Lucky cat.
“You’re still here,” I said.
“Yes,” Jo replied. “I couldn’t just leave when you rushed out like that. Who was that cowboy?”
“An old CIA contact,” I said.
I briefed Jo on what Fred told me about operations Safehaven and Paperclip.
“So, you think Frank’s gold bar is part of the gold Safehaven never found?” she said when I finished.
“Could be.” I shrugged. “But I’ll tell you this—what Fred said makes me think Jonathan Glasgow isn’t as big a conspiracy whacko as I thought. He believes Hitler may have survived the war, and so does the old man Fred talked to. For that matter, so did the Russians and our own government.”
Jo set Jack on the floor. He meowed in protest, did a couple of twists around her ankles, then trotted off toward the kitchen, his tail whipping with displeasure.
“I should go,” Jo said.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “You’re more than welcome to stay here for a few days. Obviously, Jack would love that.”
And so would I.
Jo touched my cheek. “I’d really love to, Peter,” she said, “but there’s so much I need to do now. Check on our—rather, my—bills, and the bank accounts. Figure out what to do with the house. Call me tonight?”
I nodded.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
As we strolled outside, it surprised me to find Jo’s hand in mine. When we reached her Lexus, she turned and looked at me. Then we kissed.
Not a quick, friendly peck, but a long, sensual kiss that stirred my soul and my hormones.
We heard a girlish giggle, then a sing-song, “Good morning, Professor Pete.”
It was Cindy Lawford, a short, shapely twenty-something with long, dark--brown hair and a smooth olive complexion. She wore a bikini top that did yeoman duty containing her ample bosom, and a pair of white shorts that didn’t do such yeoman work covering her equally curvaceous rump. The girlfriend with her was similarly unhindered by clothing.
“Oh, hey, Cindy,” I said. I felt the blood pinking my cheeks. “Off to the beach?”
“Yep,” Cindy said. She studied Jo with a touch of humor in her eye. “Want to come?”
I shook my head. “Got to work.”
“I can see,” Cindy said, with another giggle. “Well, see you in class. And say hi to Jack!”
They walked off and Jo turned to me, her head tilted in question.
“I told you I teach part-time at the community college, didn’t I?” Jo nodded. “Cindy’s in some of my journalism classes. She lives just down the street.”
“Your students call you Professor Pete?” Jo asked.
“Only Cindy.”
“You go to the beach with her often?”
“Not often.”
“And she knows Jack?”
“She babysits him when I’m out of town.”
“Right.” Jo climbed into her car.
“I’ll call you tonight,” I said.
“You’d better,” she said. Her lips smiled, but not her eyes.
Then she drove off.
☼
I had work to do on my book. I had a contract for three books and the deadline for the third was not too far off, but my mind kept drifting away from the words on the computer screen to the words in Jonathan Glasgow’s book. After an hour, I gave up, grabbed Glasgow’s paperback, and tossed myself on the couch to read. Jack leapt up and settled on my stomach as I opened the book to where I had left off.
Glasgow wrote that the Nazi leadership recognized Germany’s defeat was imminent soon after the June 1944 Allied invasion of France. That August, SS leaders met in secret with some of Germany’s top industrialists and financiers at the Hotel Rotes Haus—or Red House Hotel—in Strasbourg, France. A French spy infiltrated the meeting and wrote a report documenting the party’s plan to survive Germany’s defeat.
Called the “Red House Report,” it said the SS officers told the German corporate leaders that an Allied victory was inevitable, but the Nazi Party was determined to live on after the German surrender. The Nazi leadership rescinded its longstanding—and largely ignored—law prohibiting the export of capital, and ordered the businessmen to distribute Germany’s industrial and financial wealth across the globe through friendly foreign corporations to await the rise of a new Reich.
“German industrialists must,” Glasgow quoted the report, “through their exports increase the strength of Germany. They must also prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party which would be forced to go underground…so that a strong German Empire can be created after the defeat.”
The report concluded with a fatalistic realization. “After the defeat of Germany, the Nazi Party recognizes that certain of its best-known leaders will be condemned as war criminals. However, in cooperation with the industrialists it [the party] is arranging to place its less conspicuous but most important members in positions with various German factories as technical experts or members of their research and designing offices.”
I recalled what Fred Danbury said about the thousands of Nazis recruited by Operation Paperclip for their “special skills.” Where did they go? To work for the military? If they worked for the military, they were most likely hired by American defense contractors. These were the same companies whose growing political power President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about in his 1961 “military-industrial complex” speech.
A shiver trickled down my spine as I continued reading. Jack must have sensed my apprehension. He stood, said a quick meow, then jumped off the couch, and settled in front of the screen door. I read on.
A March 1945 statement released by the U.S. State Department acknowledged the party’s post-war survival plans. “Nazi Party members,” it said, “German industrialists and the German military, realizing that victory can no longer be attained, are now developing post-war commercial projects, are endeavoring to renew and cement friendships in foreign commercial circles and are planning for renewals of pre-war cartel agreements…German technicians, cultural experts, and undercover agents have well-laid plans to infiltrate foreign countries with the object of developing economic, cultural and political ties. German technicians and scientific research experts will be made available at low cost to industrial firms and technical schools in foreign countries…with the object of giving re-birth to all Nazi doctrines and furthering German ambitions for world domination.”
