The Widow Killer (38 page)

In both mezzanines and the mouths of the corridors, barricades of desks and file cabinets were going up all around Morava, while he racked his brain. How could he achieve the main task Beran had set him: ending the fighting?

The modern 1930s building was like a labyrinth; its hundreds of locked doors, all missing their plaques, would have been a tricky puzzle under normal circumstances, let alone with ricocheting bullets whizzing past like crazed bees. He knew the Germans must still be searching for the source of the broadcasts, which were being heard across Bohemia. If they found them, brave announcers and technicians would die, and Germany would inflict a heavy moral defeat on a citizenry trying to atone for the national shame of the 1938 Munich capitulation. Morava understood: The fighting had to be stopped or resolved as soon as possible. With Sucharda dead, the young detective was now in charge.

Fortunately the city telephones were still working and the radio’s switchboard had not been disconnected. The employees trapped there led him on all fours to a phone; a sniper was peppering the front of the building from an attic window opposite. They drew him a rough plan on the wooden tiles of the whole complex and a more precise map of the back wing where the broadcasts were coming from.

At Bartolomejska they either could not or would not bring Beran or Brunat to the telephone. Finally they got Superintendent Hlavaty, who had so brilliantly scented the widow killer’s trail in the Klasterec priest’s missive. He instantly grasped the urgency of the problem, and shortly thereafter Brunat’s voice came on the line. On the advice of two editors, former reserve officers, Morava requested that he send another armed unit through the attics of neighboring houses and across the flat roofs. With this assistance, the men defending the upper floors and those down below could clear the Germans from the middle and then the base of the building.

The Germans in the middle had fortunately run out of grenades and lacked Panzerfausts; like the Czechs beneath them, they were cut off from supplies on the ground floor. The first side to obtain reinforcements would break the stalemate.

“I’ll bring them personally,” Brunat promised. “The radio’s the key to everything now. But try to negotiate with the Germans; maybe they’ll fold of their own accord.”

“Depends whether Schorner’s set out already,” Morava replied. “How does it look?”

“For now it seems we’re ahead by a hair. The city radio’s sending out instructions on how to build barricades. Prague’s starting to become impassable; I’m afraid it’ll take us a while to get to you.”

“Try the way we went: up Wenceslas Square past the Germans— yes, they’re reserve officers and new recruits. If you wear police uniforms and formulate your request correctly, it gives them the option of saving their own skins without losing face.”

“Wait, Jan…” He heard Brunat give a muffled assent. “Beran says that in the name of the Czech National Council you’re to meet with Thurmer, the German radio director. You can offer free passage for German employees and soldiers, but careful: no weapons, period. Break a leg; we’ll be over in a jiffy to give them a good-bye kiss.”

They crawled out of the threatened office to plot how and when to proceed, shouting at each other in the hallway against the noise of the battle. Morava picked the two who spoke the best German and were least afraid to negotiate with Thurmer. The apparently insurmountable problem of how to contact him was solved again by the telephone.

“The director will meet with you,” his secretary responded after a short while, “if you’ll stop shooting and cease your hostile broadcasts from this building for the duration of the negotiations.”

Morava rejected the second condition. Thirty employees trapped unexpectedly by the turn of events were squashed with the policemen into a narrow space between the unreliable-looking wooden barriers. In a few cases, their nerves were in tatters.

“Why not call the studios and have them play music for a while,” suggested a pitifully pale woman slumped weakly on the tiles, her back propped against the wall. “Everyone’s heard the broadcast anyway, and we’ll never get out of here unless—”

“Chin up, Andula!” a colleague interjected. Another employee added, “The Germans know they won’t just be able to escape, not at any price; all of Prague is sharpening its knives for them.”

Finally the German fire began to quiet down. The phone rang; the director was waiting for them. The negotiators should put their hands behind their heads; they would be searched on arrival.

Morava left his pistol and holster and proceeded to the steps. His footprints remained in the fine plaster dust just like in snow. He was the first to crawl over the office-furniture stockade. The maneuver required both hands, but he was not afraid.

