Spoils of Victory

by John A. Connell

  “That was at low voltage for only four seconds, Volker,” Mason said. “Imagine thirty seconds turned all the way up. Imagine thirty seconds with the leads attached to your testicles. That’s what you did to people.”

  “Chief, please,” Abrams barked. He had tears in his eyes from witnessing such a horrible sight. He looked at Mason a moment longer, as if expressing that he finally understood what Mason had suffered under Volker. He turned back to Volker. “Quick, man. Give us something. If I put him on another track long enough, I can call this in to the MPs and get you out of here. But you have to help me.”

  Volker nodded his head violently, speaking unintelligible words through the gag.

  Abrams said to Mason, “I’m removing the gag. He needs to breathe.”

  Mason smiled as he nodded. Abrams was doing a good job of playing along. Abrams untied Volker’s gag, and Volker gasped for air as he muttered, “Please, please, please . . .” continually.

  Abrams leaned in. “You better think fast, Ernst, or my partner will keep going.”

  Continuing the role of vengeful maniac, Mason said, “What are you two talking about over there?” He marched over to Abrams, simulating rage at his partner. “You said he needed to breathe. I don’t want you coddling him and talking to him behind my back. I want to watch this man fry.” He turned to Volker. “Hell with the ears. I’m going straight for the balls.”

  Mason started to pull on Volker’s belt.

  “No, please!” Volker screamed.

  “Volker,” Abrams said. “Say something.”

  Volker raised his head as if to scream it from the rooftops. “A deal’s happening tomorrow. Schaeffer is personally supervising it.”

  “What kind of deal?” Abrams said, shouting now.

  “A train is coming up from Austria.”

  “What’s the train carrying?” Mason asked.

  “Aluminum, chemicals, steel, and iron . . .”

  “What else?”

  Volker shook his head as he pleaded with his eyes. “That’s all I know.”

  “Bullshit,” Mason said and charged over to the power supply. As he reached for the dial, Volker screamed, “No!”

  Mason went back to Volker and yelled close to Volker’s face. “What else is the train carrying?”

  Volker took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if the telling were painful. “There are two boxcars loaded with gold bars and currency from the Third Reich treasury. It was shipment that had been destined for Switzerland at the end of the war, but the SS men only got as far as Seefeld, in Austria, before having to bury it. Some of those ex-SS men handed it over to the American authorities, and now it’s being shipped to the American repository in Frankfurt.”

  “How’s Schaeffer going to steal that kind of cargo off an American military train?”

  “At least half the train is carrying German POWs released from Italy. They will have to make a stop just across the border to process the ex-prisoners and feed them.”

  “That’s when they jump the train?” Mason said.

  Volker nodded as he sucked in air. “Some of the MPs guarding the train are in league with Schaeffer, and Schaeffer has fake orders to turn over the boxcars of gold and currency to him.”

  Mason looked at Abrams. Even after everything he’d discovered about Schaeffer’s organization, he found it hard to believe that so many people could be involved—MPs, senior officers issuing false orders—and that Schaeffer could manipulate the exact contents of an official train; especially that he could manage to attach such valuable cargo to a train hauling German ex-POWs. It seemed unbelievable. It was ominous, even frightening.

  “What time is the train supposed to arrive?” Mason finally asked.

  “Around eight tomorrow evening. At the MP checkpoint way station south of Mittenwald.”

  Mason got in Volker’s face. “You gave it up in about twenty minutes flat. You worked on me for a week, and I never gave it up. Isn’t that right, Volker? You lied about that to Schaeffer.”

  Volker lowered his eyes and sputtered, “Yes.”

  Mason put the hood back on Volker’s head, and Volker let out a yelp. “Please, no more,” he said. “I did what you asked.”

  Mason signaled for Abrams to follow him, and they exited the room. Mason slammed the furnace room door shut, threw the latch, and secured it with a padlock.

