The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  Krantz, of course, had come from Berlin.

  Each day this battery of three spent two hours with Hagen. Just what specialties Laubach and Dietsch held he didn’t know. But there’d been no brutality, no sadism, simply a series of questions over coffee sometimes or, because Frau Dietsch preferred it, green blackberry tea with mint. For the health.

  Rose hips, too. Sometimes a beef broth flavored with dill.

  He could never forgive Krantz for having caused Arlette’s death and for having shot Dee Dee and her child, but then, they couldn’t forgive him either.

  “Richard, just before you discovered we’d taken care of Herr Klees for you, you met with your director at the club of Cecile Verheyden.”

  Krantz offered Frau Dietsch a cigarette and held the light for her. “Did you often meet there?”

  Was Cecile to be the theme for today? “No. Bernard didn’t care for jazz.”

  “But the occasion necessitated his finding you on short notice?”

  This had come from the vintner. Hagen wondered how they could possibly have known of the meeting. He explained why Bernard had come to the club.

  “But, please,” asked Krantz, “was the Verheyden woman present when you discussed Herr Klees with him?”

  Frau Dietsch watched him as she’d watch a rebellious hen.

  “Cecile was downstairs in the club.”

  “Then you met upstairs?” said Laubach.

  “Yes. Yes, I met him in her office.”

  “Her sitting room, I think.”

  Trapped, he glanced at each of them, receiving their individual expressions: one smile, one bland mask, one stern gaze of suspicion of certain sin.

  Magnanimously, Krantz spread his meaty hands on the table. “Why the sitting room, Richard? It’s a club, isn’t it? Why not a table downstairs?”

  “I asked Cecile if we could use her sitting room. Bernard didn’t want anyone to overhear us.”

  The three of them exchanged glances. The farm wife said, “That is not so, Herr Hagen. The Fräulein Huysmans and you were already upstairs in the sitting room.”

  Krantz leaned forward. “Richard, it’s time for us to tell you a little something. Arlette Huysmans didn’t drown. We have her in a cell here. Must Frau Dietsch disclose to you just what you and that girl did in that flat? Not once, I gather, but several times. The most intimate details.”

  How could they possibly have found out? Damas? Cecile? Had someone got to Cecile and made her tell them?

  “You can’t possibly have Arlette. She drowned in the sea off Ostend.”

  Ignoring this, they began their questioning in earnest. Always softly, always turning, turning. First the Antwerp diamond stocks. Why was he so certain the trucks would be used? Why not the freighter? Of course he had said the freighter would be used. Not the railway cars, but these, of course, would be so much more convenient, wasn’t that so?

  Then the code. “These things, they are unpleasant, yes?” said Frau Dietsch. “But necessary. The Huysmans girl, you understand? She has said—and this can be confirmed, Herr Hagen, by analysis of your cables and telephone conversations—that you used phrases from the poems of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.”

  They were lying about Arlette. Lying! “My mother and I sent those back and forth. We quoted them to each other so as to remind us of the past.”

  “Your father and the jungle, prospecting,” said the vintner.

  “Yes. My mother read those poems to me as a child. We had little else with us, so I came to love and know them well.”

  Frau Dietsch pinched her nose in thought. “But you do not get along with your mother?”

  Irmgard would have told them this. “Not well. Not since my mother married Frank Winfield within a week of my father’s death.”

  “In the war,” said Krantz. “Ypres.” Did Hagen realize what had happened?

  “In the war, yes, Herr Krantz. But we still quote the poems back and forth to remind each other of the good times. I was once very close to the two to them. My mother wishes me to remember this and I, her.”

  “And your father-in-law. The Magpie Lane address, Richard. Did you also quote passages with him?”

  Hagen refused to answer. His cup was refilled. Frau Dietsch passed him the last of the poppyseed cakes, flat, biscuitlike things, not too sweet. He had gorged upon them and managed to hide—he hoped—two of them in the folds of his smock.

  The woman said, “Please, Herr Hagen, you must understand that the cases of the fräuleins Huysmans and Hunter are out of our hands. If I could stop what they are doing to them, I would.”

