“GIs,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Automobile accident. Un d’eux est mort et l’autre est critique. Nous devons nous dépêche!”
The lead MP got the okay from his colleague, who closed the rear doors. Both men stepped back and waved the ambulance through. Von Leinsdorf stepped on the gas as the gate went up, and they sped off.
“How’s he doing?” asked Von Leinsdorf.
“Great. He just asked for a daiquiri.”
“He’s not going to die; it’s a superficial wound. We need him alive. There may be more checkpoints ahead.”
“Ask him how superficial it is.”
“Would you relax? It’s just a Frenchman, for Christ’s sake. Three aren’t worth one German. I don’t know that the going rate for Americans has been established. Do you?”
Bernie didn’t answer. They passed another road sign: REIMS 20 KM.
25
Reims
DECEMBER 19, 7:00 P.M.
Earl Grannit parted the curtains of a second-story window and looked down and across the street at an old, ornate movie palace. Light rain continued to fall, thinning out foot traffic through the small square below. After arriving in Reims in the middle of the afternoon, Grannit and Carlson reported to the commander of the local military police. He placed a twenty-man detachment of MPs under Grannit’s command. Half a dozen plainclothes agents from Army Counter Intelligence arrived an hour later, along with a platoon of regular army. Grannit pulled the entire detail together for a five o’clock briefing and broke down their assignments.
American forces used three movie houses in the downtown area to screen movies for Allied soldiers in Reims. Grannit’s men had all three under surveillance by early that evening. This one, near the old shipping canal that split the city, was the largest and most popular, and seemed to Grannit the most likely for Skorzeny’s men to use as a meeting place. He then commandeered as an observation post an apartment above and across a small square. Undercover men were assigned to circulate through the crowd at each of the theaters. The army detail deployed throughout the neighborhood with orders to stay off the streets until Skorzeny’s men were identified. Once they were inside the theater, the soldiers would drop perimeter roadblocks into place and close the net.
The first show was scheduled for seven o’clock, a glossy Hollywood musical to help enlisted men forget their troubles. Lights on the theater’s marquee remained dark, observing blackout restrictions, but Grannit had ordered that the foyer and lobby lights stay brightly lit so that anyone standing under the marquee could be seen from their post across the street.
Dozens of soldiers from different service branches milled around outside, smoking cigarettes, waiting for friends or dates to arrive. Behind-the-line types, thought Grannit, looking them over. He’d learned that the military was like an iceberg; only the small portion above the surface did the fighting. For every front-line dogface under fire in the Ardennes, there were six clerical types like these filling out requisitions in triplicate, calling it a day, and going to the movies. A police force ran the same way, a fraction doing the dirty work while everyone else cleaned up after them. Maybe it reflected basic human nature, this hunger for bureaucracy and order, and which side of that line you ended up on was a matter of luck. Everybody had a job to do. Some were just a whole lot worse than others.
Grannit scanned the soldiers’ faces with binoculars, searching for the face of the “Lieutenant Miller” that he’d glimpsed for those few moments in Belgium. A sketch of the man, drawn from Grannit’s recollection, had been distributed to everyone in the detail.
“I got a guy bringing over regulation SHAEF passes so I can compare ’em to our forgeries,” said Ole Carlson, standing eating a meal they’d brought in from a local restaurant.
“Good.”
“Think we’ll get to Paris, Earl?”
“I don’t know, Ole.”
“Ever been?”
“No. You?”
“Heck no. I’d love to see it. See Paris and die, isn’t that what they say?”
“I don’t think they mean right away.”
“Anyway, don’t figure I’ll ever get this close again.” Carlson leaned over Grannit’s shoulder to look down at the theater. “I’m heading down there.”
“The meet’s supposed to happen between nine and twelve. That’s not until the second show,” said Grannit.
“I’m supposed to meet the guy with those passes. Don’t want to miss him.”
“While you’re there,” said Grannit, looking through the binoculars again, “go tell that MP swinging his nightstick around in the lobby like the house dick at Macy’s to pull his head out of his ass. In fact, yank that half-wit out of there.”
Grannit pointed the man out to him and Carlson headed for the door. “It would be my pleasure, Boss.”
Grannit trained the glasses down each of the side streets and alleyways that fed into the old cobblestoned square. The neighborhood sported a flourishing nightlife, a number of hole-in-the-wall bars attracting heavy military traffic. Black-market profiteers flourished in an area with so many potential buyers and sellers. He spotted at least two brothels operating more or less in the open. He’d read in Stars and Stripes that in light of the attack in the Ardennes, dancing had been banned in Paris after dark, but young men in uniform still needed to get drunk or laid or both.
His walkie-talkie crackled to life, MPs reporting in from the other two theaters, each less than a mile away.
Nothing yet.
When they drove into Reims, Von Leinsdorf stashed the stolen French ambulance in an abandoned garage in a ware house district near the canal. He ordered Bernie to exchange uniforms with the dead French driver again. While Bernie’s back was turned, Von Leinsdorf killed the second driver with a single, silenced bullet, as if he were finishing some paperwork.
“We’re GIs again,” said Von Leinsdorf, unbuttoning the driver’s tunic, searching both bodies for cash. “Not a moment too soon. I need to be fumigated. This bogtrotter was in desperate need of a bath. Try to run their damn country properly for them and this is the thanks we get.”
They dressed in silence. Bernie covered both dead drivers with blankets. Von Leinsdorf emptied the medicine and supplies from the ambulance footlocker into a knapsack.
“Leave the rest,” he said. “We’ll come back for it.”
“What time are we supposed to meet?” asked Bernie.
“Nine o’clock.”
“It’s only five. What do we do till then?”
“So many questions, Bernie. I’m feeling a lack of confidence in my leadership. You don’t hear any complaints from them, do you?” he asked, nodding toward the Frenchmen.
Von Leinsdorf put his black-framed glasses on, straightened his helmet, and opened the back of the ambulance. While his back was turned, Bernie slipped a syringe and a bottle of morphine into his pocket.
“Should I bring my rifle?” asked Bernie.
“We’re going to the movies, Bernie.”
“Who knows? It might be a western.” Bernie jumped down and closed the ambulance doors. He caught a whiff of something foul and sniffed his uniform. “That’s great, now I smell like a fuckin’ dead guy.”
“We could both use a bit of sprucing up,” said Von Leinsdorf, handing him a forged seventy-two-hour pass. “Put on a happy face. We’re supposed to be on leave.”
They walked out into the empty street and a steady drizzle as the last daylight faded. Von Leinsdorf consulted a map with a flashlight as they walked until they reached a shopping district, studded with cafés and shops. Other off-duty GIs circulated in and out of storefronts, so they didn’t look or feel out of place. Von Leinsdorf directed Bernie to one of the cafés, where he ordered sandwiches and coffee, in French, paying with francs. They focused hungrily on the food, the first meal they’d eaten all day.