The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "Sure," said Bertie, readying his Hasselblad. Cooley had barely left the car when we jumped out, too.

  Cooley was standing at the corner of the warehouse, protected by it, and was shooting into the driveway. Police behind the corner of the other warehouse, were doing the same thing. Their fire was answered. Bertie and I threw ourselves on the ground and crawled forward until we had a full view of the driveway—a narrow yard, actually, between high walls, dimly lit by two lamps. The taxi had turned around completely and stood now with its headlights facing us. The door next to the driver's seat was open and Turner was crouched behind it, shooting.

  "It's a dead end," said Bertie, who was taking pictures.

  The sirens were quiet suddenly, and a voice on a bullhorn was saying, "Give up, Turner! You don't have a chance."

  Turner's answer was three shots.

  Now the plainclothesmen threw themselves on the ground. "Come out, Turner! Hands up!" said the voice on the bullhorn.

  Again three shots.

  A lot of shots answered Turner's attack. They hit the taxi, some ricocheted wildly through the yard. Turner shot back. One of the plainclothesmen's car inched forward a little, enough to light up the yard. Turner shot at it but failed to hit it. We could see his knee under the open door of the car. As long as he had ammunition—and he seemed to have plenty—it would be extremely dangerous, if not impossible, to go in and get him. Suddenly something was flowing across the pavement under the taxi. "What's that? Blood? Did they get him?" asked Bertie.

  "I don't know."

  They didn't seem to have hit him, because next Turner shot out the lights of the other plainclothesmen's car. Now only the two street lamps lit up the yard. Suddenly I saw a shadow move under the hood of the taxi. Everybody saw it, but nobody did anything about it. We were all too astounded. What was Turner up to now?

  .

  Something glittered.

  "He's put the bottle under the motor," said Bertie.

  The shadow moved a little. There was a sound of grinding metal. "He's screwing something under there—good God!" cried Bertie. "Do you know what he's doing?"

  "What?"

  "He's unscrewing the gas pipe from the pump!"

  "What for?" I asked, as the bullhorn voice shouted that in a i minute everybody would open fire on Turner if he didn't give himself up.

  "And that wasn't blood—that was alcohol he poured out."

  "Why?"

  "You'll see. Now he'll start the car—" And almost at once you could hear sputtering of the starter, for quite a while, only the car didn't start.

  "He's gone crazy," I said.

  "He's normal as hell," said Bertie, taking pictures.

  Again Turner's shadow could be seen under the hood, then, for a split second, the top part of his body was clearly visible above the door. The police shot but failed to hit him. And a small flame flared up in the yard. Then something came flying—the liquor bottle. It hit the wall beside Cooley and broke. In the next moment, itss contents sprayed in every direction and caught fire. Cooley fell, screaming. His clothes, his hair were on fire. His colleagues ran up to him and began beating out the flames with their jacket and coats. Others caught fire. At the same time, quick as lightning, like a lawn sprinkler, a curtain went up in front of the entire entrance—not water, but fire. The wooden crates and wood shavings had ignited, too. Men came running up with fire extinguishers and tried to help their friends. Others wanted to get

  through the flames and into the yard Impossible! "When he

  started the car, it pumped gas into the bottle, then he stuck his handkerchief or his tie into it and lit it and threw the bottle!" cried Bertie. "I knew it! I knew it!"

  Now he was photographing standing up, as if nothing could happen to him. Those are going to be pictures, I thought... fantastic! Then I saw Turner climbing a fire-escape ladder up the side of the left warehouse. "There!" I screamed. "There he is!"

  Two, three, six automatics began to shoot. Another car moved forward, a new spotlight flared up and tried to follow Turner. Got him. Followed him. The automatics hammered away. I saw shards of brick flying into the air where the bullets hit, very close 490

  to Turner. The man was unbelievably lucky. The ladder angled and disappeared to the back of the house. You couldn't see Turner anymore.

