Eva (19 page)

Then there had been the soul-shattering mass burial near the village of Neunberg, where the SS guards had indulged in a final orgy of butchery. The villagers, who had tacitly condoned the SS atrocities and ignored the pleas for help by the few survivors, had been forced by the American unit that occupied the burg to dig the graves and bury the hundreds of concentration camp victims slaughtered within the village boundaries, with the entire village—every man, woman, and child—in attendance at the ceremony.

The shaken US army officer in charge had given the assembled villagers a grim, unforgettable message. “Only God Himself,” he had said, “has the terrible might and the infinite wisdom to visit upon you, your cohorts, and your leaders the dreadful punishment you deserve. May the memory of this day and of these dead rest heavily upon your conscience and the conscience of every German so long as you each shall live!”

Was the SS prisoner he was about to interrogate one of those leaders?

Some of the white sheets of surrender, which had saved the little town of Weiden from destruction when it was seized on April 22, still fluttered pitifully from windows and gables, as Woody drove into town.

He found Lieutenant Arin—a lantern-jawed young man with a shock of light brown hair and eyes that seemed used to laughing and found it difficult to accept their current, grim duty—in his office in a small inn, taken over by his Military Police unit.

“Couple of GIs hunting for eggs found him hiding in a barn,” Lieutenant Arin told him. “They brought him to us, slightly the worse for wear. Pretty bedraggled.”

“What have you gotten out of him?” Woody asked. “So far?”

Arin shrugged. “Not a hell of a lot,” he said. “In fact—nothing. Name, rank, and serial number, that sort of crap. The local
Bürgermeister
—the man had just recently been put in office when his Nazi predecessor was arrested by you guys—thinks the man may have had a hand in that death march that broke up a few miles from here.”

“What do you think?”

Again Arin shrugged. “Possible. Although he doesn’t strike me as the concentration camp guard type. Who the hell can tell?”

“Okay,” Woody said. “Trot him out.”

“One thing,” Arin added. “The guy speaks English. Pretty good at that.”

Woody raised an eyebrow. “Did he say how come?”

Arin shook his head. “I think he kind of regretted having let on. Said a lot of Germans with a higher education speak English.”

“True enough,” Woody agreed. He filed the bit of information away in his mind. “Okay. Let’s put him through the wringer.” He glanced at the MP lieutenant. “How’d you like to be the good guxy?”

“Good guy?”

“Yeah. The good-guy/bad-guy interrogation routine. I’ll be the heavy.”

Arin grinned. “Sure,” he said. “But I don’t speak the Kraut language.”

“No need to. The guy will understand you if you speak English. You said so, yourself. And I’m counting on it.” He bit his lip in concentration. “Now here’s what I want you to do. . . .”

The SS officer stood up when Woody and Lieutenant Arin entered the room in which he was being held, but he did not quite come to attention.

Woody quickly sized him up. Around forty. Good build. Clad in an SS officer’s uniform with all insignia removed. Dirty and surely bedraggled but apparently well groomed underneath, if such a thing was possible. Apprehensive without being scared stiff. Well, that could be changed, he thought grimly.

Woody glowered at the German. He had borrowed a pair of major’s leaves and put them on his uniform. No need to seem too badly outranked.

“I am Major Isidor Cohen,” he said, addressing the prisoner in German, his voice harsh with contempt and animosity. He saw the tiny, expected flicker of alarm dart through the Nazi’s eyes. Good! “I am here to ask you a few questions. And—more important—to get them answered. Is that clear?”

The German officer drew himself up. “I am
Obersturmbannführer
Leopold Krauss,” he said. “My service number is . . .”

Woody interrupted him sharply. “I don’t give a shit whether you are a Lieutenant Colonel or not, nor what your damned service number is, you Kraut bastard,” he snarled. “I want to know your unit, its mission, and what the hell
you
were doing holed up in the hay!” He took a menacing step toward the startled German. “I’ve already got a damned good idea and I’d like to . . .”

