The Folks at Fifty-Eight (13 page)

“I apologize, fräulein. I hope you will forgive us?”

The old woman looked stunned, but Catherine Schmidt seemed unfazed by the horror. She lowered her gaze as she spoke.

“Of course, Comrade Commissar. I am sure that not all Russian men are like those.”

Reznikov gestured disparagingly to the bodies, as his men carried them away.

“They were not Russians. They were Mongol scum, who disobeyed my orders and disgraced the cause. They were only ever worthy of a single bullet each. Forget them.”

He smiled down on her.

“Perhaps I will return tonight, with some more eggs for you. Perhaps some ham and some cheese, too. Would you like that, fräulein?”

She nodded, and smiled a smile of gratitude and promise.

“Yes, Comrade Commissar. Thank you, Comrade Commissar.”

Reznikov turned away and started walking back to his car, but then suddenly stopped. He turned back, and called to her.

“Fräulein, what did you say your name was?”

“The old woman seemed to have recovered.

“Her name is Ingrid Riefenstahl, Comrade Commissar. She is my granddaughter.”

Marat Reznikov wandered back to the door.

“Perhaps, while I am here, I had better check her papers.”

Catherine Schmidt stuttered her answer.

“I, uh, I do not have them.”

Anxious at this turn of events, Hammond prepared to intervene. He didn’t know how many soldiers were on hand, but there was no way he was going to allow the girl to be taken. Marat Reznikov looked puzzled. The old woman saved the day.

“They were taken two days ago, Comrade Commissar, by the authorities in Wittenberg. Ingrid was on her way here, but they stopped her. They said she looked like someone they were searching for. The officer told her he wanted to check that her papers were not forgeries. I rather think he liked her and wanted an excuse to see her again, but he has not returned the papers. I expect he is very busy.”

“This happened in Wittenberg?”

“Yes, Comrade Commissar. Two days ago.”

“And who took these papers?”

“Ingrid could not recall his name. She said he was tall handsome man, an officer she thought, with a blue cap. He told her that he would personally return the papers when he had checked them. I expect he will bring them soon. Someone said they knew him. They said he is very important, a Mladshiy Leytenant with the MVD. I think they said he is called Gromyko.”

“About thirty years of age?”

He looked hard at Catherine Schmidt. She gazed back at him and nodded.

”I think so, Comrade Commissar.”

He smiled a warm and comforting smile, but his eyes remained cold.

“Do not worry, my beautiful little Ingrid. I will go and see Comrade Gromyko and get your papers back. He will not bother you again. You go inside now, and I will visit you later.”

Marat Reznikov marched purposefully away. The old woman ushered Catherine Schmidt back into the kitchen. She closed and bolted the door, and then glared at the girl.

“I told you not to show yourself. What in God’s name made you do such a stupid thing? You could have got us all killed. When he comes back from Wittenberg, you still might.”

Catherine looked contrite.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. It was stupid of me.

Hammond turned to the old woman.

"Who is Gromyko?”

The old woman explained. She said he was based in Wittenberg, and was an arrogant Mladshiy Leytenant with the MVD. She said Gromyko and the sallow-faced Comrade Commissar Marat Reznikov were fierce rivals, and their rivalry was known throughout the Dessau and Wittenberg area. It was also common knowledge that Reznikov had been waiting for a chance to settle his score with Gromyko for some time.

“Great, but now what do we do?”

Catherine had asked the question. Hammond voiced the only obvious solution.

“We get out of here. . . all of us, and quickly.”

The old woman moved to the front window, peered around the curtains, and shook her head.

“That won’t be easy. He has left a guard outside. Commissar Reznikov is no fool.”

Hammond followed her to the window. He peered around the same curtain and studied the guard. The man looked bored, but entirely more capable than the two luckless soldiers who had tried their hand at pillage and rape. He was traipsing back and forth along the front of the house. Every now and then he would disappear for a few seconds, presumably to check the back. Then he would return, and continue the same routine of traipsing back and forth.

Hammond checked the automatic. Catherine Schmidt offered an alternative.

“Perhaps, when the commissar comes back, I could take him upstairs.” That familiar look of insanity and hatred returned to her eyes. “He won’t come back down again.”

