Heroes

by David Hagberg

  The message on the front cover was for the Sutherland Apartments: “Where the elite gather.” There was an address well out on Fifth Street. But there was no name. He had no idea who she was.

  He looked up as they rounded the corner. He didn’t get more than a few steps before they climbed into a cab and were gone.

  Schey stopped and watched the cab disappear up toward Constitution Avenue. He had made his rendezvous. He knew where his contact presumably lived. But that was it. He turned away in frustration. He’d go there, of course. Maybe she was more professional than he gave her credit for being. Maybe there’d be a setup there for him. Maybe she’d be watching for him. Maybe a dozen possibilities.

  There were only a half-dozen people waiting for the bus, and forty-five minutes later he was climbing the back stairs to his under-the-eaves room in a three-story house just off E Street, near Christ Church. The house was slightly down at the heels, but it suited Schey’s needs just perfectly. The landlord had told him, when he showed up in reply to the ad, that they were God-fearing Christians who minded their own business and expected the same of the folks who lived under their roof.

  Schey cleaned up, put on another coat, the one he had worn up from Oak Ridge, and left by eight o’clock. It took him just ten minutes to walk to the parking garage he’d rented for his car, and he headed back up Eighth Street toward Galludet College. He took Florida Avenue around the B&O Interchange, finally cutting back to Fifth on the other side of St. Vincent’s Home and School.

  The Sutherland Apartments turned out to be half a dozen three-story brown-brick structures in two rows back off the street.

  There were a lot of trees and a cobblestoned driveway on two sides that led to a long, narrow parking area in the rear. The apartment complex looked like a military barracks. It made Schey nervous.

  He drove around back and parked behind the center pair of buildings, and shut the engine off. It was a ‘33 Hudson—huge, heavy, and very comfortable, but not very good on gasoline.

  He hunched up his coat collar and lit a cigarette. If there was someone here watching for him, they’d have seen him come in.

  Smoking a cigarette would make no difference.

  She had dropped the matches so that he would know where to come. She’d be expecting him this evening. And she’d also understand that he would have no idea which apartment was hers.

  If indeed she even lived here.

  He looked up at the windows. Only a few of them were lit.

  The blackouts were no longer enforced in Washington. It made him think immediately of Berlin. The newspapers and radio commentaries were filled with stories about the bombing of Berlin and Dresden and Koln—Cologne, they called that city. It was horrible, the news. But here, except for Pearl Harbor, there had been no suffering.

  Ten minutes later he had finished his cigarette. He cranked down his window, tossed it out, and cranked the window back up before he got out of the car.

  No one had come in, or out, of the apartments. At least, not the back way. And as far as he could tell, there was no one obviously watching him from any of the windows. If she was any good at all, though, he’d never be able to detect her in the darkness.

  Back here in the parking lot, there was very little light. The street lamp just out front was burned out, and the one up the street was too far away to provide much in the way of illumination this far back.

  There were two buildings to the left, two straight ahead, and a pair to the right. She had called her escort Bernard. Perhaps that had been his clue.

  Schey went up the snow-covered walk and entered the nearest building. He had to go down the corridor to the front of the building before he found the mail slots. There were a dozen nameplates. Johnson, Appleton, Jankowski … no Bernards, first or last name. He slipped out the front door, hurried up the walk, and entered the second building straight ahead from his car.

  He found what he was looking for almost immediately, although at first he simply could not believe his own eyes. It was a monstrous out-of-kilter joke. So terrible, so almighty obvious, that no one would ever suspect. It was like playing the childhood game of hide-the-thimble.

  The nameplate for apartment 3D was in the name of Eva Braun. The Fiihrer’s girlfriend. The one German name recognizable anywhere in the world.

  He went to the stairs and listened. The building was very quiet, but from a long way off, possibly on the second floor, he thought he could hear faint talking. Or perhaps a radio. But the harder he listened, the less certain he became of-what he was hearing, or if he was hearing anything at all.

  Schey took the first flight of stairs two at a time, silently gliding up to the second floor, where in the dimly lit corridor he looked left, then right. The voices had faded so that he could not hear them at all.

  A toilet flushed somewhere as he started up, and then a second later a door closed. He froze, holding his breath to listen. But there was nothing. The building was quiet.

  He started up again, when a man appeared on the stairs above him. Their eyes met, and for an instant Schey read puzzlement there. It was his contact’s escort, the man she had called Bernard.

  Schey immediately lowered his head and continued up as if he belonged here, passing the man two-thirds of the way up, then rounding the corner into the corridor at the top.

  He stopped and listened. There were no sounds on the stairs for a moment or two, but then he heard the man say something to himself and head down.

  Did he recognize me, Schey wondered. He tensed, waiting for the sounds of the man turning around and coming up again. But the sounds gradually faded, and Schey thought he heard the front door open and close, and then there was silence.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, then turned and went to the end of the corridor where, at apartment D, he put his ear to the door.

  He could hear music very faintly. But nothing else. He knocked.

  The music stopped.

  “Yes?” a woman called from within. “Bernard. Is that you?”

  “I’m looking for the correct time. In England.” Schey said, keeping his voice low.

