The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  “Richard, could I ask a small favor? The Fräulein Reismann wishes to go to Antwerp. Could you …?”

  “Of course, Herr Gruppenführer. I’d be glad of the company.”

  The wind off the Scheldt was cold, but in the lee of old stone buildings and leaded glass, the late-afternoon sun was warm.

  Hagen went up another side street and came at last to the courtyard. Like an oasis of quiet in the heart of Antwerp, the house of Jacob Lietermann faced onto formal gardens where the yew and box had been carefully pruned and the lindens awaited their leaves.

  Life-sized sculptures flanked the massive wrought-iron double door—Neptune to one side, Venus to the other, gorgeous things. Above the sculptures, the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main drawing room were arched and of leaded glass with stained glass panels in azure blue and ruby. High above these, on the third floor, Adonis and Cupid stood over stonework scenes of Rome with flanking urns.

  The place was at once an expression of old Antwerp’s love of art and beauty, and Lietermann’s commitment to them.

  “Richard, my boy, it’s good of you to have come straight from the station.”

  “Mijnheer Lietermann, the times are such I would have done nothing else, but still I’m honored. In spite of our troubles, a visit here is always a pleasure.”

  In lesser men that would have been taken as flattery, but not with Hagen. “Come … please come then. Let us sit a moment in the sun. The others can wait.”

  Lietermann led him to a far corner of the courtyard where a fountain, nestled high in a rockery, fed water into a descending series of stone basins into which the goldfish had only just been placed. “I always sit here when I can. I like to look on my house and think it will be here long after I’m gone.”

  They avoided the gravity of Austria for as long as they could. Briefly they spoke of the house and the weather. Because of his age, the leader of the Antwerp Diamond Committee no longer did the heavy work, though he still found time to prune the hedges and liked to tidy things.

  “Richard, knowing peace is farthest from Herr Hitler’s mind, what would you do if you were me? Would you sell this place and run?”

  There must be thousands of others thinking exactly the same thing. “You love the house too much, Mijnheer Lietermann. Why not lease a place in the English countryside and see what happens? At least then your collection of paintings would be safe.”

  “Unless destroyed by one of Goering’s bombs or captured by some Panzer division. Hitler won’t stop, will he?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think he will.”

  Lietermann tapped him on the arm. “But you’ll preach calm to the Committee.”

  Hagen knew just how jittery they’d be, but still the request puzzled him. “If that’s what you wish. Every day the danger grows, but to panic and run isn’t the solution. The only thing the Nazis will understand is a force greater than their own. France still has far more divisions than Hitler. Combined with the British, ourselves, the Dutch, Czechs, Poles and the Russians, we could easily stop him from carrying out his plans.”

  “His Lebensraum, now that Austria is no more. His need for living space. You said ‘ourselves,’ Richard. I like that. You’re adaptable—is that the reason, I wonder, or is it because you genuinely like our style and pace of living?”

  For just a moment he hesitated, wondering what was behind the question. “I need roots just like everyone else, mijnheer.”

  “But are you working for the Nazis, Richard? That is the question you must answer.”

  It was all so futile, so impossible to outmaneuver Heydrich. “Sarah Reismann doesn’t waste much time. I gather she telephoned you from her hotel.”

  Lietermann shook his head. “Not me, Richard. She called her uncle, de Heer Merensky.”

  The drawing room was sumptuous. Along with the Flemish tapestries and sculptures there were superb works by Peter Paul Rubens, others by Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Teniers and Cornelis de Vos, all of them great Antwerp painters.

  In the midst of this remarkable collection the Antwerp Committee sat in green baize armchairs around an antique inlaid table. Bernard Wunsch was chain-smoking. Isaac Hond, that thin, pale setter of prices, wore the harried look of the perpetually nervous, but to this had been added the wounded fierceness of the betrayed.

  Abraham Merensky merely glowered.

  “You’re late!” This had come from Hond.

  Lietermann gave the excuses. “Isaac, he is not the enemy.”

  “He is! You heard what Juffrouw Reismann has said!”

