The Blood Flag (17 page)

There was an open book face down on the coffee table in front of an easy chair, which was facing the television. The lamp was on next to the chair. There was a faint lingering smell of spicy food.

Jedediah asked him, “
Sprechen Sie Englisch
?”

The man responded, “A little.”

Jedediah switched to English. “I'd like my financier,” he said pointing to me, “to understand. He's American.”

The man looked at me and back at Jedediah. “As are you.”

“Yes. And these gentlemen are my comrades from Germany.”

He frowned. “We don't use the word comrade. That was the Bolsheviks.”

“Friends.”

Schullman looked at me. “What about him, who's he?”

Jedediah said, “I have the dedication, but not the money. He has money.”

“For what?”

“For training, weapons, explosives, whatever we need.”

I thought I saw a small smile break out on the old man's face. He tried to look disinterested, but he was clearly intrigued. “And what is it you plan on blowing up?”

“The things that need to be blown up,” Jedediah replied.

“Who are you people and what are you doing here? And you, with all these tattoos,” he said gesturing with his hand to point at all of Jedediah's ink at once.

“We're the ones carrying the Nazi torch. It was almost extinguished but we're blowing on the coals. And you can help us.”

“And what would make you say that?”

Jedediah stepped closer to him, about an arm's length away, and said, “Because you have the
Blutfahne
.”

He recoiled slightly and looked at all of us quickly. “What makes you say that?”

He'd given himself away. He started looking around the room. Florian jumped in. “We know that you lived near Otto Hessler's house in Berlin. You left in the spring of 1945, before Berlin fell, and took the
Blutfahne
with you. We have come to ask you to come back to Germany, and to bring the flag with you.”

Patrick said, “Come back with us to Germany. There is to be a meeting where the leaders of all the neo-Nazi groups around the world will come to unite in one great movement. There will never be a better time to use the
Blutfahne
than now. We'd like you to bring it back to restore it to Germany, to
rejuvenate
the movement.”

Jedediah leaned closer to him. “I know you've kept it for a reason. Not for money, or you would have sold it a long time ago. You kept it for a purpose.
We
are that purpose.”

The man looked at Jedediah with skepticism and a glimmer of something. Maybe hope. He considered, thinking of what all this meant. He said quietly, “If I did have it, what would you do with it?”

“Either you could let us have it, or you can come with us,” Jedediah said. “We'd rather you come with us to Germany. There's going to be a meeting, in a castle. All the leaders of all the neo-Nazi groups around the world will finally unite under a common creed, a common uniform, and common goals. We will share financing, intelligence, and weapons. And there's no better way to unite that group than to bring the flag that started it all.”

I added, “The world is changing. People are identifying with their own groups. Their own people. They've had enough of diversity and multi-culturalism.”

The old man seemed comfortable. He smiled. “If I did have this flag and I wanted to go to Germany, who would pay for that?”

“I would,” I said. “We would put you up in the best hotel, provide you with a car and driver, and you would be one of the featured people at the meeting. Will you come?”

The man stood up tall, regaining lost pride. “I will show you what I have.”

He was clearly intrigued by going to Germany as a returning hero. Then a cloud formed over his face. “Would the public know? If I brought the flag back to Germany, would we get past the police? Through customs?”

I said quickly, “We have people everywhere. We will take you to Germany on a private jet, to a private airport in Munich. We will make sure you arrive at a certain time, and the men who will check your passport and your luggage will be sympathizers. You will have no problems.”

He snapped his head to look around at me. “You can guarantee this?”

“We can guarantee this.”

Florian and Patrick nodded, probably wondering where this would all lead.

He contemplated as he ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back.

His watery blue eyes brightened. “Okay. I will get it.”

He crossed over to the far corner of the room and knelt down beside the bookcase, which reached to the ceiling. The bottom section had sliding panels, and he slid the panels open. Inside were games, chessboards, and children's toys. At the bottom of the stack was a large Tupperware container. He moved the games and toys off the Tupperware and slid it out from the cabinet. We all started moving toward the container sitting on the carpet, but he said, “Please stay back. I will pull it out and open it up for you.”

