S1-E05: Baiting the Hook

looked real, but they weren't. Mio's massad boss back in Paris, Joseph your Reeve, had sent them in case. The butcher was checking up on his new friend Anton kunz La while he was out of town. Herbert Suckers had invited kunz La to visit him and his family at his home, so me was getting ready for the meeting. He had no idea what would happen, but they would ask him. He didn't even know what Suckers wanted, which was a real question. Most spies use a handful of motives to

get people to do what they want. Money, sex, patriotism, resentment. You've seen things like that in the movies, they're all easy ways into somebody's life. But suckers, he was not fish. He seemed to want to be a hero again, to be beloved. Neo couldn't offer him that. It was beyond his powers. So what could he dangle in front of the butcher? Here's former U. S. Army intelligence officer Chris Costa, so human intelligence officers. They are rain to be a

little bit psychologist, a little bit body language expert. They are also a father confessor. There are a rabbi, they're a priest. They're a friend. They're a teacher, they're a mentor, they're a coach, they're a student. They have to adapt. But all along the way, you are looking for clues as to what motivates this individual that I have to manipulate. Neal would have to play amateur psychologists. He sat on his hotel bed. He thought back to his meeting with Sukers,

and he asked himself a few questions. What was the butcher missing in his life? What did the butcher really want? And how could he give the butcher that one thing he lacked? I tried to imagine what had gone through Uker's mind since our so called accidental earst encounter that had ended over a glass of brandy in the cabin of his boat. It was clear that Herbert Stookers missed the days of glory as deputy commander of the Rigor Ghetto.

Then he had been almost an almighty god. At least where's the life and death of the Jews of Riga was concerned. He most probably recalls those days fondly, when he was at the zenith of his power, treated with great reverence and fear by anyone who saw him riding on horseback through the streets of the ghetto, clasped heavy handgun, clad in his black leather pilot's court. Then he had unlimited power, the power to determine the fate of other people.

How he must long for those days which seem now looking through the window of the shabby ticket office of his undown both rental business like a mirage produced by in memory sells with an overdeveloped imagination. I'm Stephen Talty in this as good assassin's hunting the butcher, So he's the first part was to find and not be looking forward, while for the second part was to find a nag

and healing. He shot fast and see expertise that comes from experience, the end of a trail of blood and horror, in the end of a man whose name will be written in infamy. M Episode five, Baiting the hook. Sitting there, Mio began to feel his way into Zuker's life. He thought about this former superstar pilot now working as a kind of grease monkey. How far this man had fallen in the world. Question one? What was the Butcher missing

in his life? Respect? The Jewish activists who discovered Suckers living in Rio hadn't managed to get him deported or arrested, but they had badly damaged his public image. Zuckers was a social outcast now, and it was clear he hated it. Question too. If making him a hero was out of the question, was there anything that could substitute for it? Mio thought about that a narcissist like Suckers, he wants what he used to have, power and fame. The Butcher

wanted people to look up to him. Back in Latvia, he'd been a winner, He was beloved, and he liked that a lot. So Question three, how could MEO get the Butcher or pretend to get the Butcher? The power that he so clearly wanted. They could always start with money. Money would buy Zookers new suits, and it would buy him new glasses to replace the taped up ones he'd been wearing at the docks. First came money, then respect, then power. It was an age old formula, but it worked.

Me was guessing at all this he had no idea really what was in the butcher's heart. But as it turned out, he'd come very close to the truth. Again, Chris Costa, this is ultimately, this particular case is an incredible example of looking every step of the way to understand what motivates this target so that I can set up the ultimate trap. And I think in this case he was motivated by wanting to regain something that he lost.

