Winter's Bullet

by William Osborne

  “Frettchen” was the nickname Krüger had given Tygo soon after he had conscripted his services. It was German for “ferret.” Krüger thought it suited him perfectly: Like the animal, he was used to seek out treasure for his master. It also suited him physically, he said, with his thin lanky body, shock of black hair, and dark brown eyes. Watchful, always alert. The name had stuck, and now everyone in Headquarters called him by it. Tygo had grown used to it and had decided to think of it as a badge of honor. Ferrets were born survivors, he told himself, and they had very, very sharp teeth.

  Tygo followed Krüger back into his office and watched as he slipped his black leather Gestapo greatcoat off its hanger on the coat stand, put it on, and buttoned it up. He was fastidious about his appearance: his nails were always manicured, his hair slicked down with pomade, a straight part down the middle, the sides clipped close. He crossed to his desk and opened the top drawer, extracting a black leather belt with a holster attached. He strapped that on over the coat, checked that the pistol was loaded, and slid it back into the holster. It was a Sauer 38H, hammerless. Krüger preferred it to the Walther PPK that was standard issue for the Gestapo: You could carry it in your trouser pocket, he said, without the risk of snagging the hammer and shooting yourself in the foot.

  Behind him was a large safe with the door still open. Tygo edged closer, trying to see inside. He had found plenty of plunder in the time he had been working here, and he was pretty sure the Oberst had failed to pass it along to Berlin. Krüger kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot before Tygo could catch a glimpse.

  “No peeking, Frettchen.” He turned the handle and twisted the key. It was attached to a little leather key case, which he snapped shut and put, as he always did, in his left trouser pocket. He glanced at himself in the mirror above the fireplace, tilting his black cap with its death’s-head badge to a slightly rakish angle. Satisfied with his appearance, he marched out of the office.

  Tygo followed.

  They drove south, out of the city. Out into the suburbs where the canals were longer and straighter, the houses grander. Even here, though, the poplars and lime trees that once lined the streets had been cut down for timber and fuel. Nothing moved, the ground was frozen solid—and so, it seemed, were the people who were almost motionless on the streets, like statues.

  Krüger stared out the window, a steady beat of anticipation in his chest. Six months he had been looking, searching this city for the stone: the fabled Red Queen diamond, which had been the centerpiece of the Russian Imperial Royal Crown. And today—finally—with the help of van Meegeren’s new information, he was sure he was going to find it.

  It was the mission General Müller had sent him to Amsterdam to carry out six months ago. A mission he knew he must not fail. Müller had never explained the significance of the stone, or why it was important, just that it must be recovered at all costs.

  Up till now every lead, every tip-off had come to nothing. Still, the previous six months had not been without reward. Except for one unfortunate occasion, the young man beside him had been most compliant in helping Krüger amass a very healthy haul of valuables. His safe back at HQ was stuffed with gold, diamonds, and other stones, as well as stock certificates and bonds, all discreetly kept off official records.

  Now, so long as he could finish Müller’s job, he was in a position to put his own plan into action. He was a good Nazi but an even better survivor, and any fool could see the war was lost. It was time to get out, get away before it was too late.

  When the time came—and he was pretty sure it would be soon—he would shed his black caterpillar body with its lightning-bolt runes and, with his stolen loot and the right documents, complete his metamorphosis into a South American butterfly. It was an extraordinary but true fact that the caterpillar and the butterfly were two completely different creatures, bearing no relationship to each other whatsoever. That would be him, Krüger thought.

  But first the Red Queen had to be recovered.

  He glanced over at the boy, sullen beside him. Since the incident back in September when Krüger had had to take a firm hand with him, he had lost his youthful arrogance, become withdrawn, watchful, scared even.

  “Cheer up, Frettchen,” he said, “you’re still alive. The Resistance haven’t got you yet.”

  “Yes, Herr Oberst, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s more like it. We must all make hay while the sun shines.”

  He knew Tygo couldn’t tell if he was teasing him. Krüger liked that.

