by Jack Higgins
Schellenberg gave him the reply he was seeking. “I'm afraid so, Reichsführer.”
Himmler said, “A little humiliation is good for the soul on occasion, but I didn't bring you here to discuss that. I have selected the two Gestapo men I wish to accompany you to Lisbon as your bodyguards.”
He spoke briefly on the internal telephone. A moment later the door opened and two men entered. They were large and powerfully built and wore rather nondescript gray suits of conventional cut. One was bald and the other wore glasses. Schellenberg recognized the type instantly, for all the Reich security services were full of them. Ex-police officers, more used to moving among criminals than anything else.
“Sturmbannführer Kleiber,” Himmler said and the one in the glasses clicked his heels. “And Sturmscharführer Sindermann. General Schellenberg, you know.”
“A pleasure, Brigadeführer.” Kleiber didn't bother to put out his hand.
“I have already explained the purpose of your visit to Lisbon to Major Kleiber,” Himmler said. “In fact, I have specially selected him for this task, as he does speak Portuguese. He was stationed at our Embassy in Lisbon with the security staff for three years before the war. His local knowledge will be most useful to your purposes.”
“I'm sure it will be,” Schellenberg said.
“And now I suggest you show Major Kleiber the Führer order under which you are acting so that he knows exactly where he stands.”
Schellenberg produced it from his wallet and passed it to Kleiber. The major read it, face expressionless, showed it to Sindermann, then handed it back.
“So you see, gentlemen. Any order you receive from General Schellenberg is an order from the Führer himself.”
“Understood, Reichsführer.”
“Excellent.” Himmler smiled up at Schellenberg. “No need for you to stay. I'm sure you have your desk to clear before leaving. Arrangements to make.”
Schellenberg withdrew, aware that it was simply a polite way of getting rid of him so that Himmler could give Kleiber his special orders. Not that it mattered, for he could well imagine what they must be.
“Are you a religious man, Kleiber?”
“Not really, Reichsführer.”
“General Schellenberg is. He had a strict Catholic upbringing. People like that tend to a rather moralistic attitude which can cloud their judgment on occasion. They see people as being more important than causes—that sort of thing.”
“I see, Reichsführer.”
“I wonder if you do? In this Winter affair, as I have explained to you, the General seems more concerned with the young woman involved than with the damage her uncle's activities have caused to the Reich. To be blunt, Kleiber, General Schellenberg is a most excellent officer. In the field of counterespionage there is probably no one in Europe to excel him. However, it seems to me that on occasion he lacks a certain conviction, and I'm not entirely happy about his attitude to the Windsor business.”
“I see, Reichsführer.”
“There are times, Kleiber, when one must be prepared to go for the throat if necessary. I'm relying on you to see that Schellenberg does. As your Reichsführer I have a right to demand your unquestioning loyalty in this.”
“You have it, Reichsführer, I swear it,” Kleiber said.
There was a knock at the door, and Heydrich entered, a smile of triumph on his face. He put the copy of the Windsor report on the desk in front of Himmler.
“Hidden in her stocking.”
Himmler examined the document. “So, Schellenberg was wrong about her?” He looked up at Kleiber. “You see what I mean?”
Heydrich opened the door of the cell and moved in. She was sitting on the edge of the bed again, fully clothed. He said, “All right. On your feet. Follow me.” She hesitated, and he lost patience, grabbing her by the arm, and pulling her out through the door. He pushed her along the white-painted corridor. It was quiet enough and seemed to stretch into infinity, and then she became aware of a dull rhythmic slapping, strangely remote as if it came from a long way away. Heydrich paused outside a cell door and slid back a metal gate. He pushed Hannah's face against it so that she had to look inside. Irene Neumann, her dress ripped to the waist, was sprawled across a bench while a couple of heavily muscled SS men beat her systematically across back and buttocks with rubber truncheons. The woman arched in agony. Berg stood watching.
Hannah came back to life then, the horror of it like a blow in the face. “You see?” Heydrich said. “All she has to do is tell us the truth about the Windsor affair. Answer a few questions about your uncle. It would appear she prefers to die.”
He pushed Hannah's face against the metal gate again, and she struggled to free herself. “No, let her go! Make them stop.”
“All right, you answer my questions for her.”
“No—I don't know anything.”
“We'll see, shall we?” He opened the door and said to Berg, “Hold it.” He turned to Hannah. “Now—each time you fail to answer, we start again. So you see, you will be the instrument of her pain.”
She was terrified now, and it showed clearly in her face.
He said, “You and your uncle—have you been working together ever since you arrived from America?”
“No,” she said.
“Then how do you explain the copy of the Windsor report?”
“It was an accident. I overheard Fräulein Neumann talking to him.” Her mind roamed desperately, seeking the right way to frame her answers. What to give and what to hold back.
“You weren't aware before then that your uncle was working against the Reich?”
There was no need to inject fear into her voice, it was already there. “I swear it.”
“And the Windsor report? Why was it secreted on your person?”
“He'd already arranged for me to return home to America via Lisbon. He thought I could take the report and show it to the Duke of Windsor.”
