The Runner (36 page)

CHAPTER

45

A
HALF MILE FROM THE
American command post, they had disappeared into a dense wood with a cover so thick as to block out every sign of the sparkling night sky and the late-rising moon. It was the forest his mother had described sitting on his bedside reading the Brothers Grimm. A deep, dark, living thing, scented of pine and oak, and teeming with hobgoblins and fairies and, yes, even werewolves—though they looked more like the half-starved DPs crowding every road in Germany than any fanciful creature. It was the forest where Hansel and Gretel had gotten lost, but instead of a gingerbread house there was a ruined flak tower, a crippled ten-story superstructure where Hitler had positioned his antiaircraft batteries to discourage the marauding hoards from raining destruction upon the capital of his Thousand-Year Reich. It was the forest where Tristan wed Isolde, but all traces of its magical incarnations had disappeared, probably hauled off by the Russians, along with everything else.

The pair of headlights had expanded to a second, then a third, and Judge felt as if the entire army were after them. Two minutes into his fool’s run, his headstart had been whittled down to three hundred yards and with every passing second was growing shorter. Rounding a sharp corner, he shot a glance over his shoulder. A bank of Eugenias momentarily blocked his view of the pursuing jeeps. Spotting his chance, he steered the jeep away from the security of the gravel walk and doused the headlights. He was driving among the trees now, weaving in and out like a skier negotiating a slalom course, careful to keep a ninety-degree angle away from the walkway. Beneath branches sagging with a summer’s bounty of nuts and cones, the ground was feathered with a crop of knee-high grass, and with every unseen rut and gully, he grunted, all the while accelerating madly. Abruptly, he cut the engine and coasted to a halt a hundred yards on.

Ingrid raised herself in the seat, staring into the dark wood. “Who are they?”

“Shh,”
Judge cautioned, ear attuned to the highly revving engines. Their insistent whine grew, and suddenly he could make out the trace of their headlights. Wheels skidding on the clay and gravel, the jeeps rounded the Eugenias. He held his breath, expecting the lights to bob as they, too, left the path, and a moment later to be illuminated in their beams. But the jeeps roared on, advancing on a phantom prey.

“Who are they?”
Ingrid demanded again.

Judge answered as he restarted the engine, irritated by her obstinacy. “The same folks who arranged for the detour in Heidelberg. The fellas who want us to think Erich Seyss is dead. Is that good enough?”

Ingrid tucked in her chin, taken aback by his sharp response. “I suppose it has to be.”

Judge pushed the jeep pell-mell through the trees, the howling engine a pitch-perfect echo of his own anxieties. Every few seconds, he turned his head to scout the encroaching dark. He saw nothing, but still his neck bristled. Overnight, he’d become the hunted, not the hunter, and the new role fit him as poorly as the lice-ridden clothing he’d picked up that morning. But there was more. At some point during the last twenty-four hours, he’d crossed over an interior meridian into unknown waters. He’d abandoned the rigid structure of his previous life, renounced his worship of authority, and forsworn his devotion to rules and regulation. He’d tossed Hoyle to the wind and he didn’t care.

Yet it was this very betrayal of his past that confirmed his most closely held beliefs. That the rules man made were subordinate to those made for him. And when it came to choosing, a man had to use his heart, not his head.

Fine summation, Counselor,
he added, mockingly.
Tell me one thing, then. If you’re so damned sure of yourself, why are you shaking in your boots?

Five minutes later, the curtain of foliage parted and they came to a large clearing. A café was visible to their right, and next to it, a large manmade pond, the kind where he would have launched a sailboat with Ryan. Judge swung toward the squat building, dodging a line of birch trees, as Ingrid read the sign above the entry.

“Rumplemeyer’s,” she announced. “If we follow the path leading to the café, it’s only a few hundred meters to Zehlendorf.”

“You mean the city?”

“Yes, a residential quarter in the southwest corner of town.”

“We need a place to stay, somewhere reasonably safe. We can’t risk sleeping outside again tonight. It’s your city. Got any ideas?”

“Just our house in town and some of Papa’s friends.”

