Zeller said, “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“If I did I wouldn’t need you.”
“Any girlfriends, mistresses?”
“A model named Anke Kruger.”
“Any hobbies, addictions, unusual proclivities?”
“I don’t care if he has his way with goats,” Braun said. “I want you to find him before the Nazi hunters and the Bundeskriminalamt do.” He paused, picked up the cigar, puffing on it.
Zeller was intrigued. He sat, glancing at a Van Gogh framed on the wall — the Portrait of Dr. Gachet. Zeller knew the painting. He had studied art at the university, tried to imagine what it was worth. “I read that it was lost during the war.”
“Well evidently it has been found.” Braun poured whisky from a decanter into a lowball crystal glass and handed it to him.
Zeller had been contacted by Horst Neubauer, an attorney representing Gerhard Braun, saying Herr Braun wanted to talk to him.
“About what?” Zeller had said.
“Herr Braun will explain everything. He will pay you five thousand Deutschmarks for your time. If you listen to his proposition and say no, the money is yours. If you agree to work for him, he will deduct it from your fee.”
This is what Zeller knew about Braun. The only son of a wealthy industrialist, he had taken over the family business in 1942 at age twenty-seven after his father died of a heart attack. Braun had joined the Nazi party in 1934, believed in the cause but refused to wear a uniform, salute or click his heels. Working with Albert Speer and Ferdinand Porsche he retooled his father’s factories to produce military vehicles for the Reich. Braun built tanks and tractors, and eighty-eight-millimeter anti-aircraft guns. At the high point of the war he had forty-seven factories and sixty thousand Jewish slave laborers from concentration camps, cranking out weapons. “Why kill them? Let’s put them to work,” Braun had said. His representatives went to the camps and handpicked the laborers they wanted.
After the war Braun was arrested by the Americans and charged with crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. He was found guilty. The judges on the tribunal sentenced him to ten years in prison on July 31, 1947. He also lost his factories, homes, art collection and money — over a hundred million Deutschmarks. Stripped of everything except his red-and-white-striped prison uniform, Braun was sent to Landsberg in Bavaria, where Hitler had written Mein Kampf.
That was before the Allies realized that getting Germany back on its feet required resources. They needed men like Braun, leaders to help restore industry. In 1951, John J. McCloy, high commissioner of the American occupation zone, released Braun from prison, returned forty million Deutschmarks in property and cash, and gave him control of ten of his former companies. Fifty pieces of art that had been confiscated by the Allies were also returned to him.
Zeller tilted his glass and rotated it, the whisky coating the sides. He sipped the amber liquid, tasting spice and nuts, intense citrus, lemon and orange and then hints of vanilla and roasted coffee. “Remarkable. What is it?”
“1926 Dalmore. What if this was your job, making the best aged single malt in the world? How satisfying, I would imagine.”
First Zeller called Fuhrman, an old friend, who worked for customs and immigration. Zeller had used him on occasion, to locate high-profile defectors. This time he asked Fuhrman to find out if Ernst Hess had been on a flight leaving Germany in the past three weeks.
“Leaving Germany for where?” Fuhrman said.
“South America.” It was conceivable Hess had been in contact with former Nazis who had escaped prosecution after the war. “I would try Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, and maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Any flight to South America would probably make a connection in Lisbon, and then fly non-stop. You’re talking about a lot of flights. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to cost you.” A few days later Fuhrman reported back, saying he had checked the airline manifests of every flight from Germany to a South American city since September 20th. Hess’ name did not appear. But Hess could have chartered a plane or chosen another mode of travel. Zeller asked Fuhrman to check with charter aircraft companies and ship lines.
Next on Zeller’s list was Hess’ mistress, Anke Kruger. She was a former model and looked it, five ten, long blonde hair, wearing skintight blue jeans and a revealing brown tank top, breasts loose under the soft fabric. Anke lived in a posh apartment building near Leopoldstrasse in Schwabing.
“A glass of wine?” Anke said.
“Well it is five o’clock, isn’t it?”
She went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of white wine, brought them to the salon, handed one to Zeller standing at the window, watching the action on the street below.
“Would you care to sit?”
“This is fine,” Zeller said. “I’ve been driving for three hours.”
“I will tell you what I know.” She sat on the windowsill, long legs in black knee-high boots angled to the floor. “But it’s not much.”
“How long have you known Herr Hess?”
“About three years. Ernst hired me to work at a Hess AG airship exhibition. I was a model at the time. We became good friends. Later when Ernst and his wife separated we became romantically involved. We had fun, spent a lot of time together. It was serious, we talked about getting married, having children.”
“When did you last see Herr Hess?” He heard a horn, glanced out the window. It was rush hour, cars creeping by on Leopoldstrasse.
“I know exactly, it was the third of October. My birthday is the fifth and Ernst was telling me he had something special planned. I could tell he was excited, but then I did not hear from him again for ten days.”
“What was his excuse for missing your birthday? What did he say?”
“He had something to take care of. An emergency. He had to leave town, and apologized.”
“Was this before or after the article in Der Spiegel?”
“At least a week before.”
“Where was he calling from?”
“He didn’t say. But listen to me,” Anke Kruger said. “I know this man. He did not do these things they said in the magazine.”
She obviously didn’t know him well enough. “Is there anything you can think of that will help me find Herr Hess?”
Anke shook her head.
Zeller arrived at Hess AG the following morning at 9:30. Gerhard Braun, a member of Hess’ board of directors, had contacted the manager, Herr Rothman, and explained the situation. Rothman was expecting Zeller, escorted him to Hess’ office, and told him to take his time. If he needed anything, dial extension 12.
“I’ll want to speak to Herr Hess’ secretary.”
“Ingrid Bookmyer. I’ll ask her to stop by.”
Rothman walked out and closed the door.
Zeller studied the room, which was ten meters by seven and a half, with a wall of windows that looked out at the concrete landing area. He watched a Zeppelin, skinned in silver, rise hovering above the tarmac, engineers in white shirts and dark trousers, making notes on clipboards.
He looked around. The furniture was custom-designed in light-colored wood. Hess had a big desk with a credenza behind it. On the paneled rear wall behind the conference table were six framed pictures showing the evolution of the Zeppelin, from the LZ1, photographed over Lake Constance in 1899, the Graf Zeppelin, and the Hindenburg, to smaller, sleeker, current-issue Hess AG airships. Along a sidewall, matching wooden file cabinets were lined up. There were flat files against the opposite wall, and in the middle of the room, a drafting table that displayed blueprints showing the interior skeleton of a Hess AG airship.