The Enemy of My Enemy

by W. E. B Griffin

  He began to pull on it.

  Minutes later, a beam of light could be seen in the dark hole, and then a head and shoulders appeared. The head was completely covered with an industrial gas mask. Cronley pulled it off, revealing Major Lomax. Then Cronley bent to hoist Lomax out of the opening, and almost simultaneously so did Serov.

  “I’m afraid I recognize that smell,” Serov announced. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Colonel Dickinson appeared in the opening next, and they repeated the process.

  Dickinson finally looked at General White.

  He said, “Sir, there’s a professionally constructed series of tunnels and passages down there, varying from five to twelve feet in diameter. In one of the side tunnels, which is one of the larger diameter ones, there’s a mound of moldering—I should say decomposed—human flesh. I estimate it once was two hundred human beings, give or take.”

  “Jesus!” White and Cohen said simultaneously.

  “And the whole damn thing is wired—professionally wired—for demolition. It’s also wired with some light fixtures, but I was cautious turning on any switch in case that would cook off the high explosives.”

  “Goddamn,” White said. “Can you make it safe?”

  “I’m thinking about that,” Dickinson said, then surveyed Serov with curiosity before adding, “and I just don’t know. Maybe. Let me give it some more thought.”

  “General Serov,” White said, “this is Colonel Dickinson and Major Lomax, who I have just decided have more balls than brains.”

  “If the castle’s wired for demolition,” Cronley wondered aloud, “why didn’t they blow it up?”

  After a pause during which no one answered, he answered the question himself. “Because they hoped we would eventually tire of trying to figure out what the hell was happening in this place and leave. Then they could come back for whatever is hidden down there and then really give us the finger again by blowing this sonofabitch up.”

  General White grunted, then said, “I realize it’s categorized as wisdom from the mouth of a babe, but I think Super Spook just nailed it.”

  [TWO]

  The next day, at 0500 hours, everyone waited in the courtyard of Wewelsburg Castle, which now held a fleet of M8 armored cars, their engines idling. There were no chairs. General White, Captain Cronley, Father McKenna, and General Serov were standing near the entrance to the kitchen, sipping coffee.

  “I am willing to admit there may be a minor flaw or two in my planning,” General White said to Cronley.

  “This is no time to shake my boundless confidence in you, General, sir,” Cronley said.

  “The fact that no one outside can see my M8s does not preclude the likelihood that someone outside has had the castle under surveillance and saw the M8s come in. We very well may have lost the element of surprise.”

  “I can top that, sir,” Colonel Cohen said. “What if the person who has the castle under surveillance and has seen all your M8s come in asks himself, what better time to blow the place up than with all those M8s in it?”

  “And,” Cronley added, “what if Colonel Dickinson touches the wrong wire, or something, while he’s down there trying to deactivate the HE and—kaaaa-BOOM?”

  White, on the edge of sarcasm, said, “And what do you suggest we do, Super Spook?”

  “What you planned from the start, sir: sound Boots and Saddles. I’ll go to the military government’s building with two M8s. That’ll give me—what?—sixteen Constabulary guys. And with the rest of this little army, you surround the other house and block all roads out. And in.”

  White looked at him, nodded, then put his hand to his mouth and mimicked playing Boots and Saddles, the bugle call for troops to mount up and take their place in line.

  “We move out in five minutes,” General White then ordered.

  “I’d like to come along,” General Serov said.

  “So would I,” Father McKenna said.

  “Absolutely not,” White said.

  “General Serov speaks fluent German, sir,” Cronley said.

  “I’ll go with Cronley,” Cohen said.

  “No,” Cronley said, flatly. “Colonel Cohen goes with General White and General Serov. I’ll take Father McKenna with me.”

  White, silent, glanced at everyone before he said, “I have just successfully resisted the temptation to stand everybody tall while I told you how this is going down. But don’t push me any further, Cronley.”

  “No disrespect was intended, sir,” Cronley said.

  “Maybe not, but that’s the way it came out.”

  [THREE]

  Kilometer 26, Kreis Route 33

  Kreis Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0530 29 April 1946

  Cronley signaled for the sergeant in charge of Troop “C” 11th Constabulary’s M8 light armored car to pull to the side of the road and stop. The sergeant acknowledged the order by nodding his head.

  As the first six-wheeled M8 turned off the narrow macadam road, the M8 behind it followed. As soon as the lead M8 stopped, a crisply uniformed lieutenant jumped out of the second vehicle and ran up to the first, then clambered up its side.

  “With you there, Lieutenant,” Cronley announced, “the sergeant and I are going to have trouble getting out.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  The lieutenant jumped down, then stood by the side of the road almost at attention, awaiting further orders.

  Cronley climbed down from the M8. Father McKenna followed, and then came the sergeant.

  “Stand at ease, Lieutenant,” Cronley ordered. “We’re on the side of a road in rural Germany, not on the parade ground.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lieutenant shifted positions, this time assuming parade rest.

  Curiosity overtook Cronley.

