“Could you possibly pack a little of this up for us?” she asked a waiter.
“Help yourself. I’ll bring you some newspaper to wrap it in. At the cloakroom,” he told her jovially, “there are packages waiting for everyone too.”
Suddenly Kasrashvili was standing before them. “You’re leaving?” he said. His uniform still looked immaculate, and he seemed amazingly sober for the vast amount of cognac and liquor he’d consumed. Had he really been drinking, or was he only acting like it?
“Drink one more vodka with me.” The Georgian gestured at the waiter.
Karin pushed by Heller. “My dear Comrade Captain,” she said, offering her hand, “you are so amazingly talented and play with an astounding ease that I have never seen in any other pianist. I do hope you’ll be able to devote yourself to your artistic endeavors again soon.”
Kasrashvili raised his eyebrows. “From your wishes to God’s ears, madam. But Communism does not demand that which the individual may accomplish but rather that which itself requires. Isn’t that right?” He then gave her hand another kiss, grabbed two well-filled vodka glasses from a passing tray, and handed one to Heller.
“Here’s to not selling our souls. To your health!”
February 11, 1947: Shortly Before Midnight
The nighttime cold was a shock. It was as if all their limbs had frozen, their faces, noses, and mouths solidified too. Karin snuggled close to Heller, and together they battled the biting wind. The packages were a heavy weight to carry. And the trip home seemed to drag on. A car raced by, a second one soon after. Both disappeared into the night, leaving only darkness. Heller could feel the cold sucking the strength from his body. He wanted to say something to reassure Karin, but he didn’t know what. Suddenly Karin stopped.
“Someone’s there!” she said. Heller let go of her, shoved their package under his other arm, and tried to reach for his pistol. Then he remembered that he’d left it with Klaus.
“Come on,” he said into the wind. They walked slowly on until Heller noticed the shadow rising against the snow. He reckoned they were skirting the Dresden Heath. They could have turned left onto one of the side streets, but that meant taking the long way. And those streets were all dark, offering plenty of hiding spots for an ambush.
“We’ll keep walking,” Heller told her. The snowfall picked up. Heller didn’t let the shadow out of his sight. The closer they got, the more certain he was that someone was standing there waiting for them.
“Could you shoot at it?” Karin asked. Heller could see that she was scared. But he couldn’t tell her that he wasn’t carrying his pistol.
“I don’t just fire at anything. Stay here. I’ll check it out.”
“I’m not staying here alone,” she said and didn’t move an inch from him.
They continued on their way, and the shadow parted from the darkness and darted across the street. The figure was holding something. Heller thought he saw a gun. About twenty yards separated them now.
“Jörg, is that you?” he asked, taking a chance. “Jörg?”
The figure stayed still. Suddenly Heller knew how the doctor’s bag could have gotten into Friedel’s cellar. “Frau Schlüter? Put down the weapon. I’m doing all I can for Friedel.”
Suddenly an engine roared, and two headlights bathed the snowy street in glaring light. The figure quickly disappeared into the heath. A Soviet Army jeep came down the hill, braked, slid, and stopped right next to them. Someone shouted in Russian, which brought cackles of laughter. The doors opened, and two Soviet soldiers staggered toward them. Heller shielded Karin. He frantically wracked his brain for Russian words. Druzhba, menya tovarish Medvedev, menya politsiya. Would they understand? He cursed himself and his inability to learn that damn language. The two soldiers weren’t armed, and one was waving.
“Alone here not good, tovarish. Danger big. You two coming with we!” he shouted. “You now come!”
“What should we do?” Heller asked, staring at Karin.
“Go with them, of course,” she replied without hesitating.
“Stoi! Ochen spasibo!” Heller patted the driver on the shoulder and climbed out of the jeep. “Klaus!” he shouted as he helped Karin out. The light was still on in the kitchen window. Klaus had already spotted them and came running out of the house. Fanny peeked out from around the front door even though Heller had drilled it into her to remain hidden from everyone.
