No one knew Eleanor was going to Germany. She had briefly considered wiring the Director the news to tell him where she was going and request that he authorize clearances. But he had said to remain dark. Even if he wanted to help her, he could hardly do so anymore. And he might have told her no. Asking questions in Paris was one thing; poking around the tribunals in Germany quite another.
But not telling him meant she had no official status here, Eleanor reflected as she sat in the idling jeep before the barbed wire fence at Dachau. The camp looked exactly as it had in the photos, acres and acres of low wooden buildings, now covered in a powdery snow. The sky was heavy and gray. Eleanor could almost see the victims who had been kept here less than a year ago, bald, skeletal men, women and children in thin, striped prison garb. Those who had survived had long since been liberated, but she could almost feel their sunken eyes staring at her, demanding to know why the world had not come sooner.
“Papers,” the guard said.
Eleanor handed over the documents the Director had given her before she left London to the guard. She held her breath as he scanned them. “These expired yesterday.”
“Did they?” Eleanor acted flustered. “Oh, my, I was sure today was the twenty-seventh.” She attempted her sweetest smile. Feminine guile was an unfamiliar costume to her. “I’m sure if you check with your superior, you’ll see everything is in order,” she bluffed. The guard looked uncertainly behind him toward the massive brick building that spanned the entranceway to the camp. It was bisected by a wide arch with an ominous square tower rising above it. Dachau was a former factory site that had once produced munitions. As she had driven to the camp over the icy stone road built on peat bogs, she had marveled at the houses that flanked either side; she’d wondered what the people there had seen and known and thought during the war. What had they done about it?
The guard studied her papers, seemingly uncertain what to do. Whether he was daunted by the prospect of bothering his boss at dinnertime or the long snowy walk or leaving his post, she could not tell. “I’ll tell you what,” she offered. “Let me in and I’ll check back with you first thing in the morning and we’ll sort it out then.” Eleanor wasn’t exactly sure what she needed to do once she was inside, but she knew she had to get past the guard if she was going to find Kriegler.
“All right.” Eleanor exhaled slightly as the guard started to hand back her papers. He was going to let her through after all.
But as she turned the key in the engine, another voice called out. “Stop right there!” A man walked up to the car and opened the door. “Out please, ma’am.” His American accent was Southern, she recognized from the films. He was older than the guard, and the bars on the shoulder of his uniform signaled major, an officer’s rank. “Out,” he repeated. She complied, swatting at the cloud of cigarette smoke swirling around her head. “Never let anyone who isn’t cleared through,” he admonished the guard. “Even a good-looking woman.” Eleanor didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. “And always inspect the vehicle. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
The major stamped the snow from his boots. Though it had to be ten below freezing, he wore no coat. “I’ll take it from here.” When the guard retreated into the hut, the major returned to Eleanor. “Who are you really?”
She could see from his piercing eyes that there was no point in lying. “Eleanor Trigg.”
He scanned the papers she held out. “Well, these certainly have all the right stamps, even if they are rotten. I’m Mick Willis from the Investigations Section, War Crimes Group. I’m a haystack man.” She cocked her head, not bothering to pretend that she understood. “Nazi hunters. They call us that because we can find a needle in a haystack. I hunt down the Nazi bastards, or at least I did. Now I’m detailed here from the US Army JAG helping get them ready for trial.” His face was gruff and stubbled with a salt-and-pepper five o’clock shadow. “What is it that you want?”
“I’m British, from Special Operations Executive. I recruited and ran our agents out of London.”
“I thought they were being shut down.” His voice was keen, no-nonsense.
“Yes, but my former boss, Colonel Winslow, sent me to investigate.” She reached in her bag and pulled out the photos. “Female agents, lost with no information on their whereabouts,” she pressed. “I received a lead in France that some of them might have been sent here.” She stopped short of the real reason she had come.
He threw his cigarette down, then ground it out with his heel. “There are no victims of the Reich left here. They’ve all been sent to the DP camps. But you already knew that.” He looked at her evenly. “What is it you really want?”
Clearly, there was no fooling Mick Willis. “You have Hans Kriegler here. I want to speak with him to ask him about the girls.”
“That’s impossible. No one is allowed access to him by order of head prosecutor Charlie Denson himself.” Eleanor’s frustration rose. She’d been told no, first by the British, then the French, a dozen times or more. But the Americans were all recovery aid and good intentions; she thought she might have a shot with them.
“Look, you have to go, but there’s no way for you to get back tonight. I can offer you a bed and a meal. Then first thing tomorrow, you’re on your way. Got it?”
Eleanor opened her mouth to protest. She had no intention of leaving. She would speak with Kriegler. Nothing less would do. But she could see from Mick’s grimly set jaw that he wasn’t going to acquiesce. And a night here would give her time to figure something out. “That would be fine, thank you.”
She thought he meant for her to follow on foot, but instead he walked around to the driver’s side of the jeep. “May I?” She nodded and climbed in to the passenger side. “Our barracks are a good half mile from here,” he explained, as he navigated the perimeter of the camp. “We’re lodged in one of the former SS barracks.” She was amazed by the size and scope of the camp that unfurled before her as he drove. It was so much bigger than she’d ever imagined.
He pulled up in front of a long, wooden, single-story building which, she was relieved to note, was outside the barbed wire of the camp. “Follow me.” He led her inside. There was an office, dimly lit by a lone Anglepoise lamp on a metal desk. An overturned tin was filled with cigarette butts and ash. Someone had pinned up a rogue’s gallery of photos, Germans who were still at large. “I’m going to see about getting you a room for the night. Wait here—and don’t touch anything.”
Eleanor stood awkwardly in the middle of the space. She desperately wanted to rifle through the papers on the desk and in the files, but she didn’t dare.
A few minutes later, Mick returned. “They’ll get a rack for you. Best grab some food before the mess closes.” He started from the office without speaking and she assumed she was to follow. They entered a dining hall with long tables that reminded her of the training facility at Arisaig House. She could almost hear the laughter of the girls.