by Glenn Meade
“Tell me about Rudi’s background.”
“You mean his family?”
“Sure, his family.”
“Rudi’s mother and mine were half sisters. After the war ended, they were brought as children to Argentina by my grandparents. Years later, Rudi’s mother met a Paraguayan, a biologist who was studying at the university in Buenos Aires. When he graduated, they married and went to live in Asunción, where Rudi was born. He was their only child.”
Erica toyed with her drink, looked up at the photographs on the shelf. “Rudi was very much like his father. He always laughed. His mother was sterner. She wasn’t a happy woman.”
Volkmann glanced at the picture of the pretty, smiling woman. “Why?”
Erica brushed a strand of hair from her face. “My mother told me a story once. She and her sister lived in Hamburg during the war, when they were small children. One night the city was being destroyed with firebombs. In the bomb shelters, people were praying and everyone was frightened. When a bomb fell nearby, the ground shook and the lights went out. People were crushed in the chaos. Rudi’s mother was only a child and she was frightened. She ran out of the shelter, distraught. What she saw outside on the streets was even worse—burning buildings, corpses, the inferno of that terrible night. Childhood friends she knew, relatives, many were dead. She became withdrawn after that. Rudi said she relived that night every day of her life.”
“How did Rudi’s parents die?”
“My uncle often took his family with him when he worked on biological surveys. A light aircraft they were on crashed in the southern Amazon. Rudi was a passenger, too, but he survived. They found him four days later, badly shocked and bleeding. His face was permanently scarred. For a long time afterward, he was devastated. He began to visit us more often in Germany because we were his only relatives. But he couldn’t live there, he said, even though he spoke the language. I think Rudi found the Germans too stern. The Paraguayans were his people.”
She looked down at her empty glass. “May I have another drink?”
Volkmann considered bringing up what he knew about her father, but decided against it. He poured them each another drink, spooned in the ice cubes. “Can I ask you why your family returned to Germany?”
She sipped her drink, held the glass in both hands. “My mother had met my father and married him in Buenos Aires. He was a businessman, a German immigrant, and very much older than she. But he died when I was three, so I don’t remember him. My grandparents had died also, so I guess my mother felt a little lost.
“She sold my father’s business and decided to return home. She figured it was better for me to study in Germany. After I graduated, she married again and moved to Hamburg. We drifted apart after that. The whole family did. But Rudi and I always wrote. He was like an older brother.”
Some instinct made Volkmann want to reach over and touch her, comfort her, but he suppressed it, didn’t know how she might react. “I’ve been wondering about Dieter Winter. Did Rudi say what they talked about in Heidelberg?”
Erica frowned. “I asked Rudi that same question. It was just small talk, he said. Winter was very drunk when they met, but he seemed intrigued by Rudi’s background, by the fact that he was half German and from South America. That’s another thing Rudi thought strange when he told me he recognized Winter in Asunción. At the party, Winter asked Rudi if he socialized among the German colony in Paraguay. Rudi said no, they bored him. He preferred the easygoing Latins. He said Winter seemed to take the remark as a personal insult and became quite aggressive.”
“Is that what made Rudi dislike him?”
She shrugged. “He found him pompous and a loudmouth. And Winter had said that if Rudi thought so little of Germans, he should go back where he belonged. Just like the immigrant workers in Germany, Winter said. Germany didn’t need another mischling.”
She put down her glass. “That word. I’m sure you know it’s not a nice word. It’s used to describe someone who is only half German, a half-caste.”
“Sure, I know what it means, Erica.”
Volkmann placed his empty glass on the table and stood. The heat that came and lingered in the small apartment was stifling, despite the air-conditioning. “Sanchez said he’d call tomorrow morning to take you to the cemetery to visit Rudi’s grave. You think you could cope with that?”
“Will you come, too?”
“If you want.”
She nodded. “Yes, I’d appreciate it, Herr Volkmann.”
