Spoils of Victory

by John A. Connell

  “A little town,” Mason said. “Wonneberg.”

  “And during the war?”

  “Is that important?”

  “I like to know the man sitting across from me.”

  “Artillery regiment with the 58th Infantry Division . . . until I got into a little trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “We were on the eastern front, and while the commanding staff lived in luxury, we were starving. So, I managed to lighten the staff’s burden for about a month before I was caught.”

  “They shot men for less.”

  “I guess I got lucky.”

  Plöbsch eyed Mason skeptically. The barman came over with two more beers. Mason reached for his money, but Plöbsch said, “It’s on me. I always buy a drink for the loser.”

  They continued to play. Plöbsch was very good, but Mason had lost the first game to assess the man’s weaknesses. Plöbsch used the same types of aggressive moves and shrewd tactics as in the first, but Mason had already figured him out.

  “What did you do after the war?” Plöbsch asked.

  “I was with Rudolph Voss. Out of Munich. Did you know him?”

  “Yes . . .” Plöbsch said as he eyed Mason. “It is unfortunate that you ran with an organization that no longer exists. How is one to verify that you are who you claim to be?”

  “Yes, Herr Voss is dead, and the organization busted up, but I assure you I am telling the truth. I worked with Captain Wertz cutting penicillin and baby formula, selling snow and H, until he got busted and ratted on us.”

  In fact, Mason had known Voss and Wertz during his time as a CID investigator in Munich, and he was the one who had busted Wertz through an informant. Mason had built an entire file around his fictitious character, including having a German detective friend in Munich “leak” Wenger’s arrest record and police file to the Garmisch authorities. Giving the records to the corrupt elements in the Garmisch police ensured that Plöbsch knew all about Wenger by the time Mason made contact.

  “Why did you come down to Garmisch?” Plöbsch asked.

  “I heard of a few networks operating out of here. And your group is said to be the most powerful. But you know all this. I’m sure you already checked me out before I came.”

  Plöbsch simply smiled and moved his queen’s knight.

  Mason debated whether he should take Plöbsch at his word and play using his best effort. Would winning seal the deal, leading Plöbsch to take the introduction to the next level? On the other hand, humiliating a man like Plöbsch could very well get his throat cut. There was only one way to find out. . . . He held back his best moves, sacrificing key pieces, until finally luring his opponent into making a fatal move. “Checkmate.”

  “You play very well,” Plöbsch said with a forced smile, though he looked like he might prefer slashing Mason’s throat.

  “As do you, Herr Plöbsch.”

  “You know my name, then.”

  “I would not do very well in this line of work if I did not find out who I would be dealing with.”

  “I can respect a man who, knowing my reputation, has the courage to beat me at chess.”

  Mason bowed his head.

  “Yes, we checked you out,” Plöbsch said. “One cannot be too careful these days. Sergeant Olsen says you are interested in joining in our enterprise.”

  “I am, indeed.”

  Plöbsch stared at him for a long minute, his nostrils flaring as if sniffing the air for deception. Finally he said, “It’s not up to me.”

  “Though I imagine your approval goes a long way.”

  Plöbsch grunted. He then nodded to someone behind Mason. Whether this was a sign to fetch his boss, or to be stabbed in the back, Mason wasn’t sure. He maintained a neutral expression, while readying himself for an attack. But instead of the rush of an assailant, a door opened behind his left shoulder. He kept his eyes on Plöbsch as footsteps approached—three or four men, judging by the sound of it.

  Two men came around to face Mason. They were the number one and two men in the organization, Hermann Giessen and Erich Bachmann. Giessen appeared to be in his fifties, with a rough-hewn face and slicked-back hair that revealed a long scar running from his forehead and into his receding hairline. Bachmann was a small man, more high-school science teacher than mobster, with soft green eyes, a humble chin, and long earlobes.

  Plöbsch rose from his chair, and Giessen took his place. Mason felt the looming presence of two or three men behind him.

