There was something about her, beyond her looks and her flowers, that had caught his attention, but he didn’t have time to figure it out. He had to get to Axel.
—
For three days now, they’d watched Dieter and his son from afar, and Axel had always been one of the first to run out the school doors. He would quietly join his father and begin to walk home, neither of them saying much.
Today, they thought about intervening to remove Axel from his school earlier in the afternoon but worried that his teacher or the principal would make a phone call to Dieter to confirm the arrangements with him. They had also carefully considered whether Emma, Kurt, Manfred, or Maria should pick the boy up.
Instead, they settled on the reclusive eighty-two-year-old Brita Becker to do their most sensitive work, driving her to the school just before the children were to be released.
Frau Becker waited at the gate to the Mendelssohn Elementary School, going through her rehearsed words. She’d known the boy for years, but often forgot his name.
Within a minute of the shrill school bell’s ringing, children streamed out of the old brick building. Frau Becker, who stood four feet ten inches, couldn’t see Axel anywhere, her white head of hair moving back and forth as she strained to catch sight of him. She probably hadn’t spoken to him in six months.
“Axel!” That is his name, isn’t it?
“Hello, Frau Becker,” Axel shouted over the heads of the other children, moving toward her while still looking for his father. “What are you doing here?” His neighbor rarely left her house a few doors down from his.
“I’m here for you, dear boy. Don’t worry, your father will be fine.” Axel shot her a questioning look. “But I’m told he had an accident at the cannery. He wanted you brought to him,” she said, touching his shoulder. Though they didn’t know each other that well, Frau Becker knew good neighbors helped one another when needed.
The boy’s face remained placid as he absorbed this news.
“Are we walking?” he inquired, squinting at Frau Becker.
“No, one of the cannery’s owners is here from Berlin. He’ll take you with him,” Frau Becker said, guiding Axel toward a black BMW on the other side of the street. Manfred sat behind the wheel, window open, engine running.
“Hello, young man. Jump in,” Manfred offered, still wearing his pin-striped banker’s suit. Axel hesitated briefly as Frau Becker opened the back door, then climbed in. Frau Becker stayed outside, saying that she would walk home, but Manfred, glancing in his rearview mirror with concern, gently insisted that she get in. She relented, following Axel into the car.
As Manfred pulled away from the curb, he checked his mirror again. Despite their meticulous planning, they’d succeeded only by the slimmest of margins.
Dieter had just arrived at the school gate and was running around in circles looking for his son.
Poor bastard—wait until he finds out what else he’s lost today, Manfred thought.
—
Father and son had agreed that if by chance Dieter couldn’t get to Axel by 3:40, Axel was to wait at the principal’s office.
After scanning the school grounds and asking a few people if they’d seen Axel, Dieter had gone to the office. By the time it was confirmed that his son had in fact left with the other students and hadn’t reentered the school, it was already 3:50, a full twenty minutes after Axel’s scheduled pickup.
If someone took him, I may have to catch the next train out of town.
But part of him wondered if Axel had started to walk home, forgetting that he was supposed to stay and wait. Axel had left without thinking on one other occasion and been punished for his carelessness. Dieter didn’t think the boy would risk crossing him a second time, but he’d learned the hard way that his son’s actions were rarely predictable.
He began to run again, his weak foot dragging now, just a thin wafer of leather cushioning it as he pounded the pavement. He took the same route they always took, hoping to come across his son ambling along with a friend; Axel might even be sitting at home already, since he had his own key.
Chest heaving, sweat leaking through his blue shirt and gray trousers, Dieter thought back to his poor luck with the pickpocket, leaving him without his son or a date with the flower lady. His bloodstream began to heat up with adrenaline.
He finally turned onto his street, slowing two blocks from home, eyes focused far ahead, searching the sidewalk.
There he is, the brat!
Even from such a distance, he could see the outline of his son standing by their house, seeming to signal that he was fine, before meandering back toward their front door.
Dieter stopped and bent over to catch his breath, trying to control his angry thoughts. Once again, the boy had fouled things up. Dieter’s parents were the ones who’d insisted that he bring Axel to Germany. His father had made it clear that even if Dieter never felt any bond with his young son, it was their duty to bring him up in their homeland and make a man of him. Now that his parents were dead, the burden of Axel was all his. This burden was bearable only because it meant that Axel’s mother, who was part of the enemy, and someone he’d grown to detest, could no longer influence their son and his beliefs. She’d lost Axel—and he’d won.
As Dieter made his way along the final block and a half, his anger turned to fury, his neck twisting, his hands seizing up, his feet growing heavier on the pavement: Axel had violated his trust; he should have waited at the principal’s office as they’d agreed.
He knew that Axel hated the thick black belt, but one day his son would be thankful for it, just as Dieter had come to appreciate why his own father had belted him. Axel still lacked discipline, was forgetful and disrespectful, and seemed oblivious of the sacrifices being made for him. The beltings had started during the exodus from England; Axel had dared to ask when he would see his mother again—after he’d been told never to mention her. Over the years, the boy had stopped talking about her altogether. Dieter now suspected that Axel had forgotten that he’d ever had a mother.
