Uncommon Assassins

by F. Paul Wilson

  Lights flickered and went out as Madame cut the power.

  Then

  Henri turned to take in the large woman who filled the doorway. A simple, black dress covered her ample figure, the neckline cut low to expose cleavage that strained the fabric to the limit. Her long, black hair was tied into a single braid that hung to her waist. Rouge and eyeliner hid the crow’s-feet and frown lines of someone approaching the later years of life.

  “Aunt Giselle.” Henri bowed.

  She nodded and smiled thinly at her husband. “In these modern times, Madame is nothing more than a toy. You have been trained with the proper weapons of the trade. Do not be fooled by sentiment and tradition.” Her hand waved at the book dismissively.

  “Tradition has kept the family in business for hundreds of years,” his uncle said. “Show her some respect!”

  “Pointless tradition and training. Contracts can be fulfilled without resorting to antique methods. No hiding or additional work to smuggle in the tools. She is a museum piece that is no longer relevant. Like history, she belongs to the past.”

  Andre looked at his nephew. “As the Heir, you have the right to choose which tool is required to complete the job. Madame will serve you well in all cases. We are experts, Henri. Not common thugs and criminals that kill indiscriminately. Kill with a purpose and nothing more. No pity. No remorse. Just the contract.”

  Giselle Deibler snorted. “A gun serves the purpose better and may be disposed.” Her eyes focused on the scoped .30-06 resting above the mantel.

  “I believe that I will keep Madame. She is not unlovely, nor awkward or clumsy.” Henri stood up and raised a glass to his uncle and aunt. “To us. To family. To Madame.”

  His uncle smiled and raised his glass as well. “To your first contract!”

  Now

  Henri took the steps two at a time, bursting through the door into the darkened house. Guests yelled and screamed in the dark. He smiled as his low-light lenses illuminated the room. Heavy shutters covered the windows. Another measure that worked in his favor. Chaos reigned in the ballroom. Guns were drawn. Guards fumbled for flashlights, flickering beams of light in desperation across the room.

  “Why hasn’t the generator started?”

  “The windows are all covered.”

  “Which way to the door?”

  His first target hovered near the gas fireplace, silhouetted by the low fire. He was a thin man, balding, with a hook nose and bushy eyebrows, who fidgeted and twitched. On either side were muscle, the kind that scared men hired. Henri smiled, took three steps, hopped on the buffet table, and sprinted. Glassware tinkled into a thousand pieces. Food and drink scattered as he ran, bounced off the table by his footsteps. He lined up on the mark and struck before the muscle could reach for their guns. Blood pooled on the floor as the body collapsed. Proof of the kill obtained, Henri disappeared through the door.

  Then

  “What is the first rule?” asked his uncle.

  “Prepare as if your life depends on it,” said Henri.

  “The second?”

  “There is no room for emotion. The job is never personal.”

  “The third?”

  “Leave no trace. Become a ghost.”

  “The last?”

  “Punish the guilty. Preserve the innocent.”

  “Good. Keep to those rules and you will always come home.”

  Now

  The second target ran down the hall, pushing aside others. Sweat ran down his face as he huffed and puffed. His collar was undone and shirt half-buttoned, rolls of fat and flesh jiggling under the thin cloth. His pants and undershorts had been left behind. Almost too easy. Guests pounded on shuttered windows, with fists and furniture. Women screamed and sobbed. Men cursed and yelled. Guns and knives were drawn and waved in the air. Amateurs. The fat man ran right into death’s embrace, shrieking in a high-pitched scream one last time as he realized the fatal mistake. His body, arms flailing wildly, crashed through the balcony railing, and landed on the marble floor with a wet thud. Eyes blinked and mouth moved in silent protest to his fate.

  Henri grabbed his trophy and jumped down to the floor below, landing on the still warm body of his victim. Blood sprayed from the stump of the man's neck. “Come, Madame, we have one last person to meet.” He pushed through the door and into the library. Empty. With quick steps, he crossed to a lone bookshelf, reached into the shelf, and undid a hidden latch. The panel swung back, revealing narrow steps that wound upward. History is important. Those who forget are doomed.

