The Shadowboxer (23 page)

“But that's how it is with us, isn't it, Peppermint? We learn from one another. The gambit you play on me today I employ against someone else tomorrow. Eventually our bag of tricks becomes the same, and then the game resolves simply into catching the other side off guard. Goals and causes become secondary; only the competition matters. How futile it is, Peppermint. We are jousting windmills, boxing with shadows. Our late friend Spangler was a real shadow-boxer, wasn't he? And what did he accomplish for all his trouble? But I suppose he enjoyed it. We all do, eh, Peppermint? Intrigue exhilarates us. Win or lose, there's never any rancor between adversaries. Is that why no one outside really understands us—or cares to?”

“You agreed to give me whoever I wanted in return for Spangler,” Julian said coldly. “I want Kapska and Brome.”

“Kapska and Brome were
suggestions
, not agreements. Our agreement was formulated that night in France when I demanded that Spangler should not go after the Tolan girl. You saw fit not to honor it. You imperiled my position, even my life. But now you have been outmaneuvered. Spangler is gone. Kapska and Brome will soon follow. Whatever the scheme you had in mind, it has been crippled. But, most important, I am safe. No one is left who can implicate me in anything treasonable to Germany. No one except you, Peppermint. But there's nothing I can do about that, not with a gun pointing at me from under your cassock. Do you intend to shoot? Wouldn't that be foolish, Peppermint? You would hit me, and my companions here would kill you. So we are at a deadlock.”

“And Jean-Claude? You also agreed to release him.”

“Suggested, Peppermint, not agreed. I was careful with my phrasing. I had to be careful not to lie. After all, we may be doing business again in the future.”

“He knows nothing. He's only a child.”

“Then we shall make good use of him, as I once promised,” von Schleiben said with a snap of the fingers as Harold cast off. “
Auf Wiedersehen
, my friend.”

37

“Let your fancy paratroops do the job,” Spangler muttered, asprawl in the great armchair before the blazing fireplace in Kittermaster's office.

“The Army has called off the raid, Erik. The invasion has been moved up and they need the planes. With Kittermaster gone, we have no power to override the Army,” Julian said from behind the colonel's desk.

“Just what did happen to Kittermaster?”

“We're still investigating. Erik, you have to go in.”

“I won't.”

“Then what will become of Jean-Claude?”

“We don't even know where he is.”

“But we do, Erik. I went through Kittermaster's private files. I found this message he never showed us. Jean-Claude had gotten it out of Birkenau. He's in Birkenau, Erik.”

“I won't go back.”

“And forsake the boy?”

“I can't go back. I'm in no condition. I'm sick—I can't even walk.”

“You're a hypochondriac, Erik, short and simple. You know that as well as I do. You're that locker-room cripple, that magnificent athlete who always complains of ailments—until the competition begins. There's not a thing in the world wrong with you, Erik. Not physically.”

Julian took a cigar from Kittermaster's humidor. “Erik, remember when we first met in France? You had been staying with Henri Tramont in the mountains, at his cabin. You and Henri had already freed those priests—the ones who had been friends of his at a monastery nearby.”

“What has that to do with anything?”

“What order of priests were they, Erik?”

“I don't remember.”

“Of course you do.” Julian lit his cigar and inhaled appreciatively. “That's one reason you went to visit Henri so often. Those particular priests fascinated you, didn't they?”

“I went there to hunt and ski.”

“Those priests were flagellants, weren't they, Erik? And that's why they lived in such isolation in the mountains—they had been banished by the Church, I believe.”

“I don't know what they were, outside of being friends of Henri.”

“Was Henri a flagellant?”

“How would I know?”

“Are you a flagellant?”

“You must be out of your mind,” said Spangler.

“It's odd that you should say that, Erik. You see, I've talked to some medical people. Erik, did you realize that under certain circumstances hypochondria is a form of self-flagellation? Instead of punishing yourself physically, you do it mentally.”

“When I want a psychoanalyst I'll pick my own,” Spangler said, rising and limping to the desk. He glanced down and read the message Jean-Claude had sent from Birkenau.

