The Nero Decree

by Greg Williams

  Johann’s arms were aching from holding them in a position of surrender. He let them sag a little.

  “Up!” instructed the officer. “What’s a little discomfort when you’re on the scaffold?”

  Johann forced his hands high into the air.

  The Gestapo officer edged toward him.

  “I need the briefcase,” the officer said.

  Johann looked down at the leather bag.

  “And the key,” the Gestapo officer added.

  Johann froze—the officer was acting under orders from his half brother.

  “Quick!” the man ordered.

  Johann looked up at him and then back at the bag. He could feel the key against his chest now, warm from his body heat. Would he really just hand them over?

  The Gestapo officer gestured with his gun impatiently. Johann was out of time. He thought of Anja and Nadine. If only he could get off this rooftop he could be with them within an hour. The thought was almost too painful.

  “If I give you them, will you let me go?” Johann replied.

  The man considered this for a moment.

  “All right,” he said.

  Johann paused before reaching down and pulling the chain from his neck. The key twisted as it hung in midair in front of him.

  The Gestapo officer reached forward and snatched it and kicked the briefcase away from Johann.

  “Our friends in the SS will be extremely appreciative of this,” he said, stepping backward.

  “Now turn around very slowly,” the man added. Johann complied. “Walk to the edge of the roof.” Johann took six steps forward until he was a few inches shy of the four-story drop. He looked out across what was left of the Berlin rooftops.

  “Now get on your knees,” the officer ordered.

  “But I gave you—” Johann started.

  “Be quiet, fool,” the man snapped.

  Johann took his time. He had expected arrest and torture, not execution. He cast his eyes around, desperately looking to see if there was a means of escape. There was nothing to jump onto if he threw himself over the edge. There was no object nearby to grab hold of and throw at his captor.

  Johann heard a fresh magazine being slid into a P38. He probably only had a few seconds left. He felt an overwhelming sadness that he had gotten so close to seeing Anja and Nadine again. He had failed them: His heroics had cost him his chance of being reunited and—who knows?—maybe even escape. There was a part of him that wished he had never heard of the Nero Decree. He wondered whether he should say a prayer like some of his patients would do when they were dumped before him in the operating theater, but nothing came to his lips. All he could think was that he had failed those he loved.

  “Let him go!”

  The voice came from nowhere, piercing the hushed anticipation. The noise was so out of place that Johann wondered if he had even heard it at all, or whether it was a figment of his fevered, preexecution imaginings.

  “Let him go!”

  The voice was high-pitched: a boy. The words this time were spaced out. Grittier. More determined than the first order, which had been full of trepidation.

  Johann shifted his body slightly so that he could see what was happening behind him. The Gestapo officer still had his handgun trained on him. The man’s body was angled toward Johann but his head was shifted to his right, where a boy of around twelve stood with a pistol pointed at the policeman. The officer regarded the boy coolly, seemingly untroubled by his intervention. Johann could barely believe what he was seeing. Then a smile spread over the face of the Gestapo man, his eyebrows rising up an inch in amusement.

  “Really?” the man said. “You’re really going to shoot?”

  Johann could see that the boy was continuing to hold the weapon, but that the end of the barrel was quivering slightly. Johann could tell that the words of the Gestapo officer had affected him. He was losing his nerve.

  “You’ve never fired a gun in your life, have you?” the officer said.

  Johann wondered whether he could get up and rush the Gestapo man before he could fire his weapon, but it wasn’t feasible—the man would have plenty of time to fire at him before he could cross the roof. If he could maybe create some kind of a distraction, it might help to break the sway that the Gestapo officer had over the boy. Johann saw the boy beginning to cry. His face was dirty, his hair unkempt. His lower lip trembled with emotion.

  Johann needed to help. He shifted his position, causing the officer to shout.

  “Don’t you move!”

  He gestured toward Johann with his weapon, instructing him to turn around. Johann remained still. He stared at the boy, trying to give him courage.

