Picking up Bauer by the scruff of his collar, he settled him on the mattress. “One: where were you going? Two: what were you planning on doing when you arrived? Three: who put Seyss up to it?”
Bauer’s lips moved, maybe a word escaped. For a moment, he looked as if he were truly lost, unable to tell up from down, but just as quickly his jaw set and his face took on the same combative look.
Judge delivered a backhand to the cheek and Bauer cried out. He was surprised at how quickly it was all coming back—the jab to the brow, the uppercut to the jaw—everything Mullins had taught him and he’d sworn to forget. “It’s silly for us to be acting this way,” he went on in his sincerest voice. “I want you to take a second. Relax. Decide if we have to go on like this.”
Bauer slumped a little, pondering the question. “I’m confused about who’s the boss around here. Why don’t you guys make up your—”
Judge slugged him in the stomach, at a spot two inches below the sternum. Bauer doubled over and fell to the floor. He lay there for a minute, looking for all the world like a fish out of water, squirming and kicking, and finally, sucking in great swaths of air. Judge kneeled beside him, one hand on his throat. “Herr Bauer, I asked you a simple question. Either you will answer me or we will go on as before. I can assure you I have no other appointments this evening.”
“Enough,” croaked Bauer, pushing away Judge’s hand. “I give up. I wish you Amis would make up your minds. First you tell me to keep my mouth shut and everything will go easy. Now you want to hear the whole story again.”
Judge extended a hand and helped Bauer to his feet. “What’s that?”
“I already told you everything. Didn’t you believe me?”
“No, no, before that. Who told you to keep your mouth shut?”
“One of you. Same uniform. He didn’t give me his name, either,” said Bauer. “Speaks German like you.”
“Was he the man who told you he’d get you out of here tonight?”
“He said nine o’clock. Is punctuality only a German trait?”
Judge let the information pass, certain it was Hadley Everett or one of his men. Right now, he was only interested in what Bauer could tell him about Seyss. “Just repeat everything you said earlier and we’re square.”
“Stimmt das?” Bauer wiped at his lip. “You’re sure? Our deal still stands? Six months in the cooler, then I’m free to go?”
Judge wondered what had happened to standing trial as a black marketeer and accomplice to murder. “It stands.”
Bauer stood, brushing off his pajama and trying hard to regain his dignity. “Babelsberg,” he said.
“Babelsberg what?” demanded Judge. The word meant nothing to him.
“That’s where we were going. Babelsberg. Our Hollywood. Fritz Lang, Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich—they all made movies there. That’s why we needed the truck. The guns and uniforms were to help us fit in. It’s just a business matter. No concern for you.”
“A business matter?” This was rich.
Bauer struggled onto the bed. “Ja. We were to drive to Babelsberg, go directly to the herr direktor’s villa and take possession of the engineering drawings. That was all. Then we come back home.”
“Two hundred miles into Russian territory for some engineering drawings?” Judge was unable to hide his skepticism. “What the hell were they for?”
“I have no idea.”
“But you were willing to risk your life for them?”
“Of course,” said Bauer. “Herr Bach paid me generously. Two months’ salary. Five hundred reichsmarks. Besides, he said it was of utmost importance to Germany.”
“Did he?” Judge betrayed no excitement at the mention of the Bach name, but his joy was that of a man granted a last-minute reprieve. “And which Herr Bach are you referring to? Alfred or Egon?”
Bauer shot him an incredulous look. “Why, Herr Egon, of course. He has been running the concern for two years now.”
Judge recalled Ingrid’s mention of the Lex Bach, Hitler’s edict granting Egon Bach complete control of Bach Industries. If Egon had been running the company for two years, why the hell hadn’t the War Crimes Commission issued a warrant for his arrest? It wasn’t only the factory chiefs who were being hauled before the docket. Sure, Alfried Krupp was in jail, but so were ten of his top lieutenants. The same went for the big shots at I. G. Farben, Siemens, Volkswagen, and so on.
Confused, he sat back on the iron springs and ran a hand through his hair. Wheels within wheels, Mullins would say.
