The Devouring

by James R Benn

  I dashed out to the Hispano-Suiza, hunched over, and almost felt bad about this fine vehicle taking a couple of bullets for me. Kaz came out from behind his building, taking cover as I did. Sirens drifted in from far away, the high-note-low-note distinctive European variety that meant cops were on the way. In this neighborhood, gunfire was certainly looked down upon. We had about two minutes to find this guy and get the hell out before Swiss cops put us in handcuffs or the morgue.

  I doubted our man was waiting around. I signaled Kaz to stand as I began to inch up, figuring that if he was, he’d reveal himself and one of us could get a shot off.

  I was wrong. He was there, shielded from Kaz as he laid his arm over the hood of an automobile, pistol aimed straight at me. I ducked as two bullets smashed through the windows of the Hispano-Suiza, pretty much ruining its nice lines. I heard Kaz fire and ran across the street, sliding in front of a sedan and readying my pistol as I took a careful look down the sidewalk.

  “He’s running!” Kaz shouted as he sprinted across the road, going parallel to the row of attached dwellings. I ran to catch up, glad to leave the scene before the guys in kepis showed up.

  At the last row house, steps led down to a side street with a small park, and I followed Kaz as he made his way to the corner, kneeling behind a low concrete wall. Pistol fire rang out, one round hitting the wall and sending up a spray of concrete dust while the other slammed into the building behind us.

  “He’s going to get lucky sooner or later,” I said, my head pressed against the gritty concrete.

  “Or we will,” Kaz said. “Watch for him.” With that, Kaz ran down the steps, vaulting over hedges and disappearing into the greenery. I had my pistol up and caught a quick movement as a dark figure slipped behind a tree. The little park was lit by sunlight filtering through dappled shade, and I couldn’t be sure if it was our man or some civilian taking cover. I vaulted the wall and zigzagged down the street, looking to get an angle on him. He fired, but not in my direction, and took off at a fast clip. The street curved left, going up and joining the main thoroughfare again. I stayed on his heels, my pistol low and to my side, as he weaved in and out of pedestrians. More than I wanted between us. I had no idea where Kaz was, but I had to keep up or he’d get away. I ran by his black fedora on the ground, either tossed away in an attempt to be less noticeable or lost as he ran.

  There he was. On a street corner, standing sideways, presenting the smallest target he could, his pistol leveled at me as I careened forward. People scattered and dove out of the line of fire, screaming as this madman calmly aimed at his target. Me.

  The shot was deafening at this close range, echoing off the building and drowning out the shrieks of those prone on the sidewalk.

  A plume of blood burst from the side of the shooter’s head and he crumpled, his ruined skull thumping against the wall. Kaz strode closer, his smoking Webley held on the man, a wise but unnecessary precaution.

  “Check his papers,” I said, gasping for breath as I knelt by the body. “And thanks.”

  “You are quite welcome,” Kaz said, his hands busy rummaging through the man’s pockets as a small crowd gathered. Hearing the sirens, some dusted themselves off and moved on, perhaps anticipating another gun battle. A group of older men clustered around us, whispering to each other.

  “He is Wilhelm Hochler,” Kaz said, opening a wallet. “Or should I say, Kriminalinspektor Hochler of the Geheime Staatspolizei, better known as the Gestapo.”

  “Gestapo!” muttered one of the men watching us. Kaz pulled at Hochler’s tie and grabbed his identity disc. It had Geheime Staatspolizei stamped on it, along with his number, 5324. That’s all the Gestapo needed to be a law unto themselves, in German territory, at least.

  “Why did he try to kill us?” Kaz said, cocking his head in my direction. The sirens were close now, only a street away, probably following the pointed fingers of outraged Swiss citizenry.

  “Komm mit uns,” one of the men said, and I noticed that they’d moved into a protective cordon, shielding us from view. One of them opened a door as the others pulled us inside. It was only when I saw the writing on the lintel above the door that I understood.

  It was Hebrew. We’d chased a Gestapo agent down and Kaz blew his brains out on the street below a giant Star of David, which I now saw in its stained-glass setting from inside the synagogue.