  The car slowed at a crossing. Two bodies were swinging from ropes strung around street lamps. Collaborators or Resistance fighters, it was hard to tell—he couldn’t read the crude inscriptions on the cards tied to their coats.

  Krüger looked back at Tygo. “What do you hope for the New Year, Frettchen?”

  Probably just to survive, he thought. The boy’s mother and father were gone, his sister far away or dead too; there was nothing left for him to think or care about except the need to stay alive. Tygo hesitated.

  “Come along, Frettchen, indulge me. What do you hope for?”

  “That I may serve you and the Führer until final victory is won for the Reich over all its enemies.”

  Krüger hooted with laughter. “Good answer, Frettchen, you’re a wily little devil. Nothing would give you greater pleasure than sticking a knife in my back, don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “Herr Oberst, I assure you—”

  “And I wouldn’t blame you, but remember this: Continue to help me and there is a possibility I will save you; try anything stupid and I will cut you down where you stand. Verstehst du?”

  “Yes, Herr Oberst.”

  They were driving slowly down an elegant avenue lined with tall poplar trees. Large villas were set back from the road behind thick hedges.

  “Günter, stop at the next house on the right,” Krüger instructed the driver. “Wait here unless I call for you. And keep your eyes peeled and your gun with the safety off. I wouldn’t put it past the Resistance to be lurking—especially if they knew Frettchen here was around.”

  Tygo waded through the deep snow behind Krüger up the driveway toward the large Italianate villa. The place was clearly empty, the shutters closed, with no tracks in the snow leading up to the imposing front door. Tygo looked up at the house. The rain gutter along the roof had broken and an enormous icicle had grown down from it till it almost reached the portico above the doorway. For some inexplicable reason he felt a cold shudder run down his spine. A sense almost of foreboding, but then, he thought, abandoned old buildings always did seem sinister.

  The front door had been padlocked shut and a sign posted across it: PROPERTY OF THE THIRD REICH. ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN, BY ORDER.

  “Why are we here if it has already been searched?” Tygo said.

  Krüger pulled off his black mohair-lined calfskin gloves and flicked the top of Tygo’s freezing earlobe with his forefinger. It stung like hell. Tygo yelped.

  “Since when did you ask the questions, Frettchen?” he snapped. “That is the preserve of the Gestapo. Now you do your job and I’ll do mine. Open it up.”

  Tygo set the small leather case he was carrying down on the icy stone porch and took out a canvas roll. He spread it out on the ground, revealing a long line of lock picks. Glancing at the padlock briefly, he selected a tension bar to hold the locking bolt steady while he worked on the levers with the hook pick he selected. It was easy stuff for him, and he had it open in less than a minute.

  “Very good, Frettchen. I see the cold has not affected your nimble little fingers.”

  Tygo drew back and Krüger turned the handle. The front door swung open silently, oil still on the hinges. Krüger drew his gun from its holster and stepped into the building, Tygo close behind.

  They stood in the gloom for a moment in the large hallway. The place had been stripped of everything except the marble floor tiles they were standing on. A grand staircase wound its way up the side of the wal
l to a half-landing before continuing on to the first floor. On the walls were outlines where pictures or portraits had hung. It was deathly quiet.

  Krüger turned on his heel and walked out of the hallway into a large room to the left. Shafts of winter light came in through chinks in the shutters, and Tygo could make out that it had been a grand reception room, oak-paneled all the way around, with a large fireplace surrounded by a carved wooden mantelpiece. Floor-to-ceiling French windows looked out to the grounds at the front. This room, too, had been cleared of all furniture. Tygo wanted to ask whose house it had been, but he didn’t fancy another flick to the ear.

  “Get the shutters open.”

  Tygo did as he was told, and light filled the room.

  “We are looking for a small box, or a leather or velvet pouch, that has been hidden here,” Krüger said. “Most probably in a wall or floor safe, or so my source believes. A safe that my colleagues missed when they took the house’s other assets into safekeeping.”

