The Master Sniper (17 page)

“Form follows function, you say. Tell me, a Jew said that, didn’t he?” He was fiddling again with that curious black thing, that little metal cube.

Vollmerhausen wasn’t really sure. “Probably,” he admitted.

“Yes, they are very clever. A clever race. That was their problem.”

It was not long after this unsettling conversation that another curious thing began to happen. Or rather: not to happen. Vollmerhausen began to realize with a distinct sensation of reluctance that he was done. Not merely done with this last modification, but done completely. Done with Vampir.

There was simply nothing to do until the team came for the gun.

In this involuntary holiday, Vollmerhausen took to strolling the compound or the nearby woods, while his staff fiddled away their time improving their quarters—technical people love to tinker, and they’d worked out a more efficient hot water system, bettered the ventilation in the canteen, turned their barrack into a two-star facility (a joke was making the rounds: after the war they’d open a spa here called Bad Anlage). Now that the pressure was off, their morale rose remarkably; the prospect of leaving filled them with joy, and Vollmerhausen himself planned to check with Repp as soon as possible about the evacuation. Once, in his strollings, he even passed his old antagonist Schaeffer, resplendent in the new camouflage tunic all the soldiers had brought back
from a tank-warfare course they’d gone to for two days, but the SS captain hardly noticed him.

Meanwhile, rumors fluttered nervously through the air, some clearly ridiculous, some just logical enough to be true: the Führer was dead, Berlin Red except for three blocks in the city center; the Americans and English would sign a separate peace with the Reich and together they would fight the Russians; Vienna had fallen, Munich was about to; fresh troops were collecting in the Alps for a final stand; the Reich would invade Switzerland and make a last stand
there;
a vast underground had been set up to wage war after surrender; all the Jews had been freed from the KZ’s, or all had been killed. Vollmerhausen had heard them all before, but now new ones reached him: of Repp. Repp would kill the Pope, for not granting the Führer sanctuary in the Vatican. Absurd! Repp was after a special group that Himmler had singled out as having betrayed the SS. Repp would kill the English king in special retribution; or the Russian man of steel. Even more insane! Where could Repp get from here? Nowhere, except south, to the border. No, Vollmerhausen had no ideas. He’d given up wondering. He’d always known that curiosity is dangerous around the SS, and doubly dangerous around Repp. Repp was going to a mountain, that’s all he knew.

It occurred then to Vollmerhausen, with a sudden jolt of discomfort:

Berchtesgaden was on a mountain. And not far. Yet the Führer was supposedly in Berlin. The reports all said he was in Berlin.

The engineer suddenly felt chilly. He vowed not to think on the topic again.

* * *

Vollmerhausen was out of the compound—a beautiful spring day, unseasonably warm, the forest swarming green, buzzing with life, the sky clear as diamond and just as rare, spruce and linden in the air—when the weapon team arrived. He did not see them, but upon his return noticed immediately the battered civilian Opel, pre-war, parked in front of Repp’s. Later he saw the men himself, from far off, civilians, but of a type: the overcoats, the frumpy hats, the calm, unimpressed faces concealing, but just barely, the tendency toward violence. He’d seen Gestapo before, or perhaps they were Ausland SD or any of a dozen other kinds of secret policemen; whatever, they had an ugly sort of weariness that frightened him.

In the morning they were gone, and that meant the rifle too, Vollmerhausen felt. Twice before breakfast staff members had approached.

“Herr Ingenieur-Doktor? Does it mean we’ll be able to go?”

“I don’t know,” he’d answered. “I just don’t know.” Not needing to add, Only Repp knows.

And shortly then, a man came for him, from Repp.

“Ah, Hans,” said Repp warmly, when he arrived.

“Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Vollmerhausen replied.

“You saw of course our visitors last night?”

“I caught a glimpse across the yard at them.”

“Toughies, no? But sound men, just right for the job.”

“They’ve taken Vampir?”

“Yes. No reason not to tell you. It’s gone. All packed up. Carted away.”

“I see,” said Vollmerhausen.

“And they brought information, some last-second target confirmations, some technical data. And news.”

Vollmerhausen brightened. “News?”

“Yes. The war is nearly finished. But you knew that.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. And my part of the journey begins tonight.”

“So soon. A long journey?”