“I found out a good deal about those priests, and a great many things start fitting in place. The numbers, for instance. The dates that Henri also liked for his raids—the eighth, the seventeenth and the twenty-sixth—remember them, Erik? Remember how we decided to set patterns to confuse the Germans and make them think it was one man engineering all those escapes? Eventually only one man did, Erik—you. But at the beginning there were to be many. Henri picked those numbers, and I never gave it another thought. But you knew what they stood for. Those were the dates on which the priests would flagellate themselves—inflict pain on each other and expiate their sins. It was a private joke between you and Henri, wasn't it? “But your own symptoms—your pains are the worst on those three days, aren't they?”

“None of your goddam business.”

“Go back to the camp, Erik—bring out the boy.”

“I can't.”

“You still have your contacts, you can get across Germany without trouble. You can get into Poland. You'll conceive a method to get him out.”

“You don't understand.”

“They're not searching for you any more, Erik. It will be much easier. Look, Vetter is a Russian agent. I've known it all along, and I've let him send out messages—but I've changed them. They have a description of you that belongs to a man who is now dead. The Russians have passed the information on to von Schleiben. Von Schleiben has confirmed it through another source. Von Schleiben thinks you're dead, Erik. So you see there's nothing to worry about. They won't be expecting you.”

“I won't do it.”

“Henri was Jean-Claude's father.”

Spangler remained silent.

“And now you're repaying Henri for deserting him—letting him go on a raid alone and get captured. You have officially adopted his son. You
are
the protector of Henri's orphaned child?”

Spangler turned away.

“You have to go, Erik. You have to go for Henri's sake—for letting him die. But you owe it even more to Jean-Claude himself—von Schleiben has threatened to use him as a Bubel.”

Spangler's head dropped and his eyes closed. Teeth and fists clenched. He remained motionless for many seconds. Then he began to sob.

“And while you're there, Erik, you'll have to bring out Tolan as well. I'll help you, if you help me. Tolan must come out. And if you don't do it, Erik, I'll turn you over to von Schleiben myself.”

Kuprov sat cross-legged on the low wide hassock, reading the coroner's report while harem-clad serving girls draped a Grande Armée cape over his business suit. Von Schleiben, resplendent in Roman toga and myrtle wreath, with open sandals and painted toenails, reclined on a divan beside a lily pool.

The Russian picked through the other documents Julian had provided on Spangler's death. He studied the pages carefully and suddenly stopped with a harsh laugh.

“Idiot!” he shouted at von Schleiben. “They have made an idiot out of you. You have slaughtered my agent.”

Von Schleiben waved the girls from the salon.

“Spangler your agent?” von Schleiben replied languidly. “How ingenious—and how unfortunate.”

“No, you fool,” Kuprov said savagely. “You've murdered my primary agent at Westerly—Hilka Tolan. Vetter was the decoy. We knew the Americans would be watching him. We wanted them to watch him and intercept or tamper with his messages. With their attention on Vetter, the Tolan girl could operate more freely. But you put an end to that. You killed her for me, didn't you? And before she got out anything useful
except
for some random details—like who her lover was.”

“As I remarked before, how unfortunate.”

“The man you murdered was her lover, the colonel in command—a man named Kittermaster—
not
your precious Spangler.”

Von Schleiben paled and grew rigid. “
Where is Spangler?
You provided his description—it checks with the coroner's report.”

“A description concocted by the Americans. I told you they were tampering with Vetter's messages. His description of Spangler had been changed to fit Kittermaster.”

“I should have been told.”

“We didn't know for certain until two days ago.”

“I want accurate information on Spangler.”

“Then this is what you do, my little shrunken Caesar,” Kuprov said, rising and ripping off his cape. “Go do your own handiwork and find out. Go whisper in the corpses' ears—Tolan now, Vetter shortly. Maybe their dead lips will reveal a secret.”

