useless for two days. Deborah looked back once, the cold freezing her tears as she choked them back. He had done what he had to do. Now she must go on and do what he wanted her to do. She would live to see that every Nazi butcher was found and punished. 'Shalom, Carl, Shalom.'
The counter-guerrilla experts loaded their unconscious prize into the back of a Krupp three-ton six-by-four with a canvas covering to keep out the weather. Inside they made use of the chains and manacles brought along for this purpose. They had been assigned to bring in the man named Carl Langer and to bring him in alive. The orders came directly from Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. As to his companion, they could care less; they had what they had come after and according to their orders had chained him securely, hands and feet.
At Elbing they turned him over to a special escort party from the Sicherheitsdienst, tough-looking men, well fed and confident. The guerrilla fighters looked on them with some distaste. They took pride in the fact that next to the famed unit, under the command of Col. Otto Skorzeny, they were the best that the SS had to offer. The badge on their breast pocket was a sword with a serpent twisted around the blade. The SS men from Berlin had no decorations other than their written authority, which was enough to have even generals shot on the spot. They were glad to see them go.
Langer had awakened about halfway back during the bumpy three-hour ride through the forests and fields. Several times they had pulled over under the shelter of the trees to avoid the searching eyes of Russian fighters, then moved on. His whole body ached from head to toe, the concussion grenade had nearly burst his eardrums, and both eyes were swollen almost shut and red with ruptured veins. His escort said nothing to him, they had their orders, silence; no one was to talk to or question the prisoner on threat of pain of death. What he had done to bring down on him the personal wrath of the highest levels of the Gestapo was beyond their understanding. As far as they knew, he was just another turncoat traitor who had done a bit of sniping.
The SD men sat silently, one on each side of their prisoner, in the rear of the Daimler Benz 230. The driver and man riding shotgun kept their eyes on the road, but seemed to have selective blindness; an occasional body dangled from a tree or telegraph pole with a sign around its neck, reading 'Collaborator' or 'Coward.' All this was unnoticed. They passed through several checkpoints manned by their kindred.
Who even looked at their brothers with hungry eyes, as if regretful that they had proper papers for heading to the rear. Only the sight of their manacled and chained guest gave them any sense of satisfaction. At least there was another traitorous bastard going to his just rewards. They were waved on while the headhunters checked the papers of a Luftwaffe colonel and gleefully began to slap him around, ignoring his protests of rank and privilege. The colonel was still protesting when they shot him in the neck and strung him up a freshly printed sign reading, 'Traitor to the Reich.' The SD loved sticking it to the officers, especially those who looked like they had come from the Junker's class. You were in serious trouble if you wore a monocle even if you had proper papers.
The civilian population of East Prussia was in flight, heading back to the borders of Germany. They knew they would be safe there, the Fuhrer had promised it.
The silence was broken only by the sounds of the SD men stuffing their faces with sausage and bread, gurgling it down with white wine. The prisoner was given nothing and he was nothing but dead meat anyway. If nothing else, he did give them a reason to put some distance between them and the advancing Russian hordes.
Langer's face was drawn and thin from days of little rest, which had worn him down to a ragged, thin-faced wretch who didn't look to be particularly dangerous, especially in chains. That is, until you looked close at the eyes and the steel-set jaw; then you knew the man was a chained animal, capable of tearing your arms off with his bare hands. Yes, the animal definitely needed to be properly restrained.
Spring was close, and green shoots stuck their heads up through patches of melting snow. Life in its endless cycle of birth and death was not to be denied; it went on. Langer rode for the most part with his eyes closed, getting what rest he could. He knew when they reached Germany there would be little of that for him. One town after another fell behind them and the waves of panic-stricken civilians thinned to a trickle. They felt safe here, but the soldiers knew different; the war was finished and the Russians were going to bleed Germany until there was nothing left. The Russian soldiers had been promised as their reward the women of Germany and everything they could carry off. It was to be the greatest rape in history.
The bumping of the car jogged his memory. They were all gone now, Teacher, Manny, Yuri and Stefan, all gone except for Gus, that rambling bear of a man. A tick at the corner of Langer's face tried to turn into a smile but failed. The last time he had seen Gus alive was outside of Osterode when the headhunters were taking him back; he was strolling down the road heading back to Germany with a pig following him on a leash, the pig blissfully ignorant of its destiny. Yes, Gus was heading back home singing off key as loud as he could, the familiar strains of 'Ich hat eine Kamaraden,' keeping time with a bayonet. How he had gotten past the head-hunters, Langer could only guess. But if anyone could get back it would be Gus. Langer wished him well; at least there would be one left.
They reached the border of Germany the next morning. The immaculate border guards checked their papers and waved them through. At Landsberg they handed their cargo over to an
The
you know. I don't know why they had you brought back here anyway, you should have just been shot where they found you, but orders are orders.' He chuckled. 'Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die,
Langer had to endure the humiliation of a complete body search, which meant every hole and orifice of his body was checked by rubber-gloved guards who poked and prodded, feeling for anything such as a tube of money concealed in the rectum or a poison capsule hidden in a tooth, but there was nothing, and half reluctantly they gave up their efforts and permitted the prisoner to dress after being deloused and scrubbed. He was fed white bread from the SS kitchen and given chicken in a cream sauce with vegetables. He ate with a spoon, as he was not permitted to use any sharp instruments. It was the first solid food he had eaten in four days and he had had nothing as exotic as white bread or stewed chicken for months. He almost threw it back up.
He was transported by truck to a nearby field and loaded along with his escort into a HE-111 converted for
