Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

The Mauser kicked hard against his shoulder as Paul fired again. He aimed low, hoping to hit Ernst’s or his guard’s legs. But their car was in a shallow gully and he couldn’t find a target beneath it. He glanced inside the classroom quickly; the last of the young men were leaving. They staggered out and ran for the woods.

“Run!” Paul cried. “Run!”

He fired twice more to keep Ernst and the guard down.

Flinging sweat from his forehead with his fingers, Paul tried to get closer to the Mercedes but both Ernst and his guard were armed and good shots, and the SS man had a submachine gun. They fired repeatedly and Paul could make no headway toward them. As Paul worked the bolt to chamber a round, the guard peppered the bus and the ground nearby. Ernst leapt into the front seat of the Mercedes and grabbed the microphone then took cover again on the far side of the car.

How long would it be until help arrived? Paul had driven through Waltham only two miles up the road; he was sure the good-sized town would be home to a garrison of police. And the school itself might have its own security force.

If he wanted to survive he’d have to flee now.

He fired twice more, using up the last of the Mauser ammunition. He tossed the rifle to the ground then bent down and pulled a pistol from the belt of one of the dead soldiers. It was a Luger, like Reginald Morgan’s. He worked the toggle to put a bullet in the chamber.

He looked down and saw, crouching, halfway under the bus, the balding mustachioed man who’d led the students into the building.

“What’s your name?” Paul asked in German.

“Please, sir.” His voice shook. “Do not-”

“Your name? ”

“Doctor-professor Keitel, sir.” The man was crying. “Please…”

Paul recalled that this was the name on the letter about the Waltham Study. He lifted the pistol and shot him once in the center of the forehead.

Then he took a final look toward Ernst’s car and could see no target. Paul ran across the field, firing several shots into the Mercedes to keep Ernst and the guard down, and soon he plunged into the woods as bullets from the SS man’s weapon chopped through the lush green foliage around him, none even close to its mark.

Willi Kohl had turned away from the clearing and now, drenched in sweat and sick from the heat and exertion, was heading back in the direction of the Labor Service truck, Schumann’s means of escape, he assumed. He would flatten the tires to prevent him from leaving.

A hundred meters, two hundred, gasping, wondering: Who were the young people? Were they criminals? Were they innocent?

He paused to try to catch his breath. If he didn’t, he was sure Schumann would easily hear the wheezing rasp as he approached.

He scanned the forest. He saw nothing.

Where was the truck? He was disoriented. This direction? No, it was the other way.

But perhaps Schumann wasn’t making for the truck. Maybe he did have another way out. The man was brilliant, after all. He might have hidden -

Without a sound, without any warning, a piece of hot metal touched the back of his head.

No! His first thought was: Heidi, my love… how will you manage alone with the children in this mad world of ours? Oh, no, no!

“Don’t move.” In barely accented German.

“I won’t… Is you, Schumann?” he asked in English.

“Give me the pistol.”

Kohl let the weapon go. Schumann took it from him.

A huge hand gripped his shoulder and turned the inspector around.

What eyes, Kohl thought, chilled. He reverted to his native language. “You are going to kill me, yes?”

Schumann said nothing but patted the inspector’s pockets for other weapons. He stood back and then examined the field and forest around them. Apparently satisfied that they were alone, the American reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew several pieces of paper, damp with sweat. He handed them to Kohl, who asked, “What is this?”

“Read it,” Schumann said.

Kohl said, “Please, my spectacles.” Glancing down at his breast pocket.

Schumann lifted the glasses out. He handed them to the inspector.

Placing them on his nose, he unfolded and read the documents quickly, shocked by the words. He looked up, speechless, staring into Schumann’s blue eyes. He looked down and read the top page again.

Ludwig:

You will find annexed hereto my draft letter to the Leader about our study. Note that I’ve included a reference to the testing being done today at Waltham. We can add the results tonight.

At this early stage of the study I believe it is best that we refer to those killed by our Subject soldiers as state criminals. Therefore you will see in the letter that the two Jewish families we killed at Gatow will be described as Jew subversives, the Polish laborers killed at Charlottenburg as foreign infiltrators, the Roma as sexual deviants, and the young Aryans at Waltham today will be political dissidents…

Oh, our dear God in Heaven, he thought. The Gatow case, the Charlottenburg case! Another too: Gypsies murdered. And those young men today! With more planned… They were killed simply as fodder for this barbarous study, one sanctioned at the highest levels of government.

“I…”

Schumann took the sheets back. “On your knees. Close your eyes.”

Kohl looked once more at the American. Ach, yes, these are the eyes of a killer, he realized. How had he missed the look earlier at the boardinghouse? Perhaps because there are so many killers among us now that we have grown immune. Willi Kohl had acted humanely, letting Schumann go while he continued to investigate, rather than send the man to sure death in an SS or Gestapo cell. He’d saved the life of a wolf that had now turned on him. Oh, he could tell Schumann that he knew nothing about this horror. Yet why should the man believe him? Besides, Kohl thought with shame, despite his ignorance about this particular monstrosity, the inspector was undeniably linked to the people who had perpetrated it.

“Now!” Schumann whispered fiercely.

Kohl knelt in the leaves, thinking of his wife. Recalling that when they were young, first married, they would picnic in the Grünewald Forest. Ah, the size of the basket she packed, the salt of the meat, the resinous aroma of the wine, the sour pickles. The feel of her hand in his.

The inspector closed his eyes and said a prayer, thinking that at least the National Socialists hadn’t found a way to make your spiritual communications a crime. He was soon lost in a fervent narrative, which God had to share with Heidi and their children.

And then he realized that some moments had passed.

Eyes still closed, he listened carefully. He heard only the wind through the trees, the buzzing of insects, an airplane’s tenor motor high above him.

Another endless minute or two. Finally he opened his eyes. He debated. Then Willi Kohl slowly looked behind him, expecting to hear the crack of a pistol shot at any moment.

No sign of Schumann. The large man had slipped silently from the clearing. Not far away he heard an internal combustion engine start. Then the mesh of gears.

He rose and, as fast as his solid frame and difficult feet could manage, trotted toward the sound. He came to the grass service road and followed it toward the highway. There was no sign of the Labor Service truck. Kohl veered in the direction of his DKW. But he stopped quickly. The hood was up and wires dangled. Schumann had disabled it. He turned and hurried back down the road toward the academic building.

He arrived at the same time that two SS staff cars skidded to a stop nearby. Uniformed troops leapt out and immediately surrounded the Mercedes in which Ernst sat. They drew their pistols and gazed out into the woods, looking for threats.