Winter's Bullet

by William Osborne

  “Easy, Tygo,” he muttered to himself. For a moment he wondered if it had all been in his imagination, if there had been no girl earlier. He felt inside his jacket and found what he was looking for: a few loose matches purloined from Krüger’s crystal striker that he kept on the mantelpiece in his office.

  Tygo leaned down and struck one on the stone step. He straightened up to get his bearings, holding the match in front of him, and only just saw the broken stair spindle coming toward him.

  Crack—he felt himself falling down the stairs, his head hitting something impossibly hard. Then there was nothing but that sick feeling of oblivion.

  It was the sound of an enormous explosion that brought Tygo around. He became conscious of the end of it, the boom rolling like thunder through the city, the sound both hard and resonant.

  He opened his eyes, half expecting to be lying in the ruins of the villa. Instead he was on the marble stone of the hallway, his overcoat balled up and stuck under his head for a pillow. A single candle was burning beside him, giving a small circle of light. It was enough for him to see a girl, aged maybe fourteen or fifteen, sitting cross-legged beside him, staring down at him.

  She was dressed in a dirty woolen overcoat that hung open, a woolen sweater underneath with a large hole almost where her heart would be, and a rough tweed shirt poking through the hole. She had a pair of hobnailed boots on her feet, their soles peeling away from the uppers, and no socks.

  So he had not imagined her after all.

  Her face was scrubbed clean of the sooty blackness he remembered from when he had last seen her; only her eyes were the same. Topaz, the color of a July sky. Tygo noticed a tiny cleft in her chin. A gold locket was tied around her neck with a piece of ribbon.

  Tygo looked into those eyes again. He tried to remember the fear he’d seen in them, but now they were hard and calculating and aimed directly at him.

  “Who are you?”

  He tried to sit up and realized he couldn’t: His hands and feet had been tied with strips of torn cloth. The girl was taking no chances.

  Tygo tried to think of something to say.

  “Who are you?” the girl repeated.

  “Untie me and I’ll tell you,” said Tygo.

  The girl tossed something toward him. It was his Gestapo warrant disk.

  “Gestapo.” She spat the word at him, picked up the stair spindle, and hit him hard in the ribs.

  Tygo cried out in pain and sat up straight. “No!” he yelled at her. “I’m not Gestapo; I’m the son of a locksmith. We have—had—a shop near the station. Winter’s—do you know it?”

  The girl shook her head. “You’re lying. It was you who came here today. I recognize you. You blew up the house.”

  “I’m not lying. Yes, I was here, but that other man who you didn’t see, he’s Gestapo, not me. He forces me to work for him, to help find stuff—valuable property, like jewelry.”

  Tygo wondered if the word “jewelry” would make her react, but her face remained cold, emotionless.

  “Forces you?” She sounded skeptical.

  “Yes, I swear. If I don’t do what he says, he’ll kill me—shoot me.”

  “Even if what you say is true, why are you here now?”

  “I saw you. I … wanted to come back to see if you were real.”

  The girl snorted with contempt. “Oh, spare me. He was looking for something here, wasn’t he?”

  Tygo nodded. “Yes, a stone, I think. He likes diamonds.”

  “That’s why you came back. Admit it.”

  “Maybe, partly—okay, yes, I thought I’d come back and see if I could find it. If I can get it for him, I think he will let me escape from the city.”

  “Why do you want to escape?”

  “Why do you think?” Tygo burst out. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Everyone thinks I’m a collaborator. The Resistance have a price on my head. They’re going to kill me as soon as they get ahold of me. I need to get away.”

  The girl looked at him. “Is that a lie?”

  Tygo shook his head, which was still throbbing. He felt a little bit nauseous.

  “Why would I make up something like that?” he said. “Please untie me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The girl pursed her lips. “Does this man know you are here?”

  “No,” said Tygo emphatically. “And he has no idea you’re here, either—I didn’t tell him I’d seen you, I promise.” He had managed to sit up now with his bound hands in front of him.

