The Runner

by Christopher Reich

  And like a storybook it had almost come to pass: the unexpected meeting, the hushed voices, the tender embrace as his fingers caressed her hair, still the same vixen’s blond that he’d adored. Even the mention of Judge’s Christian name and the piercing note of her perfume had failed to dim his hope. She had wanted that pleasure for herself. One word and his carefully constructed palace had crumbled to the ground. “No.”

  Seyss sat down on the bed, motioning for Ingrid to take a seat on the couch across the room. He took out the .45, checked to see that a round was chambered, then set it beside him. Six years had passed. He sighed. People changed. Smelling her florid scent, his jaw suddenly clenched. Sächlichkeit, he ordered himself. You don’t know this woman any longer.

  “Schatz, I must ask you another question. No more pleasantries, all right? Very important.” He waited until her eyes were fully on his. “What news did you want to tell Judge?”

  Ingrid lifted her shoulders and smiled. “Nothing that concerns you. Just that the water is running again.”

  Seyss could still hear the expectant lilt to her voice. Devlin, I have some wonderful news. You’ll never guess what. “No,” he said. “That wasn’t it. You were too proud of yourself. Your cheeks were glowing. What was it?”

  “I’ve already told you. We have water again. Go check for yourself. The concierge was here before you came.”

  It was a game attempt, he’d give her that.

  “Judge, he’s here now, but one day he’ll leave, and it will just be us again. Come, schatz, what were you going to tell him?”

  Ingrid opened her mouth, her lips forming around some unfinished words, but said nothing. Seyss rose from the bed and knelt in front of her, placing a hand on one knee. “You never were a gifted liar. Truth was always your strong suit. It was your honesty, your exuberance, that I loved about you. So, schatz, before we go any further, let me be honest, too.” And just then, he gave her leg a very firm, very carefully placed squeeze so that she sucked in her breath and whimpered. “There is nothing you know that I cannot find out. Verstehst du?”

  Biting her lip, Ingrid nodded reluctantly, and he could see a tear forming in her eye.

  “What, then, did you wish to tell our friend, Devlin Judge?”

  Ingrid remained silent, her knees buckled together and her arms fastened around her.

  It was a pity, thought Seyss, that people could be so unreasonable. He slapped her cheek and Ingrid’s head caromed to the left. A little something to get her attention. Her eyes glared at him wildly, and from nowhere, she threw a punch. He deflected it, yanking her off the couch and tossing her onto the floor. The sight of her lying there angered him—he hated nothing so much as disobedience—so he kicked her in the stomach.

  “Darling, don’t do this to yourself,” he said, picking up the pistol. “Think of our boy. Would he like to see his parents fighting this way?”

  Ingrid’s eyes squinted in disbelief. “You knew?”

  “I’m touched.” He offered a hand to help her up and she knocked it away. “Not until now.”

  “Don’t be, Erich. You just fucked me. You may be his father, but you’re not his parent.”

  Seyss struck out blindly with his boot, catching her squarely in the sternum, lifting her a few inches off the ground. He was angry at her impudence and her courage, angry at his own predilection for sentiment. He felt no kinship because of their shared offspring. Instead, he felt disgusted and foolish, her rejection of his affection tempering his willingness to overlook her Jewish heritage.

  Ingrid squirmed on the carpet for a minute, coughing, making pathetic gurgling noises. Slowly, she gathered her breath and drew herself to a sitting position. Her defiance was ebbing visibly. To make sure of it, he jumped as if to kick her again. She threw out an arm to block the feigned blow, then shrank to the carpet, crying. Bending down, he helped her onto the couch and offered his handkerchief. It was the least a gentleman could do.

  “As you were saying . . .’’

  “I’m going to Potsdam this evening,” she whispered.

  “Louder!”

  Ingrid cleared her throat, lifting her voice. “My cousin is a member of the presidential delegation. Chip DeHaven. Stalin is throwing a soiree for Truman and those left behind are giving a small party at the Little White House. We’re meeting at the Excelsior at seven.”

  Seyss nodded. The Little White House. Kaiserstrasse 2. A map in the dossier showed its location and floor plan, another that of Stalin’s villa on the Havel. He’d study both after he killed Judge. “Who invited you?”

  “An American reporter. His name is Rossi.”

