“Be ready, Georg,” she warned as they drew closer. “I have too many things left to do to see it all end here.” Carefully, she steered the small coupe onto the road shoulder and around the obstacle course of cars and trucks, slowly inching her way closer to the bridge.
“You there!” a harsh voice called out to her.
“Me?” she answered meekly as she looked out the window, letting the coupe roll to a halt between a large Mercedes and a horse-drawn wagon with a tall load of hay. Damn! She cursed her bad luck. They were not fifty feet from the bridge. They almost made it.
It was the same SS Lieutenant, an Untersturmführer, she saw at the stone wall. “Where do you think you are going?” he demanded to know as he strode over to the coupe.
Hanni tried to look her most haggard, exhausted, and innocent, as she held up her bandaged hand. “Lieutenant, I am pregnant, tired, and hungry. I gashed my hand trying to change a flat tire. We are carrying nothing, so it did not seem right to waste your valuable time with all the very important things you have to do.” Hanni pulled her bulky old greatcoat around her as the man quickly looked inside the car, keeping her hand near the butt of the Luger lying in her lap.
“I shall be the judge of that,” he scowled. “What are you doing with a Luftwaffe staff car?” he asked suspiciously, as he held out his hand for her papers.
“It belongs to my husband. He is a pilot, and I am trying to reach his base near Munich. I know I’m fat, but I did not think I looked like Hermann Göring yet.”
For the first time that day, the Lieutenant smiled as he thumbed through her papers.
Hanni glanced around at the crush of vehicles. “Who are you looking for?”
“Spies and traitors. They are driving an old black limousine and some trucks,” the Lieutenant answered, watching her eyes for any reaction. “You did not see a car like that along the road, did you?”
“A black limousine? No, I do not believe so.”
The Lieutenant nodded as he folded her papers and tossed them back through the window into her lap. The papers slid off onto the floor. Without thinking, she leaned forward to pick them up and her coat fell open, revealing the Luger lying in her lap.
“What is that!” the young officer flared angrily as he pointed in through the window.
“Oh, this?” she answered matter-of-factly as she picked up the pistol and pointed the barrel at him. “It is a Luger,” she said as she jammed the muzzle into his chest and pulled the trigger before the wide-eyed Lieutenant realized what was happening. The din of the nearby automobile engines muffled the gunshot, but the impact of the heavy slug blew him backward. He fell into the legs of an old dray horse hitched to a hay wagon parked at the side of the road, making the horse rear up and bolt.
Horstmann needed no instructions. He raised the Schmeisser submachine gun from his lap, pointed it out the window, and began firing short, well-aimed bursts into the cars and trucks parked around them, going for the gasoline tanks, the tires, and the engines, before he put a burst into the rear of the Mercedes, setting it on fire. At the same time, Hanni took careful aim at the armored car with her Luger. The vehicle was protected by half-inch steel plate, but its crew was not. Her first shot went through the open front windscreen and killed the driver as he sat watching her. Her second and third shots caught the machine gunner in the top hatch. He toppled over and dropped onto the ground. That should slow them down for a while, she thought, as she dropped the small coupe into gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor. As it did, she pulled out the “potato masher” hand grenade she grabbed in Dietrich’s office, pulled the pin, and tossed it under the armored car. The small coupe raced across the crowded bridge as if it knew how much trouble it had just stirred up, fishtailing madly as Hanni fought to keep it under control. Behind them, the grenade exploded, followed by the armored car’s gas tank, spooking the horse even more. It bolted and its load of hay bales toppled over, blocking the entrance to the bridge as the fire spread. By the time they reached the other side of the bridge, smoke and flames filled her rear-view mirror.
“Ha, Ha!” Georg turned and looked back through the window, jamming a fresh magazine in his submachine gun. “Look at those dogs scatter back there, Hannelore! My God, I have not had this much fun in months.” However, before they reached the raised center of the bridge, they heard the first angry gunshots behind them and felt heavy slugs strike the small car. One bullet blew the rear view mirror off the driver’s side door and two more well-aimed slugs punched through the rear window, shattering the glass.
