The Blood Flag (15 page)

“Here, I've got a present for you.” He picked up a pin off a table and handed it to me. It was the death skull worn on the hat of an SS officer. Just holding it almost made me angry, and sick.

“That's unbelievable. Is it authentic?”

“Yes. I can even tell you where it came from, if you want to know.”

“I do.”

He went to a table and opened a reference book. He looked at the back of the skull at a number that he had etched on it, and read through the pages. He finally found it. “Here. It's from the Sturmgruppe 675 based in Poland. You know them?”

“Of course. They're one of the death squads. The ones that went through Poland looking for Jews and gypsies.”

“Baddest of the bad.”

“Yeah, tough guys. Shooting unarmed people.”

He looked at me with a pulse of scrutiny, “I'm not about judging people in World War II, I'm about collecting memorabilia.”

“I'm about both. Nazis lost their way. Even if they believed in what they said, they didn't have to murder people to do it. Nazism would have been a much more powerful force without that. That's why it's still alive and well today.”

He seemed to relax. “There you go. You want that?” he asked, indicating the pin in my hand.

“Absolutely. This is priceless.”

“It is actually a pretty high value. Hundreds of dollars. But you came all the way out here and I wanted you to have it.”

“I appreciate it.” I slipped it into my pocket.

We worked our way through the rest of the material he had displayed all the way to the back of the building, deep inside the hill. There was a bar set up with stools and belly tables and a sixty-inch high-definition television that was running Nazi war footage. “What's the movie?”

“These are actually very rare. These are Nazi movies that I bought from a movie collector. In the actual cans. Most of this footage has never been seen since the war. There are only a couple of remaining copies, and I have most of them. I also bought a machine from California,” he indicated by nodding toward the side, “that converts the film into digital. High definition DVDs. You may not know this—most people don't—that film is far more dense than the highest definition digital picture. So it's actually easy to convert film to high-def. images. Sometimes the formatting has to be messed with, but the density is there, so you just stick your film in one end of this machine, rewind it at the other end, and in between it gets converted to a Blu-ray DVD. It's unbelievable. These things have been selling like crazy, and I charge ridiculous prices for them.”

“Like how much?”

“I only sell them in a ten-DVD set. They are training videos, combat footage, some German units' inspections and parades, random assortment of things. But very high quality, and very well done. So I sell the ten-DVD set for a thousand dollars.”

“Who buys it?”

“Beats me, all over the place.”

“Germany?”

“I think people are a little hesitant to own it in Germany, but I do mail these to German addresses. They just insist that I do it in plain brown wrappings and call it ‘movie classics.'”

“That's just unbelievable. I have to get copies of those.”

“Sure, of course. It's amazing. Old movies. There is a market for
everything
Nazi. It never goes away. Part of it is because the Swastika is the most intriguing symbol ever used by anybody. It's just captivating. The other is a lot of people secretly agree with Nazism and some of its pieces.”

I nodded. “Well, I told you I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

He nodded and turned to the bar. “Did you want to buy anything?”

I hadn't expected the hard sell. “Absolutely. Several things. I'd love one of those Sturmgewehrs, if you are willing to sell one. How much would you let one go for? Assuming it works and you have some ammo for it.”

“It's illegal to own in the U.S., you know. Well you can, but you have to get a permit, which are pretty much impossible.”

“How much?”

“Can I get you a beer? German, of course. You can have Paulaner or Spaten? Both on draft. Where else can you find that?”

“Spaten.”

He went around behind the bar, drew two glasses of beer out of the Spaten tab, walked back around the bar, and set them on the bar table where we had been sitting.

“So how much?”

“These things are in great demand. And unless you got it through the '68 amnesty with BATF, you're in the shit for owning one. But let's talk about the . . . not quite public market for this. I can get forty grand for it from the right collector. If it's a beater it can be as low as fifteen grand. If it's not in working condition or has been smashed and reassembled, maybe five grand. But this one, the one I showed you, is in good shape. It's worth probably twenty grand. But for you, today, I'll let you have it for ten.”

“That's pretty generous. Let me give that some thought.”

“Sure. But after today, it goes back to twenty grand.”

“Okay. I may very well do that.”

He chuckled. “Definitely don't put it in your carry-on luggage accidentally.” He drank deeply from his beer. “But on the phone you said you had a question you wanted to ask.”