He wanted more financial stability, He wanted to be an important person again, so he was vulnerable to a great business opportunity with somebody he trusted. In. Doing my research, I came across an interview that Sucker's wife had later given to police. She told them that when Zuker's first started getting successful in Brazil, he told his friends he was going to quote create a great club and found a school of seaplane pilots, unlike anything that had ever

existed in Brazil. Not only that, he wanted to build a new airplane engine that would revolutionize the industry. His dream had always been to be a pioneer, to shock the world with his genius in building airplanes. All he needed was an investor to help him with money. Meal didn't know about any of these dreams, but he'd somehow detected what Sukers was looking for. A backer, someone to

believe in him. Who knows, maybe with the help of Kunzle and his backer's capital, he will finally be able to pull himself out of this dismal existence, all of his on the verge of poverty, and become rich, a respectable member of society, and and read himself of the persecution of the Jews that had been beleaguing him for years. The American reporter Jack Anderson, who traveled to Brazil in

nineteen sixty to cover Nazi fugitives, sensed it too. Suckers wanted to rehabilitate himself, and both Anderson and Mio offered him a shot. So interestingly, Zookers turned up the charm and trotted out a very similar routine for both Meo and Jack Anderson. I think that he was afraid, not so much of the publicity as he was of the Jews. I think one of the reasons that he may have been willing to talk to me was to present his case how he had saved this girl, and how he

was not a Jew killer, and how he had been misrepresented. So, sitting on his hotel bed, Neil decided on his approach he would dangle a chance at redemption in front of the butcher, a last shot at riches and fame. That was the bait. Neo got into his rented v W and followed the directions that seekers had given him to his house. When he turned the corner onto the final street, he found he was in a normal, boring suburb lined

with modest homes. Here's how Anderson describes it. It was about twenty miles, as I recall, out of dirt road, out of kind of a remote but very pastoral setting outside of So Paulo, comparable to a lakeside development where wealthy people might have bungalows. Couldn't have been more peaceful looking place. It was almost a postcard tranquility. And when I got there there were three seaplanes. You are enough sitting, three of them sitting anchored near his house, and two

big burly guards at his gate. It was easy to spot the Sucre's residence. In fact, it stuck out like a sore thumb. The house was completely surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire. The German shepherd that year Reeve had warned him about was barking at me O through the fence, showing its teeth. The house was pretty basic and there was a garden shed in the yard. It confirmed me as guests clearly Sucers was hurting for money. The butcher emerged from the house spotted me O getting

out of the VW. His face broke into a wide grin and he called out to Meo, saying how glad he was to see him. Sucers tied up the German shepherd and invited his guest inside. Here's how Anderson describes meeting Suckers. I approached the gate and asked identified myself and asked for him, And one of these two big burly guards goes up to the door and knocks on the door, and a guy comes out. He's thirty yards away,

forty yards away. The waves still need to come on in, and so they let me in and I walked in, and it was kind of chilling because he was wearing a leather jacket. Not read all the stuff. He was wearing this leather jacket. When he turned around open the door, he had a pistol book and out of his back pocket. Kind of chilling. He invited me in and we talked to Great Lane. As he entered the house, his eyes darted around the here he was looking for signs of

the past. During the years nineteen forty one nineteen forty four, Zukers had a messed a small fortune robbed from his Jewish victims, but he had to leave most of it in Latvia when he escapes the Red Army to the vest and the remains of the stolen goods had to be sold in order to finance the long escape route from Riga to South Paolo. Now, as he studied Sucers home, Nero realized that the money and the jewels they were long gone. There were no chandeliers or grand pianos here.

The rooms were modestly furnished, even a little shabby. It was a good sign his instincts have been right. The butcher introduced me out to his children and to his wife, Milda, a thin woman with messy hair. She looked frazzled or maybe anxious. Sucers brought me over to a wooden chest, and he pulling out medals and ribbons and showing them to me O. He was clearly proud of them. Most of them were for daring trips to Africa Japan once he'd made in the thirties when he was a world

famous pilot. He was showing me O that he had once been somebody. Neo nodded and congratulated Sukers. His eyes drifted around the drawer. He spotted a bunch of other medals. These ones they were different, They had swastikas on it. Clearly they had nothing to do with aviation. This was for work Zukers had done during the war. At ze moments, I preferred not to think of the activities for which

