Ruins of War

by John A. Connell

  “That pack of brass by the stairs is here for my hide,” Mason said, pointing to a group of frowning high-ranking Third Army officers and military government officials who stood at the base of the stairs.

  They watched a corporal descend the stairs and summon the officers to come up to one of the upper floors.

  Mason, Wolski, and Becker waded through the MPs and headed for the stairs. Opposite the stairs, on a wooden bench, Laura sat talking to a flirtatious corporal. She saw Mason and stood as he approached.

  Mason said to the corporal, “I bet you have something more important to do.”

  The corporal saluted and scurried off. Wolski waved hello to Laura before heading up the stairs. Mason led Becker over and introduced him to Laura. Becker tipped his homburg hat and gave her a slight bow. He then followed Wolski up the stairs, leaving Mason and Laura alone.

  “Sniffing for a scoop?” Mason said.

  “I don’t need to sniff. The news about the cathedral killing is already buzzing around town. I don’t see how anyone can keep this out of the press.”

  Mason led her to a corner away from the commotion. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  “Things went from bad to worse in the last few hours, and there’s a bunch of brass upstairs waiting to rake me over the coals.”

  “I heard about Albrecht. I’m really sorry. That must have been a blow. I came by to offer you a shoulder to cry on, but then news about the cathedral came in.”

  “Laura, I haven’t got time.”

  “I know, but these latest developments do deserve a sit-down, don’t you think? Come to the hotel tonight. I’ll have a drink waiting for you.”

  “I have no idea when I’ll be able to get out of here.”

  “I’ll wait up.” Laura started to leave, then turned. “Do I need to remind you about our deal? Be there.”

  Mason felt a warm flush as he watched her go, while a number of the MPs craned their necks at her passing. He mounted the stairs and discovered Wolski and Becker waiting for him at the top.

  “It was business,” Mason said.

  Wolski gave him a knowing smile. “Sure . . . okay.”

  The two detectives followed Mason up to the third floor. When they entered the operations room, Wolski asked, “So, what was the rush getting back here?”

  “Give me a moment to check it out, then I want to bounce an idea off you two and see if I’m not out in left field on this.” He turned to Wolski. “In the meantime, I want you to get on the horn and see if you can reach one of Emily O’Brien’s nursing friends. We’ll talk to them at length later, but right now I want to know if Emily had some kind of limp.”

  Wolski headed for the bank of phones. Mason immediately went to one particular pile of documents and leafed through them. It took a few minutes for him to find the affidavits and photographs he sought. He then laid them out on the table.

  By that time, Wolski had returned from his phone call. “Emily O’Brien was in a skiing accident about two weeks ago and sprained a ligament in her left knee. Her friend said she’d just gotten off the crutches and still had a pretty pronounced limp.”

  Mason nodded and referred to the documents laid out on the table. “These are affidavits and photographs from Ravensbrück. They mostly have to do with the experiments with bone transplants and testing sulfanilamide on intentional wounds. Close to a hundred inmates were used in those experiments, and the ones who survived were permanently disabled. Most all of the surgically caused injuries involved the victim’s leg.”

  Becker turned to Mason with a look of realization. “The survivors had pronounced limps. So you’re saying that, though Albrecht is not our killer, it’s possible another doctor at Ravensbrück could be?”

  “Or a prisoner doctor. When I talked to Marsden at the war crimes depository he mentioned that the camp experience could have driven the killer mad—”

  “But Albrecht wasn’t insane,” Wolski said.

  “Exactly. Marsden also said that the Nazi doctors were found to be sane, even ordinary. On the other hand, a large portion of the inmates displayed a whole variety of psychological problems. Maybe our killer was a prisoner doctor. I know it’s not much to go on. . . .”

  Wolski shrugged. “It’s worth looking into.”