“Yeah, thanks. I have a lead on something. I don't have it yet, but let's assume my lead is good, and that I'll actually get it. What I'd like to know from you is how valuable it would be and how sought after it would be and if you can put a price tag on it. And then if all that comes to fruition, whether you could sell it. I don't know if I want to sell it, but if I did, you seem like the right guy to do it. For a piece of it, of course.”

His eyes grew bigger. “What is it?”

“I'll say it in German. Do you speak German?”

“Little.”

“
Die Blutfahne
.”

His mouth opened slightly. He said, “The Blood Flag?”

I nodded.

He sat back, his mind racing, “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That thing has been missing since late '44.”

“Exactly.”

“How did you get a lead on it? How legit is it?”

“Well, I hope it's real legit. I think it's the real thing, but I won't know till I go get it.”

“Where is it?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, let's assume it's the real thing. Wait, how can you prove it's the real thing?”

“Don't worry about that. Let's assume it's the real thing and that I have irrefutable proof it's real.”

“I don't know how you would do that.”

“DNA.”

“Alright. So you've got the real Blood Flag. First of all, don't let anybody near it. That's the most coveted and sought-after Nazi item
ever
. That was Hitler's magic flag. It's just hard to describe how significant that is in Nazi lore.”

“I know. That's why I want it.”

He paused. “If you're this big a collector, how come I've never heard of you before?”

“I've been in the background. But now, here I am. So what's the answer?”

He breathed quickly. “So, the value. There are some wealthy collectors who might pay a huge amount of money for something like that. Huge. But how much? The most expensive piece of Nazi memorabilia I remember was fairly recent. Hitler's Mercedes sold a couple of months ago to a Russian billionaire for eight million dollars.”

“There have been a few other things in the millions. Some of this stuff is sort of like dealing with stolen art. You don't want it publicized. Not that it's illegal, it's just thought to be in bad taste. You familiar with Hitler's original paintings?”

I nodded.

“Those can fetch a pretty good penny. They go for several hundred thousand each. There aren't many of them, and they are pretty easy to authenticate. I've got pictures of all of them. I've bought and sold many of them. But the flag . . . shit. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. This kind of a setting where there is no market that's been previously identified, where it's never been on the market before, it's almost like you have to have an auction and let the rich guys bid against each other. That's the only way you'll find the market. But I would guess it would sell for somewhere between ten and twenty million.”

“That's about what I thought, actually.”

“Let me warn you, though. With the flag, trust me, it's not about the money. It's about what it stands for. Every neo-Nazi, pseudo-Nazi, proto-Nazi, former Nazi, and maybe-Nazi will come out of the woodwork to get it. And,” he hesitated. “I'd bet some would even kill for it.” He thought about that, then got up quickly. “Come on. Let's go shoot that Sturmgewehr. Maybe I can even convince you to buy it!”

“Maybe I will.”

“I've even got extra magazines and boxes of ammo. You know Hitler gave it its name? Sturmgewehr? It means the ‘storm rifle.' There were over four hundred fifty thousand of them made. Used mostly in the eastern front. Shoots a 7.92 by 33 millimeter round. Very effective.”

“Let's go shoot.”

“By the way, if you're from Montana, how did you drive your pick-up all the way to my house?”

“I am from Montana. But I have a ranch in Virginia too. Not too far from Roanoke. And my own airplane to go back and forth, and to my other ranches in Texas and the Central Valley of California. That's why I don't have to worry about putting my new Sturmgewehr in my roll-aboard. I own the airplane.”

“Nice!”

“Let's try it. Where's your shooting range?”

“It's a couple of miles back into the valley. But if you just want to test it out, let's just go out on the porch!”

We walked out of the room and he closed the door and gate behind us. He took out a metal ammo can, opened it, and put the bullets in the Sturmgewehr magazine. “Here,” he said. “You take it. Put the magazine in there . . . put a round in . . . good, just right. Now make sure to aim over your truck, and fire away into the woods.”

I pulled the trigger and the Sturmgewehr kicked into my shoulder in automatic fire. I fought the slight tendency to climb and found it to be very accurate. I could hold the fire onto a tree fifty yards away. I finished the ammo and pulled the barrel up. A slow curl of smoke climbed out of the barrel as it cooled. “Very sweet,” I said, smiling. “I'll take it, if you take American Express. I want the points.”

“No problem!”

I tossed my umbrella into my roll-aboard and looked at Michelle, who was sitting on the bed frowning. “What's the matter?”

“So you were where?”

“Tennessee.”

“Why?”

