“Good. I can sense that you’re not the dumbest policeman I’ve met because that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I can’t be extradited to the US given that I’ve committed a murder here in Denmark. And that’s whether you believe it or not.”
It had started as a game between James and his father-in-law. Both were former soldiers and had been active in war—with all that entailed. Their background and history were not for the fainthearted, which made Fritzl Zimmermann all the more fond of his son-in-law. Fritzl considered military service to be honorable and a synonym for virility and power. With undisguised bluntness, he questioned James about the military campaigns he had taken part in, from Zaire to Lebanon and Granada, because Fritzl loved all wars in which resolve and cynicism led to confrontation. And the more detail James went into, the more curious Fritzl became. And that was how the game began.
“If I mention the word ‘bayonet,’ then we both have to say how we’ve used one, and then it’s the other one’s turn to name something,” suggested Fritzl. “Interesting words like ‘ambush,’ for example . . . or ‘fire.’ Actually, ‘fire’ is a good one.”
In the beginning, James hesitated. No matter what the topic was, Fritzl could match James a hundred times over and relished talking about it. Ruthless abuse became crusades. Hangings became self-defense. He talked about duty of care for his fellow soldiers and the brotherhood of men standing shoulder to shoulder, and much to his surprise James slowly began to recognize himself in Fritzl.
They usually met up for a couple of hours on late Saturday mornings when James had slept off his hangover from the night before. Birgit looked after the child and Rigmor kept house, while he and Fritzl brought the past to life in Fritzl’s secret office at the far end of the labyrinth of rooms on the ground floor. Here, he had the opportunity to feel the weight of a Parabellum in his hands and see what effective weapons could be made out of all sorts of objects at hand.
All this could probably have gone on for years if things between James and Rigmor had not blown up one fateful Saturday. It had all begun as an ordinary Saturday get-together with an early dinner, and then came one surprising question from his father-in-law that opened a Pandora’s box.
The question was inappropriate with Dorrit sitting at the table, but Fritzl didn’t care. “What do you think is the worst thing a soldier can do? Commit random executions or random adultery?”
For a moment, James thought that it was part of their game and told his daughter to go and play in the garden until they called her. It was probably just another one of Fritzl’s morbid and crazy ideas, but when James answered after a short pause that of course it was random executions, Rigmor Zimmermann slapped him on the cheek so hard that his head was thrown to one side.
“Bastard!” she shouted while Fritzl laughed and slammed his fist on the table. James was in shock, and when he turned to his wife for an explanation, she spat straight in his face.
“You fell right in the trap, you idiot. I’ve told my father and mother about all your women and affairs and about how you keep letting us down. Did you think you could get away with that?”
Then he lied about the affairs, and cried, and swore that there was nothing to it—that he only stayed away for the night when he was doing the books. But she said they knew better.
“She hates you for everything you’ve done, James. For cheating on me. For being drunk several times a week. For encouraging Father to talk about things that he isn’t supposed to talk about.”
That day, Rigmor Zimmermann revealed her true self to James, leaving him in no doubt who the boss was in the family. When she placed the divorce papers on the table, James saw that Birgit had already signed.
James begged her to rip them up, but she didn’t dare. And besides, Rigmor and Fritzl had promised to take care of her once he was out of the picture.
And he suddenly was in every sense.
He later tried to pressure Rigmor to have the divorce annulled, threatening that if she didn’t he would inform the authorities about Fritzl’s crimes committed during the Second World War. And promised that they would catch up with him this time. He had evidence.
—
The response came a few days later in the form of an offer of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars if he went back to the US and never showed his face again. The money would be paid in three installments to his US bank account, and that was the end of that. James agreed. It wasn’t every day a working-class guy from Duluth, Minnesota, came into that sort of money.
The problem, however, was that he neglected to inform the US tax office about the transactions. And after several court cases and fines, the money was gone. And more besides.
So James Lester Frank was left with no choice but to enlist again, and he was rewarded with years of almost uninterrupted missions so close to the Taliban that he and his men began to smell and look like them.
“We were like animals. We shit where we slept. Ate whatever we could kill. And we died like animals. The Taliban saw to that. The last one from my unit I saw them execute had his arms cut off first.
“Then I escaped. For eleven months, I lived up in the mountains, and when I finally managed to get out of there, I was done with killing for the US and the US Army.”
“But then you were spotted in Istanbul,” said Carl.
He nodded and pulled the quilt all the way up to his neck.
“I was working in a tourist bar where most of the guests were Americans. That was stupid. Even though I’d shaved my head and grown a beard, the officer immediately spotted me. Luckily for me, that day I’d met a Danish couple in the bar who had a camper van and were happy to give me a lift to Denmark. I told them my story. That I had been a soldier and was now a deserter, but it wasn’t a problem for them. Rather the opposite, I’d say. You’d be hard-pressed to find greater pacifists than them.”
“Hmm, that’s a great story,” said Assad with a hint of irony. “But where are you going with this?” His stomach was rumbling loudly. The lack of energy was apparently beginning to make him irritable. Carl had almost forgotten about the food. If only he could smoke a cigarette, he could keep going for a few more hours.
“When I arrived back in Denmark, I had no papers or money. So my only option was to contact Fritzl and Rigmor and tell them that I intended to stay and that they had to help me. They were horrified because they and Birgit had told Dorrit—Denise—that I was long dead.