  Then

  “The clients have requested to know which of the guests you plan on eliminating.” Andre Deibler leaned on the cane as Henri packed the shirts into his suitcase and zipped it closed.

  “They will know when it is over.”

  “There is a concern that you will make this personal. That is forbidden.”

  “If they have such a concern, the contract should have gone to another family.” He walked over and ran a hand over Madame as she lay` on the bed.

  “I told them such. It did not reassure them.”

  “The contract stated I choose the targets for maximum effect. That has been done. Each is marked and the mansion is now a death trap.”

  “Good. I will see you upon your return.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Henri picked up Madame and smiled. Soon. Very soon.

  Now

  “It has been a long time, Henri.” The wisps of fog drifted across the rooftop. Sharp hawk eyes peered through spectacles at the young assassin. A short brunette cowered behind the man, her high heels tottering on the uneven surface. Slim legs flashed through the slit skirt and her blouse was low cut to accent her bust. His dress was casual; slacks, polo shirt, and loafers. The .45 automatic gripped tightly in his hand was out of place.

  Henri nodded in response. “Steven. Fifteen years, five months, and fourteen days.”

  The man chuckled. “Are you bitter over being abandoned? That you would take my place in the family?”

  “No, Father. This is not personal. There is no room for feelings in this matter.”

  “Yet, you are here. Facing me.” Steven Deibler gestured toward Henri. “And you carry that relic and are dressed in that outrageous outfit.”

  Henri hefted the great ax with a single hand. Blood dripped from the razor-sharp edge, running into the intricate scrollwork etchings on the steel. A plain silver cap and butt sealed either end of the oaken shaft, black with age and stain. “You will show respect for Madame.”

  “Madame? You named your tool?”

  “If you had studied the family history, you would have known her name.”

  Steven raised the .45 and sneered. “I have killed others that have pursued me. What makes you think you are any different?”

  “Because this is not personal.” Henri jumped forward, twirling Madame in his hands, light reflecting off the blade. “And you are not the target.”

  The gun fired too late as Madame took the girl’s head.

  Later

  “A drug runner, a child pornographer, and an arsonist. Heads displayed on pikes for the others to see. Good work.” Andre Deibler sipped a glass of Bordeaux. “A very fine vintage.”

  “Father’s cellar was well stocked and I did not think he would miss a few bottles.” Henri raised his glass. “A toast. To Madame and another successful contract.”

  “To Madame.” His uncle leaned in. “That was very clever of you to lure Steven out.”

  “The third target served a dual purpose. Our client is happy. Family honor is served. Everyone wins. The fog made the last act more difficult than I had expected. It was luck that the wind had cleared much of it away.”

  “Who did you find to act as your second?”

  “Really, Andre, you are too focused on the past to see the future in front of you.” Giselle Deibler smiled as Henri offered her a glass. She perched on the arm of the chair and kissed the top of her husband’s head. “It was not an easy shot and Henri moved too
quickly to take the girl’s head. He still has much to learn.”

  Andre laughed. “He will learn with time and make a fine heir.” He raised his glass. “To family.”

  “To family!” Henri’s eyes rested on Madame, displayed on the rack, waiting for her next job.

  Patience.

  THE MAN WHO SHOT HITLER

  BY ELLIOTT CAPON

  Berlin, June 1943

  Gunther Koenig put on an inexpensive suit, a white shirt that had been worn for two or three days without benefit of having been washed, and no tie. He carried a weather-beaten satchel and walked with his head down. In a city of tired, inconspicuous people, he was the most anonymous.

  He entered an apartment building on the corner of Potsdamer Strasse and Halpt Strasse, a tall building, at one time one of Berlin’s most luxurious addresses. Now the entrance door was unlocked and the concierge was either dead or ... who knew, and who cared. Koenig made a face at the elevator and walked past it to the staircase. He had lots of time, so he very slowly made his way up sixteen floors to the topmost level of apartments. There was a big hole in the south wall of the hallway, the delivery of which had prompted the residents of that floor to vacate for greener climes. Koenig pulled down on the trapdoor in the ceiling and a ladder obligingly, if noisily protesting, came down. He climbed up it to the roof.

