Scanlon almost smiled. After the pain and anguish of Leipzig, the white sterility of a hospital room, and the gray pallor of a London winter, he had been living in a colorless world for far too long. He had to admit that this breathtaking mountain scenery did take on a near-Hollywood atmosphere. Dietrich was right about that, but he had been the one to blame. The war and the chief bastard himself were the grim reality against which the normal now seemed surreal. However, scenes like this beautiful mountain valley created sensual traps, which he knew not to let himself fall into. The war was not finished with him, not yet; and neither was Hanni Steiner nor the German Army. It might be on life support, but it still had a few teeth left. Small units and patrols could still be operating even in a place like this, and there would be detachments of the ubiquitous Gestapo and its companion, the Cripo, or Criminal Police, in Tegernsee and all the other nearby towns. As much as he would like to do it, Scanlon knew he could not simply hole-up here and wait until the war ended. The National Redoubt, or Alpenfestung, was probably a figment of London’s imagination, but he could not take that risk. If it was real, there would soon be SS and German Army troops retreating into the mountains in large numbers. Scanlon knew he had to find Patton’s Third Army before that happened, which meant driving back to Gmund and heading west until he ran into the lead tanks.
What about Hanni, he wondered. He had no doubt that if she could run, walk, or crawl, she was already hot on his trail; so the quicker he got Raeder, Dietrich, and the rest of his unwanted baggage safely into American hands, the quicker he could turn around and let her find him. Scanlon looked back down the narrow mountain track and wondered. Lord knows Hanni was good, but could she be good enough to make it to Munich or even Nuremberg through all that chaos without the cover of a big Army truck and Otto Dietrich’s Gestapo badge? It seemed inconceivable to him, but if anyone could do it, it was Hanni. Make it or not, she would try, and nothing seemed more certain to him than that. When she did, he would have her right where he wanted her, inside American lines and a hundred miles from the Red Army. After all, that was what he wanted all along. She would not come with him voluntarily, so he must leave her with no other options. He would make her chase him all the way back into his arms.
They parked the truck and the Maybach behind the hunting lodge and quickly unloaded the wooden crates and boxes, covering them with the canvas from the cargo bed. Scanlon looked around the meadow and knew they should be safe here for a while, safer than driving around the countryside. He would drive the truck west toward Bad Tolz and leave the Maybach up here on the mountain. Military trucks were a common enough sight on the roads, but Dietrich’s touring car had proven far too distinctive.
He searched the glove compartment and the trunk of Dietrich’s well-equipped limousine and found a pair of heavy steel manacles. “Let’s go inside,” he told them, where he shackled the Chief Inspector and Wolfe Raeder to the iron legs of a large cast-iron stove that sat against the far wall. The others would stay put and do what they were told, but he would never trust Dietrich or Raeder. The stove must weigh five hundred pounds, so now he didn’t have to.
“Oh, come, come, Edward, you have my solemn word that we will stay put and behave, one gentleman to another.” Dietrich offered with a sincere smile and the sharp teeth of an alligator. He saw his answer in the American’s cold, humorless eyes. “No, somehow, I did not expect you would,” he sighed.
“Christina,” Scanlon said as he put his arm around her shoulder. “I know you and the two doctors will take good care of the Major.” She nodded solemnly, not that he had any doubt. “And Emil,” he turned toward the engineer. “I’m leaving you and Eugen with two of the pistols. Be careful; watch them while I’m gone, one of you inside and one of you outside. I should be back tonight or tomorrow at the latest. If there is any trouble, aim low and keep pulling the trigger. Especially with these two," he said as he glanced down at Otto Dietrich and Wolfe Raeder, making certain they both heard. "Don’t hesitate to shoot them both.”
“Edward, Edward, you so disappoint me,” the Chief Inspector said wistfully as Scanlon turned to leave. “You could have the world, but you insist on throwing it all away.”
“Guess I’ll have to live with that, Otto… and with the prospect of watching you hang.”
“What a marvelous imagination you have,” Dietrich answered confidently. “They have not made the rope that will hang me, and they never will. You shall see.”
