by John Altman
He started to turn; but Frick brought the gun down across his skull, driving him to his knees. An instant later, cool metal touched his head an inch below his right ear. The Luger. He squeezed his eyes closed, bracing himself.
Then nothing.
Frick cursed softly.
“Hauptmann,” he called.
Hobbs opened his eyes again, and chanced a glance over his shoulder. The stocky man was coming out the passenger side of the car and stepping forward, backlit by the glow from the headlights. Frick muttered something and handed him the Luger. Hauptmann gave the man his own gun: a Walther P38.
Hobbs gritted his teeth, and—surprising himself—found the wherewithal to rise again to his feet. When Frick turned and saw this, his face registered mild shock. And below that, if Hobbs wasn’t mistaken, was a glint of admiration.
Frick placed the gun against his chest. “Turn around,” he commanded. “There is no—”
Hobbs did it exactly the way Oldfield had shown him.
He slapped down at the Walther P38 with his right hand; the web between his thumb and forefinger fell neatly between the hammer and the firing pin. When Frick pulled the trigger, the metal hit the skin, pinching; but the gun did not discharge. He immediately twisted the barrel back toward Frick, trapping the man’s finger inside the trigger guard. Then stepped away, jerking the gun down, rotating it in the same motion. The metal edges of the trigger guard did their work, just as Oldfield had said they would.
Frick’s index finger was torn from his hand.
I’ll be goddamned, Hobbs thought wildly. It worked.
He pulled the gun free, shook the severed finger loose. He was dimly conscious of it flying off into the forest, turning end over end. He slipped his own finger over the trigger, leveled his arm, and fired a single shot into Frick’s head.
Frick tumbled backward. Hauptmann was staring, astonished—and then he was running, slipping away into the darkness. Hobbs fired once at the man’s back. Missed.
He turned to the Mercedes and fired at the driver. The windshield starred but held. Bulletproof, he thought. God damn it.
He dropped to the ground.
Frick was looking at him. A bloody furrow had opened on one side of the man’s head. His eyes rolled. Hobbs started to bring the gun around, to finish the job, when he heard the sound of the Mercedes’ other door opening. He turned his head and saw a boot stepping onto the forest floor. He aimed and fired; the foot jerked, and the man cried out.
He reached for the fender, pulling himself up. His leg was producing sharp, regular bolts of pain. But the pain cleared his head; the pain kept him alert.
The man he had shot in the foot was sitting on the forest floor, grappling after a gun that had fallen a few feet away. Hobbs stepped around the door and shot the man in the stomach.
Then turned back to Frick. Frick had dragged himself out of the pool of light. Hobbs saw one foot, skittering away through the brush. Only grazed, he thought.
And where was Hauptmann? Somewhere in the forest. But he had given Frick his gun, and taken the Luger. And the Luger had jammed.
The man he had gut-shot was moaning. Hobbs turned back to him and fired again, painting the side of the sedan with a grisly mixture of blood, tissue, and teeth.
The smell of cordite reached his nostrils, mixed with the stomach-turning stench of fresh blood. He bent over, dry-heaving.
Then he swallowed, straightened, and looked around. Frick had vanished, pulling himself away through the leaves like a snake. Hauptmann was nowhere to be seen. I’ll be goddamned, he thought again. It worked.
He shoved the corpse away from the door and slipped behind the wheel of the Mercedes. The keys were in the ignition. He reached for them, started the engine, and pulled the door closed. He jammed his foot down on the gas and wheeled the car around, spewing dirt and leaves from the tires in two graceful arcs, snapping the other door shut in the process.
A moment later, he had found the road that was not a road. He glanced into the rearview mirror, looking for Frick or Hauptmann; but there was no sign of them.
His head was pounding. But he had done it. He had escaped. And he even had a car—a blessed car.
Eva, he thought.
There was still time.
He opened up the engine and the Mercedes jounced over the rough ground, gaining speed.
