The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02]

by Marshall Browne

  ‘You appear very uncomfortable, mein herr. Why is that?’

  Lobe moved his hands in a nervous gesture, mumbled a response.

  ‘What did you say? Speak up please.’

  The conductor had finished his work and now also gazed suspiciously at the Swiss. Anna’s heart was beating harder. This must be stopped. She leaned forward, her face serious and helpful. ‘Mein herr, my cousin is suffering from a severe migraine. He is not himself.’

  The agent turned his eyes to Anna. ‘Your cousin? Your passport, please.’ His hand reached down. Brusquely, he took the document. He retained the doctor’s. He studied Anna’s photograph, then the other details. The train was toiling around a long bend, attenuated like a caterpillar, and the agent and conductor’s bodies were swaying together.

  The newspapers and books being read by their fellow travellers were raised higher.

  ‘Fräulein, what was your business in Berlin?’

  The sleeping child in her awoke.

  ‘I have been holidaying with my cousin.’

  ‘Ah, not business. A personal visit.’ He gave the doctor another searching glance, as if puzzled why a medical man couldn’t treat this alleged migraine. He frowned. It was a fact that holidays were still being taken by the better off. ‘What date did you arrive in Berlin?’

  Anna spoke the entry date stamped in the passport.

  ‘What is your home address?’

  Anna said the Zurich address in the passport.

  The blond giant civilian, who’d been ignoring this by-play, still absorbed in his scrutiny of the passing snow-drowned country, shifted his body in his seat and stared at the scene being enacted in the compartment, as though he’d just become aware of it.

  ‘What is the problem?’ he said in a soft voice, which belied his massive stature.

  Surprise flashed onto the agent’s face. ‘Mein herr, I will get to you in a moment.’ His voice was loaded with menace. The huge man in a remarkably fluid movement stood up, instantly towering over the agent. In a flash, a small black folder appeared in his hand, was held centimetres from the agent’s face. Anna saw the eagle and swastika embossed on it.

  The Gestapo man’s mouth sagged open, his eyes became alarmed. Then his hand shot up. ’Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler.’

  ‘At your service Herr Standartenfuehrer!’

  ‘You’ve done your duty here. Please leave. Our Swiss friends don’t need to be further inconvenienced. Nor do I.’

  ‘Immediately.’

  Thoughts were racing through Anna’s mind. Was this giant a mysterious guardian angel or had he merely been irritated by the protracted interruption to his contemplation of the countryside?

  Beside her, Doctor Lobe, similarly surprised, had renewed the mopping of his forehead with his soggy handkerchief, his eyes on the giant. But the man ignored all the glances he was receiving, was again seated and lost in the passing scene.

  ~ * ~

  43

  I

  N FREEZING PRINZ-ALBRECHT-STRASSE, snowflakes whirling around his head, Sack saw that Herr Vormann wished to keep this encounter brief; to get back to the safety of the ministry. Whether it’s any longer safe for him after this exchange is a moot point, Sack thought as he hurried back to his own office.

  This development had unfolded for him in a very fortuitous way. Now he could delve into the paperwork of the case. His face creased into a frown as he limped along the corridor to his room. Who had removed these records from their proper jurisdiction in the southern city? Von Streck? A co-conspirator? Why hadn’t they gone up in smoke? His examination of them might answer this question. And if he could find the high-powered devil’s metaphorical fingerprints on them — a breakthrough.

  Sack paused, and his throat tightened with nerves. Except, von Streck’s unmeasurable power-base lay there like a wildcard.

  He entered his office and checked his watch. Nearly eleven-thirty. The express would be racing for the Swiss frontier. There was an excellent chance he was about to arrest the Reichsbank secretary, and largely wrap up the Tea-Party case. Could he use that to take the other directly to Reich Minister Himmler? The thought came like a light being snapped on in a room.

  Usually Sack wasn’t stirred much by emotion. Excitement, euphoria, even fear, were bit players in his gambit of emotions. Duty was there to be done and he did it. But the matters he was guiding towards fruition, with steadfast thoroughness, were extremely significant and strangely interconnected. If he could peel away the onion skins to reveal the traitorous mechanism at work, his future would be gold-plated.

  He must do it!

  He laid the attaché case on his desk, removed his hat, overcoat and gloves and placed them in their accustomed places with deliberation, as if this presaged the care and gravity that he would apply to this task. He’d undertaken to return the papers to Vormann’s hands by morning, by which time he expected to have read, and copied, what he needed to support the biggest step in his life.

  He massaged the cold from his fingers and opened the attaché case. If the expression on Vormann’s face meant anything, the contents must have the quality of a powerful bomb.

  ~ * ~

  To Schmidt, the bank’s atmosphere was soaked with foreboding. However, he’d made a point of going to the canteen at 1.00 pm and eating lunch. The day would be a long one while he was locked in his waiting game. Tonight would be the last time he’d go into the president’s safe. If he could do it.

  It was hard to concentrate on the files Gott had brought him and his eyes kept straying to the wall-clock. Anna would be at the frontier in about an hour. Grimly, Schmidt tried to picture that scene: the shuffling queues, the steel-helmeted SS men, the black-garbed Gestapo agents, the swirling clouds of steam and, beyond that, Switzerland. Schmidt had never been at any frontier.

