“Abrams,” Mason said in a loud whisper.
Abrams stopped. Mason removed his pistol and headed back to the front door. With a look of alarm, Abrams did the same. At the front door, they took opposite sides, using the door frame as cover. Mason used the barrel of his pistol to break a lower pane of glass. He waited a moment, then reached inside and unlocked the door. He ducked back behind the door frame and opened the door. Mason signaled for Abrams go in on the right side, and he’d take the left. Abrams nodded, and, with guns at the ready, they slipped inside.
The living room had a high-sloped ceiling. A freestanding fireplace separated the living room from the dining room. A high-backed sofa and chairs were clustered in the middle. Mason and Abrams slid along opposite walls, checking the open balconies that spanned the two long sides of the room. As Mason cleared the sofa, he saw why the place had been so quiet.
A man’s body lay on its back, with one bullet hole in the forehead. He had a look of surprise on his gray face. It was Hans Engel—Frack, of Frick and Frack, one of the two German CIC agents working for Winstone. The splattered bloodstain on the curtain had come from the exit wound in the back of Engel’s head. Two more bullets had punctured his chest. No time to wonder what Frack was doing here; they had to clear the rest of the house.
Mason and Abrams alternated rooms, covering each other, as they searched the house. They didn’t have to go far before finding a second body in the kitchen. Werner Schluser, a.k.a. Frick, had the same look of surprise on his face. A half-eaten sandwich still lay on the breakfast table. The bullet had entered the back of his head. And like Frack, two more bullet wounds in the chest. And like Giessen, Bachmann, and Plöbsch, both had been killed execution style.
No sign of a struggle; Frick contentedly eating his sandwich, then dead. His suit coat lay open, exposing a nine-millimeter still in its shoulder holster.
“What were these two doing here?” Abrams said.
Mason shook his head and pointed to the upper floor. They climbed the stairs and moved silently from room to room. Finally Abrams whistled softly for Mason’s attention.
A man lay naked, facedown, on the bathroom floor. He was tall and muscle-bound, with a series of scars across one shoulder, hip, and back. Like the others, he had been shot in the head with two in the chest.
They still had two bedrooms to go. On the other side of the sink, a door fed into what Mason presumed was the master bedroom. Mason signaled for Abrams to approach the bedroom from the hallway. He waited for Abrams to get into position, then he stepped over the corpse and peeked into the room. The master bedroom took up a third of the second floor. A massive canopy bed sat in the middle. Mason checked the corners and entered. Abrams did the same thing from the hallway door. A second later, Abrams hissed and pointed to the far corner on the other side of the bed.
When Mason went around the bed, he saw a woman in a white nightgown curled up in a ball, lifeless on the floor. She looked to be in her early thirties, with long, dark hair. She’d been shot in the head and chest, like the others, but there was a bullet wound in the back of her shoulder. Mason figured she’d heard the pop of a silencer and Kantos fall. When she tried to run from the killers, she’d been hit in the shoulder. She’d curled up on the floor, as if to shield herself. She had a look of terror frozen on her face.
Mason forced himself to breathe; they still had one more bedroom. Abrams must have been feeling the same thing, as his face was tense with dread at what they might find in the final room.
Their worst fears were realized. Lying in bed as if asleep, a boy of eight or nine still had his bedcovers pulled up to his chin. He, too, had been shot in the head, but it seemed even the killers had their limits, as there were no other marks on the boy’s body.
Mason stared at the boy’s face. The boy’s eyes were closed and sunken. His skin pale in contrast to the blood that had spread across the pillow. A flash of memory came to Mason: during the war, another child shot through the head, her blood staining the snow. He slammed his fist against the wall.
After taking another ten minutes clearing the rest of the house, the two investigators returned to the body in the bathroom. Mason turned the corpse onto its back. The exiting bullet had taken out most of the man’s forehead and bridge of his nose, and his eyes were filled with blood, but Mason could still make out the face.