14
GOTHMUND
Eva knew—in a sinking, helpless way that did her no good whatsoever—that it was only a dream.
In the dream, the dogs were getting louder. She looked to her left, through the open window of the Volkswagen, and then to her right. The signs of the crossroads had been taken down. In case of invasion, she thought; to confuse the enemy. But as a result she didn’t know which way to turn. And the dogs were growing ever louder.
She turned right.
Trees flashed past in a blur. She applied another cautious ounce of pressure to the gas. Every bump in the road was magnified, shaking the chassis like a miniature earthquake. A disturbing image appeared in her mind’s eye: the Hindenburg going down in a roiling ball of flame. She took her foot from the gas and touched the brake.
Nothing happened.
She pumped the brake again; but the car didn’t slow. Now the dog’s hoarse barks were being left behind, and there was something in the road ahead. A fallen tree. She clutched the wheel tighter.
In the last instant before collision, she screamed.
When she came to, the dogs were close again.
She dragged herself to her feet. A frozen lake was spread before her, mirror-bright. She turned to look up the bank, at a great tangle of roots, and then down, at a deadfall that rose above her chest. Passage in either direction would be impossible. But the frozen lake presented its own problems—for she knew with sickening surety that the ice was thin, wafer-thin, deadly thin.
One dog howled: a long, lowing sound that sent shivers up her spine.
She stepped onto the ice.
For a few paces, she thought she would be all right. She fixed her eyes on the far bank, moving out across the lake under a sky the color of candle wax mixed with ash. After another few moments, she had made the halfway point. Too far to go back.
The first creak of the ice was slow, growling, in so low a register that it was almost inaudible.
Then the cracks were spreading out from her feet in a delicate web. The ice around her separated into floes, with frigid water pooling up between the cracks. The floe on which she stood was bobbing, crackling, buckling.
Eva held her breath; then the ice beneath her feet splintered apart and she plunged into the freezing lake.
“Kinder, Kirche, Küche,” her mother said.
She was looking at Eva with kind, reproachful eyes—mothering eyes; smothering eyes. There was a cup of steaming hot tea in her hands, and she held it forward, tipping it to Eva’s lips. Then she leaned back and said it again, this time in English:
“Children, church, kitchen. That’s where a woman belongs, Eva. That’s all she need concern herself with.”
Eva didn’t argue. She had taken ill from her fall in the lake; she was shivering, soaked in cold sweat. But at least she had left the dogs behind. At least she was safe here at home, in her childhood room, in her childhood bed.
“You shouldn’t have forgotten that,” her mother said. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. No more of this business, Eva. It doesn’t suit you. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Eva said.
Now her mother was Gretl, the girl with whom she worked at the Rundfunk.
“Besides,” Gretl said. “He’s very good-looking.”
Eva was baffled. Gretl read it on her face and nodded toward the door. Hobbs was there, leaning jauntily in the doorway, smiling his lopsided smile.
“Why don’t you marry him, Eva? For goodness sake, look how much he loves you. Look how much he’s risked to warn you.”
“He’s not … steady.”
“Nobody’s perfect,�
�� Gretl said.
She looked at Hobbs again. He shrugged, seemingly amused.
“Maybe,” she allowed.
“Here. Take your medicine.”
She looked back at Gretl. Now Gretl had become Klinger. Klinger was reaching forward with a hand full of pills. But there was something wrong with that hand, Eva saw. There were too many fingers on it.
She closed her mouth, shook her head.
“Liebling” Klinger said. “It’s best for you.”
His hand moved toward her face again. There were thirteen fingers on that hand. She turned her face away, suddenly awash in revulsion.
“Take your medicine, Eva.”
The fingers were intruding into her mouth. Peeling aside her lips, trying to penetrate the teeth. “Swallow it,” Klinger said.
She shook her head again.
“Don’t be a fool. Swallow it.”
“Mm-mm.”
“God damn it,” he said. “You take your medicine when I tell you to!”
