“I won’t see you tomorrow?”
“Sadly, no, I have to get out at Karlsruhe, and that stop is at the ungodly hour of four in the morning.”
“Why are you going there, Herr Wiesenthal?”
“That I cannot answer.” He took a small card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here is my address in Vienna. If ever I can be of help, please feel free to contact me. You were once so kind to my wife and me; I would like to return the favor.”
After he had left, she looked at the card. On it was printed Jewish Historical Documentation Center, Linz, Austria. Around her, waiters were clearing the tables, but she lingered for a while longer, sipping her glass of wine, an assortment of flavors. There was nothing smooth about a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. She took another sip of the grape, which tasted faintly of cherry, and remembered when Wiesenthal and his small family had shown up at the Hôtel Lutetia. How thin they all had been, and how his wife had wept when Slim had told her that no one but them had survived. Her cries had echoed with hundreds of others’ in the halls of the grand old hotel. Everyone in that building shared in her collective grief. Perhaps it had given her some comfort in knowing others had lost everything. Slim had known from experience how soon that momentary comfort would rise into a simmering rage. It was no wonder Wiesenthal had made it his life’s mission to see justice done.
The sugar from all the alcohol she’d consumed woke her up just as the train pulled into Karlsruhe station. It had been heavily bombed during the war and was in the process of being rebuilt. True to his word, Wiesenthal stepped off the train with an overnight case. Two men, one of whom she recognized immediately, greeted him. Daniel. She tried desperately to open her window to call out to him, but she couldn’t seem to unclasp the latches. She watched them walk toward the entrance of the station as the train pulled away. She knew now why Daniel would not answer her the other night. He was not using her money to help Jews immigrate to Israel; he was using it to catch ex-Nazis. She couldn’t understand why Daniel had lied to her. He knew she didn’t easily frighten. She feared he’d kept the information to himself because he was taking justice into his hands.
Angered by Daniel’s lying, Slim could not fall back to sleep. At five, she summoned a porter and ordered breakfast in her compartment. Sipping the watery coffee, she looked out her dirty window at the country passing by. After the war, Germany had been divided into four zones. The American, British, and French controlled the west, and the Soviets, the east. Most of the rubble in the cities leveled by Allied bombing had been removed brick by brick by the legions of women nicknamed the Trümmerfrauen, but when Slim exited the train in Hamelin, she walked into a station still charred by Allied bombing. A British soldier ambled over to her shyly. He could not have been more than nineteen.
“Are you Miss Moran?” he asked, barely meeting her eyes.
“I am the one and only,” she said with a quick smile. Slim had her father’s gift of making people feel at ease. He returned the smile and reached for her small overnight bag.
“Is this all you brought, miss?”
“Yes, it is, Lance Corporal,” she said, spying the two chevrons on his left shoulder, a departure from the single American one, because Queen Victoria did not like the look of just one stripe.
“If you would kindly follow me, ma’am, I’m to escort you to Hamelin Prison,” he said, pleased that his rank had been recognized.
Slim followed him to the jeep parked in front of the station. He pulled the door open, and she climbed into the front seat.
“So, tell me about Hamelin prison,” Slim asked curiously.
“We took it over in 1945, and since then we’ve used it for Nazi war criminals awaiting trial.”
“Anyone that I might have heard of?” Slim asked, intrigued.
“The Beast of Belsen,” the lance corporal said conspiratorially.
“You mean Irma Ilse Grese?” Slim, like most of the West, had followed the Nazi guard’s fifty-three-day trial in the newspaper.
“Amazing that a woman could be so violent. They said that when she wasn’t whipping or shooting the inmates, she was setting half-starved dogs on them. Do you know what the last word to her executioner was?”
“What?” Slim asked.
“Schnell.”
At the reception desk of Hamelin, Slim presented her identification to the guard. He picked up the phone, and the commandant came out and greeted her. A dapper man with ramrod-straight posture, he appeared to Slim like he was showing her around his prized kennels rather than a prison full of Nazi war criminals.
