Mark of the Devil

by William Kerr

  Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Matt grabbed the handle on the drawer, flipped the latch with his thumb, and pulled opened the drawer.

  “A handkerchief?” Richter asked.

  “Better safe than sorry,” Matt answered. “Your fingerprints, they’ll accept. Mine? An American spy’s. No thanks.”

  Inside the drawer stood rows of plastic jewel cases, each with its own rewritable compact disc, alphabetically arranged by last name. Matt lifted the S case from the drawer and carried it across the room to Richter.

  Taking the container, Richter explained, “Each disc contains the names and a certain amount of background, including date of birth, where they were from, U-boats they commanded, any awards, and, if available, date and location of death.” Lifting the lid on the case, he removed the disc and slid it into the CD-ROM bay on the side of the laptop, clicked open the appropriate drive, and turned on the projector. “Ready?”

  “Fire.”

  Richter double-clicked on the icon when translated said U-boat Commanders, Sa through Sw. Working the cursor, he scrolled down past the title page with the German Navy logo to the first name, “Albrecht Saalbach, Ober—”

  “Let’s skip those that don’t have the initials HS,” Matt interrupted, “and for now, concentrate on those that show the Knights Cross award, unless you want to eat breakfast here. And let’s skip the birthdates and early biographical stuff.”

  Richter laughed. “Ja, ja, ja, you are right.”

  Scrolling down, name after name, Richter finally stopped. “Here. The first one. Herbert Schneider, Kapitänleutnant.” Beneath the rank title were two gold stripes.

  “Two stripes. Same rank as a Lieutenant in the U. S. Navy,” Matt said.

  “He commanded the U-Five twenty-two…received the Knight’s Cross on sixteen January nineteen forty-three, but died in February of that year, a month later, when his U-boat was sunk in the mid-Atlantic.”

  “Didn’t have long to celebrate, did he? Keep going.”

  The names swept by until Richter came to “Heinrich Schröder, Korvettenkapitän.” Beneath the rank title were two and one-half gold stripes.

  “That’s what the man on the U-boat had on his uniform,” Matt said. “Two and a half stripes, same as Lieutenant Commander in our Navy. What else does it say?”

  “He commanded U-Seventy-seven, Fifty-three, Fifty-eight and Two hundred. Received the Knights Cross, nineteen August nineteen forty-two, but, ach! He died June of ‘forty-three when his sub went down in the North Atlantic

  The names flew past until Matt called, “Wait! You almost skipped one.”

  “Horst von Shroeter,” Richter read aloud. “Kapitänleutnant. He commanded the U-One twenty-three and U-Twenty-five oh six. Received the Knights Cross, nineteen June of ‘forty-four. But he was only a, uh…Lieutenant.

  “Yeah, but the last boat. A Twenty-one class, and it doesn’t say if he died, does it?”

  “Nein,” Richter shook his head. “You think—”

  “Maybe he got a spot promotion near the end of the war and it was never recorded. I’ll write his name down anyway, and we can check on what happened to the Twenty-five oh-six.”

  “That’s when we will get into some of the classified information.”

  “Great,” Matt said with a chuckle. “Then I’ll really be a spy. Keep going.”

  Richter continued to read out names, ranks, award dates, and U-boats commanded Heinz-Otto Schultze, Herbert Schultz, Heinz Sieder, Hans-Gerrit von Stockhausen—all but one dead prior to the end of the war. That one, Herbert Schultz, dead 1987 in London. Finally, Helmut Strobel.

  “Much more, and I’m gonna need toothpicks to keep my eyes open,” Matt said with a yawn. “Whip down and see if there are any more Knight’s Cross winners, then come back to Strobel.”

  Richter coursed down through the list of remaining names, the only officer an Oberleutnant zur See Hermann Stuckman.”

  “Lieutenant, Junior Grade,” Matt said. “And he died in August ‘forty-four. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Go back to…what was his name?”

  “Strobel,” Richter answered, quickly scrolling back until he reached Helmut Strobel. “Korvettenkapitän.”

  “That matches with my guy,” Matt said, his hands digging at his eyes to wipe away the gotta-have-sleep tears so he could keep up with what Richter was reading.