He will suffer for this latest act of disobedience.
Dieter walked up the path to the modest white-and-black shuttered home they rented.
He pushed through the front door. “Axel!” he bellowed, expecting to hear the boy’s voice answer him immediately.
No answer came, not even a sound. It was as if there was no one in the house, which Dieter knew was impossible—he’d just seen his son run in minutes before.
The gun’s hammer broke the silence as it locked into place behind him, a bullet ready to fire from its chamber.
The needle reached him first.
Chapter 51
Monday, April 2, 1945
6:40 p.m.—Hamburg, Germany
By the time Dieter regained consciousness, darkness had descended on the house.
Everything was ready; the curtains had been drawn, and the long, narrow kitchen had been reconfigured, with a table turned sideways, on the opposite side of which three seats had been lined up. An unshaded lamp shone from the corner behind the trio of empty seats, casting foreboding shadows across the otherwise blackened kitchen—the only light and source of heat in the room.
In front of the kitchen table, half a dozen yards away, stood a solid, high-backed wooden chair. The blindfolded prisoner sat in this single chair, his hands and broad shoulders tied behind him so that his head was forced upright and in the direction of the table, unable to rotate toward the distant door behind him that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house. From the familiar, musty scent in the air, and the sounds on the hardwood floors, Dieter assumed that he was still in his own home.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” he demanded of the void around him, breathing in the rank smell of his own stale sweat from the running he’d done that afternoon in pursuit of Axel.
Now that Dieter was full
y conscious, they slowly entered the kitchen through its only entrance, moving past him and into their assigned positions, Kurt and Maria taking their seats on either side of Manfred at the table. Each wore a jacket of one type or another to fend off the cold and damp. Each carried paper and a pencil.
The trial was set to begin.
—
Nash had made it clear to Emma that the odds lay against any real justice being done in an actual courthouse. She knew that he was right. She also knew he believed that how you went about negotiating and making decisions—or doing anything, for that matter—was usually much more important than the specifics of what you were after.
Reflecting on her exceptional circumstances, she’d concluded that an informal trial, though flawed, would have to do. For the sake of Axel, whom she’d be accountable to forever, regardless of what he understood now, she’d come to see that how her estranged husband’s fate was determined would be critical. The boy’s father couldn’t simply suffer punishment, or disappear, or be killed, as Maria had suggested. No, she’d decided, his case had to be heard, and to stifle her own bias, she’d chosen not to be involved directly and had instructed Dieter’s jury to be as fair-minded as possible.
Manfred began. “Dieter, my name is Manfred. I will be the chief adjudicator in this case, as well as one of three jurors. The charges against you are as follows: assault and battery; holding an adult against her will; theft of funds; kidnapping; murder; and various crimes against the German state.”
Dieter’s eyes shifted wildly behind his blindfold. “Verdammt! This isn’t a bloody trial! You’ve drummed up these absurd charges, and you’ve taken my son. You’re the criminals—not me!”
Manfred confirmed that they had Axel. “But the outcome of this trial,” he said, “will govern the boy’s status. In this court, telling the truth, no matter how self-incriminating, will be highly valued. If you lie about anything, the jury will likely see through it and you will be at risk of never seeing your son again, or ever being freed. Have I made myself clear?”
“And if I refuse to accept the authority of your so-called court?” Dieter challenged.
“Then we will assume you are guilty on all counts and proceed accordingly,” Manfred said. “To be clear, Herr von Schroeter, I’m working with the SS on this matter. My two fellow jurors and I have the authority to impose the death penalty without any proceedings whatsoever. So consider yourself lucky.”
Manfred’s comment had the desired effect. Dieter, thrown by the reference to his real last name, went quiet—before making one more request.
“I want my blindfold removed so I can see who intends to hold me accountable.”
“A reasonable request,” Manfred said, signaling to Kurt. Kurt lifted the blindfold, revealing deep semicircles under Dieter’s brown eyes—the plague of restless nights.
“Mein Gott!” Dieter exclaimed, staring into the dark shadows, barely making out Manfred, Kurt, and Maria’s straw hat. His mind scrambled to understand how he’d fallen into their trap. “My, aren’t you all so clever! You set me up. And now I’m to be tried by a pimply pickpocket, a flower lady, and a male model in a suit? Really? Where is my wife? What has she told you about me?”
The three had agreed before entering the room that Manfred would do most of the talking, because he’d been the one briefed by Emma on the details of all the charges.
“Herr von Schroeter, we did what we had to do to get the boy and you here on our terms, not yours. We believe our actions are more than justified,” Manfred said.
“Your deception isn’t appreciated,” Dieter grunted. “I would hope that your trial will be conducted in a more transparent manner. Let’s get on with it, then,” he added. He scanned the kitchen to plot his escape.
Manfred looked down at his notes. “We’ll start with the deaths of your in-laws, John and Margaret Doyle, on June 6, 1938, and the charge of murder in the first degree.”
