The Blood Flag

by James W. Huston

  “What did he look like?”

  “Skinny guy, tall, maybe six two, not muscular. Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Blonde hair. Spiked. He had earrings in each ear, sort of pointed earrings where they go through and then they’re open at the bottom but they point down to the floor. He came up to me. ‘What can I do for you?’ “I was trying hard to look sheepish. Not something I’m good at. Anyway, I said ‘I backed into a pole. I need you to fix it.’ I led him around to the back of the Accord and pointed to the damage. He looked at it, put his hands on his hips, and said, ‘Shit lady. What were you doing? You musta been going backwards at thirty miles an hour. Not that easy to do.’”

  She looked at me intensely. “I told you you overdid it. Anyway, I assured him that I was not, and that I was simply backing out of a parking space and hit a pole. He just looked at me and shook his head. He didn’t believe me. But it didn’t matter. He probably deals with liars all the time, and I was just the latest. ‘You want an estimate?’ he asked. I told him I didn’t want the insurance company involved. I’d submitted two claims already this year and if they got a third one, they’d cancel me. I told him I’d pay cash.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  She nodded, relaxing slightly. “So I told him, yeah, I need an estimate. He went into his office, brought out a clipboard with a blank piece of paper—I kid you not—a blank piece of paper. He looked at the damage, crawled under the back of the car, tried to open the trunk—which wouldn’t open—and wrote a number on the piece of paper. Twelve hundred sixty-four dollars. I told him that was ridiculous. I told him, ‘You’re out of your mind. This should be about six hundred dollars.’ And he looked at me with complete apathy. He clearly didn’t care if I had my car fixed there or not. So he said, ‘Have you done a lot of estimates?’ I, of course, had to say no and he said, ‘You need a new bumper, a new trunk lid, there’s damage underneath, a lot of work.’ I said, ‘Well can you do any better than that number?’ He shook his head. ‘Nope.’ So I began my little charade. He just shook his head. He didn’t even bother to respond. So, I asked him, ‘Are you the owner?’ He said, ‘Nope.’ So, I told him I wanted to see the owner. He simply told me I didn’t need to see the owner, that he was the estimator, and that was the number. I told him I insisted on seeing the owner. He insisted I didn’t need to. I then told him, I wasn’t leaving until I saw the owner and he started to look at me a little funny, evaluating me. He asked me, ‘Where do you live?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, where do I live?’ ‘Where do you live in Columbia?’ I was a little bit taken aback. I said that I lived near Lake Murray. He looked at me again, and then started checking me out. Not like sexually, but evaluating my clothes. I think he was starting to suspect something. He then asked to see my driver’s license. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. Why would they need to see my driver’s license? We hadn’t talked about that at all.”

  “We should have anticipated that. We should have gotten you a fake ID.”

  “It didn’t matter. I told him it had been revoked and I didn’t have one.”

  “You told him your driver’s license had been revoked?”

  “What else was I going to tell him? I was going to show him what, my Virginia driver’s license? My FBI ID? What the hell would you have had me show him?”

  “So what happened?”

  “I told him it had been revoked because I’d had too many points. So he frowns and tells me I must be a really shitty driver because I’ve had two insurance claims and enough points to get my license revoked and backed into a light pole at sixty miles an hour. I got pissy and told him he didn’t need to worry about it, he just needed to fix my damned car for less than twelve hundred sixty-four dollars and that I wanted to see the owner if he wasn’t willing to lower it. He told me he absolutely wasn’t willing to lower it, that was the price, and I didn’t need to see the owner. I told him I needed to deal with the person who had the authority, as he was clearly a lackey and I needed to talk to the person in charge. Well that got his back up, he got pissed. If I didn’t like his estimate, I could go elsewhere. I told him I might very well do that, but first wanted to see the owner. I crossed my arms and stood there making it clear to him that I wasn’t going anywhere until he got the owner. And I had left my car just inside the entrance so that nobody was going in or out until my car was moved. The keys were in my purse so they couldn’t just move the car easily. So he goes into his little office, throws his clipboard onto the desk and picks up the phone and was gesturing—but I couldn’t hear what he was saying—and then put the phone down. He sat down at his desk and then didn’t say another word. I stood there waiting, looked around the shop at the activity and nobody was making any move toward me. It got awkward. I started looking at the ceiling and the walls and then realized for the first time there were security cameras everywhere. He was probably studying me on the camera. I just waited, and still nothing happened. I walked over to the lackey’s office and talked to him from outside his doorway. I asked him if the owner was coming and he didn’t even respond. He didn’t look up; he didn’t say anything.

