Eva (26 page)

He put away the map. “Here we go, Kurt,” he said cheerfully. “Push that button in the middle of the steering wheel. Hard.”

Kurt did. He squealed with delight at the blast from the strident horn. He pushed it again and again as the jeep careened out of the village of Rübeland on the wooded road to Hasselfelde.

“Can I steer?” Kurt shouted gleefully.

“Sure,” Woody said. “Put your hands on mine.”

They drove on. Half an hour later they passed a black-and-white signpost which read: HASSELFELDE 4 Km. The kilometers—and time—were running out.

Woody was beginning to wonder. It might not have been such a bright idea after all. The whole thing might turn out to be nothing but a joyride. He didn’t even know if the boy knew how to tell time. Or count. Some situation, he thought wryly. His whole damned five-pointer case depended on the reliability of a five-year-old kid.

They slowed down to negotiate a sharp curve in the forest-lined road. As they came out of it they saw two figures on the road ahead—a man and a woman, pushing two bicycles loaded with bundles and suitcases.

Kurt whooped. He began to wave and shout. “
Herr Kotsch! Herr Kotsch! Ich bin es!
It is me! It is me!”

The two people stopped and stood staring in shocked apprehension as Woody brought his jeep to a halt just ahead of them. He dismounted. Automatically he checked his gun in its shoulder holster. He walked up to the couple. He addressed the man.

“
Gutentag, Herr
Kotsch,” he said pleasantly.

The man and the woman stared back at him, their eyes wide in fearful astonishment.

Kurt came running up. “It is me,
Herr
Kotsch,” he cried in delight. “I was riding in an American jeep. A real American jeep! And I was steering!” He was suddenly aware of the man’s ashen, apprehensive look. His little face grew sober. “Do not worry,
Herr
Kotsch,” he said solicitously. “The American soldier will not shoot you. He said so.”

At gun point—a wide-eyed Kurt watching—Woody patted down both Kotsch and his wife. They were carrying no weapons. He had them take their seats in the back of the jeep and placed their heavily loaded bicycles across their laps. It was uncomfortable, but it would serve to keep them from doing anything unexpected. And with the excited Kurt at his side, he took off back toward Rübeland.

They were about halfway there when a small convoy came rolling down the road toward them, apparently a supply column consisting of one jeep and three weapons carriers. Woody stopped his jeep in the middle of the road. He dismounted and stood waiting until the convoy came to a stop a short distance ahead.

A second lieutenant jumped from the lead jeep and purposefully strode up to Woody.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, soldier?” he barked angrily. “Get that damned jeep out of the way!”

Woody pulled his ID from his pocket. “W. W. Ward,” he said. “CIC. In need your help.” He showed his ID to the lieutenant. The officer scowled at it. “What do you want?” he asked curtly.

“I need a jeep and two men.”

“We only have one jeep,” the lieutenant said. “Mine.”

“So I notice.”

“You—you can’t just—just commandeer
my
jeep,” the lieutenant sputtered.

“I not only can,” Woody said calmly, “but I am.”

“Listen—eh—eh . . .” In vain the lieutenant looked for Woody’s rank insignia. “What the hell
is
your rank?”

“My rank is confidential,” Woody said, giving the officer the familiar spiel. “But at this moment I am not outranked! So, please carry out my orders, Lieutenant, right now!”

The lieutenant glared at him. “Kowalski,” he called over his shoulder, “over here. On the double!”

The driver of the jeep, a corporal, came running up. The lieutenant turned to him. “This CIC agent needs the jeep,” he said sourly. “You and Henderson go with him. When he’s through with you, report back to the CP.”

Without another word he turned on his heel and stalked back to the lead weapons carrier.

Woody and Kurt, the Kotsch bicycles in the back of their jeep, led the way into the village of Rübeland, followed by the second jeep, driven by Kowalski and with Herbert and Gertrude Kotsch, guarded by the second GI.

Woody deposited Kurt on his swinging gate, the boy aglow with adventure, and brought the Kotsches into the souvenir shop. He had the GIs bring in the loaded bicycles.

Stiffly the Germans sat watching as he searched their bundles and suitcases. He found nothing out of the ordinary.