  “You came back to search yourself?” she asked.

  “Yes, like I said.” He stared at her. “I suppose a bit of me did want to see if you were real too, not a ghost or my imagination in the dark up that chimney. Are you real?”

  She leaned forward and hit Tygo lightly on the head with the spindle. “Does that feel real?”

  “Ow!” Tygo yelped. “All right, yes.”

  The girl was clearly assessing him, trying to make up her mind.

  “Look, how about this?” he went on. “If you help me find whatever that Gestapo man is looking for, I can help you leave this place, get some food.”

  “What makes you think I want to leave?”

  Tygo looked back at her, stumped. “Well, it’s cold, it’s lonely … and to be honest, for all I know, Krüger may come back here. Please untie me.”

  “Shut up, I’m thinking,” the girl replied. She half closed her eyes; Tygo could see he might be getting through to her. Whatever she might say, she was in the same boat as him: alone, hungry, scared, and cold. And that was just for starters.

  “Let me help you,” he ventured.

  “I don’t need your help—seems to me you need mine more.” The girl crossed her arms defensively.

  “Fine, then, go on living by yourself halfway up a chimney.”

  “I was only up there because of you! And anyway, who says I’m alone?”

  Tygo shrugged. “Just a wild guess.”

  She remained silent.

  “Look, think about it sensibly for one minute. We can help each other. And whatever you say, we both need help.” Tygo felt a sudden welling-up of loneliness and loss inside him. An aching, burning feeling that rose up his throat. “Just untie me, please. I’ll leave you alone, all right? I made a mistake.”

  His voice was hoarse, his eyes wet. The girl looked at him, then knelt forward and started to undo his bonds. “If you try anything funny …” she warned.

  “I won’t, I promise.” Tygo rubbed his wrists where the cloth bindings had dug into his skin. “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Willa,” the girl replied.

  “Willa?”

  “Short for Wilhelmina.”

  “Wilhelmina Löwenstein, by any chance?” said Tygo.

  The girl looked startled for a moment, then carefully continued untying him. Tygo eased himself up to a sitting position. He felt a lump on the side of his head where he had hit the stone stairs. Fortunately the skin was unbroken.

  “Did I … ?” He pointed to the stairs.

  “All the way to the bottom. I was sure you were dead. What do you know about the Löwensteins?”

  “Nothing—I mean, I just know who they were, and that they used to live here, a long time ago, before the war.”

  “They never lived here. My mother lived here with me—until a few weeks ago.” Willa sounded almost bitter.

  “I don’t understand. The title document said the house was owned by a bank belonging to the Löwensteins.”

  Willa looked at Tygo. “How do you know that?”

  “I looked it up last night, in the records department. The house was passed to the German authorities when they invaded. It was raided by Krüger’s department, the Sicherstellung.”

  “I know, I was there!” The girl was angry at the memory. “They cleared the house of everything—we hid with friends and returned when they had sealed the place up. We’ve lived here secretly ever since.”

  “But if you’re not Willa Löwenstein, who ar
e you?”

  Willa stared at Tygo, clearly trying to decide whether to trust him. Finally she spoke.

  “My mother was Pieter Löwenstein’s mistress; he kept this house for her. I am his child. When the Germans came he bought safe passage for himself and his wife and legitimate children. He left my mother and me here. My mother was a Catholic, but he is my father, so under the law of the Germans I am a Jew. And everyone knows what happens to them.”

  “Right,” said Tygo. He didn’t know what else to say. All the Jews in the country had long ago been rounded up and shipped away on trains to who knew where.

  “My mother told me that my father had sworn he would arrange for us to follow him to New York, but she never heard from him again.”

  “Perhaps he tried?”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps we were an inconvenience.”

  Outside a clock struck and Tygo counted the strokes: six. Six a.m.—the night had flown by and, like Cinderella, he would have to be getting back to Headquarters soon. Krüger hated it if he was a minute late. He realized there was something he had not asked the girl.

