The Runner

by Christopher Reich

  “Know where he went?”

  “Baden Baden, if I’m not mistaken. He usually goes this time of year to take the cure.”

  Despite himself, Judge laughed. He hadn’t expected a man who’d spent three years trapped in an iron sarcophagus to have a sense of humor. A clerk shuffled into the room with a school chair in each hand. When he’d left, Judge shut the door and gestured for the prisoner to take a seat. “Cigarette?”

  “Ja. Danke.”

  Judge tossed him a pack of Lucky Strikes, then handed him his Zippo lighter. He wasn’t sure how exactly to handle Fischer. What point was there in threatening a man who’d survived the war only to face the gallows? The man would cooperate only if he felt it would benefit him. “Where’s your family?”

  Fischer remained silent for a long while, smoking his cigarette and staring at his inquisitor. Judge imagined he was asking himself how far to go, examining his conscience for signs that he’d suffered enough as it was. Finally, he said, “Frankfurt.”

  “Does your wife know you’re here?”

  “I’ve written her.” Fischer shrugged as if to say he didn’t have much faith that the letters were being delivered.

  “Give me her address. I’ll make sure they have enough ration stamps, someplace warm to sleep.”

  “What? No Hershey bars and stockings?”

  Judge played the jolly good fellow. “How could I forget? I’ll throw them in, too.”

  “You’re a generous man. A pack of cigarettes, a couple of decent meals and the word of an American officer that he will look after my family.” Fischer pursed his lips as if appraising the offer, while a bemused expression tightened his features. He stood and tossed the lighter to Judge. “Seyss is gone. Leave him.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  Fischer pointed an accusing finger at his interrogator. “Do you know what the Ivans do to members of the SS when they catch them? They take a bayonet and insert it . . .’’ He left off. “Forget it. I don’t talk about the man who saved my life.”

  And you, Judge wanted to say. What did you do to the Russians when you caught them? Shoot them, starve them, send them to a factory to work until they dropped dead of exhaustion. Three million Russian soldiers had perished under German captivity. But if Judge was seething, he did not let his anger show.

  “You didn’t fight the war to end up in prison for the rest of your life. Help me find Seyss and I’ll see the courts go easy on you.”

  Fischer scoffed and retreated to a dark corner of the room.

  “Tell me how you helped him get out of the camp.”

  “Helped him?” Fischer laughed to himself. “No one helps the major.”

  “The time for heroes is over,” Judge said crossly. “It’s time to think about yourself. Your family. Tell me where Erich Seyss is.”

  Fischer ambled back to his chair and sat down. After a last drag, he threw his cigarette on the floor, then ran a filthy hand over his mouth. “I am a German soldier,” he said, answering a question only he had heard.

  Judge met his hard gaze. “The war is over.”

  Fischer shook his head, then dropped his eyes to the floor. “Too bad, eh?”

  JUDGE STOOD OUTSIDE THE LARDER, his back to the wall, willing himself to maintain his composure. An hour of questioning and cajoling hadn’t gotten him anywhere. What upset him was not Fischer’s flippant cynicism but his own misreading of the prisoner. His years in law enforcement had taught him that there was no honor among thieves. His mistake had been to assume that a defeated soldier would act in the same manner as a captured criminal. He had not reckoned on the inculcated loyalty of the German military. Unless he could convince the second POW that Seyss had wronged him, he’d have no chance in securing the man’s cooperation.

  Honey stood next to him, arms crossed, eyes too insistent by half. “There’s another way to make Fritz talk.”

  Judge shook his head and walked toward the second larder. “I know.”

  CORPORAL PETER DIETSCH SAT CROUCHED in the corner of the barren room, clasped hands protecting his mouth as if at any moment it might betray him of its own volition. Like Fischer, Dietsch had served under Seyss’s command in the Ardennes and later in Russia and Austria. Like Fischer, he had been a member of a tank squad, his occupational specialty that of gunner. But Dietsch had not volunteered for the Waffen-SS. He’d been transferred into the First SS Panzer Division from a Wehrmacht replacement battalion in November 1944. A conscript. Judge could only pray that Dietsch’s loyalties didn’t run as deep as Fischer’s.

