The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  She ran from the sitting room and he could hear her throwing up in the bathroom. When he reached her, she was on her knees.

  Heydrich’s gaze had only become more intense, more impersonal as the night had worn on. Would he work for them? Would he cooperate as so many were?

  “The diamonds, Richard. He wants the Antwerp diamonds.”

  She threw up again and hugged the rim of the toilet, then wiped her lips on her nightgown, didn’t seem to care anymore about her appearance.

  For a while they stood looking at each other. “I had no other choice. It was my parents or else.”

  Only the ironmonger seemed oblivious to the snow. Bits and pieces lay about him on the pavement, a range of pulley blocks, a wheel, an auger, several chains and hatchets.

  All were laid out like the well-ordered bones of a skeleton, silent in its burial of gently falling snow.

  Arlette waited. Turning, she searched the crowded flea market. Yes, the man was there—lost among some others—a Fleming, she was certain of it. The cigar, the fleshy nose, the puffy eyelids and lips, the stalwart build were the same.

  He had been waiting for her to leave the office. He had known the telephone would ring and the breathless, frightened voice of a young man would gasp, “My name is Guenther Klass. I’m a mechanical engineer from the Man diesel-engine factory in Augsburg. Please, you must help me. I’ve a message for Herr Hagen.”

  “You looking for something? A part for the washing machine? A length of wire for a clothesline?” asked the burly ironmonger.

  “No,” she leaped. “Just waiting for a friend.”

  He jerked his head and she moved off. At the bookstall it was the same. Wherever she went, the man would follow. But would he go inside the café? Would he harm this Guenther Klass? Surely not in Antwerp, not in Belgium?

  Screwing up her courage, she returned to the ironmonger’s and headed for the Café Lindenbos. Because it was nearly noon and a Saturday, the place was crowded.

  The young man was sitting near the back. No more than twenty-two, he was tall, thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed and frantic. If she could pick him out so easily, so could the one who had followed her. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes for more than a month.

  “Please, you must listen carefully. Tell Herr Hagen I did not, I repeat not, come by the route he suggested. I walked over the border. Me, I walked.”

  In the dead of winter. “Why?”

  Suspicion entered his eyes. “How is it that you know about the route? Please, you must tell me.”

  Pulling off her scarf and beret, Arlette ordered two bowls of soup and a plate of bread and cheese. “I don’t know about it. I only ask because I want to know.”

  Freckles dotted the bridge of his nose. The beard was new and scruffy. At some point he had cut the back of his hand, a cruel gash that was still raw. Barbed wire? she wondered.

  He asked if she knew Richard well and she answered, Yes. His German was excellent, that of a Bavarian.

  Not until he had finished both bowls of soup did he tell her why he’d left Germany. “The British were supposed to meet me in Amsterdam but I had to come another way.”

  In the stark silence that followed his mention of Amsterdam, the noise of the crowded café came back to her and the aisle between the tables grew a little clearer.

  The man who had followed her was waiting for a table.

  “Tell me about this route. Does it pass through a Dutchman named Klees?”

  The girl wasn’t just sad, she was depressed. Again he looked suspiciously at her. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have said anything. Look, can you lend me some money—just enough for the train? I’m going to try to get to Paris. I’ve an uncle living there. He’ll see that I get over to England. He’ll vouch for me. They can’t send me back. They can’t!”

  He hadn’t known Richard at all—had only met him once.

  “I wish I’d never done it. I wish I’d never listened to them!”

  “To whom?” A swiftness had come into her eyes. Now she held her breath.

  “Never mind. It doesn’t concern you. Just get me some money. My life …”

  People were beginning to take notice of them. “Wait here. I will go to the bank.”

  “No! I’m coming with you.”

  As he got up, he stuffed what remained of the bread into a pocket. Out on the street, men suddenly moved from the crowd—one here, another there, Flemings, Walloons, some big and tough, others short and emaciated. Belgians all. Like jackals they bolted after the young man called Guenther Klass.

  He made it as far as the square in front of the cathedral and then they threw him—just threw him—in front of a passing truck!

  There was a screech of brakes, a bump—some broken glass and another bump. At long last, the sound of an ambulance came to her.