  Margareta shook her hands, making the handcuffs rattle against the metal pipe. “Are you going to let me go?”

  “Sure,” Mason said. “Tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow? You can’t do that. You promised.”

  “Now, don’t you fret. We’re all spending the night. Hell, you get to stay in this beautiful villa with two handsome men. What else could a girl ask for?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Abrams turned the car onto Kreuzackerstrasse, a small street in a working-class neighborhood. Though the houses were quite respectable by American middle-class standards, they seemed tiny after the sprawling villas in Winstone’s part of town.

  Abrams parked the car in front of a simple white stucco house with a sloping, red-tiled roof. Like many of the houses in this area, it had been divided into a triplex to house the bulging population.

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Abrams said. “In fact, I think it’s crazy.”

  Abrams watched as Mason checked his pistol. “Aren’t we here to ask this guy to help us?”

  “You don’t walk into a lion’s cage without a chair and a whip.”

  They got out of the car and walked up a dirt path leading to the left side of the house. They stopped at a side door labeled 44C. Mason knocked and waited.

  Abrams yawned. “Do you know how many times Margareta had to go to the bathroom last night? Uncuff and cuff. I think I got three hours of sleep, what with her yammering and trying to seduce me.”

  “At least you got the girl. I had to stare at Volker’s ugly mug all night.”

  Mason knocked again, and Abrams said, “I half expected to see you’d beaten him some more during the night.”

  “Sure, I wanted to strangle him. Put him out of my misery. But I didn’t.”

  “Oh, yes, the man showed incredible self-control,” Abrams said sarcastically.

  Mason glanced at Abrams, then punched the door. The whole panel rattled in its frame. The door swung open.

  Hans Weissenegger had to dip his head below the door frame. He wore flannel pajamas and looked like a giant-sized Papa Bear from the kids’ nursery rhyme. “What the hell?” When he saw Mason, he snarled, “You!” and balled up his fists.

  Mason held up his hands. “Hold on, Hans.”

  With one long step, Hans was out the door. He towered over both of them. “I ought to kill you right now for what you did.”

  “Kessel is fine,” Mason said. “We’re going to make sure he stays that way and does as little prison time as possible.”

  Abrams said, “It turns out, he was just a fall guy for Schaeffer and Volker—”

  “Shut up, you,” Hans said. “My beef is with this guy.”

  “Hans, we didn’t come here for a fight, and I’m not going to apologize for arresting Kessel. We’re cops. We arrest people who break the law. Kessel took the fall like a man. We respect that and will treat him right. He’ll be out in no time. Now, I want you to calm down and listen to what we’ve got to say.”

  Hans thought a moment as he glared at both of them. “You’d better be damned quick about it. This is my sleep time.”

  “How about we go inside and talk? You’ve got to be freezing with just your jammies on.”

  Hans mumbled a curse and stepped inside, ducking first, and stood in the living room. After Mason and Abrams followed, Hans shut the door and crossed his arms.

  Mason looked at Abrams with a here-we-go look. “Hans, we need you to do somethi
ng for us.”

  Hans looked incredulous. “You want me to do something for you? How crazy are you guys?”

  “Pretty crazy,” Abrams said under his breath to Mason.

  Mason glanced at Abrams before turning his attention back to Hans. “I’m trying to figure out how to say this without it being a blow to you. . . .” He paused. “Hans, we have some bad news. Adelle was killed last night.”

  Hans’s arms dropped to his sides, and his jaw went slack. “Who did that? I’ll kill the son of a bitch!” The words had started out as a moan and ended as a roar.

  “I killed the men who did it,” Mason said.

  “You were there?”

  Mason nodded. “I was taking her to a safe place. They tried to kill both of us.”

  “And look at you. A couple of stitches.”

  Mason quickly told him what had happened the previous night with the truck slamming into the car. “Those guys were under orders. Some other people ordered the murder. And I’ve got one of them locked up in a villa.”

