Brandenburg (14 page)

So different from Rudi, who had always smiled, and yet the same soft, brown eyes. And there was something else, too. She had sensed an almost palpable dislike toward her in Volkmann’s manner.

She watched as he walked away, then dismissed the thought from her mind as she went to wash the coffee cups.

•   •   •

It was after four when Volkmann arrived back in Strasbourg. Ferguson and Peters were both out, and he wrote his report and delivered a copy to Ferguson’s secretary, along with a copy of the woman’s file.

She told him Ferguson was in Paris and wasn’t expected back until later that evening. Volkmann sent a security fax to the Bundespolizei headquarters in Berlin requesting information on Dieter Winter, giving what details he could about the man and requesting a photograph, if available.

Volkmann left the office two hours later, arriving at his apartment a little after six. At ten o’clock, Ferguson telephoned.

“I read your report. All very murky but interesting.”

“Any reply to the request I sent to the BP?”

“It arrived this evening. Along with a photograph.”

“What did they say about Winter?”

“Graduated from Heidelberg ten years ago, majoring in history. Involved in several right-wing groups during his student days, but no arrests. The BP has no idea why he was killed. The area where it happened is a stomping ground for petty drug dealers. They tried that tack, however, and came up with nothing.”

“Had Winter any narcotic convictions?”

“None. But considering the area where the shooting happened, that’s the angle the BP hinted at.”

“Nothing else?”

“The weapon used in the Berlin shooting is the part that interests us. A Walther nine-millimeter, but South American–manufactured ammunition. The BP thinks it was the same weapon used in the killing of a German industrialist in a Hanover restaurant a year ago. One of our citizens, a British business colleague of his, was wounded in the same attack and died a couple of days later.”

“What do you think, sir?”

“It could be anything, Joe. Personally, I think you ought to take the trip along with the woman. This journalist could have been onto something that may concern us. There are several bodies now. Someone had reason to kill. I’d be very interested in learning what that reason is.”

“You really think it’s necessary?”

“I think so. We can always bill the expenses to the Germans if it ends up in their court.”

“So what do I tell her?”

“Just that we’re probing. That Winter’s death interests us. See Peters about tickets first thing tomorrow morning. I take it the woman won’t have any objection?”

“I doubt it.”

“Good. I’ll make contact with the people in Asunción and send them a copy of her statement, translated, of course. Good night, Joe.”

Volkmann heard the line click and put down the receiver. He sat on the bed, half undressed, before turning off the bedside light. His
mind went over the meeting with Erica Kranz. He wondered about the sighting of Winter in Paraguay and the shooting in Berlin, the murders in Asunción. How did they all connect? Or did they connect? There were no answers, not yet, there couldn’t be, only more questions, a pebble thrown into a pond, eddying in endless circles.

He had left the copy of the woman’s file with his report. He recalled again the paragraph on the last page of her file, the information about her father’s crimes. Though these happened a long time before the woman was born and her father was dead before she had a chance to really know him, he still shivered now in the darkness, remembering that single paragraph.

NORTHEASTERN CHACO, PARAGUAY. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4

The silver-haired man sat in the cane chair on the veranda. Inside the house he heard the two servant boys, Emilio and Lopez, busy with their chores, tidying and sweeping.

The man stared out at the torrential rain. In a while the rain would stop; the dark, pregnant rain clouds over the nearby rain forest would deplete. And in the morning the sun would shine again, and the gardens and the trees would steam as the heat evaporated the rainwater.

“Nature’s cycle,” a tutor had told him once, when as a child he had noticed the phenomenon. Remembering the words, he smiled to himself.

Kruger appeared, and slumped into one of the cane chairs.

The silver-haired man cupped his wrinkled face in his hand and said, “You contacted Franz on the radio?”

Kruger nodded. “Nothing to worry about.”

“You’re absolutely certain, Hans?”

“The journalist was working alone. There’s no question.”

“And the tape?”

Kruger drew on his cigarette, blew out smoke. “Definitely blank. I had Franz have the tape and the equipment thoroughly checked.
The microphone was faulty. Apparently, the only sound that could be picked up was at extremely close range and even then only very faintly. But he recorded nothing.”

“There’s no doubt?”

“None. Franz’s technician is an expert. According to him the equipment was highly sensitive. Handled without care it could be easily damaged. Franz had the equipment disposed of.”

The silver-haired man gave a sigh of relief. He looked out at the jungle, beyond the rain falling in heavy sheets. “And the travel arrangements, are they all in order?”

“The helicopter arrives at nine. In Mexico City, Konrad will take us to Haider’s place.”

The silver-haired man thought a moment and said, “The journalist, I still want his background checked. But discreetly. Tell Franz. And no more hitches. The pilot and the journalist, they will be the last of our problems. What happened at the hotel must not happen again.”

Although the man’s voice was soft, the admonition was clear.

Kruger nodded in reply. There would be no more problems, of that he was certain. Franz’s men had checked every avenue thoroughly.

“That will be all, Hans. Thank you.”

Kruger left, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floorboards.

The silver-haired man remained seated, watched as Kruger crossed the veranda to the house. Alone now, he stared up at the rain forest beyond the sheeting wall of water.

He hesitated, then slowly removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his linen jacket, took out the copy of the photograph. The grainy old photograph of the blond young woman and the dark-haired man.

A moment later the servant boys appeared, Emilio carrying the silver tray, Lopez behind. The silver-haired man smiled over at them fondly, their faces full of adulation.

Then the boys stared at the photograph in the man’s hands, before smiling up at him.

The man patted their heads in turn as the boys came to stand beside him.

As he pointed down at the photograph, the man said in Spanish, “You’d like to hear the story again?”

