The Second Objective Read online

  “What’s his condition?” asked Grannit.

  “Critical but stable. Severe blood loss, shock and hypothermia. Gunshot wounds to the right shoulder, left hip. His jawbone’s shattered, most of his teeth fractured.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “No. Won’t expect him to be for hours, if then.”

  “Well. We really need to talk to him.”

  “That may be difficult, Lieutenant. The bullet tore up his tongue, and we had to wire what was left of his jaw to a plate. I didn’t even know his name until you just told me; he didn’t have his tags.”

  Grannit looked at Carlson, frustrated. He quickly told her that Mallory had been shot and left for dead with three other men for over twenty-four hours before they’d found him. “Anything strike you as unusual about him?”

  “When I was prepping him, I found an empty ampule of morphine in his field jacket. There was sulfa on all three wounds. I found bandages compressed against the wounds on his hip and shoulder that stopped him from bleeding out.”

  “So the medics took care of him during transport,” said Grannit.

  “No, that’s my point. The medic in the ambulance said that’s how they found him.”

  “We’re the ones who found him,” said Grannit, puzzled.

  “And you didn’t notice this?”

  “No. You’re saying somebody gave him first aid before we got there?” asked Grannit.

  “That’s what the medic said,” she replied. “I don’t think the sergeant was in any shape to do it himself, do you?”

  They had reached Mallory’s cot in the recovery tent. His lower face and neck were encased in a yoke of bandage, an IV drip fed his arm, oxygen tubes straddled his nose. His face looked swollen as a football. Skogan wrote Mallory’s name on a strip of tape and fixed it to his cot.

  “Least we know his name now,” she said. “He was lucky that bullet hit him in the jaw. It was headed toward his brain.”

  “You didn’t happen to save the bullets, did you?”

  “We’re a little busy right now.”

  “It’s important. Ole’ll give you a hand,” said Grannit.

  “Where you from, Dorothy?” asked Carlson, as he walked away with her.

  “A long way from here, kiddo,” she said. “Madison, Wisconsin.”

  “No kidding. I’m from Sioux Falls.”

  Grannit moved to take a closer look at Mallory. He studied the angle of the wounds, visualizing him back at the checkpoint, trying to re-create the encounter.

  He was behind you. You turned and he fired point-blank. He thought the first shot took you out. The second and third were afterthoughts, as you fell. Then he got distracted by the other men and assumed you were dead. He killed Private Ellis, while the second shooter took care of Anderson. Then he killed the second shooter, his own man.

  Why?

  Because he was hit. Private Anderson returned fire and shot him before he went down. Chest wound from an M1. Possibly fatal, but not right away. So our man didn’t want to take a chance and leave one of his own behind.

  Two head shots. No hesitation. Kills his own man. They toss his body next to the other vics, take all their tags, placing a big bet nobody would notice this stranger among them. Drive on to Elsenborn.

  Two officers, one private driving the jeep. One lieutenant who does the talking, and probably the shooting. All the way from Twelfth Army, Bradley’s HQ in Luxembourg, almost a hundred miles south.

  So who treated Mallory’s wound before we got there?

  Grannit shook his head to stay awake and rubbed a hand over his eyes, waves of fatigue washing through him. He’d been gunning for forty-eight hours straight; it was a sudden struggle to keep his thoughts on track.

  Fuck it. The trail was cold. Now the Krauts launch this offensive. That tipped over the fucking applecart. No chance he’d ever get to the bottom of this now.

  The idea burned a hole in him. He never let go of a case while he was on the job. Why should it be any different over here? Because life was cheaper? Did that make these murders any less important?

  Vince Mallory lying there, hanging by a thread, his life shattered. Somebody did this to him. Find out who.

  No excuse not to finish the job. He’d made that promise a long time ago, and backed it up ever since.

  His mind kept working through the fatigue. Don’t let go. There’s more to this than you can see.

  He needed coffee. He went to look for some.