The clear, crisp alpine morning softened into a warm, lazy afternoon, thick with the rich smells of heather, wet pine and spruce boughs, and a sea of wildflowers in full bloom. The sun stood high above the snow-capped mountain peaks, and the sky seemed to go on forever. Listening intently, the only sounds were the insects, the birds, falling water, and the timeless calm of the mountains.
Scanlon had taken the truck and disappeared down the long, twisting road hours ago. Eugen Bracht remained inside the cabin where he kept his unwavering Luger pointed at Otto Dietrich’s head. The two doctors from Dachau had bathed in the icy water of the nearby lake and now lay in the tall grass on the far side of the cabin with the truck driver, where their thin, pale bodies dried in the warm sun. Emil Nossing also lay stretched out in the grass near the cabin, enjoying a panoramic view of the mountains.
Christina Raeder wanted no part of the cabin or the two men chained inside. There was a rough-hewn bench on the open front porch that looked across the meadow and down the valley, and she insisted that Paul Von Lindemann sit outside with her. The Major’s head was wrapped with a white bandage, his right arm hung limp in a sling, and his torso was heavily wrapped to protect his broken ribs. With his gray wool officer’s tunic draped over his shoulders, he leaned back and basked in the warm sun next to her.
“This is how life should be,” he told her as he leaned back and closed his eyes, “no moving parts, no noise louder than the birds and the insects, and nothing more threatening than the occasional rain cloud in the sky.”
“Yes, but I still prefer the city,” she admitted sheepishly. “You have had more than your share of noise and excitement, and I can see how this lovely country would attract you. As for me, I miss Berlin with its crowds of busy people always in a hurry, the screech of the streetcars, and the honking of the automobiles.”
“On a Sunday afternoon, perhaps?”
“When I was little, we would go to go the Kroll Garden, the three of us. We would picnic on the grass and listen to the big bands playing,” she giggled. “It was wonderful.”
“Dinner at Ciro’s? The grand dining room at the Hotel Adlon?”
“And the Opera. Mama used to take me there when Otto Klemperer was conducting,” she added enthusiastically. “There was no place like Berlin, was there?”
“No, but I am afraid you would not like it now. All of those things are gone.”
“That must be our punishment for the war, for the evil places like Dachau, for people like that Commandant Weiter, and for Herr Dietrich, too.”
“It hardly seems fair, does it? All the wrong people are being punished.”
“So far,” she looked at him and nodded, “but I can hope.” As grim as the future appeared, when she was with him, Christina was not afraid. The Major was twice her age, but that did not seem to matter to her or to him. She knew nothing about men, but she liked him and she felt warm and strangely comfortable sitting in the sun next to him.
“You must promise me you will not leave me with them,” she asked. “I would die.”
“I will never allow that to happen, Fräulein. Never. But you must call me Paul.”
“Only if you call me Christina,” she answered, placing her hand on his.
“Christina it is, then” he replied with a curt bow of his head as he took her hand in his.
“Paul, did they tell you about me?” she asked, as she looked deep into his eyes.
“They? I am not sure what you mean. You are a lovely young girl, who has lived far too long in the shadow of your fat
her; but I can see that for myself. No one had to tell me anything.”
She smiled again, more broadly and fondly this time. She could tell from his eyes that he was incapable of lying to her. Despite the bandages, the bad leg, and the cane, she saw a steadiness and permanence to him. He was a gentleman with a sense of honor and character. More importantly, he seemed to like her for herself. She had long suspected that Papa had lied to her about him again, as he had about so many other things. Now she was certain of it. The Major knew nothing of her special gift, and even if he did, she knew he would not care.
He looked around at the trees and the meadow before he turned toward her again. “I am afraid we shall not be sitting in the Kroll Garden or listening to the Philharmonic for a long, long time, Christina. Perhaps we had better get used to the songs of the wild birds.”
“Wild birds?” she grinned sheepishly, deciding it was time he knew, time someone knew. “Yes… Did you know that when I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I see them by the dozens, wild and free, brightly colored, diving, flashing and swirling around inside my head. It has been that way ever since I was a young child, all the shapes and colors, flying, faster and faster."