“Call me Joe.” He gestured to the telephone nearby. “How about you call a taxi to take us back to the hotel?”
• • •
It was after eight when they returned to the Excelsior. A pre-Christmas party was in full swing in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. In the lobby, tuxedoed men and beautiful, olive-skinned women in sleek dresses stood around an illuminated Christmas tree sipping drinks.
Erica looked tired in contrast, her mascara smudged. As the taxi had passed the offices of La Tarde, she had suddenly started crying. In the dim cab, Volkmann reached across and held her hand, felt her lean into his shoulder, smelled the scent of her perfume, her blond hair brushing his cheek, Erica holding on to his hand until they stepped from the taxi.
They exited the elevator on the fifth floor, near their adjoining rooms. Volkmann opened her door for her. “If you can’t sleep or you want to talk, I’m in the next room.”
“Thank you, Joe. Forgive me for crying, but I guess it’s been a hard day.”
He waited until she had closed her door, then went into his own room. The air-conditioning was on, but the room was still humid. He undressed slowly and lay on the bed in the cloying darkness.
He could still smell the scent of her perfume as he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
• • •
The telephone rang in his bedroom an hour later. He switched on the bedside lamp and picked up the receiver sleepily, hearing the stilted English, recognizing the voice.
“Sanchez here, Señor Volkmann. Did I wake you? My apologies . . . the jet lag . . . I remembered just as I rang.”
“What’s the problem, Vellares?”
“No problem. Something has turned up. The man you are interested in . . . the German.”
“Winter.”
“Sí, about him. And something else. Santander . . . the smuggler who sometimes worked with Rodriguez. The local police in San Ignacio picked him up late this afternoon. A place not far from the border with Argentina. He’s being brought back to Asunción tonight. It could wait until tomorrow but I think you may be very interested to hear what he has to say. Do you want to come to my office tonight?”
“I’ll call a taxi.”
“No. Rest for now. My men have to check some things out first. I need a little time. I’ll send a car to the hotel for you at midnight. Bring the woman if you wish.”
“Midnight,” repeated Volkmann.
“Sí. Rest, my friend,” said Sanchez, and then the line clicked dead.
14
NORTHEASTERN CHACO, PARAGUAY
Kruger stood on the veranda smoking a cigarette, watching the men as they worked. Dusk, clouds obscuring the moon, the stars of the Southern Hemisphere barely visible, faint pinpricks of light beyond the brooding blackness of the rain forest.
The electric generators were on, and a flood of light circled the property. It spilled out onto the dark edge of the jungle, out beyond where the heavy truck and the small pickup stood parked, the light making the jade-green leaves of the jungle plants beyond the gravel driveway shine as if they had been polished brightly.
Rain no longer fell, but the air was humid again. Kruger’s blue cotton shirt was open at the neck and patched with sweat.
Schmidt was supervising the three other men loading the truck and carrying the heavy boxes himself, two at a time, from the garage to the truck.
Kruger watched big Schmidt’s muscled flesh bulging and straining beneath his blue overalls. The big bodyguard looked as if
he had been hewn from rock. You wind Schmidt up and point him in the right direction. Tell him to kill, and he kills. All brawn, no brain. But useful, very useful.
Kruger glanced across at the garage. Light flooded out through the open doors, the garage filled with wooden and cardboard boxes. All the papers traveling separately to Mexico City in steel fireproof boxes. Everything was on schedule, and the house would be emptied by morning. His only worry was that the truck would not be large enough to transport everything, but Franz assured him that it would.
Kruger caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. The curtain of the room nearest him moved. Then he saw the brown face of Lopez. A moment later the face of the second boy, Emilio, appeared.
Both were no more than fifteen, glad of a bed and food, diligent young workers once you watched over them. No one had told them what was happening, and they watched the loading of the boxes with curiosity, their soft faces like those of young girls: awed, innocent, interested, watching the men move back and forth to the garage in a steady rhythm. The boys themselves would never have asked what was happening, knew their place, too grateful for having a full belly ever to question anything. One of them, Emilio, turned toward Kruger and smiled. Kruger smiled back. The faces disappeared, and the curtain fell back into place.
