The Runner (32 page)

“Sir, I believe he intends to kill Prime Minister Churchill and President Truman.”

“Truman, you say?” asked Patton. “Tonight at dinner, Mr. President graciously informed me that my uniform had more stars than the Missouri night. I won the war for him and all he cares about is how I dress.”

Judge was astonished by Patton’s flippant reply. “General, it’s not just Seyss I’m talking about. Members of the American military are involved as well. They killed von Luck this morning before I could question him. And they had a go at me earlier this evening. Four nurses in a jeep behind me were killed.”

“Slow down, Judge. I’m not up-to-date on the details. That’s what I have Everett and Mullins for. Four nurses, you say, dead? Sounds to me like you’ve got yourself in a regular shit storm.”

Finally Patton seemed to be taking his words to heart. “Yes, sir. I certainly seem to.” And uttering the words, Judge stood a little straighter, a little prouder. It was the military working its way into his system, his brush with danger a laurel to be worn and applauded. The insight turned his pride to nausea.

“Call Everett and have him get you up here,” ordered Patton. “I’m not prepared to accept your line of reasoning until I hear it face-to-face.”

Everett, again. Suddenly, he was popping up everywhere. “That’s out of the question, sir. I have reason to believe he may be involved.”

“Jesus Christ, Judge. You’re not making this easy. Just tell me where the hell you are. I’ll send my driver, Mims, to pick you up. I’ve trusted him with my life every goddamn day for the last three years. If what you say is true, I’ll need you in Berlin pronto. You can brief Ike yourself.”

Judge hesitated, but realized he had no choice. Sooner or later he was going to have to trust someone. He gave Patton his location and listened as the general read it back to him.

“Who the hell was that cooing to Meeks? That Bach woman you carted off this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir,” said Judge.

Patton laughed. “Christ, you’ve had quite some day—picking up a looker in Bavaria and getting some nurses killed in Heidelberg. I’ll grant you one thing, Major, you’ve got initiative. I like that in a man. Stay put and Mims will be with you by dawn. Everything goes as planned, you’ll be up here tomorrow at noon.”

“Yes, sir,” Judge repeated. But even as he hung up the phone, he felt a knot twist in his gut. He’d never mentioned Ingrid by name, nor had he said anything about Heidelberg. If Patton didn’t keep abreast of the details, how did he know that he’d picked up Ingrid Bach or where the nurses had been murdered? Staring at the receiver, Judge felt paralyzed by the weight of his suspicions. It was a big leap to tie Patton to von Luck’s death, to the murder of four young nurses, and ultimately to Erich Seyss himself. There might be a dozen reasons why Patton wouldn’t care to admit to being acquainted with the details of the search for Seyss. Judge just couldn’t think of any.

“And so? Will he help?” Ingrid stood with her hands cupped at her throat, rocking on her toes.

Judge stared into her pleading eyes, wishing he could give her the answer she deserved. “I’m not sure,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

T
HEY STOOD ON A GRASSY
escarpment at the outskirts of Griesheim, their arms brushing lightly against each other, an insistent breeze at their backs. The jeep was parked twenty yards behind them, nose pointed north on a rutted farm road. Their vantage point offered an unimpeded view of the village, and with help from the half moon’s shallow light, they were able to make out the
rathaus
, the Reform church next door, and most important, either end of the two-lane road that provided the village’s sole entry and exit. Abruptly, the wind dropped, leaving silence and apprehension in its wake.

“How long?” asked Ingrid.

“I’m not sure,” said Judge. “Maybe a few minutes. Maybe until morn—” He raised a hand for quiet and turned his ear to hone in on a distant sound, much as a man might squint to sharpen his focus. A growl, the faintest of coughs, then silence. He advanced a step or two, his eyes scanning the dark. There it was again, the growl, and this time Ingrid heard it too.

“A car,” she said.

“No,” he corrected her. “A bunch of them. Probably jeeps.”

The sound grew steadily, crawling over the rolling terrain, alternately screaming and sighing like a sawmill’s stutter. A minute passed and the stutter was replaced by a throaty hum, hungry and ominous. The jeeps traveled the countryside with their lights doused, wolves advancing on an abandoned prey. Judge counted eight of them and knew it was no rogue operation. The vehicles sped past a hundred feet below, close enough for him to see the white stars emblazoned on their hoods; close enough to know it was the same military police of which he had so recently been a member.

