Weapons of Peace

by Johnston, Peter D. ;

  “The same thing we should all think, pretty flower lady,” Dieter said, without hesitating. “The Jews have ruined this country. They deserve slaughter.” He paused as Maria fell silent again. “Unfortunately, Axel hadn’t yet absorbed these truths, despite my teachings. His defiance reflected badly on me. Party members didn’t believe that I would never teach my son to respect those who aren’t worthy of being among the Aryan race; that includes Jews—and misfits, like the three of you.”

  Maria clenched the edge of the table, barely managing to restrain herself from running around the table to pummel Dieter.

  “Do you have anything further to say in your defense on any of these charges?” Manfred asked, knowing that he also had to stay calm for the sake of due process.

  From the flower lady’s tone and reaction, Dieter realized that his honesty about the Jews probably hadn’t helped his cause, but he knew that he couldn’t backtrack.

  “I would only point out,” Dieter said, “that you told me to be truthful above all else, regardless of how incriminating that might be. Well, I have done just that on all fronts. I expect you to be bound by this standard.”

  Manfred nodded.

  Behind Dieter by the door, unseen and unheard by the prisoner, Emma rose from her seat and quietly left the room. The past ninety minutes of testimony had been illuminating, exhausting—and exactly what she’d hoped for: the truth.

  The tribunal members, notes in hand, shuffled past Dieter on their way to the living room at the front of the house. There they would decide the fate of the accused.

  Chapter 52

  Monday, April 2, 1945

  8:45 p.m.—Hamburg, Germany

  After half an hour, the chief adjudicator and the jury returned to join Dieter in his darkened kitchen-courtroom, bringing one more person with them.

  The boy was seated in the shadows, to Dieter’s left, halfway between his chair and the table for three, with a hood covering his head. Manfred explained that he wanted Axel in the room but had requested that he remain hooded and lightly sedated so that he wouldn’t be upset or cause a commotion.

  “Then why bother having him here?” Dieter asked, his anger rising as he watched the boy slump pathetically in his chair, shivering, his head falling sideways only to jerk upward again as he tried to stay awake. Dieter shook his head, noticing that even though it had grown much colder since the sun had gone down, his son hadn’t been given anything to keep him warm. He still had on the T-shirt and shorts Dieter had instructed him to wear before he went to school that morning.

  “I want Axel here so you don’t forget what’s at stake,” Manfred answered. “Nor do I want to expose Axel to things a boy should never see or hear in a clear state of mind, something you’ve admitted to overlooking in the past.”

  Fear penetrated Dieter for the first time, twisting its way up and through his spine, forcing beads of sweat out and onto his forehead. What do they not want Axel to see or hear? What are these stupid assholes planning to do to me?

  Before rendering judgment on any of the charges, Manfred clarified that existing laws were just one standard the jury had applied during their deliberations. Other relevant standards related to common decency, the basic rights of all people regardless of their religion or whether they were male or female—and the willingness to be honest and forthcoming during the hearing, for which Dieter was to be commended.

  “Dieter von Schroeter, I will now relay the verdict of your case.”

  “Just to remind you, your decision means nothing to me,” Dieter said.

  “Objection noted, Herr von Schroeter. You should know that you’ve been found innocent on the most serious charges against you: murdering John and Margaret Doyle and crimes against the German state.” Manfred paused. “You have, however, been found guilty of the assault and battery of Emma von Schroeter—now known as Emma Doyle. You are also guilty of holding Emma Doyle against her will; the theft of Emma Doyle’s funds; and removing Axel from his legal guardian, Emma Doyle, without consultation. Do you have any questions?”

  “Questions? Exactly which part of my testimony did you miss?” Dieter hissed, lips trembling. “I did all those things because I had the right to. She’s my goddamn wife, he’s my idiotic son who cost me my job, and I’m the one who makes the decisions.”

