The Master Sniper by Stephen Hunter
“Eh? I’m not sure what—”
“It’s the French. The French who’ve occupied us. In American uniforms with American equipment. But the French.”
“Well, it’s the same. Maybe worse. We never took America. We took France in ’40.”
“They seem very benign. They sit in the square and whistle at the women. They drink. The officers are all in the café.”
“What about ours?”
“Our boys handed in their rifles and were marched away. It was almost a ceremony, like a changing of the guard. It was all very cheerful. No shots were fired. The guns weren’t even loaded.”
“Tell me what I sent you out for. How many are there? What are the security arrangements? How are they monitoring civilian traffic? Have they set up border checkpoints? Is there a list that you know of?”
“List?”
“Yes. Of criminals. Am I on it?”
“I don’t know anything of any list. I certainly didn’t see one. There are not so many of them. They have put up signs. Regulations. All remaining German soldiers and military personnel must turn themselves in by tomorrow noon on the Münsterplatz. All party uniforms, banners, flags, standards, regalia, knives—anything with the swastika on it has been collected and dumped in a big pile. Denazification they call it, but it’s souvenirs they want.”
“The border. The border.”
“All right. I went there too. Nothing. Some bored men, sitting in a small open car. They haven’t even occupied the blockhouse, though I do know they removed our Frontier Police detachment. I think the fence is patrolled too.”
“I see. But it’s not—”
“Repp, the border is not their central concern right now. Sitting in the sun, looking at women, thinking about what to do when the war’s over: those are their central concerns.”
“What travel regulations have they posted?”
“None, yet.”
“What about—”
“Repp, nothing’s changed. Some French soldiers are now sitting around the Münsterplatz, where yesterday it was our boys. Our boys will be back soon. You’ll see. It’s almost finished. It won’t last much longer.”
He sat back.
“Very good,” he said. “You know they offered me an Amt Six-A woman, a professional. But I insisted on you. I’m glad. It was too late for strangers. This is too important for strangers. I’m so glad they convinced you to help.”
“It’s difficult for a German to say No to the SS.”
“It’s difficult for a German to say No to duty.”
“Repp, I have something I’d like to discuss, please.”
“What?”
“A wonderful idea really. It came to me while I was out.”
She did seem happier than yesterday. She wasn’t so tired for one thing and she looked better, though maybe he had only grown used to the imperfectly joined face.
“What?”
“It’s simple. I see it now. I knew there was a design in all this. Don’t go.”
“What?”
“Don’t do it. Whatever it is, don’t do it. It can’t matter. Now, so late. Stay here.” She paused. “With me.”
“Stay?” A stupid thing to say. But she had astonished him.
“Yes. Remember Berlin, ’42, after Demyansk, how good it was? All the parties, the operas. Remember, we went riding in the Tiergarten, it was spring, just like it is now. You were so heroic, I was beautiful. Berlin was beautiful. Well, it can be like that again. I was thinking. It can be just like that, here. Or not far from here, in Zurich. There’s money, you have no idea how much. You’ve got your passport. I can get across, I know I can, somehow. All sorts of things are possible, if you’d only—”
“Stop it,” he said. “I don’t want to hear this.”
He wished she hadn’t brought it up; but she had. Now he wished she’d drop it; but she wouldn’t.
“You’ll die out there. They’ll kill you. For nothing,” she said.
“Not for nothing. For everything.”
“Repp, God knows I’m not much. But I’ve survived. So have you. We can begin with that. I don’t expect you to love me as you loved the pretty idiot in Berlin. But I won’t love you the way I loved the handsome, thick-skulled young officer. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”
“Margareta—”
“Nobody cares anymore. I could see it on their faces. Our boys’ faces. They didn’t care. They were glad it was over. They went willingly, happily. To die now is pointless. My brother and father are dead. All the men I’ve loved are dead. To join them would be insane. And you did more than all of them put together. You’ve earned your holiday.”
“Stop it.”
“These French seem all right. They’re not evil men, I could tell. Not Jews, or working for Jews. Just men, just soldiers. They got along quite well with our boys. It was a touching scene.”
“You sound like you’re describing some kind of medieval pageant.”
“There’s no disgrace in having lost a war.”
How could he tell her? What words could there be? That he was part of a crusade, even if no one remembered or would admit it. He was all that was left of it. If he had to give his life, he’d give it. That he was a hard man, totally ruthless, and proud. He’d killed a thousand men in a hundred wrecked towns and snowy forests and trenches full of lice and shit.
“We lost more than a war,” he said. “We lost a moment in history.”
“Forget what’s been or what might have been,” she said. “Yes, wonderful, but forget it, it’s over. Get ready for the future, it’s here, today.”
“There’s not even any choice in it. There’s no choice at all.”
“Repp, I could go to the French. I could explain to their officer. I could say Repp, of Demyansk, the great hero, is at my house, he’d like to come in. I could get him to guarantee that—”
“He can only guarantee a rope. They’d hang me. Don’t you see it yet, why I can’t turn back? I killed Jews.”
He sat down by the table and looked off into the corner of the kitchen.
