Winter Sniper: A World War II Novel

Chapter 7

Bruno Hess trudged along the edge of the street, too tired to be impressed by the sights of the United States capital around him.

It was December 29. After the narrow escape from the sinking of U-351, the journey across the Delmarva Peninsula and then Chesapeake Bay had been dangerous and exhausting. He hardly slept for three days as he and Zumwald crept toward the American capital. Their imagination turned every car engine into a patrol and every barking dog was a search party. They had seen no enemy troops or even aircraft. The Americans must have believed that all hands on the U-boat had drowned. He and Zumwald kept out of sight, foraging frostbitten vegetables from the remains of kitchen gardens and stealing eggs from chicken coops.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that the submariner was a resourceful companion. It had been Zumwald who stole dungarees and shirts off a clothesline so that they could bury their German uniforms.

“I guess this makes us spies if we’re caught,” Zumwald had remarked.

“Good. They will shoot us instead of putting us in jail.”

Tired and hungry, Hess walked as if in a dream, doing his best to stay alert. The sprawling city appeared to be filled with marble monuments to American history, but he thought Washington paled in comparison to Berlin. Bustling American businessmen and office girls crowded the sidewalks alongside soldiers in khaki uniforms. The chatter of English in his ears sounded harsh as the cawing of crows and he longed to hear a few words of German.

The Russian rifle, dismantled, was in the suitcase that hung from his left hand. Hess bought the suitcase when he and Zumwald stopped at a second-hand shop on the outskirts of the city. They also found winter overcoats for the both of them. Zumwald was not part of the mission, but Hess had felt he owed the man at least a warm coat after crossing so much enemy territory together. Besides, Hess had plenty of American dollars tucked into the money belt around his waist. The money, his rifle and his life were all he had salvaged from the U-boat sinking.

He and Zumwald had parted company that morning. There was no point in involving the submariner further and Zumwald spoke English well enough to blend in. Hess had pressed some of the American money on the submariner. At first, Zumwald had been reluctant to take it. “What are you going to live on?” Hess demanded. “They charge for room and board here, same as they do in Berlin. Take it. Get yourself some new clothes to go with that coat. That’s an order.”

Zumwald had smiled at that. “Still giving orders, Hess?” He looked around theatrically. “I think you may be on the wrong side of the Atlantic for that.”

“I was sent here to do my duty,” Hess said, straightening stiffly until he had drawn himself up to his full height. The sniper stood several inches taller than the submariner. His eyes had the cold look of having been chiseled from ice. Zumwald met the gaze and shivered involuntarily. He would not want Hess hunting him, he thought.

“Good luck to you, Hess.”

Hess nodded. “Stay out of trouble.”

Now, walking the streets, Hess concentrated on following his own advice. The last thing he wanted to do was bump into an American soldier and be forced to mutter an apology in his German accent. From time to time, when the sidewalk became too crowded, Hess stepped off the curb into the street. The gray slush there seeped into his new shoes. He kept an eye out for the cars, big Chevrolets and Pontiacs that churned the slush as they drove recklessly along the street. Berlin or Washington, he thought, it was all the same, everybody in a hurry.

“Excuse me,” he said, approaching a portly businessman who had stopped to light a cigarette. Hess tried to make his vowels sound flat the way Zumwald had coached him. “Could you tell me where H Street is?”

“I reckon I can,” the other fellow said, speaking with the sort of Southern accent Hess had only heard in American movies. “You go down two blocks and turn left.”

“Thank you,” Hess said.

“You must be new in town,” the man said, puffing his cigarette. “Join the crowd. This was just a sleepy little place until the war. It’s a whole lot busier now.”

“Yeah,” Hess said. It came out as yah.

The man looked at him curiously. “Where you from? You Dutch?”

“Yah, Dutch,” Hess said. He forced himself to smile. “You have a good day, sir.”

“Good luck!” the man said. He grinned after Hess and waved goodbye with the hand holding the cigarette. “And welcome to Washington!”

Americans, thought Hess. They wouldn’t be so happy with him in a few days. Soon enough, he might become the most hated man in the United States.

