The Knight´s Legacy

Murder in the Forest

Matías ran up to the door and as he looked out at it he saw a horrible spectacle. Knudsen was lying on the floor in the middle of a pool of blood with his chest shattered and his head resting on his wife´s lap  who was kneeling and crying desperate. Matías was still shocked as he heard a noise behind him. Turning around he saw a stocky black man with a shotgun in his hand. No doubt he  was the man who had killed Knudsen and that now  was returning to the crime scene  while outside shouting and orders in German could be heard. The man approached Knudsen, checking that he was dead, a smile drew on his beastly face possibly under the influence of drugs. Slowly he raised the shotgun by placing it at the height of Matias´ face. The youth was momentarily paralyzed by terror but managed to jump to one side towards the door; the man, obviously a hit men changed his position, turning his back to the Norwegian body. Matías realized with despair that no matter how faster he  ran he could not be faster than that the shot. Suddenly, the killer hesitated, opened his arms, while the tip of a knife appeared in the middle of his chest. Behind him, Knudsen´s wife withdrew the great kitchen blade that had spanned her husband´s murderer from side to side. The gunman collapsed, already dead, merging his blood with Knudsen´s as in a strange ritual. Matías realized that someone outside the house was calling  the outlaw and approaching the dwelling; quickly took the shotgun from the hands of the dead killer, approached the door without taking care of covering his own body, he discerned a dark shape in the street and shot without aiming, the body fell, while the fallen man moaned in German.

“Karl, Karl, hilfe!”

Matías withdrew from the door opening while many detonations broke the silence and several bullets hit the outside wall and the header of the window. The boy´s heart was beating widely and his temples quivered. The adrenaline was flowing all through his body that was shaking from excitement.

The black woman put a paper in his hand that Matías kept mechanically in his pocket. As he returned to the gate he saw moving shadows and without hesitation shot again, with the result  that the shadows disappeared seeking refuges while the wounded moaned German on the ground. The youth left the house and ran toward the thicket in the opposite direction to his pursuers, deeply penetrating the bushes carried by the momentum of his career. A little further he stumbled with a tangle of roots and vines that prevented his progress. As he despaired once again he suddenly felt that someone took his hand and guided him towards what seemed the thicker part of the vegetation that however opened in front of him. Raising  his eyes he saw the black girl with whom he had had s*x shortly before. The young woman guided him along a narrow path in the middle of the jungle, absolutely invisible to those who were not submerged in it pulling  always away from the house where danger was still stalking them.

They walked slipping quickly through the forest for half an hour, always uphill, until falling panting over a huge root. After a while, the girl rose, indicated a direction to be followed and disappeared from his view. She had not spoken a word since Matías had seen her for the first time.

When he had recovered his breath, Matías began his laborious journey to descend from the forest of Tijuca to Rio. His head was a chaos where the dominating features were confusion and disorientation. Indeed, the young man had come to experience feelings and most extreme sensations to what a human being can be submitted from the s****l ecstasy to terror and fear for his life and all separated by minutes.

Meanwhile the girl headed to a nearby favela or slum where her relatives lived. With them she had to  restart her life, linked to Knudsen´s family until then but severely shaken by the events of the night. She did not even know it yet , but in her uterus an embryo had just started to gestate. When that embryo saw the light, the watchful eye of his mother would find a diamond-shaped spot with at the base of his neck. The remote offshoot of the high nobility of Northern Germany would be born in a poor favela in Rio, and he would be exposed to the dangers that nest there, but would not live missing love.

Already no one remembered him, but the diamond- shaped spot had been introduced in the aristocracy of Northern Europe many centuries before by another nomadic Tartar girl , also with dark skin and fiery temperament.

“Debbie, we must leave Rio right now!” Matías had confusingly explained the young woman what happened, with the obvious exception of everything related to the black girl. “ When these people react they will control the airports, so we don't have time to lose. I just hope to get tickets on the first plane leaving for Buenos Aires.”

At that moment and for some strange association of ideas, he recalled the paper handed by Knudsen`s wife after the murder, extracted it from his pocket, ironed it out with the palm of his hand and looked at it noting that it was a clip of an old newspaper written in German.

“Knudsen´s wife gave it to me as I left them. I guess that he had prepared it to talk to me. I'll never know that he was going to tell me.”

“Chiche speaks some German. I will ask him to translate it to us. What a bizarre story. I wonder what brings together an unrepentant Nazi with an Afro-Brazilian woman.” Debbie spoke at all times in a politically correct way.

“He surely got caught between her thighs.” Answered crudely Matías without giving away the experimental base of his knowledge.

While waiting in the El Galeao Airport to be called to their flight, Matías reviewed certain aspects of what happened the previous day. He had left Knudsen´s wife and children alone at home exposed to her husband killers, and he had afterwards split from the girl who had led him in desperate moments without confirming if she would be safe. Certainly he not had reasons to be proud of his deeds in Rio de Janeiro. Another thought that disturbed him was the possibility that the killers arrived at Knudsen´s home following in his footsteps. On the one hand this turned him into an unwitting accomplice to a murder and additionally indicated you that their presence in Rio had not gone unnoticed, and that very dangerous people were behind his footprints, and even worse behind Debbie`s.

“Herr Oberst, Günther speaking.” The voice expressed in mixed with Portuguese- German “ The action in Rio was not entirely successful.”

“Give me full details Günther.”Although his telephone interlocutor could not see it, the long scar on the  Colonel´s face had turned red.

“We could locate Knudsen and neutralize him but the Argentinean escaped by the Tijuca Forest. There was no way to pursue him, and I think that it has already abandoned Rio. There was a firefight, Kurt is seriously wounded and one of the local men died.”  The  report went on a bit more for  Günther knew that the Colonel always requested a full report of any  military action.

“Did you involve our people of San Pablo or Novo Hamburgo?”

“There was no time. when we detected the Argentinean he was already in search of Knudsen. We had to proceed with local people under the Karl´s .

“Well, I regret the casualty.” Responded the man in authority.

“It was only a black.”

“He was a man under our command who died by an action ill-designed and worse executed by us.” Severely rebuked the officer. “ Now you ad-personam take care that his relatives receive economic aid, and Kurt gets the necessary medical care.”

“Yes, of course Herr Oberst.” Gunther´s voice  showed his alarm. “ Please excuse me for my previous expression.”

“Günther, you well know that I am preparing you as my successor, I cannot accept failure.”  The Colonel paused. “ Another topic, with friend Hans our contemplations and delays must come to an end. I need you to talk to the people in Buenos Aires to make him available to my men for questioning, i.e. I want him alive, do you understand?”

“Ja, Herr Oberst!”

“Finally, I want that you use all means possible to identify the Argentinean who was with Knudsen. Track the lists of passengers both in Rio and Buenos Aires. He should have returned to Argentina immediately after the shooting.”

“Understood Herr Oberst.”

“Auf wiedersehen. Günther”

“Auf wiedershen Herr Oberst.”