Winter Sniper: A World War II Novel

Chapter 24

Eva knew there would be trouble as soon as Colonel Fleischmann came through the door. He reeked of scotch and wore a sly grin that she didn’t trust. The problem with Fleischmann, she decided, was that when he thought he was one step ahead of you, he usually was.

“How is mein leipchen this evening?” he asked, slurring the words a bit.

She forced a laugh. “No one has called me leipchen for many years. That’s what you call a young girl. Like you Americans would say baby.”

“I could call you a lot of things,” Fleischmann said. “But let’s start with leipchen for now.”

Eva wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. His leer reminded her of the way the cat looked at the canary. They were in the front room. The colonel stood appreciatively in front of the fire and held his hands toward the flames. “Can’t be more than twenty degrees outside,” he said.

Fleischmann had come at nine o’clock at night. Late for him, because he liked to be home when his wife called from New Jersey. She wondered what kind of explanation he would make to his wife tomorrow. Working late. Out with the boys. Certainly not seeing my mistress.

She noticed that he kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn’t watching. Eva did not take this to be a good sign. He was the sort of man who drank to work up his courage. The colonel wanted something. What was he planning? Nothing good, she was sure. Maybe he had read in a book about some sexual perversion that he wanted to try. Did he have a tube of lubricant hidden in a coat pocket? Eva shuddered, wondering how much more of this man she could take.

“You brought champagne,” she said, struggling to add a note of excitement to her voice. “It is late to be celebrating the New Year.”

“I didn’t get to celebrate with you,” he said, hefting the bottle.

Eva could not resist. “You were home with the wife and children.”

The colonel shrugged. “Every now and then one must be the dutiful family man.”

Eva got a look at the label on the bottle. From her fleeting days of stardom in Berlin, she knew something about champagne. She had once accepted a glass from none other than Reichsmarshal Hermann Goring, who had praised her role in a film then popular. Goring was ridiculed in America as a fat buffoon who liked to play dress up in his many uniforms. That was only so much propaganda. The Goring she met had been a charismatic charmer. He was also a cunning political operator.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been in the movie Goring liked so much, but no matter — there was no point in contradicting the future Reichsmarshal.

The bottle Fleischmann had brought was nothing expensive, just the sort of champagne one picked up for a midnight toast on New Year’s Eve. Cheap bubbly, the Americans called it. It was just like Fleischmann to think he could get off easy with her. That was what she was to him, she mused, a cheap date.

Fleischmann. Eva realized she always thought of him by his last name. No terms of endearment came to mind where he was concerned, unless it was the word bratwurst. A thick, greasy sausage filled with gray meat that burst open when one poked it with a fork. Mein bratwurst, she thought.

“It was good of you to come see me,” she said, trying for a note of gratitude this time. Fleischmann was in a strange mood and he could be a bully even when he wasn’t drinking. Best not to antagonize him. “I know how busy you have been. Have you eaten? I can have Petra bring you something.”

He waved off the suggestion, then began to wrestle with the champagne cork. It finally let go with a resounding pop. The cork struck the wall so hard it gouged the old-fashioned plaster. Strands of horse hair sprouted from the hole. Fleischmann laughed as the cork finally skittered away under the sofa. The corners of Eva’s mouth had turned down in a frown. It had been her experience that most men didn’t much care to drink champagne, but they enjoyed making the bottle pop.

“Such aim,” she remarked. “You should think about becoming a marksman.”

“Do you know something about shooting?” he asked pointedly.

“Let’s talk about more pleasant subjects.”

The colonel took two champagne flutes from the liquor cart and poured. “Let’s toast to the year ahead. I can tell that 1944 is going to be a very good year for me.” He raised his glass. “And a good year for America. Not such a good year for you Germans.”

Eva did not sip her champagne. “I am done with Germany.”

