The Blood Flag (5 page)

“Have to. If I'm going to sell that I'm still a big-shot neo-Nazi I've got to talk the talk.”

“It's hard to listen to.”

“You're just not used to people speaking their minds. In the PC world nobody says what they think anymore. Which we love. Because then when we do, people eat it up. It's what they've been secretly thinking. Nowadays we have to pretend like all people are the same even when it's obvious to everybody who walks on the earth that that's just not true. So you have this tension out there. The politically correct bullshit says, we're all the same, and if we're not it's because of ‘discrimination,' and its complete crap. It makes people not trust the media, not trust the politicians, not trust anybody, except the neos, once we get a hold of them. They trust us, they hang on every word, because it feels
true
to them.”

“So you used to believe all this stuff.”

“Absolutely.”

“What happened?”

“Don't worry about it.”

“How do I know you're different?” I moved slightly closer to him and gave him my own hard look. “How do I know you're not just trying to figure out what the FBI is doing? Spying on us for the Southern Volk, a sort of double agent?”

Jedediah turned and walked back down the path. I called after him. “Hey!”

He kept walking, shoulders hunched. He walked faster. I hurried after him. “What's up?”

“I don't need this, and I don't need you. I don't really give a shit if you understand. And your big plan to come up with some genius idea to make us all look good is just smoke. You've got nothing. Then you accuse me of infiltrating the FBI. You're unbelievable.”

He turned to go again.

“Wait. Just tell me one thing.”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder without turning his body. It was a very sinister look. I could feel the tattoos burning through his pullover, like they were already imprinted on my mind and went with him in my head wherever he went.

“Pick one thing, pick the most impressive thing that you have ever heard of or seen in any neo meeting or conversation. What has gotten the most comments, the most excitement?'”

“Like where?”

“Anywhere. Any neo meeting you've ever been to, some indoctrination, some . . . whatever. What has gotten everybody's attention the fastest.”

“Somebody with authority. Somebody who goes way back.”

“Like somebody from World War II?”

“Not really a person, but something he has. People love having Lugers, or old German rifles.”

I thought for a minute, and he turned to face me as I pondered. He put his hands on his hips, growing impatient. I said, “What if we brought your guy a whole cache of World War II German weapons. Machine guns, Lugers, bayonets with swastikas on them. The whole bit. All authentic.”

He thought for a minute. “I don't know. Maybe. That would be hard as hell to get into Germany.”

“I could do it.”

“Yeah, but the fact that you could do it would make them suspicious. They'd think you had German government help and that it's a setup.”

“What about an original signed copy of
Mein Kampf
?”

“That might get you somewhere. But you can just buy it on the Internet. Not that creative to get it.”

“You think he's thinking of something like that? You said you weren't going to blow up a federal building or anything.”

He turned back around, more calm. “He left it wide open. We just have to impress him. I'm sure he'd love something big and violent. But he also might think that is exactly the wrong idea. Draws too much attention. Now is not the time to go blowing shit up, as much fun as that is.”

“Alright. Give me some time, let me think about it.”

Jedediah didn't seem impressed. “Yeah, you think about it. You come up with something brilliant, you let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to have to come up with something on my own.” He walked ahead of me out of the woods. I waited until he was out of sight then headed to my car.

When I returned to D.C. I turned back to tracking terrorists. But I found myself drifting back to my conversation with Jedediah and what I'd heard. Right before lunch Alex burst into my office. “Go to CNN.”

“What's up?”

“Bombings in Germany.”

“What?” I said, sitting up. “Where?”

I went to the streaming video of CNN and put it on full screen. Alex watched over my shoulder.

I ignored the reporters and focused on the images. The screen was split. The images on the left were from Munich and on the right from Berlin. People staggered out of a subway entrance with blood streaming down their faces. Some fell to the ground. The cameraman in Munich moved against the flow, down into the subway, the U-Bahn. People pushed past him, fighting for air. Police and medical teams rushed by, heading down toward the subway trains.

“What happened?”

“Bombs on the subway in Munich and Berlin. Went off at exactly the same time, 5:00 p.m.”

“Anybody take credit?”

“Not yet.”

“Coordinated attacks sounds like al Qaeda.”

“They haven't said yet.”

