Silver Shirts Read online

  “On January thirtieth, 1933, Hitler became Germany’s new chancellor and Pelley founded the Silver Legion of America, he had chapters in nearly every state and membership numbered in the thousands. He modeled the official club costume on Nazi uniforms and called his followers Silver Shirts and Christian Patriots.”

  “Wow,” Catherine crossed her arms across her chest, “are we still talking the 1930’s here? Or the two-thousandsies, because these people sound like the demographic for the Fox News Network.”

  “No kidding. He published books and periodicals espousing his occult and anti-Semitic beliefs… He even claimed to have had a near death experience at some point in his life so he fit right in with a lot of these people,” She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, “I guess it was easy for him to believe it was his destiny to rule.”

  “Until the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor...”

  “Yes,” Jordan clicked up a photo of the rusted ranch gate where Nancy Ward’s body had been hung, placing it next to the image of the yellowed newspaper article forwarded to her by the archivist. “On that day,” she spoke as she came to sit next to Catherine again, “FBI agents stormed the place and arrested everyone, including Joseph Schmidt.” Holding up the remote, she clicked up an old black and white FBI Wanted poster of a man in a cap.

  “Is that him?”

  “Maybe, no one knows for sure, according to the Los Angeles Times this man was arrested and identified as Nazi spy Joseph Schmidt, but no record of his arrest can be found and he was never heard of again.”

  “Joe Smith.”

  “Yep.”

  Catherine’s brows bobbed briefly as she considered Jordan’s words and the pictures on the enormous screen, “What do you think happened to him?”

  “Hoover had him executed?” Jordan shrugged, “That’s one strong possibility… but Hoover hatred Roosevelt… he hated communists too, maybe he let Schmidt escape… we’ll just never know.”

  “And Nancy Ward’s murder is somehow connected to the ghoulish history of Murphy Ranch?”

  “Her murderer carved lying Jew whore into her torso, I’d surprised if it wasn’t.”

  “Okay, so the hard drive is missing…”

  “Excuse me?” Jordan turned to her, convinced she had misheard her.

  Catherine stood at the dining room table that served as Nancy Ward’s home workspace. After Agent Fielding had thoroughly photographed and dusted the computer and all its components for fingerprints, Catherine donned latex gloves and lifting the computer from under the table, placed it on top, next to the monitor. While the scene investigators combed the neat one-bedroom residence for evidence of a murder, Catherine deftly slid the side panel off the computer and stopped, her gloved hands poised midair, “The hard drive is missing…” she repeated, adding, “it’s been removed.”

  Jordan craned her neck, wincing when she felt the crunching vertebrae, “Dammit. There was no sign of forced entry,” she gestured helplessly, “so she knew her murderer, let the person in… got killed somewhere else and the murderer took the hard drive.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t killed here?”

  “This place is too neat, unless she was unconscious and died very passively, there’s nothing to indicate the murder happened here.”

  “So far…”Agent Fielding insisted from the kitchen area and Jordan amended, with a small smile,

  “So far.”

  “I found keys on the kitchen counter,” Mary held up a key ring and jangled it, “wanna’ see if her car’s here?”

  “Okay,” Jordan looked at Catherine, “you and I are executing the workplace warrant next; we might as well have a look on the way out.”

  Agent Fielding brought along one of her technicians and the four took the elevator down to the second garage level.

  “Well, what do you know…” Jordan pulled latex gloves from her jacket pocket, “maybe things are looking up.”

  “That’s for sure her car…” Fielding double-checked her paperwork, comparing it to the license plate on the back of the shiny silver Lexus. She turned off the car’s alarm with the remote on the keychain and opened the driver door. Without touching anything, all four crowded around and peered inside.

  “I’m gonna bet we’re not gonna’ find much in here.” Mary sighed, noting the car’s immaculate interior.