“To visit a collector, to see how much the Blood Flag might be worth.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What did he say?”

“He said ten to twenty million probably. But since it's never been on the market it's hard to say. But some would do almost anything to get it.”

She pulled her foot up across the bed and leaned forward, alerted. “Like what?”

“He said it's hard to predict, but they might try very hard to get it, even by violence.”

She looked at the ceiling, trying to decide whether to say what she was thinking. “So if you have this flag you'd be the one they'd be violent against.”

“That's not going to happen. No one would know.”

“But if they did, or suspected, you'd be the target.”

“There is some risk, I suppose,” I said as I put my fleece into the suitcase. “Could you stop packing for a minute and talk to me?”

I put down the shirt I was folding and sat at the end of the bed.

She continued, “I think you ought to really re-think this. Argentina? Really? Why? This has become an obsession with you. You've put your FBI career at risk, you've offended people above you, you've been blamed for that mess in Atlanta, and now you're going to run off to Argentina with German FBI and a nutcase neo-Nazi you don't know very well? For what? Why is this your fight?”

“These are bad people, Michelle. They need to be stopped.”

“By
you
? There are a
lot
of bad people out there. That's why the FBI has people who focus on certain things. Your focus is international terrorism and finance, last I checked. I think you're obsessed because of your father. You are doing this to honor him, or to echo him or be like him. I don't know. But you're putting our family in danger, Kyle. It scares me. Taking on all of neo-Nazism at once around the world, and now off to Argentina, and then if everything goes well to Germany? For what?”

“I don't expect people to under—”

“
People
? What about me? I'm not just people. Make
me
understand.”

“This is really important, Michelle. It can be stopped and should be stopped. I think I can do it if what we're planning works.”

“And if it doesn't?”

“Then we won't succeed and that will be that.”

“Or someone will kill you for that stupid flag.”

“Not going to happen.”

She had heard enough. She fought back tears, got off the bed, and walked out of the bedroom.

The Paris of South America. That's what everyone says about Buenos Aires. Actually, that's what Argentina says about Buenos Aires. The people I had asked about it, who had actually been to Buenos Aires and to Paris, shook their heads. Just marketing that drew tourists but led many to feel disappointed. I had never been to Buenos Aires and looked forward to going. I wouldn't be there long, but I still looked forward to seeing it. What really intrigued me was the German ex-pat population, which included many Nazis. Some who admitted it, and many who didn't. If the American veterans of World War II were the greatest generation, what were the Germans?

When I arrived and checked into the Panamericano Hotel the front desk clerk handed me an envelope with my name on it. When I got to my room and closed the door behind me, I crossed over to the window and pulled back the drapes. My room looked over Carlos Pelligrini Street, and I could see the famed obelisk, which looked like the Washington monument, only smaller. The street was full of traffic and energy.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper. “Welcome to Buenos Aires! We have met someone who will be of interest. Be in the lobby at 8:00 p.m.” It was signed by Florian. It was already seven thirty. I quickly unpacked, shaved, and put on my sport coat. I checked outside again to see if it was raining. I went down to the lobby and spotted Florian and Patrick as I stepped out of the elevator. They saw me at the same time and crossed the lobby. I shook their hands and evaluated their beaming faces.

“Welcome!” Florian said, echoing his note. “We must go to dinner. You must meet someone.”

I nodded and shook Patrick's hand. “Good. Who?”

Florian smiled, “You will see. Come on.”

We went outside to the curb and the bellman hailed a cab for us. We squeezed in and Florian gave him the name of a restaurant.

I asked, “It's not Blick, or Schullman is it?”

Patrick said, “No, no. Absolutely not. But this is someone who knows of both of them.”

“How did you find somebody who knows them both?”

Patrick said, “The German community here is close. And closed. That is good and bad for them. They know each other, but anybody who knows the community either knows the ones you're looking for or can find out about them quite easily. Some try to stay out of sight and out of touch. But all those that came here right after the war know each other and talk. Some hate the Nazis who came here; they say the Nazis ruined Germany. Others sympathize with the Nazis. All the tension that was there in 1945 is still here.”

“Should be interesting. Does this person speak English?”

“Everybody speaks English. German is a dying language. I'm surprised
we
still speak German!” Patrick laughed. “Spanish is not dying, but even they all speak English.”

The cab pulled over and we climbed out. Florian paid him and we turned and walked into the restaurant, La Cabrera. The décor was rich and engaging. Florian checked in with the woman at the maître d's desk.

