The Runner (4 page)

J
UDGE POURED HIMSELF A GLASS
of water from a crystal carafe, then collapsed onto a yellow couch, exhaling deeply. Taking a sip, he could hear Jackson’s and Storey’s voices behind the bedroom doors, raised in a not altogether friendly conversation. A frank exchange of views, the papers would say. He just hoped Storey was arguing in favor of his transfer, not against a court martial. Someplace back there, he’d passed insubordination in a hurry. His only consolation was that Francis would have done the same for him.

Closing his eyes, he remembered the last time he’d seen his brother. August 2, 1943. Frankie’s departure to England. The two of them saying good-bye, alone among a crowd of ten thousand packed onto Pier 4B at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Francis was wearing a GI’s olive drab fatigues, captain’s bars pinned to one lapel, the Savior’s cross on the other. He was staring at ten days of rough seas, tight quarters, and lousy chow, not to mention the Nazi wolf pack breathing down his neck, and he’d never looked happier.

“Hey, kid, don’t go being a hero,” Judge said, mimicking Spencer Tracy’s rough-and-tumble voice while patting his brother on the arm. Francis couldn’t get enough of Tracy.
Boys’ Town, Captain’s Courageous, Woman of the Year
—they were his favorite films.

“That’s God’s decision,” Francis replied stoically, “not mine.”

“Hey, Frankie, I was joking. Whatcha gonna do, anyway? Throw Bibles at Hitler?”

Finally a smile. “If it would stop the war a day sooner, I surely would.”

Francis was taller by four inches and outweighed him by a good seventy pounds. If the Roman Catholic Church had mandated a vow of hunger, he’d have never made it through seminary. Judge came in for a last hug. He kissed his brother’s cheek and let himself be drawn close. He knew he should be the one going. Francis was forty-three years old. He couldn’t see past the hem of his cassock without his glasses, and he cried like a baby at the pictures. This was him all over. Drawing the hardest duty and smiling about it.

“I love you,” Judge said.

Francis stared at him long and hard, confused by his brother’s sentiment. The fact was, the two had never been especially close. Too much sermonizing on Francis’s part. He’d been talking fire and brimstone since he was twenty-three and Judge thirteen. Repent all sinners, lest ye be cast into the abyss. Love was couched threefold behind expectation, responsibility, and since Judge’s divorce, indignation. As Jackson had said, he was a “Jezzie.” One of Ignatius Loyola’s Soldiers of Christ. What could you expect?

“Don’t worry about me, Dev. I’ll be just fine.” And then, as if to prove his point or, looking back, maybe his invincibility, he’d removed the leather lanyard from his neck, yanked off the crucifix and handed it to Judge. “Remember, Dev, the Lord looks after his own.”

Judge opened his eyes, calling back the photographs he’d seen that morning. Francis lying prostrate in a muddy field, a dozen bullet holes his final benediction. Seyss’s boot in a soldier’s back.
No, Frankie, not anymore he doesn’t. Nowadays, you have to look after yourself
.

J
ACKSON AND
S
TOREY REENTERED
THE
drawing room an hour later. If a solution had been reached, their grim demeanor gave no clue of it. Judge stood, wanting to make a final plea, but Jackson spoke before he got a chance.

“Believe it or not, I do appreciate your dilemma. You made a persuasive case for yourself. And if I don’t recognize the law behind your argument, I do recognize the sentiment. Never underestimate the value of emotion on a jury. Or passion. Sometimes a tear is all it takes to topple the soundest defense—though I’ll thank you to leave my brother out of it, if there’s ever a next time.”

Judge no longer had a problem following Storey’s advice to keep his mouth shut. Any lawyer could recognize the preamble to good news. One thing bothered him. Why the hell did Storey look so glum?

A knock came at the door and Storey rushed to open it. A messenger wearing sand-colored puttees, crash helmet under one arm, handed over a yellow envelope, asking Storey to sign a receipt. Storey scribbled his signature, then handed the envelope to Jackson, all the while avoiding Judge’s inquisitive glare.

“I believe this is yours,” said Jackson, thrusting the envelope toward Judge.

