The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  TO OPPENHEIMER SIR ERNEST C/O CENTRAL SELLING ORGANIZATION CHARTERHOUSE STREET LONDON ENGLAND

  FROM HAGEN RICHARD HOTEL ESPLANADE HAMBURG GERMANY

  SUPERB RED 4.37 OLD-MINER OFFERED ANTWERP OVERHANG SALES EARLY MARCH STOP WILL HOLD FOR YOU ON RETURN IF WISH STOP REPLY DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP STOP REGARDS HAGEN

  The customs shed at Hamburg’s airport was freezing. Bundled in his hat, knitted scarf, heavy overcoat and galoshes, a fuming Otto Krantz thumbed the cables Hagen had sent four days ago.

  The salesman was full of surprises. Expected to leave with the rush, and to go out by rail through Emmerich and on to Amsterdam perhaps, he had pulled a switch and doubled back to Kiel.

  To have another look at empty U-boat pens? Krantz wondered. To pay the Klochner aircraft engine factory a sudden visit, or simply to stall what he thought would be the inevitable?

  “‘Superb Red,’ Richard. What does this mean?”

  Lufthansa’s Flight 101 to Antwerp, Brussels and Paris was now boarding. Hagen could see the corrugated iron fuselage of the Junkers 52 through one of the windows in the shed. “It simply means a red diamond, Herr Krantz. They’re extremely rare.”

  “So why not cable him when you get back to Antwerp?”

  “I forgot to send it earlier.”

  “Don’t piss around with me. I’ve had just about enough of you. Buying a ticket for the six-thirty from Hamburg to Emmerich and then not carrying through wasn’t very smart. You spoiled my supper.”

  “I had to go back to Kiel. I had no choice. They insisted. Another breakdown. Another order for the shop.”

  He could let Hagen go this time. He should, perhaps, and he would accept that Heydrich had made it all too clear the responsibility for the salesman rested squarely with him.

  Krantz thumbed the cables again. It was irritating to know so little of diamonds. “Red” must mean Most Urgent; “old-miner,” some sort of private code Hagen and his Jewish boss in London had devised for Austria.

  “Cable your office. You’re coming with me.”

  “Nothing doing, buster. I’m an American citizen. I’ve business commitments that must be attended to.”

  The Berliner arched his eyebrows. “Am I to call the Krupp, or should I attempt to reach your friend in the jungles of Brazil?”

  Damn him! “I demand to speak to the American ambassador in Berlin.”

  “Berlin? Ah, that can be arranged. I’ve a car waiting and can give you a lift.”

  Hagen knew there wasn’t any use in arguing. At least the warnings had got out. Krantz was holding copies of the cables.

  Decoded, the message to Duncan would read:

  KLASS INTERCEPTED ANTWERP / BELIEVE INVASION AUSTRIA IMMINENT / U-37,52 AND 78 LEFT KIEL 27 FEBRUARY 0600 HOURS / PENS NOW CLEAR OPERABLE U-BOATS / SECURITY TIGHT / REQUEST SEARCH LETTERS BRAZIL HUNTER IRMGARD REPLY ANTWERP EARLIEST SUSPECT MAILS BEING OPENED / ALICE

  March 2, 1938

  Dear Richard:

  Each time I write to you there’s something new.

  Germany has a very good network of people here. For some, their families came out years ago—the rubber barons, as I’m sure you know. For others, the hunters and trappers, the prospectors, it is of course the lure of instant wealth.

  The house where we are now staying is nestled among tall coconut palms and shuttered against the fruit bats and the never-ending rain. It’s so humid one drips constantly, and both Dieter and I have developed lingering coughs. The estate is very old and situated well outside of Diamantina, so no one asks too many questions and the traders can come and go as they please.

  Dieter buys what he can. Mostly it is the gray to black carbonado that comes, they say, from the area to the east of the Rio Sao Francisco. It is very porous and looks a lot like coke, but when crushed, ground and separated will yield the abrasive powders he so desperately wants.

  The problem is, of course, there isn’t nearly enough of it and no such thing as a steady supply. This makes my brother angry and at times despondent. He’s so eager to do this thing for the Krupp. It’s his big chance and he lets me know this time and again.

