Froude drew back, looked about him as if the conversation might be overheard. “ It is illegal , Heinrich.”
“I know, Herr Froude. But in this turmoil practically everything is illegal, and we cannot just stop life’s — emergencies. My friend — Nona’s mother — is quite well-to-do. Her brother, who went to the camps — as my father was fated to do, but did not, thanks to you, Herr Froude — her brother hid gold, and Nona’s mother got dollars for it when the gold ban was declared.”
Froude looked up, his attention keen. “Times are very hard, Heinrich.”
“I know that. Nona gave me 200 U.S. dollars.”
Froude’s eyebrows raised. “That is a great deal of money.”
“Her mother is suffering a great deal of pain.”
“It takes time to prepare a cyanide pill.”
“How much time?”
“At least one hour.”
“Can I have it in one hour, Herr Froude? I would be so grateful to you, as my dear father was.”
Froude looked up, the hint of a question on his face. “Heinrich, is that 200 dollars in addition to the pharmaceutical cost of the cyanide?”
“How much is that, Herr Froude?”
He walked to the back of the counter and turned on a light. He looked at a catalogue.
“The replacement cost to me of the cyanide would be 200 marks. That would be...28 dollars.”
“I would add that drug-replacement money out of my own purse, Herr Froude. Nona, after all, is my special lady.”
“Very well. Do you wish to wait here?”
He thought to say he’d go out and come back in an hour. But that might give grounds for suspicion.
“I will stay right here.”
“Very well.”
Froude called out to his wife. He would be late in coming up, he told her.
*
There had to be a reason for Harry’s not having passed word to him. He didn’t know what it was, but Sebastian was patient, if wretchedly cold. Through the window he could see the old man at work behind the chemical counter. There was nothing to do but wait. He walked away from the window and, in a lightless corner, did some gymnastic exercises to fight the cold.
At 2230 Harry came out and signaled to Sebastian. Wordlessly they set out at a brisk pace.
“God almighty, Reinhard. The things — the thing — you come up with. If anybody traces this expedition, they’ll hang the lot of us.”
“Thanks, Harry.”
“Two hundred and twenty-eight bucks that cost us. That cost you.”
“Thanks, Harry.”
“Let’s stop and have a drink.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
October 13 , 1946
He hadn’t thought this problem through. Visits with Amadeus had been at the prisoner’s initiative, but this time it was Sebastian who wanted to go to Amadeus.
He didn’t want to risk going through Chief Landers, who was bureaucratically formal. He would risk direct contact with the warder at the prison, with whom he had exchanged civil greetings on previous visits.
He took a deep breath and rang the extension number.
“Sergeant Early, this is Lieutenant Reinhard. As requested by the prisoner Amadeus, 1500 is okay with me. I’ve checked the hour.”
“Stand by, please, sir.”
What would he say if challenged ?
He was.
“Lieutenant, we have no record of that request.”
“The prisoner told me that he would endeavor in forty-eight hours, after consulting with his attorney, to have the answers to the final questions Captain Carver wants. That makes it 1500 today. Perhaps he neglected to tell you.”
“Very well, sir.”
*
He opened his drawer and removed the top of his fountain pen. Froude’s vial was not encased in a metal container. The one-and-a-half-inch pill lay in a crystal ampoule. “This is not,” Froude had told Harry, “designed to be stored for any prolonged period — ” Harry winced at the next words “ — in the mouth or in the rectum. But of course, that does not matter, does it, Heinrich? Because your sick lady is not going to postpone ingesting the poison, from what you tell me.”
Sebastian would have to relay that information to Amadeus, yet the appearances of their exchange would need to be circumspect, entirely like those that had gone before.
Suddenly he felt a spasm of doubt: Do I really want to go through with this ?
He leaned back against the wall and summoned the picture of his father sitting in a cell at Joni, dreading the scheduled gallows. Yet his contemplated act of gratitude for what his father was spared was, for one thing, not exactly complementary. His father did not deserve to die, but was shot. Amadeus deserved to die, by whatever means. The risk in what Sebastian was doing was enormous. How, if detected, would he justify his conduct?
If only he could contrive to have his father’s counsel. He recited a prayer, one of Henrietta’s. “ Omnipotens sempiterne Deus , suscipe propitius orationem nostram .” Eternal Lord, grant us our prayer. He looked down at his hands in awe and wondered at the power that rested in them.
The irresolution ended. He would not go to lunch in the mess hall. He buried himself in the file on the background of Oberstleutnant Schnayersohn, charged with authorizing the execution of seven U.S. prisoners escaped from the Heilbronn POW camp. But the endless German affidavits and records and testimony blurred in his eyes. He went out into the hallway for a glass of water. Carver was walking by.
“Going to lunch, Sebby?”
“Actually, Captain, I — ”
“Those records I gave you aren’t so pressing you can’t eat lunch.”
The thought flashed through his mind. I must behave normally . “Well, that’s a good idea, Captain. Can I tag along?”
“Why do you think I brought the subject up?”
On no account must Amadeus figure in the lunch conversation ! But what excuse could Sebastian later have for failing to mention an impending visit?
