Heroes

by David Hagberg

  Dannsiger nodded.

  Deland looked at the map again, then straightened up. “How about gasoline?”

  “The tank is full. There is another twenty liters in a can in the back. It is more than enough to get you into the city and then back out again to your rendezvous …” He held up his hand before Deland could speak. “No, I do not wish to know about your escape plans either.”

  Deland looked at his watch. It was after midnight. “Is this place safe?”

  “For now, yes. But not for overnight. It will be checked,” Dannsiger said.

  “Why didn’t you do it?” Deland blurted.

  The others turned away suddenly and shoved the barn door the rest of the way open. There were two motorcycles in the shadows.

  They pushed them outside. They evidently planned to ride two to a machine.

  Dannsiger looked at him for a long time. “Good luck,” he said, and he started to turn away. But Deland went after him.

  “Goddamnit, I asked you a question. What’s the matter? Why didn’t you just go in and kill him when you had the chance? It would have been so much easier than dragging me all the way back here. What’s the matter … is he some kind of a superman?”

  Dannsiger turned on him. One of the others had his gun out.

  “Dieter Schey is a hero! A German, just like me!”

  “A Nazi.”

  “A decorated man! He has the Iron Cross! He has given his soul for Germany! Can’t you see that, you bastard? You heartless bastard!”

  Dannsiger turned again and hurried out of the barn. This time Deland did not try to stop him. He felt like such an insensitive fool. Although it was the answer he had expected, it was the one he had feared most.

  Fifteen minutes later he heard the sounds of the two motorcycles starting up, but it came from a long way off. Possibly on the other side of the village.

  He looked at the map again, then folded it up, switched off the battery-operated lamp, and tossed them in the car. At the barn door he looked outside, but there was nothing to see. He was on his own now, in more ways than one.

  Deland entered Berlin proper on the Hamburg Highway past Spandau, barely slowing down for the first two sandbagged checkpoints, but then he came to the barrier across the road, and he pulled up.

  There were a lot of soldiers here, most of them Wehrmacht, but the commanding officer and at least two others were dressed in the black SS uniform with twin lightning bolts at the collar. It was the first Deland had heard of an Army unit mixed with SS.

  Two Wehrmacht soldiers approached, and when they realized it was an SS colonel behind the wheel, they came to attention. An SS captain came from around the barricade, a Schmeisser machine pistol at his chest.

  He came to attention and saluted. “Your papers, bitte, mein Herr,” he said respectfully, but firmly.

  Deland eyed the man, then slowly opened his door, got out, and deliberately took off his gloves. He glanced up toward the barricade, then back at the SS officer and the two Wehrmacht soldiers.

  “Wie heissen She, Hauptmann?” Deland snapped.

  The captain sucked in his gut. “Wolner, Hen Standartenfuhrer.

  Hans Wolner.”

  “Ja, well, Wolner, look back up there to the north and tell me, what do you see?”

  The captain looked nervously over his shoulder. “Why, forest, sir. Trees.”

  “And what is in the forest, Hauptmann Wolner?”

  “I … I do not know, sir.”

  “No, I suspected as much. An entire Soviet division could be hiding there, you idiot!” Deland screamed. “See that the forest is swept and posted! Or I will see that you are shot as an incompetent who is unfit to wear the uniform!”

  “Sir!”

  Deland allowed himself to calm down; then he took out his Fuhrer letter and handed it to the captain. “I assume you can read?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Standartenfuhrer …” the captain started to say. But he had begun to read the letter, and he suddenly realized what it was. He paled. He looked up. His lower lip quavered, and his hand shook as he handed the letter back. He was speechless.

  “Gott in Himmel,” Deland said, half to himself. “And this is the defense of the Fatherland?” He shook his head, pocketed the letter, and before he got back in the car, he glanced at one of the Wehrmacht soldiers. “Your button is undone,” he said resignedly.

  The soldier nearly fainted.

  By the time he had the engine started, the center row of the thick steel spikes had been rolled back, and he drove through. Sweat was pouring down his side beneath his tunic, and his legs were so weak that his foot shook on the clutch when he changed gears.

  Deland knew Charlottenburg fairly well, so it was easy for him to find the proper street. He drove past the building, then around the corner and continued another block, before he parked his car.

  He walked back the way he had come. Nothing moved in the city. The fires he had seen outside of Nauen were still burning.

  They made the entire horizon to the east and northeast red and pink. The bombing raid had definitely hit Tiergarten, and probably Wedding. Perhaps Mitte as well.

  At number 37 he carefully opened the gate so as not to make any noise and went down the stairs to the basement apartment.

  He unsnapped the flap of his holster, withdrew the Luger, and made sure a round was in the firing chamber and the safety was off. He held the weapon out of sight at his side as he reached out with his left hand and knocked at the door.

