by Alan Elsner
“No, sir, I'm fine.”
“Well, get yourself together. You'll be appearing in a press conference here tomorrow morning. Apparently you're going to be the star of the show.” Eric frowned in silence.
It took only a few minutes to craft a bland two-sentence statement for the press. “The Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations acknowledges it was conducting an ongoing investigation into the Nazi past of the late singer Roberto Delatrucha and was preparing to bring proceedings to revoke his U.S. citizenship. OSI director Eric Rosen and deputy director Marek Cain will hold a news conference at the department, Tuesday, February 21 at 11:00 A.M.” Five minutes after we sent it out, it was on the AP wire. Five minutes after that, it was on CNN.
Eric and I prepared for the press briefing. At my suggestion, we decided to keep Sophie Reiner's name out of it. No point in muddying the waters with talk of murder in the streets of Washington. Delatrucha and what he had done at Belzec were the focus.
Eric turned on the TV, which was looping the video over and over. The footage abruptly cut off just as Delatrucha put the gun to his head, then resumed with his body on the ground. Our statement flashed along the bottom of the screen, along with another from Mitch Conroy expressing shock and regret.
“Now we have an enemy for life,” Eric said.
“We're covered. I called Doneghan and sent over an envelope full of stuff. They'll be the ones on the defensive, not us.”
“We'll see which angle the press wants to push.”
“What do we want them to focus on?”
“From their point of view, this story has everything—sex, violence, and scandal. We want to downplay Conroy's involvement. If they ask why he wasn't informed in time, it was a simple breakdown in communications due to the snowstorm. I think the best angle for us and for the media is Rachel Levitas. Keep her at the center of the story. The press will lap it up. Keep the focus on Rachel, and they may not delve into how Delatrucha knew about the investigation.”
“And if I'm asked about that?”
“I'll step in and say we're looking into it. This is the second leak we've had within a week, and obviously we need to do something about it.”
Eric set Lynn to work on the press kits for the reporters next morning. When the print shop opened at eight, there would be enough time to make copies of extracts from Beck's diary in German and English, especially the passage where he described shooting Rachel, whose picture would be included in the dossier, along with the interview in Diario ABC, where Delatrucha admitted giving a recital in Berlin in 1944, as well as the notice George had found in the Nazi newspaper advertising the same recital.
Lynn had called in a couple of other aides to man the phones, which didn't stop ringing all night as reporters tried to scoop the story. George, even more grim-faced than usual, offered his services. At 5:00 A.M., the German Ministry of Justice called. It was Gunther Scharpf. “I have seen the news on TV,” he said in his perfect Oxford English. “Quite a spectacular end to the story.”
“It's not over yet. Is it big news over there?”
“Are you serious? With pictures like that? Everybody here is talking about it. There is some sympathy for Delatrucha. The morning news is emphasizing what a wonderful interpreter of German songs he was. They assume he was nothing more than a low-level Nazi collaborator. Nobody has any idea yet that he was in the SS and served at Belzec. It will be a sensation. I hope you realize you are going to be an international media personality. They plan to carry your press conference live in Germany and across Europe as well.”
“Please don't say that. I'm not sure I can handle it.”
“You can't avoid it. Just so you know, we will shortly be issuing a statement stating that we were aware of your investigation and assisted in it.”
“That's fine. You did help.”
“And one final thing: I tried to contact Herr Ruddiger, as you requested. I have to tell you that he died a week after our interview.”
“Maybe he and Beck are comparing notes right now in the afterlife,” I said.
“Indeed. The good news is you are free to use the videotape you shot of him, since he can no longer refuse his permission.”
That was useful. I asked George to review the tape and transcribe the most dramatic part, where he described Franz Beck singing to terrified Jews as they came off the train.
At 5:30 A.M., the department's chief press officer came by to run through some of the anticipated questions. “Where did you get Delatrucha's diary?” he asked.
“It was sent to us by the daughter of Delatrucha's wartime lover after her death,” Eric replied. “She asked to remain anonymous, and we are honoring her request.”
The press officer asked a few more questions and seemed satisfied with our responses. By that time, the morning papers had arrived. All of them had dramatic pictures on the front page of Delatrucha with a gun to his head and Mitch Conroy covered with blood. “Star Singer Shoots Himself at Gala,” said the Washington Post. The subheadline read:“Justice Dept. Probe Revealed Nazi Past.”The article had no details on us, other than the statement we had issued, but plenty on Delatrucha's relationship with Mitch Conroy.
I was still wearing my black shirt and desperately needed to shower and change. Eric walked downstairs with me. “It's only a matter of time before the German press comes up with the Sophie Reiner connection. Once we give them his real name, people who knew him and his girlfriend when he was young will come out of the woodwork.”
“Hopefully by that time the FBI will have solved her murder,” I said.
“You really think he was behind it?”
“Who else? I think Sophie went down to Florida and introduced herself as his daughter. He was expecting her; he'd been tipped off by Susan Scott that she was coming. When he refused to acknowledge her and told her to leave, Sophie threatened to expose him by giving the documents to me. So he had her killed.”
“Just like that?”
“You saw what he was capable of.”
