The Hunter From the Woods (29 page)

It was the birthday boy, in company with the two men who’d been conversing with Fraulein Luxe when Michael had first approached. Both the men wore dark suits with swastika lapel pins, white shirts and dark ties. One man was husky, with a frizz of curly black hair and the sunken eyes of a common thug, while the other wore wire-framed spectacles and had thinning reddish-brown hair and the look of a worried accountant who has misplaced the key to his master’s deposit box.

The birthday boy, however, was a formidable presence. In his polar-white suit his shoulders looked to be five feet broad, and he was easily as tall as Michael, at about six-two. He had a little snow-cap of white hair atop the mountain peak of his head, his hair cropped right to the scalp, sandy and sparkly, on the sides and presumably also on the back. He had the round face and full cheeks of a cherub, a boyish grin on his wide mouth and pale blue eyes that did not quite complement the grin. What immediately struck Michael—along with the aromatic impressions that this man smoked cigars, had recently ridden a horse and had just finished a bowl of vanilla ice-cream—was that his face was as red as if he’d been weaned on tomato ketchup, and it had nothing to do with blowing out candles. It was a startling sight, really, like seeing a fireball sitting atop the body of a snowman. Michael wondered if the man wasn’t in need of a heart specialist close at hand. At the center of the red necktie was a swastika stickpin with a small diamond set into each of the four arms.

A white suit in winter? Michael thought. It was obviously some attempt at a throwback to Viking furs or else simply to make a statement that this man was too large to be concerned either about proper fashion or God’s weather. The German word for that would be
barbarisch
.

Michael got his mouth in gear, careful with the Westphalian twang. “You’re absolutely correct, sir. I’m staying here and was passing by when I heard the music. I…um…don’t know anyone here, but I thought—”

“You’d walk in and help yourself to a drink or two, Major?” the man interrupted. He was still smiling, but the blue eyes in the ruddy face were dangerous. “At
my
birthday party? That takes some cheek, sir.”

“I didn’t know. No one stopped me at the door.”

“There’s a sign on the door that says ‘Private Party’. Did you not see that? What’s your name and your division?” Still the blaze of his smile had not cooled.

“His name is Horst Jaeger,” the woman spoke up, and Michael saw the man’s eyes go to her and fix there. “He’s a friend of mine, Axel.”

“A
friend
? Of how long? Five minutes?” Now his smile did hitch and sputter. The gaze swung back upon Michael Gallatin. “Your papers, please.”

Michael stood very still. His heart was hammering. He was, as the British would say, close to slipping in it. But by force of will he kept his expression blank. He cocked his head to one side.

“I’ll see
your
papers first, sir,” he said.

There was a silence. How long did it stretch? From here to London, it seemed.

“You wish to see
my
papers?
M
y papers?” It was not a roar, as much as it was the sound of steam escaping an injured boiler.

“I know who I am,” Michael said calmly. “I have no idea who you might be.”

The man pushed Franziska aside and came up upon Michael like an Alp. The Four Smooth Suits were playing a midtempo jump, the dance floor was crowded, the drinks flowed and laughter rose up like the chatter of machine guns. The heat from the scarlet face almost seared Michael’s brows, and down in the man’s eyes burned small vicious cinders.

Michael stood his ground and made himself larger, swelling out his chest and shoulders. A whipstrike of bloodlust hit him. Oh, he was so close—

A hand plunged down into an inner pocket of a white jacket. It returned gripping a leather wallet covered with white horse hair, which Michael realized he’d mistaken as the scent of a saddle.

“I,” said the man’s mouth, “am Axel Rittenkrett, senior investigator with the—” The wallet opened to display the square brass badge with the German eagle stamped above the Nazi swastika and along the bottom the words
Geheime Staatspolizei
. “As you seem to disregard plain writing, Major, I will tell you that this is all the paper I need to put you in a car in the next moment and carry you with great glee to Gestapo headquarters.”

Michael felt sweat at his temples, but after all it was warm in this room, with all the heat of dancing roiling around. Rittenkrett also was sweating; it wouldn’t have surprised Michael if the man’s face leaked blood. He had to say something—right
now
—and it had to be impressive because his life depended on it.

“Herr Rittenkrett,” said Michael, staring calmly into the man’s furious eyes, “I have been with the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division since France in 1940. My companions and I were sent to the Russian Front in 1941. We fought at Minsk, Kiev, in the blizzards before Moscow, over the minefields of Kursk and through the inhuman butcheries at Smolensk. We fought our way out of the encirclement of Army Group Center, with heavy loss. We were sent to the Western Front after the invasion, undermanned in the hedgerows with mostly green replacements. Most recently—was it just in December?—we were holding the Bitche sector in the Ardennes. Herr Rittenkrett,” he said, “I appreciate the weight and power of your Gestapo badge, but I have seen men gutted, disemboweled, beheaded, cut in half, reduced to jibbering torsos that beg for death, crushed flat and unrecognizable as anything ever human under tank treads, blown into glistening shreds by artillery shells, burned alive by flamethrowers and—worse—not completely burned alive by flamethrowers, frozen solid into snowbanks, killed in ridiculous accidents by comrades too bone-weary to check their weapons, and drowned crossing rivers because they were too proud to tell their sergeants they never learned to swim. I have seen a young man turn eighty years old in a matter of minutes. I have seen the handsome pride of a loving mother lose his face like a mask being torn away, so much garbage for the summer flies.