  President Funk, with his early morning and nocturnal visits, had become a ghost at the Reichsbank. Schmidt hadn’t seen him since the memorable night at his house. With a sharp pang, he remembered his early morning dream: his family’s faces in the cathedral’s dusky light — then the expression on Anna’s face as he turned away from her in the flat on Savigny Platz.

  ~ * ~

  The severe-faced frontier officials of the Third Reich, seated at their tables before the lines of mendicant departees, were to be most feared. Anna knew this. In one of the snaking queues, she thought of Frau Huber and her husband, who’d sought to bypass this ordeal and had been shot down out in the forest. What of their last moments? Frau Singer hadn’t got this far. Perhaps she’d never intended to.

  Anna glanced down at the brooch pinned to her breast. For the first time she took in its subtle design. For an instant she thought to remove it. No! It would be an act against friendship. The brooch would bring her luck. On an impulse, in the lavatory at the end of the carriage, she’d unpinned her hair. It now again fell to her shoulders, different from the passport photograph. She’d also removed her spectacles. These actions went beyond the impulsive; were instinctive.

  Up ahead, suddenly an official was shouting. A rushing clatter of boots went in that direction. A man began to yell, a woman began to scream. Most of the travellers were returning Swiss citizens and the sounds of terror and despair brought agitated looks to their faces. Instantly the queues were quieter and edgier.

  Doctor Lobe, wide-eyed, was craning to see, his taut face no longer pink but sheened with a sickly pallor under the high overhead lights. At the last moment, would he denounce her? Indecision might be the source of his nervous pressure.

  What a coward! Anna thought. The commotion up ahead had quietened. Explosively it erupted again. She threw a fearful glance around. The huge blond man was nowhere to be seen. Father, Mother, help me. In her mind’s eye the pristine snow-clad mountains of the neutral country, creeping closer in the carriage window as they’d neared the frontier, seemed to have been plucked back.

  The doctor swore under his breath. Anna put her arm through his. He half-jerked
away, and she felt his arm muscles tense. She saw what Lobe had seen. Men were coming along each queue before its head reached the seated officials, peering at the younger women, demanding passports. They’re looking for me, she thought.

  ‘Stay calm,’ the doctor muttered. Amazed, Anna shot him a look. Was he speaking to her or to himself?

  Now there was a clear view of the agent working their line. He had no photographs, looked to be using only a description. She and Lobe were nearing the head of the queue. A few paces away the agent, a ferret-like man, had stopped beside a young woman. He was asking her questions. Anna caught a few words. She was Swiss and he was being polite enough.

  Anna now also had a clear view of the participants in the disturbance. Beside one of the official tables, an elderly but powerfully built man, well-dressed and distinguished-looking, was being held by two SS guards, while a man in plain clothes questioned him in a fierce undertone. The agitated but now silent woman hovered beside the questioner.

  ‘Jews,’ a man behind Anna said to his companion.

  She was next. Anna’s heart was thudding in her breast. She dared not look at Lobe. The agent returned the passport to the Swiss woman with a slight bow. Crab-like, he moved along and, ignoring Lobe, peered at Anna through thick lens. ‘Passport, fräulein, please.’

  She held it out.

  He took it, but his eyes were on her — she realised, on the brooch. Her heartbeats seemed audible. Some of these Nazis were trained to recognise clues of Jewishness. Did it have any? Were the thoughts clicking through his mind on a deadly journey? He dropped his eyes and flipped open her passport. ‘I see you’re a Swiss citizen, fräulein.’

  ‘Yes, mein herr.’

  ‘What is the name of the well known hotel in your residential street in Zurich?’

  ‘Hotel, mein herr?’

  The agent peered at her harder. ‘Fräulein, the well known hotel —’

  The new outbreak of violence came without warning. The group beside the official desk was suddenly a knot of struggling bodies. The powerfully built traveller had shaken off the SS men’s hands. His face contorted with his fury, he staggered, then regained balance, his eyes bulging at the agent who’d just grievously insulted his wife. The agent was fast. In a flash he’d slipped on a brass knuckleduster and, drawing back his arm, punched the traveller full in the face. The well-dressed man was pole-axed. The sound of smashing teeth came a microsecond before the crunch of his skull on the concrete floor. His body flinched, then went still. His wide-open eyes stared up at the steel-fabricated ceiling.

  The woman gasped but this time didn’t scream. She was as fast as the agent. The long hat-pin suddenly in her hand was driven through the agent’s eye, deep into his brain.

  His scream and the thud of his body falling was a shocking encore to the other. He writhed on the concrete beside the man he’d killed. The SS men shrunk back, their faces sagging. But the Gestapo man questioning Anna dropped her passport, whirled and whipped out a pistol in one movement, ran back and shot the woman in the head. She slumped down, blood jetting from the hole in her temple. The queues scattered, merged, flowed across the hall. Then a wave of bodies came back like the runback down a beach, emitting a great sibilant sigh. Minutes later a semblance of order was restored, the queues reformed. Eerily quiet once more. The fallen agent had been rushed out by his colleagues. Sheets were thrown over the two Jewish corpses; a rivulet of red flowed from beneath one. Lobe had grabbed up Anna’s fallen passport.