“You've read it? You are familiar with its contents?”
Her mind, sharpened now by every instinct of self-preservation, told her that to reply honestly to this question might make him believe her lies also.
“Yes—I memorized it.”
“On his instructions?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don't know.”
He snapped his fingers, and the truncheons started to descend again. She clutched at his arm. “It's the truth, I swear it. He ran away—left me. We didn't even have time to talk.”
And he believed her, staring down into her contorted face, aware, with a fierce anticipatory joy, of the power he held over her. He nodded to Berg. The beating stopped.
“And the Negroes—the musicians. Were they in any way involved?”
“No.”
“Good.” He turned to Berg. “Put her back in her cell. Then take the other to number three. Any medical treatment she needs. Hot bath, food. You know what to do.”
One entire anteroom was crowded with the staff of the Garden Room, who were being interrogated individually. Connie Jones, Billy Joe, and Harry Gray were sitting together in a corner, talking in low tones. They had already gone through the interrogation process and weren't too happy about it.
“I asked to see someone from the American Embassy,” Connie said, “but it didn't do any good. This whole thing stinks. All those questions about Hannah and Max.”
“The way I see it,” Harry Gray said, “we'll be lucky to make it out of here in one piece.”
Heydrich entered and walked through into the office, ignoring everyone. The young SS officer behind the desk jumped to his feet.
“Anything?” Heydrich demanded.
“All clean, Obergruppenführer.”
“And the Negroes.”
“Sturmbannführer Kleiber interrogated them and was satisfied they know nothing. They are due to leave for Madrid via Paris in the morning. I have their tickets here along with their passports.”
“Very well,” Heydrich said. “Keep them
in custody overnight, then put them on the train. Official deportation.”
“And the reasons, Obergruppenführer?”
“Associating with enemies of the state,” Heydrich said, and he turned and went out.
He found Schellenberg in his office, signing letters.
“So, Walter, you're ready to leave?”
“Just about,” Schellenberg told him. “The Reichsführer introduced me to my chaperons, by the way. A pretty pair. The excuse for one of them, Kleiber, is that he knows Lisbon, which is nonsense. The Reichsführer knows perfectly well that I've been to Lisbon on three occasions during the past two years. I have all the contacts that I need.”
Heydrich placed the heavily creased Windsor report on the desk in front of him. “Tucked into the top of her stocking. You were wrong. She was going to take it to Lisbon to the Duke for her uncle.”
“Not by design,” Schellenberg said. “I knew she was going to Lisbon. The travel agents reported the ticket booking as they always do in the case of foreign nationals. That was before the report was stolen. Before my interview with Ribbentrop.”
“You mean you think she could just be an innocent tool? Yes, that is a possibility. She assured me that the Negro musicians who work with her know nothing about the affair.”
“And you believed her?”
“They were in a room by themselves that was wired for sound for a good hour. Their conversation indicated honest bewilderment, and Kleiber interrogated them and seems satisfied. I've ordered their official deportation. It saves trouble with the Americans. After all, they are black, and there is a certain, rather tiresome liberal section of the American press that might kick up a fuss if we keep them in custody.”
“And the Winters?”
“Only naturalized Americans, Walter. German born—Jewish to boot. You should see the photos of the dead and wounded in the alley outside that club. Goebbels will have a field day if we ever need to publish. Nobody wants that kind of trouble. I think you'll find that the Americans wouldn't want to know, not with the present international situation. We are, after all, the ones in the saddle.”
“Yes, I suppose you're right,” Schellenberg said.
“I invariably am. The girl will have to be interrogated further, but I'll handle that myself.”
Schellenberg knew what that meant. Realized that Heydrich was taking a perverted pleasure in telling him, for his sexual habits were well known.
“Actually, Walter, I'll do her a favor. You bring her up for me. Talk to her like a Dutch uncle. Make her see sense. She might listen to you. It could save her a lot of grief.”
“As you say, Obergruppenführer. The Green Room?”
“But of course,” Heydrich said, smiling.
When the door of the cell was unlocked and Schellenberg entered, Hannah looked up at him without speaking.
“Have you nothing to say?” he said.
“Not to you—ever again. I made a mistake. I thought you were different, but I was a fool. What do you want, anyway?”
“Heydrich told me to bring you to him.”
She stood up wearily. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Usually.”
She followed him into the corridor. He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes to seven. Just getting dark.”
“How interesting.”
“Oh, but it is. SS organization is meticulous. Everything on time.” They had mounted the cellar steps and emerged into the foyer where two guards stood at the main door. “At precisely seven o'clock each night, the Chancellery messenger goes out through that door with dispatches for the Führer and others.”
They were climbing the staircase to the first floor now.
“Yes,” Schellenberg said. “The situation reminds me of an astonishing story I heard from Paris recently. It seemed a young woman was arrested, suspected of being a member of some French Resistance group. They took her to Gestapo Headquarters at Rue des Saussaies at the back of the Ministry of the Interior. Someone left her alone in an office for a moment. Apparently, she picked up a file and walked out. Waited near the foyer till some general or other went out of the front entrance, then followed a minute later, telling the guard she had a file the general had forgotten. Once outside, she was up the nearest alley in a flash. Not too good for the guard, of course, but that's life.”
