The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  “Arlette, that doesn’t matter. What does, is that he’s been having you followed. I can’t have that. I have to know you’re safe.”

  “Why must you go back? Why must you do this thing?” She stamped a foot and clenched a fist. “It’s stupid, Richard. It’s criminal!”

  He hoped Bernard hadn’t heard her. He knew she was referring not just to the Reich but to Klees. “Because I have to. Because I’ve friends inside the Reich who need my help, and yes, because someone has to do it.”

  The spying … “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Of course you must.”

  The pendant went into a drawer, any drawer! She stood there with her back to him.

  Hagen reached out, but she shrugged him off and turned swiftly to brush past him and close the heavy door of the vault.

  Then she stood there, leaning against it, trying to catch her breath.

  “I did love you. I did try to tell myself it was too good to be true.

  It was no use. As Richard took a step toward her, Arlette came to meet him.

  It felt so good to have him hold her again, to feel his arms around her. He kissed her lips, her chin, her cheeks and brow.

  Suddenly shy and self-conscious, she used his handkerchief to wipe the lipstick from him. “I liked that. Any receptionist would. Please come back for more.”

  “Hey, listen, you take care of yourself. No late nights. These people mean business, Arlette. Go to London. Please, for my sake and for your own.”

  Fondly she touched his hair and laid a hand against his cheek, then stepped in again to find his lips. “Dear God, how I want you,” she whispered. “My whole body cries out for you, Richard. Let’s get married. Let’s not wait.”

  When Wunsch found the two of them in the vault, Richard was busy writing down the telephone numbers of Sir Ernest and Duncan McPherson, should the girl need their help and change her mind.

  April 17, 1938

  Dear Richard,

  I am giving this letter to an Indian who is to be sent for supplies and who understands the few words of Spanish I have learned.

  I take this risk because, my darling—please let me call you that—because Dieter discovered my last letter to you. Heydrich had sent someone to him, a man whose name I never knew. That one questioned me. That one had me beaten. Dieter … Dieter was so angry, he stood by and watched.

  Richard, I don’t know what’s happening to him. He’s not the same. All day he works like a demon. At night he falls into his hammock. Since discovering the letter, he’s hardly spoken to me. I’m a prisoner here. I think sometimes I may not be allowed to leave.

  The deposit we are now working is on a tributary of the Jequitinhonha, about 220 kilometers to the northeast of Diamantina. There are no heaps of gravel, no huge, ocher-yellow holes in the ground where nothing will grow anymore. Just the jungle, the birds and snakes, the ragged cut of the river gully, our huts and those of the garimpeiros who have only grins and smiles and broken words for me. A new deposit, Richard. Something that was passed over in the early days.

  The washing plant is a crazy thing on stilts that stretches drunkenly for a kilometer along the gully, going up and down and angling this way and that—you must know what it looks like. Sheet iron and whipsawed wood, a constant racket of boulders and water and sand that rushes along all day and night, while the pumps throb constantly.

  There are some small tool diamonds, a little more of the boart—even some of the carbonado—and a few small gem diamonds. Seguras, the man who owns this deposit and who brought us here, insists there will be lots and lots of industrial diamonds if only more money and men can be made available. Understandably he wants to sell the deposit to Dieter or at least to lease it to him. He’s a crook and not to be trusted, and I think, deep in his heart, my brother knows this.

  Please take care of Dee Dee. The Indian is outside my window so I must stop. I hope you are safe and well.

  All my love, Irmgard

  The head of the Abwehr let the ghost of a smile betray his elation. Hagen had sought him out in Berlin, at the Jagdschloss Tiergarten. “Please, a glass of wine, or would you prefer some coffee?”

  They settled on the latter. Until the orderly left them, they talked of the Anschluss and of the Czech problem.

  Then Canaris leaned forward. Somehow Heydrich’s ambitions had to be curbed, and somehow he had to reinstate himself in the Führer’s good graces. “First the details, Richard, then the terms.”

  “The official plan is to move the diamond stocks by freighter, Admiral, but there’s an alternative plan, the one we’ll really use.”