“Not good enough.” The presence of Honey in Berlin made it impossible for Ingrid and Judge to seek refuge in any of her old haunts. If Honey was working with Patton and Patton was close to Egon Bach, then Judge had to consider all those addresses blown. “Isn’t there someplace only you know about? At one of your old girlfriends’, maybe? At a boyfriend’s, even?”

“There is a place I know,” Ingrid said haltingly, “an apartment not far from the university where I lived while a student.”

He could read what was coming next. “But Seyss knows about it?”

“He was the reason I took it. It was our hideaway.”

“That was six years ago,” Judge said sternly. “Don’t you think they’ve found a new tenant by now?”

It was her turn to offer a rebuke. “No, Major, you don’t understand. I didn’t rent the place. I bought it.”

“And Egon? Does he know about it, too?”

“No,” Ingrid replied adamantly. “It was our secret. Erich’s and mine.”

Judge mulled over their options. Even if Seyss was in Berlin, the odds were against his hiding out at his and Ingrid’s old love nest. The U.N. war crimes dossier stated that he’d been stationed at Lichterfelde Kaserne before the war. If Egon hadn’t already fixed him up with a place, he’d have a dozen of his own in mind. While Judge desperately wanted to find Seyss, the idea of getting the drop on him in the middle of the night without a weapon wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. Still, it might be an unexpected opportunity. Catch Seyss on the sly. Have him wrapped up and in custody by morning. To his realist’s eye, it sounded too pat. Either way, they didn’t have much choice.

“How far to this place?”

“Eichstrasse is in Mitte. I’d say eight kilometers.”

About five miles. Fifty city blocks in Manhattan. A breeze if they could stay clear of the trophy brigades Mahoney had warned them about. Cocking his head, he listened for the retaliatory growl of his frustrated pursuers. The night was silent.

“Can you walk it?” he asked Ingrid. “Once in the city, we’ll stand out like a sore thumb in this jeep. The first American patrol we see will either shoot us or have us arrested.”

Ingrid smiled with the knowledge of a secret strength. “Yes, Major, I believe I can.”

Judge slowed the jeep and when she’d stepped out, drove it a little ways into the woods. He found a dense grove of bushes and nosed the vehicle slowly into its embrace. Sliding from the wheel, he freed the crushed branches until the jeep was partially hidden from view. Hardly a masterful job of camouflage, but it would do until morning.

Rubbing sap from his palms, he jogged back to Ingrid.

“All right, Pocahontas,” he said. “Lead the way.”

T
HE BUILDING ON
E
ICHSTRASSE WAS
standing, and except for a fractured chimney and a corps of broken windows, undamaged. They’d circled the block twice before approaching, checking alleys and doorways for signs of surveillance. The neighborhood wasn’t deserted; it was dead. Not a lamp burned from a single paneless window. Not a soul walked the streets. Neither a German, nor an American, nor for that matter a Russian was in sight. The feared trophy brigades had taken the night off.

Ingrid’s apartment was on the third floor. “Just a studio,” she had warned him, forgetting for a moment that they had more important concerns than the size of her apartment. They climbed the stairs quietly and when they neared her door, Judge signaled for her to remain behind. He approached as stealthily as he knew how, rolling his shoe from heel to toe, easing his weight onto the distressed floorboards. In his hand he carried a bent crowbar he’d picked up on the street; fine if he wanted to brain someone, but it wouldn’t hold up long against a loaded pistol. Reaching the entry to her apartment he checked for signs of recent intrusion. A sheen of dust coated the brass doorknob. Cobwebs hugged the door frame. Laying an ear to the door, he listened. Nothing. If Seyss had been by, he’d kept his presence well hidden. Cautiously, Judge turned the knob to the right. Locked. Finding a rusted nail, he played with the keyhole until he’d picked the lock.

The apartment was empty. Even more surprising, it was untouched and as she’d left it six years before. Sitting squarely in the Soviet zone, maybe the Reds figured they’d get to it in their own time.

“Just a studio” meant just that: a large corner room with an armoire and chest of drawers set against one wall, a large bed against the other, with a couch and a coffee table in between. A mantle of dust an inch thick covered the furniture. Ingrid immediately tore off the bedspread and threw it into the corner. A few steps took her to the closet where she opened a Vuitton steamer trunk and removed a set of clean sheets.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Get on the other side of the bed and give me a hand. It must be after two. I’m exhausted.”