  “So she is already a Belgian, Isaac? Come, come, please try to be calm. The woman is understandably upset, but there are perfectly logical explanations for her suspicions.”

  “Suspicions!” shouted Hond. “Accusations that are true!”

  “Richard, what is this she says?” asked Bernard, madly stubbing out his cigarette only to take out another.

  “Calm,” said Lietermann. “Gentlemen, please! We are all here as friends.”

  “Friends!” spat Abraham Merensky. “Friends like him who needs? A traitor, if you ask me.”

  A harried Sarah Reismann chose that moment to come into the room. For an instant their eyes met and Hagen knew that no matter what he said, the woman would never believe him. She was like a fine painting superimposed on a tapestry, caught in that moment. Heydrich’s unwitting Judas.

  In silence he listened to her accusations of how the head of the Secret Service of the SS and their Gestapo had called him a friend and had allowed her to leave the country only because of this. “I had no money with which to buy my way out! That blue diamond wasn’t mine!”

  “What blue diamond?” asked Wunsch, but left the matter for she’d burst into tears.

  Lietermann gently took her by the arm and led her from the room. Merensky called after him. “Jacob, she will wait for me. You can see how upset she is.”

  “But of course I can, Abraham. My Leah will take good care of her. Please, Fräulein Reismann, a little rest to calm yourself? You’ve had a very hard journey and are so extremely lucky. At least our Richard’s being there has saved someone from their clutches.”

  They went at him then. Isaac Hond couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “Mijnheer Hagen, before we confide anything more in you, would you please tell us if the Reich has offered you a job?”

  “Of course not. If they had, I would have refused.”

  The harried eyes watched him closely. “Then why is it Herr Heydrich has called you a friend? Why, please, were you taken to Vienna? It was not on your itinerary. Bernard has told us this.”

  “And what else has he told you?”

  The softness of voice made the others turn to look at Wunsch, who shrugged and said, “Richard, these are difficult times. It is hard not to speculate. The telegrams … I ask you again, is it that the Gestapo and Herr Heydrich suspect you of spying for the British?”

  Bernard could be so fussy when he wanted. There were things he would never leave alone.

  Lietermann came to his rescue, but even so, his words carried dangers of their own. “Richard sent Sir Ernest a warning of the invasion. This I have learned as of late last night.”

  “A warning?” Merensky paused in lighting a cigar. “Why were we not given this, Jacob? Why were we not told that Austria would be invaded?”

  That grand old man gave them a moment, then wisely said, “Because Sir Ernest couldn’t have done so without compromising Richard. We would all have tried to contact our relatives and friends to warn them, isn’t that so? Now look, no employee of the Reich would risk his life to send such a message.”

  “And the British?” asked Bernard. “Did you also warn them, Richard? Are you spying for them? Please, I ask you as a friend and one who admires and sympathizes with your task. Tell them, for God’s sake. Stop this friction Heydrich has caused among us.”

  “May I sit down?”

  Someone nodded—was it actually Merensky? “Look, I know it all appears suspi
cious but that’s the way they want it. Of course I’m not spying for the British. I’d be a fool to do that. I was, however, hoping to use a line of escape out of the Reich for Ascher Levinski’s daughter and son-in-law. If the Nazis are letting the Austrian Jews buy their way out, surely they’ll extend the same rights to those of their own country. At the moment, though, all I can offer is that we must wait and see how things develop.”

  It was Bernard who told him what had happened to the young engineer.

  “And Arlette?” asked Hagen anxiously.

  Irritably Wunsch stubbed out his cigarette. “She has left a message that you are to meet her at the café of Cecile Verheyden. For me, I hope things are still all right between the two of you, though I must say I have my doubts.”

  Lietermann again interceded. “Since we still have no agreement from the British government, Richard, we have begun to make some plans to move the diamonds ourselves. Abraham, would you …”

  Reluctantly Merensky nodded. “We have leased the Megadan, a freighter of fifteen hundred tons. She is no different than countless others. All the traders are to have their stocks ready to be placed in clearly identifiable strongboxes for shipment at a moment’s notice. If we have to, Mijnheer Hagen, we will send the diamonds to London without the sanction of the British government.”