  “And what is this, please?”

  “A little something Heydrich won’t know about.”

  Hagen reached for the coffeepot and offered it. Canaris shook his head.

  “The alternative plan, Richard?”

  “The SS and Heydrich musn’t know of it, Admiral. Herr Heydrich wouldn’t take it kindly if you told him I was holding out on him.”

  The nod was there but just. So Hagen was working for the opposition as well.

  “Two sealed railway cars. The diamonds in strongboxes, the cars to leave Antwerp’s Central Station for one of the channel ports.”

  “Which one?”

  “That hasn’t been settled as yet.”

  The freighter would have been so much easier to intercept. Could he really trust Hagen? It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. “Richard, tell me something. Do you ever get to Paris? These Treffs of ours would be easier and more discreet if held outside the Reich.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “The Travellers’ Club on the Champs-Elysees. Simply let the desk know when you’ll be in town and where you’ll be staying. Ask to leave that message for Dieter Karl. Our man will then get through to me, and I’ll have someone reliable there to meet with you or I’ll come myself.”

  “And Dieter?” he asked cautiously.

  “Dieter is still in Brazil, but he won’t mind us using his name.”

  He thought of telling Canaris that Heydrich had intercepted the sample of diamonds Dieter had sent from Brazil, then thought better of it. “I gather Dieter is working for the Abwehr.”

  “But of course. I thought you knew.”

  The moment was uncomfortable and Canaris let him suffer. “Now, please, the terms of your agreement with us?”

  “I want Fräulein Schroeder out of Germany.”

  Irritably Canaris tossed a hand. “These things are difficult—delicate. Believe me, I’m doing all I can. It’s not possible for me to force Herr Heydrich’s hand just yet. Apparently he’s still interested in the woman.”

  “That’s not good enough, Admiral. In exchange for the diamond stocks I want her out.”

  “And the money? The mining company you wish to form, or is it that you no longer want this?”

  “Dee Dee’s a friend, Admiral. I try to look after my friends.”

  “Very well, I will see what I can do. Now, please. Dieter Karl wishes you to provide us with everything you can on the deposits in the Congo. As soon as he returns from Brazil, I must send him there.”

  Over lunch they discussed the deposits of Mbuji-Mayi, of how the diamonds were found in the gravels of old riverbeds. Because the terrain had been repeatedly uplifted, the ancient rivers had swung wide, thus scattering their diamonds over a huge area.

  “One has to work hard for them, Admiral. One looks first for those places where the present rivers have cut down into the old deposits and reworked the ancient placers—the innermost bank of a bend, potholes, places where the water has swirled around and winnowed out all but the heaviest of minerals, coarse beds of gravel. The diamonds, being of a high specific gravity, like placer gold, will have found their way down to the bottom of the gravels. Sometimes a boulder twice the size of your dinner plate lies nestled beside a diamond no bigger than a pinhead. Once the old riverbed is exposed, we pick out the boulders and pan the sands in the crevices and hollows.”

  “Could it
be done in secret—with sufficient men and materials?”

  Hagen shook his head. “My father tried, though he was looking only for gem diamonds. If he couldn’t get away with it, no one can. War will only tighten things further.”

  “Dieter Karl won’t be much good on his own, will he?”

  “I really don’t know, Admiral. Some men are naturals when it comes to prospecting. But if there’s a war, there’ll be a blockade.”

  “Then what you wish is a mining company under the wing of De Beers so that you can secretly send us the diamonds.”

  “It won’t be easy, Admiral. It’ll take someone like myself whom they know and trust.”

  “And the money?”

  “The fifty thousand to start. Put into this.” He gave him the number of a bank account in Zurich, and again there was that nod.

  The admiral got up from the table. It was all so civilized—the polite handshake, the concern in those dark blue eyes, the pleasure of a shared conspiracy, while all the time they planned to make war on the rest of the world.