  “So, please, Richard, the code,” said Krantz. “Tell us and I assure you, nothing more will happen to them.”

  “You haven’t got Arlette, Herr Krantz. Quit trying to tell me you have.”

  The Berliner shook his head and said that he was sorry. “Your friend, Duncan McPherson, didn’t tell you everything. He wanted you to be angry, Richard. He wanted you to go back into the Reich. Karl Christian Damas and I kidnapped the girl and made it look as if she’d drowned.”

  The late-autumn sky was gray and streaked with rain. On the horizon, the setting sun broke beneath the lead-lined clouds and the wind came in gusts to wash across the marshes, bending the reeds.

  The Verheyden farm possessed the best of everything. Absolute privacy, sand hills to the rear of the house, expansive views to the front and side.

  Canals, of course, with distant windmills turning. A place for a wireless set, if needed. A place to cache men and arms—the house and barns, built in the traditional style of a square, surrounding a cobbled courtyard, were perfect.

  From the east of the Scheldt to the Dutch border, the landscape was one of lonely moors and sand plains upon whose desolate expanses the farm buildings, as here, stood out starkly against the sky. Now and then clumps of sand hills marked the positions of old coastal dunes. Those behind the house and barns would give the wireless aerial height. Cecile need never know.

  They had passed several defensive works, and at each of these she had displayed a disarming charm that could be useful to them. Even the most stubborn of Belgian colonels had let them through. It would be easy to get around them. A squad of thirty men—would it take more to seize the diamonds? Not with Damas and his group.

  The shooting had been good—ducks on the marshes as she’d promised, grouse and snipe among the sand hills …

  “So, Dieter, you like my little nest? Who would have thought my parents had been farmers? My father had this place from his father, who had it from his. Me, I lease the land to a neighbor but have the house and the rest for myself. It’s good to keep one’s roots, don’t you think?”

  Hunter took the cigarette from her and set it in the ashtray. For a moment they looked steadily at each other, then he drew her to him and felt again the litheness of her splendid body.

  They kissed … the kiss lingered. Hesitantly she pressed her hands against his chest. He said, “Go on. You first. I’d like to watch.”

  She shook her head. “There’s room for two. That way we’ll get to know each other even better.”

  The copper tub had a high back, flared sides and the patina of long use. Hunter brought the champagne, she the soap and towels. Neither of them said a thing as they undressed.

  Cecile stepped into the tub but stood there, tall and statuesque, her breasts high and firm. He lit the candles and blew out the lanterns. He watched her as she watched him.

  Damas and his men mustn’t know that he planned to use this place. He must keep that from them until the very last.

  The triangle of blond curls beneath the soft and gentle swell of her stomach drew his gaze. Her fingers spread over the pubis, over her breasts. The mock modesty, the laughter was there. The candlelight gave her skin the glow of crushed velvet, her hair the sheen of corn silk.

  Then her hands gripped the cheeks of her rump. The stance became one of impudence, of “Oh, what the hell do you think you’
re up to?”

  She gave a laugh, let him know she was only too well aware of what he was doing.

  He opened the antique dressing mirror that had been her grandmother’s most private possession, and set it to one side. She could see herself and the candle on the table. Her back was to the stove.

  Dieter Karl’s shoulders were not as broad as Richard’s. He had neither the gentleness nor the will to laugh at himself. There weren’t the scars. No, the frame of him was good, but not as strong, not as at ease with himself.

  The maleness of him drew her hands. They stood and kissed. She cupped his testicles and stroked him to erection. Together, they sank into the water, facing each other. “It’s best this way,” she said, still gripping him.

  She could kneel and he could kneel. One had to sit with knees upraised.

  Again they kissed, lightly this time. Again he wondered about her. How much could he trust her? Had she known Duncan McPherson? Had Richard not introduced them when he and Cecile had been engaged to be married?

  Cecile didn’t shut her eyes. Glancing in the mirror, she wondered if Dieter had placed it there for some other purpose? “Mmm,” she said. “I like it when you soap my breasts. Your cock is big and strong.”

