Where Dead Men Meet

by Mark Mills

  The motor launch’s engine was already running: a low, throaty throb that promised power and safety. Pippi was at the wheel, one hand holding the forward mooring line. Luke swung the suitcase into the boat and leaped aboard. The moment Otto had done the same, Pippi cast off and slammed the throttle lever forward.

  Thrown off balance, Luke seized the back of her seat in the cockpit to steady himself.

  “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too,” he replied, drunk on a cocktail of relief and adrenaline.

  “Wilke?”

  “Hard to say.”

  A popping sound, just audible above the roar of the engine, provided the answer.

  “Everyone down!” yelled Otto.

  At the end of the white wake snaking off behind the boat, a lone figure was limping along the jetty, firing at them in vain. They were barely within range of a rifle, let alone a handgun.

  Luke placed a hand on the wheel, obliging Pippi to hold her line. Only when she turned and fixed him with a basilisk eye did he remove it.

  He hadn’t noticed before now, but Erwin lay on the deck near the back of the boat, his ankles and wrists bound with rope; Professor Weintraub was sitting with his children, who were crying as he did his best to console them. Ilse slipped the catches on one of the suitcases and produced a rag doll. She smoothed its blond plaits and adjusted its bonnet before handing it to the younger girl, who smiled wanly and pressed the doll to her wet cheek.

  Pippi eased off the throttle a touch and called for Otto to join them.

  “We’re going to cross now,” she said.

  “But we’ve never done it in daylight before.”

  “Which is why we need to get those suitcases out of sight. Erwin, too.”

  The suitcases were tucked away in the storage area beneath the padded bench seat occupied by the Weintraubs. Luke and Otto then hefted Erwin into the compartment beneath the seat in the stern, which meant removing the anchor first. “If you make a noise,” said Otto, “you’ll be going over the side, attached to this.” He dropped the anchor in Erwin’s lap. “Understood?” Erwin gave a grudging nod.

  A clear run across the lake on a glorious August afternoon was too much to hope for, and it wasn’t long before they spotted a boat closing from the north to head them off. Otto was all for opening the throttle and going for it, but Pippi read the geometry of their intersecting paths differently. It was unlikely that Wilke had already got word to the border police yet. No, better to bluff it out. The fact that there was no hard-and-fast frontier running down the middle of the lake played in their favor: they had simply strayed a little too close to the Swiss shore on their way back to Konstanz.

  Pippi conceded the wheel to Otto, then went and knelt in front of the children.

  “I need you to imagine that you’ve just had the best day of your lives,” she said. “Come on, show me; which one of you has the biggest smile?” When that didn’t work, she tried a different tack.

  “I’m going to tell you a story I heard from my boyfriend, and I don’t want you to smile. It’s very important that you don’t smile, okay? One day a rabbi was walking down a street when he saw a small boy trying to reach the doorbell on a house. The boy was too short, though, so the rabbi, who was a good and kind man, crossed the street to help. He came up behind the boy and pressed the doorbell for him. ‘What now, my little man?’ asked the rabbi. The boy looked up at him. ‘Now we run.’”

  It did the trick. “That’s better,” said Pippi. “Enjoy yourselves. Wave if you want.”

  She came and sat beside Luke. He slipped an arm around her shoulders. She stiffened at first, then relaxed into the role, even laying her head on his shoulder: the happy couple on a Sunday excursion.

  The patrol boat had a Nazi ensign flying above the wheelhouse, and although the gun mounted on the foredeck was unmanned, it was no less menacing for it. An officer in a gray uniform stood in the prow. He lowered his field glasses and waved his arms vigorously, crossing them above his head. When the children waved back, he yelled something and gestured several times toward the German side of the lake. Otto raised his hand high in a sign of sudden understanding, then altered course to the northeast. As the patrol boat passed by on their port side, the officer delivered a Nazi salute.