  “We jump-start the other lines of investigation, while looking into concentration-camp prisoner doctors. We concentrate on Ravensbrück, but also look at Mauthausen and Buchenwald. That German prisoner doctor Herta Oberheuser mentioned—the Healing Angel, who assisted Albrecht—let’s step up inquiries on him.”

  “Maybe we should go back at Oberheuser,” Wolski said.

  Mason nodded. “You’re the devious one. Figure out a way to convince her to talk to us again.”

  “In the meantime, we can look again at the few files we have for U.S. Medical Corps personnel and continue to check on citizen permits and night passes.”

  “My men will resume a full search of the hospitals, doctor’s offices, and surgeons in the area, plus the liveries and stables,” Becker said. “Albrecht is probably not the only surgeon who hid his past.”

  Wolski retrieved a sheet of paper from another stack of documents and laid it on the table for Mason and Becker to peruse. “While we were still investigating Albrecht, I was running down this list of prisoner doctors and nurses we obtained from the Mauthausen and Ravensbrück camp documents. I was able to track down one lady doctor in Berlin.”

  “Then set up an interview.”

  “She’s in the Russian zone. The red tape to petition her for an interview is a mile long. The others are scattered everywhere, so it’s going to take more than a few days to arrange interviews. Some are too traumatized to talk, some are still too ill . . . but we were able to contact a Czech prisoner doctor. He was an inmate at Mauthausen. A Dr. Blazek. The problem is, he’s in poor health, and the Czech authorities are balking. Unless it’s for the war crimes trials, they’re not interested in cooperating.”

  “I’ll get Colonel Walton on it and see if he can convince JAG to come up with a story to get him up here.”

  A corporal knocked on the door. “Sir, you’re to report to conference room six on the fourth floor.”

  “The brass are done sharpening their knives,” Mason said.

  Wolski and Becker wished him luck.

  While Mason dreaded the lambasting he was sure to receive at the meeting, he still felt the flush of renewed energy. “Okay, let’s get back at it.”

  • • •

  The windowless conference room contained a long table, a handful of folding chairs, and a chalkboard. The ten high-ranking brass formed a horseshoe around one end of the table.

  No chair waited for Mason. He snapped to attention, saluted, and took his place at the opposite end of the table. He knew some of the men from Third Army and OMGB sitting around the table: General West and Major Bolton of OMGB civil affairs from the last meeting, Major Blaine, the commander of the 508th Military Police Battalion, and Laura’s “boyfriend,” General Jenkins, the commanding officer of all CID detachments in the American zone. Then, of course, Colonel Walton standing just behind the others.

  Colonel Walton growled out introductions, then got to the point. “In light of the new developments, we’re here to decide whether to pull you off this case and bring in someone with more competence and experience. Someone who can get this case solved.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “Permission to speak freely, Colonel?”

  Walton’s face reddened. “That’s why we brought you in here!”

  “Bringing in someone new is your gentlemen’s prerogative, but it would take time to get him up to speed. We’ve already spent hundreds of hours on this investigation. Someone new could slow things down, making it take l
onger to apprehend the killer.”

  “You requested more manpower, and we gave it to you,” General West said. “You wanted liberty to access military personnel files, and we gave you that, too. We’ve given you what you asked for, and in return we expected results. Do you have any results, Mr. Collins, other than pursuing the wrong suspect?”

  “Though it turned out that Dr. Albrecht was not the killer, our investigation has brought to light several promising lines of investigation.” Mason summarized their latest theories, lines of investigation, and findings in short order. “Any of those could lead to more information on the killer’s name and a more complete physical description. With that information in hand, we can orchestrate an all-out manhunt.”

  “A full-blown manhunt could chase him out of town,” Jenkins of CID said. “There are also a half million people, with every bombed-out building providing a hole to crawl into. I wonder if you’ve thought all this out well enough to lead to success.”

