Men At War - The Soldier Spies - Men at War - The Soldier Spies Part 46
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Men at War - The Soldier Spies Part 46

But the bomb destruction reminded him that there was a war, and that neither he nor Elizabeth von Handleman-Bitburg were liable to make it through that war. He certainly wouldn't, if he kept acting like some high school kid with a bad case of puppy love.

The train from Giessen to Marburg, which stopped at every other crossing, was ancient. It looked as if it belonged under a Christmas tree. There was only one class, un-upholstered benches in unheated coaches, and he rode most of the way beside a fat peasant woman with a potato bag full of cabbages. She told him that her son had been captured by the Americans in North Africa, and asked if he had been stationed there. He told her he had and that he'd almost been captured himself.

He had a mental picture of her son sitting at Fort Dix or someplace, wearing American fatigues with a big P painted on the back, eating three meals a day, and congratulating himself on being alive and out of the war.

When the tnin approached the outskirts of Marburg, he stood up, squeezed past the people in his row of seats, left the car, and stood on the platform, turning the collar of the black overcoat up against the cold wind.

He wanted to see how much damage had been done to Marburg. Aside from what looked like filled-in bomb craters along the roadbed, he could see no evidence of damage. The roadbed reminded him, however, of the Gestapo agent. By now, they must have found the body and started doing whatever they did when somebody stuck a knife in a Gestapo agent.

In just a couple of hours, if they hadn't found out already, they would learn that Reber was no longer on the train. And they would, if they hadn't already, start looking for him.

He told himself that if the train stopped at the Sudbahnhof, he would get off there and ride into the center of town on the Strassenbahn.

The train slowed as it went through the Sudbahnhof, but not enough for him to jump off.

Five minutes later, it jerked to a halt in the Hauptbahnhof. The station here was intact, too, just as he remembered it. The one in Frankfurt had some damage, and most of the glass in the arches over the platforms had been blown out. There was no glass roof over tracks in Marburg.

There were just platforms on both sides of both tracks. Steps down from them led to a tunnel under the tracks to the station building itself.

Railroad police were on the platform, but they were just keeping an eye on things, not asking for identification and travel authority.

But there would be a checkpoint somewhere. As soon as he went down the stairs to the tunnel, he found it. It had been set up in the tunnel under the tracks, out of the cold wind. What the railroad police were doing on the platform was making sure everybody went through the tunnel and didn't take off across the tracks to avoid the checkpoint.

The line moved quickly. It looked as if it were a routine checkpoint, not one set up to catch somebody special. Like whoever had scrambled a Gestapo agent's brains.

He had almost reached the head of the line when an SS-Unterscharfuhrer Sergeant) standing behind the table the railroad police had set up spotted him and shouldered his way through the crowd to him.

"Heil Hitler!" he barked, giving a straight-armed salute.

Fulmar returned the salute casually, smiled, and without being asked, produced his identification.

The document was studied casually, and handed back, with another salute.

"Pass the Sturmbannfuhrer!" the sergeant called loudly.

"Danke schon," Fulmar said.

He was almost at the table when the sergeant ran after him, caught up, and touched his arm.

Fulmar, his heart jumping, turned to look at him, wearing what he hoped the SS noncom would consider a look of polite curiosity. He was relieved to see that the sergeant was smiling, but he still felt clammy sweat.

The taxis are out of gas again, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer," the sergeant said.

"May I offer the Herr Sturmbannfuhrer a ride?" That's very kind of you, Scharfuhrer," Fulmar said. He would, he decided instantly, have himself driven to the Cafe Weitz and announce that he was meeting friends there.

"It would be a long cold walk up the Burgweg today," the sergeant said.

How does this sonofabitch know I'm going to Burgteg?

"I beg your pardon?" Fulmar asked coldly.

It was an attempt at humor, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer," the sergeant said.

"No offense was intended."

"None so far has been taken," Fulmar said. "I don't know what the hell you're t'lking about."

"I simply presumed that since the Herr Sturmbannfuhrer is on the staff of Reichsfuhrer-SS, he might be looking for a certain very senior officer, also stationed in Berlin. I repeat, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer, that no offense was intended." "I took none," Fulmar said, and smiled, "but I know a certain Standartenfuhrer who might."

"If we are talking about the same Standartenfuhrer, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer, I would be grateful if you would not--" "Of course not," Fulmar said. "He's here in Marburg already?"

"Oh, no, sir," the sergeant said. "There was a teletype message, unofficial, of course, that the unexpected duty would preclude his visiting Hauptsturmfuhrer Peis this weekend." Fulmar took the news that Muller was not going to show with a calm that surprised him. That "possibility" had been planned for. The only question was why he wasn't coming. Had he really been given some duty that kept him from coming here? Or had he backed out at the last moment?

Or had the entire operation been compromised?

"I guess that happened after I left Berlin," Fulmar said. "I hadn't heard about that. I was just told... " He stopped and smiled. "Oh, I see! You thought I was delivering a little gift, to make the lady's disappointment a little less?" Fulmar asked.

The sergeant shrugged.

"I must say that you are both alert and perceptive," Fulmar said.

"But that's not it." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe there's a message for me at Burgweg. I gratefully accept your kind offer of a ride."

