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Helsinki, Finland
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“This was the battleground,” Bruce Huntley remarked, almost wistfully, as he stared out the passenger window of the delivery van. The streets they passed were clean and well-lit, but owing to the late hour, almost completely empty of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, giving them a surreal post-apocalyptic vibe.
Professor leaned forward for a look. “You must be talking about the Battle of Helsinki during the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Imperial German forces supported the White faction against the Red Guard.”
Huntley looked at him like there was a banana growing out of his forehead. “I’m talking about the Cold War. A neutral country sitting on the Soviets’ doorstep. This was the chessboard for the spy game. I’ve never been here, but man, I’ve heard some stories.”
Professor nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair. Beside him, Bones chuckled. Although he probably didn’t realize it, Huntley had just rescued them all from another tedious lecture.
The van brought them to an alley and stopped at the back entrance to a restaurant. Huntley produced a key to unlock the door and then led them inside and up a narrow stairwell to a modestly decorated upper story apartment.
“You can crash here tonight,” he said. “Figure out our next move in the morning.” He glanced at Lia and then jerked a thumb toward a closed door off the main sitting room. “Shower’s in there. You’ll probably want to wash that crap out of your hair. I mean, unless you’re diggin’ the Morticia Addams look.”
“A mixture of rubbing alcohol and cold water should do the trick,” Professor assured her, and then looked to Huntley. “Do you have some? A first aid kit, maybe?”
Bones laughed. “Dude, this is vodka country. Bound to be a bottle of Finlandia around here somewhere.”
Huntley snorted. “Leave it to the Indian to sniff out the booze. Might be some in the kitchen. Better let me get it, just to be on the safe side.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Lia said quickly, “I would like to get started searching for Gestapo Müller. The sooner we figure out what happened to him, the sooner I can go back to my life.”
Bones, who was still trying to think of a retort for Huntley, almost missed the sadness in her tone. Professor evidently did not. “We’ll get started while you clean up. Don’t worry. We won’t rest until we’ve figured this out.”
She gave him a grateful smile, and after accepting a clear glass bottle from Huntley, headed into the little bathroom.
When the sound of running water was audible from within, Huntley shook his head. “Poor girl. She thinks this ends with everything going back to the way it was.”
“Why can’t it?” asked Professor. “You said this guy Telesh is a mobster. A criminal.”
“You gotta update your world view, Braniac. Who do you think has all the power in Russia right now? The mobsters, the oligarchs... They’re running the show. The government does what they’re told.” He shook his head. “Your girl is burned. Hell, she might not even be safe stateside. The Bratva has a long reach.”
Bones forgot all about the earlier insults. “You’re joking, right? I mean, the Agency is gonna have that covered, aren’t they? A new identity? WITSEC.”
Huntley shrugged. “Not my call. I suppose it will depend on how valuable she can be in the long term. My guess is that she doesn’t know much, but hey, depending on how this turns out, maybe you can help her get a job at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, hunting down dead Nazis.”
“God, you’re such an asshole,” said Willis.
Huntley grinned and seemed about to respond in kind, but Bones stepped between them, towering over the Agency man. “Shouldn’t you be checking in with Langley? Maybe get someone looking through those old files for information about Müller?”
“We should also give Maxie a call,” Professor added. “Maybe he’s heard from Dane.”
Huntley looked vaguely disappointed at having been denied his customary repartee, but nodded. “Yeah. I probably should do that. There should be a commo room behind the bedroom closet. It’ll be close quarters, so you’ll have to let me go first.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “There’s food in the pantry. Help yourselves.”
After he was gone, Professor let out a weary sigh. “He is one of the good guys, right?”
Bones shook his head. “If he is, then maybe it’s time for a career change.”
“Uncle Sam may sign his paychecks,” replied Willis. “But good?” He shook his head. “I don’t think even he would lay claim to that.” He stared at the closed bedroom door for several seconds, then went on. “What do you think’s really going on here? It’s gotta be more than just some old Nazi gold, right?”
“I guess it depends on how much Nazi gold we’re talking about,” said Professor. “We know that when the writing was finally on the wall, the Nazis hid a bunch of stuff in bunkers all over Germany and Austria. By some estimates, there could be as much as forty billion—with a ‘b’—dollars’ worth of treasure still hidden away. Not just gold, but works of art. Secret Nazi weapons research. The senior Nazis truly believed they were going to be able to put the pieces together again, carry on the fight. Remember the stuff we found at Lake Toplitz?”
