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

by Andrew Turpin

  Smoke seeped up through crevices in the sandy soil.

  Johnson and Fiona looked at each other.

  Fiona shook her head in disbelief. “Holy shit snacks. That’s the gold gone, and those two guys gone with it.” She reached for her camera.

  Ignacio opened his eyes, then panicked. He was sure his head was about to split open from the inside out. Pressure built in his skull, and he couldn’t hear a thing.

  Where am I?

  It was dark, apart from a strange light that shone from above his eyes sideways across the floor. He lay on a pile of earth, his head resting painfully on a piece of wood, and then he coughed as he breathed in dust.

  Slowly his consciousness returned. The bang, then the flash, came back to him.

  The trip wire . . . Diego fell on it.

  He put his hand to his head, which throbbed, and felt the grittiness of stone and soil in his hair; then he found the headlamp, still switched on and functioning.

  The ringing sound coming from somewhere deep within his ears was unnerving. He scraped his hand along the floor, then banged it harder. He could see his hand move, could feel the slight vibration as it hit the floor, but could only hear the ringing.

  Ignacio sat up. By the light of his headlamp, he could see to his left an impenetrable mass of rock and soil but no sign of his friend Diego. To his right the tunnel was still intact.

  There’s only one way to go now.

  He tried to stand and instantly felt dizzy. His vision blurred, and white specks flicked in front of his eyes. He collapsed back down. After a few moments, he tried again and felt better.

  Ignacio wended his way through the tunnel. He spoke out loud. “Hola.” Now he could hear his own voice just a little.

  He vaguely remembered hearing and feeling the force of a second explosion from this direction.

  The tunnel curved at forty-five degrees around a large rock. Around the corner, he could feel cool air gently streaming against his face, and up ahead . . . Is that a chink of light?

  That hadn’t been there on his previous trip through this tunnel half an hour earlier. He walked closer.

  A huge mound of earth and rock blocked the tunnel in front of him where the second explosion must have caused it to cave in.

  But here, at the point where the pile of debris climbed to meet the roof of the tunnel, was a gaping hole about three yards wide. Ignacio peered up and could clearly see a clump of pines and rhododendron bushes.

  He scrambled up the pile of earth and rock, sliding back down as the debris gave way beneath his feet, but he managed to reach the top. Levering himself on his elbows, he climbed out and stood up.

  There was no way to get back to the three other boxes of gold that remained underground. He and Diego had found the boxes in a much larger tunnel connected to the narrow emergency passageway, still on the decrepit wooden pallet on which they had been placed in December 1944.

  But they had at least managed to get one box out.

  Ignacio turned with the thought of returning to the box. Then he saw something that caused him to drop to the ground.

  Less than fifty yards away, on the other side of a rhododendron bush, stood the two Americans, Johnson and Heppenstall. They were looking into a massive crater. Shit, shit, shit, Ignacio said to himself.

  The pair were talking to each other and gesticulating. Then Johnson turned his head and pointed in Ignacio’s direction a couple of times. He was clearly telling the woman they should go that way.

  Where’s my gun? With a sudden surge of panic, Ignacio realized he had left his weapon in the tunnel.

  Too late to go back.

  He stood and, crouching low, walked away from Johnson toward the trees. What to do? He had to get to his car and then leave as quickly as possible.

  And what of Diego? He must surely be a goner.

  At the thought of his partner, Ignacio hesitated only for a second. As soon as he was sure he was completely out of view of the Americans, he broke into a steady, military-paced run. He clutched his inside jacket pocket, where something heavy banged against his ribs.

  Every step jarred his throbbing head, which felt ready to explode, but he didn’t stop. He knew what he needed to do next.

  Ignacio pulled his phone from his pocket as he ran and called a cell phone number in the Czech Republic. The conversation was an extremely brief one.

  Fifteen minutes later, Ignacio was in his silver Ford and accelerating hard down the narrow valley road away from Sokolec and through the tiny single-lane tunnel under the railway line.