  The professor rose to his feet. “Children, I promise you, it is the last time you will ever have to do it, or say it.” They stood as one and jabbed their right hands into the air. “Heil Hitler!” they called, along with the adults. Another wave from the officer—this time a friendly farewell.

  They kept a wary eye on the patrol boat as it cruised off to the south. When they had put a good half mile or so between themselves and it, Otto turned due west on Pippi’s command and opened the throttle. The patrol boat came hard about, giving several threatening blasts of its klaxon. Whether it had spotted their maneuver or had just received word over the radio was of no consequence. The launch came up on the plane, leveling out the light chop, and they were skimming toward Switzerland with an unassailable lead, squinting into the lowering sun.

  Pippi turned and smiled at the professor. He gave a guarded nod of the head, his expression that of a man who would relax only when both feet were firmly planted on free soil.

  Switzerland

  Chapter Seventeen

  A small wooden shack stood on stilts near the mouth of a narrow inlet. Just right of it lay a narrow strip of sandy beach with a landing stage, and fishing nets slung out to dry between tall poles.

  Back from the beach, beyond the fringe of reeds, the ground climbed sharply to a grassy knoll, where three cars were parked, looking long and sleek and utterly incongruous. The men looked no less out of place, gathered at the water’s edge in their jackets and ties, like a picnic party of schoolmasters contemplating a dip.

  The head of this welcoming committee appeared to be a bull-necked man of average height, for he was the first to shake Professor Weintraub’s hand once they all had disembarked. His Welsh accent was evident even in the formal words of greeting he offered in German: “It is an honor to welcome you and your family to Switzerland.” His name was Major Kendrick, based at the British embassy in Bern. He was accompanied by three colleagues and two Swiss officials.

  There was a lot more shaking of hands before some thermos flasks of tea were produced. The children were offered bars of Swiss chocolate, promptly rationed by Ilse. Luke, Pippi, and Otto hung back near the boat, smoking.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” asked Otto. In the heat of the unfolding events, he hadn’t had a chance to digest the consequences of Erwin’s betrayal. Only now were they beginning to dawn on him. “We can’t go back, can we?”

  “No,” said Pippi.

  “I have no clothes, no money, no passport …”

  “I have money for you. I also have your passport.”

  “And my life? Did you bring that with you, too?”

  “What life, Otto? How long before we would have been jailed, killed? How many have disappeared already?”

  “You could at least have consulted me first.”

  “I wasn’t sure whether it was you or Erwin.”

  Otto looked stung. “You thought it was me?”

  “I had no way of knowing until today.” She crushed her cigarette underfoot. “Otto, listen, we have done what we can, and now we will do what we can from here, from France, from England—wherever we can help.” She nodded toward the gathering at the end of the landing stage. “They will help us find our feet. They owe us that much.”

  Luke wasn’t so sure. He had seen firsthand how the British regarded those who came to them as friends and collaborators. It lay somewhere between “necessary evil” and “disposable asset.” The Major Kendricks of this world weren’t in the habit of rolling out the red carpet for a bunch of people-traffickers who—and there was no ignoring it—had almost scuttled a mission beca
use of a security breach within their own ranks. Homegrown incompetence was tolerated, if only because it was so endemic, but when Johnny Foreigner messed up, well, there was no removing the stink.

  “Luke will speak to them,” Pippi went on.

  She seemed to have forgotten that he was in no position to do any such thing. In fact, the presence of four British embassy officials was beginning to make him feel distinctly uneasy. He could see heads beginning to turn their way as details of the escape leaked out. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Major Kendrick broke ranks and came clomping toward them down the jetty.

  “You’re English?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Luke …?”

  Luke plucked a surname from the ether. “Taylor.” Weak. He should have gone for something more unusual.

  “Strange, Miss Keller didn’t mention you in her communications with us.”

  “No?” He tossed the ball to Pippi. “And why not?”

  “I asked Luke to help at the last moment. We’re friends from university.”

  “I did my masters at Freiburg,” said Luke. “Goethe.”

