Order of Battle (15 page)

“To the American Gestapo.” Anna Hoffmann’s voice was acid. “Yes. I shall tell him.”

Erik nodded to the two women.

“
Grüss Gott
” he said. He turned and, followed by Murphy, mounted the jeep.

The women stared after the vehicle until it disappeared through the farm gate.

Murphy was concerned. He was frowning as he hunched over the wheel, driving back toward Weiden. He glanced at Erik.

“You know, sir,” he said tentatively, “I thought there was something—something fishy about that place. You sure we shouldn’t stick around?”

Erik regarded him quizzically. He looked secretly pleased with himself.

“Why?” he asked pointedly. “The girl?”

Murphy gave him a quick glance. That’s a switch, he thought. And what the hell makes him so cheerful? The whole thing was a bust! Aloud he said, “No. No, sir.”

He grinned.

“And ‘no’ is a terrible wrong word to be using about a dish like that.” He grew sober. “No, I just had a feeling. That guy being away and all. Everything wasn’t—uh—kosher.”

“Kosher!” Erik laughed. “I thought you were Irish.”

“And so I am. But the Irish don’t have a monopoly on a well-turned phrase.”

“That’s quite an admission, Jim. Anyway, you’re learning.”

“Learning? Learning what? If I’m learning something, you’d better tell me what it is. How am I supposed to see the light if you keep me in the dark?”

Erik turned and looked back. He seemed satisfied. Up ahead a narrow dirt trail led off the road into the woods.

“We’re out of sight by now. Turn in there.” He pointed to the trail.

Murphy turned the jeep onto the dirt road. It was a sandy lane with deep ruts. He engaged the four-wheel drive. Soon they were well into the woods and nearing the ridge of a slope.

They stopped the jeep and dismounted. From the back Erik picked up a pair of binoculars, and the two men quickly made their way among the trees to the top of the ridge. Here the forest ended. On the far slope plowed earth and grassland stretched down to the Hoffmann farm below. Erik and Murphy took cover under some bushes at the edge of the forest and Erik began to scan the farm through his glasses. It was a perfect vantage point. The farm below lay deserted in the sun.

“It shouldn’t be long now,” Erik observed in a low voice. He felt that tingle of excitement that always coursed through him when something was about to happen.

“Okay, okay,” Murphy complained. He glared at Erik with mock exasperation. “So don’t tell me nothing!”

Erik only smiled. He was watching the farm. Suddenly he whispered, “There they are!”

From the farmhouse below Anna Hoffmann and her daughter came hurrying out. They stopped outside the door for a moment, looking around and listening intently. Then Lise ran to one of the sheds and disappeared inside. She quickly emerged with a bicycle, and at once she pedaled through the farm gate and on down the road toward the distant woods. Anna stood for a brief moment staring after her, then she hurried into the house.

Erik lowered the binoculars. He looked at Murphy. He nodded.

“Right on schedule.”

“Sure!” Murphy gazed toward the disappearing figure of Lise. “What now, Mr. Holmes?”

“Now we wait.”

“You sure like to play it dramatic, don’t you? How did you know she’d take off like that?”

“I didn’t.” Erik grew serious. “Just a hunch they’d do something. Too many questions without answers.”

“What answers? You didn’t
ask
any questions.”

“Didn’t have to.”

Murphy looked questioningly at him.

“That little box I had,” Erik went on. “You saw it?”

“Sure. Little white box. What about it?”

“I picked it up from Lise’s sewing basket. Her uncle gave it to her. For buttons.” He looked soberly at Murphy. “It was a box from a haberdasher in Berlin. A box for a white dress tie!”

“I’ll be damned!”

“You probably will,” Erik agreed dryly. “But I wouldn’t brag about it.”

He surveyed the road through the binoculars. Lise was no longer to be seen.

“Now, that little box was quite new.” He looked thoughtful. “
When
was her uncle in Berlin?
Why?
And what was a poor farmer doing with a white dress tie?”

Once more he inspected the area through the binoculars.

“Or did he get it from someone else? If so, from whom?”

“Some questions, all right.” Murphy was impressed. “How do you figure the answers?”

“I’m hoping they’ll be coming down that road pretty soon,” Erik answered.

“And I thought you’d given up on those two dames!”

Erik grinned.