His other hand came up. There was a knife in it, wickedly sharp: a Hitler Youth dagger. She caught a flash of the legend emblazoned on the side. Blut und Ehre. Blood and honor.
Before she could move, the dagger had slid into her chest, sharp and smooth. Her mouth yawned open in a silent scream. The thirteen fingers slipped inside. She could feel them on her tongue, tickling like spider’s legs. The pills dribbled down her throat.
“Now swallow,” Klinger said.
She woke with a muffled gasp.
Outside, the wind soughed quietly through the trees. Branches pattered softly against the window. She sat motionless for a moment, letting the dream fade from her system.
A nightmare, she thought.
She was not cut out for this. Whatever potential Hobbs had thought he had seen in her, in that long-ago dream that had once been her life, was not there.
But soon enough it would be over. This was her last night in Gothmund. Her last night in Germany.
From the next room came the sound of Brandt’s labored snoring. She considered sneaking out past him, for a breath of fresh air. But no; there were the neighbors. Even in the middle of the night, it would not be safe. For the neighbors already suspected her. To give them any more fodder for their suspicions would be unwise.
Tomorrow she would be on her way. Then all of their suspicions wouldn’t matter.
She got out of bed and then stood hugging herself, with nowhere to go.
She had made it. She was safe. She had even managed to complete her mission. Schlieffen. It meant something. They will know.
And she had done it by herself—without Hobbs.
Hobbs.
She smiled to herself, faintly.
That ridiculous false mustache. Just an oversized schoolboy, she thought, playing at being an adult. But then, that was Hobbs all over.
She caught herself. That was how he got you, of course. That immature charm. But he was worthless, when it came down to the real things in life. He was skilled as a drinking companion, gifted as a card player, and passable as a lover—just barely passable—but as a husband, or even a friend? He could not be trusted.
But then there was the letter. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. As if he still loved her. As if he wanted another chance.
Foolishness, she thought.
She sat on the edge of the bed, and began to twist a lock of hair around her index finger.
First of all, it wasn’t true. It was, doubtless, just another manipulation. Hobbs and his higher-ups at Whitehall wanted results, and they knew that Eva was likely no longer in thrall to them—after so many years, after so many miles—and so they had decided to manipulate her once again.
She could picture Hobbs and Cecil Oldfield sitting in the elder man’s office at Leconfield House and drafting the letter, every word a calculation. If she feels she’s been hung out to dry, what’s the best way to make her snap to? By dangling Hobbs one more time, of course. The old carrot on the stick, to draw the horse and the cart. It had worked once; perhaps it would work again.
But they knew she was no fool. And so they had honed their strategy. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
Because she was the most important thing to Hobbs, in this fictional construct. That would be the way to get the results they wanted. Simply cracking the whip one more time would not spur this particular horse again. No; it was the carrot on the stick.
And even if there was a grain of truth in it …
But there wasn’t.
But even if there was, it didn’t change a thing.
Hobbs begging forgiveness. Her first reaction had been that she never would have thought she’d see the day. But now her mind, energized by several days’ rest, saw the larger context. Suppose Hobbs had been begging forgiveness. Suppose he did think he had let something precious slip away, when he had let her go. It still didn’t change a thing.
It was easy, of course, to misbehave and then apologize. The difficult thing was to take the responsibility, to do the correct thing, the first time out. Hobbs apologizing should not have surprised her. Apologies were what weak men gave, instead of results.
And Hobbs was a weak man. A charming one, from time to time. In his element, when the light was right. But a weak one. She was better off without him.
Outside, the wind rose; she shivered. She got back into bed, drawing the blankets up to her chin.
Tomorrow. England.
Home, she supposed. As close to home as she had.
Once she passed on what Klinger had told her, Germany would be closed to her. But Nazi Germany was not her home anyway. The Germany that she had cared for was gone, a thing of the past, a relic that existed only in memory and the fisherman’s paintings.
But what about her family? She had brothers. Had they joined up? By passing on Klinger’s secrets, would she be putting them in danger?