I looked at the images from Berlin. The graphic on the bottom of the screen said forty-five dead, at least ninety more injured. I listened to the reporter. “ . . . a few minutes ago. The bomb went off at a station where many people change trains. Five lines come together at this stop,” she said, indicating over her shoulder, “Alexanderplatz, and apparently a bomb went off on one of the trains, and at multiple locations in the station itself, all at exactly the same time. It has completely shut down the U-Bahn.”

They switched the audio to the reporter in Munich. “Yes, thank you. Here in Munich the bombs were the same. In the station and on one of the trains. Simultaneous, and apparently set to go off at the same time as in Berlin. Here the bombs went off at Marienplatz, where ten lines pass near to each other. The entire system is shut down, the city is frozen, and many are dead with dozens more injured. We will get casualty figures as soon as they are available. The blast in the station was so strong the ceiling of one of the platforms caved in and the train that passed overhead fell down into the lower area. The explosion was devastating. It is unknown how someone got a bomb with such force into the station, let alone onto a train.”

The reporter held her hand to her ear and said, “We now have images from the subway tunnel.” The view switched from outside to the underground platform by the damaged train. The video zoomed in. The front of the train was blown off like an exploding cigarette. The second car was heavily damaged and the entire train was off its tracks. Dead and injured lay all around the platform as emergency personnel attended to the injured. You could hear the crying and screaming of those suffering. A police officer turned and saw the cameraman and immediately ordered him to turn off the camera. He grabbed it and forced the lens to the ground. CNN switched back to the reporter outside the subway entrance. “As you can see, the damage to the train is shocking. This was clearly a powerful bomb, as were the other two that went off inside the subway station at the height of rush hour, with people of Munich returning to their homes . . . ”

I looked at Alex. I was about to speak when my phone rang. I picked up the receiver. “Morrissey.”

“Kyle. You watching this?” It was Rebecca Anderson. CIA. My counterpart at the Agency who tracked international terrorism and finance.

I answered, “Unbelievable. Who's behind this?”

“Not sure yet. But there are some who think it's your boy, the one you told us to pay attention to.”

“Al-Hadi?”

“They think he's moved up, from pure finance to running operations. They think this is his first.”

“Damn. What a way to start, if it's him. He's sure painting a target on his chest.”

“I'll give you updates as soon as I can, but you might check any sources you have that I don't.”

“Will do.” I hung up.

I talked to Alex while I watched the images on my screen. “They think it may be al-Hadi.”

She frowned. “He's too smart to go at it directly.”

“That's my thinking. We follow him, trace him. But we don't send a predator to put a hellfire through his bathroom window. But if he did this, we sure as hell will. Or Germany will.”

A few days after I got back to D.C., while researching everything I could on al-Hadi, I began my baptism into Nazism. I finished
Mein Kampf
then stayed up past midnight for several nights as I read Ian Kershaw's massive two-volume biography of Hitler. Then I watched films on the Nazis from Netflix and Time Life, and one in particular,
Nazism
in America
. Finally I watched
Triumph of the Will
, the 1934 film by Leni Riefenstahl. I started to get it. Hitler's core belief was that Germany was being ruined. Morally and politically ruined. And he knew who was doing it. He fomented hatred against them for what they were doing to Germany. He called for hatred of those who would destroy his great country. It was the Jews, the Communists, the immigrants, and they all deserved hatred. He called on Germans to hate those causing the moral and political decline of the German people. But that was only half of the story. The other half was his
message
to his followers on who
they
were. He persuaded his downtrodden followers that they were
not
worthless people from a bankrupt country; they were
proud Aryans
, the greatest people ever, from a country which would rise again from the ashes if they would trust him! They belonged to a great nation that would be great again under National Socialism and its mesmerizing symbol—the swastika. My wife thought I was going over the edge. My children said I was neglecting them. But I had to understand Nazism under Hitler, and I had to understand neo-Nazism now.

I went to see Karl again. I had mostly stayed out of his way after I had come back, other than telling him about my Asheville meeting. I said, “I need to get over to Germany.”

“Germany? Not on our nickel.”

“On my own. On vacation.”

“Got to give you credit for determination.”

“But I need a contact. Who do you deal with at the BKA?”

Karl seemed to be thinking about whether to tell me the man's name. “Why do you need him?”

“I've got to understand what's going on in Germany. What do they know about Eidhalt? And to help me figure out what will make him interested in the Southern Volk.”

He took a deep breath and finally said, “The BKA guy I know spends a lot of his time in Munich. He gets all over Germany, especially Dresden, where a lot of the stuff is happening. His name is Florian Köhler.”

