Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Willi Kohl and his family would leave Germany.

Konrad Janssen’s betrayal and the Waltham Study – both stark emblems of what the government was and where it was going – were reason enough. Yet what truly decided the matter was the American, Paul Schumann.

Standing with the SS officers outside Building 5, aware that he had both Schumann’s real passport and Taggert’s fake ones in his pocket, Kohl had agonized over doing his duty. And in the end he had done so. But the sorrow was that his obligation had dictated he act against his country.

As for how he would leave, he knew that too. He would remain ignorant of Janssen’s choice (but would, of course, cease his improvident asides to the young man), he would mouth whatever lines Chief of Inspectors Horcher wished him to, he would stay well clear of the basement of Kripo headquarters with its busy DeHoMag card-sorting machines, he would handle murders like the one in Gatow exactly the way they wished him to – which was, of course, to handle them not at all. He would be the model National Socialist policeman.

And then in February he would take his entire family with him to the International Criminal Police Commission conference in London. And from there they would sail for New York, to which two cousins had emigrated some years ago and had made lives for themselves.

Being a senior official traveling on Kripo business he could easily arrange for exit documents and permission to take a good amount of money out of the country. There would be some tricky maneuvering, of course, in making the arrangements, but who in Germany nowadays did not have some skill at intrigue?

Heidi would welcome the change, of course, finding a haven for her children. Günter would be saved from his Nazi Youth classmates. Hilde could attend school once again and perhaps become the professor she wished to be.

His older daughter had a complication, of course: her fiancé, Heinrich Sachs. But Kohl decided he would convince the man to come with them. Sachs was vehemently anti-National Socialist, had no close relatives and was so completely in love with Charlotte that he would follow her anywhere. The young Sachs was a talented civil servant, spoke English well and, despite some bouts of arthritis, he was a tireless worker; Kohl suspected that he would have a far easier time finding a job in America than would Kohl himself.

As for the inspector – starting over in middle age! What an overwhelming challenge! He thought ironically of the Leader’s nonsensical opus, My Struggle. Well, what a struggle he himself would have – a tired man with a family, beginning again at an age when he should be delegating cases to young inspectors and taking half-days off to escort his children to the wave-making pool at Luna Park. Yet, it was not the thought of the effort and uncertainty awaiting him that made him choke quietly and that drew tears from his eyes, which he averted from the young SS troopers.

No, the tears were for what he was now looking at as they swept around a turn en route to Berlin: the plains of Prussia. And, though they were dusty and wan on this dry summer evening, they still exuded a grandeur and palpable significance, for they were the plains of his Germany, a great nation at heart, whose truths and ideals had somehow tragically been stolen by thieves.

Kohl reached into his pocket and pulled out his meerschaum pipe. He filled the bowl then searched his jacket but could find no match. He heard a rasp as the SS trooper sitting next to him struck one and held it out for him. “Thank you,” Kohl said and sucked on the stem to ignite the tobacco. He sat back, filling the air around him with the scent of pungent cherries, and stared out the front windshield as the lights of Berlin came into view.

The car wove like a dancer along the road to his home in Charlottenburg. Reinhard Ernst sat in the back, bracing himself against the turns, his head resting on the luxurious leather. He had a new driver and guard; Claus, the SS lieutenant with him at Waltham College, had been injured by glass flying from a window of the Mercedes and had been taken to a surgeon. Another SS car, filled with black-helmeted guards, was behind them.

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Ach, Keitel dead, along with the soldier taking part in the study. “Subject D” was how Ernst thought of him; he’d never even known the man’s name… What a disaster this day had been.

Yet the one thing that stood out most prominently in Ernst’s thoughts was the choice that the killer had made outside Building 5. If he’d wanted to kill me, the colonel reflected, which was clearly his mission, he could have, easily. Yet he had decided not to; he’d rescued the young men instead. Reflecting on this act, the horror of what Ernst had been doing became clear. Yes, he realized, the Waltham Study was abominable. He had looked those young men in the face and told them: Serve in the army for a year and your sins will be absolved – all the while knowing that this was a lie; he’d spun the fiction solely to keep the victims relaxed and unsuspecting, so that the soldier could get to know them before he killed them.

Yes, he’d lied to the Fischer brothers, just as he’d lied to the Polish workers when he’d said they would receive double pay to transplant some trees near Charlottenburg for the Olympics. And he’d lied to the Jewish families in Gatow, telling them to assemble by the riverside, because there were some renegade Stormtroopers nearby and Ernst and his men would protect them.

Ernst didn’t dislike Jews. He’d fought beside some in the War and found them as smart and courageous as everyone else. Indeed, based on the Jews he’d known then and since, he couldn’t find any difference between them and Aryans. As for Poles, well, his reading of history told him they too were not so very different from their Prussian neighbors and indeed had a nobility that few National Socialists possessed.

Repugnant, what he was doing with the study. Horrifying. He felt a twist of razor-sharp shame within him, like the searing pain in his arm when the hot shrapnel had ripped into his shoulder in the War.

The road now straightened and they approached the neighborhood where he lived. Ernst leaned forward and gave the driver directions to his home.

Abominable, yes…

And yet… as he looked around him at the familiar buildings and cafés and parks of this portion of Charlottenburg, the horror began to dull, just as happened on the battlefield after the last Mauser or Enfield was fired, the cannon salvos ceased, the cries of the wounded abated. He recalled tonight watching the “recruitment officer,” Subject D, who had willingly, cavalierly, hooked up the deadly hose to the school, even though he’d been playing soccer with the victims shortly before. Another soldier might have balked altogether. Had he not died, his answers to the doctor-professor’s questionnaire would have been extremely helpful in establishing the criteria they would use to match soldiers and duties.

The weakness he’d felt a moment ago, the contrition prompted by the assassin’s choice to forsake his own duty, vanished suddenly. He was once again convinced he was doing the right thing. Let Hitler have his fling with madness. Some innocents would die, yes, until the storm blew over, but eventually the Leader would be gone, while the army Ernst was creating would outlast him and be the backbone of a new German glory – and ultimately a new European peace.

Sacrifices had to be made.

Tomorrow Ernst would begin searching for another psychologist or doctor-professor who might help him continue the work. And this time he would find one who was more attuned to the spirit of National Socialism than Keitel – and one without Jewish grandparents, for God’s sake. Ernst must be more clever. This was a time in history when one had to be clever.