“Nobody move,” said a distinctly American voice. “Any of you.”
A man in a trench coat and hat stepped into view in the street just outside the passage behind Von Leinsdorf, holding with both hands a Colt.45 and a flashlight lined up against its barrel. The gendarme turned toward the newcomer, irritated.
“This is a police matter,” said the gendarme.
The man swung the flashlight onto the gendarme. “Put your gun down on the ground and we’ll talk about it.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Military police.”
“Good news,” said Von Leinsdorf, pulling a badge from his pocket. “So are we. Criminal Investigation Division.”
Eddie’s head swiveled back and forth, trying to keep up.
The officer pointed his light on Von Leinsdorf and the badge he was holding. “Toss that over here. The rest of you put your weapons on the ground and kick them toward me. Right now.”
Von Leinsdorf threw the badge toward the feet of the MP. The gendarme and the pimp laid the gun and razor on the ground and kicked them in his direction.
“Get down on your hands and knees,” he said.
The Frenchmen obeyed. Before he picked up Von Leinsdorf’s badge, the MP slid his light over onto Eddie Bennings.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I’m with him,” said Bennings, pointing to Von Leinsdorf.
“A cooperative witness helping with our investigation,” said Von Leinsdorf. “I’ve got his ID right here. These guys are cops, like they said, and they’re dirty as hell.”
“That is what we are doing,” said the gendarme, pointing at Von Leinsdorf. “They are deserters, black marketers-”
Bennings glanced down and saw Von Leinsdorf pulling the pistol from his pocket, and a moment later the narrow corridor erupted in gunfire.
At five minutes to eight, the hotel’s chief of security knocked on the door to room 417. He identified himself and announced to Lieutenant Alan Pearson that he had an urgent message for him from SHAEF headquarters. Grannit stood to the left side of the door with his pistol drawn. Bernie Oster and the hotel manager waited just down the hall. The door Bernie stood directly in front of opened, and he came face-to-face with a woman on her way out. She looked at his MP gear in alarm, and he saw an officer getting dressed in the room behind her. Bernie held his finger to his lips and she quietly closed the door.
When Pearson failed to answer, the chief of security inserted his pass key with trembling hands and pushed open the door. Grannit pushed ahead of him into the room. Alan Pearson lay in bed, under a blanket pulled up to the chin, his face turned away from the door. Grannit felt for a carotid pulse and then yanked the covers away. Pearson’s body had been stripped to his underwear. From the way blood had pooled in the body Grannit knew the man had been dead for at least five hours. He called the others inside, then examined Pearson’s arms.
“He was here,” said Grannit to Bernie, then turned to the manager. “Call Inspector Massou at the Prefecture of Police.”
“I know him,” said the manager, grateful for a reason to leave.
“He killed him with an injection,” said Grannit, pointing out a wound on the inside of Pearson’s arm.
Out of the corner of his eye Grannit saw the chief of security about to open an armoire at the foot of the bed. He spotted a piece of fabric sticking out of a gap at the bottom of the armoire door.
“Don’t touch that!”
Grannit crossed to him and examined the door carefully. He opened it a crack and looked down its length, then turned to Bernie.
“Flashlight.”
Bernie handed him the flashlight off his belt. Grannit used the beam to illuminate a line of monofilament stretched taut across the opening, then traced it down along the door to the bottom of the armoire, where it connected to the pin of a hand grenade, taped onto a small square pat of dark gray plastic explosive resting on the tunic of the uniform that had been inserted under the door.
“He left something for us,” said Grannit. “Call the bomb squad.”
When he saw the grenade, the hotel’s chief of security turned pale and backed out the door. A moment later they heard him running down the hall outside. Grannit gently closed the door to the armoire and held it there. He looked over at Bernie.
“You gonna have to hold that shut till they get here?” asked Bernie.
“Maybe,” said Grannit. “Latch seems a little iffy.”
“Want me to do it?”
“You could find some tape.”
Bernie turned for the door, then stopped. “If I was gonna run, this would be a pretty good time to do it.”
“I can’t argue with that,” he said.
“I’ll get the tape,” Bernie said.
Just after Bernie left the room, the phone on the bedside table rang. Grannit looked at it, looked at Pearson’s body on the bed, looked at the closet door, and glanced at his watch: 8:25. Bernie returned not long after the phone stopped ringing, with a roll of black electrical tape. They applied the entire roll to the front of the armoire, then tested to make sure the door wouldn’t swing open if they let go. When they were sure the tape would hold, they backed away toward the exit. The phone beside the bed rang again. They looked at each other.
“Want me to get that?” asked Bernie.
Grannit sighed, walked over, and picked up the phone, keeping an eye on the armoire.
“Four-seventeen,” he said.
“I was asked to call,” said the voice. “This is Inspector Massou.”
“Inspector, this is Lieutenant Grannit. We’re at the Hotel Meurice. Von Leinsdorf was here.”
“When?”
“Earlier today, just after lunch.”
In a Montmartre apartment, Inspector Massou turned with the phone in his hand and looked out the window, into the passageway of the boarding house.
“We’ve got him here now,” he said. “Get downstairs. I’ll send a car.”
34
Montmartre
DECEMBER 21, 9:20 P.M.
The police car deposited Grannit and Bernie outside the entrance to the boarding house. The area had been cordoned off by police, their black vans parked up and down the street, flares on cobblestones lighting up the night. Inspector Massou greeted them as they came out of the car and walked them toward the building. He gestured toward an ambulance that was pulling away.
“Two dead,” said Massou. “This is one of the men you’re seeking?”
He handed Grannit a pair of dog tags. Grannit checked them under his flashlight: Eddie Bennings.
“Yes,” said Grannit.
“He died before they could get him in the ambulance.”
“Where’s Von Leinsdorf?”
“Army Counter Intelligence arrived ten minutes ago. They’ve got him in the car.”
Massou nodded toward the first of two black sedans with U.S. plates. The back door of the first car was open, blocked by a man leaning down to talk to someone inside.
Grannit picked up his pace toward the car, just as the man leaning in closed the door and started toward him, followed by his partner. Both wore hats and belted trench coats, the CIC’s unofficial uniform. Grannit showed his badge, ready to blow past them.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry, soldier?” asked the CIC man.
“I need to see that man,” said Grannit.
“CIC’s taking this, Lieutenant,” said the man, showing his credentials. “Major Whiting. Special detail to SHAEF Command.”
Grannit trained his flashlight on the man’s SHAEF pass. “Headquarters” was spelled correctly. He relaxed.
Bernie ran up alongside the sedan as it pulled away and saw Von Leinsdorf in the backseat. Von Leinsdorf met his eye for a moment, staring at him blankly, without emotion, then looked away before they drove out of sight.
Maybe he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe he can’t. Even when they line him up to shoot him in the heart. Somewhere in his sick soul he’ll welcome the bullet.