  “Colonel Schey,” he called. “Are you there?”

  Deland thought he heard someone moving around inside. But then there was silence.

  “Colonel Schey,” Deland called again. He knocked. “I am Colonel Hessman. I have come to talk to you. On der Fuhrer’s behalf. He has sent me. I have a letter.” There was continued silence.

  Deland reached out and tried the knob. The door was not locked. He shoved it open, but then stepped aside.

  He could smell coffee.

  “Colonel Schey?” he called. There was no answer, and Deland rolled left into the apartment, stepping quickly back to the right and crouching low, the Luger out in front of him. “Schey?” he called softly.

  “I am not a deserter,” Schey said. He was in the back. Deland crouched a little lower.

  “No one says you are a deserter.” The apartment was mostly in darkness. Only a small amount of light coming from outside provided any illumination.

  “I was wounded. By Russians. Here, in the city.”

  Russians? Christ, was he already too late? “What Russians?

  Where?”

  “In the laboratory at the Kaiserhof,‘“Schey said softly. “The scientists were giving everything to the Russians. I managed to shoot two of them.” Schey appeared at the bedroom door.

  Deland almost brought the Luger up and shot him then and there, but something stayed his hand. The Russians. Schey had shot the Russians. Christ, had Donovan been that far off? “Is that how you were wounded?”

  Schey nodded. “There was shooting.” He looked beyond Deland to the doorway, as if he were expecting someone. The girlfriend Dannsiger had mentioned?

  “Was it the American atomic bomb secrets?”

  Schey nodded again. His shoulder was bandaged. But a lot of blood had leaked out. “Yes,” he said. “I slowed them down.”

  He was dressed in his uniform, his tunic unbuttoned. He held his Luger in one hand and his Iron Cross in the other.

  “The secrets you brought back from America?”

  “Yes. What a joke.”

  Deland’s insides were tied up in knots. He brought the Luger up. “Drop your weapon, Colonel Schey,” he said in English.

  “You stupid bastard, I’m telling you …” Schey began, but then he rocked back on his heels, thunderstruck. “English,” he said. “My God, you’re American.”

  “Drop your weapon, damn it!” Schey just looked at him. “Why?” he asked, in English.

  “You did not come all this way in tha
t uniform to kidnap me and take me back for trial.”

  Deland couldn’t say a thing. His hand was rock-steady, but his knees were terribly weak.

  “You’ve come to kill me … because of what I did? But no, it wouldn’t be that. It would be the Manhattan Project secrets.”

  Schey smiled. “Well, it’s too late. I’ve given everything I know to my scientists. And they in turn have sold out to the Russians.”

  Deland didn’t know if he could just pull the trigger and kill this man.

  Schey raised his Iron Cross so that it caught a bit of light. He looked at it wonderingly. Then he looked at Schey.

  “Back in the States, at the hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, is my son. Robert Mordley, Junior. I had to leave him when his …”

  “Mother was killed?” Deland finished it.

  “You know?”

  Deland nodded.

  “I was going to return to the Fiihrerbunker tonight to assassinate … my Fiihrer,” Schey said. “I was getting dressed to go.” He lowered his head. “But I could not have done it, you know.”

  “He has brought all this down on your people. He has killed millions of Jews … or I suppose that doesn’t matter to you.”

  “It matters very much,” Schey said with much feeling. He tossed’the Iron Cross to the floor at Deland’s feet. “See that my son gets this, will you …” he started, while at the same moment he brought the Luger up.

  “No!” Deland shouted, and he fired a single shot, catching Schey in the chest, just to the left of his breastbone, driving him back into the bedroom, his shoulder bouncing off the door frame.

  Deland leaped forward, his mind numb. Schey lay sprawled at the foot of the bed, his eyes open, his head at an odd angle, his chin on his chest. He still held the Luger limply in his hand. He was dead.

  He had known that Deland could not simply pull the trigger on a helpless man. He had precipitated the action.

  Deland holstered his Luger, took Schey’s, and slid the action back. There was a loaded clip in the butt, but no shell in the firing chamber. The gun had not been ready to fire.

  Schey had been a remarkable man. From what Deland had read of his exploits, he had not thought it possible for one man to have done so much. But now, for no definable reason, looking down at him, Deland was certain reports contained only the half of it.

  He dropped Schey’s Luger, then got to his feet and went back out to the front door. With the car, his uniform, and the Fuhrer letter, he did not think he’d have much trouble getting up to Wolgast. If Katrina was still there, he knew she would come with him. There had never been any doubt in his mind. He had promised her that he would be back. And they loved each other.

  Outside, he suddenly remembered something, and he went back in. Schey’s Iron Cross lay on the floor where he had tossed it. Deland picked it up, put it in his pocket, and left.

