Brandenburg (18 page)

Sanchez did the introductions, explaining only that his two friends were interested in Rodriguez’s death. He offered Santander a cigarette, lit it.

“I want you to tell my friends here what you told me. Slowly. So they can understand you. Comprende?”

“Sí.” Santander scratched his jaw. “From where do I begin?”

“From when Rodriguez asked you to help him.”

Santander drew on his cigarette nervously and glanced from Volkmann to Erica. “One month ago, Rodriguez come to me. He say he need to hire plane from friend of mine. His own plane is old, and he need part for an engine generator. So until he get part, he need to hire other plane.”

Santander glanced at Sanchez, then back at Erica and Volkmann, as if making sure he was understood. “The work Rodriguez does, sometimes it can be dangerous. For my friend who owns the plane, I need to know it’s going to be okay, that there are no problems. No big risk. Because if Rodriguez have trouble, my friend, his aircraft, maybe it is taken by the policía. So I need to know what kind of work Rodriguez is doing before he can hire the plane.”

Santander looked at the faces around him and shrugged. “He tell me some people use him to fly cargo across the border. To Montevideo. Already he has done many trips. These people, always they want Rodriguez to work alone. And always he must fly at night.”

Santander wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Each trip
is always the same. Rodriguez, he fly plane to quiet place up north in the Chaco. There is no runway, just field. A field in the jungle with lights. He land there, and men are waiting. They put boxes on plane. Boxes made of wood and steel. He fly these boxes to Uruguay, near Montevideo. He fly low, at night, so the radar don’t see him. In a field near Montevideo, it is the same. No runway, just field with lights. When he land, men are waiting to take boxes off plane. Rodriguez do this every two months in one year.” Santander shook his head. “And no problems. Never any problems.”

Santander paused, scratched his stubble nervously. “I trust Rodriguez. To me, he never tell lies. He say to me your friend’s plane will be safe. He said he only had to do one last trip. A special cargo. Just one small box. Then he is finished working for these people.”

Santander paused again, looked up at Volkmann. “Rodriguez, he’s good pilot. So I say, okay, you got the plane. But then he phone and tell me he don’t need it. He get the part for his generator.”

Santander sat back, looked at Sanchez. “That’s all I know. Rodriguez was a friend. Me, I would have no reason to kill him. I never kill person in my life.” He glanced at Erica, then Volkmann, a plaintive look on his face. “This you must believe.”

Sanchez said to Volkmann, “Do you have any questions for Señor Santander?”

“When was the last time you saw Rodriguez?”

The smuggler’s dark, Indian eyes flicked up nervously at Volkmann. “One month ago. When he ask me about hiring the plane.”

“Not afterward?”

“No, I swear. Two days later he phone to tell me he don’t need the plane. I don’t see or speak to him again.”

“The name Rudi Hernandez. Did you ever hear Rodriguez mention that name?”

Santander thought for a moment, shook his head. “No, señor.”

“Rudi Hernandez. You’re certain?”

“Certain. I never hear him say that name.”

“Did Rodriguez mention the names of those who hired him?”

Santander shook his head. “No names. Rodriguez never tell names. In such business, sometimes people you work for, they don’t give you names. It is better that way, you understand?”

“The places Rodriguez picked up and dropped off the boxes. You know where they are?”

“Rodriguez did not say exactly. Only that they were quiet places with no towns, no villages. The place in the Chaco where he picked up the boxes, he did not say. When I ask Rodriguez, all he would say is that it is one of the old German
colonias
up north, señor.”

“Did Rodriguez describe any of the men, or how many there were?”

Santander thought for a moment. “No. He say only that they work quickly. In ten, maybe fifteen minutes all the boxes are loaded. The same in Montevideo.” Santander thought for another moment. “But I think Rodriguez say that in the colonia, there was an old guy in charge.”

“A German?”

Santander shrugged. “I guess.”

“Did Rodriguez know what the cargo was?”

Santander scratched his stubble again. “He did not tell me. I don’t think he know. But the boxes are heavy, I think. Except the last one.”

“Why do you think they were heavy?”

“Rodriguez say he need a lot of runway. A long field. To lift off. And also a lot of fuel in the tanks.”

“He said nothing else?”

“No, señor. Nothing.” Santander looked up at Sanchez. “I tell the truth. Believe me.”

Volkmann sighed, feeling the tiredness taking hold of him. “How many boxes did Rodriguez carry on each flight, before the last one?”

“I don’t know, señor.”

“Big boxes, small boxes?”

Santander shook his head, shrugged. “Sorry, señor.”

“These people Rodriguez worked for, how did they pay him?”

Santander shook his head again. “He tell me nothing about that.
But I think cash. After each trip. In such business, that is how it is done.”

“How did Rodriguez meet them?”

“He never tell me.”

“Is there anyone close to Rodriguez, someone maybe he might tell things to about his work? A woman, a friend maybe?”

“No, señor. Rodriguez always keep things to himself. Even when he was drunk, he did not talk about his work. To nobody. I am certain.”

“Is there anything else you remember? I want you to think hard. Anything. No matter how small.”

“Nothing. I swear it.” Santander made the sign of the cross.

Sanchez said, “If I discover you are lying to me, amigo . . .”

“As the Lord is my judge. Rodriguez was a friend.”

Sanchez grimaced, stubbed out his cigarette, looked toward Volkmann. “You have any more questions, señor?”

Volkmann shook his head.

•   •   •

The three of them were seated in Sanchez’s office again. The detective had more coffee, fresh and hot, brought to them. It was after two, the room silent now except for the gentle whirr of the fan overhead.

Erica sipped her coffee. “You think Santander is telling us everything he knows?”