  Captain Hardy of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion led his small convoy into Malmédy at 7:45 A.M. They found the tent complex of the 67th Evac Hospital on the outskirts of town. Bernie pulled up outside next to a line of ambulances. Hardy stopped his jeep alongside them and barked directions.

  “Get your man squared away. Our rally point’s near the cathedral on the eastern approach.”

  “We’ll be there,” said Von Leinsdorf, snapping a salute.

  Hardy’s jeep pulled away. The medic helped Bernie guide Preuss down from the back of their Willys.

  “We’ll get him inside,” said Bernie. “Thanks for your help.”

  The medic swung onto the back of one of the convoy trucks as it drove off. Preuss stumbled and Von Leinsdorf grabbed his other arm. They propped him up between them, through the traffic congesting the front of the tent. Preuss moaned, half-conscious, in a morphine haze.

  “What the hell do we do?” asked Bernie.

  “We can’t leave him here,” said Von Leinsdorf. “For obvious reasons.”

  Two nurses stationed at the entrance trotted out to help.

  “Where’s he hit?” one of them asked.

  “Right shoulder,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “Bring him this way.”

  Holding Preuss between them, they followed the nurses into the tent, then set him down on a stretcher in a waiting area overflowing with wounded. A passing nurse kneeled down to take a look at Preuss just after he hit the canvas.

  “He’s had first aid already,” said Dorothy Skogan.

  “Medic gave us a hand on the way in,” said Von Leinsdorf. “What’s the procedure?”

  “We’ll take him, but there’s going to be a wait. There’s a lot of wounded ahead of him.”

  She stood up briskly and moved on. A young, moonfaced MP with a blond brush cut walked after her, and took a passing glance at Von Leinsdorf and Bernie. Von Leinsdorf met his eye, deep concern evident on his face, which the MP, Ole Carlson, took for worry over their wounded friend. Preuss moaned again, drifting in and out of the morphine clouds, head rocking from side to side.

  “Schiesse...Schiesse...”

  Bernie knelt down next to Preuss and laid a hand over his mouth. “Easy, easy, don’t talk.”

  “He’ll come out okay, buddy,” said Carlson.

  “Thanks,” said Bernie, lowering his head.

  Carlson walked away following the nurse. Von Leinsdorf knelt beside Bernie.

  “Take his tags,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “What?”

  “Put these on him,” he said, slipping another set of dog tags from his pocket. “Take his ID and anything else that could tie him to us.”

  Bernie reached into Preuss’s shirt and yanked off his tags as Von Leinsdorf stood watch. Bernie slipped the second set of tags into Preuss’s pocket, then pulled his forged ID card out of his jacket.

  “Where’s his lighter?” asked Von Leinsdorf, as he tucked the card away.

  “How should I know?”

  “Find it.”

  Bernie realized what he was asking. “I’m not doing that.”

  “Then wait outside.”

  “I know what you want it for; I’m not letting you do that—”

  A young admitting nurse with a clipboard walked up to them. “I need some information before we take him to the ward.”

  Von Leinsdorf reached past Bernie into Preuss’s pocket, fished out the tags they’d just put there and handed them over. “He’s not with our unit. We were driving by, he fla
gged us down and passed out in the jeep, so we brought him in.”

  The nurse examined the tags and wrote down the name. “Sergeant Vincent Mallory.”

  “See, we didn’t even know his name,” said Von Leinsdorf, continuing to rummage through Preuss’s pockets. “Maybe we can find something else to help you.” He fished out a silver Zippo lighter and a pack of cigarettes. “Don’t suppose he’ll be needing these for a while, huh?”

  “You don’t know anything else about him?”

  “You know as much as we do,” said Von Leinsdorf, pocketing the lighter.

  The nurse printed the name on a strip of white tape and attached it to the stretcher. “You did a good thing just getting him this far.” She signaled a couple of orderlies, who lifted Preuss’s stretcher and carried him toward an adjoining tent.

  “Where you taking him?” asked Bernie.

  “To prep him for surgery. If you don’t know this guy, there’s no reason to wait, it’s going to be a while.”

