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“The Nazis didn’t apply that legendary German technology to make this place comfy in the winter?” Cronley asked.
“They spent a fortune doing just that. But after Sturmbannführer Heinz Macher tried and failed to blow up the castle, he tried, with some success, to burn the insides. And after that, he told the local citizenry they were free to loot the place. Which they did.”
“What happened to Macher?”
“I thought I told you. He was captured with Himmler. Originally, they sent him to a prison camp for Less Important SS officers in Darmstadt. I arranged to have him brought to Nuremberg.”
“Charged with what?”
“We don’t have anything on him that we can charge him with. Being Himmler’s adjutant is not in itself a war crime, nor is trying to destroy a castle. I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, being surrounded by people who are going to hang, especially since he believes the victors are taking revenge, might make him cooperative, and he would fess up to what happened to the contents of Himmler’s safe and all those golden Totenkopfrings. So far, all he’ll give me is name, rank, and serial number.”
“Maybe a charming young officer who is not, as Ivan put it, either a Russian or of the Hebrew persuasion, and who speaks German with a Strasbourg accent, could get to him.”
“Why do I think you know just such a person, James?” Serov asked, chuckling.
“And why do I think it’s worth a shot?” Cohen said. “Finish your coffee, gentlemen, your tour of what’s left of the Nazi version of Saint Peter’s Cathedral is about to begin.”
[FIVE]
The Bar
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1930 22 February 1946
When he walked into the bar, Cronley saw a faintly familiar face on a tall, thin, middle-aged major of infantry sitting alone at a corner table, but he couldn’t remember his name, or where he had seen him before.
“Let’s take a table,” he said to Serov, Cohen, and Casey Wagner, who had driven them from the airport. “I’m about to quickly have several belts of Jack Daniel’s and I don’t want to fall off a barstool.”
“Something bothering you?”
“And you know what: Castle Wewelsburg.”
“Red Army officers such as myself pride themselves on impassiveness in all situations,” Serov said. “Having said that, I will tell the waiter to bring a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”
“You, too, Ivan?” Cohen said.
“I had the feeling that we were as close to absolute evil—perhaps hell itself—as we are ever going to be in this life.”
Well said, Ivan.
But from the guy who tried to kidnap Claudette and Flo?
And kidnapped Mattingly and then kept him chained to a chair?
So I would give him Colonel Likharev and his wife and children so that he could show NKGB officers what happens to NKGB officers and their families if they try to switch sides?
Serov was as good as his word. When the waiter came to the table, he ordered, in fluent German, “Please bring a bottle of Jack Daniel’s immediately. On my tab.”
Cronley saw that Wagner was all ears.
But smart enough not to ask questions.
The Jack Daniel’s was quickly delivered.
