The Last Nazi (A Joe Johnson Thriller, Book 1)

by Andrew Turpin

  “Bit of both,” Leopold said. “Call it a compromise.”

  What was it Nathaniel had said on the recording Fiona sent, Johnson asked himself.

  Follow the money trail—where it comes from and where it goes.

  “Okay, and in return?” Johnson said.

  “In return? The twins have been left alone—by everyone. And the Mossad looks after their own, which is why Jacob told you to tread carefully. He meant it, and you should be careful. Brenner’s been given enough hints. He knows if he stopped buying the gold, the Kudrows would automatically inform the Mossad—because obviously Israel’s share of the gold sales would also then stop—and the Mossad would strike. That’s been the beauty of it. He’s had to keep buying,” Leopold said.

  Johnson fiddled with the old wound in his right ear. “But it doesn’t seem to quite fit with the way the Mossad have worked over the years. I mean, ever since the war ended, if they’ve had a sniff of a Nazi on the loose they’ve taken him out or had him prosecuted, from Adolf Eichmann on down.”

  “Money talks,” Leopold said. “Israel’s been getting a large number of shekels—not massive in the global sense, but enough—made possible by Brenner buying the gold. But now the flow of money’s at an end. So I wouldn’t like to predict what the Mossad will do next—what they might get Kidon to do.”

  An alarm bell went off in Johnson’s head. “If Brenner went to court and started talking, it could be very embarrassing for them. So, instead you think they might—”

  Leopold nodded. “Yes, I think they might.”

  London Stansted Airport

  The announcement over the public-address speakers at London’s Stansted Airport blared across the concourse. “This is a final boarding call for Ryanair flight 8407 to Wroclaw. Will all remaining passengers please make their way to the gate as quickly as possible.”

  Johnson and Fiona had only just cleared the security check and were repacking their bags. Johnson tried to run through a mental checklist to avoid losing items as he quickly stuffed his belongings back into his bag and pockets.

  Laptop, two phones, keys, coins, wristwatch, wallet. Jacket back on. Now belt back on as well . . .

  Just at that moment, Johnson’s phone rang. It was Vic. He cursed but answered the call.

  “Vic, I’m about to get on a plane,” Johnson said, tersely. “What have you got?”

  “Listen, Doc, I’ve got some info. I managed to find an old file on Brenner in our archives here. There wasn’t much, but it looks like Brenner was on our payroll for a long time in the ’50s and ’60s, even running into the ’70s. He provided contacts among the SS’s old spy network in Russia, where he seems to have been well connected, and passed on information from these contacts about Russia’s military capabilities: details about the so-called missile gap between Russia and the U.S. It went on for a long time and must have been enough to build a lot of credit with the CIA. Explains a lot. My gut instinct is there’s been some sort of unofficial long-running agreement, a standoff, between us and the Mossad. It wouldn’t be the first time, although there’s nothing written down as far as I’ve seen.”

  Johnson swore. “Well done, the Agency. What a pile of shit. Is that it?”

  “I’ve also got an address for Brenner in Buenos Aires,” Vic said. “He lives on a street called Ombú. I’m texting it to you. And that’s all for now.”

  “Okay,” Johnson said. “Did you make a copy of the file? It would be useful to have if I need it for evidence, although we might have to make an official request for the original if it went to court.”

  “No, but I’ll scan a copy, on the quiet, if it would help,” Vic said. “I’ll go and pull the file out again.”

  “Okay, thanks, if you don’t mind, that would be useful. Keep in touch.” Johnson ended the call.

  They had to sprint virtually all the way from the security hall to the gate, and even then they were the last two passengers to board the packed 8:40 p.m. flight.

  Their seats were right at the back, row thirty-three, next to the toilets. It meant battling through a motley collection of businessmen dressed in suits and carrying laptops and people who Johnson guessed were expatriate Polish bricklayers, plumbers, and car mechanics going home for a few days, all jostling to secure space for their bags in the overhead compartments.