As we waited, Patrick brightened as he looked over my shoulder. I turned and saw a beautiful woman walk through the door from the street. He walked around me to approach her. I followed. She smiled. She held out her hand and they kissed on both cheeks. Patrick turned to me and said, “This is Kyle Morrissey, the American I told you about.” She faced me directly and extended her hand. I shook it. As I shook it, Patrick said to me, “This is Manuela Gabrielli.”

I'm not sure who I expected to meet us at the restaurant, but Manuela was not on the list. She was in her mid thirties, and had beautiful long black hair. She had deep brown eyes and olive skin. She couldn't have been more than five three or five four, but was wearing three-or four-inch heals. She wore a navy blue skirt and pink silk blouse with a French scarf around her neck.

Our table was ready. We followed the hostess who took us to a corner table in the crowded main room. As I placed my napkin in my lap, I said to Manuela, “You said your name was Manuela Gabrielli?”

“Yes.”

“I take it that's Italian.”

“Very good,” she said with a faint smile. “Most Americans think it's Spanish, but of course it is Italian.”

“How did an Italian family end up in Argentina?”

“There are more Italian people in Argentina than Spanish. By a good measure. Probably sixty percent Italian.”

We all ordered steak based on Manuela's recommendation of Argentinean beef as the best in the world, and she ordered a local wine to go with our steaks. As we ate our appetizers, Florian said, “Manuela is with the Argentine Federal Police. She is very familiar with the German ex-pat community as well as the Italians.”

I looked at her and decided to ask. “Did the Italians who came here come when the Germans did?”

She nodded as if she had heard the questions a hundred times. “It is a mix. Some fled when Mussolini took over, and others came after he fell. Some were for him, some against him. It has made for an interesting community. But Germans are the same, though it seems there is a larger percentage of Germans who were Nazis than Italians who were fascists, but it's difficult to say with certainty.”

“What about your family?”

“They came much earlier. In the twenties. From Roma.”

Our steaks came and we started eating. A minute passed in silence. I occasionally glanced at Manuela who looked back at me. She was intriguing. Beautiful and intriguing. She ate thin slivers of steak that she cut off, European style; she had no intention of eating the whole thing. After a few minutes of silence, Florian said, “We've talked to Manuela about
die
Blutfahne
. She had never heard of it. The thought that it could be here is very interesting to her. And she has current addresses for both of the men we're looking for. And one of them, Blick, is living under a different name.”

I looked at her and frowned. “How do you happen to know that?”

“Israelis.”

“Meaning?”

She leaned forward. “The Israelis have been chasing war criminals ever since the end of World War II. They track down every evil Nazi in the world that they can, and put them on trial. Remember when they came down here and got Eichmann? There he was, living in the German community in Argentina. San Fernando. About twenty kilometers from here. We hadn't really thought much about Nazi war criminals hiding out in Argentina. We knew that there were a lot of Germans, and many came after World War II, but we didn't think people who had been in charge of exterminating Jews were hiding in Argentina. We were horrified.

“The Israelis, though, didn't go through official channels. They just came down here and kidnapped him. Pretended they had a flat tire and nabbed him when he got off a bus returning from a Mercedes factory. Maybe they thought that we would not extradite him to Israel. But they kidnapped him, put him on an airplane, and took him back to Israel. Then he was hanged.” She paused. “Ever since then we have quietly cooperated with the Israelis in knowing which German immigrants could be from World War II. They're not looking for people who fought as soldiers in the Abwehr; they're looking for war criminals. These two men were ‘cataloged.' They share the list with us, and we help them by tracking whoever is on it.”

“You know where the two men are that we are focused on?”

“Yes. We have known where they live for a long time. What I did not know was about this Blood Flag.”

“Do you suspect these men of anything in particular? Have they done anything illegal that you are aware of?”

She took a small bite and shook her head. “No, they are quiet. The people who know them think they're just quiet old men.”

“I assume they are retired?”

“Actually no. Most of the German war veterans are in their late eighties or nineties. A very few are still working. The two you are interested in are both self-employed. One is a watch repairman who has his own little store and the other translates German novels into Spanish and Spanish novels into German.”

I asked to no one in particular, “So which one has the Blood Flag?”

Florian shrugged. “One of them. We will talk to both of them. Pick one. And is your man here?”

I nodded.

Manuela looked at me. “What man?”

I wondered how much I should really tell her, “We had to have someone who is authentic. A true neo-Nazi. But working with us.”