  Seyss sat next to her, placing an arm around her shoulders. “Why didn’t you just tell me in the first place? So foolish of you to bring this on yourself. All to do a job the Americans should be taking care of themselves.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her hair. She was noticeably thinner than when he’d last seen her—cheekbones more pronounced, eyes that much larger, waist without the least fat—but her slender figure served only to make her more alluring than she’d been. Maturity had added the final strokes to an unfinished masterpiece. Seeing that she didn’t resist, he kissed her again, this time on her cheek. Slipping his arm lower, he turned her waist so that she faced him more directly. “So we have a boy,” he said. “Smile. Be happy his father is alive. No boy should grow up without his papa. We’re together again. As it should be.”

  “Never,” she said, and he felt the venom in her words.

  Tossing her shoulders, she tried to stand up but a firm arm locked around her back defeated her struggles. He slid down the couch and moved his head toward hers. Her lips were dry and chapped. Feeling her shift, he tightened his grip and placed a hand on her breast. She was always sensitive there, he recalled. He pressed his body into hers so that she might feel his attraction, then snuck in two fingers to unbutton his pants.

  Just then the bucket clanked and clattered down three flights of stairs.

  Startled, Ingrid gasped and held him tighter. Seyss shook her loose and jumped to his feet, grabbing the pistol and running into the bathroom. The fire escape groaned as someone mounted the steps. Jutting his head out the window, he caught sight of a mop of dark hair climbing the rusted stairs. He brought the pistol to bear and cocked the hammer. It was a man and he was coming up fast, but where was the uniform Ingrid had mentioned? Seyss waited, knowing a shot would ricochet off the scaffolding. He didn’t want to fire. A gunshot would bring unwelcome attention. The figure rounded the stairs. A head popped from the sea of metal slats, looking expectantly upward and Seyss was staring at the dirt-smeared face of a teenage boy.

  “He paid me. He paid me,” the boy was yelling, hand raised to ward off Seyss’s bullet.

  Seyss didn’t hear him.

  By then, the door to Ingrid’s flat had crashed open and Devlin Judge was rushing across the room, a jagged section of pipe in hand.

  CHAPTER

  51

  “RAUS! RAUS!”

  Devlin Judge charged across the room, brandishing a heavy lead pipe. He yelled for Ingrid to get out of the apartment but she stood as if frozen. His ruse had brought them a few seconds, no more, and it was only through speed and surprise that they could take advantage of them.

  Seyss dashed from the bathroom, a look of incomprehension heating to anger, then resolve. His hand rose sharply and he brought the muzzle of the Colt to bear. Before he could fire, Ingrid was upon him, hands working to free the pistol from his grasp. Judge leaped onto the coffee table and launched himself at the German. The gun bucked once, twice. The noise was excruciatingly loud, clotting his ears with an unbearable ringing. Gunpowder from the muzzle blast scalded his cheek and the next instant he collided with Seyss, his head spearing the German in the ribs. The momentum of flight propelled both men into the wall. With a thud, they landed in a confused heap.

  Judge cleared his left forearm and pinned Seyss to the ground. Staring into his callous, confident face, h
e suffered every bitter emotion of the past ten days. His humiliation at being bested at Lindenstrasse, his frustration at allowing Seyss to escape from the armory, and his unspoken anger and will to revenge on behalf of his brother, Francis Xavier. These feelings and a hundred more for which he had no name came to an instant, uncontrollable boil inside him. Cocking his free arm, he delivered two quick downward jabs. The first blow connected solidly with Seyss’s cheek. The second glanced off his chin and scraped the floor, causing Judge to lose his balance. And in that instant Seyss’s fist erupted like a coiled spring, a freight train on a vertical track catching his jaw square on. Judge’s sight darkened and his vision collapsed to a narrow band of light, grainy and unfocused. He tumbled to the floor and his head struck something hard and uneven. Stunned, he thrust his hand behind him and his fingers danced across the cool metal of Seyss’s pistol. The discovery and its concomitant prospect of revenge most sweet enlivened him.

