Dieter brought them coffee and said that she was still sleeping. At a knock, Hagen went to answer the door.
It was another cable.
TO HAGEN RICHARD C/O REICH MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY BERLIN
FROM WUNSCH BERNARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP
DUTCH PROBLEM HAS RETURNED STOP INSIST YOU VISIT AMSTERDAM STOP REPORT CIRCUMSTANCES TO COMMITTEE ON RETURN STOP URGENT REPEAT URGENT STOP THIS MUST BE SETTLED
“What does it mean?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “Just an unhappy client. We get them now and then. This one’s fussier than most.”
“And the Committee?”
He didn’t avoid Dieter’s gaze. “Someone’s complained about me to the governing body of the Exchange. It’s nothing, Dieter. It’s just another problem. I get them all the time.”
Three
THE MORNING EXPRESS FROM Berlin was right on time. At Cologne, Hagen changed trains, catching the popular Rheingold Express as it went north, back down the valley of the Rhine to Emmerich and the Dutch border.
As usual at this time of year, the train was crowded. People from all walks of life used the express, which passed daily through Germany from Amsterdam to Basel and return.
Moving through the corridors was difficult; finding a compartment with any space at all, nigh on impossible.
There was so much laughter, so much excitement, but then Hagen noticed a corner space by a window. Using German, he asked if it was free. A woman and her son, a young Wehrmacht corporal on his way north to a border posting, a corpulent, cigar-smoking Bavarian—all eyes momentarily lifted to him, no laughter now.
Squeezing into the seat by the window, Hagen found himself looking into the haunted, unsettling eyes of the boy.
The train began to move. The boy turned away. Elsewhere the sounds of holiday-makers filled the corridor. Here there was only a strained and uncomfortable silence.
Hagen shut his eyes. Dear God, he felt tired. Malaria? he wondered, cursing the person or persons who had lifted his pills. Would the Gestapo be waiting for him at the border? Would they let him go? Increasingly the strain was beginning to tell. He’d have to find out what had happened with the Dutchman. He’d have to deal with it.
With a jolt, the train stopped and he flung his eyes open only to find himself staring into those of the boy.
The train began to move again. A switch perhaps. Nothing more …
Realizing what must be troubling the boy, he raised his left hand and said in German, “I lost my fingers in an explosion. Some sticks of dynamite.”
With an effort of will that was supreme, the boy held his gaze and remained silent.
Puzzled by his response, Hagen glanced at the mother. The woman was exceedingly well dressed.
He looked to the time-ravaged hausfrau who sat next her by the compartment door, endlessly knitting a bulky turtleneck sweater. The Bavarian turned a page of his newspaper. The corporal cleared his throat. The boy took to looking out the window, the mother to twisting and untwisting the diamond ring on her finger, a Jager of at least four carats, a beautiful thing that didn’t match the plain gold wedding band at all.
Sensing his scrutiny, she became even more nervous. The twisting increased. The fingers interlaced, unlaced, and then the twisting began again.
She didn’t have a chance. They’d catch her for sure.
He turned away to stare emptily out the window. Against the movement of the wheels he could hear the hausfrau’s knitting needles. He thought of the U-boats he’d seen under construction in the shipyards at Kiel. Type IIs, still some of those, the small, coastal submarines of 250 tons. But alongside these there had been the Type VIIs, a concentration of effort now in making the latest in the line of 750-ton submarines that were ideally suited to the open ocean and the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic.
The Germans had to be planning a war on such a scale as to make the 1914–18 conflict appear tame. But what had prompted them to do this? What made the hausfrau knit as if she were damned?
The train passed the shade of a water tower. Reflections momentarily revealed the compartment. The boy’s mother was staring at him. Hands in her lap. Still at last.
He thought of the East African Rift Valley, of other train trips, of his father shouting bits of history, the volcanic origins of the terrain, the shooting, the blacks … all of it as if to a friend, an equal, while his mother had sat like a thorn between them.
