The Nero Decree

by Greg Williams

  “You’ll never make it past the Feldgendarmerie,” Schorner said.

  “I’m warning you,” Johann said, pointing the pistol at both men, in turn. “Remember, it would be easier for me if I left you dead in this farmhouse.”

  The men suddenly straightened their arms anew, as if in recognition of the opportunity they were being handed.

  “One other thing,” said Schorner, clearly enjoying his role. “They have a name for it—the Nero Decree. You know, after the Roman emperor.”

  Johann thought back to one of Nicolas’s talks—he would often regale him after dinner with tales of ancient Greece and Rome. Nero, the tyrant who burned Rome.

  He backed out of the doorway and into the darkness. The soldiers, their teeth chattering, watched him until he was lost in the night.

  At first light Schorner, Beckmann, and the driver clambered into the truck. Wrapped in makeshift clothing—burlap sacking, a thin rug, a pair of curtains—they were anxious to get to Berlin and report the incident. While it didn’t reflect well on them, they were happy to be alive and thrilled to be avoiding the Soviets who would soon be passing through Brandenburg. As they advanced past the refugees and showed their documentation to bullyboy Feldgendarmerie units who were thrilled to see SS personnel humiliated in this way, they considered the afternoon of interrogation they would have to endure while the paperwork in the back of the truck was unloaded and taken to the furnace at the Ministry. They knew that the job was incomplete without the microfilm.

  There would be consequences.

  They drove through the suburb of Köpenick—where small farms and plots of land gave way to family houses—with some dread about the inevitable interrogation they would receive now that they were back in Berlin. They knew, of course, that the search for the film would become one of the top priorities of the Reich Main Security Office.

  What they didn’t know was that the briefcase containing the microfilm was in the back of the truck, concealed among the boxes, with its custodian, Johann Schultz. Still dressed as his Sturmbannführer half brother, Johann was contemplating what he had learned about the Nero Decree.

  He now had his own task to complete at the Ministry.

  11

  Dieter woke up, his eyes flicking from side to side to try and determine his location. It was his habit: He had barely slept in the same bed on consecutive nights for months. His brain processed the information at hand. He was in the hospital still. He closed his eyes again and took a reading of his body. He didn’t feel too bad. He had been wounded. There was pain. Extreme pain. But nothing he hadn’t suffered before. Nothing he couldn’t and wouldn’t endure. His arm felt stiff from the bandages. There were dressings on his face, and his chest throbbed with pain. Every breath he took felt as though he were splitting skin. But he remembered what had happened and where he was.

  Dieter had no idea where the farmer had gotten the phosphorous grenade from, but there was enough abandoned or forgotten ordnance lying between Berlin and Moscow to equip several armies. The device must have gone off in the old man’s hands—if he’d thrown it at Dieter he would be dead now. He raised himself on his elbows. The pain was excruciating, but he had no time to convalesce.

  He had to locate the briefcase.

  He signaled to a nurse who was hurrying by. She did a double take before halting and moving to his side.

  “Herr Schnell…,” she said.

  “Sturmbannführer Schnell,” he interrupted with a brisk tone of voice that belied his condition.

  “Of course,” the nurse said, her manner shifting from tender to businesslike.

  “The men who visited me,” Dieter said weakly, but with authority, “have them return here immediately.”

  The nurse paused for a moment as if she was going to ask Dieter if he felt well enough for whatever he was intending to do.

  “Quickly,” he said.

  If he could have clapped his hands together he would have.

  Pfeiffer and Vogt were back within the hour.

  “This Schultz killed the Obersturmführer?” Pfeiffer asked Dieter. He looked over at his fellow officer, Vogt, who had removed his cap and was rubbing his thumb around the brim thoughtfully.

  “In front of my eyes,” Dieter confirmed. “And Ostermann only died because he disturbed Schultz when he was attempting to inject me with the sedative.”

  “Do you know anything of him?” Vogt asked, looking up. His eyes were narrowed as if he were questioning a suspect.