  “Then, from no more than twelve inches behind me, ‘You looking for me?’ It’s bad enough to get surprised. But when the surprise is so close you can almost feel his breath and then it’s a gruff voice and then you whip around and the person looks like a serial killer? I swear I thought I was going to wet my pants. Literally. You just don’t even understand. I’m not afraid of many people. I’ve taken Kung Fu, I can defend myself reasonably. Well probably not, but I think I can, which is good enough, and, if I feel like I’m really in danger, I’ll just get out my weapon, and if some man is truly going to attack me, I’ll shoot him. Deader than a doornail. With a clear conscience. But when you’re face to face with somebody who could clearly pinch your head off, and might in fact do that? Whole different deal. And close enough to do it faster than you could even object. It’s just something about the intimidating presence of a guy this big and this strong. Not that he’s that tall . . . he’s just massive. I could literally hit him as hard as I could with just about anything and it wouldn’t even phase him. I haven’t felt that exposed and vulnerable in a long time. Well, ever. I really wanted to know why I had left my handgun with you and why you weren’t a quarter of a block away, and why I wasn’t wearing a wire so you could come rescue me. It made me realize how stupidly we had gone about this. Those were the thoughts that went through my mind in the first tenth of a second. In the second tenth of a second, I tried to gather myself and face him squarely. Even though he was twelve inches away and he was way inside my personal space and the only option I had was to step into Mr. Lackey’s office, I had to push back. I told him that his estimator’s number was ridiculous; it was on a blank piece of paper, he didn’t seem to know what he was doing, and that I wanted him to give me a discount from that estimate.

  “He stared at me with these cold eyes and told me that he wouldn’t change anything. This guy was the best estimator in the city. So I looked right back at him and asked him if he would take a look at the car himself. He looked over my shoulder at his estimator, then back at me. Then he said, ‘Sure. Why not.’ He sort of pushed me aside as he went into the office and picked up the guy’s clipboard with the estimate on it. He walked out to the Accord, went around to the back of it, did nothing but glance at it, circled the estimate on the clipboard, and put a big check mark by it. He handed the clipboard to me. ‘That’s our estimate.’ So, I asked him if that was it. If that was the best they could possibly do. He stared right back at me, again getting too close, maybe a foot. I could smell the sweat on his body. ‘No, it’s not the best we can possibly do. But it’s the best we’re going to do.’ So I told him I didn’t think that was very helpful. He stares at me, then he looks me up and down. He asked me what I did. I told him that I was a secretary at the University and worked in the Department of Education. And he asked me why there wasn’t a USC parking sticker anywhere on my ca
r. I told him I lost my parking privileges when I lost my license. He didn’t buy it. ‘So you went out and scraped off your sticker? Where’s the residue? Where’s the outline of where it was? I think you’re a cop. I don’t know why you’re here, but I think you probably oughta get going.’ I laughed. ‘A cop. That’s a good one.’ But he was right. I needed to get out of there. So I put out my hand, where I’d hidden the piece of paper between two fingers. He paused, then shook my hand and felt the paper. He curled his hand into a fist and put it into his pocket. He turned his back to me, and walked back in the direction he’d come from. I shook my head, got in the car, backed out, and drove straight here.”

  I sat back and considered what she had said. “Do you think he knows who you are?”

  She shook her head. “Probably. He knows something’s up, that my story wasn’t holding together, but I don’t think he really cared what the real story was. He just knew he didn’t want anything to do with me. Do you trust him?”

  I took the lid off my Starbucks cup and scraped the remaining foam from inside with the stirring stick and ate it. “I’m not sure. As of right now? No.”

  “So you set up a meeting with him for you and me in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.”

  “Yes, tonight.”

  She finished her tea. “You’ve been such a comfort to me, thank you so much.”

  * * *

  We drove to the dead end at Lake Murray at ten o’clock. We turned at the same bent road sign and drove to the end of the road, right by the water. I stopped in the same place I had stopped before, turned out the lights and shut off the engine. We were an hour early. I wanted to see where Jedediah came from this time. No surprises. If Jedediah Thom had in fact gone out on his own and had killed the head of the Southern Volk, he might feel free to do whatever he thinks will make him more secure in his position. “Let’s check the area and wait outside the car in the woods. I want our eyes to adjust to the dark before he gets here.”

  We opened our doors at the same time and just as I was closing mine, I saw a rush of motion on the other side of the car. I heard a shocked cry from Alex and a rustle of activity, which then went silent. I unholstered my Glock and ran around the car. Jedediah was standing at the edge of the trees holding Alex with his forearm around her neck. He was barely visible in black jeans, a black turtleneck, and black rubber gloves. His other hand was over her mouth. I could hear her panic, but he had obviously threatened her as she was not fighting his grip. I raised my gun and pointed it at his head, twenty feet away. “Let her go.”

  Jedediah began moving slightly in unpredictable ways. I could and absolutely would shoot him in the head from twenty feet away with Alex right next to him. I could hit a head-sized target from twenty feet away ten out of ten times, swaying or not. He said softly, “Put your gun down.”

  “Not a chance. Let her go.”

  “You have to answer a question for me first.”

  “Here’s one answer. If you kill her I’ll either shoot you right now, or I’ll make it my life’s mission to get you a special injection that will put you to sleep forever.”

  He shook his head. “You here to arrest me?”

  “No.”

  He said to Alex, “How dare you come to my shop with that bullshit story. Everyone in the shop wanted to know why the cops were after me. Worst thing you could have done.”

