Was the next bullet to the head his?
“Christopher Combs has become a problem,” Schüb said. “He fancies himself a treasure hunter. Did you know that about him?”
He shook his head.
“He’s also a Nazi enthusiast. He has quite a collection hidden away.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“I sent men to steal a look.”
“Is Combs investigating you?”
Schüb chuckled. “I should say not. No, he’s after the gold.”
He listened as Schüb explained how, in the last days of the war, the Berlin Reichsbank was emptied, its contents transported south to the Alps and the National Redoubt, the supposed last stand of the Third Reich. Those assets came by railway from Berlin to Mittenwald. The American army wasn’t far away, and time was short. There were gold bars, boxes of bullion, bags of coins, and millions in foreign currency. It was supposed to be buried in mountain caches. Some was, by a special army detail. But only a fraction of that loot was found after the war.
“There is a great debate over exactly how much was actually buried,” Schüb said. “Later investigations indicated that American soldiers may even have discovered some of the gold and kept it. I’ve read FBI reports from the time, after they were called to Germany to investigate. The results were inconclusive. But if Americans did find the Reichsbank assets, it was still only a portion of the total that the bank held.”
Schüb reached beneath his jacket, produced a piece of paper, and handed it to him.
April 28, 1945
Delivery of the Reichsbank assets occurred without event in Mittenwald. An inventory was performed that revealed the following:
364 bags of gold (2 bars each for a total of 728 bars)
4 boxes of gold bullion
25 boxes of gold bars (each containing 4 bars)
2 bags of gold coins
11 boxes of gold weighing 150 kilos
20 boxes of gold coins
All banknote printing plates were disposed of in Lake Walchen per original orders. Cache locations were chosen on the north-facing mountain slopes at elevations varying from 100 to 200 meters and burial holes prepared during the night. Disposal occurred over the course of April 25 and 26, completed by the 27th.
“That is an English translation of a German memoranda from the time. Many call the Berlin Reichsbank the largest bank robbery in history.”
Wyatt motioned with the paper. “Why is this not in German?”
“Because you do not speak that language.”
He was impressed. “What else do you know about me?”
“That you have been tracking Combs. He betrayed you eight years ago and cost you a career. I’m assuming you came here to kill him.”
“You know a lot about me.”
“You did your job, and you did it well. You asked little besides loyalty and respect. Those I understand. You, of course, received neither from Combs.”
The pieces were beginning to fit. “Combs came here and started asking questions. He located Isabel and the book dealer. He was probing into something that you wanted to remain secret.”
“Not just me. There is another. You asked me a moment ago if I killed Isabel and the book dealer. I killed neither. But the book dealer, Gamero, was going to sell Combs certain documents, like the one you hold. I tried to dissuade him, but he was far too greedy. Isabel. God bless her. She was bitter and angry and talked too much. Unfortunately, my brother was not as patient as I.”
“He killed them?”
“He is a difficult man. He attacks our common problem in a different manner. Killing is easy for him. He is much like his father.”
“And who is that?”
“Martin Bormann. He was the child born while they lived in Africa.”
He had another question but held it for the moment.
“My brother became heir to the family fortune. During the war, Bormann controlled the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund of German Industry. Or, as history as labeled it, Hitler’s Bounty. The moneys came from German industrialists. Some paid willingly, others required encouragement. It was the price the wealthy paid for the privilege of profiting from the Reich. Bormann ruled that fund, and many believed that he diverted much of those assets into foreign accounts. They were right. Gamero’s file cabinets contained records of those transfers.”
“A bit stupid, wasn’t it? Keeping records.”
Schüb smiled. “Such was their fallacy. Nazis loved to write things down. Like that memo you hold. It records the transfer of much wealth at a time when it would have been far better to say nothing.”
He could not argue with that.
“Gamero was the son of a German immigrant. His father, along with countless others, filtered into Chile after the war. Some had relatives in the area, descendants of the original German émigrés who came, with the encouragement of the government, into central Chile during the 19th century. Gamero’s father had been a high-level diplomat in the foreign service, blessed with living abroad during the war, capable afterward of denying, with impunity, any involvement with war crimes.”
“Who are you?” he asked, truly wanting to know.
Schüb stared at the fire, still sitting slouched in the chair. “I am a man who bears a heavy burden. I think you can understand that, can’t you?”
“I came here to right a personal wrong. I don’t care about your problems.”
“I wish mine were as simple as yours.”
Silence passed between them.
“My brother is dead,” Schüb said. “I killed him myself a little while ago.”
“Why am I still alive?”
“I want to show you something.”
He followed Schüb across the grass, back into the woods, and onto a wide path. After ten minutes of walking, during which his host said nothing, he spied the citadel, the long ponderous edifice clinging to the mount of a sharply rising slope, its gray walls splashed with a sodium vapor glow.