But Seyss was no longer listening. He walked to the Buick and with an open hand banged it on the hood. “Okay, Schneider. Everything’s hunky dory from here. Colonel Klimt has graciously consented to take me the last little way. Go home.”
Seyss walked around the crossing pole, not once looking behind him. A moment later, he heard a pair of boots thumping behind him. Klimt appeared at his side, red faced with frustration and indecision.
“Well?” asked Seyss. “Get the fucking car, you miserable pissant. Do you think I came just to tell you about your worthless troopers? I have an urgent message for Comrade Stalin.”
Whatever doubt Klimt had retained was excised by Seyss’s derisive voice. Only a proper Russian could insult another so thoroughly. “Da, Comrade Truchin. Right away.”
But as he watched the Russian Colonel rush to retrieve his car, Seyss permitted himself only a blush of satisfaction. Getting in was the easy part. It was getting out that had him worried.
Chapter 53
The room was oppressively small, six by eight, windowless, its sole decoration a three-legged stool, a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling and the ripe and all pervasive stink of ruptured plumbing. Judge paced its length, holding his cuffed hands to his chest, a forsaken pilgrim beseeching the Almighty. His knees were scabbing; so were his elbows. His cheek tingled as a thousand grains of gunpowder worked their way from his dermis. His head throbbed from the malicious vim of an eager MP. But his physical discomfort was more blessing than curse, an oft-repeating canticle keeping his mind alert, focused. To acknowledge the pain, to moan, even to grimace, was to admit defeat. No, he whispered under his breath. Seyss won’t make it.
Hope, he realized, had become his last weapon.
They’d been locked up at 3:45 and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed since. An hour. Two. Maybe more. With no watch and no means of seeing the outside world, he had only his thirst to keep the time. A little while ago, a guard had thrown in a mess kit with some chipped beef on toast — “shit on the shingle”. Neither he nor Ingrid had touched it.
A welter of voices in the surrounding rooms captured his attention. Judge stopped his zealot’s pacing as the door swung open. A late afternoon’s glare flooded the room forcing him to squint to make out the formidable silhouette filling the doorway.
“There’s my boy. Got himself all banged up again. Look at you. No better than Jerry, himself, and smelling just as bad.” Whatever surprise Judge felt at seeing Spanner Mullins was outweighed by his relief.
“He’s here, Spanner. He’s in Berlin.”
“So I gathered, lad. So I gathered.” Mullins stepped into the room, patting a hand softly against the air in a motion for his former charge to keep quiet. Under his breath, he added, “You can give me the details when we’re alone.
“And you,” he said, once more the bluff copper, addressing Ingrid, “Miss Bach, I take it? Greetings, ma’am. Just you relax. Everything will be fine. I’ll have you both out of here presently.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind.” Ingrid hauled herself to her feet and Judge could see the worry melt from her face. Mullins was just the dulcet-voiced, big-boned authority her imagination had called on to set the record straight.
In the space of ten minutes, he’d ordered the cuffs off Judge, signed for their release, and gotten them a drink of water and a bologna sandwich. Outside the district garrison, he shepherded them into a four-door Buick, its flat black paint speaking of police rather than military use.
“The Excelsior,” Judge called from the rear seat. “He’ll be there at seven.”
“How do you know?” Mullins queried.
“It’s my fault,” said Ingrid. “I was terribly weak. He only—”
“Just get us the hell there,” Judge cut in, keyed up by his unexpected release. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“The Excelsior, Tom,” Mullins told his driver, a buzz-cut, bullet-headed sergeant even bigger than he was. “You’ve got exactly fourteen minutes to get us there.”
“Be there in ten,” ordered Judge.
Tom turned to give Judge and Ingrid his best knucklehead’s grin. “Yessir.”
The Buick navigated the streets at an uneven clip, nowhere as fast as Judge would have liked. For every open avenue, there was an alley clogged with debris. For every headlong sprint, a stomach churning deceleration. The sun was beginning its descent, its unobstructed rays spraying burnt vehicles and crushed buildings with a gilded edge, setting eddies of dust asparkle and lending the beleaguered city, if only for a few minutes, a golden patina.
Judge tried the window, but found it wouldn’t go down. The doors were probably locked, too. A cop’s car, what did he expect? Settling into his seat, he pictured himself flying into the bar of the Excelsior Hotel, getting the drop on Seyss. But the fantasy lacked an ending. He couldn’t decide whether to shoot him on sight or go for the arrest.
“Now, lad,” said Mullins, swiveling to drape an arm over the top of the seat. “Mind telling me how you got here? George Patton’s got half the United States army looking for you.”
Judge sat forward. “Only way I could figure. I got myself dressed up as a German and gave myself up. Three hours later I was on a transport to Berlin. I should ask you the same question.”
“What? Not happy to see me?” Mullins’s glassy eyes narrowed ruefully. “You’re lucky I didn’t let you rot in that cell and take your punishment — the strings I pulled with the General to get your transfer extended by twenty-four hours and you going AWOL on me. By the by, you can kiss your slot with the IMT goodbye. I had Justice Jackson on the phone with me this morning, didn’t I. Asking all kinds of questions about why you weren’t in Luxembourg at that very instant talking nice to Mr Hermann Goering.”
“Stopping Seyss is a helluva lot more important than a second-rate slot on the IMT.”
“If I didn’t agree with you, I wouldn’t be here.” Mullins shot the driver a nasty glance. “Would you hurry it up, Tommy boy? We don’t have all day.” Then back to Judge. “I was worried when you didn’t show up at Bad Toelz like you promised. When I heard the ghastly news about the girls in Heidelberg, I phoned the hospital to see if you’d been by. Why didn’t you call me then, lad? It’s me gets you out of the tight scrapes, remember?”
“Yeah,” Judge said, “I remember.” And a sliver of shame pricked at him for having distrusted the man who’d done so much to shape his life. “Does Patton know you’re here?”
“Patton? Are you daft, boy?” Mullins drew his brow together in earnest disbelief. “He’ll probably throw my fanny in the can straight after he gets you. No, sir, I’m here on my own. It’s my ass on the line right next to yours. I came to clear both our names.” What could be more typical? Mullins helping Judge to help himself. Anything to insure his career against further collateral damage.
“And you’re sure he’s at the Excelsior?” Mullins asked.
“You can bet on it.” Judge explained about Ingrid’s date with the American reporter, stating his belief that Seyss was certain to take her place to secure a ride to Potsdam. His question was not whether they would capture Seyss — they would, they had to — but what to do afterwards: “Seyss isn’t alone in this, you know.”
“Do I?” “He’s being backed by Patton and by Ingrid’s brother Egon. Some kind of cabal. The same people who got Seyss out of the armory, killed von Luck, and came after us in Heidelberg.”
But Mullins wasn’t buying it. “If it’s a German you want to tie to Mr Seyss, be my guest. But don’t be dragging Georgie Patton’s name into this.”
“He brought his own name into it. Don’t go blaming me.”