“I will put my secretary on the line, and she can take down the names of your potential suspects as you give them. It will likely take me a few days before I can get anything solid for you; so, be patient, please.”
“I don’t expect miracles, Eugène. Do what is necessary. I will try to practice or maybe just learn patience. It is not one of my strong suits.”
The secretary came on the line, and Adolf read off the list of criminals, former Nazis, and French SS troops.
“An unusual mix, Adolf, but not untirely unheard of, except for the Frenchmen in the uniform of the SS. That is a new one even for me. I’ll call you at the police station in San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro Province, by tomorrow afternoon at the latest,” Dentremont, who was listening in, said.
“Thank you. I will owe you, old friend.”
As soon as Adolf put down the telephone receiver, the number two criminal investigation officer for INTERPOL began his methodical work under the chief superintendent’s direction. He checked the dailies to see if there were any recent similar crimes in the countries served by INTERPOL and was not entirely surprised to locate an unexplained murder in Moscow on October 1961, another on August 8, 1962 in Alaska, and nearly a dozen somewhat similar murders around Europe—especially France—and in Russia. The Moscow and Alaska murders involved senior allied generals, which set off alarm bells.
Dentremont set his office into overdrive to find out if there were any connections between the two generals. The only similarity found was that the two senior officers had commanded allied POW camps for German internees. He let Adolf Henckel know his findings and told him that they should be patient and look for a pattern. Moscow was not quite as forthcoming as the European and American sources.
By August 15—Assumption Day—confirmation of his suspicions was brought to him. The morning report told of the murder of a famous or infamous French general depending on one’s politics. The killer or killers were as much a mystery as in the first two murders, but there was a similarity that could not be mere coincidence. The general had been the commandant of a French-run POW camp for German detainees. He excitedly called Adolf Henckel and told him about the new death.
“That has to be the link, Eugène. Great work. I will help in anyway I can, but none of those seems to be linked directly to my murder. I don’t have any evidence that my victim was a military man.”
“Perhaps not, but there may be a broader aspect to this which involves the war, the connections between the generals, the prison camps, and who knows what else? We will keep working. I suggest you do the same and find out any connections between allied POW camps and any men who made it to Argentina separately. I am not a betting man; but if I were, I would put money on there being more such men involved and who have made it to the relative safety of your country.”
“I’ll keep working on it,” Henckel said.
Inspector Henckel could not have made a better choice in the selection of a working partner outside the confines of the Germanophilia of Argentina and the risks of choosing a partner from the questionable ranks of German law enforcement: both had more than just a taint of Nazi nepotism. The other thing Henckel liked about Dentremont was his apparent—but deceptive—ordinariness and self-effacing demeanor. The man was intellectually brilliant but often shrank into the background during discussions which all too often brought out the hubris of his fellow peace officers both in and out of INTERPOL. He was average height, average weight, had average graying brownish hair, and wore frumpy clothes off the rack. He had a jowly face with rather thick, wet lips. He was able to appear every day with the same one-day old beard stubble. His eyebrows were thick like his sideburns, and his thinning hair always seemed to be about two weeks beyond the reasonable need for a haircut.
If one took the effort to scrutinize his unexciting face carefully enough, the observer would be impressed with his keen, intelligent, curious eyes. He was easily overlooked and underestimated by criminals and his competitors in law enforcement ranks. That he held the senior detective chief superintendent’s position in INTERPOL was not due to any record of average accomplishments. Dentremont had an almost uncanny knack to detect liars, to undo fakers, to think ahead of criminal “masterminds,” and to arrive at the correct conclusion well ahead of his subordinates. He had been eligible for retirement for the past five years, but no one even hinted that it was his time to leave permanently for the Villefranche-sur-Mer beaches near Nice in the South of France which he so loved in the years when he could spend his month off on vacation away from Paris and Lyon.
