Sleeper Agent by Ib Melchior Page B

hand.
    At once the girl dug into her bag and came up with the gold medal. She handed it to Tom. “ Bitte, ” she said.
    She watched him as he looked the coin over. But there was no anxiety in her large eyes. Rather a certain . . . expectation, a seeming eagerness to please her interrogator. Deliberately Tom put the coin in his pocket.
    The girl sighed. It was more a sigh of relief than of concern. The gold medal meant nothing to her. He was certain of it now. It had to be something else.
    The bag itself!
    He suddenly reached over and grabbed the bag from the startled girl. He spilled its familiar contents out onto the table. Quickly he examined the empty bag. He tested, the seams, felt the lining and ripped it open. Hidden beneath it was a folded piece of paper. He slipped it out.
    The girl had uttered not a word. Ashen-faced, she sat in her chair, an unnatural rigidity stiffening her young body, her eyes dark with fear and shock.
    Tom unfolded the paper. It was a letter-sized document. Official. It was headed, GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI GEHEIME KOMMANDOSACHE—GESTAPO . TOP SECRET !
    It was a routine document. Tom read it quickly. It dealt with the transfer of a certain SS Standartenführer, Gestapo Colonel Wolfgang Steinmetz, from Prague to Pilsen on special assignment. It was dated two weeks before.
    Tom was puzzled. It made no sense. Why would she be wcarrying a document like that? Hidden in the lining of her purse? He passed the document to Larry. He picked up the completed release form and slowly tore it in half. His eyes bored into hers. “Who is this Colonel Steinmetz?” he demanded. “Why are you carrying his transfer orders?”
    The girl’s lips trembled, but she remained silent.
    Larry pushed the Mandatory Arrest and War Criminals Wanted List across the table to Tom. His finger stabbed a name: STEINMETZ, WOLFGANG (39) ss STANDARTENFüHRER. The colonel was a wanted man. A very much wanted man!
    Tom picked up the field telephone. He cranked the handle. “This is Agent Jaeger,” he said into the mouthpiece. “CIC Detachment 212. Get me Captain Elliott, Sixteenth Field Hospital. They’re in Kemnath.”
    He waited. The girl was staring at him. She did not understand his words, but she knew it was her fate being decided.
    “Ell?” Tom spoke with sober quiet. “I need to borrow one of your nurses. . . . No, no. A body search. We’ve got a subject here, a girl. She has to be searched. Thoroughly.” He listened for a moment. He frowned. “Oh, come on, Ell. You can shake one of them loose for a few hours. I’ll send a jeep for her.”
    Again he listened, his face grim. “Okay, Ell. I got you. Thanks.” He hung up and turned to Larry. “No go.”
    “Dammit!” Larry sounded thoroughly disgusted.
    “The Twenty-sixth ran into a pocket of SS. Beat the hell out of their forward units. They can’t even spare an aspirin.” He looked at the girl sitting tensely before him. He stood up. “Let’s get on with it,” he said.
    They went over every inch of every stitch of clothing the girl possessed. Systematically they searched the girl herself. Things can be concealed in many ways. There are seven orifices in the female body. Each can afford a place of concealment. They did not miss any of them.
    The girl endured the humiliating ordeal in stoic silence. She let herself be manipulated like a manikin. She seemed totally, inexorably resigned.
    It was a distasteful, degrading experience. For all three of them. But it was not in vain. Taped to the instep of the girl’s right foot Tom found a second Kennkarte. It had the same picture, the same description, the same vital data. It was the ID of the same girl. Only the name was different It was Maria Steinmetz. Frau Wolfgang Steinmetz!
    Tom stared at the card. So that was her secret. The damning fact she had been so mortally afraid he’d uncover, so fearful that her very actions in trying to conceal it had given her away. How often that happened, he thought
    Mrs. Wolfgang