Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘I’m looking for the German 121st Division.’

‘I believe they’re south of here. In Predelj.’

‘You could just let me go. Let me continue.’ The words felt weak, and feeble.

‘I don’t think so, Captain.’

‘Begovic trusts me enough to let me know he is Senka,’ Reinhardt blurted.

Goran’s eyes narrowed. ‘He told you that?’

‘Yes,’ Reinhardt lied. ‘The Shadow. There’s no one the Gestapo want more.’ It was a desperate throw of the dice, just something he had guessed from things Begovic had said, but it was all he had.

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Why…’ Reinhardt repeated, then paused. He felt the ground teeter under him, his guts tighten as if in expectation of a fall. All of a sudden, he realised he could see more than those two proverbial steps ahead, but the path was not clearer for it. He stood on perilous ground. Untrodden. Very few of the steps that might lead him out of this would avoid betrayal. It lay here, suddenly, all around him, and there was the sense that he had to choose his way carefully, as there would be no path back. ‘He and I… we see some things the same way.’

Goran took a long, slow breath, his eyes not leaving Reinhardt. ‘I must think about this,’ he said, finally. ‘But first, I have something I must attend to. You will wait, and we will talk again.’ He turned and left, a shift of movement at the door as a Partisan stood guard.

Reinhardt felt adrift, just that cold feeling in the pit of his belly anchoring him in place, a reptilian awareness of danger he was not yet out of. The dust settled in the room, spiralling and sparkling down through the lattice of light from the bullet holes, and he began to feel the outlines of an understanding of something he had heretofore only felt unconsciously. He forced himself to calm, to consider what he felt taking shape.

There was a fork here in his path, he realised. One path led onward. One path ended here. He could go on, try to follow his investigation, do it in the way that would let him remain true to himself, and maybe serve the wider cause Meissner had shown him. Or he could shrink back, turn away. If he went forward with what he felt taking shape, what would it cost him? What accommodation would he have to make? Betrayal was never to be taken lightly, but would that accommodation be any worse than the dozens – some mundane, some not – he had had to make over the last few years?

There was a low moan from Becker. Reinhardt knelt next to him. There was nothing he could do for him, but even if there were, would he do it? This realisation terrified him. He had never been in such a position before. Becker was an obstacle to him. He realised now that to make work what was taking shape in his mind, at least two men had to die. The chances were that both of them would, here, today. He remembered what he said to Begovic, that everything good that had happened in his life had happened despite him. It was happening again.

‘Becker, can you hear me?’

The Feldgendarme’s mouth moved, his lips blue in the pallor of his face. ‘ Thirsty ,’ he whispered.

‘You’re dying, Becker. I can’t help you. But you can help me. Can you do that? Can you tell me who is behind this?’

‘ Yes ,’ Becker whispered.

‘Tell me.’

‘Yes.’ Just a thread. His eyes quivered open, wet, slack, searching for Reinhardt, finding him. ‘The knife. It was the knife.’

‘What about the knife, Becker?’

‘Caught him. Putting… it… back. Red…’

‘Caught who?’

‘… red-handed. Caught him…’

‘Who, Becker? Tell me.’

Becker’s head lurched. His eyes cleared. ‘You?’ He stared up. ‘I could… tell you. But… I won’t.’ Then the focus in his gaze bled away and, amazingly, at the edge of his life, he laughed, a stuttering high in his throat. ‘If you… could see… your face. Gregor… the crow… Always…’ His eyes turned up, and he was gone.

Reinhardt paused there, staring down at him. He tried to care, but there was nothing. Not even any sense of triumph at having outlasted Becker, he who was the master manipulator, always managing to find the right angle to any situation.

He poured water over his hands again, scrubbing his face and smearing his hands dry on his uniform, painfully flexing his fingers, still not wanting to look. He paused, searching around the tangle of bodies, spotting the Bowie where it had been dropped, shoving it point down between the floorboards. Standing, he put his heel on the pommel and pushed. He strained, his knee twitching. He pushed harder, but the knife only bent against the floorboards. He gritted his teeth in anger, then reached down and flung it skittering away across the floor. The guard shouted, peering at him nervously as Reinhardt walked to the door. The guard stood to one side, distrust writ large across his broad features. Reinhardt stepped carefully outside and looked around the clearing. The surviving Ustase and SS were lined up in front of what clearly were firing squads. A small group of German soldiers, mostly Feldgendarmerie – Claussen among them – made up a separate group huddled under the guns of a circle of Partisans, and there was a hush in the clearing, a clear focus of attention.

Stolic and Ljubcic were kneeling in front of a tree from which dangled two nooses while a Partisan read something from a piece of paper. Stolic looked dazed, Ljubcic contemptuous, and he had eyes only for Goran even as the Partisan commander gave the order to put the ropes around their necks and made them stand. There was a pause, and then Partisans hauled on the ropes. The two men arched up, then jerked like puppets, legs flailing as they fought to breathe. A hideous wet croaking slipped past the swell of their tongues, a macabre counterpoint to the gentle rustle of the tree’s branches. The bodies bumped and snapped off each other, and with their popping eyes and contorted faces it was as if they played some childish game.

It seemed to take them a long time to die, but after they stilled two men jerked down on the bodies to make sure. Reinhardt looked up at Stolic. He had fouled himself as he died, and the stench was awful, but Reinhardt only saw him as an absence, the second man who needed to die. He realised Goran was standing next to him, looking at him.

‘You object to our justice?’

Reinhardt swallowed hard. ‘Is that what it was?’

‘They were condemned by a people’s court a long time ago for crimes against the citizens of Yugoslavia. This was their sentence, and it was more justice than they deserved or ever gave.’ He turned and looked back at the bodies as he spoke.

‘What was it between you and Ljubcic?’

Goran looked back at him, at the bodies where they hung like carcasses. ‘You noticed?’ His mouth twisted. ‘We grew up together. Then he became that . An Ustasa. Obsessed with a world that had no room for those not like him, and a future that never will be.’

‘And what of them?’ Reinhardt indicated the other Ustase and SS. ‘What of them?’ The Germans. ‘And me?’

‘What about you, Captain?’

‘Dr Begovic was helping me. He believed doing that was helping you. Your cause.’ Goran said nothing, and Reinhardt felt as if he scrabbled across a pane of glass.

‘Muamer is a good comrade. One of the best. If he believed that…’ The Partisan shook his head. ‘He believes that whatever it is you are doing, it is causing confusion in your ranks.’ He looked around the clearing. ‘And I must admit I have seen many things, but never a German soldier being tortured by a collection of Ustase, Feldgendarmerie, and SS. So he may have a point. I need more than that, though.’ He turned those flinty eyes back on Reinhardt. ‘He believes you are a member of the German resistance.’