  Cooley limped to his car and shouted into the microphone, his face distorted with pain. He explained the situation to control and told them to alert the cars at the back of the warehouse. They should be able to see Turner from there. Precious time went by until Cooley had made the situation clear. More time until control was able to notify the other cars. All we could hear was gunfire beyond the walls. But then we heard something else—the rotor of a helicopter.

  I looked up and couldn't believe my eyes. A roaring sound from the roof of the warehouse and then, above our heads, a helicopter. The men shot at it—in vain. The helicopter made a wide turn over the Upper Bay, then rose up straight and disappeared in the clouds. We stood there, staring up at the sky, and at our feet the fire crackled cheerfully.

  They arrested the owner of the pub, a certain Joe Bradshaw, who admitted at once that he had given Turner a box with two aluminum containers. He had received the box some time ago, as a small package from Prague. The sender? A certain Jan Bilka. Bradshaw had met Bilka three years ago when he had been on a tourist trip in Europe. At the time he and Bilka had met quite by chance in a museum. Bilka had arranged this "accidental" meeting, no doubt about it. Bradshaw and Bilka had become friends and had corresponded for years. Bradshaw showed a lot of letters received from Bilka. He lived in the same house as his pub, and his wife corroborated his story. Then this small package had arrived, together with a letter. In the letter Bilka asked his friend to look after the package until he arrived in New York, which would be very soon. If he didn't come, he would write and tell Bradshaw to whom he should give the package. Early that evening an airmail special delivery letter had arrived from Bilka, in Prague, saying that for the moment he wasn't able to make the trip, but late that evening a certain Floyd Turner would come

  and Bradshaw was to give the package to him. ("They must have started working on Bilka already in the Polish cargo plane," said Bertie, as we listened to Bradshaw. "Man, do they work fast!") In Bilka's letter Turner was described exactly—his address, even his Social Security number. Bradshaw had therefore had no qualms about giving him the package, which he had never opened. Turner had opened it and the containers. According to. Bradshaw there had been films inside. What kind of films? ' J Bradshaw didn't know. Turner had thanked him, bought two bottles of bourbon, and left. Bradshaw had no idea what it was all} about. Cooley's men took him along, just the same; his wife, too. And although a dozen police helicopters were sent up at once, they were unable to locate the one in which Floyd Turner now sat with the microfilms. The radar airwatch New York, which was on high alert that night, suffered from interference for seven crucial minutes for reasons that were never explained—with the result that Turner's helicopter was never even spotted, and there was a near collision of two police helicopters. Turner's machine} was found later by security police, abandoned on a lonely football field in Staten Island. And that was that, on Saturday, around midnight, November 16—

  "I knew you'd come, Herr Roland," said Fraulein Louise

  Her white hair was combed straight back, the little knot at the nape of her neck was neat and tight, her little face no longer expressed exhaustion, and she wasn't pale anymore. Her blue eyes looked rested and she seemed completely at ease.

  She was very pleased to see me. She talked slowly; the fear, the sense of being driven, and the occasional outbursts of temper seemed to have disappeared. She looked small and fragile, lying in a bed that also seemed small and fragile, although it was standard size Psychiatric Clinic

  windows of her room looked out on a courtyard with bare] chestnut trees. They were not barred, and the door had handles on both sides. 492

  : also seemed small
and fragile, although it wasll . She lay alone, in a big private room, in the! linic of the Ludwigskrankenhaus in Bremen. The! J

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  "How are you, Fraulein Louise?" I asked. I know I sounded worried.

  "Oh, I'm very well. Really. You have no idea how much I sleep. The food's not very good, but I never was very particular

  about what I ate. Hospital food from a big kitchen I know all

  about if from the camps I've been in."

  The door opened and a fat jolly nurse carried in a vase with the flowers in it that I'd brought for Fraulein Louise. "Flowers!" she cried. "Flowers are always beautiful. You are a good man, and I see that you're not angry with me."

  "Angry? Me?"

  "Well, yes. That's why I asked them to let you visit me right away."

  "Why?"

  "I kept thinking: You behaved dreadfully to Herr Roland. You must apologize to him. And that's what I'm doing right now. Thank you, nurse." The nurse nodded and left us. "I'm saying it and and I mean every word of it. Don't be angry with me anymore, Herr Roland, please I"

  "But why should I be angry with you?"