  Hond’s voice began to rise. “The ship will be torpedoed! They’ll sink it. Everything will be lost!”

  Hagen waited a moment for things to settle down. As a plan, it was a start but … “Gentlemen, sailors talk. A freighter sits idle, perhaps for months, but is always kept in readiness. How sure are you of your security?”

  “Meaning the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst have their agents,” said Merensky. “Yes, but you see there is also another problem. We would, of course, have liked to ask our navy to help us, but King Leopold still adamantly refuses to let us send the diamonds to London.”

  “So, in a sense our hands are tied,” said Lietermann, “by our own people and by the British government.”

  “Whatever we do must be done in absolute secrecy, Richard. There can be no leaks,” said Bernard.

  “But there have been, and the policy of neutrality is utterly stupid. Look, the French swear by their Maginot Line but the Germans know every detail of it. Here in Belgium what did we do? To build Fort Eben Emael and the Albert Canal defenses, we hired Monnoyer, which in turn had a subcontracting arrangement with the Reich, who then compensated them for putting in the lowest bids on the construction. The Germans must know all about our defenses, even to having the drawings.”

  Merensky felt sick. Forgotten, his cigar dropped ash on the green baize of his chair. Wunsch leaped to brush it off.

  Isaac Hond found his voice at last. “What you’re saying then is that no matter whom we trust, the Germans will find out.”

  “In a sense, yes. Unfortunately there are Belgians who will help them, just as there are Frenchmen who do the same. Though the Germans might sink the Megadan by accident, Mijnheer Hond, more than likely they will seize her.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  This had come from Lietermann. “That we stick with the Megadan—that you maintain the utmost secrecy on her—but that you agree to let me arrange something else that will be known only to the five of us. When and if war comes, we will then take dummy strongboxes to the Megadan and the diamonds to someplace else.”

  “Where?” asked Hond suspiciously.

  “The Central Railway Station. Two sealed cars are all we’ll need. These can then cross the channel at whichever port we feel is best.”

  Hagen had had it all worked out. “And if the Germans suspect a ruse? What if, instead of heading for the channel, the cars are rerouted to the Reich by you?”

  “Isaac, please. What Richard says makes sense. Let us at least think about it,” said Lietermann.

  Merensky shook his head. “Enough is enough. We have to do something. Let’s do as he says.” Hagen had got his niece out of Austria.

  Bernard Wunsch remained lost in troubled thought. On the death of the young engineer, Arlette Huysmans had wanted to tell him something but had then thought better of it. Had it been about Richard and de Heer Klees?

  “All right,” said Hond, “except that I will arrange for the railway cars and we will keep this and the time of shipment to ourselves.” He’d use trucks. Never the railways!

  Hagen got up to leave but turned suddenly back. “You’ve done what Heydrich wanted, Mijnheer Hond. You’ve got me out of it. He’s not worried about any of you. Their agents have penetrated the bourses. They know the size of the diamond stocks. They know how vital they are to them.”

  Hond wasn’t going to back down. “Why haven’t you been able to convince your friends in London of the urgency? Why haven’t they given their sanction to move the stocks before it is too late?”

  “Because I don’t have that kind of friends. Because if I did, Mijnheer Hond, I would probably be languishing in a German jail.”

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

  FROM HAGEN RICHARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP

  TELL FRANK TO BEAR UP AS I KNOW THE MADNESS WILL HAVE UPSET HIM STOP THOUGH THE SHADOW OF WAR HAS BEEN CAST THE DAYS OF SUMMER MAY YET PROVE US WRONG STOP LOVE HAGEN

  When decoded, the message would read:

  TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE

  KLASS MURDERED / PLANS BEING MADE TO MOVE DIAMONDS TO LONDON

  An hour later an answer came back. Decoded, the message read:

  TO ALICE FROM THE CARPENTER

  URGENT WE MEET / WHITE RABBIT INSISTS YOU BRING HUYSMANS ARLETTE / GLAD TO HEAR YOU MADE IT

  A light rain fell as he left the office. Hagen paused at the top of the stairs to pocket his keys. In many ways it was much like the night he and Arlette had first gone to Cecile’s.

