102
“NAY!” JENNY SHOUTS FROM the front seat. “Nay!”
As I sit there immobile, in shock, Franklin’s head resting against the front seat, blood gushing to the floorboard, Jenny races the car forward, swiping the vehicle in front of us but not stopping, speeding out onto the road.
She calls back to him frantically, but she seems to understand what has happened.
I can see the raw gash of an entry wound at the rear of Franklin’s skull.
As she speeds forward, Jenny waves her hand at me, a downward gesture, which I finally understand to be instruction to duck down.
I brace myself with a hand on the back of Jenny’s seat, as we race forward, Jenny navigating the streets of Munich expertly but chaotically, horns sounding and tires squealing.
After a moment, it crashes down on me, and I hear myself wailing. “This can’t be how this ends,” I lament. “This can’t be.”
After a while, the herky-jerkiness subsides, though we remain moving at high speed. We are on the highway. Jenny is all business now, and I realize that she’s taking me to the airport.
The car skids to a halt at departures. “Go!” she yells in English.
I look up. “The film,” I say to her. “Where is the reel?”
She turns and looks at me. “Go!”
“Film!” I shout at her. “The film?”
She yells something at me in response, but I can’t make it out.
“Go!” she finally says, tears in her eyes now. “Go, go, go!”
I push open the door and pull out my suitcase. I take one last look at Franklin, who risked his life to meet with me and died for it. Before I can even close the door, the SUV speeds away, leaving me outside departures with my suitcase.
I am still trying to process everything that just happened, my body quaking from the aftershock, when I gather myself and realize that I should probably not be out here in the open.
I should get inside, get through the security line, where it would be exceptionally difficult for anyone to follow me, much less with a weapon.
I find the nearest bathroom to look at myself. A few spatters of blood on my face, more on my long gray coat. My hands are shaking but I fold my coat and force it into my roller suitcase. I wipe my face with a wet paper towel.
I reach into my pocket for my phone and realize it’s still recording—meaning I will now have a memory of an ordeal that I will never forget, anyway. I hit the red button to stop it.
I put my hands on the bathroom sink and close my eyes, fighting back emotion.
I would never compare myself to people like Thomas Bauer or Fritz Gerlich or Erich von der Haas, who risked their lives trying to stop an evil man who caused so much death and destruction in the name of hate.
I am no hero. I am just someone viewing things from the cheap seats.
But I admit I felt a kinship with them. I was trying to do my small part to reveal more about that evil man, who to this day inspires so many people around the world.
I failed. I did my best, with whatever meager tools I had. But I failed.
“I tried,” I whisper to nobody, to Thomas Bauer, to Fritz Gerlich, to Franklin Linderman, to Monica Bauer, to my precious daughter Annabelle. “I tried.”