  “Sir, we’re hunting a meticulous killer who leaves no evidence, kills seemingly at random, and is cunning enough to avoid any eyewitnesses. That would challenge the biggest city police department or the FBI. I believe we are conducting as competent an investigation as any skilled police department. Plus, we have the advantage of military control, curfews, random identity checks, travel restrictions for all German citizens, and, in this instance, a cooperative and vigilant population. There is no doubt in my mind that we will find him.”

  Mason did have plenty of doubts, but he wanted more than anything to stay on the case, and if it meant lying like the best politician, he was going to do it. He’d worry later about why. A voice within urged him to tell them to find some other poor sap to put up with the heartburn of frustration and crushing self-doubt with each new victim. He knew some chain killers were never caught; he knew some just stopped after the body count reached twenty or thirty. That sometimes the failed hunt resulted, for the detectives, in ruined careers or black marks on their records, not to mention living with remorse and guilt the rest of their lives.

  “A convincing speech, Mr. Collins,” General West said. “The main problem is—when? I’m starting to get questions from Eisenhower’s general staff, even the muckety-mucks in Washington, for chrissake. I can keep them at bay in the short term, but meanwhile the locals are already in a frenzy, and it’s about to get worse. This whole situation is going to make governing difficult. Just when we’re trying to form civilian government entities and gain cooperation from the populace, they’re accusing us of injustice and negligence. The word on the street is we’re heartless bastards who don’t care that the German population are getting butchered. They’ll turn more to criminal elements and underground Nazi revivalist groups.”

  Major Bolton, the civil affairs director, said, “Maybe the fact that an American nurse was the latest victim will help calm things down.”

  “Major Bolton is right,” another uniformed OMGB official said. “This development could help civilian relations. But if we replace Mr. Collins now, we’ll appear to have suddenly thrown everything we’ve got into this investigation now that an American nurse is the victim. We’ll be proving their point: that we didn’t really care until it was one of our own.”

  Mason felt disgusted. These two gutless pricks only saw the dead girl as a political pawn. He felt a renewed respect for Colonel Walton when the colonel said, “This conversation is degrading to the poor woman who suffered and died. I will not stand by and see her corpse used as a public relations tool.”

  “Now, see here,” Major Bolton said, “I was simply stating a fact—”

  “That’s enough, gentlemen,” General West said. “Everyone here is stunned and saddened by Lieutenant Emily O’Brien’s death, and no one means disrespect to her memory. But perception is important. We can’t ignore that any radical change in this investigation could inflame German misconceptions. If we intend to build a democratic Germany then we need to lead by example.” He signaled for General Jenkins to continue the sentencing.

  “Mr. Collins, you are to remain as the lead investigator, but I’m giving you one week to solve this,” Jenkins said. “If you haven’t done so, or damn close to it, I’m pulling you out. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want daily reports. I want to see forward momentum. If there is anything that you need, within reason, run it through Colonel Walton. He will immediately forward it on to me. Get it done.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  He rode beside the wagon driver. The wooden wheels clattered over the cobblestones of the narrow alley. They traveled the short distance and entered a courtyard. In front of them, three stories of outer brick wall were all that remained of the shoe factory, and to the left, three single-story outbuildings. The wagon stopped in front of the last outbuilding in the row, and the driver and he climbed down. In the back of the wagon lay several crates of junk metal and the main prize, a twisted carcass of a motorcycle. While the driver unloaded the crates, he unlocked a small reinforced door and entered the building. With a loud clank of sliding bolts, the wide double doors swung open.

  The wagon driver waited by the wagon. “You’ll have to help me with this motorcycle, Herr Lang.”

  Alfred Lang was the name he used in connection with his workshop. “No need,” Lang said. He reached up, grabbed a chain, and pulled. A steel triangular lift unfolded from the wall above the double doors. Lang wrapped the chain around the motorcycle and pulled the other end. The large pulley and gears did all the heavy lifting.

  In a moment he rested the motorcycle on a metal rolling pallet. He paid the wagon driver with four packs of cigarettes. An exorbitant amount, but it kept the driver quiet about the delivery.