  “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  “We’re cops. We don’t kill people we arrest.”

  “Well, I’ll do it. Who is it?”

  “Ernst Volker.”

  Hans froze. Either he was too shocked to speak or he was suddenly afraid of the power behind the man.

  “The other man is Schaeffer,” Abrams said.

  “Schaeffer . . .” Hans said in a weak voice. The concept of losing Adelle was finally sinking in. Tears formed in his eyes. He rubbed his head with one beefy hand then turned away. “They killed Adelle?”

  “Hans, you have to listen to me. She knew too much. Anyone who knows too much winds up dead. Schaeffer won’t stop. He’ll kill anyone who even looks to be in his way. We’ve got to bring him down. And that’s where you come in. Volker gave us a way to bust Schaeffer tonight. Up until now, we haven’t found any witnesses still alive or any concrete evidence. If we catch Schaeffer red-handed, we’ve got him, and he won’t do any more killings.”

  “You want me to go along as muscle? I’ll get Schaeffer to talk—right before I break his neck.”

  “Actually, we want you to babysit Volker and his girlfriend.”

  “He’s not in jail? Are you running a boardinghouse for murderers now?”

  “We don’t know which MPs are on Schaeffer’s payroll. If we put him in jail, he could get word to Schaeffer.”

  Hans pondered this for a moment. “Alone with one of Adelle’s killers?” He nodded. “Count me in.”

  * * *

  When Abrams drove up the driveway of Winstone’s villa, Hans whistled. “Not bad. If you arrest me, do I get to stay here?”

  Abrams parked and the three men entered the villa.

  “The girlfriend’s upstairs in the front bedroom,” Mason said to Hans.

  “And don’t get any ideas,” Abrams said.

  “Who do you take me for, huh?”

  “What I meant was, watch out for her. She’ll make you feel like the sexiest man alive and promise you anything if you let her go.”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  Mason led him down to the vast basement. They had to pass through several rooms to reach the furnace room. Mason unlocked the padlock, but before he opened the door, he said to Hans, “No beating on him. Scare him as much as you want. It’s easy to do.”

  Mason and the others entered the room. Volker sat on a chair in a corner. He was handcuffed to a loop of chain that gave him a few feet of freedom. A bucket had been provided to relieve himself, and a table held a canteen of water and a loaf of bread.

  Volker jumped out of his chair and huddled in the corner when he saw Mason, but when he laid eyes on Hans lumbering through the door, he looked like he would crawl into the bucket.

  “You know each other,” Mason said to Volker. “Hans is very upset about Adelle’s killing.”

  “You keep him out of here!” Volker cried. “You have no right . . .” His voice seized as his body shook. He turned his face to the wall.

  “See what I mean?” Mason said to Hans.

  “Where’s the challenge?”

  “And remember what I said . . .” Mason then turned so Volker could hear. “Treat him just the way we talked about.”

  As he and Abrams left the room, Mason looked back at Hans and said, “Don’t have too much fun.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It seemed every eye followed Mason and Abrams as they crossed the ground floor of MP headquarters.

  Out of the corner of his mouth, Abrams said, “Have we got swastikas painted on our foreheads?”

  “Half of them suspect we’re up to no good, and the other half think we’re about to cut off their extra income.”

  When they mounted the stairs the activity below returned to normal.

  “Your assignment is to recruit MPs for tonight,” Mason said. “Ones that aren’t on the take and can keep their mouths shut.”

  “Do I look like the MP camp counselor? How am I supposed to know who’s on the take and who’s not? Most of these MPs are good guys, but my trustworthy detector doesn’t seem to be working.”

  They entered Mason’s office, and Mason shut the door. “MPs usually know about other MPs. The team keeping an eye on Schaeffer—Wilson and Tandy. They’ve just moved up from the MP ranks, and they’ve been good about keeping their mouths shut and doing their job. Have them help you find some more guys.”

