Uncommon Assassins

by F. Paul Wilson

  The men at their meetings in London and Moscow and Washington, and their confreres in Paris and Hamburg and Lisbon and Rome came to a similar conclusion: Now was the time to launch the Big Offensive, on both fronts. Now, not in May 1944, but now, when the Germans were literally and figuratively knocked for a loop, when they had a hesitant, undoubtedly nervous military commander, when the morale of the soldiers in the field was at its lowest.

  But, argued Zeitzler’s spiritual conservative military peers on the Allied side, we are not ready. We are not ready for the offensive. We won’t be ready for almost another year.

  Bosh! Stuff! And nonsense! cried the other men at the meetings in London and Washington and Moscow. Strike! While the iron! Is hot! If we’re not ready, they’re even less ready! An offensive now ends the war tout suite, lickety-split, очень быстро!

  None of the men at the meetings knew of the existence of Gunther Koenig, though they all, silently and to each other, blessed his mother for having borne him. Then they put the offensive into high gear.

  For three days Gunther Koenig sat in his apartment, listening to the radio. He ate a little, more out of a sense of duty than of any hunger. He drank a lot of tea, but abstained from any alcohol. The radio was full of stories of arrests, of investigations by the Berlin police, by the Gestapo, by the Abwehr. Stories of how they were closing in on the suspect(s), how an arrest was imminent. Koenig started every time a door slammed in his building or he heard steps in the hallway, or a black sedan or marked police car slowly cruised past his window. Three days. The only knock at the door came when a neighbor, who was going out to a nearby suburb to get some fresh eggs, wanted to know if Koenig wanted some himself. He had to ask the man to bring him back a dozen, because no one in Berlin turned down fresh eggs.

  On the morning of the fourth day, Koenig knew it was time. He was nervous.

  Heart pounding, Koenig opened his closet. He pushed aside his suits to clear a space in the back wall. He stepped down on the base moulding with his toe, and a panel slid to the side. In the hidden space behind the wall was a black Waffen SS uniform, with the requisite eagle, death’s-head emblem, and the chevrons of a Kapitan. Koenig was shaking as he put the uniform on. He spent more time in front of his mirror than he had ever spent in his life, to make sure he looked perfect. He had something important to do now, something very important.

  He called Army HQ and ordered a car. It arrived in due course, and he had the driver take him to the Chancellery. Security there was tighter than he had ever seen it, and his identification cards were not good enough. He had to give a new set of fingerprints and then wait until someone went down to the basement to check them against the fingerprint card on file. It wasn’t until the officer in charge of the front lobby was satisfied as to his identity that he was asked what he wanted there.

  “I wish to see General Kreutzer,” he said. “He is expecting me.”

  Several phone calls and a ten-minute wait later, an SS Colonel came to the lobby to retrieve Koenig. The Colonel led Koenig into an elevator and down to a second or third sub-basement, then down a heavily guarded corridor. They finally stopped before a heavy door. The Colonel knocked twice and pushed the door open, respectfully nodding Koenig to enter. He shut the door behind Koenig.

  There were two Wehrmacht, one Luftwaffe, and one SS General standing in the room. Koenig threw them smart salutes, which they all returned, smiling. The Generals all looked toward a high-backed chair, behind a desk, which was facing away from the doorway. After a moment, the chair swiveled, and Adolf Hitler looked up from it, smiling.

  Koenig almost dislocated his arm as he shot it up and out. “Heil Hitler!” he cried.

  Hitler chuckled. “Sit down, my boy, sit, relax,” he said. Koenig looked around for a chair, found one, and sat, albeit stiffly. The generals assumed relaxed positions. Everyone but Koenig seemed to be having the time of their lives.

  “It worked out marvelously, didn’t it, Koenig?” Hitler asked.

  “Jawohl, Mein Fuhrer,” Koenig answered. “Just as you planned.”

  Hitler chuckled again, and everyone in the room seemed to feel a sudden chill in the air. “Without your superb execution, my boy, the plan would have been for naught.”