  “Tonight, we will be making the decisions,” Manfred said. “For your crimes, the equivalent in Reichsmarks of 8,726 pounds—the amount stolen from Emma Doyle—is to be removed from your three bank accounts.” Dieter’s mind blanked, confused as to how they’d unearthed his accounts despite the money he had paid under the table to Erich Petersen, the clown who ran the local bank.

  “You can’t do that!” Dieter countered. “Her money is my money.”

  Manfred ignored the interruption. “And you’ll be turned over to the SS right away with a recommendation that you go to prison, not for thirty years, as some nations might dictate for your crimes but, rather, for just five years—the same amount of time Emma Doyle lived in a prison of your making, barred from seeing her son and unable to free herself from the memories of what you had done to her. I would only add explicitly that this verdict assumes good behavior from this point forward.”

  Dieter snorted, shaking his head. “And what about poor Axel here?” he asked, motioning toward the boy. “What’s to be done with him if I’m being arrested and sent to prison by the phantom SS connections you keep mentioning?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry—the boy,” Manfred said. “We’ve agreed among ourselves that you can buy the child’s freedom for 1,058 Reichsmarks and we’ll make sure he’s looked after by someone closely related to him by blood.”

  Dieter laughed. “Again, such a precise number!”

  “After paying Emma Doyle back her 8,726 pounds, 1,058 Reichsmarks happens to be what’s left in your bank account.” Dieter suspected Manfred’s numbers were right. “So the question is this,” Manfred said. “As the boy’s father, will you spend your very last Reichsmark to set your son free?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dieter said loudly. “Why would I pay for something that’s already mine and that you’ve taken from me unlawfully?”

  “We’ve made our decision,” Manfred reiterated. “Am I to understand that you’re not willing to pay this amount for your son’s release?”

  “I’ll give you one hundred Reichsmarks—and that’s my final offer,” Dieter snarled.

  “The standard here is a test related to paying us your last Reichsmark, not an arbitrary amount. Final chance: 1,058 Reichsmarks for your child’s freedom.”

  “I won’t give in to your extortion,” Dieter said, jerking his head up.

  “Then we will keep the boy in custody. Herr von Schroeter, if we permit you the common decency of saying goodbye to your son before the SS comes, without the embarrassment and full limitations of your restraints, do you promise on your son’s life to behave?”

  Dieter tried to hide his surprise at this offer. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I assure you that I have no interest in creating a commotion with Axel here, and, as his father, I’d very much like to embrace him if I’m about to be taken away.”

  Naïve idiots! They don’t know what I’m capable of.

  “Kurt, please loosen the prisoner’s restraints.” Kurt rose hesitantly, signaling his concern but doing as asked, adding ample slack to the ropes around the prisoner’s hands and shoulders, allowing for significant movement. Dieter rose slowly, shaking his limbs to get his blood circulating.

  The prisoner looked at his watch. With his elbow extended, he jammed it sideways into Kurt’s gut. The boy doubled over.

  Dieter grabbed the revolver sticking out of Kurt’s back pocket, quickly checking the gun’s chambers, and swore when he realized that the pickpocket had failed to reload his weapon. Dieter had been left with a single bullet. He pointed the gun straight ahead, having trouble deciding w
ho most deserved this bullet. He settled on Manfred as his primary target, then Kurt, then Maria. Finally, he decided that he had no choice.

  One bullet could put just one life at risk, and there was only one life in the room that would get him out the door unscathed if threatened.

  Dieter now shed the ropes entirely and aimed the barrel of his gun at the child, yanking him up. “If anyone moves, I will be forced to shoot Axel. And I will shoot him. Believe me,” he said, pulling the boy backward into the darkest part of the room. “But let us out of here and I won’t harm him.”

  “Too late, Dieter. The harm has been done,” said a familiar voice from behind him. Dieter swung around, 180 degrees away from his jury, looking intently into the darkness near the kitchen door.

  Christ, it’s her.

  His eyes adjusted further to magnify the limited light cast from the front of the room. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was.