Footsteps rattled the veranda. Kruger exhaled smoke and dropped the cigarette, ground it out with his shoe.
The silver-haired man appeared. He wore a light cotton dressing gown over his white pajamas, ready to retire.
Kruger said, “The men will have the truck loaded by midnight. Anything we’re not taking with us Schmidt will burn.”
The man nodded, then placed a hand on Kruger’s shoulder a moment as he stared out at the jungle’s edge.
“Are you glad to be leaving, Hans?”
Kruger smiled. “It’s been a long time. Too long.”
“But you won’t miss this place?”
Kruger shook his head. “It’s been a prison. When I was younger, perhaps it didn’t seem so hellish and claustrophobic. But now, I’m just glad to be leaving. And you?”
“It holds memories, of course. Fond memories.” The silver-haired man fell silent as he looked out toward where the men worked, dressed in blue overalls, moving smartly as they carried the metal and wooden boxes from garage to truck. Almost everything of importance he possessed was packed in the boxes: his personal belongings, his paperwork and files, years of hard work. “What about the boys?”
“Schmidt and I will take them up to the rain forest.”
“Make it quick, Hans. I don’t want them to suffer. No pain, you understand?”
“Of course. I’ll make certain.”
The man walked back across the veranda and entered the house.
Kruger waited until his footsteps had died, then he turned back to watch Schmidt.
NORTHEASTERN CHACO. MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 11:57 P.M.
There was no traffic as the pickup truck bumped along the rutted jungle road. Not at this hour, not in this part of the Chaco, so remote, empty, vast. The rich, sweet smells of jungle and earth wafted in through the open window, a slight breeze cooling Kruger’s face. The pickup traveled at no more than a bumpy thirty miles an hour, its headlights washing the rich green undergrowth ahead in silvery light.
Kruger sat in the passenger seat. Now and then he glimpsed the eyes of jungle creatures staring out at them, pinpricks of reflected light amid the silvery green, before they disappeared, scurrying off into the bushes.
As the truck came round a sharp bend, one of the boys laughed and pointed beyond the windshield. Kruger looked toward the headlights sweeping the road: a mongoose scurried across their path before disappearing into a clump of mango trees. The boys giggled.
Kruger smiled down at them in the darkness of the cab. The four of them were squashed into the pickup’s cabin: Kruger, the boys, and big Schmidt, his granite face staring blankly ahead as he drove slowly along the narrow dirt track.
Kruger saw the gap in the jungle just ahead and tapped Schmidt on the shoulder. The man swung the pickup left, onto a narrow overgrown path, the engine whining as the truck moved up toward the mountain.
They were an hour from the house. This part of the jungle was remote, the path hardly ever used, furrows in the soil left by a truck or car during the rainy season months before. Kruger knew this terrain; it was the last place on earth anyone would look.
The truck bumped hard, dipped in and out of the rutted track, and Kruger heard the reciprocal thump of the wooden crates in the back as they lurched and then settled back down. The boys laughed again. Kruger could see their brown faces dimly, eyes bright, smiles of innocence. The trip was an outing, and they were enjoying themselves, no hint of fear.
“Are we there, señor?” Lopez’s thin voice asked.
Kruger smiled. “Soon. Almost there.”
The engine strained even more now, the last steep portion of the drive before they reached the clearing at the top. Schmidt changed gears. The vehicle bumped again. The boys laughed once more as the wooden boxes in the back jolted and slid.
The boxes had been Kruger’s idea. They made the ride in the pickup seem all the more plausible. A chore for the boys to perform; he told them he needed their help in disposing of the wooden crates. The boys looked like the young, sweet boys you saw in church choirs, their frail bodies more suited to housekeeping and cleaning and waiting tables than manual labor. But they had jumped at the opportunity to travel in the truck.