  “Good morning,” he began, speaking German, of course, but casually this time. No more baying like a Prussian bloodhound. “Enjoy your breakfast?”

  Dietsch eyed him warily before standing up and saying thank you very much, he had indeed. He was a tall, gangly boy, nineteen according to his soldbuch. His blond hair was shorn to the scalp, his nose too big for his face, and his chin too small. He was the runt who took his beatings and didn’t complain.

  Judge explained why he was there. He wanted to know if Dietsch could shed some light on Seyss’s escape or if he knew where Seyss had gone. Dietsch vehemently denied any knowledge of the escape or of his whereabouts, then launched himself into an impassioned defense of the heroic soldier. It was the same crap that Fischer had spewed, but Judge let him have his say. He wanted to give Dietsch plenty of chances to convince himself of his loyalty.

  “I have a hard time listening to you speak so highly of the man who got you into this trouble,” said Judge when the boy finally stopped speaking. “If it weren’t for Seyss ordering you to open fire on one hundred unarmed American soldiers, you wouldn’t be sitting here looking at a hangman’s rope.”

  “When attacking there is no time to take prisoners,” answered Dietsch. “The Führer himself issued the orders.”

  “So Hitler was with you in Malmedy? Because if he wasn’t, I’m afraid it’s your commanding officer who is responsible for giving you that order.”

  “Of course Hitler wasn’t there,” retorted Dietsch.

  “That’s right. It was Seyss who ordered you to pull the trigger. It was Seyss who turned you from an honorable soldier into a cold-blooded murderer.”

  Dietsch lowered his eyes. “Yes. Fine. It was Seyss. So what? What do you want anyway?”

  Judge leaned forward and put a comforting hand on the boy’s knee. “For you to talk to me. Help me learn how Seyss got out of here. Tell me where he went.”

  Dietsch glanced up. His blues eyes had gone glassy, shedding the defiance they’d harbored only a moment before. Judge could see that not only did he know something but that he was going to talk. The tension in the room vanished, as noticeable as an abrupt drop in atmospheric pressure. Instead of pressing, though, he sat back and let the boy come to him. He wouldn’t repeat his mistake with Fischer. He took out another pack of cigarettes and put it on the floor between them. After a moment, Dietsch bent over and picked it up. “You mind?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Dietsch fumbled with the pack, taking an eternity to get the cigarette into his mouth. He smoked like the schoolboy he should have been, puffing earnestly, staring at the skeins of smoke rising in front of his big nose as if he were contemplating Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. And just when Judge’s patience was deserting him, he spoke. “I want out,” he said. “My wife is eight months pregnant. I must see her. At least a visit.”

  Judge almost felt sorry for him. The kid would talk himself into a phone call if he let him go on. “Forty-eight hours,” he said. “A two-day pass to visit your wife and you’ll be accompanied by a guard at all times . . . if you have information that can help me.”

  Dietsch laughed. “I didn’t know he’d made it until yesterday evening. I asked myself why else would they throw me in the cooler?”

  “Tell me everything.”

  “Forty-eight hours?”

  Judge nodded.

  Dietsch shot him a glance that asked if he could trust him
, then sighed and began speaking. “We thought he was crazy at first. I mean the major was so proud about how he was going to face the Americans and admit to his actions. He used to quote von Luck: ‘Victory forgives all, defeat nothing.’ The next day, he said he was getting out, that the Fatherland needed him. ‘Kameraden,’ he said. ‘One last race for Germany’ and all that.”

  “He said that? ‘One last race’?”

  “Yes.” Dietsch brightened. “He was very famous when I was a child, you know? Hitler himself nicknamed him the White Lion before his race against the Negro Americans in Berlin.”

  “He lost,” Judge cut in. He wasn’t interested in the glorification of his brother’s murderer. “You were saying?”

  “The major told us he needed the baize from a billiards table,” said Dietsch. “Fischer and I work some days at the Post Hotel. He knew they had a game room. It was easy to remove, actually. Some of the men made a ruckus in the kitchen while we stripped the table.”

  Judge drew small satisfaction from the validation of his suspicions. “And you sewed it to the inside of his uniform so that when he turned it inside out he looked like a GI?”

