Grannit’s temper flared once he’d gathered all his MPs and Army Counter Intelligence men in the theater lobby. The killer and a probable accomplice had walked out into the night and vanished. How was it possible that no one saw them or followed them or picked them up once they left the theater? Forty men looking for one man and “Lieutenant Miller” slipped the net like smoke.
Bernie could feel the other officers’ frustration in the tense silence that followed. They had a bona fide deserter from Skorzeny’s brigade dead and three men from his squad alive; didn’t that qualify as a good night’s work? Maybe other German agents had been there, and maybe they’d gotten away, but no one else had seen these two phantom killers in back of the stage or outside the movie house. Not even the three Krauts they’d captured knew anything about them.
It seemed obvious to everyone else in the room that William Sharper had murdered the MP and Ole Carlson. Sharper died with the knife that killed Carlson in his hand. He’d been shot with Carlson’s gun. He even looked like the sketch Grannit had circulated.
An army intelligence officer summed up their reservations. “Even if this Lieutenant Miller was here and got away, what can one Kraut do alone in the middle of France?”
“First of all, Carlson didn’t shoot Sharper,” said Grannit. “He’s got no powder residue on his hand. That knife Sharper had in his hand killed two French border guards earlier today. An SS officer named Erich Von Leinsdorf killed those two men. He came into Reims in an ambulance today, killed the drivers, a female civilian, and our two men here to night. He set up Sharper to take the fall, then killed him and walked away clean when we had him dropped, so don’t fucking tell me what this man can’t do.”
Bernie wondered if anyone figured him as the source of all this, and if so, how he had come to know it.
“I want this sketch of Von Leinsdorf telexed to every checkpoint in France. Expand roadblocks to every road and highway leading out of town. Cover train and bus stations and canvass every street in this part of the city door to door. Do it now.”
Grannit stormed out of the meeting; Bernie followed. They spent twenty minutes with a graves detail outside making sure Ole Carlson would be shipped home instead of being planted under a white cross in a French cemetery. Grannit wrote a letter to the man’s father to accompany the casket. They were about to walk upstairs to the apartment Grannit used as his command post, when he heard the chug of a diesel motor cutting through the fog on the canal. Bernie followed him to the water’s edge. Grannit lit a cigarette and walked along the bank, looking down through a break in the fog at a tug pushing a coal barge downstream.
“He used a boat,” said Grannit, angry at himself for not seeing it earlier. “God damn it, he used a boat.”
“He won’t give up,” said Bernie. “He won’t stop until you kill him.”
“Where’s he going? Give me your best guess.”
“Paris, I think. He said he spent time there before. He speaks the language like a native. I think he’s supposed to kill somebody. Somebody important, I don’t know who.”
Grannit whistled sharply, and two MPs ran toward them from the movie theater. Grannit offered Bernie a cigarette while they waited. Bernie took it and accepted a light.
“Whoever he’s after,” said Bernie, “that’s his next move.”
Grannit didn’t answer, but he turned to the MPs when they arrived. “Search the canal, both directions. Cut off the bridges. He took a boat.”
They scrambled back toward the theater, blowing whistles to summon more men.
“He’s halfway there by now,” said Bernie.
“He’s going after General Eisenhower,” said Grannit. “That’s the target.”
Bernie felt what little strength he had left rush out of him. He stumbled slightly, and nearly went to his knees.
“Jesus Christ.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“No, sir. He wouldn’t tell me anything. I don’t know what to say. It’s my fault. They’re all fucking crazy. I could’ve stopped him; I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
Grannit just watched him. “How many men were assigned to this?”
“He said there were five squads, but I only saw four.”
“Not the whole commando unit?”
“No, no, it was a small group. Four squads, four men apiece. How many are left?”
“Not counting you,” said Grannit, “one.”
“One squad?”
“Just him.”
Grannit took out the keys to the jeep. Bernie could see he was thinking about tossing them to him, telling him to drive it around. He could also see that Grannit knew that he knew that Grannit was thinking about it. Grannit put the keys back in his pocket and tossed away the cigarette.
“Paris,” he said.
29
Versailles
DECEMBER 19
General Eisenhower returned to Allied headquarters after his meeting at Verdun, and the jaws of the security detail protecting him from Skorzeny’s assassins snapped shut. He would not be allowed to leave his heavily defended compound again.
For the first time that morning headlines about the “Battle of the Bulge” appeared in American newspapers, and it quickly became the catchphrase for the entire Ardennes offensive. As the American front continued to deteriorate, Eisenhower made a controversial decision to place Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in charge of the northern half of the battlefield. In doing so, he transferred authority over two American army groups that had long served under General Bradley to the one British officer almost universally disliked by the American senior staff. Unable to communicate with his generals in that part of the field, Bradley had his hands full holding the southern half of the Ardennes until Patton arrived. Still, Bradley reacted furiously to the perceived slap at his performance and tried to tender his resignation. Eisenhower refused it, arguing that the Germans had surrounded the American divisions in Bastogne. The fight was entering its most critical hours, and Bradley was his man.
Bradley had until recently, and for years prior, been Eisenhower’s superior officer, so this loss of command was a bitter pill to swallow, particularly since he knew Ike shared his antipathy for Montgomery. When Bradley agreed to stay on, as a show of gratitude Eisenhower made arrangements for him to receive his fourth star. Although Montgomery conducted his new command effectively, conflicts that resulted between the senior staffs of the Allies nearly achieved Hitler’s objective of tearing their delicate alliance apart. Throughout, Eisenhower maintained his unearthly composure, kept Montgomery in check, and held these two armies together by force of will and his own quiet decency.
Three hours before daylight on December 21, the 150th Panzer Brigade finally entered the Battle of the Bulge under the command of Otto Skorzeny. Realizing that Operation Greif’s plan to capture the bridges at the Meuse would never materialize, Skorzeny volunteered his brigade for a frontal assault to capture the key city of Malmédy, where the Allies had mounted a makeshift but tenacious defense. His ten tanks, German Panthers disguised as American Shermans, led the attack from the southwest. They did not enjoy the benefit of surprise; an attack in the Ardennes by a German force dressed as Americans had been anticipated for days. As the tanks approached, they set off trip wires that flooded the night sky with flares. Under the artificial light, American guns entrenched on the far side of a stream opened fire and destroyed four of the tanks. Two more were taken out as they forded the stream. By dawn and into the early afternoon, rallied by Skorzeny’s leadership, the brigade fought its way into the outskirts of town, defended primarily by the 291st Combat Engineers. When two companies of American infantry arrived to reinforce them, Skorzeny assessed his precarious position from a hill overlooking the field and reluctantly ordered his brigade to retreat. None of his tanks and less than half of his infantry survived.