Judge tore open the telegram. It read: “Per verbal orders supreme commander armed forces Europe. Major Devlin Parnell Judge, JAG, is forthwith and immediately transferred on temporary duty to the Office of the Provost Marshal, United States Third Army, General George S. Patton, Jr., commanding. The duration of the transfer shall last no longer than seven days and will end at midnight, 15 July 1945. Every member of this command is to provide this officer with all assistance he requests. Signed, General Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

Judge wanted to smile. He’d gotten his transfer to Patton’s Third, and with Eisenhower’s blessing, no less. But something in the telegram bothered him. Reading it a second time, his eyes tripped over the words that left stillborn his excitement. “The duration of the transfer shall be seven days.”
Seven days!
It would take him a day just to travel to Bad Toelz and get acquainted with the setup. The transfer was hardly better than being turned down altogether. If ever he’d won a Pyrrhic victory, this was it. So much for Storey’s downcast look.

“I can’t have you traveling all over Europe at your discretion,” explained Jackson. “This will put a rush on things. Do your work, find him, and get back. I hope I’m making you happy.”

Judge kowtowed as decorum demanded. “Yes, sir, I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. Thank you.”

Jackson ambled to a dresser and poured himself a tumbler of scotch. “By the way, you should feel right at home in Bad Toelz. The provost marshal is a fellow named Mullins. Ring a bell?”

“Would that be Spanner Mullins, sir?”

“If Spanner is some kind of nickname for Stanley, yes, it would. Your former precinct commander is delighted to have you aboard. Said Tallyho is pinching his resources in a terrible way. He asked if you might be granted a longer stay, but I had to turn him down. Told him you were too good a man to lose indefinitely.”

Judge mumbled “Thank you” again. He was happy to be reporting to Mullins but hardly surprised. Half of New York City was in Europe. His commanding officer at Interrogations was John Harlan Amen, the former district attorney for Brooklyn. Telford Taylor, a prominent Park Avenue attorney who’d recruited him out of law school was also working under Justice Jackson, and now who should turn up but Spanner Mullins, commander of the Twentieth Precinct during his ten years as a New York City cop. He’d heard his former boss was attached to Patton’s staff. He should have figured it would be in the provost marshal’s office.

“I’m flying to Nuremberg tomorrow morning,” said Jackson. “If you want to hitch a lift, be at Orly Airport at nine o’clock. Seven days, Major. Next Monday, I want you at the Ashcan in Luxembourg beginning your interrogation of Fat Stuff. Is that clear? Oh, and Judge, one last thing. You’re going to Patton’s command. Make sure your shoes are shined.”

B
ACK IN HIS OFFICE AT
7 rue de Presbourg, Bob Storey locked the door and rushed to his desk. Unlocking a cabinet near the window, he removed a scuffed black telephone, pulling the cord behind it so he could set the apparatus on his desk. Lifting the receiver, he dialed a five digit number in London.

A woman answered after three rings. “Personnel.”

“I need to speak to Walter Williams, please. It’s his nephew, Victor.”

“Thank you. I’ll put you right through.”

Two minutes passed until a deep, gravelly voice came onto the line. “That you, Bob? We secure?”

“Yes, Bill, the line’s clear,” said Storey. “We’ve got a rather interesting situation developing over here. A war criminal’s escaped and one of Jackson’s boys wants to go after him.”

“A lawyer? You’re kidding?”

“I believe we all practiced the trade at some time in our life. Unlike us, this one did the exciting stuff before joining the bar.”

Storey had spent the first part of the year on a mission for his friend “Bill.” Traveling behind Russian lines, he’d accompanied a team of Red Army jurists as they dealt with suspected war criminals. Usually, the accused were brought before the court at dawn, tried by lunch, and shot by dusk. It wasn’t the exercise of justice. Just power.

“Is that right?” asked Bill. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

“This man happened to be a peace officer in his other life.”

“We call them policemen outside of Texas,” Bill laughed. “Give me the details.”

Storey relayed the news of Seyss’s escape, Judge’s interest in the German officer, and his success in obtaining a transfer to Patton’s Third Army, Office of the Provost Marshal. He even recited the text of Eisenhower’s orders verbatim. A photographic memory was one of the attributes that had made him such an attractive find.

“And when is Judge leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning,” said Storey.

“Well, you were right to let me know, Bob. Many thanks. I’ll make sure we keep an eye on him. After all, we wouldn’t want the boy causing us any trouble.”