  “We had to work on the fabric a little. Darken it with oil, draw on the unit insignia.”

  “And the helmet? Where did you get the paint for that?”

  Dietsch laughed, encouraged by Judge’s knowing the tale. “The helmet was easier. We cut the camp ball in half and covered it with paint from the toolshed. Von Luck said ‘Imitation is the bravest form of deception.’”

  That was the second time he’d heard the name mentioned. “Who’s von Luck?”

  “General von Luck, of course. The major’s trainer for the Olympic Games. A founder of the Brandenburg Regiment. Seyss spoke of him like a father.”

  Judge made a mental note to check if this von Luck character had made it through the war. “And Vlassov? How did Seyss know about him and Janks?”

  Dietsch shrugged unconvincingly. “No idea.”

  Judge lurched forward and grabbed Dietsch by his jacket. “Now is not the time to start lying to me.”

  “I imagine Dr. Hansen told him. How else?”

  How the hell did Hansen know? Judge wondered. According to Miller he left the camp at seven each night and didn’t work at all on Sundays. Something still wasn’t right. “And the knife?”

  “Hansen. He could bring anything into the camp that would fit inside his medical bag. He brought the major extra rations to help build him up. Wurst, bread, even some fruit. The major often shared it with us.”

  Judge released the thin boy, giving him an easy shove toward the corner. “Where did Seyss go?”

  Dietsch bent to pick up his cigarette. “He never told us. Just that he had to meet kameraden. Other SS men, people loyal to the Fatherland. I don’t know who.”

  “Where was he meeting them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Munich?”

  “I don’t know.” Dietsch insisted.

  Discerning a deceitful glint in Dietsch’s eyes, Judge rose from his chair and advanced on the soldier. “Dammit, tell me!”

  Dietsch cowered, fighting back tears. “I don’t know!”

  Judge spun and kicked his chair to the ground. It was time for the strong-arm stuff. Time to call in Spanner Mullins. He imagined Mullins’s voice, the Irish brogue whispering in his ear, “Either you get him to talk or I will.” He thought of Seyss walking the streets of Munich a free man. He could still feel the bastard’s hand on his back, giving him a shove that was meant to end his life. Judge circled the room, tensing the muscles in his arms and shoulders as he walked, clenching his fists. In the end, it always came to this. Knock out a man’s front teeth and he’ll confess like a drunk on the steps of St. Patrick’s. As Mullins said, “Sorry, lad, there’s just no other way to make sure he’s telling the truth.”

  Looking over his shoulder, he caught sight of Honey peeking through the door. The young Texan was nodding his head, telling him it was okay to unleash a couple of good ones on this feckless kid.

  Suddenly, Judge rushed at the prisoner, latching his hands on his shoulders and shaking him forcefully. The urge to hit Dietsch blossomed inside him like a physical desire. He didn’t know if it was the frustrations of the day or just a return to his inglorious self, but God help him, he wanted to punch this kid in the face with everything he had. This schoolboy punk who’d leveled his machine guns at men his own age, American men, and pulled the trigger.

  “Dammit, Dietsch!” he yelled. “Tell me the truth.”

  Dietsch flinched, raising both hands to protect his face. “He wasn’t stupid, you know. He knew you’d come looking for him. He wouldn’t tell us anything that might jeopardize his mission. I’ve told you what I know. I want to see my wife. You promised.” And then he broke. Tears poured from his eyes and he sobbed, all the while sure to keep his arms about his head. “My wife. You promised.”

  Judge broke off, his anger ebbing as he backed away. Dietsch was scared witless and fright often made a person honest. Moreover, his words had the ring of truth. A man like Seyss would never reveal his destination to his accomplices. But Judge would never truly know if he’d gotten everything out of Dietsch until he braced him. And that he wouldn’t do.

  Colonel Miller followed him outside the supply shack. “You didn’t mean what you said about a forty-eight-hour pass?”

  Judge stopped in his tracks and faced the paunchy camp commander. “No, Colonel, I didn’t. Keep Dietsch locked up for a month. He can leave as soon as he tells you where Seyss went. If he does, get on the horn to Sergeant Honey or myself at Bad Toelz. Are we clear on that?”

  Miller saluted. “Absolutely, Major.”

