The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  He held her from him and dried her eyes. He took her out into the hall and closed the door behind them. “You know it’s a trap.”

  Irmgard shook her head. “No … no, it isn’t!”

  In fragments, she came apart, couldn’t stop herself, saw the water in the tub, felt their hands on her body. Panicked! Cried out and felt him cover her mouth, fought for air … rolled up her eyes.

  Hagen slapped her gently. “Irmgard … Irmgard, it’s me.”

  She shut her eyes and tried to get her breath. “Richard, please! I … I can’t take it any longer. Get us out!”

  “Where will you be? The mountains, Irmgard? Where?”

  She pressed her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arms about her. “It’s a trap. A trap! Don’t … don’t even try.”

  “What’s Heydrich really after? Irmgard, he could have me arrested now.”

  She shook her head, was so afraid. “The Wehrmacht—Dieter says they’re guarding Dee Dee. Heydrich … Heydrich must want to use you to show them up and reinforce his demands for more of the SS to be in fighting units. You’re an American, too. Perhaps it’s better if an American spy does something like that. Then he really can arrest you and embarrass Mr. Roosevelt and his government into remaining neutral.”

  God only knew what Heydrich really wanted. So many things, the diamonds, Arlette, himself … Dee Dee and Irmgard.

  Hagen gently lifted her chin and kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Now tell me where you’ll be.”

  Dawn on August 25 was gray and cold. Across the skies of Berlin squadrons of Stukas and Heinkel 111 bombers headed east to chase the last wings of peace.

  Richard wouldn’t know the date of the invasion. There would be no news of it on the mountain.

  Like others in the city, Irmgard made her way through the streets to slip silently into the cathedral.

  Only a scattering of the faithful remained—the Nazis had purged that sort of thing just as they had everything else. But those who came, came every day.

  When Dieter found her, the razor was in her hand. Gently he shook it from her and it clattered at her feet. “The invasion has been canceled. Mussolini has sent a directive to the Führer saying the Italians cannot possibly go along with things. They aren’t ready for war on such a scale.

  “Irmgard, listen to me. For my sake, and that of our family, I hope you do not think of trying to kill yourself again.”

  She would concentrate on the altar. “There’ll be a trial, won’t there? The sister who once loved you and her country, the man she still must love in her own way.”

  “Forget about Dee Dee and the child. Forget about everything else. Offer to come forward to testify.”

  “You speak as if Richard was already a prisoner.”

  “Irmgard, forget about him! He doesn’t love you.”

  “Was she pretty, this Belgian girl?”

  “Very.”

  The noise of the water filled the narrow gorge. Mist rose from the plunge pool. At a place just above the falls, where two ledges jutted out, a covered bridge with shingled roof and open timbers spanned the frontier.

  Hagen lowered the glasses, was lost in thought. Lev quietly chewed on a stem of meadow grass. “There are four of them, Ascher.”

  Guards. There were always guards. Since when would anyone want to get into the Reich? And at a place like this? Shepherds! Smugglers! “Why not climb higher? Perhaps there are boulders across the bed.”

  All around them the mountains soared. They had left the bottomlands, the valley of the Rhine long ago. Schloss Vaduz had clung to its forested slopes. Beyond the castle there had been the rising peaks of the Austrian Alps. The road had seemed to lead nowhere, had dwindled into a stony track. Then they had heard the waterfall against the tinkling of sheep bells and had climbed through the forest to an eagle’s nest above the bridge.

  One of the guards dried off the barrel of his rifle. Another was sitting on a stump, methodically slicing bread with a bayonet. They looked like decent types. “Ascher, I’ll have to wait until nightfall. Then I’ll go across underneath the bridge.”

  Lev bit off the end of the piece of grass and spit it to one side. “That’s a hundred-meter drop over the falls. Are you crazy or something?”

  Hagen gave his arm a friendly jab. “This is where we part, old friend. Wait three days and if I don’t show up, go back to Switzerland and home as fast as you can.”