He reached across the Tupperware container and began running his fingers around the lid. I could hear him pop the lid off and break the airtight seal. We all watched expectantly as he pulled the lid back. All I could see was a cloth of some kind, like a heavy towel made of linen, and folded on top. He put it aside.

“What's that?” I asked.

“To help absorb the moisture and keep the flag in place.”

I could see the solid red flag in the bottom of the container. I felt my heart skip as I gazed on the flag that I had hoped existed. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

He pulled the container over toward the corner, and used the built-in bookshelf to steady himself. He reached underneath the flag and pulled his hand back, holding a Luger. He pointed it at each of us in turn. I stared at the handgun. It was rust free, freshly oiled, and in good condition. We all looked at each other wondering what his play was. His hand was steady. His face was red with energy, anger, and fear. He said in a hiss, “Take everything out of your pockets and put it on the coffee table. Everything!”

I said to him quietly, “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

“I have no idea who you are. You come down here looking for the flag, claiming to be some neo-Nazis; I don't know you from anybody. You could be the Bundeskriminalamt. I don't know. And you bring this muscle with you,” he said, pointing his pistol at Jedediah. “To intimidate me. Well, I don't scare. And you can't have the flag.”

He looked at the items on the coffee table. “Wallets too!” He picked up my wallet and looked through it. He pulled out the driver's license. “Virginia?”

“Yes. I told you I was American.”

“What do you do?”

“I'm an investor. I make a lot of money.”

He tossed the wallet back onto the table. “Weapons? Are you armed?”

I shook my head. “Why would we be armed to come and see you? We thought we were coming to see a friend.”

“I don't care what you thought, or what you tell me.” He continued going through the wallets when suddenly Jedediah moved faster than I've ever seen any person move, especially someone his size. In less than a second, he was on top of the old man and his huge right forearm slammed down on the man's gun hand. I heard a crack, like a plate dropped onto a tile floor, as he dropped the gun and grabbed his arm.

“You broke my wrist!”

“You're lucky I haven't broken your neck.
Nobody
points a gun at me.” Jedediah bent over and picked up the Luger. He pulled the slide back to eject the cartridge, released the slide and looked at the bullets. They were new, clean brass. He stared at the old man angrily as he put the magazine in his pocket and tucked the Luger into his belt. He put his left hand back in his pocket, where it lingered for just a moment. Jedediah looked at the rest of us, and said, “I'm not taking him to Germany. And we're sure as hell not paying him for the flag now; we're just going to take it.” He reached down, put the lid back onto the container and picked it up, as the old man leaned against the bookcase holding his fractured wrist.

Suddenly, I heard breaking glass in the back of the apartment and the
whoosh
of an explosive flame. I could see a reflection of a large flame in the glass of a picture in the hallway. Before I could do anything the window behind me broke and another Molotov cocktail flew into the apartment, smashing into the corner of the room where we stood. The gasoline splashed all over the bookcase while it was in the process of igniting. The room was filled with smoke and flames, and the back exit was cut off by the already burning kitchen.

Jedediah screamed at Schullman, “We've got to get out of here!” The old man started to flee, holding his wrist. Suddenly he stopped and looked back. I watched him carefully as he went to the corner of the bookcase, still holding his broken wrist, and pushed on the edge of the bookcase with his good hand. It gave a little bit and then popped out. He swung it out, revealing a large wall safe. It looked like a sophisticated safe with a digital keypad for the combination. He quickly typed in six numbers, and the door popped open. It wasn't a thick door, and would not withstand the fire that was about to consume the building. He grabbed cash and what appeared to be a passport folder out of the safe and stuffed them in his shirt. He reached in and grabbed a compressed plastic packing sleeve that had all the air pressed out of it and was sealed tight. It had two handles on it, like a stadium cushion. He grabbed it and began running out of the room. Jedediah put his hand on Schullman's chest to stop him and took the item from him. He said loudly, “The real flag?” The man nodded as he began to panic. He pushed Jedediah's arm aside and rushed for the door. Jedediah rushed right behind him as we all fled the room that was now nearly consumed in flames. We stumbled onto the street to avoid the flames.