“Are you? I wonder.” Fleischmann raised his glass and drank alone, smacking his lips at the taste. “When I left yesterday I asked myself about the note you sent warning of the assassination attempt on General Eisenhower. How would you know about it unless you somehow were party to the assassin’s plans? Yet you sent a warning. I’m not sure why. Perhaps you were concerned that your precious Captain Walker might get in the way? Unless, of course, he was in on it himself. Turns out he was quite the hero of the hour. I understand you two spent some time together that afternoon.”

“Carl, I don’t know what you are suggesting —”

“Come off it, Eva. I know what you are.” The colonel began to pace the room and Eva saw that he was thinking out loud, solving the mystery like some detective at the end of a novel. “Not that I really believe Ty Walker was involved. Ike’s staff worships him, you know. They’re all a strait-laced bunch — duty calls and all that — which is why Ike can’t stand the OSS. What we do is too freewheeling for Ike. As for your friend Ty, he nearly got his head bashed in single-handedly chasing the assassin. Very brave — I’ll give him that — but stupid.”

Ty was hurt? There had been no mention of that in the note Eva received with the flowers. “Is he all right?”

“He’ll be OK,” Fleischmann said grudgingly. He took a gulp of champagne. “No, the captain would never conspire to kill Ike. But who knows what information he might divulge in the throes of passion, so to speak. A spy like you would be right there to milk it out of him and lap it up.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Fleischmann made a tut, tut sound. “I have other evidence, my dear. The War Department clerk who was spying … Bill Keller. He was bringing information to your house.”

Eva went cold all over. It was a feeling not unlike watching an opponent in a game of chess make a move that you realized too late was checkmate. Fleischmann had outsmarted her. He must have been watching the house. For how long? Not long enough to catch a glimpse of the sniper. But it was likely he had seen all he needed and probably guessed at the rest. Eva’s mind raced. Her whole world seemed to be crumbling around her. He knows. Still, she had no choice but to deny it. “You don’t know anything.”

“I expected you to insist that you were innocent. We both know better, don’t we, Eva? You’ve been spying on us by being a whore. Me, Ty Walker, that fool General Caulfield and God knows who else. Maybe even the paper boy. This whole time, you’ve been serving Nazi Germany on your back.” He grinned. “Even on your knees, sometimes.”

“You filthy Jew.” Eva nearly spit the words at him.

“That’s what you really think, isn’t it, you and all the rest of you Nazis. Blame the Jews. It’s always the Jews.” He took a step toward her, a nasty smile on his face. “This Jew outfoxed you, Eva. Now, you’d better do what I say or the same thing that happened to your friend Bill Keller will happen to you.”

“What are you talking about?” She felt herself grow cold, afraid of what she was about to hear.

“No point in playing dumb about him, either. We know he was spying, taking information about troop strength and supply orders. Someone who knew what they were looking at could start to build a picture of Allied plans out of that information.” He looked at her appraisingly. “I think you were only the conduit, Eva. Keller wanted you badly enough to steal information for you. The poor man was pathetic, the way he must have let you lead him on. But who did you give that information to? Who was your contact?”

“You are like one of those people who used to hunt witches. So sure of themselves. Yet the witches didn’t exist.”

Fleischmann chuckled and studied the bubbles in his champagne flute. “Lies and more lies. You’re good at it, aren’t you, Eva? You’re an actress, for God’s sake. Your friend Bill Keller didn’t have your style. But he did have the decency to hang himself with his shoelaces.”

Eva made a strangled noise and put her hand to her chest. Hanged himself? It was too horrible to imagine. Keller had been nothing to her, just another believer in the Nazi cause. Hardly a bold man, but brave enough, and he had been so careful. If he could be caught —

“What do you want from me?” Eva asked.

“Now we get down to it,” the colonel said, appearing very satisfied with himself. He poured them both more champagne, humming a little ditty as he did so. “Keller talked before he decided to shuffle off this mortal coil. Not a lot, mind you, but enough. What he said could be very damaging to certain individuals. Like you, Eva. I haven’t shared all this information with my colleagues. Your name, for instance. The question, mein leipchen, is what are you willing to do to stay on my good side?”