  "Well," said Fraulein Louise, looking down at her hands, "the way I forced myself into your hotel room and screamed and yelled and behaved badly in front of the other gendemen..."

  "Nonsense. You were just terribly excited, that's all."

  "Well, yes, I was. Because I wanted to bring Irina back with me." She smiled. "Meanwhile, Herr Doktor Erkner has told me she's with you and you're looking after her and she's better, much better than she was in the camp. And you've taken over the responsibility for her, and all formalities will be attended to. I did you an injustice, Herr Roland. I thought you were going to—harm her, and I'm very ashamed of that. So now there's peace between us again, Herr Roland, isn't there?"

  "Yes, Fraulein Louise."

  She took a deep breath. "Now I feel free," she said. "It's a load off my mind. I had very bad thoughts about you and Herr Engelhardt. He isn't angry with me either, is he?"

  "Not at all. He sends greetings. So does Irina."

  "Oh, God be thanked!" she cried. "Now I can go on carrying my burden. Now I may even find peace here."

  "That's what you're here for," I said.

  "And I will, I will, Herr Roland. Everybody is so worried about me. I should just get well. First Herr Doktor Erkner gave me something and I slept for two days, then he spoke to me and

  said he'd like to give me electric shock treatments, one after the other, every other day, and he also wanted to give me medicine and injections. I really can't complain."

  "Electric shock treatments"—she had said the words without a trace of emotion.

  "When will they begin the treatment?"

  "I had the first one yesterday."

  "You did?"

  "Yes. And tomorrow I'll have the second one. Always early in the morning. Then there'll be four more. No, no, Herr Roland, I'm very well taken care of. This is the private sector, first class. I've been told you're paying for it. Of course I'm going to pay it back. I have plenty of money. And I'm so glad to be in a room by myself. It's really best for me." And I thought how Demel had told me on the phone that Fraulein Louise's bag with all her money had fallen into the moor.

  "My publisher is paying for it, Fraulein Louise," I said. "And you don't have to pay it back. He's a millionaire. And I'm going to write about you and the children—remember?"

  "Yes. And if your publisher is really a millionaire, then all I can do is say thank you and accept. My children—if only I knew why I'm here and not with them."

  "You don't know why?"

  "I have no idea."

  "But you know where you are."

  "Well, of course. In the Ludwigskrankenhaus in Bremen. Herr Doktor Erkner told me that. But why am I here? He said to recover my health. But what does he mean by that? I'm not sick. What's supposed to be wrong with me? And in my head?" She sounded truly puzzled, but not the least aggressive—just surprised.

  Before going in to see her I had spoken to Dr. Erkner. He took me into his office and told me that Friiulein Louise was doing very well; he was most gratified. Pastor Demel had told him about Fraulein Louise's dead friends.

  "All that disturbed world of hers is momentarily in the background," said Dr. Erkner. "The healthy aspect of her personality predominates. The insane happenings are obscured. If you were to speak to her about her dead friends now, she wouldn't know what you were talking about She remembers all the realities, but in between there are gaps."

  "Will they close? Will that disturbed world return?"

  "I don't know," he said. "It's a common schizophrenic

  condition. Symptoms may appear again later." And now I was sitting opposite Fraulein Louise. I had been afraid she would ask me questions about all the things she couldn't understand or where her memory failed her, but she didn't. The way she saw it, she was perfecdy healthy: She knew where she was, she knew that Dr. Erkner was her friend and meant to do only what was best for her. She felt well.

  "You must get back to your work," she said. "You were in such a hurry."

  "I still ami" I said.

  "You see? That's why I begged Dr. Erkner to call you up and tell you to come. But mainly because you were always so good, and I didn't want you to be angry with me anymore."

  "Yes. I got back yesterday and found the message from Dr. Erkner, and flew straight here."