  “And where is your mother now?”

  Willa turned away from him but he caught the sadness. Of course, how stupid of him. He didn’t say the word—he didn’t have to. It was obvious now. Dead. Just like his parents.

  “How long ago … ?”

  The girl leaned in to him and gave a sob, and without thinking Tygo pulled her close to him—not just to comfort her but to hide the tears in his own eyes. Tears that had sprung from hearing her story and the pain he suddenly felt inside for the loss of his own family.

  “Christmas Eve,” sobbed Willa. “It’d been snowing hard all day. She went to fetch some of the dry wood we’d hidden in the backyard before the snow became too deep. It was late in the evening; she wanted us to keep the fire in for Christmas morning as a treat. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, she wasn’t there. I went outside … it was light, the snow was up to my waist. I found her lying underneath the bushes where we had hidden the wood. On her back, her eyes closed. So peaceful, I thought she was asleep. But she wasn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tygo.

  Willa pulled away from him and wiped her eyes. “I think she knew she was dying—she gave me her locket on Christmas Eve. Usually she never took it off. She made me swear to keep it safe.”

  Tygo looked at her. She was just like him, all alone now, with a cold, hostile world outside waiting for them. “Come with me,” he said impulsively. “Let me help you now.”

  “No, I can’t. If I go out, I’ll be arrested. I don’t have papers or anything.”

  “I’m going to help you,” said Tygo fiercely. And he really meant it.

  “How can you possibly help me?” she said.

  Tygo looked at her, thinking. “Well, I can come back later with some food and drink. Bread, soup, maybe even a little sausage …” Even to Tygo’s ears it sounded incredible, a fantasy, but Willa just shrugged. “After that—well, I’ll think of something, a way to get you out of here. If you stay here you’re going to die, just like your mother.”

  “Why do you care?”

  For a moment Tygo was flummoxed. Why did he care about this strange girl? Why didn’t he just leave her? He wasn’t entirely sure, but there was one very good practical reason.

  “Because I need you.”

  “For what?”

  “To help me find what Krüger’s looking for. It could help us both.”

  Willa frowned. “We’ll see” was all she said.

  The first orange streaks of dawn flashed across the top of the flat, gray North Sea and met the tiger-striped S-boat racing toward the rising sun. The German attack boat was at full speed—over forty knots—anxious to be in position now it was light.

  General Müller was inside the small bridge, holding on to the rail by the wheel, trying to stop the seasickness building up to a point of no return. He hated boats.

  “Not long now, Herr General!” the captain called out to him from the other side of the wheel. He was scanning ahead with a pair of powerful binoculars. “There, about a half mile to port, the marker buoy.”

  The boat slewed to the right and raced toward the target, the hull banging down on the swell. Shortly thereafter, the big Mercedes engines throttled back and the S-boat started to slow. The captain spoke into the ship’s intercom.

  “This is your captain speaking, now hear this. We are in position. All engines stop. Action stations.”

  “Excellent work, Captain,” Müller said quietly. “May I remind you that what you are about to witness is the greatest secret of the Reich. If you or your men breathe so much as a word about it—”

  “I assure you, Herr General,” the captain interrupted the threat that was coming, “I can vouch for every man on my ship.”

  The sun was above the horizon now. Müller and the captain made their way out of the bridge and onto the foredeck, next to the small anti-aircraft turret. Müller’s nausea was now replaced with the flutter of anticipation.

  “The moment of truth,” he said to the captain. The rest of the crew were on deck, watching expectantly, even the engineers in their greasy overalls.

  About thirty miles out from the Dutch coast, the S-boat rocked on the calm sea, nothing to be seen in any direction. They could have been on the surface of the moon. They waited.

  There was no warning, no rumble, no sound, just a sudden plume of water exploding two hundred yards in front of them. A plume that instantly became a squat, black missile with a tongue of flame, white and blue at its base, blasting it skyward.