  Honey drew Judge to one side. “Begging your pardon, sir, but we don’t have a month. Today’s Wednesday. We got till Sunday midnight. That’s four days.”

  Judge bristled at the reminder. His fist clenched reflexively and he wanted to hit something, somebody, and he was thinking Honey’s earnest mug would do just fine. Instead, he slapped his thigh and stalked off to the jeep.

  Four days.

  It wasn’t enough time.

  CHAPTER

  15

  ERICH SEYSS WAS GROWING ANNOYED with the portly American sergeant.

  “As you can see, I am from Heidelberg. I am only asking for what every discharged soldier has been promised: a one-way ticket home. If you please, just have a look . . .’’

  The sergeant waved away the document giving Seyss’s identity as one Erwin Hasselbach. “This is the last time I tell you, Fritz. Your denazification papers aren’t enough anymore. Too many of you boys are giving fake papers and using the trains like they were your own taxicabs. New system as of today. You need an actual ticket, and to get one of those you’ll have to go back to the Center for Discharged Soldiers. Show them your papers and they’ll issue you one pronto. You can be on this train tomorrow. Verstehen Sie?”

  Seyss had too much experience traveling in areas newly liberated by German forces to be entirely surprised. The situation was dynamic, tacticians would say, though chaotic was, the more appropriate term. Either way, he had been taught to deal with this kind of thing. In battle and its aftermath, change—rapid change—was the only constant. He certainly couldn’t blame Egon Bach for the development. He’d just have to find another way to board the train.

  Seyss smiled obligingly as his mind worked the situation. The last thing he would do was present himself at a discharge center, especially now that Major Judge and his colleagues knew he was in Munich. Besides, not all soldiers received a train ticket home. Many were herded into outdoor holding pens to await transport by truck convoy. The wait often ran to days. Worse, if there was a problem with a false persilschein, as the American sergeant had mentioned, there were sure to be a host of intelligence officers checking those corralled at the discharge centers for false papers.

  “Come on, Sarge,” said Seyss, his smile stretched to the breaking point. “Let’s be civil.
Send me back to the center and I’ll never make it to my sister’s wedding tomorrow.”

  An anonymous hand shoved in the back.

  “Beeilen Sie sich,” growled a man in a torn mackintosh, teeth black as coal. “Hurry up. We all have our tickets. Do as the sergeant says. Get out of the way.”

  Seyss glanced over his shoulder. A restless line of men, women, and children snaked across the tracks and disappeared into the shadows of a warehouse. They were a slovenly lot: gaunt, ill shaven, all of them looking as if they were dressed in someone else’s clothing. Like him, they’d been waiting hours in the morning sun for the right to board the daily train to Heidelberg. With the Munich hauptbahnhof little more than a mangled husk, the Americans had shifted civilian traffic to the freight railway station. The place was not well suited to the task. There were no elevated platforms from which to board the trains, no public water closets, and certainly no bahnhof buffets where one could enjoy a beer while ambling away the minutes. Hundreds of people swarmed over the tracks, their anxious steps raising a curtain of dust and grit. Like stones in a rushing stream, American soldiers stood among them, directing the forlorn travelers this way and that. What a mess!

  The sergeant cleared his throat and when Seyss returned his gaze, he saw that two soldiers had come up on either side of him. The sergeant tilted his head and shrugged. One hand fluttered, a closing of the fingers that would normally signal “Come here.”

  Seyss looked from the beckoning hand to the weathered face and suddenly, he realized he’d been stupid hoping to persuade the bluff American. He’d scarcely have had better luck boarding the train with a valid ticket. With a single practiced motion, he unclasped Dr. Hansen’s watch and placed it in the sergeant’s palm. “It’s Swiss. Universeal de Génève. Good for a round trip, I should think.”

  But the sergeant found no humor in the comment. Grunting, he thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “Private Rosen. Show Herr Fritz to his compartment.”

  Directly ahead, two trains sat side by side. The train on the left was reserved for Allied soldiers. Officers, first class. Enlisted, second class. Few men appeared to be boarding, and as he passed, Seyss saw that the compartments were deserted. Rosen nudged his shoulder, indicating he should advance toward the other train. The train for Germans.