The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  And Richard … Increasingly they seemed to be relying on him to keep them informed of Germany’s intentions.

  When she was finished the weighing, Arlette numbered the packet before entering the weights into the logbook. Then she put the paper carefully away.

  Richard’s trading drawer was right below de Heer Wunsch’s. She drew it open—a large flat expanse of carefully regimented rows of folded white paper squares, each no more than six to ten centimeters across.

  The blue diamond pendant lay among them, nestled on a piece of pure white felt. It was such a beautiful stone. “An investment,” Lev had said and had clucked his tongue impatiently. “Not the sort of thing a girl could wear on her finger.”

  She had worn the diamond only once. It wasn’t that Richard hadn’t wanted to take her out. The Krupp had seen to that. Richard hadn’t left the Reich until the ninth of December. From Amsterdam he’d gone straight to Helsinki, then on to Oslo. They’d had to forward his things.

  By the nineteenth of December he’d been in Paris—had he also gone to Zurich? she wondered. By the twenty-third he’d been back in Berlin.

  So many places, so much to do.

  Arlette fastened the pendant behind her neck and tossed her hair back off her shoulders. Going through to the washroom, she switched on the light to have a look at herself in the mirror.

  She touched the stone. It was so cold. Hesitantly she ran her fingers up over the neck chain, pausing at each of the lesser diamonds.

  The sound of the lift came to her. Panicking, she couldn’t seem to move. The lift continued as she hurried through to the vault, but then it stopped on the floor below, and she wondered about it.

  Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was nearly ten o’clock. It was possible someone might wish to drop into one of the other offices, but at this hour …

  She tried the door to the office. Yes, it was locked. De Heer Wunsch would soon come back.

  Still, the uneasiness wouldn’t leave her. Hesitantly she took off the pendant and laid it in the drawer. She ran her eyes over the papers and only then noticed that one of them was missing. A paper of three cut Jagers. There was nothing in the logbook to record that Richard had removed it. Only their two signatures and the date of entry.

  Searching now—looking in every drawer—she pulled a bottom drawer out too far and found beneath it in the dust a packet of about 150 grams, bound with elastic bands. Couldn’t seem to touch the thing.

  There were gem diamonds of every size up to about twenty carats, and all of them had been cut and polished.

  Her stomach tightened. Tears rushed into her eyes. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t avoid the truth—Richard had been dealing with de Heer Klees. In December he could not have gone directly from Amsterdam to Helsinki as he’d said, but had come back to Antwerp after visiting de Heer Klees and then had gone on from here. It would have been late. The Central Railway Station wasn’t far. No one would have been in the office. He’d not have gone to his flat to sleep. He’d have stayed the few hours someplace else and would then have gone on again.

  Cecile Verheyden? she wondered, wincing at the thought. Had he gone to stay with her?

  He was now at the Man diesel-engine factory in Augsburg. The Nazis made their U-boat engines there, and Richard, just before he’d left the office, had received a cable from his mother in England and had changed his itinerary so as to fit the factory in.

  Still sickened by what she’d discovered, Arlette put the packet away and then fitted the heavy drawer in and softly closed it.

  The sound of the lift came. It ground slowly down to the first floor. The cage door opened. Through the stillness, she could hear it shut.

  Damas held his breath. Standing in the hall outside the office, his fingers were still on the new set of keys he’d had made. The door to the street opened—it had been a close thing. Someone other than de Heer Wunsch coming into the building late like that, but now the girl, who would have heard the lift, would begin to relax.

  As he eased the key around in the lock, he felt the bolt slide open and his gloved hand paused. So far so good then. She’d be in there someplace. At her desk, he wondered, or in the vault?

  Krantz had said he was to obtain a new set of keys and to check them out. “Nothing else. You leave that girl alone.”

  Pressing gently, he felt the door give, looked up now at the frosted, dimpled glass across which were the bold black letters of Dillingham and Company, Diamond Brokers.

  And then the names of Bernard Wunsch and Richard Hagen.

  The girl was in the vault, sitting at a worktable with her back to him, head bowed, hands in her hair. Had she been crying?