“Herr Major, may I offer you a cigarette?” Bauer reached beneath his bunk and took out a crushed pack of Chesterfields. “I don’t care for Lucky Strikes. Have one of mine.”
“No, thanks,” said Judge, eyeing the wrinkled pack. “I don’t smoke.” Chesterfield was Honey’s brand. Obeying a hunch, he said, “I see my colleague left you some of his cigarettes. Young man, a sergeant?”
“Three stripes,” said Bauer, drawing parallel lines on the sleeve of his pajama. “Yes, he was young. A fine Aryan.”
“And he spoke German?”
“Perfekt!”
It was Judge’s turn to feel as if he’d been sucker punched. What the hell had Honey been doing talking to Bauer? Honey, who couldn’t even get out a comprehensible wie geht’s? Honey, who according to Mullins had returned to Bad Toelz early that morning?
Staring at the floor, Judge worked to regain his bearings. Bauer’s copy of the Stars and Stripes lay at his feet. On the front page was a photograph of President Truman onboard the U.S.S. Augusta mooring in Brussels the day before, and below it, another showing the burnt wreckage of the Reichstag. The place was a mess, a jungle of twisted steel and crushed concrete. Three thousand Germans had died defending the place and five thousand Russians taking it. One lousy building. And for what? The city was already lost, ringed by a million Russian soldiers. He flipped the paper over and read the headline once again. “Big Three to Meet at Potsdam Tomorrow.”
A final mission for Germany.
And then he had it. Why Seyss wanted the weapons, the sniper’s rifle, the pistols, why he needed the uniforms and the truck. And it had nothing to do with engineering drawings.
A final mission for Germany.
He whispered the words and the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention.
“Just one more question: Babelsberg, that’s near Berlin, right?”
Bauer rubbed his chin, nodding. “About twenty kilometers outside of the city. Actually, it’s closer to Potsdam. Just next door, in fact.”
CHAPTER
34
JUDGE GRIPPED THE STEERING WHEEL with both hands, ten o’clock and two o’clock, like Mullins had showed him in the hospital parking lot. One foot held the accelerator to the floor, the other rested above the brake, just in case. He’d been driving for six hours, a midnight run on the famed German autobahn. The four-lane highway was nearly deserted, the world’s straightest river with a surface you could skate across. He’d passed Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Augsburg, seeing only unlit exit signs and stunted silhouettes, and now he was nearing his destination.
“Pick up von Luck. Bring him straight back and the secret’s between us,” Mullins had said, in response to Judge’s entreaty that Seyss’s body be positively identified. Bauer’s statement had raised enough questions to trouble even Mullins’s rule-bound conscience. “I’ll get Georgie Patton to extend your transfer by twenty-four hours. Then it’s straight back to Paris with you and we’ll pick up any loose straws.”
Judge knew of two people who could look at what remained of the body on gurney number three and say with any certainty whether or not it was Erich Seyss. Of them, only von Luck could provide insight into Seyss’s actual intentions, and in doing so, validate Judge’s suspicions. Neither Mullins nor Judge believed Seyss would venture into Soviet-held territory for something so pedestrian as engineering drawings. The first thing a police officer learns is that there is no such thing as coincidence.
> As for Honey and his reasons for interrogating Heinz Bauer, Judge could only guess. Maybe he’d received orders from CIC to grill Bauer. Maybe he’d done it on his own, hoping to prove his mettle and wangle himself a promotion. Whatever the reason, Judge was puzzled why he’d given Bauer the order to keep quiet. Certainly, Honey knew that Judge wouldn’t leave without questioning him. Either he hadn’t expected him to use his fists to get the information or there was someone else he didn’t want Bauer to speak with.
Eyeing the speedometer, Judge kept the jeep traveling at a constant sixty-five miles per hour. Driving wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined. A few turns around the hospital courtyard with Mullins in the passenger seat screaming “brake, clutch, shift, gas,” and he’d been ready to go.