Lieutenant Arin put out a restraining hand. “Major,” he said, concerned, “please . . .” He spoke in English.

“Shut up, Lieutenant!” Woody snapped. “I’ll handle this.” He glared at the SS officer. “Well?”

“
Obersturmbannführer
Leop . . .”

Woody suddenly grabbed the front of the German’s jacket and pushed him up against the wall.

“Listen you Kraut shithead,” he shouted, reverting to German. “You don’t give me that name, rank, and serial number crap! You answer my questions or I’ll ram your name, rank, and serial number up your ass!”

Lieutenant Arin, obviously disturbed by Woody’s rage, stepped up to him. “Major,” he said firmly, “I must insist. The Geneva Convention . . .”

Woody whirled on him. He spoke English in the taut, low voice of fury, just loud enough for the German to overhear. “Insist! You listen to me, Lieutenant. I have a damned good idea what this bastard is. One of the officers from that death march from Flossenburg. Thousands of people died. You hear? Died horribly. At the hands of such as he.
He
is one of those responsible. I say, to hell with your Geneva Convention!”

“I know that, Sir,” Arin said urgently. “We are pretty convinced he
is
one of the Flossenburg camp officers. What else would he be doing here? We are about to send an exchange shipment of PWs to the Russians. Some of the prisoners who died on that death march were Russian PWs, and the Russkies really want to get their hands on those responsible.” He nodded toward the German who stood rigidly listening, his pinched face growing ashen. “I am including him,” Arin finished.

“The hell you are,” Woody shouted. “I want him. I’ll take him. I know just how to handle a bastard like that—or my name isn’t Isidor Cohen!”

“He is my prisoner, Major,” Arin said coolly. “As long as he is in my charge he will be treated according to the Geneva Convention. And I have decided he goes to the Russians.”

“Listen,” Woody started to interrupt. “What the . . .”

“Of course,” Arin went on, “I can’t be responsible for what happens to him on the way over. In the last group there was another suspicious SS bastard. My men knew about it. He arrived at the Russian exchange point with both his arms and both his legs broken. In several places. He—eh, slipped getting out of the truck, they said.”

“I don’t care if his damned neck is broken,” Woody said. “In sixteen places. But
I
want to be in on it. Personally. I . . .”

“Please,
Herr Major,’”
the SS officer suddenly said. He spoke English with a pronounced British accent, his voice tight and strained. “May I speak?”

The two Americans turned to him.

“You speak English, do you?” Woody asked coldly.

“Yes, Sir.”

“So what have you got to say?”

“I was
not
connected with—with the Flossenburg camp,
Herr Major,”
the German said anxiously. “In any way.”

“Of course not,” Woody said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He turned to Lieutenant Arin in disgust. “I’ve had enough of that bastard,” he said icily. “Send him to the damned Russians!” He strode toward the door.

“Wait! Please wait!” the German called.

Woody turned. “Well?”

“I come from the Führer Bunker in Berlin,
Herr Major.
I left there yesterday.”

Woody returned. He sat down.

“Talk!” he snapped.

“I was a foreign affairs analyst in the Ministry of Propaganda,” the German said. “Attached to the Führer Bunker. I worked with Dr. Goebbels. That is the reason for my English.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I got out of Berlin late last night,” the German went on. “I was on my way to the Alpenfestung—the Alpine Fortress. To Berchtesgaden. I knew there were German troop concentrations there. I thought—I thought I would be safe there. But there is only a narrow strip of territory between your forces and the Russians that is still held by us, and my map—my information—was not up-to-date, so I—I got lost. I found myself in American-held territory. I was hiding. Waiting until dark. So I could get back.” He looked imploringly at the two Americans. “Please believe me.”

Woody looked at the frightened man. He did believe him. He was convinced he was speaking the truth. The man was a mandatory arrestee because of his rank, but he was no five-pointer, for sure. He’d send him back to the Army Interrogation Center. They’d have a ball with him.

