Eva (6 page)

“I’ve got nothing in the files, Woody,” he said. “Not a damned thing.” He nodded toward an olive drab filing cabinet, the one that rode with him in his personal vehicle every time Iceberg Forward moved to a new location. “You’re welcome to take a look.”

Woody looked disappointed. “Hell, Mort,” he said, “I believe you.”

He stood up. “I’d better get back,” he said. “See what’s cooking at 2nd Cavalry.” He started to leave.

The telephone rang.

Hall picked it up. “CIC,” he said crisply. “Major Hall.” He listened for a moment. He looked startled. He glanced at Woody, who had stopped and stood watching him. He frowned, and tried to speak. “Who is . . .” He was obviously not able to interrupt whoever was talking on the phone. Hastily he scribbled something on his pad. “Listen,” he said firmly. “Who is this?” There was a click. Hall looked angrily at the receiver and hung up.

“What the hell was that all about?” Woody asked.

Hall scowled at the phone. “Beats me,” he said. “Some joker— German, judging from his accent—got himself patched through.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever heard.”

“What?” Woody was intrigued.

“This Kraut says to me”—he looked at his pad—“count your soldiers, Major. And if you are one short you will find him lying at the side of the road to Albersdorf. Dead.” Hall looked disgusted. “What kind of melodramatic claptrap is that supposed to be?”

“Albersdorf,” Woody said, his interest at once aroused. “I know the burg. Off the road to Vohenstrauss. We’ve held that real estate for a week.”

His mind raced. Who was the dead “soldier”? How was he killed? Why? By whom? And who was the informer? Could it be a Werewolf action? Like those werewolves who murdered the Mayor of Aachen about a month ago because he cooperated with the US forces? Sure sounded like it. They’d advertised themselves enough with that corny radio program of theirs. They certainly were talked about. If he could get a line on them, crack the Werewolf Organization, get enough information to make a real dent, he might just have his “glamour” case. Get his cluster. His five points. Even if it was some other subversive action, it might do it.

“Look, Mort,” he said eagerly, “I’ll take the case. I’ll get over there right now. Take a look. Okay?” He was halfway out the door before Hall could call after him:

“Not alone, dammit! That’s an order!”

“Sure,” Woody called over his shoulder. “I’ll pick up a driver at the pool.”

“Find somebody who speaks the lingo!”

And Woody was off.

Hall looked after him. He glanced at the note on his pad. “
Count your soldiers, Major.”
He shook his head. It might well be a wild goose chase.

Then again, it might not be.

An hour later Woody and a corporal named Tony Fossano turned their jeep off the main road between Schwarzenfeld and Vohenstrauss and barreled down a forest-lined dirt road toward the village of Albersdorf, visible in the distance. Fossano, a streetwise kid from lower Manhattan spoke a smattering of German, learned in a high school course he’d elected to take in the school’s foreign language program to spite his old man who wanted him to learn Italian. His knowledge of the language wasn’t enough for him to have been “raided” by the CIC for use as interpreter but enough for him to get along.

As long as things stayed simple.

Suddenly Woody sang out. “Hold it! Stop!”

Fossano stomped on the brake and the jeep skidded to a halt.

“Back up,” Woody said. Fossano did. Woody pointed. “Bingo!” he said.

In the middle of a small clearing a few yards off the obviously seldom-traveled road a neat white wooden cross had been pounded into the ground. And next to it lay a large bundle wrapped in a solid brown tarpaulin.

The two men got out. They walked up to the bundle. Woody was puzzled. Who the hell had put up the cross? The whimsical informer on the phone? “Give me a hand,” he said grimly. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Fossano looked dubiously at the tarpaulin-wrapped bundle. They were supposed to be looking for some dead guy, weren’t they? Uneasily he shifted his feet. He glanced at Woody. He tried in vain to find the agent’s insignia of rank on his uniform. There was none. Only two officer’s US emblems on his collar tabs. Nothing else.

“Say—eh . . .” He paused. “What
is
your rank?”

Woody looked at him. “I’ll give you the official spiel, corporal,” he said evenly. “The SOP answer given by
any
CIC agent to anyone who wants to know—from corporal to colonel!”

