Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Unger walked to the back of the truck and closed the gate.

Hans climbed into the cab, picked up the newspaper and started reading. Kurt turned, wiped his brow and looked out one last time over the city in which he’d spent his entire life. In the heat and the haze, it seemed Italian, reminding him of a trip he’d taken to Bologna with his parents when his father was lecturing for a fortnight at the old university there.

The young man was turning back to climb into the truck next to his brother when there was a collective gasp from the crowd.

Kurt froze, eyes wide.

Three black cars skidded to a stop around Unger’s truck. Six men jumped out, in black SS uniforms.

No!

“Hans, run!” Kurt shouted.

But two of the SS troops raced to the passenger side of the vehicle. They ripped the door open and dragged his younger brother onto the street. He fought back until one struck him in the gut with a truncheon. Hans yelped and stopped struggling, rolling on the ground, clutching his belly. The soldiers pulled him to his feet. “No, no, no!” Unger cried. Both he and Kurt were shoved against the side of the truck.

“Papers! Empty your pockets.”

The three captives did as they were told.

“The Fischers,” said the SS commander, looking over their identity cards and nodding in recognition.

Tears running down his cheeks, Unger said to Kurt, “I didn’t betray you. I swear I didn’t!”

“No, he didn’t,” said the SS officer, who unholstered his Luger, worked the toggle to cock it and shot the man in the head. Unger dropped to the pavement. Kurt gasped in horror. “ She did,” the SS man added, nodding toward a large, middle-aged woman leaning out of the SS car’s window.

Her voice, filled with fury, raged at the boys: “Betrayers! Swine!”

It was Mrs. Lutz, the war widow who lived on their floor in the apartment building, the woman who had just wished them a good day!

Shocked, staring at Unger’s limp body, from which blood flowed copiously, Kurt heard her breathless scream, “You ungrateful pigs. I’ve been watching you, I know what you’ve done, I know who’s been to your apartment. I write down what I’ve seen. You’ve betrayed our Leader!”

The SS commander grimaced with irritation at the woman. He nodded toward a younger officer and he pushed her back into the car.

“You have been on our list, both of you, for some time.”

“We’ve done nothing!” Staring at Unger’s blood, unable to look away from the growing crimson pool, Kurt whispered, “Nothing. I swear. We were just trying to be with our parents.”

“Illegally escaping the country, pacifism, anti-Party activities… all capital offenses.” He pulled Hans closer, aimed the pistol at his head. The boy whimpered. “Please, no. Please!…”

Kurt stepped forward fast. A guard slugged him in the belly and he doubled over. He saw the commander touch the gun to the back of his brother’s head.

“No!”

The commander squinted and leaned back to avoid the spray of blood and flesh.

“Please, sir!”

But then another officer whispered, “We have those orders, sir. During the Olympics, restraint.” He nodded toward the market, where a crowd had gathered, watching. “Foreigners might be present, perhaps reporters.”

Hesitating for a long moment, the commander muttered impatiently, “All right. Take them to Columbia House.”

Although it was being phased out in favor of the more ruthlessly efficient, and less visible, Oranienburg camp, Columbia House was still the most notorious jail in Berlin.

The man nodded at Unger’s corpse. “And dump that somewhere. Find out if he’s married and if so send his wife his bloody shirt.”

“Yes, my leader. With what message?”

“The shirt will be the message.” The commander put his gun away and strode back to his car. He glanced briefly at the Fischer brothers but his eyes didn’t really see them; it was as if they were already dead.

“Where are you, Paul Schumann?”

Like his question yesterday to the then anonymous suspect – Who are you? – Willi Kohl posed this query aloud and in frustration, with no immediate hope of an answer. The inspector had thought that knowing the man’s name would speed the resolution of the case. But this was not so.

Kohl had received no reply to his telegrams to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the International Olympic Committee. He’d gotten a brief response from the New York City Police Department but it said only that they would look into the matter when “practicable.”

This was not a word that Kohl was familiar with but when he looked it up in the department’s English-German dictionary an angry scowl filled his face. Over the past year he’d sensed a reluctance by American law enforcers to cooperate with the Kripo. Some of this was due to anti-National Socialist sentiment in the United States. Some too, he believed, might have roots in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping; Bruno Hauptmann had escaped from police custody in Germany and fled to America, where he’d murdered the child.

Kohl had sent a second, brief telegram in his halting English, thanking the NYPD and reminding them of the urgency of the matter. He’d alerted the border guards to detain Schumann if he tried to leave but word would get only to the major crossings.

Nor had Janssen’s second trip to the Olympic Village proved fruitful. Paul Schumann had not been officially connected to the American team. He had come to Berlin as a writer with no known affiliation. He’d left the Olympic Village the day before and no one had seen him since, nor did anyone know where he might have gone. Schumann’s name wasn’t on the list of those who had bought Largo ammunition or Modelo A’s recently but this was no surprise since he’d only arrived with the team on Friday

Rocking back in his chair, looking through the box of evidence, reading his penciled notes… Kohl looked up to see that Janssen had paused in the doorway, chatting with several other young plainclothed assistant inspectors and inspector candidates.

Kohl frowned at the noisy coffee klatch.

The younger officers paid their respects.

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail, Inspector Kohl.”

“Yes, yes.”

“We are on our way to the lecture. Are you coming?”

“No,” Kohl muttered. “I’m working.” Since the Party’s ascension in ‘33, one-hour talks on National Socialism were held weekly in the main assembly hall of the Alex. Attendance by all Kripo officers was mandatory. Lukewarm Willi Kohl rarely went. The last one he’d attended was two years ago and had been entitled “Hitler, Pan-Germanism and the Roots of Fundamental Social Change.” He’d fallen asleep.

“SD Leader Heydrich himself may show up.”

“We’re not sure,” another added enthusiastically. “But he might. Can you imagine? We could shake his hand!”

“As I said, I’m working.” Kohl looked past their youthful, enthusiastic faces. “What do you have, Janssen?”

“Good day, Inspector,” one young officer said exuberantly. They went off, loudly, down the hall.

Kohl fixed his frown on Janssen, who winced. “Sorry, sir. They attach themselves to me because I’m attached to…”

“Me?”

“Well, yes, sir.”

Kohl nodded in the direction they’d gone. “They’re members?”

“Of the Party? Several are, yes.”

Before Hitler came to power it was illegal for a police officer to be a member of any political party. Kohl said, “Don’t be tempted to join, Janssen. You think it will help your career but it won’t. It will only get you stuck further in the spiderweb.”

“Moral quicksand,” Janssen quoted back his boss.

“Indeed.”