Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Paul looked again down the street, back toward the Summer Garden. No one was in pursuit. Still, he felt an electric current of urgency to learn information of Ernst’s whereabouts from Max and get on with the touch-off. He turned, saying, “I need to know…” His voice faded.

Max was gone.

“Where is he?”

Morgan too turned. “Goddamn,” he muttered in English.

“Did he betray us?”

“I can’t believe that he would – it would mean his arrest too. But…” Morgan’s voice faded as he looked past Paul. “No!”

Spinning around, Paul saw Max about two blocks away. He was among several people stopped by two men in black uniforms, whom he apparently hadn’t seen. “An SS security stop.”

Max looked around nervously, waiting his turn to be questioned by the SS troopers. He wiped his face, looking guilty as a teenager.

Paul whispered, “There’s nothing for him to worry about. His papers are fine. He gave us Ernst’s photos. As long as he doesn’t panic he’ll be all right.”

Calm down, Paul told the man silently. Don’t look around…

Then Max smiled and stepped closer to the SS.

“He’s going to be fine,” Morgan said.

No, he’s not, Paul thought. He’s going to shank it.

And just at that moment the man turned and fled.

The SS troops pushed aside a couple they’d been speaking with and began running after him. “Stop, you will stop!”

“No!” Morgan whispered. “Why did he do that? Why?”

Because he was scared witless, Paul thought.

Max was slimmer than the SS guards, who were in bulky uniforms, and was beginning to pull away from them.

Maybe he can make it. Maybe -

A shot echoed and Max tumbled to the concrete, blood blossoming on his back. Paul looked behind him. A third SS officer across the street had drawn his pistol and fired. Max started to crawl toward the curb when the first two guards caught up to him, gasping for breath. One drew his pistol, fired a shot into the poor man’s head and leaned against a lamppost to catch his breath.

“Let’s go,” Paul whispered. “Now!”

They turned back onto Rosenthaler Street and walked north, along with the other pedestrians moving steadily away from the site of the shooting.

“God in heaven,” Morgan muttered. “I’ve spent a month cultivating him and holding his hand while he got details on Ernst. Now what do we do?”

“Whatever we decide, it’s got to be fast; somebody might make the connection between him” – a glance back at the body in the street – “and Ernst.”

Morgan sighed and thought for a moment. “I don’t know anyone else close to Ernst… But I do have a man in the information ministry.”

“You have somebody inside there? ”

“The National Socialists are paranoid but they have one flaw that offsets that: their ego. They have so many agents in place that it never occurs to them that somebody might infiltrate them. He’s just a clerk but he may be able to find out something.”

They paused on a busy corner. Paul said, “I’m going to get my things at the Olympic Village and move to the boardinghouse.”

“The pawnshop where we’re getting the rifle is near Oranienburger Station. I’ll meet you in November 1923 Square, under the big statue of Hitler. Say, four-thirty. Do you have a map?”

“I’ll find it.”

The men shook hands and, with a glance back at the crowd standing around the body of the unfortunate man, they started their separate ways as another siren filled the streets of a city that was clean and orderly and filled with polite, smiling people – and that had been the site of two killings in as many hours.

No, Paul reflected, the unfortunate Max hadn’t betrayed him. But he realized that there was another implication that was far more troubling: These two cops or Gestapo agents had tracked Morgan or Paul or both of them from Dresden Alley to the Summer Garden on their own and come within minutes of capturing them. This was police work far better than any he’d seen in New York. Who the hell are they? he wondered.

“Johann,” Willi Kohl asked the waiter, “what exactly was this man with the brown hat wearing?”

“A light gray suit, a white shirt and a green tie, which I found rather garish.”

“And he was large?”

“Very large, sir. But not fat. He was a bodybuilder perhaps.”

“Any other characteristics?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Was he foreign?”

“I don’t know. But he spoke German flawlessly. Perhaps a faint accent.”

“His hair color?”

“I couldn’t say. Darker rather than lighter.”

“Age?”

“Not young, not old.”

Kohl sighed. “And you said ‘companions’?”

“Yes, sir. He arrived first. Then he was joined by another man. Considerably smaller. Wearing a black or dark gray suit. I don’t recall his tie. And then yet another, a man in brown overalls, in his thirties. A worker, it seemed. He joined them later.”

“Did the big man have a leather suitcase or satchel?”

“Yes. It was brown.”

“His companions spoke German too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you overhear their conversation?”

“No, Inspector.”

“And the man’s face? The man in the hat?” Janssen asked.

A hesitation. “I didn’t see the face. Or his companions’.”

“You waited on them but you did not see their faces?” Kohl asked.

“I didn’t pay any attention. It’s dark in here, as you can see. And in this business… so many people. You look but you rarely see, if you understand.”

That was true, Kohl supposed. But he also knew that since Hitler had come to power three years ago, blindness had become the national malady. People either denounced fellow citizens for “crimes” they hadn’t witnessed, or else were unable to recall the details of offenses they actually had seen. Knowing too much might mean a trip to the Alex – the Kripo headquarters – or the Gestapo’s on Prince Albrecht Street to examine endless pictures of known felons. No one would willingly go to either of those places; today’s witness could be tomorrow’s detainee.

The waiter’s eyes swept the floor, troubled. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Kohl pitied him. “Perhaps in lieu of a description of his face, you could give us some other observations and we could dispense with a visit to police headquarters. If you happen to think of something helpful.”

The man looked up, relieved.

“I’ll try to assist you,” the inspector said. “Let’s start with some specifics. What did he eat and drink?”

“Ah, that’s something. He at first ordered a wheat beer. He must not have ever drunk it before. He only sipped it and pushed it aside. But he drank all of the Pschorr ale that his companion ordered for him.”

“Good.” Kohl never knew at first what these details about a suspect might ultimately reveal. Perhaps the man’s state or country of origin, perhaps something more specific. But it was worth noting, which Willi Kohl now did in his well-thumbed notebook, after a lick of the pencil tip. “And his food?”

“Our sausage and cabbage plate. With much bread and margarine. They had the same. The big man ate everything. He seemed ravenous. His companion ate half.”

“And the third man?”

“Coffee only.”

“How did the big man – as we’ll call him – how did he hold his fork?”

“His fork?”

“After he cut a piece of sausage, did he change his fork from one hand to another and then eat the bite? Or did he lift the food to his mouth without changing hands?”

“I… I don’t know, sir. I would think possibly he did change hands. I say that because it seemed he was always placing his fork down to drink the beer.”