“At least,” he said to himself in a low voice, “I’ll be with you sooner, my love.”

When they finally ran up and showered him with praise for his amazing courage, he experienced a remarkable feeling. I did it!

It made him even happier that this time he hadn’t had to hide his deed; quite the opposite:

I CAN DO IT IN PUBLIC!

He was terribly sorry that she could not have seen it herself, but he was sure that she knew, if she hadn’t in fact been leading him.

Even the boy with wire-rim glasses who hurried over from the garbage can couldn’t spoil his mood.

“Sirs,” he said in a trembling voice, “he’s alive.”

In their ensuing silence they heard a weak moan from outside.

“Let him enjoy it, then!” he answered the kid. “Like we enjoyed living with them for six years. Or do you feel sorry for him?”

“Stomach wounds are extremely painful… You see, I’m studying to be a doctor, and—”

Before he could think of a way to regain his new admirers, a well-muscled man in overalls grinned at the kid.

“Then finish school and cure him! Or finish him off, once you have something to do it with. Personally, I wouldn’t waste my ammunition on him. So what next?” The overalls turned to the group. “The evening’s still young!”

And he felt everyone’s eyes resting on him. They looked up to him the way he had once looked up to Sergeant Kralik, he realized proudly.

I’m the best one here!

It was time to consolidate his leadership.

According to the technician, the entrance by the garbage cans was thinly guarded because the Germans thought it only led down to the archives. But from there, he assured them, you could get upstairs to the broadcasting rooms where the calls for help were coming from.

He took one grenade along with the soldier’s submachine gun, which naturally fell to him; the other grenade he gave to the man in overalls, who, he learned, had also been in the army. Both rifle owners followed them into the basement; after them came a couple of empty-handed men hoping to find some weapons as they went.

The hallway turned two corners and then brought them to a narrow staircase leading upward. They walked so slowly and quietly that they heard the steps and German voices approaching from above before the soldiers found them. Was it just a coincidence that once again he and his men were ideally positioned for an ambush? The archive was overflowing with old tape recordings, and its hallways were lined with narrow shelving housing columns of round metal cases; here, just behind them, was an alcove they all fit into.

Rypl, his sergeant reminded him, in concrete your bullet will likely hit you on the rebound; a blade’s your best bet… After all, it was Kralik who’d instructed him in the use of knives when they’d visited his brother’s slaughterhouse…

Today, however, he had another idea, his own. He motioned to his supporter to put his weapon down and, turning to the others, mimed grabbing someone by the throat.

There were two Germans, evidently convinced that the basement was still clear: Their submachine guns hung over their shoulders as they headed for the stairs to have a smoke. They had no chance against the half dozen or so men who suddenly fell on them. In a couple of seconds they felt their backs slam down on their gun barrels and gasped to find at least three Czechs kneeling over each of them.

He was crazy, he shuddered in retrospect, to jump on them practically empty-handed with a bunch of strange men; it could have backfired badly. And yet here they lay, rank-and-file SS storm troopers, both wide-eyed rookies.

Yes, Mother, today is my day!

“What should we do with them?” he asked the one who had taken his side; now the man showed his hands, large as shovels.

“Tie ‘em up and guard ’em,” the tram driver said. “There are rules about prisoners, aren’t there?”

He knew them from even his own short war and momentarily considered using two of the straps girdling him—but would he definitely get them back? And after what happened to the poor runt who’d had to return them… One thing was certain: They couldn’t drag the Germans with them, nor could they leave them here with inexperienced guards. So he made his decision.

“Where’s the toilet?” he said, turning to the man from the radio.

“We passed it as we came in.”

He left his regiment by the steps, guarded by two newly acquired submachine guns, and nodded to his new ally. The Germans went in front of them, hands crossed high on their backs, the way Kralik had taught him. The best way to stiffen them up, Rypl, as every schoolteacher knows! The archive toilets were hidden in a small side hall. Beyond the urinal was a stall with a toilet bowl; the yellowed door ended about a foot from the ceiling. It was perfect for his next idea.