It was now midafternoon on December 12. Hess was still chilled to the bone after living outdoors the past few days. Weak sunlight filtered through the bare trees, but it wasn’t enough to warm him. The wind blew right through the overcoat he had bought with Zumwald. He felt strange wearing civilian clothes because he hadn’t been out of uniform since 1938.

He turned down a smaller street, following the directions the friendly American had given him. The sidewalk wasn’t as busy and the sun had not reached between the buildings, so that the concrete in places was still covered with a dusting of pristine snow.

Two blocks down he turned onto K Street, following the directions he had been given. He found the house and stood for a moment studying the brick facade. His overall impression was of faded glory, like a rose that had bloomed too long. The house was grandiose nonetheless, rising three stories above the street. He could hardly believe a German spy lived here. This spy had much at stake, considering what he might lose if caught.

Hess walked around to the alley at the back of the house. The alley held trash cans, a few small garages, tiny yards, parked cars. He hid the suitcase in a space between an outbuilding and a fence, and then returned to the front of the house to knock at the door.

“Yes?”

To his surprise, a woman wearing a servant’s uniform stood in the doorway. Was she the spy? Hess felt some of his confidence leaking away like air out of a flat tire. It would be just like those fools in Berlin to send him halfway around the world to be at the mercy of a serving girl.

She looked at Hess expectantly, as if waiting for him to state his business. He had been given this address, but no name or code word. He didn’t even know whom to ask for.

“May I help you?” the girl asked in heavily accented English.

Hess immediately recognized her accent as Polish. He studied her face, taking note of the high cheekbones and cornflower blue eyes. She might have been one of those rare Slavs who could pass for an Aryan.

He replied in English just as halting as the girl’s. “I was expecting someone German.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Come in,” the girl finally said, stepping back from the doorway. “Wait here.”

Hess watched the servant girl disappear into one of the roofs off the front hall and waited, hat in hand, until she reappeared. “Stand on the rug there,” she said crossly. “You are getting water on the floor.”

Hess looked down at his shoes, wet with melted snow. He stepped onto the throw rug. “Well?”

“I think that mud is not the only thing you are bringing into this house,” said the girl, her eyes suddenly hard as stones. “Come with me.”

Hess followed her down the hall. They entered a large room with tall windows that reached from floor to ceiling. Faded velvet curtains blocked most of the winter light. The wallpaper seemed to belong to another century and the walls were otherwise bare, except for an enormous painting that showed a battle scene in murky brown tones. A fire blazed in the fireplace but it did little to warm the room. It was the drawing room of a faded aristocrat, Hess thought, which was why he was taken aback at the sight of the woman standing before the fireplace. Blond and beautiful, there was nothing faded about her. She held a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Her clothes were every bit as fashionable as the women he had passed on the street.

She turned as he entered the room and appraised him with frank eyes. Hess, in turn, studied the woman. Her oval face and pale complexion were oddly familiar, though he could not quite remember where he had seen her before. She drew on the cigarette with such force that her cheeks sucked in with the effort, then exhaled the smoke from between deep red lips.

“So, you are the one they sent.”

“Yes,” was all he could think to say.

She inhaled again, looking him up and down. “Impressive. What should I call you?”

“Bruno Hess.”

Hess was aware that the Polish girl stood behind him, just beyond his line of vision. He turned slightly so that she was in view.

“Don’t worry about Petra,” the woman said in German. “She is very loyal to me.”

“Is it just you?” Hess was confused. He didn’t understand how this woman was supposed to help him assassinate General Eisenhower. He had the sinking feeling that he had been sent on a fool’s errand. He thought of the crew of U-351, all lost with the submarine. What a waste.

“Were you expecting a Panzer division?” the woman said, then made a noise halfway between a laugh and a snort. She exhaled through her nostrils this time and took a sip from her glass. Ice cubes clinked. “Leave us, Petra.”

The Polish girl swept out of the room as quickly as if the woman had wielded a whip.

“Who are you?” Hess asked. He was taken with her blue eyes and ruby lips. The thought that he had seen her before nagged at him. He suddenly felt self-conscious standing in front of her. Hess had changed his clothes, but he felt grubby from living in the open for three days. A heavy growth of stubble covered his cheeks. He felt like one of those bums one sometimes saw on the streets of Berlin in the years after the Great War, when good German veterans had been reduced to beggars. Then Hitler had come to power and the world had changed.

