Death at Nuremberg by W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV

Author:W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-12-26T05:00:00+00:00

[FOUR]

The sergeant led Cronley back across the bridge to the left tier of cells, and then down the stairs to the second tier and then to Cell 14, on which was a sign: “Heimstadter, Ulrich.”

“Open it, soldier,” the sergeant ordered.

The guard outside, who looked even younger than Casey Wagner, worked the lock and then the sliding barrier, and Cronley entered the cell.

“And how are you on this snowy February day?” Cronley asked in German.

Heimstadter, Cronley saw, had shaved off the soup-strainer mustache he had on his chubby face when he had been captured.

But the bastard still looks like a postcard Bavarian in lederhosen with Gemütlichkeit oozing from every pore.

Heimstadter didn’t reply.

“Generals White and Harmon asked me to look in on you,” Cronley said.

Major General Ernest Harmon had commanded 2nd Armored Division and, on assuming command of the VI Corps, had turned over Hell on Wheels to I. D. White. Three weeks earlier, on 1 Feburary, White had assumed command of the Constabulary.

When the stone-faced Heimstadter did not respond, Cronley added, “They saw what you and Müller did at Peenemünde and are looking forward to your conviction and hanging.”

Heimstadter’s face blanched for a moment.

“Victory must be sweet for someone like you,” he said.

“I don’t think ‘sweet’ is the word that applies. But a mixture of satisfaction and shame for someone of German blood like me. I will find it uncomfortable to watch my cousin Luther swing with a broken neck under the gallows.”

“Your cousin?” Heimstadter blurted.

“My mother’s brother’s son. You may have met him. Former Sturmführer Luther Stauffer . . .”

That rang a bell! I could see it in his eyes!

“The name does not seem familiar,” Heimstadter said.

“The SS sent him home to Strasbourg just as the Thousand-Year Reich was in its final death throes,” Cronley said. “They assigned him the duty of helping people they knew we would be looking for to get out of Germany. The French caught him trying to get you and Müller across the border. As soon as the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire is finished asking Cousin Luther about Odessa, he’ll be transferred here for trial and, I’m afraid, the hangman’s noose.”

“You are a disgrace to your German blood!”

“I’m sure Cousin Luther would agree with you,” Cronley replied. “He was deep into Himmler’s Nazi Knights of the Round Table nonsense. He even got married at Castle Wewelsburg. But on the other hand, I can sleep at night. The hangman’s noose is not in my future.”

I don’t know where all that came from, but this time, my automatic mouth was right on the money.

I could see it in his eyes.

He met Cousin Luther and he knows what went on at Wewelsburg.

What he’s worried about right now is how much Müller is going to tell me.

Which is nothing, because I’m not going to call on Müller.

And when he asks Müller what he told me, and Müller tells him he never saw me, he’ll think Müller is a liar, and Müller will start wondering what former SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Heimstadter told me to try to avoid the noose.

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