“So did they, I hope. That’s what I wanted them to think.”

The two men settled down to wait, huddled as comfortably as possible under the shrubbery. The earth smelled sweet and moist. The air was filled with a steady soft hum of a host of busy insects, occasionally accented by the insistent whine of a curious fly.

Suddenly Erik tensed. He watched through the binoculars. Instinctively he spoke in a whisper.

“Here they come!”

Below on the road Lise came bicycling toward the farm. She was accompanied by a middle-aged man clad in Bavarian forester’s clothes: long woolen socks, knee breeches and a gray wool jacket. The two cyclists quickly turned into the farmyard and made straight for the shed.

Erik lowered the binoculars. He looked at his watch.

“Twenty-three minutes. He wasn’t far away.”

He turned to Murphy, suddenly all business.

“Okay, Jim. We’ll give them fifteen minutes.”

Murphy glanced at his watch. Erik continued:

“You get around in back of the house. I’ll go in from the front. If you hear anything that sounds remotely like trouble, come running!”

The yard of the Hoffmann farm was drowsy and peaceful in the sun. Even the scraggy hens scratched and pecked only lazily among the cobblestones. But they flapped frantically out of the way in loud, squawking protest as Erik’s jeep came barreling into the yard, skidding to a dirt-spraying halt at the door to the house. Erik leaped from the jeep and burst through the door.

Only Lise was present in the
Bauernstube.
She was standing at the table, frozen in shock, her eyes huge with fear. On the table sat a large, half-filled rucksack, and the girl clutched a loaf of coarse bread and a sausage in her hands, partly wrapped in newspaper.

“Where’s your uncle?” Erik’s voice was sharp, commanding.

The girl stared at him. She didn’t move. She didn’t answer. Suddenly the door to the rear of the house was flung open. Erik whirled toward it. His gun was in his hand, locked firmly against his abdomen, pointing directly at whatever he’d be facing. In the doorway stood Anna. Her face was hard, her eyes blazed with malevolence.

“Your brother,” Erik demanded curtly. “I want to see him. Now.” He nodded toward the rucksack. “Before he takes off.”

Anna filled the doorway. She seemed totally unaware of the gun pointed at her.

“He is not here,” she stated tonelessly.

Without a word, Erik pushed past her into the hallway beyond. A narrow staircase led to an attic door. Two doors led to rooms off the hall, a third, in the rear, to the outside.

Erik went directly to one of the doors and kicked it open. The small room beyond was empty. On the unmade bed several items of a man’s clothing were scattered about. An old, half-packed suitcase sprawled open on the table.

Erik turned to the two women cowering in the hallway, watching him.

“
Where is he?
”

“He is not here!” Anna glared at Erik, her face white and strained.

Erik took a step toward the women. Lise stared at him, ashen-faced. His eyes bored relentlessly into hers. He saw her gaze involuntarily flit away from him for a split scond, to his right, and up. . . .

The attic door.

At once Erik followed her glance. The door stood ajar, but there was no movement, no sound.

Suddenly Lise cried out:

“He’s got a gun!”

Almost at once there was a shot from the attic door. And another! The bullets whizzed by Erik, who was already diving for the cover of the staircase railing, and buried themselves in the wall behind him. The two women screamed.

Erik fired a couple of shots at the door. They tore into wood as the door slammed shut.

In almost the same instant, Murphy came crashing into the hallway through the back door, his carbine hip-ready. Erik shot a glance at him.

“Cover me!” he snapped.

Murphy at once aimed his gun at the attic door, as Erik cautiously started up the steps. He was nearly to the top. . . .

Suddenly there was the sound of a muffled shot from the attic.

Erik bounded up the last few steps and kicked open the door. He threw himself back, flat against the wall. Nothing happened. Not a sound. Not a movement.

Warily he peered into the attic. He turned, motioned to Murphy and stepped through the door.

The body sprawled on the dusty floor looked grotesquely out of place among the old pieces of broken furniture and wooden chests that ringed the attic.

Anna Hoffmann’s brother was dead.

Slowly Erik walked over to him and looked down. The dead man’s staring, unseeing eyes looked back at him from a blood-spattered face. Crazily pushed-out teeth forced his torn lips apart. From one corner of his mouth the blood flowed steadily, unhurriedly, to form a pool on the floor, pushing the dust before it.