  Emma stood looking back at him, her cheeks flushed, her blond hair loose around her neck, her arms draped protectively over Axel’s shoulders.

  Dieter stared at Axel—his confusion peaking—because he was certain that he was holding a gun to Axel’s hooded head. Did his son have a twin he didn’t know about?

  “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, his gun swinging from one end of the room to the other. He snatched the hood away, revealing a young blondish boy who resembled Axel in stature but nothing more. The impostor smiled, revealing teeth as black as the boy’s eyes, his pug nose scrunched up in delight, his performance now complete.

  You tricked me, you bastards.

  Kurt had found the boy, whose name was Uwe, at a nearby park and hired the street-hardened youngster to double for Axel; it was he who had earlier drawn Dieter inside the house. Uwe had been fully briefed beforehand, and, given how much he and his impoverished mother were being paid for this work, he seemed to be reveling in his central role in the drama unfolding around him.

  “Dieter, I’d truly hoped for Axel’s sake that you would pass each of your tests after the jury’s initial verdict,” Emma said. “I needed to know that, while you might still be a despicable extremist, you wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice your last Reichsmark for your son—but you failed. I needed to know that, even if your life was at stake, you would protect your son above yourself—but you didn’t.”

  Tears streamed down Axel’s face, the eight-year-old trying to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing.

  His mother had spared him the first part of the trial detailing his father’s charges, but had decided that he should sit silently with her at the back of the room for the court’s judgments. She’d wanted the truth about his father to come from other voices she trusted, not her own. She’d wanted her son to see his father as he was, for better or for worse, not as she saw him. She’d wanted Axel to understand that she hadn’t abandoned him as a three-year-old—his father had snatched him away. While prepared for the worst as the proceedings came to a close, she’d not expected such an ugly turn—or Axel would never have been allowed to be by her side.

  Dieter raised his gun toward Emma. “I still have one bullet.”

  Emma walked toward him, her hand out, gently asking for the gun.

  He pulled the hammer back.

  “No, Vater! Please, don’t!” Axel pleaded, running in front of his mother. Emma shifted him back toward Maria, who swept the boy aside as he screamed.

  “Dieter, you’re not a killer; we’ve already established that,” Emma said. “I whispered to Axel earlier that his father is capable of both amazing and nasty things, like all of us. The nasty things may be on display right now. But the amazing side of you has kept Axel alive and cared for him when millions of children weren’t so lucky.”

  Dieter froze. He looked at Axel, whose hands were pressed together in prayer. He looked back at Emma. She’d given him an out. He could still save face with his son. He flipped the gun around to hand it to her, relieved when he saw her relax. He flipped the gun one more time, his finger returning to the trigger. He fired into Emma’s stomach.

  She didn’t flinch.

  “And that, Dieter, was your final test,” Emma said. “I needed to know if I could trust you to leave prison one day and never harm me again—clearly, I can’t. I apologize for the trickery with the hood and the blank bullet you just shot me with, but these tests were all necessary.” Emma looked into her husband’s eyes. “I don’t know what’s happened to you since we first met, but I do know that this war has brought out the worst in you, not the best, as it has with so many men and women on our side.”

  Dieter looked past Emma. “Axel, I’m your father. You belong to me. They cannot do this!” he said, as Manfred and Kurt moved to restrain him.

  Axel stayed close to Maria, sobbing, ignoring his father’s words and escalating shouts.

  Manfred directed Dieter to turn so that he could rope his wrists again. Dieter complied, leaning over as though to expose his hands behind his back but continuing to swoop down. Before he could be stopped, he’d retrieved the jagged fish knife stashed inside the leg of his trousers.

  If I can’t have Axel, she won’t have him, either.

  In one motion, honed by years of practice, Dieter rose with his knife, twisted, and threw it hard from fewer than ten yards away. Manfred tackled him to the floor just after he released his weapon. The room’s scarce light caught only the blur of the long, sharp blade as it rotated through the air. Emma, watching helplessly, screamed as the knife flew toward Axel.