“Miss Moran, I’m going to take you to the interrogation room, where Josef Goetz will arrive shortly.” He led the way, and Slim silently thanked Marlene for making the call to Bill Donovan.
The interrogation cell contained a bare light bulb, a scarred table, and two chairs.
“What’s Goetz like as a person?” Slim asked the commandant curiously.
“Agreeable, no trouble at all. He’s also quite the Anglophile,” the commandant replied.
“An Anglophile?” Slim asked, surprised.
“Yes, you’ll see. It’s part of the reason why he was so dreadfully good at the Funkspiel. I’m assuming that you know what that is if you’re here to interrogate Goetz.”
“Yes, I am familiar with the radio game the Germans played with your country.” Slim pulled out her notebook and began to sharpen two pencils. The cell door opened, and a trim man in his early forties appeared, his eyes partially obscured behind wire-framed glasses. He shuffled in with shackled feet, wearing a green serge shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar and beltless pants. Slim noticed that his white hair was carefully parted to the side, and although there were patches of rough stubble on his neck, all in all, he was well groomed. Accompanied by two guards with guns drawn, he nodded to Slim as he sat down.
“I’d offer you my hand, Fräulein, but as you can see, it is not permitted,” he said in perfect English tinged with a British accent as he waited for her to sit down. He placed his hands flat on the table so the guards could see them, and then he sat. As if on cue, they lowered their guns and took a step back but still flanked him in case he tried anything.
“Do you know why I am here, Herr Goetz?” she asked, starting the interrogation.
“No, but the more I cooperate, the better it is for me.” He shrugged. “I don’t have anything new to say. What can I tell you that I haven’t told the British about the Funkspiel I played with them?” He smiled.
“I’m here to find out what happened to a British secret agent by the name of Marie Claire.”
Goetz looked at her, surprised. Apparently, he was not expecting this at all. “She was completely uncooperative. She tried to escape twice.”
Slim took out a packet of Gauloises. She looked at the guards who nodded their permission and then offered one to Goetz.
“Danke,” he said as he took it from her.
Pulling out the gold lighter Marlene had given her father, she snapped her thumb on the wheel and lit his cigarette. She looked into his blue, bloodshot eyes and wondered what he was going to tell her about what had happened seven years ago on the fifth floor of 84 Avenue Foch.
“I was the SD’s wireless expert,” he began, drawing in deeply as he savored the rich tobacco-laden smoke filling his lungs. He exhaled slowly. The last time he had a Gauloises, he’d been in Paris. Lost in the reverie of a French cigarette, he finally said, “And we were desperate to catch Marie Claire, as she was the last agent still transmitting from Paris. We scoured the city with wireless-detection vans in the hopes of picking up her signal . . .”
Paris, 1943
Michel had been picked up the night before, after a tip from their London contact. A night of interrogation had yielded nothing about Marie Claire’s whereabouts, and the search of his rucksack had produced only a sketchbook and some charcoal pencils.
“You like to draw? You’re good,” Goetz said as he looked through the sketchbook.
“I was an artist before the war,” Michel said.
“How about I give you a cigarette, and you draw a portrait of me for my wife?” Goetz took out a packet of Gauloises and dangled it in front of Michel.
“I’d rather something to drink.”
“All right, I will give you something to drink. I’ll bring you some water, and then you can draw me. Is that a deal?”
Michel nodded.
“I’ll be right back.” Goetz left the room and was walking down the hall when he heard the shouts of his comrades and the screams of a woman. He hurried down to the fourth floor, taking the stairs two at a time. He pushed open a door and found Johann Vogt, the chief interrogator, trying to contain an unruly blonde while his commandant Keiffer pried a wireless set from her.
“We have her,” Keiffer said, noticing Goetz. He tightened his grip on the flailing woman. “Stop struggling. You are only making this harder for yourself,” he said to her in perfect English.
The woman responded by biting Keiffer’s hand. Surprised, he jumped back, releasing her. Goetz grabbed her left arm and yanked it behind her.