“Oh, Repp,” she finally said. “I had no idea.” She stepped back from him. “Oh, Christ, I didn’t know. God, what terrible work. You must have suffered so. It must have been so hard on you.”
She came beside him and touched him gently, put her fingertips against his lips and looked into his eyes.
“Oh, Repp,” she said, and then was crying against him. “It must have been so hard on you.”
27
At last it was a simple proposition.
“To get Repp,” Leets told them, “we have to find this Eichmann.”
“Yeah, but, Captain, if we can’t find one Obersturmbannführer in the SS, how the hell are we going to find another?” Roger wanted to know.
And Tony said, “The possibilities must be endless. The man may be dead. He may have made it out of the country. He may be hiding as a private in a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft battalion. He may have been captured by the Russians. He may be in Buenos Aires.”
“And if he’s any of those things, we’re out of luck. But if he’s been captured, then maybe we can find him. Just maybe.”
“So I guess we have to go on the assumption he’s been taken,” said Roger. “But still …”
“We’ve got no other choice.”
“And if we get him, then we gotta make him talk,” Roger said.
“I’ll make him talk,” said Leets. “Don’t you worry about that.”
But Roger did worry; for he did not like the look that crossed the captain’s face when he spoke.
If this Eichmann was a prisoner, then he’d be property of the Army Counter-intelligence Corps, for interrogation intelligence was a CIC initiative. So early the next day they took off for Augsburg, where Seventh Army CIC had decamped at Army Headquarters on an old estate just beyond the ruined city. Army took up the main house and the CIC unit one of several hunting bungalows spread over the rolling hills.
It took them quite
“What’s the German word for night?” Leets asked Tony.
“Come on, chum. You know it.”
“Yeah, Nacht. Sounds like a rifle being cocked.”
Presently Miller showed up, dead tired, in his GI overcoat, a pale, freckled man in his late thirties.
“Jesus, sorry I’m late. How long you guys been waiting?” he asked by way of introduction.
“Hours, sir,” said Leets. “Look, we need some help, that’s why we’re here.”
“Sure, sure. Listen, if I’d of known—”
“German prisoners. SS prisoners, especially. Over the rank of major. Specifically, the rank of Obersturmbannführer Eichmann, out of a department called Amt Four-B-four.”
“That’s Gestapo.”
“Gestapo?” said Leets.
“Under the RSHA. Central Security Department. Eichmann, huh?”
“You know him?”
“No. But we’re beginning to see how RSHA was set up.”
“Well, where would he be? I mean, if you had him. Where would we look for him?”
“Long way off. A castle. Sorry, classified location.” Leets felt his mouth drop open in stupefaction. “Is it access you want?” the major continued. “Oh, sure. It can be arranged. Get OSS upstairs to write a fancy letter to Seventh Army CIC. It’ll reach me in a week or two with twenty-six different qualifications attached from the brass and then—”
“Major,” Leets interrupted. “We need to see this guy tonight. Tomorrow might be too late.”
“Look, fellows, if I could help, believe me I would. But I’m powerless. Look.” He held up his hands from underneath his desk, wrists joined in a pantomime of bondage. He smiled weakly and said, “They’re tied. See, those officers are an intelligence source of the first magnitude. We’ve got ’em at an interrogation center, a castle, like I said. Later, there’s some talk of establishing a Joint Services interrogation center. But for now, we’ve got ’em. See, a lot of them operated against the Russians. Look, let’s face it, this war’s over and the next one’s about to begin. And those guys fought its first battle. They’ve got all kinds of dope on the Russians, on Communist cells in Europe in Resistance groups, on hundreds of intelligence operations. They’re a treasure. They’re worth their weight in gold. I mean, they are—”
“Major,” Leets spoke very quietly, “there’s a German operation that’s still hot. So hot it smokes. Now. Today. There’s an officer named Repp, Waffen SS, top man with a rifle. He’s going to put a bullet into someone. Someone important. This is the last will and testament of the Third Reich. He’s the executor.”
“So who?”
“That’s the hard part. We don’t know. But we believe this Eichmann must, for we found his name on a crucial file down at the Dachau admin center.”
“I’m sorry. I’d like to help. I just can’t. There are channels. It’d be my ass. You just have to go through channels.”
“Look, Major, we may not have time to go through channels. Someone could be on the fucking bull’s-eye while we’re filling out forms.”
“Captain Leets. There’s just no—”
“Okay, look. Let me give you the real reason you ought to give this guy to us: he’s simply ours. We bought him. You didn’t. You stumbled onto him and don’t even know if you’ve got him. But we bought him with lives. Thirty-four paratroopers checked out on this thing in the Black Forest, twice as many again wounded. And eleven guys in the Forty-fifth Division got nailed back in April. Then there were twenty-five KZ inmates this Repp used up for practice. And finally, an operative of mine, another KZ survivor. He’s at Dachau, in a pit full of stiffs and lime, lovely spot. He deserved better, but that’s what he got. So when I say this Eichmann is mine, because he’s going to give me Repp, then that’s what I mean.”
“It’s not a question of deaths. Men die in this war all the time, Captain”—but not your sort, Leets thought—“but still we’ve got to stick to our procedures. I can’t just … there’s just no way … it’s ridiculous. But—” And then he stopped.