They had been brought to the house three years before the old housekeeper had died. Kruger understood the reasons: the boys were illiterate, barely understood their own Indian language. They asked no questions and were happy in their own company.
Now the engine’s whine receded and the vehicle began to level off its climb. Schmidt changed gear as Kruger stared ahead. The foliage became thinner in the higher atmosphere, and now the headlights suddenly illuminated an open space beyond. They reached the edge of a chasm. Stars sparkled, the night sky stretching out vastly before them.
Schmidt swung the steering wheel round, and the pickup truck turned in an arc and halted. The engine sputtered and died. Silence, then came the night shrieks and clicks of the humid jungle. The boys shifted restlessly in their seats.
“Here, señor?”
“Sí, here,” replied Kruger.
“We carry boxes now?”
“Sí.”
Schmidt and Kruger opened their doors and stepped out; it was a little cooler up here in the mountains. The chasm lay ten yards away. A deep rock cavity that seemed bottomless. No one went down there, only scurrying, foraging animals. Kruger took the heavy-duty flashlight from behind the passenger seat and switched it on, aimed the beam at the ground. He glanced at his watch. Midnight.
The light was good, even without the flashlight, the headlights of the pickup on dim, the sky above their heads awash with moonlight. He was tired, very tired. He could gladly have slept there and then, but this had to be done first, this last thing.
The two boys moved toward the back of the pickup, ready to unlock the pull-down at the rear.
Kruger nodded. Schmidt reached inside his overalls, took out the long, silenced pistol, and placed it behind his back. Kruger saw the hilt of the big bowie knife protruding from the man’s overalls at the knee pocket.
He turned to look at the boys as they were about to unlock the pull-down, talking quietly between themselves in their Indian dialect. The faint babble of excited conversation could almost have been a final prayer.
At that moment Schmidt stepped up behind them. Kruger saw the silenced pistol appear, as it was aimed smartly at the back of the taller boy’s head.
Phutt!
A split second, then the second boy’s head, just as he turned, his mouth open in horror.
Phutt!
The two bodies pitched forward violently as the sounds of the pistol ruptured the silence. There was the faintest cry from the second boy as the bullet had smac
ked into the nape of his skull, then no sound, only the ceaseless noises of the jungle.
Kruger pointed the flashlight at the bodies. Blood flowed from the tiny wounds at the base of the boys’ skulls. One of the bodies twitched in the light, a sharp spasm and then the brief sound of air expelled. Schmidt saw the movement, aimed instantly, and fired again. The tiny body bucked, fell still. Kruger again played the flashlight over the bodies. No sound, no movement this time.
“Strip them.”
Schmidt placed the pistol on the hood of the pickup. Kruger turned away, took out a packet of cigarettes, and lit one. He heard Schmidt at work, grunting as he knelt over the bodies, removing the clothes.
By the time it was done, Kruger finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out in the pickup’s ashtray. He was careful to leave nothing behind. So careful that he and Schmidt wore soft, flat sneakers. So careful that he would tell Franz to remove and burn the tires of the pickup once he had returned with the vehicle to Asunción.
Now the bloodied clothes were in a heap a yard from where Schmidt stood. Kruger crossed to where the thin bodies lay and examined them.
“You know what to do. Take your time. Do it properly.”
Kruger watched as Schmidt set to work. He had to watch, had to make sure the job was done correctly. He had seen men killed, had killed men himself. But he had never seen a body stripped of its flesh before. The faces and the fingertips. Not that the boys’ fingerprints had ever been taken, not that it was likely the bodies would ever be found, but Kruger was not prepared to take that chance, had to be certain no one could trace them back to the house.
He watched as Schmidt took the big jagged-edged bowie knife from the knee pocket of his overalls and set to work. He picked the body closest to him, turned it over. Emilio. The face looked up at the sky, eyes wide open. Kruger watched, fascinated and revolted at once.
Fifteen minutes later Schmidt had finished his work.