CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
IN INNSBRUCK, Gabi and Madeline killed time in the study of the Kraabe mansion. While they’d chatted idly after the men had left, they’d finally run out of topics to discuss. Regardless of their current cooperation, there was still the faintest sheen of frost between them. The thick volumes of medical textbooks, the countless anatomical models, and the heavy Oriental rug beneath them seemed to absorb nearly every sound. Every sound other than the metronomic rhythm from the study’s massive antique Swiss clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Schatze lay between the women, quite contented, occasionally grunting when she switched positions and resumed her slumber. Gabi tried to read. Madeline sat, eyes closed, not sleeping.
Tick. Tick.
Madeline opened her eyes, looked at Gabi. Gabi was staring at her. “What?” Madeline asked.
Gabi closed the book, an impish expression dancing over her face. “Well, I was thinking about something.” She slid closer. “Neil talked about the German policeman coming after him. The older man.”
“Yes, so?”
“Think about who else is here in Innsbruck…the American.”
“The one who…”
Gabi knotted her lips together and nodded. “The one who probably killed my mother. Neil said he’s dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Okay? Where are you going with all this?” Madeline asked, sitting up.
“Lord is the American’s name, and we know he’s staying at the posh hotel—”
“The Tyroler Inn.”
“Right. And then there’s the SS man, Aying. He’s the ranking Schutzstaffel in town. Probably wouldn’t be too hard to find him.”
Madeline’s gaze rotated downward. “Aying I know about, all too well.”
“Exactly. Don’t you see our connection?”
“Lord took your mother. Aying took my man.”
“Correct.” Gabi slid the book onto the table. “Madeline, if we had to, we could make certain Neil was free of these two men…these obstacles. And, in the process, perhaps we could exact our own revenge.”
Madeline eyes were slits. “And, pray tell, how do we do that?”
Tick. Tick.
Gabi removed lipstick from her purse, applying a light coating and pressing her lips together. She then tugged downward on the sides of her matronly dress before lifting her breasts, simulating a low-cut, busty outfit. “On the farm, do you know how my mother would ensnare a pesky hare?”
“How?”
“She’d appeal to his greedy nature and set a trap.”
“Neil would never let us,” Madeline answered, shaking her head.
“Well, who says Neil’s in charge?”
Tick. Tick.
Madeline’s brown eyes widened. “I thought you loved Neil.”
“I do.”
“But you’d defy him?”
“Absolutely. If I thought it was for the best.”
“And you think this is for the best?”
There was a period of silence as Gabi’s eyes glistened. “I’m grieving my mother, Madeline. She’s on my mind nearly every second. And, to be brutally frank, I doubt this situation here is going to end well.”
Madeline didn’t respond other than a nod.
“So,” Gabi said, forcing a mirthful expression, “Let’s just get ready in the event we need to cause a diversion…and I’m not asking anyone’s permission. Those days are now behind me forever.” She stood and offered her hand. “So, why don’t you and I put our minds together?”
Tick. Tick.
“Do you have a plan?” Madeline asked, as Gabi’s hand floated in front of her.
“It’s coming to me.”
Madeline accepted Gabi’s hand. “Where do we start?”
Gabi led Madeline through the house as they gathered items from various rooms. In the doctor’s closet they found a sewing box and also a small stool. Together the women carried everything back to the study.
Madeline went first, trying on a dress Gabi had purchased in Salzburg, modeling it on the stool. As the two women opened up about their past, Gabi went to work, pinning hems and cutting sleeves. Every now and then she would stand back, envisioning the way the dress would look through the eyes of the men they hoped to seduce.
Tick. Tick.
~~~
One of the caretakers was Irish. She spoke for the group as the hundreds of children gathered around Neil, hugging him, tugging at his clothes and laughing.
“First, is everyone here okay?” Neil asked, breathless in his excitement.
The caretaker, her face black with soot, nodded and grimaced at the same time. “As good as can be. We’ve recently had some stomach sickness going around but we still have food and clean water and medicine.”
“Is everyone still here?” Neil asked, his hands touching the head of the boy who was currently clamped on his leg.