  'There are such gaps in my memory," Fraulein Louise said sadly. "Of course I know what happened in the camp: that they sjiot poor litde Karel, and you took Irina to Hamburg. First a truck driver took me to Bremen, and from there I took the train. In Hamburg a lot of things happened to me. I took a guide at the station, poor Herr Reimers, and it turned out that he was sick. And I was at King Kong and in the Paris Hotel, where they murdered this man, Concon. And I remember Eppendorfer Baum, where I met a French antiques dealer, and the superintendent was a Pole. They told me where you and Irina were. So then I drove to the Metropole, but it seems to me that there's much more to it, and and that's what I can't remember."

  "It doesn't matter, Fraulein Louise. You remember enough. And you told me such a lot at the camp. I have it all down on tape. I'll manage all right."

  "Does that mean you're not coming to see me anymore? That there's nothing more I can do for you?"

  "But of course I'll come to see you again," I said, and thought that perhaps she would remember her dead friends again, and I would be able to write in much greater detail. "I'll come often."

  "Well, I won't always be here," she said.

  "Of course not. Then I'll come to the camp in Neurode. With the plane it won't take long."

  "I've never flown," she said; and then, with no connection whatsoever: "I was in the park, too, behind your hotel, and that was where I was so terribly afraid."

  "Of what?"

  "I don't know, Herr Roland. I only remember that I took the

  train back to Bremen with a very friendly young woman. Her name was Inge Flaxenberg. She said everybody called her Bunny. The way everybody calls me Fraulein Louise. She said she'd worked in a gaming casino, but they'd closed it down because there were magnets under the roulette table. Now you see? I can remember all that exactly. And that her fiance drove me to Neurode in his car. But after that I can't remember anything. The next thing I remember is talking to Herr Doktor Erkner here in the clinic."

  She had scarcely mentioned his name when the door opened and he came in, tall, in his white coat. He looked happy. "Have you enjoyed your visitor, Fraulein Louise?"

  "Oh, yes. Very much. Herr Roland isn't angry with me."

  "Didn't I tell you that?"

  "Yes, you did, Herr Doktor."

  "So there you are!" And to me, "I'm afraid you'll have to leave now, Herr Roland. Fraulein Louise needs a lot of rest."

  "Yes," she said. "That's true. I do need rest. And it's so quiet here. I could sleep all the time."

  "Ill
come again," I said, and stood up. "Whenever you like. You can call me, or I'll call you. Don't worry about our story. I'll soon have it all done."

  "Yes, yes," said Fraulein Louise. "Come whenever you like. You don't have to ask, does he, Doktor? "

  "No," said Erkner, "you can come anytime, Herr Roland."

  "Only not in the early morning for the next few days," Fraulein Louise said seriously. "Because that's when I get my shock treatments, and after them I always sleep for a while, very deeply."

  On Tuesday, November 19, ten minutes before six o'clock in the evening, I was again walking with Irina on that street in northwest Frankfurt where the doctor had his office. We had come here the same way as last time, leaving my apartment house by the garden entrance. Traffic was heavy, and the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. We had to walk 496

  slowly. It was dark already, and a thin, cold rain was falling.

  "So," I said, "in a few hours you'll be home again and it will be all over."

  "Yes," said Irina.

  "You mustn't be afraid," I said. "He's the best doctor in Frankfurt for this sort of thing."

  "I'm not in the least afraid," said Irina. "What are you going to do during these few hours?"

  "Oh... I'll have a drink. Perhaps I'll take in a movie."

  "What movie?"

  "I don't know yet."

  "I'd like to go to a movie with you someday, Walter."

  "Yes," I said. "That's something we'll do."

  "When?"

  "When it's all over and you're feeling perfectly well again."

  "And when you have time."

  "Yes."

  "Because right now you're terribly busy." She pressed my arm. "That's why I'm doubly grateful to you for coming with me.

  "But that goes without saying. Of course I wanted to go with you."

  "I knew you'd help me," said Irina. "From the very first time I saw you, I knew it."

  "Well, now, you weren't exactly friendly then," I said.

  She said nothing. But after a while she said, "You've taken other girls to this doctor, haven't you?"

  "Yes."

  "And everything's always turned out all right?"