wanted anything.

  I said, “We’re going to the graveyard. I want you to call Eidhalt while we’re standing there looking at the grave. He will almost certainly come directly to meet us.”

  He nodded, understanding. “How long before we leave?”

  I checked my watch. “Three hours.”

  “I’m going to get some shuteye. Meet in the lobby?”

  * * *

  It was barely light when we walked into the graveyard. We took Jedediah to Friedl’s grave. He looked at the stone. “I thought you said it was unmarked.”

  “That’s what we thought. That’s what the BKA thought. But here it is, the whole damned family.”

  “I’m surprised people haven’t made it into a shrine.”

  “Probably not too many people even know it’s here.”

  I looked around to make sure we were alone and said, “So this is it. The Reveal, as the magician’s call it. Call Eidhalt. Tell him you have the Blutfahne. Tell him I’m with you. We’ll see what he says, but tell him where you got it, and that you’re sure it’s real, but you figure he’ll want to get it authenticated.”

  He paused, looked at me, looked at the grave, looked at Alex, and dialed the phone. He had it on speakerphone, even though he held it up to his ear. A voice answered, “Ja?”

  Jedediah looked at me and then answered, “Southern Volk.”

  “Ah. The American. I was wondering when I would hear from you. What do you have?”

  Jedediah paused, “Die Blutfahne.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. “This is not possible.”

  “I’m holding it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Munich.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I knew if I brought this flag, you’d think it was a fake, just like the Russians faked out my predecessor in Atlanta.”

  “I saw that. But a failure.”

  “Yes. He is gone.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He has disappeared. No one knows.”

  “Yes. So what do you have in mind?”

  “I want you to know that this is the real flag. I want to prove it to you.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “DNA.”

  “Get blood off the flag. And compare it to what?”

  “The blood of the man who fell on the flag and died. Friedl.”

  “He’s been dead for ninety years.”

  “We can get DNA from his skull.”

  “No one knows where he’s buried. It’s unmarked.”

  “No it’s not. It’s clearly marked.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m standing in front of his grave. He’s buried with his parents and his sister.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “I’ll send you a picture of the stone.”

  “No. This number can only be used once. Where are you?”

  I held out a piece of paper that had the name of the graveyard. He read it as best he could.

  “Yes, I know that place. The old section or the new?”

  “The new.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “No. I don’t know you yet. I’ll meet you, but you can only bring one other person. No weapons. I’ll have the Blood Flag nearby, but if anything goes wrong, you’ll never see it. If all goes well, I’ll show you the flag. Then I’ll show you the grave.”

  “I will be there at 10:00 p.m. Meet me at the entrance on the east side.”

  “No. Come in that entrance, and keep walking. If you go about three hundred yards, there is another path. I’ll meet you where those paths come together. I have someone with me too. I want you to meet him.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You’ll see.” He hung up the phone.

  I looked over at Florian and Patrick who were showing their technical people where to put the hidden microphones. I said to Florian, “He’s on his way. We need someone at every entrance.”

  I looked around the graveyard. “And we’ve got to find a place to hide the flag, not too far from here. We’ll need to set up Alex so she can give us a signal. We can’t be wired. We’ve got to be clean.”

  Jedediah said, “What happens when they get here?”

  “We show them the headstone, we tell them the plan to dig up the skull, then we show them the flag.”

  * * *

  Florian had his men in place by eight o’clock, and Alex was in her place by eight fifteen. Jedediah and I walked through the still graveyard. It was cool with no breeze. After the clock in the city center struck ten, Jedediah and I moved to the intersection of the two paths. Alex was on the radio with Florian and watched as Eidhalt and one other man walked into the cemetery. We could see their silhouettes maybe two hundred yards away at the entrance. They were looking around. They couldn’t see us.

  They walked cautiously down the path, pausing every twenty feet or so to listen. As Eidhalt approached, al
most to within speaking distance, I saw three faint flashes of light from Alex’s flashlight over his shoulder. They were alone.

  They stopped. Eidhalt examined Jedediah, and said, “Guten Abend.” Jedediah and I both responded in English. “Evening.”

  He asked in faintly accented English, “Which of you is Jedediah Thom?”

  “I am.”

  “My colleague is going to check, to make sure you are not carrying weapons.”

  Jedediah said, “Not until I check him. When he gets over here, I’ll check him and then he can check me. Then he can check my friend, and then I’ll check you.”

  Eidhalt hesitated then said, “Fine.”

  The man approached Jedediah and stood there with his arms out. Jedediah frisked him, and then placed his own arms out for the same treatment. When the man felt Jedediah’s massive shoulders underneath his dark high-neck sweater, he looked at Jedediah’s face in surprise. Jedediah looked back at him in the darkness, conveying that unspoken message that he could crush him like a cockroach if he chose to. The man frisked me, then Eidhalt came over to where we were and Jedediah frisked him.

  Eidhalt asked, “Do you have anybody else around? Anyone else in the cemetery?”

  “No,” I replied.

  He looked at me, “And who are you?”

  Jedediah replied, “He is the money behind the Southern Volk.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Jack Bradley.”

  Eidhalt looked at Jedediah. “How do I know that he’s not really someone other than who you say?”

  Jedediah said, “Check him out yourself. I don’t know anything about you either.”

  “Yes you do.”

  He looked around, overhead, and then back at Jedediah. He couldn’t see the microphones that had been planted at the gravesite by Florian’s men. He said to Jedediah, “Where is die Blutfahne?”

  Jedediah didn’t even flinch. “Nearby.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “In due time. First, let’s talk about what we’re going to do after you’ve seen it. If we’re in agreement, I’ll show it.”