MATT HELM: The War Years

by Keith Wease

  Dr. Krueger may have been a genius; physically, however, he was unimposing. About five-six and at least a hundred and seventy pounds, he was a middle-aged butterball with thinning brown hair and a Hitler-like brush moustache which only served to emphasize his weak chin and thin lips. You might be reminded of your local baker who was overly fond of his own products until you got to the eyes. They were sunk into the fleshy face and not particularly noteworthy until you got close. Then you saw the piercing intelligence in the cold blue eyes with that contempt for lesser beings that comes not so much from a superior intellect as from a lifetime of being an object of ridicule. I mean, you put that much brainpower in a body which looked like his and you could almost write the story of his childhood. No wonder he was so thirsty for recognition - it would be his revenge on every girl who ever laughed at him and all the bullies who chased him home as a child.

  I figured the best thing to happen to him had been Frieda. Not that she was a raving beauty, but she had that girl-next-door look the novelists like - light brown hair worn down to her shoulders, matching brown eyes and rather average features which nonetheless added up to an impression of prettiness. Actually, having met her first, Krueger's appearance was that more surprising. If I had met him first, I would have expected a dowdy, spinsterish woman with thick glasses and a preference for sturdy shoes and dark, formless clothes. Instead, Frieda was only a few years older than my twenty-five and looked and dressed more like a college student than a lab assistant.

  I wondered briefly what she saw in him, but it was obvious. Some women are oblivious to the physical appearance of men, judging them on intellect alone. I'm not stupid by any means, but no one ever called me a genius, either, and I remembered a girl I had fallen madly in love with during my freshman year at college. In a way, Frieda reminded me of her. The girl, Laura, was also a freshman and I tried for weeks to talk her into going out with me. When she finally accepted, I found out it was only to have me introduce her to a professor with whom I had become friends through the fencing team. The professor was one of the ugliest men I have ever met, with a face that looked like it had gone several rounds with Joe Louis. He had two loves in life - well, three, after meeting Laura - fencing and the more abstract forms of mathematics having to do with quantum mechanics or something like that.

  By the time I left the college - due to a little fracas involving a knife that I've previously mentioned - Laura had quit school and married the professor and was producing a bevy of ugly children. I hoped for their sake they also inherited their father's brains - it seems somehow unfair to go through life both ugly and stupid. I'm being a little unfair - Laura wasn't stupid, she just seemed that way compared with her husband. I never did figure out what they saw in one another and I didn't bother trying with Frieda and the doctor.

  I had made contact with her the previous day, at the small apartment she maintained, per my instructions. I introduced myself as Heinrich Schumann from the Propaganda Ministry for the benefit of any neighbors who might be listening. She invited me in, her manner uncertain - she hadn't been notified of my cover.

  It was obvious she was under a great deal of tension. Well, becoming a traitor to your country might be a rather tense experience. Actually, I never trust traitors, no matter how noble their proclaimed motives may be. A man, or a woman, who'll betray once, will betray twice. It didn't seem likely that anyone would go to all this trouble just to lure me - well, one of Mac's people - here and she was probably exactly what she said she was, but I checked anyway.

  I said softly in German, "Hello, Frieda, please call me Eric. I believe we had an appointment." If anybody else was listening, that should sound innocent enough, while still identifying myself to her. I put my finger to my lips to warn her to be quiet, and quickly searched the apartment. Nobody else was hidden in the apartment and I couldn't spot any obvious listening devices, not that I expected to - if anyone was interested enough to plant any bugs, I wouldn't be able to find them and they probably knew too much already for me to worry about it.

  Frieda's eyes cleared, impressed with my caution. "Yes, Eric, your friend told me you were coming. He explained to you what I want?"

  "Yes, he did." That wasn't a lie - I didn't say I planned to follow through with it, just that it was explained.

  "Tell me how."

  I hesitated a moment. Now it was the time to lie, but a good lie should follow the truth as much as possible; it makes remembering the lie easier. I decided to tell her the exact truth about procedures, and ignore the fact that the escape plan only allowed for one person, not three.

  "How we manage to deal with your doctor friend will depend on who he is, where he is and what information you provide," I explained. "The second part, getting out of Germany and into London has already been set up. We will need a vehicle. If you or the doctor have one, fine; otherwise, I will steal one. There is a certain city not far from here where we will become French citizens, complete with papers. From there we will travel across France through a series of safe houses which have been used for the last two years to smuggle downed British aviators back to England."

  "What are these safe houses?" she asked.

  "They are mostly homes or businesses owned by members of the French Resistance and their sympathizers. They provide shelter, rest and food before going on to the next one."

  "Where are they located? And which city do we go to first?"

  I looked her in the eyes. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

  She didn't buy it. "I must have more information if I am to trust you."

