by David John
Heydrich warned you not to look.
Finally Rausch said, ‘It is not my place to know.’
‘What, that your god, your great Hitler, is nothing but a—’
Rausch dropped the dossier, moved quickly, and punched Denham in the stomach, doubling him over.
The SD man pulled Denham up by his hair to give Rausch another hit, but the Hauptsturmführer was talking now, bare-teethed, his face crimson. ‘Tonight’s report was going to state that British spy Richard Denham was shot while resisting arrest. But you have just inspired me to make you an extraordinary offer, to accept or decline as you wish.’
He jerked the barrel of the Mauser towards the open bedroom door. ‘Go in.’ Denham stepped forwards, hands half raised, still gasping for air from the punch. ‘Go.’
In the dim room Hannah slept, breathing in a deep rhythm, long hair covering half her face. A princess in a fairy tale, slumbering under an evil spell.
Rausch said to the SD man, ‘Guard the other one.’ Then he followed Denham in, still aiming the Mauser, and turned on the bedside light. ‘An experiment,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. His face was contorted with hate. ‘We’re going to test your love for your fellow human beings.’ He pointed the gun at Hannah’s temple with a straight right arm. ‘My offer is to spare you, and kill her . . .’
‘No—’ Denham’s head reeled.
‘Your life . . . for a Jew’s.’
‘Wait—’
‘I’m going to count to three. One . . .’
‘Rausch, you’ll be well rewarded if you—’
‘Two . . .’
‘You’ve got the dossier, damn it, what more do you want—’
‘Three!’
Rausch looked at where the gun touched Hannah’s temple.
‘All right, take me, not her.’
His trigger finger squeezed, and the sheets surged violently.
Staring at Denham, Rausch’s eyes were bulbous with disbelief.
A syringe was plunged deep into his neck.
He dropped the Mauser on the bed, struggled with Hannah’s fist, and pulled the needle out. The vial was empty. He’d received the full dose.
Noises bubbled from his throat as he tried to stand, alerting the SD man, who clomped in, pistol drawn.
A discharge flash-lit the small room. Denham’s ears were deafened.
The SD man’s head thumped softly as it hit the door. His body crumpled, leaving a red trail down the white gloss, the hole in his forehead small and dark, like a cleft cherry, his final expression surprise.
In Denham’s hand the Mauser felt leaden and filthy. A sharp smell of cordite filled his nostrils.
Rausch had fallen back onto the bed, still gurgling and clutching his throat.
‘You were right about one thing,’ Hannah shrieked, kneeling on the bed, a knee on either side of Rausch’s chest. ‘You—continually—under—esti—mate—us.’ Each word was punctuated with a stab of the needle—in his arm, in his shoulder.
Denham grabbed her wrist and prised the syringe from her hand, feeling all the strength in her body ebb away.
‘Enough,’ he said.
She threw her arms around him and sobbed. ‘Horrible, horrible,’ she said.
‘Martha, look.’
The pig of a man in a seersucker jacket they’d seen earlier, the one who had changed the tyre, got out of the BMW and walked towards the building’s main doors, where he was greeted by a fat woman in a nurse’s uniform.
‘Jesus, her butt’s as big as a barn.’
It was almost dark, but they could hear her explaining something urgent, gesticulating, pointing inside, and saw the alarm on the man’s face. He returned to the car, spoke for a moment to the SS driver, then ran into the clinic.
Rausch’s eyelids drooped as the drug took effect.
‘What was in that?’ Denham said.
‘Phenobarbital, I think, and a cocktail of other stuff,’ Hannah said, pulling herself together. ‘While the good Dr Pfanmüller was distracted talking to these men I took an empty syringe from the trash, put it on the tray, and started acting drowsy. He assumed he’d already given me the sedative.’
Friedl came to the door clutching his head. ‘What happened in here?’
‘Take his gun,’ Denham said to him, pointing at the dead SD man. ‘Hannah, get dressed. We’re leaving in under one minute.’
He put Rausch’s feet up on the bed and covered him with the sheets.
‘Denham . . . ,’ he said, a weak smile on his lips. Then his lids closed, and he began to snore.