  Never mind the diamonds, never mind the British, who had refused to help him.

  The French and Swiss frontiers had not been so bad for Richard, who had carried the guns across, but here … “I will wait five days, maybe six in case there are complications.”

  “If you do, you’ll be dead by then.”

  Always they had had this argument. It had seemed far too hasty a plan—Richard supposedly into a private clinic because of a severe attack of malaria. Out of sight, of course, but … One used diamond cutter and a salesman whose worth in the eyes of the Reich must be fast dwindling.

  “Richard, I’m not doing this to pay you back for saving Rachel. I’ll stay in a different pension every night and make a big thing of having a quiet holiday in Liechtenstein. But when you reach that bridge I’ll be here with the car to help you get back across it. You can watch for me from that spur. I’ll shoot as many of them as I can and draw their fire.”

  There was no use arguing with him anymore. “All right. Shalom.”

  Lev reached out to grip him by the hand. Would they ever see each other again? “Shalom aleichem.”

  The moon broke through the drifting clouds to wash its light across the valley floor. The dog barked, and somewhere up on the mountain an answer was given.

  They would go at it now, those two, until one or the other was clubbed into silence.

  Out of the darkness, the farmhouse and barns grew steadily until he could see them quite clearly. Down over the fields, in the hollows, the gray gossamer of frost hung low.

  Rubbing his hands together, Hagen started out on the trail. In the early morning the woman would expect one of the soldiers to come down for the milk and eggs. He would have to be near their hut well before dawn. The killing, if killing there must be, could not start until after the guard had come back. Otherwise the woman or her husband would sound the alarm. Then, too, there was bound to be radio communication with headquarters in Bludenz or Feldkirch—twice a day perhaps, morning and evening. Damn!

  Alpine troops were stationed at both places.

  There’d been no sign of the Daimler or of a staff car—just one of the Wehrmacht’s trucks with a canvas tarp over the back and half a tank of gasoline.

  It would be enough to give them the head start they needed. It would have to do, but what if the guards received three radio checks a day? What if there was a transmission schedule he couldn’t determine?

  The warning would be out, and then what? Lev would have to drive home alone.

  The sound of the stream came to him as the trail entered the forest. The smell of the pines was sweet and close and the air cold. Only now and then did the moon break free. The slope steepened, then steepened again and again until the trees provided handholds and resting places, and footbridges crossed and recrossed the stream.

  The water was never silent. The air seeped down from the mountainside, bringing the faint trace of wood smoke. Rain was in the offing and if not rain, then snow on the upper slopes to make their descent all the more obvious and hazardous.

  Two women and a child who could cry out from fear perhaps to give them all away.

  When he came to the hut, he came upon it suddenly. One minute his legs were aching from the climb, the next he had stopped on a ledge not a stone’s throw from the guard post. The back of the hut lay against a rocky cliff beyond which the crown of the roof rose slightly.

  The dog was chained to a tree, and for a moment neither of them moved or made a sound. Then Hagen drew the pistol and the dog heard him cock it.

  The night awoke, shatter
ed by the barking that echoed in the cirque above and rolled down the mountainside to irritate the guardian of the farm. Back and forth the two dogs barked. Splashing among the boulders, Hagen crossed the stream and scrambled up the slope to climb out onto the roof of the hut and lie along its crown.

  The dog’s barking increased. Tugging at its chain, it lunged this way and that. The moon came out to bathe the place in an eerie light. The guards came stumbling into the night to stand there hunting the darkness, then shouted at the dog in anger.

  There were three of them. Would there be one, two or three others inside the hut?

  A spill of lantern light gave echo to his thoughts. It broke from one of the windows below him. It flooded from the porch.

  “Heini, what the hell is it this time?”

  “One of the sheep perhaps, Herr Hauptmann.”

  “Take the lights and have a look about. Don’t let the dog run loose. Keep the bastard on his chain or he’ll bugger off on us again. That bitch must be in heat.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann.”

