Goering's Gold by Richard O'Rawe

Author:Richard O'Rawe [O'Rawe, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2022-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ADELBERT KELLER IS RICH, ALTHOUGH NO ONE CAN ascertain the source of his wealth. His home, on the shore of the Chiemsee, an hour’s drive outside Munich, has a twenty-five-metre swimming pool, a bar, a sauna, a jacuzzi, a spa room, a gymnasium, a billiards room, eight bedrooms, and four reception rooms. In his boathouse is a seven-berth Cayman 75 HT powerboat and three Jet Skis. The latest in a long string of females who have shared his life is thirty-year-old Candice, a former lap dancer from Dresden.

As a child and then as a student, Karl Keller had spent idyllic summers in his paternal grandfather’s home. He found him a kind man, reassuring, always on hand to help or to dispense advice when needed.

Karl needs his advice now.

They walk out the patio doors of a second-floor reception room onto the overhanging balcony. Directly in their line of sight is the Chiemsee and the island of Frauenchiem, which covers thirty-eight acres. Those acres include a Benedictine nunnery, which has been there since 782, and a cenotaph to Nazi leader Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, who signed the German Instrument of Surrender on 7 May 1945. They sit down in wicker chairs at a glass coffee table, and Karl lights a cigar.

Adelbert is not his usual tranquil self. He hadn’t had the slightest idea that Jochen Schulze was the mole, and the surprise was total. He liked the man. They had played golf and poker together. Schulze had stayed in the house, sailed on the powerboat, and got drop-dead drunk on Adolf Hitler’s birthday. The man had cherished hearing about the old times, when the SS ruled the world.

Karl doesn’t know where to start. He lifts his glass of red wine and sips sheepishly.

‘What did he know?’ Adelbert asks as he also sips red wine.

‘Are you sure you want an answer to that question?’

‘Of course I want an answer. How can I help you if I don’t know what’s going on?’

‘He knew we carried out the Mercier raid.’

Adelbert has regained his composure. ‘But he wasn’t there?’

‘No.’

‘Then whatever he has heard is hearsay and useless in a court of law. Have you ever admitted being there to anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Not even to close friends?’

‘No one.’

‘Does Gitte know you were there?’

Karl hesitates.

‘She does,’ Adelbert says. ‘Your hesitancy confirms it.’ The older man stands up, looks out over the lake, and asks, ‘Does Schulze know how important the Reichsmarschall’s baton is?’

‘He knows it’s the key to the gold.’

‘Then the authorities also know it’s the key to the gold. That’s not good.’

Adelbert walks along the balcony. ‘Where’s the baton now?’

‘An Irishman has it.’

‘An Irishman?’

‘Yes. A bank robber called O’Hare.’

‘And where is he?’

‘Somewhere in France.’

‘Where in France?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So you don’t have control of the baton or the Irishman?’

‘No. But he doesn’t know the baton’s true value.’

Adelbert gazes out to Frauencheim island. ‘That’s something.’ The elder Nazi swirls the red wine in his glass but doesn’t drink it. ‘You haven’t acquitted yourself very well, have you, Karl?’

Shaken, Karl draws on his cigar.

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