“Now we get down to it,” Eva said, echoing him.

That made him smile. “You will do two things for me. The first is that you will continue to pass along information I give you to your contact. It’s no secret to you by now that Eisenhower is planning an invasion of Europe within six months. If the Germans thought the invasion was to come at a particular place, the wrong place —”

“You want me to supply disinformation,” Eva said.

“Is that the term for it? See, you do know something about being a spy. Very good.”

Eva ignored that. “What else?” she asked, though she had already guessed.

“I want you to be my mistress, Eva. Mine alone. I can’t have you continue to gather pillow talk from fools like General Caulfield or Ty Walker, who, by the way, is a little young for you.”

“You have been watching the house,” Eva said, getting angry. The colonel had all but confirmed it.

He shrugged. “This is a dangerous game we’re playing, Eva. The stakes are very high.”

“I could ruin you,” she said. “One word to the right person — one word to your wife — and you will be ruined. What do you think the OSS would do if it found out you had been in bed all these months with a German spy?”

“For starters, they would be jealous,” he said. “Then they would endorse my plan to use you for our side — and they wouldn’t be nearly as nice about it.”

The colonel reached out his hand and Eva, almost involuntarily, took it in her own. Fleischmann’s hand was pink and soft as a raw sausage. He squeezed so hard that Eva winced. “We’re joined together now, you and I. There’s no point in fighting it.”

Eva stared at him, thinking it over. Had he really been able to so completely manipulate her? Maybe, just possibly, there was some way she would outsmart him. “I will need money,” she said, tilting her chin up in what she hoped was a regal pose. “I can’t live on nothing.”

“I have plenty of money,” he said. “Now let’s seal our new arrangement is the best way I know how.”

Still holding her hand, the colonel led her upstairs. Sipping from his glass of champagne, he watched as she undressed. Eva had never felt so self-conscious getting naked in front of him before, feeling as if her soul was being laid bare. Fleischmann eyed her appreciatively, used a finger dipped in champagne to wet her nipples, already hard from the cold, and then licked them. Eva shuddered in spite of herself. She reached out to unbutton his shirt, unbuckle his belt. She slid her hand down inside his trousers and fought the temptation to grab hold and squeeze. She caressed him instead. It was, she thought bitterly, the only way she had to manipulate him.

Fleischmann’s breath came out in a little gasp and he hurried to tug off his clothes. “Best get under the covers, my dear, before we freeze to death.”

Eva wished she could ignore what her body felt, but the colonel was hardly an indifferent lover. He kissed the length of her body, then gently spread her legs and got busy with his tongue. By the time he was finished, Eva was hanging onto the spindles of the brass headboard and writhing on the mattress. Fleischmann slid himself into her and then shuddered after a few hard thrusts. He rolled off with a deep sigh and settled himself next to her. They didn’t spoon exactly, not like lovers, but the colonel cupped a proprietary hand around one breast. The fact that he made her feel so good made Eva hate him all the more. Wide awake, staring at the ceiling, Eva waited for the sound of deep breathing that meant he had fallen asleep. He always did after making love. And then she forced herself to wait a little while longer.

Finally, she slipped out of bed, feeling cold and clammy. Ill-used. Had she come all the way from Germany, given up so much, to be a whore for the likes of Fleischmann? No, Eva warned herself, she had to think beyond that. Eva slipped on a robe and tip-toed out of the bedroom. With a last glance at his shape under the blankets to make sure that he was sleeping, she went out into the hallway and shut the door. It was later than she thought she could not hear Petra or even so much as the whisper of a car outside. The only sound seemed to be Fleischmann’s heavy breathing.

Her one hope was that she might be able to warn Berlin that she had been found out. She had some real information to transmit as well, which was that Eisenhower was planning an invasion. Her masters in Berlin already knew that, but what Eva offered was further evidence. There was also the possibility that she could turn the tables on Fleischmann and the OSS. If Berlin planted false information through her, it might work to their advantage. It was all almost too much for Eva to grasp, but the spymasters in Berlin were experts at this sort of thing.

