Back from the Dead (19 page)

Colette had been in the room for two days. In addition to Hess and Stigler she had seen six others. There were the two who had accompanied Stigler when she had been kidnapped that first night. One of the men, Riemenschneider, was huge and powerfully built. He had picked her up and carried her to the van like she was a stuffed animal.

There were the two that brought her meals. Colette had had the most contact with them. She would hear them come up the stairs with the tray and return later to take it away. One of the men, Willi, was small, shorter than she was, polite and nervous around her.

‘Fraulein, how was your dinner? Are you finished? May I take your plate?’

Colette didn’t think he was going to make it as a hate-mongerer, he was too nice.

Stefan was just the opposite, confident and belligerent. He had muscular tattooed arms on display in black sleeveless or denim shirts, calling her a traitor, a Jew-lover for turning against Ernst Hess, a true German, a hero.

There were two more Blackshirts she had seen smoking cigarettes in front of the house, but she didn’t know their names. She had overheard them talking about meeting Harry at Frauenplatz. If she could escape she could be there before them.

Colette had tried to loosen the bolt in the floor, even bending one of the forks, but couldn’t budge it. Then she thought of another way out.

On the morning of the third day Stefan had surprised her, saying, “Do you enjoy candy?”

Colette thought he was trying to be nice and said, “I have a weakness for chocolate.”

He picked up the tray and walked out of the room.

Just after noon Colette heard footsteps on the stairs and a key slide in the lock. The door opened. Stefan walked in and placed the lunch tray on top of the dresser, and came toward her, tossing a chocolate bar on the bed.

“You remembered.” Colette smiled.

“Now, what’re you going to do for me?” Stefan took a small black semiautomatic out of a back jean pocket and placed it next to the tray. He came over, stood in front of her and unzipped his jeans. “Get on your knees.”

Colette lifted her hands and said, “It will be better if you take these off.”

He selected a small silver key from the ring hanging from his belt, unlocked the cuffs and dropped them on the floor. She looked up at him, unbuckled his belt, opened the top of the jeans and tried to pull them down but they were too tight.

He pushed the jeans over his hips and grabbed a fistful of Colette’s hair. Now the fabric was loose and she pulled them down, bunching at his ankles, keys jiggling, and got a whiff of him, the sour stench of unwashed man.

He had to sit on the bed to get out of the black combat boots. This is what Colette was hoping for, pictured it going this way, get the man thinking with his weenie. She made her move, got up, went to the dresser, grabbed the pistol. Stefan stood up, tried to take a step and fell, rolled on his back and pulled up his jeans. When Colette racked the pistol, he stopped moving, looked up at her. “Cuff yourself and get on the bed.”

Stefan grinned. “You’re never going to get out of here. Give me the gun before you get hurt.”

Colette bent her knees slightly, holding the gun with two hands, barrel pointed at Stefan’s head. He sat up, reached for the handcuffs and clamped them on his wrists.

“Give me the key.”

He unhooked the key from the ring and tossed it on the floor at her feet. Colette crouched and picked it up, never taking her eyes off him.

“How many are in the house?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Get over on the other side of the bed.”

He did without saying anything. Colette opened the door and went down the stairs. Figured she had a few seconds to get out of the house, moved past two Blackshirts sitting in the salon, reading the newspaper. Heard Stefan open the bedroom door, yelling from upstairs. “She’s getting away. Stop her.” Colette ran to the front door, opened it and took off. Heard the explosive discharge of a gunshot, glanced over her shoulder and saw two Blackshirts running after her. The tree line was thirty meters. Twenty-five. Twenty. She was almost there when the big sedan skidded to a stop in front of her. Two more jumped out and charged toward her. Colette aimed the pistol at them, but now the others had caught up and surrounded her. Franz Stigler said, “Are you going to shoot us all?”

At 3:30 they put her in the back seat of an Audi sedan sandwiched between Stefan and the big man, Riemenschneider, a hood over her head. Where were they taking her? She felt the bumps on the dirt road that went through the woods, and then a smooth ride followed by stop-and-go traffic, the sounds of a city around her. When they were parked the hood was lifted off her head, eyes squinting in the bright afternoon sun. They were in the shadow of the Frauenkirche. Colette saw Harry walking toward the car with Franz Stigler. Her eyes met his and then the car was moving. Stefan pulled the hood over her head. Everything was over in a few seconds.