Bones groaned. “I’m trying to forget it, actually.”
“Maybe what we’re really talking about... What this Russian, Telesh, is really after, is a map or maybe a ledger with the locations of all of the bunkers where the Nazis secreted their stolen wealth.”
“Hitler’s Little Black Book,” Willis mused.
“Man, I’m so sick of Hitler,” Bones sneered. “Treasure or not, if I ever got my hands on something like that, I’d wipe my ass with it and flush it down the toilet.”
“That’s juvenile,” called out Huntley from the bedroom doorway. “Even for you.”
Bones folded his arms across his chest. “In Mexico, they believe that everyone dies three deaths. The first death is when your heart stops beating. The second death is when your body is buried. The third death is when nobody remembers your name. I guess that makes Hitler immortal, right? Maybe the world would be a better place if we could just forget him forever.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” countered Professor. “I guess I belong to the school of thought that says, if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.”
Bones shrugged, but kept his stare fixed on Huntley. “Maybe so, but I think a lot of white folks have a secret hardon for Nazis.”
“Not always secret,” murmured Willis.
Huntley, surprisingly, had no comeback for that. He uttered a sound that might have been a chuckle, and then shrugged. “Well, I doubt you’ll get your chance. I put in a request for information about Heinrich Müller. Turns out, the Agency and its predecessor—the OSS—conducted an extensive search for Müller at the end of the war. They never found him, but all the evidence suggests that the Soviets rolled him up. Turned him. Gave him a new identity.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Professor countered. “If the Russians knew what happened to Müller, they wouldn’t be pulling out all the stops looking for him.”
Huntley spread his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, you asked me to look into it. I did. That’s what I found. End of story.”
“Professor is correct,” called Lia, stepping out of the bathroom amidst a billowing cloud of steam. She wore a white terry cloth robe—about four sizes too big—and had her hair wrapped up turban style in a towel. “Petrov had clearance to view Kremlin archives. If Müller had been turned, he would have known. It is more likely that the Americans captured him and turned him.”
Huntley shook his head. “No, that was just something the Soviets put out to deflect suspicion. Red propaganda.”
“Just for argument’s sake,” Bones said, speaking forcefully enough to silence both of them. “Let’s say there’s a third option. He got away clean. How? And where did he go?”
Lia and Huntley regarded each other like opponents on opposite sides of a poker table. Lia eventually broke the silence. “Thousands of the Nazis escaped to South America at the end of the war using smuggling routes called ‘ratlines.’ The first, organized by the Vatican, led through Rome. The other went through Spain.”
“Spain was technically neutral during the war,” Professor put in, “but Franco was sympathetic to the Axis cause. And there were a lot of Nazi and Fascist sympathizers in the Church before, during, and after the war. They bought into Hitler’s narrative of a restored Holy Roman Empire, and they despised Communists.”
Lia nodded. “However, I think that if Müller had used one of the ratlines, he would have left a trail. That is not a secret anyone can keep. Someone would have talked. Knowing that, Müller probably would have chosen an escape route that minimized contact with others.”
“Like a U-boat,” said Bones.
“We know for a fact that at least two U-boats made it to South America. U-977, under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Heinz Schäffer, and U-530, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Otto Wermuth. Both vessels refused Admiral Dönitz’s orders for the German navy to stand down, and made a successful run to Argentina where they surrendered to the Argentine navy. There were no passengers, only crew, and all were thoroughly interrogated before eventually being repatriated to Germany.”
“If Müller had been hiding among them,” Professor said, “he almost certainly would have been identified and taken into custody. Any cargo or documents would have been seized.”
Bones glanced over and saw Professor’s eyes dancing excitedly. Somebody’s in love, he thought.
Lia nodded. “There are many contradictory accounts of the voyages, and we know that both vessels made stops along the way. Schäffer allowed sixteen married crewman to leave at Bergen, and then made another brief stop in the Cape Verde Islands.”
“Cape Verde,” interjected Huntley. “Where’s that?”
Professor was ready with an answer. “It’s an archipelago, about three hundred and fifty miles off the West African coast.”