Eva padded down the hall to the doorway leading to the attic. The door was locked; she took an old-fashioned key from a pocket of her robe. When she opened the door, a stream of cold air spilled down the stairwell and Eva clutched the robe more tightly to her chest. Even in winter, the enclosed space smelled of dust and mice. Stepping into the stairwell, she pulled the door shut behind her. There was a light switch, but she did not turn it on. No point in calling attention to the attic if anyone was watching from the street. Instead, she reached for a flashlight that sat on the third step.

Eva moved quietly, easing her weight onto each step to avoid making creaking noises. The steps were not particularly wide, more like a ladder than a proper stairway. She felt a chill breeze as she passed a pane of wavy glass that looked out over the street. An old cotton curtain swayed like a ghost in the draft. Cold in winter, hot as an oven on a summer’s night and often buzzing with a stray wasp or two, the uninsulated attic was not the sort of place that invited visitors. That made it the perfect lair for a spy, the only place in the house where she could truly drop her act to become the real Eva Von Stahl. As for Petra, the girl had never shown any interest in the attic since Eva had hinted that it was full of bats.

Behind an old dressing screen that hid them from view, Eva had set up a table and an upholstered chair from the last century, both of which she kept covered with a quilt. She swept the quilt aside to reveal a shortwave radio on the table. The radio was a special unit designed to fit inside a suitcase; indeed, that was just how she had smuggled it into America.

Eva lit a stub of candle, switched off the flashlight and settled herself on the chair. She opened a drawer and took out a Walther PPK, then set it on the table.

When she turned on the radio, two dials came to life with a warm orange glow. One dial showed a range of frequencies that Eva could adjust from night to night or week to week, dodging around so that the Allies could neither pinpoint nor predict the signal. The second, smaller dial had a needle that danced to and fro based on the strength of the incoming signal. Eva found the second dial impressive-looking but useless; one either heard the radio signal or not. She put on the headphones and tuned the radio to the proper frequency.

Messages arrived in relays across the Atlantic, finally sent again from a U-boat somewhere off the American coast. When she sent a message, it traveled in the same fashion, but in reverse order, all the way to Berlin. This was not one of her scheduled broadcasts, so she hoped some radio operator would be listening at his post on the U-boat. How to explain herself? The news they wanted to hear in Berlin was that General Eisenhower was dead. The message she planned to send would not be as welcome; she just hoped that someone in the Abwehr had the good sense to use the information to Germany’s advantage.

She clicked on the microphone, ready to speak, but stopped when she heard what sounded like a creaking floorboard. The back of her neck prickled. Some sixth sense that she was being watched.

Eva whirled in the chair and saw Colonel Fleischmann standing just beyond the screen. He looked like some ghostly apparition, wearing white boxer shorts and T-shirt, his legs and arms pale and goose fleshed in the cold attic. The colonel looked huge in that small space. He stared at her in amazement.

Eva snatched off the headphones. “What are you doing?”

“So this is how you do it,” he said. “A radio. Of course! I should have guessed. I just assumed you had a contact somewhere in the city.”

“You are supposed to be asleep!” Eva said uselessly. She felt violated. She had meant to keep the radio secret from him for as long as possible. He had come into her most private space that she kept hidden from all the world.

Fleischmann only laughed. “What a prize! I would have found it eventually, you know, but I never expected to find it so soon. Frankly, my dear, I’m a bit disappointed.” He slapped his hands together and rubbed them enthusiastically. “They’ll make me a full colonel for this! Now, what messages are we going to send tonight to Berlin?”

“Only this one,” said Eva. She picked up the Walther and aimed it at his heart.

“Come now, Eva. We’ve already been through this downstairs. We both know you haven’t got the nerve.”

Eva pulled the trigger.