Garden Of Beasts

Kohl had given that documentation to the SS, not Paul’s own.

The commander looked down at the sheet of paper again. “The detective reported that the man was driving a green Audi sedan. Have you seen this vehicle in the area?”

“No, sir.”

In the mirror Paul noticed two of the other officers looking in the back of the truck. They called, “Everything’s fine here.”

The commander continued. “If you see him or the Audi, you will contact the authorities immediately.” He shouted to the driver of the truck barricading the road. “Let him pass.”

“Hail Hitler,” Paul said with an enthusiasm he believed he hadn’t heard anyone else use since he’d arrived in Germany.

“Yes, yes, hail Hitler. Now move along!”

An SS staff Mercedes skidded to a stop outside Building 5 of Waltham Military College, where Willi Kohl was watching dozens of troops prowl through the forest in search of the young men who’d escaped from the classroom.

The door of the car opened and no less than Heinrich Himmler himself climbed out, wiped his schoolteacher glasses with a handkerchief and strode up to the SS commander, Kohl and Reinhard Ernst, who was out of the car now and surrounded by a dozen guards.

Kohl raised his arm and Himmler responded with a brief salute and then studied the man closely with his tight eyes. “You are Kripo?”

“Yes, Police Chief Himmler. Detective-inspector Kohl.”

“Ah, yes. So you are Willi Herman Kohl.”

The detective was taken aback that the overlord of German police would know his name. He recalled his SD file and felt all the more uneasy at the recognition. The mousy man turned away and asked Ernst, “You are unharmed?”

“Yes. But he killed several officers and my colleague, Doctor-professor Keitel.”

“Where is the assassin?”

The SS commander said sourly, “He escaped.”

“And who is he?”

“Inspector Kohl has learned his identity.” With a temerity that Ernst’s rank allowed – but Kohl would not dare use – the colonel said abruptly, “Look at the passport picture, Heinrich. He was the same man who was at the Olympic stadium. He was standing one meter from the Leader, from all the ministers. He was that close to us all.”

“Gardner?” Himmler asked uneasily, gazing at the booklet the SS com mandant held up. “He was using a fake name at the stadium. Or this one is fake.” The small man looked up and frowned. “But why did he save your life at the stadium?”

“Obviously he didn’t save my life,” Ernst snapped. “I wasn’t in danger then. He must have rigged the gun in the shed himself to make it appear that he was our ally. To get under our defenses, of course. Who knows whom else he was going to target after he’d killed me. Perhaps the Leader himself.

“The report you told us about said that he was Russian,” he added sharply. “But this is an American passport.”

Himmler fell silent for a moment, eyes sweeping the dry leaves at their feet. “The Americans would have no incentive to harm you, of course. I would guess that the Russians hired him.” He looked at Kohl. “How do you happen to know of this assassin?”

“Purely a coincidence, State Police Chief. I followed him as a suspect in another case. Only after I arrived here to conduct surveillance did I realize that Colonel Ernst was present at the college and that the suspect had designs to kill him.”

“But surely you knew of the earlier attempt on Colonel Ernst’s life?” Himmler asked quickly.

“The incident that the colonel was just referring to, at the Olympic stadium? No, sir. I was not apprised of that.”

“You weren’t?”

“No, sir. Kripo was not informed. And I just met with Chief of Inspectors Horcher no more than two hours ago. He knew nothing of it either.” Kohl shook his head. “I wish we had been informed, sir. I could have coordinated my case with the SS and Gestapo so that this incident might not have happened and those soldiers not died.”

“You’re saying that you did not know that our security forces were looking for a possible infiltrator as of yesterday?” Himmler asked with the leaden delivery of a bad cabaret actor.

“That’s correct, my Police Chief.” Kohl looked into the man’s tiny eyes, framed by round black-rimmed glasses, and knew that it had been Himmler himself who’d given the order to keep the Kripo in the dark about the security alert. He was, after all, the Third Empire’s Michelangelo in the art of hoarding credit, plundering glory and deflecting blame, better even than Göring. Kohl wondered if he himself was somehow at risk here. A potentially disastrous security breach had occurred; would it benefit Himmler to sacrifice someone for the oversight? Kohl’s stock seemed high, but sometimes a scapegoat was necessary, especially when your intrigue has nearly gotten Hitler’s rearmament expert killed. Kohl made a quick decision and added, “And curiously I heard nothing from our Gestapo liaison officer either. We just met yesterday afternoon. I wish he’d mentioned the specific details of the security matter.”

“And who is your Gestapo liaison?”

“That would be Peter Krauss, sir.”

“Ah.” The state chief of police nodded, filing the information away, and lost interest in Willi Kohl.

“There were some political prisoners here too,” Reinhard Ernst said evasively. “A dozen or so young men. They have escaped into the woods. I’ve sent troops to find them.” His eyes strayed again to the deadly classroom. Kohl too looked at the building, which seemed so benign, a modest facility of higher learning, dating from Second Empire Prussia, and yet which he now understood represented the purest of evils. He noticed that Ernst had had the soldiers remove the hose from the exhaust and drive the bus away. The clipboard and some documents that had been scattered on the ground, probably part of the abhorrent Waltham Study, were likewise gone.

Kohl said to Himmler, “With your permission, sir, I would like to prepare a report as soon as possible and assist in finding the killer.”

“Yes, do so immediately, Inspector.”

“Hail.”

“Hail,” Himmler said.

Kohl turned and started toward some SS troopers beside a van to arrange for a ride back to Berlin. As he walked painfully toward them, he decided that he could finesse the incident in such a way as to reduce the risk to himself. True, the picture in the passport matched the face of a man killed in a boardinghouse in southwest Berlin before the attempt on Ernst’s life. But only Janssen, Paul Schuma

He doubted there would be any further inquiry; the whole matter was now a dangerous embarrassment – to Himmler for being slack in state security and to Ernst because of the incendiary Waltham Study. He could -

“Oh, Kohl, Inspector Kohl?” Heinrich Himmler called.

He turned. “Yes, sir?”

“How soon will your protégé be ready, do you think?”

The inspector thought for a moment and could make no sense of this. “Ah, yes, Police Chief Himmler. My protégé?”

“Konrad Janssen. How soon will he be transferring to the Gestapo?”

What did he mean? Kohl’s mind was blank for a moment.

Himmler continued. “Why, you knew that we accepted him into the Gestapo before his graduation from the police college, didn’t you? But we wanted him to apprentice to one of the best investigators in the Alex before he began working on Prince Albrecht Street.”