Ingrid laid her hand on his arm, and for a moment they watched the unholy caravan close on the
rathaus
a mile away. “And now?” she asked.

But by then Judge was moving, grasping her hand and hustling to the jeep.

“Now?” His voice was tight, a rigid self-control holding back his fear. “Now we’re on our own.”

CHAPTER

39

E
RICH
S
EYSS WAS COLLECTING
cigarettebutts. So far this morning, he’d scraped six off the pavement, and it was still early, just a few minutes before eight. Yesterday, he’d gathered 123, enough to make twenty fresh cigarettes and earn him a little more than fifty marks. Twenty hours scouring a thirty-meter stretch of concrete for the equivalent of half a dollar. The prospect of such an existence quelled any desire he harbored to rejoin the civilian world.

Tucking his hands into his pockets, Seyss took up position against a shrapnel-scarred column inside the portico of the Frankfurt Grand, a once opulent hotel now consigned to boarding American officers. French doors stood open granting him full view of the hotel lobby. At this time of day, the place was a sea of khaki and green. Officers crowded the reception baying like a pack of dogs for their room keys. They camped on every chaise and divan, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and flagging down waiters with a shrill whistle and a shout. They flooded from the stairs, the elevators, the men’s room, and the kiosk.

Locusts!
thought Seyss. Worse than any plague.

Two of the offenders sauntered from the hotel, flicking their cigarettes at his feet.

“Merry Christmas, Fritz,” muttered one.

“Yeah, happy birthday,” added the other.

Seyss bowed and scraped as befitted his beggar’s status, knocking the embers from the saliva-soaked butts before dropping them into his jacket pocket. Eyes scanning the lobby, he caught sight of a slim officer emerging from the elevator, scuffed pigskin briefcase in hand. He checked the man’s epaulets for a pair of silver captain’s bars and his lapels for the twin castles that denoted the corps of engineers, then studied his features. Yes, it was his man. One last time, he compared the breadth of the shoulders, the size of the waist, the man’s height to his own. He smiled inwardly. A perfect match.

When the captain’s key had been placed in the box below the number 421, Seyss left the shade of the portico. A short stroll took him to a newspaper kiosk at the corner, and there, he waited for his man to exit the hotel.

Frankfurt was abustle with grim prosperity. A turn-of-the-century steam engine dragged a lone streetcar up Mainzstrasse. Trümmerfrauen crowded every corner chiseling mortar from an ever-growing stack of bricks. Newspaper boys shouted the day’s headlines while a gang of laborers trudged down the side of the road escorted by GIs front and rear. Watching it all through a sun-scratched haze, Seyss acknowledged a long-absent warmth blossom in his chest. Hope. And he knew that Germany would survive.

The realization sharpened his urgency to reach Berlin.

Two days had passed since the nightmare at the armory. Two days he’d earmarked for travel to the German capital and establishing local cover. Sunday was spent walking the forty kilometers to Frankfurt. Arriving, he phoned the contact Egon had given him, but the party did not answer. A check of the neighborhood showed it to have been resettled by American officers. Exhausted, he passed the night huddled in a vacant boxcar.

Venturing into the
stadtzentrum
the next morning at dawn, he expected to find the city crawling with military police, his face plastered on the front page of every paper. After Wiesbaden, he was certain the Americans would have pulled out all the stops. Curiously, there were no signs of heightened security. Neither his name nor face graced the daily papers. No more than the regular complement of MPs patrolled the streets and not a single jeep blared his name, description, or the details of his reward. It was as if the Americans believed him dead, alongside Biedermann, Bauer, and Steiner. The conceit was difficult to swallow. At least one man knew he was alive.

Seyss called to mind the taciturn figure who’d guided him from the armory. He was neither short nor tall, his features hidden beneath the brim of a sweat-stained fedora. Even his nationality was a mystery. Providing Seyss an olive field jacket and a peaked campaign cap, he’d rushed him to an unlocked gate in the perimeter fence and told him of a safe route to Frankfurt. Seyss knew better than to ask who he was.
Ein kamerad.
That was enough.