"It is my pleasure. Herr Sturmbannfuhrer," the sergeant said.

When they reached the Dyer house, the sergeant said that he could wait if he wasn't going to be long.

"The very least I'll have to do is call Berlin," Fulmar said.

"And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there was an errand or two for me to run." The Unterscharfuhrer didn't seem suspicious. He replied that he would be on duty all weekend, and if the Herr Sturmbannfuhrer needed a ride, all he had to do was call.

Fulmar thanked him and went to the door.

He knew the building, but he had never been inside before.

Gisella had never wanted him to come to her house.

When he rang the bell, a small, hunched-over middle-aged woman, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, came to the door. She looked at him suspiciously.

"Fraulein Gisella Dyer, please," Fulmar said.

"Top of the stairs and to the right," the middle-aged woman said.

Gisella opened the upstairs door. She recognized him immediately, and there was fear in her eyes.

"Heil Hitler!" Fulmar barked, for the benefit of the woman who he was sure was listening at the foot of the stairs.

Heil Hitler," Gisella replied. "How may I help you, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer?"

"I have a message from a mutual friend," Fulmar said.

"Please come in," she said.

When he had gone past her, she closed the door and leaned against it.

"My God, what are you doing here?" she asked. "Where did you get that uniform? Are you crazy?"

"Where the hell is Muller?" Fulmar countered. "He was supposed to be here. Or send word when he would be." Instead of replying, she put her finger in front of her lips and pulled him into the kitchen and turned the water faucets on.

"Where the hell is Muller?" Fulmar repeated.

He sent a message through Peis that he couldn't make it," Gisella said.

"That's not what I asked," Fulmar snapped.

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

Fulmar decided that she really didn't know. The decision had to be made, and he made it.

"We'll have to go without him," he said.

"We can't do that," she said. "He'll be here next weekend, if not before." -Right about now, there's going to be a lot of people looking for me," Fulmar said. "We go now."

"What about papers?

Passports? Travel authority? How do you plan to get us across the Dutch border? We'll need a car."

"We don't need a car. We'll go by train, and we're going to Vienna, not Holland. I have documents," he said.

"Vienna?" she asked. "What happened to Holland?"

"The plans have been changed," Fulmar said. "Muller knew that.

Maybe the reason he's not here is because he'll meet us in Vienna." And maybe he's changed his mind. And maybe he's been arrested.

"He sent word that he had documents," Gisella said. "Travel documents, I mean. Johnny said theater tickets, but I'm sure he meant documents. But he didn't say anything about Vienna."

""Johnny'?" Fulmar parroted accusingly. "Well, it was 'projected' that Johnny' might not be able to make it. And an alternative plan was set up.

How long will it take you to get ready?"

"I'm not sure my father will go with you," Gisella said. "I'm not sure I want to. You're no longer a little boy, but Vienna?"

"Your father doesn't have any choice," Fulmar said. He waited until she looked at him, then finished, "I was driven here by an SS-SD sergeant from the local office. He knows I'm here, and so does your concierge.

They will know I've been here." "So what?" she said. "I'll worry about that. I'll think of something to tell them, if they ask." Another decision had to be made, and he made it without very much thought.

"Gisella, my orders are that neither you nor your father are to be available for interrogation," he said.

"Meaning what?" she asked, nastily sarcastic.

"The reason they will be looking for me is that it was necessary to eliminate a Gestapo agent on the train on the way here," Fulmar said.

"If necessary, I will eliminate you and your father."

"Are you serious?" He ignored that. "Where's your father?"

"At the doctor's," she said. She looked at her wristwatch. "He should be here within the half hour."

"What's wrong with him?" Fulmar demanded.

"He had a cough, a bad one," she said.

"Use the half hour to pack," he said. "Nothing of value. Just what you would take in the way of clothing for a couple of days."

"I think I'm going to be sick to my stomach," she said.

"Well, then, go ahead and throw up," Fulmar said. "Just do it where I can see you." She looked at him with horror and loathing, but she did not throw up.

There was a knock five minutes later at the door.

"Is that your father?" Fulmar whispered.

She shook her head.

"He would have a key," she whispered, and then raised her voice.

"Who is there?"

"Hauptsturmfuhrer Peis, Fraulein Dyer," Peis called.

Gisella looked at Fulmar to see what to do.

Fulmar walked on the balls of his feet to the door, then gestured for Gisella to open it.

She walked to the door and opened it.

"Guten Tag," she said politely.

"I understand we have a visitor from Berlin," Peis said. "I thought I would ask if I could be of any--" Fulmar killed him as he had killed the Gestapo agent on the train, quickly, soundlessly, by inserting the narrow, very sharp Fairbairn blade into his skull so quickly that brain death was virtually instantaneous. Peis's body, as Lorin Wahl's had, flopped around in his arms for a moment before the nerve reflexes died.

Then Fulmar let Peis's body slide to the floor.

He bent over him, put his boot on his face, and pulled the baby Fairbairn from Peis's skull. He wiped the blade on Peis's jacket and sheathe the knife.

He looked at Gisella. She met his eyes for a moment, then turned her head.

Fulmar dragged the body into the living room, putting it where it would be out of sight of someone standing at the doog but making no other effort to conceal it. Then he straightened the rugs he'd put into disarray dragging the body.