‘Very well.’
Now for von Streck. Sack said in a hard voice, ‘The Party functionary von Streck was deeply involved in the final stages. Then launched Herr Schmidt into the Party. What did you find out about that, mein herr?’
The blue eyes, blinked, almost in slow motion. ‘Nothing.’
Sack’s jaw tightened. ‘I remind you —’
The muscles in the thick neck rippled. ‘Nothing! That man brought the Party’s business to the bank. A bad mistake for us. The bank had always kept clear of politics. He dealt with my predecessor, Herr Wertheim. Now deceased. Perhaps there was some agreement between them. I was never told. I restricted my investigation to what had happened here and at the Swiss bank.’
Sack stared at him through narrowed eyes. Despite the lever that he held over him, he could see that Schloss wasn’t going to hazard anything further on the plenipotentiary.
The sturmbannfuehrer stood up and put on his hat. ‘Very well, mein herr. We may need your testimony. Please stand ready for that. Heil Hitler! ‘ This time the banker rose to watch him limp from the room.
Sack went directly to the bahnhof. He had to wait only a half hour for a train to Berlin. Once again an unfortunate passenger had his reserved seat cancelled. As the train drew out into the darkening afternoon, the excitement Sack had felt earlier sharpened. The trip had taken him deeper into the murky corridors of auditor Schmidt’s life. He marvelled at the farrago of last November. It may well have been motivated by revenge but the man, plainly, had also been von Streck’s instrument in Bankhaus Wertheim - and good Nazi officials had died as a result.
That link remained obscure.
Now the special plenipotentiary had put the auditor into the Reich’s financial powerhouse. Just as he knew where General-Director Schloss had been, he’d a dawning idea of where Manfred von Streck might be aiming for. Reich Minister Himmler’s exhortation: ‘Protect the Fuehrer!’ sounded in his brain, in seeming tandem with the rhythmic thudding of the train’s wheels on the rails.
~ * ~
36
T
HROUGHOUT THE MORNING Schmidt’s vision was reasonably clear. Each half hour, while working on what Herr Gott had left in his in-tray, he rested the eye as the sight blurred. He’d telephoned the specialist, who’d see him at 4.00 pm. He’d been to the lavatory and in the mirror seen that the iris of the good eye was now twice the circumference of its artificial companion.
About mid-morning, he realised he was feeling unwell. His head was throbbing painfully, and suddenly his brain was churning with questions. He leaned back in his chair and his hands tightened on its arms. Were the photographs he’d taken so far any good? How many more nights would the report remain in Funk’s safe? Could he confront the Swiss doctor with skill and courage for Anna? Could he hold off Freda Brandt and her Gestapo partner? If he failed, what would von Streck’s response be? He’d seen for himself his ruthless actions against enemies -and friends. There’d be no way back to his family if he failed this man of darkness.
Schmidt realised perspiration was drenching his body. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe. He tore at the knot in his tie to loosen it. His hands were trembling. He half rose from his chair and was swept by vertigo. Jesus Christ! What was happening to him? His fingers scrabbled at a drawer, somehow fumbled a bottle of aspirin out and tipped several into his hand and swallowed them. He almost choked, then coughed. Desperately he began to suck in air in long, urgent breaths.
Gradually, he became calmer. Still drawing in regular breaths, with caution, he tried to analyse it. He’d had panicky moments in the past but nothing like this.
The fear of losing his remaining sight.
But it was all the balls he had in the air, too.
He sat gazing at the Fuehrer’s now blurred face on the wall.
~ * ~
At 11.45 he conferred with Herr Gott. His deputy was startled at the sheaf of comments and queries he was handed by the pale and strained-looking chief auditor, and darted a new look of respect at him.
Schmidt forced himself to take lunch in the canteen. Many of the faces about him were now familiar; unlike himself, few of the senior people ate here. A deputy manager of the economics department bowed to him.
Schmidt checked the room again. No sign of Freda Brandt. Where was she eating today? Which way would she go next? His mind was back on track.
~ * ~
At 3.45 pm, Schmidt left his office and thus missed the ringing of his phone a minute later. Hurrying out of the bank, passing the vigilant and truculent Herr Wolff, Anna moved to the forefront of his mind. Last night was like a dream with all kinds of wonders in it. Was he a kind of monster that he could have these different loves in his life? Anna. Lilli. No! That was the thinking of the old Franz Schmidt before the dramatic events of last year had taken him into a universe parallel to the one that his beloved family still dwelt in.
The morning episode was purged from his system. To get Anna out of the Third Reich to safety was now what consumed him. Then he could swing back one hundred per cent onto his mission. He was waiting on Hoffmann.
Hunched into his overcoat, he glanced around the street. He wouldn’t worry about slipping through department stores today. Let his Gestapo shadow come along with him to the doctor.
~ * ~
However, the man who settled in to follow the auditor down Wilhelmstrasse was a definite worry to Major Hoffmann, who’d had no trouble spotting him. He had the papers for Schmidt; had attempted to phone from a public phone near the bank to arrange a meeting nearby. His call would’ve been couched in ambiguous words, but the switchboard told him the auditor was out of his office.
