Brandenburg: A Thriller

by Glenn Meade

  “Do you know what these cargoes were?”

  She shook her head. “Rodriguez thought they were narcotics, but he wasn’t sure. All he could say was that there had been several consignments, all delivered to Montevideo in Uruguay over a period of almost a year. The consignments were packed in sealed boxes. Rodriguez said he had been very well paid by these men. He also gave Rudi the name of the man who had hired him to do the work, Nicolas Tsarkin.”

  Volkmann gave her a questioning look.

  “Rudi knew very little about him. Said he was a businessman, a German immigrant, no criminal connections that he could find.”

  Volkmann nodded. “Go on, please.”

  “Two days after Rodriguez delivered the last consignment, he noticed that he was being watched. That’s when he became afraid and contacted Rudi. He told him he thought he had become involved in something over his head, something very big, and that these men meant to kill him. So Rudi agreed to go along with Rodriguez’s request. I think he thought he might be onto a good story. But three days later, Rodriguez’s body was found in a street in Asunción. He had been killed by a hit-and-run car. There were no witnesses. Rudi was certain that Rodriguez was murdered by the people he worked for.”

  “What made him so certain?”

  “The way Rodriguez died. And Rodriguez had told Rudi the men he worked for were very secretive. Their secrecy was almost obsessive. Rudi said they killed Rodriguez because they wanted no one to know what they were doing.”

  Volkmann put down his cup. “Did Hernandez inform the Asunción police about all of this?”

  “No. He wanted solid evidence first. He wanted the names of the people involved, and he wanted to be sure what the cargoes contained. That what these people were doing was definitely illegal.”

  “I really don’t see how this matter concerns DSE. You’ve got no solid proof.”

  “No, but Pauli Graf told me that DSE concerned itself with many areas . . .”

  Volkmann shrugged. “Yes, but South America isn’t exactly our territory.”

  “Then there’s something else that might interest you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Before I left Asunción, Rudi had asked me to check on something for him. He needed some information. Four days ago, I telephoned Rudi’s apartment to tell him of my progress. There was no reply. So I telephoned his office. A reporter at the newspaper, he told me . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off, her head bowed. Volkmann could hear the Schubert quartet, muted, barely audible, the music filling the silence.

  “Told you what?”

  “He told me Rudi was dead. The police found his body in a house in Asunción. The house of a young girl. They’d both been murdered.”

  Erica Kranz took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater, wiped her eyes.

  Volkmann asked, “How do these murders concern DSE?”

  She looked at him steadily. “Before Rodriguez was killed, he took Rudi to Tsarkin’s house, a big estate on the outskirts of Asunción. They watched this house. Rudi wanted some photographs for the story. He had a telephoto lens fitted to the camera. Two men walked out into the grounds of the property. Rodriguez pointed out Tsarkin. But what interested Rudi was not Tsarkin, but the second man with him. You see, Rudi recognized him, had seen him before. In Europe, not in South America.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Rudi met the man ten years before at a party at Heidelberg University, where I was a student. His name was Dieter Winter.”

  “Go on.”

  “Rudi stayed with my family at the time, and I had brought him along to the party. Dieter Winter had a heated argument with Rudi that almost came to blows. Rudi remembered him vividly. He said it was the first time he had ever wanted to hit someone. He showed me one of the photographs he took of the two men in the grounds of the Asunción house. An old man and a younger man strolling together. The old man was Tsarkin, Rudi told me. The younger man looked like Dieter Winter. I remembered him from campus. Rudi asked me to check up on him when I returned home, just to be certain.

  “When I returned to Frankfurt, I discovered that Winter’s body was found in a Berlin alleyway a week ago by the police. He’d been shot to death.”

  She reached across for a large buff envelope that lay on the coffee table, removed a newspaper clipping, and handed it to Volkmann. It was no more than a couple of paragraphs and described the discovery of a man’s body in an alleyway near the Zoo U-Bahn in Berlin. The victim was shot five times at close range. No witnesses, and the man’s identity was given as Dieter Winter. The police were requesting anyone with information to come forward.

  “This man, Winter, what was so strange about his being in Paraguay?”

  Erica Kranz shrugged. “It just seemed weird to Rudi that Winter should be there, so far from Germany. And the fact that he might have been involved with these smugglers who killed Rodriguez.”

  “Have you mentioned this matter to anyone else?”

  “Only to Pauli Graf.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “I had the feeling that Pauli seemed to think it a matter for your people. And besides, the Bundespolizei are really only interested in what happens on German territory. But your people, Pauli told me, don’t work only in Europe.”

  Volkmann put down his coffee. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  She looked at him intently. “I’d like to know why Rudi died and who killed him. I’m traveling to Paraguay again early next week. Rudi would have wanted someone to follow up his story. I’m a journalist; that’s my profession. But my interest is also personal.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “You have contacts in the police of other countries. Perhaps you could give me a letter of introduction, suggest someone I could talk with in Paraguay. Or even advise me.”