  She and Lobe were before the seated official. The man was clearly shaken. His eyes swept Anna’s hair as though searching for a hat-pin. He shot alternate looks at her face and the open passport. ‘Fräulein, we’ll make a full search of your person —’

  Anna hardly knew what she was doing. Heedlessly, she drew on the information flooding her brain. ’You barbarous animals!’ The official’s face stiffened with shock. The voice of a fishwife from this elegant woman. She turned around, embracing the mass of silent faces with a grand gesture. ‘Thank God I am Swiss! Here we have the new Germany! A nation of blood and violence. Of fear! God help them!’The penetrative words in the educated voice from this slight blonde woman were heard by hundreds.

  The official was half up from his chair, his mouth twisting. ‘Fräulein! You will be silent!’ he screamed.

  ‘I will not!’

  Lobe, pulling at her arm, found his voice. ‘Mein herr! She has become hysterical. Is it any wonder!’ The doctor gestured wildly at the bodies. ‘We are not accustomed to this kind of horror in Switzerland.’

  The official’s face worked with fear, fury and consternation. He whirled to where a Gestapo agent had been standing but was now gone.

  Moments before, in the glass-walled observation room, the huge blond man looked down on the flustered, red-faced officer in charge of the frontier security. ‘Have your men gone mad? Stop this craziness! Get these people processed. Word of this will be all around Zurich in hours. There are probably Swiss journalists among these passengers. Get the mess tidied up,’ he snarled. ‘This country is the Reich’s lifeline!’

  Now the Gestapo chief appeared at the side of the official. ‘Process them!’ he grated. He raced along the line of seated officials. ’Process them! Get them moving!’ he shouted, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. In a moment, the thud-thud of metal stamps in quick succession was the dominant sound as the queues came to life.

  Anna walked into Switzerland on legs that seemed not her own. But her mind was working. ‘I’ve made it, Eugene, Martin . . . Franz Schmidt,’ she intoned to herself. By her side, Dr Lobe stalked like a spectre.

  ~ * ~

  44

  T

  HE VISTAS OF SNOWY LANDSCAPES framed throughout the day in the train window had been blotted out by the night. All Dr Lobe saw on his return journey was the reflection of a face that looked like it’d been staring down death, which, indeed, was the case.

  He’d felt drained of energy and emotion walking into Switzerland. Remarkably, he’d quickly recovered, bid the German woman a polite farewell, even wished her good luck, surprising them both, and hurried to catch his train.

  It had been a terrific release; getting through, shedding from his heart the deadly threats to his daughter and mother, delivered by the clerk-like man; a man whose will he’d judged to be as unyielding as tempered Krupp steel.

  Though that wasn’t the sum of his feelings. He’d been horrified by the murders at the frontier. During the past year he’d witnessed unpleasant incidents, had concluded that they were necessary in achieving the Fuehrer’s praiseworthy plans. The fate of the women he’d denounced had been shocking; however, had seemed unquestionable for traitors. He’d not thought to query the validity of their treachery. Tonight, his mother’s warnings about ‘that gang in Berlin’ had returned with a new force.

  Lobe arrived back in Berlin at 10.15 pm. The suburbs were under snow from a heavy fall. He passed through the platform’s barrier. Returning to Germany within the day hadn’t aroused the curiosity of the officials; increasing numbers of couriers were making daily return trips. Due back at the hospital at midnight, he took a taxi to his flat; he’d lie down and rest for a few hours.

  It was in the taxi that Dr Lobe took a decision. His faith in the Fuehrer’s overall socialist destiny remained, but he saw now that mistakes were being made; that the push toward that bright destiny would be tortuous. Unacceptably so - even barbarous -as the German woman had shouted. Today had been a wake-up call for him. He found that he did not regret having saved this woman. Tomorrow he’d resign from the hospital and return to Zurich and his family.

  ~ * ~

  Eugene von Beckendorf did not know which train the Swiss would return on or whether he’d return at all tonight, though he’d found out the fellow was due back on duty. His feet freezing, leaning on his stick, he waited on the steps of a house. The inhabitants were either in bed or away, and no-one troubled him.

  When the taxi drew up and the doctor aligh
ted, the Abwehr officer felt an immense relief. He couldn’t have stood here much longer. The Swiss disappeared into his building and Eugene stepped out of his cover and followed.

  Each night on returning Lobe now peered into the shadows under the stairs. All clear. He turned and inserted his key in the lock. He almost choked at the hard prod in his back.

  ‘Don’t turn around, mein herr. Open the door and enter. Move slowly.’ The voice was low and husky.

  Him again! The doctor was drenched with fear. What had gone wrong? He fumbled the door open and entered. A minute later he was permitted to turn around.

  Not the small blackmailer! Lobe, shocked and exhausted, faced the tall, blond unshaven man. The doctor’s head was swimming. A partner of the blackmailer . . . He cleared his throat. ’What is this? I’ve done what you wanted. The woman is in Switzerland.’