“So, Herr Rittenkrett,” Michael said, thinking that some of these things—too many of these things—he
had
actually seen in his duty in North Africa, except it was British young men bearing the agonies, “I appreciate your position and I congratulate you on your birthday, but I am expecting to be ordered eastward again any day now, with the 25th Panzer Grenadiers for the glory of the Reich, and so until then I will walk through any door I please and take any
drink
I please because, Herr Rittenkrett, I walk and drink in the company of many hundreds of ghosts, and we have earned that very small privilege, even from the Gestapo.”

And though Herr Rittenkrett did not move an inch, Michael felt him draw back.

The music played and played. Above the dance floor the old dead regals peered down upon the lively celebration.

Rittenkrett slowly released the breath he’d been holding.

He said, “I have one question for you, Major. Answer it very carefully.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

Rittenkrett’s snow-capped head nodded. One hand slowly came up to grip Michael’s right shoulder. The blue eyes crinkled.

“Would you like ice cream with your cake?”

“Yes,” Michael replied, holding back his sigh of very huge relief, “I would.”

“Ross, go get it for him,” Rittenkrett said into the air, and the thuggish one moved to obey. “I suppose it’s unnecessary to surmise that you’ve given back to the enemy double or triple what you and your brave comrades have endured? No answer needed there, I can see for myself. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be
alive
, yes? Franziska! Why isn’t our new friend a
colonel
?”

“I was going to ask him the same question.” She wound her arm around Michael’s in a smooth, beautifully sinuous motion.

“There are already many talented and able colonels,” the wolf in the room answered. “I prefer to be nearer the action.”

“Ah!” Rittenkrett beamed. “Spoken like a man who
ought
to be a colonel. Your accent…is it…?”

“Westphalian,” Michael responded. “My hometown is Dortmund.”

“I’ve had some dealings involving the Hadamar hospital there. A shame your fair city has taken so much damage from the bombers. But that will be reckoned with, very soon. I presume you were here last night? During the air raid?”

“I was, yes.” It had been around eleven o’clock when the sirens had begun to shriek, and Michael had been in bed resting for the day to come. He’d gone down to the cellar with the other guests, maybe seventy or so people in the entire hotel. The lights had flickered and vibrations had pounded through the floor and the walls and a few of the women had begun to sob as they held their children but the night bombers had left smoking craters and fire-scorched ruins in another part of the city.

“Prepare for more,” Rittenkrett cautioned, his smile now gone. “But don’t fear, our courageous Luftwaffe is steadily rebuilding. I know of some tricks up their sleeves, yet to come.”

“I don’t fear,” Michael said.
Tricks up their sleeves
? He didn’t like the sound of that. “I have the utmost confidence in the Luftwaffe and in the ultimate destruction of all our enemies.” He decided to add, “If the Fuhrer says it will happen…so it shall.”

“Exactly.” Rittenkrett leaned in toward him and said,
sotto voce
, “But in the meantime, Major, make sure you get your ass to the cellar when you hear those sirens.” Then he winked and laughed and clapped Michael hard on the arm that Franziska wasn’t holding, and Michael allowed a smile and a nod.

The thug returned with a plate of cake and ice cream and both a fork and spoon engraved with the name of the hotel. As Michael accepted the gift and wondered where he was going to dump the sugary stomach-clogger, the man who looked like a distressed accountant whispered something into Rittenkrett’s ear and the big red-faced man grimaced. “Well, Sigmund reminds me I have business to tend to even on the night of my own party. Franziska, I’m sure you’ll be in your element as a gracious hostess in my absence.
Oh
…” That last word, Michael realized, was meant as a bridge between party-talk and more serious matters, for Axel Rittenkrett’s eyes sharpened again as he regarded the lady.

“Our continuing project requires your special enthusiasm,” Rittenkrett told her. “Your invaluable communication skills. We have some new clients on the list. Shall we talk in my office tomorrow morning? Around nine o’clock?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

“She warms my cockles,” Rittenkrett replied, speaking to Michael. “Major Jaeger, eat and drink to your heart’s delight and walk through any door that pleases you. It was an honor to meet you. Good luck and good…I’m sure you must hear this quite a lot…
hunting
. Heil Hitler.” He put up his right hand in the salute.

“Heil Hitler,” Michael replied, lifting his hand with the fork in it and on the fork a little bite of cake with buttercream icing.

The white, mountainous shape of the Gestapo investigator and his two assistants moved away through the throng. He had trouble getting out, as people converged upon Rittenkrett to clap him on his back, speak in one of his flaming ears and otherwise brown-nose him all the way out the door and beyond.

Four

The Battle Is Life

“Interesting man,” said Michael in the rippling wake of Rittenkrett’s departure. “May I ask…why the white suit in winter?”

“His
persona
.” There was a note in the woman’s voice that said she was quite relieved her Gestapo acquaintance had left the party. “He always wears a white suit, in every season. He likes to be called the ‘Ice Man’.”

“The ‘Ice Man’? Why is that?”

“You don’t want to know,” she said, and when Michael looked into her eyes he saw a boundary there that should not be crossed. “We’ve just met, but…I have to say… you take a great chance speaking that way to someone like him.”

“I’d probably take a greater chance putting this in my stomach before bedtime.” He set the cake and ice cream on the tray of a passing waiter.