Sleeper Agent (26 page)

Tom clenched his jaws grimly. He was all too familiar with the infamous, inhuman atrocity they called the Flossenburg Death March. Flossenburg had been a concentration camp some fifty battle-scarred miles to the north. The SS guards there had been determined that the inmates should not be liberated by the advancing Americans. The camp crematorium was working past capacity. The ovens could handle no more. So the SS drove fifteen thousand inmates from the threatened camp southwards on a hellish march of death.

For three days and three nights without rest they were mercilessly whipped and prodded on their torturous march. Weak and emaciated as they were, they fell by the wayside by the thousands to be murdered on the spot by their guards—if they were lucky—or simply left to die a lingering death. Toward the end of the nightmare march the brutish SS guards had been driven to a frenzy, an orgy of butchery. The accounts of the infernal atrocities committed on the march defied description.

Tom knew. His Corps area had been saturated with the pitiful survivors, holed up in ruins and rubble.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“We know little about him,” Captain Sokol replied. “We could get only sketchy information before he . . well, you can see what he is like.”

He picked up a clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed. He flipped to a sheet of typed notes in back of the medical charts. “His name is Loewenstein. Dr. Loewenstein. He is supposed to have been a brilliant surgeon in Berlin before the war. He is Jewish, of course. He had first been an inmate of another camp. We don’t know which one. There he is supposed to have worked with some Nazi doctors on some sort of project We could get nothing out of him about it”

He replaced the charts. Soberly he looked at Tom. “He was picked up by elements of the Eleventh Armored Division. Along the death march route,” he said gravely. “Hanging from a tree.” He paused. Then, angrily: “He’d been a pawn in a game the SS had amused themselves with on their dull trip. The X game.”

Tom’s heart skipped a beat. He had heard about the X game. It was really a children’s game. It had been played by the young Nazis being trained for duty as guards in the concentration camps.

The boys were divided into two teams, and each team was allowed to go into the camp and pick one male inmate. The pawns. The playing field was the size of a tennis court. At each end stood a tall crossbeam gallows. The two inmate pawns were stripped naked. One of them was hung by his wrists from each of the two crossbeams, his legs spread out and anchored to pegs in the ground. High in the air he hung. Spread-eagled. Forming an X. The two eager teams of boys would form in the center of the court, each team with its own dog. A magnificent German shepherd. Specially trained. At a signal shot from the SS referee the two dogs would be turned loose.

Egged on, goaded, cheered by their teams, the dogs would streak for the gallows facing them. Jaws slavering, eyes bloodshot with frenzy, they would leap and jump and snap at the pawns hanging spread-eagled above.

The winner— The winner was the team of boys whose dog first ripped off the testicles of the opposing team’s pawn.

Tom shivered. He looked down at the man-shell lying motionless in the bed. A children’s game, he thought bleakly. And where are the children now?

Tom bent over the man. “Dr. Loewenstein,” he said gently. “Dr. Loewenstein. Can you hear me?”

There was no reaction from the corpselike patient. His eyes remained dead and empty.

“Dr. Loewenstein?” Tom repeated. “Please answer me.”

“He will not respond to his name,” Sokol said grimly. “I understand you have to use his . . . his number.”

Tom looked at the man’s wasted arms lying limply at his sides. There it was. His concentration camp prisoner number. Tattooed on the inside of his right forearm.

“Try the last two pairs of digits,” Sokol said quietly.

Gravely Tom contemplated the cadaverous figure lying before him. He was deeply moved. He was about to address him in the manner suggested—twenty-nine, eighty-seven—but he could not bring himself to do it. It was an indignity, he thought angrily, an affront! Dehumanizing. It would only bring a response in kind, the response of a maltreated, browbeaten
KZ’ler.
If it brought a response at all.

It was not what he wanted. He looked closely at the emaciated man. Perhaps there was another way. “Dr. Loewenstein,” he said, his voice firm and professional. “We need your help. We need your advice.” He bent over him. “Dr. Loewenstein! You are needed!”

There was a faint flicker in the ravaged man’s dead eyes. Almost imperceptibly his shriveled lips began to work soundlessly.

“Dr. Loewenstein,” Tom repeated firmly. “Please give me your attention. Your
professional
attention, Doctor.”