The woman dropped her eyes, realizing he was looking at her. Hagen turned to the boy. “We’ll soon see the windmills on the flats across the river. Did you come this way before, or is it your first trip along the Rhine?”
The mother chose her words carefully. “He can’t hear you, sir. The boy is deaf.”
Hagen said he was sorry to hear this, and asked if they’d been to a clinic in Switzerland.
“Yes. The doctors say there is nothing that can be done. My son was deaf at birth.”
Dee Dee’s eyes had held that look. “I was deafened once myself—at about your son’s age, but only for a week or so. I can’t remember much.”
“An accident?” she asked.
Glad to bring her out of herself a little, he smiled warmly. “My greatest fear was that I’d never be able to hear again. Then one morning I awoke to the sound of vultures.”
He had said it so good-naturedly, yet still she couldn’t help blanching. “You must have been very happy.”
“I was. I thought they were feeding on me, and when I found they weren’t, I realized I could hear. But tell me, which clinic were you at?”
He could laugh at himself; he must be all right. “The Friedrich Liebermann Clinic in Zurich. They are specialists in matters of the inner ear.”
She had said it well enough, and that was to her credit. But still he wondered what she was hiding.
He knows my son isn’t deaf, she told herself. He knows we are lying.
When she carried on the conversation, he listened again to her accent and tried to place it. The east, along the Polish border. East Prussia, yes. A long way from home. “And yourself?” she asked. “Where did your parents take you for treatment?”
The smile he gave put her momentarily at ease, but his words were troubling. “It happened in the Belgian Congo, so there was no treatment. Once my mother discovered that I could hear again, she took me to America.”
And the father? she wanted to ask, but was too polite. “Would she not have done so otherwise?”
Again he smiled, a little sadly this time. “My father went off to war. It was the fall of 1917. The Americans were supplying the Congo mines by then, so it wasn’t that hard to book a passage.”
She gave an understanding nod, then went right back to staring at her hands. Again the diamond solitaire was twisted. Again he was left to himself.
The corporal drifted off to sleep. The Bavarian folded his newspaper. The hausfrau with the knitting never stopped.
At the border, under the guise of searching for a murderer, everyone was ordered off the train. For an instant their eyes met, then one by one they each got up.
He wondered if he’d ever see the woman and her son again.
The lines moved slowly. They stretched the length of the platform, and in the heat of the sun many of the passengers shed their jackets.
Beside each person, couple or group was their luggage. Along both sides of the tracks and at both ends of the train, flanking soldiers in gray-green uniforms stood at the ready with their rifles. Between them and the passengers were the strolling dark black uniforms of the Orpo, the Uniformed Municipal Police.
A murderer … All up and down the lines the whispers continued. Those who had joked and played the fool were silent. Those like the Bavarian in a nearby lane were openly perturbed. Most, however, were confused or cowed. Some were desperate.
A murderer …
Hagen moved a pace ahead, dragging his cases along the paving stones. A black Mercedes touring car was parked beside the station house. The
driver, a corporal in the SS, polished the chrome.
A murderer …
There wasn’t a sign of the woman and her son. Now he regretted having put as much distance between himself and them as he could. Now he wished with all his heart the two of them could escape.
They were searching everything—all the baggage, everyone’s papers, their pockets even. This became all too clear when he reached the station house.
He caught sight of the woman and her son down at the far end of the building. Her suitcases were open on the counter. A fat, grumbling customs inspector was pawing through her things. Taking his time, the man frequently paused to wipe the sweat from his brow or tip the hat he wore a little farther back on his head as he looked around.
“Herr Hagen …”
“Oh, sorry. I guess, like everyone else, I’m tired. Haven’t you caught him yet?”
“Would you come this way, please?”