“Yes. We do a count three times a day.”
Neil knelt, greeting the children in German, telling them everything would be okay. They surrounded him, their tiny bodies pressing against him in their exuberance. There was the obvious odor of human beings about them, but to Neil it was the sweetest smell in the world.
“How did you manage?” he asked the caretaker, accepting a hug from a child.
“It wasn’t easy. This tunnel goes much deeper and branches off. We created a sanitary area as best we could. We have a makeshift kitchen. We bury trash and waste near one of the air vents. We’ve even taught lessons to combat the boredom.”
“And you still have food?”
“We’ve a few hundred cans remaining. We also have flour and other ingredients. But we would have run out soon—maybe another four or five days. We were instructed how many calories to feed per day.”
“It’s so cold in here,” Neil said.
“Blankets, heavy clothes and hot water. That’s all we’ve had.”
Another of the children, a young boy, put his arms around Neil’s neck. To him, the children’s collective innocence was among the most pure characteristics known to man. And their touch was medicine to Neil’s soul.
The Irish caretaker began to cry. “It’s been so long. I can’t tell you how many times we almost voted to come out and give up. What happened? Why did it take seventy-two days?”
Neil stood, giving her a reassuring hug as he apologized. He didn’t think revealing what had happened to Jakey was a good idea. “I have a few people with me, one of whom is a doctor. Keep everyone here, okay? I’ll be back in just a few minutes. And please keep everyone quiet. We’re not out of the woods, yet.”
After disentangling himself, Neil hurried past the weaponry, reminding himself to ask if Jakey had put it there. It had to be Jakey. When Neil reached the ice, he began to speak Peter’s and Doctor Kraabe’s names. No response. He stepped into the smaller passage and called out again, even risking yelling.
Nothing. Maybe the limestone absorbed his yells.
Neil walked back into the main tunnel, hurrying up the incline, noticing the gear grooves in the narrow gauge track.
“Doctor Kraabe! Peter!”
He was getting close to the mouth of the tunnel.
Have they walked back out?
The tunnel leveled out.
“Kraabe!”
“Peter!”
A rat scurried across the path.
Neil removed his Colt as unease began to set in. He could now see the broken light between the giant timbers of the opening. He turned at the next pass-through, walking to the much brighter side tunnel.
As Neil made a left turn in the smaller passage, he saw a long revolver aimed between his eyes.
The revolver was steady. The revolver was sure. And the man holding it was ready.
The Colt hung impotently in Neil’s right hand beside him.
Between Neil and the man with the revolver was Doctor Kraabe, his hands clasped on his head as he knelt. The doctor’s eyes were down. Ashamed.
Peter sat against
the wall of the small passage, his knees pulled up to him. An unworried look inhabited his face.
“Drop that pistol to your right,” the armed man said in German.
With the help of the sunlight beaming in from the mouth of the passage, Neil recognized the man, so he complied.
“Now get your hands up.”
This was the third time Neil had joined eyes with this individual. He was the old man, the cop, from the airfield in Velden.
“Let’s go,” the old man commanded with a wag of the revolver. “Outside, to the light.”
He instructed Peter to go first and Kraabe second. Then, after swearing to Mother Mary in a voice that defined validity, the old man guaranteed Neil a bullet in the back if he did anything untoward. Remembering the bullet that hit the airplane instrument on that fateful morning of his first solo flight, Neil believed him.
The old man followed the threesome out of the tunnel.
And he coughed the entire way.
~~~
Peter and the old man did all the talking on the short walk from the tunnel. The old man, between fits of coughing, murmured several times to Peter that after he took care of this “situation,” he would see that he was cared for properly. Neil and Doctor Kraabe trudged out obediently. Outside, the day had grown quite warm, made to feel even warmer after the frigidity of the tunnel. The old man instructed Neil and Kraabe to move to his left and kneel while keeping their hands on their heads. He sent Peter to a canvas bag, lying on the path fifty meters away, to retrieve two pair of handcuffs.
Peter hesitated.
