Sleeper Agent (18 page)

Buter shrugged. “Terrific.”

Tom turned as the door to the spacious
Gaststube
of the inn opened. A man intered. A civilian. Well built, in his early forties, with a strong, intelligent face, he was clad in typical Bavarian dress. Gray knickers, gray woolen over-the-calf socks and heavy brown tassel shoes. A green coarse-weave shirt and a plain green country jacket with brown bone burtons.

He nodded briefly toward Buter and walked straight to a table covered with papers, maps and books. He sat down and began to write.

Closely following him and taking his place on the floor beside the man was the most magnificent German shepherd dog Tom had ever seen: proud, powerful, with a gleaming black and tan coat. His bright alert eyes never left the men on the other side of the room. He sat quietly, motionless, yet leaving no doubt that the slightest hostile movement toward his master would uncoil a ferocious bare-fanged leap of instant defense.

Tom turned to Buter. “Who’s your friend?” he asked.

Buter grinned. He turned toward the civilian. “Max!” he called. “Over here!”

The man stood up. The dog didn’t budge. Without a glance, the man snapped a curt command: “
Zu Fuss!
—Heel!”

At once the dog jumped up and closely followed to the left of the man as he walked over to the CIC agents.

Buter made an elaborate gesture of introduction toward the civilian. “This is SS Major Maximilian Helmuth,” he said. “Ex!” He grinned broadly. “And his superdog Rolf.”

The major clicked his heels and bowed slightly. He did not extend his hand to the American officer. He had learned better. He remained standing, looking at the CIC agents without expression in his cold blue eyes.

“That’s all, Max,” Buter dismissed him.

Tom watched the man and his dog return to their table. He turned to Buter. “What the hell’s
he
doing here? A SturmbannFührer making himself at home,” he asked. “He’s a mandatory!”

Buter smiled beatifically. He was enjoying himself hugely. “He’s manna from heaven, my boy.’”

“What are you on?” Larry asked. “Some kind of poison diet?”

“Just a glutton. Pure and simple.” Buter looked smug. “Max is a veritable horn of plenty. We picked him up in Schwandorf. He came swaggering into our office big as life and introduced himself.”

“I know that one,” Tom remarked. “Another ‘I-was-never-a-Nazi!’ Just a spoke in the wheel. Have to turn when it turns.”

“Not . . . exactly.” Buter paused for obvious dramatic effect. Then: “Actually, he claimed to be Chief of Gestapo, Landkreis Regensburg!”

“You are kidding!” Larry was openly incredulous.

“He had all kinds of papers to prove it,” Buter said. “Spread them out before us.” He smiled in fond remembrance. “Added to the arm-long file we already had on the bastard, it made interesting reading.”

“Okay, so what’s the joke?” Tom wanted to know.

Buter leaned back in his chair. “Oh, we made a deal with him,” he said airily.

“A deal?”

Buter nodded. “It was his idea. He very logically pointed out to us that he knew just about everything about everything in the whole damned Landkreis who’d even as much as heard the word ‘Nazi.’ He proposed to deliver to us one mandatory arrestee, one wanted suspect a day, in return for his personal comfort and to be safe—both from us and from them.”

“I’ll be damned.” Tom shook his head. “And you threw the rule book away. You agreed.”

“You’re damned right I agreed! I’m no latrine lawyer, but I sure as hell can spot a good deal when it comes marching right up to me.”

He glanced toward the busily writing major. “Max has already been the key in cracking several tough cases. He’s better than a coopful of stool pigeons. It’s a good deal all around.” He looked back at Tom. “He has a fair idea of what’s in store for him once he’s formally arrested and slapped in an internment camp.”

“An exaggerated one. I’ll bet,” Larry commented dryly. “From observing his own concentration camps.”

“So, it’s deliver—or else,” Tom said.

“Exactly. He knows enough about detective work and investigation procedure to realize that he has little chance of shaking us at this time, even if we do let him work with a minimum of supervision. Besides, he eats well.”

He shrugged. “It may not be orthodox intelligence SOP, but it’s sure paying off.” He stretched lazily. “Why should I run my ass ragged when I can let some Kraut bastard do it for me? When
der Tag
comes, when his usefulness is kaput, we’ll slap him in detention. Maybe his cooperation will count in his favor. Who knows?”