CHAPTER

4

A
PERSISTENT RAPPING ON THE
bedroom door roused him from his slumber.

“Herr Seyss, it is time to wake. You are to dress and come to the salon at once.”

“Sofort,”
Seyss answered, his voice immediately clear. Right away.

Lifting his head from the down pillow, he squinted into the darkness and willed the room into focus. Slowly, reluctantly, it obliged: the armoire where he’d hung his clothing, the night table where a basin of water had been set for him to wash; the damask curtains drawn to block out the morning light. And with it, memories of the night before.

Free from the camp, he’d abandoned the wagon and headed into the forest. His destination was a logging road that ran along the crest of the mountain—a two-mile run uphill. His exhilaration at being free wore off after the first incline, leaving his legs trembling and his lungs afire. Hardly his nation’s greatest hope. To stoke his resolve, he seized on his shame at having nearly botched the escape, but over the last half mile, that too faded. Anger carried him over the crest of the mountain, his ire at the pitiful condition he’d been left in by Janks and Vlassov and the entire Allied war machine.

He spotted the Mercedes right off, tucked in a copse of birch trees so that only its chrome snout was visible. A pair of headlamps flashed once and two men dressed in formal business attire climbed from the cabin. “Hurry, Herr Sturmbannführer,” one whispered. “Into the trunk. The Olympicstrasse is only clear until eleven
P.M
.”

Nearing them, Seyss took a closer look at the car: A 1936 Mercedes touring sedan, black with spoke hubcaps, whitewall tires, and on its mesh grille a crimson badge displaying the letter
B
in ornate white Gothic script—the symbol of Bach Industries, Germany’s largest armaments manufacturer. He’d thought he recognized it; now he was sure. He’d ridden in this very car a hundred times before the war.

At last, he knew who had summoned him. Only one further question remained: Why?

That had been six hours ago.

Seyss walked to the night table and splashed water in his face, then on his chest and neck. Drying himself, he crossed the room to open the curtains. Sunshine flooded the bedroom. He unlatched the window and a wave of hot air swept over him. It was not six in the morning, but six in the evening. He had slept eighteen hours without waking.

T
HREE SETS OF CLOTHING HUNG
inside the armoire. He chose a pair of tan trousers and a white shirt. Putting them on, he stared at his body in the mirror. His face and forearms were colored a rich mountain brown but the rest of him was ghostly pale. The scar from the Russian’s bullet had left an ugly pink weal four inches long above his waist. He could count his ribs easily. His arms, though, had kept their tone. Once he’d done thirty-seven pull-ups to win a battalion fitness contest. He was less pleased with his posture. A late-opening parachute had compressed three veterbrae in his spine and left him slightly askew, tilted an inch or so to the left. His hair had turned nearly white in the mountain sun but his face was too slim, shadowed by the haunted scowl he’d seen on so many other soldiers and sworn never to adopt himself. Once women had found him handsome. They’d told him he had a kind mouth and soulful eyes. Moving closer to the mirror, he struggled to find a hint of the compassion they’d seen. He couldn’t.

After buttoning his shirt, he grabbed a loden blazer and gave himself a final looking over. His shock was immediate and overwhelming. Staring back at him was a civilian. A man who would never again don his country’s uniform. A man who had lost the war. Cheeks scrubbed, hair combed, clothes just so, he looked more like a country squire than an escapee from an American prison camp. The thought came to him that he was betraying the comrades he’d left eighty miles away in a barbed-wire pen. He dismissed it. Any man who’d suffered even a little of war knew never to question his luck. Good fortune was like a weekend pass: never too soon coming and always too soon gone. Besides, Seyss didn’t imagine he’d be taking a vacation anytime soon.

T
HE DRAWING ROOM OF THE
Villa Ludwig hadn’t changed since the war began. Louis XV sofas upholstered in burgundy chintz crowded every wall. The Bösendorfer grand, ever polished as if for that evening’s performance, shared its corner with an immortal Phoenician palm. And sagging from the walls hung the same succession of dreary landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich. A mausoleum for the living, observed Seyss, as he entered the marble-floored chamber.

“Erich, so wonderful to see you,” declared Egon Bach, rising from a wing chair. “Sleep the great healer? You’re looking fit, all things considered.”