Suddenly, Hanni heard Horstmann make a loud grunt and twist sideways in the seat. “Georg!” she screamed. “Are you all right?”
The old man slumped against the passenger door with a soft moan. “Go, go. Keep going," he gasped. “I will be fine. Keep going.”
The car bounced hard when it reached the road pavement. It skidded sideways onto the shoulder and kicked up a cloud of dust as she began twisting and turning the steering wheel to avoid the hail of gunfire now trying to reach them. The fusillade missed wide of the mark, as she swung hard around the next bend and out of sight. As the road entered the forest, Horstmann managed to push himself upright, although his face was now deathly pale. He pulled his hand out of his coat, and Hanni saw it was covered with blood.
“Georg! My God, you are shot.”
“Find a good spot and pull over,” he said, his voice barely audible over the car’s roar.
“No!” She shook her head.
“Do not argue with me, girl!” he ordered. “I am dying, and there is no reason for you to torture me with your bad driving as well.”
“Georg, I cannot…”
“Find a good spot, I said. With the submachine gun, I can buy you ten minutes, maybe longer; and you would be doing me a favor.”
She began to cry, but as usual, she knew he was right.
“Does the American know?” he finally asked her.
“Know what?”
“That you are carrying his child, of course.”
She said nothing.
“You are not going to tell him, are you?”
“No.”
Their eyes met and they stared quietly at each other for a moment of profound understanding. “This war is a rotten, evil thing, is it not, Hannelore?”
“They are all rotten and evil, old man.” Her eyes filled with tears. “There is not a good one in the bunch.”
As she drove around the next hairpin curve, thick woods closed in tight on both sides of the road. “Here!“ He took a deep breath. “This is a lovely spot for an ambush.”
She skidded to a halt. He opened his door and almost fell out, leaning heavily against the side of the car. “Give my best to your father,” he said as a thin smile crossed his pale lips. “Have no fear, Hannelore, I will make them pay, and pay dearly. See that you do the same.”
She watched him slump on the ground behind a thick oak tree, the tears flowed down her cheeks. Quickly turning away, she jammed the accelerator to the floor and drove away without daring to look back.
Otto Dietrich let the big Maybach roll gently to a halt at the front door of the camp infirmary. He switched off the ignition and turned toward Scanlon with his most sincere smile. “This is my final offer, Edward. We will stay right here — Doktor Raeder, little Christina, and I, while you and the others take my car and make your escape west. I shall even give you an hour head start before I tell the SS. You have my word,” he added with a flourish.
Scanlon smiled. “You must be desperate, Otto. You’re giving me the Maybach?”
"Yes, the Maybach, too,” he answered.
“And your word?” Scanlon asked.
“My solemn promise as a policeman.”
“Otto, I wouldn’t trade you for Heinrich Himmler, and I sure as hell wouldn’t take your word on anything.”
“No, Edward, I may have had you tortured, but I never lied to you, did I?”
Scanlon looked at the front door of the infirm
ary. “We’re going inside, and you’ll die in there if you cause me any problems, understood?” Scanlon opened the car door and stepped out. “You two help the Major inside,” he told Dietrich and Raeder as he looked back at the large central compound. There were a thousand eyes on them at that moment, and why not? He could see that life hung on a very thin thread in here. Anything out of the ordinary, such as a big black car full of strangers, posed a new threat and a mortal danger to them all.
Scanlon walked to the front door of the small infirmary and held it open for Dietrich and Raeder as they helped Paul Von Lindemann, one on each arm. Once inside, he saw the room was shabby and in disrepair. The white paint on the walls was badly chipped and faded. There was nothing inside except two wooden examining tables, a handful of decrepit armchairs, several nearly empty supply cabinets, and three gaunt old men standing across the room in striped prison garb. They watched wide-eyed and in horror as this group of strangers walked in through their front door.
