The Master Sniper

No, the Swiss were celebrating war’s end too. Repp darkened as this knowledge made itself clear to him. A fat mama with two children seemed to materialize out of the crowd along the sidewalk.

“Isn’t it wonderful, mein Herr? No more killing. The war is finally done.”

“Yes, wonderful,” he agreed.

They had no right. They weren’t a part of it. They had not won a victory, they had not suffered a defeat. They had merely profited. It made him sick, but though he felt like a pariah among them, he pressed ahead, several blocks down the Hauptstrasse, into Kreuzlingen’s commercial center, then took the Bahnhofstrasse toward the station. He could see it ahead, not a huge place like the Berlin or the Munich monstrosities before the war, but prepossessing on its own scale, with glassed-in roof.

Glass!

All that unbroken glass, glittering whitely among the metal girders, acres of it. He blinked stupidly. Were there trains there that actually chugged through a placid countryside without fear of American or English gangsters swooping down to rain death from the sky? Almost in answer to this question, a whistle shrieked and a puff of white smoke rose.

A block yet from the Bahnhof itself, he arrived at an open-air cafe, the Café München.

They’ll change that name by noon, he thought.

A few tables were unoccupied. Repp chose one and sat down.

A waiter appeared, a man in white smock with attentive eyes. “Mein Herr?”

“Ah,” a little startled, “coffee, I think,” almost having said “real coffee.” The man withdrew instantly and reappeared in seconds with a small steamy cup.

Repp sat with it, letting it cool. He wished he could stop feeling nervous. He wished he could stop thinking about Margareta. All the hard business was over, why couldn’t he relax? Yet he could not seem to settle down. So many of the little things of the world seemed off: the Swiss were fatter, cheerier, their streets cleaner, their cars shinier. It was impossible to believe that with the money he’d be a part of all this. He could have a black shiny car and dress in a suit like this and have a thousand white shirts. He could have ten Homburgs, two hundred ties, a place in the country. He could have all that. What lay ahead was only the operation itself, and that was what he was best at.

He tried not to think of After. It would come when it came. If you looked too far ahead you got in trouble, he knew for a fact. Now, there was only room for the operation.

Across the street, he saw a small park, green under arched elms, and in it benches and gym apparatus for children. Strange that it was so green so early; but then, was it early? What was the date? He’d been keyed to the surrender, not the date. He thought hard: he knew he’d crossed the bridge into Konstanz May 4; then he’d been sealed up with Margareta—how long? It seemed a month. No, only three days; today then was May 7. Yet the pale sun had urged bud growth out of the trees and lay in pools on the grass, which itself was green and not the thatchy stuff of earlier.

In the park, two blond children played on the teeter-totter. Repp watched them idly. Surely they were Swiss: but for just a moment he saw them as German. Uncharacteristically, he began to feel morbid and sentimental about children. Today of all days. Yet these two beauties—real Aryan stock, chubby, red-cheeked—really represented something to him: they were what might have been. We tried to give you a clean, perfect world, he told them. That awesome responsibility—a major cleaning action, Grossauberungsaktionen—had fallen to his generation. Hard, difficult work. But necessary. And so close, so damned close! It filled him with bitterness. So much accomplished, then pfft, gone up in smoke. The big Jews had probably finally stopped it. Repp almost wept.

“A pretty boy and girl, eh, Herr Peters?”

Repp turned. Was this Felix? He hadn’t used the approach code. Repp looked at a man about his own age, with acne-pitted face, in a pinstriped suit. Felix? Yes, Repp had been shown a picture of the same fellow in Berlin. Felix was just the code name; he was really a Sturmba

“Hansel and Gretel,” said Felix. “A fairy tale.”

“Yes, beauties,” agreed Repp.

“May I sit?”

Repp nodded coldly.

“Oh. Forgive my ma

“Without difficulty.”

“Excellent.” Felix smiled, and then confided, “A silly game, no? Like a novel. In Berlin, they think business like that is important.” His cool eyes showed amusement. But the man’s cavalier attitude bothered Repp. “And how was the trip?”

“Not without difficulties.”

“Yet you made good time.”

“The schedule was designed around maximum time allowances. I came through in minimum.”

“And how was the woman?”

“Fine,” he said.

“Yes, I’ll bet you had pleasant hours with that one. She was pointed out to me once. You aces, you always get to go first-class, don’t you?”

“The car?” Repp asked.

“Christ, you’re a firebreather. Still trying to make Standartenführer, eh? But this way.”

Repp did not at all like to hear the word Standartenführer thrown so casually into a public conversation, but there were in fact no other customers within earshot of the table. He stood with Felix and pulled some money out of his pocket. But he had no idea how much to leave.

“Two francs would do nicely, Herr Peters,” Felix said.

Repp stared stupidly at the strange coins in his hand. Now what the hell? Finally, he dumped two of the big ones on the table and followed Felix.

“That’s quite a tip you left the fellow, Herr Peters,” said Felix. “He can send a son to Kadettenanstalt on it.”

They crossed the street and walked along some shop fronts and then turned down a smaller street. An Opel, black, pre-war, gu

Repp got in the back.

“Herr Peters, my associate, Herr Schultz.”

He was a young man, early twenties, with eager eyes and an open smile.

“Hello, hello,” said Repp.

“Sir, I was with SS-Wiking in Russia before I was wounded. We all heard about you.”

“Thanks,” said Repp. “How far to Appenzell?”

“Three hours. We’ve got plenty of time. You’d best try and relax.”

They pulled from the curb and in minutes Schultz had them out of the town. They took Road No. 13 south, following the coast of the Bodensee. It shimmered off to the left, its horizon lost in haze, while on the right tidy farms were set far back from the road on rolling hills. Occasionally Repp would see a vineyard or a neatly tended orchard. They soon began to pass through little coastal towns, Münsterlingen with its Benedictine nu

“The Swiss could do with an autobahn,” said Felix.

“Eh?” said Repp, blinking.

“An autobahn. These roads are too narrow. Very fu

“I saw them dancing in the streets,” said Repp, “because the war was over.”

“Because the markets will be open, rather,” said Felix, “and they can go back to being the clearinghouse of nations. They do not believe in anything except francs. Not idealists like us.”

“I assume we can chat as if we are at a reception following a piano concert because all the necessary details have been attended to,” Repp said.

“Of course, Herr Peters,” said Felix.

“The weapon is—”

“Still in its case. Unopened. As per instructions.”

“You’re not known to British or American Intelligence?”