  Richter continued. “He commanded the U-Three Twenty-nine, the Six eighty-nine, the Twelve seventy, and the Twenty-five thirty-seven.”

  “Six eighty-nine,” Matt said slowly, his brow knitted in thought. “A framed photograph I brought up from the sub had a picture of the CO and his crew on another sub. A smaller sub with an extremely small conning tower. The picture was pretty badly damaged by salt water, but I could make out an eight as part of the U-boat’s number. And Twenty-five thirty-seven. Another Twenty-one class boat,” Matt said, his eyes straining to see the information.

  “Ja, and he received the Knights Cross on eleven December nineteen forty-two. Mein Gott!“

  Matt threw his head back in disbelief. “My God is right! That’s him. Gotta be. Same date as on the Knight’s Cross, same rank, and his last command was a Twenty-one class sub. Sonofabitch! Let me write it down. Then let’s check the U-Twenty-five thirty-seven and this other guy, Horst von Shroeter’s boat, but Strobel’s got to be the man. Gotta be!”

  After securing the equipment and returning the disc to the filing cabinet, they moved down the hall to another room, the door requiring a three-digit combination to open, which Richter retrieved from his wallet. Once inside, it seemed more like a vault than a standard sized room. Perhaps 60 to 70 feet in length, but suffocatingly narrow, it reminded Matt of the safety deposit vault at his branch bank back home. The room contained hundreds, if not more than a thousand, boxes along two of the four walls, and shelves of paper files at the far end. A single computer and monitor sat midway along the corridorlike room. Following Richter’s directions, Matt located the proper storage box, found a CD-ROM labeled Unterseeboote and inserted it into the computer.

  “There,” Richter said, bringing up the information on the monitor’s screen. The word Geheim! appeared on each page.

  “Secret,” Matt remarked.

  “Ja. First, Horst von Shroeter’s U-Twenty-five oh-six.” Richter clicked on the U-2506 entry. As soon as the information materialized on the screen, he paraphrased the data for Matt. “She was surrendered to the Allies on fourteen June nineteen forty-five. That was in Bergen, Norway. Taken then to the Shetland Islands, then to Northern Ireland. She was scuttled or sunk in what was called Operation Deadlight on the fifth of January nineteen forty-six off the north coast of Northern Ireland.”

  “Probably some kind of training exercise,” Matt said.

  Richter shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. Regardless, your submarine cannot be the Twenty-five oh-six.”

  “Okay, go to Twenty-five thirty-seven.”

  Richter scrolled down until he reached the U-2537. “Never commissioned. She was launched on the twenty-second of December at the Blohm und Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, but was sunk at the pier during a raid by the RAF on the thirty-first of that month. So what does that do to your theory?”

  Matt sat for a moment, his mind traveling across the various options. “December nineteen forty-four. If launched means at least hull construction was complete, she could have been raised and outfitted for one last mission, whatever it was.”

  “Possible,” Richter agreed. “Like the one you mentioned on the telephone, the Twenty-five forty. It was sunk in a bombing raid at the end of the war and was raised in nineteen fifty-seven. Repaired and restored with certain modifications, similar to the changes you mentioned about the conning tower on the one you found.”

  “The Wilhelm Bauer,” Matt said.

  “Ja. Given a NATO number, which I don’t recall. It was operated by the German navy for a number of years. After your phone call, I checked. Since nineteen eighty-four, on
display in the harbor of the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven.”

  Matt strode back and forth along the length of the room. “That’s it. Everything matches. They raised the sub, got it operational, and sent it on one last voyage. The SS officer’s hat with the death’s head. Inside the hatband, the initials J.K. That guy was on there for something special. Can we look for him in the SS files like we did the U-boat COs?”

  Richter nodded, putting the disc in its case and handing it to Matt for placement back in its storage box. He looked at his watch. “Only minutes before midnight. Some of the Schutzstaffel or SS files are classified, especially those of the Lagerkommandant, the concentration camp commandants. From the insignia you say he wore, I suspect that’s what he might have been. At least one of their senior officers.” He paused, looking at Matt with concern. “You are so tired, we will come back tomorrow night. That way you stay and enjoy some of Hannah’s cooking.”

