Six Graves to Munich
Hans looked surprised, then grinned. “I will tell you right now. Their names are—” Before Hans could utter another word Rogan jumped up and smashed the German’s mouth with the butt of his pistol. Hans’ mouth became a dark hole out of which bloody pieces of gum bubbled, and bits of broken teeth. Eric tried to come to his brother’s defense, but Rogan pushed him back into the chair. He did not trust himself to hit Eric. He was afraid he wouldn’t stop until the man was dead.
“I don’t want to hear any lies,” Rogan said. “And to make sure you don’t lie to me, you’ll each—separately—write down the names of the other three men who were in the Munich Palace of Justice. You’ll also put down where each man is living now. I’m especially interested in the chief interrogator. I also want to know which man actually killed my wife. When you’ve finished, I’ll compare your separate lists. If both have the same names, you won’t be killed. If the information does not tally, if you have different names listed, you’ll both be killed immediately. That’s the deal. It’s up to you.”
Hans Freisling was gagging, clawing pieces of broken teeth and bits of gum from his smashed mouth. He couldn’t speak. Eric asked the final question: “If we cooperate, what will you do to us?”
Rogan tried to sound as earnest and sincere as possible. “If you both write down the same information, I won’t kill you. I’ll accuse you as war criminals, however, and turn you in to the proper authorities. Then you’ll have to stand trial and take your chances.”
He was amused by the secret looks they gave each other and knew just what they were thinking. Even if arrested and tried, even if convicted, they could appeal and get out on bail. Then they figured they could defect to East Germany and thumb their noses at justice. Rogan, pretending not to notice the looks they exchanged, pulled Hans out of his chair and moved him to the other end of the coffee table so that neither one could see what his brother was writing down. “Get busy,” he said. “And it had better be good. Or you’ll both die here in this room, tonight.” He pointed the Walther pistol at Eric’s head while keeping Hans in full view. With the silencer, the pistol was a frightening-looking weapon.
The brothers began to write. Hampered by the drug, they wrote laboriously, and it seemed a long time before first Eric, then Hans, finished. Rosalie, who had sat on the coffee table between them to make certain they could not signal to each other, picked up their pads to hand them to Rogan. He shook his head. “Read them to me,” he said. He kept the pistol pointed at Eric’s head. He had already decided to kill him first.
Rosalie read Eric’s list aloud. “Our commanding officer was Klaus von Osteen. He is now chief justice in the Munich courts. The other two were observers. The man from the Hungarian army was Wenta Pajerski. He is now a Red party chief in Budapest. The third man was Genco Bari. He was an observer from the Italian army. He now lives in Sicily.”
Rosalie paused. She switched the pads to read what Hans had written. Rogan held his breath. “Klaus von Osteen was the commanding officer. He was the one who killed your wife.” Rosalie paused at the look of anguish that passed over Rogan’s face. Then she continued reading.
The information tallied—both brothers had put down essentially the same information, the same names, although only Hans had named Christine’s murderer. And as Rogan compared the two pads he realized that Eric had given the minimum of information, whereas Hans had included extra details such as Genco Bari being a Mafia member, probably a big man in the organization. Rogan, however, had the feeling that the brothers had held back something he should know about. They were exchanging sly, congratulatory looks.
Again Rogan pretended not to notice. “OK,” he said. “You did the smart thing, so I’m going to keep my part of the bargain. Now I must turn you over to the police. We’ll leave this room together and go down the back stairs. Remember, don’t try to run. I’ll be right behind you. If you recognize anyone when we get outside, don’t try to signal them.”
The two men looked unconcerned; Eric was smirking at Rogan quite openly. Rogan was a fool, they thought. Didn’t the Amerikaner realize the police would release them immediately?
Rogan played it very straight and very dumb. “One other thing,” he said. “Downstairs I’m going to put you in the trunk of my car.” He saw the fear in their faces. “Don’t be frightened and don’t make a fuss. How can I control you if I have to drive the car?” he asked reasonably. “How else can I conceal you from any friends who may be waiting for you outside when I drive out of the parking lot?”