  Oh, the older man knew that a lot of heroes turned out happy in the end. But he also knew that they all wondered, at least once in their life, what had been of most importance: their contribution or all the crowing about it afterwards?

  —Fuckin’ shit, don’t leave me hanging like this, man, the younger man said.

  Just about everyone had left the club by now. It was very late.

  The bartender came over and nodded toward the door. It was time to leave.

  Surprisingly, the younger man rose without a fuss. —Come on, he slurred.

  The older man finished his beer and got to his feet. Together they staggered out of the bar. It was very cold. The wind blew the snow down State Street in long swirls. He couldn’t see Bascom Hill from here, but the capital dome was lit brightly. It looked cold and forbidding.

  –-So, what happened? Did Deland get out of Berlin okav? I mean, the fuckin’ krauts were getting jumpy. How many times could he run into a stupid captain with his head up his ass?

  —He got out all right, the older man said.

  —Yeah, but how?

  They crossed State Street and headed up toward the older man’s apartment on Langdon Street. The younger man seemed mindless of the cold or of where they were going. He wanted to hear more. The older man suspected he had wanted a love story out of it. From the ashes of war comes true love. Well, it had happened that way. At least in part. “*

  —He drove back to the same SS captain on the Hamburg Highway near Spandau and got back out.

  —Oh man, the poor son-of-a-bitch must have been shittin’ bricks.

  —He went through Nauen, then swung northeast back toward Peenemunde. He wasn’t stopped once. Not even when he got to Wolgast.

  The younger man’s face was more animated then it had been all night —She was there? His Katrina Mueller?

  —She was there. Waiting for him.

  —But what about the Gestapo?

  —They believed her. She had an unblemished record. She had lost a brother on the Russian front. They just believed her.

  —Man, oh … man, the younger man said, thinking about it. —But then what? They made it to the submarine?

  —Her father arranged a boat for them.

  —They came back to the States?

  The older man nodded. They had reached his apartment in a rundown area of student housing. He had been here for a couple of years now. Trying to find himself, he supposed. Without much luck. Trying to live up to … what?

  —Come on, he said, and he helped the younger man up the steps.

  —No, wait a minute now.

  —It’s all right. I want to show you something.

  —I want to know about Deland and Katrina. They came back to the States. Did they get married?

  —They got married, the older man said. They were in the corridor, and they continued up to the second floor and into the older man’s apartment. He turned on the lights.

  —Jesus, the younger man said in awe.

  There were a lot of photographs and maps pinned on the walls.

  There were books and articles clipped from magazines lying everywhere. All of it the product of years of research by the older man.

  For a long time both men were silent, each with his own thoughts, his own impressions of the moment.

  Finally the older man went to the desk, picked up two small, polished wooden boxes and brought them back to the younger man.

  He opened the first. It contained a Nazi Iron Cross. In gold.

  The younger man’s eyes went wide.

  —Colonel Dieter Schey’s award, the older man said.

  The younger man’s eyes went to the other box. The older man opened it.

  —Major Robert David Deland’s Congressional Medal of Honor.

  —For service behind enemy lines, The older man could feel tears filling his eyes. His stomach ached, and his throat constricted. —For going back and killing … —Your father. You’re Robert Mordley, Junior.

  The older man couldn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

  —But then, how the fuck did you get Deland’s medal … the younger man began, but then another stunning revelation hit him. —Fucking far out, man, he said in awe.

  The older man turned away. He had made the other man understand, hadn’t he? At last?

  —You’re adopted. Your name now is Deland. Deland and Katrina were married, and they adopted you.

  Deland nodded.

  The younger man stepped farther into the room so that he could better see the maps and photos and other products of Deland’s research.

  —And you were just told?

  —A couple of years ago, Deland said.

  The younger man was shaking his head. —You poor bastard.

  Two fathers, both heroes, and one kills the other. And you think you understand now, about heroes? You think you’ve got it pegged?

  Strangely, the younger man no longer seemed as stoned as before..He looked again at the two medals Deland held in his hands.

  —Shit, you don’t understand a fuckin’ thing, my man. I suspect that if you go home to your father, he might b
e able to explain it to you, if you’ll listen. He gave you the medals. He must have already tried to make you understand.

  The younger man waved his arm around at the things in the room.

  —You sure as fuck won’t understand it from this shit.

  —Better than you will ever understand.

  The younger man laughed derisively. —You think it’s some kind of romantic bullshit? Tragic, and all that crap? He opened his coat and reached up under his sweater.

  Deland watched him, and he knew now why the younger man seemed so familiar to him. He understood now what it was about the younger man that was so recognizable to him. He had studied heroes for so long he should have recognized it right off the bat.

  —Pleiku, the younger man said, tossing his Medal of Honor across to Deland.

  They were heroes all … men true to their ideals, right or wrong; men true to their countries and to their medals.

  What waste, their lives in war!