  Numb with shock, Arlette pushed her way through the crowd that had gathered. “Does anyone know him? Do you?” asked a policeman.

  There was blood all over the road, staining the snow. The wind plucked at a crumpled square of white paper. As Arlette closed her hand over it, she felt the Jagers.

  Again she was asked if she’d known him. The tears ran down her cheeks. Angrily she shook her head. “No … no, of course not. How could I have?”

  Damas watched the girl as she stepped away from the scene of the accident. Even at a point of extreme crisis, she had used her head. The engineer had thrown something away and the girl had had the presence of mind to have picked it up.

  She began to walk sadly along the street. Hands in the pockets of her overcoat, she clutched the paper. Damas moved closer. Berlin would want it. Krantz wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise.

  The girl stopped suddenly. He stepped aside, turned to stare into the window of a shop. Chocolates, milk-and-butter, vanilla truffles, nut clusters—the Belgium of old, the Belgium of the stupid rich, the blind, the soft and uncaring who couldn’t see what was happening, who couldn’t catch the magic of the Reich …

  Marzipans and rum barrels, toffees Grenoble …

  When he picked up the girl’s trail again, her hands were no longer in her pockets.

  Smoke trailed upward from the forgotten cigarette that lay in the ashtray on the desk.

  The questions had gone on and on. Remember … remember … “You must remember.”

  Like a stone, a great big stone, a fist! The words came back to haunt her and she shouted in anger now, “I can’t! Can’t you see I can’t! He …” She couldn’t tell them about Richard. She couldn’t!

  Lev gently took the cup and saucer from her. “Arlette, what Bernard is trying to say is that my Rachel was going to use this route the young man spoke of. Richard couldn’t tell me when he would try to get them out. But if this Guenther Klass didn’t use it, then maybe he had a reason for not doing so. Maybe it was no longer safe.”

  “He was terrified! He walked. Don’t you see that because of the Nazis, he walked?”

  “Yes … yes, I know. But could the Gestapo have come to his house perhaps? Could he have seen them and run? If so, then the railways would have been denied him and he would have known this well ahead of time. The route might then still be safe.”

  “I don’t know. He was afraid. He said …” She bowed her head and buried her face in her hand. “He said, ‘They can’t send me back. They can’t!’”

  Wunsch was insistent. “Please, you must try to remember.”

  Bitter now, she said, “This route, does it involve the Dutchman, de Heer Klees?”

  Taken aback, the two men glanced at each other. “What does he have to do with it?” demanded Wunsch.

  “Nothing. I … I only wondered if the route …” Dear God forgive her the lies, but she couldn’t tell them about the diamonds she’d found in the vault. “I only wondered if the route was connected with him. Amsterdam is …”

  Wunsch watched her closely. “Is on the route? Juffrouw Huysmans, was Richard planning to use the lines through Emmerich?”

  “I
don’t know. I only ask because Richard, he … he has passed through Amsterdam on the way home sometimes.”

  “Sometimes.” Wunsch said it flatly. Reaching for another cigarette, he flung the empty package into the wastebasket. The girl was hiding something. From a state of trust to one of distrust, the Nazis had got them all agitated. Hitler wanted war—war! “Richard hasn’t had anything to do with de Heer Klees, has he? Arlette, you must answer me. The fate of the Antwerp diamond stocks may be at risk.”

  Lev found his voice with difficulty. “Richard wouldn’t do that. You know this as well as I, Bernard. Stop listening to what Isaac Hond has to say or not say at the Committee meetings.”

  “Isaac has an eye for trouble, my friend, and de Heer Klees is the proof of it.”

  Sighing hugely, Lev sat back in his chair. Hond had caught Klees thieving from a fellow member of the bourse, but that had been years ago and Richard had had nothing to do with him.

  Neither of them said anything. Arlette knew they were waiting for her. She knew they both meant well, that news of the young man’s death had shocked them, too. “Can’t we send a message to Richard? Can’t we warn him that maybe the route is safe but that this Guenther Klass has died because of them?”

  Wunsch realized that he had let things get to him and had been too hard on her. “Yes. Yes, of course. Forgive me, my dear. It’s this business of Austria. No one seems to know what is going to happen. Richard has requested that we undertake to train German technicians in our work, and this has upset the members of the Committee and made them question his loyalties again. To be frank, everyone is exceedingly nervous.”

