The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery

by Jack Flanagan

  As we got out of the car, we saw Kyle’s and Peterson’s patrol cars had totally blocked the driveway. To my surprise, the vehicle that chased us to Pohl’s Farm had returned and was parked next to Chester’s spotless 1970 Ford Mustang. I grinned at the contrast between Chester’s car and our pursuer’s, which looked like an escapee from the La Brea Tar Pits. I saw the other black car still in the driveway, but the green car was gone.

  We found Peterson standing behind his cruiser with his elbows on the hood, propping up his arms holding field glasses. He was diligently scouting for any movement in and around the house. Since I last saw him, the deputy had exchanged his campaign hat and dress jacket for the department’s riot helmet and a flak vest. The young deputy, with his gun on his hip and his field glasses to his eyes, struck a fine impression. And if I didn’t know any better, it appeared as if he knew what he was doing.

  As for my brother, well, we discovered him in his car. He was intermittently cursing to himself as he alternated conversations between his car radio and his cell phone. And at the same time, he was fumbling with papers that were rapidly being chucked out from his mobile printer.

  I tapped at his side window and unintentionally startled him. His cell phone flew from his grip and disappeared somewhere down into the shadows on the floor.

  “For crying out loud, Richard,” Kyle bellowed behind the glass, “Don’t sneak up on people.”

  “Sorry.”

  As my brother retrieved his phone and extracted himself out of his patrol car, I noticed that he had exchanged his ripped pants for an intact pair. But to my mind, the replacement trousers didn’t seem to be much larger than those he previously had on.

  When he finally emerged from the car huffing and puffing with his cell phone in hand, I gave him some cryptic advice. “You, dear brother, must get a better grip on your phone. They do explode, you know.”

  “They do?”

  “It happened to Firmino’s phone today.”

  My poor brother eyed his device with new wariness before he carefully tucked it away in his pocket. And I probably earned a special place in hell for pulling Kyle’s chain in the middle of a crisis.

  “Where did you get those pants?” I asked with an unsurpassed grin.

  “Don’t ask. This pair also had a rip in the seat. But a few staples seem to have done the trick. You can’t see anything, can you?”

  I took a quick gander at his posterior. “I don”t see anything that I shouldn’t.”

  “Good, because I tore my shorts when I took off my other pants. As of now, I’m going commando. Don’t ask why. It is a long story involving laundry schedules.”

  “Thank you for sharing. I’ve had enough surprises today.”

  “So have I,” said Kyle as he reached into his car for a fistful of printouts. “These are for you.”

  I took the papers, perused them quickly.

  “Now, Peterson and I are here, just as you asked. What’s up? And this better be good, or we’re all going to be in a heap of trouble.”

  “Has anyone left Chester’s since you’ve arrived?”

  “No, no one. But just before we arrived, we saw from down the street that car,” said Kyle as he pointed to the mud-splattered vehicle, “pull into the driveway and park. Then two guys got out and ran into the house, but no one was seen leaving. So tell me, what are we doing here?”

  “You’re sure about the comings and goings?”

  “Peterson,” Kyle hailed. “Have you seen anyone leave the house?”

  “No,” replied his deputy, “Plus, I haven’t seen anyone by the windows either.”

  “Strange,” said Kyle, assessing the situation. “They must know that we are out here . . . Yet they show no curiosity, not even to take a look outside. It’s very strange.”

  “They can’t miss us. Both of your patrol cars have their flashing gum-ball machine lights on. Even in daylight, you can see those things for a half-mile.”

  “I think,” said Kyle, “now is a good time for you to tell me what in hell we are doing here.”

  And so I did. I quickly briefed Kyle about my ‘kidnapping’ at the cemetery, my meeting with Nagy, Fordor, and Luger. I told him about Chester nervously suggesting that I, or he, or the both of us may have stolen the Stoner Papers. I informed him that I was almost offered a bribe to return the papers and about nearly being killed by an exploding cell phone, finding my phone, and being chased up on Pohl’s Table. I blabbed everything ending with Operation Hotspur.