  “Turn around now!” the Gestapo man commanded. There was a little more urgency in his voice than just moments ago. “You think that some kid who hasn’t even started shaving is going to save you?”

  Johann looked at the boy. The young man’s clothes were ripped and grimy, his face appeared to be covered in dirt, his hair was disheveled, but he had piercing blue eyes that suggested the unfulfilled promise of youth. He didn’t want to be on a roof pointing a gun at a Nazi, but he was doing exactly that. Like everyone else in this chaotic city he found himself doing something he could never imagine he would ever do. The boy was trembling. Johann saw a tear well up in his eye. It dripped onto his cheek. The boy dared not wipe it for fear of removing his hands from the weapon.

  “You’ve never fired a gun in your life,” the Gestapo officer repeated. His body was still twisted—the weapon was leveled at Johann, but his eyes remained on the boy. Johann could see the young man beginning to melt. He needed help.…

  Johann moved again, and this time the Gestapo officer edged closer to him. Then the boy began to edge forward as well.

  “Get away from him!” The boy ordered the Gestapo officer. The man kept his head turned toward the boy and shuffled sideways. He was the same distance from Johann as before, but he was now perhaps four feet from the edge of the roof.

  “I said get away from him!” the boy insisted.

  “I did as you asked,” the officer replied. “Now how about you and I come to an agreement. You walk away from this and I’ll pretend that I’ve never seen you.”

  The boy blinked several times, trying to clear the tears from his eyes. The pistol was waving wildly now. Johann watched as the boy began—ever so slowly—to lower the gun.

  He could wait no longer.

  Johann leaped at the Gestapo officer. The policeman must have noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye—he began to turn his head to look at Johann, who was now crouched and perhaps two feet from him. The man’s eyes narrowed as he realized what was happening and determined that he must pull the trigger. Their eyes locked at the very moment Johann heard the explosion of gunfire and tumbled to the ground.

  There were a few seconds of silence. Stunned, Johann ran a mental inventory of his physical state: Despite the explosion he felt no pain. Had he gone numb? Was he in shock? He reached up to his shoulder and felt grit from the roof embedded in the cloth of his jacket. Johann sat up and felt himself all over. The boy stared at him, incredulous, before walking to the edge of the roof and peering down. Johann stood up, staggering ever so slightly, and moved to where the boy was standing. The two of them looked downward at the Gestapo officer, whose body lay splayed in awkward angles—like the victim of a car crash. There was blood on the remains of a wall nearby. His head must have collided with it.

  Johann felt nothing. No relief. No guilt. He was alive, that was all.

  “Thank you, Lukas,” he said to the boy.

  “You’re welcome, Herr Schultz,” the boy replied weakly. “We all thought you were dead.”

  20

  “Fuck the Sanitätsstaffel!” Dieter said, throwing the telephone handset into the cradle.

  “The SS Medical Corps won’t help?” Kuefer asked. His chair creaked as he turned to talk to Dieter.

  “They say they’re too busy to help,” Dieter rep
lied, tossing a file across his desk in disgust. “I ask them to offer assistance with a simple matter and…”

  Dieter had returned to the cramped office in a foul temper. He had slept badly the night before—despite medication, his injuries were acutely painful—and he was frustrated by his inability to find Johann’s family. The chaos among the official bodies that might be able to facilitate crucial information had left him fuming.

  “Is it too much to ask, Kuefer?” he snapped. “This is an investigation of the utmost significance, and the Sanitätsstaffel can’t even make the most basic inquiry for me. I need to know who this friend might be who is harboring Schultz’s wife. I need records of other doctors who Schultz might have come into contact with.”

  Kuefer wanted to help. The relationship between the two of them had been awkward—although he was the more experienced investigator, protocol dictated that he take a back seat to the SS man.

  A match flared in the stuffy office and a plume of smoke coiled around Kuefer’s face.

