Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Liesl had not known much. But one bit of information was golden. Schumann and Webber apparently planned to meet with someone later that afternoon. And a clandestine gathering it was to be, the spurned waitress had offered darkly. “A toad’s business. At someplace called Waltham College.”

Kohl had hurried from the Aryan Café, collected the DKW and sped to Waltham. He now saw the military college in front of him and eased the car gently onto the gravel shoulder near two low brick columns topped with statues of imperial eagles. Several students lounging on the grass beside backpacks and a picnic basket glanced at the dusty, black car.

Kohl gestured the students over to the car and the blond young men, sensing authority, trotted quickly forward.

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail,” Kohl replied. “School is still in session? In the summer?”

“There are courses being taught, sir. Today, though, we have no classes, so we’ve been hiking.”

Like his own sons, these students were caught in the great fever of Third Empire education, only more so, of course, since the whole point of this college was to produce soldiers.

What brilliant criminals the Leader and his crowd are. They kidnap the nation by seizing our children…

He opened Schumann’s passport and displayed the picture. “Have you seen this man?”

“No, Inspector,” one said and glanced at his friends, who shook their heads no.

“How long have you been here?”

“Perhaps an hour.”

“Has anyone arrived in that time?”

“Yes, sir. Not long ago, a school bus arrived and with it an Opel and a Mercedes. A black one. Five-liter. New.”

“No, it was the seven-point-seven,” a friend corrected.

“You’re blind! It was much smaller.”

A third said, “And that Labor Service truck. Only it didn’t drive in here.”

“No, it went past and then turned off the road.” The boy pointed. “Near the entrance of some other academic buildings.”

“Labor Service?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was the truck full of workers?”

“We couldn’t see in the back.”

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor I.”

Labor Service… Kohl pondered this. RAD workers were used primarily for farming and public works. It would be very unusual for them to be assigned to a college, especially on Sunday. “Has the Service been doing some work here?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t believe so, sir.”

“I’ve heard of nothing either, sir.”

“Don’t say anything of my questions,” Kohl said. “To anyone.”

“A matter of Party security?” one boy asked with an intrigued smile.

Kohl touched his finger to his lips.

And left them gossiping excitedly about what the mysterious policeman might mean.

Closing in on the gray Opel.

Crawling, pause.

Then crawling again. Just like at St. Mihiel and the dense, ancient forests of Argonne.

Paul Schumann smelled hot grass and the old manure used to fertilize the field. Smelled the oil and creosote of the weapon. Smelled his own sweat.

Another few feet. Then pause.

He had to move slowly; he was very exposed here. Anyone on the field around Building 5 might have glanced his way and noticed the grass swaying unnaturally or caught the glint of low light reflecting off the rifle barrel.

Pause.

He looked over the field again. The man in brown was taking a stack of documents from the panel truck. The glare on the windows continued to obscure any view of Ernst in the Mercedes. The SS guard continued his vigil of the area.

Looking back toward the classroom building, Paul watched the balding man call the young men together. They reluctantly ended the soccer game and walked into the classroom.

With their attention focused away from him, Paul continued more quickly now to the Opel, opened the back door and climbed into the baking vehicle, feeling his skin prickle from the heat. Looking out through the back left window, he noted that this was the perfect vantage point to shoot from. He had an excellent view of the area around Ernst’s car – a clear killing field of forty to fifty feet to bring the man down. And it would take the bodyguard and soldiers some time to figure out where the shot had come from.

Paul Schumann was touching the ice firmly. He clicked the Mauser’s safety catch off and squinted toward Ernst’s car.

“Greetings, future soldiers. Welcome to Waltham Military College.”

Kurt Fischer and the others replied to Doctor-professor Keitel with various greetings. Most said, “Hail Hitler.”

It was interesting that Keitel himself did not use that salutation, Kurt noted.

The recruitment soldier who’d been playing football with them stood beside the doctor-professor, in the front of the classroom, holding a stack of large envelopes. The man winked at Kurt, who’d just missed blocking a goal the soldier had scored.

The volunteers sat at oak desks. On the walls around them were maps and flags that Kurt didn’t recognize. His brother was looking around too and he leaned over and whispered, “Battle flags of Second Empire armies.”

Kurt shushed him, frowning in irritation, both at the interruption and because his younger brother knew something he did not. And how, he now wondered, troubled, did his brother, the son of pacifists, even know what a battle flag was?

The dowdy professor continued. “I’m going to tell you what is planned for the next few days. You will listen carefully.”

“Yes, sir” and its variations filled the room.

“First, you will fill out a personal information form and application for induction into the armed forces. Then you will answer a questionnaire about your personality and your aptitudes. The answers will be compiled and analyzed and will help us determine your talents and mental preferences for certain duties. Some of you, for instance, will be better suited for combat, some for radio work, some for office detail. So it is vital that you answer honestly.”

Kurt glanced toward his brother, who did not, however, acknowledge him. Their agreement had been that they would answer any such questions in a way as to be guaranteed of being assigned office tasks or even manual labor – anything to keep from having to kill another human being. But Kurt was troubled that Hans might be thinking differently now. Was he being seduced by the idea of becoming a combat soldier?

“After you are through with the forms, Colonel Ernst will address you. Then you will be shown to your dormitory and be given supper. Tomorrow you will begin your training and spend the next month marching and improving your physical condition before your classroom instruction begins.”

Keitel nodded at the soldier, who began passing out the packets. The recruitment officer paused at Kurt’s desk. They agreed to try for another game before supper, if the light held. The soldier then followed Keitel outside to get pencils for the inductees.

As he absently smoothed his hand over his documents, Kurt found himself oddly content, despite the harrowing circumstances of this hard, hard day. Yes, certainly some of this was gratitude – to Colonel Ernst and Doctor-professor Keitel – for providing this miraculous salvation. But more than that he was beginning to feel that he’d been given the chance to do something important after all, an act that transcended his own plight. Had Kurt gone to Oranienburg his imprisonment or death would have been courageous perhaps, but meaningless. Now, though, he decided that the incongruous act of volunteering for the army might prove to be exactly the gesture of defiance he’d been searching for, a small but concrete way of helping save his country from the brown plague.