  “What’s your name, Lieutenant, and where did you get your commission? And when?”

  “Lieutenant Freeman, sir, John H. the Third. I’m Norwich, sir. Class of 1945. Is the captain familiar with Norwich, sir?”

  If I told this guy I was A&M ’45, he’d think I was lying.

  And this is not the time or place to get into why I’m a captain, and his First John bars look brand new.

  “I have a very good friend, Captain Tiny Dunwiddie, who’s Norwich.”

  “Sir, we had a great big black guy named Dunwiddie in my class, but he can’t be the same one. There’s no way he could be a captain.”

  “Maybe a cousin or something,” Cronley said, more than a little lamely. “We can talk about it later. Let’s talk about what happens next.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re going to the—I guess the word is ‘headquarters’—of what was an experimental farm of the German Agricultural Ministry. It is now run by Military Government. A warrant officer named Wynne is in charge, and there are half a dozen GIs assigned.

  “We have reason to believe that there are four to six—maybe eight—really bad Nazis hiding out on the place, passing themselves off as farmworkers. They’re all members of Odessa.”

  “Of what, sir?”

  “It’s an organization of ex-SS guys, Lieutenant,” the sergeant explained more than a little tolerantly as if speaking to a backward child. “The bastards take care of each other.”

  “But since they are not locals,” Cronley went on, “they can’t go home at night. Fortunately for them, when the SS was working on Castle Wewelsburg, they built a house on the farm. They live there. We don’t know much about the house—specifically, its connection with Wewelsburg—but we were reliably informed (a) there is a connection and (b) the house sits on a bunch of rooms and passageways and the like.

  “There’s probably a connection with the castle, but we can only guess what it is.

  “As we speak, General White and the others are
approaching—or possibly are already at—the house. They’re going to seal off the roads leading to it, cut the telephone wires, and then go inside and see what’s there. We hope to catch and identify one of the Odessa guys, thinking that if we do, he just may turn on the others to save his own ass. That may be, and quite probably is, wishful thinking.

  “If it comes to this, and it probably will, we’re going to tie all the Germans working here to their original homes, check to see that their Kennkarten aren’t phony, and so on.

  “As I said, we hope to get lucky, to catch one Odessa guy and get him to turn on the others. On top of this, we’re looking for two really dirty bastards, SS-Brigadeführer von Dietelburg and General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf. We don’t expect them to be here, but we do expect that the Odessa people know where they are and will flip on them to save their own collective skin. Still with me?”

  The sergeant nodded. Lieutenant Freeman came to attention, and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, here’s what I’m worried about. Your teenage troopers and their Thompsons.”

  “Sir?” the lieutenant said. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “They all know something unusual is going around, and most of them, having missed seeing combat, might be looking forward to shooting some Nazis. I don’t know how this Mr. Wynne is going to react to us showing up, but I suspect he’s not going to like it. I certainly do not want him or any of the other Americans shot. And my preference is to keep the Nazis alive and arrest them so that we can collect more information. See my problem?”

  “I can handle it, sir,” Lieutenant Freeman said, confidently.

  “I suggest both of you have a word with them before we go to the headquarters,” Cronley said.

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Freeman and the sergeant said in chorus.

  [FOUR]

  Headquarters, Detachment 231

  Office of Military Government

  Kreis Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0615 29 April 1946

  “Hit the siren, Sergeant,” Cronley ordered when the main building came into sight.

  As they drove up, a paunchy, middle-aged U.S. Army officer in his shirtsleeves came out of the building.

  The M8s stopped, and the howl of sirens died.

  “What the hell?” the officer growled. “You guys lost?”

  “I’m Captain Cronley. And you must be Mr. Wynne.”

  “I am. What can I do for you?”

  “Somebody with enough clout to get me out of my very nice office in the Farben Building has got the idea that there’s at least one Nazi hiding out here on your farm.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’ll ignore that, Mr. Wynne. Mostly because I believe you are probably correct. Be that as it may, here I am with my little army. So, please point out the Nazi, or Nazis, to me so that we can go back to civilization.”

  “No Nazis to point to, Captain. But I can give you a cup of coffee. And point out the mess hall to your men. Come on in. You, too, Lieutenant.”

  * * *

  —

  There was a middle-aged German sitting at a typewriter in Wynne’s outer office.

  Why do I think I am about to catch my first Nazi? Cronley thought.

  He said, “I’m going to have to check your employee’s Kennkarte.”

  Cronley noticed that that got the German’s attention.

  “Can you take my word that they all have one?” Wynne said. “I checked on that personally.”

  “I’m getting the idea, Mr. Wynne, that you don’t know how the system works.”

  “Please tell me, Captain,” Wynne replied, his tone more than a little sarcastic.

  Cronley met his eyes, and thought, I’m within a hairsbreath of standing you tall, you bastard, and reading you the riot act according to Cronley.

  Instead, I’m just going to generalize this so you get my point . . .