He glared at the soldier. “It goes like this: My rank is confidential, but at this moment I am not outranked.” He jutted his face close to the corporal. “And that sure as hell goes for right now,” he snapped. “So hop to it!”

“Yes—eh, Sir,” Fossano stammered.

Together they unwrapped the bundle.

The sight that met them turned their stomachs.

The soldier had been dead two or three days, Woody thought. He was an American, dressed in field uniform except for his boots, which for some unknown reason had been removed. The cause of death was easily established. A deep cut on the left side of the man’s neck had severed the jugular vein. His uniform was blackish-red with dried blood. A rope was tied around his left arm.

But it was the man’s face that held the eyes of the two men riveted in horror and revulsion.

It wasn’t there!

Someone had carefully and methodically obliterated it. Beaten it to a sickening, unrecognizable mass. There were absolutely no features left, nothing which by the wildest stretch of imagination could be called a face. The nose was flattened. All the teeth knocked out. The eyes two sunken pits of crusted gore.

For a moment the two men stood staring at the gruesome sight, fighting to control the sour bile that rose in their throats. Finally Fossano turned away, his face ashen.

“The bastards,” he muttered, shaken.

“Let’s—let’s find out who he is,” Woody said, his voice sounding tight in his throat.

Systematically, struggling to overcome their queasiness, they searched the mangled body. When they had finished Woody knew with grim realization why the victim had no face. Someone had desperately wanted to conceal the identity of the mutilated corpse: it had been stripped of all identification—dog-tags, wallet, papers; the uniform pockets were all empty; and the soldier’s unit shoulder patch had been ripped from his shirt-sleeve. That was also why the boots were missing, Woody realized. The soldier’s serial number must have been stamped or inked into the leather.

Woody stood up. He rubbed his hands along the sides of his pants, rubbed and rubbed—unaware of doing it. Something was nagging at him. Something didn’t fit . . .

He looked around. The little clearing was littered with trash. Straws from bottle sleeves, US Army ration wrappings, a few rags which appeared to have been torn from a woman’s dress, a broken wine bottle, two pieces of blue chalk, a torn page from a newspaper. Woody picked it up. It was from an Ohio tabloid dated March 15, 1945.

He turned to Fossano. “Pick up everything you can find,” he told him. “Pile it up over there. We’ll make a list of it.”

“What for?” Fossano demurred.

“Just do it!” Woody snapped. He didn’t explain. Perhaps it
was
a little farfetched to expect the refuse to contain some kind of clue. But—shit! He had to try. He turned back to the body. Carefully he covered it with the brown tarpaulin. Then he went to help Fossano gather up the junk that littered the clearing.

The feeling that he was missing something wouldn’t leave him. Something
was
out of kilter. He was certain of it. He had long since come to trust his hunches.

Suddenly he knew what it was that was bothering him.

Why would some vengeful German bastard want to hide the identity of his victim? There was no obvious reason. Was there a hidden one? It didn’t make sense. But he didn’t know what to make of it.

When they had picked the place clean Woody inspected the pile of trash. Not a thing in it gave him any ideas. It was just a heap of rubbish.

“Put it in the back of the jeep,” he ordered Fossano. He looked toward the village only a couple of hundred yards down the road. “Let’s go see what they know in that burg,” he said.

The closest farmhouse had a direct view of the area with the clearing, and Woody decided to start his investigation there. If anyone in Albersdorf had seen anything, the people there might be the ones.

Woody got into the jeep. He turned to Fossano. “Listen, corporal,” he said. “A couple of words to the wise. Keep your eyes peeled. Always be ready for anything—but don’t look apprehensive. The Krauts will accept that you’re in charge if you
act
that way. Remember that. If you see anything suspicious, or find anything, let me know. Don’t try to handle it yourself. Is that clear?”

Fossano shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “I’m just along for the ride. It’s your damn show.”

The village of Albersdorf consisted of perhaps two dozen farmhouses. Woody and Fossano drove into the yard of the farm they had picked out. A huge, burly man with a weather-beaten face, close-cropped graying hair and fists the size of small hams was cutting and stacking wood near a small shed. He stopped his work and looked up with a hostile glare.

Fossano stayed in the jeep as Woody jumped out and strode up to the farmer.

“Is this your farm?” he asked crisply.

The big man nodded.

“What is your name?”

