“There it was again!” he heard someone say. “Can you hear it?”
He had to make a decision now that was essential to his survival. Did he want to protect himself from the prostitute, or was his mission more important? He didn’t need long to make up his mind.
His lungs rebelled, demanding more oxygen, but he didn’t yield. His free hand inched closer to the filter, which was hanging somewhere from his belt. His fingertips finally found the tube. Now he had a point of reference. When he finally realized that he couldn’t manage any longer without air, he slowly breathed in, a barely noticeable sigh, without the filter making a sound. When his lungs were half-filled, he held his breath once more and moved his hand down the tube until he finally encountered the filter.
His next task consisted of twisting the tube out of the filter mechanism without making a sound. With just one hand.
An oppressive silence filled the air. The men outside were still immobile. Their hunting instinct had kicked in. They didn’t want to return home without their prey.
Now he needed all the self-control he possessed. While his thumb pressed against the filter, he slowly started to unscrew the tube. The mechanism squeaked quietly.
Instinctively, he paused mid-movement, realizing that he’d turned the tube too quickly. Cold sweat broke out on his brow.
When he risked a cautious peek through the gap, the men were still standing in position. But no one seemed to have noticed anything. Finally, he dared to continue turning the tube. This time it worked.
“I’m afraid there’s nobody here,” a voice said.
At that same moment, the filter came free from the tube with a jerk. It made a metallic sound as the end of the tube encountered his belt buckle.
The sound seemed deafening to him. The men outside also flinched. They turned warily toward the vehicle. Through the gap in the tarpaulin, he could see a figure bend down as if in slow motion. He flinched when a face entered his line of vision.
Damply glimmering eyes stared straight at him. The man’s hair was streaked with gray, his features hard. It had to be the Obersturmbannführer. Like the others, he was basically helpless in the darkness. He remained poised for several seconds, eye to eye with his enemy.
A voice came from somewhere. “We have to report this, Obersturmbannführer; otherwise, valuable time is lost!”
The commander straightened up. His face disappeared. “Whatever. You go, Plate! And the others, search every last corner!”
The men moved away, complying with this order. It took several minutes until the strides of their heavy boots faded away. It was only then that he dared breathe again. At first, he felt only relieved, but then the burning feeling of resentment also returned. Disdainfully, he twisted his lips as he thought of the SS men and their arrogance. They considered themselves to be something better, and yet they were so blind that they hadn’t discovered him.
Despite these thoughts, he remained cautious and decided to wait awhile. If the men were too close, they’d certainly hear the motor starting. And he couldn’t reveal himself. Not now, after having shaken them off successfully.
He lay on the wooden floor of the loading area without moving. His breathing slowed. The air was crisp; he could feel the pleasant warmth of the wood gasifier behind his back. He was quite calm now.
As he lay there, he realized that he was completely alone with the wench. He held her in his arms. It was precisely these moments that he liked so much, the moment when he felt the intoxicating certainty of having complete power over his victim’s life. But this feeling of elation ended abruptly when he realized that other things were going on with his body.
The woman’s perfume had made its way under his mask. Through her clothes, he could feel the softness of her flesh. Despite his gloves, he could easily feel the hollow of her belly button with his index finger. As her backside was pressing against his loins, he had gotten an erection. His breathing had become heavy, but not out of fear of being discovered.
Disgusted, he rolled on his side. His eyes filled with tears when he realized how weak he was. This sort of thing must not happen. Even when they lay there unconscious, there was still a lot of danger emanating from the prostitutes. He mustn’t allow himself to be beguiled. They had already brought him a lot of bad luck. Any thought of their bodies was bad.
He remained lying on his side until his erection had subsided. When he’d regained his composure, he peeked out from under the tarpaulin to make sure his pursuers had disappeared. He’d been right. The men in uniform were no longer to be seen.
After provisionally gagging and tying up his victim, he slipped off the loading area and pulled the tarpaulin tight. In the shadow of the trees, he sneaked over to the driver’s cabin and slipped silently onto his seat.
The noise of the engine was unavoidable, but luckily, the vehicle started immediately. To avoid attracting any more attention, he drove off with the headlights off. It was only when he turned off at the next housing block that he felt safe enough to switch on the lights and increase his speed.
Suddenly, everything seemed so simple that he almost felt as if he were floating across the asphalt. He didn’t need to think about what would happen if someone got onto him anymore. He had long made the necessary preparations. He would take the prostitute into the workroom through the cellar to kill her there. Just to be on the safe side, he was going to block the access behind him with heavy coal sacks. Then there was only one way left to get into his hideout—the door that led directly into the workroom. He’d sawed one of the supporting pillars in the cellar halfway through so that the floor would collapse under any intruder as soon as they entered the room. He could then take advantage of their surprise and escape through the iron hatch in the coal cellar and disappear into the undergrowth. This carried a certain risk, but he was prepared to take it. The diversion he’d thought up was further confirmation that he was vastly superior to his pursuers. Secretly, he almost hoped that someone would get onto him so that he could put it to the test. The thought made him chuckle.
