The Second Objective (9 page)

Grannit finished his cigarette, walked over to the toughest-looking guy in the group, slammed his head into the wall, and went to work on his kidneys. By the time he finished, the man was urinating on himself and four of the other five suspects had pens in their hands. Each was escorted to a separate, heated room down the hall, where they were told a hot meal and a cocktail of their choice would be served as soon as they finished their confessions.

Grannit stayed in the cold room with Eddie Bennings, the one man who hadn’t picked up a pen.

“You’re not going to write a statement?”

“Fuck you,” said Bennings.

Grannit ordered the other MPs out of the room and lit another cigarette.

“I know you from someplace, Eddie?”

“Where the fuck would I know you from?”

“You ever been fingerprinted in a New York police station? Done any time? Eduardo DiBiaso, that’s the name you were born with, isn’t it?”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Right here on your paperwork, Eduardo. Why is that, you change it for the draft board to get the stink of garlic off you? Or were you dodging a warrant?”

Bennings narrowed his gaze, working hard to show how little he cared. Grannit had known this pissant had a rap sheet the moment he laid eyes on him, strictly small potatoes, a wannabe who’d clocked enough time around the mob to lose his moral compass.

“You got a wife and kids back home, Bennings?”

“I got a wife.”

“That where you’re sending the money? Home to the wife?” No response. “Which makes her an accessory after the fact. We could go after her, too. Send the NYPD to her door. What’s her taste been so far, five thousand? Ten?”

“I got nothing to say till I talk to a lawyer.”

“Lawyer? Where the fuck you think you are, Hoboken? There’s no justice system here. There’s no neighborhood capo back home taking care of the family ’cause you kept your mouth shut. Military courts don’t work that way. This ain’t some penny-ante beef, pinching rum off the back of a Seagram’s truck. These are war crimes, pal. People go to jail for life or face a firing squad. We got you on ice. You don’t play ball, you’re never gonna see your wife again.”

“Bullshit.”

“And once word gets around how you guys ripped off our troops in the field? Life in the brig is gonna be some hard fucking time.”

The first crack showed in Eddie’s practiced tough-guy facade. “What about it?”

“We know you got a relationship with the officers running this show. You brought some experience from home; they trust you ’cause you got things done. You’re a key man for them. You want to tell me anything different?”

Eddie didn’t.

“Help us put those big shots in the pokey and the system’s gonna treat you better. That’s common sense. Your boys are soldiers, not gangsters, so nobody’s coming back at you if you roll over, you might not even stand trial. A slap on the wrist, maybe. They transfer you into another unit with no jail time.”

“What, so I can get killed on the front line? Thanks but no thanks.”

“Okay, Eddie. So we’ll go with choice number three.”

Grannit stubbed out his cigarette, grabbed Eddie by the collar and wrist, and marched him through the balcony doors.

“What’s that? What the fuck you doing?”

“I turn my back for a split second, you were so despondent you threw yourself over the rail. Tragic waste of life. No death payment, no gold star in the window, no folded flag for the missus—”

“Wait a second, wait a second—”

“You don’t think I’m pissed off enough? I’d be doing a favor for everybody in your life you’re going to fuck over if you live through this—”

Eddie grabbed hold of the wrought iron balcony with both hands for dear life as Grannit muscled him to the edge.

“Okay, okay, I’ll write it, I’ll write it, I’ll cooperate—”

“You sure about that?” Grannit yanked hard on his arms.

“I’m sure, I’m sure, Jesus Christ!”

Grannit let him drop to the floor of the balcony, panting like a puppy, slick with sweat.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said, and walked out of the room.

By six o’clock that night the urge to confess had spread through the 724th like old-time religion. Whenever Earl Grannit returned to the ballroom, he found more willing volunteers to take upstairs. He’d seen this before, panic spreading through a pack of crooks on some silent animal wavelength. By mid afternoon, he no longer needed to speak to suspects personally and handed them off to teams of junior CID officers like Ole Carlson, who needed the experience. As confessions piled up on their desks, the Army Intelligence men in charge felt as if they’d witnessed Grannit turn water into wine.

