Laurel assented; she would rest and read in the hotel while he went about his errand. She told her secretary, and Lanny told his. They arranged to have their distinguished guest driven back to New York in the morning. There was no end to the details you had to attend to when you were running a radio programme, a small weekly paper, and a newspaper syndicate; but the task had its compensations, for you met the great minds of your time and it helped to sustain your hopes for the human race.
They packed their bags and set their alarm clock for six in the morning. The month being October, the sun would barely be up, but by an early start they would escape some of the traffic on the highway. They delayed only long enough for a glass of orange juice and some bread and fruit, and then they were off, on a road which took them into the highway known as US I, the main route to the south.
Already at that hour the highway was full of speeding trucks and cars. It passed through a string of cities—Newark, Elizabeth, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore. There were smaller towns in between, and lines of filling stations and eating places. There were great factories here and there, brick buildings with tall chimneys scattered over the landscape, and all of them discharging their products into the truck route and the railroad which paralleled it. Goods were carried to the ports where the ships came and went incessantly. For five years America had been loading them with the means of destruction and now for more years would be supplying the means of undoing the destruction.
Lanny Budd had been driving a car since his early youth, now more than thirty years in the past, and had never had a serious accident. When he was caught in a line of speeding traffic he left a space between himself and the car in front, so that if he were hit in the back there wouldn’t be a double crash. If some too eager driver crowded in front of him he would put out his hand and slow up and let the reckless one have his way. He was more than ever careful now because of that extra freight he was carrying, the second child whom he and Laurel so desired.
On the way they talked about the state of the world; like a pair of Atlases, male and female, they carried it upon their shoulders. In this year of 1946 it was a restless and quaking world, no comfortable burden. The dreadful war in Europe had ended seventeen months ago. The nations of the earth had got together and formed an organisation to establish order and keep the peace, but it appeared that the organisation wasn’t working too well. The Kremlin had vetoed three of its proposals in one afternoon, and the Soviet delegate had walked out from the meeting of the Security Council in New York. Did that mean that Russia was going to withdraw altogether? Winston Churchill had travelled to Missouri and under the auspices of President Truman had accused Russia of setting up an ‘iron curtain’ to shut out the Western world. Stalin had replied by calling Churchill ‘a firebrand of war’.
The most alarming development of all had been in the far South Sea island of Bikini, where the United States had given the world a demonstration of what the new atomic power could do. Eleven old war vessels had been destroyed and twenty-five more crippled. A second explosion, this time under water, had sunk a battleship, an aircraft carrier, and eight other vessels of war. The United States had proposed to the United Nations a plan to ban the manufacture of such weapons and provide that all nations should permit inspection to make sure of the keeping of the agreement. But Russia had announced that she would never accept such a plan; and it was hard to think of anything more disconcerting to a husband and wife who were spending all their time talking and writing about world peace.
III
In Washington, Lanny had his car put in the hotel garage, for in large cities there is no use driving your own car—you spend too much time looking for a parking place. He had lunch with Laurel and saw her settled in a comfortable room; then he took a taxi to the immense Treasury Building in which the mysterious John Turner had his office.
Lanny was ushered into the presence of one of those bureaucrats concerning whom one reads so much unfavourable comment in the newspapers. They are supposed to sit with their feet up on their desks, but Lanny had never seen one in that position. This one rose to greet his visitor and invited him to a seat alongside the desk. He was a man in his middle years, serious and quiet in manner; his business suit had been newly pressed, and his necktie was of the proper pattern. The same being true of Lanny, they understood that they belonged in the same social stratum and so knew how to deal with each other. Mr Turner offered him a cigarette, and when he did not take it Mr Turner did not smoke either.
‘Mr Budd’, he said, ‘from the state of our files I gather that you have never had much to do with the Secret Service. One of the tasks laid upon us from the beginning has been the detection and prevention of counterfeiting. We thought we had out hands full in the United States, but now a good part of Europe has been added, and a few thousand Pacific islands’.
‘Do they counterfeit cowrie shells?’ asked the visitor with a smile.
They counterfeit anything that they can put off on some poor sucker. Tell me, in the course of your researches among the Nazis did you run into any evidences of counterfeiting?’
‘I heard a good deal of talk about it off and on, but it wasn’t my job and I didn’t ask questions. I know that Adolf Hitler had all his plans made for the invasion of Britain, and a part of this was the printing of great quantities of English money, so that he could take possession of everything in the country without plain outright confiscation. I was told that he had set up a regular engraving establishment at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp’.
‘Our information is that at one time he had as prisoners there more than a hundred and forty expert engravers as well as convicted forgers from several countries; they were set to making plates for reproducing the currency of the Allied countries. The neutral nations were refusing to accept Hitler’s marks, they demanded sterling or American dollars. And if these dollars were successfully counterfeited the market would be flooded and prices would be forced up for the Allies. The enemy would get the goods and we would be driven into bankruptcy. The forgeries were so good that they went undetected for some time’.
