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  “Rosenberg was in charge of the” – Kit consulted his notes, written in his usual rune-like penmanship – ‘the spiritual and philosophical education of the Nazi Party.’ In that role he drafted for Hitler’s signature a proclamation establishing the Special Task Force For Music. He viewed all of human history as a battle between the forces of light, the Aryans, and the forces of darkness, the Jews. On that last point, Jesus gave him some trouble since Jesus was, after all, a Jew. Rosenberg cranked up some crackpot scholarship revealing that, in fact, Jesus was part of an Aryan tribe living in Israel at the time. It’d be funny, if it wasn’t so awful.”

  Somewhere a neighbor struggled to start a lawn mower. A dog barked two doors down, a golden retriever who flopped on his back to get his belly rubbed at the slightest sign of affection. The contrast between the everyday noises of a summer night and the horrors they were discussing was so unnerving that for a few seconds Griffin was unable to speak.

  *

  “Saif,” he managed eventually, “what did you find out about the Special Task Force and violins specifically?”

  “Not all that much, Griffin. So many of the records must have been destroyed in the war. I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Griffin reassured him. “With all the fighting and the firebombing, the near-total devastation of Germany, most of the records must have been destroyed.”

  “The information is very limited,” Saif agreed.

  “I’m certain you did as well as anyone could. Besides, I’m becoming convinced there’s another reason the record is so thin, which I’ll get to in a while. Just tell us what you can.”

  “The few records that do exist illustrate the legendary German precision – date, time, and place of acquisitions all specified.”

  “What they stole and when they stole it,” Griffin summarized. “And who they stole the instrument from?”

  “And whom they stole the instrument from. Many of the violins were taken from victims of the Holocaust, who were hardly in any position to stop them.” Saif’s voice had a kind of sour taint to it, which Griffin figured was caused by the distaste Saif felt for the unpleasant subject. “The Special Task Force For Music was plundering so many musical instruments they couldn’t keep them all. They sent out squads of specialists. The specialist’s job was to decide which were the most valuable instruments. The specialist had to determine what was worth sending back to the Music Office in Berlin and what wasn’t.”

  “Saif? By a specialist you mean a musician knowledgeable about the instrument he was examining? For example, a pianist would examine the pianos. A flutist examines the flutes, and so on.”

  “Presumably, yes.”

  “A child prodigy on the violin would examine violins.”

  Saif caught the implication, as Griffin knew he would. “Whoa. Hans Baeder.”

  “Do you think Hans Baeder, former child prodigy, might have been a violin specialist?”

  Saif hesitated before answering. He was not, Griffin knew, comfortable with speculating. Still, he concluded, “That’s likely.”

  “How big was the Special Task Force?”

  “More than 300 people at its peak, Griffin. Far less by the war’s end. It’s safe to suppose many of them were killed in the bombing and the fighting. One last thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is, Griffin, that the Special Task Force was in Italy. That much is known and no surprise at all. Think of all the loot awaiting them in Naples and Milan, and Florence and Rome.”

  “I’ve got to ask. Did they get to Arazzo?”

  “They did, Griffin. And only a few days after the Ulm air raid. They may have gone to Arazzo to recuperate. That’s it.”

  The lawn mower finally coughed to life. Griffin listened for a few seconds to the oddly reassuring sound.

  “Here’s the question,” he began. “Here’s the question that I think ties together Duke Ferlinghetti’s key and the man in white and Future-Ride – either Alexandra Webb or De-BOR-ah Miller – and Hans Baeder.”

  Bobby crumpled his cup. The sound wasn’t loud, but was so well-timed he grabbed everyone’s attention. He had that skill for taking center stage.

  In a British accent, imitating Sherlock Holmes, he said, “That’s elementary, Dr. Watson.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  June 18

  6:47 pm

  Speaking now in his own voice, Bobby said, “The question is: Where did all that loot go?”

  “Exactly, Bobby. That, as you Shakespearean actors say, is the question. Where did it all go? The thousands of instruments stolen by the Special Task Force For Music? There isn’t much of an historical record,” Griffin conceded. “But there is some. There are a few facts, but other than that we have to connect some widely scattered dots. What do we know for sure?

  “We know, as Saif just told us, the best of the stolen musical instruments were brought back to the Music Office in Berlin. We know the Music Office, like so much of Berlin, was turned to rubble in the Allied bombing. Those are historical facts, as is the fact that the Music Office warehouses were virtually empty by the time the American and British troops from the west and the Soviet troops from the east captured Berlin.

  “No doubt many, many instruments were destroyed in the bombing of Germany, which was ferocious. But we are talking about a spectacular haul here. Keep in mind the legendary German efficiency – and the limitless Nazi greed. They stole the best instruments that European culture has produced over centuries. Violins by Stradivarius and who knows what else. Where did it all go?

  “The historical record tells us that in late 1944 and the opening months of 1945 the Special Task Force shipped their take to safer locations in Germany. But the Allies kept pressing into Germany and no place was safe for long. At this point, in the fog of war and the collapse of the Third Reich, the record shifts from the historical into almost mythical lore. The question we need answered is: Where did all those instruments go?”