Tom was watching the Gestapo major thoughtfully. He turned to Buter. “Irwin,” he said. “Mind if I borrow your magic major for a little quick job?”

“Help yourself. But return him in good condition. He’s still got a lot of good mileage left in him.”

Tom walked over to the Gestapo major. The man stood up. His dog watched Tom intently. “You are familiar with the Schloss Ehrenstein estate?” Tom came straight to the point. “On the Danube, north of here?”

A quick shadow seemed to flit across the major’s face. Tom could not be sure. “
Ja.”

“During the last few years, what was it used for?”

The major shrugged. “I am not certain,” he said. “A training school for officer candidates, I believe. SS perhaps.”

Tom nodded. His respect for the man’s quick cunning increased. He had given just enough information. No more. No less. He had avoided the mistake of denying any knowledge at all, which would at once have made him suspect.

“We have reason to believe that certain records are buried on the estate. What do you know about that?”

“
Nichts—
Nothing.”

Tom’s voice hardened. “In that case you had better find out! Come up with someone who does!”

The major looked uneasy. “I . . . I may not be able to do that.”

“I was under the impression that that was exactly what you are here to do!”

“Yes, but—”

“No
buts,
Major Helmuth,” Tom interrupted, his voice dangerously low. “A
yes.
Or . . . if you are prepared to give it, a
no.”

Helmuth fixed Tom with hard, piercing eyes. Tom returned his gaze steadily. He was well aware that he was being sized up. Helmuth looked away. “It . . . it may take time.”

“Agreed,” Tom snapped. “You’ll have it. Two hours!”

Helmuth’s face turned red. For a brief moment he glared at Tom. Then he said, “Two hours.”

With a brief command, “Rolf!
Zu Fuss!”
he turned on his heel. Without a backward glance he stalked from the
Gaststube,
Rolf close behind.

Tom watched them leave. He walked back to the others. “Thanks, Irwin,” he said.

He looked around the
Gaststube.
Most of the tables in the little country-style restaurant dining room had been pushed against the walls, some still covered with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths. Plain straight-backed wooden chairs were stacked in a corner. Only half a dozen tables were scattered about the room used by the CIC team as a common makeshift office. He turned to Sergeant Winkler. “Sergeant,” he said. “I’ll need an interrogation room. Private. In two hours.” He glanced at his watch. “At 1630 hours. Okay?”

“Can do, sir.” Winkler grinned. “Can do.”

It was precisely 1627 hours when SS Major Maximilian Helmuth returned to Gastwirtschaft Bockelmeier. The frightened young girl he held firmly by the arm as he walked into the
Gaststube
had obviously been crying. Her eyes were red and puffed.

Tom and Larry were waiting for him. They watched as the Gestapo major pushed the girl into a chair. He gave Rolf a short command: “
Bewachen!
—On Guard!” The dog at once fixed his attention on the petrified girl. His lips drew back in a menacing snarl and a low growl rumbled in his throat as he watched his cringing charge.

Helmuth marched over to the CIC agents. “This is Fräulein Ingeborg,” he reported dispassionately. “She was for some months an office worker at Schloss Ehrenstein.’’

“She has information?” Tom asked.

Helmuth shrugged. “Perhaps. She will not talk to me. But she is the only one still in the area. Except for the caretaker, Frau Peukert.” He looked at Tom, flat-eyed, the hint of a sardonic smile on his lips. “But I understand
she
has already told you all she knows.”

The bastard is rubbing our noses in it! Tom thought. The arrogant SOB.

Helmuth glanced at his watch. “Two hours,” he said. He looked at Tom. “It is what you said, yes? I should have saved some time had I been told you already had interrogated Frau Peukert.”

Tom chose to ignore him. He looked toward the girl. She sat rigidly terrified on her chair, staring wide-eyed at the menacing dog guarding her. “Call off your dog,” he ordered.

Helmuth smiled a thin smile. “As you wish.” He turned toward the dog. “Rolf!
Zu Fuss!"

At once the dog broke off his watch and bounded over to stand close at Helmuth’s heels. The girl sagged in her chair. She put her face in her hands. Her slender shoulders shook gently.

Tom glared at the SS major with ill-concealed distaste. “You will stay here, Major. You will hold yourself available. I will let you know if I want you.” The order was impersonal. Intentionally curt.