  “I advise you to leave it to the Paraguayan police. Use the proper channels and leave Pauli Graf out of it.” Volkmann looked at her directly. “Tell the German police what you told me. They’ll pass it on to their own people in DSE if they think it’s important enough.”

  There was a hint of impatience in Erica Kranz’s reply. “That’s what Pauli Graf told me. But that takes time, and I’m leaving for Asunción the day after tomorrow.” She looked at Volkmann steadily. “So I’d appreciate any help you could give me. It would make things easier. Besides, as I said, the German police don’t normally concern themselves with a crime that happens on the other side of the world. But your people . . . your interests are wider. Unless I got it wrong?”

  The Schubert rose and fell faintly in the background as she continued to look at him expectantly. Suddenly she looked very young, and Volkmann saw the pain in her eyes. On the other hand, he had little appetite to get tangled up in the German desk’s problems.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure this is DSE’s territory.”

  “I understand. But thank you for listening.”

  Volkmann stood. “When does your flight to Asunción leave?”

  “Sunday next. From Frankfurt. I’ve taken some time off work. I feel I owe it to Rudi to help investigate his death.”

  “I’ll check with my people. I can’t promise, but if there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll telephone before you leave.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Good afternoon, Frau Kranz.”

  • • •

  Erica watched as Volkmann crossed the corridor to the elevator. She closed the door after her and went to stand by the window. The Rhine barges were having a bad day of it, the sturdy vessels tossing about in the gray swells. She saw Volkmann cross the street below and walk toward a parked car, his raincoat flapping about his legs.

  So different from Rudi, who had always smiled, and yet the same soft, brown eyes. And there was something else, too. She had sensed an almost palpable dislike toward her in Volkmann’s manner.

  She watched as he walked away, then dismissed the thought from her mind
as she went to wash the coffee cups.

  • • •

  It was after four when Volkmann arrived back in Strasbourg. Ferguson and Peters were both out, and he wrote his report and delivered a copy to Ferguson’s secretary, along with a copy of the woman’s file.

  She told him Ferguson was in Paris and wasn’t expected back until later that evening. Volkmann sent a security fax to the Bundespolizei headquarters in Berlin requesting information on Dieter Winter, giving what details he could about the man and requesting a photograph, if available.

  Volkmann left the office two hours later, arriving at his apartment a little after six. At ten o’clock, Ferguson telephoned.

  “I read your report. All very murky but interesting.”

  “Any reply to the request I sent to the BP?”

  “It arrived this evening. Along with a photograph.”

  “What did they say about Winter?”

  “Graduated from Heidelberg ten years ago, majoring in history. Involved in several right-wing groups during his student days, but no arrests. The BP has no idea why he was killed. The area where it happened is a stomping ground for petty drug dealers. They tried that tack, however, and came up with nothing.”

  “Had Winter any narcotic convictions?”

  “None. But considering the area where the shooting happened, that’s the angle the BP hinted at.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “The weapon used in the Berlin shooting is the part that interests us. A Walther nine-millimeter, but South American–manufactured ammunition. The BP thinks it was the same weapon used in the killing of a German industrialist in a Hanover restaurant a year ago. One of our citizens, a British business colleague of his, was wounded in the same attack and died a couple of days later.”

  “What do you think, sir?”

  “It could be anything, Joe. Personally, I think you ought to take the trip along with the woman. This journalist could have been onto something that may concern us. There are several bodies now. Someone had reason to kill. I’d be very interested in learning what that reason is.”

  “You really think it’s necessary?”

  “I think so. We can always bill the expenses to the Germans if it ends up in their court.”

  “So what do I tell her?”

  “Just that we’re probing. That Winter’s death interests us. See Peters about tickets first thing tomorrow morning. I take it the woman won’t have any objection?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Good. I’ll make contact with the people in Asunción and send them a copy of her statement, translated, of course. Good night, Joe.”

  Volkmann heard the line click and put down the receiver. He sat on the bed, half undressed, before turning off the bedside light. His mind went over the meeting with Erica Kranz. He wondered about the sighting of Winter in Paraguay and the shooting in Berlin, the murders in Asunción. How did they all connect? Or did they connect? There were no answers, not yet, there couldn’t be, only more questions, a pebble thrown into a pond, eddying in endless circles.

  He had left the copy of the woman’s file with his report. He recalled again the paragraph on the last page of her file, the information about her father’s crimes. Though these happened a long time before the woman was born and her father was dead before she had a chance to really know him, he still shivered now in the darkness, remembering that single paragraph.

  NORTHEASTERN CHACO, PARAGUAY. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4

  The silver-haired man sat in the cane chair on the veranda. Inside the house he heard the two servant boys, Emilio and Lopez, busy with their chores, tidying and sweeping.

  The man stared out at the torrential rain. In a while the rain would stop; the dark, pregnant rain clouds over the nearby rain forest would deplete. And in the morning the sun would shine again, and the gardens and the trees would steam as the heat evaporated the rainwater.

  “Nature’s cycle,” a tutor had told him once, when as a child he had noticed the phenomenon. Remembering the words, he smiled to himself.

  Kruger appeared, and slumped into one of the cane chairs.