  “Where did they go, Griffin?” asked Kit.

  “Some believe the loot went into mine shafts; others say massive underground bunkers whose locations were known only to the Nazis. The most frequently listed places for these mine shafts and bunkers are Hamburg in the north and Ulm in the south.”

  Annie pointed out, “Those are the two places where Future-Ride did so much business, Hamburg and Ulm. What’s the word you used for the pattern we came up with, Griffin? Unrandom?”

  “Whether it’s a word or not, I’m not sure.”

  “But it can’t be random,” Annie persisted. “Future-Ride does all that work in Hamburg and Ulm and nowhere else in Germany.”

  “No,” Griffin agreed. “It’s not random. Now we know what one of the ladies at Future-Ride is after. She’s after something stolen by the Special Task Force. Something that might have been hidden in the areas of Hamburg or Ulm. But we don’t know exactly what that something could be. It’s a safe bet whatever’s being sought could fit into the fairly small room at the back of the dungeon in Arazzo Castle. Since that’s where the man in white thought he’d find it. That’s what the key was for. Whatever it is.

  “There’s a reason Future-Ride did business with those eleven companies in Hamburg and Ulm and nowhere else in Germany. Doing business with companies in those two places almost certainly gave one of our Future-Ride ladies the excuse to go to those places. She could look around, do some on the ground investigating. Her cover story for all those trips to Hamburg and Ulm is legitimate business. Not only would Future-Ride pick up the tab for the trip, but she has an airtight alibi.”

  “Which of the Future-Ride ladies do you think made those European trips?” Bobby wondered. “I know you expect Grace to tell us.”

  “She will. I’ve asked her for a passport check. That will let us know how many trips abroad Alexandra Webb and De-BOR-ah Miller have made. Then we’ll know which woman it is.”

  Bobby persisted. “But which of the women do you think it is, Griffin? Is it Alexandra Webb or De-B
OR-ah Miller? I couldn’t tell when I was Dr. Briggs and I can’t tell now.”

  “I couldn’t say yet,” Griffin admitted. “But here is what I can tell you now.”

  *

  “There are two documented attempts to hide the Special Task Force’s stash,” Griffin resumed. His throat hurt from all this talking. “The destination for one attempt was a monastery in Bavaria. There is a bill of lading for shipment by rail.”

  “A bill of lading would have a date and list of contents shipped,” Saif stated. As always, he was quick to the point.

  “Unfortunately, this one doesn’t,” Griffin said, with obvious frustration. “The document was found in a burned out basement in Hamburg. That part of the bill of lading with the date as well as identification of the contents to be shipped was burned and unreadable. This much is known about that shipment – When British troops reached the Bavarian monastery in May 1945, they found nothing of value. Did the shipment reach its destination? Was it stopped before it got to the monastery? The historical record won’t ever tell us.

  “But here is a detail I learned today in my research – the rail line in Ulm, where Hans Baeder was wounded, is on the way to the monastery. The shipment might have been the one hit by the American bombers in the raid Billy Williams told me about. We may never know for certain. But I believe that is exactly what happened.”

  Griffin sipped his root beer. Not only was his throat gravelly from so much talking, he needed to collect his thoughts before moving into the next part. After draining his drink, he said, “Putting the Bavarian monastery to the side for a moment, there is just one other identified effort to ship musical instruments.

  “In Silesia, five boxcars were left on the train tracks, when the Russian Red Army showed up earlier than expected and the Germans fled. The Russians appropriated the five boxcars of instruments. Whatever was in those boxcars has not been heard of since. What the Russians took and where it went remains unknown. And will likely stay unknown.

  “This, I think, is why the raid in which Hans Baeder was wounded was listed as classified. The Americans and British wanted very much to limit criticism of our Russian Allies. The Russians had, after all, helped themselves to the spoils of war, stealing back from the Germans what the Special Task Force had stolen. Consequently, anything about the Special Task Force For Music was deemed classified information. That’s part of why the surviving record is so sparse.

  “Now,” Griffin tried to say, but his throat gave out.

  *

  Annie handed him her Styrofoam cup. He slugged back the last inch of orange soda, feeling like a marathoner tossing back Gatorade on the run.

  “Now, I know via my phone conversation with Billy Williams, and this was confirmed today on a web site Grace recommended, that the August 17, 1944 raid on the Ulm rail line was partially successful.”

  “What’s that mean?” Kit wanted to know. “Partially successful?”

  “A good question,” Griffin said. “I asked Billy Williams that. Billy’s the expert on air raids during the war. He’s in his Nineties and retired to Florida. And still quite the character.”

  “What did the expert say?” Bobby followed up. “What does partially successful mean?”

  “The target was hit. But was it destroyed? Maybe yes, maybe no. We already knew the target was hit – Hans was wounded in the raid.”

  “If this bombing expert can’t say,” Bobby wanted to know, “who can?”

  “Miriam,” Annie said, a heartbeat before Griffin could answer. “You told me Miriam is the name of Hans Baeder’s girlfriend. He might have said something to her about it.”

