No wonder Kurtz was eager to find somebody who could cross the mountains. Leeburg cursed his own stupidity. He had thought they had gone out of their way to help him find Reitzer. The Inspector was a blackmailer! When he had found out about Leeburg and Reitzer he had purposely pressurised Leeburg into his present position.
Schmid disappeared into the adjoining room, accompanied by the Inspector and Sergeant Ulrich.
‘Who is he?’ Leeburg hissed when they were alone.
Kurtz didn’t reply. Karl shuffled across to the stove.
‘Who is he, Kurtz?’ Leeburg snapped.
‘Somebody who wants to get out of the country,’ Kurtz replied, tight lipped.
Leeburg stood up. ‘I’m no fool, Kurtz,’ he fumed. ‘I can add two and two together. I want to know who he is.’ He looked at his brother. ‘What’s the matter Karl?’ he sneered. ‘Don’t you know who you have delivered to your friends?’
His brother turned to face him. ‘I know,’ he said angrily. ‘He is Otto Reinhard.’
‘Reinhard!’ Leeburg exploded. ‘Reinhard!’ He looked at his brother almost disbelievingly. ‘My God, Karl, that bastard!’
He sat down and buried his head. Reinhard! No wonder the military were out. No wonder he had thought his face was familiar. Reinhard! First lieutenant of Julius Streicher, the Jew baiter. A cold shiver ran down his spine.
The sound of muffled laughter came from the kitchen. Leeburg looked up at his brother contemptuously. ‘You must be very pleased with yourself,’ he said.
Karl’s face flushed up, his eyes blazed. ‘And what about you?’ he sneered. ‘Are you so pure and white?’
It was Leeburg’s turn to flush up. Karl’s implication was quite clear.
‘Cut it out,’ Kurtz called out anxiously, but the two men ignored him.
‘How many was it you killed?’ Karl sneered. ‘Six or seven? Or was it Reitzer? That’s it now, it must have been Reitzer. Find Reitzer and ease my conscience!’ He spoke fast spitting out his words, his body slightly bent, his eyes bulging from his face.
‘Yes,’ Leeburg fumed. ‘That’s right. I do want to find Reitzer, and I do want to ease my conscience, because I have a conscience. Have you?’
‘Stop being so sanctimonious,’ Karl snapped. ‘Conscience! Does that feed us? Does that get us out of here? No, I have no conscience for that bastard next door. He’s a dead duck. Tomorrow, next week, next year. He’ll get what he deserves, but not today, and do you know why?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Because today he is paying for our protection, and he is paying plenty.’
‘Money!’ Leeburg mocked.
‘Yes, money,’ Karl retorted. ‘Money to get away from living in this damned valley. To get away from living with you always somewhere up there.’ He waved his hand in the air. ‘You, the idol!’ He gave a mocking laugh. ‘You the idol,’ he sneered.
Leeburg listened to him incredulously. His brother was denouncing everything that Leeburg loved. The valley, the mountains, their home. It was everything to him.
‘All my life I have lived in this prison,’ Karl fumed. He shuffled across the room. ‘To you the mountains were your playground, winter and summer. To me they were my tormentors! You were the one who got out of the valley. You were the one who got the glory. I had to remain. I had to see that we didn’t starve.’
His eyes bulged from his forehead.
‘So now I am taking the opportunity of making sure I can get out of this place and live wherever I choose. I’m taking Frieda away from all this.’ He swung his arms wildly around the room. ‘Away from your lecherous eyes.’
So that was it, Leeburg thought. Frieda! Not really the valley or the Gasthof, but Frieda. She had warped and twisted his reasoning.
‘You blind fool,’ Leeburg snorted. ‘I’ve told you before, Frieda means nothing to me.’
Karl sneered back at him. His stupidity irritated Leeburg.
‘But don’t think she will follow you,’ Leeburg snapped. ‘Not you, you fool. Frieda has other friends.’
‘You lie!’
‘Ask him!’ Leeburg shouted back at him, pointing his finger at Kurtz. ‘Ask him.’
‘He’s lying,’ Kurtz cried out. ‘Don’t take any notice of him, Karl.’