Hammond shook his head.

“You won’t get the chance. When he finds that you lied to him, he’ll be back here with half the Red Army. No, it is best we. . .”

“There is another possibility.”

The old woman had interrupted. Hammond stared at her.

“What?”

“It is Monday morning. Reznikov always has breakfast with the Bonhoeffers on Monday mornings. That was where he was going just now.”

“So?”

“When he gets to the cottage he sends his bodyguards back to headquarters. After breakfast he sits and drinks coffee. Then he makes Franz wait outside while he takes Hedda upstairs.”

“This Franz and Hedda; they are husband and wife?”

The old woman nodded.

“Franz either does as Reznikov tells him or he goes to a Siberian Gulag, and then what would happen to Hedda and the child? He has no choice, neither does she.”

“Charming man, your Comrade Commissar Reznikov.”

Hammond had intended the sarcasm as flippant, but there was a fury in the old woman he’d not seen before.

“Reznikov does the same with other women in Dessau and Rosslau. He has a rota. On Monday the baker’s shop closes, and so it is poor Hedda’s turn. Reznikov thinks, because the women are too afraid to resist, it does not count as rape. He is a pig, and a hypocrite, and a killer, but he is also very powerful.”

Hammond was considering a possibility.

“Where do these people live, this Franz and Hedda whatever their name is?”

“Bonhoeffer. They live just a few meters down the road, in the cottage next to the baker’s shop. Franz bakes. Hedda works in the shop. She gives me bread in exchange for a few eggs, and sometimes talks to me about it. Poor woman, she has to talk to someone.”

“Will Reznikov be there now?”

“I would think so. He likes to take his time. Hedda is an attractive woman, and he enjoys tormenting Franz. Hedda thinks Reznikov enjoys the thought of Franz listening and waiting outside almost as much as he enjoys the disgusting things he does to her. Anyway, you will know if Reznikov is there. He always leaves his car behind the cottage so nobody can see.”

For the umpteenth time that morning, Hammond readied the HDM.

“I’ll need a distraction; for the guard outside.”

“I’ll do it.”

The girl had volunteered. He shook his head.

“No, I don’t want any more incidents. You seem to have an effect on Russian men.”

She laughed and pouted, seemingly recovered from her ordeal.

“Not just Russian men.”

Hammond didn’t smile back.

“You stay here. Keep out of the way.” He nodded to the old woman. “Take the guard some coffee. Keep him at the front of the house for a few minutes. I’ll slip out back, and work my way down to the cottage.”

The old woman voiced her concern.

“You mustn’t do it there; not inside the cottage. It is too close, and Franz and Hedda are good people. We don’t want to get them into trouble.”

Hammond nodded. If things went according to plan, he wouldn’t need to involve them.

"I’ll do what I can.”

The old woman headed to the front door, carrying a mug of hot coffee for the guard. Hammond smiled a parting reassurance at an uncertain-looking Catherine Schmidt. Then he slipped out of the back door and went to find the Bonhoeffer’s cottage.

The Commissar’s car was an old and heavily-rusted Fiat 508 Torpedo, one of thousands that had flooded into Germany from the Italian company’s pre-war manufacturing plant in Poland. It wasn’t the prettiest of cars, but it boasted four seats and that was ideal for Hammond’s purpose.

He smiled to himself as he eased open the rear offside door. The terrifying and all-powerful Comrade Commissar Marat Reznikov obviously didn’t expect anyone would be bold enough or foolish enough to steal his prized possession. Hammond squeezed into the foot well, behind the front passenger seat, and carefully pulled the door to. Despite his best efforts to muffle the sound, it closed with an audible click. He sat unmoving, with the automatic ready and the suppressor fitted, waiting to see if anyone in the cottage had heard.

A few heart-thumping moments passed without anyone stirring, and so he made himself comfortable and sat quietly waiting for Reznikov’s return.

An hour passed before the door to the cottage opened. A pale and unhappy-looking man came out. Hammond assumed it was Franz Bonhoeffer. Upstairs the bedroom window opened and a gloating Marat Reznikov smiled down. The man didn’t look up at the window. He lit a cigarette and hung his head in obvious shame and desolation.

