Werner wondered what were some of the other benefits of being a beer-truck driver, and Egon told him how every day was a little different, and you got to travel all over Bavaria. He could sell a few liters of gas each trip; all the drivers did it, and Herr Lutz got a little cut.

  Werner laughed. ‘He acts so innocent, Lutzi does.’

  ‘I’m not supposed to say it, but I’m quasi-SS.’ That was out of the blue and apropos of nothing, but Egon had been dying to tell.

  ‘Really? That sounds important,’ said Werner.

  Egon confessed that he was new at it, that he was just getting the hang of it.

  ‘So what’s involved?’ said Werner.

  ‘I’m not allowed to say,’ said Egon.

  ‘Of course; I understand. Sorry I asked.’

  ‘SS Lieutenant Laumann in Murnau, he wants me to look out for anything unusual.’

  ‘Unusual? Like what?’ said Werner.

  ‘Like someone carrying an umbrella on a sunny day. That’s just an example of the kind of thing.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Werner. ‘An umbrella?’

  ‘I don’t know. To be honest, Werner, it’s not a job I wanted. I got in a bit of trouble a while back, and Laumann got hold of my case and kind of made me do this. I’m just not that good at it. I don’t think that way. I’m too trusting of people, and things seem the way they should be. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Werner.

  ‘Well, like today, what happened today that was unusual? Nothing really. Herr Lutz was a little late and he’s usually on time.’

  ‘Well, that was because of me. I wasn’t quite ready when he came to pick me up. Come to think of it, my riding along with you, that’s unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, it’s not normally allowed, but no, Werner, that seems pretty normal to me. It’s the kind of thing people do for each other.’

  ‘Well, you’re not supposed to have passengers, right? Hey, Egon, why don’t you tell your SS lieutenant, what’s his name? Laumann?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Tell Laumann you had a suspicious passenger.’

  ‘Suspicious?’ Egon laughed.

  ‘Sure. I don’t mind, if it helps you out. It wouldn’t bother me.’

  ‘You’re a good guy, Werner, but I couldn’t do that.’ Egon lifted his beer bottle and clinked it against Werner’s.

  In Munich, Werner knew some girls who were free that night. One of the girls gave them supper, a liver dumpling soup she had just made. They drank beer and laughed and talked until late into the night. Egon’s girl let him kiss her but didn’t want to go any further. He could have been angry, but he was feeling mellow, so he let it go. Before long, he was asleep on her couch.

  The drive to Passau the next day was just as pleasant. Werner knew how to put Egon at ease. He kept trying to help out by suggesting unusual things he noticed that Egon could report. ‘The chimney sweep there on the bike could be a saboteur,’ he said. ‘You can’t tell what he looks like underneath all the soot.’

  ‘That’s too Hollywood,’ said Egon. ‘That’s what Laumann would say.’ Egon told Werner all about SS Lieutenant Klaus Peter Laumann. He was a Prussian. He didn’t know Bavarians very well. He was forcing people to inform, and they didn’t like it. They were supposed to help him catch an American pilot. There was also a group of traffickers he wanted to catch. ‘Be careful with your canned sardines,’ said Egon, ‘or he’ll pull you in.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ said Werner. ‘I’ll be careful.’ Egon told Werner about Sepp Krupke.

  Werner suggested they keep their eyes open for the pilot. ‘Do you know where he was last seen? It would be something, wouldn’t it, if you could bring him in?’

  Egon said the pilot had been shot down somewhere over Munich. He had recently been seen near Murnau. Egon slowed the truck for a look whenever they saw someone walking alone.

  Early in the evening, Egon dropped Werner at his destination in Passau. They shook hands. ‘Good luck with the new job,’ said Egon. ‘Look me up the next time you’re in Murnau.’

  ‘I will,’ said Werner. ‘Maybe we can do a little business.’ Whatever that meant.

  Egon made his last deliveries of the day. He was in a good mood. He decided to look up the girl he knew. She was at home, and this time she let him have his way.