He was gripped by unbridled pride. He’d managed everything even without Kalle’s help. Now he was driving through the city with an unconscious prostitute on the loading area, and all without external help. He’d managed to overpower the wench all by himself and then drag her to the vehicle.
But when he thought of the woman’s body, bitterness seeped into his feeling of triumph. Luckily, he’d managed to overcome his urge and maintain control. And control was the most important thing if he wanted to get through this in one piece.
The real test was still to come.
He carefully removed the mask from his head as he drove, then off came the gloves, with which he’d touched the prostitute. His gaze darkened when he realized that he had a long night ahead of him. A night ruled by the poison that was still pulsing in the prostitute’s veins but that he would soon release. He couldn’t be so careless as to allow himself to be infected by it.
* * *
The three men had sat in the car in silence for several minutes. Despite the engine’s low, soporific humming, they were all wide awake.
“And she didn’t leave a message?” Lüttke asked once again.
“I’ve been through everything,” Oppenheimer responded, his voice throaty. “Nothing.”
“Where could she have gone?”
“I sent her to Hilde’s this morning, but she should have been back hours ago.”
Bauer could barely sit still. “We should head off.”
“I won’t do anything until I know where my wife is,” Oppenheimer said.
“And where are we supposed to conjure her up from?”
“I don’t care. I want the situation clarified before I go anywhere.”
Bauer was about to start berating Oppenheimer when Lüttke cut him off. “Look. What’s that, out there?”
Oppenheimer peered out of the window. And indeed, someone had approached the house. He was able to recognize the dark outline of a bicycle
that leaned against the wooden lattice fence. The person who had just gotten off now headed straight for the front door. Her gait was stiff, as if she could sense the men watching her. Oppenheimer got out of the car. He thought he recognized the figure. When he grabbed her shoulder, the woman whirled around in surprise. It was as Oppenheimer had thought. Hilde.
“Goodness! I almost wet myself!” Hilde’s voice was a flustered whisper.
“Where is Lisa?” Oppenheimer hissed.
“Everything is fine. She’s with me.”
Oppenheimer breathed a sigh of relief. “This way.” He led Hilde to the car.
Once she was seated, Lüttke headed off. Oppenheimer could tell that he had to force himself not to make a racing start. “It’s less conspicuous if we keep moving,” he said, taking the next corner.
“She was still with me when you called,” Hilde explained. “We lost track of time. Anyway, I considered it safer not to send her back. I was just about to fetch the suitcases and leave this.” She handed Oppenheimer a piece of paper.
“What is it?”
“A farewell letter.” When Hilde saw Oppenheimer hadn’t understood, she explained. “Lisa wrote it. I dictated it. A red herring for arse-face Vogler. If they think you’ve committed suicide, it might give you a head start.”
Oppenheimer nodded. Hilde really had thought of everything.
“A good plan,” he agreed.
“Does that mean we need to go back there?” Bauer interjected.
It was only now that Hilde paid the two men from the resistance any attention. “Do you have any objections?”
“We have to get to Vogler’s office,” Bauer protested, irritated, as if he couldn’t believe his bad luck in having to work with such people.
Hilde suddenly grew serious. “Hang on a minute. What’s that all about? That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
Once Lüttke had explained their plan, she was seething with anger. “Goddamn it, have you gone completely mad? You’ve been reading too many spy novels! Break into an SD house, really? Sending him to Wannsee now has got to be the dumbest thing ever. Why should he take the risk? Richard has given you all the information. He presented the facts on a silver platter. What more do you need? Do your own bloody jobs and get us out of here!”
“There are some important questions that haven’t been answered,” Bauer countered, shaking his head vehemently.
“That may be, but things are getting too hot for Richard now. You can’t just rope him into a stunt like that just so you can write a nice report. Your inside man can steal the interrogation protocol, whatever, but Richard has more than fulfilled his duty.”
Bauer wiped his brow and cursed loudly. Oppenheimer intervened. “One moment. I suggest the following: we head back as quickly as possible, leave the farewell letter, and then I’ll look for the protocol.”
Hilde stared at him, her mouth agape. “Richard, are you completely mad?”
“However, I have one condition,” he continued and looked at the men from the resistance challengingly. “There is a second perpetrator. If I find out who it is, will you help me take him down?”
Oppenheimer’s news was a bombshell. All color seemed to fade from Bauer’s crimson face.
“Are you quite sure?” Lüttke asked.
“There is a new witness statement. Two perpetrators.”
Hilde shook her head. “It’s no longer your case, Richard. Accept it. Vogler has homed in on Ziegler.”
Oppenheimer turned to Hilde. “I can’t just disappear. If I don’t do anything, more women are going to get killed, and I will be to blame for that. Don’t you understand? It’s the weekend again. He’s almost certainly kidnapped another victim and is in the process of torturing her right now. It won’t end if I don’t intervene.”
He could tell from Hilde’s face that she didn’t agree with his view of things, but she finally gave in. “Well, I guess there’s nothing more to discuss.”
Oppenheimer leaned forward to address Lüttke. “What do you think? I’ll get you the information, and you help me arrest the perpetrator. A straightforward deal.”