  “We are no longer able to communicate with the field hospital,” Dieter continued. “So I can’t even talk to that asshole commanding officer Henke and question more of those who saw this Schultz before he left the facility.”

  Kuefer stood up and placed a file carefully on Dieter’s desk before retreating back to his chair.

  “What’s this?” Dieter asked suspiciously. He was in no mood for understatement.

  “If you can’t get to the field hospital, then maybe elements of it can come to you,” Kuefer said. He felt foolish now. He had attempted to garner the Sturmbannführer’s respect, but had overplayed his hand.

  “Enlighten me,” said Dieter sarcastically, without touching the file.

  Kuefer cleared his throat. “I sequestered all the dispatches from the field hospital,” he explained. “Take a look. Since Schultz disappeared, two of the doctors he worked with have been sent back to Berlin to work at hospitals.”

  Dieter flipped open the file and examined two documents that Kuefer had placed at the top. He had circled two names: Andreas Karl and Otto Deitch.

  “Karl is at the Rudolf Virchow in Wedding, and Deitch is at Charité.”

  Dieter stood up.

  “I’ll visit Karl; you find Deitch,” he growled. “Meet me here at thirteen hundred hours for a debrief. We will find Thomas Meier. And we’ll find him soon.”

  Dieter walked from the room without a further word, leaving the door open behind him. He had offered no thanks for the breakthrough.

  Kuefer took a deep drag on his cigarette and pondered what Dieter had just said: He had called the suspect Thomas Meier, not Johann Schultz.

  He leaned over his desk, opened his notebook, and wrote the name down. He could tell that Dieter was holding back sensitive material on the case; his manner and investigative trips had been furtive and abnormal. Although this wasn’t an unusual practice for the SS, the slip of the tongue suggested something conspiratorial. He didn’t know what, but he imagined that there was more to the Sturmbannführer’s interest in resolving this crime than he had thought.

  He threw his cigarette butt on the filthy floor, stamped it out, and pulled on his leather coat.

  Dieter had visited the Rudolf Virchow Hospital years before when a friend had his gallbladder removed. He recalled admiring the elegance of its pavilion-style architecture—the stucco-fronted main building and the elegant approach along an avenue lined with chestnut trees.

  Any semblance of grace had been diminished by years of bombing. The building’s classical façade was damaged and the trees were mostly gone. Dieter bullied his way through four different bureaucrats before he found one who could tell him where Andreas Karl might be found. Although Karl wasn’t a surgeon by training, he had been posted to general surgery because of his experience in the field.

  Dieter peered through a round window into an operating theater and saw Karl at work—he looked small, apprehensive, and he wore thick glasses. As soon as the operation was finished Dieter burst into the room. The nurses and doctors stared at him in alarm.

  “Andreas Karl?” Dieter asked self-assuredly.

  Karl blinked up at him.

  “Are you Andreas Karl?” Dieter repeated. He heard the others in the room scurry off.

  “I am,” the man said.

  Dieter led him to a nearby office, which he commandeered. He positioned Karl in an armchair and stood over him.

  “I recognize you from somewhere…,” Karl said tentatively.

  Dieter’s face remained impassive. “I’m sure you do,” he replied.

  “Yes, yes, of course—in the east,” Karl said. “I, um, apologize. You understand that we see so many people that it’s hard to—”

  “How well did you know Johann Schultz?” Dieter demanded. He felt that this one was scared, easily manipulated.

  “Schultz?” Karl repeated. He straightened. “I heard…”

  “You heard what?”

  “That he had disappeared,” Karl said. “That he couldn’t face the Soviets, so he fled.”

  “Did you hear anything else?”

  “No,” Karl said. “I left the field two days after he left. I’ve been here since. When I’m not working I’m sleeping.”

  Karl moved to stand up, but Dieter pushed him back down. He didn’t want them at the same level.

  “What was your opinion of Schultz?”

  “He was a good doctor,” Karl said guiltily, as if he knew that he was giving the wrong answer. “I didn’t really know him well beyond that. He was quiet. Got on with his work.”