Slowly the man’s head turned on its spindly neck, until the sunken eyes looked up at Tom.

“Your opinion, Dr. Loewenstein,” Tom pressed. “Please answer me!”

Suddenly the gaunt head lifted from the pillow. The harrowed eyes focused on Tom, and in a surprisingly strong voice Dr. Loewenstein spoke. “You must make a clean incision! Not a millimeter deeper than necessary. The ink. Not far below the
stratum granulosum.
Do not use sutures. They will cause a scar. Adhesive! Use adhesive.”

“Dr. Loewenstein,” Tom said, his heart racing. “KOKON. What do you know about KOKON?”

“KOKON? . . . KOKON? . . .
Betreffs
KOKON . . .” the haunted man repeated tonelessly. His eyes grew dark with abject terror. He stared at Tom, gazing directly into his eyes . . . and beyond.

“I will forget it, Herr Doktor! I will forget!” he whispered in stark fear. “I will never mention the word. I will forget I saw it written on the Oberstgruppenführer’s records. It is not medical. Not medical. I will forget . . .”

His voice trailed off. He turned his head and once more stared into space with empty, tormented eyes. From each corner a tiny drop of moisture slowly seeped out and trickled down his sallow face.

Tom turned away.

Captain Doctor Sokol was white-faced. He stared at Loewenstein. “Holy Moses!” he said quietly. “Ink!
Tattoos!
” He turned to Tom. “I’d heard rumors,” he said, obviously shaken. “They said that some of the concentration camp officers collected tattoos . . . cut off the inmates. God!” He looked in horror at his patient. “Is . . . is that what
he
did?”

“No,” Tom replied, his face grim. “Not Dr. Loewenstein.”

He looked down at the skeletal man in the bed. He knew now what kind of special work the Berlin surgeon had been required to perform. He had been forced to remove, without leaving any telltale scars, the identifying blood-type tattoos that only the SS bore on the inside of their upper left arms; remove them from high-brass Nazis, Nazis, like an Oberstgruppenführer—an SS general. Four stars. Whose records bore the notation “Re. KOKON.”

He looked at Sokol. “No,” he said. “Loewenstein’s tattoo removals were much more practical.”

He was an expert An expert in demolition. He bad taught the course at Schloss Ehrenstein—high explosives. Time fuses and delayed-action devices. Detonator caps and explosive cord. Grenades and mines. Incendiaries. And, of course, booby traps. The works.

He especially liked the booby traps. Their use was limited only by the inventiveness and ingenuity of their user.

Lorenz had fingered
the target
for him as the
Ami
officer left the CIC billet earlier that morning.

He’d had one hell of a time not losing him and his driver, following them in his run-down woodburner produce truck. In fact, he
had
lost them.

He had taken a chance, when he had seen the hospital’s roadside signpost, and turned in. And he had spotted the target’s jeep in the parking area.

He had required little time, undisturbed, and he had had it He smiled contentedly as he slowly drove his old truck back toward Regensburg. He was pleased with his work.

A good booby trap does not have to be complicated. The simpler the better—and the easier to install. The trick was to be supercautious. Leave no trace that would give the show away.

The booby trap in the target’s vehicle was simplicity itself. He had used two grenades for good measure. The
Stiehandgranate 24,
the type of hand grenade called a “potato masher” by the
Amis.
They should know!

He’d wedged them into the spring under the front seat on the passenger side of the jeep and wired them in place. It was where he had observed the target would be sitting. He had removed the safety caps from the ends of the handles, carefully freed the two grenade rip cords and tied them together, extended them and fastened them at the other end to the right front wheel.

It was simple. As soon as the vehicle moved, the cord would be wound up and pull the rip cord, setting off the grenades. It would work. That, and his own little personal refinement! There would be no survivors.

The woodburner sputtered.
Verdammt nochmal!
he thought irritably. It offended him deeply to have to depend on such inferior equipment. . . .

Tom and Sergeant Rosenfeld came from the hospital. They walked briskly toward the dismount point parking area, where they had left their jeep. It had been drizzling during the night and the ground was still wet.

“Where to now, sir?” Rosenfeld asked.

“Corps,” said Tom. “It’s time to go see Major Lee.” He grinned. “They’re moving to Grafenau this morning. Should be just about ready to settle in when we get there. I’m sure the major will be overjoyed to see us!”