“Huber,” the man answered sullenly. “Werner Huber.”

Woody watched him closely. “There is the body of an American soldier lying in the woods only a short distance from here,” he said. “Do you know about it?”

“Yes,” the German answered, an almost imperceptible note of mockery in his voice. “And so does everyone else in Albersdorf!”

“Then why did you not inform the American authorities?” Woody asked angrily. “There has been a Military Police office in Vohenstrauss for days.”

The farmer shrugged. “We thought it was none of our business,” he said. “We are farmers in Albersdorf. Not soldiers.” Somehow the man gave the impression of enjoying himself.

Woody felt a deep anger build in him. He controlled it.

“How long has the body been there?”

Again the farmer shrugged. “Two—three days,” he answered. He put a beefy, dirty fist to his nose and rubbed it. “Yes—three days it was.”

“Three days!” Woody exclaimed. “And nobody reported it!”

The German looked at him, the hint of a smirk on his face. “We thought surely the Americans knew,” he said.

Woody wanted to hit the bastard in the face. Instead he asked: “Who else lives here?”

The farmer scratched his head. “There’s old Anton,” he replied. “And my daughter.” Sudden hate flared in the quick glance he shot at Woody. “My wife was killed,” he rasped. “In Regensburg. She had gone to buy some clothing for us. It was an air raid.”

“Where are they?” Woody asked coldly.

“Anton is in the stable. It is the day we clean for the cows,” the farmer said. “My daughter is in the house. It will soon be time to eat.” He looked at Woody, a mocking smile on his lips. “You should talk to her,
Herr Offizier,”
he drawled. “She saw what happened.”

At once Woody turned to Fossano. “Corporal!” he called. “There’s an old man working in the stable. Get him. Bring him to the house.” He turned to the farmer. “Move!” he said.

The
Bauernstube
of the farmhouse—the combined kitchen-living-dining room which is the hub of all Bavarian farmhouses— was simple and pleasant. Blue-and-white checkered curtains at the windows, a large wooden table with chairs and benches around it, and the inevitable big black, wood-burning stove.

The farmer, Huber, his daughter, and the old farmhand sat stiffly on a bench against the wall, warily watching Woody and Fossano.

Woody glared at them. He turned to Fossano. “Take a look around,” he said. “Anything out of the ordinary, let me know. And, be careful.”

“Okay.” Fossano ambled off. Woody fixed the farmer’s daughter with a cold stare. The girl, a pleasingly plump blonde in her early twenties, watched him fearfully.

“Okay,” he said crisply, “start talking. What did you see?”

The girl looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. Instinctively she moved closer to her father.

“From the beginning,” Woody said. He softened his voice. No need to scare the girl into silence. “Just tell me the whole story.” He pulled over a chair and sat down, his eyes on her level, no longer looming over her. Little by little she relaxed.

“It—it was three days ago,” she began timidly. “Early in the morning. I—I saw them from my window. I saw them throw the bundle next to the road.”

“Who? Did you get a good look at them?”

The girl nodded.

“Do you know who they were?”

Again the girl nodded. She looked frightened.

“Who?”

“They were—they were American soldiers,” she whispered.

Involuntarily Woody started. “American!” he exclaimed. “How do you know?”

“They—they were in uniform.”

Woody’s mind raced. American uniforms. Were enemy saboteurs operating in American uniforms? Like those Jeep Parties during the Bulge? Werewolves? Or,
had
the men actually been Americans? Bleakly he knew that could well be the case. He realized that was what had been bothering him. The whole thing hadn’t been consistent with a German strike. Grimly he looked at the girl. “How did they get the body—the bundle there?” he asked.

“They came by truck. Not many trucks come to Albersdorf,” she said. “So—I watched.”

“Describe the truck.”

The girl did. Woody’s face grew sober. It had been a US Army ¾-ton. The description was unmistakable.

“What did they do?” he asked.

“The two soldiers opened the canvas in the back of the truck and took out the bundle. They put it in the clearing. They—and the two girls.”

“Girls?” Woody frowned. “What girls?”

“There were two girls riding in the truck. With the soldiers.”

Four of them, Woody thought. Two men—Americans or Germans—and two girls. How the hell were the girls involved? He had no immediate answer. He filed the puzzle in his mind.