to serve and protect him, and after his death, what happened to its members mattered to him not at all.
Indio wore a headset, as did several of the men, so they could communicate despite the noise of the helicopter. He offered one to Nitzche, then helped him put it on his head as Nitzche continued to smoke his pipe.
“Yes, Indio?” the old man asked.
“My leader, the pilot reports there is no sign of pursuit.” Indio’s command of English was superb. He hadn’t spoken a word of it until Nitzche asked that he learn. English served as the language in common among all his recruits, because many of them spoke it. Since the death of the last of his original lieutenants, Nitzche hadn’t had occasion to speak German to any of his supporters. The emotion this thought brought him might have been regret, but on the whole, Nitzche wasn’t sentimental. He cared only to be as strong as he could be and to make those who had hurt him pay.
“That is excellent,” he said. “And not unexpected.”
“How did you know, sir?” Indio rumbled. He had the deepest voice of any man Klaus had ever encountered. “How could you be certain the authorities wouldn’t simply pluck us from the sky, force us down?”
“For the same reason that I should have anticipated the interference of that wretched bounty hunter,” Nitzche said, spitting the last two words. “On whose shoulders rest the blame for this entire miserable affair.”
“The Berwalds?” Indio asked.
“The very same.” He nodded. “No one among the Jewish Nazi-hunters has more tenacity than Berwald, except perhaps his bastard son.” Klaus paused to take a long puff from his pipe. “And who among our enemies, who have for so many years rooted out our fellows, would have the political clout to make sure the police didn’t simply shoot us down or somehow make us land? I sense the Berwalds know that, free of the fools who would jail me, I will not be caught twice.”
“They wish you free… .” Indio began.
“Yes,” Nitzche said. “They wish me free so they may deal with me themselves. They will not trust the courts to do it a second time. We have amassed as much information about the Nazi-hunter groups as they have amassed about us. We knew almost everything there was to know about Lantern before they ever had me in their clutches. Doubtless I have few secrets from them, either. That is how they knew where to send the bounty hunter to take me. How goes that operation, incidentally?”
“Our men in Hawaii are closing in,” Indio said.
“I want him killed,” Nitzche stated, nodding, “but slowly. Make him suffer. Record it, so that we may distribute the video online. I wish it known what happens to all who presume to make a fool of Klaus Nitzche.”
“Of course, sir,” Indio said. “My leader, I have taken the opportunity of…disciplining the men assigned to guard you the day the bounty hunter captured you. Had they followed protocol, they would never have been separated from you.”
“Such,” Nitzche said, “is the price of one’s appetites.” The old man had, in fact, been visiting Buenos Aires’s most exclusive brothel the day the bounty hunter captured him. Nitzche had grown somewhat complacent in his later years, making a habit of visiting the establishment every Sunday. This practice had no doubt become known to Lantern’s intelligence network. He’d made such trips with minimal guard for the sake of discretion, something he would know better than to indulge in again.
Nitzche knew, too, that Indio’s idea of “discipline” was to gouge out a man’s eyes with his knife before killing him. It was one of the things that made his assistant so valuable. A fit of rage on the big man’s part made it possible to extract the harshest penalty for failure, while maintaining the fiction that he cared deeply for all his men and would never treat them so harshly. What was it that old Italian had said? “It is better to be feared than loved when one of the two must be lacking.” Yes, it was something like that.
Nitzche understood the value of creating both emotions in his followers.
Feeling his belly full at last, he handed the thermos back to Indio and gestured with his pipe. The rear portion of the large transport helicopter was full of the kneeling hostages and their armed guards. Among those Nitzche had captured was the judge, one Amy Ballard. She was a gray-haired, severe woman with a matronly demeanor and a miserable tongue. During his preliminary appearances before the court, she had grandstanded from the bench more than once, expressing her contempt for Klaus Nitzche and everything she believed he stood for.
Also present were the court reporter―a fairly attractive young woman—and a handful of other court functionaries and spectators. The prosecutor, an older man named Lars Kinsey, was there, as was Nitzche’s own sniveling court-appointed defense counsel, Kevin Orwin. There were also two bailiffs. Their weapons had been taken from them.
“Have you heard from the men we stationed to cover our departure?” Nitzche asked.
“No, sir,” Indio said. “There has been no call. Each man had a prepaid wireless phone, but they may have fallen to the operative in black.”
“That wouldn’t explain why the men stationed in the courthouse itself also fail to report,” Nitzche said. “But no matter. There are two court guards among the hostages.”
“Yes, my leader,” Indio said.
“Bring them to me. Separately.”
“Yes, my leader.” Indio produced a shoe box from under his crash seat and opened it. Inside, swathed in a soft cloth, was a beautifully maintained presentation-grade Luger pistol. As Nitzche watched, Indio checked the magazine and chambered a round, operating the toggle action. He reversed the burnished, heavily engraved weapon and handed it over almost reverently, bowing his head.
Nitzche felt the grip of the familiar weapon fill his hand. The sensation of the steel and wood against his palm chased away the pain of his arthritis.
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