The Devouring

by James R Benn

  Hannes was eager to rip open the envelope. Too eager. He moved it to his right hand, gripping it along with the Walther while he tore at it with his left. As he held the envelope steady, his finger moved off the trigger a bit, and the barrel of the Walther moved away from Kaz’s neck by a good couple of inches.

  I kicked him in the knee, hard. He howled in pain as I grabbed his gun hand and forced it up. Kaz gave him an elbow in the gut and twisted out from his embrace. Victor rushed forward with his revolver trained on Hannes, who clutched his leg with his free hand, the envelope crumpled in his fingers.

  I got both hands on his wrist, keeping the Walther pointed toward the ceiling. Hannes was collapsing, his teeth gritted against the pain in his leg, but he held on to his weapon.

  Then it went off.

  The shot was loud, a sharp cracking echo inside the stone tower. I heard the zing of the ricochet, and everyone flinched for a second, which was all the time I needed to wrench the automatic from his grasp and give him a sharp rap on the forehead with the butt.

  He sunk to the ground, his eyelids flickering. Victor said something, but my ears were ringing from the blast of the gunshot in close quarters.

  “What?” I said, patting down Hannes. I took his wallet and identification, keys, and a folding knife.

  “Where’s the real package? The cigarette case?” Victor said, louder than he needed too.

  “Krauch has it,” I said, loosening Hannes’s tie and using it to bind his wrists. Based on his moaning and groaning, he wasn’t much of a threat at the moment. “He had the hotel under surveillance. They grabbed me on my way back here.”

  “They let you go?” Kaz asked, taking the knife from my hand. I almost felt bad for Hannes.

  “Yeah, Krauch made a point of letting me know how harmless I was now that he had the document. That, and the fact that he didn’t want too many dead bodies in his wake.”

  “Those are our instructions,” Hannes said, gasping as he drew in breath. “No unnecessary killing. It makes things difficult for our friends in the government.”

  “Why are you still yapping?” I said, holding back on giving him another swat on the noggin. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “Trade him to Krauch,” Victor said. “For the papers.”

  “I am not worth it,” Hannes said, struggling to sit up. “I mean the papers are worth much, much more.”

  “Krauch offered ten percent of your loot if we turned you over,” I said. Victor whistled.

  “Why not take half and let me go?” Hannes said, much more calmly. The quest for survival seemed to dampen his pain.

  “Why not kill him now and forget about the money?” Kaz said, snapping open the blade. He flashed a smile, his long scar transforming it into an off-kilter maniacal grimace. He might have been kidding or goading Hannes. Or not.

  “No, no, wait, I can help you,” Hannes said, raising his bound hands in supplication.

  “We don’t want your blood money,” Victor said, leveling his revolver.

  “No, I mean I can help you get the document back,” he said, his eyes wide and beseeching.

  “How?” I said, suddenly interested.

  “First, we go somewhere safe,” Hannes said. “Someone may have heard the shot. Then, I tell you.”

  “We can’t go to the hotel, at least not with you in tow. You must have a place somewhere,” I said, hefting the keys in my hand. “How close?”

  “A small pensione on the Rathausgasse, not far. I don’t know if I can walk, though.”

  I went to get the car. I kept to the shadows, avoiding the Golden Eagle and the prying eyes inside. I looked around again for Lasho, but no dice. Maybe he’d given up and gone back to his digs at Dulles’s joint. I couldn’t waste time looking for him; I had other things to worry about. Like Hannes pulling a fast one. Or, even more dangerous, Hannes on the level, which meant another encounter with Krauch and company.

  The car was gone. I double-checked the street, thinking I’d gotten the spot wrong. I hadn’t. The keys had been in the ignition when we’d jumped out to go after Hannes, but I hadn’t expected grand theft auto in squeaky-clean Bern. Lasho must’ve taken it. By now he was safe in bed or out driving the streets, looking for us. Either way, he was in better shape than we were.

  There were no taxicabs this time of night, so I hotfooted it back to the church, wondering how we were going to transport Hannes. Now I wished I hadn’t kicked him so hard.