  Maria didn’t have time to move Axel. She reacted instinctively, spinning her body in front of the boy so that the blade wouldn’t harm him. It missed him by inches, hitting Maria as she turned and slicing deep into her back, underneath her shoulder blade. The tip of the knife plowed through her strong flesh, cutting into her aorta, before coming to a halt.

  Maria fell to the floor. Her heart started to spasm and spew blood. Her blue eyes were wide, a fleeting smile forming on her lips; she knew that she had saved Axel. Then her heart simply stopped, the damage to her body’s largest artery too acute.

  “Maria!” Emma yelled, rushing to her cousin. She cradled Maria’s head as her body twitched.

  “Is there any way to stop the bleeding?” Kurt cried.

  “No—it must have hit her artery. There’s nothing we can do,” Emma said, her voice thick with tears.

  Manfred twisted Dieter’s arms behind his back as his prisoner remained facedown on the floor. “You think you’re a man now? You throw a knife at your own son? You’re nothing!” Dieter could only cough in response, as Manfred continued to crush him into the floor.

  “Maria, I’m so sorry. Thank you for saving my son,” Emma whispered. “I should have listened to you and killed Dieter.” But, even as she said it, Emma knew that she had done what was right for her and her son going forward. Emma kissed Maria’s forehead and cheeks, her tears streaming down onto her cousin’s tranquil face. “Thank you, my cousin, my friend. I love you.” Emma placed her fingertips over the eyelids of her childhood triplet and gently drew them down.

  The only thing that prevented Emma from cracking Dieter’s skull against the floor was Axel. The boy threw himself into his mother’s bloodied arms, bawling.

  Kurt quietly ushered Uwe out of the house and returned to kneel at Maria’s side to say goodbye. Axel hid his face in his mother’s stomach—one final defiance as his father pleaded with him, “Look at me, son! I’m sorry! Look at me!” Manfred dragged him from the room.

  —

  Fifteen minutes later, four SS officers arrived, as Emma had arranged with Kammler. They called Dieter “a Jew lover,” and said they’d been trying to track him down for years. Emma handed them an envelope marked confidential, addressed to Kammler. It contained a note she’d scribbled to him moments before.

  Dieter caught sight of the name on the envelope. “How the hell do you
know Kammler?” he asked, glaring at her. “And what are you telling him?”

  “Dr. Kammler is an old friend, Dieter. He’s eagerly anticipating your arrival,” she said cooly, taking deep breaths to control her emotions. “I’d hoped to tell him you could be freed in five years, for Axel’s sake, but that’s no longer possible. It’s now going to be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or, more to the point, a husband for a cousin—and justice will be served swiftly.”

  Emma grimaced, feeling her son’s loss of his father but knowing now, without a doubt, that Axel would be better off without Dieter.

  She turned, slowly walking away from the man who’d caused her such pain for so long, and reentered the house. She wanted desperately to return to England—and to Nash. She couldn’t wait to tell him that she’d figured out his puzzle about the golden key—the last key he said she’d need to complete her education and fully unlock her world of influence. He’d been right. And she still couldn’t believe how accessible, yet powerful, that key had proved to be.

  Chapter 53

  Monday, April 9, 1945

  12:25 p.m.—Munich, Germany

  Fred Suggs hated Wiener Schnitzel. He’d eaten it for lunch because nothing else was available, but the German veal was causing him to burp violently—upsetting his rifle, which he’d lined up perfectly for an overhead kill.

  Suggs also hated being German and abhorred his real name, Frederich Sauer. He was born in Munich, but his father—the dentist—decided to move the family to England, changing their name from Sauer to Suggs, after the German economy failed in the 1920s and no one in the country had any money left to fix their teeth.

  Being back in Munich didn’t conjure up any great childhood memories for Suggs. But he wasn’t here to languish in the past. He was here to secure his future. His client, Charles Buckley, had put big money in play, convincing Suggs to travel to Germany in the midst of its imminent collapse.