“Your wife really is quite attractive,” Dieter announced.
Rage captured Johann’s entire being. He stood up and tried to swing his body and the chair in Dieter’s direction before feeling a violent blow to the side of his head. Unprepared for the impact, and unable to use his hands to break his fall, he crumpled to the linoleum floor. He lay for a moment, drool sliding from his mouth.
“They are not dead yet,” Dieter announced. His words were enough to make Johann sit up.
“It turns out that you and I have some unfinished business,” Dieter said. “I am not a vindictive man, so I will give you a choice. If you tell me where the key to Nicolas’s safe deposit box is and identify the bank, then I will let your wife and the girl go free.”
Johann’s head began to clear. He knew that he was being manipulated, but he no longer cared. Part of him was amazed that Dieter was still obsessed with discovering what was in the box.
“I want to see them given passage to the west,” he said. “Then I will cooperate.”
“Ha!” Dieter snapped. “You should be aware that there is no room for negotiation.” Johann heard him move a chair. There was a grunt. It sounded like he had sat down.
“I want to see them board a train to—” Johann said deliberately.
“Shut up!” Dieter responded quickly. “Take it or leave it. Either way, you’re not going to make it.”
Johann kept his head bowed to protect his eyes from the light. He heard footsteps and then hands lifted him upward until he was vertical again.
“What will you do?” Johann asked.
“You’re going to make a leap of faith,” Dieter replied. “We will simply turn them out on the street and let them fend for themselves.”
Johann was taken aback by Dieter’s candid answer. Did this mean that he was telling the truth?
“You know full well that it’s a killing field out there,” Johann answered. “They won’t last long.…”
“Yes, yes,” Dieter interrupted, “and then the Soviets will be here—we all know what happened in the east.’ I’m afraid that none of this is my concern. I want what I want; that’s all there is to it. I have made you an offer—a generous one at that, given the crimes that your wife has committed—and you are in no position to decline it.”
“All right,” Johann replied, wondering what Dieter meant—Anja had never conducted a criminal act in her life. He heard Dieter stand up. There was suddenly silence in the room. “The bank is the Danat-Bank on Behrenstraße on the corner of Glinkastraße—if it’s still there.”
“It still exists,” Dieter blurted. There was excitement in his voice.
“The box number is 1518,” Johann continued.
“That’s…,” Dieter started.
“Yes,” Johann said. “The years of our births: 1915 and 1918.”
There was a longer silence. Johann’s skin was burning from the light now. He heard something being picked up and the sound of swallowing. A cup or glass was then set down.
“And…,” Dieter said. “The key…”
“Let me loose with Anja and Nadine and I’ll take you to the key,” Johann said. “I’ll take you to the apartment—I give you the key and you turn your back.”
“I won’t do that,” Dieter said. “Impossible.”
“Then I’m afraid that you’ll never know what is in the box,” Johann said. He felt as if, just maybe, Dieter was ready to give some ground.
He was wrong.
He felt another blow to the head, this time a slap to his face. A big, jagged canary flash joined the stars in his line of sight. The perspiring face of his half brother, a man almost trembling with rage, joined them in his vision.
“Your choice,” Dieter said.
Johann was hauled to his feet. He was led to another room where there was rubble on the floor from plaster and brick that had been shattered during a raid. As he regained his sight he could see deep cracks in the walls of what appeared to be a storage or utility room with low ceilings. There was some daylight coming through one of them; he knew he was aboveground. His handcuffs were unlocked, and Johann was silently and forcefully maneuvered beneath a piece of pipework that had been painted over many times with black paint. His hands were then raised and handcuffed over the pipe. He could just stand on tiptoe.
Johann heard the same thudding noise that he had identified in the other room. He turned his bleary eyes to decipher its provenance: Dieter dropping the briefcase on the floor. He was carrying it from room to room, unwilling to let it out of his sight.
“I will pay a visit to your wife and niece and tell them what you decided,” Dieter said, closing the door behind him. A key turned in the lock. Johann pulled on his handcuffs. Surely his half brother wouldn’t harm Anja and Nadine until he had what he wanted? Johann tried to think the situation through. He knew that he couldn’t trust a single word Dieter said. The pretense of releasing Anja and Nadine onto the street was simply a ploy. There would be no release. Johann tried to steady his mind, which had become a storm of dread and alternatives, all of which seemed dismal.
There was only one thing he could do: hang on for as long as he could without revealing anything. If, as everyone said, the Soviet assault would be over within a few days, then he had to find a way of delaying Dieter from killing them. Anyone held by the Nazis would surely be freed. Johann tried to convince himself that the approach was plausible, but he found it hard to have a great deal of faith: Dieter had no time for prevarication.
He would die in this room; that much was clear. He must accept his fate.
Now all that mattered was planning a way to save Anja and Nadine. If he could convince Dieter that he would accompany him to the bank it would use up some time. Moreover, moving around the city was so fraught with danger they might be killed. With Dieter dead, Anja and Nadine might last until the Soviets arrived.