People glanced at him, then averted their eyes. He was shown into a room. Behind the plain oak desk there was a chair; on the wall behind it, a portrait of the Führer. A cheap, green-shaded lamp stood on a corner of the desk. There was an empty chair before it and then, some distance from this, a third chair. Empty also. No other doors to the room. No windows, either. No one else but himself.
The door closed behind him. He set his cases down and stood there waiting once again.
Half an hour later he was still waiting. A murderer …
A distracted Otto Krantz opened the cigarette case and held it across the desk. Shreds of tobacco lay in one corner. Behind the clip, the cigarettes were separated by the bullet dent.
Hagen shook his head and waited for the questions to begin.
Lost in thought, Krantz closed the case but left it on the desk between them, couldn’t seem to take his eyes from it.
In October 1918 the front at Ypres had seesawed with each day. One sniper out in a no-man’s-land that still defied description had caused them so much trouble. They’d hunted each other, the two of them out there all alone in the mud and shit. The man had nearly killed him. Thanks to the cigarette case, it had been the other way around.
But until today, until Heydrich’s little visit to this far corner of the Reich, he’d hardly given the matter another thought.
Now he wasn’t sure of things. Had he been the one to kill Hagen’s father? Was that why Heydrich had hauled him out of the obscurity of East Prussia? There’d have been the divisional records, the citation for bravery, but not names attached to names. Surely not?
Match Hagen with a man who would be certain to handle him? Was that it?
The idea smelled of Heydrich. The Dillingham file on Hagen had given enough on the father to make him wish he’d never had the office broken into and the file photographed.
“Herr Krantz, what is it you want with me?”
Anger leaped only to fade. Damn Heydrich anyway! “It’s not every day I find myself at a table with five drinks and no one else to enjoy them. Did you have to choose Gilka Berliner Kümmel for all five?”
“My friends like it. It’s a good way to start off the evening.”
“Eighty-six percent proof and the taste of caraway and cumin seeds? Gott in Himmel, Herr Hagen, did you honestly think I’d drink them all?”
Amusement briefly lit up Hagen’s eyes. “You were following me.”
In spite of the worry, Krantz feigned surprise. “But … but of course. Didn’t you know I would be doing so? I thought—”
“No one told me I couldn’t go where I pleased.”
“But we received a report that certain undesirables would attempt to rob you in the park. My superiors thought it best to have someone close. Surely they have told you this?”
“There was no attempt to rob me.”
The Berliner sighed hugely and eased himself forward to rest his forearms on the desk. Adopting a serious attitude, he said, “Oh, but there was. Two men in the Tiergarten. They passed you on one of the bridle paths. One asked for the time, or was it for a light? You do remember, don’t you?”
Decoys! So that was how Krantz had managed to follow him to Rachel’s.
“I didn’t know they intended to rob me. No one told me.”
Krantz drew on his cigarette, then plucked a shred of tobacco from his lower lip. Inspecting the shred, he asked quietly, “Now please, tell me why you don’t smoke.”
“I don’t, that’s all. They say it shortens the breath.”
The cold, cod eyes sought him out. The stumpy fingers spread themselves over the desk. “The truth, Herr Hagen. Your father smoked cigarettes.”
“Yes.” What did the man want?
“Once too often,” said Krantz.
“Yes, perhaps. I really don’t know.”
“And someone shot him.”
“Yes.”
How did Krantz know?
The Berliner gathered in the cigarette case. Fingering it, he lost himself again. To think that the long arm of the SD could stretch so far. To think that Heydrich had called him in for such a minor thing.
And now here he was sitting across the desk from the son.
No matter how hard he tried, Krantz couldn’t help but feel uneasy. The war was still that close. Why the hell had Heydrich had to choose him for this?
“Ypres, October 13, 1918. Are you bitter that someone from Germany saw your father taking a quick drag and pulled the trigger?”
“He was a sharpshooter. He should have known better.”
“So there is no bitterness?”
The Gestapo seemed relieved. “Should there be?”
