Winner Lose All Page 4

  Hanni Steiner was a fifth-generation child of the city, and she passionately reflected its spirit. When Ed Scanlon fell in love with her, he knew he was breaking all the rules, but she soon became as attracted to him as he was to her. No doubt, it was the raw emotion and adrenaline of that time and place, but they came together like two cold, lonely people leaping into a roaring fire. Hanni became Scanlon’s all-consuming passion, beyond any reason or logic; but she was always the wiser of the two. It was not that she held back, not an inch, but she knew from the beginning that their affair could not last. It was something to warm the void she felt inside, something to be savored and enjoyed for as long it lasted, but that was all it could ever be. Regardless of how much she wanted to love him, there was no telling what the next day might bring or what she might be ordered to do. That was her punishment for being a realist. In the end, she knew it would all come crashing down on them, so she let it burn all the hotter, making use of whatever remaining time they had. It was a distinction he never did understand. In those weeks and months with her in Leipzig, he thrived on the pressure, the excitement, the danger, and most of all on her. They filled him to the brim like the gas flame beneath a hot air balloon. Inevitably, however, that relentless pressure took its toll.

  “Liebchen, this is a very lonely life we lead, and a terrible one,” she told him. “Look at us. We were wrong to fall in love like this. We’re becoming twisted, ugly monuments to the stupidity of it all, and it is doing far worse things to you.”

  Scanlon denied it, of course, but even he could feel the irritability and tension building inside him. He was not sleeping and he was not thinking clearly. He began to drink and lost his temper far too easily. She was right. The signs were all there. He was heading for a breakdown. That came during those four terror-filled days and nights he spent in Otto Dietrich’s basement.

  When it happened, it left him shattered.

  When a man becomes exhausted and distracted, as Scanlon had by then, he gets careless, reckless, and begins making mistakes. They were small ones at first, but they grew and multiplied with a grim inevitability. That was how he was caught.

  He, Hanni, Will Kenyon, and Isaac Kronke, one of Hanni’s men, had gone out at midnight for a routine reconnaissance mission through the rail yards, as they had done a dozen times before. Their objective was to quietly inspect the trains and rail cars parked there and leave a present or two behind. The city was blacked out. The moon would not rise until after 4:00 a.m., allowing the freight trains to park for a few hours to refuel and give the crews a rare chance to rest. Dressed in dark clothing, they began at the far end of the rail yard and worked their way back car by car. In the winter of 1944, with a critical shortage of rolling stock, anything and everything that passed through Leipzig was of high value. It was only a matter of picking out a few good ones. Sometimes it was flatcars with Panzer tanks headed east. Sometimes it was towed artillery and disassembled airplanes. Sometimes it was boxcars full of ammunition and canned food. Often, they could tell the contents from the chalk markings scrawled on the side of the rail car, by the stenciled labels on the wooden crates inside, or by the shape of the tarpaulins draped over the vehicles and machinery. Still, the plan was to get in and out without being noticed or setting off an alarm. Whenever they found a juicy, high-priority target, they would mark the roof of the car for prowling Allied fighters the next day, or hide some explosives inside timed to detonate long after the train rolled out of town.

  That night there were five trains parked in the dark switchyard. Three were long, mostly composed of boxcars headed east, while two were much shorter trains headed back west. Hanni and Isaac slowly worked their way up the two outer lines of rail cars, while Scanlon and Will Kenyon took the three inner ones. There were a few guards around, but they were mostly old men and young boys who had been drafted into the Home Guard and sent to the rail yards to watch for the occasional thief or deserter. Further, it was a bitterly cold winter night and it was comfortable for the guards to think this was Germany itself, the Fatherland, not one of the occupied countries with their disloyal local populations. Their greatest concerns were freezing to death, a stray bomb from a B-17, the rampaging Red Army headed their way, and breakfast. Like the poorly trained and unmotivated reservists in any army, their level of alertness was very low. The last thing they worried about was enemy agents and saboteurs. The guards could easily be spotted standing in clusters out of the wind or hiding in a box car, smoking, arguing, stomping their feet and clapping their hands to keep warm. It would take dumb bad luck to be caught by these clowns, Scanlon scoffed, but that was exactly what happened.