  “Miriam Freitag, the girlfriend’s name is. Mel Morton called today to give me her last name,” Griffin explained. “And, yes, maybe Hans told Miriam something. Annie and I will see Miriam Saturday after she’s back from going out of town. Saif got her address. According to Mel, normally Hans was close to totally silent. If Hans talked to anybody about the raid where he was wounded, it would have been Miriam Freitag. Miriam is our next step.

  “Here’s what we want to learn from her: Does she know what was on that Special Task Force train? And did anything survive the partially successful air raid?” He stopped speaking, his throat sandpapery again. Annie held up her hand for him to pause. She went into the kitchen and returned with a pitcher of lemonade. He poured some lemonade into his cup, sipped – it didn’t really mix well with the dregs of orange soda – then resumed.

  “We can safely conclude that one of the ladies at Future-Ride or the man in white or both believe something survived the Ulm air raid. Whatever survived the raid is what they’re after.

  “The ladies at Future-Ride? Clearly one of them believes something survived the Ulm raid. That’s why those 19 calls were made from the Future-Ride alcove phone to Hans Baeder. Hans survived the raid. He was wounded in the raid, but survived. Why else would they call him, other than to find out which violins survived with him? It certainly could not be about a carpenter making a $750,000 investment, minimum.

  “The man in white? I think that’s what the man in white was expecting to find in the room at the back of the Arazzo Castle dungeon. He’s after whatever violins survived the air raid at Ulm when Hans was wounded.

  “That’s got to be why Hans Baeder’s house was burglarized during his funeral. Dude, the druggie Timothy Dean talked about during his interrogation, broke in, looking for something. Which he did not find. Who ordered him to break in? Someone at Future Ride or the man in white? Or are they working together?”

  Griffin pressed on. “I found out today from Grace the dimensions of that room at the back of the Arazzo Castle dungeon: five feet deep, five feet wide, seven and a half feet high. That is just about the size of a storage facility cubicle, the kind you rent for a month at a time. Annie, remember when we moved your friend Katie Mac’s stuff into the storage place by I-83?”

  “Katie Mac is not exactly my friend.”

  “I understand. But remember how many boxes we got into that storage cubicle? Must have been twenty, more. You’d cram another box in there and think, that’s it, this has got to be full. Then you could cram in a few boxes more.

  “Point is, even that small room at the back of the dungeon could have held quite a few instruments. Violins, probably, since that was Hans’ specialty. Think how much a floor to ceiling room full of Stradivariuses would be worth. Or is it Stradavarii? Whichever. Either way, nothing was there in that room at the back of the dungeon. But now we know, though still not specifically, what the man in white was expecting to find. What would it be worth, a roomful of the most valuable musical instruments the Nazis could steal?”

  “Billions and billions,” answered Bobby, in his impression of Carl Sagan.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Griffin spotted a look of confusion crease Annie’s face.

  “What ? What is it?” he asked her.

  “Griffin? That doesn’t-” she hesitated.

  “Go ahead, Annie. You think I’ve got something wrong. No need to be so defensive. What do you think I missed?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  June 18

  7:00 pm

  “Let’s say you’re right,” Annie replied. “Let’s say that room at the back of the dungeon in Arazzo Castle is filled – filled floor to ceiling with violins stolen by the Special Task Force For Music. The ones that survived the air raid. At least, that’s what you think the man in white believed.”

  “I do, Annie. What else would explain how much effort he put into getting the key for that room? The Special Task Force stole so much from all over Europe. Some of it, the very best of it was supposed to be in that room. For whatever reason, the room was empty. But that’s what the man in white expected to find – a roomful of looted violins.”

  “Then how did he plan to get all those instruments out of the room, up the stairs from the dungeon, and out of the castle?”

  “How?” Griffin thought for a bit, coming up with, “Return when the castle was clo
sed to the public. He could hire some help, a van…” Griffin drifted into silence, sensing where Annie was heading.

  “He’d be on camera the entire time, wouldn’t he?” Griffin said. “The surveillance camera film Grace sent us shows that. There are cameras all over Arazzo Castle. That’s how we saw the number he called at Future-Ride. He didn’t know the exact range of every camera, but, sure, he knew about the cameras. He and the crew he’d have to hire to carry everything out would be caught on film. There is simply no way to avoid that, is there?”

  The more Griffin thought about it, the worse his theory became.

  “And what about the security guards?” he offered next. “Grace said there are guards on duty in the castle at all times. There are guards around when Arazzo Castle is open to the public and there are guards around when it isn’t. The guards would stop him, wouldn’t they? And…”

  “And what, Griffin?”

  “And the man in white told me: This isn’t about money.” Griffin exhaled heavily. He gave Annie a weak smile. “Sorry. I don’t know how the man in white planned to take whatever it was he expected to find in that room.” He recovered slightly: “I don’t know yet.”

  Annie softly touched his forearm twice.

  “You will.”

  *

  No one said anything for a while. Griffin was thinking about his next step, a visit to Hans’ girlfriend Miriam Frietag. The silence was broken by the ringing of the front doorbell.