  “Wow,” Kyle replied with that bewildered look of his. “How much danger are we in here, Rich? Is Chester a victim or a perpetrator?”

  “I can’t say,” I said, trying to think of what to do next.

  “Do you think that I should call for backup?”

  I looked at Chester’s house, at the dirty car, and back at my brother. “Backup? I don’t know, maybe. Give me a second to think.” My poor, addled brain struggled to sift through the experiences and data it had been exposed to in the last few days.

  “Well?” Kyle asked impatiently. “Back up or not. There are more people involved in this besides yourself, you know.”

  “Many people,” I repeated half-consciously as I tried to focus.

  “Call or no call?”

  Before I could formulate an answer, Kyle’s mobile printer began to buzz as it spat out another page.

  “And there’s another thing,” grumbled Kyle as he exhaled and then leaned into his car for the pile of papers on the passenger seat. “Your ex-girlfriend, Serena Boswell, has been sending me all sorts of documents. They’re all for you.”

  Grabbing a pile of papers from the passenger seat, Kyle thrust his annoyances at me. “These better be worth it. Do you have any idea of the cost of printer ink? I can’t have the county pay for the printing of our personal correspondences.”

  I snatched the papers from my brother and began to read. I instantly concluded that calling “Bo” Boswell was a good idea, no matter how uncomfortable and humiliating that call was. I now had details on HIFT, Luger, and most importantly, on Operation Hotspur. Dots began to connect in my head. A picture of what had happened over sixty years ago was becoming clear.

  “Kyle, did Bernie give you a receipt for the broken chair?”

  “What?”

  “As I told you, Chester found a copy of the receipt for the chair. Do you have one?”

  “Ayup.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I put it on my dresser this morning when I was cleaning out my pockets.”

  Another dot connected, and with that, a plan of action came to mind, though a simple one. I put the Boswell papers on the back seat of Kyle’s car. I called Firmino to come over and asked him if he wouldn’t mind accompanying us to the house.

  “Sure, it’s no problema. You now have a plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “And outside back up?” Kyle anxiously asked.

  “No . . . not yet anyway,” I said with more confidence than with good sense. “I think we will be okay. But keep Paterson outside, on the ready, just in case.”

  After my three companions gave a final check on their weaponry, Firmino, Kyle, and I marched to Chester’s front door and rang the bell.

  #

  CHAPTER 33

  “You’re back?” said Chester looking surprised as he opened the door.

  “Why,” I said indignantly, “didn’t you expect to see me again?”

  Firmino, Kyle, and I didn’t wait for an invite; we just plowed our way past Holland and entered the house.

  “Well, not today . . . ” replied Chester innocently, as he pressed against the wall letting my brother by. “. . . because of your Uncle’s funeral. What is this all about?”

  “We just want to talk with you, Chester,” flatly replied Kyle as he peered into the interior of the house. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “But what?” Kyle asked, sternly gazing at him.

  “I thought, well,
considering you and Richard had your uncle’s funeral obligations to attend to . . . ”

  I abruptly turned to Chester. “That didn’t stop you from speaking to me earlier.”

  Chester cast his eyes downward, “I am sorry about that. The meeting wasn’t at all my idea. I said it was a ridiculous idea that you would ever steal—”

  “Chester,” I said, taking a step closer to Holland. “Are you . . . okay?” I asked in a low sympathetic whisper.

  “Me?” The question seemed to have caught him by surprise. “Ah, yes, I’m okay.”

  That wasn’t the answer that I was expecting.

  “Why do you ask? What is this all about, Richard?”

  “Chester,” I asked, “where are the two guys that just came in?”

  “Why, they are in the back with Dr. Krauss.”

  “Do you have any idea where they were?”

  “They said they went out to gas-up their car?”

  “Really. Where did they go for it? Mudville?” I pointed to the black car in the driveway, seen through the front door lites.