Chukos had been a wall did these declarations. Here's how Jack Anderson describes getting a similar tour from Zuker's and I at some point asked him a question that required him to look up some papers or documents, and the open the closet. It was by the front door. They opened the closet, and they're hanging. In that closet was a row of Nazi uniform and all freshly pressed, complete with a swastika. He made a big point. I remember

doing the discussion. He denied the atrocities, which I would expected him to, but spoke crudely of Jews, you know, us him I'm not a Jew killer, saying it contemptuously, as if he wishes he were. And his greatest evidence of that was that he had helped a Jewish girl escape. And I talked to people about it and they said, yes, that's correct. He did help, and there was an obvious ploy, so that if he ever got caught, he would This was going to be his great excuse, his great justification

for not having his own neck wrong. What do you mean, I'm a Jew killer? I save this girl? And he did save this girl, but he killed many others and raped many others, but he saved one. I was told by the Jews themselves. Yes he didn't save one girl. I mean he did that to create an alibi for himself. What came next was even more disturbing. Seekers opened another drawer and Mio immediately saw guns. There were two pistols. Apperetta,

a German mauser, and a semi automatic rightful. All the evidence that I saw around there checked completely with the file that I had, even to the point that it made the hair on back of my next stand up. It checked completely with him with what was in the file in these affidavits, The way he acted his physical appearance, where he dressed the pistol in the back of his pocket, his his arrogant attitudes is brutal. Ways. He wasn't brutal to me. Of course, he wasn't brutal, but he conducted

himself like a man who would be brutal. I would have hated to build his prisoner in that place. I'll tell you that his big brutal look of brutal talking. So I came away convinced that he was exactly what the Jews said. He was just struck me as a kind of a guy who would have probably enjoyed kicking me around secrets. Was having a good time picking up each gun and showing it off. He leaned over to Mio and told him he knew how to take good

care of himself. Meo wondered why Zukers was showing him the weapons he was posing as a developer, and Sucris was auditioning for a job. It's not as if you need an arsenal to sell real estate. Was the butcher trying to prove to Meo that he'd once been a soldier? Or was it a warning? Maybe Sucres suspected that Meo really wasn't who he said he was. Neo couldn't figure it out, not yet, but he felt exposed. The lack of backup he'd insisted on now seemed foolish. Nia realized

it wouldn't be easy to eliminate this man. He was crafty and suspicious. Suckers brought Meo out to the workshed showed him some pictures he developed. He'd taken them from his plane, and they covered different areas of the city that might be right for investment. After the scare over the guns was a positive sign. Showed that Sukers was interested in working on the real estate stuff. He was hungry and that was a good thing. Afterwards, the family

sat in the living room. Suckers was talkative, but his sons and daughters they were kind of awkward. They didn't say a lot. Mean got the sense that the family didn't get many visitors. Though some resilience had defended Suckers when he was accused of being the Butcher, many others they had abandoned him. He'd lost friends, the family seemed starved for company. Anton Kouzla Uh was a lifeline. Neil

could feel how much the Zookers needed a savior. As they munched on cake and sip coffee, the kids loosened up a bit. They began asking Kunzla about the future. He assured them that he was planning big things for Brazil. He and his partners were serious about investing and making a lot of money there, and their father he was part of their big plans. If you're this far into

the story, we're assuming you're enjoying Hunting the Butcher. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, would you be able to take a minute to give the show a rating and a review. Just find the show's page on Apple Podcasts, scrolled down to the section called Ratings and Reviews and tap one of those purple stars to give it a rating. Then tapped a little purple link that says write a review and leave a few words about what you think of Hunting the Butcher. It really helps get the word

out and let other listeners know about the podcast. Much appreciated. Now on with the show. Later, he and Zukers drove around. They were looking at properties that could become vacation resorts. Neo feigned interest, but he was thinking about how to get the butcher out of the country. If Zukers had shown him the most beautiful plot of land in Brazil,