Dietrich and Raeder laid Von Lindemann on an examining table as one of the prisoners edged backward and disappeared out the rear door like a wisp of smoke in the wind. The other two prisoners did not move, trying to make themselves very small and blend into the faded paint and old furniture. Scanlon thought their uniforms appeared marginally cleaner than the prisoners outside, but there was little else to distinguish them. One of them appeared older, but they were as thin and haggard as the rest of the inmates.
“Where is the doctor?” Scanlon asked.
The younger of the two men glanced nervously at the other until the latter finally answered in a terrified whisper. “He… he is at the railroad siding. Another train arrived last night and… there is much to do.”
“When will he be back?”
“He does not tell us,” the prisoner answered, wringing his soft, expressive hands as he spoke, daring a quick, furtive glance at Scanlon and the others. He had the same stubbly-shaved head as the others, with wire-rimmed glasses around a pair of dark, haunting eyes.
“We have a badly injured man here,” Scanlon said.
“This is… most irregular," the prisoner mumbled, trying to make them understand, intimidated by the strange uniforms and the faces. “This clinic is for prisoners — for us. None of the staff ever comes here.”
“I don’t give a damn who it’s for, and we aren’t staff,” Scanlon answered sharply. “Who are you, a nurse or an orderly?” He asked as he saw a stethoscope hanging around the fellow’s neck.
The two men glanced at each other again, until the older one ventured softly, “No, no, we are… doctors, inmate doctors, but we are…”
The answer stunned Scanlon. "Then help this man, doctor."
The prisoner blinked and stared at him, as if the title no longer registered. Slowly, he lifted his head and straightened his back, growing inches taller as the words sank in. “Yes, of course, I had forgotten for the moment,” he apologized. “It has been a long time since anyone has called us that, hasn’t it, Franz.” With that, he stepped over to Von Lindemann and began to examine him, probing gently with his fingers as if he were working on a bomb instead of a man. “This Luftwaffe officer was in an accident of some kind?” he asked as he turned and found Christina Raeder at his side, watching him intently.
“Yes," she said. "An explosion. He hurt his head and his side.”
“Christina!" Her father reached for her arm to pull her away.
“No!" Her black eyes flashed and she slapped his hand away. Raeder drew back as if he had touched a high voltage power line, perhaps recognizing more of his wife than his young daughter. “Do not dare touch me, Papa!” she warned. “Like Norma, ‘free was she born and free will she die.’” She turned back to the inmate and said, "The explosion blew him backward and he fell hard on the pavement.”
The doctor glanced up at the other inmate. “Franz, help me remove this fellow’s jacket,” he said, but Franz was frozen to the spot and too terrified to move. In frustration, the doctor turned toward Scanlon. “Tell him it is all right. Tell him that when the guards come in, you will say you forced us to help this man. Please tell him that, Captain,” he asked anxiously. “You must. It is forbidden for us to touch a… German.”
“To touch…? Of course,” Scanlon replied, taken aback. “It is all right, Franz.”
“Now help me, for God’s sake, Franz,“ he snapped at the other inmate. “What if this Major dies? What do you think they’ll do to us then?”
Franz stared into Scanlon’s eyes, still not sure, but he edged over to the table.
“What is your name?” Scanlon asked as he watched the prisoner work.
“Bauerschritt,” the inmate answered. “Ernst Bauerschritt… Doctor Ernst Bauerschritt,” he corrected himself. “And this is Doctor Jacob Rendler.” He looked embarrassed as he held up his wrist and showed Scanlon his tattoo. “Names sound so… strange to us now.”
“Where are you from?”
“Frankfurt, a lovely place, but that was a long, long time ago. I was the head of surgery at the University Hospital and Jacob supervised the emergency room.”
“The Americans are there now.”
Rendler’s mouth dropped open. “In Frankfurt? Unbelievable,” he whispered. “We heard they were in France, of course; but we hear so little news in here.” He sounded happy until he realized what that news could mean to the men trapped inside this compound, and a wave of fear swept across his face. “Then the Americans could be arriving here soon.”