On August 18th, Senior Detective Chief Superintendent Dentremont found another murder of a general, this time a British officer who was killed by being pithed by a skilled assassin in his private club. The clincher for Dentremont was learning that the Brit had been the commandant of a POW camp like the other generals. He put into motion a global search for anyone who knew anything about Allied prisoner of war camps. What he learned astonished him, but it did not explain the murder in Argentina or several others around the world that involved possible wartime grudges but without involving senior officers or POW camps directly. Still, Dentremont had a nagging suspicion that he was on to something with these murders and suspected a connection but one that he could not yet prove.
Dentremont was known to be frustratingly thorough even when his staff thought they were dealing with an open-and-shut case. For all of his work on the Allied POW connection, the chief superintendent refused to limit his case; he doggedly worked to track down any links to former Nazis, organized crime, petty grudges, business or criminal enterprise conflicts, or even love triangles.
Chief Inspector Dentremont assigned officers to a team tasked to solve all of the murders, which he now deemed with almost religious intensity to be interrelated. His German deputy stationed in Wiesbaden, Alina Hertzog, was assigned to gather every piece of information available from both official and unofficial sources about the German/Nazi/ODESSA connections to every one of the murder victims. He chose Alina because she was highly experienced and adroit in dealing with the still Nazi-infiltrated law enforcement agencies in Germany, Austria, Italy, and South America and,–as far as he could tell–she was untainted by the close proximity to the Nazis or neo-Nazis. He ordered the Italian, Giuliano Pasqualone, to work with Inspector Henckel in Paraguay and Argentina to get a clear vision of what motives might be driving the Nazis and neo-Nazis to remove one of their own. His own number one deputy, Roger Lahillonne, was assigned the thankless task of winning cooperation and gaining information from the Soviets and to learn all there was to know about the Allied POW camp systems. Axel Baird—the agent in charge in New York City—was chosen because he had been directly involved in the American CIA Paperclip Operation which resulted in thousands of Nazi scientists being secretly transferred from Europe to the United States.
The chief superintendent considered himself blessed that he had been able to seduce Axel away from the CIA to be his SAC in New York. Axel had a well-earned reputation for control under stress, courage in the face of personal danger of any kind, a dogged determinism in pursuing evidence, and a demonstrated capacity to fight or even kill as the situation required. He knew that Axel seldom had to resort to fighting when in a confrontational situation. He was so big—six feet six inches tall, and a weight of two hundred fifty pounds—that only a fool would directly challenge him. More importantly was that certain look he got when threatened—an intensity that threatened serious harm to come to the man foolish to issue the threat; an intensity that said, “You made the mistake of bringing a knife to the gun fight.”
Axel was a smart dresser; he always worked in a clean, neat, new or almost-new suit. He wore silk shirts and silk neckties, usually colorful ones. Where work was considered, there were no casual Fridays. He was handsome in a hard sort of way, and his auburn hair was regularly refreshed in Kenneth’s on 19 East 54th Street, which was a place of fun, almost a club. The salon, which filled four stories just off Fifth Avenue
, was wildly colorful and had a plethora of patterns meant to evoke the circus. Kenneth [Kenneth Battelle—who created the soft coiffures worn by stars like Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn] did Axel’s hair. Presidents’ wives wore his style, including Jackie Kennedy. Marilyn was wearing a do by Kenneth the night she sang Happy Birthday, Mr. President, to JFK. The salon served finger sandwiches and tea and was reputed to be a favorite meeting place for New York’s gay community.
Women constantly, but briefly, attempted to win Axel’s interest; but he never succumbed. There were men who said that Axel was married to his work and had no time. There were a very few people who speculated that he could perhaps be gay, a man so handsome that he was almost pretty. None of those people had ever done so to his face. They were all convinced without the need for conformation that Axel might have a violent streak.
Dentremont elected to take on the most difficult and delicate section of the investigation: to look into the inner workings of the European organized crime syndicates to find out which of them might be funding the work of the gangs and the ODESSA and Spider organizations. He was determined to learn who had the most burning grudges against the murder victims and also had the resources sufficient to pull off the murders spanning such a great distance and such a diverse subset of society. First, though, like any real Frenchman, Eugène needed to decide on what to have for lunch and where.