  Crouching, Jordan carefully placed her gloved hands on the running board and peered under the seat, “Well, if I had a car like this I wouldn’t junk it up either.” She got up and peered between the seats, “Oh, now this is nice…” she slid her hand between the console and the passenger seat. “Ugh,” she grunted as her long fingers fumbled and strained, “this is really wedged in here.” She finally pulled the object free and dropped it into the evidence bag Mary held out to her, “A cell phone…” she grinned, taking the bag, “how nice.” She suddenly turned back to the car’s interior, “Hey…” she pulled a small penlight from her jacket pocket, “Are those scuff marks?” She pointed the light to the molded plastic under the steering wheel.

  Mary and Catherine peered over her shoulders and Mary grinned, “Maybe this car has more of a story to tell us than I thought.”

  After finding nothing else in the car, Jordan and Catherine left Mary and her team to finish cataloging the apartment and arrange for the transportation of Nancy Ward’s car to the FBI garage. Arthur Mills, the moon-faced Vice President of the Cryptanalytics Division met Jordan and Catherine in Dynamic Infrastructure’s lobby.

  “Thank you for meeting us, Mister Mills,” Jordan held up her badge wallet, “I’m Special Agent Jordan Hawkins from the FBI and this is my associate Doctor Catherine Bernard, she’ll be transferring the data on Nancy Ward’s hard drives to our servers.”

  His thin eyebrows arched high, “You understand Nancy is one of the leading cryptanalysts in the country,” his voice dripped with disdain, “her work is highly confidential, if she was here today I couldn’t even let you speak to her let alone touch her work.”

  “Nancy Ward was found murdered in Los Angeles…” Jordan let that sink in while she produced the warrant from the briefbag slung over her shoulder, “I have a search warrant for access to everything in and pertaining to her work, digital or otherwise.”

  Catherine watched as the color drained from the man’s round, smooth face and he sputtered, “Nancy’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Jordan said solemnly and gestured toward the elevators, “Why don’t you lead the way.”

  She urged the man to sit on a chair in Nancy’s office, recording her interview with him on her phone while Catherine sat at her desk and sent the contents of her hard drives to non-networked servers in Bea’s Cyber Division.

  “Weren’t you concerned when she didn’t show up for work for an entire week?”

  “N-n-no,” he sputtered, still looking shocked, “it wasn’t uncommon for her to take time off then come back with an enormous amount of completed work to submit.”

  “Did Nancy have any friends here?” Jordan asked as she quietly opened the mostly empty desk drawers, careful not to bother Catherine who sat quietly enrapt; her eyes glued to the screen while her fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “I…” Mr. Mills shook his head, “not really, a lot of the analysts at her level don’t necessarily form friendships with each other…” He looked dazed, “There are only two who work together as a team in this department… everyone meets to review each other’s work and brainstorm… but Nancy was one of those who always worked independently.”

  Catherine barely heard the conversation while she worked; after being given Nancy’s password, she worked quickly to access everything on the dead woman’s networked workstations, and while she watched the massive data packets upload, her hands came to a slow stop over the keyboard. She stared at the data that flooded the screen and absently, her fingertips trailed lightly over the keys. She worked alone here… day after day… Nancy Ward sat here and worked… and now she’s dead. Her eyes drifted from the scre
en and scanned the neat desk, Looks like Alex’s desk at home… no pictures… no personal items… She shrugged inwardly; Nancy’s apartment looked the same way, professionally decorated… Expensive but it looked so generic… no pictures of family or friends… I wonder if her thing was expensive clothes and jewelry too…

  “Doctor Bernard?”

  She blinked and looked up at Jordan, “Yes?”

  “Are we done here?”

  “Careful…” she warned, “the fingerprint dust can be annoying.”

  Catherine pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and carefully wiped the cell phone clean and tried turning it on, “Battery’s dead...” she mumbled and Jordan saw her dig a cord from a desk drawer and connect the phone to her workstation.

  “You can power it from a USB connector?”

  “Yeah...” she nodded, watching as the phone booted up.

  “Okay…” Jordan sat at her desk, staring at her own monitor, “I’m looking at her financials and so far it’s clear she liked buying high-end clothes, jewelry, and stocks…”

  Catherine’s brows arched in surprise, “So why would she have a prepaid cell phone?”