  “Your shoulders, your neck …” He nibbled an earlobe and wondered if she was working for the British.

  He did her back, ran his fingers firmly up and down the length of her, touching each vertebra. As she bent to kiss the maleness of him, Hunter slid his hands around to soap her breasts again, to caress her flanks, her buttocks.

  Cecile leaned back. He filled their glasses and held hers out.

  “You’re not to worry about Richard. He’s a realist, Cecile. He’s helping us with our new diamond center in Munich. I’m hoping to send him to the Congo in the not too distant future.”

  “Must we talk about him?”

  “You were once his lover.”

  The acid all too clear, she said, “Before Arlette. Before that bitch.”

  He set his glass aside on the floor and refilled it. She said, “Is your sister really like her?”

  “Arlette? Me, I never met the girl. Were they very much in love?”

  “I think Richard wanted to get her pregnant. My God, Dieter, the stupid cow took no precautions, nor did he. It was just like him.”

  Hunter ran a hand between her legs and began to wash her. She eased herself well down in the tub and parted her knees as far as possible, then dangled her legs over the sides and took a sip of champagne.

  “Weren’t you just a little bit jealous?” he asked.

  He felt her stiffen, heard her scoff, “Me? Why should I have been? For us it was finished. She said she was being followed all the time and that they needed someplace private. I said okay.”

  “Did they ever talk about the Antwerp diamond stocks?”

  “Only once that I overheard, but Arlette had to telephone things to England for him.”

  Hunter chuckled. “You listened in. You were jealous.”

  “What if I was? Richard … Richard and I …”

  He flattened a hand against her stomach and began to touch her clitoris, said, “Forget it, please. Of course you two were once in love.”

  Again she sat up but this time turned and asked him to do her back properly. The long journey up her spine began. She sighed when he reached the base of her neck. Now she let her arms and head hang over the end of the tub. Through the half-open draft of the firebox door she could see the flames.

  Dieter began to do her seat, his hands going round and round, the thumbs now up to the base of her spine, then to her neck, now her seat again, massaging her, now the spine again.

  Taking the sponge, he repeatedly squeezed water over her back, and she felt it falling on her skin, her seat, her neck. Richard had done that. Richard … They’d spent a fortnight here, the two of them—he’d been such a fantastic lover. They’d done it so many times.

  Hunter kissed each buttock. Cecile murmured softly and shut her eyes, let the warmth of the stove bathe her face and arms.

  “Did they ever mention the Congo as a source of diamonds?” he asked.

  Dripping, she stood up suddenly and turned to face him. Was there anger now? he wondered. Had he tried to gain too much?

  “Will there be war in the West?” she asked. “Look, I know you can’t answer that. It was stupid of me, but the club, this place, I …”

  Suddenly she was very afraid.

  He smiled up at her and shook his head. “Nothing could be further from the Führer’s mind.”

  “Then why not ask Richard all these things you want to know?”

  Hunter reached out and took hold of her by her hips.

  “Arlette is in prison. We kidnapped her. That is why Richard has married my sister, and that is why he still hesitates to tell us everything.”

  A grin broke out on her face. She drew him to her and felt the warmth, the roughness of his tongue as it probed among the hairs and found the nubby bump of her clitoris.

  Standing there, she watched his hands as they molded and gripped the cheeks of her seat. The jet-black hair, the shoulders, the hands … now the tongue again, flicking, probing, encircling. It didn’t stop. It went on and on. She couldn’t draw away. God, oh God …

  Her voice broke. “Come to bed. Please, I … I’d like to …”

  Hunter didn’t stop. He drove her to orgasm and when she came, Cecile shut her eyes and fiercely gripped his head and held his mouth against her, held it until he had run his hands up to her breasts and pulled her down.

  Hungrily she kissed him. Shutting out all else, she gripped his cock and began to stroke it.

  Kneeling on the rug before the fire, she felt him push himself inside her. She was tight, dry; he too big, too hard. He used his thumbs. She caught a breath, swallowed and shoved herself against him.

