The Jewish Candidate

by David Crossland

  “What’s happened since the attack?” the man demanded. He had an eastern European accent. Becker wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Er, the number of close protection officers has been increased to seven. They’ve decided to close off the street in front of his home in Bonn with concrete barriers. Extra officers for Gutman’s wife and the son. And they’re considering X-ray screening for the bigger rallies. But they’re not certain they can manage that, and he’s against it.”

  “Are they going to let him near crowds for baby kissing?”

  “They’re trying to stop it but he won’t have it.”

  Becker risked a look in the mirror. He saw the outlines of a broad-shouldered man.

  “Does he have guards in house with him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Is front door being reinforced?

  “I haven’t heard.”

  “What is policy on windows?”

  “How … how do you mean?”

  “Are shutters being put up, curtains drawn?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Herr Gutman wants to keep life as normal as possible for his son.”

  “Does his food get checked?”

  “What? No. I don’t think so.”

  “Any festivals coming up? In campaign, anything in villages or small towns in next weeks?”

  Becker checked his smartphone. “There’s a wine festival on the Rhine, in St. Goar. August 19. Four p.m.”

  “Anything else like that?”

  “The Berlin SPD summer party. On a boat on the Spree river. Next Tuesday. And the annual press ball of course. At the Sanssouci Hotel here in Berlin. Everyone goes to that. August … August 24.”

  “OK.” The man got out and closed the door gently. Becker’s palms were sweating. He turned round but only saw the metal exit door swing shut. He started the engine and drove out at speed.

  Chapter Seven

  Berlin, August 2

  Carver decided to give Renner one last try before heading to his meeting with the neo-Nazi that Bernhard Wendt, the head of Escape, had arranged for him. He drove his maroon BMW 123d Coupé out of the underground car park of his apartment block and headed to the district of Kreuzberg, where Renner lived, at least according to a colleague at Blick newspaper. Carver had persuaded him to reveal the freelancer’s last known address.

  Renner lodged in a run-down, century-old tenement block on a bustling street lined with Turkish grocers, discount phone stores and rickety Internet cafes. The ground floor boasted a fast-food joint named “Doner Palast.”

  Carver rang the doorbell. Renner’s voice crackled on the intercom. “What?”

  “Frank Carver. From Berchtesgaden, remember? I have a proposition. Can I come up?”

  Renner buzzed him in. “Third floor.”

  Carver squeezed past a row of prams and climbed the creaking linoleum stairs. Renner was waiting at his door.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” Carver said.

  “I lost my phone.” Renner led him into his living room. There was a smell of stale cigarette smoke and falafel. “What’s up?”

  “You might be on to something,” said Carver. “After you left that night I walked back down towards the restaurant. Someone attacked me and knocked me out cold.”

  “What?”

  “They were so desperate to keep me away they staged a rape in an alley and lured me in to help, and bang.”

  “Fuck me.” Renner sat down on his worn black leather couch. He lit a cigarette. “So you believe me now?”

  “Let’s say it’s got me wondering. Are you still working on it?” Carver asked.

  “I’m out of cash,” said Renner. “At the moment I couldn’t even afford a train ticket anywhere.” His torn black jacket, faded jeans and tousled hair made him look like a cross between an anti-globalisation activist and a sex shop assistant.

  “What the hell is that?” Carver stared at a pair of beige silk underpants, unfeasibly large, in an expensive-looking, gilded picture frame. The letters “H.G.” were stitched in gold thread on the right thigh.

  “Hermann Göring,” said Renner. “You want a beer?”

  “No thanks. Seriously? Göring?”

  “Yes. It’s a long story.”

  “Shall we work on this? If you’re short of cash, I can offer a per diem of €300.”

  Renner broke into a broad smile. “I’m in. But we share copyright on everything we get and I get to sell it to my outlets, under my byline.”

  “Fine by me. I’m driving out to Wünsdorf now. It’s an hour from here. I’m meeting a neo-Nazi there who wants out and who’s contacted Escape, you know the group?”