  Chester shook his head. “Gosh, how did that happen?”

  I asked again, “Are you sure that you are okay? You seem a little upset.”

  “To be honest with you, Richard, I have a lot on my plate. Dr. Krauss just minutes ago told me about her plans to withdraw her panel of experts from the project.”

  Stupid me, I had thought Holland was in a hostage situation of some sort. It appeared that if he were, he didn’t think so.

  “By the way,” I continued, “didn’t you notice the patrol cars with their lights on at the end of your driveway?”

  “No,” said Chester. “We were all in the back den in a somewhat heated discussion. As I said, Dr. Krauss wants to pull out from The Steinmetz’s Papers project. If she did, that could prove to be very embarrassing for the college. Not to mention how badly it would reflect on me. Plus, there is a serious question of the documents’ ownership—”

  “Chester,” Kyle interrupted, “you can chat away later about the college’s problems. But for now, please be so kind as to introduce me to your guests.”

  “Sure, but why—”

  “Now, please.”

  Kyle certainly was getting a handle on being a sheriff. His direct, no-nonsense request ended Chester’s further inquiries and had him promptly escorting us to the den. There we found Nagy, Fordor, and Krauss seated around the coffee table.

  “Mr. MacKenzie, it is a surprise to see you again,” said Krauss as she stood up with a cell phone in her hand. I noticed that her eyes were wide, and her face was flushed as if she saw a ghost. “Sheriff, how good to see you. I was just about to call you.”

  “You were?” remarked Chester.

  “Yes. Just now when you went the door,” replied Krauss.

  “Really. That is interesting.” I glibly commented. I then pointed at Nagy and Fordor. “Sheriff, those two men are the ones who tried to kill us.”

  “What!” exclaimed Chester.

  “I think you are greatly mistaken,” calmly protested Nagy as his right hand slowly moved toward the opening of his jacket. “In fact, we were trying to warn you about—”

  “Don’t go there,” barked Firmino, who by this time had drawn his gun.

  “I was just getting my ID papers. You were going to ask for my papers, weren’t you, Sheriff.”

  “I will ask you for your IDs when I want them,” countered Kyle.

  “All of you, get your hands up!” ordered Firmino.

  Immediately, the three foreigners complied.

  Taking his cue from Baldewin, Kyle retrieved his own weapon and went into a half-crouching position with his gun at the ready. Though his action showed that he meant business, his stance gave the impression that he had something unwanted in his pants.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” bellowed Kyle. “Do as my friend says. All of you, please, raise your hands up over your heads, nice and easy-like, where we can see them.”

  “Sheriff,” protested Chester, “what are you doing? These people are important guests of the college.”

  “Chester, not now, please,” calmly replied Kyle. “Rich, do the honors and relieve these important folks of any firearms that they may have in their possession and their IDs.”

  With ready compliance, I took from Nagy and Fordor their guns and IDs that were pocketed in their jackets. But when I came to Krauss, well, that was different.

  “Dr. Krauss,” I timidly asked, trying to avoid looking at the parting folds of her wrap-around blouse, “you wouldn’t be hiding a gun, would you?”

  “As you can see, Richard,” replied Dr. Krauss, “nothing is down there but me.”

  From my perspective, she was telling the truth. I only saw Krauss’ silky blouse loosely covering her unsupported attributes beneath. “No, gun?” I said.

  “No gun.”

  “And your passport?”

  “In my bag on the table.” She pointed to the coffee table in front of the couch.

  A shocked Chester finally blurted from across the room, “The two of you had guns?” Holland’s sheepishness started to turn into anger. “Why would you people bring guns into my house? What in the hell is going on?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” I quipped as I grabbed the doctor’s passport.

  Chester strode toward Krauss. “Did you know that these gentlemen were armed?”

  “I didn’t know, exactly. I just assumed that they were.”

  “You . . . you assumed?” repeated Chester.