  TO HAGEN RICHARD HOTEL ADLON BERLIN

  FROM WUNSCH BERNARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP

  URGENT YOU REPLY IMMEDIATELY STOP FIRST PART KRUPP ORDER READY STOP SHOULD SHIPMENT BE DELAYED PENDING CLARIFICATION OF INTERNATIONAL SITUATION STOP AM SENDING CABLE IN MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SO AS TO REACH YOU BY MORNING STOP HOPE THERE ARE NO CLOUDS IN THE SKY STOP REGARDS BERNARD

  Hagen read the cable again. “Middle of the night” and “no cloud(s) in the sky” had come from “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”

  Silently he cursed himself for ever having left the little books out on his desk at home.

  Bernard he couldn’t blame, but the Gestapo would read the cable and keep a record of it just as they did everything else.

  From the lobby he put through a blitz call to the office. Five minutes later Arlette was on the line and he was hearing her voice again.

  Her voice was cold. “De Heer Wunsch is not in the office, mijnheer. He waited around all morning for your reply. It is now after five.”

  “Look, I didn’t get his cable until a few minutes ago. Would you tell him that he’d best hold the shipment until I return? I’d like to check it over first and then accompany it back into the Reich to avoid any customs delays.”

  That might just get him out of the country. Once he’d found the trouble, he could then decide what to do.

  Arlette was good at shorthand. He could hear her taking the message down. When she came back on the line, she hesitated, then said, “Van Haeren’s sent that new lamp you ordered, mijnheer. Unfortunately the man who brought it accidentally dropped it and smashed the glass. De Heer Levin has told me that if you should call, I am to say you are not to worry, that he has told the store to bring another.”

  Lev … Oh damn. “Arlette, tell Bernard I’ll be back in five days. From here I must go to Dresden and then to the naval yards at Kiel.”

  Guenther Klass must have gone to Antwerp instead of Amsterdam, but something had happened to him there. Heydrich and Krantz had known this all along, and yet they had led him to believe they were holding the young engineer.

  The bar at the Adlon was packed. It was normally the favored oasis of the foreign news correspondents in Berlin, but its regulars were all but lost in the crowd the crisis over Austria had brought. Hardly a day had passed but there had been something new. Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, to Berchtesgaden to meet with Hitler on February 12, their agreement ratified by the Austrian cabinet on the fifteenth. On the sixteenth the pro-Nazi Seyss-Inquart had become Austria’s minister of the Interior, salve to Nazi wounds that wouldn’t heal.

  On the seventeenth, Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, had announced Britain would seek Italy’s help in the matter. II Duce had replied on the eighteenth that Italy would stay out of it.

  And now Schuschnigg had told Hitler Austria would resist all such pressures.

  The reporters were waiting for the Propaganda Ministry’s liaison officer to arrive and give them the latest. Normally Hagen avoided the bar simply because, being anxious for crumbs and having to work under the strictest censorship in the world, the reporters would flock to him.

  Yet he needed time to think, needed a drink.

  “Hard news, Richard. That’s what they all want. Care to wet the old whistle, chum? A taste of home?”

  It was Bob Darcy of the Chicago Tribune, friend of Capone, confidant of Dillinger, a former crime reporter come to witness crime on a much vaster scale.

  Hagen took the proffered glass of Kentucky bourbon and had himself a generous swallow. “So, what do you make of it, Bob?”

  Darcy’s deep-set brown eyes twinkled. “You tell me, friend. From what I hear you’re in pretty close. Ed Jakeman of the New York Times saw you out with Heydrich and two dolls, one of whom is sitting all alone right over there.”

  It was Dee Dee, looking pale and anxious in black velvet.

  “Care to confide a little?” asked Darcy. “Us Yanks … you know the gen. Pencil through everything, Richard. Come on, be a pal and give a little and I’ll lend you this.”

  A rush copy of Eric Ambler’s Epitaph for a Spy. “Interesting stuff, Richard. Prescribed reading for a guy in your shoes, I should think. Well traveled. Visits all their heavy industries. Knows the brass, the ropes, et cetera.”