  He narrowly missed a baker’s delivery van as he emerged at the other end and screeched to a halt at the junction with the main road in Ludwikowice Klodzkie. Ignacio picked up his phone and quickly checked his maps app.

  The signpost at the T-intersection pointed right to Walbrzych and Wroclaw, and a smaller sign below it, also pointing right, read Wroclaw Airport 81km.

  “There was another explosion inside the trees, which went off just after the first one,” Johnson said. He turned away from the huge crater in front of them and pointed toward the pines to their right.

  “It was over there. We’d best take a look at that, too.”

  In the trees, around a large rhododendron bush, there was another hole, smaller than the first but similar.

  Fiona gaped at it. “There must have been two booby traps down there then. Well protected for sure. It’s like Fort Knox.” Then she realized what she had said and added, “No pun intended.”

  She focused her camera on the crater in the ground and took two photographs. “That’s all I’m gonna get, dammit—no pictures of the gold and the tunnels now. My boss will have me for breakfast after trekking all the way out here.”

  Johnson went over to the edge of the crater and peered down. “Come here. There’s an opening into the tunnel here, where the roof fell down. You can get in.”

  Then he saw them.

  “Quick, Fiona, look, there’s a set of footprints here. Someone’s climbed up and out. One of them must have gotten out. You can see the prints clearly on the soil where they’ve clambered up.”

  Johnson stood and walked around near the hole. “More footprints heading that way.” He walked farther into the trees. “They’re going in this direction. Dammit, I bet Ignacio got out. I can just feel it.” He swore loudly.

  “If there’s only one set of prints, that means there’s still one of them down there,” Fiona said. “Either alive or dead.”

  “Most likely dead, then. One wouldn’t just leave the other.” Although he wouldn’t put anything past Ignacio. Like father, like son.

  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and, as an afterthought, held the pack out to Fiona, who took one. Johnson flicked the spark wheel on the lighter, cupped his hands, and lit first her cigarette, then his own.

  He inhaled deeply. “Right, we need to get back to the hotel, quickly. If it’s Ignacio who escaped, then he won’t come back here. He’ll head for his car. The tunnel is dead. So there’s only one thing left for him to do, and that’s in Buenos Aires, not here. We’ve got to try and stop him. If it’s Diego who escaped, he’ll also try and head home, for sure.”

  “So we just leave whoever’s buried down there?” Fiona asked.

  Johnson grimaced. “We just haven’t got the time or tools to start digging, Fiona. The hotel and the authorities will have to sort it out.”

  He straightened and started walking back the way they had come, puffing at his cigarette as he went.

  Then he remembered the box of bullion, threw his cigarette on the ground, and broke into a run. “Come on, quick, let’s move. We’d best hide that box of gold back there first.”

  The box of bullion was still where the Argentinians had left it near the sewer entrance. Johnson put it well out of sight under a rhododendron bush and threw some dirt and leaves on top and around it for good measure. Hopefully nobody would see it. In any case, he didn’t really have a choice. They needed to run.

/>   By then, the sun was glinting off the icicles, and frost hung from the tree branches out in the valley.

  When they arrived back at the hotel, the silver Ford Focus had already disappeared. Johnson picked up a stone from the ground and flung it into the lake.

  The hotel receptionist came out to the parking lot when she saw them. “You’ve missed one of the Argentine men. He left in his car, maybe five or ten minutes ago. Covered in mud and dirt. I don’t know where he had been.”

  “Which man was it?” Johnson asked. “The blond one or the dark-haired one?”

  “The blond,” she said.

  Johnson nodded. That figured. He made toward the green Škoda Octavia, then had a thought. Turning back to the receptionist, Johnson said, “Call the police and tell them there’s a man stuck on the hillside over there in a collapsed tunnel. They’ll find him. Say it’s urgent.”