  “No,” Dieter said. The statement was partially true. Dieter’s memories were from a decade before. He needed to keep Johann’s real identity a secret. Should others discover that Schultz was his half brother, it would not bode well for Dieter.

  Dieter sunk back in his pillow and shook his head. He had made a connection: The name Johann was not a casual choice. Johann Sebastian Bach had been Nicolas’s favorite composer.

  “Do you have something to tell us, Dieter?” Pfeiffer asked.

  “No, no,” Dieter said darkly. “It’s just the medication.”

  “Well, you must rest, my friend,” Vogt said.

  “He’s right,” Pfeiffer added. “Those wounds will take time to heal.”

  Dieter was about to speak when a messenger walked quickly into the room with a cable for Vogt. The Sturmbannführer tore it open and scanned the paper.

  “After we last saw you we asked our analysts to see if there was any mention of Johann Schultz in army dispatches recently,” Pfeiffer explained.

  “He’s coming here,” Vogt said, incredulously staring at the telegram.

  Dieter sat up. “Why?” he asked. He felt a rush of excitement. It reminded him of how he sometimes felt in combat.

  “One of Goebbels’s awards ceremonies,” Pfeiffer said. “Radio operators can’t get through to the hospital, but according to Army High Command communications, Schultz is due to attend.”

  “Goebbels is still doing those?” Dieter asked.

  Pfeiffer nodded grimly.

  “Where is it?” Dieter asked.

  “Doesn’t say,” Vogt said, smacking the back of his hand against the paper. “It will be easy to find out.”

  “Good,” Dieter said. “Come back when you know.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pfeiffer smiled, thinking that his friend was joking.

  “You can drive me,” Dieter said.

  Vogt and Pfeiffer looked at each other.

  “You’re not thinking of…” Vogt started gesturing at Dieter with upturned palms.

  By now, though, Dieter was sitting on the side of the bed and getting his bearings. It was the first time he had been upright in nearly five days.

  “No one gets to arrest Johann Schultz or Thomas Meier, or whoever he is today, but me,” he said resolutely. “Do you understand?”

  Neither of them said a word. They didn’t need to. It was clear that they had little choice in the matter.

  The ceremony was being conducted in a cavernous cellar in a semi-wrecked mansion near Pariser Platz. Vogt and Pfeiffer accompanied Dieter uneasily, aware of the sidelong glances that the disfigured, limping man attracted as they pushed through the crowd.

  “I think that we’ve missed the actual ceremony,” Vogt said to Dieter, who was casting his eyes around the wood-paneled room, searching for his half brother. Both Pfeiffer and Vogt nodded courteously to other officers they were acquainted with. While the SS men appeared sober, most of the others in attendance—all of them from parts of the military—were milling around, their faces flushed with drink. Some had formed groups and were singing raucously. Behind a long bar, staff in threadbare uniforms poured drinks and lit cigars. Dieter coughed. The room was clogged with smoke. He forced his way through clusters of oblivious men, wincing from every movement, every accidental elbow to his ribs.

  “Careful, Dieter,” Pfeiffer said at one point, steadying his friend. Dieter looked around. There was no sign of Johann. Vogt shoved his way through the crowd to join them.

&nb
sp; The three of them worked their way around the room, with Dieter scrutinizing every face. After two circuits he shook his head irritably. The voices around him had stopped being just noise. He had started to hear individual conversations, and what he heard he didn’t like. He had realized that this wasn’t a ceremony at all. It might have started that way, but it had become something else: a wake.

  “Best finish that brandy before Ivan gets his filthy hands on it.…”

  “The British smashed Hamburg.…”

  “They say they’ll be here in a week.…”

  “The Americans are allowing the Russians to get to the oil; then they take Berlin.…”

  “No one has seen the Führer for weeks.…”

  To Dieter’s mind, none of these drunken men seemed to understand the ramifications of what they were saying. They saw what was coming and they would prefer not to think about it.