“Berlin is in chaos,” the German continued. “The Russians are everywhere. Conditions in the Bunker are on the verge of total collapse—after the Führer’s death.”

Woody started. He sat up. He gave the SS officer a quick look.

“Hitler is
dead?”
he exclaimed.

The German nodded. “The Führer committed suicide. Yesterday afternoon.”

“You are certain of that?”

“I am. I saw the bodies. Before they were burned. In the Chancellery garden.”

“Bodies?”

“The Führer’s. And Frau Hitler’s.”

“Hitler had a
wife?”
Woody stared at the man.

“Yes. He got married the day before yesterday. The day before he took his own life.”

“To whom?” Woody asked. He suddenly remembered. That Nazi dentist had mentioned a woman. “That mistress of his? Eva—Eva what’s-her-name?”

The German officer looked at him with some surprise. “Yes,” he said. “Eva Braun.”

“I’ll be damned.”

Woody contemplated the German. He might be of more interest than he had first thought. If. If his story held water. He believed it would. But it was all strategic information. The province of Army Interrogation Center. Not tactical. Not his. He turned to Lieutenant Arin.

“He’s all yours, Dirk,” he said. “You did damned well. You lie with the best of them. That Russian bullshit was a lulu. The bastard sure bought it.” He nodded toward the German. “Send him back to AIC. Include what we learned in your report.”

“Will do.”

Without a further look at the Nazi officer, Woody left.

It was late in the day when Woody strode into the Iceberg Forward office of Major Hall.

“Hey,” Hall greeted him. “Have you heard the news? Hitler is dead!”

“I know.”

“The Führer, Adolf Hitler, fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational command post in the Reich Chancellery, quote—unquote. Doenitz has taken over.”

“I know,” Woody said. “It’s a lot of bullshit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hitler killed himself. He took poison,” Woody said. “He didn’t die a hero’s death. He crapped out.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Hall asked.

Woody told him. He gave him a full report on his interrogation of
Obersturmbannführer
Leopold Krauss, late of the Führer Bunker.

“I feel kind of sorry for that broad, Eva Braun,” he finished. “She sure made a piss poor choice of lovers. Some honeymoon. Bride one day—the next,
kaput!"

F
EARFULLY EVA WATCHED
the four scowling men with their
Volkssturm
armbands. They were all up in age, even as much as fifty, she thought. How could they be like this? She was bitterly afraid—mostly because she did not understand what was happening. First the SS—now the
Volkssturm.
Their own people! Why were they being held prisoners? They were not the enemy. Just before Willi calmly had surrendered to the
Volksstürmers,
he had whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth: “Careful. Don’t say anything. Let me handle it.” But he had done nothing at all, except to tell the men that they were refugees from Berlin trying to get to some relatives in Potsdam. He had admitted that he had no identification—it had been lost in a shelling, he’d said, and he had meekly handed over his gun to them. The men had seemed uncertain. They had tied them up and the four of them had been arguing almost an hour about what to do with their two prisoners who sat, hands tied behind their backs, leaning against one of the beached sailboats.

One of them wanted to march them back to their headquarters and let their superiors decide. Another argued that Willi and his woman were probably deserters—or worse—and deserved to be done away with on the spot. The two others maintained that inasmuch as they were supposed to be relieved at noon—only six hours or so away—they should wait and all of them take the prisoners back.

Their sour-faced leader, who appeared to be self-appointed, was a wizened little man whose arms were so thin he’d had to pin the regulation size
Volkssturm
armband together so it wouldn’t slip off his sleeve. His gray hair was cropped so short that it looked as if his beard stubble reached all the way to the crown of his head. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and had a slit for a mouth which was so tight-lipped it hardly seemed to move when he spoke. A vindictive little
Beamte
—civil service type used to riding roughshod over others. Eva looked at him. He gave her a disquieting feeling.