he wouldn't have cared. He was building trust dependence. Zuker says that Kunsla was bored the places he'd shown him weren't doing the trick, so he came up with an idea. The two of them should take a trip inland away from the coast. He told the secret agent they owned two plantations there. Maybe they'd be right for MEO's tourism business. Neo immediately agreed. It would be like a boy's trip, an adventure. They can relax on the way to the plantations,

they could bond. I should point out here that me was violating almost every rule of working undercover, especially when your target was as dangerous as the Butcher was. And it doesn't surprise Chris Costa. So in many cases you are so you're a singleton. You're alone, you don't have a backup, you don't have a quick reaction force, you don't have the ability to simply call for help. There's no switch you can activate that sends a message that

you're at risk. So this is where you have to constantly assess the risk and the amount of risk you're willing to accept. Usually, an espionage work, if there's a risk your cover will be blown and you'll be exposed. You try to keep your interactions to public places that are easy to escape from, or where a killer might feel reluctant to shoot you, because there could be witnesses. So you keep your meeting to the safest places you can think of, not plantations out in the middle of nowhere.

Saucers was proposing going into the back country, the two of them alone. It was super risky. If Mio had passed the idea by his boss, your reeve, you probably would have said no. But your read was thousands of miles away and Mia was flying solo. He agreed to go. Meo could see that Sucers was starting to dream about the future, to get excited. That's what Mio wanted. In the morning, Meal's first stop was to a sporting goods store. He felt strange about going with Suckers into the jungle unarmed,

so he bought a small knife. He would have preferred a gun or something more lethal, but he couldn't conceal a gun, so he had this thing that was really a glorified pen knife. Most massad agents would laugh at such a weapon. What are you going to do with that? But it was the best Meal could think of. When Mea arrived at Suker's house, the butcher emerged carrying supplies, canned food and other things, and his other hand was a long bag. Meio knew what that was and he froze.

It was the rifle he'd seen the day before. Why was the butcher bringing a long gun to the jungle, Neil began to get nervous. There was one other detail he worried about. On the drive to the plantations, he like most Jewish men, was circumcised, but his cover was an Austrian businessman, and Austrian most likely wouldn't be circumcised. So how would Mio explain if the two of them went to take a leak in jungle and Suckers glanced over?

He had to prepare for everything. He decided to tell the butcher that he'd gotten the sexually transmitted disease during the war, and that doctors had performed in operation. Soldiers were always getting syphilis and things like that. They could laugh about it, reminisce about the war. Maybe it would work. The long trip to the plantations would also give Zukers a chance to see if they were being tailed. If Mio had people following him, some kind of a backup team,

they would be exposed on the deserted roads. At least for now, MEO's decision to come to Brazil solo look smart. It was hot, a typical Brazilian day. Finally they drove up to the first plantation. It was disappointing, a small plot of land, not much to look at. Meo shook his head. There was nothing out here. Why would Sukers think this would be a good spot for an expensive resort. It had been a waste of time. They got back

in the car and headed to the second place. This one it was much more promising, a huge farm with thousands of banana trees, the leaves swaying in the breeze. It was pretty impressive. Actually, at least there was room for a hotel and maybe a swimming pool. It might work as a tourist destination. There was one other thing. The place was completely deserted, like not a soul in sight. Neo parked the car and got out. Zukers did too. Then he reached back in and grabbed the rifle. Zukers

asked me to take a short walk. He pointed to a small path leading to an uncultivated area full of trees and tall bushes and tells me it leads to a small river swarming with crocodiles. Meal appeared perfectly calm, but inside he was tense. Something was very wrong. Clearly the trip wasn't about real estate ventures or plots of land. You could dismiss bringing a rifle along. Leave the plantations had wild animals. But the butcher wasn't even trying to

talk up the place as a tourist destination. He was up to something else. Suckers had brought him here to see if Kula really was who said he was. I knew that Zukers was observing my reactions closely, and hastened to accept tiso without any hesitation. They walked down the path and stopped at a small clearing, where Sukers took the rifle out of the bag. Suckers asked me, oh for shooting match. If he'd really been on the Eastern Front, he should know how to shoot along gu Sucers pointing

to a tree about fifty yards away. There was a metal plate nailed to the trunk that would be the target. You're being led in the jungle to shoot with a guy that you know has already killed people with his own hands. Is this yet again? Are you being tricked and manipulated by somebody that certainly was vicious and displayed viciousness during World War Two and a propensity to kill people All of a sudden, You're alone on some plantation. Is this a setup? Are you going to be killed?