  Plumbing Supplies

  Werner Krosius was interviewing for a job as the accountant for Donau Fixtures, a plumbing supply company. The previous accountant had been killed during a bombing raid. There weren’t many qualified men around. The owner of the company wondered why Werner wasn’t in the army. ‘I’m too old,’ said Werner. He said he was nearly fifty.

  ‘You don’t look it,’ said the owner, as though Werner might be up to a trick. Then he sighed and said, ‘Oh, well, pretty soon they’ll be drafting fifty-year-olds.’ The owner gave Werner a little test to see whether he knew anything about accounting. The test was easy for Werner. The owner offered Werner the job and made it sound as though he was doing him a favor. Werner knew the pay should be more, but he accepted the offer anyway.

  ‘Do you have a place to live?’ said the owner. ‘I can rent you a room in my house.’

  ‘I’m staying with a friend,’ said Werner.

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘A guy I know.’ Werner said it in a way that let the owner know not to ask any more questions. These days you didn’t want to know more than you had to.

  Werner Krosius had an accountant’s facility with facts and figures and a remarkable memory. He could keep ledgers. But he could also keep long lists – names, dates, numbers – in his head. He could calculate risk instantly and with precision. He could figure profit and loss on the spur of the moment.

  Such skills were beyond the needs of Donau Fixtures. But for Werner, the job was a front. Werner was a trader in much more than sardines and nylons. He had started out that way back in the thirties. But he had soon built a network of suppliers and customers, and had expanded his product line into alcohol, meat, tobacco, petrol, kerosene, coal, and other products in short supply.

  Then, once the Jews began fleeing and leaving their possessions behind, he had started trading in art and furniture. And nowadays, Werner could provide everything. He could get drugs, medical or otherwise. He had recently begun dealing in weapons and ammunition. There were lots lying around Russia, there for the taking if you could get them. And Werner could. He even had an interest in several prostitution rings. These days, nothing was beyond his reach. He had agents everywhere and several lawyers at the ready.

  Any of this activity could have put Werner in front of a firing squad, were it not for his highly placed clients. At the top of the list was Reichsmarschall Herman Goering, the commander in chief of the German Air Force and close friend of the Führer. Goering had a serious drug habit, and Werner Krosius had been his principal supplier since the beginning of the war, a lucrative business which by itself would have made him a wealthy man. To show his gratitude, he showed up one day at Goering’s castle in Mauterndorf, Austria, with a package under his arm. He stood by as Goering cut the string and pulled the paper away. Goering was an avaricious art collector, and his mouth fell open when he saw the painting, a small portrait by Rembrandt of his wife Saskia. ‘Herr Krosius, you astonish me,’ he said,

  ‘A gift, Herr Reichsmarschall,’ said Krosius.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ said Goering.

  Krosius just smiled.

  As a kind of insurance, Werner traded in information as well. And he had customers on all sides. What he had learned from Egon Scharfheber about SS Lieutenant Laumann and his hunt for the American pilot and the traffickers could be of value to the underground as well as to certain Nazi officials. No one especially liked someone who traded in information, but everyone needed him.

  Krosius understood that sooner or later Germany would lose the war. You didn’t have to be an accountant to do the math. German airplanes were being destroyed in the air and on the ground faster than they could be replaced. Tanks and ships were being destroyed just as rapidly. The Russian countryside was strewn with the rotting corpses of German soldiers, and the Soviet army was advancing steadily on Germany. Italy had surrendered to the Allies. And a great force was assembling in England for a massive invasion.

  Werner had calculated that Passau on the German, Austrian, and Czech borders was suitably out of the way and would provide the kind of regulatory complexity that would serve his purposes well, and – when the time came – would allow him to disappear.

  Werner spent an hour or so each morning going over the ledgers at Donau Fixtures. His predecessor had been careless and lazy, and Werner quickly brought the books into correct compliance. After that, it was simply a matter of keeping up with the small payroll, the invoices, managing inventory – which for a man of Werner’s particular skills was child’s play. The rest of the day he could tend to his own business.