Johann pulled against the cuffs. His hands were numb and he couldn’t feel his shoulders any longer. He stared at the crack in the wall. A sliver of light shone through, illuminating part of the room—a few inches that proved that there was a world beyond the terrible place he was trapped within. He might not be able to wedge his body through the masonry, but his mind exited the room.
He would find a way out.
The door opened and Dieter entered, this time alone. He was clutching what looked like a wooden staff.
“Your wife and niece are too keen to leave the building,” he said. “I informed them that their fate is in your hands, and they found it hard to believe that you wouldn’t help them.”
“What’s the point?” Johann said. “You won’t free them.”
At first the thud on the right-hand side of his ribcage stunned Johann. Then he realized that he was unable to breathe. His body began to shake before he was able to take several low, hard breaths.
“Enough of this,” Dieter said. “The location of the key. Quickly.”
Johann was still trying to regain his breath when his half brother approached and grabbed the front of his shirt with his fist.
Johann closed his eyes.
He no longer had anything to bargain with.
Dieter looked down at his fist and then up at Johann, his face cracking into a broad smile. He loosened his hand and examined the front of Johann’s SS shirt before ripping it open. Johann felt the chain with his army dog tags snap. He had protected the key his father had given him for eleven years in an attempt to prevent this moment.
Dieter grasped the object triumphantly.
“Hoping to keep it all for yourself, were you?” he said.
“Yes,” Johann said. “It was for after the war. To help us start again.”
“Surely you know by now that there will be no ‘after the war’ for you?” Dieter said, his face disbelieving. “Did you really think that you would be able to do what you have done and get away with it?”
Johann looked at Dieter incredulously. “And you think you’ll just walk away? After all you’ve done?”
>
“I am not planning on eating cabbage for the next few years,” Dieter said. “There will be places for us in Bavaria where we will be able to live well—”
“You have nothing to say to me other than this bragging?” Johann said, interrupting Dieter. “You kill my father, then—”
“I didn’t kill your father,” Dieter cut in. “Your father was the master of his own demise. His ideas were dangerous.”
“Dangerous!” Johann scoffed. “He was no more dangerous than the Christmas tree you helped him decorate.”
“He had no place in the Reich,” Dieter answered. “If your father had his way, this country would be burdened by the weak and outsiders.”
“You threw my father in the back of a truck and had him transported to Oranienburg!” Johann shouted. Flecks of spit shot from his mouth. “What on earth would make you think that he might survive such treatment?”
“Do not raise your voice to me,” Dieter ordered, coming closer to his half brother. “You still think that you’re superior. There you are, strung up, wearing a uniform that’s not yours, desperate to save yourself and your family, and you have the audacity to lecture me? You and your father sat on your high horses, masters of condescension both. You thought that you were above the real world, above those of us who didn’t possess minds equal to yours. Look where it got you both.”
Johann shifted his weight. His entire body was throbbing. He was desperate for water.
So, this is how it would end: in a damaged room in a government building, a victim of fratricide. Johann had spent years burying his true identity, yet it eventually pulled alongside him and pushed him over a cliff.
“Dieter,” he said. “I know nothing I say will affect what is going to happen in this room. But I’d like one final request: Anja and Nadine have nothing to do with this—they have no knowledge of you or my past. I ask you—in our mother’s name—to let them go free.”
Dieter smoothed down his uniform. His hands were as ruddy as a farmer’s. He was still wearing a coat despite being inside.
“You mention our mother,” Dieter said flatly. “Do you think that such sentimentality will affect my judgment, or prevent me from doing my duty as an officer of the SS who has captured an enemy of the state?” He paced across the floor, kicking at pieces of masonry as he went. “There you go again—you see, thinking that your weasel words will persuade me to divert from honor and duty.”
Johann pulled against the handcuffs, which bit into his wrists. If he could get to Dieter he would gladly kill him. There was nothing, not even the most remote seed of a human bond between them any longer.
“I mention our mother because I am hoping that you might remember something other than your ideology,” Johann persisted. He had nothing left to fight Dieter with other than words. “I want to see if I can stir any remnants of compassion and decency that might remain. My wife and niece do not deserve your brutal street justice; they are innocent of any crime.”
Dieter stepped closer to Johann, who steeled his midsection for another blow from the staff.
“Not true…,” he said calmly. “On either count.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Johann shouted at him.
“Your wife killed an SS officer only a few hours ago,” Dieter said matter-of-factly. She stabbed him in one of the cells in the basement as she was being returned to her cell. She used his own paper knife. Funny…,” he continued, “he could never find that knife.”
Johann didn’t believe what he was hearing—Anja a killer? It wasn’t credible. Yet, he had done things in the past few days that he would never have imagined himself capable of. Desperation and fear had made slaves of them all.
“But this is before she escaped,” Dieter said.
For a second time in a few moments Dieter’s words made Johann flinch. The negotiation they had just undergone had been a charade? Dieter had pretended to have his family while it had been he alone who was captured? It took him a moment to process the new information.
“And the girl?” he asked. “What of her?”
“Oh, she went too…,” Dieter said. “During the middle of a raid.”