“You see, Herr Levin, Fraulein Rizik is alive and well.”

Stigler steered Harry to another sedan parked just down the street and frisked him, moving his hands under Harry’s arms, behind his back and between and down his legs.

“Okay.”

Stigler opened the front passenger door and Harry got in next to the Blackshirt driver, who glanced at him but didn’t say anything. There was a second Blackshirt behind the driver, and Stigler got in behind Harry. They took off. Harry saw his rental car at the end of the street, but no sign of Cordell and now he was concerned.

“Lean forward, Herr Levin, and place your hands behind your back.”

Stigler cuffed him.

They drove through Altstadt, heading west, and a few minutes later were on the highway to Dachau. Harry glanced in the side mirror, didn’t see a car in sight. Where the hell was Cordell?

Two Blackshirts brought Harry into the house, removed the handcuffs, escorted him upstairs, unlocked the door and pushed him in the room. Colette was sitting on the bed. She got up and Harry put his arms around her. She looked at him and started to cry. He brushed the tears away and kissed her. “Harry, what are you doing here?”

“You think I was just going to let them take you?”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” Harry noticed Colette’s cheek was swollen, looked like she’d tried to hide it with makeup. “What’d they do to you?”

“I tried to get away. One of them didn’t like it.”

“Point him out.”

“What are you going to do, Harry, beat him up?”

He didn’t say anything but that’s what he was thinking. Colette sat on the side of the bed and he sat next to her.

“They’re going to shoot us, Harry, and bury us in the woods.”

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

“How’re you going to do that?”

“Cordell’s out there.” Harry hoped he was. “He’ll make a move when the time is right.”

“What do we have to trade if he isn’t?”

Cordell ducked down as the car passed by and went left at the first street. He followed, hanging back through the city, losing them in heavy traffic, nervous all of a sudden, thinkin’ they were gone. He sped up, driving like crazy, cutting between cars, people honking at him, Cordell thinking they must’ve turned somewhere back there. Then he saw them up ahead getting on the highway and let out a breath.

He followed for ten minutes and lost sight of them again. Floored it and got up to 140 kph, the Benz solid as a bank vault, drove two kilometers, didn’t see ’em, now thinkin’ they couldn’t’ve got this far. He pulled over, did a U-turn and drove back, looking for a road, a place to turn. Drove about a kilometer, saw it on the left, dirt road or someone’s driveway cutting through the woods. He turned and went half a kilometer and came to a clearing. There was a house in the distance.

He put it in reverse, backed off the road into the woods. It was getting dark. Cordell reached under the seat, grabbed the .45 and slid it in his right coat pocket. Harry’s .38 was in his left. He got out, popped the trunk, picked up the Mauser and slung it over his shoulder. He walked uphill through the trees.

He could see the house now, two floors, walls made of plaster with wood beams. The two cars he’d seen at Frauenplatz were parked in front. Cordell unslung the rifle, rested the barrel on a branch that had cracked and fallen but was still attached to the tree. He brought the stock to his shoulder, adjusted the scope and moved the rifle across the front of the house, left to right, could see someone in the left upstairs window, a shape back in the room that could’ve been Colette. There was a group in the lower window on the right: Harry and four others.

Cordell couldn’t cross the open ground to the house without being seen, so he doubled back to where the car was at, crossed the dirt road, went up through the woods and approached the house from the back. There was a garage behind it, a van in one of the stalls. Two Blackshirts came out, smoking cigarettes, Cordell put the crosshairs of the scope on one then the other. The Blackshirts smoked and talked, flicked their butts toward the tree line and went back inside. The sun was over the trees now and lights were on in the house.

He saw them bring Harry in a room with a long table and sit him down with Hess and another guy, three Blackshirts standing around the room, holding guns. One of the cars that was in front came around the house, high beams on lighting up a section of woods, and parked next to the garage. Two Blackshirts came out the back door of the house with Colette, holding her arms. The driver got out and popped the trunk. The Blackshirts took Colette to the back of the car and tried to force her in. A guy with tatted-up arms grabbed her hair.

Cordell brought the Mauser up, put the crosshairs on his head, pulled the trigger and felt the rifle buck, and blew the guy off his feet. The Blackshirts drew their guns, looking around, and pushed Colette back toward the house. Cordell shot the one on the left. The man dropped and didn’t move. The other one pushed Colette through the door into the house.