  “We do have permits,” interjected Nagy, “and all the paperwork that allows us to have concealed firearms.” With a confident smile, he lowered his arm and pointed. “My papers are with my passport.”

  “Just keep your hands up where I can see them,” ordered Kyle, assuming a more apropos stance.

  Nagy’s hands reached for the sky once more.

  Seeing that we were getting nowhere, I said that we all should be calm and sit down. With unanimous agreement, hands went down, and we all found seats—except for Kyle.

  Chester offered my brother a chair from the kitchen, but I quickly nixed that. So Kyle set himself down onto a sturdy-looking maple end table located next to my chair, all the while keeping an eye on Chester’s house guests.

  As everyone got settled, I got the ball rolling. “With the Sheriff’s permission,” I said with deference to Kyle, “what was it, Dr. Krauss, that you wanted to tell my brother?”

  Vera cleared her throat. She looked down at her hands which were clasped tightly together and rested on her lap. “First of all, I want to say that I wish things had happened differently.”

  “That goes without saying,” I quipped.

  “You see,” blurted Nagy, “this guy is not as stupid as he looks.”

  Kyle coughed; I got the hint. “Tell us why you were about to call my brother?”

  Just as Krauss was about to answer, Nagy, Fordor, and Krauss exchanged a few words among themselves in Hungarian. One needn’t have known the lingua franca to understand that the two men were not happy.

  “Sheriff,” Krauss said almost apologetically, “I now know who took the Steinmetz Papiere.”

  “Who?” asked Kyle, looking afraid at the response.

  “I regret to say it was my cousin, Heike Fuerst.”

  “Really,” responded Kyle with relief.

  “After Richard left here a little while ago, I received a call from Heike. I told her that I was disbanding the panel—with no papers, no need for experts to examine them, right? When I told her of my intent, she accused me of planning to discredit the papers and destroy them.”

  “How did she get that idea?” I asked.

  “Unknown to me, she had overheard a phone conversation that I had with Luger at the hotel when she and I first arrived in Vermont. That motivated her to take the papers. So, the papers are in safekeeping. In fact, Mr. Luger is getting them now. There really wasn’t any crime committed, just miscommunication. I am very s
orry for any inconvenience. I am sure that HITF will pay any—”

  “Were you?” interrupted Kyle. “Were you planning to destroy the papers?”

  “Me? Destroy the papers? That is an absurd idea,” protested Krauss.

  “In the very least,” I said, mentally connecting dots, “she was going to make sure those papers would never see the light of day.”

  “I don’t believe it,” protested Chester. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

  With her head bowed, she said, “It’s a long story that has its origins several generations ago.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Kyle.

  Krauss looked up. “In the 1950s, not long before the Hungarian uprising, a group of anti-communists, many of whom were ex-fascists, made contact with the American CIA. This group convinced the agency of its viability as a resistance organization and secured monies for its cause.”

  “And that was,” I said, “to break the Soviet grip on Hungary.”

  “Yes. The funds were to be spent on propaganda materials, bribes, medical supplies, weapons, and such.”

  “And the transfer of those funds,” I said with some confidence, “was known as Operation Hotspur.”

  Krauss affirmed in a low keyed, “Yes, that was what I heard.”

  “But Hotspur did not go according to plan, did it?”

  “No, it didn’t, as the story goes.”

  “Both the CIA contact and its money vanished,” I said—quietly thanking my lucky stars for Bo’s info.

  “That is what is said. This all happened when many Western intelligence agents were being caught and disposed of by the Soviets. Most of the details of these events have been lost in time and happened much before I was born.”

  “And to this very day,” I said, “there still hasn’t been an official accounting to what happened to the missing funds or the agent associated with Operation Hotspur.”

  “The story was that Soviets must have gotten the money.” Unlike her other responses, this one sounded more like a wish than a statement of fact.

  “Over the years, people may have thought that,” I said, “but we know differently . . . don’t we, Dr. Krauss?”