  As I took a side street leading to the plaza, I heard an engine idling. When I turned the corner and saw the church, there was the Peugeot, with Lasho leaning against the fender.

  “Lasho, where have you been?” I said, glancing into the car. Hannes was in the backseat, sandwiched between Kaz and Victor.

  “Mostly searching for you,” he said. “I found you, but unfortunately at the same time the Germans did.”

  “So why didn’t you pick me up?” I asked.

  “Because I thought you would like this back,” he said, tossing me the silver cigarette case, still wrapped in brown paper.

  “My god, Lasho, how’d you do it?”

  “I will explain later. Now, where shall we dump the body?”

  “He’s not dead, Lasho,” I said, opening the passenger door. Although from the look of fear on Hannes’s face, he thought the end was near.

  “No, not yet,” Lasho said, with a sly smile and a glance in the rearview mirror.

  “We have an arrangement,” Hannes croaked.

  “Had,” I said, fingering the case. “Now we have a problem.” Such as what to do with a useless, crippled Gestapo killer on a dark and rainy night. The river called to me, but I wanted to recover the money Hannes had stolen. We drove to the pensione and hustled Hannes to the door, unlocking it with one of the keys on his chain. Lasho untied his hands and clapped an iron grip on one arm. We entered a small parlor, with narrow stairs leading up at the far end. The five of us made a lot of noise, heavy shoes clomping up the stairway. A door down the hall creaked open and a woman in a bathrobe shrieked in surprise, jabbering on in German at this invasion of men. Kaz went up to her, speaking soothingly as he pressed a wad of Swiss francs into her hand. She quieted down immediately.

  “I told her our friend had too much to drink and we missed our train, so we need to stay the night,” Kaz said. “She is bringing food.”

  That was the best news of the evening, even counting the return of the cigarette case. We got settled in Hannes’s room, which had two twin beds and a couple of chairs around a small table. Lasho put Hannes under the covers, tied his hands again, and told him to play drunk. Before too long our hostess appeared with bottles of beer, sliced meats, and crusty bread.

  “Georg?” she said, looking at Hannes as she set her tray down. He groaned, acting his part, as Kaz ushered her out, murmuring assurances.

  “So what happened, Lasho?” I asked after the door shut behind her. I opened one of the bottles and took a long drink of the cold brew.

  “I saw you walk out of the hotel,” he said. “Two men followed, so I slowed down and watched. Then the big car pulled over and they took you. I waited. When they let you go, I knew they had taken the documents. There were too many of them, even for both of us.” Very gracious of him to mention that.

  “Then?” Kaz prompted.

  “I followed the Mercedes. It dropped Krauch off in front of the German embassy. I pulled over as he knocked on the door. I saw an upstairs light go on. I knew I had a minute or less, and there was no one else around. He hadn’t seen me, so I ran up with my Luger drawn and demanded his valuables, as if it were a robbery. He handed over his wallet, promising to hunt me down and kill me. Which is not the smartest thing to say to a man robbing you at gunpoint. So I hit him, searched his pockets, and found the package with Billy’s name. I kept the wallet, so the Germans would think it the work of a thief.�
�

  “You got away okay?” Victor asked.

  “Yes, I ran as the door opened. Krauch was holding his head and crying. I laughed as I drove away. I thought it better not to kill him and make trouble. Was that right?”

  “No,” Hannes said. Probably better to have let him live, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Kaz asked, chewing on a mouthful of bread and salami.

  “Okay,” I said. “Victor, you don’t know what’s in here, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Victor said, in a low voice that meant he knew a lot more. “I mailed it for Henri. That’s my writing.” Hannes gave out a snort of laughter that silenced Victor, for some reason. I folded open the wrapping paper, withdrew the silver case, and opened it.

  Two sheets filled with German. A swastika letterhead. Max Huber’s name, and his company, Alusuisse, the aluminum concern. Numbers. That’s all I could figure out. I gave it to Kaz.