  All things considered, it was a beautiful day. A few white clouds reflected, rather than hid, the sunshine. Koenig walked to the corner of the roof and looked down at Berlin. He had a clear view of Charlottenburger Chaussee. He couldn’t have thrown a rock from where he was to land on Charlottenburger, but he didn’t intend to.

  He opened his satchel and took out the rifle components. The barrel, which he had crafted himself, fit perfectly in the stock, which had been removed from an American-made rifle. The trigger mechanism had been modified from a British weapon, and fit perfectly between the other two pieces. This way, when he was done, he would divide the weapon into four components and disperse them in three separate places, forestalling if not completely frustrating any investigators.

  It took him moments to put the rifle together, and gently snap in the magazine with eight 5.56mm bullets. He polished both ends of the custom, Swiss-made telescopic sight again, unnecessarily, clipped it to the weapon, and settled down.

  There weren’t tens of thousands of people lining Charlottenburger Chaussee this afternoon, because it wasn’t an official public appearance, but there were certainly more than a few thousand filling the sidewalks, as far as Koenig could see. Any of the Fuhrer’s motorcades provided a modicum of entertainment and diversion for people rapidly becoming dissuaded and disappointed; a glimpse at the confident Leader himself was always a good boost for morale. This little expedition from Templehoff Airport to the Chancellery, taking the long, long, out-of-the-way route, was calculated to let the people of Berlin see the Fuhrer, to know that things were going to get better.

  There was no roof in the immediate area higher than the one Koenig was on, and he kept himself below the low wall that ran around its perimeter. Security forces—mostly older, post-service-age men and not-yet-service-age boys—along with members of the Berlin garrison of the Wehrmacht and the remaining members of the Berlin municipal police department, were scattered all over the neighborhood, on the street, on balconies, on nearby rooftops. But none of them were at a plane equal to or higher than his; and certainly none of them would have dreamt that his telescopic sight and custom-built rifle would work from such a distance.

  Koenig’s timing was good; he had only to wait eighteen minutes before be heard the wavelike roar of the crowd, as the Fuhrer’s motorcade came closer. Koenig peered over the edge of his little wall.

  In the distance, he could see the approaching cars—a Mercedes-Benz W-31, bearing six SS officers; following that the Fuhrer’s specially-built Mercedes 770-K; and to the right of the Fuhrer’s car and slightly to the rear, its hood even with the 770’s rear bumper, another W-31 with six more officers. Koenig slipped the sight off the rifle and used it to study the motorcade. As expected, SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Erich Kempka was driving Hitler’s car; next to him sat a Waffen SS General. In the rear seat, in his brown uniform, behind Kempka, sat the Fuhrer himself, and another black-clad SS officer was sitting next to him on Koenig’s near side. The car was open, of course, and Hitler was sporadically returning the ‘Sieg Heil’ salutes of the crowd. Koenig had expected Hitler to be at the far side of the car, from his perspective, and had done his target practice. He had about another forty seconds before the motorcade came parallel to him, and then perhaps, at the slow speed they were driving, another ten seconds’ window of opportunity to take his shot.

  He carefully put the sight back on the rifle, counted to fifteen, and raised himself up enough to put his elbows on the low wall and brace himself. The small motorcade was approaching slowly. Through the sight, Hitler was as large in his vision as if they were sharing a bed.

  The first car passed through the intersection of Halpt Strasse and Charlottenburg Strasse; maybe five seconds later, Kempka drove the car through the same intersection. Now was the ten-second window ... Koenig held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

  In that fraction of a second, that hundredth of an inch between the time the trigger was just a piece of dangling metal and the time it sparked a small explosion at the bottom of a bullet, the SS officer sitting next to Hitler shifted himself upward, as if to get a glimpse of a good-looking woman, or pull his underwear out of the crack of his ass.

  The bullet caught him between his right eye and ear. He toppled forward, into Hitler’s lap.

  Koenig did not waste time cursing. It would probably take Kempka a full second to realize what had happened, and then maybe another quarter of a second to floor the gas pedal—too short a time to waste in cursing. Koenig moved the rifle fractionally to his right, as the car continued at its steady pace—but inexorably moving out of range—sighted at his last opportunity, the base of Hitler’s neck, and fired.