  Renner nodded. “Of course.”

  “He’s agreed to talk to me. Even if he doesn’t know anything, an inside look at the neo-Nazi scene can’t hurt. Who knows, he might drop us a titbit. I couldn’t think of any other way in.”

  “Why Wünsdorf?” Renner asked.

  “No idea.”

  The town of Wünsdorf, some 25 miles south of Berlin, had been a militarized zone for over a century and was going to take another 100 years to recover from the experience. The Nazis had made it the headquarters of the high command of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces, during the Second World War. After that, it became the HQ of Soviet forces in East Germany. It was virtually deserted now, and its streets were lined with ranks of crumbling barrack buildings.

  “I bet the rent’s affordable round here,” Renner remarked as they drove through the town. “So how do we look into this Gutman plot?”

  “As I see it, one option is to find out where they got the money to pay for any assassin.”

  “We’ve got to find out what they were up to in Berchtesgaden,” Renner said. “I’m sure they were waiting for someone. They went all that way to meet a guy. That means he probably lives near there, right?”

  Carver nodded.

  “They were looking for someone with contacts in Russia, my source said. That means he might have done business there, right? So did he belong to a firm, or own a firm, that exported stuff to Russia? We could be looking for an old Nazi who built up a business after the war, did deals in Russia and who’s still alive. That’s a profile to go on, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” said Carver. “Company records, local newspapers. You definitely can’t lean on your friend a bit more?”

  “No chance, believe me. He’s terrified.”

  “This is it – D complex,” said Carver, pulling in to the side of the street. “There should be a statue of Lenin next to it.”

  They got out and peered through the chain link fence. About 50 metres away, they could make out Lenin in traditional pose, jutting out his chest and holding on to his coat lapel with one hand.

  “How are we supposed to get in?” Renner asked. “And why not meet in a cafe somewhere?”

  “He probably feels safer here,” Carver said, rattling at the padlocked gate.

  Dark clouds had gathered and a wind had come up. It was starting to spit with rain. There was no one about.

  “Looks like no one’s been to Wünsdorf since the last tanks left in ’94,” said Carver. “Come on, let’s climb it. I’ll give you a leg up.”

  Renner puffed as Carver hoisted him to the top of the gate. They could hear a car in the distance. “Hurry up,” said Carver.

  Renner swung himself over and caught his T-shirt on a piece of wire as he dropped down, tearing the front and exposing much of his skinny chest. “Verdammte Scheisse!”

  Carver grinned. “Put in two euros expenses for a replacement.”

  Renner crouched down and Carver walked down the street until the car had disappeared. He came across a wide gap in the fence and stepped through it. Renner stood up and zipped up his jacket, muttering. “Himmel Arsch und Zwirn!”

  Carver smiled at the curse. “I haven’t heard that one.”

  “Stick around, I’ll teach you plenty more.”

  It was raining more heavily now. They walked along th
e cracked, weed-covered tarmac of the drive and past a football-pitch-sized, overgrown meadow that had once been a well-tended lawn offering rest and relaxation for staff officers, first Nazi and then Soviet.

  They stopped to pay their respects to Lenin. The bottom of his coat was flapped open in an imaginary wind. “He looks disgusted at how things turned out,” Renner remarked. “Quite right, too.”

  “Come on, there’s a back door in and he’ll met us in the canteen on the first floor,” said Carver.

  The yellow facade of the five-storey barracks was grimy and flaking, and many of the windows were broken. They pushed open the door and climbed a flight of stairs. They reached a long corridor. “He said the mess hall is down here somewhere,” said Carver, turning right.

  Renner opened the door to an office and gave a low whistle. “This is a time warp!” They walked in. A portrait of Boris Yeltsin hung on the wall. Three armchairs were grouped round a squat wooden table that someone had tried to set fire to. Empty beer bottles were scattered on the floor. On a desk stood an old electric typewriter from the 1980s with Cyrillic keys. Someone had melted its plastic cover with a cigarette lighter. A large swastika was drawn on a wall. They had to dodge long strips of pale green wallpaper dangling from the ceiling.

