April 9, 1977
You do not know me, but I am aware of your long-standing correspondence with Gerhard. You would not have received a letter from Gerhard in several months and the reason for that is going to be difficult to accept. I know it has been for us. Gerhard passed on three months back. He long suffered from a variety of afflictions. But a cold he contracted progressed to flu, then to pneumonia, and he died peacefully in his sleep. He often spoke of you and I know he wanted to see you again, but alas that is not now possible. I thought it the decent thing to let you know, as your letters that have arrived since his death make clear that you are unaware of what the Lord hath done. I am so sorry for your loss. Gerhard was a good man. He will be forever missed.
With sad regret,
Gordon Donaldson Wyatt felt the old woman’s pain. Staring at the stack of envelopes, he realized they had been her life. He imagined her waiting for the next post, anxious to hear that perhaps Gerhard may finally be coming back to Chile from South Africa.
But that never happened. And now she was dead.
He wanted to know who killed her and why.
He finished his dinner and left the restaurant. Nightfall had come, and bright stars fluttered in a brilliant sky. A couple approached, arms wrapped around each other, the two walking slowly, enjoying the quiet.
He stepped aside and allowed them to pass.
An instant later the two lovers lunged back and he felt the barrel of a gun pressed to his neck.
“Stay still,” the male said in his ear.
Two more men appeared from the darkness, rifles in hand. What was a moment before decent odds had just become impossible.
The man patted down Wyatt’s jacket but found nothing. The letters were taken from his grasp.
“Let’s go,” the male said.
He was led away from the café toward a parked pickup truck. He climbed up. The two men with rifles followed, guarding him in a dirty bed that smelled of dung.
They drove from town into the woods beyond. Startled animals dodged in and out of the thickets on either side of the roadway. Some crossed the pavement at the outer reaches of the truck’s headlights, their amber eyes dancing like stars. He kept a close watch on the truck’s course and surmised that they were headed east, a wide plain ahead shimmering beneath a burnished moon. Occasionally, groves of trees disturbed the flatness with irregular shadows.
The truck left the tarred surface and bounced its way through tall grass toward one of the groves. He decided that the roughness of the terrain would work to his advantage. After a couple hundred yards the truck stopped just short of the trees. Before the man and the woman in the cab could climb out, he rammed his elbow into the face of the guard to his right. He wrenched the rifle away from the second man and caught him with a solid uppercut, sending the body over the side and down to the grass. He pointed the muzzle of the rifle at the other man still lying in the truck bed and turned his attention to the two from the cab.
But strangely they did nothing in retaliation.
“No need for that,” the driver said, pointing toward the trees. “There. He waits for you.”
Though he knew he shouldn’t, he allowed his eyes to follow the man’s finger to a tight grove of trees with a clearing in between. Beside a roaring fire stood a short, thin figure. No features were visible, only the blackened outline of his shrunken form.
Wyatt jumped from the truck, rifle in hand, and trudged through knee-high grass. As he drew closer, the crackling blaze soaked away the night’s chill. He saw that the fire was contained with a stone circle.
He kept the rifle pointed forward.
His chaotic thoughts sought unity.
“Good evening,” the old man said. “I am Gerhard Schüb.”
He lowered the rifle and pictured in his mind the image of the virile soldier wearing an SS uniform, the one he’d seen on Isabel’s dresser.
Not the same person.
The old man huddled next to the fire, who now sat in a wooden slat chair, cast an unhealthy pallor. Sunken cheeks, veined eyes, a spent face. Two deep furrows tracked a path from his aquiline nose to the corner of his mouth. His bald pate and wiry frame carried the anemic look of someone not accustomed to the outdoors, though if he was Schüb he would have spent a lifetime in the African sun. Mottled brownish blue age spots dotted his cheeks and forehead and the backs of his bony wrists. But it was the eyes that drew Wyatt, bright and alive, reminiscent of ashes glowing from a dimming fire, feverish in their admiration of the blaze.
“You can’t be Schüb,” he said.
The gaze shifted from the fire. “No. I am not the man Isabel loved. He died long ago. But he was a good man, who lived a good life. So I took his name.” The rasp of cigarettes echoed in the voice.
“Who are you?”
“Did you know your father?”
He hesitated a moment, then said, “I did. We were actually close.”
“Did you admire him?”
“I did.”
“You’re lucky.”
Disdain filled the wizened face. “Isabel was a good woman. But she felt a great loyalty to the Third Reich. She met Gerhard Schüb in Chile. They were both young, they fell in love. She also came to know Eva Braun. Schüb was sent to Africa, by Isabel’s father, with Bormann and Braun. As you now know, he never returned to Chile.”
“You wanted me to find those letters?”
“They were left for you.”
“How did you know I would come back?”
Schüb sat silent for a moment, then said, “There’s something you must know.”
And the older man spoke.
His tone hypnotic, funereal.
The words barely audible over the crackle of the flames.