The risk was too great. Damn . I forgot to bring over the folder Albright asked for . Saying nothing more he turned abruptly around. “See you in the mess hall, Captain.”
“Okay.”
He’d have to warn Harry ! Tell him to say, if questioned later, that Sebastian had promised to bring him a folder before lunch. A folder on what? Shit. A folder on anything . — No. Better to be specific, if asked. A folder on application requirements at the University of California at Berkeley. He had these on his desk.
He must get down to the prison cell exactly on time. In his hands would be only the steno pad. His fountain pen was in its usual place, in the pocket of his shirt.
It would be all right, he thought, if he appeared a little bit excited. After all, he was on his way to interview for the last time a man who had been sentenced to hang and would be hanged, who knows, maybe by midweek. He didn’t know the day exactly, but then neither would Sergeant Early know it.
*
At twelve minutes to three, he set out to walk the long corridors that led to the prison cell. He carried his identification and the seven-month-old order from chief prosecutor Robert Jackson authorizing special visits with the defendant Kurt Amadeus.
Outside the prison quarters he stopped by Early’s desk. “This will be the last time, I guess, Sergeant.”
“You’ve been here a lot, Lieutenant.”
“Yes. I tried everything the prosecution asked me to do.”
Sergeant Early nodded, signaled to the guard at the door, and they walked together to Amadeus’s cell.
The big key turned. The guard stepped inside.
Amadeus, sitting in his chair behind the desk, looked up abruptly as Sebastian entered. The meaning of the unexpected visit, and its implications, instantly registered on him.
He stood, as he usually did. “Good afternoon, Herr Lieutenant.”
The cell door closed. The guard stationed himself behind the visitor, his back to the wall.
Speaking
a German more rapid than usual, Sebastian said to Amadeus in a routine tone of voice: “Talk to me. It does not matter what you say. But talk volubly, as though informing me of something. I will take notes.”
“I understand.”
Amadeus began, and continued, to talk. The words did matter. What he said was that if Sebastian had the opportunity, he should convey to his younger brother what he had neglected to tell him that morning, at the terminal meeting. Tell George Friedrich that he had deported himself very well in his first experience at the bar. He permitted himself a half smile. “You can add some version of the old joke about how the operation was very successful, though the patient died.”
Sebastian let him go on, with only enough interruptions to feign an exchange.
Sebastian scribbled a few times on his pad, as he customarily did.
Just after 1520 he said in a humdrum voice, “Listen very carefully. You are not to stick it into your mouth or rectum. It is fragile. Do not use it until late in the evening. After the guard outside changes watch. I will now rise. You are, this time, to extend a hand. I will appear reluctant to take it. But I will, and when I do, you will have the vial. Avoid any unusual expressions on your face.”
“I shall not even thank you, Herr Sebastian.”
Herr Sebastian ! The killer . Calls me Mr . Sebastian .
But when the killer executed my father , he was , in his own way , extending mercy .
Sebastian motioned to the guard, who signaled to the guard outside to summon the chief in to open the door.
Kurt Amadeus stood. The guard saw him extend his hand. Sebastian paused, then took it, and turned to the door, which opened a few seconds later.
Sebastian did not look back.
Chapter Sixty
October 14 , 1946
It was just after 0100 that the knock on the door woke him. The sound of it was loud enough to wake also Albright in the other bedroom, who appeared by the door in his shorts as Sebastian, wearing pajamas, let in the caller.
It was an MP. The sergeant said simply, “You are wanted at headquarters, Lieutenant.”
“Me?” Sebastian asked. “Or Lieutenant Albright?”
“Just you, sir.”
“What is it?” He turned to Harry. “Could it be...news of my mother?”
“They wouldn’t wake you for that, not unless your mother killed the king.”
The sergeant had not moved from the door. “You can sit in there,” Sebastian pointed to their living room/dining room, “while I dress.”
“Thank you, sir. I will wait here in the hallway.”
Sebastian nodded. He closed the door, reached for shorts and trousers, and edged over to Harry. Donning his clothes he whispered, “It’s happened, Harry.”
“Don’t let them wear you down.”
“I’ve been practicing, in my mind.”
“Did the rehearsal I put you through tonight help?”
“It did.”
“Wake me when you get back. If you get back.”
“You mean I should pack a toothbrush?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what you should do. Dumb shit . Pack as if you expected to go to jail.” He smiled. And gave him a pat on the back.
Sebastian managed to return the smile as he got into his overcoat. It was cold in Nuremberg on October 14.
*
In the jeep, he tried questioning the sergeant, but finally gave up. At the big entrance of the Palace there were two photographers and several reporters. As he followed the sergeant through the gathering, Sebastian leaned over to a woman reporter lined up to use the public telephone. “What’s going on, ma’am?”
“Suicide. General Amadeus.”
“Come along, sir.”
At the end of the hall they climbed up the two flights of stairs and turned down the hall to the office marked Commander, Internal Security Detachment. Sebastian was told to sit in the waiting room. The sergeant went through the colonel’s door and closed it behind him.