“This has to be Kantos,” Mason said. “I saw him with Giessen once or twice.” He searched the floor in the immediate area of the shooting. “The killers were pros. They picked up the shell casings. We probably won’t find a print anywhere.”
“There’s still the footprints outside. We can see if there are any matches with the prints from the Steinadler. The thing I don’t get is, why were Hans and Werner pulling bodyguard duty with one of the men Winstone was investigating?”
Mason shook his head. “Whatever the reason, they must have known the killers. That’s the only way they could have gotten inside and surprised two trained agents.” He squatted and examined the body. From the condition of the corpse, Mason estimated Kantos was shot six to eight hours before, putting it at early in the morning. “Any visitors before six would have seemed strange, so sometime after that.”
“Someone’s eliminating the competition,” Abrams said.
“Or potential witnesses. It’s time to find Yaakov before anyone else does.”
“Shouldn’t we call this in first?”
“If we do that, we’ll be tied up with this for the entire afternoon. We’ve got to find Yaakov. Now.”
“We can’t just walk away from these people.”
Mason looked up at Abrams. He thought about the woman and the boy lying dead and beginning to decay. He couldn’t have cared less about Kantos’s remains, but Abrams was right: He wouldn’t let the woman and boy lie there any longer. “All right, call it in.”
Thirty minutes passed before a contingent of MPs, crime scene techs, and the assistant ME arrived. By that time, Mason and Abrams had searched around the bodies and the house for traces of footprints, hair, or fibers. The search turned up nothing of real value. Mason had hoped to find something that could help tie Kantos in with the other suspects listed on Winstone’s chalkboard or identify the killers and their bosses. They did find a sack of cash: U.S. dollars, British pounds, Swiss francs, and Italian lire. In all, close to ten thousand dollars’ worth: a fortune by some standards, but probably pocket change for Kantos. Wherever he kept the majority of his earnings, it wasn’t in the house. And, as with Winstone’s office, Mason suspected that whatever records or incriminating material had been in the house, the killers had destroyed or taken with them.
The only break came in finding the slug that had passed cleanly through the wife’s shoulder and embedded itself in the wall. The relatively intact bullet, a nine-millimeter, would have the distinct striations, the markings, left by the weapon. He could compare those with the compressed bullets from the other gunshot wounds and see if it was the same weapon and determine its make. But in all, they came away with very little useful evidence.
Mason and Abrams were finishing up, and giving instructions to the crime scene techs, when, to Mason’s surprise and displeasure, Densmore entered and marched up to them. “Seems every place you go, another set of corpses turn up. And this time, you’re going to have to learn about cooperation. German victims, German police.”
“The principal target was Eddie Kantos. A British citizen.”
Densmore hissed a curse, and said, “Now, I suppose, we’re going to have to involve the Brits on this one.”
“The woman and boy were Austrian.”
“Boy?” Densmore said with dismay.
“Kantos’s wife and her son. I found the marriage certificate along with their passports. The son was from a previous marriage.”
Densmore let out a tired sigh, then eyed Mason. “Why were you here, anyway?”
“To question Kantos. I got access to Winstone’s office and saw he’d drawn out a chart with a whole web of unsavory characters, living and dead, with Kantos at the center of it all.”
“You’re still circling around Winstone being murdered? When are you going to wise up, Collins?”
“Winstone was investigating Kantos, among others, and now here he is, shot dead execution style—just like Giessen and the rest. The two bodyguards were working for Winstone, and probably knew the assailants, since there was no sign of a struggle and their weapons are still holstered. I’m sure it’s the same hit squad that took out the three German crime bosses, Winstone, Hilda. Now Kantos, his wife and son, and the bodyguards. There were no prints. The front door was locked. No shoot-out. They were just popped off as pretty as you please. No muss, no fuss. When are you going to wise up?”
Densmore studied Mason as he processed this.
“Go see for yourself,” Mason said. “Have a good look at the wife and boy, then tell me there’s not some kind of cold-blooded gang taking over.”