  Koenig hesitated, obviously wanting to say something. “Go ahead, son, out with it!” Hitler prompted.

  “I—I’m sorry about the officer who I—who got killed—”

  Hitler waved a hand. “Ach! An idiot! He said, out loud, mind you, he said, ‘Look, I think that’s my mistress over—’ and then phoom! I have a pocketful of his brains!” Hitler laughed, and this time everyone in the room was sure the temperature had dropped.

  “... and, sir, I ... I hope I didn’t hurt you, when I ...” Koenig stammered.

  “Look here, young man,” Hitler interrupted, opening a lower draw in the desk. He took out something that looked like a black girdle, or the championship belt awarded in many sports. There was a depression in the belt and several cracks coming from it. “That’s where the bullet hit,” Hitler said, putting his finger to the depression. He put the object around the back of his neck and turned slightly, to show the assembled how it protected his upper back. “Your marksmanship was incredible, as—“ he nodded to one of the generals—“General Kreutzer assured me.” The general smiled and bowed slightly. “And,” Hitler continued, “those—what do they call them—special effects wizards at UFA, with the blood spurting—pooosh! pooosh! pooosh!—all over the place ... ach! The whole thing was brilliantly plotted, magnificently carried out!”

  “And ... mein Fuhrer, sir ...” Koenig hesitantly offered, “... the ... the plans?”

  “Marvelous!” Hitler cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “The Allies are going to launch their offensives ... too soon. They are not ready, but they are going ahead, while our counteroffensives are ... perfect?” He raised an eyebrow at Kreutzer.

  “More than perfect, mein Fuhrer,” Kreutzer assured him.

  “And then, my dear Koenig,” Hitler said, leaning forward, his arms on the desk, “when I make my Lazarus-like return from the dead, and lead our armed forces myself ... can you imagine how our own troops will be energized, and how the Allies will be demoralized to the point of defeat, or at least be forced to sue for peace?”

  Koenig allowed himself a small smile. “Everything is working out perfectly, mein Fuhrer, as you planned it. I’m glad to have been a part of it.”

  Hitler rose to his feet. Koenig and the generals sprang to attention. Looking at Koenig, Hitler addressed the other officers. “Gentlemen, would you please leave the room? I’d like to be alone with Kapitan Koenig.” Each of the generals opened his mouth in question or protest, but Hitler again waved them off. “I am going to embrace this young hero,” he went on, “but I don’t want any witnesses. Can you believe your Fuhrer is shy, nein? I don’t think it would serve my reputation well if I were seen hugging another man.” He paused. “But this young officer won the war for us, and I just have to hug him.”

  With perfunctory but polite Nazi salutes, the generals all filed out of the room. There was not one who did not glance at Koenig with a mixture of envy and congratulation.

  When they were alone in the room, Hitler came from behind his desk, arms outspread. “Embrace your Fuhrer,” he said.

  Hugging and kissing between men in Europe is as common as shaking hands is in the United States, and so Koenig unhesitatingly entered Hitler’s outstretched arms. Hitler patted him on the back. Koenig was sure he could feel his skin trying to retract into the interior of his body, but he held Hitler’s embrace.

  After an eternity the Fuhrer broke the connection. “A drink, my boy!” he declared, “Just you and me, two heroes of der Vaterland sharing a toast!”

  Koenig remembered rumors—quashed, dangerous rumors he had heard about young Obergefreiters Schickelgruber’s activities to ease the burdens of lonely men in World War I trenches—but put them out of his mind. He watched as Hitler prepared two g
lasses of blackberry schnapps, and handed him one. What was next was more dangerous than taking the shot.

  “Mein Fuhrer,” Koenig asked, pointing with his chin at the far wall, “isn’t that the original National Socialist flag that you had in Munich, at the putsch?”