The defendant’s eyes drifted down to his rough hands.
—
Over the course of an hour, Manfred went back and forth with Dieter, listening to his explanations, and hearing his perspective on each charge, as instructed by Emma.
Dieter said that, at the time, he wasn’t at all sorry to learn that Emma’s parents had died after being hit by a truck near the south coast. Their deaths, he’d believed, would make it easier for him to convince Emma that she and Axel needed to return to Germany with him. But he did not kill them, he maintained. He wouldn’t have done that. He admitted that he had an alibi for where he was at the time, in London, but, unfortunately, that alibi involved a young prostitute named Jenny.
As for holding his wife against her will and beating her, Dieter argued that, by law, a husband had the right to do as he saw fit in this regard. He’d had insider information about Germany’s plan to attack its enemies, which he couldn’t share without incurring a charge of treason, and all he was trying to do was save his wife and child from death and misery. But Emma had defied his command that she and Axel return to Germany with him. She hadn’t known her place as his wife. He’d punished her accordingly.
Had he applied too much force on the fateful night of August 30, 1939, and on other occasions before then? “Yes, of course,” he said. He still had trouble with his temper, he admitted, a flaw inherited from his father. And he felt terrible that, for whatever reason, he’d debased his wife in front of their child, allowing Axel to watch his perversity play out.
At this admission, Maria’s lips tightened. She tried to distract herself from her own mounting anger by writing note after note on her paper about what she’d heard. Their prisoner seemed to be taking advantage of the opportunity for leniency based on honest answers, regardless of how despicable those answers might be.
With respect to the money he’d removed from their joint account, Dieter continued, surely a husband, as the head of a household, had such a right when facing the prospect of clothing and feeding his son for years without assistance from his wife.
As for kidnapping, Dieter found this charge to be particularly outrageous—even humorous—given that he was the child’s father and was only doing what he felt to be in the boy’s best interests on the eve of war. “Would I have preferred my young wife to be by my side? Yes, but we’ve been through that,” he growled. “She was against living with my parents, even after her own parents could no longer help with Axel, and I’d already sacrificed and compromised with all of us being in Britain for so long, instead of Germany.”
In his role as chief adjudicator, Manfred had grown increasingly alarmed the more he heard and probed. To be sure, Dieter had acted in an extreme manner that would be reprehensible to most, but he was far from the lunatic killer Manfred had initially expected to be cross-examining. In fact, he found his foil to be quite brilliant, able to turn many points made against him back in his favor.
After meeting Axel and seeing some of his welts, it was obvious to Manfred that Dieter didn’t just lose his temper with women; he’d gone after his son as well. But was belting one’s son against the law? Not as far as Manfred was aware.
Manfred moved on to the last charge: crimes against the state, the charge he knew the least about. He could only hope Dieter was willing to continue being so open in explaining how, as a fast-rising young thinker inside the SS, he had angered his leaders to the point where they had cast him off and later tried to hunt him down.
“Just how did you disgrace yourself with the SS and attract such outrage, leading you to flee with your son and to change your identity?”
Dieter smiled, making Manfred feel uncomfortable again. “If you’re so connected to the SS—Manfred whose last name I don’t know—I’m surprised you don’t have the answer to this one.”
“We’re listening,” Manfred said. With that, Dieter sighed and began to tell his story.
In the summer of 1941, he’d been invited to a picnic
that included two dozen senior Nazis and their families, as well as a handful of leading scientists, artists, and athletes. He’d readily accepted the invitation, which he took as another sign of his rise through party ranks. He’d brought Axel with him and the five-year-old played games with the other children.
Toward the end of the event, Dieter said, a number of running races were held, and Axel, though considerably younger than most of his competitors, placed in the top three in one of them. When the führer’s youth trophies were handed out, with all the children and their parents gathered to applaud the winners, something happened that would change the course of Dieter’s career and life.
“Well, what was it?” Manfred asked, his palms open on the table, unable to conceal his curiosity, glancing sideways at Maria and Kurt. They appeared equally intrigued.
“Axel refused the second-place trophy.”
“Why?”
Dieter lowered his chin. “Axel told the organizers he came in third and that another boy, the son of one of the scientists, had won second. The officer handing out the awards explained to Axel and those in attendance that the second-place finisher was a Jew—who shouldn’t even have been in the race. Axel insisted that he deserved only the third-place award. Everyone was watching and whispering. My boy was embarrassing the organizers. They ushered him aside and forced his second-place trophy on him. The third-place trophy was given to another boy, a non-Jew.”
Manfred couldn’t help himself. “Why was Axel so stubborn about accepting second?”
Dieter smirked. “I believe this trait comes from his mother,” he said. “Axel didn’t understand the logic, so he disobeyed, not accepting what he was being told.”
Maria had been fine saying nothing up to this point. She still wore her costume and the shadows made seeing her difficult. She’d met Dieter on several occasions, including his wedding day, and preferred to remain anonymous to avoid a potential distraction to the proceedings. But now she felt compelled to speak. “And what do you think of the Jews?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
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