  The nurse moved off, following the stretcher.

  “Shit. He’s going to come out of it and start crying for his Mutter,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Von Leinsdorf looked around, thinking, before he answered.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  Von Leinsdorf followed Preuss into the next tent. As he entered, he picked up a clipboard hanging next to a bulletin board, pretending to study it as he tailed the stretcher. The orderlies set Preuss down in the busy prep center, where two dozen wounded lay waiting, separated by screens, attended by an assembly line of nurses and orderlies.

  Standing near a busy nurses’ station by the entrance to the operating theater, Von Leinsdorf watched them strip off Preuss’s jacket and shirt and plug him into an IV. Moments later, Von Leinsdorf buried his face in the clipboard when Dorothy Skogan walked up to the desk with Ole Carlson and a supervising orderly.

  “I don’t have time for this shit now,” said the orderly.

  “He just wants the bullets we pulled from the maxillofacial we did this morning,” said Dorothy.

  “We got a hundred people shot to shit, what’s the rush?” asked the orderly.

  “Criminal investigation,” said Carlson, showing his badge. “There’s a harder way to do this, you want to give that a try?”

  The orderly sighed. “Patient’s name?”

  “Mallory, Vincent Mallory. He was brought in late last night.”

  Von Leinsdorf was about to move toward Preuss when he heard that name, and stopped to listen.

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s in recovery. I’ve got to get back to work,” said Dorothy.

  “That’s fine, I can take it from here,” said Carlson. “Thanks for your help, Dorothy.”

  Skogan left for the operating theater. The orderly sifted through a pile of paperwork on the desk, looking for Mallory’s.

  “Your chances ain’t good. We usually toss everything when we scrub down,” said the orderly.

  “Anything you give us is really appreciated,” said Carlson, smiling patiently.

  Neither of them noticed Von Leinsdorf walk out of the prep tent. He stopped a passing nurse to ask: “I’m looking for a man from my unit just came out of surgery, where would he be?”

  She directed him outside to an adjoining tent. Von Leinsdorf carried the clipboard with him, sloshed through the mud, and parted the flaps of the recovery tent. Quieter in here, fewer lights, sharp contrast to the chaos in the OR. Patients rested on cots in cubicles created by curtains. Two nurses moved from one man to the next, making notations, monitoring medication. Von Leinsdorf slipped on a white coat, kept his focus on the clipboard, and drew no attention as he walked by. He glanced in each cubicle he passed, reading the names on strips of white tape attached to the foot of their cots.

  He found Mallory’s name but didn’t recognize the man on the cot as the sergeant he had shot at the checkpoint. His face was bloated by surgery and covered with bandages. Another man stood to the right of the cot, arms folded, looking down at Mallory. Broad shoulders, rangy, weathered—a “tough customer” was the slang that came to Von Leinsdorf’s mind. The man wore a regulation uniform with no insignia. That may have been the privilege of an officer, but this one had the leathery aura of a seasoned noncom. Von Leinsdorf walked past the cot, stepping in to look at a patient two beds down.

  Von Leinsdorf pieced together a scenario: Someone found Mallory where they’d left him in the woods. Alive, against all odds. He might have talked about the shooting but his condition suggested otherwise. Von Leinsdorf had learned as much as anyone alive would ever want to know about the nuances of dying. He knew exactly how to gauge death’s approach, when it was ready to make its final embrace.

  This man was hanging by a thread. A whisper would nudge him into its arms.

  The man standing over Mallory rubbed his face and headed for the exit. They nearly collided; Von Leinsdorf let him pass. As soon as the man left, Von Leinsdorf stepped back to Mallory’s cot and took Preuss’s Zippo lighter from his pocket. Opening a pocketknife he pried away the wick and flint and removed a small glass vial from the cavity. He used the knife to cut a slit in the IV bag attached to Mallory’s arm. Snapping the head off the vial, he poured the clear contents through the slit into the bag. A nurse walked into the ward. He pocketed the empty vial and walked away without looking back. Stepping out of the tent, he dropped the vial and crushed it into the mud.