  I shrugged. "I am not authorized to tell you. If something should happen and you or the doctor get caught, the Gestapo is very good at obtaining information. I cannot risk jeopardizing the safety of dozens, perhaps hundreds of our friends in France for the sake of one girl's suspicions."

  "But I will find out anyway, once we start."

  I had an answer for that one, too. "No you won't. You will be blindfolded to and from each safe house."

  I could see her considering what I had said. I waited. The easiest way to blow a lie is to try to oversell it.

  I could see she still had some doubts. Some people are like that. I could understand it because I'm the same way. Sometimes, no matter how logical and straightforward somebody seems, I find myself thinking, What is this sonofabitch trying to sell me and why? It's a survival trait among professionals. There are times when you have to throw the numbers out and go on instinct. You learn to trust your judgment of people when you have to gamble your life on that judgment.

  She asked the right question. "What about you? What if you get caught, are you so brave that you can't be forced to talk?" There was a hint of scorn in her voice.

  I had three options. I could tell her the hell with her and walk out, hoping she'd stop me. I could tell her how we're trained to stand up under torture and withhold information, which would have been a lie. I had a feeling that I'd better tell the truth, which probably sounded more unbelievable than the first two approaches.

  I shook my head. "No one is that brave, Frieda. Given enough time, anybody can be broken. In my organization we operate under a different set of rules. Depending on the circumstances, we are either allowed to say anything we want, or we are expected not to be captured alive."

  She looked at me appraisingly. With her natural suspicions, if she'd been a professional I wouldn't have been able to sell it. But she'd never had to put her life on the line before.

  "How?" she asked. But I could tell she'd decided to trust me, and the question was more curiosity than anything else.

  I didn't pretend to misunderstand her. I reached up, never mind where, and removed the little pill we carry. Holding out my hand to show her, I said, "It's potassium cyanide, in pill form. One bite and it takes about twenty seconds. I understand that it's a pretty rough twenty seconds, but at least it's quick."

  She was silent for a few seconds, making no attempt to pick up the pill. "His name is Doctor Hans Krueger," s
he finally said. "He lives ..." She gave me the address. I should have been congratulating myself. I had done exactly what I had been ordered to do, and done it well. After all, I was a pro. I do what I'm told, with a few exceptions; and if it means deceiving gullible little girls, that's just too damn bad. So why did I feel so shitty?

  Chapter 24

  I looked down at the two bodies on Krueger's living room floor. I try to make a point of this - if you can do it, you can damn well look at it. It was two-for-one day for good old Eric. She looked kind of small and innocent, lying there. The five bullet holes in her upper chest and neck looked oddly obscene and out of place. I didn't feel much for him - he was a valid target, performing work for his country which would harm mine - but she was simply a pawn in the game whose only fault was being too squeamish about what her lover was doing. Well, my orders had been quite clear, which didn't erase the bad taste in my mouth. Mac should be happy with the end result, even if it hadn't gone exactly as I had planned.

  I bent over and picked up the gun she had pulled out of her jacket pocket. The little gun had two stubby black barrels; actually a solid, gun-shaped little block of metal bored with two holes, one above the other. A small curved butt that, with a hand of any size, wouldn't accept a full complement of fingers. If you held the gun normally, the pinky would be left waving in the breeze; but you don't shoot a derringer normally. You lay your trigger finger along the barrels, and point it at the cheating sonofabitch across the poker table, and pull the trigger with the middle finger.

  The old-time gamblers wore them up their sleeves, or maybe in special leather-lined pockets of their embroidered waistcoats. The best-known specimens came in .41 caliber, throwing a big blob of lead without much velocity or accuracy; but how much do you need across a pile of marked cards? Incidentally, the derringer was first invented or at least popularized, we're told, by a guy named Deringer. Nobody seems to know where the extra "r" came from.

  I put it in my pocket and stood there a minute, deciding the best way to set it up. I had been more or less playing it by ear up to this point. Frieda had confirmed that the doctor would not voluntarily defect and had also confirmed that he was in perfect health - I had asked, ostensibly because of the long trip ahead and the necessity to drug him.

  After meeting Krueger, I had discarded the idea of suicide - nobody would believe that a guy with an ego like that would kill himself. That had left two options suggested by Mac - a lovers' quarrel or some sort of accident. Given Frieda's suspicious nature, I had concluded that any solution leaving her alive would compromise security, contrary to Mac's instructions. Actually, I had pretty much known all along that Mac expected the assignment to include two targets, not one, and had left it to my discretion only because there might be a small chance of dealing with the doctor without arousing the girl's suspicions.

  During the interview with Krueger, it had become clear that I was not going to have much time to do any planning. After I had indicated to him that I had been briefed on his current work, he had pulled out his notes and tried to explain to me just how he had solved the major problems. I had nodded at the appropriate points, more out of politeness than any understanding of what he was saying. The key point, however, had been that he was ready to start work on the new model, which included sharing his ideas with his colleagues, starting the next day.