‘Your parents will be arriving at any moment,’ Denham said.
‘My parents? But—’
‘I’ll explain on the way. Hurry.’
In the next room Denham put the List Dossier back into the satchel, noticing that it still contained the bogus dossier they were going to exchange at the border.
He also noticed something fallen behind the armchair. A man’s raincoat. Rausch’s coat. Quickly he went through the pockets. A half packet of Murads, a page torn from a notebook with the clinic’s scribbled address, car keys, and, in the side pocket, a book. A small, rust red book Denham had seen before. Die Gedichte von Stefan George. The Poems of Stefan George.
He opened the cover and found something that nearly made him cry out.
‘I’m ready,’ Hannah said. She had on a white blouse with a navy wool jacket.
He struggled to put the book in his jacket pocket, so violently was his hand shaking.
‘Richard, what is it?’ Friedl said.
They left the apartment, pausing only while Friedl told the guard at the reception that Hannah Liebermann was being taken for interrogation, and that the two SD still in her room were not on any account to be disturbed while they carried out a search.
‘I thought I heard a shot,’ the guard said.
‘No, you didn’t.’
Outside on the winding stone path, they began to run.
‘Oh,’ Hannah said, a longed-for relief on her face. She looked up at the sky, then closed her eyes, and Friedl took her hand. Together they left the path and started across the lawn in order to circle the main clinic building without going inside it. The grass was wet on their shoes.
A man was coming towards them. Probably one of the patients, from his clothes. He had on a seersucker jacket and hiking trousers. He was waving at them. From a hundred yards away they saw in the light of the lamps the suspicion on his face.
‘Stay calm,’ Friedl said, grabbing Hannah’s arm, as if she was being restrained.
The man was fifty feet away and shouting now. ‘Hey. What’s going on? Where are you taking her?’
‘For interrogation,’ Denham said, stopping in front of him. ‘Frankfurt Gestapo. Who are you?’
‘I was not informed. Show me your warrant disc.’ His skin looked peeled and raw, as if he’d shaved too closely.
‘I have the signed order here,’ Denham said. He reached into his inside pocket, clutched the barrel of the Mauser, and in a single movement threw out his arm and smashed the corner of the butt down onto the man’s mouth, harder than he’d ever hit anything or anyone, bludgeoning his lips and nose. The man’s head jerked backwards, and Denham struck him again.
‘Richard, stop,’ Friedl said.
The man was down, on his back, his face black with blood. For two seconds they stood aghast; then Friedl knelt and felt for the gun inside the seersucker jacket. A Walther, heavy and new. He switched the safety catch off and tossed it to Hannah, and she took it without question.
They continued across the lawn, now close to the wall of the main building, and passed a patients’ car park. It was occupied by a Duesenberg limousine, an English Bentley, and a Mercedes-Benz Denham recognised. The black Mercedes that had come to the border at Venhoven—Rausch’s car.
‘We’re taking the Mercedes.’
Denham had the keys in the door when they heard the shout—‘Halt!’
Running towards them
over the lawn was the guard from the Haus Edelweiss.
‘We’ve got to do something—to get him away from the car,’ Eleanor said, watching the grey BMW parked outside the clinic’s main doors. The young SS driver was still leaning against the car, talking to the fat nurse. ‘He’s the only one guarding Jakob and Ilse.’ She was feeling desperate now.
She glanced at her watch. It was 7:43 p.m. If her plan was to succeed they had to meet Eckener at 8:00 p.m. at the absolute latest.
‘This is a bad idea,’ Martha said as they closed the car doors and approached the BMW, their steps crunching on the gravel.
From the nurse came a hostile look as they approached. But the SS driver, a smooth-skinned, roundish lad, had his hands in his pockets and was giving them an enthusiastic grin, which Martha was returning.
And then there was a sudden whining noise, as around the corner of the building a black Mercedes-Benz approached them in low gear, careened into the forecourt, and braked parallel with the BMW, shooting a barrage of gravel at its bodywork. The SS man and nurse spun around.
Denham jumped out of the driver’s side, shouted something in German, and pointed at Jakob and Ilse, whose startled faces peered from the window of the BMW.
