Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘How did this “someone” know to ask you for your help?’

Becker shook his head, a little grin on his face, and he turned again. ‘No. You don’t get to know tha -’

‘I said keep still. Still want to play silly games with the names? You were out at Ilidza the night Vukic was killed. Trying to calm Stolic down.’ Becker maintained his grin, but it went tight at the edges. ‘An officer with a history of violence. You were last seen out there with him. And Vukic turns up dead shortly afterwards.’

Becker swallowed, moved his mouth a few times. ‘That’s good, Reinhardt. Very good. But you can’t pin her murder on me.’ He shook his head. ‘No. You have something I need. A file, on Verhein, I believe. I’ll trade for it. They’ll kill you for it.’

‘If I had such a file, you would be the last person I would give it to,’ Reinhardt replied, with a confidence he was not sure he felt. It was so hot in the house. He picked up the water bottle, keeping Becker in his line of sight as he swigged from it.

‘Help yourself,’ murmured Becker.

‘I didn’t say I was trying to pin her murder on you. Hendel’s, shy;perhaps… A bit of a stretch, but I could probably do it.’ His turn to grin now.

‘You might,’ Becker said after a moment. ‘How about this, though? As much as you think you’ve got me over a barrel, I know I’ve got you over one. Disobeying orders. Consorting with the enemy. Interfering with a Feldgendarmerie investigation. Oh,’ he said, looking down at the paper, ‘and I’ll want to talk to you about the deaths of Captain Hans Thallberg and Corporal Jurgen Beike.’

‘Not interested.’

Becker held his eyes as he calmly tore the paper in two, then again. ‘Still want to play silly buggers, Gregor?’

‘Still not interested,’ said Reinhardt, forcing a smirk as he held Becker’s gaze.

‘What exactly do you hope to achieve, here?’ Becker’s tone seemed honestly intrigued. ‘You’re trying to bring down a general. People like him don’t sit still waiting for someone like you to prick them on the arse. Nor do the people around them. They’ll swat you aside, especially at a time like this. Normally,’ he grinned, ‘I’d stand aside and enjoy that, but if you go down, I end up with a losing hand. Rather, I end up with a winning hand – I get that either way – but marginally less good,’ he giggled.

Something in what Becker was saying sparked something in shy;Reinhardt’s mind. Something similar to what he and Thallberg had talked about. ‘You keep saying “someone”, referring to “they”. You’re not hiding Verhein from me. So he’s not the one you’re dealing with. Is he?’ Becker’s grin went tight again, and Reinhardt knew he had hit a nerve, and he had to keep hitting it. ‘What do you have on them? Or what do they have on you? What happened in Ilidza that night? How did they bring you into this? Who is it, Becker?’

‘You’re fishing again, Gregor.’

‘Ilidza,’ repeated Reinhardt.

Becker turned to his right, lowering his head as he put his glasses back on. He drew his pistol, and although Reinhardt’s breath hitched a second, Becker only held it down by his leg. ‘I can wait a little longer for you to see sense. In the meantime, someone wants a quiet word with you. He may be able to help you see the relative merits of your position.’ He gestured with the pistol. ‘Outside.’

Reinhardt backed through the door, blinking in the bright daylight. Becker followed him through, and Reinhardt could see the strain he was under. His hair was soaked with sweat, and he opened his mouth to breathe, panting like a dog. Casting his eyes around quickly, Reinhardt could see no sign of Claussen, and he dared not ask about him in case he put him in more danger.

‘Take Captain Reinhardt,’ Becker said to his Feldgendarmes, nodding over to the other houses. ‘Someone wants to talk to him.’ One of the guards smiled. ‘And when Captain Reinhardt is done, bring him back here.’

They ordered him up a rutted earthen track towards the cluster of houses Reinhardt had seen earlier. A couple of vehicles were parked outside them, one of them a Horch staff car with open sides. As Reinhardt came closer, he could see the SS plates and decals identifying them as belonging to 7th Prinz Eugen. He had not realised he had slowed until the guard who had smiled poked him in the back with the muzzle of his MP 40. More cars were parked in the trees, black-suited soldiers lounging around them. Ustase, and one of them was Ljubcic. He looked back at Reinhardt, his eyes glittering.

Two SS troopers stood guard over a group of prisoners lined up outside a house. Some of the prisoners were obviously soldiers – shy;Partisans – but others just seemed to be peasants. Farther on, an army truck was parked with a squad of soldiers standing around it, most of them smoking with their heads down and their hands in their pockets, and unless Reinhardt was very mistaken they were not happy with what was going on. Something caught his eye on the Horch’s front seat. A tube, white with red caps, fetched up against the angle of the seat and its back.

There was a scream from inside the house. Long, drawn out, the choking sounds of a creature in agony. Then nothing. A sigh went through the prisoners, and the soldiers around the truck seemed to huddle closer together. The door to the house banged open and two more SS dragged a body outside and dumped it on the ground. At least two other bodies already lay there, but Reinhardt could not be sure because following the two SS out, a long, bloodied blade in his fist, was Standartenfuhrer Mladen Stolic. He had a blank expression on his face, but his eyes were wide and staring over a smear of blood across one cheek, like the war paint of a red Indian. He saw Reinhardt and smiled. His teeth were very yellow in the gash of his mouth.

‘I could get to like this liaison work,’ leered Stolic. He was wearing a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His hands and forearms and the front of his shirt were bloodied and gored, and he carried the knife – the Bowie – in one fist, red to the hilt. He washed it in a rain bucket, wiping it clean and dry with a ragged cloth, breathing quick and light. There was a light in his eyes, the whites visible all around. Reinhardt could see the signs of his addiction clearly now, and wondered that he had not spotted them before.

‘Let’s talk, you and I,’ Stolic said. ‘Why don’t we go inside? After you.’ His hand trembled slightly, the blade quivering.

Reinhardt looked at the darkened doorway, at Stolic and his two SS, standing immobile and dough-faced. ‘After you.’

‘I insist,’ grinned Stolic.

Reinhardt knew, somehow, he had to win this, this small test of wills. ‘Make an old man happy.’

The Standartenfuhrer chuckled again. He told his two men to wait outside, then stepped into the house, the rough boards of the floor creaking underfoot. Stolic made a grand gesture, a sort of cross between a genuflection and a bow, his arm spread wide, inviting Reinhardt in. ‘Beauty before age, eh?’ he smirked.

‘In the trenches, we always used to say, “Shit before paper”.’

Stolic stiffened, then turned, shutting the door. The corner of his eye twitched as he smiled. ‘You’re very funny, Reinhardt.’

‘I’ve been told that, you know.’

Stolic blinked, his smile fading away. ‘You’ve been asking questions again, haven’t you?’ He held the big knife by the pommel, twirling it back and forth between the tips of his fingers. ‘Telling tales out of school. Old man,’ he said, with a lazy sneer. A long flash of light went up the Bowie as he spun it back, then forth. The blade had a curl at the end, the last part of the top edge curving sharply down to the point, and Reinhardt remembered that pathology report, the strange shape of the wounds on Vukic’s body. Stolic stepped closer to Reinhardt. ‘I often wonder what you old timers’re made of,’ he said. He tapped the tip of his blade on Reinhardt’s Iron Cross. Tick tick tick. ‘What would you have to do these days to get one of these?’ Tick tick. ‘A bit more than floundering around in the mud. No?’ Tick. The blade paused, that wickedly curved point resting on the medal. Stolic pushed slightly, then harder. Reinhardt let himself be pushed to the side, then back. Stolic’s eyes widened, brightened, vanished behind a slow blink. ‘I mean, really, how hard could it have been?’