Every large family has its runt and Egon Bach, youngest of the seven Bach children, claimed the title. He was very short and very thin and his cropped brown hair, cut a full inch above the ear, spoke volumes about his love of all things fascist. It was his vision, however, that had kept him from active service. His tortoiseshell spectacles carried lenses so thick that his obsidian eyes stared at you from the end of a drunken corridor. But Seyss had never heard him complain about his physical shortcomings. Instead, Egon had joined the family business and used his position as sole heir in the executive suite to bring him the glory a battlefield never would. Whatever enmity he’d felt at being left out of the match he’d channeled into his work. Last Seyss heard, he’d been appointed to the firm’s executive board, the youngest member by thirty years.

“Hello, Egon. I apologize for keeping your father waiting.”

“Don’t apologize to Father,” he said in a sprightly tone. “Apologize to me.”

“You?”
Seyss shook the smaller man’s hand, finding the grip cool and clammy. “You called me down here?”

A self-satisfied smile. “I’ve been running the firm for a year now.”

Seyss had difficulty imagining the diminutive man, two years his junior, running the behemoth that was Bach Industries. A little like Goebbels governing the Reich. “I hadn’t heard your father had retired.”

“He hasn’t—at least not officially. The Americans have him under house arrest. The past year he’s suffered a series of strokes that have left him soft. He’ll be dead before fall.”

Don’t smile, Egon, or I’ll cuff you,
thought Seyss. “And how is it that
you
escaped the Allies’ interest? They’re a thorough bunch.”

“Thorough but pragmatic,” answered Egon, sensing his anger and taking a wise step to the rear. “We’ve managed an arrangement. I’ve been declared necessary to the rebuilding of Germany.”

“Have you? Bravo.” Seyss raised an eyebrow, but decided not to delve any further into the subject. The Bachs had always brokered some type of arrangement going with whoever was in power. Monarchs, republicans, fascists. It came as no surprise that Egon had worked out something with the Americans. Approaching the window, Seyss peeked from the lace curtains. Fifty meters away, two American soldiers stood guard at the entry to Villa Ludwig’s driveway. “Where were they when I arrived last night?”

“On duty, of course. Otherwise I would have met you myself.”

An arrangement indeed. Enough to clear the Olympicstrasse of military police for an hour but not to rid himself of a permanent guard. Things were more complicated than Bach had let on. “And your family? How did your brothers make out?”

Egon removed his glasses and as he polished them with his tie, his defenseless eyes crossed. “Fritz was killed at Monte Cassino a year ago. Heinz was in your area, the Dnieper Bend in the Ukraine. Apparently his tank took a direct hit. It was one of ours: a Panzer IV from our Essen
metalwerke.
A shame.” The creep sounded more concerned about the failure of the equipment than the death of his brother. “You knew about Karl. Seven kills before he went down over the Channel.”

“I’d heard, yes.” The Bachs might be an arrogant bunch but they were brave. Three of four sons lost. The Führer could ask no more of any family. “My condolences.”

Replacing his glasses, Egon retrieved two beers from the cherrywood side bar. “To fallen comrades.”

“May their memories never be forgotten.”

The Hacker-Pschorr was warm, but still Seyss’s favorite, and its bitter aftertaste resuscitated memories of his time with the Bach family. In this room, he’d listened to Hans Frizsche, the voice of the German DNB, announce the Anschluss with Austria, and a year later the annexation of the Sudetenland. In this room, he’d received the orders canceling his leave in August of 1939. In this room, he’d lowered himself to one knee and asked the only woman he’d ever loved to marry him. For a moment, he allowed himself to drift with the tide of his bittersweet memories. Before he could stop himself, he asked, “And Ingrid?”

“At Sonnenbrücke taking care of Father.” The Bachs owned homes in every corner of Germany. Each had a name. Sonnenbrücke was their palatial hunting lodge in the Chiemgauer Alps. “She always wanted to be a doctor,” added Egon. “Now’s her chance.”

“And Wilimovsky?”

Egon shook his head brusquely. “Shot down in the East a year ago. Pity for a girl to be widowed so young, though it’s the boy I’m worried about. Just six.” Suddenly he froze, his voice ratcheting up a notch. “Not interested, are you?
Or have you been all along?”

