Return to Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  These people were traitors and had no faith. Hitler had promised a miracle and would deliver one eventually. To a true believer like Wesselmann, this was clear.

  But today, Kriminalkommisar Wesselmann was furious. He knew he had been tricked. He knew that Heinrich Koehler had been up to something when Koehler didn’t allow him to watch the execution of the American spy. Now he was awaiting only the certified proof. Then he could go after Koehler his seditious daughter, Frieda, and the American spy. Rounding up all three would re-ignite his career, he reasoned. Men were known to leap two ranks in the Gestapo overnight rom such diligence.

  After half an hour of digging, one of the captive Polish laborers unearthed a bare foot. The flesh was bluish white like porcelain. The ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle, both sprinkled with cold soil.

  “Get down there in the grave,” Wesselmann ordered through the interpreter. “Uncover the rest by hand!”

  The diggers were down into the ground by about a meter and a half. With bare hands in the freezing cold they the Russian prisoners threw dirt up to ground level. They cleared away the soil around the arms and shoulders of the corpse, then went to work on the head and face. Wesselmann smoked, waited and seethed.

  Wesselmann finished his smoke. A nicotine kick shot through him.

  “The face, the face!” he demanded.

  Daylight was dying and the temperature was plummeting. Wesselmann had a terrible temper and was starting to lose control. He reached to his pistol and fired it into the air. Why couldn’t the women work faster? No wonder these ignorant subhuman types had managed to get captured.

  A few more minutes followed of intense digging in the grave. The body had settled sideways into the dirt, then it had been covered. The women had to loosen the corpse and move it.

  They threw more dirt from the grave to ground level, some of it scattering across Wesselmann’s ankles. They tried to move the head but rigor mortis had already set in. That and some initial decomposition. Wesselmann knew a thing or two about corpses. He could already see that this man had been dead for a longer time than Cochrane would have been. The body had probably been frozen somewhere and then snatched by Koehler for his personal use.

  The Gestapo agent lit another cigarette but he didn’t get to enjoy it. The laborers cleared the face. Wesselmann could see it, but not get a good view. Still, the face didn’t look right.

  “Everyone out of the grave!” Wesselmann barked.

  The Gestapo agent stepped down into the grave. He put his hands on the head of the dead man and twisted it so that he could get a good look. The body resisted. In a fury, Wesselmann twisted it harder. A bone in the neck cracked with a loud snap. Wesselmann glared. Then he spat. This wasn’t the spy named Cochrane. Here was the proof! Koehler had had his own agenda. Now everything was clear.

  Wesselmann stood and climbed out of the grave.

  He turned to the driver of the morgue truck.

  “Take this piece of frozen meat to the morgue!” he said. He followed that with a barrage of profanities.

  He went back to his own car and punched the driver’s side window so hard that it shattered.

  There was a formal examination of the body the next day at a hospital. Wesselmann couldn’t do anything further until the exam was complete and the results were on record. But the dead man in the grave had died of head wounds from a blunt object, not bullets. This was not Cochrane in the grave that had been specially dug for Cochrane.

  Wesselmann might have exploded in a fury, but a thought came to him.

  All of this was all coming together for Wesselmann as a major case. He could resolve this to his benefit or he could allow the case to defeat him and ruin his otherwise stellar career.

  Facts: Heinrich Koehler was a leak in Naval security. His daughter was a defeatist and a member of the White Rose group in Munich. William Thomas Cochrane was an American spy who was in the country to assist them and perhaps facilitate their escape, most likely to Switzerland. One of the other girls who was on the run, the one named Ilse, had grown up with Frieda and probably had influenced her to become a subversive.

  Wesselmann had done some research on Ilse that week. He had learned that she had a family home in Freiburg im Breisgau, the same city that the British had officially bombed.

  Wesselmann added up all these conditional factors as he sat outside the medical examiner’s office in Berlin. He came away with a clear picture.

  He had a decision to make.

  He could file a full report and escalate it, at which time some greedy superior in the Gestapo would grab the case, order a detachment of fifty agents, and resolve it by catching and executing the perpetrators.

  Or he could take one or two trusted associates, Adelman and Bauer for example, and deal with this himself, earning inevitably a promotion and becoming a hero of the Reich.

  There wasn't much of a choice. He postulated that the criminals would be taking the most direct route by train or car to Basel. He could help. Adelman and Bauer, he knew, would be anxious to get in on the blood and glory.

  He phoned Adelman and Bauer the next morning. There was a newly reopened bar in Berlin where a lot of his people now liked to spent time. It had recently belonged to a troublesome intellectual named Jacob Witte, who had named his leftwing drinking joint after Wittgenstein, whoever that was. But Witte had surrendered ownership and the place had been renamed. The place was now called the Bar Nuremburg in honor of the Fuerher’s ascent. They would meet there.

  After an afternoon standing in the snow and freezing wind, Wesselmann was pleased. He had a great plan. He keep the details about the traitorous Koehler and his daughter to himself. He would resolve this intrigue through his own brainpower and reap the fabulous rewards.

  Given the help of two associates, there was no way in hell that any of these unpatriotic fugitives would ever reach Switzerland.