“Do you have his email?”

He turned toward his computer, looked up his contacts, and forwarded his contact to me. I looked at my BlackBerry and saw that it had arrived. “Thanks. Does he know about Jedediah?”

“Just that we've got a guy.”

“You got any problem if I call Florian today?”

“Go ahead.”

I nodded, gave him a wave of thanks, and returned to my office. I didn't want to waste any time at all. I picked up my phone and dialed.

Germany was six hours ahead. The phone rang three times and an energetic voice answered in German.

“I'm Kyle Morrissey. I'm with the FBI. Trying to reach Florian Köhler.”

“Yes,” he said switching to English. “This is Florian Köhler.”

“Sorry to bother you. You're probably pretty tied up with the bombings.”

“No, that's another department. I'm not involved.”

“Okay. Then let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm working with Karl Matthews, developing something that I think I need your help with. I'd like to come over and meet with you.”

“What is it you're working on?”

“I'd rather not discuss it on the phone. It'd be better in person. I can come to Berlin, or Munich, or wherever you'd like to meet.”

“Why here?”

“To learn from you, and to discuss what I am trying to accomplish.” He was skeptical. “And exactly what is it you are trying to accomplish?”

“Well that's what I want to talk to you about. I think at this point, you're just going to have to trust me.”

He sounded annoyed. “It is a very busy time, even without the bombings.” He hesitated. “If Karl sends me an email, I will meet with you for an hour or so. In Wiesbaden.”

“Yes, that's fine. I appreciate it.”

I made a reservation to Wiesbaden for later that night. I sent a request for three days of vacation and didn't even wait for the response. I rushed home, packed a bag, and headed for Dulles.

I had never been to Wiesbaden. The hotel was beautiful and old, and it had clearly been restored at great expense. I attempted to check into my room, but was told that check-in time was three o'clock. If I wanted to check in now I'd have to pay for another night. I needed to shower and change so I found the fitness center and changed in the shower room. I asked them to press my shirt, and I hung my suit in the bathroom while I showered to let the steam move through it and relax the wrinkles from being triple folded into my roll-aboard. I turned on the television and watched CNN International in English.

I grabbed a cab and asked him to take me directly to Thaerstraße, the headquarters of the Bundeskriminalamt.

We pulled up in front of the imposing white building and I climbed out. It wasn't quite as ominous as the J. Edgar Hoover building, but it had its own impressiveness. The BKA's reputation was excellent. They were serious, diligent, trustworthy, and clever. Their opinion of us was slightly less elevated.

I approached the man behind the counter and asked for Florian Köhler. He typed in his computer, looked up the extension, and called. He looked up at me and said in English, “Mr. Köhler said he was not expecting you yet and that you did not have an appointment.”

“I came as soon as I could. I'll wait until he's available.”

He tried not to show that he thought that was a bad idea. He spoke again to Florian. “He said he can come get you in a half hour.”

I nodded. “Perfect.”

The large sterile lobby had a modern chrome couch with black leather seats. I sat down on the supple leather and opened my briefcase on the glass coffee table. I pulled out a binder into which I had put articles and information about various neo-Nazi groups around the world. They were large, growing, ambitious, and dangerous. I turned to the German neo-Nazis. They had become increasingly bold. And the rate of increase, both in size and number of groups, was increasing at an exponential rate. They were drawing in the disaffected German youth. Unemployment was the starter fuel, Europeanization was the kindling, and Islam was the firewood. There had even been a series of murders of Turks by German neo-Nazis. The murders had a name—the Doner Kebob killings—because many of the murdered men ran small kebob shops or carts. Innocent men going about their lives trying to carve out a living in a country where they felt like outcasts and strangers, cooking their kebobs on the vertical spits common to Doner cooking, and now exposed to vicious murder.

I was reading about the marches in Dresden when I realized there was someone standing right next to me. I looked up from my notebook and he said, “I am Florian Köhler. Welcome to Wiesbaden.”

I stood and put the notebook on the coffee table and extended my hand. We shook hands and I evaluated him. He was at least two inches taller than me. He was very athletic, had spiky blonde hair and stylish glasses. He was smiling, which surprised me. He actually seemed pleased to see me. A very different tone than in our phone call. What surprised me the most was his age. He was perhaps thirty-five; very young for the responsibility he had in the BKA.

He said, “I hope your flight was uneventful.”

