Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

“Good afternoon.”

The older one nodded. Ernst felt a strange chill. The boy resembled his own son. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Perhaps it was the self-confidence and the serenity that hadn’t been there this morning. Perhaps it was just the lingering aftermath of the look in young Rudy’s eyes earlier. In any case, the similarity unnerved him.

“I need your answer now regarding your participation in our study.”

The brothers looked at each other. Kurt began to speak but it was the younger one who said, “We will do it.”

So, he’d been wrong. Ernst smiled and nodded, genuinely pleased.

The older brother then added, “Provided you let us send a letter to England.”

“A letter?”

“We wish to communicate with our parents.”

“That is not allowed, I’m afraid.”

“But you’re a colonel, right? Aren’t you someone who can decide what’s allowed and what isn’t?” Hans asked.

Ernst cocked his head and examined the boy. But his attention returned to the older brother. The resemblance to Mark was indeed uncanny. He hesitated then said, “One letter. But you must send it in the next two days, while you’re under my supervision. Your training sergeants won’t permit it, not a letter to London. They are definitely not someone who can decide what’s allowed and what isn’t.”

Another glance passed between the boys. Kurt nodded. The colonel did too. And then he saluted them – just as he’d said good-bye to his son. Not with a fascist extended arm but in a traditional gesture, lifting his flat palm to his forehead, which the SA guard pretended not to notice.

“Welcome to the new Germany,” Ernst said in a voice that was close to a whisper and belied the crisp salute.

They turned the corner and headed for Lützow Plaza, putting as much distance between them and the boardinghouse as possible before they found a taxi, Paul looking back often to make sure they weren’t being followed.

“We aren’t staying at the Metropol,” he said, gazing up and down the street. “I’ll find someplace safe. My friend Otto can do that. I’m sorry. But you’ll have to just leave everything back there. You can’t go back again.”

On the busy street corner they stopped. Absently his arm slipped around Käthe’s waist as he looked into traffic. But he felt her stiffen. Then she pulled away.

He glanced down at her, frowning.

“I am going back, Paul.” She spoke in a voice that was devoid of emotion.

“Käthe, what’s wrong?”

“I was telling the truth to the Kripo inspector.”

“You…”

“I was outside the door, looking in. You were the one who lied. You murdered that man in the room. There was no fight. He didn’t have a gun. He was standing there helpless, and you hit him and killed him. It was horrible. I haven’t seen anything so horrible since… since…”

The fourth square from the grass…

Paul was silent.

An open truck drove past. A half dozen Stormtroopers were in the back. They shouted out something to a group of people on the street, laughing. Some of the pedestrians waved back. The truck disappeared fast around a corner.

Paul led Käthe to a bench in a small park but she wouldn’t sit. “No,” she whispered. Arms folded across her chest, she stared at him coldly.

“It’s not as simple as you think,” he whispered.

“Simple?”

“There’s more to me, to why I’m here, yes. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be involved.”

Now, at last, raw anger exploded. “Oh, there’s an excuse for lying! You didn’t want to get me involved. You asked me to come to America, Paul. How much more involved could I be?”

“I mean involved with my old life. This trip will be the end of that.”

“Old life? Are you a soldier?”

“In a way.” Then he hesitated. “No. That’s not true. I was a criminal in America. I came here to stop them.”

“Them?”

“Your enemies.” He nodded at one of the hundreds of red-white-and-black flags that stirred nearby in the breeze. “I was supposed to kill someone in the government here to stop him from starting another war. But afterwards, that part of my life will be over with. I’d have a clean record. I’d-”

“And when were you going to tell me this little secret of yours, Paul? When we got to London? To New York?”

“Believe me. It’s over with.”

“You used me.”

“I never-”

“Last night – that wonderful night – you had me show you Wilhelm Street. You were using me as cover, weren’t you? You wished to find a place where you could murder this man.”

He looked up at one of the stark, flapping banners and said nothing.

“And what if in America I did something that angered you? Would you hit me? Would you kill me?”

“Käthe! Of course not.”

“Ach, you say that. But you’ve lied before.” Käthe pulled a handkerchief from her purse. The smell of lilac touched him momentarily and his heart cried, as if it were the smell of incense at a loved one’s wake. She wiped her eyes and stuffed the cloth away. “Tell me one thing, Paul. How are you different from them? Tell me. How?… No, no, you are different. You’re crueller. Do you know why?” Choking on tears. “You gave me hope and then you took it away. With them, with the beasts in the garden, there is never any hope. At least they’re not deceitful like you. No, Paul. Fly back to your perfect country. I’ll stay here. I’ll stay until the knock on the door. And then I’ll be gone. Like my Michael.”

“Käthe, I haven’t been honest with you, no. But you have to leave with me… Please.”

“Do you know what our philosopher Nietzsche wrote? He said, ‘He who fights monsters must take care that he does not become a monster himself.’ Oh, how true that is, Paul. How true.”

“Please, come with me.” He took her by the shoulders, gripping her hard.

But Käthe Richter was strong too. She pulled his hands off and stepped back. Her eyes fixed on his and she whispered ruthlessly, “I’d rather share my country with ten thousand killers than my bed with one. ”

And turning on her heels, she hesitated for a moment then walked away quickly, drawing the glances of passersby, who wondered what might have caused such a fierce lovers’ spat.

“Willi, Willi, Willi…”

Chief of Inspectors Friedrich Horcher drew the name out very slowly.

Kohl had returned to the Alex and was nearly to his office when his boss caught up with him. “Yes, sir?”

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Yes? Have you?”

“It’s about that Gatow case. The shootings. You will recall?”

How could he forget? Those pictures would be burned into his mind forever. The women… the children… But now he felt the chill of fear again. Had the case in fact been a test, as he’d worried earlier? Had Heydrich’s boys waited to see if he’d drop the matter and now learned that he’d done worse: He’d secretly called the young gendarme at home about it?

Horcher tugged at his blood-red armband. “I have good news for you. The case has been solved. Charlottenburg too, the Polish workers. They were both the work of the same killer.”

Kohl’s initial relief that he was not going to be arrested turned quickly to bewilderment. “Who closed the case? Someone at Kripo?”

“No, no, it was the head of the gendarmerie himself. Meyerhoff. Imagine.”

Ach… The matter was beginning to crystalize – to Willi Kohl’s disgust. He wasn’t the least surprised at the rest of the tale that his boss laid out. “The killer was a Czech Jew. Deranged. Much like Vlad the Impaler. Was he Czech? Maybe Romanian or Hungarian, I don’t recall. Ha, history was always my poorest subject. In any case, the suspect was caught and confessed. He was handed over to the SS.” Horcher laughed. “They took time out from their important, and mysterious, security alert to actually do some police work.”