“No shit!” Szerynski snapped, waving the identity card in front of his bloody face. “It is on your ausweis! Right above your photograph and across from Himmler’s signature. So, did Herr Reichsführer personally school you in mass murder?”
As head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler had, with Hitler’s encouragement, created a powerful state within the state of the Third Reich that was answerable to practically no one. It had its own secret service—the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD—and its own secret police force—the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo—and its own army—nearly a million troopers in the Waffen-SS. The SS looted everything from cash to gold dental fillings of the millions sent to their deaths in the hundreds of SS-controlled konzentrationslagers.
Despite Himmler’s dumpy body and shifty appearance—he had a small head, beady eyes, and wore round spectacles—the cold-blooded reichsführer was a force to be feared.
“I am not a mass murderer,” Schwartz said defiantly.
“Is that true?” Szerynski said. “How do you explain the boxcars of sonderkommandos sent here from the KL?”
The SS officer’s face showed surprise at the mention of the slave laborers from the konzentrationslager. And again he remained quiet as he considered his answer.
Then Schwartz shrugged. “I am merely—how do you say?—an assistant. I am nothing.”
That is bullshit!
Then why are you traveling with three SS bodyguards to visit a construction project?
“Bullshit! No SS-sturmbannführer is ‘nothing,’ you lying bastard.”
Szerynski put the muzzle of his .45 to the man’s forehead, causing him to involuntarily cross his eyes for a moment.
“And where is tonight’s train carrying sonderkommandos?” Szerynski went on
.
Schwartz did not answer.
“Where?” Szerynski pursued, applying more pressure to his forehead with the muzzle.
Schwartz, looking past the pistol at Szerynski, still gave no answer.
Szerynski then turned to Polko and in Polish ordered, “Bring the rope. We can get him to talk.”
Polko nodded, then barked an order to his men.
The SS officer apparently understood the exchange. He waved his right hand, palm out. “That won’t be necessary.”
Szerynski pulled back his .45 and met his eyes. “Good.”
Schwartz nodded once—then had a sudden coughing spasm. He brought up his hands to his mouth. Szerynski thought that there was something odd about it. Then Szerynski noticed Schwartz fingering the seam of the cuff on his left sleeve—and then tossing something into his mouth and biting hard.
What the hell?
SS-Sturmbannführer Klaus Schwartz started foaming at the mouth. His body began convulsing.
After quickly dropping the black wallet and holstering his pistol, Szerynski bent over and tried to pry open Schwartz’s mouth.
“What?” Polko said, leaning over and trying to help.
“I think he swallowed a death pill. Maybe cyanide.”
Schwartz’s body then went limp, and there came a deep gurgling from his stomach.
Szerynski let loose of Schwartz’s head, and the chunky body fell to the ground with a dull thump.
“Damn it!” Szerynski said.
Polko then casually stepped forward and with the Luger pumped four rounds of 9mm into Schwartz, two into his chest, one into his groin, and the fourth into his forehead.