A sliver of daylight appeared directly ahead, cutting the horizon in two. The sliver widened into a band, then lost its borders as the cloudless sky was suffused with a warm orange glow. Heralding the dawn’s arrival, a prickly crosswind picked up from the north, freighting the air with the rich smells of land under cultivation. He breathed deeply, his eyes watering at the loamy scent and its promise of rebirth and renewal. And slowly, a new sense of confidence took root inside him and grew.
The jeep sped past a large sign reading München—Nord, letters of white offset against a deep blue background. Judge followed it off the tree-lined autobahn and into the city’s torn-up streets. Maneuvering the jeep was more difficult now, a clumsy ballet of gas and clutch, one hand welded to the wheel, the other to the stick shift. Piles of splintered wood and serrated masonry twenty feet high choked the roads. He steered crazily around them. On the sidewalks, clutches of women huddled around smaller mountains of redbrick, chipping away mortar and lattice so that they could be used to rebuild their city. Trümmerfrauen, they were called. Rubble women.
Judge searched for signs leading to Dachau. Despite the abject destruction, no important intersection was naked of arrows pointing the direction to towns in the vicinity. He turned left, then right, entering the village that gave the notorious camp its name. It was market day. Vendors bustled across the town square, erecting stalls for their corn and beets and potatoes. He stayed on the main road another ten minutes and found himself traveling a familiar country lane. More familiar still was the rank scent souring the air. He did not slow the jeep as he passed through Dachau’s gates.
A sentry stood guard at the base of the stairs leading to the camp headquarters. Judge announced his business and was immediately ushered into the camp commander’s office. A short, stiff-backed officer dressed in fatigues shook his hand, giving his name as Captain Timothy Vandermel. “Follow me, Major. The CO is waiting for you in the emergency ward.”
Vandermel led Judge across the camp. Behind fifteen-foot fences topped with razor-sharp concertina stood row upon row of low-slung barracks. Hundreds of slack figures wandered the dirt infield between them. Many still wore the blue-and-white striped uniform issued them at Auschwitz, Belsen, Sachsenhausen. Men sat around open fires, smoking, talking in agitated voices. Women tended laundry over salvaged oil drums. Children let loose high-pitched screams as they chased one another here and there.
“DPs,” said Vandermel. “More and more are pouring in every day. The Jews want the hell out of Germany and who can blame them? Most want to go to Eretz Israel, their homeland in Palestine, but the Brits won’t have them. The Ukrainians can go home, but they don’t want to because they’re afraid Uncle Joe will shoot them. Anyone who surrendered is a coward in his book. As for the Poles, they can’t go back to Poland even if they wanted to. Don’t ask about the Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Latvians, or Estonians. Give you one guess where they’d all like to go, the lot of them.”
“America.”
“Bingo.”
And we don’t want them, either, Judge added silently.
Vandermel unlatched a wooden gate cut into the fence and motioned him into the hospital compound. Judge was surprised to see two MPs standing at the entrance to the ward. Before he could ask what they were doing there, a pair of officers shunted out the screen door and onto the landing. One was tall, with a martinet’s ramrod posture and a steam shovel’s iron jaw. Judge recognized him from his previous visit as Colonel Sawyer, the camp commander. He was old army, a former stable mate of George Patton’s when the two were stationed at Fort Myer, Virginia. The other was chubby and balding, a sad sack of a guy with the caduceus pinned to his lapel. A doctor.
“Your timing is impeccable, Major,” shouted Sawyer, waving him over.
Judge mounted the stairs and saluted. “How so?”
Sawyer coughed, averting his eyes, and Judge knew bad news was coming. “Your man von Luck is dead.”
“What?” Judge grew immediately suspicious. “The guy was doing fine last night. What happened between then and now?”
“One of our orderlies found him this morning,” said the doctor, who gave his name as Wilfred Martindale.
“I’d ordered von Luck to get cleaned up for his excursion,” added Sawyer. “The old general was lying there stiff as a board. Went in his sleep.” He said it grudgingly, as if von Luck had welched on a debt.
“Was he ill?” asked Judge.