Glasgow reported that in July 1945 the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization concluded “that the German aggressors have begun to pursue a strategy…for a third attempt at world domination.”
☼
I set the book down, went into the kitchen, and made a cup of coffee. While it brewed, I considered the impact on domestic politics of importing thousands of ardent Nazis into the country. If they stayed in the U.S., became citizens, and earned the privilege of voting, who would they vote for? It seemed obvious to me they would support those same people who supported their cause in the pre-war years.
Returning to the couch, I started reading again and, unfortunately, discovered my hunch was correct.
If American corporate and political ties to the Nazis were extensive before World War II, they only grew afterward, Glasgow wrote. As the remnants of Roosevelt’s New Deal administration returned to private life, a wave of pre-war American Nazi sympathizers filled the void. Under the banner of anti-communism, our government allowed many former German Nazis to immigrate to the U.S., become citizens, and take part in political activities. The Red-baiting years of McCarthyism, Glasgow maintained, were little more than a plan to distract voters from the pre-war support of fascism held by many politicians and corporations, and to focus their attention on a new enemy—communism and the Soviet Union.
In the war's wake, Glasgow wrote, many Europeans who immigrated to the U.S. were, in fact, former Nazis and Italian fascists who later founded some of the so-called “heritage groups,” organizations supposedly established t
o provide a political voice to ethnic Americans. Several of these seemingly patriotic organizations—including some political think tanks—were, in fact, resurrected pro-fascist societies of the 1930s. Many of these groups achieved great success at infiltrating the American political system. When George H. W. Bush ran for president in 1988, news reports exposed the Nazi pasts of several senior campaign volunteers, forcing the candidate to dismiss them.
Glasgow named at least a dozen such resurrected groups, including a think tank with a familiar name.
The League for Freedom and Responsibility.
CHAPTER 13
I WANTED TO KNOW more about the League and Frank Crane’s World-Wide Security, so the next day I drove up to La Jolla to use the university’s library. Computers and the internet were making life easier for people like me, but they were still no match for the resources of a good academic library. I found a quiet little table and settled myself in for a long afternoon of research.
World-Wide provided security consultation, personnel, and investigative services to some of the world’s largest financial and industrial corporations. There was no indication I could find in any of World-Wide’s corporate papers of a link between it and the League, nor of any tie between C. Gerald MacIntosh and Crane’s privately held company. If MacIntosh was Crane’s silent partner, he was a damn mute.
The League, on the other hand, was a Screaming Mimi. Over the past few years, the League lobbied both Congress and President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq as part of their “American hegemony” campaign. That was disturbing. I recalled the devastation I witnessed covering Operation Desert Storm, the twisted metal of blasted war machines and the burnt, mutilated bodies of their occupants that littered the Iraqi retreat route known as Hell’s Highway. I couldn’t imagine anyone who saw that horror, or even photographs of it, advocating for another Middle East war—unless, of course, neither they nor their children were going to fight in it. Clinton ignored their bombast, but he paid a political price. News reports hinted the League financed the exposure of the sex scandals that plagued the president and his administration. I figured World-Wide’s investigative services played a role, as well. News stories also claimed the League funneled money though its members to prop up a half dozen Latin American dictators, which made me wonder whose freedom and whose responsibility their name referred to.
When I got home, Jack was napping on the sofa. He got up, stretched, jumped down and did a slow drive-by around my ankles, meowed, then headed into the kitchen anticipating a snack. I obliged him, then checked my email. There was a cryptic message from Jonathan Glasgow. It simply read, “Have information on the topics we discussed. Meet me tomorrow noon at Swami’s.” I had no idea what the hell Swami’s was. I spent a good hour going through the phone book until I discovered a North San Diego County attraction called the Ashram Center and Meditation Gardens—referred to by the locals as Swami’s.
The sun was setting by then, and after feeding Jack dinner I poured myself a Scotch. Before I could take a sip, the screen door screeched opened and banged shut, and I heard Jo call my name. I found her wearing out the carpet in my living room.
“Jo,” I said, “what is it? What happened?”
Jo saw the drink in my hand, took it, and downed it like a thirsty cowboy.
“That rat bastard of a husband,” she said. “That’s what’s the matter.”
She handed me the empty glass and indicated a refill. I went to the kitchen, poured two more drinks and took them back to the front room.
“I went to see our accountant today,” Jo said after downing half her drink. “He said Frank made some bad investments—‘rash investments’ he called them—and lost a lot of money. A lot, Peter. Like almost everything. Frank—we—no, me—I’m in a lot of debt.”
She dropped into the lounge chair, tabled her drink, and rummaged through her purse.
“Then I went to our bank and discovered Frank made a massive withdraw of funds before he died. So, I checked our safety deposit box and found a hundred thousand dollars in cash and this.”
She handed me a passport. It was German and made out to a Franz Kran.