  As the sound of them faded, that of the radio transmitter beneath him grew. Regardless of the cause of the disturbance, the alert was being sent. Only if he waited now would he hear if the all clear would be given.

  Stretching a little more, he flattened himself against the roof. The moon came out, then disappeared as the rain began to fall.

  Two of them brought the milk at eleven o’clock and climbed to the ridge beyond the hut to stand in the rain high above the tarn.

  Scanning the slopes through binoculars, they took no chances. When they returned to the hut to collect the empty canister, Dee Dee brought them coffee in tin mugs, and they thanked her.

  There was no sign of Irmgard.

  Both men shared a cigarette on the porch, leaning their rifles against the wall. Every now and then they would look down the trail toward the guard post. Like soldiers everywhere, they took what few luxuries they could get, but did so on stolen time.

  When the coffee was done, one of them left the porch and came toward the woodshed. Hagen waited for him.

  The smell of saddle soap and wet leather, the sour odor of sweat, wet clothing and stale cigarette smoke were mingled with the resin of split pine logs. The man was no more than a boy of twenty with flaxen hair and sky-blue eyes.

  His arms were full of firewood when Hagen pressed the pistol to the back of his closely shaved head. “Don’t move. Don’t even think of crying out. How many are there of you?”

  The boy tensed. The sound of the shot would bring the others. Hagen said, “Why die for two women and a child?”

  Two women … It would be best not to tell him, to talk, though, and stall for time. “There are six of us. Four in the hut—the Hauptmann, the radio operator and two others. Munk and I are the only ones up here, but if I do not come back with the wood he will know something is wrong, and if we don’t report back to the Hauptmann, the others will soon be here. So, you are stuck. There is nothing you can do.”

  “Except shoot you.”

  Hagen let that sink in. He stood back a little. “How many times a day do you fellows have to check in with base?”

  “Only the Hauptmann knows that. Sometimes it is three times, sometimes five. The schedule varies. We patrol. We do as we’re told. Twice a day the Oberst Steiner brings a bunch in from the other way to sweep that valley clean.”

  His right hand edged toward a piece of firewood. Hagen wished he would try something because then it would be so much easier to kill him. “Walk in front of me. Don’t try anything.”

  The boy snorted. “Munk will only shoot me and then you. If you should manage to get away, he has orders to kill them.”

  “Then I’m sorry for you.”

  Prepared for the blow of the pistol butt, the boy turned swiftly aside only to feel the knife plunge into him.

  Stunned by it, he choked in confusion and staggered back as the firewood showered down around him.

  He was staring up in disbelief when Hagen hit him between the eyes.

  By his dialect, the kid had been from the north, from around Bremen or Oldenburg. “Hey, Munk, come here. Look what I’ve found.”

  Munk was older, taller, tougher, smarter. As Hagen watched him through a crack between the boards, the corporal picked up the rifles and slung one of them over a shoulder. With the other rifle, he rammed a shell into the breech and took the safety catch off.

  When he reached the woodshed, he used the muzzle of the rifle to give the door a nudge. Then he kicked the door open and stepped back a pace.

  The rain fell steadily. It ran from the slicker, streamed down the field-gray oilcloth to puddle on the ground beside his boots. The door swung back and he nudged it open again.

  “Stefan … Stefan, what the hell are you after? You know the Hauptmann won’t like it if we’re late.”

  As he stepped cautiously into the woodshed, Hagen gently teased the rifle from his hands. “Now the other one. Lean it against the wall or you’ll join your friend.”

  Munk smelled of the Limberger and sausage he kept in his pockets.

  The guard post was quiet. The dog lay curled in the sun, drying out and catching a bit of sleep. Warm air from the valley below lifted up the slopes, and all around Hagen now there was only the sound of the stream.

  Then he saw the Feldwebel—the one called Heini. Heavy-set, with an all but shaved head, he was sitting on a board, leaning back against the trunk of a tree not far from the dog.