“Klaus, please tell them to wait a moment, then drive me a little farther.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Karin looked concerned.
“I just need to check on something. Go on to bed. And get Fanny upstairs.”
“I don’t like this, Max. Does this have anything to do with Kasrashvili? Or that colonel who was so nasty to you?”
“No, nothing of the sort. Don’t worry. Please go inside.” Heller held Karin close a second. “Klaus!”
Klaus had spoken with the Russian and now came and gave Heller the pistol.
“I need a flashlight too. Can you get it for me? And try reaching Oldenbusch. Tell him I’ll be over on Nordstrasse. Better yet, call police headquarters or the detectives’ division and have them call him.”
“You’re not going to wait until reinforcements arrive?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll be waiting. But I just want to get there.” All at once, an immense clarity filled Heller’s head.
The ruins of Frau Dähne’s home were still and dark. Heller stepped onto the property, quietly walked up to the small door, and shined his flashlight. He tried the door, but it was bolted from inside.
“Frau Dähne?” he said but got no answer. He walked on and discovered a narrow stairway that led up to a balcony area between the first and second floors that had once provided a rear exit to the yard. Up there he saw a door and window repaired with boards and cardboard. He slowly climbed the five steps, entering the balcony’s unlocked solarium. He knocked on the door leading inside.
“Frau Dähne? Heller here. I need to speak to you.” No one stirred inside, so he opened the door.
The room wasn’t very large, and it was crammed with everything the woman had been able to save from her house: several cabinets, a table, pictures, lamps, and a great deal of cracked porcelain. There was hardly any room to move, but she seemed to have adjusted. Heller could see the corner she slept in. “Frau Dähne?”
It was really cold. Her little steel stove had long cooled even though there were enough piles of wood to heat the whole place for a week. Heller stepped closer, to touch her possibly sleeping form. He was already fearing the worst when he realized it was only a blanket gathered in a bundle. The bed was empty.
Heller felt uneasy. Shouldn’t she be at home? He stood, shining his flashlight around the room. Something on a shelf caught his attention. It was a leather spiked helmet from the First World War, worn by soldiers before the steel helmet was introduced. He himself had worn one. It was just good enough for deflecting saber blows but completely useless against bullets and shrapnel. Heller touched the helmet and spotted an old framed photo beside it. It showed a middle-aged man in uniform and a woman in a nurse’s outfit. It was clearly a young Frau Dähne. Heller took a closer look around. He pulled out boxes and opened cabinets. He found a broken saber, only the handle and about four inches of blade remaining. In a cardboard box he discovered various mementos: a yellowed nurse’s cap, a booklet of codes of conduct, a dinged-up bullet, shrapnel, and more photos, many showing vast field hospital collection points for the wounded and the amputated, images of captured Cossacks and dead horses. And even though this was from the Russian Front, a different war zone than Heller had experienced, it still shot him back thirty years. He hadn’t expected that.
Heller had already seen images from collection points like this, where hundreds of moaning, fading men lay bleeding to death, having to wait and wait because the field doctors couldn’t keep up with even the barest of necessities. And when a field surgeon finally did arrive, he would decide i
n just a few words whether a soldier lived or died, whether he received surgery or an amputation. If Heller hadn’t been conscious at the time and hadn’t protested and begged, they would have given him the anesthetic and taken his foot off. Caught off guard, he now felt the memories overpower him, dragging him back into the hell of those muddy trenches full of a foul stench, a bloodred clay soup of legs, arms, and torsos. Those artillery shells hammering. For days. Every hour, every minute, every second. You could lose your mind. Yet he had endured it, and he owed his ticket out of hell to a single sharp piece of wood. Big as a bread knife, driven right through his ankle after an explosion. On the first day in the field hospital, the constant drumming barrage from the French had begun haunting his dreams. What he would have given to be rid of them.