‘Am I, Kurtz?’ Leeburg asked. ‘Am I?’
Kurtz’s face had gone ashen. Karl looked perplexed, dumbfounded.
‘Where do you think she has been living in Bregenz?’ Leeburg asked hotly. ‘I know and so does he. Karl for God’s sake stop being so blind.’
Karl snorted like a wounded lion and turned to Kurtz.
‘No, Karl,’ Kurtz called out. ‘He’s lying.’
Karl took one step towards him. One menacing step.
‘Stop it!’ a voice barked out. ‘Stop it!’ It was the Inspector. He stormed into the centre of the room, his face flushed, his eyes flashing, and his lips hard set. ‘Stop it, at once,’ he ordered. His eyes went from one to the other. The room had suddenly gone quiet, but the atmosphere was electric. ‘If there is any more of this,’ the Inspector said in a low sinister voice, ‘I will deal with you both.’ He turned to Leeburg. ‘Keep your domestic squabble out of this,’ he added.
For several seconds nothing was said. The Inspector stood eyeing them all.
‘Go and fix the French sergeant,’ he snapped at Kurtz. The white-faced Kurtz turned and left the room. ‘Get the gear,’ the Inspector said to Karl. ‘It is in the bedroom.’
Karl looked at him defiantly and then shuffled his way across the room.
The Inspector turned to Leeburg. ‘You will have to be leaving soon,’ he said more evenly.
‘Alone?’ Leeburg asked.
‘No. You are taking Schmid with you.’
‘That was not part of our bargain.’
The Inspector came and sat opposite him. He placed his hat slowly on the table. He always had the hat, Leeburg thought. It was always with him. On his head or in his hand, but always there.
‘So?’ the Inspector asked. He folded his hands on the table and looked hard at Leeburg.
‘Supposing I don’t agree?’ Leeburg asked.
The Inspector raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. He then put one hand in the jacket of his leather overcoat and transferred an automatic pistol into the other pocket. ‘I would have to kill you,’ he smiled.
‘That wouldn’t help Schmid,’ Leeburg replied evenly. He heard the side door open and saw Karl shuffling into the room.
‘No,’ the Inspector agreed. ‘It wouldn’t. I would have to shoot him also.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘I would also have to shoot your brother and the Frenchman.’
Leeburg looked at his rough, hard face. The Inspector wasn’t talking lightly. He meant what he said. In the background Karl shuffled out of the room again.
‘Kurtz is reliable,’ the Inspector explained, ‘and I would be rewarded by the authorities. Schmid has a price on his head. I might even get promotion.’ He put his hand back on the table. ‘It would be a pity, though,’ he added. ‘You see Schmid has friends who are prepared to pay a lot to get him out of the country. So why don’t we cooperate. I need you and you need me.’
‘I need you?’ Leeburg asked hoarsely. His bargain hadn’t been with Kurtz, he thought. It had been with the devil!
‘You want to find Reitzer,’ the Inspector pointed out.
‘At what price?’ Leeburg asked. ‘Perhaps it is not so important now.’
‘Oh! Come now,’ the Inspector said patiently. ‘A trip over the mountains. Two nights. After that you won’t see Schmid again. And it will be to your advantage.’
‘How?’ Leeburg asked. ‘Tell me how.’
The Inspector’s mouth twisted into a faintly amused smile. He was the confident policeman again. ‘I will,’ he said, and leant back in his chair. ‘In 1945,’ he said, ‘the Americans marched into Innsbruck. With them came a certain Major Houston. He was responsible for the investigation of war crimes. One of his cases concerned the shooting of seven peo
ple, civilians, at the Villa Lucciano, during the summer of 1944.
‘He had two names in his file. A Major Reitzer and a Sergeant Leeburg. In your dossier were the reports of the medical units which had operated on you and those of the camp doctors. They confirmed that you were suffering from a form of amnesia and were not aware of the full events which took place before your capture. So Major Houston left you alone — for the time being. When the French took over this zone and the Americans moved out, I was given the task of liaison with the Major’s department. The dossier on you and Reitzer was handed to me.’
There was a look of satisfaction on his face which irritated Leeburg.
‘How did the Major get my name?’ Leeburg asked.