  “And if I can identify the guy, maybe the whole secret will unfold.”

  “I hope you can, and if so, I’m certain my government will be most grateful.”

  Matt laughed softly, the sound carrying a sarcastic edge. “If the bad guys don’t get to it first.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Tuesday, 23 October 2001

  With the night already stretched into the first minutes of the new day, Matt’s eyelids gradually drooped to narrow slits until nothing could have wakened him short of Richter shouting in his ear. “We’re here, Matthew. Your hotel.”

  “Huh?” With a shudder that ran through his entire body, Matt rolled his head around on his neck and listened to the pops. “Yeah,” he said as the taxi pulled next to the curb in front of the hotel. “Right.” Though the underside of his eyelids felt like sandpaper, Matt tried to blink away the sleep that had settled on his brain. Between yawns, he asked the driver, “Hey, Gunther, how much would you charge for me to stay right here for the rest of the night?”

  “More than you would be willing to pay, my American friend,” the taxi driver responded. “My time is up, and I am going home to a wife and a warm bed. And if she’s feeling frisky, maybe—”

  The crash from behind caused Matt’s head to whip back against the padded headrest of his seat. The sudden impact catapulted the taxi forward, tore the steering wheel from Gunther’s grasp, and sent the passenger side of the car up and over the curb and into a line of tall shrubbery. “What the hell!” Fighting to remain upright, Matt swung around to the rear window and saw a black sedan, its nose buried at an angle in the trunk of the taxi.

  Almost immediately, a second sedan swerved to a stop in front of the taxi, shifted into reverse, and slammed into the taxi’s front bumper, raising the front end of the taxi several inches off the pavement and effectively pinning it between the two vehicles. The same force threw Matt forward. His head ricocheted off the back of the front seat and just as rapidly, snapped back.

  Shouting in German, Gunther tried to push open his jammed door. “Goddamn, Goddamn, Goddamn!” he screamed in English at two men who jumped from the car in front. “Was ist—” His words were cut off by a steady barrage of bullets tearing through the windshield and punching through Gunther’s head and upper chest.

  Diving to the floorboard, Matt shouted, “Get down, Eddy!” But it was too late. A nearby streetlight illuminated the blood pumping like a miniature oil well from a puncture wound in Richter’s throat. The widening stain coursed steadily over the man’s collar and down the front of his jacket.

  “Shit!”

  Matt grabbed Richter to pull him forward and down before the bullets smashing through the rear window could do any more damage. But one look at Richter’s eyes told Matt his friend was dead. “Oh, God, not—” His plea was interrupted by the revving of engines as both sedans pulled away. The front vehicle ripped off the taxi’s front bumper as it surged forward, allowing the left side of the taxi to settle back to the roadway with a gut-wrenching jolt.

  Suddenly, more gunshots. Someone shouted, “Der Reifen! Schiessen Sie ihn!” This was followed by the near simultaneous explosion of one tire, then a second, and the loud hiss of compressed air escaping from the driver’s side of the car. Matt could hear and feel the effects of bullets slamming into both the trunk and engine, and it dawned on him, They’re gonna disintegrate the goddamn thing…with me in it!

  The shrubs next to the passenger side! Gotta get out. Praying the interior light wouldn’t come on when he opened the door, he jerked the handle back and pushed. Another push. With the grinding of metal against metal, Matt forced the door halfway open. Thank God: no light. Must’ve hit the battery, he thought. The opening was just large enough. Matt slithered his way through the doorway and onto the ground beneath the bushes, crawling as fast as he could until, suddenly, the gunfire stopped.

  Behind him, Matt heard feet pounding against the pavement. This was immediately followed by a beam of light searching the inside of the taxi. The beam finally settled on the open rear door through which he’d crawled. A gruff voice called, “Nur zwei. Der Amerikaner. Er ist gegangen!“

  Der Amerikaner! The American! Hearing those words, Matt knew without a doubt they wanted him—and they wanted him dead.

  He had to move, but where? If true to European security standards, the hotel door would be locked, and nobody in their right mind would open it for a blood-spattered man being chased by people with guns. Where, damn it, where? His brain raced at lightning speed. And where were the cops, for chrissake? Didn’t the sound of cars crashing and guns firing get somebody excited enough to call the police?

