Brandenburg (13 page)

Volkmann cleared away his desk, went down to the parking lot, and drove to his apartment. It was a modest place by Strasbourg’s standards, a compact two-bedroom apartment in one of the old houses along the Quai Ernest, overlooking a small, paved courtyard.

It was after ten when Koller from the German Section appeared with the file, looking irritated. “Do you mind telling me why you want the woman’s file?”

“Nothing special. Just routine.”

Koller inquired no further. “Just make sure that the copy I’ve given you is returned.”

When Koller left, Volkmann ran a hot bath and poured himself a large scotch. Afterward, he lay on the bed and read Erica Kranz’s file.

It made interesting reading.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of German-born parents, Erica Kranz had one older sister, married to a Frenchman and living in Rennes. Her father died in South America when she was three, and the girls had returned to Germany with their mother in the same year.

A graduate of Heidelberg University, majoring in journalism, she had dabbled at the university with the Greens and other ecological-political organizations, but she had no known political affiliations or activities at present. Single. No known vices, no convictions. She worked as a freelance journalist and had frequent assignments from the popular German women’s magazines.

All very straightforward, Volkmann thought. But then came a paragraph about her father that sent chills through his soul.

Manfred Kranz had been a young major in the Leibstandarte SS
division during the last war. He had once been wanted in connection with war crimes committed in France and Russia. Twenty male inhabitants of a small village in southeastern France called Ronchamp had been publicly executed during the German retreat. Manfred Kranz was the unit commander responsible. And in Russia, he had been implicated in the execution of two hundred prisoners of war during the German assault on Kiev. He was never brought to trial, the Argentine authorities refusing to cooperate in his extradition.

Letting it all sink in, Volkmann crossed to the bedroom window.

It had stopped raining, and the clouds had long disappeared and darkness fallen. He could see the lights of Germany burning into the winter’s night beyond the Rhine. He never took the trip across the border unless he had to. Ferguson knew he disliked dealing with the Germans. With few exceptions, he had avoided social contact with them even when he had worked in Berlin, that least German of cities.

He set the travel clock for seven, undressed, turned off the light, and lay in the bed. The paragraph about Manfred Kranz disturbed him, and he tossed restlessly for some time before he finally fell asleep. He dreamed about his father.

11

FRANKFURT, GERMANY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2

Volkmann found the apartment block with no difficulty, tucked away behind the Eiserner Steg on the south side of the river. The woman was waiting for him in the open doorway when he came out of the elevator.

She was tall and full-figured, with dusky skin and pale blue eyes. Her long legs were clad in tight blue jeans tucked into high leather boots, and she wore a loose black sweater. Her blond hair was tied up, emphasizing her high cheekbones. She wore little makeup and her face looked tense. Volkmann introduced himself and showed her his identification before they went inside.

In the background, he heard a Schubert string quartet playing softly on a mini sound system by the window.

“I was just going to make some coffee. Would you like some, Herr Volkmann?”

“A coffee would be fine.”

“Take a seat, make yourself comfortable.”

Volkmann watched her as she went into the kitchen. Her file said she was in her thirties. She would have passed for a female executive with one of the Frankfurt commercial banks.

The apartment was spotless and furnished in a modern style, large and airy, filled with potted plants and packed bookshelves and pale leather furniture.

When she returned with two cups of coffee, she sat opposite Volkmann on a white leather couch, her legs crossed. Her face appeared pale and drawn, and now that Volkmann looked closely, he saw that the blue eyes were red-ringed from crying.

“Perhaps you had better tell me what you told Pauli Graf.”

“Are you German, Herr Volkmann?”

“British. Your people in the German Section of DSE weren’t particularly interested in your case. Pauli Graf has been posted back to Berlin, and he passed you on to us unofficially.” He smiled. “If it matters, I can ask your people again.”

She shook her head. “No. I was just making an observation. Your accent, it’s a little different, that’s all.” She brushed a strand of blond hair from her face and briefly looked toward the window. “Until last week, I was in Asunción in Paraguay on a week’s holiday. I stayed with my cousin, Rudi Hernandez.” She bit her lip. “I sensed that he was troubled by something during my stay. When I asked Rudi what
it was, he told me he was working on a story. Something the newspaper he works for as a journalist knew nothing about.”

When she hesitated, Volkmann asked, “What kind of story?”

“A pilot he knew in Asunción, a man named Rodriguez, told Rudi that certain people were smuggling cargoes out of South America into Europe. Just before I arrived in Paraguay, this pilot, Rodriguez, telephoned Rudi and asked him to meet. He told Rudi he had a favor to ask. He wanted Rudi to write a story, a newspaper article, but not to publish it, to hold it somewhere safe, with a lawyer perhaps. If Rodriguez was killed, Rudi was to print the story.”

The woman hesitated again. “You see, Rodriguez once worked for these people who did the smuggling. They hired him and his aircraft to transport a number of cargoes. His business was smuggling. But now he was certain the men who had hired him wanted to kill him.”

“Do you know what these cargoes were?”

She shook her head. “Rodriguez thought they were narcotics, but he wasn’t sure. All he could say was that there had been several consignments, all delivered to Montevideo in Uruguay over a period of almost a year. The consignments were packed in sealed boxes. Rodriguez said he had been very well paid by these men. He also gave Rudi the name of the man who had hired him to do the work, Nicolas Tsarkin.”

Volkmann gave her a questioning look.

“Rudi knew very little about him. Said he was a businessman, a German immigrant, no criminal connections that he could find.”

Volkmann nodded. “Go on, please.”