Judge did as he was told and in a few minutes the bed was made. He asked for another sheet and laid it atop the sofa, taking a few lap cushions into the hallway and pounding them until they were rid of dust. A quick check confirmed the absence of running water. Making use of a cleaning bucket, he went downstairs and found a spigot in the interior court of the building next door. A sign had been posted above it reading For Washing Only.

“Thank God, a little water,” said Ingrid, seeing the full bucket.

Judge set in on the john. “You can’t drink it until it’s boiled.”

“I wouldn’t dare, but I do need to clean up a tad. Would you excuse me?”

“Sure.” Judge walked around the apartment, yawning, stretching his arms, trying hard not to think of what had gone on here six years ago. The duvet Ingrid had laid on the bed was embroidered with the Bach family crest. Sitting, he struggled with the Latin motto:
Pax fortis
,
omnia
.

“‘In peace, strong. In battle strongest,’” Ingrid recited, sitting down next to him. “Charming, isn’t it? Now you know why I kept it hidden.”

“Better than mine.”

“Oh? You have a crest as well?”

Judge dropped his head and laughed, but only for an instant. That was his Ingrid. The lady to her manservant. By now, he knew her well enough to know that her remark carried no condescension, just surprise and a genuine interest. Even without a penny in her purse, she would always be an aristocrat.

“Not a crest, no, but at least a motto.
‘Nunc est bibendum.’
It means ‘Now is the time to drink.’ The old man was Irish. What do you expect?”

Ingrid grinned halfheartedly and when Judge looked closer he saw she was shivering. “You’re cold?”

She shook her head. “I’m scared.”

Judge put his arm around her. He tried to muster his most confident smile, but only managed to press his lips tightly together. Any rousing words would prove hollow encouragement. “Me, too.”

“I wouldn’t know it. You look like you were cut out for this type of thing.”

“Me?” The thought of himself as a hardened soldier made him laugh. He looked at the crusts of dirt blackening his fingernails and cringed. “The only battles I fight are in the courtroom. It’s a pretty placid affair, a few guys arguing with each other. Sometimes we even raise our voices. When it’s over we go out and have lunch together.”

“I saw how you struck General Carswell. You liked it.”

“No,” Judge retorted, picking out the sliver of derision in her voice. “I didn’t.” But even as he made his denial, his anger faded. She was right. He had liked it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m upset. I miss my son.”

For once, Judge couldn’t think of anything to say, so he remained quiet. Stirred by her presence, he drew her closer. It was a reflex, an instinct. No, he admitted to himself. It was desire, something he’d wanted to do since he’d first seen her; something his predetermined prejudices against the German
volk,
in general, and the Bachs, in particular, had prevented.

He brushed his nose against her vanilla-scented hair, smelling her, wanting her feminine scent to flush the omnipresent stink of charred wood and raw sewage from his nostrils. A delicate hand inside his shirt caused his breath to catch. Fingers skipped over his ribs, caressing his chest.

Judge tilted his head toward hers. He saw in her eyes the same desire that had gripped him at Jake’s Joint and, that he now knew, had consumed him ever since. He kissed her softly, tasting her lips. She moaned, and pressed herself against him, and for the swiftest of moments, he thought,
I’m kissing a German,
and
I am kissing the enemy,
then he felt her mouth open to his and he knew she was simply a young woman who needed to be loved, a soul not so different from his own.

He kissed her long and deep, and she responded, searching hungrily for his tongue, her hands exploring his body, grasping, massaging him. Pent up for so long, his desire throbbed and grew hot inside him. Abruptly, he raised his head from hers, and for a moment they both stared at each other, a look of bemused surprise brightening their faces.

With a finger he traced the curve of her neck and her shoulders. He’d forgotten the silky feel of a woman’s skin and his fingertips sent small currents of electricity dancing along his arm. “We’re like a couple of teenagers.”

She brushed his hair back from his forehead, drawing her hand gently across his cheek. Suddenly, she laughed huskily and pushed him flat onto the bed. “I never did this when I was a teenager.”

“Did what?”

“Patience, Major Judge, and you’ll find out.”