  Tygo instinctively knew it was a piece of jewelry they were hunting. It must be worth a pretty penny for Krüger to be so intent.

  Krüger clapped his hands. “Macht schnell, and let’s get this done.”

  It took Tygo nearly until noon before he located the safe. He had had to explore the paneling minutely, but finally he had found a piece of beading that moved under his touch. Not loosely, but as though it had been planed and machined that way.

  As he slid it to one side, the panel above rolled back, revealing a Milner’s eight-lever mortise safe, probably installed when the house was built at the turn of the century. It was cemented securely into the thick brick wall. Tygo knew he had his work cut out—these were superb safes and well above his skills as a lock-picker. It would have taken his father a good couple of hours to get this one open, he thought. Nevertheless, with Krüger standing behind him, he had no choice but to try.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  “It’s a tough safe, sir.”

  “So? You’re my expert. Get cracking.”

  Tygo nodded and considered how best to start. Some Milners had all sorts of anti-tamper devices, such as relocking pins that operated just when you thought you had successfully picked the levers. He worked hard for a good half hour as Krüger paced the room, smoking. But then his second hook pin snapped and he knew it was hopeless.

  “I’m sorry, Oberst, I cannot continue.”

  “I don’t know why I even bother with you,” Krüger snapped. “Very well—we shall have to use a less subtle approach, and you had better hope that we do not damage the contents.”

  He marched out, returning a few minutes later with a small piece of green Plasticine-like substance in his hand. “Plastic explosive, Nobel 808,” he said in response to Tygo’s unasked question. “The British drop it for the Resistance. Very effective, so I am told.”

  Tygo watched as Krüger knelt down and rolled the explosive on the wooden floor like a piece of dough until he had fashioned a strip. He pressed this into the seam of the hinge side of the safe. Then he inserted a silver detonator rod into the soft explosive, to which he attached the exposed copper ends of some two-ply electrical wire. He picked up the roll of wire and began to spool it back toward the front door.

  “Out!”

  Tygo followed him into the hallway and out through the front door. Krüger had a detonator box waiting by the side of the porch. He cut the wire and quickly attached the copper contacts to the box. Tygo could see he was deft at this sort of thing and wondered briefly where he’d learned the skills. Krüger had never spoken to him about what he had done before he came to Amsterdam.

  Krüger glanced up at Tygo. “Cover your ears and open your mouth.”

  Tygo did as he was told and Krüger dropped the plunger.

  As the explosive went off, Tygo felt a massive thud in his chest from the shock wave. The whole house seemed to shake, and the windows exploded outward, tearing the wooden outdoor shutters from the walls.

  “That should do the trick,” remarked Krüger.

  The two of them walked back into the room. It was wreathed in smoke, and there was glass all over the floor, which crunched underfoot. But the Nobel 808 had done its job. The heavy steel door had been blown clean off the front of the safe and was embedded in the wall opposite, still smoking.

  Tygo grinned despite himself at the sight of it. Krüger was already at the open safe, thrusting his hand inside, but Tygo could see quite plainly that the baize-covered shelves were empty.

  Krüger swore heavily, placed his hands on his hips, and looked around the wrecked room.

  “It’s got to be here. It’s got to be!”

  As he spoke, a heavy clump of soot dropped down the chimney and landed on the stone hearth. Krüger stared at it, and Tygo waited. He was clearly thinking something over.

  “We haven’t looked up there, Frettchen,” he said.

  “But, sir, that was just the explosion; it’s shaken some of the soot free.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. So get up there and find out for sure.”

  Tygo walked across to the big fireplace. Stooping down, he ducked under the mantelpiece and flashed his flashlight up the narrow vertical passage. The chimney did not go straight up, but kinked to the right, not uncommon in such a large house.

  Tygo knew he had no choice but to climb. Since he had worked for Krüger he’d been forced into every nook, cranny, and crevice in the old houses of Amsterdam. He had swum in flooded basements, crawled into hidden priest holes, found secret rooms—some even had families living in them.