Caught off guard, the SS man asked Denham to repeat himself and glanced anxiously towards the clinic, evidently wondering where his chief had got to. But now the nurse was pointing at Denham as if he were a rapist, talking loudly and quickly. Eleanor caught Dr Pfanmüller’s name.
At the same moment a man in a guard’s uniform, flushed and shining with sweat and shouting, emerged from the direction the Mercedes had come from.
Eleanor and Martha were too surprised to take another step.
The nurse screamed.
The SS man fumbled in his gun holster, but then he froze. Everyone became still, too amazed to move.
Standing on the running board of the Mercedes were Friedl and Hannah aiming handguns at the SS man and the nurse. Slowly, Denham, too, drew a gun.
Friedl jumped onto the gravel, walked around to the BMW, removed its keys, and dropped them down a drain in the middle of the forecourt. Denham then opened the door of the BMW and asked Jakob and Ilse to get out. Meekly they did as they were told, looking in astonishment upon their daughter, whose hair blew gently in the mild night breeze. She did not look at them. Her face was focused on aiming the gun, her eyes lit with certainty. Friedl helped them into the back of the Mercedes.
Denham waved Eleanor and Martha back to the Hanomag.
Seconds later they were speeding after the Mercedes as it accelerated down the long driveway, through the clinic gates, and into the street. The man at the guardhouse, head switching left and right as both cars shot through, picked up his telephone.
In a side street near the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof they grabbed what possessions they had, abandoned the cars, and caught separate cabs to their destination—Rhine-Main World Airport—just as every street in the city seemed to start wailing with police sirens.
Chapter Fifty-four
In the echoing space lit by hundreds of electric lights, with nowhere to hide except for a few freight containers on wheeled carts, Eleanor felt exposed. The seven of them, Eleanor, Richard, Martha, Friedl, Jakob, Ilse, and Hannah, stood together like castaways. Between them they had only two suitcases.
On the night Eleanor had called on Hugo Eckener at the Hotel Kempinski in Berlin, he had given her an authorised vehicle pass for the customs yard. That part of the plan had worked. At the gates, guards and inspector admitted them with a nod and no questions asked.
But where was Eckener? It was 8:10 p.m. Had they missed him by minutes? A barrage of German imperatives crackled from the loudspeaker, and she guessed the Hindenburg was very close to its departure time.
Finally, when she’d convinced herself that the Gestapo were surrounding the building, the tall, plumpish figure of Eckener appeared in the far end of the cargo shed and shambled towards them. With him was a young man in a brown jumpsuit.
‘My dear lady, my dear Richard, friends, friends,’ he said. ‘No time for introductions except one: this is Ralf, who is one of us. He is a duty rigger on board this voyage. You may trust him . . .’
All eyes turned to the blond, impassive young man.
‘ . . . You will get into these empty freight containers, which have already cleared customs.’ Eckener tapped the side of his nose. ‘They will not be opened once I attach the seals but will be loaded on board directly, under my personal supervision. In about two hours’ time, once the ship has cleared Reich airspace, Ralf will open the containers, and another friend, who will make himself known to you, will install you in your own cabins as my personal guests. I must ask you please to remain in your cabins until morning, when Captain Pruss will be informed of the situation. By then it will be too late to turn the ship around. Captain Pruss does not know of our plan. We are fortunate in having only thirty-six passengers on this voyage.’
‘You’re coming, too?’ Eleanor said.
‘Alas, no, dear lady. Our leaders are keeping me out of mischief by sending me on a lecture tour. Now, please everyone hurry, hurry,’ he said, taking his watch from his waistcoat pocket.
Denham helped Jakob, Ilse, and Hannah into the first of the large containers, which had wooden hatch lids in the side. ‘We’ll be like three cigars in this box,’ Ilse said.
Friedl went to give Martha a lift up, but she said, ‘Uh-uh, not me, kid. This is where I say goodbye. I’ve got enough to explain to Dad as it is.’
‘Martha.’ Eleanor reached out and drew the woman’s petite body tightly into her arms.