“I’m in,” Lüttke said without hesitating.
“All right,” Bauer growled.
They returned to the Kameradschaftssiedlung once more, and Oppenheimer entered the house for the last time. While deliberating where to leave the farewell letter, his gaze fell upon the wall chart with the suspects.
Spontaneously, he took a drawing pin and pinned the piece of paper right into the middle. Content, he examined the board, but then a feeling of restlessness rose up inside him. There was one more thing he had to do here in the house, and that was the real reason why he’d urged Lüttke to turn around.
First, he made sure that no one had followed him into the house. Then he quietly crept into the kitchen. He was not proud of what he was doing now, but it couldn’t be avoided. He had to be on his toes tonight, and he realized that he’d only be able to do this with the help of Pervitin. With a practiced grasp, he pulled the packet from its hiding place and immediately swallowed one pill, then washed it down with water.
It didn’t take long for it to take effect. For a few seconds, he considered taking the entire packet with him, but he knew that Hilde would never allow it. He was angry that he hadn’t thought to put them in his suitcase. He gave his treasure one last, yearning look. There was nothing he could do about it.
He filled his small vial with the pills. Then he stuffed his pockets with them as well. Oppenheimer hoped that Hilde wouldn’t notice. He could do without a sermon this evening. After all, he was an adult and responsible for his own behavior. Suddenly, he thought how pathetic he was. Of course I’m not an addict, he reassured himself and stared in disgust at the white pills in his shaking hands. A brief hesitation, then he continued to put the pills in his pockets. Although he didn’t like to admit it, he knew that he would need them.
* * *
“Here is a copy of Karl Ziegler’s interrogation protocol. The case is solved.” Vogler passed Schröder the documents. He thought he could sense the Oberführer’s harsh gaze even through the eye patch.
Schröder took the papers without comment, leaving Vogler to remain at attention while he himself sat down and, his lips pursed, thumbed through the pages. Although the protocol wasn’t very long, he needed quite a while to get through it.
They were in the entrance hall of Oberführer Schröder’s town house. Vogler had delivered what had been asked of him. Yes, he had personally interrogated Ziegler after Oppenheimer had been taken off the case, albeit just pro forma. Vogler knew every single word in the interrogation protocol; after all, he had written it himself. Even before they’d picked Ziegler up, the results of the investigation had long been put into words. The document that Schröder now held in his hand had preempted what Ziegler needed to say so that the matter could be concluded and all loose ends tied up. This also included the accused not surviving the interrogation.
After he’d executed Ziegler, Vogler had driven straight to his office to prepare the documents. As it was now Saturday evening, and Vogler wanted to get the entire matter over and done with, he had driven to Schröder’s town house, even if this meant disturbing him at home. Truth be told, Vogler was actually keen to find out what was behind Schröder’s façade, what he looked like in private. But the meeting with his superior was not very enlightening. Vogler had to wait in the entrance hall of the large villa, and when Schröder appeared shortly afterward, he was already in full regalia. There was no sign of anything that could have compromised the image of the authoritative superior. There was neither the telltale smell of alcohol nor an entirely unheroic cardigan that would have testified to Schröder having any private life at all. Only his so-called town house was conspicuous, given its country-style interior. Nothing reminded one of the fact that they were in the middle of the capital of the German Reich. The place was decorated with rustic wooden furniture, roughly carved and heavy. Instead of paintings, several hun
ting guns hung on the walls, which were covered with a veritable forest of antlers. Vogler wondered where one could shoot that many deer in Berlin.
But the longer he waited, the harder he found it to concentrate on his surroundings. Although he had carried out the order, a certain restlessness gnawed away at him. He tried to ignore it and told himself that he’d done exactly what Schröder had commanded. Vogler had supplied a perpetrator who did not compromise the party. He might have tampered with a few facts here and there, maybe the leads were a little incomplete, but this did not shake his conviction that he’d arrested the right person.
Finally, Schröder placed the document aside, looking satisfied. Then he pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Vogler.
“Our plans regarding your further deployment have changed. We desperately need men on the western front. Here are your marching orders. You leave for Caen in the morning. There you’ll report to the Ninth Panzer Division Hohenstaufen.”
Vogler clicked his heels in a salute. So it had all been prearranged. Schröder had had the marching orders ready the entire time. Vogler was not bothered by this, as the result was better than he’d hoped. He no longer needed to bide his time with gloomy civilians. The quicker he got to the front, the better.
Vogler considered the meeting over and waited for Schröder to dismiss him. But his superior seemed to have something else on his mind. In an unusually familiar tone, he whispered to Vogler, “Tell me, what did the Yid do to Reithermann?”
The mentioning of this fat cat’s name made Vogler listen up.
“How do you mean?” he asked.
Schröder’s face grew serious. “I received a direct order to get rid of Oppenheimer as soon as the case was solved. So what happened?”
“Oppenheimer insisted on interviewing the Gruppenführer himself.”
“And? Stop beating about the bush, Vogler!”
“He asked him whether he had an alibi.”
Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin Page 36