  For Dieter, things were different; while some turned to frantic revelry, he had to fill his time judiciously and locate the microfilm. He rubbed his wrist—he could still feel the soreness from where the metal bracelet, attached to the briefcase, had been. While there was still life in him, he would fight, and he would ensure that the information he had worked so hard to procure would not end up in the hands of enemies of the Reich.

  He would find Johann and the briefcase.

  He started to push his way through the crowd again.

  “He’s not here,” Pfeiffer said, gesturing to the exit. “Come, Dieter, you need to rest.”

  Dieter continued to cast his eyes around the room suspiciously as he limped among the guests.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

  “It’s no great surprise,” Vogt said. “There’s precious little air traffic and the road is almost impassable with refugees.”

  “Maybe so,” Dieter said. “What I mean is that it’s too convenient.”

  Vogt grabbed a glass of wine from a passing waiter holding a tray.

  “It’s plausible, though,” he said, downing the glass with one action. “Oh, that’s good.…”

  “Plausible, yes,” Dieter said, leaning on a wall. He felt like he was tiring. Leaving the hospital had been exhausting.

  “Where would you rather be,” Dieter asked, gesturing with his bandaged hand at the revelers, “Berlin or the front?”

  Vogt and Pfeiffer nodded in agreement.

  “He should want to be here, unless he’s dead, which is possible.…” Dieter pushed back a strand of his hair that had fallen over his face. “But it’s too damn convenient. Traitors like Thomas Meier—or Johann Schultz, as he has it—rely on opportunities like this for us to have our guard down.”

  Pfeiffer caught Vogt’s eye while Dieter gazed off into the distance.

  “Would you like a drink, Dieter?” Pfeiffer asked after a while. “It would be churlish to be here and not at least help them use up their reserves.”

  Dieter considered this for a moment.

  “No,” he said. “You have a drink. I have work to do.”

  He barged his way through the crowd again, locating the bureaucrat from the Ministry who was responsible for organizing this fiasco.

  “What do you know of Johann Schultz?” he demanded.

  The official regarded Dieter with distaste. Dieter noticed the man’s assistant hovering nearby.

  “His Kommandant claims that he was indisposed,” the bureaucrat replied, examining some paperwork.

  “You’re sure?” It seemed unlikely that a commanding officer would not submit to Goebbels’s whim, no matter how absurd.

  “I’m sure,” the official said, before acknowledging someone else over Dieter’s shoulder and moving past him.

  Dieter stood, frowning, in his wake. Then he noticed the assistant looking at him furtively.

  “Well?” Dieter said, moving toward him. “Is there more?”

  The man looked at the ground, as if he were breaking a confidence.

  “Yes, Sturmbannführer,” he replied. “I suspect my colleague didn’t think that it was relevant.…”

  “Spit it out, man.”

  “A communiqué was sent to Schultz’s commanding officer to ask why he was unable to accept Reich Minister Goebbels’s invitation.”

  Dieter stepped closer. “And?” he demanded.

  “We received no reply for a few days. Eventually a cable came back telling us that Schultz was no longer at the field hospital.”

  Dieter tensed.

  “Apparently the Kommandant has reported his absence to the Feldgendarmerie, which has issued a warrant for Schultz’s immediate arrest.”

  The official had barely finished before Dieter was heading toward the exit.

  His manhunt had begun in earnest.

  Among the usual bustle of officialdom, long glances were cast at Dieter as he limped up the stairs to the third floor of a grand, neoclassical Wilhelmine building. He straightened himself as much as he could, determined that he should not look dispensable.

  Standartenführer Keller, Dieter’s commanding officer, was writing a letter to his wife—whom he had sent to stay with family near Minden—when his adjutant knocked on the door.

  “Sturmbannführer Schnell here to see you, sir,” he announced, a look of mild alarm in his eyes.

  “Schnell?” the Standartenführer said, looking up from his letter. The pen was left poised over the paper, a drop of navy ink collecting at its tip. “Isn’t he still at the Charité?”

  “Not any longer, it seems,” the adjutant said. He could feel Schnell behind him champing at the bit to get into the room.