“Two days after Rodriguez delivered the last consignment, he noticed that he was being watched. That’s when he became afraid and contacted Rudi. He told him he thought he had become involved in something over his head, something very big, and that these men meant to kill him. So Rudi agreed to go along with Rodriguez’s request. I think he thought he might be onto a good story. But three days later, Rodriguez’s body was found in a street in Asunción. He had been killed by a hit-and-run car. There were no witnesses.
Rudi was certain that Rodriguez was murdered by the people he worked for.”

“What made him so certain?”

“The way Rodriguez died. And Rodriguez had told Rudi the men he worked for were very secretive. Their secrecy was almost obsessive. Rudi said they killed Rodriguez because they wanted no one to know what they were doing.”

Volkmann put down his cup. “Did Hernandez inform the Asunción police about all of this?”

“No. He wanted solid evidence first. He wanted the names of the people involved, and he wanted to be sure what the cargoes contained. That what these people were doing was definitely illegal.”

“I really don’t see how this matter concerns DSE. You’ve got no solid proof.”

“No, but Pauli Graf told me that DSE concerned itself with many areas . . .”

Volkmann shrugged. “Yes, but South America isn’t exactly our territory.”

“Then there’s something else that might interest you.”

“Tell me.”

“Before I left Asunción, Rudi had asked me to check on something for him. He needed some information. Four days ago, I telephoned Rudi’s apartment to tell him of my progress. There was no reply. So I telephoned his office. A reporter at the newspaper, he told me . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off, her head bowed. Volkmann could hear the Schubert quartet, muted, barely audible, the music filling the silence.

“Told you what?”

“He told me Rudi was dead. The police found his body in a house in Asunción. The house of a young girl. They’d both been murdered.”

Erica Kranz took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater, wiped her eyes.

Volkmann asked, “How do these murders concern DSE?”

She looked at him steadily. “Before Rodriguez was killed, he took
Rudi to Tsarkin’s house, a big estate on the outskirts of Asunción. They watched this house. Rudi wanted some photographs for the story. He had a telephoto lens fitted to the camera. Two men walked out into the grounds of the property. Rodriguez pointed out Tsarkin. But what interested Rudi was not Tsarkin, but the second man with him. You see, Rudi recognized him, had seen him before. In Europe, not in South America.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Rudi met the man ten years before at a party at Heidelberg University, where I was a student. His name was Dieter Winter.”

“Go on.”

“Rudi stayed with my family at the time, and I had brought him along to the party. Dieter Winter had a heated argument with Rudi that almost came to blows. Rudi remembered him vividly. He said it was the first time he had ever wanted to hit someone. He showed me one of the photographs he took of the two men in the grounds of the Asunción house. An old man and a younger man strolling together. The old man was Tsarkin, Rudi told me. The younger man looked like Dieter Winter. I remembered him from campus. Rudi asked me to check up on him when I returned home, just to be certain.

“When I returned to Frankfurt, I discovered that Winter’s body was found in a Berlin alleyway a week ago by the police. He’d been shot to death.”

She reached across for a large buff envelope that lay on the coffee table, removed a newspaper clipping, and handed it to Volkmann. It was no more than a couple of paragraphs and described the discovery of a man’s body in an alleyway near the Zoo U-Bahn in Berlin. The victim was shot five times at close range. No witnesses, and the man’s identity was given as Dieter Winter. The police were requesting anyone with information to come forward.

“This man, Winter, what was so strange about his being in Paraguay?”

Erica Kranz shrugged. “It just seemed weird to Rudi that Winter should be there, so far from Germany. And the fact that
he might have been involved with these smugglers who killed Rodriguez.”

“Have you mentioned this matter to anyone else?”

“Only to Pauli Graf.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I had the feeling that Pauli seemed to think it a matter for your people. And besides, the Bundespolizei are really only interested in what happens on German territory. But your people, Pauli told me, don’t work only in Europe.”

Volkmann put down his coffee. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

She looked at him intently. “I’d like to know why Rudi died and who killed him. I’m traveling to Paraguay again early next week. Rudi would have wanted someone to follow up his story. I’m a journalist; that’s my profession. But my interest is also personal.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“You have contacts in the police of other countries. Perhaps you could give me a letter of introduction, suggest someone I could talk with in Paraguay. Or even advise me.”

“I advise you to leave it to the Paraguayan police. Use the proper channels and leave Pauli Graf out of it.” Volkmann looked at her directly. “Tell the German police what you told me. They’ll pass it on to their own people in DSE if they think it’s important enough.”

There was a hint of impatience in Erica Kranz’s reply. “That’s what Pauli Graf told me. But that takes time, and I’m leaving for Asunción the day after tomorrow.” She looked at Volkmann steadily. “So I’d appreciate any help you could give me. It would make things easier. Besides, as I said, the German police don’t normally concern themselves with a crime that happens on the other side of the world. But your people . . . your interests are wider. Unless I got it wrong?”

The Schubert rose and fell faintly in the background as she continued to look at him expectantly. Suddenly she looked very young, and Volkmann saw the pain in her eyes. On the other hand, he had little appetite to get tangled up in the German desk’s problems.

“To be honest, I’m not sure this is DSE’s territory.”

“I understand. But thank you for listening.”

Volkmann stood. “When does your flight to Asunción leave?”

“Sunday next. From Frankfurt. I’ve taken some time off work. I feel I owe it to Rudi to help investigate his death.”

“I’ll check with my people. I can’t promise, but if there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll telephone before you leave.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Good afternoon, Frau Kranz.”

•   •   •

Erica watched as Volkmann crossed the corridor to the elevator. She closed the door after her and went to stand by the window. The Rhine barges were having a bad day of it, the sturdy vessels tossing about in the gray swells. She saw Volkmann cross the street below and walk toward a parked car, his raincoat flapping about his legs.