Helmuth drew himself up. He clicked his heels, bowed slightly, smartly turned on his heel and walked off with Rolf close at heel. A performance of subservience bordering on mockery. It was not lost on Tom. He considered it a draw.

He walked over to the girl. “What is your name?” he asked.

She looked up at him, her eyes terror-stricken. “Rost,” she whispered. “Ingeborg Rost.”

He nodded. “They tell me, Ingeborg, that you worked in the administration office at Schloss Ehrenstein, is that correct?”

The girl stared at him, her wide eyes dark with fear and foreboding. She seemed to stop breathing. She uttered not a sound.

Sergeant Winkler came into the
Gaststube.
He walked up to Tom. “All set on that interrogation room,” he said, looking with curiosity at the girl. “Best room in the inn with a fine view of World War Two!”

Tom watched the silent, frightened girl. She looked on the verge of nervous collapse. Even if she does know something, he thought, she’s so damned scared she can’t think straight enough to answer any questions intelligibly. To Winkler he said, “Not just yet, Sergeant. How are chances for some coffee? Strong and black?”

“Better than good, sir.” The sergeant nodded toward a door. “Kitchen’s over there. I’ll have the coffee ready in less than no time.”

As Ingeborg, sitting at the kitchen table with Tom, Larry and Winkler, sipped her hot coffee, she slowly lost some of her paralyzing fear.

Tom had deliberately stayed away from any anxiety-arousing questions as he calmly and reassuringly talked to her.

The girl was a stenographer-typist. She had indeed worked in the administrative offices of Schloss Ehrenstein, but in a strictly non-sensitive capacity. She had held her job for some five months, being assigned to it when she left the Bund Deutscher Mädel—the female branch of the Hitler Youth. She had been handling estate logistic and administrative correspondence and filing. She’d had no involvement with personnel, training or any policy matters of the organization occupying the castle. She only knew that the estate was used as some kind of school for young men, with whom she was told not to fraternize And she knew that there had been definite SS supervision. She had been dismissed when the Schloss Ehrenstein operation was closed down.

“As a typist and file clerk you must have handled a lot of letters,” Tom suggested pleasantly. “A lot of documents.”

Ingeborg nodded.

He paused for a moment. He looked straight at her. “What happened to all those records and files when the organization pulled out of the castle?” he asked.

The girl tensed, her cup forgotten in her hands. Some of the old fear crept back into her eyes.

“What was done with them?” Tom pressed. “You were there to the last. You must know.”

The girl stared at Tom. The color in her softly rounded, cheeks, brought back by the hot coffee and carefully nurtured sense of danger past, visibly drained away.

“Please,” she begged. “Please, I do not know what was done with the documents. I do not know where they are. Already I told the major.” Involuntarily she flinched, conjuring up the images of the Gestapo officer and his dog. “Please do not hurt me,” she pleaded. “I will do anything you ask, but please do not hurt me. I . . . I do not know.” Tears of terror and self-pity welled up in her eyes.

Unsparingly Tom persisted. “Tell me what you
do
know.”

She shook her head slowly in fearful, silent indecision.

Tom’s voice took on a harsh edge. He leaned closer to the girl, deliberately violating the private ego space she maintained around her. “What was done with the records of Schloss Ehrenstein?” he demanded.

She strained away from him, pressing her body against the straight hard back of the chair. “I . . . I think a lot of the papers were destroyed,” she whispered. “Burned.”

“All of them?”

“No.” She caught herself. “I . . . I do not know.”

“Did
you
help dispose of any papers?”

“No.”

“Did you help
hide
anything?”

It was a leading question. He knew it. It was a calculated risk. The girl was desperately anxious to find something to please her interrogator. It was a common reaction. He could only hope that her answers would be true, and not merely what she thought he wanted to hear. He waited.

“No . . . no . . .” she stammered. “I . . .” She stopped. She looked down. She was lying.

He knew it.

Abruptly he stood up. The girl’s half-filled cup clattered to the table, rich brown coffee spreading in a dark stain on the tabletop. He loomed over the petrified girl. “Well!” he snapped, the last vestige of his calm and friendly manner wholly replaced by brusque exasperation. “Did you? Or did you not?”

She shrank from him. “They . . . they made me swear not to tell!” It was barely a whisper.