‘“Himmler money” we used to call it’, Lanny put in.
‘Our information is that they printed some two hundred million British pounds, nearly a billion dollars. When the invading armies neared Sachsenhausen the Nazis transferred their machinery and slave labour to the Mauthausen concentration camp, on the Danube. When the final collapse came the stuff was scattered over the German-speaking lands. We have recently found a stock of it in a factory at Freising, and another lot sealed up in metal containers and sunk in a lake near Bad Ischl in Austria. What we want most of all is to find the plates. So long as they exist the floods of phoney money may be continuous. We have not been able to find any trace of them so far, and they may be in the hands of the Neo-Nazis, who are awaiting their time to seize power; or they may have fallen into the hands of gangsters—many of the Nazis have become that, as you doubtless know. Or again, the Communists may have got them. They too have their plans for the future. At least there is good reason to think that they might not be entirely displeased if something were to wreck the economy of the Western world’.
‘I can see that you have your hands full, Mr Turner’, said Lanny. ‘But tell me, where do I come into this?’
‘First, I want to ask you about this man who calls himself Braun and Vetterl and sometimes Bernhardt Monck’.
‘Monck is his real name’.
‘You know him well?’
‘I have known him for some thirteen or fourteen years’.
‘And you trust him?’
‘Completely. I have put him to many tests. He is an old-time sailor and labour leader, a Social Democrat, an active member and onetime official of that party’.
‘That means that he is not a Communist?’
‘It means he is the kind of man whom the Communists shoot in the back of the neck whenever they get power. I worked with Monck at the time of the Spanish War and all th
rough the Nazi terror. You can count on him.’
IV
From a drawer in his desk Turner took out a roll of white paper which had come off a teletype machine. ‘I cannot give you this to read’, he said, ‘because it is classified; but I will read you a bit from it’. He unrolled to a marked place and explained, ‘A code number is given—that is, Monck’s number—and the text goes on, “advises that Lanning Prescott Budd of Edgemere, New Jersey, may be of assistance in this matter. He was former President Roosevelt’s confidential agent in Europe and may be trusted. If he is not at Edgemere he may be reached through his father, who is Robert Budd, president of Budd-Erling Aircraft Corporation of Newcastle, Connecticut. He knows Stubendorf since boyhood; he knows the Graf, and also Kurt Meissner, the music composer’”. Is that true, Mr Budd?’
‘That is all true. You mean that you have some clue that leads to Stubendorf’
‘There are important clues leading there. But let me ask you questions first. How well do you know Graf Stubendorf?’
‘He is General Graf Stubendorf. I have known him since I was a boy, and I have attended several of his social functions in Berlin. I would not say that I know him intimately, but I know him well’.
‘And this other man, Kurt Meissner?’
‘I have known Kurt also since boyhood, when we attended the Dalcroze Dancing School at Hellerau in Germany. After the First World War he was a guest at my mother’s home on the French Riviera. We provided him with a studio in which he lived for eight years, and that enabled him to become the famous composer he is. But there is nothing left of our friendship now, alas. The last time he saw me he spat in my face’.
‘The matter is important’, said Turner, ‘and if you don’t mind telling me the story—’
‘Not at all’, replied the other. ‘Kurt Meissner fell under the influence of nazism early after the First World War. He introduced me to his Führer, and I didn’t think much of him. However, about ten years ago when President Roosevelt asked me to help him, I pretended to Kurt that I had begun to understand Hitler better, and I was admitted to the great man’s circle of intimates. Kurt didn’t find out that I was deceiving him until the American armies were close to the Rhine; and naturally he was furious. I don’t know where he is now’.
‘Here is what Monck thinks about it’, said Turner and read again from the teletype. ‘“Number so-and-so reports that Meissner was released from an American prison camp and is believed to be in Stubendorf, now Stielszcz, in Poland’”. What do you think of the chances?’
‘I do not know. I have wondered if he would wish to go back, and if he would be tolerated there. His Nazi philosophy is much closer to the Reds than it is to us, and it may be they would accept him. They make a great pretence of culture, you know—it is a part of their propaganda. They might even subsidise him and set him to composing music for them’.
‘Do you suppose that you could make friends with him and get information from him?’
‘I can’t be sure, Mr Turner. Boyhood friendships make a deep impression upon our minds, and we never get rid of them entirely. Kurt is a couple of years older than I, and as a boy he was much more learned and conscientious. He took a sort of fatherly attitude toward me. He taught me about German idealism, which uses long abstract words, and he probably has a tender spot for me in his heart. He might still be willing to make up with me’.
‘Having been a secret agent, Mr Budd, you know that we never talk unnecessarily. If you would be willing to do us this favour, then of course I will tell you what is necessary to the undertaking; you will get more from our agent on the spot who knows all the details. We would, of course, expect to pay all your expenses and a reasonable compensation’.