Schullman bent over gasping and coughing. “Why did you do this to me? Everything I own is in there!”

Jedediah pulled him up and looked him in the eye. “Maybe you should have thought of that when you pulled a gun on us.”

I walked over to Jedediah, as the fire grew behind us. We had to get out of there. “Give me the flag,” I said to him.

He turned and looked at me with deep hostility. “If I'd left it up to you, we'd have left with the fake. Now we've got the real one.”

“Let me have it.”

He held the two flags close to him, looked at each of us individually, and turned and walked down the street. “Jedediah!” I yelled. He didn't ever respond. He took two more steps, then broke into a trot, and ducked around the corner.

We could hear sirens of fire trucks, and people were coming out of their apartments to look at the fire. I said, “Let's get out of here.”

As soon as my airplane touched down at Dulles, I emailed Jedediah. Unlike so many other times there was no instant response. I stared at my BlackBerry waiting for his reply. Nothing. I checked it every ten seconds as I worked my way down the aisle and into the terminal and while waiting to pass through immigration and customs.

Either he was still with me and didn't trust me to carry the flag, or he had turned on me, and was now on his own. With the flag. And he'd brought at least two people to Argentina I hadn't known about or approved. They had to know the arrangement and that Jedediah was working with us.

I drove straight to FBI headquarters and went to see Karl. He looked at me with surprise as I sat down on the edge of the chair in his office waiting for him to get off the phone. He could see the annoyance and frustration on my face. He said to the person he was talking to, “Let me call you back.” He hung up the phone and said, “So, how was Argentina?”

“We found the flag.”

He looked stunned. “Seriously? That's unbelievable.”

“BKA came up with a short list. We cross checked with the Argentine Federal Police—a woman named Manuela Gabrielli—know her?”

“No. Never worked with them.”

“She knows the Germans living in Argentina. We found the two guys, and the second one said he had it. Manuela said to leave our weapons behind and just talk to these guys. So he tried to give us a fake, then pulls out a Luger and holds us at gunpoint. Then,
curiously
, our boy Jedediah breaks his wrist, takes the gun, puts his hand in his pocket for a second, and the next thing I know two firebombs come in through the windows. The old man panics and opens a secret panel in the wall to save the real flag. Jedediah grabbed the real flag and I haven't seen him since.”

He shook his head and adjusted his glasses. “You're making this up.”

“Nope. Definitely not making it up.”

“So, Jedediah took somebody with him and signaled him to firebomb the place? Pretty clever, thinking the old man might hand you a fake but he wouldn't let the real one burn.”

“Have to admit that. Maybe I could have just looked the other way if he had called me in Buenos Aires and given me the flag. We might not have had a conversation about the coincidental firebombing. Not in our jurisdiction. But he didn't call. Haven't heard a thing. Now I'm wondering if he was just using us. Pisses me off.”

“And the old man?”

“He's fine. Broken wrist, but nothing else, and he just lost his beloved fascist flag and everything else he owns.”

“Yeah, too bad.” Karl paused and waited for me to respond, but I didn't. “So, you want to know about Jedediah. Anything else I haven't told you.”

I nodded. “Is he with us? Or is he using us?”

He thought for a moment. “He can't be using us to get the Blood Flag, because we had never thought of it till you came along.”

“Maybe he was using us to maneuver himself. Find out what we knew about the Volk.”

“Doesn't work that way. You and I both know we don't tell them what we know. Maybe he got this idea when you started talking about the Blood Flag. He saw this as his big chance.”

“That's what I'm afraid of. He delivers this Blood Flag to his superior in the Southern Volk and they have their absolute guaranteed ticket to go to Germany. He doesn't need us.”

“And you think that's what happened?”

“Like I said, he's gone silent. And the way he conducted himself in Argentina, assuming—which I think is certain—that he had somebody throw firebombs into this guy's apartment, that was not our plan.”

He smiled ironically. “
Your
plan was to walk into an old man's apartment unarmed and have him turn a Luger on you.
That
was your plan.”

“Who said I was unarmed?”

“I thought you said you left your weapon at the apartment.”