  Scrambling to his feet, Judge noted with dismay that Seyss had risen, too, and was propelling Ingrid toward the door. Judge took aim at the plane of Seyss’s back. The trigger caressed his finger like lips to his ear, begging him to fire. He hesitated. A shot at such close range might easily pass through Seyss and kill Ingrid, too. He yelled for the two to stop, but even as he spoke, Seyss twirled, shunting Ingrid in front of him. He had another gun in his hand—and as Judge threw himself behind the sofa, it exploded. The bullet struck the wall behind him, misting the air with vaporized plaster. Ingrid screamed, and when he raised his head, the apartment was empty.

  Judge ran to the door and popped his head into the hallway. Two more shots came his way but neither was close. Seyss was buying time, executing a retreating action to the Horsch with Ingrid, a flesh-and-blood shield. Judge slid down the stairs, his back to the wall. He was desperate to stop Seyss, but prudence forced him to pause at the top of each landing, to advance inch by inch until he could be certain the next flight was clear.

  Reaching the street, he wasn’t surprised to see that Seyss had trundled Ingrid into the black roadster. She was half inside the sports car, her flailing arms providing a scrappy if ineffective resistance. Seyss jabbed the pistol into her ribs, hard enough to make Judge wince. He shouted for her to calm down, to do as he said, and she stopped fighting. He shoved her head into the tight compartment and climbed in beside her.

  Twenty yards separated Judge from the car. Twenty yards from the woman he cared for and the man he wanted to kill. Keeping his body hidden inside the building’s entry, he released the cartridge and ran a thumb over the bullets. Five shells plus one in the snout. He imagined himself bursting from the protection of the building and blasting his way to the car, saw the spent brass casings, spitting from the Colt as he emptied the gun into Seyss’s torso. It was craziness. Seyss would take him the moment he showed himself. An idea came to him. The tires, he thought. Shoot the goddammed tires!

  Arm extended, Judge peeked from the building. A young couple walking hand in hand interrupted his line of fire. Seeing his pistol, they turned and fled down the street. Just then, the Horsch’s engine spat brusquely and revved. Judge stepped from his hiding place and began firing. One, two, three shots. All misses. The Horsch screeched from the sidewalk, shuddering as it executed a 180-degree turn. Judge ran after it, firing wildly at the tires, praying no strays would violate the gas tank. He didn’t dare risk a shot at the tightly bunched silhouette inside the cockpit. Suddenly, he heard a fat bang, louder even than the gunshots and the left rear tire exploded.

  INGRID FELT RATHER THAN HEARD the tire blow. It was as if someone had kicked the car, knocking a leg out from under it. The Horsch veered left and Erich flung both hands onto the wheel to correct the vehicle’s course, letting the gun fall onto the floorboard at his feet. Spotting her moment, Ingrid sprang. Her ribs were very sore where he’d prodded her with the pistol, but she managed to twist and lunge across the armrests and make a grab for the wheel. Clutching the circle of polished wood, she yanked it right and held on for dear life. The car lurched into the curb, bounced off, then climbed onto the sidewalk. Seyss rose in his seat and delivered a vicious elbow to her chest. Crying out, she released the wheel and fell against the door. He thrust the wheel to the left, but by then it was too late. Traveling at forty miles per hour, the Horsch struck an elderly man, then careened through the plywood façade of an electrical goods store. Ingrid brought both arms in front of her face, wanting to scream but finding fear had lodged her cry deep in her throat. It didn’t matter. By then, the world was screaming for her—the splintered wood breaking upon the car, the furious engine howling in protest, the tires seeking purchase on the slick cement, and above it all, Erich yelling for the car to stop, stop, stop. Sliding across the deserted showroom, the Horsch slammed into the back wall and came to an abrupt halt.

  SEYSS SAW THE COLLISION APPROACHING. Bracing one arm against the steering column, the other on the handbrake, he let the shock roll through him. He waited for a moment after the car had come to a stop, taking a deep breath, then making an inventory of his body’s complaints. His forearm ached. His chest was sore (from the collision with Judge) and his ankle throbbed curiously. He hoped it wasn’t broken. He raised a hand to his forehead, expecting to see blood, but it came away clean. Amazingly, the windscreen had not shattered.

  He glanced at Ingrid. She was dazed and unmoving, but apparently unhurt. He remembered her ridiculous attempt at bravado, saw her grasping the wheel, tugging at it like a hellion, and he grew enraged. All of this was her fault. Running a hand across the floor, he found the Browning, then turned to face her.