  “Greenwich time?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. Zulu time.”

  The lock snapped and the door opened. The woman from the Reflecting Pool, the one who on the nameplate downstairs called herself Eva Braun, stood there looking up at him. Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flared, and her lips pursed. His first thought was how good-looking she was, and then she was pulling him into her apartment.

  She closed and locked the door, then spun around. “Did you see Bernard?” she asked urgently.

  She was wearing a black dress with a Navy collar and a pleated bodice. “We passed on the stairway.”

  “Goddamn … oh goddamn,” she swore. She was evidently trying to think it out. “I saw you pulling up and waiting down there. I was in the bedroom for a minute. Bernard was out here.

  But he’ll be back. Damn!”

  “Who is he?”

  “Bernard Montisier. He works in the War Department, over on C Street. He’s a jerk, but he’s been good cover. He’s jealous as all hell.”

  “Give me my papers and ration books and money and I’ll be gone, Fraiilein …”

  “Eva Braun. It’s on my birth certificate,” she said with a laugh. “But you’re not going anywhere. Bernard will either be back up here or he’ll wait outside until you come out. And then he’ll beat hell out of you.”

  Her speech was colloquial. She looked American, or perhaps Swedish, with her light hair, lovely large pale eyes, round face, sensuous lips, and full figure. He found himself comparing her to Catherine. Plain Katy whom he had loved against all the rules and odds.

  “And if I don’t leave? Won’t he eventually become suspicious and come up here?”

  “Yes, he will. And I’ll let him in. And he can look around … a little. And we’ll argue, but he won’t find you. With any luck,” she added. She was listening at the door. “Did he recognize you?”

 
; “He might have.”

  “You’re all he talked about all evening. He thought we were having a secret rendezvous. He thought we were lovers.”

  “Any chance he’s an FBI man?”

  She looked sharply at him. “You’re on the run, aren’t you?”

  Schey nodded.

  She shook her head after a moment. “Bernard’s too stupid.

  Even Hoover doesn’t pick them that dumb.”

  Schey let his gaze wander around the apartment. It was a good size and reasonably well furnished. Whoever this woman was, she was definitely well connected. These apartments, contrary to the matchbook advertisement, may not have been where the elite gathered, but the poor didn’t congregate here either.

  She stiffened. “Here he comes,” she whispered. “In the bedroom. Crawl back into the closet. I’ll stall him to give you time.”

  “Any chance he suspects you?” Schey asked. “He might put it together if he does.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  Someone pounded on the door. “Eva, it’s me!”

  Schey slipped into her bedroom, which was just off a short corridor that led back to a bathroom. He closed the door most of the way, then went around the bed to the closet.

  “I saw him coming up here,” Montisier bellowed.

  “You saw who?” Eva asked tiredly. She was a good actress.

  “Don’t lie to me, damn you!”

  “I’m not …”

  “Bitch,” the man shouted, and Schey could hear the sharp sound of a slap. Eva cried out and a table or something fell over.

  Schey turned away from the closet and went back to the door.

  He peered through the crack. The husky man stood over Eva, who had fallen over the coffee table and lay sprawled in a heap on the floor. She was sobbing. There was blood trickling from her mouth and nose.

  “Bitch,” the man hissed again. He turned. His overcoat was open, his fat belly gross. “You’ve got him in your bed, I’ll bet.”

  Schey stepped back away from the door, his muscles bunching up into knots. He kept seeing Catherine lying in the middle of the floor. Dead. Blood over the front of her nightgown.

  Montisier was charging the bedroom door as Eva was struggling to her knees.

  “Bernard … no,” she cried.

  The door slammed open, and the husky man stumbled in.

  Schey hit him very hard in the solar plexus; then, as he went down, Schey brought the side of his right hand back in a vicious chop to the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe, cutting off his air and any sound he might make.

  He hit the floor in a limp, crumpled heap, but immediately he began thrashing around, clawing at his throat, trying for oxygen he would never get.

  Eva was at the door, the entire side of her face filled with blood. “Oh Jesus,” she said.

  The man bumped his knee against the door frame; his entire body stiffened, and with a slight gurgling sound in the back of his throat, he lay back, his eyes open and his struggles ceased.

  He was dead.

  “Oh Jesus,” Eva said again. “Oh Jesus H. Christ.”

  Someone pounded at the door. “Hey, you! Eva Braun, you bitch, what’s going on in there?”

  Eva shoved Schey back into her bedroom, shut the door on him, and rushed across the living room.

  Schey opened the door a crack and looked out as Eva yanked open her front door.

  “What the hell is going on up here?” a fat woman in a print dress shouted. “You’re disturbing the entire building. I warned you time and again about this. Damn. I warned you I’d kick you out of here.”

  “You’re jealous because you don’t have a man of your own, you fat slob!” Eva screeched.

  The fat woman stepped back a pace, her mouth opening in a perfect circle.

  “Get out of here before I have Bernard kick your fat ass up around your shoulders,” Eva shouted. “He’s in the mood, let me tell you.”

