Little sign remained of the fabled oaks his mother used to describe so fondly. The few standing were nothing but charred stumps. Passing beneath the Brandenburg gate, Judge slowed the motorbike to a crawl. A hundred yards away sprawled the Reichstag. The massive building had been at the center of the fight for Berlin and it had paid the hangman his wages. A gargantuan web of twisted steel and crumbled walls erupted from a rubble island an entire city block in length. Ahead lay the East-West Axis, eight lanes across, and on either side, the Tiergarten, Berlin’s Central Park, a sprawling lot denuded of all vegetation. A mile along, the Victory column rose from the center of the boulevard, a soaring iron pillar one hundred feet tall fashioned from sword and cannon captured by the first Kaiser at Sedan in 1870 and topped by a statue of Samothrace, Goddess of Victory. Four flags flew from its summit: the French Tricolor, the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes and the Hammer and Sickle. American tanks, self-propelled guns and artillery were drawing up on either side of the street, cannons to the fore. He had little question about Truman’s route.
Driving, Judge began to check the faces of the men he passed. He was looking for a particular pair of eyes, brazen, too confident by half, a hard-stamped jaw, and a cruel mouth. But if he knew the face he was looking for, he didn’t know the nationality. Russian, German, Hungarian, British? No, he decided. None of the above.
Seyss needed to move about freely through Berlin. He required a maximum of freedom that was accorded only one person these days: an American soldier. An officer, to be sure. For his grand finale, Seyss wouldn’t have it any other way.
Judge steered the bike left at the Victory column, but soon found himself disoriented. Pulling over to the sidewalk, he waved down a neatly dressed gentleman — the only one around with a clean shirt, pressed trousers and hair combed with a parting. In his best colloquial German, he explained he was new in the city and that he needed directions to Wannsee. The man didn’t question his story and obliged gladly, going so far as to quiz Judge afterward on the route. When Judge had passed the impromptu exam, he asked whether the man had any idea where the American President was expected later that day.
“Ja, natürlich,” came the enthusiastic reply. “The Air Defense building on Kronprinzenalle. Just around the corner. All their greatest generals will be there. Patton, Bradley, even Eisenhower, himself. It was on Radio Berlin yesterday evening.”
Judge scooted forward a foot, the bike’s scrappy engine sputtering in time to his own agitated heart. The entire high command present at one occasion. He had little doubt Seyss would attend.
Confident now that he possessed at least a rudimentary idea of the cityscape, Judge set out to find three addresses. The first belonged to Rosenheim, Alfred Bach’s urban oasis, the others to close friends of the Bach family with whom Ingrid had proposed they might stay, the Gesslers and the Schmundts.
The western section of Berlin had escaped the war with only minor damage. Some houses were in disrepair. Shutters hung askew. Lawns grew untended, while whole façades screamed for a fresh coat of paint. The majority, however, appeared in good enough shape: narrow Wilhemine rowhouses fronted by gardens of roses and petunias and surrounded by quaint brick walls.
A Jeep was parked at the corner of Schopenhauerstrasse and Matterhornstrasse. Judge slowed his motorcycle, and as he passed, granted the two MPs on watch an officious nod. Instead of crossing through the intersection, though, he turned right onto Schopenhauerstrasse itself. He kept his speed down, letting the wheels dribble over the uneven cobblestones. He slowed further as he passed number 83, glancing to his right long enough to spot a steel helmet framed in the second floor window. Whether it was Honey or Mahoney waiting for him, they were being obvious about it. A second Jeep waited at the end of the block. Two more policemen in front and a field radio in back.
The family Gessler occupied a Teutonic castle shrunken to scale on the half-island Schwanenwerder. No Jeeps this time. No policemen playing at surveillance. But the lack of military presence only heightened Judge’s anxiety. Spanner Mullins’s first law of surveillance was to cover not just a suspect’s home but the homes or gathering points of all known associates. According to Ingrid, the Gesslers had been the Bach’s closest friends for more than thirty years. Jacob Gessler was her godfather. If Patton was interested enough in Judge’s capture to station a squad of MPs at Rosenheim, why hadn’t he put a soul here?
Judge brought the bike to a halt in front of an imposing wrought-iron gate. A black Mercedes sedan was parked in the forecourt. The car was covered with grime; its windshield a slab of mud. It hadn’t been driven for a month. His eyes fell to a puddle of oil on the forecourt not far from the front door. Nearing the gate, a section of asphalt had been washed away from the driveway. The earth was still damp from the morning showers and a single set of tire tracks was clearly visible in the mud. The tracks bled onto the main road before fading a few yards further on. Had the master of the house gone for a morning drive or had his guest?
Climbing from the motorbike, Judge unbuckled a saddlebag and withdrew a few letters, then pushed open the fence and walked up the drive. The front door opened before he had a chance to knock.
“Ja, um was geht-das? How can I help you?” The man was short and gray-haired with a clerk’s wispy mustache and a banker’s distrustful gaze. Seventy if a day, but none the weaker for it. At home on a warm summer’s day, he wore a three piece suit of navy serge.
“Guten Tag. I have a letter for your guest. Special delivery.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Personal, Herr Gessler,” said Judge, guessing. “For Herr Seyss.”
Gessler stepped onto the front steps and shut the door behind him. “Who are you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A message from the Americans,” Judge continued, his suspicions writing the script. “It is imperative I reach him.”
Gessler’s eyes opened wide. “Herr General Patton?”
Judge nodded. “Jawohl.”
Gessler stepped closer, whispering in his ear. “Herr Egon has gone to meet the Sturmbannführer at Schmundt’s home. Grossen Wannsee twenty-four.”
Schmundt, another of Ingrid’s friends!
“Herr Bach is here in Berlin?”
Gessler had gone red with excitement. “But you must hurry. He left an hour ago.”
Judge ran to the motorcycle, kickstarted the engine, and rode like hell for the suburb of Wannsee. It was a fifteen minute trek along the lake of the same name. Flicking his wrist, he checked his watch. 11:00.
Seyss is here. Seyss is in Berlin.
He repeated the words over and over, as if until now he hadn’t quite believed his own suppositions. He crossed the S-Eahn tracks, and then a small bridge, slowing to read the street sign: Grossen Wannsee.
The single lane road wound right, then left, climbing and descending a series of rolling hills. Giant oaks lined the way, a centuries-old honor guard. Judge passed through their meandering shadows as if they were reminders of his own conscience. He’d had Seyss and let him escape. He wanted to believe he’d been frustrated by his adopted humanity, that his reflexes had been blunted by the certainty — or was it just a wish? — that reason must vanquish force. More likely, it was nerves. Either way, nine men and four women were dead as a result of a moment’s hesitation. And his brother’s killer left to run wild with no telling what devastation he might yet wreak.