  Tonight he is meeting with a trader who comes from the deposits along the Jequitinhonha River, which is to the northeast of us. This man has come a long way, perhaps as much as 250 kilometers. I really don’t know. But Dieter … you know how determined he can be. If things look promising, we will go there once the rainy season is over.

  Please take care, and if you can, look after Dee Dee for me. I’ve had no answers to my letters to her, but of course the regular mails are not so good, though even here the diplomatic mail gets through so fast it has to make one wonder.

  Will write again as soon as I can. My hopes and prayers for Austria remain the same.

  All my love, Irmgard

  Would Richard understand that “diplomatic” stood for Abwehr? Of course he would. She’d post the letter in Diamantina. For now, though, she must hide it someplace lest Dieter find it.

  As before, she had used the address of Richard’s mother in England.

  The cedar chest was some distance from her room and long before she had reached it, Irmgard had switched off the flashlight.

  Crouching, she felt along the bottom of the chest and carefully slid the letter underneath it.

  Dieter could no longer be trusted.

  There were four men sitting around the table in the kitchen when she went stealthily downstairs. Hidden from them by the darkness and a grillwork of mahogany, she searched their faces. Dieter was so earnest. Their interpreter, the planter Martin Becke, was explaining something to him. The trader, half French, half Spanish, silently watched them as did the last man—one of about sixty years of age, bald, gray-looking, with sweat that ran down his flaccid cheeks and eyes that bulged.

  This one had a sense of humor that was driven to short bursts of dry, false laughter, as if sucking diamonds out of ignorant men were God’s play and the baron were handling himself as expected.

  Dieter hadn’t made a fuss over the man’s late arrival. Indeed, the small suitcase was still in the hall, and when she hefted it, she shut her eyes and clenched a fist, tried to hang on to herself.

  The case wasn’t heavy. It was all but empty.

  Yet she knew the man would be staying in the area for a few days. He had that look about him, that look of so many back home. The Nazis, the SS …

  Sickened by this, she thought to destroy the letter, then thought, No, she would not do such a thing.

  Lying in the dark under the mosquito netting, she listened to the rain, to the bats as they clawed their way up under the eaves or tried to get in at the shutters. Would Richard love her just a little, knowing the terrible risk she was taking?

  Dieter wasn’t the same anymore.

  The Mark Is and IIs were breaking down, those and half the other armored vehicles on the road. Hagen couldn’t believe what he was seeing. From Berlin he and Krantz had flown to Munich, and from there had gone by car to Salzburg in the wake of an invading army. The tanks were hopelessly mired in roadside mud and snow. Motorcycles lay on their sides or crushed beneath lugs. The half-tracks that pulled each Panzer division’s artillery pieces had fared no better. At least seventy percent of everything they had passed had been strewn along the roadside, and this continued to the northeast as far as the eye could see.

  If Austria should attack, the Nazis would be finished in less than five days. If she should have to fall, then at least he knew that one good winter would stop the Wehrmacht faster than anything.

  Krantz irritably lit another cigarette. “You are quiet, Richard. Is it that you do not like what is happening?”

  The Berliner had pull—he could order up airplanes and cars at will. He could chase after Heydrich whenever he wanted.

  Hagen shook his head. “Your petrol gauge reads almost empty. I was just wondering where you’d get some. Every filling station we’ve passed has been drained by your army, and some of the stranded vehicles
we’ve seen have simply run out of fuel.”

  With a scowl the Berliner leaned over the back of the front seat and spoke to their driver. “Walther, is this so?”

  The driver acknowledged that it was. They managed to coast into the old town of Wels and to nudge the car out of the way behind a fifteen-centimeter gun.

  The sleet had changed to wet snow but now, with the lowlands in the river valley, there was fog. Krantz hunched his shoulders against the cold and reached for the door handle. Hagen wondered how much pull the Gestapo would have when surrounded by an angry Wehrmacht.

  Not a drop! Weiners, hot mustard, sauerkraut and coffee helped. The street vendors were out in force. German marks instead of Austrian schillings and groschen, grins and handshakes everywhere, Swastika flags, too. Would it be the same in Vienna?

  Krantz got mustard on the lapel of his overcoat. Hagen found a napkin and helped to wipe it off. Then he did what no other spy would have done. “I think I can get us to Vienna.”