  There was a Schmeisser across his lap. The dog would sound the alarm.

  One of the others came out of the hut—kitchen duty. Above the boots and drab olive-gray dungarees, he wore an undershirt that exposed the dark curly hairs on the backs of his shoulders and arms. Heini took no notice of him. The man went over to a line of washing to feel the socks and shirts.

  The distance to the sergeant was about 100 meters, that to the cook, a little more. Shoot the one, the other, and then put the rest into the hut.

  Hagen wished he could have the Schmeisser.

  When the reports of the shots came, they rang like cannon on the mountain. The sergeant toppled over. The cook threw up his arms and took the line of washing down. The dog barked but Hagen didn’t run, didn’t listen.

  Methodically he cut an arc across the hut, splintering the boards at waist level with first one of the Mausers and then the other.

  Inside the hut the Hauptmann lay badly wounded on the floor, trying desperately to reach the shattered radio, whose operator had been flung against the wall.

  The transmission key was up. Cursing their luck, Hagen pushed the Hauptmann’s arm away and shot him with the pistol. Then he silenced the dog.

  He was racing now—leaving the hut with a Schmeisser, three stick grenades and a satchel of ammunition—when Dee Dee came running into the clearing to stop and stand there in shock.

  Erika was in her arms. For perhaps five seconds they looked at each other. No sign of Irmgard …

  When the cry came, it was torn from her. “Richard, no! No! She isn’t here!”

  Hagen shouted to stop her from screaming. “The truck. Come on. Run!”

  The roots, the stones, the rocks came up fast. Down, down they pitched, sliding, falling, crying out, then running blindly.

  When they missed a bridge, they stumbled across the stream and he dragged them up the slippery bank.

  No time … No time … “Dee Dee, try. Please.”

  “Heydrich knows you’re going to do this. Please leave us …” She slid and gave a gasp, then dragged herself up and ran on again.

  Throwing her words over her shoulder, she shouted at him in anger, “He wants you to do this! The more you kill the better. Escape … escape while you can.”

  The fields were empty. Cattle grazed. The rooster crowed, and from the barn he heard the sound of the farmer forking dung. The woman was working in her garden and half rose among the dill to pause and stare at them.

  As they ran to the truck, she wen
t back to her weeding. Better not to see. Better not to watch.

  Hagen tried the ignition, then tried it again and again before scrambling out to open the hood.

  The fields were empty. From the farm, the dirt road ran down into the valley to gravel flats, gray-white in the sun. There were puddles in the ruts, silence … It was so silent and peaceful. Woods lay on either side. The woods … the stream …

  At a point some one thousand five hundred meters from them to the south, the land rose out of the fields a little. From there it climbed into the forest. There would be height. Perhaps …

  The truck started. He slammed down the hood and shouted, “Hang on!”

  They made it to the main road and bumped up onto it. Jostled, Dee Dee cried out in panic and clung to Erika, clung to the door, the dash—anything to stop herself from being thrown about.

  Richard put his foot down to the floor. Faster, faster … They were heading down a long incline now, crossing the valley flats, coming to a bridge, another road … trucks … trucks … men leaping out … men throwing themselves on the ground … the shattering of glass … a scream … her own … her own …

  Krantz watched in dismay as Hagen drove like the damned. The truck reached the hills and began to climb.

  He tore a rifle from the nearest man and threw himself on the ground. Kill …kill … kill …

  The truck came to the first of the bends. Krantz lined up the sights and fired.

  Glass shattered at Dee Dee’s shoulder. Blood, scraps of skin and fair, fair hair spattered over the windshield.

  She screamed again and flung the baby from her, went crazy then. Hagen tried to stop her, tried to control the truck.

  Krantz hit the front right tire, and they pitched off the road.

  Trees … trees … try … try …

  The truck rolled over. Dazed and bleeding badly, Hagen fought to drag Dee Dee out. “Run … got to run!”

  Stumbling, they started for the woods, only to find themselves hemmed in by the river.