Eva (41 page)

He took a deep pull on his beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a gesture all Bavarian boys seem to have been born with. “I will wager, my dear Strelitz,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial, “I will wager the father is a real
Bonze
—a real big shot in the party! Someone with influence enough to arrange the escape of his girl friend who is no
Flitscherl
—no cheap hussy.”

He looked at Strelitz. “Intriguing, is that not so? Trying to deduce who it could be. Who do
you
think it is, my friend? Bormann? Himmler? Keitel?” He gave Strelitz a sidelong, almost mischievous look. “The Führer himself?” He chuckled. “There were enough rumors that he liked the young ladies, not so? Especially the young ladies of the theater. Perhaps our pregnant little girl is a cabaret chorus girl from Berlin, yes?” He shook his head. “It is intriguing, is it not,” he chuckled, “to speculate who fathered the child in our mysterious young woman’s womb. I must ask Johann; he will have talked to her.”

He turned away to put his empty beer bottle on a table.

Strelitz acted. He swung his heavy bottle and struck a crushing blow to the back of Klingmüller’s head. He hit him high on the junction of the parietal bones.

The man was unconscious before he hit the floor.

S
TRELITZ STARED ANGRILY
at the unconscious man sprawled on the floor. Klingmüller was a fool, he thought. A dangerous fool. He cursed him for the inconvenience and disruption he had caused and would be causing.

He had had no choice, of course. The idiot sealed his own fate once he started his dangerous guessing game. Obviously an incorrigible
Ausplauderer
—a blab—he had to be silenced, before he started to babble his minacious speculations to anyone who would listen.

It was the kind of situation the Führer in his wisdom had foreseen, he realized, and it had been his privilege to carry out the duty charged him.

Now to finish it.

He had an idea. He looked around the office. A large medicine cabinet with glass doors stood against one wall. He walked over to it. He surveyed the contents. Trays of surgical instruments. Ointments, salves, and lotions. Pills and medicines. A few cans of some sort of powder. He picked up one of them.
Derris Flohpulver,
the label read. It would do. He pocketed it.

He picked up the unconscious veterinarian and carried him to the door that led to the yard. Across the yard was the stable.

He peered out. The place was empty. He hefted his limp burden up over his shoulder and carried it to the stable.

The two horses that had taken Klingmüller and his charges to the
Wies
were in their stalls. Strelitz dumped the comatose man in the nearest one. The horse eyed the prostrate man uneasily, sidestepping skittishly to avoid the motionless body. Nostrils flaring, the animal snorted in nervous confusion.

Strelitz took the can from his pocket. He emptied half of the powder into the palm of his hand. He held it out toward the fretful horse. Curiously, apprehensively, the animal stretched his muzzle to examine the strange offering. On the floor Klingmüller groaned and stirred.

Suddenly Stretlitz blew the powder into the exploring nostrils of the horse.

Instantly, as the strong flea powder burned and seared the sensitive area, the horse whinnied in alarm. He reared up, as the agony in his nostrils worsened, snorting and neighing. As he came down, one hoof crashed into the chest of the man on the stable floor. Strelitz could hear the rib cage crack. Again and again the maddened horse, in a frenzy of torment, reared and kicked and bucked, his iron-shod hoofs stomping down repeatedly on the body at his feet.

Finally the raging of the tortured beast subsided. He stood trembling, his flanks flecked with foam from his mouth, his nostrils flaring.

The straw in his stall was soggy and red with the blood that oozed from the mangled mass at his feet.

Strelitz looked down at the dead agent. He hoped he could be identified. His head had been crushed.

Back in Klingmüller’s office Strelitz put the can of flea powder back in the cabinet. He got himself another bottle of beer from the icebox and sat down to take stock.

The mess in the stable would be considered an accident, he was certain. He looked around. There was nothing to betray his presence. He would throw the empty beer bottles in a trash bin he had seen in the yard. All three of them. The vet had obviously gone to the stable for one reason or other—and the horse had gone berserk. Any trace of flea powder found would be natural and would arouse no suspicion. There would be no meticulous investigation that might place the
Anlaufstelle
and the
Achse
in jeopardy.

The danger was in the disarray to the operation itself.

Calmly he examined his options. His first duty was, of course, to the safety of
Frau
Hitler and her companion. He would go to the
Wies
at once and contact Klingmüller’s fellow agent there. Then he would have to return to Memmingen and report to the
Verteilungsstab.
Through Ludwig. They would have to make alternate arrangements for the
Anlaufstelle
in Steingaden. It should only be a matter of a day or two.

He glanced at his watch. There would not be enough time to make contact with both Meister in the
Wies
and Ludwig in Memmingen. He obviously could not take the chance of traveling after curfew and being caught as a violator. He would have to remain at the
Wies
until the next morning. He was certain he could do so without being seen by Frau Hitler and the SS officer. He would drive back to Memmingen first thing in the morning as soon as the curfew was lifted. Only one thing disturbed him. With the
Anlaufstelle
schedule thrown out of order by the necessary elimination of Klingmüller, there now was a strong possibility that Diehl and the Gessner woman
would
catch up with
Frau
Hitler. But he was certain he could get to Memmingen before they left at the scheduled hour of 0830 on the
Stars and Stripes
truck, and delay them.

If an encounter did become imminent he would have to terminate the journey of the young SS officer and the daughter of Klara Gessner.

