The Hunt (aka 27)

by William Diehl

  TWO

  Ingersoll was shocked when Vierhaus entered the dressing room—the visitor's body might have been a creation of his own. Vierhaus had a hunchback, a small distortion on his left shoulder which he partially concealed with a cloak. He held his head true instead of cocked to the side and stood as straight as his physical deformity would permit in an attempt to minimize it. Thick glasses magnified keen, scrutinizing blue eyes. His hair was neatly trimmed and short but not in the crew cut one might expect of someone in the Nazi hierarchy. Were it not for the crippling defect and the thick glasses, Vierhaus would have been handsome, for his features were cleanly chiseled and perfect, his jaw was firm and hard. Everything about Vierhaus exuded strength except the physical trick birth had played on him, a black joke which he managed to minimize with a sense of confidence and self-assurance. His handshake was firm and deliberate, his smile warm and genuine.

  "Please forgive this intrusion," he apologized. "But I was advised that you are a hard man to approach at the end of the day. Herr Kreisler suggested this might be the best time to talk."

  "Of course, of course," Ingersoll answered. Heinz placed a small salad and a cup of tea on a tray in Ingersoll's lap.

  "Will you join me in some lunch?"

  "Nein, nein," Vierhaus said waving his hand. "Danke. I had a late breakfast. But please, go ahead, I know your time is limited."

  Ingersoll nodded, toying with his salad as he studied Vierhaus through his gray eye.

  "So, Herr Doktor, why should I suddenly be so important to you and the Führer?"

  "It is quite simple," Vierhaus said. "Our Führer is a great fan of yours, Herr Schauspieler. He has seen all your films, some of them several times. He is having friends to his retreat at the Berghof a few weeks from now, a weekend of conversation and perhaps skiing if the early snow is good. He would be pleased to have you join him."

  Ingersoll was surprised—no, elated—by the invitation. Although he tried his best to remain calm, his heart pounded with excitement. He had just been invited to the leader's most private retreat, the house known as the Eagle's Nest high in the Bavarian Alps above Berchtesgaden.

  Hitler wanted to meet him!

  "I understand you will finish Der Nacht Hund in ten days," Vierhaus hurried on. "So it should be perfect for you. The party is not until the first week in February. The Führer's private plane will take you from Berlin to Munich and his car will carry you on from there. I assure you, it will be a most exciting weekend."

  "I'm sure of that," Ingersoll replied. The hideous makeup helped him to conceal his excitement. Even for the Führer, Ingersoll did not want to appear overly enthusiastic. "And of course I am flattered by the invitation. Heinz, do you have our schedule handy?"

  "I'll get it, sir."

  "If there's a conflict . . ." Vierhaus said.

  "Nein, nothing that can't be switched around," Ingersoll answered quickly.

  "Excellent. He can count on you then?"

  He was unable to conceal his delight any longer at the thought of meeting Germany's new leader, for he was an ardent supporter of the Nazi party and an unabashed admirer of Hitler. Ingersoll, like many Germans, saw, in this brash, magnetic leader, the answer to the country's problems. Hitler preached a different kind of patriotism from the Kaiser and his predecessors. There was fire in every word, energy crackled around him like lightning. For the first time since the war, someone was restoring pride to the people, giving them hope, promising revenge for the terrible injustice the Allies had wrought at Versailles. The thought charged his memory and sent it tumbling back in time.

  When Ingersoll joined the German Army in 1916, everyone assumed the war was almost won. And things continued to go well. Europe was one big trench from the English Channel to the Black Sea and the news from home was always encouraging. The Turks had killed 6,000 British soldiers at Gaza in Palestine. In the snow and rain at Caporetto, Italy, 400,000 men had deserted after 10,000 of their comrades were killed in two days and another 40,000 wounded. And in a single day at the Somme, over 19,000 British soldiers had died. Russia was torn by revolution, fighting the Germans on its borders and its own people in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow. There were rumors of mutiny all along the front where it was said that the British and French alike were dropping their guns and running. Encouraging news indeed!

