The Second Objective (30 page)

“Doggone it. What the heck are they thinking?”

He was about to call the lobby on his walkie-talkie and yell at them to get a body back here covering this door pronto. He turned and looked up at the huge moving images towering above him. He’d never realized you could see movies from the back side of the screen before, a reverse image, like you’d gone through the looking glass. The newsreel was still running. There was Hitler, and that runt Himmler and the fat one, what was his name, he got Göring and Bormann mixed up sometimes. The crowd booed them. The jeers turned to cheers when the newsreel ended, the MGM lion gave a roar, and the movie began rolling lush Technicolor credits for the Judy Garland picture. He hadn’t seen it before. He liked old-time pictures like this, a window back into the simple Midwestern world his parents had grown up in.

Two figures appeared from the left, black outlines against the screen, walking diagonally toward him. His hand went toward his sidearm; then he saw the MP’s helmet on the second of the men and relaxed. The MP pushed a GI along in front of him, a shorter guy in a raincoat. He couldn’t make out their faces and raised his flashlight.

“This joker was trying to sell hooch in the mezzanine,” said the MP.

Carlson pointed the flashlight in the shorter man’s face, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes.

“Well, if it ain’t Corporal Eddie Bennings,” said Carlson. “Seven-twenty-fourth Railway Battalion. Look what the cat dragged in.”

Bennings shielded his eyes against the light and didn’t answer. Another figure rose up behind the two men, ten paces away, framed against the movie screen.

“Lieutenant Miller, is that you?” asked William Sharper, moving closer. “Lieutenant Miller?”

Carlson’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. Grannit’s voice. “Ole, he’s here. Miller’s in the theater.”

Carlson reached for his sidearm, but first had to transfer the flashlight to his left hand. In that moment the MP took a quick step toward him. Carlson saw something flash in the man’s hand, moving toward him.

Grannit burst out of the restroom and through the doors into the auditorium, pulling his sidearm and shouting at the MPs in the lobby.

“Lock it down! Lock it down!”

Halfway down the aisle, Bernie felt more than saw a man rush past him, nearly knocking him over. He followed him until they’d almost reached the front of the room and the house lights started to fade up.

Behind the screen, Von Leinsdorf pulled the hunting knife out of the man’s chest; he’d gone up and under the ribs, into the heart, with the practiced stroke of a surgeon. Looking at the soldier as he dropped, he recognized the round face and close-cropped haircut. This man had been at the hospital with the other one he’d just seen in the lobby. He bent down, rifled through the man’s coat, and pulled out his badge and ID, sticking them in his pocket.

“Lieutenant Miller?”

Von Leinsdorf turned to see William Sharper standing above him, anxious and agitated, trying to make him out in the dark. They heard shouts from the auditorium; footsteps pounded toward them down the aisles. Von Leinsdorf pressed the bloodied knife into Sharper’s hand, pulled Carlson’s sidearm, and pointed it at him.

“Run,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Run!”

“What the hell are you doing?” asked Sharper.

Sharper stepped back a few paces, confused, looking from Von Leinsdorf and Bennings to the body on the floor.

“He’s a Nazi!” shouted Von Leinsdorf. “Back here, he’s a fucking Nazi! I got the bastard! I got him!”

Sharper turned and ran toward the screen, where Judy Garland was making her first appearance, singing and dancing in a hallway. Sharper stopped short, startled by the image, then used the knife to slice a gash in the screen, and as he burst through it, Von Leinsdorf fired three times.

Earl Grannit was climbing the stairs to the stage when Sharper came through the screen. When he heard the shots, Grannit turned on instinct, knelt, and fired twice at close range, spinning the man around. Sharper toppled forward and landed hard on the floor in front of the stage. He wheeled around on the floor, crying out, in death throes. MPs with guns drawn closed in around him from every direction. One kicked the knife away from his hand.

The front of the theater emptied, soldiers crawling over seats, scrambling toward the lobby exits, where MPs with riot guns stepped in and held their ground. Grannit climbed the rest of the way onto the front of the stage, fired a single shot at the ceiling, and shouted to the room.

“Nobody leaves! Get away from those exits! I want every man back in a seat!”

The projector shut down, the music died. A line of MPs and undercover men surged forward from the lobby and the exits to take control of the room. Grannit jumped down to take a close look at the face of the dead GI lying in front of the stage. There were five bullets in him, but he’d only fired twice.

Was it Miller? Maybe; he couldn’t be sure. He was the right size, the right body type. But the face? He took a look at the serrated blade of the knife the man had carried, then jumped to the stage and pushed through the slash in the screen.

Ole was lying on his back ten paces away. A young kid, a private, was cradling his head in his hands.

“We need a medic back here!” Grannit shouted back to the auditorium. “Get me a medic!”

He knelt down next to them. Ole saw he was there, felt for him with a shaking hand. Grannit gripped it hard. He glanced down at the wound, saw how bad it was, and how fast he was losing blood. Ole’s sidearm lay on the floor beside him, still smoking.

“We get him, Earl?”

“We got him. The same knife he used on the border guards.”

“That’s good. He was on me before I— He moved so fast— Hurts something awful.”

“Take it easy, don’t talk, help’s coming.”

“I can’t figure what the hell Bennings was doing with him—”

“Bennings? What do you mean? Eddie Bennings?”

“Oh God, I don’t feel good, Earl, I don’t feel good.”

The private was holding up a syringe so Grannit could see it, asking if he should use it on him. Grannit hesitated.

“Eddie Bennings was here, Ole? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I think so. I just never figured an MP...” He started to fade, eyes blanking out.