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

  FROM HAGEN RICHARD HOTEL ADLON BERLIN

  HOPE THE SUN IS SHINING THERE STOP AM WATCHING FOR A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING AND YOUR FEELINGS ARE HURT STOP A BOOK WOULD DO BUT KNOW YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE STOP LOVE RICHARD

  When decoded, the message would read:

  TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE

  RAILWAY BAIT TAKEN BY CANARIS / HUNT SHIFTING MBUJI-MAYI / SD-ABWEHR FRICTION CONTINUES / TRAVELLERS’ CLUB PARIS HAS ABWEHR AGENT / CLARIFY IF SUSPECTED SD OPERATIVE / ALICE

  In the late afternoon he took the train to Düsseldorf. Krantz had either been told to leave him alone or was being very good at things. Though he checked as often as he could, no one seemed to be following him.

  The man was no longer in the street. Perhaps he had grown tired of watching the house.

  Arlette waited a moment more. From the darkness of her bedroom at Madame Hausemer’s she hunted the street below.

  There was no one.

  Reaching for her purse, she hesitated. Was it right of her to take the chance, knowing that they were watching the house? She wanted so much to see Richard again. The midnight train would soon be in from Amsterdam. He’d go straight to the office to leave the diamonds from de Heer Klees in the vault. Then he’d go to the club because of the message she’d left on his desk: Chez Vous have requested that you pay your bill.

  The house was asleep. The locks were on and it took forever to withdraw the bolts as quietly as she could.

  Keeping to the shadows, Arlette hurried along the street. When a car came slowly up behind her, she stepped into a doorway and waited.

  The car crept past. Glad of her flat-soled shoes, she ran along the street and up a lane.

  Sure enough, the car came back. Street by street they forced her toward the docks. No place for a woman at night. No place …

  She kept to the shadows again. Dillingham’s had their fabricating shop nearby. There was a shipping yard at the back, with a shed for the night watchman. She could hide there, could say she’d lost her house key or something. Anything!

  When a taxi came along the quay after dropping a sailor off at his ship, Arlette stepped quickly out and raised a hand.

  At the Club Chez Vous, she vowed she wouldn’t tell Richard. He’d be so worried; he had worries enough of his own.

  Hagen glanced over the cable he had written to the Dorchester address. When decoded, the message would read:

  TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE

  MEPPEN FIRING RANGE TESTING 88 MM ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNS AGAINST FRENCH TANK SOMUA-S / EFFECTS DEVASTATING / ARMOR PLATING BRITISH MARK III TANK ALSO TESTED WITH EQUAL RESULTS / GERMANS NOW USING ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS TIPPED WITH TUNGSTEN CARBIDE / LINE THROUGH KLEES APPEARS TO BE STILL OPEN SUGGEST USE CAUTION / HUYSMANS ARLETTE BEING WATCHED ANTWERP OPERATIVES BELGIAN SD / ALICE

  Coming into the city a little early, he’d seen them watching the house where Arlette lived. They’d followed her as far as the docks but then had suddenly left her alone.

  When he got to the club, she was asleep on the couch in Cecile’s sitting room and he hated to awaken her. Half in a dream, half awake, Arlette clung to him and when he lay on top of her, she wrapped her arms about him, couldn’t stop the shaking, was terrified still.

  Again and again they kissed. Faster now until nothing else mattered.

  But then Cecile came into the room to tell them that it was getting late and she’d better drive them home.

  In May he was gone again—to Prague this time, to Budapest and then to Warsaw and through the Polish Corridor to Danzig. And in May both Britain and France announced increased spending programs for arms. Plans were being drawn up to stockpile food. Britain told the Germans she might be forced into joining with France it there was a war.

  Czechoslovakia, confronted by no fewer than ten German divisions on her borders, had ordered what the news broadcaster had called “a partial mobilization.”

  “The Skoda Works,” muttered Bernard Wunsch. “Trucks, cars and tanks! High-temperature ceramics, Juffrouw Huysmans—insulators and the firing cones for rocket engines, if you ask me. Sawed by our diamonds! Guns! Glassware! Quartz crystals—ah, yes, I can see that you do not understand me. Quartz crystals for their secret wireless transmitters.”