He had never gotten rid of them, not even after that terrible night in February of ’45. When he had staggered through that thundering hell of flames. When he had crawled through a cellar for minutes so interminably long that it seemed he was damned to wander in that darkness for all eternity. That was his price for surviving, Heller was forced to realize. Nothing came for free. In a place where so many people had lost their lives, it was a simple fact that you would pay somehow for still being alive. He paid with his dreams and with that strange fear that always overcame him whenever he so much as thought of stepping into a dark cellar.
Heller forced himself to banish the images from his mind, then placed the items back where they belonged. He eventually followed his instincts and climbed onto a chair to reach the high shelves. It didn’t surprise him when he got hold of a rifle—Russian booty from the First World War, a Mosin-Nagant. It was covered in dust but otherwise in good condition apart from some newer scratches. Its normally attached bayonet was missing.
Heller thought he heard a faint sound. He turned around and directed the flashlight beam down into the room. But nothing was there. He climbed down from the chair and put the rifle back. He took another careful look around. That made him realize that one of the large wardrobes was standing a little way out from the wall. When he shined his light behind it, he discovered a passage. He pushed the wardrobe out a little more, so he could squeeze through. The room behind it must have once been a hallway, and half of it was now caved in. Stairs led down into the cellar. A wide board leaning against the wall caught his eye. As he pulled it away, he discovered a nook with food stacked inside—cans of food, dehydrated rations, rice, a bucket of potatoes, a crate of apples, fruit preserves, conserved leeks, even chocolate and fresh meat in ceramic bowls. Where had the woman gotten it all? Heller glanced at his watch. At least thirty minutes must have passed since he’d instructed Klaus to call for backup. How long would Oldenbusch and his men need? Twice that long maybe?
He heard the sound again, like a moan. He shined the light down the stairs again but could only see a few yards, where the stairs turned left. Heller saw something lying on the fifth or sixth stair. It was a single candle, half burned down. Could the old woman have fallen down the stairs?
Heller hesitated, unable to muster the resolve to go down the stairs, not even with his flashlight. He had no fear of ghosts, didn’t believe in demons, yet he knew that if he climbed down into that darkness, something would happen to him. He would start hearing things that had happened long ago. Start smelling fire, burned flesh, charred hair. Feel those hands reaching for him, trying to take hold.
The darkness was already grabbing for him, creeping upward, enveloping him, dragging him down when he moved the flashlight beam to another spot. He felt like a small boy, scared of the bogeyman. But he wasn’t a boy—he was a grown man. You can handle this, he told himself, you can. You’ve gone through far worse hells. Yet he couldn’t. He needed to get out of there and wait outside for Oldenbusch.
He heard the moaning again.
“Frau Dähne, is that you? Are you all right?” What a stupid question, yet he did feel a little encouraged hearing his own voice. But what if she really was lying down there? What if she needed help?
Heller drew his pistol and felt his way down the first step, then the second. He aimed both flashlight and gun together at the dark cellar entrance. Keeping his back to the wall, he forced himself down, step by step. He knew that he’d be fully at the mercy of his fears should the flashlight go out. Once the stairs turned, he shined light into a cellar corridor. It was far longer than he would’ve guessed and branched off into several rooms.
He didn’t see Frau Dähne, but he did make out dark stains on the floor. He crouched and touched one of them. It was clearly blood, even if it had dried a long time ago. He now spotted footprints and shined the light along the floor. The prints led to a door at the far end.
Heller straightened himself. He shouldn’t stay here on his own. It might be a trap. Oldenbusch would be here any minute; it had been long enough. So Heller needed to go upstairs, secure the scene, and wait. He used the flashlight to light his way to the stairs and was on the second stair when he heard the sound again, loud and clear, as if someone were trying to scream with a gag in their mouth.
Heller cursed. He was torn between reason and wanting to help, and he hated not being able to remain reasonable. Yet he turned back around and went to the far door, which was open just a crack. Heller pushed it open with his foot, keeping his pistol aimed. When he finally dared to enter the room, a chilling stench hit him. The smell was overpowering. He shined his flashlight beam to the left, along a wall, and stopped at shelving and collapsed masonry. Heavy beams supported the ceiling there. Someone had put in a lot of effort even though the house above was beyond saving.
