Sniper's Honor Page 16

  “Somebody’s shooting something,” Bob said to nobody in particular, noting that the scale was all off, that the artist had no convincing sense of human structure, that if you worked it out, the rifle was nowhere near aligned with the target, which he now saw was a kind of pedestrian bridge.

  Familiar somehow. Why did he get a buzz? His deep brain was aligning points, drawing associations, making connections. “Does this—” he started to ask, but then it leaped into his mind. The netting was a rope-and-spar bridge over the River Prut at the waterfall, producing the clouds of mist, in old Yaremche. The three figures were the targets on the bridge. Bob shifted his eyes back to the sniper, saw what looked to be a cascade of brightness at the head, and realized in that second it was her blond hair.

  “It’s Mili,” he said. “Jesus Christ, she got her shot.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The Hotel Berlin

  Stanislav

  JULY 1944

  And do I understand, young Captain, that although you are renowned for your discriminating knowledge of wine, you yourself have never tasted it?”

  “Yes, Herr General,” Salid said to 12th SS Lieutenant General Muntz, “it is so. In my faith, one does not drink alcohol. It interferes with one’s absolute fealty to the will of Allah. But it is also true that to an Arab, there is no more profound responsibility than to be a fine host. How does one reconcile these seeming contradictions? My father, who was a man of power and prominence in Palestine, had a brilliant idea: he assigned a son to learn all that could be learned of wine and thus be able to welcome sophisticated Europeans to our household in a style to which they were accustomed and in which they would feel the warmth of Palestinian hospitality. It was a responsibility I cherished. And when I came to Germany in my teens for training and to further cement the bonds between our two peoples, I was able to find enough time to continue my passion.”

  The young officer was quite the hit. Even Nazis were drawn to stars, and he was fully a star. Slim, handsome, elegant in his jet-black uniform, his epaulets and flashing SS runes on his tunic collar opposite his 13th SS Mountain Division scimitar insignia, his shiny boots under his sharply pressed riding breeches, his gloves immaculately white, his ceremonial dagger glittering in the candlelight of the garden of the Hotel Berlin, Stanislav’s finest, he was a picture of masculine beauty and exoticism; but it was his fez that made him seem so special. Bloodred, with the national emblem of the art moderne eagle grasping the twisted cross over the chill explicitness of the SS death’s head in bone white on the forehead, it had a red tassel hanging raffishly off it, and it made him seem like an exotic exemplar of Eastern royalty, a warrior prince from the land of the great white desert. The fact that he’d killed a lot of Jews was a definite social plus.

  “And so you chose the wines tonight? And this was after or before you destroyed the Bak bandit group in the mountains?”

  “It was actually after. We returned from that mission, and I came to the hotel and discovered a wine cellar as yet undisturbed by the fortunes of war. I would not say it was an extraordinary accumulation, strong on the French reds, a little weaker on the German whites, but not without a few items of interest. I think you will find the sensations to your palates quite amusing.”

  “Hans, Hans,” the lieutenant general squealed at Dr. Groedl, “where did you find this lad? He is such a delight!”

  All the glitterati of the Kommissariat were present, dressed to the nines in the latest Nazi high style. These were the men of power, drawn from the administrative and military lords of what remained of the Reich’s Ukraine empire. Besides the slashing black of the SS dress uniform, the others wore immaculately tailored evening attire, white-jacketed, as it was broad summer.

  “The man has the most educated nose in Europe,” someone said, and Sturmbannführer Salid modestly accepted the compliment.

  “Especially for sniffing out Jews!” someone else said, to much laughter and a little melancholy, for all understood that the days when the Reich’s most sacralized mission could be talked about openly were coming to an end.

  “More so than you realize,” boasted Senior Group Leader–SS Groedl, now sporting a monocle, as well as an elegant ivory cigarette holder for his Effekt. “He was one of the most enthusiastic and aggressive advocates of our policies in Einsatzgruppe D. His work was tireless and self-sacrificial. Onward and onward he pressed. It was truly the spirit of his Allah that moved him to such energies.”