“The rat bastard was getting ready to go underground and leave me with all his debt,” Jo said.
“Kran,” I muttered, imitating Glasgow’s German pronunciation. “That’s the name on the SS ring.”
“I knew he was a son-of-a-bitch,” Jo rambled, “but I never expected him…I mean, he never even mentioned anything to me about bad investments—”
“Why would he take the name of some probably long-dead German Nazi?” I said.
“What?”
“This passport is for a Franz Kran,” I said. “Kran is the name on the SS ring in your floor safe.”
Jo took the passport and studied it. She shook her head.
“I didn’t even notice the name,” she said. “I just saw his photo and got so mad, I—”
“You said there was cash in the deposit box?”
“Yes. One hundred thousand.”
“Where is it now?”
“Still in the bank box,” Jo said. “I figured it was safe there.”
“Probably is,” I said. “It’s not likely Frank’s going to retrieve it.”
Jo gave me a sour look.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Look, have you eaten?”
She shook her head and finished off her drink.
“Okay, have another drink while I pick up some Chinese food,” I said. “And calm down. Jack!”
Jack pattered into the living room, saw Jo, and hopped onto her lap.
“Rub Jack’s tummy,” I said. “It’s good for the nerves, both yours and his.”
I left them there, Jack purring with contentment, and went to get the food. There was a storefront Chinese restaurant just two blocks away, so I hoofed it instead of firing up the Mustang. I walked along the darkened streets, eyeing the shadows and glancing behind me every few minutes. When you spent as much time as I did in despot-ruled and often war-torn countries, you learned to pay attention to your surroundings as you walked the streets alone. Half way down the block, I spotted the same dark sedan I saw parked across from my bungalow the night before. In the lamp light I could see the sedan’s windows were dark and tinted. Still, I saw—or thought I saw—a quick movement inside. I stopped, knelt, and pretended to tie my shoe—which, since I was wearing loafers, wasn’t the best ruse to sneak a peek. Not seeing anything, I walked on.
Forty minutes later, I was back at the bungalow with kung pao chicken and moo shoo vegetables, and the dark sedan was gone.
☼
By the time I got home, Jack had done his job. Jo had switched to wine and sat rubbing Jack behind the ears and cooing to him. Jack, smelling the food I carried in a take-out bag, bounded from the chair and made circles around me, meowing, his tail held high in anticipation. Jack had his priorities set all right.
As we ate at the kitchen table, Jo and I discussed her latest discovery about Frank Crane.
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is if Frank had debt problems, why didn’t he sell off that gold bar? Jonathan Glasgow told me it was worth more than $125,000 dollars.”
“Even that wouldn’t cover his debts,” Jo said.
“But he was going into hiding with only a hundred grand,” I said. “Another hundred grand or so would be helpful. Unless…”
Jo glanced up from her food, eyebrows arched.
“Unless?” she said.
“Unless he knew where there was more gold.”
Jo laid down her chopsticks and stared at me.
“More?”
“Glasgow said the Nazis stashed gold bullion all around the world so they’d have money in case they lost the war.” I walked over to my desk and picked up my notebook. “The Germans called them notfallreserve, or emergency reserves. Maybe Frank stumbled onto one of them.”
“You think the Germans hid gold here in the U.S.?” Jo asked.
“No, Jonathan said the Germans were ne
ver very good at infiltrating the U.S. from submarines,” I said. “But Mexico, maybe. He said there were several German communities in Mexico that were pro-Nazi and could have helped hide the gold. And then we have those radiograms from that ship captain, Müller, in which he talked about the German consulate in Tijuana, just across the border from here. Did Frank ever go to Mexico?”
“Several times,” Jo said. “World-Wide has clients in Mexico.”
“When was the last time?”
She thought about it a moment, then said, “About four months ago, I think.”
I took a dinner knife, pried off the faux electrical outlet cover, and removed the photographs of Crane’s gold ingot and SS ring. Jo giggled.
“I’d forgotten about that,” she said. “I remember plugging some appliance into it once and getting angry because I couldn’t get any power from it.”
After replacing the outlet cover, I stood and found Jo standing behind me. Our eyes met and I forgot everything about Frank Crane and his damn gold, and so did Jo. She put her arms around my neck and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here,” she said, “when I needed you—when I needed a friend, someone I could trust.”
We kissed, long and deep, then began clawing at each other’s clothes. Banging into walls and door jams, we stumbled into the bedroom, then tumbled onto the bed. Giggling and moaning, we took to each other’s body with a ravenous hunger until, spent, we lay tangled in bedsheets and blankets, our bodies heaving with the last vestiges of our pleasure.
And Jack, sitting on the dresser licking his paws, watched it all.
CHAPTER 14
THE NEXT MORNING, I made omelets and tithed Jack his share. As I cooked, Jo looked over the papers I’d removed from the wall and left scattered on the floor the previous night. While we ate, she seemed lost in her thoughts, so I kept mine to myself.
“So,” Jo finally said, dragging out the word.
The Fourth Rising (Peter Brandt Thrillers Book 3) Page 7