“Go ahead, son. Then I want to get to the bottom of all of this.”
Peter did as he was told. The old man aimed the ridiculously long pistol at Neil, standing fifteen feet away as he said, “Cuff both of them, son, and lock the cuffs tightly. Do the younger man first.” The old man coughed into his sleeve, watching Peter as he cuffed Neil. Then Peter moved on to Kraabe.
There was a wry smile on the old man’s face. “I’ve been a policeman for eighty percent of my life, Peter. Please go back to the younger gentleman and cuff his left hand properly.”
Peter closed his eyes, his chest falling with a great exhalation. He walked back to Neil, squeezing the handcuff tightly. The old man moved behind both men, shaking the cuffs as their hands were on the back of their heads. He moved around and looked at Neil. “Sprechen sie Deutsche?”
Neil nodded, his eyes cast at the pine and leaf mottled forest floor.
“Und Sie?”
“Bestimmt,” Doctor Kraabe answered with a frown, as if this were an insulting opening query.
The old man instructed them both to sit. He continued to aim the pistol at Neil. “Stay still.”
“They’re helping find the children,” Peter objected.
“Let’s talk about it, Peter,” the old man said, beckoning him to his side. “Who is this man?” he asked, gesturing to Doctor Kraabe.
“Doctor Kraabe,” Peter answered.
“What kind of doctor?”
“Medical,” Kraabe said.
“And what about him?” the old man asked, gesturing to Neil.
“I know him much better,” Peter replied.
“From Germany, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I remember him from Germany, too,” the old man said to Neil. “From the airstrip, in Velden.”
Neil nodded.
“Why?” the old man asked.
Kraabe shrugged and nodded at Neil. Neil turned back to the old man and said, “That man you found—his name was Willi—was nothing more than my hired ride from England. I paid him in good faith. We landed there to refuel and he tried to rob me. When I resisted, he shot me first, then I shot him. You witnessed the aftermath.”
The old man narrowed his eyes, turning his head as if he were trying to hear more clearly. “And?”
“And nothing. That was all there was to it. I hired Willi to fly me into Germany and he turned on me. Knowing the conditions there, I didn’t think it wise to hang around for the inquisition that would follow.”
“Was that man, Willi, involved in what you’re doing now?”
“Do you know what am I doing now? Do you know why we’re at this mine?” Neil asked.
After coughing again, a bit less severe since he appeared to have caught his breath, the old man turned to Peter. “Peter, I need to trust you for a moment.”
Peter nodded. The old man tilted his head in the manner of a person who wants greater assurance.
“You can absolutely trust me,” Peter said earnestly.
“Good. Take a short walk up the hill and I’ll call out to you when I want you to come back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to hurt them, son. You have my word. I just want to have a conversation that I don’t want you to hear.”
Peter turned to Neil, plaintively, and said, “But I’m involved in all of this.”
“Go ahead, Peter,” Neil said. “Give us five minutes.”
Peter whirled and stalked away, angrily kicking sticks and stones.
“My name is Thomas Lundren,” the old man said to Neil. “I’m German. I was a career police officer, retired when you and I first met. After what I saw at the airstrip, the current commissioner allowed me to come back and work this case.”
“How do we know that you aren’t the one who killed Hildie Heinz?” Neil asked.
Straightening, Thomas said, “While I’m an imperfect person and a sinner in the eyes of the Lord, I have never, ever killed an innocent person in my life and certainly never a woman. So, no, I did not kill that young man’s mother. She died while I held her hand.”
“Did you speak to her?” Doctor Kraabe asked.
“I did. In fact, I was surprised at what she told me.”
Again, Neil chose silence. “And?” Kraabe asked testily.
“She said she’d been knifed by another American man, thin and vicious and dressed slickly. He was accompanied by a cob-rough German constable whose identity I can most likely guess.”
Neil lifted his blue and green eyes. They danced to the left and the right before he spoke. “That confirms my suspicions. I know the man who killed her, the American.”
“I thought you might.”
“He’s here to kill me.”
“I figured that as well, Herr Reuter.”