Eric snarled, “We made the trunk of that car an air-sealed chamber. We’ll suffocate. You plan to kill us anyway.”
“I’ve had special air holes drilled into the trunk since then,” Rogan said blandly.
Eric spat on the floor. He made a sudden grab for Rosalie and held her in front of him. But the drug had so weakened him that Rosalie easily twisted out of his grasp. And as she wrenched free one of her long painted fingernails went into Eric’s eye. He screamed and held his hand to his left eye. Rosalie stepped out of the line of fire.
Up to this moment Rogan had controlled his anger. Now his head began to throb with familiar pain. “You dirty bastard,” he said to Eric. “You put down as little information as possible. You didn’t tell me it was Klaus von Osteen who killed my wife. And I’m willing to bet you helped him. Now you don’t want to get into the trunk of the car because you think I’m going to kill you. All right, you son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you right now. Right here in the hotel room. I’m going to beat you to a bloody pulp. Or maybe I’ll just blow your head off.”
It was Hans who brought peace. Almost tearfully, through his puffed and bloody lips, he said to his brother, “Be calm, do what the American wishes us to do. Don’t you see he has gone mad?”
Eric Freisling looked searchingly at Rogan’s face. “Yes,” he said then. “I will do what you wish.”
Rogan stood very still. Rosalie came up beside him and touched him as if to bring him back to sanity. And his terrible anger began to subside. He said to her, “You know what you have to do after we leave?”
“Yes.”
Rogan herded the two brothers out of the room and down the back stairs of the hotel. He kept the gun in his pocket. When they went out of the rear entrance that led to the parking lot, Rogan whispered directions until they came to where the Mercedes was parked. Rogan made them kneel in the gravel at his feet while he unlocked the trunk. Eric got into it first, awkwardly, the drug still affecting his movements. He gave Rogan a last distrustful look. Rogan pushed him to the floor. As Hans crawled into the spacious trunk his mouth tried to form a smile; it was an obscene leer because of his smashed lips and fragmented teeth. He said meekly, humbly, “You know, I’m glad this happened. All these years what we did to you has been on my conscience. I think it will be very good for me, psychologically, to be punished.”
“Do you really think so?” Rogan said politely, and slammed the trunk lid down over them.
CHAPTER 8
Rogan drove the Mercedes around Berlin for the next coup drove the Mercedes around Berlin for the next couple of hours. He made sure a supply of air was going through the rubber hosing and into the trunk. This was to give Rosalie time to do her part. She had to go down to the hotel ballroom, where she would drink, flirt, and dance with the unattached men so that later everyone would remember her having been there. This would give her an alibi.
Near midnight Rogan pulled the wire attached to the steering wheel. This would cut off the air and feed carbon monoxide into the trunk. In thirty minutes or less the Freisling brothers would be dead. Rogan now drove toward the Berlin railway station.
But after fifteen minutes Rogan stopped the car. He had intended to kill them as they had tried to kill him in the Munich Palace of Justice, without warning and still hoping for freedom. He had meant to slaughter them like animals, but he could not.
He got out of the car, went around to the back, and banged on the trunk lid. “Hans . . . Eric,” h
e called. He didn’t know why he used their first names, as if they had become friends. He called out again, in a low urgent voice, to warn them they were going into the eternal darkness of death, so that they could compose whatever souls they had, say whatever prayers possible to make themselves ready for the black void. Again he banged on the trunk, louder this time, but there was no answer. He realized suddenly what must have happened. In their drugged condition they had probably died shortly after Rogan had switched to the carbon monoxide. To make sure that they were dead and not shamming, Rogan unlocked the trunk and raised the lid.
Evil they had been, no loss to the world, but in their last moments they had found some spark of humanity. In their final agony the two brothers had turned to each other and died in each other’s arms. Their faces had lost all slyness and cunning. Rogan stared at them for a long time. It was a mistake, he thought, to have killed them together. Accidentally, he had been merciful.