“I am many things, Herr Hess,” she said. “Did you ever go the movies?”

“Not since the war,” he said.

She sipped from the glass again, and Hess could see that she was a little bit drunk. “I was once an actress, but now I serve the Fatherland just as you do. I am Eva Von Stahl.”

Naturlich! The name and face came together in Hess’s mind like a flash. He recalled her public denouncement of the Nazi party and how she had fled to America. The newspapers had called her a traitor. Her films were banned from theaters across Germany.

“I don’t understand.”

“My greatest role,” she said. “I played the femme fatale so that I could be the secret heroine.”

“My God.” The enormity of it came crashing down on Hess. She had traded wealth and fame — everything — for this opportunity. Suddenly his harrowing journey across the Atlantic and then the Maryland countryside seemed like a small sacrifice. And the German leaders he might have branded as fools a moment ago now seemed impossibly clever, thinking many moves ahead in a game of chess whose outcome might decide the war.

“No, not God,” she said. “Just Eva.”

Hess drew himself straighter. “Frau Von Stahl, I am honored to meet you.”

She put her drink on the mantel and flicked what remained of her cigarette into the fire, then took his hands in hers. “You are so cold!”

“It is nothing compared to Russia,” he said.

“Has the war really gone so badly there?” she asked.

Hess closed his eyes. Instantly, a dozen images of Stalingrad came crashing into his mind at once. Blood on the snow … frozen bodies. He looked at Eva and shook his head. “We must not fail here,” he said.

Eva unfolded his hands as if to study them. He felt the warmth of her touch and realized that they had been holding hands longer than was polite. But neither of them made an effort to let go. “Cold hands, cold heart,” she said. Then she smiled up at him. “You’ve brought winter with you, Herr Hess.”

In the doorway, Petra cleared her throat noisily. “I have put out some soup for you,” she said in her thick English.

Eva finally released her grip. “Go and eat,” she said. “Petra will fix you a hot bath. Then we will talk.”

Hess followed Petra to the kitchen at the back of the house. Where the drawing room had been vast and seemingly from a faded era, the kitchen was surprisingly modern and small to the point of being cozy. There was a shiny toaster on a spotless counter and a new enameled stove, on which percolated a pot of coffee, filling the kitchen with a caffeinated steam. Hess nodded approvingly and sat down to an enormous bowl of oyster stew, thick with cream and butter. After living on withered turnips and frost-touched vegetables for the last few days, Hess doubted he had ever tasted anything so good. Petra took the pot off the stovetop and filled a mug with the thick, black brew. He couldn’t help but notice that she kept her distance from him. Even as she moved around the kitchen, she managed to keep the table between them. He was too tired and hungry to think about it. Hess held the mug and breathed deeply. Aaahh.

He was halfway through the bowl of stew when the doorknob rattled and a man came through the doorway. Hess slipped his hand into a pocket of the suit and drew his Luger.

Petra, busy at the stove and her back to the doorway, called out, “Is that you, Mr. Dorsey?”

An old black man walked into the kitchen and froze at the sight of Hess leveling the pistol at him.

“Lordy,” the man said, his eyes big as saucers.

Hess put down the pistol and returned his attention to the bowl of oyster stew. The old man stared at the pistol on the table but didn’t venture any further into the room.

“This is Mr. Hess. He is a friend of Frau Von Stahl,” Petra said. “This is Mr. Dorsey.”

“Huh. You don’t look nothin’ like one of Mrs. Von Stahl’s gentleman callers.”

Hess glanced at the black man and grunted, not sure what he was talking about. Hess had never seen an American negro before and he fought the urge to stare. The other man was past sixty and Hess had the overall impression of someone weathered by time and sun. Dorsey’s face and hands looked as brown and creased as old leather, his hair the texture of steel wool shot through with gray. Standing next to the black man, the Polish girl Petra appeared as pale and soft as bread dough.

“That’s some pistol you got there,” Dorsey said, edging toward the table, where Petra had set out a hot bowl of stew for him. He sat down across from Hess. “Never seen one like it before.”

“Mr. Dorsey, eat your stew,” Petra said.