  Giessen studied Mason with intense blue eyes. “How am I to know that you are who you claim to be?” Giessen asked.

  “I could tell you anything, but it would still not prove I am telling the truth. I offer a deal. Let’s say, a way to buy my way in. Show you that I mean business. Good business for you.”

  “Go on.”

  Mason reached into his coat breast pocket, with two fingers so as not to alarm them, and removed a cherry-sized, grayish white nugget. “Platinum,” he said and laid it on the table.

  Giessen picked it up and examined it closely.

  Mason continued, “I assume you have someone here who can verify that it is ninety-nine percent pure. I have four cases full of these.”

  “And where did you acquire such a treasure?” Giessen asked.

  A peculiar odor reached Mason’s nose. It floated just under those of spilled beer, body odor, and cigarettes: the distinct odor of burning tobacco he hadn’t experienced since . . . He struggled to repress the memories that scent elicited. After much effort, he said, “A stash left behind by the retreating SS . . .”

  The scent seemed to crawl into his nose and into his brain, triggering an intense instinctive reaction. His gut tensed as if expecting a blow from a truncheon. Mason remembered it all clearly now: He was suddenly back in the winter of 1944 at a temporary Gestapo headquarters in Monschau. He had been captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and because he was a captain in intelligence, spoke fluent German, and had been caught behind enemy lines, they had accused him of being a spy. For two interminable weeks an interrogator had been his chief tormentor, alternately beating him and submitting various parts of his body to electrical shock. The interrogator had chain-smoked a particular brand of Turkish cigarette. And it was that sweet, pungent odor of Turkish tobacco, which Mason smelled now, that had always announced the interrogator before he entered Mason’s cell and the torture would begin. Mason had never smelled that odor since.

  “Is there something the matter, Herr Wenger?” Giessen asked.

  Mason tried to control himself, but his mind raced. It can’t be. The man can’t be here. It isn’t possible.

  SS Sturmbannführer Volker. Mason could remember his precise features, the way he moved. They were burned into his memory. Some primitive part of his brain told him that the SS man had passed near his table and lingered. He fought against the flood of raw panic and rage.

  Then he lost control.

  TWO

  Mason propelled himself up from the table, but strong hands grabbed his shoulders and shoved him back into the chair. He then heard the click of a revolver’s hammer drawn back a second before he felt the cold steel of the barrel against his temple.

  “Hands on the table,” a man’s voice said just behind him in Italian-accented English.

  Mason put his hands on the table and took the opportunity to glance at his watch. Fifty minutes had passed. Ten minutes before Abrams would bring in help. Ten minutes too late. He’d be gone by then.

  As beefy hands searched him and removed the pistol from his overcoat, Giessen said, “You’ve been made, whatever your real name is.”

  “Mr. Collins,” the Italian man said. “A detective of the American CID.”

  Giessen blanched when he heard that.

  “You kill an American military investigator,” Mason said, “and this town w
ill be turned upside down.”

  “Herr Giessen wouldn’t dare kill an American cop,” the Italian said, “but I have no such problems. Garmisch is not my place of business. I will have vanished before anyone suspects you are gone. They will never find your body. There will be some inconveniences for the local organizations—no offense, Herr Giessen—but little of my concern.”

  Mason could tell that the man who was speaking also held the gun. By the angle and timbre of his voice, he estimated the man was around five feet, eight inches tall and stood very close to the back of his chair. The dim light from the bar had been eclipsed by at least two other much bigger men. The man’s bodyguards, Mason guessed. The distinct aroma of Turkish tobacco had faded, taken over again by the reek of cigars and rancid beer. It was possible that someone else in the bar smoked the same unusual brand of tobacco, but he felt in his gut that Volker had lingered behind him for a few moments before moving away.

  The man pressed the gun into Mason’s temple. “You will move toward the bar, please.”

  The front door exploded open. Whistles blew. German police yelled out, “Polizei! Hände hoch!”