  The Berliner took a last bite before setting down his coffee on the hood of the car. In doubt, he sucked mustard from the flat of his thumb. “So, how is this, please?” Hagen was enjoying himself.

  “Loan me our driver and let me have all the money you’ve got.”

  Krantz shook his head, but already the salesman and their driver were crossing the road. As he watched, they went into a pharmacy. An hour later they had cleaned out most of the others and their fuel tank had been filled with surgical benzene. Two cases of bottles were squeezed between them while another two were stacked on the front seat beside their driver. Hagen had rolled up his sleeves and had adjusted the carburetor. The engine sounded rough, but it ran.

  “You impress me, my young friend. Is it that you wish to show me how wrong I am about you, or is it that you really do wish to watch the fireworks?”

  The news broadcast ended. The radio began to cool. Arlette drew the shawl more tightly about herself. In the emptiness of her room she sat alone. Austria was gone—just like that. Absorbed into the greater German Reich. A province.

  Neither Britain nor France had come to her aid. As of tonight, March 13, not only had Austria ceased to exist, but her army had been swiftly absorbed into the Wehrmacht without having fired a shot.

  Some divisions had already been transferred to the north, to the borders of Holland and Belgium. The Jews had suffered; countless shops and homes had been looted. There had been arrests—the beginnings of a reign of terror. The anarchy that Hitler had used as an excuse to threaten an invasion of Austria had now become a reality. Along with the anti-Jewish riots had come the fanatical cheering of the people, the mass hysteria and shouts of, “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!” One people, one state, one leader.

  With the news of Austria had come that of a Czechoslovakia that was fast disintegrating. France backed the Czechs against Hitler. Britain said she wouldn’t go to war, but with the chaotic state of French politics would the threat of France alone deter the Germans from invading Czechoslovakia?

  So many armies, so many big and powerful men, and Richard still not home. No word at all since Berlin. No chance to tell him that she knew he was helping de Heer Klees. No chance to tell him that she was almost certain someone had tried to break into the office again.

  They were drinking a Nussberger white out of air-twist goblets that were at least 150 years old. They ate—good God, how they ate! Black Forest ham, blue trout, pheasant, venison, pickled pork hocks, sausage, huge steaming bowls of sauerkraut, creamed potatoes, creamed leeks, creamed eggs …

  The noise in Vienna’s glittering Opera House was deafening. Goering, the loudest of all, swilled wine, smoked his cigar, laughed, chewed and filled his face. Resplendent in a white uniform with an Iron Cross First-Class pinned to his chest, he chided Heydrich, who sat on his left, and winked at his buyer, Herr Sigmund Menke, who sat on his right.

  Menke had appraised the contents of the leather pouch Heydrich had dumped in front of the Reichsmarschall.

  Himmler, bespectacled and fiercely intent, watched the pig eyes water as Goering gazed greedily at the loot. There were others seated about the table: Bormann, Hess, Rosenberg and Goebbels, about thirty men in Luftwaffe blue, the pilots Goering had chosen to join him. Eager young men with starched shirts, stiff backs and a fawning manner when it came to attending to the Reichsmarschall and his remarks.

  There were also six actresses from Vienna and three from Prague—tall, statuesquely beautiful women with ripe golden hair and blue eyes, one with jet-black hair and eyes whose pride made Hagen look a second time. Two brunettes. All but the raven-haired one flirted with the men, laughed at the ribald jokes and looked longingly at the gems. It was going to be quite a night.

  Heydrich waited. Then he swept a leather riding crop over the stones to spread them out a little more. A soft and delicate shade of rose, two reds, some green, canary yellow and blue—Top Cape and Cape Fancies, white Jagers also. Against the damask tablecloth their facets caught the light from the chandeliers. None of the stones would weigh less than five carats; the largest, perhaps thirty-five. A truly superb collection.

  The noise from the crowd Goering had invited to his dinner party ebbed and flowed about them. “One hundred thousand marks,” offered the Reichsmarschall.

  “For the largest of the blue stones?” asked Heydrich, leaning back from the table to let his gaze pass from the diamonds to the raven-haired actress, who stood uncomfortably beside him.