  He was crouched low, slowly working his way up the left side of a long dark line of boxcars while Will Kenyon was doing the same, one row over. It was when Will stuck his head inside the open side door of a boxcar that all hell broke loose. Several guards had apparently chosen that one to hide out. They saw Kenyon backlit in the doorway, before he saw them. Thinking it was one of their pals coming back with hot soup, one of the guards called out, “Franz! Du bist spat…” You are late. Kenyon quickly pulled his head out, but it was already too late for him, too. “Haben Sie cigaretten, Franz?” Do you have a cigarette? another guard asked. “Franz? … Franz? … Halt! Wer is da?” Halt! Who is there?”

  The guards scrambled to their feet, but by then, Kenyon was already sprinting away down the gravel rail bed, eager to disappear into the dark. Two of the Volks Grenadiers tumbled out of the rail car after him, fumbling with their rifles. Fortunately, they wore thick gloves and they were armed with old bolt-action Mausers from the last war rather than one of the newer semi-automatic rifles or one of the infinitely more deadly Schmeisser submachine guns that the SS carried. Nonetheless, the dark night was suddenly split by the “Crack! Crack! Crack!” of rifle shots.

  The standing order that they had all agreed on was if anyone triggered an alarm, they should all scatter into the darkness, each taking the shortest path out of the rail yards and into the dark city streets beyond. If one of the team was injured or captured, no one was to compound the problem by going back and trying to help. Those were great rules; but for Scanlon, the three gunshots changed everything. The guards were probably more scared than Will. It was highly unlikely that any of them got off a well-aimed shot, but a bullet caught the lanky Brit in the leg and knocked him down with a loud grunt. He rolled under a boxcar, crawled to Scanlon’s side of the coarse gravel, and tried to stand. Scanlon was fifty feet away when he saw Will fall a second time, grabbing his leg. Instinctively, the American turned and ran back as shrill whistles blew all around them.

  He grabbed Kenyon and pulled him to his feet, but the Brit shoved him away. “Get out of here, you damned fool,” he groaned, but Scanlon ignored him and threw him over his shoulder. “Put me down, Scanlon, before you get us both killed!”

  “Oh, shut up and hang on,” was his only answer as he sprinted down the rail bed carrying the lanky Brit as they heard more whistles blow. Two boxcars ahead, Scanlon saw another open door. “Here,” he said as he dumped Kenyon inside. “Get back in the corner and stop arguing with me,” he said as he pushed the door shut and pulled out his Walther pistol. Knowing he had only seconds before the guards closed in, Scanlon ran and beat his fist on the side of several boxcars to draw the guards further away before he ducked between the next two cars. Climbing over the coupling, he sprinted away down the next aisle, only to run straight into another Volks Grenadier who suddenly stepped out of the shadows in front of him.

  “Halt,” the German screamed as he tried to raise his long-barreled rifle, but Scanlon raised his pistol faster. He shot the guard in the face and never broke stride, jumping over the man’s falling body before it even hit the ground. Unfortunately, that guard had not come alone. Two of his companions were right behind him. They burst around the far end of the rail car and collided with Scanlon. The three men fell in a twisted heap on the gravel, punching and kicking anything that moved. Scanlon lost his grip on
his pistol and struggled to get up, swinging wildly at the dark shapes. His fists struck both men, but one of them had managed to keep his grip on his rifle. He swung it like a baseball bat, and when the heavy wooden stock connected with the side of Scanlon’s head, the lights went out. For the American, his brief fight was over, but the two Germans were not finished. Badly scared and battered, with their dead companion’s body not fifty feet away, they began to pummel Scanlon. One continued beating him with his rifle butt while the other kicked him in the side with his hobnailed boots.