Densmore stepped past Mason and headed for the stairs.
As Mason watched Densmore climb the stairs, he said to Abrams, “Now you see why I added Densmore’s name to the list. Let’s get out of here.”
Outside, a gaggle of German reporters waited at the gate. They fired questions as Mason and Abrams wedged past them. Then, just outside the gate, Mason had the feeling once again that someone was watching him. He glanced around and spotted a car parked opposite their jeep. Mason froze in midstep. Sure enough, someone was staring at him through the driver’s-side window. Laura sat in an elegant Mercedes 770, probably once belonging to some Nazi general, with her hands on the steering wheel and the engine idling.
She locked eyes with his and nodded toward the road, her expression conveying anger or fear. But just as Mason moved toward her, she revved the engine and drove off. Puzzled, he watched her race down the road. He recovered a moment later and got behind the wheel of the jeep. Abrams barely had time to jump in before Mason took off.
SIXTEEN
Mason had the accelerator pinned to the floorboard and shifted gears like a race car driver, but try as he might the jeep was no match for the supercharged, two-hundred-horsepower Mercedes. Laura had a quarter-mile lead, and was continuing to widen the gap, when she took a sharp turn and disappeared from view.
Abrams checked his pistol as if expecting trouble. “Who are we chasing? How many guys?”
“It’s my ex-girlfriend,” Mason said.
Abrams stopped what he was doing, looked at Mason, and holstered his pistol. “If you’ve got a beef with your ex, can you please settle it when you’re off duty?”
Mason took the same sharp turn as Laura. The road straightened with a clear view ahead, but Laura was no longer in sight. Mason slowed the jeep and peered down each side street they passed.
“What the hell was she doing at the Kantos place?” Abrams asked.
“That’s what I intend to ask once I catch up to her. She looked upset, whatever the reason.”
“Admit it, you lost her. Now, if you’d have let me drive—”
Laura’s car came out of nowhere and swerved in front of them, the tires squealing as it did so. Mason gripped the steering wheel and raced up on her tail, but Laura surged ahead. The two cars sped through the winding curves of Promenadestrasse, then Burgstrasse, heading north and toward the edge of town.
Mason shook his head. “If she wants me to follow her somewhere, she could have just said so.”
“She can drive; I’ll give her that. I haven’t met her yet, and I already like her.”
Laura made a hairpin turn onto a narrow street and took several more quick turns before pulling into the small parking lot of the Partenkirchen cemetery. She got out of the car, walked past the chapel, and headed for the cemetery park before Mason had a chance to come to a stop. There were no other cars in the lot, and the only other person in sight was an old woman trying to sweep away snow gathering under the chapel’s portico.
Mason parked the jeep next to Laura’s Mercedes, and they climbed out. As they walked across the parking lot, Abrams pulled his coat tight against the bitter wind that blew up the valley and scattered snow flurries that had started to fall. The two investigators entered a cemetery park divided into small squares and shallow rectangles and dotted with random clumps of trees.
Laura waited on a footpath to their right. She wore a tweed pantsuit under a beige wool overcoat.
“Secret Agent McKinnon,” Mason said, “this is my partner, Gil Abrams.”
Laura ignored the crack and held out her hand. Abrams shook it while sporting a grin big enough to dislocate his jaw.
“Okay, talk to me,” Mason said to Laura.
“You like to get right to the point, don’t you?” Laura said.
“Laura.”
“Nothing to say about how I lost you then picked you up again?”
Abrams interjected, “I thought it was some pretty nifty driving, and I said so.”
Mason silenced Abrams with a stern look, then turned back to Laura. “What were you doing at the Kantos house? How did you know about the murders?”
Laura suddenly looked past them to a man dressed in a black coat and hat who had just entered the cemetery. They all watched as the man headed down a footpath taking him to an area of bare-limbed trees. He stopped at a gravestone and bowed his head. Laura turned and walked in the opposite direction, prompting Mason and Abrams to follow her.
