“I’ve already told you, many times, that (a) I have no idea where Burgdorf or von Dietelburg might be and (b) that if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You realize, Willi, that I’ve been ordered to offer the same deal to your pal Müller?”
“If I were a betting man, Captain Cronley, I’d wager that Standartenführer Müller’s reply will be much the same as mine.”
“Probably, but not certainly. He’s always looking on the bright side. He may decide that the sun shining on him and his family in Argentina is a more attractive prospect than it shining on an unmarked grave here.”
“I don’t think or expect you will understand this, Captain Cronley, but it’s a matter of honor.”
“Well, you heard the offer, Willi, and rejected it. I suppose you can change your mind at any time before they drop you through that hole in the gallows. I’m out of here. Father McKenna, when you’re through with Willi, raise your voice and call for the guard.”
Cronley then raised his voice, called, “Guard,” and the door opened. He looked at Dunwiddie. “Let’s go.”
As Dunwiddie stood, Cronley noticed that it caused Heimstadter discomfort.
Good, you miserable sonofabitch.
* * *
—
McKenna sat quietly for a minute before reaching in his pocket and removing a packet of Chesterfields. He offered it to Heimstadter, who motioned no with his hand, and said, “Danke. I gave up smoking.”
“I never took it up,” the priest said, putting the pack back in his pocket. “Well, Herr Heimstadter, how have they been treating you? Any complaints?”
“I don’t know if this qualifies as a complaint, but I was thinking there is something quite perverse in their concern for my health, mental and physical.”
“How so perverse?”
“They want to be absolutely sure that when they drop me through that hole in the gallows Cronley was talking about, I’m in perfect health and quite sane.”
Heimstadter looked at McKenna as if to determine his reaction to the comment.
“I suppose that could be considered ‘gallows humor,’ but frankly, Herr Heimstadter, I’ve never seen much to laugh about in such humor. Actually, I’m just about convinced that what you and others like you and Müller intend to do—bravely face the hangman’s noose—is a mortal sin.”
“How do you figure that?” Heimstadter flared. “We swore an oath before God! What we are doing is what we swore to do.”
“I’d prefer not getting into a philosophical argument with you. I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize.”
“My experience has been that people apologize only when they know they’re wrong,” Heimstadter said, smugly.
“You do want to argue, don’t you? My experience is that people want to argue only when they’re not at all sure of the validity of their position.”
“I’m absolutely sure of the validity of mine.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this oath you took was to follow Adolf Hitler, right? Everybody in the SS took that oath?”
“Follow the Führer’s orders unto death, specifically.”
“But he’s dead, isn’t he? By suicide?”
“So?”
“How can you follow the orders of a dead man?”
“His orders, his plans for a Thousand-Year Reich, did not die with him.”
“Then this is about this heretical religion he was trying to start?”