Presidential Mission

by Sinclair, Upton;

  At the desk where once had been an obsequious hotel clerk now sat a red-faced and severe-looking Feldwebel. Lanny approached and said, “Will you kindly oblige me with a small envelope.” He took a visiting card from the case in his pocket. “Mr. Lanning Prescott Budd,” it read, and with his fountain pen he wrote underneath, “Geheimer Agent des Führers, einen Bericht zu erstatten.” He put the card in the envelope, methodically sealed it, and wrote on the outside, “Dem Herrn Marschall Albert von Kesselring, oder dem Herrn General Enno von Rintelen. Persönlich.” He handed that to the Feldwebel and watched the man’s eyes pop. He tapped a bell, and a soldier came. “Neunzehn,” he said, and the man took the card and went to the elevator. Lanny picked up his little suitcase, went to one of the big leather chairs, seated himself, and crossed his legs nonchalantly. The SS man watched him discreetly from near by.

  XIII

  There emerged from the elevator a tall, monocled Prussian of high rank. He came toward the visitor, and the visitor rose and gave the Nazi salute. Many of these old-time masters of Germany hated having to return this salute, but they wouldn’t let a stranger know that. This one introduced himself as “Oberst von Horn,” and Lanny said, “Herr Budd,” and bowed. The Oberst said inquiringly, “You wish to speak to the Marshal or the Chief of Staff?” The visitor, knowing the exact measure of courtesy and coldness to use with these proud gentry, replied, “I sent them a written message, marked personal.”

  It was a challenge, and the officer would not fail to know it. Said he, “Will you be so kind as to give me an idea as to the nature of your business with these officers?”

  “Leider, Herr Oberst,” replied Lanny. “I am under strict orders that what I have to say is to be said to them alone.”

  “Under whose orders, may I inquire?”

  “I have told them that in my written message, Herr Oberst.” Lanny might have added, “Did you open it?” but that would have been rude, and when you are dealing with a haughty person you are as rude as he, but no ruder.

  “You must understand that they are very busy, Herr Budd.”

  “Selbstverständlich, but I will take no more of their time than they care to give me.”

  “And suppose they are not here?”

  “I don’t mind waiting until they come.” There was a duel of the eyes; Lanny stared straight into a cold blue Prussian pair, and wondered what they were making of a brown American pair.

  Apparently not much, for the Oberst said, “May I inquire of what nationality you are, Herr Budd?”

  “I trust that you will not take it as a discourtesy, Herr Oberst. I am under strict orders to give no information except to Marshal von Kesselring or General von Rintelen. You must surely realize that a man would not enter the Mediterranean headquarters of the Reichswehr unless he had something that would justify his intrusion.”

  The haughty one realized that he had met his match. “You confront me with an embarrassing responsibility,” he said, and his eyes moved to the suitcase on the floor beside Lanny’s chair.

  “I understand what you mean, Herr Oberst. The bag contains the few necessities of a traveler, and I shall be pleased to have you examine it. Since I have to ask the privilege of speaking in private to either the Marshal or the General, I expect that you will have me searched.”

  “Ausgezeichnet, Herr Budd,” said the other, obviously relieved. “Bitte, kommen Sie mit mir.” He signed to the SS man, then led the way to the elevator.

  XIV

  In a room which had once been a hotel bedroom, and now appeared to be a conference room, the SS man opened Lanny’s small suitcase, while the Oberst sat stiffly in a chair and stared through his monocle at each article as the other held it up. The man ran his hands over the lining of the suitcase, felt the seams, and did a thorough job. He handed the Italian dictionary and the two Nazi pamphlets to the officer, who leafed through them without comment. A well-educated man, he doubtless thought the pamphlets were rubbish and realized that they might be a blind; but he said nothing. Lanny took off his coat, shirt, and trousers, and sat in his shorts while the SS man made an examination of the clothing and contents of the pockets. He took off his shoes and handed them over; he stood up and let the man pass his hard hot hands all over him. In these days science had constructed so many subtle poisons and cunning weapons that it was hard to distinguish between an innocent civilian and a deadly assassin. A fountain pen might shoot a poisoned bullet, so the SS man first made sure that it would write, and then he took it apart and made sure that it wouldn’t do anything else.