Mid-Day French Recipes
Quick French Onion Soup
Ingredients
-6 cps low salt beef broth, 3 lg sweet onions, one chopped, two thinly sliced lengthwise, ¾ to 1 oz dried porcini mushrooms, 1 tbsp unsalted butter, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme, ¼ tsp paprika, ¼ cp medium sherry, e.g. amontillado, kosher salt to taste, 4 ¾-inch-thick slices French baguette, lightly toasted, 6 oz Gruyère cheese, coarsely grated (about 2 cps).
Preparation
-In a 4-quart saucepan, bring the broth, chopped onion, and porcini to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 mins. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve lined with damp paper towel into a large bowl. Clean the saucepan and return the broth to the pan.
-Meanwhile, heat the butter and oil in a 12 in. skillet over medium-high heat until the butter browns, about 2 mins. Add sliced onions, thyme, and paprika. Cover and cook until the onion is soft and golden, stirring occasionally, about 10 mins. Add sherry and stir to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet. Add the contents of the skillet to the broth. Add 1 and ½ tsp salt and bring to a boil. Cook for 2 mins. then turn off heat.
-Position a rack 6 in. from the broiler and heat the broiler on high. Place four broiler-safe 12-oz soup crocks or deep bowls on a rimmed baking sheet. Divide the soup among the bowls and top each with a slice of baguette. Evenly distribute the cheese over each. Broil until the cheese is melted and bubbling (1–2 mins). Serve very hot.
The recipe is quick by saving time caramelizing the onions for this classic soup. Because sweet onions are already sweet, starting with them means they need less time to make them so. The secret to this soup’s deep flavor comes from infusing the broth with dried porcini.
Spring Niçoise Salad
Ingredients
-6 baby beets, greens removed and washed, 2½ tbsps red-wine vinegar (more as needed to taste), 1 lemon, halved, plus 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, 8 trimmed baby artichokes, 1 cp + 4 tbsps extra-virgin olive oil, ¼ cup dry white wine, 2 sprigs fresh thyme, red pepper flakes and kosher salt to taste, ¾ lb new red potatoes, 1 clove garlic, pounded to a smooth paste—add a pinch of salt, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, 1 lg egg yolk, 1 lb ahi or yellowfin tuna, cut into even slices about 1 in. thick, freshly ground black pepper to taste, 2 lightly hard-boiled eggs, peeled, 1 handful wild arugula, or ½ handful arugula and ½ handful young dandelion (~1 oz. total), washed and dried.
Preparation
-Heat oven to 350° F. Put the beets in a single layer in a baking dish. Add water to come about ½ in. up the side of the dish. Cover with foil and roast until the beets can be pierced with a sharp knife~45 mins. When cool, peel and cut them into ½ in. wedges and toss with 1 tbsp of the vinegar and salt to taste; let sit for 10–15 mins.
-Fill a large bowl with cold water. Squeeze the juice of the lemon halves into it. Trim off the top quarter of the artichokes and snap off the tough outer leaves. Using a small, sharp knife, peel the stem and the base of the artichokes, then cut them in half and scoop out the choke with a spoon. As you finish trimming each artichoke, drop it into the bowl of water and lemon juice to prevent browning. Just before cooking, drain the artichokes well.
-Warm a medium skillet over medium heat. Add ¼ cp olive oil, the artichokes, wine, ½ cp water, the thyme, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Season with salt and simmer, uncovered. Stir occasionally until the artichokes are tender when pierced at the base with a small, sharp knife~10–15 mins, depending on the size of the artichokes. If the liquid evaporates before the artichokes are tender, add a splash more water. Let cool at room temperature and then taste for salt.
-Put the potatoes in a shallow baking dish or pan just large enough to hold them in a single layer. Drizzle with 1 tbsp oil; season with a generous amount of salt, and toss well. Add a splash of water~just enough to create a little steam as the potatoes cook. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a small, sharp knife, 30–40 mins., depending on the size of the potatoes. Remove from the oven, vent the foil, and let cool at room temperature.