  “Look up. Look at yourself,” he said.

  Her breasts were pendulous, the nipples red and taut. Dieter caressed them constantly as he drove himself inside her. Faster now … faster. The dark eyes watching her, misting as her own eyes misted, the mask of him twisting as he withdrew one last time and she gasped, “Don’t! Please don’t,” only to feel him drive himself deeply into her again.

  Lifting her up, he came. No sound. Nothing. Not a cry of ecstasy, a moan of joy to join her own. Just the silence of his ejaculation.

  Afterward, she told him a little more about Richard and Arlette, just enough to tease him, just enough to make him return.

  Cold, it was so cold and damp in the cell. Freezing! Involuntarily the shivers came, but when they passed the sweating started.

  Hagen sat up and clutched his shoulders. They had cut his rations back to nothing. Sleep, then no sleep. Water, then no water. For weeks they’d kept it up. Did he even know what date it was?

  They’d told him that the trial would take place in the old Munich Infantry School on the Blutenburgerstrasse. There’d be the testimony first, then further interrogation and the final speeches by the defense and the prosecution. A tribunal would decide how swiftly they should die, and the foreign press, especially those from the States, would be witness to the executions.

  The iron-studded gates of the prison would open once more. The drive back from Munich would take two hours. Would they blindfold him? Would he be allowed to see Irmgard before she died?

  At nine o’clock that evening an impatient Otto Krantz came into the cell. The shaking had passed. The fever had now climbed until Hagen was delirious. Tossing and turning on the bunk, he mumbled snatches of nothing, only to cry out every now and then, “Duncan, they say they’ve got Arlette! Kill Heydrich. Kill him for me.”

  Krantz gave a curt nod to the man who had come with him. He moved aside. The man leaned over Hagen and took hold of him by the shoulders. “Richard …? Och, it’s me, Duncan, laddie. Can you no hear me?”

  “Duncan …” he gasped.

  “Aye, I’m here, Ritchie. Here.”

  “Water. Give me water
and quinine. Sulfa! I’ve got to get back to Antwerp. The diamonds, Duncan. They’re after the diamonds!”

  “Richard, did Churchill say he’d send a squad of men to help?”

  “Rabbit … White Rabbit …”

  He drifted off, mumbling things about fighter planes and guns.

  “He’ll die, Herr Krantz.”

  “Ask him about the code. We have to know what he told the British. Hunter must know if they’re sending in a team of men.”

  “Richard, listen to me. Use the code. Send a message. ‘The sun was shining …’”

  Hagen sat up and stared blankly at them. The sweat poured through the stubble. Slowly a smile grew and he gave a childlike laugh.

  “He’s back in the jungle now, Herr Krantz. We’ll get nothing further from him.”

  “‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, / Is what we chiefly need …’”

  “Take him to the prison hospital. Give him the quinine and sulfa. Don’t let him die.”

  Damas finished his cigarette before quietly getting out of the car, which he’d parked some distance down the road from the Verheyden farm. Krantz had been definite. Have a look. Find out everything.

  Had the Baron Dieter Karl Hunter fallen in love with the Verheyden woman? Was she working for the British?

  The stars were brittle, the moon bright. Lights shone from the house. Fortunately, though there were dogs on the neighboring farms, the woman had not the time or the patience for them.

  When he came to the house, he found the couple in the sitting room. The Verheyden woman held a map of the surrounding countryside. She was pointing out things to the baron in answer to his questions. She looked … what could he say about that look? Afraid? Anxious? What … what was there in those blue eyes, that pretty face?

  The couple had their coffee, the baron laughing now and trying to ease her mind.

  As Damas watched through the lace of the curtains, they set their cups aside and began to kiss, the baron clasping the woman’s left breast, she sliding a hand up his leg.

  Momentarily they parted, each studying the lips of the other. Then the Verheyden woman began to pluck at the buttons of her blouse as the baron’s fingers caressed the soft skin of her neck before burying themselves in her hair.