James Rouch - Body Count

“Right away, Major, right away. There is transport available to move you tonight. Your men are due to be assembled at the Hauptbahnhof at one o’clock tonight for the train at three, are they not?”

Revell had heard that anything and everything was for sale in Munich. This was certainly proof of the truth of that rumour.

“So you think my men will go for it straight off, just like that.”

“They will follow you, Major, I am certain of it. But you do not have to tell them tonight. We have the buses and the papers all ready. You have only to say that the arrangements have been altered, and that they will not be going by train. Later you can explain in full. Each of them will make many times what he does at present.”

Knowing his manner and expression were being carefully watched, Revell did nothing to betray his thoughts. He kept quiet, waiting to see what else this Otto had to say.

“For years, Major, you have been fighting for a cause that most of your men barely comprehend. Let them at last reap the rewards that the risks they take should bring. Surely they deserve that at least?”

“I think you’re underestimating my men, and overestimating my powers of persuasion.” Managing to catch the waitress’s eye, as she waited impatiently for the party’s order, Revell called to her. “Fraulein, zahlen bitte.”

He said nothing more until she had placed the bill on the table and he’d counted out the notes, waving the change away.

“Herr Otto, or whatever your name is, I don’t think we have anything more to discuss. You’ve been wasting your time.” Abruptly leaving the table, Revell went out.

The German waited a moment, then threw down a coin and followed.

Out in the crowded street, Revell checked the time by a clock above the town hall. There was no hurry. He would go back to the hotel and pack, then have a last leisurely shower. Sophia should already have left. He’d told her it was best that she was gone before he returned.

Their affair had developed at the same frantic pace that characterized all that went on in Munich. But right from the start, he’d made it abundantly clear that those seven days would be all that there was for them. She had fully understood that. You can’t plan a future with someone who doesn’t have one. He hadn’t, not once he was back in the Zone.

There were no familiar faces in the crowd. Only a couple of times in the last week had he glimpsed any members of his unit. Ackerman he had seen deep in a conspiratorial conversation with an overweight staff-sergeant and two disreputable-looking Turks. That had been in a seedy cafe off of Leopoldstrasse.

Dooley had been strolling through the Hofgarten with the bosomy young girl he had met and fallen for up north. Then she had been with Frau Lilly’s travelling brothel. In the gardens she had been more demurely dressed, and the couple had been too absorbed in each other to notice anyone else.

It was hardly surprising that Revell had seen so little of the others. The city was packed with tourists for the Oktoberfest, due to start in the morning. He was not sorry to be leaving before then. The crowds would be suffocating.

The proximity of the war appeared to make no difference, though me hotel staff had told him that as the boundary of the Zone edged ever closer to the city, so attendance of the various festivals declined. This year, for the first time ever, there were still rooms to be had at most of the hotels.

But if sheer numbers were down, consumption of alcohol was not. Preparation for the beer festival had meant a non-stop convoy of brewers’ trucks rolling into town all week.

Thinking of that reminded him of Andrea. He tried to imagine how she would have spent her seven days. Drunk almost certainly, but he couldn’t picture her propping up a bar. She’d be a solitary drinker.

Perhaps he should have tried to stay with her. No, that would have been pointless, and frustrating. Better to have met Sophia and enjoyed his brief freedom from danger and discomfort.

Irritated by the jostling late-night crowd, Revell turned into a side street, out of the press. It ran between anonymous glass-fronted office blocks.

The bellowing of drunks died away behind him, and he heard his own footsteps echo back from the reflective frontages. On each there seemed to be a softer, not quite synchronized doubled effect, as if his flickering shadow was just failing to keep pace with him.

If he was hearing things, then the wine definitely hadn’t been watered. To clear his head, he looked up at the sky. The towers of glass swung back and forth overhead.

So he had drunk a skinful. What a pity that this was the first he knew of it, that he hadn’t enjoyed the process more.

Dizziness made him stagger a half-step back. He pulled up abruptly as something hard and cold was shoved against the side of his neck, just below his ear.

“You should have accepted the offer, Major.” Steered by the pressing barrel of the pistol, Revell went slowly towards the darkened ramp leading to an underground service area. He prepared himself to turn as fast as he could, but suddenly the gun was no longer there.

“I think you were about to do something heroic, Major. For your abilities as a trained soldier, I have great respect. It would have been foolish of me to have remained too close. Even with a litre or two of wine inside you, I don’t doubt your reactions would be much faster than mine.”

“So what happens now?” Very slowly, Revell turned to face the German. “I am not so foolish as to work alone either. My comrade is fetching our car. Ah, and here it comes. If you knew who was driving, I think you would be very surprised. This is such a sad world. There is so little loyalty.”

A Mercedes station wagon cruised slowly down the narrow street, until the edge of its dipped beams caught them. It pulled over to the curb and stopped. An audible ticking from its engine revealed that the diesel had not yet warmed up.

“You want me to get inside?”

“Oh no, Major. The transport is only for me. By the time you are found, I shall be far away. To the police, you will be no more than yet another unfortunate mugging victim. All too common an event in Munich at this time, I fear.”

The crack of the shot was whiplash sharp in the confines of the canyon of glass. A muzzle flash was reflected a thousand times in as many panes.

A scream replaced the report of the firing. At the roadside sprawled a figure, jack-knifing and straightening alternately in stomach-clasping agony.

Revell saw the outline of the vehicle’s driver moving towards him, an automatic levelled. At his feet, Otto continued to squirm and screech in a widening pool of blood.

“That came as great a shock to him as I am a surprise to you, Major. Is that not the case?” Andrea swept back her long dark hair with her free hand. Casually aiming the Colt, she put a single round into the head of the wounded German.

There came a babble of confused shouting from the far end of the street. Hesitantly, but gaining courage as numbers increased, a mob was spilling towards them.

“So stupid they would walk toward gunfire.” Grabbing Revell, Andrea pulled him towards the car. “Do you want to stop and explain?”

Feeling as though he was being jerked out of a dream, Revell barely got the passenger door closed before the Mercedes was thrown through a controlled handbrake turn.

Facing back the way it had come, the station wagon fish-tailed as it roared from the scene towards the open end of the street.

“What sort of double cross is going on?” A thousand questions raced in Revell’s mind. “Were you with that character? Working with him?”

“While it suited me to let him think so, yes. Where are you staying?” Revell told her. They had reached the junction with Briennerstrasse. Andrea braked hard to take the corner at a sensible speed that would not attract attention. Once out on the main road, she matched her driving style to the fast-moving streams of traffic.