The boys nodded eagerly, their faces smiling up at the gentle blue eyes.

The silver-haired man carefully replaced the photograph in his wallet and began to speak.

12

ASUNCIÓN. MONDAY, DECEMBER 5

The detective who welcomed Volkmann and Erica Kranz in the arrivals area that Monday morning wore a crumpled white suit that seemed a size too large for his stocky body. His dark eyes looked tired. Introducing himself as Captain Vellares Sanchez, he led them to an unmarked police car and drove toward the center of the city.

A shimmering wave of heat hit them as they stepped from the terminal, hot enough to hurt their lungs. It was summer in Asunción, trees and flowers in bloom, eucalyptus and palm trees lining their route, palm fronds hanging limply in the scorching afternoon air.

Volkmann sat beside Erica in the rear, the windows rolled down but the heat still oppressive. The big detective mopped his face with a handkerchief as he drove. He barely spoke, except to inquire if they had had a pleasant flight.

Asunción was a riot of color and noise, a mixture of old and new: nineteenth-century façades and yellow-bricked adobes and tin-and-wood
shanties existing side by side with modern buildings and apartments. Ancient yellow trolley cars screeched noisily along the main avenues.

The detective’s office was on the third floor of the Comisaría Céntrica, the Central Police Station, on Calle Chile. It was a drab, hot place with peeling gray walls and ancient furniture. An old rusting filing cabinet stood in one corner; an electric fan whirred overhead.

A young recruit brought them strong, aromatic Paraguayan tea. “Yerba mate,” explained Sanchez. “You have been to Paraguay before, Señor Volkmann?”

“Never.”

“The tea is an acquired taste. But as good as beer on a hot day.” Sanchez removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and waited until the young recruit had left before he unlocked a drawer in his desk and produced two files: his own file and the one containing the report the
seguridad
received from Volkmann’s headquarters, translated into Spanish.

Now he smiled briefly at Erica, remembering Hernandez talking about her, appreciating her beauty. Striking. Long legs. Like one of the women you saw on the cover of the glossy, gossipy American magazines. A figure that would bring an instant reaction from men.

He opened the files and looked up at Volkmann. The man could have been a cop, but Sanchez knew he wasn’t. Something more than a cop. The seguridad had telephoned him late the previous day, sent him a copy of the report from Europe, asked him to cooperate, and if he needed a translator.

Sanchez told them he didn’t: he spoke English and this was an opportunity to get some practice. He wondered, not for the first time, why the two had traveled together, wondered what more there was to the deaths of Rodriguez and Hernandez.

A map of Asunción City lay on his desk, a mark in red indelible pen to indicate the area where the bodies were found. He turned the map around so they could see it, indicated the street where the girl’s house stood, and spoke slowly.

“We found the bodies here on the morning of the twenty-sixth, in a house in the district of La Chacarita, near the Paraguay river, a short distance from the main railway station. Rudi’s car we found parked outside the house. The keys of the car we found in the grass outside, as if someone had thrown them there.”

When the detective paused, Volkmann asked, “Who does the house belong to?”

“To the young woman whose body was found with Rudi Hernandez. Her name was Graciella Campos, age seventeen. But her mind, it was the mind of a child, you understand? She had no family alive. She rented the house.”

Erica leaned forward, a look of pain in her blue eyes. “Did this girl know Rudi?”

“Sí. He gave her money. To pay for food and rent and clothes. It was a kindness, you understand. Not a payment for anything else. They were simply friends.”

Erica Kranz’s face was pale, not from the heat, but from hurting inside. She nodded.

Sanchez lowered his voice out of respect. “The girl and Rudi had both been killed with knives. A drunk old man who sometimes sleeps in an alley near the girl’s house found the bodies. The girl usually gave him some hot tea in the mornings. When she didn’t answer his knock, he tried the door. It was open. When he discovered the bodies, he told a local priest, who called the policía.”

Volkmann asked, “How long had they been dead?”

“Not long. Maybe four, five hours.”

Sanchez took several police photographs from the file and handed them to Volkmann. He looked at Erica Kranz. “Forgive me. But I would prefer you did not look at these, señorita. They are not pleasant.”

There were five photographs, taken by forensics, all in vivid, horrific color. Volkmann examined them carefully. Two were of the body of Hernandez, two of the girl, one photograph of both bodies lying close together, faces up. The girl’s brown face looked pitiful in
death. The savagery of her wounds shocked him. The simple white frock she wore was ripped apart above the waist and drenched in blood.

He next studied the photograph of the body of Rudi Hernandez. The man had suffered much the same fate; the torso had been slit from chest to groin, his innards spilling out onto the bloodied floor.

Volkmann grimaced, saw Erica turn away as if to avoid seeing the photographs he handed back to Sanchez, who quickly replaced them in the file. “Señor Sanchez, did the forensic people find anything?” Volkmann asked.

Sanchez looked at him blankly. Erica translated into Spanish,
forense
. Sanchez remembered the word now.

“You speak Spanish very well, señorita.”

“I was born in Buenos Aires,” Erica answered quietly.

Sanchez nodded. Hernandez had not told him that. He looked at Volkmann again.

“The forensic people believe that different knives were used to kill the victims. Both blades were hunting knives. The one used to kill Rudi had a very big blade. Perhaps a bowie knife, they think. But other than that, nothing much. No fingerprints. Some faint footprints, but nothing they think would really help. There were bruises on the arms and faces of both bodies that suggest several people helped in the murders. But whoever they were, they were careful not to leave anything behind. No prints, no real clues. And a knife is not like a bullet. Sometimes it is more difficult to trace such a weapon. My men searched the area around the house and the barrio itself. No discarded knives or bloodied clothes. Nothing.”