“Lufthansa. Nonstop to Frankfurt.”

“An excellent flight. I have taken it many times. I hope you flew business class.”

“That would be the day.”

“Ah. Too bad!” He smiled even more broadly. “Please come, let's go to the café and have an espresso.”

He motioned me in a direction away from the reception desk and through security. We passed through two automatic glass doors into a gleaming new, mostly white modern café. It was set up for the purpose of receiving guests and having casual conversations over coffee.

“Espresso?” He asked as he walked toward the counter area. “Americano?”

There was an attendant there but also a fancy coffee machine for self-service.

“Sure. Americano, please.”

He took two white cups with saucers from the stack and pressed a single button on the face of the machine. It hummed and hissed. Florian handed me mine then poured cream in his own. He pointed to a table toward the window and said, “Let's sit over here.”

The coffee had a slight brown foam on the top. Florian took a sip and said, “So. What is this that you wanted to talk about?” Florian spoke excellent English, with a slight trace of an accent.

“It's sort of a long story.” I hesitated. I'd never had a conversation about World War II with a German. Ever. I had no idea what he thought about the war, or what they were taught in school. I told him the story of my father's division and the anniversary celebration of D-Day at Normandy. Then I told him about Recklinghausen. He listened carefully. Then I told him about the coming meeting in Germany with Eidhalt. That got his attention.

“He is the one who bought that castle to train skinheads. Not ‘Nazis,' of course, because they can't say that. We would put them in jail. So they find other ways. It's all the same.”

“In a few weeks he's going to have a meeting of all the, as he calls them, uber-leaders from the strongest neo-Nazi movements all over the world. He said the reason they have not had the worldwide impact they deserve is that they have lacked unity. Instead, they compete. He says they need a unified vision, a unifying leader, and the finances to make this real. The time is nearing when they will come out into the open. They will be overt, uniformed, and aggressive. They will have public meetings and marches and openly recruit people. They will have enough numbers that no one will
dare
challenge them, just like the SA in the twenties and thirties. They will live inside the laws mostly, especially inside the United States, where as long as they don't call for the violent overthrow of the government, they can say whatever the hell they want. They can publish the most scurrilous rubbish, and nobody can touch them. And what they know, is that people buy it. They believe it. He wants everybody wearing the same uniform, publishing the same documents, and calling for the same result: The racial purification of each country; and then his ultimate objective, the violent overthrow of each country's government.”

Florian shook his head. “Violent overthrow would never work here.”

“I think it's more likely they would try and do it like Hitler did. Get elected or appointed, then take over. Hitler's party joined the Reichstag with thirty-five percent of the vote.”

“You know a lot about Hitler.”

“Been reading a lot lately. And frankly, probably like a lot of others, I'd always taken him lightly. I dismissed him as a lunatic. Now I sort of get it. How he convinced so many people that his ideas were good for Germany. He wasn't the only strident Jew-hater in Germany. Everyone in politics was at the time.”

Köhler looked out the window pensively. He looked back at me, adjusted his glasses, and said, “Many people here don't take Eidhalt seriously. Of course, this is how people initially regarded Hitler, the stupid corporal, the uneducated painter. But of course the fact that Hitler was uneducated does not mean that any other uneducated man can do what Hitler did. Each circumstance is unique. But this man, I have been watching. I have followed him very closely.”

“Do you have anyone inside his organization?”

Köhler went on pretending I had not asked a question. “Eidhalt is not very well educated and is from what was formerly Eastern Germany. Dresden. He enlisted in the German Army. He was trained as a solider. He stayed in the army for six years and became a sergeant. His record is not distinguished. He was an adequate solider, and was good at marksmanship, but was a troublemaker. He had anti-immigrant beliefs, and was disciplined for fighting with a solider of Turkish descent in his unit. He was demoted, though he was promoted again. He got out of the army as a sergeant. And, of course, Rolf Eidhalt isn't his real name.”

“What is his real name?”

“Herman Dieckhoff.”

“Why Rolf Eidhalt?”

“We don't know. He started calling himself that when he started going public with his nonsense.” Florian moved a little closer. “One interesting thing. They give soldiers tests to find out how intelligent they are. To find out if they can do some of the more sophisticated training, like electronics or radar maintenance. He scored at the highest of his class, but wanted nothing to do with radars or electronics. He said he wanted to be a solider. He said he had joined the army to be a soldier and to carry a rifle. His commanding officers thought he was humorless and intense, and believed he was forming an underground group—like a club. Men who thought alike. He did form this underground club, but we, well, army intelligence, could never break into it. It seemed to be anti-immigrant—and there were only white Germans—but no one would talk about it. To this day, they don't know what he did inside the army.”