Cordell could see everyone in the dining room turn to look at Colette and the Blackshirt coming back in. He scoped one of the guards and fired but the guy moved, and now everyone was scrambling, trying to get out of the room.

They brought Harry and Colette into the salon, and sat them next to each other on the couch. Someone had turned out the inside lights and turned on floodlights that lit up the area behind the house. The only light in the room was the glowing flame in the fireplace. Stigler stood at the side window, looking out into the yard. Hess nodded at two Blackshirts holding submachine guns. “Get him,” and they went out the front door.

Now Hess glanced at Harry. “How is Joyce?” Asking like she was a friend.

“The last time I saw her she was in critical condition, not expected to live,” Harry said, exaggerating her condition. “Detective Conlin would like to talk to you about it. But I guess he’s going to have to get in line, isn’t he? You’ve gotten very popular.”

“That leaves you, Harry, the sole survivor. And my feeling is you’re not going to be with us much longer.”

“How’d you make it all the way to the Bahamas? I checked you, you didn’t have a pulse.”

“God knew my work wasn’t finished and brought me back.”

“It wasn’t divine intervention, if that’s what you’re saying. It was luck. The bullet missed your main arteries by a fraction of an inch. A piece of wreckage drifted by, you grabbed it and kept yourself afloat. The current took you most of the way, and a Bahamian fisherman did the rest.”

“You have all the answers, don’t you?” Hess pointed the Walther at him. “Who’s out there?”

Harry looked at him but didn’t say anything. Hess moved to Colette and placed the barrel of the pistol against her temple, finger on the trigger, and glanced at Harry. “What happens now is up to you.”

“Cordell Sims.”

“I had forgotten about him. Tell the Negro to drop his weapon and come out where we can see him.”

“Would you?”

“Either he comes out or you can say goodbye to Fraulein Rizik. And you’re next on the list.”

Two Blackshirts took Harry down a hallway to the kitchen and opened the door, the men behind him not taking any chances, holding him in the doorway.

“Cordell, they want me to tell you to put your gun down and come out or they’re going to shoot Colette. And watch out. There are two coming through the woods.”

The Blackshirts pulled Harry in, closed the door and beat him to the floor with their fists while he tried to cover up.

Cordell wanted to say, yo, Harry, ask the motherfucker how dumb he thinks I am. He couldn’t see anything in the house now with all the spotlights pointed at the woods. But he heard them coming toward him from opposite directions, twigs snapping, feet on wet leaves. Hard not to make noise.

He laid the Mauser on the ground, pulled the .45 and moved deeper into the woods, crouching, using a big tree for cover. Cordell heard him before he saw him, motherfucker walked by the tree, Cordell spun to his right, shot him through the middle of his body, the .45 loud like an explosion. The man went down, finger on the trigger of the machine gun, firing a wild burst.

Another machine-gun burst came from the opposite direction, rounds chewing up everything close to him, Cordell on the ground, down as low as he could. The second Blackshirt came toward him, ejected a magazine, popped in a fresh one and that’s when Cordell shot him. After the ringing in his ears stopped he stood still, listening, didn’t hear anything. Walked over and squatted next to the second Blackshirt, touched his neck, felt for a pulse the way they’d showed him in the army. Dude was all the way gone.

Cordell picked up the machine gun. Ejected the magazine, got a fresh one out of the man’s knapsack, jammed it home, and racked it. Want to even the odds? This was the way to do it. Cordell came out of the woods behind the garage, moved along the far side wall, peeked around lookin’ at the house. The car was still in the driveway, motor runnin’.

When the shooting started Hess told Stigler to put Harry and Colette in the cellar. He would take out the Negro and then deal with them. Stigler led them to the kitchen, opened a trap door in the floor and told them to climb down. Harry went first, then helped Colette, lifting her to the dirt floor. He put his arms around her and held her close. “I’ve got my money on Cordell. But maybe we can find a way out of here.”

When his eyes adjusted he could see shelves against the far wall and cured meats hanging from the ceiling. Across the room there were double doors that led to the outside, and a workbench in the corner. It reminded him of being in the farmhouse cellar the morning after he’d escaped from the pit when Hess and his men were on the Jew hunt.