  A minute later Grannit walked back into the tent with a cup of coffee, saw the man’s legs bucking and kicking, his arms twitching, head whipping from side to side, his breathing rapid and labored. He called out for the nurses and used all his weight to restrain Mallory on the cot. The man’s eyes opened, the pupils fixed and unseeing. Bright cherry-red blood streamed from his nose and mouth. By the time a trauma team arrived, Mallory’s limbs had gone rigid and he had stopped breathing. Grannit stepped back and let them work.

  Bernie sat on his helmet beside a Christmas tree near the entrance of the admitting tent. Every time an officer passed, he agonized about whether he should take him aside and identify Von Leinsdorf as a spy. Once they had the German in custody, he might be able to blend into the chaos and fade away. But the thought of a second objective held him back. Von Leinsdorf wouldn’t crack even if they tortured him, of that he was sure; he’d sneer at a firing squad while they tied the blindfold on. Bernie didn’t know how many others in their brigade had been assigned this second objective, so unless he found out what it was, he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Until then he needed Von Leinsdorf alive and in the clear. But how many others would he kill before then? That was the equation he had to live with. Now that the attack had started, trying to surrender would only get himself shot. He kept his head down, picked up a newspaper, and tried to shrink into the corner.

  It was the American service paper, Stars and Stripes. His eye was drawn to a headline on the front page.

  ALLIES BOMB IG FARBEN

  German Industrial Giant Near Frankfurt Hit Hard

  Daylight Raid Leaves Nazi War Machine Reeling

  His father still worked at IG Farben. He’d had no contact with his family since leaving for Grafenwöhr in October, at which point both his parents were alive. That suddenly seemed in doubt.

  Bernie’s gaze drifted to the improvised Christmas tree, gauze serving as tinsel, surgical clamps and scissors hung like ornaments. The meager attempt at holiday cheer, his own peril, and the growing crowd of wounded arriving for treatment brought him to the verge of tears. A nurse’s aide offered him a cup of coffee. He declined, and his forlorn look drew her sympathy.

  “Hard being away from home this time of year, isn’t it?” she asked.

  He looked up at her. She was a plain girl, early twenties, with crooked teeth and a one-sided smile.

  “I guess you could say that,” said Bernie.

  “I love Christmas. Never spent one like this before. Where you from?”

&n
bsp; “Brooklyn,” he said, surprised when it came out of his mouth.

  “Really? We sailed out of the Brooklyn yard on our way over a few weeks ago. You’ll be happy to know it’s still there. I’m from Wichita. That’s a long way from New York. Might even be farther away from it than where we are now.”

  “I don’t think you can get any farther away than this.”

  “Don’t worry now, you’ll be going home soon,” she said.

  She patted him on the back. Her kindness made it hard for him to say anything more. He spotted Von Leinsdorf coming toward him through the room, wearing a doctor’s white coat, and stood up.

  “Get in the jeep,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Keep the engine running.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Make sure you’re pointed toward the road,” he said, taking off the coat and heading back toward the prep tent.

  “I want an autopsy,” said Grannit. “I need to know what killed him.”

  “Could have been any number of things,” said the surgeon who’d worked on Mallory, not eager to oblige. “Postoperative trauma, delayed reaction to anesthesia—”

  “His original wounds were enough to kill him,” said a second doctor.

  “We were told he’d come through that surgery, that he’d recover,” said Grannit.

  “The truth is, Lieutenant, these things aren’t predictable,” said the surgeon. “We see it every hour of every day. Each man has a different breaking point. Sergeant Mallory reached his.”

  Grannit looked at the weary doctors in their blood-soaked gowns—decent men, trained to heal, not kill. He could hardly expect a different reaction: What was one more dead soldier? After watching so many young men lose their lives, what else could they do but turn up their hands?

  A passing nurse overheard the name. “Did you say Mallory?”

  “That’s right,” said Grannit.”

  “But he hasn’t even gone into surgery yet.”

  “Yes he did, he was postop.”