  “It is an invoice from the SS. The Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt division, to be exact. Translates as the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. SS-WVHA for short,” Kaz said, running his finger down the page.

  “Watch out for them, boys,” Hannes said, acting like one of the gang. “They’re the money men, the most dangerous of the lot.”

  “Apparently Alusuisse purchased materials for their plant in Singen, Germany, from the SS,” Kaz went on, flipping to the second page and then back to the first. “It’s signed by Max Huber, chairman.”

  “What did they buy?” I asked. Kaz went back over the invoice, his forehead wrinkling as he translated.

  “Ukrainians,” Kaz said, his voice hushed in disbelief. “Two hundred Ukrainians. Slave laborers for their aluminum factory.”

  “The head of the International Red Cross purchased two hundred slaves?” I stammered. “From the Nazis?”

  “And at a bargain price,” Kaz said. “Not that I know the current market rate for a human being.”

  “You can bet the real money was all under the table,” Hannes said, his eyes wide with excitement. “I knew this was big, but I had no idea. Huber will pay anything to keep this quiet.” I could see him counting his take, even with his hands tied.

  “Now I see what Henri meant,” I said. “He was going to show what hypocrites the Swiss government and bankers are, ruining his uncle for speaking the truth about mass murder, while trading with the SS for slave labor.”

  “Listen to me,” Hannes said, hunching himself upright in bed. “I have already made contact with Huber’s people. They will pay well, enough for all of us. Let me go to them, before it is too late.” He held out his bound wrists, as if it were a foregone conclusion that we’d make a deal with him.

  “Where’s your loot?” I asked. “The money you extorted from Lowenberg and the others before him.”

  “Not here. Do you think I would be so foolish? If we work together, we can wait out the end of the war as wealthy men.”

  “As long as you do not count your soul among your riches,” Kaz said, starting to go through the drawers in the single rickety bureau. We all joined in, ransacking the place quietly, and quickly, since there wasn’t much in the shabby room. I doubted he’d keep it in a suitcase under the bed.

  “I will leave now,” Lasho announced after we’d finished. “I will be safe with Mr. Dulles. I will return with the car in the morning. Do you want me to take him?” Hannes looked frightened at the prospect.

  “No,” I said. “We don’t want him spotted, and we may need him. Be careful.” I thought about giving the packet to Lasho to give to Dulles, but decided against it. Who knew if the Swiss cops, SVV, Gestapo, or Huber’s own men were out hunting for the documents? It was blackmail material for any number of sides in this supposed bastion of neutrality. Besides, I wasn’t at all sure what Dulles would do with the information. Henri had had his reasons for not going to him in the first place. And there was something Victor wasn’t being entirely straightforward about.

  “Okay, Victor,” I said, settling into one of the chairs after Lasho had gone, “how could you have mailed that package? According to Maureen, she was with you all night.”

  “Ha! Not likely,” Hannes said, barking out a nasty laugh.

  “Be quiet,” Kaz ordered him. “Remember, your money holds little value for me. I would much prefer to rid the world of you right now.”

  “You must be rich, eh?” Hannes replied, eyeing Kaz. “It takes a rich man to say money doesn’t matter. And as for this one, I knew right away. Fifteen years on the vice squad in Berlin, and you can tell.”

  Pieces started falling into place, but I let Victor explain.

  “I was not with Maureen that night. I was with Henri,” Victor said, holding his head high and ignoring Hannes. “Maureen is a dear friend. She has covered for us on many occasions.”

  “You’re homosexual,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.

  “Yes. Henri and I had been . . . involved . . . for some time. Very few people knew. But Hannes found out early on. We’d both been paying blackmail to him for the past year,” Victor said, his voice rising in anger as he stared at his blackmailer.

  “Really, let me shoot him now,” Kaz said, leveling his gaze at Hannes. I held up my hand.

  “Listen, Victor, I don’t have anything against you personally, but isn’t that the chance you take? Everyone knows homosexuals are prone to blackmail. That’s why the army or the government won’t take them.” Victor didn’t answer. He sighed, shaking his head.

