The Soldier Spies

by W. E. B Griffin

  It had performed as promised, and it was possible that he would need it again.

  Grunting with the effort, he rolled the body of the Gestapo agent on its side, took a good grip on the handle, put his foot against the Gestapo agent’s ear, and gave a mighty tug. Moving the body removed whatever had obstructed the blade, and it now came out easily. So easily that he sat down heavily on the suitcase on the seat.

  There was not much blood on the blackened blade. Fulmar leaned forward and wiped it several times against the Gestapo agent’s trousers. Then he replaced it in the sheath on his left arm.

  He became aware of his heavy breathing and the beating of his heart. He was excited. Excited people don’t think clearly.

  The first thing to do is get rid of the body, then change into the uniform and get rid of the civilian clothing and the luggage.

  But that means opening the window twice.

  Will that fucking window even open? If it doesn’t, then what?

  What if someone sees me putting him out the window?

  Would it be better to throw him and the luggage out all at once, or to wait a little, so the body will be a couple of kilometers from the luggage when it’s found?

  The first thing to do is the first thing: See if the fucking window will open.

  For a moment the window seemed frozen in place, but then he saw that there was a track for it to move upward. He gave a mighty heave, and the window opened.

  Now that he had taken one action, everything seemed to fall into place.

  The thing to do first is get rid of the body.

  He looked out the window, then up the track. He could see nothing up ahead but the roadbed.

  He grabbed the body under the armpits, heaved, and got the head into the open window.

  The sonofabitch weighs five hundred pounds!

  He wrapped his arms around the waist and heaved and shoved at once. Fulmar’s face was right next to the entrance wound. A glob of blood oozed from it. When he let go, the body was halfway through the window, bent double at the stomach.

  He wrapped his arms around the knees and heaved and shoved again. For a moment it seemed caught on something, but all of a sudden the body let loose and was gone.

  Without thinking why, he closed the window and sat down on the seat. He was sweat-soaked and exhausted.

  After a while, he hoisted himself to his feet and turned and opened the suitcase. He took out a brimmed cap with the Nazi eagle on the crown and the SS skull and crossbones on the band, and tossed it on the opposite seat.

  Sure as Christ made little apples, that hat is either going to slide down over my ears, or be so small it will sit on my head like a pimple.

  There was a shirt and a tie in the suitcase, a tunic with Sturmbannführer’s insignia on the collar and epaulets and the SD triangle sewn to the left sleeve above the cuff, a black leather belt for the outside of the tunic, a pair of breeches, a pair of calf-high black leather boots, and finally, on the bottom, a black overcoat.

  Fulmar wondered where the uniform had come from. Probably stolen, he decided. The next thing he noticed was that the SS uniform was cheap and shoddy compared to the U.S. Army wool gabardine pinks-and-greens he had left at Whitbey House. He was surprised. He had been told the SS had the best uniforms and equipment.

  He dumped the contents of the suitcase onto the seat, then quickly stripped to his underwear. After that, he put the discarded civilian clothing into one of “Reber”’s suitcases. At first he just threw it in, but then he reconsidered. Presuming it did not burst open when it hit the railroad right-of -way, it would be best if the suitcase were found neatly folded. He therefore carefully folded “Reber”’s clothing and placed it in the suitcase.

  Then he dressed. It had been “projected as a possible difficulty” that the uniform would not fit him. But it had been decided that nothing could be done about that. As it turned out, the shirt fit, but the breeches were too large and the tunic was tight. The hat that he had worried about fit perfectly, but the boots were so tight that he had difficulty getting them on.

  The likelihood that the boots would not fit had been another “possible difficulty,” but for this problem there had been a “possible solution”: Soak the boots in water and keep them on until they dried. That might permit them to stretch.

  He found a match and burned the Reber passport and tickets one page at a time, catching the ashes on a sheet of newspaper. Then he opened the window and quickly closed it again. Up ahead the track was curving, and there were buildings in sight that suggested they were approaching a town.

  The town flashed by the window a minute or two later. When there were no more buildings in sight, he opened it again. He got rid of the ashes by letting the wind catch them. But the track ahead was curved, and he could see six or seven cars and the locomotive. If he could see those cars, someone in those cars could see his. And might see him throwing the suitcases out.

  After what seemed like a very long time, the track straightened out.

  He seemed to be thinking more calmly now. There was no reason to throw the suitcases out the window at all.

  If someone came into the compartment, he could say the suitcases had been here when he came into the compartment and he had no idea whom they belonged to. It would be much safer to wait until they got to the next stop and see if there would be an opportunity to safely dispose of them then.

  He put Reber’s suitcases in the rack and carefully checked to see if there was anything he had missed in the compartment. He stepped to the compartment door and unlatched it, then sat down and picked up the newspaper.

  The excitement of a few minutes before was gone, replaced now by a terrible feeling of depression.

  He allowed himself to dwell on the feeling that he was being used. He wondered what Dick Canidy would have done if he had told him to go fuck himself, that he had no intention of putting his head on the block under the guillotine by going inside Germany.