Seyss met Egon’s salacious gaze, but his thoughts were with Ingrid and the time was a crisp fall day in 1938. They had been seeing each other for a year and he had arrived that morning to spend his weekend pass at Villa Ludwig before continuing on to an infantry training course at Brunswick. Against her father’s will, she had decided to study medicine. With the Jews forbidden to practice, there was a growing shortage of doctors and she was anxious to break from her family. Even now, he could see her as she fell onto the couch in that exaggerated fashion that infuriated her father, a perfectly assembled mess of platinum hair and ruby red lipstick.

“I’ve decided to get a flat of my own,” she had said, after they’d had a cup of tea.

“What for?” he asked. “You have plenty of room here. Besides, your father won’t permit it.”

“I want us to be alone. You could come see me anytime you like. I’m sick of Fritz or Hilda barging in. Egon watches us through the keyhole.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re just eighteen.” He, being twenty-one, and the embodiment of wisdom.

“Almost nineteen,” she replied coquettishly, tracing the looping silver script embroidered on his left sleeve. LAH. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. “An officer assigned to the Führer’s bodyguard shouldn’t have to ask my father’s permission every time he wants to see me.”

Erich considered the dilemma. He didn’t like to admit that he was a stickler for rules and regulations. Earlier in the day, they’d argued about her makeup and clothing. Adhering to the party line, he had found himself saying that too much lipstick was un-German and that pants demeaned her femininity. He’d even declared that an SS man couldn’t be seen with a “trouser woman.” At that, Ingrid had broken out laughing, and after a moment, he had joined her. He knew what he had said was ridiculous, but an uncontrollable part of his nature compelled him to defend the party’s philosophy. He was, above all, a good National Socialist. Truth be told, he adored her tight blouses and soft curls. The idea of spending the night alone with Ingrid Bach was overpowering.

“I think the museum quarter would be the best place to start looking, don’t you?”

Ingrid screamed with delight and pulled him close. Guiding his hand to her breast, she kissed him in a very un-German fashion.

“I said, you’re not still interested?” Egon repeated.

“Of course not,” snapped Seyss, his attention again riveted to the here and now. He felt angry with himself for allowing his emotions free reign. Tucking in his jaw, he adopted the dry tone taught all SS officers.
Sächlichkeit,
it was called. The ability to view one’s circumstances with rigid objectivity. “Please pass along my regards to her and the boy.”

“I’ll be sure to.” Egon laughed rudely. “Though I’m not certain she’ll be too pleased. She never quite recovered, you know.”

“It was a different time,” said Seyss, answering his own accusations as well as his host’s. “One had obligations.”

“As a party member, I understand. As Ingrid’s brother, I take a different view. You hurt her badly.”

Seyss finished his beer and set down the empty glass. Five minutes listening to Egon’s nasal bray and he remembered all over again how much he hated the impudent bastard. He was sick of the small talk. He’d risked his life to be here and killed two men in the process. It was time to get down to business.

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“It was easy once I realized you’d be on the Allies’ list of war criminals. Still, I’d have thought you’d have learned to follow orders in your time. It was a foolish thing, killing the camp commander. He was with us, you know.”

“It was necessary.”

“It was rash. One more Nazi on the run means nothing to the Americans. But you had to murder an officer. Damn it, man, what were you thinking?”

Seyss tightened the muscles in his neck as his temper flared. What could Egon Bach know about the need to avenge your comrades? To cleanse your soul with the blood of your enemy? About the beauty of looking into a man’s eyes as he died by your hand? The smaller man’s anger fired his impatience to learn the reason why he’d been told to come to Munich. But he’d be damned if he asked.

To temper his restlessness, he clasped his hands behind his back and made a slow circuit around the room. His eyes fell to a patch of wall where a replica of Alfred Bach’s golden party badge, the highest honor the Nazi party bestowed upon civilians, used to hang. In its place was a photograph of Alfred Bach with Edward VIII, the English monarch who had given up his throne to marry an American divorcée. Shocked, he took a closer look at the other pictures hanging nearby. The color photo of Adolf Hitler thanking Alfred Bach for the handmade armchair he’d been given for his fiftieth birthday had been replaced by one of the elder Bach in the company of Charles Lindbergh, the famed American flyer. Another showed Alfred Bach shaking hands with Winston Churchill, circa 1912.