  “We can’t pull too many for this operation without raising suspicion.”

  “Ideally ten,” Mason said as he laid his satchel on the desk and took off his coat.

  Abrams let out a big sigh showing his discomfort with the assignment. As soon as he walked out the door, Densmore entered.

  “I was just coming to see you,” Mason said.

  “Then you lost your way sometime between last night and eleven o’clock this morning.”

  “I had a few things to tend to.”

  “I believe it. You look like shit.” Densmore closed the office door. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that incident at Kurpark, would it? People reported several gunshots and screaming. And an MP patrol checked out a vehicle parked there overnight. They found one of the Casa Carioca’s employees frozen to death in the trunk. He had a bullet wound in his thigh that the ME figures was patched up about two days ago. About the time you shot a guy in the leg trying to kill your informant’s family.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” was all Mason offered.

  “Is that your handiwork? Blood on the backseat, tire tracks blocking the car, four sets of footprints . . .”

  Mason looked Densmore in the eye. “I still wonder how much I can trust you.”

  “I don’t give a damn whether you do or not. Was that your doing last night?”

  Mason could use another ally, but Densmore seemed to be neither friend nor foe. The man made most of his decisions based on saving his career and his skin. But Densmore already knew enough and had had plenty of opportunities to see Mason kicked out of the CID or put behind bars . . . or worse.

  Finally Mason said, “That was Volker’s car. The man in the trunk was Volker’s driver and a bartender at the Casa Carioca. The one I just happened to shoot in the thigh when he and the others came for Yaakov’s family.”

  “What about Volker?”

  “I’ve got him tucked away someplace safe.”

  “I’m not going to ask where.”

  “I wasn’t planning to tell you. But there’s one thing: Volker gave me a way to get at Schaeffer.”

  “Gave it to you, did he?” Densmore smiled slightly and shook his head. “All right, then. What’s your plan?”

  Mason gave a rundown of what Volker had told him about the train carrying valuable cargo and German ex-POWs from Italy. “Since the train runs through French-occupied Austria, part of th
e trip is supervised by French authorities. Just over the border they exchange supervision with Americans at a way station.”

  Mason walked Densmore over to a wall map of southern Bavaria. He pointed to a spot south of the town of Mittenwald and just over the German-Austrian border. “The train will stop at this checkpoint to process and feed the ex-prisoners. From what Volker told me, about half the MPs guarding the train are under Schaeffer’s control. They’ll separate the train’s load in half and have another locomotive waiting to hook onto the cargo cars. They have signed orders, official carnets, and paperwork to make the exchange.”

  “That’s a major haul. We’re talking millions of dollars.”

  “That’s why Schaeffer’s personally supervising. I imagine he doesn’t want his crew getting any ideas.”

  “They’ll be heavily armed. We should get half the battalion in on this.”

  “Get the battalion alerted, and I guarantee you, Schaeffer will be tipped off.”

  Densmore shook his head. “We can’t risk losing that cargo. If Schaeffer gets tipped off, too bad. We’ll get him on another bust.”

  “Abrams and I are being shipped out tomorrow. There won’t be another bust. And Schaeffer will find another way of stealing it. We’ll lose not only the cargo, but Schaeffer, too.”

  Mason could tell Densmore was weighing his options: Going in undermanned against a heavily armed and desperate gang was an enormous risk. And if they botched the operation, and command discovered they hadn’t alerted the battalion, they would both go down hard.

  Mason said, “If we catch Schaeffer red-handed and capture the orders authorizing the transfer, we might be able to trace their source. Bag the high-ranking officers behind them. You want to think of your career, just imagine what a bust like this could do. General Clay is watching this closely and putting pressure on Pritchard and Udahl—”

  “Don’t try dangling that in my face. I know you don’t think much of me, but I didn’t become a cop just to feather my bed. And don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing this. I know about your deal with Pritchard, and how you’d benefit from this bust.”