Kuprov stopped at the door and turned back to von Schleiben. “You are a vain, stupid little peacock, Goliath. You don't even have good jokes any more. I am beginning to tire of you. Don't let me tire of you, Schleebund. Now that you've slaughtered my agents,
you
find out what the Americans are up to at Westerly—or you'll be strutting from the end of a rope when we overrun Germany.”

Von Schleiben watched at the window as Kuprov descended into the blacked-out side street. The German General nodded. Four men emerged from doorways and started after the Russian.

PART THREE

The Spangler Proposition

38

The three-car “express” from Copenhagen ground to a stop outside Flensburg. Teams of green-uniformed Frontier Police hoisted themselves into the carriages and started along the low blue-lit passageways.

The compartment door squeaked open. A gloved hand shook Spangler awake.

“Passport. Papers,” a youth with peaked felt cap and leather elbow patches demanded in German. “Passport! Papers!” he repeated in Danish.

Spangler reached into his rewoven, threadbare wool jacket and handed up the packet. The boy thumbed through it with practiced efficiency.

“Hans Kieland,” he droned as his confederate standing in the doorway began printing on the form attached to the clipboard. “Danish. Passport number 2735.” He started on the other documents without dropping the chant: “Volunteer worker permit S-1521. Point of departure: Copenhagen. Point of arrival: Hamburg. Destination: Zermastoff Labor Battalion.” A thin paper was unfolded. “Travel permit issued Copenhagen, 19 February 1944, Gestapo, Amt Four E Four. Ration card and currency receipt in order.”

The documents were stamped with various seals.

“Luggage?” inquired the youth.

Spangler pointed to the rack over his head.

“Get it down.”

Spangler did as he was told. The battered cardboard contained a worn, colorless shirt, two pairs of mended woolen socks, suspenders, a straight razor, three apples, a half-eaten loaf of dry brown bread and a pouch of ersatz coffee.

The youth nodded and pasted a customs sticker to the side of the box. “Are you all right?” he asked, gazing at Spangler.

“Yes.”

“You look warm. Don't sit so close to the window or you'll get a chill. We can't afford to have our volunteers sick. Heil Hitler!”

The inspection team descended on the next passenger.

An hour and a half later the flag was waved and the switch thrown. The train began to rattle slowly forward.

Flares stopped the locomotive just before Neumuenster. Spangler could see German police officers on the tracks below his window talking with the conductor and pointing to the north. The compartment doors were open.

“Outside,” the engineer urged him. “Everyone outside. Kiel is being bombed. The British might pass this way on their return. Everyone out.”

Spangler lowered himself to the roadbed and limped into the field with the other passengers.

“If you hear engines,” a one-legged Wehrmacht captain in a muffler told them, “lie face down on the earth. Do not light matches.”

“What about the flares?” said Spangler. “If you're worried about British planes spotting matches, what about the flares burning out in front of the locomotive?”

The officer turned and shouted an order. The flares were extinguished. The man studied Spangler momentarily, nodded and left.

Faint thuds were heard in the distance. Suddenly the ground beneath them shuddered. It was almost a full minute before a red glow flickered in the north.

“Petroleum,” whispered one of the passengers.

“Perhaps it was ammunition,” offered another.

“No, it is petroleum. Little ammunition is kept in Kiel these days.”

“Petroleum,” a third confirmed softly. “Only petroleum burns that high or hot. If it was ammunition the glow would not linger in the distance. There would be a white flash and that would be that.”

More explosions were felt, then heard. The red glow in the north grew brighter and higher. Distinct bands of blue shimmered across the sky. Gentle pillars of black began curling upward and drifting into the red, like ink into blood.

“It's petroleum,” the dissenter conceded.

The concussions lasted another twenty minutes. Half an hour later the officer returned. “They have left. You can go back to the cars,” he told them.

“I heard no aircraft,” the first passenger said, almost in disappointment. “They usually pass back this way.”

“They've gone on to Hamburg.”

“Hamburg?” the passenger muttered to Spangler as they started back to the tracks. “What is there left in Hamburg to bomb?”