The Second Objective (38 page)

At five minutes to eight, the hotel’s chief of security knocked on the door to room 417. He identified himself and announced to Lieutenant Alan Pearson that he had an urgent message for him from SHAEF headquarters. Grannit stood to the left side of the door with his pistol drawn. Bernie Oster and the hotel manager waited just down the hall. The door Bernie stood directly in front of opened, and he came face-to-face with a woman on her way out. She looked at his MP gear in alarm, and he saw an officer getting dressed in the room behind her. Bernie held his finger to his lips and she quietly closed the door.

When Pearson failed to answer, the chief of security inserted his pass key with trembling hands and pushed open the door. Grannit pushed ahead of him into the room. Alan Pearson lay in bed, under a blanket pulled up to the chin, his face turned away from the door. Grannit felt for a carotid pulse and then yanked the covers away. Pearson’s body had been stripped to his underwear. From the way blood had pooled in the body Grannit knew the man had been dead for at least five hours. He called the others inside, then examined Pearson’s arms.

“He was here,” said Grannit to Bernie, then turned to the manager. “Call Inspector Massou at the Prefecture of Police.”

“I know him,” said the manager, grateful for a reason to leave.

“He killed him with an injection,” said Grannit, pointing out a wound on the inside of Pearson’s arm.

Out of the corner of his eye Grannit saw the chief of security about to open an armoire at the foot of the bed. He spotted a piece of fabric sticking out of a gap at the bottom of the armoire door.

“Don’t touch that!”

Grannit crossed to him and examined the door carefully. He opened it a crack and looked down its length, then turned to Bernie.

“Flashlight.”

Bernie handed him the flashlight off his belt. Grannit used the beam to illuminate a line of monofilament stretched taut across the opening, then traced it down along the door to the bottom of the armoire, where it connected to the pin of a hand grenade, taped onto a small square pat of dark gray plastic explosive resting on the tunic of the uniform that had been inserted under the door.

“He left something for us,” said Grannit. “Call the bomb squad.”

When he saw the grenade, the hotel’s chief of security turned pale and backed out the door. A moment later they heard him running down the hall outside. Grannit gently closed the door to the armoire and held it there. He looked over at Bernie.

“You gonna have to hold that shut till they get here?” asked Bernie.

“Maybe,” said Grannit. “Latch seems a little iffy.”

“Want me to do it?”

“You could find some tape.”

Bernie turned for the door, then stopped. “If I was gonna run, this would be a pretty good time to do it.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he said.

“I’ll get the tape,” Bernie said.

Just after Bernie left the room, the phone on the bedside table rang. Grannit looked at it, looked at Pearson’s body on the bed, looked at the closet door, and glanced at his watch: 8:25. Bernie returned not long after the phone stopped ringing, with a roll of black electrical tape. They applied the entire roll to the front of the armoire, then tested to make sure the door wouldn’t swing open if they let go. When they were sure the tape would hold, they backed away toward the exit. The phone beside the bed rang again. They looked at each other.

“Want me to get that?” asked Bernie.

Grannit sighed, walked over, and picked up the phone, keeping an eye on the armoire.

“Four-seventeen,” he said.

“I was asked to call,” said the voice. “This is Inspector Massou.”

“Inspector, this is Lieutenant Grannit. We’re at the Hotel Meurice. Von Leinsdorf was here.”

“When?”

“Earlier today, just after lunch.”

In a Montmartre apartment, Inspector Massou turned with the phone in his hand and looked out the window, into the passageway of the boarding house.

“We’ve got him here now,” he said. “Get downstairs. I’ll send a car.”

34

Montmartre

DECEMBER 21, 9:20
P.M.

T
he police car deposited Grannit and Bernie outside the entrance to the boarding house. The area had been cordoned off by police, their black vans parked up and down the street, flares on cobblestones lighting up the night. Inspector Massou greeted them as they came out of the car and walked them toward the building. He gestured toward an ambulance that was pulling away.

“Two dead,” said Massou. “This is one of the men you’re seeking?”

He handed Grannit a pair of dog tags. Grannit checked them under his flashlight: Eddie Bennings.

“Yes,” said Grannit.

“He died before they could get him in the ambulance.”

“Where’s Von Leinsdorf?”

“Army Counter Intelligence arrived ten minutes ago. They’ve got him in the car.”

Massou nodded toward the first of two black sedans with U.S. plates. The back door of the first car was open, blocked by a man leaning down to talk to someone inside.

Grannit picked up his pace toward the car, just as the man leaning in closed the door and started toward him, followed by his partner. Both wore hats and belted trench coats, the CIC’s unofficial uniform. Grannit showed his badge, ready to blow past them.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry, soldier?” asked the CIC man.

“I need to see that man,” said Grannit.

“CIC’s taking this, Lieutenant,” said the man, showing his credentials. “Major Whiting. Special detail to SHAEF Command.”

Grannit trained his flashlight on the man’s SHAEF pass. “Headquarters” was spelled correctly. He relaxed.

Bernie ran up alongside the sedan as it pulled away and saw Von Leinsdorf in the backseat. Von Leinsdorf met his eye for a moment, staring at him blankly, without emotion, then looked away before they drove out of sight.

Maybe he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe he can’t. Even when they line him up to shoot him in the heart. Somewhere in his sick soul he’ll welcome the bullet.

Bernie signaled to Grannit that they had the right man.

“We’ve been tracking him for a week,” said Grannit.

“I’m aware of that, Lieutenant,” said Whiting, gesturing to his assistant to make a note. “You’ll feature prominently in our report.”