“I am afraid I am not following you.”
She looked deep into his eyes but all she saw was an innocent confusion. He does not know! Suddenly, she felt her heart pounding. “You really do not know, do you — about me, about the numbers, and about the work I do for Papa? You see, to me, higher mathematics, like numbers, equations, formulas, and algorithms, are like that. They become colorful wild things, as they flash around inside my head,” she said as she looked deeply again into his eyes.
“It sounds beautiful and exciting. Is that how you do your mathematics homework?”
“Paul,” she shook her head and said with an embarrassed smile. “I have not done homework since I was five years old, perhaps long before that. I do advanced mathematics, very advanced mathematics, as they call it, in my head. I cannot entirely explain it, it just happens. I close my eyes and see all the formulas and calculations unfold before me like the colors and patterns of wild birds flying about — my wild things. You see, I am the one who has been doing Papa’s work for him — all of his calculations, his equations, and formulas, all of them, for years now, ever since the beginning in Berlin. And I do them in my head… Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“The formulas… all of them?” he finally asked, stunned, as the truth sank in.
“Yes, all of them,” she answered as she paused and looked deep into his eyes, trying to see if he really understood. “I know what it must sound like to others, but I was very young when they began. It was never mathematics or work to me. They were my childhood companions, just games I played in my head to pass the time. Then, when Papa was off at the University, I would go into his office and open his books on advanced and theoretical mathematics, physics, propulsion, aerodynamics, astrophysics, and subjects like that, looking for new problems, for new games to play. All I had to do was concentrate on a formula, some numbers, or on an equation, and they would begin to swoop around inside my head like bright, colorful flashing birds. They soar, twist, and beat their wings as they fly about, until they reconfigure themselves and settle down into the solution, right there, inside my head.”
“I see things like that when I fly,” he smiled. “When the airplane dives, turns, streaks and flashes, then the colors sweep past me in a kaleidoscope. The dials, the controls, the ground and the sky swirl around inside my head. Perhaps that is something like your wild things.”
“Yes, yes, something like that,” she beamed happily. “Papa calls it my gift, as if it was something very special; but then he kept it a big secret, as if I had done something bad. He made me feel so ashamed, always afraid that someone might find out. Rudy figured it out. He knew, and he told me I was wrong to think that way. He said it was wonderful and beautiful and I should stop listening to what Papa told me, but I did not understand, not then.”
“Rudy was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, the only one I had at the Institute,” she said sadly. “Finally, he told Papa what he was doing was wrong, and Papa threatened him. He told Rudy he would have him arrested and sent to one of those camps if he ever said a word about it to anyone. I did not understand what that meant until yesterday, but Rudy did. That was why Rudy was so afraid of Papa, and why he kept quiet.”
“Do you think your father would have done that?”
“At the time, no. Now, however, after everything I have seen the past few days, oh, yes. I am certain he would have.” Christina looked at him, and he saw her eyes were no longer the eyes of a naive eighteen-year-old girl. She had grown up at a frightening speed in the past few days and her mind now raced far ahead of his, solving the equation. “I was very young, but I remember the arguments Mama and Papa used to have. I did not know what they were arguing about; but I heard what Chief Inspector Dietrich said, and it all makes sense to me now. You see, I was Papa’s big secret. He was using me to fool the University and everyone, and I think Mama demanded he stop. Their arguments became more and more violent, and then she was dead. I doubt he meant for it to happen, but it did.”
“How awful,” Von Lindemann finally understood.
“That is why I will not stay with him any longer,” she declared.
”No one can make you do anything you do not want to do now, Christina. Not anymore,” he vowed as he looked into her eyes. “I shall not permit it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It had been pathetically easy for Hanni Steiner to track them and find their hiding place up in the mountains. Army trucks might be as common as dirt on the Bavarian back roads, but not a long, black Maybach. In every town they drove through, someone had seen the car, and was willing to talk to a sad, pregnant woman trying desperately to find her husband. He might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs. Then again, she knew it was part of Edward’s plan to draw her further and further south, beyond her point of no return.
