Berlin, SS Headquarters. 1943.
“They say they saw a German officer leaving the same building several hours later,” Hilda told him, reading her typed notes from this morning. “They were certain that no other officer or soldier besides Colonel Richter had entered that building all day.”
“Which means someone was hiding there,” Strauss concluded. “Any idea who it might be?” Jewish, probably. Somehow alive and in hiding.
“The men I spoke to on the telephone did give me the address, Herr Colonel, but I have not yet found any record of who might’ve lived there.” She handed Strauss her notes and his gaze immediately drifted to the address. “What do you think he was doing, if I may ask? Colonel Richter.”
Strauss sighed. “I’m not sure yet,” he replied, “but I suspect he might not be who he seems.”
Strauss was familiar with the area Richter had, until recently, been stationed in; before the final bombing that had flattened the better part of Warsaw, he and his men had scoured the city looking for any straggling or hiding Jews. A little more digging provided him with a record of the previous inhabitants of the building; and one name stuck out at him, nagging him for attention.
Erik Henri Kehlmann. Strauss said the name over and over again, until it sounded formless and odd on his tongue.
Strauss had, several years ago, encountered Kehlmann in Berlin. Not directly, but he’d attended one of the Berlin Orchestra’s concerts. He’d had the night off and, for once, nothing better to do. When the war broke out, Strauss had taken the job of eradicating Jews from Germany very seriously. Kehlmann had been one such Jew on his list – and one of very few to date whom he suspected still lived and hadn’t found.
And now, by the workings of some unexpected miracle – or perhaps just good luck – this Jew with nothing to his name had been rescued by none other than the Nighthawk. A name feared by even the best Allied pilots.
Though he hadn’t yet acted on them, Strauss had his suspicions that Wilhelm Richter wasn’t who he claimed to be. His loyalty to the Reich was an easy thing to question. Why would Richter, one of the Luftwaffe’s best pilots, take a command post at a nasty little stalag in Ludwigsburg? Why would he, a man who’d always been in the sky, voluntarily ground himself if he didn’t have ulterior motives?
Strauss wanted to get to the bottom of this. All he had to do if he wanted to catch the pianist and the pilot was do a little more investigating. He had all the patience in the world – and they didn’t call him the Wolf for no good reason.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
-
Stalag 5, Ludwigsburg. 1943.
“Pearson! I need to talk to you a minute.”
Pearson crossed the compound quickly – Richter didn’t call for him if it wasn’t important. “What’s up, commandant?”
“Where did you and your men go last night?”
“To a ball bearing plant east of town.”
“And I presume you blew it to pieces?”
“Well, of course. It was a pretty clean job –”
“Pearson. The Gestapo are suspicious of all the sabotage in the area. They’ve sent out troops to investigate, and they will be stationed here at Stalag 5 until they find what they’re looking for.”
Pearson sighed. “That’d be us, wouldn’t it?”
“Call off all sabotage for the next few days. Radio London and tell them you’re indisposed or on vacation – give them any excuse – but whatever you do, don’t go out at night.”
“Wait a minute, what are we supposed to do about Captain Holtz? We’re meant to pick him up from town tonight.”
Richter weighed their options, limited and equally as dangerous. He had to remind himself that this was not Pearson’s first rodeo – he had, in times past, evaded the Gestapo. “Go ahead with the mission. But make it quick.”
-
“The Gestapo? What do they want?”
“Us,” Pearson scoffed. “We still pick up Holtz tonight. But we’re out of business for the time being. If the Gestapo catches us, that’s the end of our operation –”
“And our lives,” Dubois interjected, shaking his head.
“We’ve got it good here, and the last thing we want is to end up facing is a firing squad. Just – be careful. And don’t do anything harebrained.”
The others dismissed themselves, going back outside, while Erik and Pearson remained inside.
“Do you know how long he’s been working for the Allies?” Erik asked. “Colonel Richter, I mean.”
Pearson, leaning against one of the bunks, considered for a moment. “A few years. He’s one of very few who haven’t been caught yet. He specializes in night missions, you know, flying people and supplies in and out of Germany. But that was when he was an active pilot. As commander of a stalag, he’s more of a first line of defense for our operation. Those Gestapo goons will trust a German officer more readily than a prisoner, naturally. In any case, he’s smart. Smarter than most who’ve ended up in his situation.”
“Situation?”
“Imagine being free as a bird one moment, getting away with everything without any worries at all, and suddenly the better part of Berlin’s on your back. They keep a very close watch on stalags, Kehlmann. Uncertainties, you know. There are too many loose ends here and Richter knows it.” Pearson adjusted his hat, something new in his expression. “You’d think this place would be secure, given that it’s a prison and all, but it’s probably the most dangerous place to be besides a battlefield.”
Pearson made it sound as though the entire camp was balanced precariously on a cliffside, and that one wrong move would send them all toppling over the edge. While he had known fully well that Richter’s actions had endangered himself and everyone he worked with, Erik had never imagined it might take on this magnitude. And he still had to reconcile with himself the fact that he did not know everything about the man who had saved his life.