The Blood Flag Page 10

  “I’m the guy working with Karl.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I need two things this morning; and if I could impose on you, I need them first thing.”

  “Perfect,” he said as he opened his office door and put down his briefcase. “Love dealing with questionable shit before I can even get a cup of coffee. How do I know it’s questionable, you wonder? People don’t show up at this hour unless they want to do something questionable.”

  “Not questionable, just important,” I said, standing.

  He looked at me with doubt. He went around to the other side of his desk, turned on his computer, and sat down, waiting for it to boot up. “Make it quick.”

  “You know the CI we’re running inside the Southern Volk?”

  He nodded.

  “They’re trying to get an invitation to a worldwide neo-Nazi meeting in Germany.”

  “You told me.”

  I went on. “There’s a guy in Germany who is trying to unify all the leaders of the major Nazi groups from around the world. He has asked the leaders of each group to do something that would impress him and he’ll decide who to invite based on whether he’s impressed or not. Very vague. I have a plan that I think will get our CI to Germany, but his group has thought up a scheme on their own. They’re going to break into a Russian display of World War II materials and steal Hitler’s walking stick, shoes, hat, and uniform.”

  He looked at me frowning. “Where?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “We’ve got to stop them.”

  “No. That’s the whole point. I’ve set it up with the Russians so that we’re going to let them do this. We have to let them think they’ve pulled it off. Otherwise the Georgia police will arrest them all and they won’t be invited to go to Germany. We’ve got to make this happen.”

  “You can’t let them have Hitler’s things. That would be ridiculous.”

  “Exactly. I talked to OTD last night and they’re prepared to build replicas. Phillips said he could do it, and he may be able to do it within time, but he’s gotta get somebody—I was thinking you—to tell him to put it at the top of his priority list. He can’t do that on his own. He said it’s not up to him.”

  He nodded with understanding. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Thanks. The other thing is, this whole thing is going to be a felony. I need to get OIA for our CI.” I was talking about “otherwise illegal activity” status, an authorization for a confidential informant to commit a crime that we know about ahead of time.

  He exhaled audibly and looked down at the floor. He wasn’t happy I was there. “So first thing in the morning you ask me for an OIA? Seriously? What is your boy’s role in this?”

  “Well, I don’t know what he’s actually going to do. Not specifically. I just know he’ll be involved.”

  “You in control of this? Maybe it’s time to reel this guy back in.”

  “We need to close down the Southern Volk. And he’s going to help us, but he can’t yet because all we’ve got so far is talk.”

  “And soon, you’ll have a brazen robbery of some items of infinite value, but they won’t actually steal them because we’re going to replace them with fakes. So it’s actually not much of a robbery. And he’ll be right in the middle of it, so your primary witness will be a co-participant which is, as you know, extremely problematic.”

  “I understand that. But that’s not our long-term goal. Our long-term goal is to get us inside this international meeting, and try to shut down these groups worldwide.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “No. That’s your goal. We don’t give a shit about neo-Nazism in Russia, or Croatia. We deal with American issues. Domestic terrorism. Maybe you’ve forgotten.”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. But this is bigger than just domestic. This is international. They’re all connected. What if those overseas strengthen domestic terrorists? You wouldn’t care? Of course you would. Money and arms are starting to flow. It takes the internal threat to a whole different level. We need to shut it down.”

  He turned away, clearly done with the conversation. “I’ll consider your request for Atlanta, and I’ll talk to the director about the OIA. I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “And there’s one other thing.”

  He looked back at me trying to control his frustration. “What?”

  “The Russian display of Hitler’s bunker is a metal container that is about the same as a train car. The items that are kept in there, as I said, will be switched out. But for the robbery, they’re going to have to break into that container. My guess is they’re going to do some damage. The Russians wanted to know who was going to pay to repair the damage. I told them that we would pay.”

  “What in the hell is wrong with you? Now we’re an insurance company? How much?”

  “No numbers were discussed.”

  He threw out his hands. “Perfect. No matter how much it costs, we’ll fix it. That was how you left it?”

  “I don’t expect these guys to burn the place down. They’re just going to have to cut into it or break into it somehow. So we’ll have to repair whatever they use to get in there.”

  “Simple as that?” You don’t have any idea do you?”

  “No, but it’s not like it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would expect it’d be ten thousand dollars or less. But I don’t know.”

  His voice was now rising and full of sarcasm. “Let’s recap. You’re going to allow this robbery to occur, your CI will be committing felonies, you’re going to let them cut into a Russian display which you said is the equivalent of an armored train car, you’re going to fund the immediate and emergency construction of Hitler’s shoes and whatever the hell else, repair the train car, and we’re paying for all of it. That about sum it up?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “And what if I say no?”