  Johnson sat down, sweat pouring off his forehead, in the middle seat of the three to the right of the plane, just as the cabin crew began their safety briefing.

  Fiona took the aisle seat to his left, and to his right was an obese man dressed in blue dungarees reading a Polish newspaper, his legs so fat that his knees were encroaching into Johnson’s space. He groaned inwardly.

  The e-mail from Ignacio arrived just after that. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and fished it out.

  Hello Johnson. I know what you’re doing and why. I know what my father did, his evil. Read the attachments. There’s something else, too, which will emerge in time, a real bombshell. He killed a lot of people, and he also killed my childhood. You would be shocked. So I’m going to sort him out in my own way. I don’t want any interference from you. Justice will be done. You and the American journalist don’t need to get involved. Back off, otherwise I’ll take action. And I mean that. Read the attached documents, and you’ll see why I’m doing what I’m doing. Then leave me alone.

  Johnson reread it several times. There were four attachments, all of them jpeg photo files. He tapped on the first.

  It was a photograph of a typewritten memo, written in German on yellowed paper. To Johnson’s satisfaction, he was able to easily translate without having to resort to the dictionary app on his phone.

  Dated the sixth of October 1942, the memo was congratulatory in tone and came from the SS Personalhauptamt, which Johnson knew was the SS Personnel Main Office. It informed Brenner that he was being promoted to the rank of Obersturmführer. It stated this was for Brenner’s role with the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, the Death’s Head Division, during the invasion of the Soviet Union. It referenced the part played by the Totenkopf, a tank unit, during the advance on Leningrad during 1942. There were several official stamps on the memo, one of which showed the SS eagle above a swastika—the official SS symbol.

  The second letter, also typewritten and dated the second of November 1943, was again from the Personalhauptamt, detailing Brenner’s appointment as deputy commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp following an injury sustained at Kharkhov in March 1943. It didn’t specify the injury, but Daniel had mentioned Brenner having a limp.

  Interesting. Johnson knew that for Brenner to have been posted to a concentration camp, he must have been unfit for Frontdienst, service at the front line, and this document confirmed that. He wondered what type of injury it had been and whether it had left any permanent identifying marks that might now be useful, if he was able to track him down. Perhaps that detail might be in Brenner’s Krankenbuchlage, his military medical treatment records, which would be stored at the Deutsche Dienststelle, the German National Information Office, in Berlin.

  Johnson clicked on the third attachment.

  Betrifft: Versetzung der Obersturmführer Erich Brenner, SS-Nr. 183 656, read the subject line at the top. The transfer of First Lieutenant Erich Brenner, SS number 183 656.

  He took a sharp intake of breath when he realized this one was from January 1944, appointing Brenner as deputy commander at the Wüstegiersdorf subcamp of Gross-Rosen. A fateful day—both for his mother and for the Kudrow twins.

  The fourth letter had two joint signatories: first the Personalhauptamt, and second Hauptsturmführer Karl Beblo. But this letter, dated December 21, 1944, had a very different tone.

  It was clearly a severe reprimand issued to Brenner and outlined details of an escape three days earlier, the eighteenth of December, by two Jews from a railway car en route from Ludwikowice Klodzkie to Gluszyca. It also accused Brenner of shooting dead—without authorization—nineteen Jewish prisoners who were fit for wo
rk. The memo noted the two escaped Jews had not been found.

  Johnson fell back in his aircraft seat and breathed out slowly. Why would Brenner keep these documents? It doesn’t make sense. The other question was, were they genuine?

  In the absence of the originals, which presumably Ignacio had somehow obtained from his father—presumably not voluntarily—there was one foolproof way to check their authenticity. If they were genuine, then hopefully copies would be in Brenner’s personal SS file, which should be available.

  Thank God for Hans Huber, Johnson thought, for the umpteenth time in his career. Huber was the manager of the Wirth paper mill at Freimann, near Munich, where in April 1945, the Nazi leadership sent the entire collection of ten million membership card files for the worldwide Nazi Party to be pulped, just as the Second World War came toward a close.