The CID brass organized dinner for their investigators that night in the hotel’s private dining room. Grannit made it clear he didn’t want anybody making too big a deal, but there was no doubt about who they were celebrating. CID had cracked its biggest case of the war, and Earl Grannit made it happen.

During the main course, a radio message came into the communications center downstairs for CID’s commanding officer. Three GIs from the 394th stationed at a checkpoint outside a small village called Elsenborn fifteen miles due east had gone AWOL overnight. Local MPs were on their way to investigate, so the radio operator didn’t feel it was important enough to interrupt the dinner.

An hour later, the radio man burst into the room during coffee and dessert with a second dispatch: The missing men’s bodies had been found in the woods a mile outside of town.

9

The Road to the Meuse, Belgium

DECEMBER 15, 7:00
A.M.

T
he three other commando teams working under Erich Von Leinsdorf crossed into Belgium before midnight and passed through American lines without incident. Gerhard Bremer’s team spent the night with a family of German sympathizers in the town of St. Jacques. American deserter William Sharper’s team, posing as a forward recon unit for Fifth Army, reached their safe house in Ligneuville. Karl Schmidt’s team lost their way, fell in behind a convoy of American vehicles heading west, then peeled off after midnight and spent the remainder of the night hidden in a forest. All three teams were up and on the road, heading west, before first light.

Von Leinsdorf’s squad spent the night on the floor in the parlor of Frau Escher’s apartment over her butcher shop in Waimes. Bernie Oster drifted between sleep and consciousness, disturbed by a persistent vision of their fleshy hostess storming into the room with her meat cleaver while they slept. Every time a floorboard groaned, a blast of adrenaline went off in his gut like a firecracker. By five
A.M.
Bernie couldn’t lie still any longer and went downstairs to piss.

The woman was already working at the bench in the shop’s back room. He could see her distorted shadow splashed against the far wall and heard the rough rasp of a bone cutter. He stepped quietly outside into the frigid morning air, his feet crunching on a crust of muddy frost. Their jeep sat just around the corner. The International Highway stretched out in front of him. The impulse to bolt hit him so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.

But which way should he run? Back toward the German line, into the teeth of the offensive that was about to be unleashed? Not as long as Erich Von Leinsdorf had access to a radio; they’d shoot him as a deserter, or take him for a GI and kill him on sight. Maybe if he lay low for a day and changed into civilian clothes, he could slip across once the attack began. But the odds of making his way home to Frankfurt without papers or travel passes were low. He tried to put the thought from his mind, but after months of Allied carpet bombing, for all he knew his parents were already dead.

No, he should head deeper behind the American line, try to hook up with one of their units, and tell them the Krauts were about to invade. Would they buy it? Wasn’t that what they’d trained him for these last three months? To pass as an American? In his heart of hearts, in his mortal soul, he was still a kid from New York who wanted his old life back. But what if he broke down under questioning, and the truth came out?

Who was he kidding? Betting his life on the mercy of the U.S. Army with the Germans about to rain holy hell down on them? He’d be court-martialed and shot in no time flat. So how could he warn them without dying for it?

One other way occurred to him. They had stashed their regulation Wehrmacht gear in four jerricans strapped to the jeep. He could take off in the jeep, change into his German uniform, then walk west waving a white flag and surrender as a deserter who’d just come across the lines. Tell them everything he knew about the coming attack, and live out what was left of the war as an Allied prisoner. That was his best chance, but only until zero hour. As soon as bullets started flying, his bargaining chip lost its value. But did he know enough about the offensive beyond what his own brigade was doing? His knowledge about even that was sketchy; Von Leinsdorf had kept them in the dark.

His mind raced back and forth, stuck on a final question: Was it worth the risk of giving Erich Von Leinsdorf a reason to hunt him down?

“Did she feed you breakfast?”

He turned sharply. Von Leinsdorf stood six feet behind him.