Was he leaving the bank?
Hoffmann hurried from the public phone to the Reichs-bank’s entrance. As if on cue, Schmidt had emerged between the SS sentries. Hoffmann felt a surge of relief. The next instant, a bespectacled man slipped out of a doorway opposite, and went after Schmidt. From years of close contact, the Abwehr officer knew the way the Gestapo looked and moved, could identify their leathery stink. Besides, he knew this man. They’d come across each other several times.
Following at a distance of twenty metres, Hoffmann thought hard. What did this mean? Were they hoping the auditor would lead them to Anna — to others not yet in their net? On the move, he rubbed his jaw. Perhaps it related to other covert business that Eugene was confident the auditor was engaged in; the von Streck connection. Either way, it was dangerous for them all. He snapped out of this conjecture, and walked faster after the two men. In the dwindling light a black-coated individual could vanish in a blink of an eye.
~ * ~
The professor said, ‘Herr Schmidt, you’ve a condition called iritis. It will require drops during the next few days. I’ll administer the first.’
Schmidt’s head and chin were wedged in a frame that permitted the doctor to gaze through a special lens into his eye. Earlier, the auditor had been peering at charts of letters and numbers, reading them back. The elderly professor manipulating the apparatus smelled of disinfectant. He said, ‘The lens of your eye is scarred by the infection; that’s of no consequence. We must concentrate on clearing up the inflammation.’
Schmidt experienced an overwhelming surge of relief.
The professor gestured to the auditor to sit back. When Schmidt had entered the room, the professor had scrutinised him; more so than a doctor meeting a patient for the first time, Schmidt thought. He’d given Anna’s name when he’d phoned.
The professor went to a cabinet and removed a small bottle. ‘Please hold your head back.’ Like a tiny cold bomb, the drop fell with unerring aim into the auditor’s eye. ‘Another.’ Schmidt blinked several times.
‘There. You can take this bottle.’
Schmidt stood up, and dabbed the eye with cotton wool. The professor peered at him. ‘The prosthesis is an excellent match.’
‘Professor Hesse,’ Schmidt said.
‘Ah yes, I know him.’ He nodded at the bo
ttle in the auditor’s hands. ‘Three times a day, Herr Schmidt. Come back and see me in a week.’
‘Thank you, Herr Professor.’ The man was peering harder at him, at the Party badge pinned on his suit.
‘The von Schnellings are a distinguished family; Fräulein Anna, a fine woman.’
Schmidt dropped his head, acknowledging this. A moment later, he stepped into a corridor and hurried toward the stairs.
The man lay on his back on the landing. A soft black hat and a pair of spectacles, one lens shattered, were near his head. His black leather coat was tightly buckled.
Frozen in shock, the auditor peered down with his blurred vision. It was the man he’d spotted on the tramcar Saturday night - his shadow - presumably Gestapo.
‘Herr Schmidt!’ The voice jerked him out of his daze. Down the staircase: Hoffmann! Staring up from the ground-floor foyer. ‘Come down!’
Schmidt descended the stairs. The major appeared calm. He gestured in the direction of the corpse, ‘Very unfortunate. Let’s go,’ he muttered. He hurried Schmidt toward the door. ‘Gestapo. Following you. The fellow recognised me. Might’ve made a connection.’ In the street he pressed a long envelope into the auditor’s gloved hands. His other hand gripped Schmidt’s elbow. ‘Now you’re ready to meet the Swiss. Will you still do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good!’
Schmidt’s brain clicked forward. ‘Were they executed?’
‘They were,’ the major said, and gestured for the auditor to move faster.
Although shaken by Hoffmann’s words, Schmidt quickened his pace. They were dead. Poor Anna. But nothing else could have been expected. He forced it from his mind.
A few minutes later, alone, the full significance of the agent’s death struck him. The man had been assigned to follow him. Now he was dead. How and why? — The Gestapo would be asking those questions. Hitherto, their suspicion probably was based on his meeting with Elisabeth von Bose. Though perhaps it went deeper, to von Streck. Regardless, with the death of this agent he’d have stepped fully under their spotlight.
Schmidt hurried away from the eye specialist’s building. Apparently Hoffmann had been forced to kill the man, perhaps a defensive reflex; he must surely realise the implications for Franz Schmidt. Time was running out. The packet was in his breast pocket, the gun in his overcoat pocket, and Doctor Lobe would be returning to his apartment at about 8.00 pm. He must find somewhere safe to read these papers and brief himself. Not the bank, not his flat.
~ * ~
Doctor Lobe alighted from the tramcar at a stop across the road from his building. He was weary from a ten-hour shift. Chests were his field and all day he’d been listening to them, and peering at X-ray plates. At this time of the year he was flooded with cases. His specialist degree had been taken at Oxford in 1937, and German colleagues had persuaded him to work in Berlin. It was an easy decision. Herr Hitler had fired his imagination. His dear mother had been appalled; he no longer discussed the subject with her.
His flat was on the ground floor of the narrow building he entered. His door was at the far end of the dimly lit foyer. Passing the stairs, he arrived at it, inserted the key, and yawned loudly.