“Please, I am asking because I have to.”
“None, then. Several of your countrymen are my friends.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Look, Herr Krantz, while it upset me as a boy, the death of my father means little to me now.”
“He must have taught you a great deal.”
“Yes, and of all the things, one stands out more than the others. That nations, creeds and races shouldn’t separate the goodwill men must feel toward each other.”
Krantz smiled so faintly Hagen realized he’d let himself be provoked into saying the wrong thing. “I bear no ill will toward the German people, Herr Krantz. I wouldn’t do what I’m doing for them if I did.”
“Of course. Now tell me, please, why is it you went to the flat of Rachel Tannenbaum and her husband?”
The other chair had remained empty all this time. Hagen had the uncomfortable feeling that it had been deliberately placed there to unsettle him.
“Her father works for us. As a matter of courtesy I went to see her.”
“So late at night?”
He must refuse to become irritated. Giving a nonchalant shrug, he said, “You know how these things are. Quite frankly, I’d forgotten I’d promised to see her.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why go to see her? Oh, merely to say hello and ask how they were. Her father’s getting on.”
Krantz waved a reproving finger but let the matter pass. “Please list for me all the places you visited in the Reich this time.”
“Why?”
“Because I ask it.”
Again the Berliner was trying to provoke him into reacting. “Then I suggest you contact the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the Reich ministries of the Interior and of Industry and my friend, the Baron Dieter Karl Hunter. While you’re at it, you might tell your superiors that one of the women who were with the Baron Hunter and me in the park was savagely attacked by hoodlums who attempted to rape her.”
The Berliner passed a smoothing hand over the desk. He eased the black band of his wristwatch, then clenched a fist in anger, perhaps, or in dismay at such tactics. “This man, Herr Klees. Tell me about him.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Again the Gestapo sought him out. “Then why is it that the Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich has taken such an interest in you?”
“Me?” he managed to scoff.
“You,” said Krantz, leaning back in his chair.
“But I thought they were searching for a murderer?”
“Perhaps they are. Who knows? I’m just a policeman, Herr Hagen. They don’t always tell me everything.”
“And I’m just a salesman.”
“Of diamonds. So, let us finish up this little chat with Herr Klees.”
“He’s a nobody. He tried to talk us into a deal we didn’t want.”
“Then why are you heading for Amsterdam?”
The Gestapo would have read the cables from Bernard just as they monitored everything else. “I’ve clients to call on.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Krantz got up to open it, and Hagen took the opportunity to study the cigarette case that had at times been clenched in that fist.
The silver plate was tarnished. The kaiser’s head was badly dented.
The Berliner’s voice filled the room. “Ah, Heini, of course. How good of you not to have forgotten.
“Your coat, Herr Hagen, and the tea towel. The cake … Please tell Frau Tannenbaum’s father that I’m sorry. Another time. Another visit. The boys at the office. You know how they are.”
Krantz gave a good-natured shrug and held the door open. The corporal was the one who’d been polishing the chrome.
“You will go with Heini now, Herr Hagen. Please. Just for a moment. The Gruppenführer wishes to extend his condolences.”
“For what?”
Their eyes met. “For the delay.”
Reinhard Heydrich was the head of the SD, the Sicherheitsdienst, the Secret Service of the SS, Amt I, counterintelligence abroad, and Amt II, intelligence at home. A notorious womanizer, an anti-Semite, a plotter, a schemer.
As he followed the corporal from the station house, Hagen experienced a feeling of utter desolation.
The place was now deserted. Heydrich was waiting for him on the platform in full view of the passengers on the train.
Heydrich was thirty-three, tall, arrogant, fairly thin, very blond and immaculately fitted out in a brand-new uniform. His hair was cut short. Parted on the left, it was brushed back off the high, sloping brow, emphasizing the close-set eyes, the long nose, wide, cruel lips and angular, jutting chin, which was clefted.
The Alice Factor Page 8