Then a woman appeared and stood framed in the open window, a striking woman, dressed in a crimson negligee. She was trembling and looked pale and drawn. Her eyes stared blankly out, unseeing and unfeeling. Her lips offered only silence. Marat Reznikov stood behind her, looking over her shoulder and stroking at her hair. He smiled down on the man below.

“Comrade Bonhoeffer. Look at your beautiful wife. See what I have bought for her. You see how generous I am. Do you like the colour? It is red, Comrade, the colour of a patriot.” He paused, before adding,. “Or the colour of a whore.” He stopped stroking and grabbed a handful of hair, then dragged her head back until her eyes were directly opposite his. “So tell me. What are you, my beautiful Hedda? Are you a patriot, or are you a whore?”

Hedda Bonhoeffer made no attempt to push him away or protest. She stared straight through the sadistic smile with unseeing eyes and answered his question in a monotone voice.

“I am both, Comrade Commissar.”

The sadistic smile didn’t waver.

“You know, I think you may well be at that.” Reznikov returned his attention to the figure of Franz Bonhoeffer. “Are you pleased with my gift? Does your wife not look wonderful in it? Well, answer me, Comrade. Does she not look wonderful?”

Franz Bonhoeffer looked despairingly up at his wife.

“Yes, Comrade Commissar. She is a beautiful and wonderful woman.”

Marat Reznikov clearly wasn’t finished with his sadism.

“Perhaps, if she has anything left to give when I have finished, she will wear it for you. I give her my permission. Would you like that, Comrade Bonhoeffer?”

“Yes, Comrade Commissar.”

“But now she has other, more pressing, duties to perform.”

Hedda Bonhoeffer gave an involuntary cry of shame and shock, as Reznikov suddenly dragged her away from the open window, but it was her only utterance.

From within the shadows of the car, Hammond watched Franz Bonhoeffer look up in alarm, then slowly bow his head as the rhythm of the bedsprings and Reznikov’s grunts of animal satisfaction flowed through the open window to puncture the morning’s stillness.

As he listened to the continuing shame of Hedda Bonhoeffer and saw the tears streaming down her husband’s face, Hammond felt acute sorrow. He would enjoy settling their score with Reznikov.

Bonhoeffer remained like that for some time, listening to Reznikov’s animal grunts and crude commentary with his head bowed and the tears streaming.

But then the tears stopped.

He hurried to the lean-to shed beside the back door and rummaged through it for a few moments. When he reappeared he was clutching an old and heavy claw hammer.

Hammond watched the agitated Franz Bonhoeffer with hammer in hand. He obviously intended confronting the commissar and avenging the family’s shame. He was now standing to the side of the back door, presumably waiting for Reznikov to appear.

Gerald Hammond shook his head in silent condemnation of Bonhoeffer’s foolishness. He didn’t have a chance. From the little Hammond had seen earlier, Marat Reznikov was an expert killer. He would be prepared for such an obvious attempt at retribution. Franz Bonhoeffer would be no match for an accomplished killer. If Bonhoeffer tried to use that hammer, there could only be one outcome. Reznikov would kill him.

Hammond couldn’t let that happen.

Almost forty minutes had passed and the commissar still hadn’t appeared in the doorway. On two occasions Bonhoeffer had put the hammer down. On two occasions he had picked it up again. He was putting the hammer down for a third time, when a voice called to him.

“I do hope you intend repairing the fence with that, Comrade Bonhoeffer. If not, I could be forced to shoot you.”

The brutal and devious Reznikov had obviously seen Bonhoeffer’s indecision from the window above. He must have left the cottage through the front door, and then slipped along the side of the building. He now stood with the Walther in his hand, smiling unpleasantly as he watched the surprise and fear on Franz Bonhoeffer’s face.

Marat Reznikov had clearly anticipated Bonhoeffer’s feeble attempt at retribution. What he, equally clearly, had not anticipated was the presence of Hammond and a tactical brain that was every bit as devious as his own. On realizing Bonhoeffer’s intent, Hammond had left the car and slowly worked his way through the shrubbery. He now stood behind the commissar.

“And I could be forced to shoot you, Comrade Commissar, unless you put the gun down.”

Reznikov stayed absolutely still, but kept hold of the Walther.