  The silver-haired man cupped his wrinkled face in his hand and said, “You contacted Franz on the radio?”

  Kruger nodded. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re absolutely certain, Hans?”

  “The journalist was working alone. There’s no question.”

  “And the tape?”

  Kruger drew on his cigarette, blew out smoke. “Definitely blank. I had Franz have the tape and the equipment thoroughly checked. The microphone was faulty. Apparently, the only sound that could be picked up was at extremely close range and even then only very faintly. But he recorded nothing.”

  “There’s no doubt?”

  “None. Franz’s technician is an expert. According to him the equipment was highly sensitive. Handled without care it could be easily damaged. Franz had the equipment disposed of.”

  The silver-haired man gave a sigh of relief. He looked out at the jungle, beyond the rain falling in heavy sheets. “And the travel arrangements, are they all in order?”

  “The helicopter arrives at nine. In Mexico City, Konrad will take us to Haider’s place.”

  The silver-haired man thought a moment and said, “The journalist, I still want his background checked. But discreetly. Tell Franz. And no more hitches. The pilot and the journalist, they will be the last of our problems. What happened at the hotel must not happen again.”

  Although the man’s voice was soft, the admonition was clear.

  Kruger nodded in reply. There would be no more problems, of that he was certain. Franz’s men had checked every avenue thoroughly.

  “That will be all, Hans. Thank you.”

  Kruger left, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floorboards.

  The silver-haired man remained seated, watched as Kruger crossed the veranda to the house. Alone now, he stared up at the rain forest beyond the sheeting wall of water.

  He hesitated, then slowly removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his linen jacket, took out the copy of the photograph. The grainy old photograph of the blond young woman and the dark-haired man.

  A moment later the servant boys appeared, Emilio carrying the silver tray, Lopez behind. The silver-haired man smiled over at them fondly, their faces full of adulation.

  Then the boys stared at the photograph in the man’s hands, before smiling up at him.

  The man patted their heads in turn as the boys came to stand beside him.

  As he pointed down at the photograph, the man said in Spanish, “You’d like to hear the story again?”

  The boys nodded eagerly, their faces smiling up at the gentle blue eyes.

  The silver-haired man carefully replaced the photograph in his wallet and began to speak.

  12

  ASUNCIÓN. MONDAY, DECEMBER 5

  The detective who welcomed Volkmann and Erica Kranz in the arrivals area that Monday morning wore a crumpled white suit that seemed a size too large for his stocky body. His dark eyes looked tired. Introducing himself as Captain Vellares Sanchez, he led them to an unmarked police car and drove toward the center of the city.

  A shimmering wave of heat hit them as they stepped from the terminal, hot enough to hurt their lungs. It was summer in Asunción, trees and flowers in bloom, eucalyptus and palm trees lining their route, palm fronds hanging limply in the scorching afternoon air.

  Volkmann sat beside Erica in the rear, the windows rolled down but the heat still oppressive. The big detective mopped his face with a handkerchief as he drove. He barely spoke, except to inquire if they had had a pleasant flight.

  Asunción was a riot of color and noise, a mixture of old and new: nineteenth-century façades and yellow-bricked adobes and tin-and-wood shanties existing side by side with modern buildings and apartments. Ancient yellow trolley cars screeched noisily along the main avenues.

  The detective’s office was on the third floor of the Comisaría Céntrica, the C
entral Police Station, on Calle Chile. It was a drab, hot place with peeling gray walls and ancient furniture. An old rusting filing cabinet stood in one corner; an electric fan whirred overhead.

  A young recruit brought them strong, aromatic Paraguayan tea. “Yerba mate,” explained Sanchez. “You have been to Paraguay before, Señor Volkmann?”

  “Never.”

  “The tea is an acquired taste. But as good as beer on a hot day.” Sanchez removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and waited until the young recruit had left before he unlocked a drawer in his desk and produced two files: his own file and the one containing the report the seguridad received from Volkmann’s headquarters, translated into Spanish.

  Now he smiled briefly at Erica, remembering Hernandez talking about her, appreciating her beauty. Striking. Long legs. Like one of the women you saw on the cover of the glossy, gossipy American magazines. A figure that would bring an instant reaction from men.

  He opened the files and looked up at Volkmann. The man could have been a cop, but Sanchez knew he wasn’t. Something more than a cop. The seguridad had telephoned him late the previous day, sent him a copy of the report from Europe, asked him to cooperate, and if he needed a translator.

  Sanchez told them he didn’t: he spoke English and this was an opportunity to get some practice. He wondered, not for the first time, why the two had traveled together, wondered what more there was to the deaths of Rodriguez and Hernandez.

  A map of Asunción City lay on his desk, a mark in red indelible pen to indicate the area where the bodies were found. He turned the map around so they could see it, indicated the street where the girl’s house stood, and spoke slowly.

  “We found the bodies here on the morning of the twenty-sixth, in a house in the district of La Chacarita, near the Paraguay river, a short distance from the main railway station. Rudi’s car we found parked outside the house. The keys of the car we found in the grass outside, as if someone had thrown them there.”