  The soot continued to fall as he made his way up the chimney, his legs braced on either side of the wall. He had wrapped a rag around his mouth to stop himself coughing. As he went higher, the chimney began to narrow and he found he could climb a little faster.

  “Well, Frettchen?” Krüger called up.

  “Nothing yet,” replied Tygo. He reached up with his hand, and instead of brickwork, he found a ledge. He pushed with his legs, and his head and shoulders cleared the top of it. In the gloom he imagined the chimney opened out into some sort of void, about the height and width of a coffin. Tygo leaned forward into it with his legs pressed on the chimney wall behind him. He pulled the flashlight from his trouser pocket and flicked it on.

  Two of the iciest blue eyes he had ever seen stared back at him out of a soot-blackened face. A girl.

  The cold, hard shock of it stopped his heart for a second. Then his body instinctively jerked back, and before a scream of surprise could form in his throat he was tumbling back down the chimney.

  He landed with a heavy thump on the stone hearth and lay there, winded, his elbows skinned. A fresh shower of soot shot down on top of him.

  “Well, what is it?”

  Tygo’s mind was racing. In that split second he had seen both fear and desperation in those eyes—it was like staring at a helpless animal caught in a trap. He felt like that every morning when he woke, and every time he ventured out alone.

  The words came out instinctively: “Nothing, sir.”

  “Nothing? Then why did you just fall down the chimney?”

  Again, Tygo said the first thing that popped into his head. “There’s a dirty great crow up there in a nest. It flew into my face.” He pulled himself to his feet. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  Krüger stared at him for a moment. “Well, it would seem we are too late on this particular occasion.” He glanced around the room a final time, his expression one of disappointment mixed with frustration. “There is nothing more to be had from this place.”

  He marched out of the room and Tygo shook the soot from his hair. That’s where you’re wrong, he thought, glancing up the chimney. But there was only darkness and silence.

  They returned to Euterpestraat in silence. Krüger was obviously brooding about his failure to find the wretched jewel, and Tygo was lost in thought about his extraordinary discovery and what he should do about it.

  Günter dr
ove past the entrance toward the rear of the building and down a ramp into the basement where the Gestapo kept their vehicles safe from the winter weather and sabotage. A car bomb had been used recently to kill a local party leader.

  Krüger marched up the steel stairs till they reached ground level. He turned to give Tygo the once-over.

  “Go and clean yourself up, for God’s sake, and throw those clothes away. You’re no good to me looking like a sweep. Ask the quartermaster for some fresh clothes on my authority.”

  Tygo nodded, miserable on the one hand to be once more inside this hateful place, but happy at the prospect of a shower and fresh clothes. The place was blissfully warm too.

  The water hit him like sharp hot needles, and he stood under the shower for a good five minutes. It was nicest thing to have happened to him since the last shower he’d had. Then he picked up a block of shriveled soap that reeked of coal tar, and a scrubbing brush, and set to work. He watched the brown water swirling down the drain and smiled even though his skin was burning from the scrubbing. He was actually clean, for the first time in six weeks, the ingrained grime finally gone, the black around his fingernails banished. It felt glorious. He stepped out of the shower, wrapped a rough dry towel around his skinny waist, and walked across to survey himself quickly in the mirrors above the washbasins.

  His ribs were sticking out and his elbows were skinned raw, but his skin was a blotchy clean pink that was wonderful to his eyes. He touched the raw skin and winced, then slowly got dressed. The quartermaster had provided him with a smaller version of the local police uniform—fresh socks, underpants, a warm woolen shirt, and strong-looking gray trousers and tunic.

  Tygo took the comb out of the glass of disinfectant by the basin taps and ran it through his long hair, slicking it back. His dark eyes stared back at him, and despite himself he smiled. Whatever else might be happening, at least he felt human again, unlike that poor girl hiding in the chimney. He hadn’t really stopped thinking about her since he’d gotten back, his mind returning every few minutes to those frightened, ice-blue eyes.