“Okay.”
Stigler opened the front passenger door and Harry got in next to the Blackshirt driver, who glanced at him but didn’t say anything. There was a second Blackshirt behind the driver, and Stigler got in behind Harry. They took off. Harry saw his rental car at the end of the street, but no sign of Cordell and now he was concerned.
“Lean forward, Herr Levin, and place your hands behind your back.”
Stigler cuffed him.
They drove through Altstadt, heading west, and a few minutes later were on the highway to Dachau. Harry glanced in the side mirror, didn’t see a car in sight. Where the hell was Cordell?
Two Blackshirts brought Harry into the house, removed the handcuffs, escorted him upstairs, unlocked the door and pushed him in the room. Colette was sitting on the bed. She got up and Harry put his arms around her. She looked at him and started to cry. He brushed the tears away and kissed her. “Harry, what are you doing here?”
“You think I was just going to let them take you?”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Harry noticed Colette’s cheek was swollen, looked like she’d tried to hide it with makeup. “What’d they do to you?”
“I tried to get away. One of them didn’t like it.”
“Point him out.”
“What are you going to do, Harry, beat him up?”
He didn’t say anything but that’s what he was thinking. Colette sat on the side of the bed and he sat next to her.
“They’re going to shoot us, Harry, and bury us in the woods.”
“I’m going to get you out of here.”
“How’re you going to do that?”
“Cordell’s out there.” Harry hoped he was. “He’ll make a move when the time is right.”
“What do we have to trade if he isn’t?”
Thirty-two
Cordell ducked down as the car passed by and went left at the first street. He followed, hanging back through the city, losing them in heavy traffic, nervous all of a sudden, thinkin’ they were gone. He sped up, driving like crazy, cutting between cars, people honking at him, Cordell thinking they must’ve turned somewhere back there. Then he saw them up ahead getting on the highway and let out a breath.
He followed for ten minutes and lost sight of them again. Floored it and got up to 140 kph, the Benz solid as a bank vault, drove two kilometers, didn’t see ’em, now thinkin’ they couldn’t’ve got this far. He pulled over, did a U-turn and drove back, looking for a road, a place to turn. Drove about a kilometer, saw it on the left, dirt road or someone’s driveway cutting through the woods. He turned and went half a kilometer and came to a clearing. There was a house in the distance.
He put it in reverse, backed off the road into the woods. It was getting dark. Cordell reached under the seat, grabbed the .45 and slid it in his right coat pocket. Harry’s .38 was in his left. He got out, popped the trunk, picked up the Mauser and slung it over his shoulder. He walked uphill through the trees.
He could see the house now, two floors, walls made of plaster with wood beams. The two cars he’d seen at Frauenplatz were parked in front. Cordell unslung the rifle, rested the barrel on a branch that had cracked and fallen but was still attached to the tree. He brought the stock to his shoulder, adjusted the scope and moved the rifle across the front of the house, left to right, could see someone in the left upstairs window, a shape back in the room that could’ve been Colette. There was a group in the lower window on the right: Harry and four others.
Cordell couldn’t cross the open ground to the house without being seen, so he doubled back to where the car was at, crossed the dirt road, went up through the woods and approached the house from the back. There was a garage behind it, a van in one of the stalls. Two Blackshirts came out, smoking cigarettes, Cordell put the crosshairs of the scope on one then the other. The Blackshirts smoked and talked, flicked their butts toward the tree line and went back inside. The sun was over the trees now and lights were on in the house.
He saw them bring Harry in a room with a long table and sit him down with Hess and another guy, three Blackshirts standing around the room, holding guns. One of the cars that was in front came around the house, high beams on lighting up a section of woods, and parked next to the garage. Two Blackshirts came out the back door of the house with Colette, holding her arms. The driver got out and popped the trunk. The Blackshirts took Colette to the back of the car and tried to force her in. A guy with tatted-up arms grabbed her hair.
Cordell brought the Mauser up, put the crosshairs on his head, pulled the trigger and felt the rifle buck, and blew the guy off his feet. The Blackshirts drew their guns, looking around, and pushed Colette back toward the house. Cordell shot the one on the left. The man dropped and didn’t move. The other one pushed Colette through the door into the house.
Cordell could see everyone in the dining room turn to look at Colette and the Blackshirt coming back in. He scoped one of the guards and fired but the guy moved, and now everyone was scrambling, trying to get out of the room.
Thirty-three
They brought Harry and Colette into the salon, and sat them next to each other on the couch. Someone had turned out the inside lights and turned on floodlights that lit up the area behind the house. The only light in the room was the glowing flame in the fireplace. Stigler stood at the side window, looking out into the yard. Hess nodded at two Blackshirts holding submachine guns. “Get him,” and they went out the front door.
Now Hess glanced at Harry. “How is Joyce?” Asking like she was a friend.
“The last time I saw her she was in critical condition, not expected to live,” Harry said, exaggerating her condition. “Detective Conlin would like to talk to you about it. But I guess he’s going to have to get in line, isn’t he? You’ve gotten very popular.”
“That leaves you, Harry, the sole survivor. And my feeling is you’re not going to be with us much longer.”
“How’d you make it all the way to the Bahamas? I checked you, you didn’t have a pulse.”
“God knew my work wasn’t finished and brought me back.”
“It wasn’t divine intervention, if that’s what you’re saying. It was luck. The bullet missed your main arteries by a fraction of an inch. A piece of wreckage drifted by, you grabbed it and kept yourself afloat. The current took you most of the way, and a Bahamian fisherman did the rest.”
“You have all the answers, don’t you?” Hess pointed the Walther at him. “Who’s out there?”
Harry looked at him but didn’t say anything. Hess moved to Colette and placed the barrel of the pistol against her temple, finger on the trigger, and glanced at Harry. “What happens now is up to you.”
“Cordell Sims.”
“I had forgotten about him. Tell the Negro to drop his weapon and come out where we can see him.”
“Would you?”
“Either he comes out or you can say goodbye to Fraulein Rizik. And you’re next on the list.”
Two Blackshirts took Harry down a hallway to the kitchen and opened the door, the men behind him not taking any chances, holding him in the doorway.
“Cordell, they want me to tell you to put your gun down and come out or they’re going to shoot Colette. And watch out. There are two coming through the woods.”
The Blackshirts pulled Harry in, closed the door and beat him to the floor with their fists while he tried to cover up.
Cordell wanted to say, yo, Harry, ask the motherfucker how dumb he thinks I am. He couldn’t see anything in the house now with all the spotlights pointed at the woods. But he heard them coming toward him from opposite directions, twigs snapping, feet on wet leaves. Hard not to make noise.