  When Scanlon finally regained consciousness, he realized he was no longer in the rail yard. He was naked, lying on his back on a cold, wet concrete floor. He tried to open his eyes, but the left one would not focus and was nearly swollen shut. He had a pounding headache and his left side hurt like hell. Inventorying the other moving parts, he ran his fingers down his ribs and realized they were badly bruised and several were probably broken. He turned his head, ignoring the pain. The walls, the floor, and even the ceiling were made of bare, unpainted concrete, badly chipped and scratched. Sunk in them were large I-bolts festooned with chains and manacles. If it wasn’t for the more modern concrete and a single, bare light bulb dangling from the center of the ceiling, he might think he was in a medieval torture chamber.

  Scanlon laid his head back down on the bare floor. The walls below the I-bolts bore many old, dark stains. Blood? Perhaps, but as far as he could tell, it wasn’t his. His head pounded, and even that small, dim bulb felt like a blinding searchlight shining directly into his eyes. As he closed them and lay back, the terrible realization set in that he was in a jail cell. No, it was a lot worse than that. From the descriptions he had heard, Scanlon knew this was one of the infamous interrogation cells in the basement of Gestapo headquarters in downtown Leipzig — the favorite stomping grounds, so to speak, of Otto Dietrich. A medieval torture chamber? Maybe it was.

  It was well over an hour later that the Chief Inspector himself came to call. “My compliments to the Volksturm,” he said as he slowly circled Scanlon for a moment, studying his prostrate form. “They are a filthy, half-drunken lot, but it usually takes me a day or two to get my special guests into this condition. Breaking you down the rest of the way should be a fairly easy task now, Captain Scanlon — easy for me, but not so easy for you, I am afraid.”

  Scanlon had to admit that Otto Dietrich did not look or act as he expected a Gestapo thug to look or act, at least not in the beginning. Tall, dapper, and distinguished, the Chief Inspector wore well-tailored, double-breasted business suits, an expensive tie, and a puffed silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He claimed he would not be caught dead in a black SS uniform with its silver piping, death’s head emblems, and black leather jackboots. “Too over-the-top, and definitely not my style,” he said. With his long, aquiline nose, pencil-thin moustache, and black, well-oiled hair combed straight back off his forehead, he brought to mind Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn, or one of the other 1930s movie stars. However, their performances were make-believe and projected on a silver screen, while Otto Dietrich’s stage was a basement interrogation cell and his performances were all too real.

  Movie-star affectations aside, in the beginning Scanlon found Dietrich surprisingly literate, personable, and even well-mannered. Under different circumstances, he might have even liked the man. For starters, he claimed to be a Nazi on paper only, one of the “March Violets” as they were called, who joined by the thousands in the spring of 1933 immediately after Hitler came to power. Prior to then, he had been a career policeman, a tough street cop who came up through the ranks in festive, pre-war Berlin, and an experienced homicide detective to boot. However, after four days of brutal pounding in his basement, Ed Scanlon realized that Otto Dietrich was the most ruthless, cynical, and amoral bastard he had ever met.

  “Well, I see you are finally awake,” he began with a smile. “Those louts in the rail yard gave you quite a thrashing and you had me very concerned for a while. What else can you expect from the German working class, especially after you murdered one of their friends.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Ah, but I am afraid you did. We know you are an American army Captain. Unfortunately, you were not in uniform and that, my boy, makes you a spy. Under our judicial code — or your own for that matter — the legal specification is therefore murder,” Dietrich said with an apologetic shrug.

  “What does your judicial code call this?” Scanlon glanced around the small cell.

  “Ah, this!” Dietrich looked proudly around the small cell. “It is one of the Third Reich’s Welcome Centers, my boy. Since you are a spy, out of uniform, and guilty of not only espionage, but also murder, sabotage, and terrorism, you would normally be lined up and summarily shot on the spot. However, we catch very few American operatives alive so I thought we might have a little chat first. You see, there are a few things I would like to ask you about.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,”

  “And bravely spoken,” Dietrich conceded with a wry smile as he looked down at Scanlon’s prostrate form. “To be perfectly candid, though, I am afraid you will. You see, you are in no condition to resist much of anything right now, and the hairy-knuckled brutes who work for me down here are very, very good at what they do. In a day or two, three at the very most, you will tell me everything I want to know — what you are doing here, who your contacts are, where I can find them, and exactly what they are planning. Trust me, you will tell me each and every one of those things. The only question is what condition you will be in when you finish.”