‘I have never accepted any compensation from the government, Mr Turner, and usually I paid my own expenses. You see, before I became a peace propagandist I was an art expert, and I used that as my camouflage all the time I was a P.A., as we called a presidential agent. I once purchased a valuable old master from Graf Stubendorf’s aunt. I didn’t buy it for myself but for a client. I might be able to do more business in Stubendorf if I could manage to smuggle paintings out’.
‘That would, of course, be perfectly agreeable to us; but you really must let us take care of your expenses going and coming. As to Meissner, what are his financial circumstances?’
‘He would be poor, I imagine. He has a large family. He was crippled by a war wound and can no longer play the piano. I suppose he can compose, but who could pay him for it now in Germany? His last composition that I know of was a Hitler march modelled on Wagner’s “Kaisermarsch.”’
‘You would be at liberty to offer him money within reason. It might be that he would enter our service—of course after you have made sure he could be trusted. It might occur to him that since you had deceived him for a number of years he would be justified in deceiving you for an equal number’.
‘All Nazis believe in deceiving people. The only question would be whether they would rather deceive Communists or Americans. I would have to find out about that before I made any offer of money. But explain this to me. Mr Turner: Stubendorf is now in Poland, and my understanding is that the Poles have an independent government, or supposed to be independent. Aren’t they the ones to handle this?’
‘We are doing our best to think of Poland as a friendly government, Mr Budd. We understand that the Soviets are still exercising military authority there, and we wish to think of them also as friends. We have reported the matter a number of times, and we expected the co-operation that one gets from civilised governments; but we have met only with evasions and delays. The matter has been hanging fire for a year now, and meantime this queer money, as we call it, continues to be smuggled into Berlin and into Western Germany and to be put into circulation there. We have to face the possibility that the local authorities, whether Polish or Soviet, may be in league with the criminals, and perhaps sharing the profits. If so, that is indeed a serious breach of good faith and of international fair dealing. We have decided that we must get some information for ourselves, and it occurred to us that you, being known as an art expert and an advocate of peace, might be able to get permission to visit Stubendorf—whether to look for some paintings to purchase, or perhaps to meet your old friend, Kurt Meissner, whatever seemed best in your judgment’.
‘It would not be easy for me to go. My wife is pregnant, and her time is due in a couple of months. A husband likes to be around at that time; also, we have a considerable business on our hands. It would be a question of making plans ahead and giving instructions to our staff’.
‘I don’t think this would be a long assignment, Mr Budd, and it is a matter of really top importance. We have reason to think that some of the priceless plates may be hidden in Stubendorf; or at any rate that persons in Stubendorf know about them. Would you think it a possibility that Meissner himself might be concerned in that?’
‘You have named three sorts of persons who might be involved, Mr Turner—Nazis, gangsters and Communists. Which do you suspect in this case?’
‘It is hard to be sure, Mr Budd, because the three groups shade into one another. Some of the Nazis have turned into gangsters and many have entered the service of the Communists—some of the highest and the most capable have done so. Gangsters, of course, pose as Communists, or as Nazis, whichever suits their purpose at the moment. Would it not be possible for you to approach Meissner on the basis of your old friendship? It hurts you to think of his hating you, and you are anxious to heal the old wound.’
‘I could do that, of course. But he will be certain to suspect that I have some hidden motive’.
Said Turner, ‘Approach him carefully, discuss the situation of Germany with him, and make sure of his point of view. Then, even if you cannot fool him, at least you can be sure he is not fooling you’.
V
Lanny spent the next couple of hours learning the ABCs of the counterfeiting industry, hitherto unfamiliar to him. He made notes and
promised to memorise them and then destroy them. He was shown specimens of British five-pound notes printed on white paper and of American five-dollar notes, known by such affectionate titles as ‘the long green’ and ‘folding money’. He could see nothing wrong with them and would have taken them gladly. Then Turner took him to a microscope near the window and told him what minute errors to look for; even then it was not easy to find them.
Men had died for the commission of those small mistakes. Turner told him how a group of three or four of these engraver-slaves had conspired to hide minute marks in the plates, whereby the notes could subsequently be identified. This was discovered, and the conspirators were sent to the gas chamber—that is, they were poisoned by cyanogen, their bodies burned in the furnace, and their bones ground up for fertiliser. All the engraver-slaves at Sachsenhausen had worked with this menace hanging over them; if they made a mistake it would be taken for granted that they had done it on purpose; mistakes were simply not permitted.
Turner did not go into the details of the case that Lanny was to investigate. All that would be supplied by the Treasury agents he would meet in Berlin—the Secret Service being a branch of the Treasury. Turner said, ‘Something might happen so that you couldn’t go;’ and Lanny understood this without explanation. Agents were told only what they needed to know and only when they needed to know it. Their dealings with the rest of the world were upon that same basis.
Lanny agreed to fly three days from date and was told that his passport and tickets would be brought to his home. He was taken into a photographing room and his face was ‘shot’; a pleasant face it was, usually, but somehow people always look solemn for this special occasion. The developing took only a few minutes, and the new agent received a leather folder with his accrediting as an agent of the United States Secret Service.
O Shepherd, Speak! Page 73