  But on his first furlough in 1917, he realized that rumors of victory were lies. In Berlin, the cost of the bloody three year war had turned the city into a civilian battleground. There wasn't enough food and the country was going bankrupt. On his first day home, he had been caught up in a street riot, watching in disbelief as German troops fought strikers in the streets. Huddled in a doorway, he was numbed with horror.

  "Go back to work or be shot, " an army captain demanded. "Kaiser's orders!"

  When the strikers refused, he ordered his men to fire into the knot of civilians. There was chaos as the soldiers, on horseback, charged the group, trampling men and women under hoof, slashing them with sabers, gunning them down.

  That night in a restaurant, Ingersoll was served horse meat. When he complained, the waiter, who was missing a leg and wore an Iron Cross on his jacket, snapped "They're eating horse meat in Paris, too! When you get to the front you will realize there are no farms left, only mud and wire."

  "I've been to the front!" Ingersoll snapped back.

  It was the first time it occurred to Ingersoll that Germany might lose the war. Returning to the horror of battle, Ingersoll was shocked to see German troops dropping their weapons and fleeing in disorder before the American Marines who had now entered the battle.

  The American Marines, nicknamed the Devil Hounds charged maniacally, screaming as they came. As they screamed, the Germans ran, tumbling over each other, wallowing through the mud, screaming in pain and terror as their ranks broke in disarray. In final desperation, the Germans launched deadly poison gas bombs. But, in a final twist of fate, the wind changed and the deadly clouds drifted back into the German ranks. Gasping for breath, they clawed feverishly for their gas masks. Many had thrown the cumbersome masks away and now they attacked their own comrades, desperately ripping away at the lifesaving devices they had carelessly discarded.

  Ingersoll cowered in a shell hole, his ruined mask filled with muddy water, until finally he pulled a mask off a dead Englishman and got it over his face. The gas stung his hands and neck. Then he looked up and saw the American Marine standing over him, his rifle pointed at him, the point of his bayonet at Ingersoll's throat. The young German dropped his gun and slowly raised his hands in the ultimate gesture of surrender.

  Returning to a devastated homeland, Ingersoll, like thousands of other soldiers, found himself scorned by civilians and betrayed by the Kaiser and his politicians. He became one of millions of impoverished Germans, begging for food, wandering from town to town looking for work, rootless and alone and damning to hell the British, French and Americans for humbling the motherland and driving her to her knees. The living nightmare of returning in disgrace to a devastated and bankrupt homeland, to breadlines and street brawls and political chaos, still haunted him. Sometimes he awoke at night soaked in sweat. The vivid memory of being cold and hungry, of sleeping in an alley covered with a sheet of tar paper, was as real as if it were happening at that very moment.

  He had joined the National Socialist party in 1928, a few months before the chance meeting with Freddie Kreisler that had changed his life forever. Although he had never been active in the Nazi party, it had introduced him to Mein Kampf and the genius of Adolf Hitler. He read and reread Mein Kampf, even underlining certain passages and memorizing them.

  While on holiday near Braunschweig he had journeyed to the town out of curiosity to witness a Nazi rally. He watched in awe as hundreds of Hitler's brownshirts goose-stepped up the cobblestone streets.

  "Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!" echoed through the ancient town.

  Women held up their children to see the savior and threw flowers before his c
ar, their eyes glassy with adoration. The men threw their arms out in the Nazi salute and continued the chorus.

  "Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!"

  But it was that night, when Hitler made his speech, that Ingersoll recognized the true power of the man. Thousands crowded into the town square, their faces transfixed in the flickering light of torches, hypnotized by the sound of his voice and by the stern discipline of his stare. It was a Gothic opera, a blend of choreography, chorus and aria that both chilled and excited the actor.

  What had been called the Fiihrer's Fingerspitzengeflühl, his "fingertip touch, " was immediately obvious to Ingersoll. The man had a talent for moving rich and poor alike with an intoxicating brew of political strategy, superpatriotism, and rousing oratory. Angrily, he publicly damned the Allies, refuted the Treaty of Versailles and encouraged Germany to refuse to pay its devastating reparations. He was preaching a new and inspiring kind of national patriotism, discarding the yoke of defeat with his fervor and passion.

  Ingersoll also admired the actor in Hitler, for the Führer savored his performance with an uncanny sense of timing, knowing just when to pause, to wait for the crowd to answer his oratory.

