“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.
35
Versailles
DECEMBER 22, 3:00 A.M.
Eddie dozed off in the back of the truck during the ride out from Paris, which was slowed by the snowstorm blanketing the city. Von Leinsdorf pretended to sleep, listening to the two men up front speaking in French. They said little, but he gathered enough to know they’d been given orders from Ververt to kill them as soon as the goods from the train were on board their truck.
Von Leinsdorf woke Eddie as they neared the supply depot in Matelot. Bennings directed them to their rendezvous point near the back gate of the train yard. Moments after the truck came to a stop, Von Leinsdorf shot each of the Frenchmen in the back of the head with his silenced pistol.
“What the hell,” said Bennings.
“They had orders to kill us, Eddie,” said Von Leinsdorf. “I heard them on the drive.”
“What the fuck we supposed to do with Ververt now?”
“Live in hope our paths cross again so we can make it up to him. I’ve arranged for the men who helped us out of Paris to meet us at the drop. They’ll take the delivery off our hands and pay us on the spot. We’re done.”
Troubled that he still lacked a satisfactory explanation for exactly who those men were, Eddie followed Von Leinsdorf into the train yard. Eddie’s two contacts in the depot’s railway battalion were waiting, as instructed, inside the gate. Eddie sounded anxious, but they were used to that, and in the dark of the train yard they couldn’t see the sickly sheen of sweat on his face. The GIs led them to the Christmas train, waiting on a side track near the edge of the yards. Von Leinsdorf paid them out of Ververt’s advance, and beyond that they showed no interest in the aftermath of their transaction.
Von Leinsdorf helped Eddie up into the last boxcar holding the luxury goods, and the train rolled out of the yard just after twelve-thirty. Eddie propped himself up against a stack of whiskey boxes in the corner. He watched Von Leinsdorf set down and open his suitcase, turn on a flashlight, and go to work.
“How long to the drop?” asked Von Leinsdorf.
“An hour, maybe more, depending on the switches,” said Eddie. “Trouble you for a smoke?”
“A million cigarettes in this car and you’re bumming one off me?”
“Old habits die hard.”
Von Leinsdorf tossed a pack of Luckies over to him. Eddie fumbled through his pockets.
“Shit, sorry, you got a light?”
Von Leinsdorf moved over to him, taking out his lighter.
“This is a one-night career, Eddie. We collect our end, work our way down to Portugal, and buy passage home out of Lisbon.”
“I can’t wait to get back to New York. You can have fucking Europe, they’re all out of their minds. There’s some important guys I want you to meet in the city, Dick. Connected guys.”
As Von Leinsdorf leaned down with the lighter, the car jolted sideways and he stumbled slightly and bumped into Eddie. W
hen he straightened back up, Eddie was holding a pistol at his head.
“Now you tell me what the fuck is going on,” said Eddie. “Or you’re not leaving this car.”
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