“Not far, but complicated. On foot, most of it. Rather drab actually. I won’t bore you with details. Not like climbing aboard a Hamburg tram.”

“No, of course not.”

“But I wanted to talk to you about your evacuation.”

“Evac—”

“Yes, yes. Here’s the good news.” He smiled. “I know how eager your people are to get back to the human race. This can’t have been pleasant for them.”

“It was their duty,” said Vollmerhausen.

“Perhaps. Anyway, you’ll be moving out tomorrow. After I’ve gone. Sorry it’s so rushed. But now it’s felt the longer this place stays, the bigger the chance of discovery. You may have seen my men planting charges.”

“Yes.”

“There’ll be nothing left of this place. Nothing for our friends. No clues, no traces. Your people will return as if from holiday. Captain Schaeffer’s men will return to the Hungarian front. And I will cease to exist: officially, at any rate. Repp is dead. I’ll be a new man. An old mission but a new man.”

“Sounds very romantic.”

“Silly business, changing identities, pretending to be what one’s not. But still necessary.”

“My people will be very excited!”

“Of course. One more night, and it’s all over. Your part,
Totenkopfdivision’s
part. Only my part remains. One last campaign.”

“Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

“The details: have them packed up tonight. Tomorrow at ten hundred hours a bus will arrive. It’s several hours to Dachau. From there your people will be given travel permits, and back pay, and be permitted to make their way to destinations of choice. Though I can’t imagine many of them will head east. By the way, the Allies aren’t reported within a hundred kilometers of this place. So the travel should be easy.”

“Good. Ah, thanks. My thanks, Herr Obersturmbannführer.” He reached over and on impulse seized Repp’s hand.

“Go on. Tell them,” Repp commanded.

“Yes, sir, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Hans shouted, and lurched out.

Tomorrow! So soon. Back into the world, the real world. Vollmerhausen felt a surge of joy as if he’d just glimpsed the sea after a trek across the Sahara.

It was in the general confusion of preparing for the evacuation that night that a thought came to him. He tried to quell it, found this not difficult at first, with the technicians rushing merrily about him, dismantling their elaborate comfort systems in the barrack, storing personal belongings in trunks, even singing—a bottle, no,
several
bottles appeared and while Vollmerhausen, teetotaler, couldn’t approve, neither could he prevent them—as if the war were officially and finally over and
Germany had somehow won. But later, in the night, in the dark, it returned to him. He tried to flatten it, drive it out, found a hundred ways to dispel it. But he could not. Vollmerhausen had thought of a last detail.

He pulled himself out of bed and heard his people breathing heavily—drunkenly?—around him. He checked his watch. After four, damn! Had Repp left already? Perhaps. But perhaps there was still time.

It had occurred to Vollmerhausen that he might not have warned Repp about the barrel residue problem. So many details, he’d forgotten just this one! Or had he? But he could not picture a conversation in which he properly explained this eccentricity of the weapon: that after firing fifty or so of the specially built rounds, the residue in the barrel accumulated to such an extent that it greatly affected accuracy. Though Repp
would
know, probably: he made it his business to know such things. Still …

Vollmerhausen drew a bathrobe around himself and hurried out. It was a warm night, he noticed, as he hurried across the compound to the SS barrack and Repp’s quarters. But what’s this? Stirrings filled the dark—a squad of SS troopers moving about, night maneuvers, a drill or something.

“Sergeant?”

The man’s pipe flared briefly in the dark. “Yes, sir,” he responded.

“Is Obersturmbannführer around? Has he left yet?”

“Ah—no, sir. I believe he’s still in his quarters.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Ebullient, Vollmerhausen rushed on to the barrack. It was empty, though a light
burned behind the door of Repp’s room. He walked among the dark, neat bunks and rapped at the wood.

No answer.

Was Repp off after all?

“Herr Obersturmbannführer?”

Vollmerhausen felt edgy, restless with indecision. Forget the whole silly thing? Go on in, be a bulldog, wait, make sure? Ach!

Hans the Kike pushed through the door. Room was empty. But then he noticed an old greatcoat with private’s chevron across a chair. Part of Repp’s “new identity”? He entered. On the desk lay a heap of field gear: the rumpled blanket, the six Kar ’98 packs on the harness, the fluted gas-mask cylinder, a helmet, in the corner a rifle. Repp clearly hadn’t left yet. Vollmerhausen began to wait.