Erik felt drained. Death had come so swiftly; the taking of life so easy. . . .

Almost too easy, he thought angrily. I hadn’t planned to kill him. Somehow he felt outraged at the face of death. It seemed obscene. Life should not be that quickly erased. That easy to take away. It ought to be more—defiant.

Murphy joined him. He stared at the body.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. It sounded almost like a prayer. “He—he stuck his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.” He was shaken.

Erik knelt down beside the dead man. He wrested the gun from his fingers. Then he suddenly turned over the dead hand.

“No wonder he couldn’t let himself be seen by us,” he said. He touched the palm of the dead man’s hand. It was soft. It was full of blisters, some of them newly broken.

“Yeah. Some farmer!” Murphy concurred. “His hands must have been as soft as a baby’s ass!”

Erik frowned. He knew he’d made a discovery, and he struggled to capture its full meaning. It eluded him. He examined the gun. He whistled in astonishment.

“What do you know,” he said, impressed. “
Ehrenwaffe.
”

“
Ehren
—
waffe?
” Murphy cocked an inquiring eye.

“Means ‘honor weapon,’ ” Erik explained. He straightened up and gave the gun to Murphy. “It’s a Walther 7.65 millimeter. Look at the ornamentation on the steel. All hand carved. It is given by Hitler personally to special friends, high-ranking Nazis.”

Murphy was inspecting the gun.

“Yeah. His name’s on it.” He pointed to a small plaque on the butt of the gun. “What’s it say?” He showed it to Erik.

“It says: ‘To Reichsamtsleiter Manfred von Eckdorf. Faithfully, Adolf Hitler.’ ”

Murphy looked down at the dead Nazi.

“A very useful gift,” he commented thoughtfully. He looked back at Erik.

“But I don’t get it. Why kill himself? And what was he doing here? That’s no brother of that Hoffmann dame, that’s for sure. Just a big shot Nazi hiding out? Afraid to face the music? Or what?”

Erik shook his head soberly. He’d wanted answers to his questions. And all he got was a whole list of new questions more puzzling than ever. He sighed. He had his work cut out for him. It would be a cold day in hell before that woman, Anna Hoffmann, and her daughter would come up with any answers.

“Beats me,” he said.

He stared at the dead man. Hitler’s right hand? he thought. Well, maybe not quite . . .

He felt disturbed, uneasy. As if he were missing something.

2042 hrs

It was dark when Erik and Murphy finally drove up to the Weiden jail. The street was deserted. The half-finished repair job of Herr Krauss, the workman, looked like an open wound on the building, waiting to heal.

Erik had taken care of loose ends. The Hoffmann women were in custody; the body of Reichsamtsleiter Manfred von Eckdorf had been sent to AIC for positive identification. Erik and Murphy had searched the Hoffmann farm thoroughly—and found nothing. Anna Hoffmann had finally admitted that the dead man was a stranger to her and to her daughter. He’d shown up at the farm about a week before, asking to be allowed to hide there as a member of the family. He’d threatened them with dire consequences if they gave him away, they maintained. Erik did not believe them.

But whatever von Eckdorf’s reasons were for being at the Hoffmann farm, he no longer could do anything about them, one way or another.

Erik dismounted from the jeep slowly. He was bone tired.

“See you in the morning,” Murphy called. He grated the jeep gears and took off for the motor pool. For a moment Erik stood in silent thought, then he started for the front door of the jail. The single naked bulb suspended over it cast only a limited pool of dim light directly in front of the entrance.

He almost missed it—the faintest scraping sound coming from the black shadows to his right.

He whirled toward it and stood balanced in a crouch, gun locked at his abdomen.

“Come out of there,” he ordered. “Easy—real easy.”

A figure dimly made out, huddled at the base of the wall, stirred and stood up.

“Into the light! Move!”

The figure walked toward the pool of pale light. Erik slowly pivoted with the move, his gun trained straight at the shadowy form. Suddenly he could make out who it was.

“Anneliese!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

The girl stood quietly in the light. She clutched an old piece of hand luggage wrapped with a leather strap in front of her. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears. In her rumpled dirndl skirt and blouse she looked both vulnerable and appealing. Erik put his gun away. He stepped up to her.