  "Heil Hitler!"

  "Sieg heil!"

  "Sieg heill"

  And there were two other things. First, his attack on the Versailles treaty. Ingersoll had never been political. He had gone to war because it was the patriotic thing to do, to fight for family and for Germany. But at Versailles, the Allies had overlooked that, had forgotten the millions of men who had returned broken in mind, body and spirit. After all, one man's hero is always another man's enemy. And so they had unleashed their victor's venom on all of Germany instead of the politicians who had led them into war, had stripped Germany of honor and resources and left a country dispirited, bankrupt and divided by chaos, a nightmare place stripped of hope. The heart of the country and its people had been pierced by the sword of the avengers and, in the wake of war, anger and hate fired the need for retribution, for another match somewhere in time. The ink was not yet dry on the peace contract and already, from beer halls to breakfast nooks, there was talk of getting even. And no voice had been louder than Ingersoll's.

  And there was this other thing, this thing with the Jews. As a child, Ingersoll has listened to his father, an alcoholic failure, revile the Jews, blaming them for all his family's misfortune. Ingersoll had accepted the stereotypical harangues as truth. The old man's fury infected the son until Ingersoll harbored an almost psychotic contempt for Jews. Ultimately, bigotry rather than courage became Ingersoll's sticking post and subconsciously he turned his obsessive passion inward, harnessing it and forging it into the frightening, antisocial monsters he invented for the screen.

  So Hitler's inspired intuitionism enhanced the Führer's allure, firing Ingersoll's creative sensitivity into an inferno of hatred and anger. Hitler's racial attacks were like a tonic to Ingersoll and he found himself believing in the Führer with an intellectual ardor fueled by passionate racism. Proselytized by the power, baptized by the drama, Ingersoll soon became part of the throng, lashing out with his arm and joining the chorus.

  "Heil Hitler!"

  "Heil Hitler!"

  "Heil Hitler!"

  So this personal invitation was euphoric indeed, an unexpected bonus from a career that already had carried Ingersoll far beyond his wildest dreams.

  "Absolutely," he said, barely able to conceal his enthusiasm.

  "Excellent! Our Leader will be delighted, as am I. I also am a fan. I think you are a genius, Herr Ingersoll, and I have heard the Führer refer to you as a national treasure."

  "Really! Well . . ." Ingersoll was almost stammering. "What can I say?"

  "You have already said it," Vierhaus said with a smile. "The Fiihrer's chauffeur will pick you up Friday morning, February 4th, at six A.M. for the flight to Munich."

  "I know the area. I've skied there."

  "Gut. Are you a meat eater?"

  "Ja. "

  "Herr Hitler is a vegetarian. He calls people who prefer meat ‘corpse eaters.' "

  "That's a bit severe."

  "The Führer tends toward the extreme in his opinions, as you probably know."

  "I eat everything but fish. Anything that breathes through a hole in the side of its neck makes me nervous."

  Vierhaus chuckled.

  "You must tell him that. He has a keen sense of humor. Well, if there is a change, I will be in touch with Herr Kreisler. Otherwise we'll see you on the fourth. Good luck with your film."

  They shook hands again and Vierhaus was gone as quickly as he had come. Ingersoll sat back with his mouth open.

  "Hitler wants to meet me!" he breathed.

  "And why not, my friend," Otto said, laughing with joy. "As Hitler himself says, you are a national treasure. Enjoy the moment, it is just the beginning."

  Outside the studio, Vierhaus settled back in his Mercedes and smiled. The man was bedazzled, he thought to himself. Everything we have learned about him is true. He is the perfect choice.

  Done!

  And now Der Führer would complete the transformation.

  The first step in the fiendishly conceived plot Vierhaus simply called Siebenundzwanzig—27—was complete.

  THREE

  Ingersoll sprawled on the chaise lounge in the living room of his town house, freshly bathed, swathed in his silk robe, sipping champagne and staring out at the Helgestrasse. The events of the day raced through his mind. He had awakened that morning feeling unusually stressed and tired. There were a lot of reasons. The picture was three days over schedule and there was another week to go. It had been a difficult shoot from the start. That new girl, whatever her name was, had been tense and insecure since the first day, requiring take after take. His makeup was more difficult than usual to put on and became painful after only two or three hours. Every muscle in his face ached after nine hours encased in the twisted mask of rubber and aluminum.