  “If you say no, I think the display will go on, and the Russians will make sure that there are enough Georgia and Atlanta police there that nothing happens. All the Southern Volk who are trying to commit the robbery will be stopped and arrested, and they will be put in jail, and that will be the end of our relationship with our CI inside the Southern Volk. It will be the loss of the only chance we have to get them to Germany to this meeting, and I’ll go back to working my usual job and I’ll find some other way to do damage to neo-Nazism.”

  He responded harshly, “Reminding me of course, again, that this is just really your personal vendetta.”

  “No,” I said forcefully. “This is domestic terrorism. And if we don’t stop this through the Southern Volk, we won’t know which other U.S. group has found favor and financing. It is not a vendetta.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not promising anything.”

  The conversation was over. It could not have been more clear from the chill he sent across the room. I left his office and headed back to my cubicle.

  * * *

  It wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. yet. I grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on my computer. The first email that came up was from Florian. He and Patrick were on their way. I did further research on al-Hadi, and looked at some additional CIA background information on him that I hadn’t looked at in a while. All the message traffic indicated that no one could figure out why he was in Europe. He’d been there before, but not this broadly and not this extensively. I reviewed his most recent trip, from Tunis to Madrid to Marseilles to Frankfurt to Zurich, then to Geneva, and finally to Amman. He had never been to two-thirds of those cities before, and no one knew who he’d met with. European intelligence was too concerned about being seen to actually follow him. So the itinerary was based on passport scans and videos from airline and train terminals. The stop in Switzerland was of particular interest. He had stopped at a bank, but the bank wasn’t talking.

  I decided to pull out everyth
ing I knew about him from all of my old files and read it all again. I had to look for patterns, small pieces that might fit together. I stacked them up on the left of my desk and started reading, while wondering whether Murphy would give me the authorization I needed for Atlanta.

  Shortly after lunch, I got a text from Florian. They had landed at Dulles and were on their way into the city. I alerted security and set up a conference room. I called over to Karl to see if he wanted to meet with them, but he said he was too busy.

  Florian and Patrick arrived at 1:00 p.m. I waited for them to pass through security then escorted them upstairs. They were in good spirits and seemed excited to be in Washington. We went to the second floor where I’d reserved a conference room that was far too large for our needs, but comfortable. It was our “boardroom,” our showy conference room where we would have meetings with dignitaries or whoever was injecting himself into the FBI’s work at that moment. The wood paneling looked like it had been recently oiled or refreshed. The granite table and the leather chairs looked equally new.

  Patrick carried a briefcase the size of a roll-aboard suitcase. I placed my notebook at the end of the table and pulled out the chair.

  Florian asked, “Is it okay if I smoke?”

  “No, definitely not okay. No smoking in this building at all.”

  Florian smiled. “I’m glad I asked. I’ll take a break in a little while.”

  Patrick lifted his massive bag onto the table and began pulling out notebooks and papers. The briefcase was black and battered and looked as old as the copied documents coming out of it. The papers were copies of old Nazi documents that had been typed, not printed. Eagles sat on winged swastika crests on virtually every page. Patrick began arranging the documents and notebooks.

  Patrick began. “So,” his s was more like a z. “Here we have the best documents I have been able to find so far. They will help us find this flag, I think. Many of these documents we got back from the Russians only recently. As you know, the Russians took Berlin in 1945. As conquerors do, they took it upon themselves to capture all of the German documents they could get their hands on. Probably to identify people to hang. But we have recently gotten many of them, or copies, back. It is a very good thing for us, because I think it gives us a hint on where we should go.”

  I stood up then walked over to Patrick to look over his shoulder. He was excited and focused. Florian had his glasses off and was examining a particular document very closely. Patrick went over them all again carefully and then divided them into two piles. He nodded, as if he was finally ready. “Ok, I’m a little tired. I’ve been doing this round the clock for a few days now. But I think we have identified the two most likely possibilities for the current location of the flag. First, let me show you this.”

  I looked at it carefully, but it made no sense to me.

  “It goes with a couple of other things,” which he looked for and then found. He handed them to me as well. “These are the documents that talk about die Blutfahne during the time of the Third Reich. Early on, well before the war was started with Poland, Hitler had already identified the flag as special. It was displayed at rallies and marches. And he decided, hold on,” as he looked for another document and found it, “to name an individual as the person who would be responsible for the flag. Who would carry it in public and keep it safe otherwise. He wanted one person to be in charge of the Blood Flag. That person is well known. We talked about him in Germany. Otto Hessler.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is the document that gave Hessler his commission as the one to tend to die Blutfahne. Full responsibility for it until it is revoked. See this here? This is the German word for ‘until revoked.’ And look at the signature.”

  “Adolf Hitler.”