  Jordan peered around their back-to-back monitors, “Huh?”

  “This is a prepaid cell phone…” She viewed the phone’s contents on her monitor, “She has nearly a thousand minutes and forty-seven service days left on here.”

  Jordan left her seat and walked around their desks to look over Catherine’s shoulder, “That’s interesting because I just got done looking at her phone bill and it’s definitely not a burner...” Catherine gave her a bemused look and she clarified, “It’s slang for prepaid…” She pointed at the phone connected to Catherine’s workstation, “But this is the exact same model as her expensive contract phone.” She went back to pull her desk chair around to Catherine’s, “So what did Miz Ward have on this prepaid phone?”

  Catherine accessed the components via her keyboard, “Okay, so there’s a thirty-two gig card in here…” She scanned the files, “no pictures, there’s just an audio recording and a video file...” She turned to look at her, “Which do you want first?”

  Jordan shrugged, “Video?”

  “Video it is…” She clicked open the file, switching to fullscreen and turned up the speaker volume.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this…”

  They heard a woman’ voice whisper harshly while they squinted at the dark and fuzzy, shaking image on the screen.

  “Shhh…” They heard a man whisper, “no talking till we’re inside.”

  “Inside where?” Jordan mumbled and touched Catherine’s arm, “Wait, can you pause that a second?”

  She froze the image on the screen; “It looks like Nancy trained the camera on a hand and a metal lock?”

  “Yeah, and it was nighttime…” Jordan agreed, staring at the image, “okay, wanted to make sure, hit play…”

  They watched as gloved hands fitted a blank key in the lock on a metal gate then tapped it sharply with a small rubber mallet. The lock suddenly popped open and Nancy recorded them slipping inside and pushing the gate closed behind them.

  Catherine suddenly felt nervous, “This wasn’t taken at Murphy Ranch’s gate was it?”

  Jordan squinted at the image, “I don’t think so…” she pointed, “look.”

  Nancy and the man walked silently in darkness until she focused her camera on the hands again fitting another blank key into the lock of a door and striking it with a mallet.

  “How’s he doing that?”

  “It’s called key bumping...” Jordan explained, “You slide an uncut key into a lock and hit it with a hammer and it forces the tumblers back…”

  “Great…” Catherine grumbled, watching as Nancy and her companion pushed open the door and slipped into darkness,

  Nancy giggled, sounding giddy, “So now what?”

  “Now…”

  They heard the male voice as the phone was placed next to a flashlight that illuminated Nancy and her companion standing in front of what looked like a large oblong box.

  “Now we prepare…”

  The camera’s point of view only showed the couple from the chest down and Jordan and Catherine watched them in silence as they began to undress.

  “Oh…” Catherine felt her face grow hot, “Oh, no… they’re not gonna…”

  “Oh yes…” Jordan’s eyes flicked to her, “You don’t have to watch this.”

  “No,” she shook her head resolutely, “I’m a big girl… it’s just straight sex… as gross as that is.”

  Jordan snickered but her brows arched high when she looked back at the screen; Nancy was performing fellatio on her companion, the slurping sounds coming from the speakers becoming progressively louder. She regarded their milky white forms weakly illuminated in the pale light cast from the flashlight; Nancy was kneeling on the floor, her generous fleshy backside glowing and sickly white. She clutched the man’s hips as her head bobbed furiously on the growing erection.

  “He’s a white guy…” Jordan mumbled, “no surprise there I guess.” There’s no romance here, Her brow furrowed, it’s just two people stripping off and doing it… Nancy struck Jordan as an average-looking woman; like her companion, she had worn jeans and a dark jacket and pullover.

  “Enough…” they heard him rasp harshly, “on the sarcophagus.”

  “Whoa!” Catherine paused the video, “Did he just say, sarcophagus?”

  Jordan snorted in bemusement, “I think they’re about to have sex in some crypt.”

  “Oh, my god…” Catherine muttered and clicked the play button.

  Nancy crawled onto a concrete casket on all fours, “It’s cold in here.”

