The greatest difficulty they had was choosing a good target area in order to kill the SS before they could kill the prisoners with them. He taught Deborah the use of selective terror tactics and to use lies, false hope and illusion. A single truck with eight Jews and four guards; one beside the driver and two in the back with their cargo. A shot to blow a tire, another to kill the driver; a burst of machine-gun fire from Deborah on the opposite side to convince them that they were surrounded, and promise the SS their lives, if they freed the prisoners. If they did, once the prisoners were well away, they'd kill the guards. Honor meant nothing to the SS, and a man or woman would be a fool to trust their word. Also, to let them live would condemn still more innocents to the slaughter. This was total war as Hitler wanted it. Death, the final solution.
Langer rested under the shelter of a giant pine; the branches heavy with snow made a natural tent to shelter them. He slept with his head on Deborah's lap. It was the hour before dawn, and she too slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.
Alsatians put their noses to the light breeze and tugged their masters forward silently. The Hundmeisters knew they were near.
Their dogs had their vocal chords cauterized to make certain there would be no giveaway barking to let their quarry know of their presence. The squad of counter-guerrilla experts was spread out in skirmishing formation, weapons ready; only the crunching of booted feet in the snow broke the silence. A distant cough brought Langer to full awakening; his eyes snapped open, alert, ready. He rolled off Deborah's lap, his movement waking her.
"Shhhh!" He looked out between the branches of their shelter. First one then another, then five and another five spread out, moving in good order, very professional. He looked to the left, then the right; on both sides the flankers had already passed their tree and were slightly behind them. The hunters were damned good.
Langer nodded his head in mental agreement with what he knew would come some day. He pulled Deborah to him, wiped a smudge from her face and kissed her with the gentleness of a brother and lover. Whispering, he told her what to do; with a finger, he touched her lips and silenced her protests. "This I must do, you can't help me now." He reached into his pack and took out a vial of powder and gave it to her. "Climb into the tree; when they go after me, come down and sprinkle this around the base where we were sleeping. I've been saving this for some time; it's cocaine mixed with dried blood. When the dogs smell it the cocaine will make them high and knock out their sense of smell for hours. Use that time to get away. Find a place and hole up; we've done all we can. As for me, don't worry. Save yourself, the war will be over soon, it's only a matter of a few months at most. Save yourself, Deborah Sapir, and remember me as one who loved you well."
He burst out of the trees, his Schmeisser cutting down three men on the right flanking squad. He hit the snow and rolled over, taking out the other two; one side was open. He turned and faced the oncoming Hundmeisters. Roaring he charged, wild-eyed, gun firing. He emptied one magazine and reloaded.
Two Hundmeisters were dead, their animals whimpering beside the bodies, their leashes around their dead masters' hands, keeping them from attacking, but Langer still kept on racing from tree to tree. A burst of fire from the SS men ripped up the bark and sent splinters stinging into the side of his face. He twisted and dodged, turning and leaping; anything to draw them away from Deborah. He made a hundred meters, then another, stopping to reload and fire. They closed in on him.
A hurtling object caught the corner of his eye and he knew it was too late to get away. The thrower had a damned good arm; it would burst in the air. The concussion grenade exploded four feet from him in the air, peppering his face and driving the darkness into him, blocking out his consciousness. His last thought before the explosion was, "Did I get them far enough away?" He had.
As soon as they took off after him, Deborah had climbed down from her perch and followed his instructions and sprinkled the ground with the cocaine and blood. The dogs that came after they handcuffed Langer were useless for two days. Deborah looked back once, the cold freezing her tears as she choked them back. He had done what he had to do. Now she must go on and do what he wanted her to do. She would live to see that every Nazi butcher was found and punished. "Shalom, Carl, Shalom."
The counter-guerrilla experts loaded their unconscious prize into the back of a Krupp three-ton six-by-four with a canvas covering to keep out the weather. Inside they made use of the chains and manacles brought along for this purpose. They had been assigned to bring in the man named Carl Langer and to bring him in alive. The orders came directly from Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. As to his companion, they could care less; they had what they had come after and according to their orders had chained him securely, hands and feet.
At Elbing they turned him over to a special escort party from the Sicherheitsdienst, tough-looking men, well fed and confident. The guerrilla fighters looked on them with some distaste. They took pride in the fact that next to the famed unit, under the command of Col. Otto Skorzeny, they were the best that the SS had to offer. The badge on their breast pocket was a sword with a serpent twisted around the blade. The SS men from Berlin had no decorations other than their written authority, which was enough to have even generals shot on the spot. They were glad to see them go.
Langer had awakened about halfway back during the bumpy three-hour ride through the forests and fields. Several times they had pulled over under the shelter of the trees to avoid the searching eyes of Russian fighters, then moved on. His whole body ached from head to toe, the concussion grenade had nearly burst his eardrums, and both eyes were swollen almost shut and red with ruptured veins. His escort said nothing to him, they had their orders, silence; no one was to talk to or question the prisoner on threat of pain of death. What he had done to bring down on him the personal wrath of the highest levels of the Gestapo was beyond their understanding. As far as they knew, he was just another turncoat traitor who had done a bit of sniping.
The SD men sat silently, one on each side of their prisoner, in the rear of the Daimler Benz 230. The driver and man riding shotgun kept their eyes on the road, but seemed to have selective blindness; an occasional body dangled from a tree or telegraph pole with a sign around its neck, reading "Collaborator" or "Coward." All this was unnoticed. They passed through several checkpoints manned by their kindred.
Who even looked at their brothers with hungry eyes, as if regretful that they had proper papers for heading to the rear. Only the sight of their manacled and chained guest gave them any sense of satisfaction. At least there was another traitorous bastard going to his just rewards. They were waved on while the headhunters checked the papers of a Luftwaffe colonel and gleefully began to slap him around, ignoring his protests of rank and privilege. The colonel was still protesting when they shot him in the neck and strung him up a freshly printed sign reading, "Traitor to the Reich." The SD loved sticking it to the officers, especially those who looked like they had come from the Junker's class. You were in serious trouble if you wore a monocle even if you had proper papers.
The civilian population of East Prussia was in flight, heading back to the borders of Germany. They knew they would be safe there, the Führer had promised it.