Harry heard footsteps and voices above them, and the distant report of a gun followed by sporadic machine-gun fire. He moved to the workbench, ran his hands over the tools, feeling the familiar shapes of a sledgehammer and a crowbar. He picked up the crowbar and wedged the sharp end between the cellar doors and pulled as hard as he could. The wood creaked and groaned.

Cordell crossed the yard to the house, crouched along the side to the front and looked in the window. It was dark, he couldn’t see anything. Holding the machine gun with his right hand he opened the front door with his left. Stepped over the threshold and two Blackshirts came at him, firing. Cordell squeezed the trigger, spraying them with a long automatic burst until the magazine was empty and they were on the floor. Cordell reloaded and walked into the dining room. The car that had been sitting on the driveway near the garage was speeding away.

He went upstairs, checked the bedrooms, nobody there. Looked out a front window, saw the car disappear in the woods.

He went back to the kitchen. “Yo, Harry, where you at?”

“Down here,” said a faint voice. And he heard some banging under the floor.

He opened the trap door, looked down, saw Harry lookin’ up at him.

“Where are they?”

“All dead or gone.”

Colette came up the ladder first and Cordell took her hands and lifted her up to the floor, Harry right behind her.

“You okay?” He handed Harry the .38. “You may need this.”

“What about Hess?”

“I think he was in the car, took off in a hurry.”

Harry, looking through the doorway that led to the living room, said, “You hear that?”

Yeah, Cordell heard it – some kind of rumbling sound. He went in the living room, looked out, saw cars, lights off, spread out across the lawn coming toward the house. “Police.”

They went out the back door and disappeared in the woods, Cordell leading the way, moving just inside the tree line. He could see armed cops in fatigues surrounding the house, and Detective Huber with a megaphone telling Hess to come out with his hands up.

They made their way down the hill to the dirt road, found Harry’s rental car, moved a few branches out of the way and got in, Harry behind the wheel, Colette next to him, Cordell in back. Harry drove out of the woods onto the dirt road. They were almost at the highway when Cordell saw the police car. “See him, Harry?”

“Yeah, I see him. Take it easy.”

“What you think I’m gonna do?”

“I don’t know, but don’t shoot him.”

Cordell popped the plastic cover off and unscrewed the dome light. He saw the cop get out of the car as they approached. “Be cool, Harry. I’ll handle it.”

When they were rolling to a stop Cordell opened the right passenger door and slid out, crouching next to the car. Moved around, squatting at the rear bumper, saw the cop, gun drawn, standing at the driver’s door, window down, yellin’ somethin’ in German.

The cop opened the door, Harry got out, leaned against the side of the car, palms on the edge of the roof. The cop kicked Harry’s feet apart, holstered his weapon, and brought Harry’s wrists together, tryin’ to handcuff him. Cordell moved toward the cop, aiming the .45, took his gun and keys, led him to his car and cuffed him to the steering wheel.

Stigler turned onto the highway and had gone maybe one hundred meters when they passed six police cars, lights flashing, coming the other way. Hess looked in the side mirror and saw them slowing down, turning into the woods where they had just driven out. “Who told the police?”

“I have no idea,” Stigler said.

Hess studied his face, believing that you could read an expression, see when a man was lying, his face giving him away with a nervous twitch or blink. But Stigler’s face was like granite in the dim light. Who else could it have been? The men Stigler commanded were low-IQ laborers. They were brawn, good at carrying out orders but not at making decisions. Hess was sure it was Stigler, the electrician, looking for a way to better his life, and he was also sure Fraulein Rizik had given him the idea. She had been causing trouble, that was obvious, but interesting how prescient her accusation turned out to be.

A few kilometers down the road Hess said, “Franz, pull over, I have to take a leak.”

Stigler slowed down and stopped the car on the side of the road. “Do you mind if I join you? My bladder feels like it is going to explode.”

Inside the tree line, Hess pulled the Walther and shot Stigler while he was relieving himself.

Hess changed into a dark green electrician’s uniform he had taken earlier from Stigler’s van, hiding it in the trunk of the sedan. The shirt was too small and the trousers were too long. The cap fit well. He drove to a gaststatte on the outskirts of the city for a beer and something to eat, sat at a table in the loud crowded room, men lining the bar, hoisting mugs, smoke from cigarettes swirling up to the wood beams, the scene so comfortable and familiar, so quintessentially Bavarian. No one gave him a second look in his new disguise. He ate weisswurst and a pretzel, drank his beer, paid the bill and walked out to the parking lot.