“Yes,I will,” she said.
UnternehmenWerwolf
OCTOBER31, 1944
Theboy, Fritz, had only a few hours to assassinate the collaborator.
Hehad completed the first part of the mission the night before, crossingover enemy lines into occupied territory. This was the easy part; he’ddone it a dozen times before. But this time, he carried a gun in hispack, not the messages and supplies he’d couriered previously.
Asusual on these journeys, he awoke in the morning, safe in a copse ofautumn shrubs he’d found to hide in, shrouded by fallen leaves andtangled branches. He was naked, but he was used to that. After givinghimself a moment to recall where he was, to reacquaint himself with hishuman limbs, his grasping fingers instead of ripping claws, heuntangled himself from his pack, looped around his shoulders so itwouldn’t slip off when he was a wolf. Inside, he found a canteen ofwater, a day’s rations, and common workmen’s clothes and boots so hecould travel unnoticed. And the gun.
Dressedand armed, he set off. He’d memorized the maps and the description ofhis target. The village had been occupied by Allied forces forseveral weeks, and the woman, Maria Lang, a nurse, had not onlysurrendered to enemy forces, she had been assisting in administrationof the village, supplying the American soldiers with aid andinformation. The village might or might not be recaptured in comingbattles, that wasn’t his concern. Right now, the woman must bepunished. Executed.
Notmurdered, they told him. Executed.
Hebalked, when they told him his target was a woman. That did not matter,his superiors in his SS unit told him. She was a collaborator. Atraitor, not worthy of mercy. And Fritz was seventeen now, ready forsuch an important mission. He ought to be more than a letter carrier.And so here he was, trekking across abandoned farmland toward theedge of a wooded stretch where the collaborator’s cabin was said tostand, using his preternatural sense of smell to detect the scent oftreachery.
Awolf could cross enemy lines when a man in a uniform could not. Wheneven a man in disguise could not. A wolf traveling in a forest did notdraw suspicions. And a wolf could be trained to follow a certainroute, certain procedures. To return to a certain spot on schedule. Awolf was wild, but the man inside the werewolf could learn.
Fritzhad been a shepherd boy, like in one of the old fairy tales, tendingsheep in pastures at the edge of a Bavarian forest. Still living theold ways, with the old fears. Then, he cried wolf, and no one heard him.
Hesurvived the attack, and the bite marks and gashes on his legs healedby morning, and everyone knew what that meant. He knew what to do, andon the next full moon he spent several nights in the woods alone.Howled to the sky for the first time. When he returned, friends andfamily said nothing about it, did not ask him what he felt or what he’dexperienced. He learned to live with the monster, but he no longerlooked after his family’s sheep.
Thewar came, and he was too young to be recruited as a proper soldier, buta man from the SS found him. Said he was forming a specialunit, and that he’d heard rumors about these forests. About theshepherd boy who no longer looked after sheep. Colonel Skorzeny had ajob for him, and you did not tell men like that no, so Fritz went withhim.
Hisnew home, a compound fenced in with razor wire—steel edged with silver,he was told—had normal barracks and storage buildings and such. Therewere also cages, for those who had not volunteered, or who had changedtheir minds. The soldiers carried knives and bayonets laced withsilver. Silver bullets loaded their guns. A mere nick from one of thoseblades, a graze from one of those bullets, would kill him. Fritz did ashe was told.
Fritzhad never met another werewolf before joining Skorzeny’s special unit.The SS colonel had found a dozen of them across Germany, and he mademore, finding soldiers who volunteered to be bitten, and a few whodidn’t. Fritz was the youngest, and his instinct was to cower, toimagine a tail folding tight between his legs, to lower his gaze andslouch before the older, fiercer werewolf soldiers. Skorzeny wouldyell at him for weakness because he didn’t understand, but the othersrecognized the gestures of a frightened puppy. Some looked after him,as an older wolf in a pack would. Some took advantage and bullied.
Fritzwas a monster from a fairy tale. He shouldn’t be afraid of anything.What, then, did that say about the SS soldiers he cowered before? Whowere the greater monsters? He told himself he deferred to them becausehe was loyal to the Fatherland, because he fought for the Führer,because he believed. But when he returned from a mission in thepre-dawn gray, lying naked at a rendezvous point as soldiers waited toescort him back to the barracks and the silver razor wire, he knew thetruth: he was afraid. Even he, near invulnerable, a monstrouscreature haunting dark stories, was afraid. This was the world he livedin.
Tonightwas the full moon. He had two choices: to stay human and shoot thewoman before night fell, or to wait until the light of the moontransformed him, and let his wolf do the work with teeth and claws.
Inthe forest some miles outside Aachen, he did not trust his wolf to dowhat needed to be done. The wolf worked on instinct, on gut feeling,and in the end Fritz could not tell his wolf what to do, especiallyon a full moon night. He had tried to argue with the colonel, whowasn’t a wolf and didn’t understand. But the colonel said this missionmust happen now, and must be completed tonight. The Allies weregaining ground and a message needed to be sent to other would-becollaborators, that death awaited them.
SoFritz went. He would have to complete themission, not his wolf, because he suspected his wolf would follow hisinstinct and run to safety. Away from Germany. He and his wolf had beenhaving this argument for months now.
Hefound the house; it wasn’t hard. As the description said, it stoodalone, isolated, and the woman lived by