“No, no,” said Martindale, approaching Judge as if he were the bereaved. “That’s what surprised us. His health was improving daily. He’d gained five pounds in the last week alone. Still, considering how the body had been so weakened by malnutrition, illness, and, of course, the psychological burdens of simply trying to keep oneself alive, it’s amazing Mr. von Luck survived as long as he did.”
They were inside the ward, walking slowly between the beds, a funeral procession clad in olive and khaki. Harrowed faces peered at them from the refuge of their iron beds. The same squadron of flies that had attacked during his last visit dove from the ceiling again, marauding Judge and his escorts. He recognized Volkmann, the poor bastard who wouldn’t leave his bed to go to the bathroom, and tried to muster a smile. Volkmann nodded gravely, his hunted eyes saying he’d tolerate Judge’s presence for a short while, but he’d better not push it.
Von Luck’s body had not yet been removed. Covered by his bedsheet, it lay meek and rigid, leaving only the shallowest outline. Judge grasped the sheet with both hands and slowly peeled it back. Death had not robbed von Luck of his patrician bearing. Chin raised, mouth ajar, he seemed to be barking out one final order.
“What’s the verdict?” Judge asked, frustration getting the better of him. “Heart attack, stroke, lumbago . . .’’
“The death certificate will list natural causes,” said Dr. Martindale in a tone that made clear he did not find the remark humorous.
“Natural causes.” Judge mulled over the diagnosis, while a suspicious voice whispered in his ear, There is no such thing as a coincidence. “Mind if I take a closer look?”
Sawyer ruffled his brow. “A closer look? At what?” he chortled. “Haven’t you seen a dead Nazi before?”
Judge took that as a green light. Stepping closer to the bed, he bent at the waist and placed his nose near von Luck’s mouth. He sniffed for the scent of almonds but smelled nothing. He could rule out cyanide. Probing von Luck’s neck with his fingers, he checked for signs of strangulation—a crushed larynx or a damaged windpipe. Both were intact. He unbuttoned von Luck’s pajama, examining his thorax for injuries. A professionally wielded stiletto could be inserted between the ribs to pierce a man’s heart, leaving a small entry wound and almost no bleeding. But von Luck’s chest was clean and so was his back.
“Was von Luck taking any medication? Penicillin, maybe?”
Martindale shook his head. “He was given a tetanus vaccination three weeks ago. He took a few aspirin each day for his headaches. Other than that he was healthy. We kept him here to eat, sleep, and regain his strength.”
Judge rolled up von Luck’s sleeves and checked for a pinprick or light bruising, indications that an injection had recently been administered. Ten cc’s of potassium chloride could ki
ll a man in less than a minute, leaving him looking as peaceful as if he’d died in his sleep. Both arms were pale and without blemish. He scanned the neck for similar marks. Nothing.
Sawyer cleared his throat theatrically. “If you’re finished, Major, we’d like to get the corpse out of the ward as soon as possible.”
But Judge wouldn’t be hurried. Lowering himself to one knee, he leaned over the bed and brought his face to within inches of von Luck’s. Placing a thumb on the corpse’s right eye, he slid back the eyelid. The eye stared at the ceiling, its fully dilated pupil partially obscuring the pale blue iris. Next he studied the vitreous humor. Barely visible were clusters of what appeared to be minuscule starfish, but were, in fact, ruptured capillaries lying just beneath the eye’s surface. Conjunctival hemorrhage was the medical term. It was a phenomenon that occurred when the body was unable to take in air and the brain was robbed of the oxygen it needed to function. Four years with homicide had provided Judge with a specialized medical education.
Slowly, he cautioned himself.
He checked the other eye and found a similar discoloration.
There is no such thing as coincidence.
Standing, Judge returned his gaze to the row of beds running along both walls. As if cued, all heads were turned toward him. He noticed then that every patient had the same growth of hair, about an inch, and realized that they must have all had their heads shaved for lice at the same time. Whatever had happened in here last night, they’d seen it.
“Well, goddammit,” bellowed Sawyer, sending a wad of saliva arcing through the air. “Don’t stand there looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. Spit it out.”
The Runner Page 29