  The wagon pulled away and Lang proceeded to wheel in the collection of scrap metal he had collected from the ruins.

  Inside the workshop were shelves of tools and metal parts separated by function and size. Against the back wall sat a partially completed 1905 Altmann steam-driven car. He’d found the rusting body with most of the engine intact behind a burned-out house just outside of the city. Shelves along the north wall contained pendulum clocks, carved wooden cuckoo clocks, Victrola gramophones and radios, all in various states of disrepair. Also among the items sat his next automaton project: a mechanical magician who made his own head disappear, then, with a wave of his wand, his severed head would rise up from a black box. The outbuilding had been a machine shop associated with the shoe factory, and Lang had managed to repair most of the metal saws, punches, and lathes. A network of strategically placed chains hung down from the ceiling pulley system.

  As he turned to retrieve the last crate, he was startled by a barrel-chested man standing in the courtyard. The man had his hands on his hips and wore a big grin. A crime boss before the war, the man had bought his way into the Gestapo and hunted down Jews. Many of the crime bosses had fled or been thrown in the camps during Hitler’s reign, but he, along with a number of others, had played the system and now that the Nazis had gone, they had taken over the streets once again.

  Lang knew him only as Rudolph, though he was sure that was a false name. Rudolph controlled a large swath of southwestern Munich. There were rival gangs of Russian and Polish displaced persons, as well as American, British, and French deserters, but those gangs were after bigger cash hauls. Rudolph and the few other German gangs knew someday the rivals would have to pack up and leave, so he and the others stuck to the black market and protection. The man was very dangerous, and Lang despised him, but his fate for the moment was tied to Rudolph. He would have to play the supplicant a little while longer.

  “Alfred,” Rudolph said, “I believe you have something for me.” He walked forward with two ex-Wehrmacht soldiers in tow.

  “I put the finishing touches on it a few days ago,” Lang said.

  Lang and Rudolph walked into the shop while the two musclemen waited outside. They stopped in th
e middle of the workshop, where something sat under a canvas cover. Lang pulled off the cover. Underneath was a 1928 NSU 500cc motorcycle. It looked as close to showroom perfect as Lang could get, relying only on salvaged and black market supplies.

  Rudolph walked around admiring it with his toothy grin. “It’s beautiful. You’ve done an amazing job. How does she run?”

  “I would say, better than factory,” Lang said, avoiding Rudolph’s gaze. “Much of the engine I made or modified myself.”

  “You truly have talent,” Rudolph said. He eyed Lang for a moment. “Why are you so nervous, Herr Lang? Do I scare you that much?”

  Lang had done everything he knew to feign nervousness: speaking too fast, twisting the canvas cover in his hands. “I think, Herr Rudolph, that I am working too hard and not sleeping.”

  Rudolph grunted and nodded to one of his musclemen. The man stepped forward. Lang stepped back as if startled.

  “You are nervous,” Rudolph said. “Are you doing business with one of my rivals?”

  “No, sir. Of course not.”

  The muscleman handed Rudolph a paper sack, and Rudolph held it out for Lang. “The new American military pass and salvage permit. Those are very hard to come by. I had to pay the American clerk a great deal. Therefore, I can only give you two cartons of cigarettes.”

  “Still very generous, Herr Rudolph.”

  Rudolph waved for the two musclemen to roll the motorcycle away. “You also have two months’ protection, as usual. Just be sure your workshop keeps making me money.” Rudolph noticed something over Lang’s shoulder. “What is that?”

  Lang knew what Rudolph was referring to, the large rectangular object concealed under a black cloth that sat in the back corner.

  Rudolph walked toward it. “What are you hiding from me, eh?”

  Lang rushed to catch up. “Nothing, Herr Rudolph. I—”

  Rudolph yanked back the cover, and parked before him was a black 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK. Despite the weather-beaten body and torn upholstery, it was still a beautiful automobile.