Just then, his captain appeared in front of the hotel, hand raised to ward off the morning sun. Bounding down the stairs, he turned right and passed Seyss at an officious clip. Seyss fell in behind him, sure to guard a distance of at least five paces. Unconsciously, he found himself matching the American’s step, his arms swinging in a parody of a march. He could hear the steady click of the officer’s spit-shined shoes stamping the pavement, their brisk
tap-tap
smacking of duty, honor, and to his German ear, the will to conquer. But Seyss didn’t envy him his smart uniform and rakish cap. He no longer gave a damn about the trappings of glory. He envied the captain only one thing: his victor’s élan. He had known it once. He swore he would know it again.

Seyss followed the American two blocks to the tram stop at the corner of Mittelweg and Humboldstrasse. Ducking into a shadowy corner, he waited until the number thirteen tram appeared and the captain climbed aboard. Seyss knew his destination without having to follow him: I. G. Farben, Germany’s largest chemicals manufacturer. Dwight Eisenhower had declared the sprawling complex of modern buildings set within an idyllic parklike setting headquarters of the American occupational government. As for Farben, well, they were out of business. Demand for Zyklon-B wasn’t what it used to be.

Seyss watched the tram trundle off, then retraced his steps to the hotel. He circled to the employee entrance and passed unnoticed into the employee locker room. One hour after the morning shift had begun, the place was deserted. He made his way through the maze of dented metal lockers, stopping at the farthest corner. He drew his knife and one by one began prying open lockers. He found what he needed on the third try: a clean white shirt, a matching waiter’s jacket and a black bow tie. Removing the clothes, he caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby mirror. His hair was matted and greasy, the blond beginning to show in desultory patches, his clothing stained with sweat, soot and blood. Three days’ growth of beard dirtied his face and, Lord knew, he smelled like a Jew in a cattle car. He offered his slovenly reflection a wink and a nod. Just your average German male.

“R
OOM SERVICE.
”

Seyss knocked on the door to room 421, then stepped back into the center of the hallway and waited. Chin raised just so, white towel draped over an arm, he looked like any other waiter in the hotel. He raised his hand to knock again, but thought twice. Silence bred suspicion, but best not to take it too far. He looked over both shoulders, then dropped to one knee and examined the lock. It was an old brass affair with a keyhole capacious enough to see into the room. Undoing his belt, he threaded its metal tongue into the lock, feeling the smooth mass of the tumbler. Raising the tongue, he wedged the tip of his knife into the keyhole, so that it acted as a fulcrum upon which he could exert greater pressure on the tumbler. With a jerk, he flicked the knife downward, forcing the tongue against the tumbler and freeing the lock. He depressed the handle and swept inside.

The room was dark, curtains drawn against the morning light. Back pressed to the door, Seyss trained his ear for the sound of another man’s breathing. Only colonels and above claimed a room for themselves. Everyone else doubled up. He heard nothing. Turning on the light, he walked to the center of the room, taking in the furnishings with a sweep of his head. Twin beds were pressed against either wall, a night table separating them. Only one had been slept in. A desk and chair decorated another wall. He walked back to the alcove and opened the closet. Several freshly laundered uniforms hung from one side of the rack. He removed one, then took a pressed shirt, a tie, socks, and underwear from the shelf above it. He threw all of it onto the bed and began to undress. Catching another glimpse of himself in the mirror, he realized he couldn’t don the uniform without at least shaving. The sight of his scraggly hair and beard begged explanation. The Americans were a well-groomed lot, he’d grant them that.

If the bedroom was cramped, the bathroom was fit for a king. Marble floors and counters, gold-plated fixtures, a tub large enough to swim in, and directly above it a showerhead the size of a pie tin. Seyss stripped to the waist, then filled a mug with hot water. He added a dollop of shaving cream and using a lovely badger-hair brush, brought the soapy mix to a lather. Raising the brush to his face, he heard a sound at the front door, the unmistakable tinkle of metal against metal.
Move!
he ordered himself. He turned off the water, dumping the foam into the sink even as he bent and scooped up his shirt and jacket. The noise came again and he imagined a drunken hand fumbling for the lock.
Mach schnell!
Sweeping a hand across the light switch, he bolted into the bedroom, eyes darting to every corner for a place to hide. Again he noted the untouched bedspread and he cursed his carelessness.

Only a colonel draws a single room!