Jesus, I didn’t even hear him coming.

Bernie worked to keep the traitorous thoughts he’d been dancing with off his face. Von Leinsdorf took a piss, supremely casual, a cigarette on his lip.

“Fuck no,” said Bernie. “Not after that dinner she fed us. Bet my left nut this fucking village is missing some cats.”

Von Leinsdorf chuckled, and buttoned his pants back up. “Go tell Preuss we’re leaving.”

“She said the Americans took all her food? Jesus, how fat was she before the war started?”

“Get Preuss.”

Bernie worried for a moment that the man had read his mind.

“What, you don’t want to see her again either?”

“Fuck no,” said Von Leinsdorf, and smiled slyly.

He found Preuss hunched over the table in the kitchen, greedily scarfing down a thin fried egg and another plate of sausages from Frau Escher’s display case of mystery meats. The woman sat on a stool in the corner polishing Preuss’s new GI boots.

“Well, ain’t this a cozy picture of domestic bliss,” Bernie said.

Preuss looked up at him, half-chewed food in his mouth, slack-jawed and clueless. Frau Escher offered Bernie a plate for himself, but his stomach turned at the thought of it. He pulled Preuss out the back door, still carrying his boots, to where Von Leinsdorf had backed up their jeep.

The woman waved from her doorway as they drove off. Preuss waved back. Bernie saw her wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.

“She’s set her cap for you, Preuss,” said Von Leinsdorf.

“Cap? What is this?” asked Preuss.

“She’s in the market for a husband.”

“You want to fill that position, Preuss?” asked Bernie.

“I like her cooking,” said Preuss.

Bernie meowed like a cat.

“Here pussy, pussy, pussy,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Here pussy, pussy, pussy.”

“I don’t appreciate,” said Preuss, turning red. “I don’t appreciate.”

Bernie and Von Leinsdorf broke out laughing.

The highway filled with routine morning traffic as they traveled west. Allied security loosened, and the road took on the look and feel of an ordinary day; citizens going about their business, soldiers minding theirs. They passed a major crossroads outside Malmédy, then worked southwest through Stavelot to the bridges over the Ambleve River at Trois-Ponts. The Ambleve was the last geographic obstacle before the ground graded down toward the Meuse River valley. Bernie watched Von Leinsdorf make coded entries in his notebook, detailing each defensive position they passed. The deeper they drove, the more encouraged Von Leinsdorf became; the Allies had no idea what was about to hit them.

By late afternoon, as daylight faded, they drew within sight of the Meuse River and the bridge at Amay. They pulled off the road on a steep bluff above the river, into a stand of woods. Heavy clouds rolled in as they made camp, a new weather system lowering the ceiling and reducing visibility, exactly as forecast. Allied aircraft would be neutralized by those skies, attack planes and reconnaissance alike. Preuss broke out packets of American K rations they’d taken from the dead GIs. Bernie activated their field transmitter, adjusting the antennae until he secured a signal. Preuss came over to show him one of the K rations.

“Look here,” said Preuss. “Can you believe this?”

“It’s just a slice of cheese, Preuss.”

“No, look, it have bacon in it,” he said, pointing to the cheese, then taking a bite. “Real bacon. Here, try.”

Bernie took a bite to humor him. The cheese was hard, dry, and bland as wax, but carried an insistent odor of rancid pork.

“That’s okay, Preuss.”

“An army which can do this,” said Preuss, shaking his head in admiration. “Cheese
mit
bacon.”

Von Leinsdorf climbed a nearby embankment, unfolded a map, and studied the bridge below through field glasses. Light traffic, half of it American military, flowed in both directions. Sandbags surrounded an antiaircraft gun emplacement and a single machine gun on the eastern shore, manned by what looked like a single platoon. He saw no forces at all on the western shore. Bernie joined him, while Preuss sat a short distance away with a pad and pen. Trained as the reconnaissance officer for their squad, he began sketching in details of the bridge on a hand-drawn map.