‘An interesting point,’ the Inspector replied. ‘You see you are under the impression that you and Reitzer were alone at that Villa. Correct?’
Leeburg didn’t reply, but his pulse quickened. Vaguely in the woolly depths of his mind he had felt that this had not been the case, but it was only Reitzer’s face which kept coming back to him.
‘In fact you and Reitzer were not alone. There were others.’
Others! Leeburg thought. Others! Who? Who else was there? Who else saw what happened?
‘One was a man called Meizer.’
Meizer! Leeburg knew the man. He had been a private in the Headquarters section.
‘He was there when the Americans took the villa, after they had shelled the area. Unfortunately Meizer was dying. He only lived long enough to give the American officer two names. That of Reitzer and yourself.’
Leeburg listened dumbfounded. For over three years he had lived with the belief that the incident at the Villa Lucciano had been something known only to Reitzer and himself. That no one else had even known of their presence at the villa, never mind their names. But here was the Inspector proving how wrong he had been.
‘When I was handed the case to investigate,’ the Inspector continued, ‘I found out, eventually, as you did, that Frau Reitzer had been seeing Alfoss. Unfortunately Alfoss had been shot. However, I deduced that she had been providing some means of finance to her son so we gathered he was somewhere in Switzerland.’ He smiled. ‘We found Reitzer all right. We also found that he was part of an organization which had been set up to arrange for the disappearance of former highly-placed members of the regime.
‘This organization didn’t happen by accident, Leeburg. It had been carefully planned, well-connected and highly financed. Some of its assets include many valuable treasures which had been secretly acquitted and sent into Switzerland for safe keeping. They include, for instance, some of the missing paintings from the Villa Lucciano.
‘Reitzer is a small cog in this machine. He became part of it by accident, not design. However, he has proved useful to them. Like you, he knows these mountains. He is also knowledgeable of the area immediately over the border and his sister owns a large estate there. So they use him. He is in their power. After all he is a wanted man.’ The Inspector smiled, showing his yellow stained teeth. ‘So instead of having Reitzer arrested we found it much more profitable to do business with his associates. Much more profitable.’
Leeburg felt disgusted at the Inspector’s open admission of his own greed and corruptibility. ‘What has this got to do with me?’ he hissed.
Before the Inspector had time to reply, Kurtz came back into the room.
‘Join our guest,’ the Inspector ordered sharply.
Kurtz disappeared into the kitchen. The Inspector turned his attention back to Leeburg. ‘Having found Reitzer and the organization with which he is connected, I let the Lucciano case lapse and became more interested in the other business.’ He gave a weak smile. ‘So long as I was unaware of what had actually taken place at the Villa Lucciano I was hardly in a position to inform the American, Major Houston.’ He sighed. ‘When you were released, it infused their interest again so I was obliged to look you up.’
‘So you don’t know either?’ Leeburg asked.
The Inspector shook his head sadly. ‘No, I can’t help you,’ he said, ‘except to tell you that you and Reitzer were not alone at that villa. There were two other men there, also.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Those two men are over the mountains with Reitzer waiting to pick up Herr Schmid.’ He sat back, a contented smile on his face. ‘Their organization is folding up soon,’ he said. ‘If you want to speak with them you will have to go now. Three fountains of truth, Leeburg, not one as you thought. But they won’t be there for ever.’ He paused dramatically. ‘You see how important it is for you to go?’
‘And supposing none of them will talk?’ Leeburg asked.
The Inspector snorted. ‘Look, Leeburg, you came into this thinking there was only one fountain of truth. I’m telling you there are three. Whether or not they talk depends upon you. I don’t damned well know whether they will talk, or whether they will even tell you the truth. They are there for you to work on. It’s your precious conscience.’
The two men looked at each other, but Leeburg’s eyes didn’t see the Inspector. They saw the American Captain and the look of utter contempt and disgust on his face. For three years he had been haunted by that look. For three years he had been blinded and tortured by his own conscience. Why? He wondered. Why couldn’t he just forget it? If his fears were confirmed, would he be any better off?