  “Thank you,” I said as we followed half a dozen men down the aisle. “Kaz, tell them they might get in trouble.”

  “Young man, we would be in trouble with the Almighty if we did not help you,” a man with a graying beard said before Kaz could translate. The others ran back to the door as he led us down a staircase to a rear entrance. “We were engaged in Torah study, discussing the din rodef, the law of the pursuer.” He opened a door and took a quick look, then closed it.

  “Thank you, Rabbi,” Kaz said.

  “No, thank you. I do not know who you are, but Torah teaches us that we must save those who are being pursued with evil intent, as you certainly were. Then to see that man was of the Gestapo, the message could not have been clearer. He was a rodef, and his killing was justified, if you have any doubts yourself.”

  “I am Polish, Rabbi. I have no doubts,” Kaz said. “I wish I did.”

  “Shalom, my friends. If you need help, you will find it here.” He eased the door open again and gave us the all-clear. We scooted out, working our way down a narrow courtyard and emerging through an alleyway onto a busy street.

  “Shalom. Peace,” I said. “It’ll be a while.”

  “Thank God for them they are Swiss,” Kaz said. “That may be the only way for Jews to survive in Europe these days.”

  “Even if they turn away refugees at the border, at least they don’t turn on their own people,” I said, thinking of the French Jews who’d been rounded up by the Vichy police. We turned a corner, trying to look like two guys out for a stroll and wondering what was going on like everyone else. As we did, the first thing I saw was a big American flag flying from a building surrounded by an iron fence.

  “Jesus, it’s the American embassy,” I said, spotting the sentries at the front entrance. I grabbed Kaz and pulled him across the street, putting space between us and the stars and stripes. I couldn’t say much for our choice of a neighborhood for a gunfight, other than at least it was some distance from the police station.

  “We should split up, in case they are looking for two men,” Kaz whispered.

  “Yeah. Meet you back at the hotel,” I said, keeping my voice clipped and low. Kaz kept walking and I sauntered toward a newsstand, looking over the papers and picking the Neue Berner Zeitung because it had a picture of American troops pouring ashore at Normandy. I dropped a one franc coin on the counter, figuring that would cover it. I was about to leave when I realized that nothing leaves an impression like an overtipper, so I waited for my change like any normal person. I pulled my brim down as the proprietor thumbed a bunch of small coins onto a little tray. I scooped them up and strolled out, finding a bench down the street that gave me a view of the embassy.

  I opened the paper, lowering it so I could see the flag and the front entrance. If an official-looking automobile showed up driven by angry Swiss cops, then they knew a Yank was involved. What that meant for me, I had no idea. I thought about ditching my pistol, but then remembered the sound of bullets buzzing my ear and gave up on that notion.

  Why had a Gestapo Kriminalinspektor tried to kill us? It wasn’t as if he were hot on the trail of anything. Hochler was tailing us as soon as we’d left Dulles’s apartment. Or at least I’d first noticed him along the river. No surprise that the people who came and went from the Dulles abode were under surveillance, by the Germans, Swiss, or even freelancers. But why start a shooting war in neutral Bern? All we’d done was visit a bank, leaving with nothing for our troubles.

  It made no sense.

  Wh
ich was why I sat there for an hour, idly flipping the pages, waiting for someone to show up. If the Swiss police were on to us, it might make some sense of all this, put some structure to it so I could understand what was happening. But no one showed. It was business as usual.

  Not so with the war news, as far as I could figure from the pictures. More men and tons of supplies were landing in Normandy. Among the men was General de Gaulle, who’d been cheered in the streets of Bayeux by throngs of liberated French, many of whom had likely cheered General Pétain when he’d taken over nearly four years ago to the day and declared de Gaulle a renegade. It looked like Hitler had finally trotted out one of the wonder weapons he’d been going on about. Rockets called Vergeltungswaffen if I was understanding the caption. The picture was a grainy shot of a pilotless rocket with stubby wings, apparently called the V-1 for short. They were falling on London and killing people.

