The car had turned down a lane lined with boundary stones that had once been painted white. A track led to a large farmhouse, half of which had been burned down. The vehicles squealed to a halt in a cloud of dust, the soldiers leaping out to fan across a bare expanse of courtyard across which raced a startled brace of chickens. A man appeared in the doorway of the farmhouse. One of the soldiers leveled his weapon at him, then lowered it shamefaced at a snapped order from Skokov. Another order, and the soldiers fell back into a group, pulling away from the house. On the other side of the farmyard was what looked like a barracks, hastily constructed from planks and timber that was already warping from the weather. A couple of women came to its door, children peering out curiously from behind their skirts.
“Captain,” Skokov said, a tilt of his head. “We are in your hands.”
The man in the door of the house stepped out, his eyes tracking narrow and worried across the soldiers, coming to rest upon Skokov and Reinhardt. He was of medium build, dressed in what looked like cast-off mechanic’s overalls, a sleeveless sheepskin jacket around his torso.
“Are you Gareis?”
“I am.”
“Reinhardt. Berlin Kripo,” Reinhardt said, holding out his warrant disc. He said nothing about Skokov, lurking off to the side. “I would like to ask you some questions about some people you knew during the war.”
“What people? I didn’t do anything wrong.” Gareis’s voice was low but insistent, and his eyes kept flickering to Skokov and to the two militiamen. “I had nothing to with any of that. I was a pilot.”
“I know, Mr. Gareis. That’s why I’m here. It’s about the pilots you knew during the war. When you served with IV./JG56.”
“Right,” Gareis breathed out, and Reinhardt saw tension flow out of him.
Gareis led Reinhardt into the heavy gloom of the farmhouse, into a kitchen filled with a mismatch of furniture, some of which looked like it had been rescued from a fire. An old lady sat in a corner, her head bent to a piece of fabric in her hand into which a needle and thread darted in and out. She blinked confusedly at Gareis and Reinhardt as they came in, then she started back in her chair with fear, and Reinhardt saw that Skokov had followed them in, quietly.
“Mother, it’s fine, it’s nothing. They’ve just come to see me. It’s nothing.”
“What do they want?” the old lady stammered.
“They just want to talk to me. It’s nothing,” Gareis soothed her as he led Reinhardt and Skokov to a big table. The old lady subsided, blinking round wet eyes at Reinhardt and Skokov from out of a face that seemed, on her left, to be shrunken in, as if the bone beneath was missing. “I’m sorry,” Gareis said, as they sat. “I’ve nothing to offer you.”
“Conrad, what do they want? Why are they here?” the old lady called.
“Nothing, Mother. Nothing. It’s all right.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Gareis. This should not take too long. Your mother is not well?”
“She had a rough time of it at the end of the war. You saw half the place burned down. She was here alone. And . . . well, you know what was happening to women then. Her age didn’t spare her.”
“Do you know who did it?” Skokov asked. If he was being disingenuous, Reinhardt thought, he covered it up well.
Gareis stared at him, as if taking his measure or sharing the same thought as Reinhardt. “Not Red Army, so far as I can make out. Could’ve been deserters. Or DPs. The countryside was awash in bands of them. But I think it was more probably the forced laborers. There were Poles on the farm, a couple of Frenchmen too. The government put them here to work the land during the war along with a . . . piece-of-shit overseer. When the neighbors got here, they were all gone, the place was half-gutted, the overseer was strung up in the courtyard, and my mother . . .” Gareis glanced over at her, where the old lady had gone back to her stitching and sewing, her face screwed up in concentration. “That’s the only thing that keeps her going now. Helps keep her mind off things. Anyway,” he sighed, folding big, callused hands on the table, “you didn’t come here to listen to all that. What do you want?”
“Mr. Gareis, during the war, you flew with a squadron designated IV./JG56. You were posted in North Africa. Over the past year or so, all the members of the squadron within which you flew who survived the war have been murdered. Several of them have been murdered in the last few days in Berlin, after coming to the city to meet with other veterans in an association called ‘Ritterfeld.’”
“After the Group’s first aerodrome. Yes, I know of the association,” Gareis said. “They contacted me, but I wanted no part of it. Those days are over. Let them go.”
“Can you shed any light at all on what might be happening?”
“List the men for me, please.”
“Prellberg, Hauck, Stucker, Osterkamp, Jurgen, Zuleger, Fenski, and Noell.”
Gareis was silent, and then he seemed to deflate slightly. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how the past can sometimes catch up with you. You think it has a connection to North Africa? Well, you’re right. When we were based in North Africa, we committed a war crime. No. Wait. It would be a war crime now. Back then, no one knew what it was all about. In any case,” he said, “the squadron shot up a village of Arabs. A Berber encampment. Just a bunch of tents, camels, and a few people. There were rumors the Berber were working with the British, but who really knew,” Gareis said. “We were bored. Pissed off. Tired of retreating in the face of the British, so we shot the place up, killed everyone in it, and reported that we had been fired upon from the camp.
