Untouchable | Hans Landa

Epilogue

In the middle of the woods....in Allied Territory

Whistle in the dark.

Lieutenant Raine's plan had been well planned, no doubt. The location he had chosen for the eventual dispatch of the Jew Hunter had been suitable for those kinds of performances. The woods, in Allied Territory, were remote from the people and liveliness within the town at this particular evening of Goebbels', even the Reich, most awaited premiere. At least that was what the Minister, who also happened to be the director, claimed. There were few to suspect this location, lesser to witness or hear something that might raise questions. Colonel Landa was of course a most notorious man, his sudden departure would result in a search by the SS, few would believe this was a matter of desertion. They were fully aware that the man, despite the fact that he uncommonly would participate in certain discussions concerning the new ideology, did in fact love his job. Few could claim he was not good at what he did, agreeing with the reasons for the task or not. The people who had the chance to encounter the man, would find it particularly difficult to support the theory he would just have left his high rank, and for what?

After all, Landa was a detective. He provided no own significance to what people he ought to find, but merely did the job. He was scarcely the one who would execute the actual killings, that he left for the men he had been granted, he would merely point at the target, once he had located it, which wouldn't in most cases take him very long, and they would pull the trigger for him. It was comfortable, many reasoned, a mutual agreement that served Landa just as much as it served the Reich. He would simply discover where the families, addressed as 'enemies of the state', were hiding and they would take care of the less pleasant business. Therefore, if the colonel were to disappear and never return, there would be suspicion, at least among several men of importance. However, by the search had grown so long and desperate that they would eventually reach these exact parts of the forest outside of Paris, all they would discover would be teeth and bones, difficult to notice and harder to identify.

In other words, it was an excellent location for a murder.

If a search, for whatever reasons, were to occur it wasn't the blackened teeth and yellowed bones of Hans Landa they would come find. It would be the remains of a certain American Lieutenant.

Landa's affection towards her, had indeed been welcomed by Florence, for whether she accepted it or not there had been a reason as to why the pistol in her hand had trembled as if it weighed as if it was of lead when she had aimed it towards the colonel. She had not been able to pull the trigger. He did not even appear to be frightened, where he remained, motionless and composed before her. As if the fact that the briefest gesture from her could result in a gun hole in his forehead did not concern him. He had been careless in his approach towards her advantage, it appeared that he was aware of her hesitance, aware that she would not dare. Perhaps a glimpse of unease had flashed before his eyes before he had the chance to blink the sentiment away. She had been the one who held the pistol, who had the possibility to kill, and all justification to as things were, but she had been the one who was frightened. Her hand that had trembled, Now, she cursed herself for it.

The sense of relief had, shortly after Landa's lips had withdrawn from hers and she had found herself unable to take her eyes off the still body besides them, been replaced by a resentful realization that left a bitterness in her mouth. The war was not yet over, she glanced at the elder man before her, and he would make no further attempt to change that.