  That was about the only thing Otto Dietrich was wrong about. It did not take two or three days. Scanlon held out for over four.

  The Chief Inspector’s routine was to come down to the basement three or four times each day. For the prisoner, day, night, and time itself soon lost all meaning. On each such visit, Dietrich would sound like the voice of reason; trying to guide his unfortunate special guests out of the pit of pain they had created for themselves. He would dismiss his goons with a casual wave of the hand in order to be alone with the prisoner, making things even more private and personal, attacking his defenses from a new direction each time.

  “By the way, I hope you do not mind my calling you Edward,” Dietrich said as he glanced around at the bare, concrete walls. “Christian names sound so much less… dehumanizing down here. Do you not agree?”

  “Perfectly, Otto,” the young American said as his good eye followed Dietrich around the room. “By the way, nice suit.”

  “Oh, thank you,” the Chief Inspector answered as he looked down at the jacket and admired it himself. “Italian, from Milan. I had a wonderful tailor in London, on Bond Street, of course. Unfortunately, one must make some concessions to the war, mustn’t one? And I do love the American tough-guy persona you are trying so desperately to project. It is truly commendable given your current… predicament.”

  Dietrich strolled slowly around the cell, examining Scanlon’s cuts and bruises. “You know, Edward, in the last war I served the Kaiser. After that, it fell to me to sweep up the trash during that circus parade they called the Weimar Republic. Now, I find myself working for Adolf Hitler. In the end, I have no doubt that I will fill out my career working for the Communists, perhaps for Ulbricht or Beria, or even for you Americans. Do you know why?” he asked contemptuously. “Because sooner or later, they all need a practical fellow who can ferret out spies and keep order in the streets. Even your President Roosevelt understands that. Remember when he sent General MacArthur and his tanks and cavalry into that park in Washington, sabers flashing, to roust out all those army veterans of yours? Is Adolf Hitler really all that different? Are you?” Scanlon’s eyes were closed, one swollen shut, but Dietrich knew he was listening. “I know your country quite well, by the way,” Dietrich rambled on. “I have even been to your New York City.”

  “New York City isn’t mine, or anyone else’s,” Scanlon answered in a feeble whisper, taking deep
breaths as he fought back the pain.

  “We had such a grand time there,” Dietrich said, smiling as he remembered. “It was the spring of 1939, the World’s Fair. We went to El Morocco, 21, and the Stork Club. I loved it all. American radio was playing ‘A Tisket, A Tasket’ and ‘Three Little Fishies’ — pleasant escapes that were all the rage back then. Here, German radio preferred ‘Die Fahne Hoch,’ the ‘Horst Wessel’ Nazi Party song, and ‘The Watch on the Rhine,’ my personal favorite that was always guaranteed to bring the country folk to their feet. Ah, yes, but I did love New York. You can keep the rest, except for Hollywood, of course. I will take it too.”

  “Ask Uncle Adolf; maybe he’ll give it you.”

  “I thought about that, you know,” Dietrich said as he turned and flashed a broad smile. “Imagine me as Gauleiter of Hollywood. Would I not make just the perfect choice? Well, just remember who was the first to tell you that.”

  Scanlon remembered all right. He remembered that was the night they broke his jaw.

  Later that same night, Dietrich came in and started his routine all over again, as if he had not noticed that time had passed or the fresh bruises on Scanlon’s body. “You appear to be a man who appreciates the cinema, Edward,” he said as he strolled around the table upon which Scanlon now lay. “All you Americans do.” Scanlon breathed deeply, ignoring the pain and trying to ignore Dietrich. “You must have seen ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Such a marvelous picture, eh?” The Chief Inspector went on. “Well, think of me as Glinda, the Good Witch. Those cretins in black who keep coming in here and beating you to a bloody pulp are the monkey soldiers of the Wicked Witch of the West. That is Uncle Heinrich, in Berlin, of course; and I am afraid they do not come any more wicked than old Uncle Heinrich.”`