“You don’t sound happy at that prospect, doctor,” Scanlon commented.
“Because we do not know what they might do, how they will react,” came the muffled reply, and Scanlon knew the man was not referring to the Americans. “As bad as this place might seem, the unknown can be even more terrifying.”
“Why are you here?” Christina suddenly asked him.
Bauerschritt looked up at her over the rim of his glasses and at Scanlon, debating whether to answer her or hold his tongue. “Because… because they thought we should be, Fraulein,” he finally answered with a small shrug. “However, that was a long time ago, and the reasons do not matter much anymore.”
“You didn’t answer me,” she pressed.
“I… I treated the wrong man,” he answered, looking up and imploring her to stop the interrogation, but she was not about to do that. “They said a patient of mine was involved in a plot against the state. Apparently, in the Third Reich, one’s patients are now the ultimate occupational hazard. The truth is I barely knew the fellow. We never talked politics, but that did not matter. I treated him because I am a doctor, much as I am treating this Luftwaffe Major of yours. That could get poor Rendler and me shot. You realize that, do you not Captain?”
“For treating a German officer?” Christina asked.
“Oh, no,” replied Bauerschritt with a thin smile, “for breaking a rule. Which rule and why are not nearly as important as the fact we failed to obey it.”
Christina stared at him. “So, you are not a criminal?”
“I am afraid not.”
“You aren’t a Jew, either?”
“No, Jacob is, but I am not."
“And you are not a Communist, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a homosexual, or a traitor of some kind,” she inquired as the outrage grew in her voice.
“No, none of those, young lady,” he smiled patiently. “I’m a surgeon, a professor, a former administrator at the University hospital, and a husband and father — or I used to be.”
Christina’s questions were suddenly interrupted as the front door to the infirmary flew open and crashed against the sidewall. A short, fat SS officer with a round red face stomped into the small room, and the two doctors froze. His uniform was complete with silver piping, brightly polished knee-high jackboots, an overly-large death’s head cap, and a leather riding crop tucked under his arm. He was sweating profusely, his slacks and boots were spotted with mud, and his disheveled jacket hung open at the neck. His small, dark eyes darted qu
ickly about the room taking in each of the other faces until he found Otto Dietrich’s.
“Ah! Oberführer Dietrich — I thought that was you. I am Commandant Weiter,” he bellowed. “How may I be of assistance?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Scanlon’s hand rested on his belt near the Luger and his eyes locked on Dietrich. The Chief Inspector seemed amused by it all, but he knew not to press his luck. “Good to see you again, Weiter,” he told the red-faced Commandant as the fellow rendered a crisp, stiff-armed Nazi salute. Dietrich, having the higher rank, responded with an indifferent upward flip of his hand. Scanlon had observed this Nazi ritual of rank before, which he thought resembled two mongrel dogs circling each other, nose to tail, sniffing. “I hope we caused you no alarm,” Dietrich said with his usual oily smile. “My pilot was injured in an air attack out on the road, nothing more. You know how those British cowards love to strafe civilian vehicles, and these, uh… medics of yours were good enough to help us out.”
Weiter glared at Bauerschritt and Rendler. “Well! You heard the Oberführer. Get on with it!” he bellowed, the sweat running down his face. “My apologies, Herr Dietrich. This little dispensary was never intended for German officers. Our camp doctor has been down at the rail siding all morning. I will send for him and we can transfer your man across the road to our military hospital. He would be much more comfortable there.”
“That will not be necessary, Weiter,” Dietrich answered, dismissing the offer with a limp wave of his hand. “We are in a hurry and these fellows appear to be doing just fine.”
The two doctors had shrunk back to their inmate posture, heads down and eyes on the floor as they nervously resumed their work. The Commandant flopped in a decrepit armchair near the door, sweating and exhausted. "You must excuse me, mein Herr," he said as he removed his hat and mopped his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “We received ten car-loads last night, unannounced, of course — ten! — and half were already dead or dying.” He shook his head helplessly. “What does Berlin expect me to do? I ask you.”
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