Sebastian looked about for something to read. On the coffee table there was a copy of yesterday’s Stars and Stripes . He looked down the front page and tried to concentrate. There was news of the ongoing peace conference in Paris. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov was there, urging cooperation in establishing a “more democratic peace.” In a speech at the United Nations, Mrs. Roosevelt had said on the floor that she regretted the idea that “we must be frightened of the Russians.” But she also regretted that the Soviets had opposed the British-proposed article extending special protection to Rumanian Jews. At the bottom of the page, in boldfaced type, appeared the bulletin from the Allied Control Council in Berlin. The council rejected appeals by Goering, Jodl, and Keitel that they die by a firing squad rather than by hanging.
The sergeant appeared and beckoned to Sebastian to come in. It was just after 0200. The office of Colonel Burt Andrus was fetid with tobacco smoke. All four of the officials there seemed to be smoking. Sitting at various points around the long table were Colonels Andrus and Amen, Captain Carver, and Lieutenant West, who was Andrus’s assistant in charge of prison security. Colonel Andrus was speaking on the telephone. “Tell him I do not care that it is very late at night — all right, all right, very early in the morning — we require to see Mr. Amadeus immediately .” He tapped his fingers, waiting for the interpreter, spotted Sebastian standing, and motioned him to sit opposite at the table. “Yes, we will provide transportation. A jeep will be waiting for Mr. Amadeus at — ” he looked at his watch “ — at 0215. In ten minutes. He can be here five minutes later.” He banged down the receiver, issued instructions to the MP standing by, and wheeled about to face Sebastian.
“Lieutenant Reinhard. You were with General Amadeus this afternoon. Who gave you permission to see him?”
“Well, sir, I’ve had many meetings with Herr Amadeus, perhaps as many as eight in the past months. The initiative was Mr. Jackson s.”
“I have talked with Mr. Jackson. He informed me for the first time of that entirely unorthodox idea of repeated meetings with Amadeus. But he says he never intended to authorize a meeting after the defense testimony was concluded.”
“I was never told that, Colonel.”
“There is a record of a request for an interview with you by the prisoner on Friday, October 11th, and the logs show that that meeting took place. But there is no record of a petition by the prisoner to see you yesterday.”
“He asked me, sir, at the Friday meeting, to come back in two days. He said he would have information for me after his final visit with his brother.”
“What kind of information?”
“He did not say.”
“Why didn’t you consult with Captain Carver on the point?”
“I thought it routine, Colonel.”
Sebastian looked over at Carver.
“I kept Captain Carver informed of my visits, but not always on a visit-by-visit basis unless I thought there was something that the defendant — ”
“The criminal. Kurt Amadeus has been — had been — convicted.”
“ — that the criminal said that, I thought would be especially interesting to the captain.”
“You are aware that someone passed a cyanide pill to Amadeus?”
“I was not aware of that, Colonel — ”
“We have uncovered no container of the kind that would have kept the poison intact over a long period of time. Are you aware that the prisoners are searched bodily every other day?”
“I did not know that — no, sir.”
“Which means that as of Sunday morning — yesterday morning — that vial of poison was not present in the prisoner’s cell. That means that the poison was given him some time between the Sunday inspection and the prisoner’s ingestion of it — ”
“Colonel, I don’t know what has happened. All I know was what a reporter in the entrance hall said — that there had been a suicide.”
Andrus, Amen, Carver, and West all looked hard across the table at Sebastian.
> Carver spoke. “Reinhard, Amadeus took poison, cyanide we assume it was. He was dragged off to the hospital. Sometime just before midnight, the guard spotted him collapsed over the toilet. The alarm went out. After he was taken away, Colonel Andrus’s staff went over the logs and roused Sergeant Early. You were with the criminal at 1500. His brother was with him at 1130. What the colonel is saying is that we have to assume he got the poison from one of you, since it wasn’t in the cell at inspection time earlier than that.”
“Thanks for the explanation, Captain. I know nothing about the cyanide.”
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Andrus barked.
The MP opened the door. “Herr Amadeus is here, sir.”
“Already? Shit.” The colonel turned to Amen. “John, can you handle German?”
Colonel Amen shook his head.
“You, Carver?”
“No.”
“It’s almost three in the morning. We’ve got Amadeus outside. How the hell are we going to question him?”
“I’d be glad to help, if you want, Colonel,” Sebastian said.
Andrus said nothing. He sat and he fumed and lit a cigarette. Finally, “What do you think, Amen?”
“I don’t see why not. The only alternative is to wait for another interpreter, and that would mean hours of waiting.”
“Bring him in,” Andrus said.
*
George Friedrich Amadeus had heard nothing about his brother, he said after the initial question was put to him. He was dressed in the same suit he wore when he had arrived in Nuremberg last November. His tie, hastily put on, was askew, disordering his whole presence.
Colonel Amen spoke and Sebastian interpreted.
“Herr Amadeus. Your brother’s suicide, as of just a few hours ago, was done by cyanide, we assume. We have rigorously examined the relevant material and conclude that he was given the cyanide pill some time yesterday. You are one of two people who visited him yesterday. You are charged with suspicion of an attempt to obstruct justice. I demand to know if you handed the...criminal a vial of cyanide when you saw him yesterday.”
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