  But the visit from Hitler's envoy had made up for all that. Only two years before, Ingersoll had been one of the millions of dispirited, homeless Germans scrambling for a living. Now here he was, rich and famous, and Germany's new savior wanted to meet him, indeed had invited him to the Eagle's Nest!

  Mixed blessings.

  He felt both exhausted and elated. And restless. And the more champagne he drank, the more restless he became, the stronger the familiar stirring became. He knew the symptoms, just as he knew that before the night was over he would know both ecstasy and humiliation.

  As always, he tried to fight off the compulsion. He thought of taking a sleeping pill—except the nightmares that accompanied his strange obsession were sometimes worse than the reality.

  He held up the champagne glass and stared at it. His hand was shaking, an almost imperceptible tremor. He put the glass down and squeezed his hands together. The compulsion became stronger. The stirring began. Finally he buzzed for Heinz.

  "I've changed my mind about dinner," he said. "Will that be a problem for you, Heinz?"

  "Of course not. I've just started cooking."

  "Good. Call the Ritz and get me a suite on the second floor, will you? Tell them I'll be ordering dinner for two."

  "Right away. Will it be Mr. Sanders tonight?"

  "Yes. And lay out my tuxedo, please. I feel a bit elegant tonight, Heinz. I feel like celebrating."

  "As well you should, Hans."

  "Yes. It has been a significant day, hasn't it?"

  "I'll get things ready."

  After Heinz left the room, Ingersoll downed the rest of the champagne and went to a corner of the room. He slid back a tall bookcase and opened the safe behind it. Inside were thick envelopes of cash: American dollars, British pounds, French francs. Everything but German marks. With inflation as high as it was it would take a safe full of marks to buy a bowl of soup. He opened one of the envelopes, counted out five hundred British pounds and stuffed them in a pocket of his robe.

  Two hours later, Inge
rsoll checked into the hotel where he was known as Harry Sanders, a fiftyish English art dealer with thick white hair and an elegantly trimmed beard. Sanders was a welcome guest. He usually arrived with only a small, black suitcase, ran up impressive bills, stayed only one night and always paid in British pounds. He went up to the suite, checked it out, then left the hotel immediately to begin cruising the Helgestrasse in his Mercedes.

  Driving through the dark streets, he was light-headed with anticipation. Less than two blocks from the hotel he passed four brownshirts standing in front of a jewelry store. One held an old Jewish man by the collar while two others stood with their faces inches from his, berating the old man, who was wearing a yarmulke. The fourth uniformed storm trooper was painting a six-pointed star on the wall beside the display window. Ingersoll stopped his car, turned off the lights and watched as the SA troopers began pushing the old man from one to the other, in a circle, spinning him around as they did. They pulled the skullcap off and threw it in the gutter. Then they began punching the crying old man, spinning him and punching him until he fell to his knees. The biggest of the storm troopers stepped back and kicked the man in the chest. He fell to the ground, drawing up into a fetal knot with his hands over his head. The storm troopers were laughing as they circled their cowering victim, taunting him, kicking him, screaming insults at him. Then the big one picked up a garbage can and shattered the display window with it. The glass showered down in a rain of gleaming daggers and splashed across the sidewalk. The SA stood back and appraised their destruction. Satisfied, they went off down the street laughing and singing.

  The old man did not move. He lay curled on the sidewalk, shaking. Ingersoll sat for a few minutes watching him. Finally there was a stirring in the shadows; two men scurried out and helped him up.

  Well, the actor thought bitterly, that old Jew learned his lesson.

  For a moment, Ingersoll wondered about his dispassionate response, for he felt no pity for the helpless old man. Certainly he despised the drunken, brawling brownshirt louts. They were animallike in their stupidity. But these were extreme times and extreme measures were necessary. Sooner or later the Marxist Jews would get the message. While the rest of the Germans wallowed in debt, the Jews grew richer, hoarding their money, controlling the banks, supporting the Communists who wanted to destroy the economy.