  “Goethe, eh?” Kendrick’s deep-set dark eyes bored into him. “Ilse the nanny has high praise for you, high praise indeed.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tapped one free. “You have killed a man before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you seem to be taking it in your stride remarkably well, Mr. Taylor—for a Goethe scholar.”

  He had underestimated the major; he needed to be on his guard. “I think maybe I’m in shock.”

  Kendrick lit the cigarette and exhaled slowly. “Not as shocked as I was when I heard just now how close we came to complete fucking disaster.” The words were directed at Pippi, and the expletive suggested Military Intelligence: years of barrack-room braggadocio, then a commission, then a long slog through the ranks. Luke caught Otto’s nervous glance; he hadn’t understood, but he had sensed the sudden shift in the atmosphere.

  “You have what you wanted,” said Pippi evenly. “We’re leaving now.”

  “Without your fee?” Kendrick patted his breast pocket. “No, you stay right here. I want a full debrief as soon as our Swiss friends have left.” He turned to go, stopped, then dropped into the launch with the easy agility of a born sportsman and plucked the key from the ignition.

  Ten minutes later, there were only two cars on the knoll, and Kendrick was making his way back along the landing stage with one of his embassy minions. The hang of the man’s jacket suggested a holstered weapon.

  Kendrick produced a smile. “Maybe I was a little harsh before. All’s well that ends well. But I have to file a report, so talk me through it.”

  Pippi was no fool. She made no mention of the ploy to avenge herself on Kapitän Wilke, which had very nearly proved to be their undoing. She spoke only of a vague suspicion that one or the other of her colleagues might not be trustworthy, so she had taken precautions, feeding them false information about the location of the pickup as well as its timing. Unfortunately, Erwin had managed to put a call through to Friedrichshafen—not that this would have posed a problem if Ilse and the children had turned up on time. Ultimately, a punctured tire was to blame.

  Major Kendrick digested her words. “I think it’s time we met this Erwin.”

  It was the last thing Luke wanted to hear. “He’s not in a fit state to make any sense.”

  “Well, let’s take a look at him anyway, shall we?”

  Luke cursed silently. A conscious Erwin could do him considerable damage. Fortunately, when they hauled Erwin from the compartment beneath the stern seat, he looked cowed, terrified, even traumatized.

  “Do you speak English?” asked Kendrick.

  “Yes. A bit.”

  “Who are you working for?” Erwin didn’t reply. “Professor Weintraub says you mentioned a name: Kapitän Wilke. Who is this Kapitän Wilke?”

  “Who are you?” Erwin fired back, growing in confidence a little too quickly for Luke’s liking.

  “The man who can make life easier for you if you cooperate. Who is Kapitän Wilke?”

  Erwin glanced at his boots before replying. “Abwehr.” The German secret service, as Pippi had suspected. Erwin turned to her and said in German, “He made me do it. He said he would destroy me, my family.”

  “He has,” replied Pippi, without emotion. “We were your family. Johan was your family.”

  “I hope you were well paid for his life,” Otto spat.

  Major Kendrick looked irritated by the interruption. “How long has the Abwehr been policing the Bodensee?”

  “I don’t know,” said Erwin. “But I know other things.”

  “Oh?”

  “About him.” Erwin lifted his chin toward Luke.

  “Don’t you dare …!” Pippi hissed in German.

  Luke butted in. “He’ll say anything to save his own skin.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Taylor.”

  Erwin gave a snort. “Taylor? Is that what he said? His name is Hamilton.”

  So it was done. He had only one play left. “He’s lying, and I’ve got a passport to prove it.” He was reaching inside his jacket pocket for the Browning when the man at Kendrick’s shoulder suddenly had a revolver out and trained on him.

  “Luke Hamilton, sir.”

  “Yes, Hapgood, I read the dispatch from Paris.”

  Major Kendrick stepped forward and carefully withdrew the Browning from Luke’s pocket. Weighing the weapon in his hand, he turned to Pippi. “You knew?”