“No, I said that's what Manuela told us to do. I didn't think she'd agree to an American cowboy running around Argentina armed. That old man didn't have a chance if he was really going to try something. But before I could do anything, Jedediah smashed his arm, firebombed the place, and took the flag.”

Karl drummed his fingers. I waited. He finally said, “I guess there is one thing I should tell you.”

I waited.

“Jedediah had a brother.”

“Had?”

“Yeah. Jonah. One of the two founders of the Southern Volk, with Brunnig. Jedediah joined them after he got out of the army.”

“And?”

“Jonah was thought to be the brains of the Thom family. Jedediah was always thought to be the muscle.”

“But you think differently?”

“I think Jonah was probably smarter, but Jedediah is underestimated by most people. He's very smart, but more . . . clever. He sees ways through problems that others don't see. Probably can't do calculus, but if he wants to get something done? Look out.”

“So what about Jonah?”

“That's the thing. Jonah Thom didn't make it to the first anniversary of the founding of the Southern Volk.”

“Why not?”

“We're not sure. He disappeared. No trace, no body, no nothing. Jedediah put out a missing person's report. Said he didn't have any idea where his brother had gone. Hadn't seen him in days. Shortly after that, Brunnig took over as the undisputed leader. Been there ever since.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

He thought for a minute. “About two years. Maybe more.”

“And what does Jedediah think happened?”

“He thinks Brunnig made him disappear. Buried him in some swamp somewhere, or mountain ravine.”

I felt a little heat building. “Why didn't you tell me this earlier?”

“Don't know. Didn't occur to me.

What bullshit. “So Jedediah has a big motivation to overthrow Brunnig. He may be using the flag for that. He may have no intention of helping us. This changes everything.” I stared at him. “How the hell could you not tell me about it?”

“Just did. I didn't think anything would come of this. I thought you'd babysit Jedediah for a while then go on your way. I never thought you'd find that silly . . . that flag.”

I fought back my inclination to yell at him. “You think it's
silly
?”

“I didn't mean it like that.”

I stood up. I'd heard enough. “Anything else you should have told me?”

“I don't trust Jedediah. I guess I implied I did. I do in minor respects, but in terms of whether he's with us or not? I don't know. You know the old saying, never trust a traitor.”

What an ass. “Yeah. I know the saying. Another saying I know is FBI special agents should share information with each other. Do you know that saying? Especially information on a case they are working on together? Do you know that one?”

He was feeling the heat. “I didn't know what we were dealing with. I didn't really have any idea whether Jedediah was involved in his brother's disappearance. Almost certainly not. But the head guy probably was.”

“So that's what you thought the motivation
really
was for Jedediah coming to us. Yet you never told me that. He tried to sell me on this thing about him being ‘saved.' Is that what he told you?”

“He mentioned it. May even be some truth in it. Did he land in the U.S.?” I nodded. “And hasn't been seen since.”

“They gonna charge him in Argentina?”

“If we want them to.”

Karl had been playing with his computer and looking at the screen intermittently while we were talking. He squinted at the screen, sat up, and said, “Well, here's our answer. Check this out.” He turned the flat screen around so that I could see it. It was the home page of the Southern Volk's website.

I looked at the banner. “Southern Volk appoints new president—Jedediah Thom.”

When I got back to my office, Alex was waiting for me. She was looking at the Southern Volk website. She looked up at me. “So where's the former president?”

“Why don't
you
tell me.”

“I think he's a goner. I think our boy Jedediah . . . pushed him aside.”

“And now I know why. Karl just gave me one of those critical pieces of information I should have had weeks ago.” She waited.

“Jedediah's brother was one of the founders of the Volk. He ‘disappeared' a year later. Jedediah blames the current president. Well he
was
the president.” I contemplated the implications. “Does it say what he's doing?”

“No.”

“Check local news sites to see if he has disappeared.” She typed his name into Google.

I went to the Southern Volk website and looked at it carefully. There was no mention of Brunnig. “It's like he doesn't exist. He's not even in the article about Jedediah taking over.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I think this was Jedediah's plan the whole time. As soon as he heard about this German thing—about the chance to be on the world stage—he decided it was time to make his move. He's hated Brunnig ever since he took over. Jedediah thought he should be in charge, now he is. The question is, who are we dealing with? Is he still talking to us? But if he's still talking to us, and he's killed Brunnig, we're done with him.”