She left the Major’s small coupe around the bend and out of sight, and then climbed her way uphill through the woods to the rear of the cabin. The first warning she gave Von Lindemann and the Raeder girl that they were no longer alone on the front porch was when they heard her whisper softly behind them, “Stay where you are, Major. I do not wish to hurt anyone, but I have a pistol and I will blow a very large hole in the girl if you cause me any trouble. Is that perfectly clear? Now hand me your Luger.”
“Young woman,” Von Lindemann answered curtly, "if you look closely, you will see that my holster is empty. Sad to say, I am not much of a threat to anyone at the moment, not even to you.”
“Good, see that you keep it that way,” Hanni told him. “Christina, please walk over to where Herr Nossing is sunning himself in the grass. Pick up the gun I see lying next to him, and run back here with it as quickly as you can.”
“Stay where you are, Christina,” Von Lindemann tried to stop her until Hanni jabbed the barrel of the Luger into his bandaged ribs and he doubled over in pain.
“Do what I said, Christina,” she said with a sharp, cruel edge on her voice. “You two make such a darling couple. I will hate myself later, but I really will shoot him if you do not.”
Christina rose from the bench, pale and weak-kneed. She took a deep breath and with a determined, awkward stride, she walked down hill to where Emil Nossing lay sprawled in the grass. He turned his head and smiled at her as she stepped next to him, bent down, and picked up his gun.
“Christina?” Nossing reached out, but he was far too slow as she backed out of his reach and scampered away. “What are you doing, girl? Come back here.”
Terrified, she ran all the way back to Hanni and handed her the gun. “There! Now stop threatening us!” she screamed.
Paul Von Lindemann pulled her down to the bench next to him and put his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. “Leave it be, Christina,” he counseled.
“That is ex
cellent advice, Major,” Hanni told him as she slipped the new pistol into her belt and pointed hers at Emil Nossing. “Stay on the ground, right where you are, Emil.” She saw the truck driver and the two concentration camp inmates peering around the corner of the cabin at the loud voices. “You three,” she called to them. “Go over there and lie on the ground beside Herr Nossing, all of you,” she ordered. “All right, now where is Scanlon?” she demanded. When neither of them answered, she pointed her revolver at Von Lindemann again, knowing the girl was the weak link.
“Gone! He took the truck, and he is gone,” she leaned against him. “Now leave us alone!” she screamed.
“What is going on out there?” a man’s voice called out from inside the cabin.
“Ah, Herr Bracht. Who is in there with you? Otto Dietrich and Herr Raeder?” Hanni asked as she stepped onto the porch and walked toward the doorway, careful to keep well back out of his line of sight, but all she heard was silence. She turned the pistol back on Von Lindemann and asked Christina. “All right. You tell me who is in there. Is it Herr Bracht?”
“Yes!” Christina glared up at her.
Hanni edged closer to the doorway, pistol up and at the ready. “Eugen, I truly do not want to hurt anyone,” she warned, “but I think you also have a gun in there. Please toss it out to me.” She waited, but all she heard from inside the dark cabin was dead silence. “I know you have one, because only a large caliber pistol pointed straight at the Chief Inspector’s precious nose could possibly keep him quiet this long.”
As she waited again in vain, concentrating on how to get the last gun away from Eugen Bracht, that maniac Luftwaffe Major sitting behind her suddenly pushed himself off the bench and lunged at her. Despite his bandages and the excruciating pain he must have been in, he managed to cross the four feet of deck that separated them and fall into her, wrapping his good arm around her legs and pushing her across the dark, open doorway. In that terrible instant, Hanni found herself exposed, backlit against the bright blue sky as an orange finger of light stabbed at her from inside the cabin only ten feet away. That was immediately followed by a loud “Blam,” as a 9-millimeter slug smacked into the doorway next to her head. The wood exploded in a hail of splinters and something hot and sharp tore into the side of her face. Hanni’s instincts took over. Her arm swung the Luger to the spot from which the orange flame had come, and she pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times, until she heard a body fall on the floor and she knew she had killed the other shooter. With her training, that is exactly what she expected to happen.
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