  Shit! The fucking Q pill is in the change pocket of Reber’s jacket. I forgot about it. I almost threw it out the fucking window!

  He took the suitcase from the rack, found the jacket and the glass vial, and—taking a perverse pleasure from doing so—put it between his teeth as he closed the suitcase and replaced it on the rack.

  I am the squeeze of my jaws away from whatever happens next.

  Canidy had told him that, while he couldn’t of course speak from personal experience, he had been reliably informed that once you bit the vial, that was it; you never knew what hit you. Then he said there was another theory, that after you bit the vial, first your balls fell off, then you dropped dead.

  Fulmar reached into his mouth, took the Q pill in the palm of his hand, and looked down at it. It was three-quarters full of what looked like watery milk. He wondered how much of it was actually necessary to take you out.

  What if I bit it and sneezed and three-fourths of it got blown away? Would what was left do anything to me?

  Then he looked in vain in the SS tunic for a counterpart to the change pocket in “Reber”’s jacket. Finally, he took the brimmed cap and found a place for the vial between the headband and the stiff whatever-it-was that held the front of the crown up.

  His feet were hurting him, and he remembered about soaking the boots so they would stretch.

  There was a water faucet, and a small, well-worn glass. He had to push the button that opened the faucet so hard and so long to fill the glass that his thumb hurt. And when he poured the water on the boot, it beaded and ran off.

  He filled the glass again, took off the left boot, poured the water into it, and with great effort managed to get the boot back on. He stood and looked down at the foot of the boot. A little water was oozing out. When he pressed downward, there was a squishing noise. He wondered if it was as loud as it sounded or whether he was “hearing” the sensation.

  He filled the glass and repeated the operation with the other boot.

  Then he walked back and forth between the
compartment door and the window until he could detect no more “loose” water slopping around. His socks and feet were still wet, and now they seemed to grow cold.

  The train began to slow. It was the scheduled stop at Offenburg.

  He opened the window. People were streaming from the train for the station.

  It’s piss-call time!

  He took Reber’s suitcases from the rack, adjusted the brimmed cap on his head at an angle appropriate for a young lieutenant of the SS-SD, and picked up the suitcases and left the train.

  He was disappointed when he got inside the station. There were long lines before the rest rooms, and there didn’t seem to be any other place he could “forget” the suitcases. He made a circle of the crowded waiting room and started for the train.

  “Watch it, please, Herr Sturmbannführer!” a voice called, and Fulmar looked over his shoulder and saw two workmen pulling a station cart loaded with luggage and packages. Fulmar stepped out of the way and then, taking the chance, added Reber’s suitcases to their load.

  Wherever they were going, it would take them some hours to find they had two suitcases more than they were supposed to, and several hours more before they did anything about them. He followed the baggage cart onto the platform and stood watching it for a moment. The handlers pulled it all the way down the platform past his train, then crossed the tracks behind it.

  Feeling very pleased with himself, he boarded the train again. From the aisle, he could see what had happened to the luggage cart. It was standing under a sign, “Tuttlingen/Mengen/Neu-Ulm.” It would be at least a day before someone asked questions about it there. By then, for sure, they would have discovered the Gestapo agent’s body anyway, and the shit would begin to hit the fan.

  When the train was moving again, he went into the compartment. There were two people in it, two middle-aged men who looked like bureaucrats.

  “Heil Hitler! ” they said, almost in unison.

  Fulmar raised his hand from the elbow, answering the salute, but did not speak.

  He had a choice now. The remaining suitcase was empty and could not be tied to him. He could leave it, claim it, or leave and come back later and claim it.

  It was time to eat. There were ration cards with his identification, but Baker had told him to avoid using them if at all possible because they could not positively guarantee they would be accepted.

  The “suggested solution” was to offer money in lieu of the coupons.

  He would order something to drink. If there were ration coupons required for that, a young officer could credibly be expected to ask for them without coupons. All they could say was no. Then he could watch the others in the dining car and see how they handled the ration coupons for food. He would tip generously for the drink, or drinks, make it clear to the waiter that he had plenty of money.

  Both alcohol and food proved to be simple. They had only wine, and he had two glasses, tipping generously each time. He saw that there was food, but that ration coupons were necessary in advance.

  When he ordered the third glass of wine, he looked up at the waiter and smiled.

  “What is a hungry man to do?”

  “If he has coupons, he eats,” the waiter said.

  “Will these coupons be all right?” Fulmar asked, holding up a couple of bills folded tightly.

  The waiter looked at him for a moment, then took the money in a smooth movement.

  “I believe we can take care of the Herr Sturmbannführer,” he said.

  What he got a few minutes later was two slices of dark bread, between them a slice of salami.

  Six days before, Fulmar thought, he had been disappointed because there was only ham and roast beef for sandwiches at Whitbey House; some sonofabitch had eaten all the turkey.

  Chapter FOUR

  Fulmar stayed in the dining car for an hour, until the train had stopped at and left Strassburg.