She frowned. “And what will he be doing?”

“Lending an air of authenticity to our search. He'll explain why we're looking for the Blood Flag, which will in fact be true.”

“Then what will you do with him, the one who has the flag?”

“Florian and Patrick will be the connection with the neo-Nazis in Germany and I am the American financier. We originally thought about buying it. But the more we thought about it, the less we liked it. So we're going to play to his ego and tell him
this
is what he's always waited for. This is the reason he's saved the flag. He can bring out the most important symbol in all of Nazi history to reunite world organizations under the banner. If he has any lingering Nazi beliefs, we think he'll jump at the chance.”

She nodded, thinking. Florian got the waiter's attention and asked him to pour us more wine. After he left, Manuela said, “Then you don't need us. You know where they are, and you can go talk to them.”

I replied, “Yes. Tomorrow.”

Florian raised his eyebrows in surprise. “He is here?”

I nodded. “He's here. We're going to meet tonight.”

“Shall we come?”

“Yes. I think it's time you met him.”

The meeting did not go well. Jedediah was in Argentina all right. He'd been there for some unspecified period before we arrived. He seemed to know his way about Buenos Aires like he'd been there before; but he said he hadn't. We met him in a dark bar at a hotel where none of us were staying. Jedediah wore a white V-neck T-shirt. Just enough to see the major tattoos, and in particular, the iron cross on his throat. Florian and Patrick were stunned. They weren't accustomed to seeing anything like it in Germany. When we told Jedediah how we saw it playing out with these two Nazis, he balked. He said, “Makes me sound like a prop. I don't think that's how this would really play out. If this was real, I'd be the one in the lead; I'd have my German contacts, and my American financier. I'd do most of the talking. I don't think your way will work at all. You need to let me run it.”

The idea of Jedediah running anything was scary enough, but at this critical moment when we might actually have the chance to get the flag in our hands, to let him be in charge could result in one or both of these Nazis denying any knowledge of the flag at all. It could be sitting in the other room. But unless they
wanted
to give it to us, or sell it to us, or go to Germany and play the role that we had in mind for them, they might just let it pass and not even hint that they had it. To get this close and go home without it was unacceptable.

I could tell Patrick and Florian were considering backing out. The assurances that they had to give the BKA were endless, and caused them extreme anxiety. Their bosses talked about the impact of “releasing” the
Blutfahne
like it was a virus. Jedediah scared them, but we had no other choice. We decided to visit the two men the next night. We'd visit the first one right after he was likely to have had a drink, or a glass of wine, just before he was ready to go to bed. When he was tired and dull.

Jedediah left the bar first, and the rest of us stayed. I ordered another scotch.

Florian asked me, “How do you know you can trust him?”

“He's here, obviously to do what we have in mind to do.”

“How well do you know him?”

“I've only been working with him for the past couple of months. Before that, he was working with another special agent. He was very reliable.”

Patrick shook his head slightly, and said, “Those tattoos. They are just shocking. Someone must feel something very deeply to get those tattoos.”

I nodded. “No doubt.”

Patrick pressed, “So how do you feel so strongly about Nazism that you get an iron cross tattooed on your throat, and then turn on your friends? How does that happen?”

I understood his concern. “I asked the same question. He was converted. He became a Christian, and rejected his old ways.”

“He became a Christian?” Florian asked doubtfully.

“Yeah. Probably more common in the U.S. than in Germany.”

Florian peered at me through his small glasses. “You believe him?”

“Why would somebody make something like that up? It's not something that most people just say in ordinary conversation, let alone brag about. Why would he lie about it?”

“So you believe what he's telling you.”

“You think he's making this up?”

“I don't know. I'm simply evaluating.”

“Well, I don't know why he'd be turning his fellow neo-Nazis in, giving us their banking and meeting information, bugging their headquarters, and telling us about this international meeting if he's not who he appears to be.”

Florian and Patrick glanced at each other. They looked like they were still skeptical. Florian said, “I hope you're right.”

The next evening I met Florian and Patrick in the lobby. We picked up Jedediah in front of a bookstore several blocks away. He had walked there from his hotel to make sure no one was following him. He wore a navy blue turtleneck and a cap. He squeezed into the front seat of the Fiat. It was for a man half his size, but he didn't complain. Patrick pulled away from the curb. I was in the back with Jedediah.

“How are you doing?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“You ready?”

“Which guy is first?”

Florian responded, “Blick.”