Behind him, the tumblers fell and the door opened a notch, froze, then closed again. A clumsy voice echoed in the hallway, “And next time, Stupak, the pot will be mine.”

Seyss tiptoed to the alcove, knife drawn and resting at his side. He darted a glance to his left. The closet. He imagined the dark, the confinement, the close company of his own breathing. His skin bristled. What choice did he have? Finally free of the American military police, he could risk nothing to alert them to his survival. Two feet away, the door handle began to turn. Seyss drew a breath, opened the closet, and climbed inside.

Seconds later, the door to room 421 burst open, banging against the wall, then slamming shut. Inside the closet, the sounds were amplified tenfold and hit Seyss’s ears with the raucous clap of a shellburst. He stood hunched over, head brushing the shelf above him, half wrapped in the uniform he’d come to steal. The American walked into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. (He weighed a hundred kilos easy if the chorus of screaming bedsprings were to be believed.) He had a woman with him and soon the two were laughing and giggling like a couple of horny teenagers. Their shoes came off, each thrown to a different corner of the room.

“Musik? Ja. Ist gut?”
the lady asked.

Seyss heard a soft brushing noise that could only be the drawing of curtains, then the fuzz and static of a radio warming up. A female singer’s voice drifted across the room.

“Underneath the lantern by the barrack gate, darling, I remember the way you used to wait.”

It was Dietrich herself singing “Lilli Marlene” in English for the Americans.
Christ,
thought Seyss,
they’ve even taken our music.

Locusts!

Despite the absolute dark, he stood with his eyes open, arguing to himself that his sentence inside the closet would be of short duration. Five minutes, ten at the most. The two would make love, then drift off. He could slip out unnoticed, maybe even with a uniform draped over his arm. But as the minutes crawled by, and the sounds of the two pigs’ lovemaking grew more fevered, he realized that was not to be. He might be trapped inside this god-awful prison for hours, maybe the entire day. He breathed deeply, repeating the same word over and over.
Ruhe. Ruhe.
Calm. Calm. He was sweating, yet his skin was cool to the touch, bordering on clammy. Every moment the air was growing warmer, his heart beating faster. He felt a box descending over his head, stopping up his ears and smothering his mouth. Cold hands closed around his neck. Pressure. Everywhere pressure.

He blinked, and once more he was in Camp 8, trapped beneath the kitchen while Janks bartered away the prisoners’ supplies. He was at the Villa Ludwig walking down a sterile, white-tiled corridor with Egon Bach, descending deeper and deeper into the earth. He closed his eyes, hoping for a measure of peace, but was confronted instead with a kaleidoscope of his own memories, the confines of the closet allowing him no escape.

Just one bullet!

His own voice screamed at him as if he were a bald recruit.

Did you hear me, Gruber? One bullet per person. We must conserve ammunition.

Seyss was standing on a muddy ridge overlooking a dense forest in the rolling hills outside of Kiev. A ravine called Babi Yar. It was October of 1941, the height of autumn’s magnificent pageant. The leaves burned red, yellow, orange, and every shade in between. A cool wind brushed his face, the acrid smell of spent powder making his eyes water. He heard another volley of shots and he blinked involuntarily. Then came the sniping that enraged him, single shots, here and there.

He turned and strode down the hill into the ravine, past the line of women. They were all ages: children, teenagers, mothers, the very old and the very young. They were naked, white as ghosts. One grabbed his cuff, pleading, “I am twenty-three. Please.” Seyss did not look at her. He pulled free and walked to Sergeant Gruber, slapping him hard on the shoulder.

“Gruber, one bullet per person. Have your men take better aim, goddammit. We must conserve ammunition.” He was saying the same things over and over. He knew it but could not stop himself. What else was there to say? He had orders. From the Reichsführer SS himself. One bullet per Jew. No more. He must enforce them. “Gruber, do you understand?”

“Jawohl, Herr Major.”

Below Seyss was the pit, a strip of excavated land one hundred meters long, thirty meters wide, and five meters deep. He didn’t know what idiot imagined they could place all the bodies here. The pile was already ten deep the length of it, and the women were still arriving, truck after truck. Two days now. How many were there? Ten thousand? Fifteen? A few of his men were walking over the corpses as if they were stones, skipping here and there, then bending over and placing their pistols to the back of a neck and pulling the trigger.