  Koenig actually started, afraid (at the speed of thought) that the fountain of blood was going to soak him, so good was the telescopic sight. Hitler slumped forward, and the three cars leaped ahead as fast as their powerful engines could take them. Koenig could hear an incredible wave of sound from the crowd, but he couldn’t see them—he was already lying prone, disassembling the rifle and putting the pieces back in his satchel, and crawling back to the trapdoor. He was down the ladder and out of the building as slowly and calmly as his pounding heart and head would let him go.

  There was chaos on the streets, though no one seemed to know what was happening. Soldiers of the regular army and the SS, Berlin police officers and firefighters all rushed back and forth on foot and in vehicles, shouting, questioning, apparently giving and receiving all kinds of contradictory orders. Civilians were looking at one another in confusion, most looking at the sky, awaiting the arrival of the British or American bombers, but hearing no air raid sirens, no whistles of descending ordnance. Koenig did not walk resolutely, but just sort of meandered around in confusion, along with everyone else, until he came to the Landwehr Canal. There, surreptitiously and unnoticed by the milling mob of confused people, he dropped the trigger mechanism into the water. He walked over to Kopenicker Strasse, went to the alley behind a row of small stores, and deposited the rifle barrel in a garbage can. Another long walk got him to Frankfurter Strasse, where his beloved telescopic sight was dropped down a sewer grating. The stock was tossed into the remains of a burned-out building on nearby Landsberger Strasse.

  Carrying his empty satchel, Gunther Koenig went home. His mouth was drier than the Sahara Desert after a drought and his chest was pounding louder than an antiaircraft battery, but, thanks to practice before a mirror, his face maintained a look of absolute innocence and guilelessness.

  Back in his apartment—not the shabbiest one in Berlin, but far from the most luxurious—he had the sudden need to vacate his bowels. He amused himself with the thought
that it was a miracle he was managing to hit the toilet, seeing as how he was shaking so much. He had to flush twice. He changed his clothes, and threw his suit down the building’s incinerator shaft. Tomorrow was Burn the Garbage day, which would be fine.

  Then he turned on the radio. One could actually hear the tears in the announcer’s voice.

  “The Fuhrer has been assassinated!” he was saying. “The Fuhrer has been shot and killed! Our beloved Fuhrer was murdered on the streets of Berlin, as he greeted his adoring people!” The announcer actually sobbed, then recovered himself. “This is a terrible day for Deutschland and for the world! Our leader, our savior is no more! Herr Hitler is dead! Der Fuhrer is todt!”

  Gunther Koenig nodded. Gut, he thought. Alles ging sehr gut.

  Like everyone in Germany, he was glued to his radio for the next twenty-four hours. Information was contradictory, sporadic, often nonexistent. But several facts were incontrovertible. Hitler had been shot and killed. His body had been taken to the nearby Chancellery, where it was being prepared for the most lavish funeral in European history. Two people—one civilian and one military—had apparently been filming the Fuhrer when he was shot, and the films were in the possession of the authorities, and, after editing, would be released in newsreel form within the next few days. General Kurt Zeitzler, Chief of the Army General Staff, had been named as the acting chief of state and had taken over full command of the armed forces.

  Unshaven men with their flies buttoned incorrectly and one armpit undeodorized and their ties unmatched to their suits and their medals unpinned to their uniforms rushed to meetings in Moscow. And London. And Washington. Hitler was dead. Zeitzler was now in command. The men met, and talked. They sent secret radio messages and heavily-coded cables from London to Moscow to Washington to Lisbon to extremely secretive locations in Paris and Hamburg and Rome. Hitler was dead and Zeitzler was in charge. Dusty intelligence reports were pulled out of basement filing cabinets: Zeitzler was a very good, very average commander. A theoretician and a historian. He was conservative; a thinker; a plodder. One who would wait until the risks were at absolute minimum. He was not a bold striker. He was not, like Waterloo’s Austrian commander Blucher, known as “Old Forward.” In fact, one uncorroborated report had someone crack that Zeitzler should be known as “Old Wait-and-See.”