He glared at Kotsch and his wife in silence, letting only his cold eyes move from one to the other, until he could practically feel their tense discomfort exude from them. For the subject of an interrogation the waiting, the not knowing what the interrogator knows nor what he will ask is always the worst. A man’s own doubt-filled mind is his worst intimidator. He tried to think the way
they
would. That was all-important. Not how he thought they
ought
to think, but how they really did think. It was a trick of the trade and it was not easy. But it was the difference between a green interrogator—who often gave away more than he got from a clever, trained subject and likely as not was told only what he wanted to hear—and an experienced investigator. A good interrogator as a rule did not reveal how much he knew. Of course, he thought, there were occasions where violating the rules paid off. This might well be one of them. He had a hunch that Herbert Kotsch was not the simple, taciturn nonentity he made out to be. He had not told the man how he came to know his name. He would not do so. He knew it worried him.

“Why,” he finally asked, “why did you leave Rübeland?” His tone of voice was low and distant, yet murderously dangerous. It contained the disquieting hint that he already knew the answer.

“We had to,” Kotsch answered. “We no longer could make a living here.”

“We had a good business,” Gertrud broke in. “When the tourists came to visit
Baumannshöhle.
But now no one comes. No one buys souvenirs. We had to try to find something to do. Somewhere else. In Göttingen, perhaps. That is where we were going.”

“Leaving your entire stock of merchandise behind?” Woody asked incredulously. He nodded toward several large cartons stacked in the room.

Gertrud shrugged helplessly. “What else could we do?” she asked. We could not take it all with us. We—we would have tried to find a buyer for it. In Göttingen. Perhaps someone to take over the shop.”

It sounded plausible. Totally plausible. Why, then, did he have a feeling it wasn’t? That there was something else? Something the Kotsches were hiding. And not just their true identities and activities. Or was he reading something into their fears that was not there?

He examined the identity papers taken from the two Germans. They were excellent—completely in order. Including the MG travel permit signed by a U.S. army officer named Johnson. All of them forged, he was sure. Bock had been right. The SS boys in Operation Birch Tree were top drawer.

“Your papers seem to be in order,” he said. He held up the travel permit. “When did you get that?”

“The day before yesterday,” Gertrud said. “It is dated. See? June 2. We got it in Blankenburg. There is an American command there. Captain Johnson gave it to us when we explained to him our troubles.”

“So I see,” Woody said. “Then Captain Johnson would still be in Blankenburg.” He looked straight at Kotsch.

The man returned his gaze.

“Soldiers come, soldiers go,” he said.

Woody kept his eyes fixed on the German. It was time to hit him—hit him hard with the jackpot question. He watched them both closely. “And did Captain Johnson know of your work for the
B-B Achse?”
He bit the words out.

They were good. Both of them. The woman drew in her breath—sharply, but almost imperceptibly. The man’s eyes widened slightly, then grew hooded. But the air in the room was suddenly rife with the odor of sweat and fear, mingled with the dry smell of sun-baked dust.

It was enough. Konrad Bock had told him the truth about the couple in Rübeland.

“What—what is a
B-B Achse?”
Gertrude whispered uncertainly. “I—we . . .”

“Be quiet,
Mutti,”
Kotsch stopped her. He turned to Woody. “We do not know of any
B-B Achse,”
he said. “We do not know what you talk about.”

Well, well, Woody thought. Taking over are you, Herbie. “Don’t you?” he mocked. “Then you have an exceedingly short memory,
Herr
Kotsch. Within the last few weeks you concealed two travelers who were to use the
B-B Achse
escape route. A young SS officer. And a young woman. We know all about that already,
Herr
Kotsch. And we know all about your SS-manufactured identity papers and your forged travel permits!” He threw the papers at the German. Kotsch did not move.

“All you will do now,” Woody said, “is to corroborate certain facts for me. One: When exactly did you send the two young people on their way? Two: The exact address you sent them to.”

Kotsch looked him straight in the eye. “I know nothing of what you say,” he said firmly. “Nothing.”

Woody stared at the man. A gust of foreboding whipped through him. Had he overplayed his hand. No, dammit! He
knew
they were involved with the escape route. But how the hell get them to admit it? And, more important, tell him what he had to know?