“What MP? What MP?” He shook his head at the private. No morphine. Not yet. “Stay with me, Ole. Stay with me.”

Ole’s eyes focused again. “Those passes...meant to tell you...about those passes...” Blood bubbled out onto Carlson’s lips. Grannit wiped it away with a handkerchief, holding the back of his head.

“Don’t talk now.”

“Don’t think they knew about the mistake...Krauts for you, always think they got a better idea...”

Grannit nodded at the kid to give him the shot. He leaned in to do it. Ole’s eyes met Grannit’s in a moment of clarity, his grip grew stronger for a moment, then his hand went slack and he was gone.

27

Reims

DECEMBER 19, 9:20
P.M.

T
he syringe shattered when it hit the floor. Bernie dropped his head, a hand covering his eyes, trying not to cry. “You know him?” asked Grannit. “Do you know him?”

Bernie shook his head. Grannit looked up. There was an open door behind them, leading out into an alley.

“Did you see anything, Private?” asked Grannit. “What he was talking about?”

“I’m not sure what I saw,” said Bernie.

“Somebody else was back here with him? An MP? Anybody else? Maybe two men?”

“Yeah, I think maybe.”

“Where they’d go, out that way?”

“I heard the door close.”

“You a medic?”

“No, sir.”

Grannit took the dog tags off Carlson and slipped them into his pocket.

“Come with me,” said Grannit, starting toward the door.

“What about him?” asked Bernie.

“Nothing we can do for him now. Come on.”

They hurried out the back door into an alley. Grannit had his sidearm pulled, looking in both directions. He pointed to the left.

“Take that way, once around the block, meet back here. Give a shout if you see anything.”

Grannit ran off to the right. Bernie headed down the alley like a sleepwalker, his thoughts thicker than the fog.

He knew this man. He remembered him now. The one who’d chased them at the hospital, who came after them on the motorcycle. He didn’t think the man had placed him. Not yet, anyway.

Bernie reached the end of the alley and looked in both directions. Visibility was less than twenty yards. No sign of Von Leinsdorf.

Should he go back as the officer ordered him to do or keep walking? The darkness beckoned. He had a chance at least; now that he was free of the German, he could fade into the night. They were focused on Von Leinsdorf now but if he went back to that movie house, there’d be MPs all over him, questions he couldn’t answer, then an American firing squad, just as Von Leinsdorf had predicted.

He could use the dead girl’s apartment, at least overnight. Find a map, figure a way out of the city. But to do what? Go where? His life in Germany was finished, even if his parents were still alive. He could never set foot there again, not after what Von Leinsdorf had told him about the death camps. He’d heard the rumors, and he’d been around the Nazis long enough to know they were capable of it. Von Leinsdorf had only confirmed what he’d feared was true for years.

A sense of shame overwhelmed him. His impulsive little acts of rebellion in Berlin seemed so puny and inadequate. He could have done more, tried harder to fight them, but all he’d thought of when it really mattered was his own survival. When he faced his own death, whenever it might come, what damage had that done to his immortal soul? If he’d failed so miserably what difference did it make if he lived or died?

The bottom dropped out: Was Von Leinsdorf right? Did it all mean nothing? How could whatever he had left of his life make up for what he’d failed to do, if he didn’t take a stand now?

He spotted something lying in a corner of the alley and picked it up. An MP’s armband. Nearby a white helmet and billy club had been tossed in a trash can. They’d come this way, Von Leinsdorf and the other man, after they’d left the theater. Bernie looked down the street. The girl’s apartment was in that direction. That was where Von Leinsdorf would go first.

To take care of me. Another loose end. Unless I take care of him first.

He heard MPs’ whistles blowing somewhere nearby, footsteps running down another street. A manhunt was under way and he remembered:
They’re looking for me, too.

He ran back toward the theater, until he saw the American officer rounding the corner. Bernie showed him the armband, then led him back to where he’d found it. Bernie watched as he examined the other articles.

“I think I know who did this,” said Bernie.

“We killed that man in the theater.”

“No, sir. I think it’s someone else. Another GI. I followed him to the movie house.”

“Why?”

“I saw him hurting this girl, earlier to night.”

“Where?”

“Through the window of an apartment, as I walked by. I’m not sure, but I think he might have killed her. I didn’t know what to do so I waited. He came out a few minutes later.”

“Where were you headed?”

“Me? I was going to the movies.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to an MP?”

“I saw him go inside, lost him in the lobby. Then I thought I saw him going behind the screen. That’s why I followed him back there.”

Grannit just looked at him. Bernie couldn’t tell if he believed him or not.

“I think he might’ve gone back to that apartment,” said Bernie.

“Take me there.”

“Okay. It’s this way.”

Grannit called for a radioman to join them and they walked at a brisk clip, Bernie taking the lead. Grannit spoke into the radio most of the way, shouting orders to his men at the movie house.

“What’s your name, Private?” the man snapped, as soon as he came off the radio.

“Bernie Oster, sir.”

“What unit are you with?”

“Two hundred ninety-first Engineer Combat Battalion.”

“Where you from?”

“Brooklyn, sir.”

“Which neighborhood?”

“Park Slope.”

“North or South?” asked Grannit.

Bernie looked over at him, but couldn’t read the man’s expression. “North.”

“Where’d you live?”

“On Union Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenue. You know Brooklyn, sir?”

“What’d your dad do?”

“He worked for Pfizer,” said Bernie. “Research and development. He was a chemist.”

“Was?”

“He’s retired now. Turn right here.”

Bernie led him to the front door of the woman’s apartment building. Grannit ordered the radioman to call in support and wait for it on the street. He forced the lock and Bernie led him up to the third floor.