  “I promise, my Ostara…”

  For the first time Jordan noted the echoing quality to their voices,

  “I will come inside you…” He spoke as he climbed onto the sarcophagus behind her, “Here…” Kneeling, the camera only caught his image from the chest down as he fumbled with his turgid saliva-slickened member and Nancy cried out when he thrust inside. “On these most revered remains…” he grunted, “of John Lloyd Stephens…” Grasping her hips, he began pumping in earnest, “Mayan archeologist… worthy of the Ahnenerbe!” Nancy moaned low in her chest as she undulated, meeting his thrusts. “By the pagan birthright given to us from the burial stones of the clan!” He rasped harshly, “The Sippe!” He gasped as he thrust, “In the eyes of the clan… the ancestors…” He grunted, ramming his member home, “we are now married!” Nancy cried out, her body quaking violently in cold, ecstatic release. “Our one flesh will bring forth the new millennia!” Slumping weakly over her, he rested his head on her back, his face turned away from the camera, “Into you I spill my seed…” He gasped in a small, high-pitched muffled voice, “Filling you with the future…”

  Jordan and Catherine’s mouths hung open in shock and Catherine’s face colored deeply, “Ho-lee merde…” she whispered.

  Jordan watched as he pulled from Nancy’s body and sat her on the edge of the concrete casket housing the coffin of poor Mr. Stephens. “And from you now, my Ostara…” He knelt between her legs, his back to the camera, “I will drink, and make our union complete.”

  Catherine squinted at the screen, Well, she was a nice-looking blond… she observed silently, deliberately distracting herself from the sex acts playing on her monitor. But I wonder if her hair color is as fake as those boobs… Her brows arched skeptically as the implant scars beneath Nancy’s full, heaving breasts reflected dully the flashlight’s glow.

  “I can’t believe we haven’t seen this guy’s face yet.” Jordan grumbled. Watching as he feasted between the murder victim’s legs, she made mental notes of his description. He’s not an old guy; a small gut, hair looks dark, in this shitty light it could be any color except red… She shook her head in frustration, Hair is on the longish side… but we only really get to see him in profile… and with his hair hanging in his face like that, Bea’s facial reco
gnition program probably won’t get a hit…

  “Oh sweet gungnugh!” As Nancy arched back on the concrete lid, she pressed her companion’s head into her center, her hand gripping his hair, “Oh yes!” She curled forward, her body jerking, “Oh Mister Schmidt!” She cried, “Oh, take it all!” She began bucking wildly, “Fuck! Fuck! Fucking eat me!”

  Once Nancy’s orgasm diminished, the couple stood and dressed in eerie silence and Jordan shook her head, “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” They watched as Nancy’s form filled the screen as she walked toward her phone and the video came to an abrupt end.

  “Uh…” Catherine murmured, “wow?”

  Jordan snickered, “Wow, for sure…” She rolled her chair back to her desk, “So who is John Lloyd Stephens?” she asked, typing the name into her browser.

  “Ostara…” Catherine murmured, typing on her keyboard, “he called her My Os…” She clicked on a reference, “Oh…”

  “Oh?” Jordan peered around their monitors.

  “Ostara… a Spring-like fertility goddess in Germanic paganism and…” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, “and a quick cross reference with Hitler shows he read a popular magazine by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels called Ostara…”

  “And he was?”

  “A former monk who saw a headstone of some Templar knight and went all Aryan-master-race…” She made a soft clucking sound with her tongue, “He may have been the first to openly promote extermination of the lower races…” she gestured with air quotes at the word. “Apparently he wrote a lot about anti-Semitism.”

  “Surprising…” Jordan muttered.

  Catherine grinned, “Are you being ironic?”

  “Mostly.” Jordan motioned with her chin to her monitor, “It turns out John Lloyd Stephens was an archeologist of note for his Mayan research…”

  “Was he related to Norman Stephens of Murphy Ranch?”

  “Nothing in here says so…” She wagged her eyebrows meaningfully, “but guess where he’s buried?” Catherine shrugged. “The Marble Cemetery here in Manhattan.”