He had only one thing going for him. A nebulous feeling. A hunch. A hunch that had no logical explanation, but which was familiar to every seasoned CIC investigator. Something was wrong. There was something he had overlooked. He let his eyes roam the little room. He dismissed the cartons of souvenirs. There would be nothing of interest there. The Kotsches had been content to leave it all behind. The bundles and suitcases? He’d gone through them—perhaps not thoroughly enough. And, of course, a complete body search. He’d wait to the last with that. He hated it. It seemed degrading to both the searcher and the searched. The human body has seven orifices and every one of them had to be thoroughly probed. He looked at Gertrud and Herbert Kotsch. It might have to come to that. He hoped not, but he could leave nothing undone.

He fixed his eyes on the two bikes. Each had had a bundle tied to the handlebars, another to the luggage rack over the rear wheel, and a suitcase hanging from the rack on each side of the wheel. It had all been piled back on the bikes after having been searched.

He turned to Corporal Kowalski. He pointed to one of the bikes. “Bring that bicycle over here,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye—on the face of the woman—he saw what he was looking for: The slight, sudden muscle tenseness; the subtle change in breathing rhythm; the minute glint of alarm in the eyes. Was there something hidden in the bags after all? He looked at the two Germans. He wondered if they actually were who their papers said they were.

Suddenly it was clear to him. If course! That was it. Had to be. The ID papers and travel permit had been forged for the Kotsches by the SS; that he knew. But that was not all. Operation Birch Tree had had further duties.

“Grab the bags,” he ordered Kowalski and the other GI. “And the suitcases. Go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. The linings. The seams. Every inch.”

He watched the woman; she was the one who had the least control over her micro-momentary reflexes. Kotsch himself was like a damned cigar-store Indian. He expected to see apprehension and alarm on the woman’s face. Instead, she seemed to relax.

What the hell was going on?

“
Herr Offizier,”
Kotsch said suddenly, “before you destroy our few remaining belongings, I have a statement to make.”

Woody held up a hand, stopping the GIs in their search. “Go ahead,” he said.

Kotsch drew himself erect. “I am
Oberst
Herbert Kotsch,” he stated. “Colonel in the German Army, Retired.” He suddenly spoke in a firm, authoritative voice. “You are correct. My wife and I did work for an organization that attempted to aid our country’s leaders escape the vengeance of the conquerors. I was gassed in the First World War. At Marne. I could not serve my Fatherland, the Third Reich, on the field of honor. Only in this way.”

“What about the young couple I asked about?” Woody pressed at once.

Kotsch nodded. “They were here. We afforded them a place to hide. That was all.”

“Who were they?”

“We asked for no names.”

“Where are they now?”

“They left here two days ago,” the colonel said. “I do not know where they are now.”

“The hell you don’t!” Woody shot at the German officer. “I
know
how the escape route works. You would have sent them on to the next stop.”

“You are mistaken,” Kotsch said evenly. “We were not part of the route itself. Only a temporary waiting station. The couple you ask about would have been instructed where to go by others. Not by us.”

Woody glared at him. Dammit!—it could be true. It did fit with what Konrad Bock had told him. Then, who? Who had given the young SS officer his instructions? The Bocks? No. His instinct—his hunch—told him that the Bocks had told the truth.

Not so Colonel Herbert Kotsch, Retired, and his wife.

Not the full truth.

He glanced at the woman. Suddenly silent, having abandoned her usual garrulous ways, she was content to let her husband do the talking.

Woody turned to Kowalski. “Go ahead, Corporal,” he said. “Let ‘er rip! The Colonel here has lost his memory. Let’s see what
we
can find.”

Surreptitiously he watched the woman. The expected reaction did not occur. No tension. No apprehension. Nothing! It did not make sense. A moment ago when he had . . .

Dammit! It did make sense!

Abruptly he nodded to the GI. “You,” he said. “Soldier. Wheel that bike over here.”

This time the reaction, the sudden tenseness, was there. Visibly so. The woman stared at the bike being pushed over to him as if it were made of solid gold—and about to explode.

He looked at it, curiously. It appeared quite ordinary. It had obviously seen quite a lot of use. The seat was padded; it was large and thick, made for comfort.