Kraabe’s head snapped up.
“Hildie give you that, too?” Neil asked.
“Yes, she did.”
Neil and Doctor Kraabe shared an agreeable look. Neil turned back to the retired police officer, opening up in a way he rarely did. “Thomas, not that you would care, but this task we’re performing is…well, it’s a humanitarian effort.”
“Frau Heinz said it involves Jewish children.”
Neil smiled as he looked at Kraabe. “They’re in there. I found them.”
“Are they well?” Kraabe breathed, his eyes wide.
“They’re fine. A little sickness. Nothing serious.”
Doctor Kraabe appeared momentarily stunned. Then he tilted his head back, laughing quietly, his eyes weeping tears of joy. Neil watched the doctor’s reaction, feeling emotional himself. Then he looked up at the old man.
“I’ve done a lot of bad in this life, Thomas. Truly. But right now, we’re all on the precipice of something wonderful.”
“Tell me about these children.”
Neil gave Thomas the short version. “So, now, if you’ll trust me, it’s up to me and my friends to get them away from the Reich.”
Thomas stood above both men. His thick gray stubble shifted as something resembling a smile appeared underneath. He un-cocked the long pistol, holstering it. Then he reached into his pocket, dangling a set of keys in front of Neil and Kraabe, the scant rays of midday sun glinting off of their metal.
“Frau Heinz, in her final breaths, said some nice things about you, Herr Reuter.”
“She was a fine woman.”
Thomas
considered both men, again focusing on Neil. “So, after all of this, after all that’s gone on…why did your friend choose you? You were so far away.”
“All I know is he did,” Neil answered. “I can’t make sense of it otherwise.”
“It’s his aliyah,” Doctor Kraabe added.
Thomas frowned. “His what?”
“His aliyah.”
Neil turned to the doctor.
“Aliyah means ‘ascension’ in Hebrew. The oldest meaning signified ascension through death,” Doctor Kraabe said, again staring up through the whispering pines. “And, more recently, to the Jewish people, it means the pilgrimage back to their holy land.”
“And me?” Neil asked.
“For you, Neil, I think it means your redemption.”
After a bout of coughing, Thomas knelt behind Doctor Kraabe, unlocking his hands. He did the same for Neil, beckoning them both to stand. After formally introducing himself, and shaking their hands, he motioned his hand to the trail and the tunnel. “Now, shall we collect that brave young man and make the trek inside to see these precious children? And as we walk, perhaps the three of you could explain how you plan to extract these darlings from the resident Nazi sovereignty?”
Neil nodded, a hint of good cheer coming across his face. “We’ll tell you everything.”
“Good,” Thomas answered. “I’ve been toiling over this mystery for over a month. And it would have killed me if I had died before figuring it out.”
“About that,” Kraabe said. “Let’s talk about that cough of yours.”
“Later,” Thomas answered firmly.
When Peter rejoined them, the four men headed into the tunnel. After collecting Neil’s pistol and Kraabe’s supplies, they spent several hours with the women and children. Doctor Kraabe treated several minor injuries and ordered Prontosil, an antibiotic Jakey had left with the caretakers, be given to eleven children suffering with chronic cough.
Though the children and their caretakers had to remain in place for the time being, the four rescuers reassured them that they’d be leaving here very soon.
CHAPTER SIXTY
It was early evening and more storms had moved in. Water splashed as Thomas stamped his feet in a shallow puddle, standing just off of Innstrasse, staring at the portico of the elegant Tyroler Inn. He walked around to the back of the hotel, looking at all the exits and, in the process, finding the parking area. As he moved around the far side of the building, he noticed something familiar. Parked at the rear edge of the lot, sandwiched between two larger autos, was a Dampf-Kraft-Wagen, known as a DKW. The DKWs, in their numerous styles, were common cars. But this one drew Thomas’ keen eyes, aided by the rain that made the auto’s dingy black paint glisten as if it were new and still wet. On the door of the DKW, in an arc, was the shadow of the word Polizist, German for constable.
Final Mission: Zion - A World War 2 Thriller Page 55