“I don’t see how we’re ever going to get inside — I’m so damned angry!”
“Maybe just drop a bomb and be done with it. You think we could really get away with that, David?”
“Could we make it look like an accident? I don’t know, Miriam, I’m too mad to think straight.”
Hans’ research on David Bernstein led nowhere. He discovered David’s age was thirty-five, his residence listed only as Tel Aviv, but no street information, and the university he was attending, but nothing more. He must be deep undercover, Hans concluded. He couldn’t decide if David was a double agent or if Bruno was. Solving this dilemma filled the majority of his time thinking, investigating, spying on the Chief. He would get to the bottom of things with him while he was still in Munich. It would eventually lead him to David. Just a few more months, then he’d get his emerald. Maybe then, he’d go to Australia, marry Miriam, and retire in luxury for the rest of his life, if he could just hold on that long.
For Hans, boredom was the most punishing thing he could endure. It only lead to deeper research on the Mossad and its operations. He had decided they were definitely the Jewish equivalent of the Nazi SS. He had researched them, too and learned enough about how both organizations operated so that he was awed that he had never been close to capture. It must be my lucky emerald that has kept me safe, he concluded.
He got in his car to wait for a call from them, waving at Tom as he reversed out of his driveway. Tom motioned that he wanted to talk, but Hans, disguised as Mike, pretended not to see. He stopped at the top of the hill, and removed his Mike disguise then put on a very elderly-looking facial apparatus that had the shaggiest wrinkles of any he had worn. No one bothers an old man, Hans thought.
Out of habit, he drove by the Munich Police Department. Nothing going on there. Last time he had caught a glimpse of the Chief with some Spanish-looking woman in the parking lot. She was showing him pictures of something and Bruno must have liked her because he was laughing. He saw him put his hand at the small of her back as he guided her inside the station. It wasn’t his wife. Maybe he was having an affair. He’d stay closer and follow him home in the evenings for a while to find out more. If Bruno left to go out after the evening meal he would follow him then, too.
At the next meeting of the GRS, Bruno brought up the Whittelsbach Emerald mystery to Gottschlag and Neuschondorf, and reached into his briefcase for his Huber Family Tree file. He looked up at the men quizzically and resumed searching again, angrily pulling every paper from the case, and piling them on the table. Suddenly, with fire in his eyes he screamed, “Somebody has been in my briefcase! The file on the Hubers was here. It’s where I’ve kept it since I got it from Brunner.”
“Who could have taken it?” Neuschondorf asked.
“No one gets near my briefcase. I always see to that.”
“What about your secretary?” Gottschlag wondered.
“Liliane has been with me since Denmark. She would never do such a thing. Someone has taken it from me. Now we’ve got another problem. Could Hans have disguised himself, slipped in, and gotten it? Why would he want it? There has to be another person involved. If it’s anyone on my staff, they are dead. Thank God it wasn’t some Compound plan we were supposed to put into action. Just the same, we can’t permit this incident to stand or go unpunished. We’re done for the evening. I am too upset. We’ll meet again next week and pick up where we left off”
Hans watched Neuschondorf and Gottschlag leaving Bruno’s house. So, they do meet in private! I wonder what’s up. Maybe I’ll be getting a call soon. I’ll know to watch them more closely from now on. Hans looked at his watch and saw it was just ten, perhaps early for the end to a meeting after dinner. Had the two men come just for dinner? He would continue watching, nevertheless.
After thoroughly going through everything in her own office, Liliane began frenziedly searching through everything in the chief’s. She had never seen him so upset. What was so important about a family tree file, she wondered.
By five, she had found nothing. When Bruno got back, she worried that he would fire her. If she left now, maybe she could side step the issue. She gathered up her things and went home for the evening, hating the thought of coming in tomorrow.
However, the next morning when she entered the office, her boss was already at work. She hesitantly opened the door to his office and peeked in. “Here’s your coffee, sir.”