“Only we didn’t know that it wasn’t a Berber camp. Rather, it was, but with a difference. They were Germans, disguised as Berbers. They were Brandenburgers. You know about them?”
Reinhardt frowned. “They were special troops. They used to belong to the Abwehr, to military intelligence.” Memories bobbed up, little more than generalities and rumors. Even within the Abwehr, the Brandenburgers had been a little-known organization. Infiltration, he remembered. They were specially trained in infiltration. In disguises. In blending in, he thought, wondering how often Leyser had followed him through Berlin’s streets wheeling his little cart.
“They were the equivalent of British Commandos. Masters at infiltration,” Gareis said, echoing Reinhardt’s own thoughts, “every man a weapons expert, multitalented. The squadron should have known,” said Gareis. “At least, Prellberg should have known. We’d been briefed about a special mission, been told to stay away from a certain sector, but we had forgotten, or we’d gotten lost, or we’d been in a fight and barely gotten out of it alive. I can’t remember. I only remember we were all pissed off, tired of always losing, itching for a scrap, and one of the pilots saw the encampment, and then someone remarked about how the Arabs are always spying, and you can’t trust them further than you can throw them, and then someone else says ‘let’s have some fun,’ and we did. We destroyed everything, especially when it turned out someone from the encampment did fire upon us. But it was friendly fire. The whole thing was a friendly fire incident. I remember . . . I remember chasing men across the desert, machine-gunning them as they tried to run, until there was nothing, only smoke and sand.”
Gareis brought a heavy pitcher of water back to the table and poured into three mismatched tumblers. He drank deeply, his eyes far away.
“A few days later, the word came in that a Brandenburger mission had been destroyed by enemy action, and we realized it was us who had done it. A few days more, and they brought in a survivor. He was badly wounded, almost delirious, but already rumors were spreading, that the Brandenburgers might not have been destroyed by enemy action. We debated what to do. A couple of us decided to take matters into their own hands.”
“Who?” asked Reinhardt.
“Prellberg and someone else. I don’t remember. Osterkamp, maybe. The squadron CO and his deputy. They went to the hospital in Tobruk and tried to kill the wounded man, but he defended himself. He was a Brandenburger, after all,” said Gareis. “He almost killed them with his bare hands, almost killing himself in the process, and had to be restrained. The affair would have worsened were it not for the British. Their advance compelled us to pull out of Tobruk. The city was abandoned, the hospital and its patients with it, all falling into British hands. The squadron escaped any investigation and sanction, deployed to Italy, and . . . the war went on.”
“The name of the survivor?”
“His name was Leyser.”
“I, too, know of the Brandenburgers,” Skokov said, sipping from his water. “They were elite soldiers. I heard that at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR, units of Brandenburgers sowed confusion in the Soviet ranks, passing themselves off as soldiers, or as security personnel, giving false orders, ambushing unsuspecting troops. Importantly,” he said, looking at Reinhardt, “all Brandenburgers were multilingual.”
Reinhardt was looking at Gareis. His story did not tally with Noell’s. “Gareis, what role did you have in the squadron?”
“Pilot.”
“Apart from being a pilot.”
“That’s it.”
“Gareis. I have been in the WASt. I have seen the records of all those who served in IV./JG56. You were not just a pilot. You were the squadron’s second-in-command.”
“Very well. I was. So what?” Gareis answered with a lowered glance at Skokov.
“So, tell me again who went to see that Brandenburger? Prellberg and who? Remember, I’ve seen the squadron’s logbook,” he said, still trying to keep Noell’s existence out of the conversation.
Gareis sighed, nodding down at the table. “I went as well. It is not a memory I’m particularly fond of. We left the man alive, at least.”
“From the sound of it, Leyser was the one did you the favor of leaving you alive.”
“It’s true. The man was formidable. Even half-crazed, bedridden, drugged, he almost killed us.”
“Describe him, please.”
“There was not much to see, Inspector, and it was long ago. He was heavily bandaged because of the exposure to the sun. But he was of medium height, medium build. Dark hair, I think. Like I said, it was long ago, but I do remember one thing. The way he moved was . . . methodical. Injured as he was, he was terrifyingly efficient. I seem to remember he favored his left leg. In any case, that leg was more bandaged than the other. I’m sorry, Inspector, but that’s all I remember. I never saw him again, and I wouldn’t recognize him if he were this Russian officer sitting next to you.”
Skokov smiled, that taut pull of the lips.
“So if you can’t remember him, what makes you think this incident is the one that links all the murders?”