  “Oh, Billy, don’t be so boringly bourgeois,” Kaz said. “It’s not as if it isn’t all around you, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, I’d say a good part of General Eisenhower’s WAC staff for a start. You don’t see him getting rid of them, do you?”

  “What?” That was news to me. “Sorry, but I didn’t work vice long enough to become an expert, like Hannes. I don’t know any homosexuals.”

  “Of course you do,” Victor said.

  “Present company excluded,” I said, not wanting to give offense. Victor had been a stand-up guy so far, and I didn’t want to make it any harder on him for being the way he was. He couldn’t help it. Could he? I didn’t know much about guys who were queer for other guys, and didn’t really want to. I knew a lot of cops back in Boston who hated them and seemed to go out of their way to arrest them whenever they could. Me, I didn’t even like thinking about it, and I had to wonder about those cops who did.

  “No, what I mean is that you do know plenty of homosexuals, men and women. But they must keep it a secret. It’s a dangerous world,” Victor said.

  “That’s my point,” I said. “You’re creating a danger to the OSS and Operation Safehaven. It’s bad enough Hannes blackmailed you, but at least that was only for money. What if Krauch knew? He’d want you to betray your country.”

  “Billy, if a man is going to betray his country, it’s not because of who he loves. You’re either a traitor or you’re not. Look at Hannes. He believes in nothing, and would betray his own brother for enough cold cash,” Victor said. “It has nothing to do with who he has sex with.”

  “And look at Dulles,” Kaz said. “The man openly betrays his own wife, making a show of it. Why does no one think him vulnerable to blackmail?”

  “When did you get so . . . ?” I was at a loss for what I thought Kaz was.

  “Tolerant?” Kaz said, jumping in. “Who are you to judge Victor or Henri? What has either of them done but work for what is right? I wish I had done so years ago, when I watched my friend Lucek get beaten at school because the older boys thought him not masculine enough,” Kaz said. “I believed I was too weak and sickly to stand up for him. But I was scared, I must now admit, to my great shame.”

  “What happened to Lucek?” Victor asked.

  “He died,” Kaz said. “Af
ter we both went to university. He was not one to keep who he was hidden; he had a great joy inside him, but also a great sadness at how the world treated him. The constant taunting, the abuse, and the fear of betrayal, it all became too much of a burden. Perhaps also the loneliness, with no one to speak up and defend him, not even his childhood friend. He took pills. He was so very smart; he would have been a brilliant scientist, if only he’d been left alone to live his life.”

  “I am sorry,” Victor said.

  “You never told me about Lucek,” I said.

  “Billy, you are a very good man, but like many Americans, quite provincial at times. I didn’t want to explain Lucek, to justify his existence. He was a real person, a good friend, and so much more than an epithet to be casually tossed out.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Then to Victor, realizing that he’d lost someone important. “I’m sorry, Victor. About Henri. He was a brave man to do what he did.”

  “He fought for what he believed in,” Victor said, a tired smile of memory playing on his lips. “Nothing so unusual these days. Some of us fight with different weapons, that’s all.”

  “How much did Hannes take from you?” I asked, in a bit of a hurry to steer the conversation away from Kaz’s pain and my own quick judgments.

  “In dollars, it came to about ten thousand, total, from both of us,” Victor answered. “He’d followed us to the cabin—Dr. Moret’s place—and taken photos. Very incriminating photographs. He threatened to mail them to Henri’s bank and to Dulles. We both would have been ruined.”

  “Arrested, as well as ruined,” I said.

  “Not in Switzerland, anyway,” Victor said. “A few years ago they abolished the laws against homosexual acts. Quite forward thinking for such a conservative country. But the scandal would have cost Henri dearly, and would put me at risk back in the States, as well as cost me my job. Dulles is the old-fashioned sort, at least when it comes to the behavior of others.”

  “You may not think well of me,” Hannes piped up, “but this does prove one thing. I did not kill Henri Moret. He was too valuable to me alive. It must have been Krauch, I tell you! He has a vicious temper.”