  But Huber defied the Nazi leadership and managed to hide the documents under waste paper until U.S. Army archival experts were able to secure them in October of that year. They were subsequently transferred by the Americans to a Berlin document center, and microfilmed copies were made for use at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. These documents had been the bedrock on which many interviews and prosecutions of Nazi war criminals were founded, including at the Nuremberg trials, and had been a goldmine of evidence for the OSI in its work.

  Johnson quickly composed an e-mail to Ben at HRSP.

  Hi Ben, could you please check SS files for Erich Brenner and confirm if they include a reprimand for the shooting of nineteen Jews on December 18, 1944, and confirmation of his postings at Auschwitz and Wüstegiersdorf camps. Many thanks, Joe.

  He pressed the send button.

  Then he wrote another to his onetime girlfriend Clara Lehman in Berlin, whom he kept in touch with periodically, asking her if she might possibly be able to check Brenner’s Krankenbuchlage at the Deutsche Dienststelle to see if there was a mention in the medical records of an injury, probably to his leg.

  Fiona had finished fixing her seatbelt and pulling some notes and magazines out of her bag. She leaned into Johnson and peered over his shoulder at the phone. “What’s that? Anything interesting? You’re looking a bit stunned.”

  She was right. He was.

  “It’s an e-mail from Ignacio,” Johnson said. “He wants to take things into his own hands with his father. Threatening me, wants me to back off—as if I would. And you as well. He must have gotten my e-mail address from my website.”

  The Boeing 737 was roaring down the runway and then became airborne, the ground fading away beneath them, but he hardly noticed, he was so absorbed in the files from Ignacio.

  “But that’s not all,” Johnson said. “There’s four attachments showing proof that Brenner was a deputy commander at Auschwitz and Wüstegiersdorf, and there’s actually a memo reprimanding him over the Kudrow twins’ escape from the train that also details the unauthorized shooting dead of nineteen Jews who were fit for work. The SS weren’t technically allowed to kill Jews who were capable of working, as they were seen as war assets. It was only when they became too weak or ill that they disposed of them. When I was working at the OSI, this was the type of documentary evidence I always looked for, that I’d crawl across burning coals to get hold of. I used to call it the ‘proof of the truth.’”

  Johnson leaned back in his seat and exhaled. “It’s a smoking gun.”

  Fiona looked over his shoulder at the screen again and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I mean, just holding those roles is proof enough of what he must have done. Killing went with the territory. But the reprimand—well, I agree, it’s a smoking gun. And his son wants you to ignore this and let him deal with it? No. We can’t. He’s got to face justice. You can make sure of that, and I’ll make sure the world knows what he’s done and that he’s being dealt with. It’s inhuman.”

  She paused. “What I don’t get is why he’s sent it to you.”

  Johnson shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably just trying to justify what he’s planning to do—to us and to himself. In fact, I’m certain that’s why. But I don’t get why the old man would have kept the documents or even how he was able to do so for so long without detection by someone. Why would he even have brought them out of Germany? But anyway, whatever the reasons, it underlines my point that we need to stop Ignacio before he gets to his father. That’s my concern. He obviously thinks a bullet in his old man’s head will suffice. And for me, that’s why Brenner is the focus right now. Jacob’s right. Brenner’s the killer. The Kudrows aren’t.”

  Fiona hesitated. “Yes, but the Kudrows are also a massive story. They’re funding an election campaign by selling a stash of hidden Nazi gold—to the same Nazi who forced them to hide it during the war. That forces David Kudrow to step down from his campaign for the Republican nomination, and we get all the credit. We need to do that soon—the primaries are due to gear up after the New Year.”

  In her excitement, she spoke more loudly than she realized.

  The woman who was sitting in front of Fiona turned around.

  Johnson heard a young boy sitting nearby ask his mother what a Nazi was.

  Johnson hissed at her, “Shush, keep your voice down. The whole plane can hear you.”