  “Oh …“the fat woman said in a suddenly small voice, and she turned and hurried off. Eva slammed the door, locked it, then turned around and leaned against it.

  Schey came out into the living room. “I’m sorry,” he said. He had ruined everything for her.

  “Don’t look so tragic, sport.”

  Deland knew damned well what the brief message was without having to decode it, and it made him angry to think that he was being dismissed just like that. They wanted him out. The message was only three words: GET OUT NOW or GET OUT IMMEDIATELY, or something to that effect. But he wasn’t ready, damn it. Not yet.

  For a long time he sat, his back to the tree, listening to the hiss and static in his earphones. Waiting for his control officer to continue. But there was nothing.

  Schlechter had been feeding him a lot of information lately.

  Good things on fuel systems. Von Braun himself had moved in with Schlechter’s section. They were light years ahead of anything Dulles had guessed.

  Just two nights ago, Rudy and his girl, Maria, had invited Deland and Katrina Mueller to their apartment for dinner. Rudy had quite a bit to drink, and as the evening progressed, he had begun bragging.

  It wasn’t like Schlechter, or at least like nothing Deland had ever seen. But as the night progressed, Deland began to get the feeling that he was seeing the real Rudy. The man was exceedingly lonely, it seemed. His jokes, and finally his bragging, were his means of attracting and holding friends. Deland felt sorry for the man, but he did not stop him. Schlechter had provided him with a wealth of information.

  Besides, he had not wanted to break the spell of the evening.

  Had he, it would have meant Katrina would have gone home.

  Deland shivered. He raised the microphone to his lips and spoke a single word: “No.” Then he flipped the set off, got stiffly to his feet, and pulled the wire antenna out of the trees. He repacked the radio so that it once again looked like a scientific calculator.

  It was very cold. Two days ago the weather had cleared, and the temperatures had plunged. Last night it had reached to below zero. It hadn’t gotten much warmer today.

  Deland hooked the radio’s leather strap around the handlebars of his bicycle, pulled on his mittens, and walked his bike out of the protection of the narrow stand of trees above the road that led north from Wolgast along the river.

  About nine miles out, at the headland, was the Germans’ new radar station. He had been told specifically to stay well clear of the place. Bern was saving it for something. Either they had another man in here or they were planning on bombing it soon.

  In any event, it wasn’t Deland’s problem.

  It was just a dirt road, but a lot of the fishermen lived out this way. They would take their boats out the channel and into the Baltic. Coming in, they’d go all the way up to Wolgast where they’d sell their catch, then turn around and let the current take them home.

  Church bells were ringing in the distance back toward town.

  The morning was pretty, in a way, despite the intense cold.

  Sounds were crisp and carried a long way. The bells reminded him of when he was very young.

  He got on his bicycle and began slowly pedaling back toward town. His cover was Katrina Mueller’s parents. They lived on this road. Her father was a fisherman. If he was stopped, his story was that he had started to go out to Katrina’s parents’ home, to talk to her father, but the cold made him turn back.

  The cover was a weak one, but he found he didn’t care at the moment. They’d probably ask him what business he had with the girl’s father. His only answer would be that he wanted to ask the man for Katrina’s hand in marriage.

  That was impossible, of course, in all but his daydreams. But it was pleasant to think about. She was German, but she wasn’t a part of the war, not really. His earlier concerns that she was working for Schlechter and Maria Quelle were unfounded.

  He made it back to his rooming house where he put his calculator away and quickly translated
the message from Bern. It, was exactly as he had supposed it would be. They wanted him out of here, now.

  As he lit a cigarette, he looked at his reflection in the mirror above the dresser, and it dawned on him that he could not simply ignore such an order. They wanted him out. For his own safety.

  Perhaps they had another assignment for him. Something different.

  His escape route was from Berlin, where he would pick up new papers, to Dresden, and finally down to Munich, where he would make his way across the border into Switzerland, going the last few miles through the mountains on foot.

  It would be very dangerous. The original plan was for him to remain in Germany until the end of the war—to go into hiding at the last part and stay low until the shooting had stopped.

  But his route out through Switzerland was set up for him as a last-ditch stand—as an escape hatch, should things get really difficult for him.

  He would have to do it now. He simply could not refuse. If he remained, he would be dead. Either way it was over between him and Katrina. Christ!

  He went to the window and looked outside. They wanted him out. The message kept running through his mind, and he had to force himself to think it out. There was the night train to Berlin.

  He’d be in the capital city with new identification by midnight, before anyone here would miss him.

  The evening train. It gave him the remainder of the day.

  There were quite a few people downtown despite the cold weather, and a small crowd had gathered at the station for the noon train. No one really noticed Deland as he went up to the ticket clerk, handed over his identification book and his travel pass (of which he had several), and bought a roundtrip ticket to Berlin on the train which left at 8:30 this evening, returning late tomorrow.

  “A little business in the city, Herr Dorfman?” the clerk asked pleasantly. He was an old man.

  “Nothing official, I’m afraid,” Deland said. He paid for his ticket, and the clerk handed it through the slot along with Deland’s papers.

  “Bring your own supper with you, young man. There’ll be little to eat on the train.” The old man shook his head.