They reached the jeep. Tom started to get in.

“Wait a minute,” Rosenfeld said. He walked over and looked at the seat on the passenger side. “Someone in the motor pool left a piece of a used gasket on the seat,” he said. “No use getting oil on your pants.”

He looked. He frowned. “I saw it when you got out before,” he said. He searched the seat The floor. “It’s not here.” He looked concerned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom said. “Let’s go.”

“I saw the damned thing,” Rosenfeld insisted. “It was there. Someone’s been monkeying with the jeep.” He suddenly looked disgusted. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “The rotor! Someone’s pinched the distributor rotor! Dammit! I should have removed it myself.”

He walked to the front of the jeep and lifted the hood, grumbling. “What the hell is this war coming to, anyway? You can’t even keep your jeep from being stolen from under your damned nose. You remove the fucking rotor, and some joker comes along with his own and drives off in your vehicle!”

He examined the distributor. He looked puzzled. “The damned thing’s still there!” he said.

“Okay, let’s go,” Tom said. He was getting impatient He took his seat in the jeep.

Rosenfeld slammed the hood. “Yeah,” he said. “But
someone’s
been fooling around with the jeep.” He started for the driver’s seat He suddenly stopped short. “Holy shit!” he whispered.

Tom turned to him. “What’s the matter?” he asked sharply.

Rosenfeld stared at the ground. Then at Tom. “Sir,” he said, his voice shaky, “I . . . I wouldn’t move around too much. I . . . I think . . . I think the jeep may be . . . booby-trapped!”

Tom felt a quick drain of blood, and his heart began to pound. “Why?” he shot

Rosenfeld pointed to the ground. “Because of that,” he said. “That’s no GI boot that made that print That’s a Kraut military boot!”

Tom looked. In the soft wet ground of a dried-up puddle was the impression of a boot. The imprints of the hobnails in the heavy soles stood out like muddy pock-marks. It was a German boot

Tom’s skin crawled. He sat precariously perched on his seat. He glanced at the ignition switch. Was that it? Would the jeep have blown up if they’d tried to start it? Or . . . what?

He was not a booby-trap expert. He had taken a brief course at ASC in Shrivenham in England while waiting for D-Day, and he knew that the damned things could be set off by a variety of methods. Push, pull, pressure, release, electricity—and any combination thereof you could dream up. And he knew the cardinal law: You never know
which
methods you are dealing with, until the damned thing blows up in your face.

Tight-lipped, Rosenfeld stared at Tom. “That’s why that oil gasket is gone,” he said. “The Kraut cleaned up too good after himself!”

Tom’s mind whirled. “David,” he said to Rosenfeld, his voice taut. “Get to the motor pool. Fast. Get a tow track. Have them bring a rope. And something heavy. A mortar base. Anything.”

“But you—”

“No buts! Move!”

Rosenfeld took off.

Tom sat perfectly still. He could feel the cold sweat of fear pool in his armpits and trickle down his sides. He stared in morbid fascination down at the seat. The skin in his crotch felt hot and sticky. He made a conscious effort to organize his spinning thoughts. As long as he sat motionless, the booby trap would not detonate. That much was clear.

But if it
were
there, he
could
have activated the detonator mechanism when he sat down on the seat—ready to go off when he got up and released the pressure of his weight from it.

It would have to be that. A pressure-release-type booby trap . . . or an electrically triggered trap set to go off when the jeep was started up.

He could think of no other possibilities. But he also knew they were there.

The weapons carrier arrived within minutes. It brought a thirty-foot tow rope and a heavy steel ammo box hastily filled with old nuts and bolts. One of the two motor pool mechanics who arrived with it and with David Rosenfeld cautiously peered under the jeep from every vantage point he could get

“I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “It could be booby-trapped, all right. There’s a little piece of wire hanging down from under the right seat Looks new. Clean. That’s all I can make out from here.”

“Okay,” said Tom. “Now listen.” He wet his lips. He ignored the sweat forming on his forehead. “The damned jeep isn’t worth taking the risk trying to find and dismantle the trap. I want you to tie the tow rope to it. Play it out as far as you can. And haul the jeep to some place where it’s safe to blow it up. Got that?”