Whilst he lived with his mind not fully aware of what had taken place there was still the glimmer of hope that he had not pulled that trigger. It was still an escape route. But even if he hadn’t pulled that trigger was he not still also guilty!
No! No! he thought. He hadn’t to think that. He would have stopped Reitzer. He would never have allowed seven innocent civilians to be murdered. Nothing would convince him of that. Nothing.
So it became a matter of satisfying his own conscience. Back to where it had all begun, and he knew the answer. His conscience had sapped his strength and his vitality for the past three years. It would not leave him alone. It would never leave him alone. Not until he faced it with the full facts.
As for the three fountains of truth, he had only thought of Reitzer. Of course Reitzer could lie, they all could, but he would be able to tell, and if necessary there were ways of making people talk. He rubbed his finger tip against the palm of his hand. Yes, he thought, there were ways of making people tell the truth.
The Inspector said something. It interrupted Leeburg’s thoughts. He was back in the farmhouse, face to face with the Inspector again. It was Karl the Inspector had spoken to. Leeburg saw him walk over to the table dragging his foot, and place a bundle of clothing alongside two sleeping-bags. Leeburg looked up into his face. His eyes looked sad, his face sullen, his mouth tight-lipped. Leeburg knew what he was feeling and felt sorry for him. He wished now he had never told him about Frieda and Kurtz. He knew he had hurt him deeply. He knew he couldn’t hurt him anymore, but he could save him from being shot. He owed him that. He looked back at the Inspector.
‘I don’t appear to have any alternative,’ he said quietly.
Again the Inspector smiled. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You haven’t.’
Leeburg stood up and started to examine the articles his brother had placed on the table.
‘Is everything there?’ the Inspector asked.
‘Yes,’ Karl grunted.
‘Then you had better clear off with the Frenchman. You know what to do.’
Karl shuffled around the table. Leeburg watched him hoping for some friendly gesture from him. As he passed close by, Leeburg saw his hand trail the edge of the table, beside the rucksack. He then shuffled over to the door, still without looking back at Leeburg. The Inspector called to the Sergeant to come and join him. Karl left the room.
Sadly, Leeburg turned his attention to the equipment his brother had left on the table. It was then that he saw the small piece of paper alongside the rucksack. His pulse quickened. Karl must have left it for him! It was hidden from the Inspector.
Leeburg casually examined the stores. S
pare clothing, torch, compass, sleeping-bags and a small quantity of food. He picked up each article in turn and replaced it on the table. The Sergeant entered the room, and the Inspector turned to speak to him. Deftly, Leeburg transferred the piece of paper into his pocket.
‘Fetch Schmid,’ the Inspector ordered. The Sergeant left the room. Leeburg heard Karl and the Frenchman drive away. He put his hand in his pocket and reassured himself that the piece of paper was still there.
The Inspector looked at his watch and said: ‘We will not delay the departure longer than necessary.’
Schmid came into the room, still with this superior expression on his face. ‘A good supper, Inspector,’ he said condescendingly. ‘I congratulate you.’
The Inspector acknowledged the compliment with a nod of his head and beckoned him to sit at the table. Schmid sat down. He looked at Leeburg and gave a weak smile. Leeburg looked away.
‘Leeburg will carry the equipment,’ the Inspector said, pointing to the things Karl had left on the table. ‘There is no need to explain their uses, but the black jerseys are an important means of identification. You must both wear them for your pick up in Switzerland.’
Leeburg glanced at the jerseys. On the left arms were two white stripes.
The Inspector unfolded a map and laid it flat on the table. There were four crosses on it. One in Klisters and one at their present position. The other two were in between, one on either side of the border.
Leeburg studied the map closely. There were several ways they could cross into Switzerland. They could go the direct route via Gargellen, up the valley to the Schlappinerjoch, and down to Schlappin hamlet in Switzerland and so to Klisters.
Alternatively they could go over the St Antonienjoch, or up the main valley to Gaschurn. They were all feasible and equally dangerous routes at that time of the year. He noticed the Inspector had chosen the first route, the direct route. As the crow files it would be about fifteen to sixteen kilometres, Leeburg thought. It was the shortest route, but the most strenuous. He hoped the weather didn’t break.
The Fallen Eagles Page 16
