The Blood Flag (22 page)

“You know
of
me. You know Karl. And he doesn't tell you his sources, but he tells you about me, and what the Southern Volk is up to: that we have the flag, that we got it in Argentina, and that we're coming over here to show it to Eidhalt. And we're going to get it authenticated.”

Patrick understood, but he had another question, “I understand all this, but what is the point of all this? Why do we care about him?”

“Because he may give that final bit of authenticity to Eidhalt we need for Eidhalt to take the bait.”

Patrick nodded, understanding. “So if we get Jedediah into this meeting, then what?”

I said, “We take advantage of the German laws against Nazism and arrest them all. Put them in prison for the maximum punishment available.”

Florian interjected, “Yes, we could do that, but that assumes they'll display Nazi—”

“They'll have to show the Blood Flag. That's good enough, right?”

He nodded, “Yes, but it's not a huge crime. After minimal jail time they'll be out doing it again, calling themselves something else.”

“That's it?” I pondered that for a moment. “Well then I don't know.” I sat back. “Shit. That's it? A few months of jail time?”

“What would you have us do? Execute them? We don't even lock away mass murderers for life.”

“So that's all we have? A few months of jail time?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“That's not how this is going to end. I'm telling you that right now,” I said.

I woke up the next morning before dawn to someone banging on my door with his fist. I picked up my Glock, kept the lights out, and went to the door. I peered through the peephole but couldn't see anything. I checked my watch. It was five thirty in the morning. “Who is it?”

“It's me.”

“Jedediah?”

“Yeah.”

“Step to the middle of the door so I can see you.” He put his face in front of the peephole so I could see him. He looked peeved. I undid the chain and opened the door. I had told him to come right away, but hadn't expected him to fly overnight.

“Any trouble getting the flag into Germany?”

“Nope. They didn't even look at it.”

“Good.”

“Not an issue. But if I'd worn a T-shirt I'd still be there.”

“How are you supposed to contact Eidhalt?”

“A one-time-only number to use when I arrive in Germany. I got a prepaid cell at the airport.”

I told him to get some rest. He agreed and went to his room. I went downstairs to meet Alex.

Alex got on the wireless in the lobby on her computer and checked my identity on the Internet to see whether anyone had been looking at the pages she'd set up. They had. But the story looked seamless to me. Very well done. She looked up and saw Jedediah. “Over here.”

He came to where we were then pointed to the bar. We followed him in as he ordered a beer, never asking us if we wanted anything.

I said, “We're going to the graveyard. I want you to call Eidhalt while we're standing there looking at the grave. He will almost certainly come directly to meet us.”

He nodded, understanding. “How long before we leave?”

I checked my watch. “Three hours.”

“I'm going to get some shuteye. Meet in the lobby?”

It was barely light when we walked into the graveyard. We took Jedediah to Friedl's grave. He looked at the stone. “I thought you said it was unmarked.”

“That's what we thought. That's what the BKA thought. But here it is, the whole damned family.”

“I'm surprised people haven't made it into a shrine.”

“Probably not too many people even know it's here.”

I looked around to make sure we were alone and said, “So this is it. The Reveal, as the magician's call it. Call Eidhalt. Tell him you have the
Blutfahne
. Tell him I'm with you. We'll see what he says, but tell him where you got it, and that you're sure it's real, but you figure he'll want to get it authenticated.”

He paused, looked at me, looked at the grave, looked at Alex, and dialed the phone. He had it on speakerphone, even though he held it up to his ear. A voice answered, “
Ja
?”

Jedediah looked at me and then answered, “Southern Volk.”

“Ah. The American. I was wondering when I would hear from you. What do you have?”

Jedediah paused, “
Die Blutfahne
.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. “This is not possible.”

“I'm holding it.”

“Where are you?”

“In Munich.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I knew if I brought this flag, you'd think it was a fake, just like the Russians faked out my predecessor in Atlanta.”

“I saw that. But a failure.”

“Yes. He is gone.”

“What happened to him?”

“He has disappeared. No one knows.”

“Yes. So what do you have in mind?”

“I want you to know that this is the real flag. I want to prove it to you.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“DNA.”

“Get blood off the flag. And compare it to what?”

“The blood of the man who fell on the flag and died. Friedl.”