  The waiter had not seated anyone else at his table, and that eliminated the necessity (and the risk) of carrying on a conversation. Canidy had been blunt about that: He was not to get overcocky because his German was flawless. The minute he opened his mouth he would risk saying something he should not say, or of being asked a question he could not credibly answer. Consequently, he was to avoid conversation wherever possible. The whole idea was to be inconspicuous. And if he stayed in the dining car any longer, he was likely to become conspicuous.

  And the wine had “calmed him down.” Which meant that it had dulled his senses. And that he couldn’t afford.

  The waiter nodded at him as he left the dining car.

  “Heil Hitler!” Fulmar said, raising his hand from his elbow in a casual salute.

  The dining car was behind the three first-class wagons-lits coaches. In the first, the conductor was taking tickets and two border policemen were checking identification and travel authorization. One of the border policemen looked at him without suspicion and flattened himself against the window as he went past.

  The train, he noticed, was now almost full. Until now, it had been two-thirds empty.

  He was almost through the second first-class car when he heard a female voice call out his name.

  He hesitated momentarily, in the blink of an eye deciding that some other Eric was being called.

  “Eric von Fulmar! ” the voice called again, louder this time.

  Christ, now what?

  He stopped and turned.

  A young woman, round-faced, dark-eyed, was walking quickly down the aisle to him. It took him a moment to recognize her. She was in a blue uniform, without makeup, with her dark brown hair done up in a bun. He identified the uniform by the armband. She was in Organization Todt, which Hitler had set up under Dr. Fritz Todt, the man who had built the Autobahn, to control all German construction and industry for the war effort.

  Her name was Elizabeth von Handleman-Bitburg, and the last time Fulmar had seen her was in Paris. They had had dinner, she and Sidi Hassan el Ferruch and some other German girl whose name he could not now recall, in Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs Élysées.

  After dinner, in the backseat of el Ferruch’s Delahaye, she had slapped his face just after he had put his tongue in her mouth and his hand up her dress. And then she had made things worse by sobbing.

  Her father was Generalmajor Kurt von Handleman-Bitburg. No. He corrected himself. Eldon Baker—the first contact I had with that sonofabitch —had been in Fouquet’s that night, checking on Fulmar, and Eldon Baker never forgot anything.

  At Deal, on the Jersey shore, Baker told me that “your girlfriend’s father got himself promoted.”

  Elizabeth was the daughter of Generaloberst von Handleman-Bitburg.

  “I thought that was you!” she said happily, offering her hand.

  “Doing your bit for the fatherland, I see,” Fulmar replied.

  “Isn’t this uniform dreadful?” she asked.

  “I didn’t recognize you at first,” Fulmar said.

  “When did you go into the SS?”

  “March 12, 1942,” he said without thinking. That date had been drilled into his memory, as had the particulars of his service since then—until his detail to the staff of the Reichsführer SS—with Waffen-SS units that had been conveniently wiped out in Russia or captured in North Africa.

  “You look very nice in your uniform,” she said. “And please don’t say ‘so do you.’”

  “All right,” he said. “I won’t.”

  “I always wondered what happened to you,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t have an address, so I couldn’t write.”

  “The last time I saw you, you slapped my face,” he said, and was a little proud of himself. The way to handle this situation was not to stick the baby Fairbairn into her skull and scramble her brains, but to get her mad.

  She flushed, but she met his eyes.

  “I was young, Eric,” she said, “and you had no right to expect from me what you did.”

  When he did not respond, she smiled and cocked her head, a
gesture he found very attractive.

  “I’m working for your father,” she said. “What about that?”

  “Working for my father?”

  “At the FEG office in Hoescht,” she said. “I’m a secretary.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Berlin,” he said.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “There’s a two-hour wait for the Berlin train. We can have a nice visit.”

  He nodded.

  She cocked her head again and looked at him intently. And then she took his arm and led him out of the aisle onto the connecting platform between cars.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know how to begin… There’s an interesting story going around about you, Eric,” she said evenly.

  “Is that so?”

  “My father told my mother,” she said. “I overheard them. I didn’t hear it all. And when I asked him, he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Wouldn’t tell you what?”

  “What I did hear was that a friend of his, a Minister in the Foreign Ministry, had told him that you were seen in Casablanca.”

  “I was in Morocco, of course,” he said. “You remember el Ferruch?”

  “In the uniform of an American officer,” Elizabeth von Handleman-Bitburg said.

  She was looking into his eyes now. As he was trying to frame a reply, she said:“Oh, my God, it’s true!”

  “What I’m supposed to do now,” Eric said, almost conversationally,“is kill you.”

  Her face went white, and her tongue came out and licked nervously at her lips.

  “And I suppose what I’m supposed to do is scream,” she said, very softly. Then she met his eyes again. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Shit!” Fulmar groaned.

  The door to the car started to open.

  He quickly put his arms around her. There was a moment’s resistance, and then she understood what he was doing. Whoever was passing between cars would see a young officer kissing a young woman.

  She raised her face to his.

  It was the two border policemen passing between cars with the conductor. “Guten Tag, Herr Sturmbannführer,” one of them said. One of the others chuckled.