She stared at him, eyes wide. “What kind of man are you? I don't understand?”
He opened a door at the head of the stairs adjacent to Heydrich's office and ushered her in. It was plainly furnished and painted green with a desk, some filing cabinets, and a divan against one wall. There was a clock over the far door.
“See the time,” Schellenberg whispered. “A minute to seven. Two minutes after would be about right.” He managed a smile. “I hope you can count.”
He crossed to the far door, knocked, and opened it. Heydrich was sitting behind his desk. He stood up and came across at once.
“Ah, Walter, you've brought Fräulein Winter, I see. Thank you very much. You can go now. Better get on with your packing.”
“Obergruppenführer.”
The door closed softly behind Schellenberg. Heydrich stood watching her, a slight smile on his face. He took out a cigarette case, selecting one. He had all the time in the world. He might as well savor it. Behind and above him the second hand of the clock reached seven and moved on.
Heydrich said, “Come here.” She hesitated, panic moving inside her. “I said, come here!”
She started forward, but as she got close the phone rang sharply in his office. He swore softly, turned, hurried through, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello? What is it?”
There was a heavy silence and then a muffled voice said, “Record Department?”
“No, it damn well isn't.”
He slammed down the receiver and went back into the other room. It was quite empty, the door to the outside corridor standing slightly ajar.
It just wasn't possible. Such a thing could not have happened—not to him. He wrenched open the door and went down the staircase to the foyer on the run.
“Have you seen a girl?” he demanded of the guards. “Pretty—dark-haired. Tweed skirt and a white blouse.”
“That's right, Obergruppenführer, she went out just a minute ago.”
“Without a pass? How could she?”
The guard who had been doing the talking looked scared now. “She had a file in one hand, Obergruppenführer. Asked if the Chancellery messenger had left yet? I told her he'd just gone through, and she said to catch him as there was an important dispatch for the Führer.”
Heydrich ran down the steps into Prinz Albrechtstrasse, but it was quite dark now. Of Hannah Winter, there was no sign.
He had no choice, of course. He had to put out a red alert, and then he went in search of Schellenberg, whom he found in his office dictating a last few letters to Frau Huber.
“Out!” Heydrich snarled at her. “Outside—now!”
She went, pale and frightened. Schellenberg said, “What is it?”
“She's gone, Walter. That little Jewish bitch. I went into my office to answer the phone—a minute only—when I went back, she'd cleared off.”
“But how could she get past the front door?”
“Apparently she went out just after the Chancellery messenger passed through. Told the sentry she had another urgent dispatch for him.”
Schellenberg said, “Breathtaking in its impudence, you must admit that.”
Heydrich glared at him. “Walter, if I thought for a moment that you had anything to do with this.”
“I left her in your care, Obergruppenführer,” Schellenberg said gravely. “Since then, I have been dictating letters to Frau Huber, as she will testify.”
Which was not entirely true, for when he had asked her for a cup of coffee it had taken her at least two minutes to go for the thermos she always kept in her office, ample time for him to phone Heydrich's office on the internal line.
“All right. All right,” Heydrich said. “But what am I going to say to the old man?”
There was a timid knock on the door, and Frau Huber peered in. “Well?” he demanded. “And what do you want?”
“Sorry, General, but the Reichsführer is on the telephone. He wants to see you both—now.”
Once outside, Hannah had walked quickly away, but not too quickly, expecting at any moment a voice to call her back. She turned into the first street on her right, only then starting to hurry.
It was early enough for there to be plenty of people about and a warm enough July evening for a girl in a short-sleeved blouse and skirt not to look out of place.
She had no money for a cab, of course, and had to keep walking, working her way toward the zoo, which took about forty-five minutes. Once there, she asked directions to Rehdenstrasse from the woman who kept the coffee stall outside the zoo gates, who was fat and friendly enough to give her a cup of coffee on the house while she scrawled directions on the back of a dirty menu card with a pencil stub.
Rehdenstrasse was a rather mean street of old decaying warehouses beside the River Spree. Halfway along, a sign lit by a single bulb said Hoffer Brothers Monumental Masons. The large wooden gates that gave access to the yard were locked, but not the small side gate.
She stepped inside and recoiled in horror as a row of ghostly figures loomed out of the shadows. And then she laughed, a release from nervous tension as she realized what they were. Religious images, angels and cherubim of stone, standing amid a cluster of crosses.
She moved on toward a warehouse on the other side of the yard. Light showed faintly behind a curtain at an upstairs window. There was a narrow door, which opened to her touch, and she found herself facing a flight of wooden stairs.
Quite early in the war, German counterintelligence had developed a sophisticated range of radio-bearing detection apparatus and mobile direction-finding units, able to search the major cities of Western Europe to find and eliminate the secret transmitters operated by various underground organizations.