  Applause, which the young man demurely accepted.

  It was like the last night on the Titanic. All knew the cold black ocean was their destiny. In a day or a week, the 2nd Ukrainian Guards Army would unleash a million Katyusha rockets—they sounded like banshees under the torturer’s whip and were called by the Germans “Stalin’s Organ”—followed up by the grinding inevitability of a thousand thirty-six-ton T-34s, against which poor Muntz and his operational commander Generalleutnant Von Bink of 14th Panzergrenadier had but four hundred Panzer IVs and a few StuG III anti-tank hunters. The Russians could not be stopped, denied, distracted. They were inevitable. And all this gloomy sense of predestination hung like a cloud over the dark balmy garden lit by candlelight and assuaged by four violinists playing Rachmaninoff with extraordinary sensitivity. Those gathered knew that in a very short time, they would scramble desperately to get across the Carpathians and into Hungary, to live to fight another day. Or to die at their posts, as circumstance decreed.

  “So, Captain,” proclaimed the unusually expansive Groedl, “tell us what you have planned.”

  “Of course, Dr. Groedl. Gentleman, I begin you with a palate-pleasing Laphroaig 1899, bottled by Mackie and Company. One of the finest of our English enemies’ malt Scotch whiskeys. How it ended up here, I have no idea. Sip it, perhaps over ice. Note the peat-bog intensity, the sense of smoke and fog, the somehow ‘brown’ sense of flavor. Use it only to sharpen the palate and to absorb the tiniest of blurs from the vividness of its impact. When we win the war, it is my dream to violate my religious discipline for one night and drown myself in its glories, preferably in my new castle in Glasgow, but until then it must be savored at the micro level.”

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” said Panzer Muntz, “but by God, I like his spirit.”

  “Next, with the Ukraine wheat-fed filet de boeuf, I offer a superb 1929 Château-Chalon. That was a wonderful year, with a cold winter and a beautiful spring and summer. It is by far the queen of the evening’s selections, and I hate to spend it so early in the ritual, but the chef informs me that beef must precede fowl and fish, by ancient tradition.”

  “It is so wrong,” said Panzer Muntz, “when fowl precedes beef!” It was meant as jest, so everybody laughed, including Salid, including the Ukrainian mistresses.

  “Then with the fowl,” said Salid, “I am delighted to announce a Gustav Adolf Schmitt Niersteiner Heiligenbaum 1937. It does not stand up to the other two, but if you regard it, chilled, as mild comic relief, you will find it acceptable. I mean this as no comment on the great tradition of German wine making, only as a comment on what was available.”

  “At least he’s not trying to stick us with any Ivan pisswater,” said Group Leader Schultz, perhaps enabled by too much Laphroaig. There was some laughter but not much.

  “The birds, by the way,” said Salid, “are Hungarian chukker, flown in fresh. Dr. Groedl found room on the plane, God bless him.”

  Applause, and in the flickering candlelight, Dr. Groedl took his bows.

  “Then, for the fish course,” said Salid, “which would be cold Latvian sturgeon, again fresh, supplied courtesy of General Muntz from 3rd SS Panzer attached to Army Group North,” to more sincere rounds of applause, “a Château d’Yquem 1921, the amber vintage so storied in wine legend. I regret I could not find a Loire, since 1937 is widely heralded as the greatest year for that superb vintage. But alas, as we have all found, one must work with what one has.”

  “And he hasn’t even told you about the dessert,�
�� crooned Dr. Groedl.

  “The dessert! The dessert!” went the cry through the small throng of guests, in thrall to the young Arab aristocrat.

  “I suppose I shall go ahead and unveil the surprise,” said Salid. “I thank whoever was the sommelier in the Hotel Berlin here before the war, as he had one bold stroke that I think you will enjoy. Perhaps it was meant as an exhibition or something to attract a sporty European ski crowd to the Carpathians as part of Poland’s own five-year plan. The fellow managed not only to acquire a Veuve Clicquot Dry 1927—not the best, but still a fine year—he acquired it in a quantity that I think will impress you and that I guarantee will ensure this to be a memorable night for all of us lucky enough to be in attendance. Gentlemen, I give you . . . Balthazar.”