  Human nature—even Hitler had some—caused the great leader to turn and look at the object in question, although he had seen it six thousand times. As he turned his head Koenig—almost blind and deaf with terror—twisted the phony ruby on the ring he wore on his right hand and emptied the few grams of white powder hidden there into Hitler’s drink. Hitler turned back, smiling, and appreciated Koenig’s perspicacity. They toasted, drank, and made small talk for another minute. Then, almost apologetically, Hitler escorted Koenig to the door and graciously ushered him out, letting the generals back in. Koenig gave a textbook-perfect “Heil Hitler!” as the door closed in his face. He looked at his watch: 1423 hours. If ... they ... were right, Hitler would be dead by 2:15 p.m. tomorrow.

  Koenig slowly but purposefully left the building and was driven back to his apartment, where he dismissed the driver.

  Three hours later, a gray-haired, gray-bearded, slovenly dressed man left the same apartment and got on one of Germany’s infrequent trains, and in ten hours found himself in the seaside city of Sylt. The small fishing boat was where it was supposed to be and it stank and rocked like he thought it would, and sometime in the middle of a pitch-black night Koenig was ensconced in the basement of a house in the tiny Danish town of Grasten. The nine men and two women waiting for him almost broke his ribs with hugs and almost drowned him with tears.

  “God bless you, it worked,” one older man said to him, in accented German.

  “Apparently,” Koenig replied. Despite repeated doses of medicinal brandy, he was still shaking like a leaf. “They’re all set up, waiting, like a primed mousetrap, for the Allies to begin the offensive and then—WHAM! Back from the dead comes Hitler, and the German resurgence carries the day.” They all knew the plan, but they also were quite aware that Koenig had a lot of pent-up emotion to get rid of, so they let him tell them what they already knew. “But with the current low morale of the German armed forces, with the inefficient caretakers in charge, when the Allies do strike ... the spring on the German mousetrap will be seen to have rusted shut, ah?” Koenig allowed himself a smile, which was repeated on eleven happy faces.

  “They’ll roll right over those Nazi bastards, the war will be over by January,” one of the other men opined.

  Koenig raised his empty glass—albeit with a shaky hand—for a refill, which three people attempted to fulfill. “A toast, meine freunde, to the geniuses in this room, who outsmarted Hitler ... and Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill,” he said, with a vibrato of almost uncontrollable emotion in his voice. He drained his glass of brandy with one swallow.

  “No,” said the older man who had blessed him earlier. “We drink to you, Kapitan Koenig.”

  Koenig smiled. “The mission is over,” he said. “I can go back to being called by my real name. From now on, and forever, I am not Marke Koenig ... I am Moishe Cohen.”

  MERCY KILLING

  BY LAURA DISILVERIO

  The flesh, barely moist, weighed heavy in Carter’s hand. He hefted it. A pound, maybe just over, he thought, laying it on the counter. Its cold stainless steel grazed the back of his fingers as he withdrew them. His hand landed unerringly on his knife, and he slid the blade between the flesh and the skin. They separated with a thin tearing sound. Discarding the scales, he flipped the salmon over and sliced it into even strips. The movements came automatically, soothing in their familiarity, satisfying in their precision. He draped each slice over the steamed rice, then nudged his glasses up with the back of his wrist.

  “I don’t know how you do it, Carter,” the woman who had ordered the sashimi said. Her voice, low-pitched and accent-free, said blond, slim, well-off. Her name was Susan. He’d pegged her as forty, give or take, and looked forward to the days she came into the restaurant. She’d been eating at Little Octopus for about six months now. Sometimes, like today, with a friend over her lunch hour. Rarely, wonderfully, alone. Occasionally, in the evening, with a man Carter assumed was her husband. He spoke to her with the disinterest of someone long married. In the evenings, they took a table; now, she sat not three feet from Carter at the sushi bar, her fingers brushing his as she accepted the tray he handed over the glass display case. She thanked him, and added, “I’ve never seen—”

  “What? A white guy making sushi?” Sam Katsumoto looked up from his station on Carter’s right and brayed a laugh. The bamboo rolling mat folded over with a snick as his deft fingers trapped the rice, cucumber, and crab into a long, nori-covered cylinder.