  He took a large wad of Italian banknotes out of the stranger’s billfold and another wad out of his back trousers pocket and handed them to the officer, who glanced at them, still without comment. Lanny’s passport revealed that he was an American, or at any rate that he was posing as one. When the Oberst had looked through this elaborate document he knew also that the stranger had come by way of North Africa; but still he kept silent. Lanny took the liberty of saying, “I suggest that you caution this man not to mention my name or to talk about anything he has learned.”

  The officer addressed the SS man sternly, “Hören Sie! Über diesen Vorfall darf weder jetzt noch in Hinkunft das Geringste verlauten.” The man saluted and replied, “Zu Befehl, Herr Oberst.” Lanny put his clothes on and got back his property. When the officer condescended to apologize for the inconvenience, Lanny answered, “Someday we may meet in peacetime and exchange a smile over this odd manner of introduction.”

  The P.A. was escorted to a suite on what Americans call the second floor of the hotel and which Europeans call the first. He entered a reception room where a secretary and a filing clerk were busy. At a word from the Oberst the secretary tapped on an inner door and then opened it. The Oberst went in first and stopped, clicked his heels, bowed, and announced, “Herr Budd, who wishes to speak with you.” Lanny entered and saw a man in a gray-green uniform seated at a large flat-topped desk. “Marschall von Kesselring,” announced the Oberst with stateliness; and Lanny bowed politely and said, “Herr Marschall.”

  “Smiling Albert” was the Marshal’s nickname; he was a Bavarian, noted for the bonhomie common to his land. But he wasn’t smiling now, being in the midst of desperate days. He nodded his head to the extent of perhaps two inches and demanded, “You have a message for me?”

  The reply was, “My orders are to speak with you in private.”

  The commander of all the land, sea, and air forces of the Axis in the Mediterranean area glanced at his staff officer, who spoke quickly, “Herr Budd suggested that we should search him, and this has been done. He carries an American passport and has come by way of North Africa. He is not armed.”

  “You may wait outside,” said the Marshal, and the Oberst clicked, bowed again, and withdrew. The SS man had been left out in the hall, and the secretary had not entered the room.

  “Herr Marschall,” began Lanny, when the door was closed, “I had the honor of being a guest at Berchtesgaden just before this war broke out. Many generals came and went, and I believe you were among them.”

  “Oh, so you are that Herr Budd!” The great man’s manner changed quickly.

  “I was commissioned by the Führer to carry out certain investigations and to come back and report to him. His instructions were that wherever I succeeded in entering Axis territory, I was to seek out the highest German authority and request him to notify the Führer at Berlin 116191.”

  “I see that you have been entrusted with the Führer’s telephone number.”

  “He did me that honor. So far I have used it only three times.”

  “May I ask when and where you last saw the Führer?”

  “The time was last February, and the place was his field headquarters. I was flown blindfolded. My guess was western Ukraine.”

  “This is very interesting. Are you at liberty to tell me how you got into this city?”

  “Leider, Herr Marschall, my orders are to talk with no one until I have reported to the Führer. It
is possible that he may send me back here, and if he does, no doubt he will instruct me to talk with you. Meantime, I have one thing to ask, that you will be so kind as to notify the Führer that his American agent is here.”

  XV

  The heavily burdened officer sat gazing fixedly at this unexpected caller: obviously a cultivated man and accustomed to good society—no raw upstart like the Nazis, whom an officer of the old army had a hard time tolerating. Well-dressed in spite of the wrinkles and well-groomed in spite of needing a shave; the visitor spoke an elegant German which must have come in part from books. He seemed at ease in spite of having put his head into a tiger’s mouth. His story must be true, the Marshal reflected, or this would have been the last room in the city of Rome to which he would have sought entrance.