“Oh, hell,” he finally said. He looked away and seemed to breathe deeply. “How old are you?” he finally said to Roger.
“Nineteen, sir,” said Roger.
“A paratrooper. I can see by the boots.”
“Uh, yes, sir,” said Roger.
“Any combat jumps?”
“Six,” Roger lied.
“Young and crazy. Crazy-reckless. Everybody tried to talk you out of it, I bet.”
“Yes, sir,” said Roger.
“But you went anyway, had to show ’em how tough you were, huh?”
“Something like that, sir,” said Roger. “Sicily, the Boot. Into Normandy. The big Holland screw-up. A nasty spell in Bastogne, the Bulge. Some Christmas. Finally the Rhine drop. Varsity, they called it. March.”
That’s only five, Roger, Leets thought. Nobody jumped at Bastogne.
“Oh, and the drop, uh, Captain Leets and Major Outhwaithe mentioned, um, sir, you know, the one—”
“That’s quite a record. Nineteen and six combat drops. What’s it like?”
“Oh, well, um, scary, sir. Real scary. Normandy was the bad one. We came down way off the zone, half the guys in my stick went into water, Germans, see, had flooded the place, pictures didn’t, um, show it, and they drowned. Anyway, I was one of the lucky ones that hit on high ground. Then: confusion. Lots of light, flares, tracers. Big stuff going off. Like the Fourth of July, only prettier, but more dangerous—”
Jesus Christ, thought Leets.
“—but then we got formed up and moved out. First Germans we saw were so close you could smell them. I mean, there they were, right on top of us. I had one of those M-threes, you know, sir, the grease gun they call ’em, and BADDDADDDADDAAADDDAAA! Just knocked ’em down, never knew what hit ’em.”
“You know,” the major said, leaning back in his chair, staring absently off into space, “sometimes I don’t feel I’ve actually been in the war at all, the real war. I suppose I should be grateful. And yet in ten years, twenty years, people will talk about it, ask questions, and I won’t have the faintest idea what to say. I don’t think I ever even saw any Germans, except for the prisoners, and they just look like people or something. I saw some ruins. Once I did take a look through somebody’s binoculars at the Ruhr pocket. Real enemy territory. But mainly it’s been a job or something, paper work, details, administration, just normal life, except there are no women, the food’s lousy and everybody’s dressed the same.”
“Major—” started Leets.
“I know, I know. What’s your name, Sergeant?”
“Roger Evans.”
“Roger. Well, Roger, you’ve packed a lot into your nineteen years, I salute you. Anyway, Captain Leets, this is my war. I can see you have no respect for it. Fine, but still somebody’s got to do the paper business. So while you won’t understand and won’t respect it, nevertheless let me tell you I’m about to do a very courageous thing. Fact is, the CIC brass hates you OSS types. Don’t ask me why. So when I tell you where the officers are, I want you to understand how brave I’m being. No, it’s not a combat jump, but it’s a big risk in its own right. Name of the place is Pommersfelden Castle, outside Bamberg, another sixty or so clicks on up the road. Schloss Pommersfelden, in German. A very ornate place, on Route Three, south of the city. I’ll call them and tell them you’ve got approval. If you leave in the morning, you should get there by late afternoon. The roads are terrible, tanks, men, just a mess. Columns of prisoners. Terrible.”
“Thank you, sir. Would that mean—”
“Yes, of course. Eichmann. We
The drive the next morning was murder. The tanks were bad enough, and the convoys even worse, interminable lines of deuce-and-a-halfs, sometimes two abreast, struggling southward to keep up with the rapidly advancing front; but worst of all were the Wehrmacht prisoners. There were thousands of them, men in Chinese numbers, marching—rather, meandering sluggishly—to the rear in battalion-sized formations, usually guarded by one or two MP’s at either end in a Jeep. The Germans were surprisingly rude, considering their position, insolent, sullen crowds who milled in the road like sheep, stunting progress. Roger again and again had to slow the Jeep to a crawl, honking and cursing, while Leets stood in the back shouting “Raus, raus,” and waving madly, and still they refused to part except at the nudge of a fender. At one point, Leets pulled his Thompson submachine gun from the scabbard mounted slantwise off the front seat, and made a dramatic gangster’s gesture out of tossing the bolt; they moved for that, all right.
Finally, beyond Feuchtwangen, the prisoners seemed to thin, and Roger really belted the Jeep along. Yet Leets was not at all happy. He had the terrible sensation of heading in the wrong direction, for if, as they had speculated, Repp’s target had to be to the south, beyond the reach of the Americans, here they were slugging their way north, putting themselves farther and farther out of the picture.
“I hope this is right,” Leets said anxiously to Tony.
Tony, morose lately, only grunted.
“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” Leets wanted reassurance.
“Not a bit of it,” Tony said, and continued to stare blackly ahead.
They had to swing in a wide arc around the ruined city of Nuremberg and that ate up more time. It lay in the distance under a pall of smoke, though it had not been bombed in months. Ruins were not so remarkable, yet the scope here was awesome. But Leets paid no attention; he used these hours to meditate on Repp.