  “Well, send him in then,” the Standartenführer said impatiently, slipping the letter into his top drawer.

  Dieter walked into the room. It had high ceilings and large windows that opened onto a small balcony that looked out on some birch trees. The Standartenführer could see that Dieter’s arms were stiff with bandaging. Livid red marks reached from beneath his tunic and curled up beneath his chin. The Standartenführer couldn’t help thinking that the injuries suited Dieter. The wounded man raised his arm in salute, grimacing from the effort.

  “Please, Sturmbannführer,” said Keller. “Come and sit down.”

  He ushered Dieter to a pair of leather armchairs in front of a fireplace.

  “I’m afraid that there is no wood or coal,” the Standartenführer said. “It used to be my favorite thing about this office.”

  “It’s certainly very pleasant,” Dieter said. The Standartenführer couldn’t tell whether he was being polite, or whether he was commenting on the circumstances that Keller had been living in while others froze at the front.

  “We are in crisis,” the Standartenführer said.

  “The briefcase?” Dieter interjected.

  “Yes,” the Standartenführer said. “We know from our investigations that it was attached to you when you were brought to the field hospital, but no one seems to have seen it after that. Obersturmführer Ostermann was found dead. We’re surmising that maybe he killed himself after discovering the theft of the information. Such sacrifice is not uncommon in matters of honor. The Oberscharführer… what was his name…?”

  “Lehman,” Dieter said.

  “Yes, Lehman—he hasn’t been seen since the night after you arrived at the hospital. Maybe he might have something to do with the disappearance of the briefcase?”

  Keller crossed his legs and placed his hands in his lap. This was Dieter’s cue to talk, but he remained silent. He wanted to see if he was being tested. Were they aware of Johann? Did they know that Johann was, in fact, his half brother?

  “Do you have any other information?” Keller prompted him. His gaze was intense now.

  “Yes,” said Dieter. “I do. I know who stole the briefcase. It was the same person who killed Ostermann.”

  The Standartenführer’s brow furrowed, but he nodded patiently.

  “Was a postmortem conducted on Ostermann?” Dieter asked.

  “There was no nee
d,” the Standartenführer said. “The man was found hanging. It was clear what the cause of death was.”

  “Really?”

  “His neck either snapped or he was asphyxiated.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not true, sir,” Dieter said.

  “How do you know this?” Keller was annoyed. He drummed manicured fingers on his thigh.

  “I witnessed his death,” Dieter said.

  Keller gestured impatiently for Dieter to go on.

  “There was a surgeon working at the hospital—Oberstabsarzt Johann Schultz. He attempted to kill me by injecting a lethal dose of painkiller. Ostermann disturbed him and he killed Ostermann instead of me. I have no idea how Ostermann ended up hanging from a rope. Maybe Schultz had an accomplice in order to get the body up there.”

  “Lehman?” the Standartenführer asked.

  “Possibly,” Dieter said, considering the question. “But I think that’s unlikely. The man doesn’t seem like the type.”

  “I know that I don’t have to stress the importance of this theft to you, Schnell,” the Standartenführer said. “The reason we sent two units—one for paper, one for microfilm, was insurance against such a mishap. But—”

  Dieter met Keller’s eyes.

  “—there will be consequences.”

  He was being threatened.

  “There is an intense rescue mission ongoing.”

  “Sir,” Dieter said. “Respectfully, I’d like to request that I am put in charge of this investigation. The Gestapo is under the authority of the SS. I can lead the investigation. The documents were stolen while in my possession. I am fully responsible for their destiny, and I intend to ensure that I complete my mission and that the contents of the briefcase are brought here and managed in the way that was planned from the outset.”

  The Standartenführer considered Dieter for a moment. Surely this injured man wasn’t intending to set off in pursuit of the Reich’s most valued information?

  “I assure you, sir,” Dieter said, as if reading Keller’s thoughts, “that I am fully capable of seeing this mission through. Duty and my honor respectfully demand it.”