  Two minutes later, Johnson and Fiona accelerated out of the parking lot. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m not letting that Argie thug get away with this. We’re going to find the old man.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Friday, December 2, 2011

  Ludwikowice Klodzkie

  Fiona hung on to the passenger door handle as Johnson turned right at the T-intersection and floored the accelerator into the bend, causing the back of the car to swing out slightly.

  The green Škoda sped away from Ludwikowice Klodzkie in the direction of Wroclaw. Johnson somehow kept both hands on the wheel while gripping his phone between his hunched shoulder and his left ear, listening to the ring tone.

  Eventually Jayne answered.

  “Joe, where the hell are you? What’s happening?”

  “Jayne, it’s not going well. To cut a long story short, Ignacio or his friend Diego blew up the tunnel, so Ignacio didn’t get what he was after, but he’s disappeared. We need to know where he is and if he’s on a flight back to Buenos Aires. Probably from Wroclaw Airport, then via some other hub, maybe London or Madrid or whatever. Can you get someone to run checks on passengers?”

  Jayne sighed. “Look, Joe, it’s difficult. I’ve been told I need to back off . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

  “What do you mean, back off? This is urgent.”

  “Never mind, don’t worry. There’s stuff going on here at work. I can’t talk now.”

  The phone went dead.

  I need to back off. What was she talking about?

  Half a minute later his phone beeped as a text message arrived from Jayne.

  I’ll try. There is someone I know in France, a woman I used to work with who is now at Interpol down in Lyon. I can’t guarantee anything. Difficult here. Frankly, I’m pissed off with it all. Can’t wait to leave.

  Johnson groaned. It crossed his mind that someone at Langley might have spoken to Jayne and her boss. That would be typical. Robert Watson?

  They were only a couple of miles away from Wroclaw Airport when Johnson’s phone rang. It was from a U.K. cell phone number, although not one Johnson recognized.

  This time, Fiona held the phone while Johnson spoke.

  “Hello?”

  “Joe, it’s Jayne. I’m ringing from a private cell phone number. Daren’t use my work phone. Sorry about the cloak and dagger, but I need to tell you, there are strings being pulled. Unbelievable, really, but my boss called me in. He said he’d taken a call from your favorite man at Langley, Robert Watson.”

  Johnson felt his body stiffen. I knew it. Watto, still playing his games.

  “Screw him,” Johnson said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Jayne said. “Watson has requested that we do nothing to assist you and that we ensure no other British authorities do, either.”

  “Does he know you’ve been helping me already?”

  “No idea. It’s quite possible. But he’s apparently also contacting Berlin with a similar request. I mean, it’s not official or anything. It was an under-the-table ask, a quid pro quo for some help on another job, actually, but I thought you should know what’s going on and why I’m a bit limited.”

  But the good news was, Jayne continued, it hadn’t stopped her speaking privately to her Interpol contact in Lyon, who had worked quickly and had checked flight departures from Wroclaw.

  There was an Ignacio Guzmann booked on a Lufthansa flight leaving Wroclaw Airport in just under two hours’ time, at 11:30 a.m., for Frankfurt, with an onward booking on the long-haul flight from Frankfurt to São Paulo.

  “São Paulo?” Johnson asked. “Are you sure? That’s odd. Why the hell would he be going to Brazil?”

  “No idea, but it’s definitely São Paulo.”

  Johnson calculated quickly. It would probably take them an hour and a quarter to get to Wroclaw Airport, and assuming Ignacio remained ten minutes ahead of them he would get there maybe forty or forty-five minutes before the flight departed. That was cutting it a little fine, but it was a small airport, so he would probably have enough time to navigate through security and passport control before the gates closed.

  “Okay. Looks like this is our chance to trap the bastard, then,” Johnson said. “He won’t be able to take a weapon into the airport, even if he’s got one, and he’ll be boxed in once he’s in the terminal. So if we can get airport police or security to detain him until we can arrive, we can apprehend him then. Once we’ve done that, the Polish police can take over.”