“Hinein!” He pointed the gun muzzle at them. “Both of you, inside!”

They squeezed into the narrow space; the second one chuckled uneasily. He slammed the door behind them and asked his guide, “Is there anything to wedge the handle with?”

The man reached into a corner and grabbed a broom standing in a bucket with a rag. Deftly he propped it between the stall door and the wall. Did he already know? He looked so eager!

He nodded for him to go out into the hallway first, and eyeballed the size of the gap above the stall door. Then he pulled the pin from the grenade, silently counted to three, and hurled it into the stall. He heard a double scream, but he had already slammed the washroom door and pressed himself against the side wall.

The explosion jammed the door shut. Too bad. He would have liked to look. An admiring smile crossed his companion’s face, and he made a further discovery.

I HAVE A FRIEND!

On the corner of Bredovska Street, which was guarded by two light storm-trooper tanks, Buback was assaulted by the pungent stench he had smelled during each post-Normandy retreat. In the courtyard, a huge pyre was burning; files with documents from various departments were heaped on it. Why, he wondered for the first time: Why burn the only proof that even in these infamous walls they had proceeded strictly according to regulation? Except that was the problem.

The German nation was not the only one ever to place its own interests above the legal norms of the civilized world. However, it seemed likely to be the first one condemned for applying its laws strictly and thoroughly, because
ius germanicum,
which allowed the death penalty for a critical word or a hook-shaped nose, had now thrown the greater part of a civilized continent back into the Dark Ages.

It had always consoled him that the paragraphs he enforced defended the time-honored values for which mankind created laws, even if they were part of that greater German legal code. He had been practically the only officer at all his previous postings who had not needed to cover his tracks. But was that enough to let him shrug off responsibility for what the burners were trying to hide?

What was his own part in his nation’s guilt? Could the two be separated? And more importantly: Could Germany’s guilt be redeemed? He kept trying to do just that, even though the Third Reich could still avoid total defeat, leaving
ius germanicum
the law of the victors. The newly announced German doctrine seemed to count on this possibility, at least in Kroloff’s version. It took his breath away.

According to absolutely reliable sources, British prime minister Churchill and the new American president Truman were convinced that Stalin intended to establish Communist regimes in all the territories occupied by the Red Army, thus building a bridgehead that would let him quickly conquer the rest of Europe. The new German leadership planned to distance itself from the excesses of some SS units, which it would apparently disband, the skull head explained enthusiastically—as if the Gestapo would go scot-free! They would then offer the Anglo-Americans a partial capitulation and an assurance that Germany would carry on the battle against the Bolsheviks.

Field Marshall Schorner had assumed the high command over German staff, central offices, and services in the area controlled by Mitte’s armies, who would play a leading role in these plans. Certain persons had let the situation in Prague get temporarily out of hand; they would be punished and replaced. Lieutenant General Meckerle was sending his best men to provide political reinforcement in threatened areas. He, Kroloff, felt honored to be accompanying the chief inspector to Pankrac, a crucial neighborhood in the southeast of the city. There they would secure the beginning of the route that would let more than fifty thousand troops and their equipment leave Prague every day for the west.

Impossible, Buback marveled; they were sending him to Grete! Given the circumstances, he quickly reconciled himself to the change in plans. Anyway, he soon found out Meckerle was momentarily absent, and Buback could learn far more in the field than the gossip and fairy tales he’d heard here.

“How will we get there?” he probed. “As far as I can tell, we only hold the city center.”

“Armored transports will come for the authorized representatives,” Kroloff announced. “The Czechs only have light weapons.”

Among which is a Panzerfaust, Buback nearly said aloud. He would have to rely on Grete’s cross.

They waited almost three hours for the escort vehicles. The column commander seemed on the verge of shooting himself as he described how they had wandered around and around in some suburb, because the Czechs had repositioned all the road signage, even swapping the street signs around; the Nazis’ perfect maps were useless. Finally a German woman, a native of Prague, had saved them when she saw the convoy for the third time and had the courage to run out of her house, climb up to the cabin of his vehicle and guide them here.