  The momentary distraction gave Mason an opportunity. In a lightning move, he shot to his feet, whirled around, and grabbed the man’s gun arm, forcing it upward. He slammed his other hand into the man’s elbow and heard the crack of bone. The man screamed. Mason still had control of the man’s hand. He forced the Italian to aim at one of his charging bodyguards and yanked on the man’s trigger finger. The gun fired, hitting the bodyguard in the thigh. The bodyguard collapsed to the floor.

  The Italian man struck at Mason, but with little force. Mason elbowed the Italian in the jaw, then swept his fist back, striking the man in the neck directly over the jugular. The Italian dropped to his knees. At the same moment, the second bodyguard struck Mason across the temple with his pistol. Mason’s vision went white. His legs turned to rubber, but he managed to grab and hold on to the bodyguard’s pistol arm.

  The bodyguard kneed Mason in the groin. Mason collapsed. His abdomen felt like a mass of molten rock. He braced for the impact of a bullet, but it never came. Dozens of uniformed legs entered his field of view. Shouts and grunts prompted Mason to look up, and, to his relief, he saw five German police had finally subdued the giant bodyguard.

  Two police yanked Mason to his feet. The pain flared in his groin along with a wave of vertigo. He didn’t resist. They had saved his life, and he was glad to see them. Though not too long ago, the sight of thirty-plus armed Germans in uniform would have elicited a very different reaction.

  Mason held up his hands. “American. CID.” The two cops stopped and allowed Mason to carefully remove his hat. He pulled out his CID badge hidden in the lining and showed it to them. “I’m an American. CID. See?”

  The two policemen released him and joined the rest hustling the bar patrons outside. Mason bent over and tried deep breathing to assuage the pain in his abdomen. He used a table to brace himself and scanned the arrested bar patrons for Volker, but the man wasn’t among them.

  Abrams rushed over to him with two MPs. “Are you okay?” Abrams asked.

  Mason nodded as he caught his breath. “One of those gorillas kicked me in the balls.”

  “At least that made you forget about the hole in your head.”

  Mason touched his temple and brought away blood. He grabbed a towel off the bar and put it to the wound. “You came in early,” he said to Abrams.

  “I knew there was going to be trouble when a goon came out onto the street and locked the front door. I went for the German police since they were closer.”

  “There are at least five U.S. soldiers . . .”

  “Yeah, there are a handful of MPs out front collecting them. They came running when they saw the squad of German police charging down the street. We’ll sort out the non-Germans from the Germans.”

  Mason and Abrams headed for the door. “There are three Italian mobsters in the group. Make sure our guys get them, too. Especially the one with the broken arm. That asshole had a gun to my head.”

  “I did good, then?”

  Mason nodded. “Yeah, you did good.”

  They exited the bar. Crowds of people looked on as the German police and five American MPs sorted out the arrestees. Mason scanned the German bar patrons, but didn’t see Volker. Then he noticed with alarm that Giessen, Bachmann, and Plöbsch were not there, either. And Olsen was not among the arrested Americans. “Damn it.” Mason grabbed the leading MP sergeant, turned back to the bar, and said to Abrams, “Some of them escaped out the back.”

  They ran through the bar and out the rear exit. A cluster of surrounding buildings formed an inner courtyard of mud and snow, where garbage and rusted junk had been piled haphazardly. Laundry hung from a web of lines suspended from the buildings and swayed in the biting wind. Mason silently pointed out the footprints in the snow. Groups of prints went down the three narrow passages that accessed the surrounding streets. He signaled for the MP and Abrams to take the left and right alleyways, while Mason took the one running straight from the back door. He drew his gun and moved forward with long strides. Halfway down the alley, he came across a jumble of footprints. It appeared that a large group had stopped at the double doors of a dilapidated, corrugated-tin garage on his right. The prints showed that the larger group went inside but then a smaller group remerged and headed for the street behind the bar. The flimsy doors banged with gusts of wind that felt suddenly very cold.