  “What else?”

  “I really wasn’t there for long,” Karl explained.

  “What else?” Dieter persisted, his voice harder this time.

  “I don’t know…,” Karl pondered miserably.

  “There must be something.”

  “He had a wife and niece,” Karl said, his face somehow brightening. Surely this would be enough for the SS man? Dieter knew he was getting closer now: Karl was telling the truth—and there was more. “He mentioned them a couple times. I remember before the last time he went back to Berlin that—”

  “Where in Berlin?” Dieter asked.

  “Somewhere in Mitte, I believe,” Karl said. “I’m pretty sure that he grew up in the city.”

  Karl put his hands under his armpits, as if hugging himself. Dieter noticed the man’s thinning hair—from the top it was possible to see how little was left on the crown—his thin, trembling hands… He would not make it.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” he asked.

  “The day before he, you know, disappeared, I think,” Karl answered.

  “How did he seem?”

  Karl considered this for a moment. “Not himself,” he explained. “He seemed preoccupied. Agitated, even. I remember he came into the doctors’ quarters in a hurry. Usually he slipped in and went straight to his cot. He wrote a lot of…” He paused. “I remember now: He borrowed some writing paper from me.”

  “Did you see him write the letter?” Dieter asked.

  “No,” Karl answered. “He left immediately.”

  “And that is definitely the last time you saw him.”

  “I think so.…”

  “I don’t want to hear ‘I think so,’” Dieter said impatiently. “Was this the last time you saw him? Think about it.”

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Karl replied, his head bowed. Dieter sensed that Karl had more to say, that he had suddenly realized there was something pertinent he had not thought of before.

  “I saw him talking to another doctor, Otto Deitch, very briefly,” he said. “In triage. They had a short conversation, but it seemed like there was something serious going on. Usually Deitch is, you know, voluble and fun-loving, but he talked quietly with Schultz, as if they didn’t want to be overheard. I can’t be sure, but it looked like Schultz gave Deitch something.”

  “What?”

  “I wouldn’t like to speculate.…”


  “What?” Dieter said irritably. He shoved Karl’s head.

  “A document maybe,” Karl replied. “A letter. I don’t know. It was dark, but he seemed to be holding something and then he wasn’t.”

  “Do you know where Deitch is?” Dieter asked to confirm that Karl was telling the truth.

  “They transferred him back to Berlin, to the Charité,” Karl said. “I was jealous of him, and then they sent me back too.”

  Dieter looked at Karl. “A shameful sentiment,” he said after a while. “You do a discredit to yourself, your comrades, and your country.”

  Karl looked up at him, anger in his eyes. “What honor is there in this?” he demanded. He virtually spat the words.

  “Make no mistake, Karl,” Dieter replied. “When you lose your honor, you lose everything.”

  Karl said nothing. He pressed himself back in the chair.

  The connection had been made. Dieter thought of the chalked message: “We are with your friend.” The friend had to be Deitch. He needed to call the records department and the NSV to see if they could identify where he lived. Dieter was convinced that, if he found Deitch’s house, he would capture his half brother’s family—and eventually Johann himself.

  For a moment he considered teaching Karl a lesson. A beating he would remember. He clenched his left fist and felt the pain in the side of his body. He needed to save his energy. He wasn’t even sure that he had the strength to deliver blows of the kind that Karl deserved. He walked from the office quickly, throwing the door wide. There was no need for him to concern himself with Karl—the Soviets would take care of that.

  21

  Anja was ready. She had bathed as well she could, knowing that this was the last opportunity she might have for some weeks. She had washed her and Nadine’s clothes and packed them in a rectangular leather case that Otto had given her before he said farewell and headed to work at the hospital. He had also offered her any of his mother’s clothes that were in the house. The woman was long gone, and Anja found the idea slightly repellent, but the idea of new undergarments and hosiery was too tempting to turn down. Such things had been rationed for years.