  The two men watched it streak up into the dark-blue morning sky, the waning moon still visible above it. As it leapt higher it left a long white chalk line of vapor.

  “Mein Gott,” the captain finally mustered.

  “God had nothing to do with it,” Müller replied.

  What they had just witnessed changed everything, he thought. The war could be won, even now, even this late in the day. This was the evidence. The Führer had said if the sea trial was successful, then they would go. Operation Black Sun would be authorized.

  The bow of the Type XXI U-boat burst through the surface from where the rocket had appeared, and the S-boat blasted its siren—whoop whoop whoop—in congratulation. Müller and the captain took off their hats and waved them in salute as the submarine settled on the surface.

  Within less than a minute the conning tower was manned by the U-boat captain and his signaler, their Aldis lamp flashing Morse messages.

  Müller and the captain returned to the bridge, where Müller took the transcript of the U-boat’s message from the S-boat’s signaler. It read: “Test fire complete. All systems are green. Awaiting further orders.”

  “Signal to the U-boat commander as follows.” Müller thought for a moment. “The Führer will be notified of your superb achievement. You may now unseal your destination orders and proceed immediately to the rendezvous point. Heil Hitler.”

  The signaler hurried back to his lamp.

  “And once he has done that, Captain,” Müller added, “get us out of here before the RAF have us for breakfast!”

  Tygo cycled back to Gestapo Headquarters through the frozen streets. It was bitterly cold; his nose ran and his cheeks burned. Ursula and her gang were nowhere to be seen; perhaps they were sitting in that alleyway from the day before, hoping to snare Tygo again.

  About half a mile from Headquarters he discovered the cause of the explosion that had woken him back in the villa: A British Lancaster bomber had crashed. It must have been on its way to a raid, carrying its payload of a single twelve-ton blockbuster bomb, by the look of things.

  It had certainly lived up to its name: An entire city block of houses had been demolished, leaving the ones opposite barely touched. There must have been twenty houses gone. The street was cordoned off and flames still danced up from a few of the buildings; there wasn’t a fire department anymore. A few civilian defense workers were gingerly
trying to pick through the rubble, looking for any possible signs of life.

  Tygo stopped to stare for a few minutes. It was staggering to him that they could make weapons now of such incredible power. Imagine a whole street destroyed by a single bomb—it was just amazing. Goebbels, the Minister of Information, had spoken in a radio broadcast of a Wunderwaffe, a wonder weapon, which was a thousand times more powerful than these monster bombs and could destroy whole cities, but everyone knew that was just a propaganda lie. Such a weapon was impossible, unthinkable; all the explosives in the world couldn’t do something like that.

  Tygo stayed to watch a bit longer, then, conscious of the time, pressed on and arrived back at Headquarters before eight.

  “Good morning,” he said to the tired-looking guard who was checking his papers.

  “What’s so good about it?” the guard replied, handing him back the document and warrant disk.

  “I don’t know,” said Tygo. But he did feel different—was it meeting Willa, or something else? He wasn’t sure.

  He sat on his usual hard chair outside Krüger’s office in the corridor. The light was on inside and he could hear Krüger talking on the telephone. It was very early for him to be at work, Tygo thought. His stomach was rumbling badly, but it would be better to wait until Krüger had seen him than to slip off to the cafeteria now. He would have to find a way of smuggling some food out for Willa too, he reminded himself. He liked the feeling of thinking about someone else again.

  The office door opened and Krüger strode out, buttoning his leather overcoat. He seemed preoccupied, distracted, barely glancing at Tygo.

  “Come along, Frettchen.” Curt, cold.

  Tygo fell into step beside Krüger. A short car ride later, and they were outside 321 Keizersgracht, an elegant, classic-looking Amsterdam town house with a heavy wooden front door and a large brass knocker in the shape of a lion. Krüger’s black-gloved hand struck the knocker twice. After a moment, the door opened and a middle-aged woman stood before them.