Voices of the dead

The road curved right, left, right. He lost the Mercedes through the turns and then saw it roaring toward him, closing in on the straightaway. Up ahead was the two-lane highway to Munich, running perpendicular, traffic steady, heavy. Harry knew he didn’t have another choice, he braked hard and went right onto the shoulder, backend sliding, horns honking as he cut into traffic. It was risky but it worked: the Mercedes was stopped behind him, waiting for an opening.

He got off at the next road, went right into the village of Schleissheim, pulled over on Haupstrasse and waited. Sat parked, watching people walk by and cars pass him in both directions but didn’t see a black Mercedes, and after fifteen minutes put the BMW in gear and drove thirteen kilometers back to Munich, parked at the hotel and went up to his room.

Hess was trying to make sense of what had happened. He had finally managed to calm his daughter. Thank God Elfriede was out of town. He’d never hear the end of it.

“Papa, who was that man?” Katya had said. “What is this about?”

Hess had asked himself the same questions and there were no clear answers. He had lied and said, “The man is a lunatic from the factory. The police have arrested him. Don’t worry. You will never see him again.” Hess smiled to reassure her.

“Papa, if anything happened to you I don’t know what I would do.” She hugged him and went upstairs.

An hour later, Hess was sipping a glass of single malt, his third, trying to relax. He tossed a pile of surveillance photos onto the desktop. Rausch picked them up, looking at half a dozen shots of the intruder, different angles showing him going over the wall, moving through the trees, standing behind the fence next to the tennis court. But none clearly showed his face. He was about six feet tall, dark hair, medium build. “Do you recognize him?” He stared at Rausch’s blank face, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t think so,” Rausch said.

“Are you sure?” Hess was looking at the scar on his cheek, the red line of tissue where the stitches had been.

Rausch shook his head.

“You should after what he did to you.”

“The one in the restaurant?”

“The crazy Jew from Detroit,” Hess said. He could not understand the man’s behavior, coming to his home with a gun for what had been an accident. It didn’t make sense.

“What do you want me to do?” Rausch said.

“Find him.”

11

Cordell Sims walked out of the brig at the United States Army Garrison in Heidelberg, Germany at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 10, 1971. He’d been in five days-going out of his mind-for punching out his sergeant. Cordell decided he’d had enough of this man’s army.

He’d gone before his commanding officer, Colonel Stubbs, a Korean War vet, career officer, the colonel behind his neat, spotless desk. Cordell in a chair in front of him, looking at this pale-skinned dude white as Cordell was black.

“Private Sims, when you enlisted in the United States military you swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. You swore to obey the orders of the president of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over you, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. With that you made a promise to the United States military,” Colonel said, giving him a howitzer round of army-speak, eyes on him like lasers. Man paused. “Military discipline and effectiveness is built on the foundation of obedience to orders, private.”

Colonel‚ all worked up now, had white stuff in the corners of his mouth looked like mayonnaise, made him kind of sick at his stomach. “This ain’t about defending the Constitution or questioning orders,” Cordell said. “It about racism. I think maybe I better talk to a lawyer.”

“If your situation had become acrimonious, you should have gone through proper channels and filed a complaint. Was there antilocution?”

Cordell said, “Anti-what?”

“Badmouthing.”

“He call me shitskin and nigger,” Cordell said. “That qualify?”

Colonel Stubbs opened his desk drawer, took out a folder, opened it and started to read.

“According to Article 90 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, any enlisted person who strikes his superior commissioned officer or draws or lifts up any weapon or offers violence against him while he is in the execution of his duty; or willingly disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer; shall be punished. If the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court martial may direct.” He closed the folder and glanced at Cordell. “Private Sims, I’m trying to impress upon you the consequences of your actions.”

Cordell said, “You going to put me to death ’cause Sergeant don’t like black people?”

Colonel wiped the white stuff off his mouth with his thumb and index finger, looked at it and brought his hand under the desk, probably wiped it on his pants.

“After completing an inquiry I understand there are extenuating circumstances.”