  Suddenly a deafening bang echoed down the corridor. They both flinched. Carver ran out of the room and listened. The wind whistled through the building. He turned to Renner. “Can’t see anything. Might have been a door slamming in the draft.”

  Renner opened a steel filing cabinet and leafed through a stash of yellowed copies of “Red Star,” the military newspaper. He started humming the Song of Stalin, the Soviet national anthem.

  Carver gazed out of the window at Lenin and the field beyond. A couple of rabbits were sheltering from the rain under trees at the far end. A loud explosion in the distance ripped through the air. Renner jolted. “What the fuck was that? That wasn’t thunder!”

  The rabbits hadn’t even twitched. “There’s a munitions disposal site near here,” said Carver. “They’re probably getting rid of old shells from the war.”

  “Why did this guy have to meet in this fucked-up place?” Renner said.

  Carver sensed movement in the corner of his eye and turned. A tall, broad-shouldered man was standing in the doorway. He had a pale, hard face and light blond stubble for hair.

  “Herr Carver?”

  Carver nodded.

  “Schwartz. And who’s this? Why are there two of you? Wendt said there would just be one.” His small blue eyes fixed Renner with a contemptuous stare.

  “That was a misunderstanding,” Carver replied. “I’m sorry. Herr Renner and I work together. I vouch for him, the same way Herr Wendt vouched for me.”

  Schwartz looked sceptical. “This way.”

  They followed him into a large hall with light-brown chipboard wall panelling that was standard in public buildings of the Communist bloc. There was a two-metre high, faded red hammer and sickle stencilled on the far wall above the canteen’s serving hatch. They sat at a lone table in the centre. Schwartz lit a cigarette. He was in his mid-30s, and wore jeans and a black polo shirt with red and white piping on the collar and short sleeves – the national colours of the old Reich. He had a discreet “TS” logo on the left breast to denote the Thor Steinar brand popular with neo-Nazis.

  The outside two fingers on his left hand were missing and the skin was scarred. He inhaled the nicotine.

  “Do you have the money?”

  Carver opened his wallet and handed over the €500 in €50 notes. “What group are you part of?”

  “Several. German Homeland Protection League, Sturm Wotan, a few others.”

  “Sturm what?” said Renner with a laugh. Carver shot him a reproachful glance. “Why do you want to get out?” Carver asked.

  “Let’s say it didn’t live up to my expectations,” Schwartz said. “You’re joking, right?” He glared at Carver. “Are you a dickhead or what? Put that thing away.” Carver put his digital recorder back in his pocket and raised his hands. “Sorry, I was going to ask.”

  “I’m risking my neck just sitting here!” Schwartz said. “And never use my name in whatever you write. For fuck’s sake.”

  Schwartz threw his cigarette butt on the floor and stamped on it with a thick-soled black boot.

  “How and when did you get involved with the scene?”

  “Where I come from, you can’t avoid it,” said Schwartz. “All your mates join up. There was this group that ran the only youth club in our town, they had a pool table so we went down there. There were hard guys there, the kind you look up to when you’re a teenager. They treated us well, gave us stuff, organized parties and gigs. Laid on coach trips to demonstrations all over Germany. We saw the country for free. It was fun. Sometimes they even got old fighters in to tell us about the war.” He smiled at the memory. “You know the saying ‘Tough as Leather, Hard as Krupp Steel?’ Well it was true. That was an awesome generation. My grandfather fought with Sepp Dietrich.”

  “Who’s Sepp Dietrich?” Carver asked.

  “SS general, Panzer commander, Hitler pinned a lot of medals on him,” said Renner. “Bully for grandpa! You must be so proud!”

  Schwartz looked at Renner. “You’re asking for a smack in the mouth.”