  Chapter 49

  Berlin

  February 1943

  Cochrane waited as Frau Schneidhuber stepped through her front door and out into the street. She saw nothing that alarmed her. She turned and nodded to Cochrane who waited with Frieda. They were free to travel onward.

  Each embraced the fraulein as they passed, each now carrying a single valise. They carried with them only what was most important. Behind him, Cochrane had left Fraud Schneidhuber two hundred Swiss francs on the table by the fire, along with four packs of cigarettes. The lady didn’t smoke, but she could barter.

  Cochrane also stopped and looked both ways, seeing nothing that posed an immediate threat. He then half turned and nodded to Frieda, indicating that she should follow. She came to the sidewalk and stopped next to him.

  They walked four blocks. They became aware of a noisy crowd gathered somewhere in the near distance. They continued two more blocks and were near the seat of government. They stopped short. To their right, toward the Brandenburg gate, there was a Nazi rally in progress, a big noisy blowout raising hopes and dreams of victory when the war had probably already been lost. The government was trying to throw off the stench of defeat that had flowed from Stalingrad.

  Cochrane wondered how many more people on both sides would be slaughtered in the defense of a regime and philosophy that was rotten from the core out.

  “I think we’re good,” he said. “Come along.”

  Frieda took his arm. Frau Schneidhuber had bought Frieda a pair of used shoes from a local shop, something a little more grown up than usual. While the SS and the Gestapo were busy looking for a man and teenager, they posed as an adult couple as they crossed Brandenburg Square. They continued along Unter der Linden until he spotted Humboldt University, which was not yet bomb damaged and which was crawling with uniformed soldiers.

  As they continued on a sidewalk past fringes of the rally, two men in suits and dark hats drew their mutual gaze upon them. They were squat and thick. They looked to be dumb as oxen and almost as smart. They stood motionless with their hands in their pockets studying, staring at Bil
l Cochrane and Frieda Koehler as they approached them, their four brown eyes giving away nothing.

  One man in particular was watching them closely, particular Frieda, getting a good look at her face. Cochrane could feel Frieda’s fear as she clung to his arm.

  “Steady,” he said quietly in English. “Just keep walking. Don’t miss a pace.”

  Cochrane’s Czech pistol was in his left side coat pocket, practically calling his name. He may have tried to re-assure Frieda, but he felt his own heartbeat quicken. He was ready for the day to end early and with failure and with bloodshed.

  They came within a few meters of the two men watching them. The first man stepped forward and blocked their path. Cochrane continued to walk until they were almost face to face. The second man fell into a pace behind the first. Their hands were in their pockets. Against the cold? Or concealing weapons?

  Cochrane stopped and said nothing. He was a moment from dropping his suitcase and drawing the twenty year old Czech revolver.

  Then the first man smiled and tipped his hat. “Your daughter is very beautiful, sir,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” Cochrane said. The other man tipped his cap , also.

  Bill and Frieda politely stepped around the two Germans, moving quickly so no one could get a good look. He noticed that Frieda kept her head down. Smart young lady. They kept going. Frieda tried not to laugh. These men had looked more like Gestapo than the real thing.

  “Do you know Humboldt University?” he asked.

  “I had friends who went there,” she said. “They may have all been taken by the army by now. Or arrested. I haven’t heard from any of them for months.”

  “So where’s this bar?” he asked.

  “Up ahead. You can see the railroad bridge from here. It’s at the far end, street level,” she said.

  “Let’s keep up the pace a little,” he said. “I’d like to get this done.”

  “I can find it,” she said. “Walk with me.”

  “We’re already walking together,” Frieda said.

  “Sure. But you were leading me. Now I’m leading you. Come on.”

  She gave a slight nervous laugh.

  A thick drizzle lay in the air. The moisture was their friend: it made observation from a distance more difficult. There was suddenly an eerie warmness to the mist. Where lights shone, the mist shifted in thin clouds. “How far do we need to walk?” he asked.

  “Maybe half a kilometer,” she said. “Follow along. I’ll get you to Bar Nuremburg and you get us to Switzerland.”

  Chapter 50

  Berlin

  February 1943

  Frieda led him straight to it. The entrance was through a metal door hidden under the train bridge. The small sign above the door that said Bar Nuremburg was small and new. They ducked in.

  It was a fearsome place, noisy and crowded, filled with uniforms and swastikas, soldiers, SS and local police. There were very few women and everyone seemed to be bellowing in bellicose Prussian howls and barks. There was live music blasting: nothing organized, just groups of soldiers with squeezeboxes trying to outshout the next table with army ballads and so-called patriotic Nazi anthems. There were at least two renditions of the Horst Wessel Song going at once. Cochrane could have done without either.

  Cochrane took Frieda’s arm. He pulled her along so that they wouldn’t get separated. This was the type of place where an unattached woman could get gang-groped and pulled to a table packed with soldiers. Cochrane couldn’t have been more protective if Frieda had been his own daughter.

  This place obviously wasn't what it used to be under its old name. The bully boys had taken over and driven out the old pink literary set. Cochrane doubted if he would recognize anyone in the place. He hoped to hell that no one recognized him.