After a few steps, Laura said, “I was visiting some reporter friends of mine at the army press office when the call came in about the shooting at a residence on Hausbergstrasse.”
“And you suspected it was Eddie Kantos’s house.”
Laura looked straight ahead as she nodded and chose another path at random.
“How do you know Kantos, and where he lived?” Mason asked.
“I told you I’ve spent months investigating the black market trade between Germany and Italy. That I disguised myself as an Italian and a Jewish refugee as a way of learning about the smuggling routes. Bolzano is one of the main points of distribution in Italy for smuggled goods and refugees. Most of the smugglers go through there at one time or another, and that’s where I met Kantos through another contact.”
“Met him, meaning what?”
“I’d heard that Kantos was a big operator in the black market, arranging and coordinating smuggling routes through the French and British zones of Austria to Italy, and I wanted to interview him. I also heard he was helping the Jewish Brigade smuggle Jewish refugees to Palestine.”
“What’s the Jewish Brigade?” Abrams asked.
Mason said, “They’re Palestinian Jews who fought in the British Army, but a lot of them stayed on after the war to help smuggle Jewish refugees into Palestine.”
Laura nodded. “That’s right. So, to get to Kantos, I posed as a Palestinian Jewish journalist doing a story about non-Jews helping refugees reach Palestine. Kantos was a pretty fascinating guy.” She turned wistful. “He was a rugged, handsome man, a real-life adventurer: ruthless, dangerous, but with a soft spot for the Jewish refugee plight.”
Mason said to Abrams, “There’s one thing you have to understand about Laura: She looks for ways to put her life on the line.” He turned back to Laura and said, “So, do tell us more about the wild desperado with a heart of gold. He must have made your heart go pitter-patter.”
Laura glanced at Mason and smiled, amused at his hint of jealousy. “Kantos was a major in the SOE, the British Army’s Special Operations Executive. It was a clandestine espionage unit and conducted sabotage and raiding operations during the war. Kantos also participated in operations with French units of the SOE, and he was awarded medals by both countries. He used his hero status to gain special privileges from both the Brits and the French: travel passes, identity cards, even
military escorts. And what he couldn’t obtain through favors, he got through bribes or extortion.”
“How did you know where he lived in Garmisch if you only met him once in Italy?”
Laura said nothing as they walked around the maintenance building situated in the center of the cemetery.
“Did you learn it from the same man who introduced you to Kantos?” Mason asked.
“What difference does it make? The reason I brought you here and I’m telling you this is to warn you. I’m scared for you, and I’m scared for me. If they got to the Giessen gang and Kantos, then no one is safe, including you.”
“Then tell me who your source is. If he has a connection to any of these victims, then he could have important information. We need to talk to him.”
“I remember giving you my source in Munich, and he wound up dead.”
“If your source is associated with Kantos, then he’s already a target. And if they can get to Kantos, they sure as hell can get to your man.”
Laura sighed and looked at the ground as they walked. “I should say no on principle, but the man is a creep. Willy Laufs. He runs a local small-time gang dealing in narcotics and prostitution.”
Abrams seemed enthralled with Laura, his eyes widening with each revelation of her story. “And you were able to find this guy and talk to him?”
“He approached me. A sucker for a nice pair of legs.” Laura stole a glance at Mason. “Don’t worry, I was able to keep him at arm’s length. He prefers adolescents, anyway. Of both sexes. He reportedly runs a brothel for high-end clients who share in his perverted tastes. I don’t know where it is, but you shouldn’t have any trouble finding it; some fancy villa on the west side of town.”
“We’ll find it,” Abrams said.
Laura continued, “Willy’s real value is his connections to the Sicilian mafia, mostly narcotics. He was a diplomat in the Nazis’ Office of Foreign Affairs in Sicily, and that’s where he made friends with the main crime families.”
Spoils of Victory Page 15