Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Paul ran to the front and noted the area was still deserted. Across the street was a tall, windowless building, a factory or warehouse, closed today. It was likely that the bullets had struck the wall unnoticed.

“It’s clear,” he said, returning to Webber, who had sat up and was looking down at the mass of blood on his belly. “Ach.”

“We have to find a doctor.” Paul slung the rifle over his shoulder. He helped Webber to his feet and they made their way out the back doorway and into the boat. Pale and sweating, the German lay back with his head against the bow as Paul rowed frantically to the dock near the truck.

“Where can I take you? For a doctor?”

“Doctor?” Webber laughed. “It’s too late for that, Mr. John Dillinger. Leave me. Go on. I can tell. It’s too late.”

“No, I’m taking you for help,” Paul repeated firmly. “Tell me where to find somebody who won’t go running to the SS or Gestapo.” He pulled the boat to the dock, tied it up and climbed out. He set the Mauser in a patch of grass nearby and turned back to help Webber out of the boat.

“No!” Paul whispered.

Webber had untied the rope and with his remaining strength pushed off from the dock. The dinghy was now ten feet away, drifting into the current.

“Otto! No!”

“As I say, too late,” Webber called, gasping. Then he gave a sour laugh. “Look at me, a Viking’s funeral! Ach, when you return home play some John Philip Sousa and think of me… Though I still say he’s English. You Americans take credit for far too much. Now, go on, Mr. John Dillinger. Do what you have come here for.”

The last glimpse Paul Schumann had of his friend were the man’s eyes closing as he slumped to the bottom of the boat, which gathered speed, drawn into the murky water of the Spree.

A dozen of them, all young men, who had chosen life and freedom over honor. Was it cowardice or intelligence that had motivated them to do this?

Kurt Fischer wondered if he was the only one among them plagued by this question.

They were being driven through the countryside northwest of Berlin in the same sort of bus that used to take them on outings as young students. The round driver piloted his vehicle smoothly over the winding road and tried, unsuccessfully, to get them to sing hunting and hiking songs.

Kurt sat next to his brother, as they shared stories with the others. Little by little he learned something about them. Mostly Aryan, all from middle-class families, all with degrees, attending universities or planning to do so after their Labor Service. Half were, like Kurt and Hans, marginally anti-Party for political and intellectual reasons: Socialists, pacifists, protestors. The other half were “swing kids,” richer, rebellious too but not as political; their main complaint with the National Socialists was cultural: the censoring of movies, dance and music.

There were no Jews, Slavs or Roma gypsies among this crowd, of course. Nor any Kosis, either. Despite Colonel Ernst’s enlightenment, Kurt knew that it would be many years before such ethnic and political groups would find a home in the military or German officialdom. Kurt’s personal belief was that it would never happen as long as the triumvirate of Hitler, Göring and Goebbels was in power.

So here they were, he was thinking, these young men, brought together by the predicament of having to choose between a concentration camp and possible death or an organization they found morally wrong.

Am I a coward, Kurt wondered again, choosing as I did? He remembered Goebbels’s call for the nationwide boycott of Jewish stores in April of ’33. The National Socialists thought it would receive an overwhelming show of support. In fact, the event went badly for the Party, with many Germans – his parents among them – openly defying the boycott. Thousands, in fact, sought out stores they hadn’t previously been to, just to show support for their Jewish fellow citizens.

That was courage. Did he not have this bravery within him?

“Kurt?”

He looked up. His brother had been speaking to him. “You’re not listening.”

“What did you say?”

“When will we eat supper? I’m hungry.”

“I don’t have any clue. How would I know?”

“Is army food any good? I heard you eat well. I suppose it depends, though. If you’re in the field, it’ll be different than at a base. I wonder what it’s like.”

“What, the food?”

“No. Being in the trenches. Being-”

“We won’t be in the trenches. There won’t be another war. And if there is, you heard Colonel Ernst, we won’t have to fight. We’ll be given different duties.”

His brother didn’t look convinced. And more troubling, he didn’t look that upset that he might be seeing combat. Why, he even seemed intrigued by the thought. This was a very new, and disturbing, side to his brother.

I wonder what it’s like…

Conversation in the bus continued – about sports, about the scenery, about the Olympics, about American movies. And girls, of course.

Finally they arrived, turning off the highway and easing down a long maple-lined drive that led to the campus of Waltham Military College.

What their pacifist parents would think to see them in such a place!

The bus squealed to a halt in front of one of the school’s red-brick buildings. Kurt was struck by the incongruity: an institution devoted to the philosophy and practice of warfare, yet set in an idyllic vale with a rich carpet of grass, fluttering ivy crawling up the ancient buildings, forests and hills behind, which formed a gentle frame for the scene.

The boys gathered their rucksacks and climbed off the bus. A young soldier not much older than they identified himself as their recruitment officer and shook their hands, welcoming them. He explained that Doctor-professor Keitel would be with them shortly. He held up a football that he and another soldier had been kicking around and he tapped it toward Hans, who expertly sent it on its way to another of the recruits.

And, as always happens when young men and a ball end up together on a grassy field, it was only a matter of minutes before two teams had formed and a game begun.

At 5:30 P.M. the Labor Service truck eased over a smooth, immaculate highway that wove through tall stands of pine and hemlock. The air was flecked with motes of dust, and lazy insects died on the flat windshield.

Paul Schumann struggled to think only of Reinhard Ernst, of his target. Groping for the ice.

Don’t think about Otto Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Webber.

This was, however, impossible. Paul was consumed with memories of the man he’d known only a day. Presently he was thinking that Otto would have fit in perfectly on the West Side of New York. Drinking with Runyon and Jacobs and the boxing crew. Maybe he’d even enjoy sparring a little. But what Webber really would have loved were the opportunities in America: the freedom to run countless scams and grifts.

Someday I may boast to you of my better cons…

But then his thoughts faded as he turned around a slow curve and diverted down a side road. A kilometer along the highway he saw a carefully painted sign, Waltham Military College. Three or four young men in hiking outfits lounged on the grass, surrounded by packs, baskets and the remnants of their Sunday afternoon dinner. A sign beside them pointed down the wide drive to the main hall. A second road led to the stadium and gymnasium and Academic Buildings 1 through 4. Farther along was the driveway to Buildings 5 through 8. It was in Building 5 that Ernst would have his meeting in a half hour, Paul had read on his schedule. He continued past the turnoff, though, drove another hundred yards along the road and pulled onto a deserted unpaved byway, overgrown with grass. He nosed the truck into the woods so that it couldn’t be seen from the main road.