“Sí, I believe so. And he is not the type of man who kills. Just a petty smuggler.” Sanchez picked up the coffee cup. “What he said about the old man in the German colony, it helps a little. But there are many German colonies in Paraguay. People who came here before and after the last war. Immigrants. What Santander said wasn’t much, but it makes the picture just a little clearer.”

Volkmann’s thoughts were elsewhere. After a time, he said, “The electronic equipment Hernandez borrowed: what distance could it work over?”

Sanchez shrugged. “Not far, maybe a mile.”

“Hernandez could have been anywhere the night he was killed.”

“I agree. The only clue I have is the word of the night watchman, who claims he saw him at the railroad station.” Sanchez shrugged. “Who knows what Rudi was doing there, if he was there? Maybe he used the recording equipment there, but I don’t think so. The watchman says the man he saw carried nothing and was in the station for perhaps only five minutes. Torres’s equipment, you would have needed something to carry it in. A bag, a small suitcase perhaps.”

Volkmann considered. “Okay, let’s say Hernandez was at the station. Why does a man go to a railway station in the early hours of the morning? And why enter through a rear entrance?” He was thinking aloud, but he asked the question.

“Perhaps it was the quickest way?” Sanchez frowned. “Rudi meant to buy a ticket on a train to someplace, leave Asunción? But the ticket office was closed until later in the morning.”

“Wouldn’t he have known that?”

Sanchez nodded. “I understand. It leaves a question. If Rudi did go to the station and stayed for only a short time, it suggests perhaps that he had a purpose. But what purpose? I don’t know the answer. Why do people go to a train station in the early hours of the morning? To catch a train, or to meet one, if there is one. But neither is possible in this case.”

Sanchez glanced at Erica. She met his eyes for a moment before looking away. She was listening to the conversation but not listening, preoccupied, her hands restless, a frown on her face. Sanchez thought,
She’s still grieving
.

Volkmann said finally, “What about the other hotels on the list?”

“My men have not called in yet. I will have the communications desk call them up.”

Sanchez shuffled the file pages on his desk before closing the folder. Erica looked at him, a strange expression on her face, her brow furrowed in concentration. In her right hand she fingered the keys to Rudi Hernandez’s apartment and car. She was toying with them.

Now she spoke softly, in Spanish. “You asked why Rudi might have been at the railway station. At the station . . . are there boxes, or lockers . . . for luggage, for people to leave things?”

Sanchez raised an eyebrow. He looked down again at the bunch of keys in the woman’s hand; she was holding one of them between thumb and forefinger. He answered her in Spanish.

“I believe so.”

Erica hesitated. “Maybe Rudi had one of those boxes?”

Sanchez looked at her blankly.

Volkmann looked at them both, wondering what they were saying.

•   •   •

The railway station faced the Plaza Uruguaya.

Inside the main hall, a half-dozen drunks slept it off in quiet corners. Indians and mestizos with young families, their babies wrapped in colorful blankets, sat or slept under the concession shops. Poor people from the north and south waited for the early trains, soft, pitiful brown eyes and looks of bewildered innocence on their lost faces, too penniless even to afford one of the cheap hotels nearby.

Some of them watched sleepily as the three people walked briskly through the station. The smell of diesel oil hung in the humid air. Sanchez looked at the curious, waiting people and pitied them.

The left-luggage boxes were near the concession stands. They turned a corner and saw the serried rows of several dozen metal boxes set against a concrete wall, black numbers stenciled on their doors. Sanchez stopped, facing the middle row.

“The keys, señorita.”

Erica handed him the keys.

Sanchez examined them again. Two of the keys had nothing to do with Hernandez’s apartment or car or office desk or locker, Sanchez knew. He had wondered about those keys. The way Erica had wondered. He had asked her at the police station what had made her think Rudi might have kept a luggage box at the station. She had shrugged. A feeling. An intuition.

The Indians in his country had a word for it:
mon-ia-taah-ka
. A voice from the world beyond. Perhaps Erica was right. Perhaps Rudi had kept a box here. The safe place he had told her about.

Now Sanchez fingered the key that looked closest to the size of the keyhole in the nearest locker facing him. The number 27 was stenciled in big letters on its metal door. He inserted the key. It went all the way in. He tried to turn it. The key moved a little, but no more, Sanchez feeling the resistance of the lock levers.

He turned to Erica and Volkmann as he removed the key, saw the looks on their faces. Hope, urgency.

He pointed to the left, where the row of boxes began, and smiled faintly. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning. It is always a good place to start. Sí?”

16

ASUNCIÓN. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 3:45 A.M.

The air in Sanchez’s office was gray with cigarette smoke.

They found the tape and the six photographs in the station locker marked number 39.

Each photograph was of the same two men. One was Dieter Winter, the other Nicolas Tsarkin. Winter’s blond hair and thin, sharp features were unmistakable when compared to the head-and-shoulders shot Sanchez received from Volkmann’s people.

The pictures had been taken with a telephoto lens. The two men were walking on the grounds of Tsarkin’s estate—the last place he saw Rudi Hernandez alive.
At last,
Sanchez thought,
proof of a connection between Winter and Tsarkin.

If only the tape made sense . . .

They listened to it eight times. Erica translated the conversation for Sanchez, then transcribed it in Spanish, the detective reading her writing slowly, questioning the inflection of words in the handwritten script—like Volkmann, curious, perplexed—examining the cryptic words over and over, asking Erica to translate again from the German, making sure no nuance was ignored, no word overlooked.

“You want to hear the tape again?”

Volkmann nodded. Sanchez pressed the
PLAY
button on the player lying on his desk before lighting another cigarette and sitting back.

Deep, guttural voices filled the room once more, Volkmann almost knowing the words from memory.

“The shipment . . . ?”

“The cargo will be picked up from Genoa as arranged.”

“And the Italian?”