The old man didn’t need to be told twice. He dug into his bowl with obvious relish and Hess did the same. He couldn’t help but wonder why he was eating in the kitchen with the servants instead of in the dining room he had glimpsed crossing through the house. It didn’t take any great stretch of the imagination to realize that Eva Von Stahl placed him in the same category as her servants. In the pecking order of things, she considered herself an officer while he was an enlisted man. And as a general rule, officers viewed enlisted men as expendable. He would have to keep that in mind.

Hess was just finishing his meal when he heard a knock that echoed through the house. He reached for the Luger again.

“I will see who it is,” Petra said.

Before she could get her apron off, they heard a man’s booming voice ringing in the hallway, followed by a woman’s laughter.

Dorsey and Petra exchanged a glance. “Mrs. Von Stahl done let him in herself,” Dorsey said. He chuckled. “Another gentleman caller.”

“Sounds like that Colonel Fleischmann,” Petra said, retying her apron.

“She must have a lot of boyfriends. What does Herr Von Stahl think of that?” Hess asked in his broken English.

“He was killed in the war,” Petra said with a tone of finality that discouraged Hess from asking details. “When you are finished eating I will make the bath ready for you.”

Hess pushed away from the table, then slipped the Luger back into his pocket. “All right,” he said.

Dorsey smacked his lips and put down his own spoon. “Mighty good as usual, Petra girl,” he said. “I got to put some gas in that car and then take it to be washed. Mrs. Von Stahl does like it shiny. But I swear, if I polish that ol’ car much more it’s goin’ to take the paint off.”

He went out, leaving Hess and Petra alone in the kitchen. Hess made no effort to continue the conversation. Once enough time had elapsed that he thought the old black man would be gone, he got up and went out the back door, returning in a few minutes with the suitcase.

Petra looked up from the stove, surprised that Hess had reappeared with luggage. Up until then, Petra had not been sure what to make of this German stranger who had arrived at their door. His eyes seemed to flash everywhere and take in everything, not in the way that came naturally for a newcomer, but in a more predatory fashion. This lean young man had the look of the wolf about him. Petra took a step back but Hess moved even closer, his eyes never leaving her face. She felt a whisper of fear then, the sort of tangible chill one gets from a draft when there’s a door left open somewhere.

Petra made an effort to reach for the suitcase. “Come, I will show you —”

“Don’t touch it!” he snapped.

“I only thought I would help,” she stammered. “You must be tired after your trip.”

“Can you be trusted, Petra?” Hess asked in an icy voice as his eyes seemed to bore right through her. He nodded at the suitcase on the floor. “I am wondering, would you look in there if I leave the suitcase in the kitchen while I have a bath?”

“No, of course not.”

Hess reached out as if to touch her face, but Petra flinched away from his fingertips.

“You Polish are too proud for a conquered people,” he said matter of factly.

“You Germans tricked us.” Petra sounded bitter. “We fought hard.”

Hess smiled. “I like my bath hot.”

Hess followed her through the house. Upstairs, he thought he could hear a man’s voice, but the sound was so faint that it might as well have been the drone of a wasp trapped for the season inside the house. The bathroom was large and so clean that the white tiles gleamed. All of the fixtures were old but the bathtub was an enormous claw foot affair. Petra set out towels and soap, then fiddled with the tap until a rush of hot water began to fill the tub. She left without giving him another glance as the air began to fill with steam.

Hess locked the door behind her, and then stripped down. He was looking forward to the bath; the last time he’d had one was in Germany. A dunking in the cold Atlantic as the U-boat went down didn’t count, in his book. The full-length mirror on the back of the door was so old that the silver backing was flaking away, making his reflection appear mottled. He thought his body looked pale and gaunt, but it was nothing a little sunshine and good food couldn’t restore.

A jagged scar on his torso remained where the Russian bullet had struck him and then a butcher of a surgeon had tried to repair the damage. It was said that for every man there was a bullet with his name on it. He sometimes thought that his bullet had already found him — but had failed to kill him. Hess tried not to be superstitious, but it was hard for a soldier not to believe in such things. In any case, he no longer feared being killed by a bullet.

He touched the ridge of scar tissue and all the cold of Russia seemed to rush right back into him. Hess shivered.

Then he settled into the hot water and began to plan what he would do next now that he was here in Washington.