  He touched the tip of his nose. “Wavelengths, Arlette. Me, I have some experience of such things. Each quartz crystal is sawed so as to give the exact thickness to emit only so many wavelengths. The Czechs have much that the Nazis must want.”

  All this had come in a momentary pause between bursts of “green bonding agents, copper rolling and sintering.” The ways the diamonds were fixed into their respective tools.

  The fabricating shop was running flat out.

  “Train their technicians,” he shouted above the racket. “It’s a lot for you to learn, Arlette. Please, I understand this, but these are difficult times.”

  They retreated to the relative calm of the yard and began to check the latest shipment for the Krupp. “Train their technicians? How could we, knowing what we do?”

  The order had been packed in labeled wooden crates for shipment by freighter to Hamburg. “Are we fools?” he asked. “Every ship they send carries their spies, and we both know that there are people of our own who work for them only too willingly. This I simply cannot understand.”

  “Please, you must try not to worry so much, Mijnheer Wunsch. Nor should you work so hard. Why not let me do this? Go home a little early. It’s a lovely day for a walk. It would help you to relax.”

  Relax? he wanted to shout, but stopped himself. In spite of the continued crisis there was that fresh-faced vitality about her that told him more than words.

  But then, pausing under his scrutiny, she said, “I will be going home to see Willi this Sunday,” and he knew she had read his mind.

  They worked at checking the shipment, she moving from crate to crate and reading the labels to him in her flawless German. She had a graceful way about her, a sureness now that she hadn’t had when she’d first come to them. “Richard is a fool, my dear. If I were younger and unmarried … ah, I’d give this Willi trouble.”

  “And me?” she said, grinning at the compliment to hide the truth of what she was doing. “Me, I would welcome such a diversion from a man like you.”

  Wunsch found his heart racing. “Martine, she will be glad to see me home early,” he said gruffly. “But first, a little walk.”

  Thrusting the clipboard into her hands, he went to find his briefcase. Such a sensitive man. Who would have thought … ?

  Arlette left the shipping yard to watch him walk along the quays until at last his steps slowed and he began to take an interest in things.

  For another hour and a half she stayed at the shop, using the change of shifts to go through the loft above and the watchman’s shed. Memorizing th
e layout and the access points in case she should need to know of them. A broken window that could easily be opened if found in the dark. Lights above the loading bay and the back doors that would betray her.

  The roof of the shed—was it low enough? Could she climb up there?

  Later, she, too, walked along the quays until she came to the Megadan. Lev had said it was a rusty old freighter, and she had to agree with him. “A tramp steamer without a home port,” he had called it. “A fifteen-hundred-ton bathtub with a leaky plug!”

  Yet de Heer Wunsch, who should have been so worried about it, had strolled right past the freighter without a second glance.

  “Willi, what will you do if there’s a war?”

  De Menten lay back in the blowout they’d found among the dunes. “Must you think of such things at a time like this?”

  “But it is important, is it not? I wouldn’t like to think of you in the army.”

  He snorted. “Then you needn’t worry. With these eyes of mine they wouldn’t dare give me a rifle. Besides, they’ll stick me in one of the garages fixing their trucks and getting paid piss all!”

  She would want to talk about the possibility of war.

  Miffed, she said, “I was only asking.”

  The sound of the waves filled the air. Arlette climbed out of the blowout to stand on the crest of the dune, and shielded her eyes. The wind tugged at her dress. Richard … would he be thinking of her once in a while?

  Of course he would, and Cecile’s club was such a good place for them to meet. She just knew they’d use it again.

  Shaking out her hair, Arlette shut her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, only to hear Willi say, “Don’t you want to eat?”

  “In a minute. I want to feel free, Willi. Just free like this.” Dear God, but it would be heaven if Richard and she could be alone among these dunes, no fears, no worries, just the two of them in each other’s arms.

  There were several people on the beach, some hiking, some having picnics; a few even watched the birds.

  When she noticed a man looking at her through binoculars, Arlette turned to face him. “Willi … Willi, come up here. It’s … it’s so beautiful. Come and see it. Please!”