As I left the building, camera crews were already setting up outside. Media trucks with antennas and satellite dishes were congregating in the parking lot. A couple of reporters approached me, but I waved them away. Was this what my life was going to be like for the next few weeks? Lynn was waiting on the street with my car.
Washington was waking up as we drove through streets still piled high with heaps of snow. We went up to my apartment and collapsed on the bed. I kissed her deeply, hungrily. “You know what I said about you being my fiancée?” I murmured.
“Not now,” she said, snuggling up to me.
“You know how I feel about you.”
“I know, but you're really stressed out right now, and you have a big press conference ahead of you and days and days of interviews and publicity. You're not going to have time for me. Let's wait until things calm down, and then we'll figure out what we want to do.”
The thought of all those cameras and reporters and questions made me queasy. “I'm not much good at TV,” I said. “I tend to speak in long sentences instead of pithy sound bites.”
“You'll be awesome. I know you will.” She kissed me firmly, administering a dose of self-confidence, mouth-to-mouth.
“I hope you're right.”
“It's just a question of finding the right tie to go with your spotless white shirt, and you'll knock ’em dead.”
But I had done enough knocking people dead for one day.
At nine I returned to the department, which had been encircled by TV trucks. I parked in an underground garage several blocks away. Walking back, I felt more and more apprehensive. I wasn't made for all this exposure. This was Eric's scene, not mine. Lynn had forced me to eat some breakfast before leaving the apartment. “You can't do this on an empty stomach,” she said. Now, I felt sick.
Reporters brandishing microphones stood outside the building, filling air time. I wove through a crowd of vehicles and people, trying to reach the entrance without being rec
ognized. It was an amazing sight. All the major networks had sent mobile units the size of RVs, bristling with electronics, but there were also smaller vans representing local TV stations and radio outlets from all over the country parked in neat rows. It was a forest of antennas and logos. As I turned to go into the building, something caught my eye. Something was wrong; something didn't fit. At first it didn't register, but then it clicked.
There was a U-Haul in the parking lot.
28
Near Belzec there are large gas chambers where Jews
in groups of hundreds are gassed.
—REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE POLISH REPUBLIC IN EXILE, PUBLISHED EARLY 1943
I SWALLOWED THE URGE TO SHOUT OUT for everyone to run. That would set off a huge stampede and not help anyone inside. I walked back into the parking lot, edging closer to make sure. Perhaps it was a mistake or a coincidence. The world is full of U-Hauls. That hope died when I saw the side of the vehicle. A chartreuse T. rex roared at me, warning me to keep away. The caption read, “Move Yourself Safely.” Fabrizio was right; the truck was from Utah. They were using the media frenzy as camouflage and had parked right against the side of the Department of Justice.
Two guys sat in the cab. The fat one was smoking a cigarette; I recognized him immediately. The other one was smaller and skinnier. He was eating a muffin. As long as they were sitting there, we weren't in immediate danger. They wouldn't blow themselves to smithereens along with the building. They would wait for the press conference to begin, so they could get the attorney general and all the media at the same time. What to do? Run to my office and call the FBI? I didn't want to let them out of my sight even for a minute. What if they spooked and decided not to wait any longer? They could just step out of the vehicle, set the charge, and walk away, and nobody would know to stop them.
Not knowing what else to do, I approached a reporter on the sidewalk, microphone in hand. He was chatting to his camera crew in German. I grabbed him by the shoulder and asked if he had a cell phone.“What?” He turned on me, angry at the interruption.
“Do you have a cell phone?” I said in German. “It's an emergency.”
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I'm Marek Cain, the guy giving the press conference,” I said, shoving my security pass under his face. “I'll give you the biggest fucking scoop of your life if you just let me use your cell phone for a minute. It's a matter of life and death.”
He looked at the pass, comparing the happily calm man in the photograph with the face of the man sweating nervously in front of him. Doubt and confusion flickered in his eyes.“Why?” he said.
“I'll tell you everything later. Just give me your phone. We're all in terrible danger.”
“Danger?”
“I'll tell you in a second. For the love of God, give me your phone.”
My desperation convinced him. He pulled out his cell. I punched in Fabrizio's number. Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up.
After the sixth ring, she picked up.“Thank God,” I gasped.
“Boy you've been busy. I really didn't—”
“Shut up and listen. I'm standing outside the Department of Justice looking at a U-Haul.”
“Shit. The same one?”
“It has a T. rex on it. For Christ's sake, tell me what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what to do here!”
“Okay, don't panic. I need to alert our people. Is there anyone in the truck?”
“Two guys, the same guys!”
“Okay. Stay on the line. I'll be back with you in a second.”
The German reporter was tugging at my arm. I tried to pull away, but he persisted.“What the hell's going on?”
“See that truck over there?”
“Which one?”
“The U-Haul. Those guys are neo-Nazis.”
“What?!”
“And their truck is full of explosives.”
He eyed me, trying to gauge if I was serious. When he saw that I was, he stepped back, eyes darting from side to side, searching for an escape route.“Explosives?”
“Keep your voice down. We don't want to set off a panic. The police will be here in a couple of minutes.”