“He's been dead for ninety years.”

“We can get DNA from his skull.”

“No one knows where he's buried. It's unmarked.”

“No it's not. It's clearly marked.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I'm standing in front of his grave. He's buried with his parents and his sister.”

“That is not possible.”

“I'll send you a picture of the stone.”

“No. This number can only be used once. Where are you?”

I held out a piece of paper that had the name of the graveyard. He read it as best he could.

“Yes, I know that place. The old section or the new?”

“The new.”

“I'll be right there.”

“No. I don't know you yet. I'll meet you, but you can only bring one other person. No weapons. I'll have the Blood Flag nearby, but if anything goes wrong, you'll never see it. If all goes well, I'll show you the flag. Then I'll show you the grave.”

“I will be there at 10:00 p.m. Meet me at the entrance on the east side.”

“No. Come in that entrance, and keep walking. If you go about three hundred yards, there is another path. I'll meet you where those paths come together. I have someone with me too. I want you to meet him.”

“Who is it?”

“You'll see.” He hung up the phone.

I looked over at Florian and Patrick who were showing their technical people where to put the hidden microphones. I said to Florian, “He's on his way. We need someone at every entrance.”

I looked around the graveyard. “And we've got to find a place to hide the flag, not too far from here. We'll need to set up Alex so she can give us a signal. We can't be wired. We've got to be clean.”

Jedediah said, “What happens when they get here?”

“We show them the headstone, we tell them the plan to dig up the skull, then we show them the flag.”

Florian had his men in place by eight o'clock, and Alex was in her place by eight fifteen. Jedediah and I walked through the still graveyard. It was cool with no breeze. After the clock in the city center struck ten, Jedediah and I moved to the intersection of the two paths. Alex was on the radio with Florian and watched as Eidhalt and one other man walked into the cemetery. We could see their silhouettes maybe two hundred yards away at the entrance. They were looking around. They couldn't see us.

They walked cautiously down the path, pausing every twenty feet or so to listen. As Eidhalt approached, almost to within speaking distance, I saw three faint flashes of light from Alex's flashlight over his shoulder. They were alone.

They stopped. Eidhalt examined Jedediah, and said, “
Guten Abend
.” Jedediah and I both responded in English. “Evening.”

He asked in faintly accented English, “Which of you is Jedediah Thom?”

“I am.”

“My colleague is going to check, to make sure you are not carrying weapons.”

Jedediah said, “Not until I check him. When he gets over here, I'll check him and then he can check me. Then he can check my friend, and then I'll check you.”

Eidhalt hesitated then said, “Fine.”

The man approached Jedediah and stood there with his arms out. Jedediah frisked him, and then placed his own arms out for the same treatment. When the man felt Jedediah's massive shoulders underneath his dark high-neck sweater, he looked at Jedediah's face in surprise. Jedediah looked back at him in the darkness, conveying that unspoken message that he could crush him like a cockroach if he chose to. The man frisked me, then Eidhalt came over to where we were and Jedediah frisked him.

Eidhalt asked, “Do you have anybody else around? Anyone else in the cemetery?”

“No,” I replied.

He looked at me, “And who are you?”

Jedediah replied, “He is the money behind the Southern Volk.”

“What is your name?”

“Jack Bradley.”

Eidhalt looked at Jedediah. “How do I know that he's not really someone other than who you say?”

Jedediah said, “Check him out yourself. I don't know anything about you either.”

“Yes you do.”

He looked around, overhead, and then back at Jedediah. He couldn't see the microphones that had been planted at the gravesite by Florian's men. He said to Jedediah, “Where is
die Blutfahne
?”

Jedediah didn't even flinch. “Nearby.”

“I want to see it.”

“In due time. First, let's talk about what we're going to do after you've seen it. If we're in agreement, I'll show it.”

“If it is what you say it is, it will be at the very center of what we're doing.” You could hear the enthusiasm in his voice. “It will be the rallying cry to restore the Aryan race to its rightful place, to rid Western Europe and North America of the scourge of Jews and mongrel Arab immigrants, to awaken our sedated cultures from the drug of multiculturalism, to stop the corrosion of society, to restore pride and duty and the inevitable supremacy of the white race.”

He looked directly at me and crossed over from where he was standing. “You agree?”

