There was a certain chill in the air that the morning sun was struggling to extinguish.
An ugly-looking, olive-green staff car rumbled up to the gates opposite and waited as a US Army soldier came out and passed through a little personnel gate to check the occupant’s ID papers. The white band painted around his helmet signified to Bill that the M1 Carbine he let haphazardly swing around his side was more for posing than firing.
The semi-brutalist structure of the barracks on Finckensteinallee was quintessential Nazi architecture. The twin red brick buildings of the entrance framed a larger two-story structure beyond, with mock-roman pillars that looked more like poured concrete than hand-finished stone. The glut of red brick, for some reason, reminded Bill of the grander, prettier, facades of Chiltern Street in Marylebone, London, but with none of the charm. As he gazed at this testament to National Socialism, he reminded himself how much he hated most of the buildings in Berlin.
The Military Police pretend-soldier finally handed back the ID documents and waved them through, as his two colleagues swung the gates open to allow the awkward-looking, drab-green Buick into the compound. The ghosted remnants of the imperial eagles on either entrance post betrayed the barracks’ past as one of the main training bases for Hitler’s elite bodyguard, the SS-Leibstandarte. The new signs declaring the base to be Andrews Barracks couldn’t have looked more misplaced if they had hastily painted over the old iron swastikas with blue paint and added the new name with a child’s chalk stick.
There was a second giant structure just round to the right, out of sight, they had observed on their way past on foot that was even bigger. That was the attraction to the various staff cars and uniforms headed to this part of the city. The famous swimming pool here was one of the largest in Europe. Built for training the Nazis’ Aryan supermen. Oh, how he really hated it.
A small group of soldiers came striding down the street as a bus hissed to a stop at the intersection. Aboard was a group of student-aged girls who waved and grinned at them. The soldiers waved back as they continued their determined way towards the barracks.
Bill swilled the last of his coffee in the cup and threw it down his throat.
“At least the coffee is still good, even if the whisky seems in short supply.”
“Whisky, tobacco and caffeine. Everything the growing body needs.”
“What about the mind?” Bill pondered aloud as he stared into the compound.
Jack sniffed dramatically. “Hate … hate, and an enemy worth shooting at.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Bill said, lifting his empty coffee cup and nodding.
The slim middle-aged waitress brought them two more cups of the strongest, blackest, coffee in Berlin. She smiled politely as she collected the chipped empty cups and then disappeared just as quickly. She had probably lost at least a husband, if not a son or two in the past few years, aside from whatever the Russians had put her through more recently.
“It’s funny how life just goes on, isn’t it? Whatever else happens, whatever the turmoil. Life goes on,” Jack pondered.
“You have to get yourself right with the world first.”
“That’s the plan. An eye for an eye.”
The two men nodded as they got lost in their own thoughts. Bill thought about Misselwitz. That day in Paris from his cell window as he watched him shoot what he thought was Jack. The way he smirked up at him, then coldly pulled the trigger. Bill didn’t believe in demons and monsters, but this man was as close as it might be possible to get. He still didn’t know for sure who killed Irene, but he had a pretty good idea.
He turned and looked at Jack. His partner. The man that on and off over the past six years he had trusted with his life. He recalled the gut-punch he felt as he watched the body drop to the ground and the crimson flood across the paved pathway on Avenue Foch, and the grey-uniformed monster that had put it there.
Bill turned back to the barracks as another staff car pulled up and squeaked to a halt at the entrance. Irene’s face flashed across his mind. The smell of cordite had been drifting in the air of the apartment. The smell of violent death. The guilt he felt for leaving her alone. He wondered if she deserved such a fate. Perhaps they all did really.
“Remember that evening in St. James’s?” Jack interrupted.
“I can hardly forget, can I?”
“The last time we were all together.”
“Happier times,” Bill said as he checked his watch.
Bill leaned back in his seat and tapped his coffee cup in a gentle rhythm with his fingers. The sky was bubbling up a storm. The short period of clement weather was now giving way to what looked like rain. The chill in the air had, mercifully, not returned.
“Do you think they are trying to find us?” Jack asked, looking up the street.
“Probably. It might surprise them to find us sitting outside one of the Amis’ main barracks. This is the last place they’d think to find us.”
Jack just nodded and sipped his coffee.
Bill’s mind flashed through the past few weeks. He scanned his memory frantically, searching a series of snapshots like so many photographs in a flick book.
“The last place they would look,” Bill said quietly to himself as he frowned and stared into the middle distance. “If you were Misselwitz, where would you be?”
“Somewhere no one would find me, I guess.”
“Or, somewhere no one would look.”
Jack stared blankly at him, puzzled.
There. He had found him. He could kick himself.
“Somewhere the cops don’t go. Somewhere the cops wouldn’t go,” Bill said as he stood and pulled out some coins and donned his fedora. “Keep a look out while I make a phone call. I know where Misselwitz is.”