“If you do not stop, I will break your arm,” Goetz said evenly. “I do not want to hurt you, but if you do not calm yourself down, someone will do it for you, and that someone will be me.” The tension in the room was palpable. If the woman didn’t stop struggling, he’d have to snap her arm, something he did not want to do. After a moment, he felt the woman’s body relax into his arms.
“We are going to give you some tea, and our friend over there”—Keiffer nodded to Vogt—“will have a short conversation with you. You have nothing to fear. If you help us, we will help you.”
Goetz felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Keiffer’s voice had a cloying, almost womanly quality to it. He was afraid of Keiffer. There was something sinister and sadistic about him.
Vogt placed the wireless set on Keiffer’s desk and took the now-docile woman away. Goetz walked over to the wireless set and ran his fingers over the knob.
“Time for a little Funkspiel, eh, Goetz?” Keiffer smiled. It was time for the radio games to begin.
Hamelin Prison, 1949
“Did Keiffer say who turned Marie Claire into the SD? A man or a woman?” Slim asked sharply. At last, she was getting somewhere.
“Goetz told me he got an anonymous call from a man,” he replied. “It was a brilliant capture. We not only got her wireless set but also her codebook, the frequencies she transmitted on, and all the messages she’d sent.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“How did you come to work at Avenue Foch?”
“I taught English before the war at a secondary school, and I was also an amateur ham-radio operator,” he replied.
“Who recruited you for the SD?” Slim asked, curious how a seemingly mild-mannered schoolteacher could be a part of the counterintelligence wing of the SS, especially since it had such a reputation for brutality.
“They needed radio operators, and I spoke English. Joining the Sicherheitsdienst was better than going to the eastern front and freezing to death.”
“So, when the British started sending in their agents, you were posted to Paris?”
“Yes, we had someone working for us in London. That’s all I know. We had to destroy the Invictus Network because our railways were being decimated by sabotage, but to do so, we needed to get Marie Claire and her wireless set. For months, wireless-detection vans combed the streets hoping to pick up a signal but came up with nothing. So you can imagine how excited I was to be staring at her wireless set and paging through her codebook. I felt like a boy on Christmas receiving a longed-for present.”
“And did Marie Claire cooperate after she was arrested?”
“Cooperate?” Goetz laughed. “She tried to escape.”
Paris, 1943
Goetz was looking through Marie Claire’s notebook when Vogt burst into his office.
“What is it?” Goetz asked, annoyed, without looking up.
“That new arrest, the woman, she wanted a bath. Keiffer said she could have one. I was drawing her bath, and the next thing I know, she’s on a ledge outside the window about to jump. Keiffer’s trying to coax her down. He wants you to ask the French guy, the new one we brought in last night, if he can persuade her not to jump.”
“She can’t jump. I need her.” Goetz ran up to the stairs to Michel’s room. He was on his side, sleeping.
“Michel, we need your help. The new agent we just picked up, the British one, Marie Claire, is about to jump—”
“Marie Claire?” Michel was suddenly awake.
“Yes, can you help us coax her off the ledge before she falls?”
“You picked up Marie Claire?” Michel asked in disbelief.
“Michel, she will die if she falls. If she helps us, we can make sure she survives; we will make sure you survive. Please, she’s too young to die.” Goetz tried to appear sympathetic, but the truth was, he couldn’t care less about her or Michel. He just needed her for the information she could provide.
“Only promise me that none of you will interrogate her for thirty-six hours.” Michel was playing for time. The more time they had, the staler the information became. Goetz knew he didn’t have the authority to promise that, but he did, anyway.
“I promise. She’s much too upset to interrogate now, anyway,” Goetz said reassuringly. “Why you British send women in to do this job is beyond me. They should be at home, bringing up children. It pains me to see a lady so young so distraught. Please help me; please help her.”
Michel got up and quickly followed Goetz out the door. They ran down the stairs two at a time to the washroom. Goetz saw a naked Marie Claire standing on a ledge shivering in the February cold. Michel pushed past both Keiffer and Vogt and murmured to the weeping woman, “Cherie, what are you doing?”