  Stiff now—tense. Quiet, so quiet.

  Damas took in the long chestnut hair, the slender waist, the hips …

  Turning suddenly, the girl blurted tearfully, “I didn’t hear you coming into the office, mijnheer. Please, I am sorry. It is nothing. I … I will just get my hat and coat. The logbook is open and ready for you to sign. Everything is in order.”

  Arlette stepped out into the foyer. “Mijnheer Wunsch …” she began. “Mijnheer, is that you?”

  She tried the door to the office and found it still locked. She heard a step and then another, hurriedly wiped her eyes and got ready to run.

  The steps came along the hall to stop on the other side of the door. A dim shape moved. A key went into the lock. A throat was cleared. There was a cough—too many cigarettes, too many late nights. “Mijnheer … Mijnheer Wunsch. Oh, thank God it’s you! I have thought …”

  The girl threw herself into his arms and hugged him so tightly, his hat fell on the floor.

  “It is nothing. Nothing, mijnheer. It was silly of me. Yes, now I realize that it must have been you I heard.”

  She started to cry all over again but stopped herself. She couldn’t tell him about the diamonds she’d found in the vault, couldn’t say Richard must be helping de Heer Klees.

  Damas waited until they were gone. Then he left the office to switch off the alarm system before opening the outer door and turning the alarms back on.

  Just like a diamond broker.

  The car was a decrepit Opel, a two-door sedan. It sat alone in front of the long row of garages that ran at a right angle behind the massive gray block building of the SD’s Berlin headquarters on the Wilhelmstrasse. It looked as if it didn’t belong, and as Otto Krantz brought the Daimler to a stop ten meters from it, Hagen had a good view of the car.

  The paint was a faded Prussian blue, dabbed here and there by attempts at refurbishment. The fenders were badly dented. As the wipers had beat the snow off the windshield, the young engineer at the Man diesel-engine factory had nervously said, “My father was a prominent Social Democrat in Nuremberg. They sent him to Dachau in 1934. I have no choice but to get out.”

  Never mind that he knew of the silencers the Germans used to muffle the engines of their U-boats, never mind that Duncan had wanted him out. Julius Streicher, the notorious Gauleiter of Nuremberg, had been the deciding factor.

  Three Jagers and a ticket through to Klees, but that had been five days ago.

  Krantz cleared his throat. Indicating the Opel, he snorted, “Some schmuck we brought in late last night, Richard. At the moment he’s trying to figure out why he killed a station guard and thought he could get away with it. If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll just check on the car. Our boys in the lab will have finished going over it by now.”

  Hagen fought to remain calm. The weak sunlight of mid-February did nothing to brighten the grimness of what had happened. When one of the SS guards walked by with two German shepherds on the leash, he watched as the dogs were led to the car.

  Krantz rapped on the window and indicated that he should get out. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, Richard. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you in to see the Gruppenführer.”

  The guard said something sharp. The dogs began to bark. Repeatedly they lunged into the front seat. They fought with
each other to tear at the upholstery until the guard had screamed and hauled them out.

  Apologizing to Krantz, the guard said, “They must have caught another scent.”

  The gray, cod eyes sought out Hagen. Vapor hung in the air between them. Krantz gave a shrug. “A policeman’s duty is never done, Richard. Could you spare me another minute? Come. Come, let’s have a look.”

  Krantz leaned into the car to examine the front seat as if for the first time. “Heinz, here, lost his buddy, Richard. You can’t blame him for being interested. Well, will you look at that? Blood all over the place. Must have panicked. These people never learn. Mess up some poor bugger’s throat with a pocket knife, then lather blood all over the upholstery and think they can get away with it. Must have been in a hell of a hurry, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Herr Krantz. You’re the policeman. I’m just a salesman.”

  The Berliner crawled out of the car. The dogs moved in and Hagen felt their warm, wet muzzles. They began to whine, then to snarl. One lunged at him and again the guard had to drag the dogs away and shout at them.

  Krantz said nothing.