  “Someone is trying to kill him; he’s not sure why. I believe him.”

  Kendrick turned his inquiring gaze on Luke.

  “It’s true.”

  “And it’s a long drive back to Bern, so you can save your breath for now.”

  Kendrick’s two other associates had obviously spotted what was unfolding on the boat, because they now came pounding down the landing stage, weapons out. Kendrick went to meet them.

  “Bad mistake,” said Hapgood. “Trying to pull a gun on the major. He won’t like that. Won’t like it one bit.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he will.”

  “Are you really one of us?”

  “Air Intelligence.”

  “That’s what we call an oxymoron in the army.” Hapgood grinned at his own joke.

  “That’s the spirit. Should serve us well when war breaks out.”

  “You think there’s one coming?”

  “You don’t?”

  Luke could see Professor Weintraub and his family huddled together on the beach, watching nervously. The professor had his hand on Ilse’s shoulder. It suggested more than a straightforward nanny-employer relationship. A Jew and a Gentile now free to be together. Whatever happened next, it hadn’t all been in vain.

  Kendrick approached. “You and you,” he said, pointing at Luke and Erwin. “You’re coming with us. And you two are free to go.”

  “Where?” asked Pippi. “Back to Germany?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Luke. “They can’t go back.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You might as well kill them both now and be done with it.”

  “They were paid to do a job.” Kendrick pulled an envelope from his inside breast pocket and tossed it to Pippi. “There. Now they’ve been paid.”

  “They don’t do it for the money and they don’t do it for you. They do it for that.” He pointed at the family gathered on the beach. “They’ve lost everything for that. The least you can do is help them get asylum with the Swiss.”

  “That’s quite some speech,” Kendrick said with an amused sneer.

  “Then think of it this way: thanks to them, you got me, a big feather in your cap.”

  “Maybe not quite as big as you would like to think.”
>
  “I’m just saying, you can afford to be magnanimous.”

  Kendrick fell silent, casting a quick glance around him. “Thirteen people, two cars. It’s going to be a tight squeeze.”

  “Not if someone goes in the boot,” said Luke.

  He had said it in jest, but that was exactly where Erwin ended up. Not at first, not until Kendrick asked Luke to tell his story. He wasn’t comfortable doing so in the presence of Erwin, who was squeezed into the backseat along with Pippi, Otto, Hapgood, and another embassy man, Pitchforth. Kendrick pulled over and ordered an irate Erwin transferred to the boot.

  “I’m all ears,” said the major as both cars went on their way once more. He began to interrupt Luke almost immediately, demanding more information. What had he done before being posted to Paris? What was the exact nature of the missions he had flown in the Northern Territory? What was the command structure of his department at the Paris embassy? Had his work taken him to Germany before?

  The miles flew by, and as dusk turned to night, Kendrick’s cross-examination continued under the sporadic glare of oncoming headlights. Luke was as honest as he dared to be about the chain of events that had begun in Paris three nights ago, although he held back certain details, such as the exact location of his planned meeting with Borodin in Zurich. He still harbored a slim hope that he could turn the situation around in the next forty-eight hours and keep the rendezvous.

  Finally, there was nothing more for him to add, and Kendrick seemed to have exhausted his store of questions. He wasn’t done quite yet, though.

  “Hapgood?”

  “Sir?”

  “What do you make of it all?”

  “Intriguing, sir.”

  Kendrick glanced across at Luke. “Never one to go out on a limb, Hapgood. Pitchforth? Your verdict?”

  “It’s implausible enough to be plausible, sir.”

  “Very good,” said Kendrick with a soft chuckle. He lit a cigarette and wound the window down an inch. “Tell me, Miss Keller, you’ve had dealings with this Borodin before. Does he strike you as the sort of fellow to jeopardize everything—including his life—on a matter of principle that can only be described as, well, idealistic?” It was a fair enough question, one that Luke had asked himself many times over the past few days.