  “Heydrich’s not exactly what you’d call a friend.”

  “More of an acquaintance, eh? But that babe with the gorgeous body over there is, and if I’m not mistaken, she’s been hanging around waiting for a sight of you. You’re not on the make or something with Heydrich’s latest girl, are you?”

  Hagen grinned. “She’s just a friend. Thanks for the offer of the book, Bob, but I’ll pass. Spying’s a little out of my line.”

  “Hey, did you hear that Carnegie Hall thing of Benny Goodman’s? I’ve got the records, Richard. Krupa on drums, James and Elman on trumpet …”

  It was no use. Hagen had found his way over to the girl. The salesman would take her someplace quiet. He had that look about him.

  Intuitively Darcy knew it wasn’t a time to pursue things. Of all of them in the room, Richard Hagen would know the most, yet he had to let him go.

  Darcy glanced at the book. In a world that had gone crazy it would make the most fantastic copy: American Spy Bar-Crawls with Germany’s Head of SS Secret Service …

  American Spy Caught. White House in an Uproar. Roosevelt Denies Any Knowledge …

  Heydrich’s girl and Richard Hagen. Trumped-up spy charges were a dime a dozen, but the Gruppenführer-SS could certainly make a bit of hay out of it if he wanted to.

  The Romanische Cafe on the Damm had once been the rendezvous of Berlin’s artists, writers and actors. Left alone, and he hoped, clear of Gestapo listening devices, they had the place almost to themselves.

  “Dee Dee, what is it?”

  The milk-white cheeks were touched with rouge, the dark eyes empty.

  “I just had to see you to know that things were all right between us.”

  Had Heydrich sent her to find him? He couldn’t tell her he’d spoken to Canaris on her behalf.

  “Dieter doesn’t care about me. Heydrich …”

  “Shh! Keep your voice down. Look out at the street.”

  At the lights, the snow and the people who were hurrying homeward or pausing to search the shop windows for things that were no longer ther
e.

  “Richard, I want to help you.” There, she’d said it, a first step.

  “In what way?” he asked cautiously. Her gaze was searching.

  “I’m writing to Irmgard. Would you like me to send her your love?”

  Hagen detected the note of bitterness. “Yes, of course. You know I would.”

  “Really?” she asked sharply. “You’ve a girl in Antwerp, a lover, Richard. Have you slept with her? Irmgard’s got such a crush on you. At least try to be decent.”

  “Look, I know how she feels about me but …”

  “But you’re in love with someone else.”

  “Yes. Did Heydrich …”

  “Tell me?” she snapped bitterly. “When that bastard’s drunk his lips are not so tight, only more cruel. They know about this girl, Richard. They know her name, know everything they want to know about her.”

  Grimly Hagen nodded his thanks. Coming on the heels of his telephone call to Arlette, things were beginning to make sense.

  Their drinks came, an intrusion neither of them wanted.

  “There’s something else,” she said, a whisper. “He says the Reich will march into Austria if Vienna doesn’t capitulate.”

  “When?”

  It was such a tiny question but given with such intensity, the proof of interest if ever Heydrich should ask it of her. “Soon. Very soon, but please, for your sake and mine, keep it to yourself. They …”

  He found himself saying, “I’ll be in Kiel in a couple of days.”

  “Then you must wait at least until then before you try to tell anyone else. Later, I think. Yes, later. Now please call me a cab. I must go home.”

  “Dee Dee …”

  “Richard, please!”

  TO WINFIELD MRS LOIS ANNE INVERLIN COTTAGE BLACK DOWN HEATH PORTESHAM ROAD DORCHESTER ENGLAND

  FROM HAGEN RICHARD HOTEL ESPLANADE HAMBURG GERMANY

  WEATHER VERY COLD STOP ALL AROUND THE CITY THE FIELDS ARE WHITE STOP SORRY FRANK WOULD NOT LISTEN TO MY ADVICE BUT UNDERSTAND STOP HOPE HE AGREED TO HAVE THE BOOK PUBLISHED IN SPITE OF CUTS STOP TELL HIM EDITORS WILL FORGET THEIR QUARREL STOP PERFECTLY SURE IT WILL BE A SUCCESS AND HE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN STOP LOVE RICHARD