Heller was running the flashlight over the unstable brickwork when the moaning sounded next to him. He whipped around and shined the light.
He saw him now. It was a Russian officer, gagged, with his hands tied behind his back and hanging from a rope around his neck. Just as with Gutmann, the line had been tossed over a ceiling beam and tied to an iron rod sticking out of the wall. The man screeched and moaned and reeled back and forth. Heller directed his beam down and saw that the man could just stand on his very tiptoes. His naked toes painted streaks on the smudged cellar floor. Heller scanned the surface and saw it was covered with blood as far as he could see. He was standing in the middle of it himself. He stepped to the side in disgust, incapable of thinking clearly, then bumped into something heavy that first yielded before swinging back at him.
It was a second hanged man. He’d lost his battle long ago. It had to be Weiler. He wore civilian clothes. His arms ended in dark stumps, his hands cut off. Heller stepped to the side again so as not to get hit by the swinging corpse. His flashlight beam landed on a workbench that was dark from blood. Something lay on it, a human torso missing its head, arms, legs.
Heller had to stifle the urge to gag. He thought of the meat upstairs in the hiding place and in the pots with the children in the woods, and he thought of Frau Dähne, of her chopping wood.
The Russian officer moaned, reminding Heller what he needed to do.
“Wait, I’ll find a knife,” Heller said, then felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. He dropped the flashlight, and it clattered to the floor and went out. He grabbed his gun with his left hand, reached for the painful spot with his right, and felt a syringe sticking out of his shoulder. He was about to yank it out when something struck the back of his head. He ducked, and a second blow flew over him. Numbness began spreading through his arm, and he started to panic. He held the pistol with his right hand, aiming into the darkness. But he heard and saw nothing of his attacker. Now his arm was numb, and everything was spinning. He needed to keep a clear head. He needed to get out of here. He went by touch, one arm stretched out. He bumped into a wall and felt his way along it. Suddenly he sensed movement, then metal on stone. He threw punches around him, made contact. Something fell to the floor. Then, finally, he could feel the doorway. He staggered into the corridor. His numb arm dangled wildly, and his knees grew weak, the floor seeming to dissolve under his feet. He fell,
then crawled onward to the stairs. It smelled like mold and blood. He was nauseous.
“Don’t you recognize me?” he heard. It was Klaus, peering at him gravely, as if he’d given up believing in any and all goodness of man.
Heller opened his eyes wide, staring into the darkness. Had he been hallucinating? Or had he lost consciousness for a few moments? Faint footsteps neared. Heller rolled onto his back and tried to raise his gun, but he was far too weak.
“Werner!” Heller shouted. “Werner!”
Then a foot stepped onto his throat and pressed him to the floor. Heller reached for the leg, his fingers numb and weak. His consciousness waned, yet he still felt his attacker’s breath on his face as he bent down to pull a noose over his head. With a firm jerk, the noose tightened around Heller’s neck.
February 12, 1947: After Midnight
“Max! Boss!” Someone was lightly slapping his face. Then something ice-cold touched his forehead.
“What’s that?” Heller asked, dazed.
“Snow, Max. Get up. What happened?” Oldenbusch grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.
“When did you get here?” Heller’s tongue felt foreign inside his mouth.
“Just now.”
“What time’s it?” he slurred and only now noticed all the light. Several flashlights were brightening the cellar corridor. Heller tried to check his watch with his numb fingers; he could have been unconscious only a few minutes. “Did you see anyone running away?” He felt at his neck but found no rope there. Had he imagined that?
“Not on the street,” Oldenbusch said.
“Werner, have the whole area searched now! Frau Dähne, she . . .” If only he could’ve prevented it. A sudden wave of nausea swept over him and he vomited.
Oldenbusch patted his back. “An aftereffect of the anesthesia. I’ve already launched a manhunt for Frau Dähne.”
A Thousand Devils (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 2) Page 25