Johann no longer felt the pain in his arms. He was content: Dieter could do his worst. Anja and Nadine had a chance of surviving. That was all that mattered. There was silence for a moment; the two men stared at each other. Johann noticed a smile creep into the corner of Dieter’s mouth.
“You think that this is over, don’t you?” he said. “I kill you and your wife and niece escape.”
Dieter held up the key.
“I have what I want, you have what you want, the end. Correct?”
He reached into his coat pocket. Johann heard the key drop onto something else metallic.
“But you see, your wife and niece have stumbled inadvertently into another unfortunate and difficult situation.”
Johann tugged on the handcuffs again. He looked up and realized that the pipe was narrow enough for him to grasp—if he got his hands around it he might be able to swing his body and kick Dieter off balance. The gesture was futile, he decided. He would still be chained to the thing.
“You see, they were seen heading down into Friedrichstraße station.”
A color flashed into Johann’s head: the yellow tiles that extended from the platform up to the lobby. He thought for a moment: The U-Bahn was one of the last safe places in the city.
“They couldn’t know, of course, but they have made a considerable error,” Dieter continued.
Johann watched him intently. Here it comes, he thought, another lie.
“You may know something of this, as you are, of course, well versed in the executive order Demolitions on Reich Territory.”
Dieter lingered for a moment. He appeared to be enjoying himself. “The Nero Decree, remember, Johann?” he said.
Johann’s heart began to race again. He took a deep breath and tried to control the panic that threatened to conquer him.
“You see, there is no need for me to kill Anja and Nadine,” Dieter continued. “They have done it perfectly well themselves.”
Johann was trying to fathom exactly what it was that he was being told. He shook his head. He understood Dieter’s words but needed to process them.
“Am I not making sense to you?” Dieter said eventually. “You know the compass of the order. The Führer will not allow the enemy use of the tunnels to move around the city freely.”
Dieter reached up and patted Johann on the cheek.
“Your wife and niece have just climbed into a mass grave,” he said calmly.
Johann felt his stomach clench tight. The words were crushing. He felt as if his mind was shutting down. His thoughts coalesced around a single fact: His wife and niece were doomed. The Nero Decree was in effect. Everything he had attempted to do on his return to Berlin had come to nothing: He had failed to save his family; he had failed to stop the destruction.
Madness had prevailed. The strain on his shackled body was exhausting. Sweat poured from his face. He could take this no longer.
“It seems that time is up for our reunion,” Dieter said. “This one has taken far too long to come about, and I’m afraid that there won’t be another.”
Johann watched as Dieter’s right hand began to slide toward the pistol in his holster.
“Thank you for your gift,” Dieter said, patting the pocket of this coat where the key rested as he continued to reach for his weapon. “I will use it well.”
This was it, the denouement, Johann thought.
He thought of Anja and Nadine in the darkness and the cold of the station, the crash of ordnance around them. He saw Dieter unfasten his holster and begin to pull the pistol free.
This was his last chance.
As Dieter leveled the gun at him, Johann reached up and gripped the pipe, lifting his feet from the floor and using every ounce of his energy to pull downward. Dieter looked startled for a moment, as if astonished by the resistance. The brackets holding the pipe to the dama
ged ceiling gave way, and Johann was suddenly falling. As he had intended, the pipe smashed Dieter flush on the top of his head. Johann’s half brother fell to the floor, groaning and holding his head. Plaster dust hung in the air around them. Johann was still chained to the pipe. He knew he had to act quickly while Dieter was stunned. He moved along the pipe, sliding the handcuffs along the metal until they ran clear. His arms ached, but he was able to move freely at last.
Dieter lay on the floor. Johann fell upon him and pulled the keys to the cuffs from his half brother’s belt and quickly undid them. He rubbed his wrists and shoulders; the pain was severe, despite the adrenaline coursing through him.
The briefcase was sitting against the wall where his half brother had dropped it.
Just then he noticed Dieter moving. His half brother was reaching for his weapon, which lay nearby. Johann dived for the gun, grabbing it from his half brother’s grasp. He felt the weight of it in his hand. At last, he was the one with the power. He pointed the pistol at his half brother’s head. Dieter didn’t flinch.
“Go ahead and do it,” he said to Johann. “You can kill me, but you won’t survive this. It’s over, Johann. We’re finished. All of us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Johann answered. His finger tightened around the trigger. He prayed to his mother for forgiveness.
There was a click.
The weapon had jammed. Dieter, realizing what had happened, was suddenly roused from passivity; he rolled to one side and began to push his body from the ground. Johann turned the gun in his hand and began to hit Dieter. His half brother roared and flailed with his arms, pushing himself around the floor to try to avoid Johann’s blows, but his bandages and wounds slowed him.
Johann was exhausted. He gave up using his arms, both of which were numb, and proceeded to kick Dieter, showing no mercy. Eventually Dieter stopped defending himself. Johann could tell that his half brother was still alive, but he was surely unable to pursue him.
He reached for a brick to dash Dieter’s brains out, then stilled himself: He knew what, to Dieter, would be worse than death itself. And Johann and his family would be gone before Dieter discovered it.
The Nero Decree Page 29