  That had been the deciding factor. I had all the ingredients at hand, so why wait? My intention had been to shoot the doctor first and then Frieda, setting it up to look as though she had committed suicide after shooting her lover. It would require leaving behind my Woodsman, but I saw no choice. I suppose a psychiatrist would rub his hands in glee at the implications of my worrying about losing an inanimate hunk of metal when faced with the task of shooting two human beings, but it's been my experience that most professionals, in any field, become attached to the tools of their trade.

  I had miscalculated the extent of Frieda's natural paranoia. As I stood up and reached behind me to pull the Woodsman from my belt, she jumped up from the chair and leaped in front of Krueger, who was standing by his desk. She already had the derringer out and pointed towards me - I think she sensed my decision, or saw it in my eyes, as I made it.

  If she had been a professional, I would have been dead right then, but she had apparently never even fired it before, as she was straining on the trigger, completely surprised by the pressure needed to fire the ridiculous little gun. She started to bring up her other hand to help, but by then it was too late. I had more than enough time to bring my own pistol up and think the situation through - hell, even if I waited for her to fire the little monster, using both hands, the chances of her hitting anything while struggling against that incredible mainspring were practically nonexistent.

  It had been the idea of a lovers' quarrel - my original idea - that had led to the next logical progression, given the then changed situation. Obviously, Frieda couldn't shoot herself from across the room - a suicide required powder burns - so who else would shoot her? Since it couldn't be an enemy agent, it would have to be a jealous lover, a third party. As the thought had occurred to me, I'd put it into action - surprised that she hadn't yet got her other hand on the gun. Aiming just above the outstretched derringer, I'd started firing, letting the pistol drift upwards and to the right a little with each shot. The first five bullets had gone into her upper chest and neck, and the last four continued the diagonal pattern, two going into Krueger's neck and face and the final two missing them both altogether. As they had fallen, I could see that, as I had hoped, at least two bullets had penetrated her neck and entered the doctor's chest. . . .

  With a little push in the right direction, it was a perfect set-up. There was no evidence of a struggle, no weapons on either Frieda or the doctor to confuse the issue - just the picture of a brave woman trying to shield the doctor from her jealous lover and both of them getting shot by a panicky amateur who got lucky. All I needed was a final touch to the scene so even the stupidest investigator would come to the right - from my viewpoint - conclusion.

  I thought for a moment, then decided that a jealous lover who was unbalanced enough to shoot two people wouldn't waste time in regrets and probably wouldn't be all that rational. He would want to justify his action, at least to himself. Hoping that I wasn't being too clever, I bent over and daubed my forefinger in a puddle of blood. Feeling a little Machiavellian, I carefully drew a large “A" on Frieda's forehead, figuring that at least one person in the local police department would have heard of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and draw the obvious conclusion.

  I wiped my finger on Krueger's shirt and, gathering up the doctor's notes, walked out into the night and threw up…

  It happens like that, and at the time I envied Nick - my ice-cold and now missing classmate - and the fanatical Jacob. They wouldn't be standing there puking their guts out because the mission required the death of an innocent little girl. I had been relieved when she gave me an excuse to shoot her, but I would have in any case; hence the attack of conscience. Well, I could live with it - I hoped - and would consider myself lucky if all I had to worry about was losing my dinner.

  A couple of months later - I got back to London using the route I had described to Frieda - I narrowly escaped being blown up by one of the new "V-2" missiles. It gave me a new perspective on the havoc that the German's could have created had they been able to perfect a guidance system. I was told by Mac that our experts agreed that Krueger had been on the right track and, with the papers I had brought back, we should eventually be able to develop our own version of a guided missile, although without a genius like Krueger, it would take years.

  That made me feel a little better. I had saved the world from destruction - for the time being - and that made up for the death of one unimportant little girl - didn't it?

  Chapter 25

  It was some time in late November '44. They brought this big kid up to me on the airfield saying that since I was lone-wolfing it this trip there was
plenty of room, and if I didn't mind, it would save their making an extra run. He wasn't one of ours - he was OSS or something - and I wasn't crazy about having any outsiders knowing where I'd been dropped, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

  Nobody bothered to introduce us. We didn't have names around that place, anyway; we were just cargo to be delivered. I shook hands with the boy, that was all. He was a knuckle grinder. Then they called that the plane was ready and he wheeled toward it with that same aggressive football readiness of a big man who expects to be hit hard and intends to stay on his feet nevertheless.

  We hadn't talked on the way across the Channel. We were just two young guys with different destinations, sharing a taxi for a few blocks, and I was wondering, as always, if this was the night my chute wouldn't open or I'd land in some hot wires and fry to death. He had his own thoughts, of a similar nature, probably. He didn't even wish me good luck when it was time for me to drop, but I didn't hold that against him. We had no sentimental traditions or customs in our organization, but in some outfits, I knew, just as among some hunters, it was considered bad form to wish anybody luck at parting.