  She was so like Dee Dee, Hagen had to wonder if she was present just to remind him of her.

  “One hundred thousand for the lot,” said Menke, taking his cue from the Reichsmarschall.

  Heydrich grinned. “Richard, please, your valued opinion.”

  The stones could only have come from the Rothschild palace on the Ploesslgasse. The SS must have looted the place.

  The noise of the cutlery fell off. In the hush, the waiters moved about, a danse macabre. One of the actresses touched the base of her throat.

  Hagen picked up the largest of the blue diamonds. “What is it you want to know, Herr Gruppenführer?”

  Gravy dribbled on Goering’s lapel. There was a spot of plum sauce as well.

  Himmler watched the two of them: Heydrich, who was so good at things; Hagen, the merchant of industrial diamonds who’d lost the third and fourth fingers of his left hand. Now how had that been?

  “I wish to know if there are any flaws,” said Heydrich. “I wouldn’t want the Reichsmarschall to be cheated. Richard is an expert in such things.”

  In cheating? wondered Hagen. Just what had Heydrich in mind?

  Fitting his loupe to his eye, Hagen examined the stone. The color was not nearly that of the diamond he’d given Arlette, but somehow Heydrich had learned of the stone and was using this as a warning.

  It would be best to defer to him. The diamond, faceted into an emerald brilliant, would weigh a little over five carats.

  He set it back and ran his fingers through the others. “Three hundred and fifty thousand marks for the collection. One hundred thousand for the larger of the blues, as the Gruppenführer has said.”

  “And the woman?” asked Heydrich.

  Hagen looked steadily into her eyes. “I … I’m not sure that I understand you, Herr Gruppenführer. Is she really for sale?” He managed a grin.

  The table erupted in laughter. Himmler snorted, “The Office of Jewish Immigration, Herr Hagen. We are going to let the pigs buy their way out!”

  Scattering the stones, Heydrich said, “These are only a beginning. And these …” He held up a hand and snapped his fingers. An aide clicked his heels and passed him another pouch. “These are the solution to the Reich’s little problem, Richard.”

  Once more he was forced to wait. Slowly, as if undressing a beautiful woman, Heydrich opened the pouch. He let him see the Abwehr insignia, let him know the diplomatic mails had been intercepted by an agent of the SD in the pay of the Abwehr.

  Then he poured a stream of industri
al diamonds among the gems. At once the granular, beaded, jet-black to gray carbonado was all too apparent, but there were octahedra, cubes and macles also, though many of these had the dirty light brown to light greenish brown coatings typical of Brazilian stones.

  “Does Dieter Karl know you’ve got these?” he asked quietly.

  Goering flicked his gaze from Heydrich to Himmler. Heydrich thirsted after the Abwehr. Everyone knew it, even the salesman.

  The Jewess watched the American with hatred in her eyes.

  Heydrich said, “The Abwehr, Richard. The admiral is far too cautious. The Anschluss has been an overwhelming success, has it not? Britain out of it, France out of it. Not a shot fired. And that is what I consistently advised the Führer. So, you must learn to back the right horse if you are to succeed, is that not correct?”

  “Meaning?”

  He ran the riding crop over the raven-haired woman’s arm. “That now the Führer will let the Sicherheitsdienst have a more open hand in such matters. You’d do well to work for me instead of the admiral.”

  He poked at the blue stone, ferreted it out, and when it was at the edge of the table, gave it a final nudge.

  A shriek went up from the actresses. Fascinated, Goering watched. Himmler pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose.

  The Jewess stood back as the stone came to rest between her shoes.

  “I don’t work for the admiral, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  Heydrich ignored him. “Bitte, Fräulein Reismann. Pick it up.”

  “Why should I?”

  “DO IT!”

  She crouched, and when she was down, he laid the riding crop across her shoulders. “Richard, let me give you a piece of advice. The Jews or their friends can buy their freedom. Pay the price and there are no worries.”

  He lifted the riding crop. Sarah Reismann began to get up, but he laid it back down across her shoulders.

  Krantz tried to interject something about the cables that had been sent from Hamburg. Heydrich waved a deprecatory hand. “Richard is free to leave whenever he wishes. Please, I must insist. He is a friend of the Reich and is always welcome.