  Balthazar was not the biggest champagne bottle, but up near the top of the list, and at the captain’s command, four husky Serbs of Police Battalion, in their own dress 13th SS Mountain uniforms and red fezzes, appeared from the shadows with the huge green bottle. It contained twelve liters of M. Veuve and M. Clicquot’s superlatively refined and delightful bubblejuice and resembled one of the mighty siege mortars that Von Manstein had used to level Sebastopol a few years earlier, in the Reich’s headier days.

  “I assure you, le déluge will be to your liking,” said Salid.

  “Gentlemen, to our table hoppe, hoppe, hoppe,” said Groedl.

  * * *

  The food was gone. The candles had burned low. The monocles and pince-nez had fallen to the ends of their tethers. Ties were loosened or removed. Cigar smoke filled the air. Some of the more adventurous of the men had slid off into the shadows and glades of the garden with their mistresses or companions, and occasionally an orgasmic grunt would signify another German victory over the Reds. Those who remained at the table had gathered at its head, where Dr. Groedl presided benevolently. He had just finished a fascinating story of the mystery illness that had plagued his beloved dachshund, Mitzi, throughout most of 1943, and her miraculous cure at the hands of a Jewish veterinarian whom Groedl had made certain to provide with authentic Kommissariat citizenship papers so that he would not be carted off to—well, no need to specify.

  It was at this moment that the question on everyone’s lips was finally broached.

  “Dr. Groedl, your immensely talented protégé has been silent on his most significant victory. It is spoken of everywhere, high and low. Perhaps now, so late, among those of us who remain and are discreet by nature, he could be encouraged to tell.”

  “Yes, tell us.”

  “We must know. It is so fabulous.”

  “I presume, gentlemen,” said Dr. Groedl, “you are not referring to his victory in the mountains, when he brought off the most successful anti-bandit operation in the history of the Kommissariat.”

  “No, no, that is mere soldiers’ duty. The other one.”

  “All right. Yusef, I officially unlock your lips. Tell us how you defeated Battlegroup Von Drehle and its Green Devil assassins in the campaign of the Andrewski Palace.”

  The laughter was intense. All loathed and hated the parachutists for their élan, their disdainful attitude, their contempt, quite openly expressed, for the goals of the Kommissariat, and for their very cool boots and helmets, which no one but they were authorized to wear.

  “I fear I disappoint you,” said Salid modestly. “Like many legendary actions, its reality was far more prosaic. As Dr. Groedl authorized, we of Police Battalion had taken over the Andrewski Palace as our quarters and base of operations. Dr. Groedl understood that we needed security, comfort, and containment to foster unit cohesiveness. We needed privacy for our prayer rituals, which sometimes create enmity among the unenlightened.

  “Laborers had already removed all personal gear and storage, as well as communications equipment and ammunition, left by the Green Devils. I supervised the removal, and I was diligent. It was not done harshly or punitively, and nothing was lost or damaged. There was no cause for complaint. I could not be responsible for Army Group North Ukraine’s baffling refusal to inform Battlegroup Von Drehle of the move to new quarters, or rather, to a set of tents adjacent to shop platoon of Fourteenth Panzer’s maintenance section. That was not my responsibility! I owe no apologies for that. I cannot interfere in army business any more than I would accept the army interfering in mine.

  “So there I am at 0100, going over intelligence reports, when I hear screaming and yelling at the gate. I immediately go out to investigate, and there is a phenomenal scene. These men—soldiers I could not call them, they were more like Indians or, I don’t know, scouts, cowboys, Natty Bumppos, I don’t know what, certainly not military—were demanding admittance. They all had beards and unkempt hair, and their faces were smeared with black dirt like war paint, and they were dressed in these tattered ragamuffin camouflage smocks, and they had these comical conelike helmets. Eventually I located their commanding officer, this Von Drehle—”

  “That one! The race car driver! Oh, possibly he slept with an American movie actress five years ago and thinks he’s a god or something!” somebody said bitterly.