  The office was spacious, the man behind the antique limewood desk preoccupied. Immaculate in his black uniform, Heydrich sat rigidly going over some papers.

  A Roman torso stood on a black marble column in one corner. Two medieval shields hung on either side of crossed fencing swords high above a blackened hearth. There were some oils, a tapestry, maps and filing cabinets, a battery of telephones to one side of the desk, a teleprinter.

  “Richard, how good it is to see you.”

  Heydrich laid his pen aside and stood to take the outstretched hand. “So you’re back with us. And how is Antwerp?” No mention of the car, none at all of the engineer.

  They made small talk, difficult though it was. Heydrich asked about Dieter Karl and Irmgard, and whether they had got away to Brazil.

  Hagen said, “I saw them off in December.”

  “And Fräulein Schroeder? Have you had a chance to call her yet?”

  No, he hadn’t. “Then we must do a little run around the town together to see a few of the sights.”

  Heydrich indicated the room. “Wire mesh on the windows, microphones to record everything, even the slightest sound. Alarms, Richard, and hidden buzzers, hidden guns, guards, guards and more of them! Sometimes a fellow just has to get out to relax. But … please, what am I saying? A chair? Some coffee?”

  As the secretary set the silver service before them, Heydrich made a steeple of his fingers, reminding Hagen that as a young cadet in Kiel, he had played violin duets with Frau Erika Canaris. Both of them were excellent musicians, but it was to those early years that Heydrich owed his ultimate success in the SS.

  He’d been under Canaris’s orders for two years, from 1922 to 1924. He’d risen to the rank of lieutenant, had been a wireless operator, and finally, in 1930, a communications officer in the Naval Intelligence Service at Kiel. All well and good until the daughter of one of the directors at the I.G. Farben yards had become pregnant and had pointed the finger.

  Heydrich had denied the child was his. He was then engaged to a beautiful blonde of nineteen.

  The navy had taken a dim view of things and had tried him.

  On the street and unemployed at the worst of times, he’d joined the SS and had been sent by a friend to meet Heinrich Himmler at a small farm outside of Munich.

  Himmler had asked him to outline how he would set up the Secret Service of the SS, and had given him twenty minutes. Heydrich had done it so well that in another ten minutes he had been given the job.

  Their coffee was poured, the woman even stirring the sugar and cream into Heydrich’s cup.

  The ritual could begin. “Dee Dee’s quite a girl, Richard. Dieter Karl should have taken her with him to Brazil.”

  The cruel lips were wide and full. “If I remember it, Herr Gruppenführer, you were going to see that would be possible.”

  “Ah yes, but you said she wanted to go to New York, and that wasn’t really quite true.”

  “I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure.”

  Heydrich reached for his cup. “Tell me, Richard, is it possible for the Reich to get sufficient diamonds from Brazil?”

  “I thought Dieter was after rubber?”

  Heydrich waited. The salesman had many uses.

  Haunted by the presence of the Opel in the yard, Hagen cautiously said, “The deposits are placers, Herr Gruppenführer. That is to say, not of primary origin. No one has ever found the kimberlite pipes the diamonds must have come from. The mining’s not organized. The garimpeiros work on their own, washing and panning the gravels and sands. Weeks can go by without them finding a thing.”

  “You’re not optimistic.”

  “Should I be?”

  “Has the Fräulein Hunter written to you?”

  “If she has, I haven’t received any of her letters. It’s a bit early.”

  The steeple touched the lips in thought. Heydrich came to a quick decision. “I’ll be frank. Has she ever given you any indication she doesn’t approve of the National Socialist Party?”

  The high voice and nervous manner were unsettling.

  “Her family works for the Reich. Her brother, as you know, works for the Krupp.”

  “Yes, but she’s outspoken, Richard. There are rumors.”

  “What sort of rumors, Herr Gruppenführer?”

  “Nothing positive. Her brother’s in a very difficult position. One can’t work for two masters and have a sister like that. Loneliness does strange things to young women. I understand she suffers from acute depression. She’d been seeing a psychiatrist in Zurich, I gather.”