He locked the trunk and drove on to the railway station. He swung the car into the vast car park, filled with thousands of vehicles, and parked it in the section he thought most likely to remain filled, near the east entrance. Then he got out of the Mercedes and started toward his hotel. As he walked he let the keys to the Mercedes slip out of his hand and into the gutter.
He walked all the way back to the hotel, and so it was nearly three in the morning before he let himself into his hotel suite. Rosalie was waiting up for him. She brought him a glass of water to take with his pills, but Rogan could feel the blood pounding in his head, louder and louder. The familiar sickish, sweet taste was in his mouth, and then he felt the fearsome spinning vertigo, and he was falling . . . falling . . . falling. . . .
CHAPTER 9
It was three days before Rogan became conscious of his surroundings. He was still in the hotel suite, lying in his bed, but the bedroom had the antiseptic smell of a hospital. Rosalie was hovering over him, instantly at his side when she saw he was awake. Peering over her shoulder was a peevish-faced man with a beard who resembled the comical German doctor in films.
“Ah”—the doctor’s voice was a harsh voice—“you have finally found your way back to us. Fortunate, very fortunate. Now I must insist you go to the hospital.”
Rogan shook his head. “I’m OK here. Just give me a prescription for some more of my pills. No hospital is going to help me.”
The doctor adjusted his spectacles and stroked his beard. Despite the facial camouflage he looked young, and he was obviously disturbed by Rosalie’s beauty. Now he turned to scold her. “You must give this fellow some peace. He is suffering from nervous exhaustion. He must have complete rest for at least two weeks. Do you understand me?” The young doctor angrily tore a sheet from his prescription pad and handed it to her.
There was a knock on the door of the hotel suite, and Rosalie went to answer it. The American Intelligence agent Bailey came in, followed by two German detectives. Bailey’s long Gary Cooper face was sour. “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked Rosalie. She nodded toward the bedroom door. The three men moved toward it.
“He’s sick,” Rosalie said. But the three men went into the bedroom.
Bailey did not seem surprised to find Rogan in bed. Neither did he seem to have any sympathy for the sick man. He looked down at Rogan and said flatly, “So you went ahead and did it.”
“Did what?” Rogan asked. He was feeling fine now. He grinned up at Bailey.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Bailey snapped angrily. “The Freisling brothers have disappeared. Just like that. They left their gas station closed; their stuff is still in their apartment; their money is still in the bank. That means only one thing: They’re dead.”
“Not necessarily,” Rogan said.
Bailey waved his hand impatiently. “You’ll have to answer some questions. These two men are from the German political police. You’ll have to get dressed and come down to their headquarters.”
The young bearded doctor spoke up. His voice was angry, commanding. “This man cannot be moved.”
One of the German detectives said to him, “Watch yourself. You don’t want all those years in medical school to be wasted on a pick and shovel.”
Instead of frightening the doctor, this made him angrier. “If you move this man he may very well die. I will then personally press charges of manslaughter against you and your department.”
The German detectives, astonished at this defiance, did not say another word. Bailey studied the doctor and said, “What’s your name?”
The doctor bowed, almost clicked his heels, and said, “Thulman. At your service. And what is your name, sir?”
Bailey gave him a long intimidating stare; then, in obvious mockery, he bowed and clicked his heels together. “Bailey,” he said. “And we are going to take this man down to the Halle.”
The doctor gave him a look of contempt. “I can click my heels together louder than you when I am barefooted, you poor imitation of a Prussian aristocrat. But that is beside the point. I forbid you to move this man because he is ill; his health will be severely endangered. I do not think you can afford to disregard my warnings.”
Rogan could see that the three men were baffled. He was, too. Why the hell was this doctor sticking his neck out for him?
Bailey said sarcastically, “Will it kill him if I ask him a few questions right here and now?”