There was no use in worrying about it. Her choices had been made long before. It was too late to change her mind now.
She listened to the old man’s snoring, and wondered. Yes, it was too late to change her mind now.
And it was almost over.
She wanted nothing more than to have it over.
WISMAR
Hauptmann conferred with the Regierungsrat, then came to the corner of the police station where Frick sat holding the ice wrapped in cloth pressed to his temple.
“He has placed the call,” Hauptmann reported. “Another car will be here in a matter of minutes.”
Frick nodded, and took the cloth away from his head. The cloth was stained with dark blood. He looked at it for a moment, clinically, then pressed it back again.
“But he is concerned,” Hauptmann said. “He believes you require medical attention, Herr Inspektor. And I must say that I agree with him. Leave the man to me.”
Frick scowled. “Out of the question.”
“But you are unwell. Your head; and your hand—”
“I am fine.”
“Herr Inspektor—”
“Fine,” Frick repeated. “The Mercedes had very little petrol. The Engländer will soon be on foot again. In his current condition, he is nearly helpless. And so we will have him. Then, and only then, I will receive whatever medical attention I may require.”
“Herr Inspektor,” Hauptmann said. “Be reasonable.”
Frick started to growl a response …
… and then stopped.
When he shot the girl, her wide eyes grew even wider.
She tumbled back into the ditch. But she wasn’t dead yet. He knew that even before he had stepped to the edge to check on her.
She was lying amidst a jumble of wan, dirty limbs—her family’s limbs. The bullet had taken her in the side of the throat. The wound was ragged, and whistling. Her eyes pinned him. Burned into him. Eighteen, he thought.
He raised the gun and fired again.
Then he looked over his shoulder, hoping nobody had noticed. It was a waste of ammunition. T
wo bullets on one Jew. If his aim had been true the first time …
Nobody seemed to have noticed. The nearest member of his Einsatzgruppen squad stood a dozen yards away, looking at the town on the horizon. The town was burning. Black smoke roiled up into the sky. The air smelled like the air of an abattoir.
Frick turned from the ditch. He felt a pang of guilt. Two bullets. But nobody had noticed. It would be all right. Nobody would ever know that he had wasted two bullets in executing the beautiful Jewish girl.
“… headache?” Hauptmann was saying.
Frick saw that he was offering a small bottle. SS Sanitäts aspirin. He shook his head, then immediately regretted it.
“No. No need.”
Hauptmann returned the aspirin to his pocket.
“At least let me find a doctor, to suture up your hand. We have hours of daylight left for tracking. The team from Berlin will not arrive for some minutes yet.”
Frick considered, then nodded reluctantly. “Find the doctor.”
He watched as Hauptmann turned and yelled an order to the Regierungsrat. The man liked giving orders, Frick thought. So many petty dictators in the world. But Hauptmann would not be allowed to usurp this operation. The Engländer was his quarry, and his alone. No matter if the bullet had grazed his head … no matter if his finger was gone …
His finger was gone.
The man had crippled him.
Nobody else would be allowed to take charge of the operation.
Hauptmann’s voice was rising. “Schnell,” he cried. “Schnell—”
His mother set the loaf of fresh-baked bread on the table. The smell of it gave Frick a feeling of peace—of being home, safe, and protected. A marvelous feeling.
Then she was setting the bread down once again; and then yet again. Time had ceased to move forward. There was no progression—only a pleasing constancy, an eternal repetition. The fresh bread, the thread of faraway music; sense-memories and that delicious feeling of being back home.
An Advent wreath hung from the ceiling, with four white candles guttering in a soft breeze. On the wall behind his head was the Advent calendar his father had made for him. Small paper windows dotted the calendar. Each morning until Christmas he would open one window and behind it find a treat: a chocolate, a ball, a candle. Was there any greater pleasure in life than the pleasure of counting down the days to Christmas on an Advent calendar? Was there any greater gift a man could receive than to relive that feeling over and over again?