“It’s the only one that makes any sense to me,” Gareis replied. “Not long after that, we were pulled out of North Africa, and then the squadron was split up.”
“Very well, Mr. Gareis, thank you.”
“Inspector Reinhardt, do you have further use for this man?” Skokov asked. His eyes had gone flat again.
Reinhardt’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He frowned, a worried scratching suddenly grating the back of his mind. “I don’t know, Major. Possibly.”
“The man has told you what he remembered concerning your investigation. But there’s more to your story, Gareis. After your squadron was broken up, where did you go?” Gareis went still, but his head began to shake. “The inspector knows, don’t you, Inspector, but I’m not sure why he’s held it back. But never mind. Tell me of the work you did, Gareis. The experimental work.”
“How . . . how did . . . ?”
“I know it? It is my job in life to know things, Gareis.” Skokov’s voice was deadly quiet. “I knew of you, but I did not know you were alive. So? No words? I will tell you then. I know you transferred to a test unit. A very special test unit. One that tested high-altitude flight.”
“You told him!” Gareis glared accusatorily at Reinhardt as Skokov called out for his men. The lieutenant came into the kitchen, followed by the two militiamen. Gareis surged up from the table as his mother cried out in a quivering voice, her needlework folding to the floor.
“He told me nothing, Gareis. But your unique talents are required by the Soviet Union.” Soldiers closed in around a desperately furious Gareis. The former pilot’s eyes were locked on Reinhardt, who felt as if he had somehow betrayed him.
“My mother! What of my mother?”
“This farm will be taken under new, collective management, Gareis, and farmed efficiently.” Skokov nodded to his men, and then rose to his feet. “Your mother will be taken care of, especially if you do well for us. She may even accompany you, if you wish. Come, Inspector, it is time to go.”
“How can you do this, Skokov?” Reinhardt demanded as he followed the major back to his car. “You used me.”
“I used you. Of course I used you. You used me. We all use each other. Think carefully on your next words, Captain,” he said, reverting back to the way he seemed to want to refer to Reinhardt when they were in private or away from others. “I warned you that the flow of information needed to be from you to me. You have not done badly on that, but you could have done better.”
“How did you know about Gareis and the test unit?”
“I found his details in the Document Center after I learned they had been transferred there from the WASt. I thought he was dead, though, so for that I thank you.” From inside the house, they heard Gareis’s voice suddenly raised, another man’s rising with it, then the sound of something breaking. Skokov shook his head, tutting.
“There’s someone else,” Reinhardt said in a rush, words cascading up. Something to say, anything to say, to divert attention away from what was going on, to maybe stop it. “Boalt.” Skokov frowned at Reinhardt. “Boalt. I found his name in the WASt too. Looking at the same things you were. Was he one of yours?”
“‘Boalt’?” Skokov asked. He smiled. “How droll. But then, you told me of the British involvement, it’s true. Boalt is not a ‘he,’ Captain, but a ‘what.’ British Occupation Authority Liaison Taskforce. BOALT.”
“How . . . ? Carlsen told you, didn’t he?”
Skokov’s smile tightened, and he gave Reinhardt a grudging nod. “I only know it is an intelligence-gathering unit, with the peculiarity that its members can pass for Germans, so they can really listen and understand what is being said around them. Listening, observing, inquiring, and reporting back to the British on the mood of the country, the impact of Occupation policies. They could be anyone, anywhere,” Skokov said. “An old man on a park bench, a foreman in a factory, a journalist, women queuing up for life’s necessities.”
“Women queuing for bread? I hear that’s where revolutions often start,” Reinhardt said bitterly, angry at finding himself in such deep currents of revelation.
There was another bellow of anger from the house, and the thud of something striking flesh. Skokov sighed.
“So what do you think Gareis can do for you?” Reinhardt asked.
“The test unit Gareis was assigned to was one testing high-altitude, long-range aircraft. They call them ‘strategic bombers,’” the major said, carefully, as if testing the word. “The Americans have one, called a B29 Superfortress. It dropped the atomic bomb. It flies so high, nothing can reach it. Its cabin is ‘pressurized.’ Its armament is ‘remote-controlled.’ Do you understand these terms, Captain? I do not. I know the Germans had gone some way toward either developing one, or the elements of one. My function here is to find the research done on high-altitude flight, its effects on men, on survival techniques, and I want any information on long-range aircraft. It may not seem like much,” Skokov said, “but every little bit helps in this topsy-turvy world we find ourselves in, where the Allies of yesterday are the enemies of tomorrow.”
“The race for what shines in the rubble,” Reinhardt muttered.