  That was all interesting, not to mention deadly, but I had more pressing concerns. Like figuring out why the Gestapo had marked Kaz and me for death. I left the newspaper on the bench and hoofed it back to the hotel.

  Kaz was waiting for me in the lobby. We went into the bar for food and a drink.

  “Any ideas why Hochler was after us?” I asked after Kaz had given our order.

  “I can see no reason,” Kaz said, lifting his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Unless it has something to do with Lasho.”

  “How could it?”

  “I have no idea, Billy. But it is the only thing we’ve done—bringing der Zigeuner into Switzerland—that could possibly engender such a deadly response. Really, what else have we done? Looked at a corpse. Had dinner. Visited a bank.”

  “Maybe Hochler thought we’d uncovered evidence connecting Hannes to Lowenberg’s death,” I said.

  “If we had, it would be a matter for the police, not us. Anyway, all Hannes need do if he felt he were in jeopardy is to leave Switzerland. There are other Gestapo agents who could take his place.”

  Our drinks came. Two large glasses of foamy beer.

  “Here’s to one less,” I said, raising my glass.

  We had a hearty meal, digging in with the enthusiasm of men who’d dodged death and left a rodef with a ventilated skull flat on the pavement. In our room, we found the tuxedos hung in the closet, along with shiny black shoes, cuff links, and all the other folderol that goes with fancy dress.

  Deciding it would be best to stay out of any more trouble, we took a nap.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We entered Dulles’s office and found him at his desk, reading a file. He held a fountain pen, jotting down the occasional note. He ignored us. We waited.

  He finally closed the file, capped the pen, and set it down neatly on top of the file. Only then did he look up and acknowledge us.

  “What the hell on God’s green earth have you two been up to?” Dulles bellowed. “Your first full day in Bern and you assassinate a Gestapo officer on the steps of a synagogue? Are you trying to broadcast your presence here?”

  “We didn’t assassinate anyone,” I said.

  “I shot him in the head,” Kaz said, standing with one hand in his pocket, as if discussing a triviality. “To prevent him from shooting Billy in the chest. Although I must say, he was a terrible marksman. He might have missed altogether.”

  “And around the corner from the American embassy, for God’s sake,” Dulles said, invoking the deity once again, as if our actions had disgraced him in the eyes of the Lord.

  “I admit it was an unfortunate neighborhood in which to save Billy’s life,” Kaz said, in that calm, deliberative, soft voice of his, half Oxford and half Continental Europe. Maureen was sitting on the couch, her eyebrows raised.

  “How did you hear about it?” I asked, trying to distract Dulles from Kaz’s sarcasm. I hoped Dulles might say how snazzy we looked in our monkey suits, but he was too busy bawling us out to appreciate our sartorial elegance.

  “All of Bern’s heard about it, at least all of Bern that cares about who’s shooting whom. Inspector Escher was kind enough to call and give me a description of the two men involved,” Dulles said.

  “Does he suspect us?” I asked.

  “Suspect? No. He knows it was you. Who the hell else would it be? And on the steps of a synagogue, of all places.” He was so steamed he was repeating himself. “And that pious rabbi, saying he didn’t see or hear a thing. Is that how you got away?”

  “Never mind the rabbi,” I said. “He had nothing to do with this. Escher’s not going to arrest us?”

  “That’s not how things work in Bern,” Dulles said. “We prefer the civilized approach.”

  “I am sorry, Mr. Dulles,” Kaz said. “We have perhaps been too long where the uncivilized approach is what keeps one alive.”

  Dulles didn’t know what to say, which may have been the objective. It was a barbed comment, aimed at Dulles’s safe Swiss sinecure, but it also possessed a good deal of truth. The kind of truth that made men shut up and think.

  “Sit down,” Dulles muttered, pointing with his smoldering pipe at the chairs in front of his desk. “You’d do well to remember we are guests in a neutral nation. Any violence could result in our expulsion.”

  “It was Kriminalinspektor Hochler who started shooting,” Kaz said. He tossed Hochler’s identity card on Dulles’s desk as he took his seat. “Although we cannot think why.”