He cursed himself. An urgency, a tightness, a danger had crept into the journey which he had not wanted, not anticipated. It was becoming a race. A race with time—and danger. He should have taken care of the threat posed by Diehl, however tenuous, when he had the opportunity. He had let himself be blinded by the parentage of the girl. He should have realized that something would go wrong along the way. Something always did. That was the reason for contingency planning.

Perhaps it was not too late.

Tomorrow would be soon enough.

SS Sturmbannführer
Oskar Strelitz looked at his watch. He felt a pang of nostalgia. The watch was an SS issue; its black dial gleamed fiercely at him. He had no qualms about wearing it. There were enough of them around, adorning the wrists of Germans and
Amis
alike to arouse no suspicion. It was 0627 hours. The motorcycle purred under him. He would be in Memmingen in ample time to take care of Diehl and his girl.

He had spent the night in an empty room in the
Pfarrhaus
— the parsonage—adjoining the
Wies,
without getting near the crypt where Meister had told him the young couple was awaiting transportation.

Johann Meister, a dour, flat-eyed individual, had at once understood the situation. Strelitz was confident the man would be able to follow through, until the organization could put an alternate
Anlaufstelle
into effect.
Frau
Hitler and her escort would be on their way to Merano in two or three hours time, with only a short delay. He would have time enough to dispose of his mission in Memmingen, and get to Merano before nightfall. He estimated the whole trip to be about 250 kilometers, if he took the direct route to the border without detouring to Steingaden and the
Wies.
It was a damned long haul, but he would make it.

He had just passed the little side road that branched off to the village of Burggen from the road to Marktoberdorf, when he saw a dense cloud of black smoke hanging in the clear sky over the road in the distance. The woods lining the road prevented him from seeing what caused it. A fire obviously. A farmhouse? Barn? A haystack? From the sooty color of the smoke, perhaps a vehicle. He drove on.

Quite suddenly, around a bend in the road, the forest gave way to a stretch of cultivated fields, and Strelitz saw what had caused the smoke.

It was not one vehicle, but two.

Two US Army trucks, ditched near a small grove of trees, one overturned, both blackened by fire and still smoldering, their contents of crates and boxes spilled out on the road shoulder and in the ditch. On the road itself at least a dozen US Army jeeps and weapons carriers were haphazardly drawn up, and several
Ami
soldiers were grimly busying themselves around the still smoking trucks. On the road shoulder lay four forms, covered by blankets. A short distance before the site of the burned trucks an
Ami
jeep was halted across the road, blocking it.

An MP sergeant waved Strelitz to a halt with his tommy gun. He had no choice but to obey. It was too late to turn around. The sergeant strode up to him. With unconcealed animosity he glared at him. “Over there!” he snapped angrily. “
Da!”
He pointed. “
Schnell! Schnell! Da!
You wait!”

Strelitz wheeled his motorcycle into a field, joining a small group of anxious Germans who stood around a battered wood-burner truck, two horse-drawn wagons and an old, banged-up Packard touring car.

He walked up to a farmer who stood off by himself, scowling at the scene. In the distance the wail of an approaching ambulance gradually grew louder.

“What happened?” Strelitz asked the farmer.

“What do you want from me?” the man growled.

“Nothing. If you have nothing to say.”

The farmer hawked and spat on the ground. “Someone amused himself with a couple of
Ami
trucks,” he grumbled.

“Who?”

“See for yourself.” The man nodded toward the nearest of the smoldering vehicles.

Strelitz strained to look. On the side of the truck, partly obliterated by soot, something could be seen smeared on in white paint. A swastika. And little by little he could make out the crude writing accompanying it: “Americans! Beware! Before us, men turn into nothing!
Der Werwolf!”

“They kept their word,” the farmer muttered. “I saw them, the four
Amis.
I was one of the first ones here. Their throats were cut.” He nodded slowly. “And they were no longer—men.”

Strelitz looked at him sharply. “How so?” he asked.

The farmer did not look at him. “Each one,” he said, “each one of them had his
Schwanz
—his prick—cut off.” He was silent for a brief moment. “And stuck in his mouth,” he growled.

Strelitz felt uneasy. He did not care what had happened to the
Amis.
Only that the MPs might take it out on the people they rounded up. In any case, there would be a delay. A delay, before they got around to checking everyone out and sending them on their way. A delay he could not afford. He was not worried that his papers would not stand up to scrutiny by a bunch of MPs. They were the best. But he
had
to reach Memmingen before Diehl left the ropery.

He looked at the scene of bloody and fiery carnage. The words of
Reichsführer
Himmler suddenly rang out in his mind: Ruthless resistance will spring up behind their backs time and time again. Like werewolves, brave as death, the avengers will strike the enemy!

Well and good, he thought. Only, this time, the action of the werewolves might well have struck down a vital friendly mission.

He looked around. Another wagon had joined the group. Perhaps he could double back, find a side road and bypass the scene of the werewolf raid. He started to wheel his bike toward the road.

The MP sergeant stopped him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he rasped angrily. “Back. Wait!
Los!”

Strelitz addressed him in simple German. “I will go back,” he explained deferentially. “With your permission, I will try to find another road. It is important I get where I go as quickly as I can.” He gestured. “I will go—around.”

“The hell you will, you Kraut shithead!” the sergeant spat. “You get your ass back there. You’ll wait, you bastard. If it takes all day!”

It was 1142 hours when Strelitz finally pulled up at the ropery in Memmingen. He had seen no
Stars and Stripes
truck on the way. It meant nothing, of course. The truck could have taken any one of the several different roads between Memmingen and Steingaden. There could have been a delay, or a change of transportation. The route was flexible.