  Because of his other skills, Werner was able to acquire certain plumbing fixtures and supplies that, before he arrived, had been unavailable. The steel, zinc, and lead used in the manufacture of these supplies were military necessities and were embargoed for non-military uses. For three years, Donau Fixtures had been relying on inventory. And then, once those shelves had emptied, they had been repurposing old fixtures and improvising with other inferior ones. Until Werner arrived, that is.

  The owner held up a shiny new steel fitting and gazed at it as though he were witnessing a miracle. ‘Where the devil did you find this?’ he said to Werner.

  Werner didn’t answer. He knew the owner – like all his customers – didn’t really want to know.

  The Seduction

  It was Friday evening. Egon Scharfheber had made a late delivery at the Gasthof Klemmer in Rosenheim. Herr Klemmer offered him supper for his trouble – a mushroom omelet with real eggs and the year’s first asparagus. After dinner, Egon had drunk a little too much. He had dozed off in a chair by the fire.

  Liesl, the hotel maid, had stayed late to clean up the banquet room after a birthday celebration. There had been singing, a cake with candles, enough sparkling wine so that everyone got a glass, and even some puff pastries with a tiny dab of chicken liver pâté.

  Liesl sat at the bar having her supper. It was nearly ten o’clock. Supper and one beer every evening after work was part of her wages. Some days it was the only meal she got.

  Egon woke from his nap. He stretched and yawned loudly. He struggled to his feet and hitched up his pants. Then he noticed Liesl at the bar. She was plump in the right places, had small, twinkly eyes, a pushed-up nose, pink cheeks, red lips, and blond hair. A double chin and a few wrinkles, but so what? Why not give it a try? thought Egon.

  ‘Fräulein,’ he said, ‘a nightcap?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Egon, still a little drunk, figured she was playing hard to get. ‘Come on, Fräulein, we’re two working people, you and I, birds of a feather. How about it, sweetheart? Just one drink.’

  Herr Klemmer knew Liesl, and he knew Egon. He thought he knew how this was going to turn out.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Fräulein,’ said Egon. ‘You don’t know me. But I could tell you some things.’ He had been refining his ‘quasi-SS’ story. ‘Let me tell you, the things one sees, when he does his duty for the fatherland …’ He let the unfinished phrase hang in the air.

  Liesl looked at Egon with something resembling curiosity. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘One drink. Cognac.’

  ‘And one for me,’ said Egon, with a wink at Herr Klemmer.

  They took their glasses and sat by the fire. Egon spun out his tale of intrigue and daring in a low voice, embellishing it extravagantly and not skimping on the essential facts either. He had reported a local schoolteacher who was part of the underground. ‘I can tell you, Fräulein, this caused dear old Laumann to sit up and take notice. He wrote it all down in his notebook. “Scharfheber,” he said, “I want you to follow up on this schoolteacher fellow. Find out who he is, his name, address, et cetera. Then I want you to follow him wherever he goes.”’

  The truth was, of course, otherwise. On hearing about the so-called underground schoolteacher, Laumann had turned red in the face, jumped out of his chair, dived across his desk, and grabbed Egon by the lapels. ‘Damn you to hell, Scharfheber, are you a complete idiot? I need names! Names! Facts! You bring me rumors without meaning. Sergeant!’ he screamed. ‘Come in here and take this pig away.’

  ‘Wait, Herr Leutnant. Wait! I have a name. I have a name. Of course I have a name.’ He said the first name that came to mind. ‘Krosius. Werner Krosius. The brother-in-law of Herr Lutz, my dispatcher. A big-time black marketeer in Passau. I drove him to Passau three days ago. I dropped him at the corner of Kubin and Eichholzstraße. I brought you this information as soon as I could.’

  Laumann sat down. He sent the sergeant away and wrote everything down. He asked questions about Krosius, and for once Egon had the answers. ‘Finally, Scharfheber. It’s about damn time you showed up with something useful.’

  Liesl was unimpressed by Egon’s story. She tossed back the last sip of her cognac and said, ‘I have to go.’

  ‘How about one more, Fräulein.’

  ‘Another time,’ she said. She stood up, slipped into her coat, and left, rolling her eyes at Herr Klemmer as she went.

