Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Kohl hurried across the clearing toward them. The SS officers frowned at Kohl’s approach and turned their weapons on him.

“I’m Kripo!” he called breathlessly and waved his identification card.

The SS commander gestured him over. “Hail Hitler.”

“Hail,” Kohl gasped.

“A Kripo inspector from Berlin? What are you doing here? You heard the wireless report of the assault on Colonel Ernst?”

“No, I followed the suspect here, Captain. I didn’t know his designs on the colonel, though. I wanted him in connection with a different matter.”

“The colonel and his guard didn’t get a look at the assailant,” the SS man said to the inspector. “Do you know what he looks like?”

Kohl hesitated.

A single word burned into the inspector’s mind. It seated itself like a lamprey and would not leave.

That word was duty.

Finally Kohl said, “Yes, yes, I do know, sir.”

The SS commander said, “Good. I’ve ordered roadblocks throughout the area. I’ll send them his description. He’s Russian, is he not? That’s what we heard.”

“No, he’s American,” Kohl said. “And I can do better than merely describe him. I know what vehicle he’s driving and I have his photograph.”

“You have?” the commander asked, frowning. “How?”

“He surrendered this to me earlier today.” Willi Kohl knew he had no choice. Still his heart cried in agony as he dug into his pocket and handed the passport to the commander.

I’m a fool, thought Paul Schumann.

He was in despair and there was no bottom to it.

Piloting the Labor Service truck west along rough back roads that led to Berlin, looking in the mirror for signs that he was being followed.

A fool…

Ernst had been in my sights! I could have killed him! And yet…

Yet those others, the young men, would have died horrible deaths in that goddamn classroom. He’d told himself to forget them. To touch the ice. To do what he’d come to this troubled country for.

But he hadn’t been able to.

Paul now slammed his palm against the steering wheel, shaking with anger. Now, how many others would die because of his decision? Every time he read that the National Socialists had expanded their army, that they had developed new weapons, that their soldiers had engaged in training exercises, that more people had disappeared from their homes, that they had died bloody on the fourth square of concrete from the grass in the Garden of Beasts, he would feel responsible.

And killing the monstrous Keitel didn’t take the horror out of his choice. Reinhard Ernst, a far worse man than anyone had ever imagined, was still alive.

He felt tears fill his eyes. Fool…

Bull Gordon had picked him because he was so goddamn good. Oh, sure, he touched the ice. But a better man, a stronger man would not simply have gripped the cold; he would have taken it into his soul and made the correct decision, whatever the cost to those young men. His face burning with shame, Paul Schumann drove on, heading back toward Berlin, where he would hide out until the rescue plane arrived in the morning.

Then he rounded a bend and braked hard. An army truck blocked the way. Standing beside it were six SS troopers, two with machine guns. Paul hadn’t thought they would set up roadblocks this quickly or on small roads like this. He took both the pistols – his and the inspector’s – and put them nearby on the seat.

Paul gave a limp salute. “Hail Hitler.”

“Hail Hitler, Officer,” was the crisp reply from the SS commander, though he glanced with a hint of derision at the Labor Service uniform, which Paul had put back on.

“Please, what is the problem?” Paul asked.

The commander approached the truck. “We are looking for someone in connection with an incident at Waltham Military College.”

“Is that why I’ve seen all the official cars on the road?” Paul asked, heart slamming in his chest.

The SS officer grunted, then he studied Paul’s face. He was about to ask a question when a motorcycle pulled up and the driver killed the engine, leapt off and hurried to the commander. “Sir,” he said, “a Kripo detective has learned the assassin’s identity. Here’s his description.”

Paul’s hand slowly curled around the Luger. He could kill these two. But there were still the others nearby.

Handing a sheet of paper to the commander, the motorcyclist continued. “He’s an American. But he speaks German fluently.”

The commander consulted the note. He glanced at Paul then back down at the paper. He announced, “The suspect is about five feet six inches high and quite thin. Black hair and a mustache. According to his passport, his name is Robert E. Gardner.”

Paul stared at the commander, nodding, silent. Gardner? he wondered.

“Ach,” the SS officer asked, “why are you looking at me? Have you seen such a man or not?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry. I haven’t.”

Gardner?… Who was he?… Wait, yes, Paul remembered: It was the name on one of Robert Taggert’s fake passports.

Kohl had given that documentation to the SS, not Paul’s own.

The commander looked down at the sheet of paper again. “The detective reported that the man was driving a green Audi sedan. Have you seen this vehicle in the area?”

“No, sir.”

In the mirror Paul noticed two of the other officers looking in the back of the truck. They called, “Everything’s fine here.”

The commander continued. “If you see him or the Audi, you will contact the authorities immediately.” He shouted to the driver of the truck barricading the road. “Let him pass.”

“Hail Hitler,” Paul said with an enthusiasm he believed he hadn’t heard anyone else use since he’d arrived in Germany.

“Yes, yes, hail Hitler. Now move along!”

An SS staff Mercedes skidded to a stop outside Building 5 of Waltham Military College, where Willi Kohl was watching dozens of troops prowl through the forest in search of the young men who’d escaped from the classroom.

The door of the car opened and no less than Heinrich Himmler himself climbed out, wiped his schoolteacher glasses with a handkerchief and strode up to the SS commander, Kohl and Reinhard Ernst, who was out of the car now and surrounded by a dozen guards.

Kohl raised his arm and Himmler responded with a brief salute and then studied the man closely with his tight eyes. “You are Kripo?”

“Yes, Police Chief Himmler. Detective-inspector Kohl.”

“Ah, yes. So you are Willi Herman Kohl.”

The detective was taken aback that the overlord of German police would know his name. He recalled his SD file and felt all the more uneasy at the recognition. The mousy man turned away and asked Ernst, “You are unharmed?”

“Yes. But he killed several officers and my colleague, Doctor-professor Keitel.”

“Where is the assassin?”

The SS commander said sourly, “He escaped.”

“And who is he?”

“Inspector Kohl has learned his identity.” With a temerity that Ernst’s rank allowed – but Kohl would not dare use – the colonel said abruptly, “Look at the passport picture, Heinrich. He was the same man who was at the Olympic stadium. He was standing one meter from the Leader, from all the ministers. He was that close to us all.”

“Gardner?” Himmler asked uneasily, gazing at the booklet the SS com mandant held up. “He was using a fake name at the stadium. Or this one is fake.” The small man looked up and frowned. “But why did he save your life at the stadium?”

“Obviously he didn’t save my life,” Ernst snapped. “I wasn’t in danger then. He must have rigged the gun in the shed himself to make it appear that he was our ally. To get under our defenses, of course. Who knows whom else he was going to target after he’d killed me. Perhaps the Leader himself.