‘Doctor Lobe?’
The Swiss half-turned around at the soft insistent voice, the key held in the lock, a red scarf around his neck flying out. A small, well-dressed man stepped out from the shadow beneath the stairs into the weak electric light. ‘May I speak to you for a few moments?’
The Swiss, frozen in his posture, peered at the stranger. The man’s appearance was reassuring. ‘Mein herr, what is this about? Please introduce yourself.’
‘It is Gestapo business, Herr Doctor.’
The doctor withdrew the key and faced the other. He frowned. ‘I speak only to Herr Sack.’
‘On this occasion, you’ll speak to me.’
The doctor stared now at the man, whose eyes were watering. A mild-looking fellow, small moustache. His surprise was abating, his caution was rising. Something was wrong here. ‘Please show me your identification.’
The man reached into his pocket. ‘This is my identification.’
The Swiss’s mouth fell open. He stared at the black automatic in the other’s gloved hand. ‘I don’t wish to kill you but if necessary, I’ll do so.’
The colour drained from the doctor’s face. His fatigue had vanished.
‘Open the door, mein herr. If all goes well, we’ll have a short conversation, you’ll live, and I’ll depart. The alternative is that you’ll die right here.’
Wordlessly, the Swiss turned, re-inserted the key, and opened the door. With a frightened look back, he led the way into a parlour.
‘You’ll sit there,’ Schmidt said, indicating a chair on the far side of a round table. ‘And I’ll sit here.’
Schmidt’s heart was beating hard, though his hand was steady as it aimed the pistol at the other’s chest.
The doctor sat down, his eyes bulging in their pinkish rims, staring at the weapon. Schmidt smoothed out his breathing, ordered his thoughts. He cleared his throat. ‘Herr Doctor, you’re a betrayer of good people. I refer to Fräulein Elisabeth von Bose, executed. And Frau Kapp, the same.’ The Swiss’s head jerked back on his neck as if he’d been slapped hard. ’Deaths which can be laid squarely at your door.’
The doctor fumbled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. This man wasn’t Gestapo — but he’d known that the moment the pistol had been aimed at him.
Schmidt nodded. ‘Of course, they were interrogated. In the hands of the Gestapo, we know what that means.’ He paused. ‘I could kill you without the slightest compunction.’
Colour flooded back into the Swiss’s face. His lips writhed. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. His voice came: ‘They were traitors to the Reich!’
A pained expression crossed Schmidt’s face. ‘We won’t debate that lie. Time is short - I’ll come to the reason for this meeting. One person from the group has escaped arrest. She has a Swiss passport. We require you to escort her to Zurich, as your “cousin”, returning home.’
The flesh of the doctor’s face sagged. ‘Are you mad? It’s impossible.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I will not do it.’
Schmidt regarded him. ‘I believe you’ll reconsider that.’
‘Never! Who the hell are you?’
Schmidt ignored the question, kept the pistol levelled at the man’s heart while he reached into his breast pocket and brought out the envelope. ‘Open this. You’ll find in it a copy of a letter from your old Oxford professor. Please read it.’
‘Professor Inchcape? How the devil —’
‘Read it, mein herr.’ Careful to maintain his distance, the auditor pushed the packet over the table. ‘As you’ll see, it’s the professor’s testimony to your recruitment by the English secret service while you were studying at Oxford. A fertile recruiting ground for them. To spy against the Reich. Even the amount of money you’ve been paid is detailed.’
Lobe half rose in his chair, his mouth working. He sat down promptly as the gun muzzle moved menacingly.
‘It’s a lie!’
‘Not according to this famous professor. Your tutor.’
The doctor seized the packet, tore out the document and scanned it. Fresh amazement spread over his features. He threw it down. ‘Lies! A forgery!’ His amazement and fear turned to outrage. He snarled, ‘Herr Sack will never believe this filthy lie.’
Schmidt smiled thinly. ‘You may think Herr Sack is your close colleague.’ He pointed to the document lying on the table. ‘You may deny it. However, when such information comes into their hands, the Gestapo are very disbelieving. They can’t afford to be otherwise. They use torture because they’re convinced it’s the only way to discover the truth of such matters. Yet, they don’t trust it to reveal all. So, even when they’ve been told the truth, they’re obliged to press on. To find the deeper “truth”. The truth-giver finishes up very badly damaged - or dead. The innocent, the guilty alik
e, go to their unmarked graves.’
The auditor nodded at the Swiss. ‘The category doesn’t matter.’
Lobe swallowed. ‘Sturmbannfuehrer Sack’s an intelligent man. This is preposterous. He’ll see it as such.’ The doctor’s rate of breathing was rising, his voice barely under control.
‘You delude yourself, mein herr. Sack is one of those machine-like individuals created by the state who trust no-one. You could expect an extremely hard time.’
The Swiss had locked his hands so that the knuckles protruded and shone white. Suddenly he laughed, as if he were the victim of a bad joke that would soon be revealed as such.
Schmidt moistened his lips. ‘If you don’t undertake this task— apart from that,’ he gestured again at the document, ‘there’ll be an additional price to pay.’
The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02] Page 30