“I guess they don’t teach geography in the CIA,” taunted Bones.
“I work the Eastern European desk. Sue me.”
Professor went on. “It’s an independent nation now, but back then, it was a Portuguese territory. Like Spain, they were neutral during the war, but leaned right.”
“So Müller could have gotten off there, taken an extended tropical holiday.”
Lia frowned. “It’s possible, but just as with the ratlines, I think someone would eventually have talked. Müller left no trail at all.”
“Yeah, you can never count on a Müller report,” Bones said.
Professor frowned, shook his head, then returned his attention to Huntley. “The same would be true if he somehow made it to South America.”
“There were rumors about Mengele being down there for years, even though they never managed to track him down.”
Huntley shook his head disparagingly. “If he didn’t get caught, and he didn’t escape, what’s left?”
“Easy,” Bones said. “He got killed.”
“The most plausible hypothesis has always been that he never made it out of Berlin,” agreed Lia. “But the evidence I found suggests otherwise.”
Bones shook his head. “I mean after that. We know that two U-boats made it to South America. Were there any others? Maybe one or two that got sunk along the way?”
Lia and Professor exchanged a glance. “There were over a thousand U-boats in the Kriegsmarine during World War II,” Professor said. “Even I don’t know what happened to them all, but I can tell you the records do exist. Most of the boats that weren’t lost in combat were scuttled as part of Operation Deadlight, but I know that several went missing. There was one—I can’t remember which—”
Bones let out an exaggerated gasp of surprise. Professor rolled his eyes and kept talking. “Some divers reported finding the wreck off Cape Cod about ten years ago, but it turned out to be a mis-identification. The boat they thought they had found is still missing.”
Lia nodded her affirmation. “If Müller was aboard a vessel that subsequently sank, it might explain why he never resurfaced...” She hesitated and then smiled. “That is pun, no?”
“That is pun, yes,” Professor said.
Huntley clapped his hands to his thighs. “Well that settles it. The ocean is a big place and we don’t have a clue where to begin looking. And even if, by some miracle, you found the wreck, anything made out of paper would have turned to mush.”
“We don’t know that we’re looking for a book,” Bones countered. “And let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first thing to do is get a list of missing U-boats. We can focus on those that went missing near the end of the war—say in the last six months.”
Huntley wagged his head. “And I suppose you want me to take point on this snipe hunt.”
“Actually, I have somebody else in mind. A naval historian we used to know.”
“Alex Vaccaro?” asked Professor.
Huntley stiffened. “You can’t bring civilians into this.”
“Alex isn’t a civilian,” Bones said. “She’s FBI... Or at least she was last time we crossed paths. She also holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and I’m sure she still has her security clearance.”
“FBI? That’s even worse.” He sighed. “I’ll let you consult with him... Or her. Whatever. But limit the conversation to missing U-boats. Deal only in generalities. Under no circumstances are you to mention the name Müller, or anything else we’ve speculated about here.” He paused a beat. “We’ll set the meeting up once we get stateside.”
“Stateside?”
Huntley nodded. “First thing tomorrow. We’ll deadhead on an Air Force tanker plane. No paper trail that way.”
“Sorry, but we’re not going anywhere until we know Maddock is safe.”
“Orders are orders, Big Chief.”
“I’m sorry,” Willis said, his deep voice dripping with sarcasm, “but since when did we start taking orders from you?”
“Since I pulled your asses out of Russia,” Huntley replied, matching his tone. “And let you crash at an Agency safehouse.”
“I don’t remember asking for your help.” Willis glanced at Bones and Professor. “Do you remember that?”
“All right, I tried appealing to your sense of gratitude, but now your gonna make me get out my tape measure.”
“Ha. Then prepare to be embarrassed, white bread.”
Professor stood up. “This macho posturing isn’t helping—”
“It’s working for me,” countered Bones.
Huntley jumped to his feet as well, “This is my operation now, and you’ve been seconded to me. That means it’s my way, or the highway, and the highway isn’t an option.”
Bones raised his hands. “Fine.”
It wasn’t fine, and the first chance he got, he was going to talk to Maxie about the parameters of their working relationship with Captain Midnight, but bickering about it wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “We’ll do it your way.”
And then, in a murmur meant only for his teammates’ ears, he added, “For now.”