Christopher Reich - The Runner

“ Ja, natürlich ,” came the enthusiastic reply. “The Air Defense building on Kronprinzenalle. Just around the corner. All their greatest generals will be there. Patton, Bradley, even Eisenhower, himself. It was on Radio Berlin yesterday evening.”

Judge scooted forward a foot, the bike’s scrappy engine sputtering in time to his own agitated heart. The entire high command present at one occasion. He had little doubt Seyss would attend.

Confident now that he possessed at least a rudimentary idea of the cityscape, Judge set out to find three addresses. The first belonged to Rosenheim, Alfred Bach’s urban oasis, the others to close friends of the Bach family with whom Ingrid had proposed they might stay, the Gesslers and the Schmundts.

The western section of Berlin had escaped the war with only minor damage. Some houses were in disrepair. Shutters hung askew. Lawns grew untended, while whole façades screamed for a fresh coat of paint. The majority, however, appeared in good enough shape: narrow Wilhemine rowhouses fronted by gardens of roses and petunias and surrounded by quaint brick walls.

A Jeep was parked at the corner of Schopenhauerstrasse and Matterhornstrasse. Judge slowed his motorcycle, and as he passed, granted the two MPs on watch an officious nod. Instead of crossing through the intersection, though, he turned right onto Schopenhauerstrasse itself. He kept his speed down, letting the wheels dribble over the uneven cobblestones. He slowed further as he passed number 83, glancing to his right long enough to spot a steel helmet framed in the second floor window. Whether it was Honey or Mahoney waiting for him, they were being obvious about it. A second Jeep waited at the end of the block. Two more policemen in front and a field radio in back.

The family Gessler occupied a Teutonic castle shrunken to scale on the half-island Schwanenwerder. No Jeeps this time. No policemen playing at surveillance. But the lack of military presence only heightened Judge’s anxiety. Spanner Mullins’s first law of surveillance was to cover not just a suspect’s home but the homes or gathering points of all known associates. According to Ingrid, the Gesslers had been the Bach’s closest friends for more than thirty years. Jacob Gessler was her godfather. If Patton was interested enough in Judge’s capture to station a squad of MPs at Rosenheim, why hadn’t he put a soul here?

Judge brought the bike to a halt in front of an imposing wrought-iron gate. A black Mercedes sedan was parked in the forecourt. The car was covered with grime; its windshield a slab of mud. It hadn’t been driven for a month. His eyes fell to a puddle of oil on the forecourt not far from the front door. Nearing the gate, a section of asphalt had been washed away from the driveway. The earth was still damp from the morning showers and a single set of tire tracks was clearly visible in the mud. The tracks bled onto the main road before fading a few yards further on. Had the master of the house gone for a morning drive or had his guest?

Climbing from the motorbike, Judge unbuckled a saddlebag and withdrew a few letters, then pushed open the fence and walked up the drive. The front door opened before he had a chance to knock.

“ Ja, um was geht-das ? How can I help you?” The man was short and gray-haired with a clerk’s wispy mustache and a banker’s distrustful gaze. Seventy if a day, but none the weaker for it. At home on a warm summer’s day, he wore a three piece suit of navy serge.

“ Guten Tag . I have a letter for your guest. Special delivery.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Personal, Herr Gessler,” said Judge, guessing. “For Herr Seyss.”

Gessler stepped onto the front steps and shut the door behind him. “Who are you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A message from the Americans,” Judge continued, his suspicions writing the script. “It is imperative I reach him.”

Gessler’s eyes opened wide. “Herr General Patton?”

Judge nodded. “ Jawohl. ”

Gessler stepped closer, whispering in his ear. “Herr Egon has gone to meet the Sturmbannführer at Schmundt’s home. Grossen Wannsee twenty-four.”

Schmundt, another of Ingrid’s friends!

“Herr Bach is here in Berlin?”

Gessler had gone red with excitement. “But you must hurry. He left an hour ago.”

Judge ran to the motorcycle, kickstarted the engine, and rode like hell for the suburb of Wannsee. It was a fifteen minute trek along the lake of the same name. Flicking his wrist, he checked his watch. 11:00.

Seyss is here. Seyss is in Berlin.

He repeated the words over and over, as if until now he hadn’t quite believed his own suppositions. He crossed the S-Eahn tracks, and then a small bridge, slowing to read the street sign: Grossen Wannsee .

The single lane road wound right, then left, climbing and descending a series of rolling hills. Giant oaks lined the way, a centuries-old honor guard. Judge passed through their meandering shadows as if they were reminders of his own conscience. He’d had Seyss and let him escape. He wanted to believe he’d been frustrated by his adopted humanity, that his reflexes had been blunted by the certainty — or was it just a wish? — that reason must vanquish force. More likely, it was nerves. Either way, nine men and four women were dead as a result of a moment’s hesitation. And his brother’s killer left to run wild with no telling what devastation he might yet wreak.

Judge eased up on the throttle, stealing glances at the august homes lining the road. Number 16. Number 18. The bike sped round a corner and suddenly, he was there — 24. A blue and white plaque screwed onto a moss-drenched gatepost showed the numeral in a quaint curlicued script. A car was pulling out of the driveway, a sleek black roadster, and it braked as its front tires crept onto the main road. Judge caught only a glimpse of the driver. Khaki jacket, tanned face, dark hair.

Wearing the uniform of an officer in the United States Army was Erich Siegfried Seyss.

The lobby of the Bristol Hotel was an oasis of shade and calm. Ivory linoleum floor, black marble counters, and a ceiling fan spinning fast enough to rustle the leaves of the Egyptian palms that stood in every corner. Ingrid presented herself to the concierge and asked if any of the reporters covering the conference in Potsdam were guests of the hotel, and if so, where she might find them. The question was hardly a shot in the dark. Only two hotels were open for business in the American sector, the Bristol and the Excelsior. Judge had promised her the reporters would be at one of them. The concierge directed a hand toward the dining room. “ A few are presently lunching, Madam.”

Ingrid thanked him and walked in the direction he had pointed. Instead of entering the dining room, however, she continued to the women’s loo. Her hair was mussed, her face sweaty, her shoes speckled with dust. Standing in front of the mirror, she tried to repair the damage, but her palsied hands only made it worse. Sit down, she ordered herself.Relax. She smiled, and the smile was like the first crack in a pane of glass. She could feel the fissure splintering inside of her, its veins shooting off in every direction. It was only a matter of time until she shattered.

The trip to the hotel had left her a wreck. She’d seen plenty of bombed-out houses, streets cratered from one end to the other, even entire city blocks razed to the ground. But nothing compared to the marsh of ruins through which she now walked. It was a bog of char and decay and rubble. Block after block blackened and leveled. Streets buckled open. Torn sewers spitting effluent. She’d felt as if she were descending into a nightmare one step at a time. And everywhere, people: old men hauling wheelbarrows loaded with wood and pipe; women carrying buckets of water; mothers pushing perambulators crammed with their worldly possessions, leading their children by the hand; other children — whole packs of them — wandering on their own. All of them gaunt, dirty and forlorn. A festival of the damned.