  “Yes, exactly. His signature was very simplistic and readable. And it is authentic.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “All these documents have been authenticated. And it was Hessler’s job right up until the end of the war. We are sure.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He survived the war, and lived in Germany after. But, as far as we can tell, he was never asked about the flag. Quite remarkable, given the importance of the flag. In any case, he died in 1951. We found his grandson, though. He claimed to know nothing of the flag. He was of no help.”

  Florian said, “It’s a little bit strange that his family claims to know nothing about it. This was something they were very proud of during the war. It was considered a job of highest honor. So we don’t believe the grandson, which makes us look even harder at the family. We think the family does know, and the fact that they did not say long ago that the flag had been destroyed makes us believe even more that the flag does still exist and they know what happened to it. But they are clearly not telling us, so we have continued our research.”

  Patrick pulled some documents out of the middle pile, “Next is the possibility we consider the least likely. But it is a possibility. As we said, the Russians were the ones who took Berlin. The Americans could have, but you Americans think differently,” he added nodding, looking at me to see if I approved. “The Americans knew the Nazis would fight vigorously to defend Berlin and the Führer. The Americans knew that Berlin would fall, but why expend the lives of tens of thousands of Americans to make that happen? Let the Russians do the dying.”

  I agreed. “That was the theory, at least in part. It might be argued that it resulted in millions of Germans in East Germany living under communism for almost fifty years.”

  Patrick nodded, “But again, it saved American lives.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Well the Russians grabbed everything in sight and took it back to Russia. We have found traces within the Russian archives that they took many Nazi flags back to Russia as souvenirs. It could be that the Blutfahne is among those flags. The Russians may not have identified that flag specifically. It may be in a Russian general’s house, or Stalin’s house. It’s hard to say.”

  I thought for a minute, and then said, “I think I know the guy who would have just the answer to that. There is a Russian museum tour in the United States right now called World War II through Russian Eyes, and they have a lot of Hitler’s materials. I’ll tell you more about that later. But the Russian in charge of that seems to know a lot about what the Russians ended up with. Maybe we should ask him.”

  “Yes, but as we said, we think that is the least likely location. And I wonder if they would tell us if we did ask them. If they know the true nature of the flag, I doubt it.”

  Florian spoke, “The last time it was seen in public was at the Induction Ceremony of the Volkssturm on October 18th, 1944. The creation of the folks’ militia—really a draft of every man still standing, from sixteen to sixty. It was called the People’s Army. But it never amounted to much.

  Not enough weapons or training, and it reported to the Nazi party, not the Wehrmacht. Anyway, the induction ceremony was the last time the flag was ever seen.”

  “So one thing we wanted to check was where Hessler lived. We knew where he lived in Munich, near the Braunes Haus. But in 1945 he moved to Berlin, probably because Hitler wanted the flag near him as the noose closed around Berlin. He thought it had magical powers. So I looked on the street where Hessler lived in Berlin, and found something. Three senior members of the Nazi party. One lived right next door. Hessler’s house, in fact, was a large one. Large even for the SS colonel that he was.”

  Florian continued, “So in the spring of 1945 the American Army is advancing from the West, the Russian Army is advancing from the East, they all knew that the end was near.”

  Patrick couldn’t help himself. He interrupted, “It is our belief that Hitler told him to secure the flag so it could come back to life after the defeat and occupation of Germany.”

  “But how would they do that?”

  “That’s the question. How do you hide the flag
so the Russians don’t get it? How do you hide it so that nobody finds it? We think this is the most likely thing.”

  “What?”

  “We think Hitler authorized one of these Nazi leaders to flee with the flag. He gave him documents for safe passage to leave the country. Anyone else trying to flee might be shot. But not with the right documents. We think he went north and took one of the ships out of Germany.”

  “Who?”

  “We think one of the three people from Hessler’s street in Berlin. One of them faked his own death and burned his own house down. We believe he found a body somewhere in Berlin—which wouldn’t have been hard—put it in his house, and burned the house down while he fled.”

  “Can you trace these three?”

  “Ah. Interestingly, they all fled to the same place. We think they all got papers to go. For whatever reason. ”

  I looked at Florian who was smiling slightly. They clearly thought this was the answer. “Where?”

  “Argentina.”

  “Why there?”

  “There has been a large German presence in Argentina for decades. All the way back to World War I. There are places in Argentina, even some villages, where they don’t even speak Spanish, just German. Many people have family and friends there, and if you’re German and you need to disappear, it’s a good place to go. And as we now know, some of the most notorious Nazis fled there. Like Dr. Mengele, and others. It is well known that there are still some Nazis there.”

  “And that’s where you think the Blood Flag is?”

  “We don’t think the Russians would have been able to keep quiet that they had captured the Blood Flag. And if they said they had it now, we don’t think we would believe them. We think it left the country before Berlin fell. And it has been waiting for an opportunity just like this. The question, though, is who has it, and where are they?”