“No,” said the doctor, “but it will tire him.”
Bailey made an impatient gesture and turned his lanky frame toward Rogan. “Your visas for travel in Germany are being revoked,” he said. “I’ve had that arranged. I don’t care what you do in any other country, but I want you out of my territory. Don’t try to come back with phony papers. I’ll have my eye on you as long as you’re in Europe. Right now you can thank this doctor for saving your ass.” Bailey walked out of the bedroom, the two German detectives followed, and Rosalie ushered all three out of the suite.
Rogan grinned at the doctor. “Is it true—I really can’t be moved?”
The young doctor stroked his beard. “Of course. However, you may move yourself, since then there would be no psychological stress on your nervous system.” He smiled at Rogan. “I dislike seeing healthy men, especially policemen, bully sick people. I don’t know what you are up to, but I’m on your side.”
Rosalie saw the doctor to the door, then came back and sat on the bed. Rogan put his hand over hers. “Do you still want to stay with me?” he asked. She nodded. “Then pack all our things,” Rogan said. “We’ll leave for Munich. I want to meet Klaus von Osteen before the others. He’s the most important one.”
Rosalie bowed her head to his. “They will kill you after all,” she said.
Rogan kissed her. “That’s why I have to take care of von Osteen first. I want to make sure of him. I don’t mind so much if the other two get away.” He gave her a gentle push. “Start packing,” he said.
They caught a morning flight to Munich and checked into a small pension where Rogan hoped they might not be noticed. He knew that Bailey and the German police would trace him to Munich, but it would take them a few days to discover his whereabouts. By then his mission would be completed and he would be out of the country.
He rented a small Opel while Rosalie went to the library to read up on von Osteen in the newspaper file and to locate his home address.
When they met for dinner, Rosalie had a full report. Klaus von Osteen was now the highest-ranking judge of the Munich courts. He had started off as the wastrel son of a famous noble family related to the English royal family. Though he had been a German officer during the war, there was no record of his having joined the Nazi party. Shortly before the end of the war he had been severely wounded and that had apparently turned him into a new man at the age of forty-three. Back in civilian life he had studied law and had become one of the best lawyers in Germany. He had then entered the political arena as a moderate and a supporter of the American entente in Europe. Great things were expected of him; it was possible that he m
ight even become the chancellor of West Germany. He had the support of the German industrialists and the American occupation authorities, and a magnetic influence over the working classes as a superb orator.
Rogan nodded grimly. “That sounds like the guy. He had a terrific voice, sincere as hell. The bastard really covered his tracks, though.”
Rosalie said anxiously, “Are you sure this is the right man?”
“It’s the right one; it has to be,” Rogan said. “How could Eric and Hans hit on the same name unless it was the truth?” He paused. “We’ll go to his house right after dinner. When I see his face I’ll recognize him, no matter how much he’s changed. But it’s him, all right. He was a real aristocrat.”
They drove to von Osteen’s address, using a city map as a guide. Von Osteen’s house was in a fashionable suburb, and it was a mansion. Rogan parked the car and they went up the stone steps to the huge baronial doors. There was a wooden knocker in the shape of a wild boar’s head. Rogan slammed it twice against the wooden panel. In a moment the door was opened by an old-fashioned German butler, grossly fat, obsequious. Very coldly he said, “Bitte mein Herr.”
“We have come to see Klaus von Osteen,” Rogan said. “On confidential business. Just tell him that Eric Freisling sent us.”
The butler ’s voice was less cold. He evidently recognized the Freisling name. “It is regrettable,” he said. “Judge von Osteen and the family are on vacation in Switzerland, and then they plan to go to Sweden and Norway and finally England. They will not be back for nearly a month.”
“Damn,” Rogan said. “Can you tell me where they are staying right now—their address?”
The butler smiled, his face creasing into ridges of ruddy suet. “No,” he said. “Judge von Osteen is not following a schedule. He can be reached only through official channels. Do you wish to leave a message, sir?”