  “I’m sorry, schatz,” he said. “But really, I can’t have you messing up my life any further.”

  Without further ado, he placed the barrel of the pistol against Ingrid’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Ejecting the cartridge, he saw he was out of bullets. Shit.

  Ignoring Ingrid, Seyss tried to start the car. He turned the ignition time and time again, but after a few wounded coughs the engine died altogether. Ingrid laughed but made no move toward him. The door was frozen solid, so he pulled himself out the open window. His first steps were tentative. A sharp pain stabbed at his ankle. A sprain, nothing worse. Reaching the sidewalk, he saw Judge in full flight running up the street. He’d never make it as a sprinter, but his form wasn’t bad. And with that gun he didn’t need to win, a close second would do.

  Seyss unbuttoned his jacket and began to jog up the road. The motion flooded his wrenched joint with blood and for a few steps, he thought he might faint. Lengthening his stride, he was pleased to feel the pain subside. A crowd of onlookers had gathered round the entrance to the store. Burnt-out tanks and flak-torn aircraft were old hat, but an American officer crashing a Horsch roadster into a neighborhood store . . . that was a novel sight. Judge met his eye, then broke off the chase and ran into the store. Idiot! He actually cared for the girl. Ingrid must have freed herself, for a second later, Judge was back, rejoining his pursuit with a new vigor. Forty yards separated them. Putting additional weight on his weakened limb, Seyss was pleased to find it accept the exertion. He ran faster and the distance between them quickly grew.

  And as he ran, he became aware of the curious stares thrown his way from the local gentry. It wasn’t usual to see an American fleeing a German. Not in Berlin, at least. Turning this observation over in his mind, Seyss discovered a neat solution to his problem. A nifty way to end this ridiculous charade once and for all.

  Coming to the next corner, he turned left and headed west. Eichstrasse was practically on the border of the American zone of occupation. It was just a matter of time before he came upon an American installation. The sun shone high on the yardarm and soon he was sweating, his shirt damp and his jacket tight across the shoulders. Not wanting Judge exhausted, he slowed, allowing him to gain some ground. Judge rounded the corner a second later. He had settled into a steady stride and though perspiring heavily, looked ready
to run another five kilometers. At his shoulder was Ingrid Bach. When had she turned into such an athlete?

  Remembering the pistol, Seyss stoked his tempo. He heard Judge yell “Stop!” and not a second later a bullet whizzed overhead, sounding in its proximity like a drunken bumblebee. Then he saw it. A block up the road, an American flag flew from the balcony of a white stucco building—a gemeindehaus, or district governmental office. He smiled at the red and white stripes curling in the soft breeze. It wasn’t a flag he’d ever wanted to salute, but it was one he had surrendered to willingly. Prisoners on the eastern front couldn’t expect Hershey bars, Budweisers, or Lucky Strikes as part of their daily regimen. He stumbled purposely, wanting Judge to gain a few feet and the thought came to him that he was a fisherman and that he was reeling in a big catch foot by foot. Nearing the American flag, he yelled in his loudest voice.

  “Get me some help quick. Crazy Nazi bastard’s trying to kill me. Will someone get down here?”

  A moment passed. No one responded and Seyss felt a chill pass through his body. It was Wednesday afternoon. Maybe like German schools, the Americans closed their doors after twelve o’clock midweek. Just as quickly, though, his fears were put to rest. The doors to the stucco building burst open and four GIs peeled downstairs, each carrying an M-1 rifle.

  JUDGE SAW THE AMERICAN FLAG and smiled. He would catch Seyss. He would explain everything to the CO and that would be that. The White Lion was finished. Just a few more steps. Tucking in his chin, he ignored the fire that had engulfed his lungs three blocks back and urged his knees higher, his legs faster. Seyss had stopped running and was waving the squad of GIs in his direction, saying something about “a crazy Nazi” and “war criminals” and “a murder.” In his overheated state, Judge couldn’t make it all out.

  “I’m an American officer,” he shouted when he was within spitting distance of the soldiers. “That man is an escaped war criminal.” But he was too out of breath to make himself understood. His ragged rebuttal sounded more like, “offzer,” “awrcrimnal.” He sounded just like the rabid Nazi Seyss claimed he was. The GIs were all around him now, and he didn’t like how they were eyeing him. Seyss stood behind them, ten feet away.