“O-okay.” I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing. But to his credit, he turned to his cameraman, gesturing to him to start rolling film. “Ladies and gentlemen, urgent and dramatic news from Washington this morning, brought to you exclusively by Channel Three. We're standing outside the U.S. Justice Department here with Marek Cain, the renowned Nazi hunter. He says…”
Fabrizio came back on the line.“The police are on the way. You should hear sirens within a minute or two. Make sure those guys don't get out of the truck.”
“How am I supposed to stop them?”
“Any way you can. They could detonate it electronically as soon as they get clear. They could either set a fuse from the cab or blow it up by remote control.”
“How far away would they need to get to be safe?”
“I don't know, maybe a hundred yards.”
The German correspondent thrust the mike into my face.“Herr Cain, would you please tell our viewers what's happening here?”
“Not now,” I said, pushing the mike aside. I was listening for police sirens. Nothing… nothing… and then finally I heard one, faint at first, getting louder. A few seconds later, the guys in the truck heard it, too. I saw one nudge the other; I grabbed the reporter's arm. “Quick, get over there. You take that door, I'll take the other. Don't let those guys get out of that truck.”
“What?”
I was already sprinting. I reached the door just as the fat guy in the driver's seat started pushing it open. He hadn't seen me coming. I shouldered it shut.
“What the fuck?” he shouted. The sirens were louder now. He pushed hard and got it half open, but I held on tight, digging in my heels and leaning against it with my full weight. He started rolling down the window. Did he have a gun? I didn't want to find out, so I fished for the pepper spray out of my jacket pocket, turned, stuck the canister through the half-open window and gave him a five-second blast. He shrieked inside the cab as the spray took effect; he let go of the door, and I slammed it shut. The sirens were deafening, and there was confusion all around. Officers were fanning out through the parking lot, and cameras rolled as more reporters realized that a story was unfolding in front of their eyes, although they weren't sure what it was. The fat man lay writhing on the seat, hands clutching his eyes, racked with coughs. But his cohort had disappeared. The German reporter had let me down.
I circled the U-Haul and saw him earnestly yakking to his viewers back home. I grabbed him furiously by the lapels.
“Did you let him out? Did you?”
He tried to brush me off.
“Where'd he go?” I yelled, refusing to release him.
He pointed toward Pennsylvania Avenue. There, maybe thirty yards away, a skinny little man was jogging down the street, and he wasn't wearing a track suit. All he needed was sixty more yards to blow us all sky-high. He was almost halfway there.
I threw off my coat. He had a start, but he didn't know I was after him, which gave me a chance. I was flying, taking long, loping strides, keeping the heels of my dress shoes off the ground so as not to alert him. I didn't want him turning around and exercising his Second Amendment rights on me.
He jogged into a crosswalk. I sped up, desperate to catch him before the traffic light changed and cut me off. By the time he reached the opposite sidewalk I was only a couple of yards behind him. As I came closer, I could hear him breathing. I launched myself forward like a linebacker making an open-field tackle. My feet sailed behind me, and my shoulder cracked him squarely in the small of the back. My right arm wrapped around his torso while my left gripped the back of his head just below the hairline. He yelled as his knees crumpled. His head was careening toward the ground. A split second later, his nose and chin struck the pavement with an almighty thump. I was still driving forward, my up
per body tight against his back. All the air went out of him with a whoosh, and he gurgled, fighting for breath against a rising fountain of blood. Half winded, I wrenched my right hand free, rolled away, and struggled to my feet, ready to kick him in the teeth if he stirred. But he was out cold. Pedestrians were staring at me, frozen where they stood. A minute later, the police arrived.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Police evacuated the Department of Justice, the parking lot, and all surrounding buildings. Fabrizio had called in explosives experts to deal with the truck, which was loaded with ammonium nitrate and primed to explode. After a few hours, they towed the U-Haul, and the area was declared safe.
Both of the neo-Nazis were taken in shackles under armed guard to the emergency room for treatment. The one I tackled had a broken nose and multiple contusions to his ratty face, but he would live to stand trial. Police found a handwritten statement in his pocket, full of deranged ranting against the federal government, abortion, homosexuals, and Jews.
For the next couple of hours, federal agents and security types quizzed me on what I knew and how I knew it. Fabrizio helped me get through it. Eric rescheduled the press conference for 4:00 P.M. In the meantime, the cable networks were running two major stories: Delatrucha's suicide and an attempt to blow up the Justice Department. I was at the center of both.
Somehow I got through the news conference, though I'd never seen so many cameras and microphones in all my life. Lynn said I handled it well. The attorney general seemed pleased and clapped me on the back. Then an endless series of one-on-one interviews for different TV shows over the next few days. Eric was almost equally in demand. My picture even appeared on the front cover of a tabloid under the headline, “Nerd Who Hunted Nazis Saves the Government!” They ran my high school yearbook picture. I looked like a pimply young geek in thick glasses. “Why'd they do that? I complained to Lynn.“I haven't looked like that since 1976.”
“No one reads that stuff anyway.”
“Actually, millions of people do.”
“Then I'm glad they called you a nerd. If they printed the truth, I'd be fighting off the competition,” she said.