  Carter couldn’t decide if it was endearing or irritating that his boss laughed as loudly now as he had the last hundred or so times he’d delivered that same line. He knew what came next and Sam didn’t fail him.

  “I am an equal opportunity employer,” Sam said. Chunk-chunk-chunk. He cut the California roll. “I hire the disabled. Ha-ha! Being white is a disability.” His donkey laugh cut through the chink of cutlery against plates, conversations, and the sizzle of the grill where the new hire went through his whirling cleaver shtick for a table of tourists.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to sound racist,” Susan said, flustered.

  Carter started to assure her that he knew what she meant, but Susan’s friend Erica cut him off. Carter was pretty sure she worked with Susan.

  “No one thinks you’re racist,” Erica said, half-irritated. She lowered her voice and said, “Let your lawyers deal with him, hon. You don’t need the aggravation. After what happened ... the TRO—”

  Carter missed the rest of what she said, but he knew Susan was in real estate and figured they were talking about the deal that had fallen through. The last time Susan had come in alone, a couple months back, she’d had tears in her voice as she told him about a three-million-dollar deal that the buyer walked out on at the last second. The seller had blamed her, she said, had come by her office to spew obscenities, and thrown a lamp into the wall. She’d eaten her way through the eight-piece chef’s choice sampler and then apologized for venting to him. He’d told her not to worry about it, that he liked listening to her, and that he knew someone who could teach the jerk-off a lesson. She’d laughed, thinking he was kidding.

  “Come back tomorrow for fugu,” Sam told the women, interrupting their conversation. “Eight courses. My supplier promises a live shipment first thing tomorrow.”

  “Not for me,” Susan said around a mouthful of sashimi.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Sam assured her. “I am certified, licensed preparer of fugu for thirty-three years. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

  Erica said, “I’d like to try it. I hear it has a delicate flavor.”

  Carter’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. About time. He excused himself and slipped through the swinging door to the kitchen. Shrimp-scented steam dampened his forehead and bare arms as he made his way past the commercial ranges and dishwashers. Something pulpy squished underfoot but he ignored it, like he ignored the “Hey, Carter,” from Sam’s daughter, Aimi, who waitressed for her father on weekends. He stepped through the back door into the alley that ran behind Little Octopus and its neighbors, a used bookstore and an auto parts shop. The night air settled on his clammy skin, cooling him, and the Dumpster didn’t emit its usual stench since it had been emptied that afternoon. The scrabble of claws on metal suggested a rat was searching for an overlooked morsel.

  “Batman,” he said into the phone, wondering whether this client thought the code name was silly or intimidating. He found the name darkly amusing. He’d been blind as a bat for six years, after all, ever since Syria.

  “You should have received confirmation of the deposit this afternoon.”

  Carter had never met the caller, but from his reedy voice, he imagined a short, middle-aged man with a nervous habit of some kind, m
aybe rubbing his fingers together or pulling at the ends of a mustache. “I did.”

  “You got the photo, right? You’re ready to move on my wife?”

  “As soon as I receive the other item I asked for.” Carter always required a photo from his clients, not wanting them to realize he was blind, but it was the personal item that mattered.

  “Mailed Monday. It should be there. I can’t imagine why you need—”

  Carter cut him off. “Her schedule is still the same?”

  “Yes.” The man was impatient now. “The same as when we last spoke. You’ll confirm with me when you’ve done it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “As we arranged.”

  After a brief pause that felt to Carter like his client was considering asking for more details, or reassurance, the call ended. He lingered a moment, enjoying the night air, then slipped inside to finish his shift.

  When the last customer had left, Carter made his way to Sam’s office, where Mercy waited for him. Her tail thumped against the carpet when he came through the door and he bent to let her lick his face. “Let’s go home, girl,” Carter told the Lab, giving her a pat. His hand slid from her sleek fur to the rough canvas of the guide dog vest.