  Cronley said, “Certainly. In the good old days—that is, during the eleven years of the Thousand-Year Reich—everybody over the age of fifteen had a Kennkarte. When you went in the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe, they took it away from you and gave you an Army or Air Force identification. Got it, Mr. Wynne?”

  “I got it.”

  “Good. Now, with those exceptions, everyone had one, from the peasant on the farm to the highest levels of Nazi officialdom. If you were in jail—or, worse, a concentration camp—they took away your Kennkarte.

  “Each Kennkarte, printed on hard-to-forge paper, bears a unique number. And every issuing office made a list of who had a Kennkarte. And shared that list with at least two, often three, other German offices.

  “This made it relatively easy, when the time came, for us to round up the Nazis we want. First, we made a master list of all the Kennkarten ever issued, including in what is now the Russian Zone. The Russians shared their Kennkarte files with us and we shared ours with them.

  “Say we were looking for Hitler, Adolf. The list made it possible for us to check the master files and learn where Adolf’s Kennkarte had been issued.

  “Then we started a list of bad guys’ Kennkarten. And then started checking everybody’s Kennkarte. If your name wasn’t on the bad guy list, you were home free.

  “But if your name was in fact on the bad guy list, or you didn’t have a Kennkarte, it was a different story—you’re in handcuffs, taken off to whoever wants to try you or hang you, or both.

  “Now, if you say you lost your Kennkarte and you tell us where it was issued, and provided you’re not on the bad guy list, then you can get another one issued.

  “If, however, the place you said issued your card reports that you’re on the bad guy list, or that they never heard of you, you’re in—what is that charming phrase?—‘deep shit.’

  “So, what we are going to do, Mr. Wynne, is ask each of your employees for a look at their Kennkarte. Starting right about now, and for however long it takes. Got it?”

  An annoyed Wynne, stone-faced, nodded.

  Cronley then held out his right hand to the man at the typewriter and in German said, “May I see your identity card, please?”

  Cronley thought, His expression shows that (a) he is surprised by—and doesn’t like—an American who speaks fluent German and (b) doesn’t want to show me his Kennkarte.

  The German made an involved pretense of looking for his identity document, then made a frown and confessed that he must have left it at home.

  “Not a problem,” Cronley said. “You can get it over lunch.”

  I will graciously offer to give you a ride home.

  And if you ever look like you’re going to run, arrest you.

  [FIVE]

  Kreis Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0630 29 April 1946

  In the distance, the last of Jim Cronley’s M8 sirens died down as General White and his men surveilled the farmhouse in the woods for at least ten minutes. They saw no sign of movement.

  Then, with troopers ten feet apart, they formed a line while other troopers went to cover the rear. At a signal from General White, the line closed on the farmhouse.

  At the house, White looked through an opening that had once held a window.

  He saw nothing and signaled that before signaling two sergeants to rush through the doorway. They did, Thompsons at the ready.

  There was no reaction from within the house.

  White, holding his General Officer’s Model 1911-A1 Colt .45 ACP pistol upright at shoulder height, marched through the door, followed by General Serov and Colonel Cohen.

  The sergeants were in what had been the kitchen before being bombed. They had their weapons pointing to the same spot of the floor. They motioned, pointing to evidence of fresh boot prints in the dirt that led to, and under, a tattered rug.

  Another sergeant and a very large PFC wen
t to the rug. When they attempted to pull it back, it would not slide. They then yanked on it, in the process tearing it. As it tore, a section of the wooden floor moved up with it—a four-foot square that covered access to below. They realized that the rug had been purposefully attached to the square of wooden flooring.

  The large PFC used his foot to remove the square from the opening.

  Colonel Cohen walked to the opening and then, in German, shouted down into it. “Come on out! I don’t know what’s happened, but Wynne’s shitting a brick! He wants everybody out of here right now! Did you hear the sirens? There’s Constabulary all over the place!”

  There was no reply, but a minute later a briefcase came flying out of the opening. Serov moved quickly to it and opened it.

  He turned it on its side to show that it was full of currency.

  Another briefcase came flying out, and then two battered leather suitcases.

  And, finally, a head and shoulders.

  “Please, General Burgdorf,” General White said, his .45 leveled at the German’s face, “give me an excuse to put a couple of rounds in your forehead.”

  Another voice was heard from behind Burgdorf. “Gottverdamt, Willi, was ist lost?”

  Burgdorf silently crawled out of the opening. With hands over his head, he sat on the floor cross-legged.

  Cohen walked to the opening, and called down in German, “If you’ve been thinking about suicide, Franz baby, now would be a good time.”

  Former SS-Brigadeführer Franz von Dietelburg reluctantly joined former General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf on the floor. They both were wearing ragged civilian clothing.

  “Sergeant,” General White ordered, “now would be a good time to capture this moment for all of history.”

  There followed a rapid series of still-camera flashbulbs popping.

  “They’re all yours, Colonel,” White then said to Cohen. “When you’re done, load them in separate M8s. And send someone down the tunnel to see if we missed anything, or anyone.”

  Minutes later, both prisoners found themselves lying naked on the floor.