  I said, “You steal the flag, come to the U.S., and then go silent! What the hell was I supposed to do? I thought you’d turned on us!”

  He twisted Alex’s head sideways until she was wincing in pain while he looked at me. “Give me your word you won’t arrest me. That you’re here to have a civil conversation and I’ll let her go.”

  “Of course I give you my word! Get your hands off of her!”

  He released her and pushed her away slightly. She turned around, looked at him in the face, and said, “You asshole!” She balled her hand into a fist and slugged him in the gut as hard as she could.

  It had no effect on him at all. She ran over to where I was as I re-holstered my handgun. I said, “Shit, Jed. What the hell was that?”

  “What the hell was that? What the hell was it when you sent her into my shop? Right into my freaking shop! She backs into a pole going sixty miles an hour and then makes up some bullshit story about a parking lot. Everybody there knew it was a lie. Everybody there knew she was a cop. They could smell it. They didn’t know why, but they knew she was a cop. Do you think we usually do estimates on a blank piece of paper where we just write a number? Then she gets into a huff, where the estimate he gives her is about seventy percent of what it ought to be, and she demands a lower number? She may as well have worn a sign on her chest that said, ‘FBI agent with an agenda.’”

  “You weren’t returning my emails. I needed to talk to you after that stunt in Argentina. Why the hell did you go cold on me?” I tried to read his face. I wasn’t getting good feelings.

  “Too much going on. The whole Russian thing, then the Southern Volk president disappears while we’re in Argentina—”

  “By you?”

  “Hell no. I have no idea where he is. All I know is that I’m in charge and I’m hyper sensitive. I’m not talking to anybody about anything except going to Germany.”

  “So you’re still planning on going?”

  “Of course I am. I’ve got the Blood Flag.”

  “Yeah, you do, and I’m supposed to. Where is it?”

  “You’re not supposed to have it. I am. I’m the one taking it to Germany. I’m the one selling this story.”

  “I need to know right out, Jedediah, are you still with me or not? You and I still on the same page?”

  “Yeah. We’re still on the same page. But you need to give me a lot of room. I don’t want to have any more phony collisions brought into my shop.”

  “You have to communicate with me. If you’re working with me, you’ve got to communicate. And if you made Brunnig ‘disappear,’ we’re done. I need to know you didn’t do that.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “So you’re still planning on taking the Blood Flag to Germany? We’re down to twenty days.”

  “I know. I’ve already told Eidhalt I’ve got the biggest surprise ever. And I’m going to be one of his people coming to Germany.”

  “How does it work? I thought he had to pre-filter it—determine the value of what people had done—and then he would invite them.”

  “He insisted on knowing, but I said I wasn’t going to tell him. He demanded to know.”

  “So now what?” I asked.

  “I told him I’m coming to Germany to show him. So I’m going to Germany. He finally gave me a secret phone number.”

  I looked at the stars through the trees overhead. I looked back at Jedediah. “You’ve got one problem.”

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “Authentication. You’ve seen how good the Russian fakes were. What do you think is going to make him believe that your flag—our flag—isn’t a fake?”

  I could see the shock on Jedediah’s face. “What are you going to do when he tells you you have to prove this was the original Blood Flag? How you going to prove it?”

  “It is the original. We got it from the Nazi in Argentina. He tried to unload a fake on us, but we got the real one.”

  “How do you know that? He might have a whole pile of fakes for just this kind of thing. He may have the original in a safe deposit box somewhere.”

  He hadn’t thought of that possibility. “So now what?”

  “I think I know what needs to be done, but what I don’t know is whether I should tell you. I’m not sure I trust you anymore. I thought we had an understanding in Argentina. But you took it upon yourself to fire bomb an apartment—that I’m standing in—and take off with the Blood Flag. You could have gotten somebody killed.”
<
br />   “I didn’t care about some old Nazi getting killed. Hell with him.”

  “You could have gotten Florian or Patrick killed. Or me. Or you. It was stupid. If you had something like that in mind, you should have told us. And the fact that you didn’t makes me wonder what else you have in mind. I just don’t know if I trust you.”

  “I’ve got nothing else in mind. You can walk away if you want. But if you do, I’m gonna keep going. And you can’t stop me.”

  “If you keep going without us, and you don’t authenticate that flag, you don’t have anything. It’s just a matter of time until he figures it out and calls you before the meeting.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  I looked at Alex and back again. “We’ve got to get the DNA out of the flag and match it with one of the people who died. We know all the names.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I’m asking the people at the FBI forensics lab. But what I think we’re going to have to do is go to Germany and dig up some graves.”

  “And then the meeting.”

  “Right.”

  “So you’re coming with me?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s our story? Who are you?”

  “I’m probably your financier. I’ve already put myself out as a rancher when I was in Tennessee. Probably need to stick with that.”

  He thought for a moment. “We don’t know who is connected to who. You need to come to one of our meetings.”

  “In person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will Brunnig be there?”

  “Probably not.”

  Alex said, “Yeah, because he’s dead.”