  “I explained that we were fresh in from the field, and a very successful foray it had been, and Dr. Groedl himself had approved our occupation of the Andrewski Palace. It was a military necessity. Well, it came down to rank, and it turned out the fellow wasn’t even sure if he was a captain or a major! Imagine. That’s how indifferent he is to military protocol. I managed to hide my shock and keep things at an even keel and explain that while I hated to flaunt connections, so unnecessary between officers, I did have the ear of Dr. Groedl and I would not hesitate to use my connections and it would be in his interests to relent on this one. I told him I had no choice. I was obeying the will of the party, the Kommissariat, Dr. Groedl, and I could not be held responsible for quartering decisions. Then the feldgendarmerie arrived, and after a bit more yelling, the fifteen parachutists were finally led off to their new bivouac area.”

  At that point, a young officer in the uniform of a Wehrmacht Hauptmann entered the room stiffly, his eyes locked unerringly straight ahead. He came to the senior group leader–SS and bent to present a message.

  “Hmm, what’s this?” said Dr. Groedl as he took it. He opened it. In a few seconds, his eyes lit up, and then a smile blossomed on his blubbery little face. “Well, well, good news from the front for the first time in quite a while. It seems some of our fellows blew up a bridge somewhere, and all the Ivan tanks will be stuck on the wrong side of the river for a few days as they lash together some pontoons. Our little outpost here in Ukraine lasts just that much longer!”

  The gentlemen raised their glasses.

  “Long live our leader, our brave boys, and our crusade of purification,” said Dr. Groedl.

  CHAPTER 27

  Outskirts of Kolomiya

  THE PRESENT

  The old curator allowed them to keep the plate. If it brought glory to a partisan and refocused attention on Bak’s brigade, he was all for it. He wrapped it in tissue, then in brown paper, taped and tied.

  They shook hands and hugged, and it was all very nice, and Bob and Kathy made to leave, but the old man’s wife pulled him aside and spoke rapidly in Ukrainian. He turned back to them, his mood more somber. “Do you have enemies?” he asked in Russian.

  “It’s a long story,” Reilly said. “But yes, it seems someone doesn’t wish us to look into this matter.”

  “My wife says that a car came along the road recently, but once past the house, it pulled to the side of the road and turned its lights off. No one got out. It is still there. Puzzling, if not unprecedented. We see very little traffic here, especially after dark.”

  “Ask him if he has a gun,” Swagger said.

  The old woman knew the word in English and was shaking her head before she even got the sentence out.

  “They want to know if they should call the police.”

  Bob thought.

  “I think that’ll just confuse matters. Okay, thank him, we�
��ll go to the car, let me think this one through.”

  * * *

  They walked to the car nonchalantly through the quiet Russian night. Lots of stars filled the dark sky in pinwheels and tendrils, a gentle breeze pushed the leaves this way and that, not much illumination around, humidity in the summer air, bird sounds of no specific place or species.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “Maybe we should just call the cops.”

  “Here’s how it will work. We’ll pull out, see if they follow. If they do, I’ll gun the engine, break contact, and let you off somewhere downtown. You take the plate. You head to the train station, catch the first train to Ivano, then check in to another hotel. Don’t go back to the Nadia. Meanwhile, I’ll cruise and see if I can pick them up. It shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll see what their intentions are. I’ll lead them way out of town. Then somehow I’ll dump them. I’ll give you a call and we’ll figure out what to do next based on where I end up. These games take patience, so if I don’t call right away, don’t worry.”

  “Bob, I can’t let you do that,” she said. “It’s not right. This is my story.”

  “Kathy, these games are tough enough to run if you’re only looking out for yourself. I can’t be worried about you under those circumstances and operate, too. This is best. Trust me. I know this part of the forest.”

  They got in, started the engine, and backed out.

  “If anything happens, you go to the floor in a little ball. Not sure how this is going to play out, but you’re probably safest there. Get your legs crumpled up facing outward. I think you’d rather get shot there than your head.”