  Mason raised his gun and, as silently as he could, pulled open one of the doors. He swung inside, gun up, and tried to peer into the darkness. Weak sunlight poured into the holes and gaps in the tin walls. The smell of urine and putrid mud assaulted his nostrils. It seemed empty except for some rags and broken crates piled in the corner of the dirt floor. But when his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw two bodies lying facedown among the rags. They had both been shot in the back of the head and dragged into the corner. Mason squatted and turned them enough to see their faces. They were two of Giessen’s bodyguards who’d been standing by the rear entrance.

  When he stood and turned, he saw three other bodies on the opposite side of the shed. They lay in a row, arms and legs akimbo. Mason approached them and used his cigarette lighter to view their faces. He cursed under his breath. He whistled for Abrams and the MP, then squatted and checked each of them for a pulse. When he heard footsteps coming up the alley, he called out, “In here.”

  Abrams and the MP sergeant entered the garage and came up to Mason. “All three of the gang leaders,” Mason said. “Giessen, Bachmann, and Plöbsch. A single bullet in each of their foreheads. Then two in the chest. Shot at close range. Killed, execution style.” He picked up a spent shell casing. “Nine-millimeter,” he said and put the casing in his breast pocket. “Giessen had three bodyguards covering the back entrance. Two of them are over there, in the corner.”

  “That leaves one and Olsen,” Abrams said. “Do you think they did this?”

  Mason shook his head. “I can’t see two guys getting the jump on five armed professionals. There had to be more. More than likely we’re going to find Olsen’s body in the woods somewhere. And there’s one other guy . . .” Mason paused, then said more to himself, “I swear he was there, either with Giessen or the Italians.”

  “Who?” Abrams asked.

  Ignoring the question, Mason stood and turned to the sergeant. “Have our guys go over this crime scene, and start canvassing the area. Make sure that gets done first, then notify the German police that they’ve got five dead bodies back here.”

  When the MP left, Abrams said, “Who was this other guy you’re talking about?”

  Mason just shook his head and charged for the doors. With Abrams in tow, Mason blew through the bar and out onto the street. To his left the five MPs guarded the few U.S. soldiers, a handful of Poles and Russians, and the Italians. The two bat
tered Italian bodyguards tried their best to support their boss. The boss grimaced with pain, but managed to lock murderous eyes with Mason.

  Mason said to the MPs, “Are you getting some help?”

  “Yes, sir,” a corporal MP said. “A truck and an ambulance should be here any minute.”

  Mason pointed to the Italian boss. “Make sure that one doesn’t get too comfortable, and isolate him from the rest.”

  Mason then marched over to the German arrestees. The German police had them lined up by the wall and were in the process of searching them. He headed for the first one in line, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shoved him against the wall. “Who set up Giessen and the rest? Who killed them? Where did they take Sergeant Olsen?”

  The German stared at Mason and muttered ignorance.

  “Major Ernst Volker. Is he one of them?”

  “I don’t know an Ernst Volker.”

  Mason went down the line, asking the same questions. “Ernst Volker? Is he the leader? Did he take the American sergeant?”

  A German police sergeant followed Mason down the line, protesting Mason’s disregard for protocol, the protocol being that German police had authority over German citizens. Mason ignored the sergeant and continued the questioning. He received only defiant stares and claims of innocence.

  Abrams said in a calm voice, “Sir, why don’t we search the bar? The Germans have jurisdiction over these men.”

  Mason whirled around. “Not if Olsen is murdered.” He then turned to face the entire group and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Anyone willing to step forward and identify the men responsible for killing Herr Giessen, Bachmann, or Plöbsch, or for taking Sergeant Olsen, will be released. Anyone who can confirm Ernst Volker was present and tell us where we can find him will be released.”

  No one stepped forward. Mason took a few deep breaths to calm himself and watched as the German police began loading their charges into an open-bed truck. Suddenly one of the German arrestees started yelling. Part of it was in German, but the rest was in a dialect that Mason didn’t recognize. The thin-faced man yelled out to Mason from the bed of the truck while the police jostled him. The German policemen stopped and looked to Mason for guidance.