Alex wondered what the next step was. I wondered that myself. This thing could go wrong in so many different directions. It already had. Finally, I said, “How would you like to go to Columbia? Can you crash a car?”

We flew to Columbia, South Carolina, the next morning and went straight to a shady used car dealer near Five Points. It looked like it used to be a doughnut shop. The owner had about twenty used cars, most of which had probably been stolen, submerged, or totaled at some point. We bought an iffy green Accord for a thousand dollars. It had two hundred thousand miles on it. I didn't care though, as I only needed it to go about five more.

Alex got in the driver's seat and we drove off the lot. It was a blistering hot day with humidity that made you want to stop breathing; unusual for October. The engine sounded fine and the car drove well. I turned on the air conditioning, which blew hot air in our faces. We drove through a couple of neighborhoods.

“We need to find a steel pole somewhere. Let's go down by the stadium.”

She drove the short distance to the football stadium and into a parking lot that had light poles with cement bases. “What's the plan?”

“Back it into a light pole. About five or ten miles an hour.”

“
You
back it into a light pole.”

“Fine. Get out.”

She stopped, put the car in park, and got out. I walked around, got in, and put it in reverse. I looked over the seat with my right hand on the passenger seat and backed it toward a pole. I glanced up and saw Alex standing there with her hands on her hips and her teeth clenched. I looked back and saw the pole. I was going maybe five miles per hour. So I hit the accelerator to ten. I slammed into the light pole and the impact was much harder than I expected. I felt my head go back sideways, which surprised me, but I was confident I'd inflicted enough damage.

Alex walked over and looked at the damage. “Holy shit! I'm glad I wasn't in the car! You must have been going twenty-five miles an hour! You're going to have a sore neck.”

I got out to look at the damage myself. It was a serious impact. More than I had intended. I was worried it wouldn't drive. I climbed back in the driver's seat, Alex got in, and we drove away. I could hear a strange sound coming from the rear end, but the car drove.

I drove straight toward Jedediah's auto body shop. We stopped two blocks short and pulled up to a Starbucks. I took out my pocket notebook and tore out a sheet of paper. I put it in the center of the steering wheel as I wrote “Same place as last, 11:00 p.m.” I handed it to her. “You sure you can pull this off?”

“Just stay here.”

“I'll be waiting.” I got out and stood on the curb as she pulled away. The Accord looked like it had been in a demolition derby. I'd overdone it a little bit. I was lucky I hadn't punctured the gas tank.

I walked into the Starbucks and ordered a cappuccino and a Danish. I sat in the corner and pulled out my iPad. It had been a couple weeks since I had looked at the neo-Nazi websites and news stories on Nazism.

I checked out the American neo-Nazi websites to see if anyone was talking about the meeting in Germany. Or the change of command at the Southern Volk. Not much new. I started wondering how we'd prove this flag—assuming we got it from Jedediah—was
the one
that was bled on in the twenties and carried in the thirties and forties. We had already been shown one fake, and we now knew that the Russians had a whole trailer full of fake Hitler memorabilia.

I googled “Otto Hessler” again to see if I could find out anything about his family. We had to get DNA. The Blood Flag was called the Blood Flag because it had blood on it. Those stains were still there. But could they be used? Were they too old? And tested against what? Who?

I'd been in a lot of cases where DNA testing was used. It was now so common that it was done almost as a matter of course. It had changed forensics forever, and frankly, made it far better. DNA testing has been so much more accurate than all the other types of forensic evidence put together that it has made the odds of a wrongful conviction significantly lower. We, of course, always deny that there is any chance of a wrongful conviction. That's what law enforcement always says. But wrongful convictions are well known. By the hundreds.

But I had never had a case where the DNA I wanted tested was from 1923. DNA testing was really about cell biology. I got on my BlackBerry and sent an email to the head of our forensics lab near Quantico. “Assume a blood stain on a cloth from 1923. How can I prove it's a certain person (I know whose blood it is)?” I hit send.