Martha’s voice was tender and serious. ‘Eleanor, dear, I know I’ve been a minx at times. I guess I envied you, you know that . . .’
‘We’d never have done this without you,’ Eleanor said, welling up.
‘Now look, you’re making me cry . . . Bon voyage, darling.’
‘I’ll see you in New York.’
Jakob, Ilse, and Hannah were installed in one container. Friedl got into the other; then Eckener helped Eleanor in.
‘I waited half an hour for you,’ he said, ‘I confess I thought you hadn’t made it.’
Eleanor kissed his cheek in gratitude, and he blushed.
‘I suppose I’ll arrive in New York dressed like this,’ Friedl said. He was trying to tug the red armband off the uniform.
‘Certainly you won’t,’ Eckener said. ‘Nor shall you dine on board in it. I have arranged for dinner jackets to be left in your cabins. I hope they fit.’
He shook Denham’s hand. ‘Your father had great humanity,’ he said softly. ‘He would be proud of you today.’
Denham thanked him warmly and climbed into the container. He sat back against the side next to Eleanor, the satchel between them.
Ralf said, ‘Please—your matches, lighters, or anything that may cause a spark.’ His sombre face could not hide his shock when he was handed a Walther and two Mauser automatics.
The wooden lid came down, and Eleanor clutched Denham’s hand in the dark. They heard the sound of Ralf grappling with the seals; another stream of announcements from the loudspeaker; the tow truck’s engine starting.
Then a shout from the far end of the shed.
Denham’s heart skipped a beat.
He pushed the lid open a crack. A uniformed customs officer was approaching, escorting another man in a shabby corduroy jacket, with long grey hair tumbling over his forehead . . .
‘My God,’ Denham said.
He pushed the lid wide and jumped down from the container. The customs officer was explaining the man’s presence to Eckener in wide hand gestures. Eckener looked alarmed. Whoever he was, his presence was compromising.
‘What a business,’ Rex said, panting for breath. ‘Sorry I missed the rendezvous.’ He seized Denham’s hand. ‘Took a guess you’d be here, and I was right. Bloody plane from Berlin was delayed—just landed ten minutes ago.’
‘We all made it,’ Denham said.
‘Thank God. I was worried to death they’d tapped my phone and heard Eleanor’s call . . .’
Eleanor began to climb out, too, but Eckener stopped her. ‘No time for chitchat,’ he barked. ‘Richard, my boy, you are about to miss the departure . . .’
Denham continued to hold Rex’s hand, searching his old friend’s face as though he’d never truly seen it until now and wanted to commit it forever to his memory.
Finding himself choked, he whispered, ‘It’s yours, Rex . . .’
‘What’s that, old boy?’
‘What you came here for.’
‘I came for you.’
He dropped his friend’s hand, turned, and saw that Eleanor was holding out the satchel towards him. He opened it and put the dossier into Rex’s hands.
‘It’s a relief to be rid of it.’
‘You mean . . .’ Rex nodded, solemn and honoured.
‘Richard Denham,’ Eckener shouted. ‘We—are—leaving.’
‘Goodbye, Rex.’
Denham turned and got quickly into the container without looking back. The lid was closed and locked; the customs seals attached.
Five minutes later the two late items of cargo were loaded into the hold of the waiting airship. From the darkness of the containers they heard the shouts of the cargo loaders, the heaving of ropes, the closing of bay doors, followed by silence. A cool draught blew through narrow slits in the wooden sides. Then came the faint brass tones of ‘Deutschland über Alles’ outside on the field, followed by a muffled cheer, an infinitesimally small sway—a buoyancy—and the creaking of canvas against a vast metal structure.
‘We’re up,’ said Denham. ‘We’re flying.’ He touched Eleanor’s face in the dark and kissed her.
‘We made it,’ Friedl said, laughing, and Eleanor hugged their faces to hers in the dark.
The four great propeller engines fired and began to drone, vibrating the wooden floor of the container. They were floating away from the ground, lifting westwards towards the skies beyond the Reich.
They sat for a while, listening to the propellers and the rushing wind. It was Eleanor who broke the reverie.
‘Why did you do that?’