  The Alm on the Nagelkopf

  Charlie had been standing in the shadows studying the Saturday market in Niederhausen. He turned, and he and the town policeman recognized one another in the same moment. Charlie dashed around a corner, ran through the crowded square, and came out the other side. He ducked into a small wood at the edge of town. The policeman rushed into the square, but got caught in the crowd, and Charlie had disappeared.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a man.

  Charlie spun around, ready to run again. But the man raised his hands and said in English, ‘I know who you are. I can help you.’

  ‘You know who I am?’

  Charlie must have sounded disappointed because the man smiled and said, ‘I mean, I know you’re in trouble. I can help. Come with me.’ Charlie hesitated only a moment, then followed him.

  ‘Are you English?’

  ‘American,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘So you must be the one they’re looking for. Before just now, I mean,’ said the man, nodding in the direction of the market. ‘When pilots are shot down, they’re usually caught right away. When they aren’t caught right away, there’s usually an all-out manhunt, and the word gets around.’

  The man – he said his name was Andreas – took Charlie to his home. He gave him a warm meal. After dark, they walked to the Zoellners’ farm where Helga Zoellner fed him again.

  Early the next morning, Jürgen Zoellner walked Charlie up to the Alm – his summer pasture. It was a long, steep climb along logging roads, then beside a tumbling mountain stream, and through an enormous forest of gigantic fir trees. Jürgen didn’t speak English, so they walked in silence. After two hours, they reached the hut above the Alm. They drank water from the pump and rested on the porch. Jürgen unlocked the cabin and opened the shutters. He signaled that Charlie shouldn’t make a fire. He pointed to his eyes and then toward the valley to indicate that the smoke would be seen from below.

  ‘Keine Feuer,’ Charlie said. Or was it kein Feuer? He couldn’t remember.

  ‘Kein Feuer,’ said Jürgen. He smiled for the first time.

  ‘Ich verstehe,’ said Charlie, smiling back.

  Jürgen made sure there were blankets for the cot, then headed back down the mountain.

  There was no moon that night. There was no wind, and it was cold. The sky was lit by a million stars. Charlie was glad he still had the sheepskin.

  He woke up early the next morning. He sat at the edge of the wooden porch warmed by the rising sun, his feet resting on the boulder that served as a step. He cut a hunk of cheese from the yellow wedge beside him. He cut a slice of onion. He put them both on a thick slab of black bread and took a big bite. He had to tear at the crust with his teeth. It was thick, chewy, and delicious. He took a big drink of apple cider.

  From his vantage in front of the hut, Charlie saw the world spread in front of him: first the pasture, rich, green, sprinkled with wildflowers, then the evergreen forest below, then the treetops, the nearby stony peaks above, and beyond them the fields and forests stretching into the blue haze to the north.

  Charlie had wandered across a large corner of Bavaria. And although he was a hunted man, he had convinced himself he would be fine, that he would reach France, England, and eventually Ohio. When you’re only twenty-three, you tend to think that way. But now he thought of what Andreas had said. There was an all-out manhunt. If he fell into the hands of the SS, they would find out quickly enough that he had been in intelligence, if they didn’t already know. They would want to know about the coming invasion, and while Charlie’s intelligence work had to do with targeting bombing runs, interpreting aerial photos, that sort of thing, they would be convinced that he knew about the invasion. And they would do whatever they had to do to get it out of him.

  The Tangled Web

  A letter had reached Willi from someone known to him only by his or her code name, Daisy.

  Daisy had learned that a schoolteacher in the Murnau area was suspected by the SS of belonging to the underground. Daisy didn’t know if the SS knew who the schoolteacher was or whether there even was such a schoolteacher. But if there was, he should be warned and probably withdrawn from action.

  Daisy also wrote that a black marketeer in Passau named Werner Krosius was also known to the SS. Daisy knew this thanks to a source and SS informant named Egon Scharfheber.

  Daisy did not know whether Krosius could be helpful or dangerous to their cause but thought he might be a source of information. Finally, Daisy warned that Egon Scharfheber was a fool and a braggart. But there was little doubt he was informing SS Lieutenant Klaus Peter Laumann and would know something about SS activity in the area.

 

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