  He lowered his voice. “You just need to hang on a minute. The whole objective here is to get the guy to court. If you start running stories before he’s been arrested he’ll go underground like a rat down a sewer pipe. He’ll get a new passport, a change of identity and just disappear. That’s what these guys have always done. They’re survivors. There are still networks in place to protect his sort, you know, even now, almost seventy years later. They’ll just whisk him away.”

  A sudden suspicion crossed his mind. “You haven’t mentioned any of this to your editor, have you? About Brenner?”

  Fiona hesitated again. “Well, I mean, I obviously had to tell my boss that I was going to Poland because he was expecting me back in Washington soon. So I just gave him a quick idea of what it was about. But only for information. He won’t do anything with it.”

  She raised her eyebrows at Johnson. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, well, what I’m worried about is that it won’t be fine if you start talking to editors about it at this stage.”

  “Okay, point taken,” Fiona said, to Johnson’s relief. “You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you? Like the old CIA and OSI days?”

  Johnson nodded. He was enjoying it, he told her. It reminded him of why he’d enjoyed his OSI role so much. At the OSI, unlike the CIA, he had no longer felt as though the whole objective was to deceive, lie, pretend, and cheat—and not just to the opposition but to one’s colleagues and superiors—in order to wriggle up the greasy career pole.

  He didn’t mind using smoke and mirrors, but at least at the OSI he had felt there was a human justification for the occasional piece of subterfuge.

  Maybe Robert Watson had done him a favor by firing him, he said to Fiona.

  The drinks trolley appeared next to Johnson’s right elbow.

  He felt badly in need of a stiff Scotch but with difficulty, managed to resist, wanting a clear head to think about the task ahead. Instead, he took a tonic water, no gin.

  Fiona declined a drink. Instead, she picked up her notes.

  As she buried herself in those, scribbling occasionally, Johnson pulled from his pocket a couple of printouts from a website he had found that had some details of the Sokolec complex. It included a couple of poor photographs of the entrance and the interior of one of the tunnels.

  The Sokolec tunnels complex is inside the Gontowa Mountain and comprises four tunnels built by slave labor, mainly Jews who were imprisoned in the nearby Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

  Tunnels One and Two are built into soft sandstone and have collapsed in several places.

  Tunnel Three is half a kilometer away from the others but has been inaccessible since the end of World War II because of a collapsed tunnel roof.

  The Sokolec complex is
not accessible to tourists, who are advised to visit the nearby Underground City of Osówka to experience the Riese tunnels in safety.

  Brief, and nothing about emergency exit tunnels, Johnson noted. His thoughts drifted back to the e-mail from Ignacio.

  There’s something else too which will emerge in time—a real bombshell. What could that be? More documents? More evidence about his father?

  I don’t want any interference. Justice will be done. But if Ignacio wanted to deal with his father himself, why not just get on with it? Why the need to tell Johnson?

  And if he wanted Johnson to back off, why send him a copy of exactly the type of document, containing clearly incriminating evidence, that would only encourage him?

  Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe Ignacio just wants the world to know what his father’s done.

  Johnson had a sudden craving for a cigarette.

  The whole thing just didn’t add up.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Friday, December 2, 2011

  Wroclaw, Poland

  It was just after five o’clock the following morning when Johnson and Fiona drove out of their hotel near to Wroclaw’s Copernicus Airport, just west of the city, in a rented green Škoda Octavia.

  Since he had less than four hours sleep, the last thing Johnson wanted for a long drive through the darkness was snow. But the flakes, tiny at first, grew larger and were driven east to west by a brisk wind as Johnson navigated down the A8 highway.

  By the time they swung onto the more rural DK35 heading southwest, the now fast-moving flakes had turned into white streaks across the blackness, like a television picture with no signal.

  A road sign read Gluszyca 65km. Johnson knew the hotel Fiona had earmarked as their base, the Sowa, was another fifteen kilometers beyond that at Sokolec, in the valley north of the village of Ludwikowice Klodzkie, very near to the tunnels complex.