Marie Claire turned around and looked at Michel.
“Michel? They got you, too?”
“Yes, cherie, last night.” He held out his hand to her. “Marie Claire, Dr. Goetz promised me that no one is to interrogate you for thirty-six hours.”
Goetz ignored Keiffer’s scathing look and pleaded, “Marie Claire, listen to your compatriot, please.”
Michel held out his arms, and Marie Claire fell into them. Keiffer slammed the window shut. He yanked the naked woman out of Michel’s arms and threw her to Goetz and Vogt.
“I want her locked in a room prepared for interrogation,” he shouted with a sneer.
“But you promised that she would not be interrogated for thirty-six hours,” Michel pleaded with Goetz.
“You come with me.” Keiffer grabbed Michel roughly and led him out, leaving a struggling Marie Claire held down by the others.
“We are not going to hurt you. Sturmbannführer Keiffer was upset. He thought you were trying to escape. We promise to treat you like a human being. Haven’t we been kind? We gave permission for you to take a bath.” Vogt spoke softly, deliberately trying to defuse the situation. He let go of her and handed her a blanket. She took it and hugged it to her body. “Now I will bring you to your room, and I will have tea and bread delivered to you.” Vogt held out his hand, and Marie Claire took it.
As Vogt led her out, he winked at Goetz and smiled. They knew that after tea, the interrogations would begin, and so would the beatings.
Hamelin Prison, 1949
Slim tried to absorb what Goetz was saying. Was it possible that twice in one day Marie Claire had tried to commit suicide, and twice she had been saved by her captors? How desperate and scared she must’ve been to want to jump out a window.
Goetz nodded toward her packet of cigarettes. “May I?”
“Please.” She freed a cigarette from the pack and handed it to him.
“Did she reveal anything when she was being interrogated?” Slim lit his cigarette again.
“Nothing. I had her wireless set, so I thought perhaps I could get London to tell us where
the next drop of weapons and agents would be landing.”
“So you were going to start the Funkspiel with or without her?” Slim asked. “Weren’t you taking a risk transmitting without her safety code?”
“I didn’t know she had one. I had never played it before. So, you see, the radio game almost stopped before it began.”
Paris, 1943
After studying her codebook and frequencies for two days, Goetz decided he was finally ready to transmit as Marie Claire. His first transmission was to be an apology for not communicating sooner. He tapped out: Will transmit at regular times now. Have found a safe place.
Sweat trickled down his forehead as he waited for the answer. It came several hours later. Nice to hear from you, MC. Transmit again with a safety word.
Goetz slammed his fists on the desk, nearly knocking the wireless set onto the floor. He needed the safety word. Without it, he’d fail and be transferred back to Berlin, writing up pointless dossiers about would-be traitors to the Reich.
He threw down his earpiece and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, where Vogt and Keiffer were having tea and playing chess. When he told them what had happened, Keiffer looked at Vogt and said calmly, “You know what you need to do.”
Vogt stood up, brushed the crumbs from his tunic, and made his way toward Marie Claire’s cell, prepared to beat the safety word out of her.
“Maybe she’ll talk,” Goetz said, trying to sound hopeful.
Keiffer looked at Goetz and shook his head as he studied the chessboard.
“The men talk. The women say nothing. I guess that’s why Churchill is using them.” He took the knight and knocked over Vogt’s queen.
Goetz combed the notebook again. She had transmitted in Playfair cipher, a very simple encryption method, which told him that London hadn’t had much time to train her. In the back of the notebook was Marie Claire’s list of transmission times with the word privet next to it. He knew a privet was an evergreen shrub. Did it refer to a field for a drop? Did privet mean anything else? He closed his eyes and thought through the entire incident of Marie Claire’s attempted suicide. That was what they’d decided the window incident was, rather than an escape attempt. The last phrase he had heard her utter was, “Michel, they got you, too?” There had been something in her accent, a barely audible Slavic intonation. Then it dawned on him: privet was the Russian word for hello.
The Lost Spy (Slim Moran Mysteries) Page 7