  Dee Dee must have had to tell him about Zurich, but Dieter working for two masters? The Abwehr and the Krupp? Why had Heydrich chosen to let him know of it?

  The fingertips came together again. The coffee was forgotten. “Dieter Karl and she are very close, Richard. Sometimes loneliness can lead a young woman to think things she oughtn’t to.”

  Things like incest? “Irmgard’s got a level head on her shoulders and so has Dieter.”

  Heydrich laughed at this but brushed the thought aside. “Brazil?” he asked. “Will Dieter Karl be able to buy enough diamonds from there?”

  “It depends entirely on what he wants.”

  “Oh, come now, Richard, don’t be evasive. We can talk surely? Tool diamonds?”

  “He’ll get some.”

  Hagen was clearly afraid. “Is it true the Antwerp traders are thinking of moving their diamond stocks to London?”

  “I really wouldn’t know, Herr Gruppenführer. I’m just a salesman.”

  Heydrich fished for a single sheet of paper and ran his eyes over it. The decoders of Amt I, counterespionage abroad, and Amt II, intelligence at home, had been hard at work on the salesman’s cables.

  Nothing firm yet but some progress. There was also a girl, a photograph of her, a receptionist at Dillingham’s.

  “Richard, tell me something. In November you went to a Treff with Admiral Canaris at the Jagdschloss Tiergarten. How much did the admiral offer you?”

  “Nothing, Herr Gruppenführer. Dillingham’s pay me once a month.”

  To scream at him would not work. Instead, he would rock back in his chair. “Let me give you a little piece of advice. Things are going to move very rapidly from now on. Those who choose wisely will go far. The admiral is of the old school, the SS of the new.”

  “What, exactly, have you in mind, Herr Gruppenführer?” Would nothing be said about the engineer? Were they prepared to go that far?

  Heydrich sat forward. “You’ve traveled widely within the Reich. You’ve made a substantial deal with the Krupp. A little information. What could be easier?”

  “What sort of information?”

  “Can Dillingham’s really supply the Krupp? It’s such a small firm. I would have thought … a consortium perhaps?”

  “We’ll manage, Herr Gruppenführ
er. The other traders have been called in. The Central Selling Organization will help.”

  “Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, yes. He’s another Jew.”

  Heydrich went over to one of the windows. Tall and narrow, it emphasized the height of him, the slender athletic build being marred by the almost feminine hips.

  He would give Hagen time to think it over, but could he use the Schroeder woman a little more? She’d said the salesman wasn’t interested in Irmgard Hunter. A pity. It might have been so much easier then.

  “Drinks in the Eden Bar, Richard. Then perhaps the Kakadu or the Kranzler, or a drive out to Schloss Marquardt, after which a few little places, I think. Yes, something from the old Berlin of the twenties. A few of our more interesting clubs and bars.”

  He’d let the Schroeder woman talk to Hagen. He’d let the salesman see her in the company of the Gruppenführer-SS.

  “Dee Dee, why are you doing it?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Because I must. Because for me the choice has been made implicitly clear. Ravensbrück, Richard, that whorehouse on the Damm, or him until he tires of me.”

  They’d been drunk. Heydrich hadn’t been in uniform, but in what he’d called mufti. They’d gone from one disreputable bar to another, the nightclub acts becoming dirtier until at last they’d wound up at his “Kitty House,” the small hotel the SS used to entertain foreign diplomats and set them up for blackmail.

  Hagen’s escort had been a pleasant, intelligent woman of thirty, good-looking, of course, but a thinker, a serious talker, a biologist.

  She’d been mildly bemused by the whorehouse and had laughed self-consciously. They’d left Heydrich and Dee Dee there, and he’d taken the woman back to her flat near the university. Nothing more.

  Five-thirty a.m. and a head like a split melon.

  “Are you ashamed of me?” Dee Dee asked, breaking his thoughts.

  She looked ill. “I don’t know what to think. You let him take you upstairs in that place. I …”

  “You wanted to come after me, but you knew you couldn’t. You’re as afraid of him as everyone else is and he let you know it, Richard. He laughed at you.”