David Healey: Winter Sniper

Hess took another deep inhalation of smoke, thought it over, and then slowly exhaled. “You set a trap for me,” he said. “You dressed the driver to look like Eisenhower, thinking I would shoot at him or make some move. Then the real general roared up on his snow mobile. Lucky for you I shot the wrong one. In any case it was very clever. You knew I was out there all along. How did you manage that?”

“The farmer wondered why one of his hands spoke English with a German accent and was so interested in target practice.”

“Ah.” Hess nodded to himself. He should have killed the farmer. Zumwald wouldn’t have liked that, but they could have lived out there for days without anyone knowing.

“Tell me about your involvement with Eva Von Stahl.”

“Who?”

“Come on, don’t play stupid. The woman who was the other decoy in the field. She helped you in Washington.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Hess exhaled smoke. “Where did you get the bruise?”

“I’m the one asking the questions here.”

Hess exhaled a lungful of smoke. “That was foolish coming after me in the alley,” he said. “Shooting you would have made too much noise, so I hit you with the rifle butt instead. A little harder and your sweet mother would get no more letters home from her son.”

“Leave my mother out of this,” the captain said, anger creeping into his voice.

Hess tried not to chuckle, thinking about some of the SS officers he had known. They would have had the job of interrogation that the captain was doing now. He doubted very much that any of them had mothers. They certainly would have denied it. Then again, some of the SS officers Hess had known would have eaten this American for a snack. If they had been in the captain’s shoes, Hess was well aware that he would not be smugly smoking a Lucky Strike and having something like a conversation with his interrogator. He would be naked in a windowless cellar, strapped to a chair and doused with buckets of icy water, with wires running from sensitive body parts to an electrical outlet.

“Captain, you seem like a good man,” the sniper said. “I am sorry, but I cannot tell you more than you already know. I am a German soldier and I was sent here to shoot your General Eisenhower.”

“All right.” The captain stood. He reached for his cigarettes. “You’re still being treated as a spy. You’ll probably be sent to the gas chamber.”

“There is a more honorable way,” Hess said. “A soldier’s way. You could leave your pistol behind with one bullet in the chamber. Or you could keep the door unlocked when you go, and when I try to escape you could have the guard shoot me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then how about the cigarettes?”

The captain hesitated, but then put the Lucky Strikes back in his pocket. “The men you killed today won’t be smoking any either,” he said, then walked out.

Hess listened to the sound of the lock turning. He shuddered at the ominous clicking of the mechanism. Hess had always preferred being outdoors and the idea of being confined caused a twinge of panic. He pushed the thought aside and exhaustion hit him like a wave. His shoulder ached. He sagged onto the cot and slept.

Eva looked out the window at the shadows lengthening across the snow and cursed the turn of events that had brought her here. There were no bars on the windows but her hotel room was a cell just the same, with a guard posted at the door. Even if she got past him or managed to crawl out the window, she knew there was no hope of escape. The roads were still not plowed and she had overheard that many of the cars would not start in the bitter cold that followed in the wake of the storm. No one had searched her room, so they had not discovered the radio she had brought from her attic in Washington. Then again, that was small comfort. What could she do, radio Berlin for help?

She got up and paced the room. She felt unrepentant and angry about what had happened. It was not Eva’s nature to give up. She had not gotten ahead in the film business by being someone who simply accepted what came her way. Nor had she become a successful spy by being complacent. One had to take hold of circumstances and shape them like a lump of clay. But even Eva had to admit to herself that perhaps this time her fate had been handed to her more like a lump of stone and she would sink under the weight of it.

Damn Petra and damn Ty Walker. Petra had given her up like a little Polish rat. Ty, out of bitterness, had made her serve as a decoy in the trap he had set for Bruno Hess. At the last instant, she had understood what was happening and stepped forward to take the real Eisenhower by the arm. She hoped it would be a signal to Hess. Shoot this one. But then the bullet had struck out of nowhere — killing the wrong man. Eva bit back angry tears at the thought of so much failure.

When the knock came at the door, Eva swiped at her eyes and went to stand by the fireplace. Striking a pose. She knew well enough who it was.

The door opened and Ty Walker came in. He did not enter like an avenging angel or even a jilted lover but slouched into the room more like someone who was guilty of something.

“Eva,” he said, then seemed at a loss to say anything else. “Are you comfortable? Do you have everything you need? I can have some dinner sent up.”

She gave him her haughty stare, the kind of smoldering look she was once known for on the screen. “You have a strange way of treating a woman, Captain. You send her out to be killed and then you ask to see if she would like something to eat.”

Ty actually blushed. “I was very angry. I shouldn’t have put you out in that field.”

“In Germany, at least SS officers have the decency to shoot spies themselves.”

“Well, I’m not going to shoot you. This damn snow has everybody socked in, but as soon as we can dig out you’ll be on a train back to Washington.”

“You should not make it sound like I am returning from holiday, darling. They are going to put me in prison. Maybe even send me to the gas chamber.”

Ty shifted from foot to foot. “Oh, Eva,” he finally said. “How could you? What happened between us must have meant something.”

“Darling, don’t you see? It meant everything.”

As what Eva had said slowly sank in, Ty just shook his head and left without another word.

Eva sat down by the fire. She had not told the truth to Ty about him not meaning anything to her. In a different time and place, who knew? But she had lied to Ty as a favor to him, to make what was to come easier for him. Then Eva would have cried, if that part of her had not already dried up.

Ty had one more person to see. He paused outside the door to straighten his uniform before he knocked.

“Come in, Captain Walker,” General Eisenhower called.

“Yes, sir.”

Ty had been dreading this moment. He knew it would be even more unpleasant than his visits to the captured sniper or even to Eva, if that was possible. He had thought the sniper’s eyes were cold, but Eva’s stare had been like winter itself.

“Joe, would you excuse us please?” Eisenhower said to his chief of staff. As he got up from the table covered with maps and paperwork, Colonel Durham flashed a look at Ty that might even have been sympathetic. But not in a good way. More like the look that the prisoner gets before he’s blindfolded in front of the firing squad.

“Sir, I just wanted to say —”

“Captain, you had better let me do the talking,” Eisenhower said. “I’ve got half a mind to put you in front of a court martial. But I’m not sure that you can bring somebody up on charges of stupidity.”