I had no doubt in my mind that the shooting competition was no spoiler of the moment idea. It was a well planned move by Zukers, intended to put me to the test and maybe even beyond it. Mio also realized that if it came to a fight, his little pocket knife wasn't going to be much use. Zukers loaded ten bullets into the rifle and sighted the plate hanging on the tree. He let off ten shots, one right after the other. You could tell he knew how to

handle a gun. He shot fast, with the expertise that comes from experience, a large part of which had been the clad by shooting naked and petrofied Jews in the head in the Valley of the Dead in Rombula Forest. The Rambola forest was the place near Riga where the Nazis had murdered twenty five thousand Jews in the winter of Suker. Shots all hit their target within two inch radius.

He'd done well. He handed the rifle to Mio. I could see out of the corner of my eye how he followed my every move, waiting to find out whether I was an imposta. I had to reach military best. From the minute I had taken this mission upon myself, Anton kuns had become an inseparable part of me. Meo pulled the trigger again and again. When he was finished, the two men walked towards the tree. Me was praying,

you'd at the target. When they studied the plate, it turned out that meal shots were clustered in the center. He'd done even better than Zukers. The butcher seemed excited. He cried out, way to go and slap me on the shoulder. Like many soldiers, he placed a lot of weight on whether a man could shoot a gun. I

us almost completely convinced I was all right. As of that moment, It's the atmosphere between us became much lighter, as if the shooting match was some male ritual of the two former comrades and alms in the service of the fuer Hi. This is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher. The folks that helped me bring you the show, Diversion Podcasts, have just launched another podcast

that I think you'll like. It's called Backstaged The Devil in Metal, a deep dive into the history of mental music, filled with never before heard interviews and stories from some of the biggest names of music, including Black Sabbath to This Priest, Ben Helen, and many others. It outrageous, raw and surprising at times. Backstage The Devil and Metal is out now. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, I hired Radio app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. The

test was over Meo he passed. The two men walked back along the path. As he went, Leo felt a sharp jab in his foot. A nail had gone through the bottom of his boot and pierced the skin. He sat down, took off the boot and looked at the cut. Seekers was standing above him holding the stock of the rifle. Suddenly he handed the gun to Meo and told him to pound the nail down so it wouldn't cut him again.

The magazine in the canvas loaded van bullet in his head at the point BLANKO inch another bulletins are hot to ascertain death and the mission is complete, they thought. By the time they find them hearing this remote corners about, I should be long on to Europe. Do you decide that you're going to take this mission in your own hands? And despite the plan that you're developing, are you going to kill this guy? It was tempting, but in the

end he couldn't do it. The butcher had to die in a certain way, almost a ceremonial way, for the mission to succeed. The team had to read a verdict out and this had to happen in the country that wouldn't endanger Jews. It was just too soon, and it took an incredible amount of discipline. But intelligence officers always have to keep in mind that they have a plan.

There's a logic for that plant. Who could have known that you would end up on a plantation alone with no help, shooting a weapon with the target of your later assassination him. So the amount of discipline and courage it took to to not use that weapon when you had it in your hand while you're executing a target practice. The amount of discipline I took him not to end the mission right then and there is extraordinary. Neil pounded down the nail. He got up. The two made their

way back to the caretaker's hut. Were sukers, fixed dinner from the camed food he brought. Darkness had closed in and they sat on their camp beds, getting ready to sleep. Neil was thinking of the past. I remember Tuesday's day, the moments of the pouture from my family and hometown, and the whistle of the train as it slowly rolled out of the main station, adorned with dozens of huge