  Jayne agreed that was the best option. “I’ll talk to someone I know at the British Embassy in Warsaw and get them to liaise with the airport authorities and police at Wroclaw. They’ll have all the contacts needed.”

  “But you’re not supposed to be helping me, are you?”

  “Screw them,” Jayne said. “That’s a problem for another day. I’m going to call Warsaw now, and I’ll give you an update once I’ve got the wheels moving.” She ended the call.

  Johnson accelerated through some traffic lights, which had just turned red, and passed a truck, cutting back in just in time to avoid a refuse truck coming the other way.

  “Let’s see if we can catch up with Ignacio,” he said.

  “Give it a go,” Fiona said. “He’s only in a small Ford, so we’ve got a chance of overhauling him.”

  Although Johnson, at times, hammered the Škoda at speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour on a series of winding country roads, they were also held up for what felt like an interminable seven or eight minutes behind a slow-moving tractor, with no opportunity to pass.

  There was a further delay at a set of temporary lights, set up to manage traffic flows around some roadwork.

  Johnson doubted that, overall, they had made up any ground on the Argentinian, and depending on his timing with the tractor and the lights, it was quite possible he had extended his lead.

  By the time Jayne called back forty-five minutes later, there was still no sight of Ignacio.

  “My Warsaw contact has the airport police on standby,” Jayne said, her voice squawking in a tinny, distorted manner from Johnson’s phone, which Fiona had switched to loudspeaker mode. “They’ve been briefed, as have the chief executive and head of security at the airport.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Fiona asked.

  “Okay, this is what will happen,” Jayne said. “When Ignacio checks in at the Lufthansa desk for the flight, the desk person will take his passport for checking and then hold him up. There’ll be a mysterious computer glitch or something. There’ll be two armed police loitering nearby, just in case. As soon as you get there the check-in people will take Ignacio off to a side room, telling him they need to resolve something before they can confirm his seat. If he resists, the police will assist. Once he’s in the side room, that’s when you’ll be able to do your bit. The chief executive will meet you at the information point, near the check-in desks. Then I’m hoping we can make an arrangement for police to help you further after that.”

  “Okay, great,” Johnson said. “Sounds perfect. You’re a star, Jayne. I assume Polish police will have grounds to hold him anyway,
given that he’s attempted to remove and steal gold that doesn’t belong to him. We can sort the rest out once we’re there.”

  At just after 11:05 a.m., somewhat later than he had hoped, Johnson braked to a halt in the drop-off zone in front of the terminal. He flicked on the Škoda’s hazard lights, and he and Fiona ran through the glass doors.

  In front of them was the information point, next to which a silver-haired man in a dark suit and a red tie was standing, looking a little agitated. He was flanked by two armed policemen. This, clearly, was the chief executive and the posse of officers who had been delegated to detain Ignacio.

  Johnson walked up to them and introduced himself and Fiona.

  The silver-haired man nodded in recognition. “I’m Wojtek Geremek,” he said, in accented English. “I’ve been briefed on what’s happening. Good to meet you.”

  Johnson had no time for pleasantries.

  “Where’s our man Guzmann?” Johnson asked, staring toward the check-in desk, where there was a short queue comprising a few businessmen in suits, two elderly couples with large suitcases, and a young man with a guitar case.

  “He’s not arrived yet,” Wojtek said. “He’s booked on the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, there’s no doubt about that, but he’s certainly not tried to check in.” He glanced at his watch, then at the check-in desk to his left.

  “He’s not checked in? But he was well ahead of us. Probably ten minutes ahead, and he must have made up more time on the road, because we were held up a couple of times,” Johnson said.

  “Yes, but he’s not here,” Geremek said. “The gate will be closing in five minutes. He’s definitely not going to make the flight.”

  “So where the hell is he?” Johnson said, his voice rising.

  Geremek shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. We’ve had our security team looking out for his car, which I understand is a silver Ford with British plates, but there’s been no sign of it coming into either the drop-off zone or any of the car parks.”