  Casual as he seemed, Lanny too was studying his auditor: a man of sixty or so, smooth-shaven, with round, puffy cheeks, giving the odd effect of a chipmunk. He had bags under his eyes and other signs of the strain under which he was working. His manners were polished; but besides being “Smiling Albert” he had been called “the Crazy Butcher,” because of the way he had sacrificed his men in the desperate fighting in Tunisia. Before that he had been Luftwaffe Chief of Staff and had directed the bombing of Poland, Holland, Belgium, France, and London. Chat with him pleasantly, but don’t forget that your head is in the tiger’s mouth!

  The tiger pressed a button and spoke to his secretary in the next room. “Get me the Führer at his headquarters.” The woman’s voice said, “Zu Befehl, Herr Marschall,” and then he turned to his guest. “Would you be at liberty to tell me, Herr Budd, how you came to know the Führer so well?”

  “Surely, Herr Marschall. I am an American because my father was, but I was born in Switzerland and have lived most of my life in France and Germany. I visited the Fatherland as a boy, because of my friendship for Kurt Meissner, the Komponist.”

  “Oh! Then you doubtless know his brother, General Emil Meissner.”

  “I know him well. Can you tell me how he is?”

  “He is all right, so far as I have heard. Perhaps the Führer will tell you where he is serving.”

  The other continued, “At Schloss Stubendorf, Kurt’s home, I met a lad who became one of the Führer’s earliest followers, and so I learned about this wonderful man. In my youth I thought I was something of a Socialist—you know how generous-minded young people tend that way. It happened to both the Führer and the Duce, I have been told.” Lanny wasn’t just gossiping when he said that; he was preparing for the time when some German or some Italian authority would uncover his bad record in Rome. He went on to tell how Heinrich Jung had given him literature, and so he had learned the difference between sound National Socialism and the evil Marxian variety. Heinrich had been to visit Adolf Hitler in prison, and later had taken Lanny to meet the great man in Munich. From that time the American had been one of his ardent supporters and had brought information and aid for his cause. All that was a story which the P.A. had told to so many Germans that it was like a phonograph record.

  A buzzer sounded by the desk, and the Marshal took up the “far-speaker,” as the Germans call it. “Guten Morgen, mein Führer,” he said, and a familiar voice replied, “Was haben Sie?” Hitler had the habit of talking very loud into a telephone, and Lanny, sitting by the desk, could hear the voice clearly. Adi had never entirely lost his Innviertel accent, and he snorted his gutturals as if to make the German language as Germanic as possible.

  Kesselring spoke slowly and precisely. “There is a gentleman in my office who has just arrived in Rome. He appears to be important, and it may be the part of discretion not to mention his name. He tells me he is a friend of Kurt Meissner and Heinrich Jung and has known you from the early days. He visited your field headquarters last February and you commissioned him to make certain inquiries and to bring you information.”

  Lanny held his breath as the voice from a thousand miles away made the receiver rattle. “Ja, ja, ich kenn’ ihn gut. Das mag wichtig sein. Schicken Sie ihn zu mir so schnell trie möglich. Mit Flugpost.”

  “Zu befehl, Mein Führer.”

  “1st das alles?”

  “Das ist alles.”

  “Gut. Sie werden den Feind ins Mittelmeer werfen. Sieg heil.”

  “Smiling Albert” hung up the receiver. For the first time since the visitor had entered his office he was justifying his name. “He says to send you by airmail!” Not realizing that Lanny had been able to hear the distant voice, he repeated the rest of the master’s words. “He says I am to throw the enemy into the Mediterranean; but evidently that doesn’t mean you. He says you are important, and I am to send you to him as quickly as possible. A dispatch plane usually leaves at noon; I’ll see if it cannot be speeded up. Is there anything you would like in the meantime?”

  “Thank you, Herr Marschall. I should like very much to wash and shave, and I could eat a bite if you have it to spare.”

  3

  Who Worship the Beast

  I

  History was repeating itself when Lanny Budd rose into the air above the city of Rome and flew northward to meet Adolf Hitler. The previous time it had been winter, and the mountains had been covered with snow. Now it was summer, and every tiny plot of earth had its color; the hill slopes were terraced high up and tended by patient, loving hands. When the young men were torn away from their homes, the old men and women and the children carried on, keeping the vines alive and planting wheat or barley or vegetables in every nook and cranny of soil, some no bigger than a fine lady’s handkerchief. Italy was a poor land, and ever since the dawn of history its life had been a war between the peasants on the one hand and the military lords, the landlords, and the tax collectors on the other.

