The Second Objective

34

Montmartre

DECEMBER 21, 9:20 P.M.

The 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.”

Grannit looked at him. “We can do that.”

“Always thought I’d see the neighborhood again. I dream about Park Slope all the time, you know? That’s where I always go. Think that means I’m really an American, deep down, if I dream that way?”

“Maybe so, kid.”

“That’s something, anyway,” said Bernie, watching the city go by out the window. “Beautiful place, isn’t it? Doesn’t even look like anybody lives in it.”

“It’ll outlive all of us.”

“You have to put cuffs on me when we go in, Earl?”

Grannit thought about it. “No.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

They pulled up outside of SHAEF headquarters, a ponderous bank building fronted by massive columns, commandeered after the Liberation. Grannit gestured for Bernie to get out first, then followed him, tipped his hat to the driver, and the police car sped off. Grannit took Bernie by the arm and they walked up the steps to the entrance. A heavily armed detail of MPs patrolled the front.

“Don’t say anything,” said Grannit. “I’ll lay it out for ’em and do the best I can. When they weigh in your cooperation, we can get some-”

“Don’t make any promises,” said Bernie. “I appreciate it, but I know it’s not up to you. I’ll take whatever’s coming.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, Grannit showed his badge to the guards at the door. “I need to talk to the CO, whoever’s got the watch.”

“What’s this regarding, sir?”

“The 150th Panzer Brigade.”

“Follow me.”

They entered the dimly lit lobby and waited while the MP went into the offices. Stripped of decoration, windows blacked out, the cold marble of the massive room extended to the edge of their vision. They stood under one of the columns and waited. Civilian aides and junior officers trafficked through the room, still bustling near midnight. They all wore the familiar blue SHAEF pass on a chain around their neck.

Bernie felt a cold chill run down his neck. A shaking started in the pit of his stomach and spread outward. He blinked, having trouble seeing. His mind raced, involuntarily calculating how many days and hours he had left to live. Von Leinsdorf had been right about that, too: It was worse knowing when you were going to die.

He noticed Grannit’s back suddenly straighten. Grannit pulled a charred piece of blue paper from his pocket and looked at it, then moved out to one of the junior officers crossing the room. Grannit stopped him, took the man’s blue SHAEF pass in his hand, and examined it.

The letters e and a in “headquarters” were transposed.

Grannit stopped another person crossing, to look at his pass, then another and another. Bernie went to him as the last person moved off. He looked stunned.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bernie.

“There is a mistake on the passes. But the army never corrected it.”

“The blue one?”

“Did they give you one of these?”

“Yeah, and we got new ones in Belgium from the Abwehr-”

“After you came across?”

“Von Leinsdorf said their forgers didn’t notice the mistake in time to fix it. He said these were the ones we were supposed to use.”

“And they were spelled correctly.”

“That’s right.”

“But Schmidt’s wasn’t corrected,” said Grannit.

“Then you must have caught him before he could pick them up.”

“God damn it, that’s what Ole was trying to tell me. The fucking passes.”

“What about them?”

“How many squads did Von Leinsdorf tell you were working on this?”

“Five.”

“The men who took Von Leinsdorf had the corrected passes,” said Grannit. “We only caught four teams.”

“You’re saying that MP, those guys from Counter Intelligence-”

“They’re the fifth squad.”

A young lieutenant came out to escort them into the CO’s office. Grannit grabbed him by the arms.

“Has a suspect in the Skorzeny case been brought in during the last hour?” asked Grannit.

“I don’t know-”

“Well, how fast can you fucking find out?”

The young lieutenant ran back toward his office. He returned at a trot leading his CO, a dyspeptic captain, who assured them that if any German operative in the Skorzeny case had been brought in, he would’ve been the first to hear about it.

“Is there anywhere else they would’ve taken him?”

“Maybe the SHAEF offices in Versailles.”

“I need to use your phone,” said Grannit.

Invalides Metro, Paris

DECEMBER 21, 11:00 P.M.

Ververt’s two men had been parked outside the Invalides metro station in an empty bakery truck for an hour when a black sedan with U.S. military plates pulled up alongside. Two men climbed out, one in the uniform of an MP, the other in civilian clothes, who brought along a suitcase he lifted from the trunk of the car. One of Ververt’s men opened the back panel door and they climbed inside. The black sedan sped off. Once the back panel of the truck rolled shut, the driver headed west toward the highway along the river, out of the city.

Paris City Morgue

DECEMBER 22, 12:30 A.M.

Inspector Massou was waiting for them at the front door. He led Grannit and Bernie downstairs to the examination room. An attendant pulled the sheet off a body lying on a slab, next to one bearing the body of the dead French patrolman.

“This is the man who was wearing Bennings’s dog tags,” said Massou.

He had taken four gunshot wounds to the chest. One had gone clear through. He’d died quickly. About Bennings’s age and with similar coloring, he had a tattoo of a knife on the back of his right hand.

The coroner showed Grannit the bullets he’d taken from the body. They matched the one Grannit had dug out of the alley wall. Each bore the same distinctive rifling as the silenced shots that had hit Sergeant Mallory.

“This isn’t Bennings,” said Grannit.