“Thank you, Liliane. How are you today, my dear? I’m sorry I put you through all that yesterday. I’ve remembered where I laid the paper I lost. So just go on about your usual work.”
Liliane did not like the sound of that. She knew him too well. In ten minutes, the buzzer on her intercom went off.
“Liliane, could you put a call through to Mr. Phillipe Sanchez in Madrid? Put it directly through when he comes on the line, please. Thank you, my dear.”
Liliane hated to have to tell him the number she Mr. Sanchez had given her went to some laundry in Madrid. Her problems had just begun.
CHAPTER 29
Wearing stiffly pressed khaki shorts, and an Israeli army field shirt minus any insignia, Miriam was sitting cross-legged on the conference room floor, next to Levi’s office, reading Ringo’s latest communiqué from Buenos Aires out loud to the team members gathered around her. We have an aerial map of the twenty-acre Klement Compound gathered from a satellite fly-over. From the Buenos Aries Land Office we obtained construction, electrical and plumbing schematics of the estate. We suspect that a tunnel may go from the back of the main house under an asphalt-topped area the size of a city block to a training field surrounded by spruce trees. A six-acre farmland garden complete with chicken house, cows, pigs and a pond for ducks, surrounds the training field on 3 sides. From the street it looks like the two places — the houses and training grounds — have nothing to do with each other. In the past fifteen years, the estate has increased in size by the purchase of surrounding land. The original open ground has been enlarged and besides obvious military-like training, the children of the compound play baseball, basketball and ride their bikes there.
The Klements purchased the two houses on either side of the main house when they came up for sale a decade ago. Mrs. Ricardo Klement, now age eighty-one, resides in the main house with servants and unknown others. Her daughter occupies one of the side houses, and her daughter’s three grown sons, all single, Adolf, Werner and Korloff, live in the other house. The whole compound is registered in Karlene Klement’s name, the daughter, age fifty-two.
She laid the paper down, looked at the group, and said, “Ringo told Levi he can only spare us two full-time people, but their communications system is at our disposal and his Buenos Aires team can help us get transportation, housing and anything else we might need. We will have satellite hook-ups for wireless reception. It looks like everything is in place for us in Buenos Aries on Monday evening. Remember, our purpose is the electronically bug a large compound of buildings.”
“Good!” Levi commented. “David, do you want to add anything?”
“Just a reminder that we must at all times maintain our identities as couples, tourists from various places in Europe. There and there must be no recognition of each other while traveling, other that we might have met while traveling to Argentina. Miriam and I will leave on Swiss passports. Lenny and Jan will have British passports. Forbes and Marla will be carrying Spanish passports. We will be flying Alitalia Airlines from Ben Gurion and fly to Rome where we will have about a three hour layover, but we won’t have to change planes. Then it’s about a thirteen hour flight down to Argentina. Remember, no weapons with you of any kind. For our weapon needs, give Levi a “want list” by tomorrow, and he will send it to Ringo. Let’s see, what else. Oh, yes, Ringo has a safe house set up for the six of us — a small apartment complex just a couple of blocks from the compound, where each couple will have their own small apartment. We will be part of a tour group after we arrive — therefore, we don’t have to be worried about being seen together. Theo and Rolf, from the Buenos Aries unit, will be our Argentinean tour guides, even with a small tour bus for our group. They will primarily operate as drivers on an as-needed basis and will be located in an office, identified as Turismo Buenos Aires setup as a tour company between our apartment building near the Klement Compound. That one will be our observation base for the compound. It is a four story building, so we can use an upper office to observe the Compound. It also backs on an alley so we can enter from there unobserved. Any questions before we dismiss? Okay, we’ll go over all the procedures again tomorrow and then Wednesday we’ll make any final changes to our plans. Thursday we leave for this adventure. That’s about all I have on my list. Spent some time going over the photos and information Ring sent and then we’ll get together tomorrow to begin to work out our plans to bug that Nazi compound. Levi, do you have anything to add?”