But he again began to feel restless and uncomfortable. You didn’t want to stand in a man’s room uninvited. Perhaps he should slip out, wait by the door. Ah, what a dilemma. He did not want to do the wrong thing. He turned to stride out, but his sudden spin sent a spurt of commotion into the still air, and a single paper, as though magically, peeled itself off the desk and zigzagged dramatically to the floor. Vollmerhausen hurried over and picked it up to replace it.

It was hotly uncomfortable in the room. A fire blazed in Repp’s stove and the smell of his Russian cigarettes filled the air. Vollmerhausen’s eyes hooked on the
GEHEIME KOMMANDOSACHE
stamped haphazardly across the page top. The title read “NIBELUNGEN,” the exotic spacing for emphasis, and beneath
the subtitle “LATEST INTELLIGENCE SITUATION 27 APR 45.”

He read the first line. The language of the report was military, dry, rather abstract, ostentatiously formal. He had trouble understanding exactly what they were saying.

Vollmerhausen was completely lost. Nuns? A convent? He couldn’t make it out. His heart was pounding so hard he was having trouble focusing. So damned hot in here. Sweat oozed from his hairline. He knew he must put the report down instantly, but he could not. He read on, the last paragraph.

He felt a growth of pain in his stomach. I am part of this? How? Why?

Repp asked, “Find it interesting?”

Vollmerhausen turned. He was not even surprised.

“You simply can’t. We don’t make war on—”

“We make war on our enemies,” said Repp, “wherever we find them. In whatever form. The East would make you strong for such a thing.”

“You could bring yourself to
do
this?” Vollmerhausen wanted to cry. He was afraid he was going to be sick.

“With honor,” Repp said. He stood there in the dirty tunic of a private soldier, hatless.

“You can’t,” Vollmerhausen said. It seemed to him a most cogent argument.

Repp brought up the Walther P-38 and shot him beneath the left eye. The bullet kicked the engineer’s head back violently. Most of the face was knocked in. He fell onto Repp’s desk, crashing with it to the floor.

Repp put the automatic back into the shoulder holster under the tunic. He didn’t look at the body. He
picked the report up from the floor—it had fluttered free from Vollmerhausen’s fingers at the moment of death—and walked to the small stove. He opened the door, inserted it and watched the flames consume it.

He heard a machine pistol. Schaeffer and his people were bumping off Vollmerhausen’s staff.

It occurred to Repp after several seconds that Schaeffer was doing the job quite poorly. He would have to speak to the man. The firing had not let up.

A bullet fractured one of Repp’s windows. Firing leapt up from a dozen points on the perimeter. Repp had an impression of tracers floating in.

Repp hit the floor, for he knew in that second that the Americans had come.

R
oger played hard to get at first, demanding wooing, but after five minutes Leets was ready to woo him with a fist, and Roger shifted gears fast. Now it was a production, starring himself, directed by himself, produced by himself, the Orson Welles, tyro genius, of American Intelligence.

“Get on with it, man,” said Outhwaithe.

“Okay, okay.” He smiled smugly, and then wiped it off, leaving a smirk, like a child’s moustache of milk.

“Simple. In two words. You’ll kick yourself.” A grin split his pleasant young face. “The planes.”

“Uh—”

“Yeah,” he amplified. “So much on the route he took, so much on tracing it back, following it back to its source—all wrong. He said he thought he heard planes. Or maybe trucks or motorcycles. But maybe planes.
Now
—” he paused dramatically, letting an imitation of wisdom, solemn, furrow-browed, surface on his face, “I give this Air Corps guy lessons, colonel in Fighter Ops, once a week, little walking-around money.
Anyway
, I asked him if some guys bounced some weird kind of night action—under lights, middle of wilderness—say in
March sometime, maybe late February, any chance you’d have it on paper?”

Leets was struck by the simple brilliance of it.

“That’s really good, Roger,” he said, at the same time thinking that he himself ought to be shot for not coming up with it.

Roger smiled at the compliment. “Anyway,” he said, handing over a photostatic copy of a document entitled
“AFTER ACTION REPORT
, Fighter Operations, 1033d Tactical Fighter Group, 8th Air Force, Chalois-sur-Marne.”