  The fast plane carried one pilot, one passenger, and a couple of sacks of mail, carefully sealed and chained. It rose higher and higher, until there was a crackling in the passenger’s ears. Snow-clad peaks lay ahead, and the plane sped between them, up the Brennero, a pass which Lanny had known from boyhood. He put on the overcoat which had been lent him and looked down on the long blue lakes. In days of peace luxury hotels had been built on these pine-clad shores, and now they had been taken for military headquarters, for barracks and hospitals. A few, Lanny knew, housed officer prisoners, treated according to the polite Geneva conventions, each side afraid that if it broke the rules the other side would break them even more.

  The plane sloped downward over Austria, and Lanny took off the overcoat. He asked no questions, but guessed that the first stop would be Nürnberg, as before. The old city was being bombed more frequently, and he could see more signs of damage than in February. A landing was made, fresh fuel was taken on, and one mail sack was exchanged for another. They rose again, and the course was still northward; this time the passenger’s guess was Berlin, and it proved correct. No objection was made to his looking down upon the results of the terrible air raid he had witnessed on the first of March; there would have been no sense in objecting, since the enemy sent reconnaissance planes frequently and took photographs of everything.

  Lanny had heard that Adolf Hitler had made himself a wonderful air-raid shelter in the garden of the New Chancellery, and he looked forward to visiting it. But no, the plane stopped no more than five minutes on the great Tempelhoferfeld. Enemy “mosquito” planes might shoot over at any time, so the field men rushed the refueling job. Before they left for the third lap, Lanny was politely told that he would have to be blindfolded, and he politely said, “Natürlich.” He noted how the plane was headed, and the pressure on his entrails told him which way it was turning; they were headed east. The Führer would not be far behind the Russian front, the only one that counted in the early summer of 1943. The Germans and the Russians were still sparring, feeling each other out along their two-thousand-mile front; but the main attack had not come, and no one, perhaps not even the commanders, knew which one was going to begin it.

  II

  The plane landed, and Lanny was assi
sted out and put into a car. The car drove fast, and presently was in a forest—you can tell a forest because the echoes are intermittent and quick. In the earlier days, headquarters had been in a Schloss, for Göring had solemnly promised that no bombs would fall on German soil, and all good Germans had believed him. Now there was no part of German soil that was safe from bombs, and the brains of the government and the Reichswehr were hidden in inconspicuous places. Before this visit was over Lanny learned by accident that he was in the neighborhood of the ancient city of Königsberg—King’s Mountain—where a century and a half earlier a small-sized professor named Immanuel Kant had sat in his room, his eyes fixed upon a church steeple outside his window, thinking up the Ding-an-sich and the Categorical Imperative and the Four Antinomies and the other foundation stones of modern idealistic philosophy.

  The car came to a halt, and the foreigner was led up some steps and into a building where he heard footfalls and voices; the echoes told him that they were walking on wood, not on the stone or concrete floor of a castle. The blindfold was taken off, and he found himself in a room with a couple of SS men wearing the green uniform of the Führer’s own bodyguard, the Leibstandarte. They told the visitor that everyone who saw the Führer now had to be searched, and he told them that he had been searched once but was happy to be searched again.

  This time they made an even more thorough job of it; one of them carefully washed his hands in Lanny’s presence and then ran his finger around Lanny’s gums and looked into his throat; then he put on a rubber glove, put vaseline on it, and ran it as far as possible up the visitor’s rectum. Lanny had never asked questions about the attempts on the Führer’s life, but he had heard rumors that several had been made. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown—and this even though the crown may be an invisible one. The P.A. was escorted to a room where there were two secretaries whom he knew of old and greeted politely. One of them tapped upon an inner door, opened it, and ushered Lanny into the presence of the Great Man of the Germans.