Alex flipped through it. “Can you give me a short version?”
“Sure. In a nutshell, it lists the leadership of the religious right, outlines how the leaders of each group are intertwined with each other, and how the religious right is connected to the far right, including the klan, the neo-nazi’s, skinheads, and white supremacy groups.”
Alex stared at her. “Like we didn’t already know that?”
“Well, yeah, we knew they were involved with each other, but this gives a detailed outline. Plus, it goes a little further.”
“Like how?”
Teren snapped her fingers. “What was the name of that guy, the one you told us about when we were opening Mather’s security box? The Nazi.”
“Umm. You mean Ernst Remer?”
“Yeah, that’s him. He’s listed in there, along with people here in the states who were involved with him.”
“You mean, Mallory Gerlach.”
“Well, yeah, but not just Gerlach. There were others. One guy was supposed to be the point man in the states for the Odessa operation.”
Alex nodded. “I read about that. They thought Remer was one of the conduits for money to help escaped Nazi’s.”
“Yes. And speaking of money, do you remember the theory you gave us in the van in Colorado?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“What if part of that money, or treasure, as you put it, came from the Odessa operation? After all, as more Nazi’s die, there’s less need for Odessa. That brings up the question of what happens to the money set aside for Odessa? Where does it go?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Good question. That’s a really good question.”
“Yeah. Now we just have to prove that Odessa, which most people don’t believe in, really did exist.”
“Hah. That’s not any harder than trying to convince people that the leaders of two of the most popular religious right groups are involved in murder conspiracy.”
Teren smiled. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds easy.”
They shared a grin, and then sat down to wait for their flight to be called.
Chapter Twenty-three
The flight to London was only half full. Teren was grateful because it meant she could stretch out her long frame without worrying about inconveniencing anyone else. Alex was happy about it, too, but for a different reason. Less people meant that she could spread out the file that Teren had given her.
The papers weren’t really in any kind of logical order. Teren readily admitted that she had never been very good at organizing papers.
“That’s why I’m not a secretary,” she said.
“Yeah, right.” Alex rolled her eyes.
Teren settled into a seat one row behind Alex. In minutes she had settled into a light sleep. Alex almost envied her — she wasn’t sure she wanted to sleep.
Instead, she focused on the papers. Using the extra space she separated them into diagrams and text, then separated the text pile into subject matter.
She found the diagrams interesting. They traced connections from group to group, and from individual to individual. Many of the team’s suspicions were confirmed, as she followed the lines between their top suspects. Martin Richmond, Jacob Dawkins, and John Treville were all represented.
The only one missing was C.J.
The text files turned out to be in-depth reports detailing connections between the religious right and the far right. As Teren had told her, Ernst Remer was one of the people mentioned, and Alex began her reading with him.
Remer’s former position as a bodyguard to Hitler had secured him status as an icon to all neo-nazi groups, especially, it seemed, in Germany and the United States. He had only traveled to the U.S. once, but had received frequent visits from American Robert Werner. Werner had arranged Remer’s single American visit, playing host and tour guide while escorting Remer from rally to rally, where young neo-nazis listened with rapt attention to Remer’s speeches.
Werner had also publicly proclaimed his position as North American point man for the Odessa network, which had assisted many Nazis in their flight from justice. Werner claimed he had personally given aid to as many as a hundred nazis since becoming a part of the network in 1963.
One of the things that caught Alex’s eye was that Werner’s trips to Germany did not end with Remer’s death. Instead, he began visiting not only known Nazi strongholds, but also several enclaves of Fundamentalist Christians. Interestingly, he had visited a group in Munich, calledSt. Luther’s Evangelical Church, at the same time as Steven Radcliffe and John Treville, just seven months earlier.
The current leader of the group in Munich was Franz Eisenbein. He had taken the reins of leadership three years previously after the founder, Jurgen von Odbert, had retired. Odbert had led the group for almost thirty years. It was noted that no record of Odbert existed from before 1950, when he was 32 years old.
During his tenure as leader of St. Luther Evangelicals Odbert had been invited to the United States to speak at a California church. The invitation had been made by Jacob Dawkins, leader of the Religious Families Association. At that time the RFA was still based in San Diego. It wasn’t until 1991, when California declared that religious organizations could be taxed, that Dawkins and company left the west coast for the Colorado mountains, where there was no tax.
Once set up in their Colorado offices, the RFA had spawned a new group called the Colorado Values Guardians. The Guardians had become a political group, pushing for Christian values in the laws of Colorado. They viewed homosexuals as abominations, and claimed that affirmative action was wrong. Their political activities had resulted in battles over hate-crime laws, and “special rights’ for homosexuals. The Guardians, whose original office was in the RFA building, had organized seminars across the state. Using churches as their focal point, the seminars instructed people on how to battle against the “special rights” that the Guardians, and the RFA, claimed homosexuals wanted. The skinheads of Colorado tried to show up at several of these meetings, but were publicly rebuffed by the participants and the seminar leaders. However, privately, the Guardians had held separate training sessions for the skinheads, allowing them to take part in the seminars without causing the Guardians a public relations problem.
Alex had always been aware that there was some kind of connection between the far right and the religious right, but these papers spelled out in detail the “back door” relationship that existed. Donations seemed to go back and forth between hate groups and fundamentalist groups. Attorneys that worked for Christian right wing organizations would show up to bail out and defend right wingers who had been accused of hate crimes. One of the most interesting areas of assistance, Alex noted, was that members of far right wing groups would show up at leftist rallies to harass the crowd. The Christian right would show up as well, but they would bring cameras, and wait until someone from the left took a swing at someone from the right. Then they would film the fight, making sure to properly edit the tape.
Disgusted by many of the facts revealed in these papers, Alex skimmed through the rest of them, looking for more information on their suspects. There wasn’t much, so she took notes on everything she found, then typed them into her computer.
When she was finished, she pulled the papers back together, and stuck them into the file folder, this time in some semblance of order. Then she turned off her computer, and leaned back.
She didn’t want to go to sleep, even though she was tired. Instead, she let her mind wander, trying to follow the connections in her mind.
Okay, so, it looks like Kittredge really isn’t that important in the short scheme of things. After this is over, I’m going to take a microscope to them, but at the moment, it doesn’t look like more than a way of showing the connections. What do we know? We know that John Treville, Jacob Dawkins, Kyle Brogan, Derek White, and someone named C.J. planned the executions of the left wingers, hoping to blame the murders on some far out group. We also know that Treville was involved, in Europe, with drug dealers and gun runners — Teren saw him there.