  She’d be upset. To have seen a man die like that couldn’t have been easy.

  Worried about her and about what Dee Dee had told him Heydrich had said, he went down the steps. At the Central Railway Station there were several taxis waiting for the nine o’clock from Paris, and he thought then how nice it would be to take her to that city of light.

  But the lights would be going out all over Europe. Hitler wouldn’t stop. Czechoslovakia would be next and then Poland. There’d almost certainly be war.

  Cecile had called her club Chez Vous, with you, her friends and ex-lovers. She’d been watching for him from near the bar. The sequins caught what light there was as she fluidly made her way through the haze of tobacco smoke and the tables.

  “Cecile, it’s good to see you.”

  “And you, if I understand things correctly. My God, Richard, what the hell are you up to?”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “You smell good,” he said. “I like your hair longer. It suits.”

  Though she smiled warmly, worry soon darkened the deep blue eyes. Fondly she ran a hand up and down his arm, as if to ask, Is it really you? Self-consciously she said, “So you’re back. How was it?”

  He wondered how much Arlette had told her. “Not bad—for me, that is. Vienna was a madhouse. The Nazis were beating people in the streets while the crowds cheered them on.”

  “The Jews.” She tossed her head. “Did they really make them scrub out the latrines?”

  “And the streets, but not just the Jews. Anyone who’s been against them. By the time I got there Himmler and his boys had arrested something like seventy-six thousand people.”

  “Will the Nazis come here?” she asked.

  He nodded and said, “Unless we’re very lucky. Where’s Arlette?”

  Cecile blocked his way a moment longer. Richard had been so good in bed, and for a time they’d had such feelings for each other. “Is it that you really want to settle down? She’s very upset—my God, she doesn’t cry. What the hell have you done to her?”

  “Let me past, Cecile. I couldn’t get word out.”

  She didn’t budge. �
�For me it doesn’t matter, yes? But for her, she’s so innocent, Richard. To hurt such a one, I wouldn’t have believed it of you.”

  He caught her by the shoulders, but she stepped in on him swiftly and ran her fingers up the back of his neck. She pressed herself to him and found his lips. “Cecile, what the hell …”

  “Now maybe she’ll understand that for you there can be no roots.”

  Hagen followed her through the tables and when they came to where Arlette was sitting, Cecile dropped a comforting hand to Arlette’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “He’s back. If I were you, I’d tell him to go to hell!”

  As she left them, Arlette spread out the newspapers—pages from the Völkischer Beobachter and Berlin’s evening Der Angriff. Two of the Brussels rags as well: L’Ouest and Le Pays Réel. The Committee hadn’t said one damned thing about them! Bernard had left it to Arlette to tell him.

  His photograph was plastered all over the pages, a bevy of buxom beauties in the background, Heydrich grinning, leering, Dee Dee very pale, the neckline of her dress plunging to reveal her breasts.

  Arlette read from one of the captions. “‘The Gruppenführer Heydrich,’ Richard. ‘Relaxing with his good friend, the American diamond trader from Antwerp.’ The girl, she’s pretty, Richard. A biologist who looks like a prostitute!”

  He caught her by the arm and forced her to sit down. “Arlette, that happened over a month ago. It’s not what you think!”

  She wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t make a scene. “No, please. Allow me to explain. I have found these, Richard, in the snow where Guenther Klass had died. You are so lucky it was me who found them.”

  Hagen understood. The Jagers he’d given the engineer spilled from it when he uncrumpled the paper. Three clear, white diamonds.

  “You, me and that young man who was murdered, Richard. Murdered! You are taking diamonds to England for de Heer Klees.”

  “Will you trust me a little?”

  “Only if you tell me the truth.”

  “Arlette …”

  “The diamonds, Richard, and de Heer Klees. Nothing else.”

  “Have you told Bernard?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Not until I have heard this thing from you yourself.”