“Where you taking him?” asked Grannit.

“He’ll be processed and questioned at SHAEF headquarters. After that it’s up to the G2. We’d like your report, come in tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. Where do you think he was headed?”

“The Trianon Palace at Versailles. Where General Eisenhower’s holed up.”

“We’ll let ’em know Ike can get back to business, thanks to you. Good work, Lieutenant.”

Whiting shook Grannit’s hand, saluted, and headed back to the second black sedan. His assistant got in to drive, alongside a third man, a uniformed MP.

Massou joined Grannit as they drove away, and walked him through the crime scene.

“An MP came on them here in the middle of a dispute,” said Massou. “Between your two men and a Paris patrolman, from the local precinct. He’s the other body. I’m told he has been under investigation for corruption. The MP says he drew a gun. They had officers here within fifteen minutes of the shootings.”

“The MP that just left with them?”

“They wanted to get his statement,” said Massou.

Grannit watched the sedan edge past the police vans and drive away. Bernie stood under the roofline, out of the way, looking out at the narrow, winding streets that reminded him of Greenwich Village set on the side of a hill. The rain that had fallen earlier had turned to snow.

“Did you question him first?” asked Grannit.

“I did, briefly.”

Massou borrowed a flashlight and walked Grannit through the alley. “The patrolman had a gun on the two fugitives when the MP arrived. There was some confusion. He said the German, Von Leinsdorf, showed him a counterfeit American badge.”

“How do you read it?”

Massou shrugged. “The patrolman waited for them here, under the stairs.” With the end of his umbrella he pointed to a couple of cigarette butts near the back wall. “A robbery, or something more complex. The MP hears raised voices, walks into it. Our patrolman panics, shots are fired. Two men die. There’s blood on the wall, on the ground. But the monster you’re after is in hand, so does the rest really matter?”

“I guess not.”

One of Massou’s men brought him a glass of beer. “Would you care for something? Wine, or brandy? Coffee perhaps.”

Grannit shook his head. Massou extended the invitation to Bernie, who declined.

“My officer’s gun was never fired,” said Massou. “It seems the MP was quicker on the draw. The only other anomaly is this.”

He produced a straight razor from his pocket.

“It was lying on the street. Perhaps it belonged to the dead American, Bennings?”

“Hard to say,” said Grannit.

“Just another night in Montmartre,” said Massou, wearily. “Chasing a murderer, through the middle of a war.”

Grannit pulled his flashlight, bent down, and took a look at a bloodstain on the ground. Working back from there, he found a bullet hole in the wall and dug it out with a penknife.

“It’s from a Colt,” said Grannit, pocketing the slug. “The MP’s gun.”

Massou finished the beer and handed the glass back to one of his men. “You should have a look at the apartment upstairs.”

Grannit and Bernie followed Inspector Massou upstairs to the apartment. He told them the concierge had confirmed that Von Leinsdorf and Bennings had lodged there for two days. Grannit took a look around, found an empty jerrican in the back room and an edition of
Stars and Stripes
, but little else of interest. They walked back downstairs a few minutes later.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Lieutenant?” asked Massou.

“I don’t know what it would be.”

“The driver will take you where you wish to go,” said Massou, putting on his hat. “The end of the hunt is never what it should be.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Massou shook Grannit’s hand and then turned to Bernie with penetrating but not unkind scrutiny. “It’s none of my business, young man, but you’re not a military policeman, are you?”

Bernie glanced at Grannit before answering. “No, sir, I’m not.”

“I ask to satisfy my personal curiosity.” Massou lit his pipe and studied Bernie as he spoke. “To the untrained eye it may seem that what we do, our methods, differ from those we pursue by only a matter of degree. Our authority may be sanctioned by law, but it can seem as harsh as these savages we hunt.” He kept looking at Bernie, but the rest seemed directed at Grannit. “In certain instances, perhaps your own, which depend on the judgment of others, there are laws of nature that on occasion supersede those of men. I wish you well.”

Massou tipped his hat. As he walked to a waiting car, a military police jeep drove up and the MP on board handed something off to a CID man, who walked it to Grannit.

“Addressed to you, sir,” said the officer, handing over an envelope. “Came over in the pouch from London.”

Grannit opened the envelope and found a manila folder insider. He opened it and turned on the flashlight. It contained a few clipped and weathered articles from London newspapers. Stories from the mid-thirties about the dismissal of a high-ranking diplomat named Carl Von Leinsdorf from the German embassy. There was a photograph of the man and his wife and teenaged son. Bernie could see Erich’s face in the boy, smiling and untroubled. A briefer article, accompanied by a photograph of the father, mentioned the man’s suicide in Stockholm a few months later.

“Is that him?” asked Grannit, nodding to the photograph.

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t mention why his father lost the job.”

“From what I heard,” said Bernie, putting it together, “I think they found out the father was Jewish.”

“Don’t know why they make such a big deal out of it.” Grannit took the folder back. “So am I.”

Bernie took a moment to register that.

“We stopped him, anyway. That’s what matters.”

“I gotta take you in, Bernie.”

“I know.”

“We could wait till morning.”

“Let’s get it over with.”

SHAEF Headquarters, Paris

DECEMBER 21, 11:00
P.M.

They rode in the backseat as the same police driver steered them through the night streets toward SHAEF headquarters in the Place Vendôme.

“I’d like to try and write my parents,” said Bernie. “Would you let me do that before...?”

The rest of his question hung between them.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if they’re still alive. They live in Frankfurt, at least they did a couple months ago. I’d like to let ’em know I tried to help. Help the Americans.”