  The street sign read KONRAD ADENAUER UFER and showed an arrow pointing toward Deutsches Eck—German Corner. Adenauer Ufer he recognized as the street he’d driven on to get to the hotel, but Deutsches Eck? The historical marker he’d seen on the way to the restaurant. Was it a park? A memorial? Somewhere to hide? Prompted by the sound of voices moving from the opposite direction, he was about to find out. He scuttled on all fours behind the line of bushes and into the deep shadow of much taller trees lining the street.

  To his right, Adenauer Ufer, a two-lane layer of asphalt lit by a row of street lamps. Past the street lay the Rhine and a line of empty concrete piers, all bathed in the light of a moon almost directly overhead. No matter what, he sure as hell didn’t want to go for a swim in a fast moving river. He remembered another near escape. London, and the muddy waters of the River Thames that had almost dragged him under. “Gotta be another way,” he breathed.

  To his left was the rounded turret and two spires of what looked like a church. A sign pointed to Basilika St. Kastor and another multilevel, typical Teutonic structure Museum Ludwig. The murmur of anxious voices, moving in his direction along a walkway between the two buildings, suddenly reached his ears. Goddamn! he cursed at the reality of what was happening. They were flushing him out like a rogue animal, pushing him forward, but to where? And to what?

  Headlights! A spotlight! Matt spotted two men in a Volvo sedan, its rear end badly dented, moving slowly along Adenauer Ufer. The driver directed a side-mounted spot, raking the area with its beam. And then the light was extinguished as the Volvo sped up, turned the corner, and, within seconds, screeched to a halt. Car doors opened and slammed shut.

  Other than the river, there was only one way left—Deutsches Eck. “Okay, German Corner, here I come.”

  Matt made a mad dash across the moonlit street and into the trees. Behind him voices shouted, footsteps pounded, gunshots echoed in the night. One shot, two, three! He knew he wasn’t dead because he could still count the shots. Sucking in quick slugs of air, he ran past the historical marker—but where the hell was he running? And then he saw it, through an opening in the trees.

  Perched high above a stone monument, its base like the superstructure of a ship with darkened windows and archways, stood a gigantic bronze statue of Kaiser Wilhelm. Silhouetted against the night sky, at least a hundred feet high, the long-dead Kaiser, portrayed as a helmeted warrior, sat astri
de a prancing steed. At the horse’s side stood the winged female figure portraying Victory.

  On ground level past the monument lay a vast open, triangular plain of concrete, aglow under the light of the near full moon. Two rows of flags, fluttering in the light breeze, seemed to march from each side of the monument to a final flag at the triangle’s apex. And then nothing.

  “Aw, Christ!” He pictured the map of the city. Beyond the last flag, beyond what appeared on the map like the bow of a ship, was the meeting of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers. They’d boxed him into what looked and felt like the end of the world. The pinnacle of an ever decreasing triangle. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  CHAPTER 24

  Although scrunched down and temporarily hidden in the underbrush at the edge of the trees, Matt could hear their voices calling from different locations, and he knew. They were in a search pattern, and it wouldn’t end until they had him in their sights. With eyes on fire from lack of sleep, he turned from the sound and squinted at the base of the monument. A wooden door. It was a good twenty yards across open space and through moonlight that seemed at that moment to be bright as day. But the question was, where would the door lead? Up into the monument? Or was it a dead end? As the voices grew louder and the crunch of footsteps on dead leaves became audible, he knew the men were close and he had no choice. He had to move.

  Taking a deep breath, Matt sprinted from the cover of the trees across open ground, grabbed the door’s wooden knob, and pushed. It gave, but barely. “C’mon, goddamn it!” Again, more movement. The bottom of the door dragged on concrete flooring inside the base of the monument. A shout. “Das Denkmal! Dorthin!“ Words he understood. “The monument! Over there!” They’d seen him!

  For only a moment, he looked back. Five men ran in his direction. There was something familiar about one of them, squarely built like a block of granite, but everything was moving too fast for Matt to think.