Nazi flags. It still rings in my ears. My parents stood on the platform and raved goodbye to the fifteen, the old sound traveling on his way to a far off land. At that moment, I felt I was cutting myself off from everything Chong, preparing to become a proud Jew in the land of Israel. I could not help but to think of my family exterminated by murder. Was similar to the man who said less than a meter

away from me from testimonies, I guessed. After the war, I learned that my father died in Tisan stat in May. A short while afterwards, my mother was transported to Auschwitz, where, together with millions of other Jews, she was murdered by the Nazis, who were assisted by monsters like Suckers. Now the butcher was only a few is away. It felt surreal to Meo and an odd way. Suckers was a kind of connection to Mio's own family. Suckers had been

there in the middle of the action. He had been close enough to touch the Jewish men and women as they were marched to the death pits. I wonder if Mio was asking himself the same questions I've been asking for the past three years. Why had Suckers done it? Why had he betrayed those people? Mio had the ultimate chance to get the answer straight from a Nazi. The guy was sitting right there next to him. But Mio, when he recalled that moment later on, didn't talk about motives.

He just seemed to accept that Suckers was evil or just responsible. The why didn't seem to bother him. He wanted to kill the butcher, not psychoanalyze him. That bothers me. To be honest, is it pointless to ask why Zukers became a killer? If MEO felt satisfied that he understood the butcher, maybe I should be too. But after thinking about it, I can't agree. Saying Zukers had done evil things wasn't the same as saying that he was a

pent evil. There has to be a way to get closer to his actual reasons for doing what he did. The moment passed, Niel saw Zukers slip a pistol under his pillow. There wasn't anyone around for miles, but the butcher was still on his card. Hours later, in the darkness of the small hut, he woke up. He saw Zuker standing up and taking the gun from underneath the pillow. My heart started to race. What was he doing? What's to be on the safe side. I grabbed my personal weapon.

It's a poor small pocket knife I had purchased in South Boodo. Zukers turned and walked outside. He was just going to take a leak with his gun. It was almost comical to me. I could not believe the butcher expected an ambush in the middle of the Brazilian jungle. How much harder would it be to assassinate him in a foreign country when his paranoia was sure to be even more pumped up. I'm sure Mio had the same thoughts. Zukers was going to make the kidnapping of Ada Kman

look easy. When I spoke to get sh Imran, the Massot agent who knew me O, he commented on this, no doubt that Meal was aware that course is not an easy target. Of course was suspicious. He was aware that he is on the wanted list of some of the survivors of the Holocaust. And he I mean, first of all, his awls looked like a like a wild wist, fortifications like al aloid. He had guns at home, the dog bobbed wires, Etceteraight off. It was very, very suspicious

of anybody trying to get too close. Socus from time to time expressed his suspicious that something is wrong with this nice off them businessman or boat of lore appeared in like life with the promises for golden future and excellent business and as we know so was still the last moment, was not fully sure that the meal is kosher. Sorry for using this Jewish word in this case. Finally Mia went to sleep. He couldn't solve the puzzle yet. He had to get closer to this Nazi. He needed

more time. He felt he and Sukers had made a kind of breakthrough in the jungle. The guy trusted Kunzla, or at least it felt like he trusted him, but he was about to find out that Bond was fragile. The Butcher, as it turned out, was hunting Meo as much as Meo was hunting him. Good assassins. Hunting the Butcher is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by Stephen Tulting, produced and directed by Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein.

Executive producers Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman and mangesh At Ticket or editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark Francis with the voices of Nick Avka Thomas Amrie, Angele Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar, Leants, Steve Rautman, and Stefan Rudnitsky.

Theme music by Tyler Cash. Archival research by Adam Shapiro, thanks to Oran Rosenbaum at you d A. A special thank you to Kevin Anderson and the Anderson family for permission to use the Jack Anderson recording, Leah Richardson and the Special Collections Research Center at George Washington University Library in ron Saw diversion