I nodded and stared back at him. “I agree. You have the Turks; we have everybody else, Mexicans, Arabs, Jews, running everything, and a society addicted to every bad thing you can imagine. It's exactly like what Hitler saw in Vienna.”

His eyebrows went up. “Ah. You know about Vienna.”

“It's what he saw. It's what made him react like he did. It's what made him write
Mein Kampf
.”

He stared at me without speaking. Finally, he said, “You have read this?”

“Of course.”

“Really? When did he write it?”

“When he was in prison, after the beer hall
putsch
.”

“And how did he write it?”

“Mostly dictated it to Hess.”

“Excellent. But I still don't know you.” He studied me. “I have been aware of Mr. Thom for a long time, but not you.”

“When you invited him, you invited me. He is the face of the organization. I'm behind the scenes. The one with the money, giving orders and direction. If he's going to come here and commit the Southern Volk to anything, then I'll be there.”

Eidhalt was troubled. “He never mentioned this before.”

“I hadn't authorized him to. There's no need for me to be known publicly. I only show myself when it's absolutely necessary. And if you think you're going to be telling the Southern Volk what to do, even indirectly, then you'll have to deal with me.”

He drew closer. I could smell his breath. He said almost in a whisper in his German accent, “But we investigated the Southern Volk. I've been investigating them for months. Your name has never been mentioned.”

“That is how I like it. Your name was not known until recently. You and I, we know when it is time to take the stage. I will never be on the stage, just in the background. And you think Mr. Thom,” I said looking at Jedediah, “you think he could have come up with the idea of
die Blutfahne
on his own and then found it in Argentina?”

“That is why I expect that it's a fake.”

“It's not a fake. I went with him to Argentina.”

“And what is the name of the man who had the
Blutfahne
in Argentina?”

“Schullman. He lived in a basement apartment in Buenos Aires. He tried to give us a fake, but we fire bombed his apartment with all of us in it expecting that he would not let the true flag go up in flames. When the fire started, he went to a hidden drawer in his bookcase and extracted the real flag.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. He escaped the fire, but everything in his apartment was destroyed.”

“But you got the flag?”

“Yes. And it's within a hundred meters of us now.”

“Where?”

“Nearby here. If we go forward, we will show it to you.”

He stepped back, looked around the cemetery, and put his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket. He looked at the gravestone, and then back at us. “How did you learn that Herr Schullman might have the flag?”

“You Germans are very good record keepers. I found the names of everyone who lived on Hessler's street in the fall of 1944 and spring of 1945. It was last seen in October of 1944, of course, but where did it go? My theory was one of the Nazis who knew Hessler took it out of the country to preserve it. Turned out I was right. We traced him to Argentina. We weren't sure he had it, but we had it narrowed down to two or three names. He was the second one we visited.”

“Let's see it.”

I couldn't tell if he believed what I was saying or if he was going to simply reserve judgment. It didn't matter. “First let's make sure we understand each other. If it is the true Blood Flag, this will be what brings the Southern Volk to your meeting. Yes?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“And we will get it authenticated by DNA.”

“Yes, but how?”

“You will see. If it goes as planned, are we in agreement?”

“Yes.”

“Jedediah, show him where it is.”

Jedediah turned without saying anything, and walked down the path. Jedediah turned off the path and walked on the grass over to an elaborate gravesite that was surrounded by an iron fence that was six feet high and had intricate scrolls and ornamentation. It had a gothic feel to it and stood by itself, with no other gravesite closer than fifteen feet from the fence. Jedediah swung open the gate and stepped inside. I did likewise and Eidhalt and his man followed. I looked to see if there was a visible microphone, but saw nothing. No signs of any disturbance. Jedediah asked, “See anybody else?”

We all shook our heads. Jedediah hesitated then looked up toward the top of the elaborate stone structure, over the grave of Franz von Lossow. The enclosure was large enough to be a family burial site, but it was only for one man. Lived from 1895 to 1917. Died in The Great War. While some of the gravestones had some religious indication, a cross or inscription or an occasional angel, von Lossow's had none. The three of us watched as Jedediah walked under the lichgate and climbed up onto the first level of the altar tomb. He reached up into the black night as high as he could and pulled the worn suitcase off the top of the marble structure. He held it in his right hand and stepped down.