  The noise was overbearing. Cochrane led Frieda to the bar where there were some boiled eggs to eat. A barman lurched in front of them. Frieda ordered a mineral water and Cochrane ordered a pilsner. There was a bowl of boiled eggs on the counter. Cheap eats: help oneself.

  Cochrane leaned to her. He shouted close into her ear to be heard.

  “We’ll give it fifteen minutes,” he said. “Then we’ll leave.”

  “Why are we even here?” she asked.

  “I’m going through some motions,” he said. “It was the plan set in Bern. I have to at least make an appearance.”

  “Why?”

  “I promised the man whom I work for.”

  “Is he American?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Allen.”

  She raised her scarf across her chin to shroud her appearance. She looked around.

  “I hate what’s happened here,” she said.

  “So do I.”

  The mineral water arrived. So did the beer. Frieda reached to the drinks and took a swig of the beer, causing Cochrane to doubletake and smile.

  She looked as frightened as she had the first night he had seen her, a trembling teenager in the back of a car, with her father, a British POW and a dead aviator in a nearby trunk.

  Cochrane raised his eyes. There were three barmen in total, all big and blond and Aryan. Police connections, he was certain. Behind them was an old discolored mirror with several cracks. It had a puncture mark in the glass about head high. The hole was round and ominous with dark stains rippling out from its center.

  Cochrane had no sooner drank half his beer and reached for a second boiled egg when he felt the body of a man come in hard behind him. The man and jostled him.

  The man slammed an iron hand down on the arm that Cochrane would have used to grab his weapon. There was music blasting, the soldiers were still doing tricks with the squeeze boxes and singing patriotic songs. Lili Marlene was in the air, even though Dietrich had long ago been wise enough to flee to Hollywood. Cochrane’s heart nearly jumped up out of his throat because the man’s grip on his was professional and told Cochrane that he, Cochrane, wasn’t going anywhere without this man’s consent.

  The man leaned in close to Cochrane.

  Something hard poked into Cochrane’s back. It felt like a pistol, ready to blow a hole in his ribs and heart.

  “William Cochrane!” said the man into Cochrane’s ear hole from three inches away. He spoke English. “I’d recognize you anywhere, you fucking bastard! Tell the girl there with you not to go anywhere or make any move or they’ll be worse trouble than you can ever imagine! Got it, you son of a bitch?”

  “I got it,” Cochrane said.

  Frieda, a stricken look of horror on her face, froze. Cochrane put a hand on her arm.

  “Stay there,” Cochrane said to her in English. “Do what he says.”

  “Good!” the man said. “I’m not alone in here so be careful. There’s more Gestapo in here than there are peanuts in a bag. So play it wise and you’ll live to see the sun rise tomorrow.”

  The man paused. He slowly pulled the object out of Cochrane’s back. The voice was starting to sound familiar. It had a New York accent.

  “Now turn slowly and face me,” the man said. “Don’t say my name aloud and don’t be surprised. Understand, you fucking meatball?”

  Cochrane turned slowly. A moment later, when his fearful eyes focused, he found himself looking into the dark wise eyes of Irv Goff, former Lincoln Brigade commander in Spain, body builder in Coney Island, dinner partner at Luchows a year and a half earlier and friend to both Allen Dulles and Wild Bill Donovan.

  “Jesus God damned Christ!” said Cochrane. “You took a year off my Goddamned life if I even have a year left!”

  He turned to Frieda and gave her an all safe signal. He gave his friend Goff a friendly shove. “You bastard!” he said.

  “Yeah, well,” Irv Goff said. “There are people around who’d like to take twenty or thirty years off both of ours, okay? Got to be fucking careful, man. And by the way, be watch out when you shove me. I’ve got enough artillery concealed on me to invade Sweden all by myself.”

&
nbsp; Behind them the beer-swilling local patriots stood and launched into a belligerent version of the Vorwärts Vorwärts, a sickening Hitler youth song, leftover from their misguided National Socialism-addled childhood. The true believers sang loud, clear, at attention and with stiff-armed salutes. They were all drunk as hell, seemingly impervious to any thought about the now inexorable march of the Red Army from the Volga to the Spree and the Havel.

  Frieda simmered. Goff smoldered. Cochrane kept the collar of his coat up.

  “I’d ask what you’re doing here,” Goff said, “but I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Phone box a few blocks from here. I put my hand up to the ledge at the top. A little night bird visits on every day of the month divisible by three or five. Coded message. Only I know the key. How did you like my thumb in your back, you fucker? Felt like a Mauser, didn’t it.”

  “Keep the language clean, pal. The lady understands English.”

  “Yeah. I know she does. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Make nice. Follow me,” Goff said.

  They moved to a lonelier section of the bar even though the music was booming. “I’m told you’re going on a trip. Want an extra passenger?”

  “You?”

  “Yes, sir. An extra wheelman to spell you when you’re driving and an extra gun or two if you hit trouble. You better say yes, old friend. I’m training Italian partisans in North Africa and have to get to Geneva, then Tripoli. ‘Monsieur D’ in Bern said you were due back in his direction within a few days.”