George agreed. “Of course, we could have gotten into the navy but their pilots run the same risks as we do. And our base here is not likely to sink. Did you ever wonder how many sailors lived for how long in the bowels of the Arizona or the Oklahoma until their oxygen ran out? How many ships do you think went down with living crewmen screaming for help they were never going to get?”
Bud lit up a cigarette. “They say these’ll kill you too. I guess there’s no real good way to die, just some that are worse than others. What’s the old joke? Oh yeah, I want to die of a heart attack while getting laid at a hundred and ten. Only problem is, nobody wants to die. So what do we do?”
George smiled grimly. “I suggest we have another drink.”
CHAPTER 10
Staff Sergeant Billy Hill half lifted and half dragged the trembling and writhing young Nazi into a windowless room and seated him on an uncomfortable chair. He was tied to the arms of the chair but Hill did remove the blindfold.
“How long do you want me to keep him like that, Captain?” Hill asked after leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
Tanner thought for a moment. “Maybe until after I get done with a few things. Maybe I’ll go to lunch. That ought to be enough to get him thinking. According to his papers, he’s fourteen and lived in Stuttgart. He may think he’s tough, but I’ll bet he’s scared shitless. My bet is that he’ll tell us everything we want to know about the Werewolves without much prompting.”
Hill grinned. “Sir, you telling me I can’t pull out his toenails?”
“Not without first getting his mother’s permission.”
An hour later, Tanner and Cullen entered the room and sat across the table from Gruber. Hill stood behind him. At a signal, Hill yanked Gruber’s blindfold off. Gruber gasped and blinked in the sudden light. He was wide-eyed and looked around in growing desperation. The two American officers were seated in higher chairs and looking down on him, which was intimidating.
Tanner spoke first. “Hans Gruber, you are a Nazi war criminal and you will either be shot or sent to a Russian prison camp.”
“I’m a soldier,” Gruber blurted. “I’m not a war criminal. And you can’t give me to the Russians.”
Cullen moved beside the boy. “First of all, Gruber, you were not in anything resembling a uniform, which means you are a terrorist, a franc-tireur. German soldiers shoot people like that without even a trial. You are nothing more than a bandit or an assassin and you will be treated as such.”
Hans Gruber looked frightened. “I did have a uniform. I wore an armband. They said it would be sufficient if I was caught.”
Cullen waved a piece of cloth in his face. “You mean this shitty little rag? This is not a uniform and besides, I never saw it.” With that he threw it into a wastebasket and Gruber moaned.
Tanner laughed harshly. “Do you like Jews, Gruber? Of course you don’t. Jews are the scum of the earth. They are pigs who don’t eat pork. Your dead Hitler said that Jews weren’t even human and you believed him. You were told that Jews cheat real Germans and that they murdered Christ, weren’t you? How many Jews did you beat up? How many did you kill?”
Gruber gasped at the last question. Tanner and the others caught it. “So you have killed Jews. How wonderful. Did they fight you or did you just shoot them in the back?”
Gruber had begun to sob. “It was just one and I had to do it. General Hahn made me. He said I had to do it to prove I was a real Nazi. Besides, the Jew was dying.”
Tanner suppressed a shudder. “I’m sure you did, but before we send you to the Reds, the U.S. Army has a special job for you.”
He slid a number of eight-by-ten photos across the table. Gruber’s hands were untied so he could pick them up. The photos showed men in German uniforms handling mangled and half-decayed corpses. Some of the men handling the bodies wore uniforms with SS insignia.
When Gruber tried to look away, Tanner pushed the pictures into his face. “Do you remember the Nazi joke that the only good Jew is a dead Jew? Well, these were taken at Dachau and most of them are good dead Jews. The German prisoners you see are going to spend the next few months digging up dead Jews, some very long-dead Jews whose rotting flesh stinks to high heaven. They will be identifying them and then burying them with respect. When we leave here and before you go to the Reds, that is what you will be doing. And you will be working for other Jews who will beat you if you slack off. Does the thought of handling dead Jews make you happy?”
“No,” Gruber gasped.
“Rachel, come in,” Tanner ordered.
A young woman in a nondescript uniform with a white star of David on an armband entered and stared coldly at Gruber. “Is this the little shit who’s going to be helping us? Herr Gruber, I’m with the Palmach, the Jewish Army, and we’re going to make you work with dead Jews, eat with dead Jews and sleep with dead Jews. You will forever stink of dead Jews. And do you know why?” She rolled up her sleeve and showed him the numbers tattooed on her arm. “I spent a year in a death camp watching Germans kill my people, and now it’s my turn. I managed to survive but you will not. You are going to suffer for being a Nazi, you stinking little shit.”
The woman glared at him. “Have you ever had a woman, ever had sex with something other than your left hand?” When Gruber whimpered and shook his head, she laughed. “And I’ll bet you’re not circumcised either. Well, you will be when we get our hands on you and you can bet that your virginity will last forever. You can’t get up what you no longer have.”
Now Gruber was sobbing openly. “Please don’t. What can I do? Please don’t let that happen to me? I’ll tell you anything. I just want to go home.”
“How many Werewolves are there?” Tanner asked.
“There were supposed to be fifty, but a lot of them have deserted. Now there can’t be more than twenty and General Red Star is angry.”
Tanner was puzzled. “Who or what is General Red Star?”
Gruber sensed an opening. “If I tell you, will you protect me?”
“Talk and keep talking.”
“His name is SS General Alfonse Hahn and we call him General Red Star because he has a birthmark like a red star on his cheek.”
Tanner drew in his breath. Could this possibly be the man who had murdered Tucker and Peters so many eternities ago? It had to be. “Where is this General Hahn?”
Gruber was looking hopeful, like a kid who thought he had just passed a surprise test. “He’s deep inside the Redoubt, probably in Bregenz. They say he’s an important aide to Minister Goebbels himself,” he added proudly.
“I need fresh air,” Tanner said and walked outside into the still-cold air. Cullen nodded. He would complete the interrogation. There wasn’t that much more that a fourteen-year-old boy could tell them about the inner workings of the German Army.
Tanner saw Lena using a cloth she’d dipped into a bucket to wash her arm. “Will it come off?”
Lena smiled softly. “These numbers came from a pen and I wrote them lightly and they’ve almost completely disappeared. I’ve seen too many whose numbers were real tattoos and that represented horror. I’ve been very fortunate.” She angrily threw the cloth into the bucket. “I’ve never spoken like that to anyone, anytime, much less to a stupid child. And I never thought I would feel so good doing it. I don’t know whether to hate myself or be proud.”
“Be proud. You were very helpful in there. I thought you would want to help bring down the Nazis if you could.”
“You’re right. And please call on me again, and again, and again if I can help.” She took up the cloth again and looked at her arm. The numbers were gone. “What are you going to do with that boy?”
Tanner noted that she had referred to him as a boy, not a Nazi murderer. “We’re going to find him a German uniform and send him off to be a prisoner of war. With a little luck, he’ll be allowed to go home, if he has a home, in a year or so. As to the Jew he shot, he’s going to have to live with that. Hopefully, the handful of other Werewolves out there will somehow get the same message.”