  “He tailed us from here when we left with Victor,” I said. “I spotted him along the river and then as we left Credit Suisse. We tried to shake him so we could turn the tables and follow him. At that point, we had no idea who he was.”

  “When did he start shooting?” Maureen asked.

  “We started up the steps to the Swiss Red Cross, on Rainmattstrasse,” Kaz said. “That’s when he first fired.”

  “My God, the Red Cross too? You didn’t leave anyone out of the line of fire, did you?” Dulles said.

  “What happened at the bank?” Maureen asked, more to the point.

  “Nothing much. Kaz knows his father opened an account there, but they wouldn’t verify it. Or let Kaz have access, even though he has the account number,” I explained.

  “Unless I produce a death certificate,” Kaz said. “Which is, for the bank, conveniently impossible.”

  “Remind me to look into that after the dust settles from your escapades today. Maybe I can help,” Dulles said. He asked Kaz to write out his father’s full name and address, then tucked it under his blotter. “You didn’t spot Hannes during this gun battle?”

  “We never saw him,” I said. “The only thing we can come up with is that they know we came across the border with Lasho, and they’re out to get him. He’s killed a lot of Nazis.”

  “But if it was Lasho they were after, surely they’d grab you for questioning, not kill you. What would that get them?” Maureen asked.

  “Unfortunately, all we have are theories and questions, no answers,” I said.

  “All right, it’s over and done with,” Dulles said, studying the identity card. “Maybe Hochler went off the deep end. Perhaps there’s no logical explanation.”

  “What, from the stress of duty in neutral Switzerland? The guy’s probably hunted Jews and Gypsies all across Europe, and tortured Resistance fighters before putting bullets in their brains. You think he went nuts from too much Swiss chocolate?” I said. “There’s something going on that we don’t understand.”

  “Be careful,” Dulles said. “I think you may be right.” Which for him, was quite a statement, since it implied he’d been wrong.

  “We’ll see you at the reception, Allen,” Maureen said, rising from the couch. She wore a long black coat of thin, delicate velvet with a fur collar. “I have a car waiting for us.”

  “You aren’t armed, are you?” Dulles asked her, giving me a hard stare.

  “Why, Allen, wherever would
I hide a gun?” Maureen said, opening her coat to reveal a slinky black dress cut very low, finished off with black lace gloves above the elbows. She didn’t have room for a single bullet, much less a pistol. “Come on, boys, let’s not be late to the party.” She gave me a wink as Dulles stared, her curves driving out any thoughts about our armament.

  “We’ll meet Victor there,” she said, ushering us out to a waiting car. A nice Opel Kapitän, which reminded me of the expensive cars shot up this morning. “He’ll point out all the important banking people so you can get to know them.”

  “Thrilling,” Kaz said as he held the door open for her. There was plenty of room in the back, and I got in on the other side, leaning in to check the driver, who looked straight ahead.

  It was Lasho.

  “What better way for him to learn the city streets?” Maureen said.

  “It is a fine automobile,” Lasho said. “I hear you killed a Gestapo man today. Very good.”

  “Don’t encourage them, Anton,” Maureen said as he drove away from the curb. “If you see Hannes tonight, leave the keys and follow him.”

  “And kill him?”

  “No, Anton. We mustn’t kill two Germans on the same day. Very untidy, and our Swiss hosts are very clean, organized people,” she said.

  “Your automobile?” I asked.

  “No, borrowed from a friend for the evening. Cars are difficult to come by these days. Everyone’s building tanks and trucks.”

  “We put a few out of commission this morning,” I said. “It probably keeps a lot of mechanics busy these days, keeping prewar cars running.”

  “If you can find a mechanic around here. Opel’s hiring bunches of them for their repair facility outside Basel,” she said.

  “Repairing cars?” Kaz asked.

  “Silly boy. No, German army trucks. They bring them down on flatbeds and do the repair work here. Saves them from being bombed, obviously. Funny thing, Opel is owned by General Motors in the good old USA. They’re making a bundle off this enterprise.”