  There was a silence. Schwartz turned to Carver. “As a nation, we’re soft as shite these days. We used to be different. I want to do something good for my country. We’re being inundated with foreigners who’re breeding like rabbits. I’m sick of seeing Turkish bitches in headscarves with six brats in tow every time I go out.” He lit another cigarette. “But these days, our group meetings are just piss-ups among guys with IQs like my shoe size. I didn’t join to stand around doing Hitler salutes and singing the Horst Wessel song.”

  “Why do you object to that?” Renner asked. “If you join a group called ‘Sturm Wotan,’ surely that’s what you’re going to get?”

  Schwartz paused. “I’ve got no problem with kicking the shit out of lefties and niggers so that they fuck off out of our country. It feels good making them squeal. But …”

  “But what?” Carver demanded.

  “The whole thing is getting out hand.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “More violent.”

  “Go on.”

  “They’ve got weapons stores,” said Schwartz. “They openly talk about going out to kill Turks, send nail bombs to mosques. They’re organizing firing exercises and war games. Basically, there’s a lot of guys who’re psyching themselves up into going on killing sprees.”

  “What, and you’re not up for that?” asked Renner.

  Schwartz ran his hand across his head. “The way things are going, I’m either going to wind up dead or in jail unless I get out. So I want out.”

  “Why can’t you just quit?” Carver asked. “Why do you need the help of Escape?”

  “You can’t just quit when you get to my level. People who leave can end up with a bullet in the face. I’m going to have to disappear.”

  There was a noise in the corridor. Schwartz leapt to his feet and listened at the door. The wind was howling through the building with a low, constant whistle.

  Schwartz returned to the table. “Thought I heard a footstep.”

  “Do you know Hermann von Tietjen?” Carver asked.

  “I know of him. Never met him. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you know if he’s a neo-Nazi?”

  “He’s an arsehole, that’s for sure. A mate of mine knew him. Years ago. In high school in Dresden. My mate’s brother has Down’s syndrome. Tietjen told him his brother should have been euthanized. My mate took offence and gave him a slap. A week later his brother was at a bus stop and some guys came in a van and took him. He was found in a field covered in cigarette burns and beaten up so bad he got spinal damage. He was in wheelchair after that. They never caught who did it but my mate swore Tietjen was behind it. But he had no proof. And he was too scared to pursue
it.”

  “So Tietjen’s a Nazi?” Renner persisted.

  “Well, he was then. But you claim that these days and he’ll get you locked up. Or worse, maybe. But …”

  “But what?” said Carver.

  “I have heard mention that he’s in touch with some of the Kameradschaften …”

  “What are they?” asked Carver.

  “Groups, clubs of neo-Nazis,” said Renner.

  “Have you got proof?” asked Carver.

  Schwartz shook his head. “I heard a rumour once he was into Nordic pagan worship, big time.”

  “Go on,” said Carver, scribbling notes.

  “Don’t know if this is true, but I heard he once organized a torch-lit ceremony in Wewelsburg Castle …”

  Renner laughed. “You are fucking kidding me!”

  “Why? What’s that?” said Carver.

  “It’s a castle in the north-west,” said Renner. “It was a sort of religious place for the SS.”

  “I heard something’s going to happen there in two weeks,” said Schwartz. “For the Hess anniversary.”

  Carver gave them a blank look.

  “Rudolf Hess,” Renner explained. “August 17 is a big day in the Nazi calendar.

  Anniversary of his death.”

  “Are you going?” asked Carver.

  Schwartz shook his head.

  “Tietjen?”

  He shrugged. “How should I know? I doubt it.”

  Raindrops splashed onto the window ledges with an incessant metallic clang. The gathering gloom drained all colours out of the hall. “How do you think Tietjen feels about having a Jewish chancellor?” Carver asked.

  “How should I know? But if he’s a German nationalist he won’t like the idea, and neither do I.”

  “What are people saying about Gutman?”

  Schwartz shrugged. “That he’s a fucking Jew and they hope he dies.”