“How's that possible?”

“Like I said, it was not possible to break into his circle. He was not considered a significant threat, and he left the army.”

“What about now? How did he get to the point where he could buy a castle?”

Köhler smiled, “Ah. That's where the story really gets interesting. It turns out he has quite the business sense. Just as he got out of the army his father died, leaving him a money-losing auto maintenance shop in the center of Dresden. He tried to run it for a while. He was trained as a mechanic by his father. He wasn't very good at it, and he didn't enjoy it. He continued to lose money and finally gave up. But what he apparently didn't realize at first was that the property on which the shop sat was also owned by his father. So when he finally gave up on the shop, he put the property on the market and found out that the property was worth more than a million euros. He sold it, and began his new life.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, he disappeared off the radar for a bit. Have you heard of the marches in Dresden?”

“Yes.”

“You know about the Dresden bombing.”

“In World War II?”

“Yes. It is one of the things that is not talked about very much in the United States, I suspect. But it is still talked about quite a bit in Germany, if anything is talked about.” He smiled ironically.

“The Allies killed more than twenty-five thousand people in Dresden. By fire bomb. Dresden used to be called The Florence of the Elbe . . . it was so beautiful. Your American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, was a prisoner of war in Dresden and was there when the bombing happened. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn't.”

“He had to collect the bodies. They were later burned. Too many of them. He was in a prison they called Schlachthof Fünf. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“Slaughterhouse Five, the name of his famous novel. In any case, in 1990 or so, the neo-Nazis—or skinheads—decided to use the anniversary of that bombing to demonstrate. They have marched there every year since. This year, there were ten thousand of them. So for those that think Nazism is still not alive and well in Germany, they need only go to Dresden on February 13th.”

“What does that have to do with Eidhalt?”

“He's from Dresden. Ever since he made his money, he's been involved in the march. We know he has helped fund it. He doesn't march, but he sends people to it. And pays for people to travel.”

“He stays behind the scenes.”

“He was playing a very clever game. He didn't join any organization. He would monitor them all and help them all. Waiting for the best to rise to the surface. Those that were led by stupid men, he would ignore. Those that were led by smarter men, with better connections and better financing, he would help. He has been waiting for ten years to seize the moment, and now is that time.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because in taking that one million euros he has now converted it over the last twenty years to fifty million euros. He purchased property all over the former East Germany. When companies were motivated by the government to move into Eastern Europe and therefore needed land or buildings, he would sell to them. And when the government needed a new headquarters for their agency, he would sell it to them. As I said, he is now worth a lot. Maybe more than fifty million. And much of it is liquid. We know where all his accounts are, at least we think we do, but we also believe he has some accounts in Switzerland now. And maybe even in the United States. He has a very clever accountant. We think some of the money has moved without us knowing where it went.”

He shifted. “And now there is money coming into his accounts—a new account that he thinks he has hidden—that we can't trace back. But we know it isn't from Europe. We think it's a secondary source of funding. Someone who is supporting him or funding him.”

“So,” he said, sighing. “We have a man who is Nazi to the core, rich, clever, and now believes it is time to stand on top of what he sees as a rising tide of nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiments, and economic fear. Things aren't as bad as they were in the twenties and thirties, but there are enough young men who are unemployed and enough who think all of Europe is about to be destroyed by immigration that Eidhalt has many followers. And they see Turks as the cause of their unemployment. Turks and other immigrants. They, of course, also blame Jews for the decline of social morals and standards, and
hate
the European Union for—they say—taking away Germany's identity. It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to work. And people follow it.”

“He sounds dangerous.”

“He is. Even the press is noticing. There were many reports of his buying this castle. It dates back to the 1400s in Bavaria. One of the few available to the public, and it was in some disrepair. He bought it two years ago and put it in workable order. He installed the most modern security, power everywhere, air conditioning, and comfort. So instead of a drafty old stone castle, he finished the stone walls to modern standards with structural steel and electronics. And he will not let anybody in. There are no photographs of the inside of the castle since the completion. Only rumors from workers and employees, but not much of that. They are all very loyal and quiet.”