-To make the vinaigrette, combine the garlic, mustard, 1½ tbsp vinegar, and 1 tbsp lemon juice in a small bowl. Let sit for 5–10 min. Whisk in egg yolk, then slowly whisk in ¾ cp oil. Thin the vinaigrette with a few drops of cool water as necessary to be thin enough to drizzle easily. Adjust with more salt or vinegar if necessary and set aside.
-Shortly before serving, halve or quarter the potatoes and season with~1½ tbsp vinaigrette and set aside.
-Season the tuna on both sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Warm a large skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat until very hot. Add 3 tbsps oil and place the tuna in the skillet. Cook, without moving, until seared and nicely browned~2–3 min., depending on the thickness of the tuna. Turn and cook on the opposite side for another 2–3 min. The tuna should be pink in the center. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
-Drain any liquid from the artichokes and discard the thyme. Cut the eggs into quarters and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Scatter about half of the arugula around a large platter or individual plates. Tuck the potatoes, artichokes, beets, and eggs in and around the greens. Using your hands, break the tuna into rough rustic pieces, or slice it with a knife and nestle it in and around the other ingredients. Drizzle~¼ cp vinaigrette over the platter, or~1 tbsp over individual portions. Serve immediately, passing the remaining vinaigrette at the table.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Le Bureau Central National (BCN) d’INTERPOL pour la France [The International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL], Office of Senior Detective Chief Superintendent Eugène Léon Dentremont, 200 Quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon, France, August 30, 1962, late afternoon
After a thorough study of the cases he had learned about—and an especially careful evaluation of the German case—the first call Chief Superintendent Dentremont made was to Friedrich Schneider Graf von der Lippe, police chief of Wiesbaden, to smooth the way for Alina Hertzog to learn what she could about the current status of the ODESSA and to get any records available that would shed light on the relationship of ODESSA functionaries and the German murder victim.
Before he could make direct contact with the chief, Dentremont had to talk to three secretaries and five subordinates, and had to spend nearly thirty minutes twiddling his thumbs while his inquiry made its way up the chain of command. Finally, von der Lippe came on the line.
“Senior Chief Superintendent Dentremont, it is an honor to have the opportunity to speak with you. I hope you have not been kept waiting long. I tr
ust that Florina and the children are doing well.”
“My family is fine, thank you, Chief. How are Gretchen and Addler? I presume they are the only children who have not yet flown from the nest?”
“They are overactive but excelling in school; so, I suppose that is about as much as a father can reasonably hope for.”
“Did Agata come through her surgery all right?”
He knew that the chief’s wife had been undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer, a fact known to only a very few insiders in the German law enforcement community.
“She did very well. They found no spread of the tumor, and we are all hopeful that she will make a full recovery and, in fact, will be cured.”
“I am gratified to hear that, Friedrich.”
“It goes without saying that I very much prefer to keep the information about Agata and the rest of the family private for the sake of security.”
“Of course. I have to go to the same lengths to protect my family. It is one of the curses of our profession, I am afraid.”
“So, Eugène, how can I be of service to INTERPOL today?”
“We have very recently been made aware of a series of murders around Europe, South America, and the US that may be related. We have launched an investigation—thorough but quiet—to find links–if any exist–among the murders in order to cast light on possible suspects. I received a call this morning from an Argentine—Inspector of Police Adolf Henckel—about the murder of a prominent citizen of Córdoba who was living under an assumed name in an upscale neighborhood.”
“Let me guess. The victim was a former Nazi?”
“Yes. His name in Argentina was Carlos Aguillara-Dominguez, but we—actually Inspector Henckel—have been able to trace the victim’s birth name. He was Hörst Dietsel, formally a ranking officer in the SS.”
“The assassinations of such men can’t be terribly common in your country but is not all that uncommon in South America, Eugène. I would presume that the Mossad had a hand in the killing—they usually do.”
The Charlemagne Murders Page 39