Skokov frowned, as if he had not quite understood. “I am certain, Captain, that the Allies are undermining the Soviets in Germany. You discover pilots being murdered. You tell me of British involvement. I tell you of BOALT. I know that someone is also killing men who worked on air force research projects.” Almost, almost Reinhardt blurted out that he had found that link. That the wrong Noell had been murdered, but he held it back. “How should that look to me, Captain? How should it look to me that people I am interested in finding have been murdered? And when those who have been murdered were all living in the Western zones?”
“How do you know they have been murdered?”
“You yourself have told me of one. Lütjens. And I found news of others when I looked in the Document Center. Most of the researchers who worked in that test unit are dead, Captain.”
“If you look for a conspiracy, you’ll find one.”
“The simplest explanation is usually the most likely one. You should know that.” Skokov snapped something at his lieutenant, who scurried to the car and came back with a leather briefcase. Skokov took from it a sheet of flimsy paper with a typed list of names and dates. “Here. I will save you the trouble of checking for yourself. The senior researchers in the experimental unit known as XII./KG4. All dead. Or missing, which amounts to the same thing as far as I’m concerned.”
There were five names, including Lütjens—the man who had been found murdered in Bad Oeynhausen along with Prellberg—and Cohausz. All dead—or missing, as Skokov had sarcastically pointed out—between February and November 1946. Noell would be a sixth, murdered in 1947.
“How did you find this information out?”
“The Soviet Union is not without friends in the Western zones, Captain,” was all Skokov would say.
“Well, you should have a word with your friends. There is an error on your list,” Reinhardt said, echoing Bochmann’s words to him about Gareis. Skokov cocked his head, waiting. “You should include Theodor Noell.”
“What do you mean, Reinhardt?”
“We thought it was Andreas Noell we found murdered. It was not. It was his brother. Theodor. A colonel and scientist.”
“Reinhardt, Reinhardt,” Skokov shook his head, and the light in his eyes was very cold. “When did you know this?”
“Only recently. Andreas Noell came forward. He told me he feared the murderer had misidentified him for his brother. But if I look at whom the murderer has been targeting, it has been a mixture of pilots and researchers. And the only link between them is this test unit, which took in three pilots from IV./JG56. Noell. Prellberg. And Gareis.”
“You are a wonder to me, Reinhardt. Molodyets!” exclaimed Skokov, recovering his good humor.
“What will become of Gareis, Major? I should know that, at least.”
“What happens to him in the Soviet Union is not my affair, but I meant what I said. If he does well for us, he will be treated well. If not, not.”
“Like my son.” The words just leaped out, faster than Reinhardt could block with his tongue in the gap in his teeth. Friedrich had come to see him each night, the second time with his face bruised from a beating, curled into his own sense of rejection, moving to the rhythm of his leper’s bell—outcast, unclean—and yet drawn to the company of his father and, once, to Brauer. Friedrich could not say who had beaten him. Could not, or would not, Reinhardt had thought, remembering Kausch’s words to him that his son was theirs whenever they wanted him. The three of them had finished off Skokov’s vodka, the alcohol putting Friedrich into a state of weeping self-pity. Half-awake, he had mumbled names and imprecations into the crook of his arm, drooling on Meissner’s table. The names were German, but they went on and on, becoming Russian, a long litany that had the air of being oft-repeated. Reinhardt and Brauer had stared at each other over Friedrich’s slumped body, Brauer sporting a bruise across his face like the mark left by a whip from where Leyser had struck him, and with a hand laid lightly on his chest over the massive bruise there, before lifting him and putting him to sleep on a pallet in the colonel’s study.
“When this is over, I will tell you of your son’s war, Captain,” Skokov said, a glint of menace in his eyes that went with the weight of his words. “But I’m not interested in Lieutenant Reinhardt’s misdemeanors on the Eastern Front, although you might well be.”
“You find my son weak and untrustworthy. But he is my son. And remember what you told me of your own past. To still be alive today, have you really served the same masters? Or many? And what does that make you?” Reinhardt asked, pushing on into the wintry glare of Skokov’s eyes. “Does that make you weak or strong? Trustworthy or the opposite?”
Skokov was very still a long moment, and Reinhardt had enough time to wonder, again, at his foolishness. “I salute your bravery, Captain,” he said, at last, “in speaking in such a way to a Soviet officer inside the Soviet zone. But I am not an unfair man, nor a vindictive one. You have helped me and so, I promise you, so long as you maintain your contact with me and keep me informed of the progress of your investigation, in particular, that you inform me of any British involvement, then I will let Friedrich go.”
“Do I have your word on that, Major?”
“I would warn you not to push your luck, but I think you are beyond that. So, yes, Captain. I will let your son come back to you when this is over. Remember, though, he has a past, and you are a policeman, and the truth is a vocation when it is not an obsession. Be careful, Captain, what your son’s truth brings home.”