Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

by Anne Blankman

  “Even if it could ruin the National Socialists?” Daniel burst out.

  The man sent him a cool look. “We Rings have never cared a toss about politics. I’d like to see the Nazis chased from Berlin since they’ve chosen to make us targets. But I need to protect my men and our livelihood more. We have to save our own skins.” He gave them a brusque nod. “Good luck to you.”

  He slipped out the door. None of the other men looked at her or Daniel; they were too focused on collecting their loot.

  They rushed into their bedroom. Their bags lay on the floor by the foot of the bed. Fortunately, they’d never unpacked. They grabbed their suitcases, Gretchen clutching hers so hard that its handle bit into her hand.

  In the parlor, none of the men seemed to notice as they left. They raced down the stairs. One thought drummed over and over in Gretchen’s head: Get out, get out, get out.

  As they followed the twists of the stairwell, they ran into someone who was coming up. Gretchen stumbled back, her heart in her throat.

  It was Birgit. She was pale, but looked unhurt. Her coat flapped open over a pale pink dress and she wore heels, not her working girl leather boots. She was breathing so hard she could only gasp out, “Friedrich—they killed him—Minister Göring and a bunch of SA men—”

  “We know, we were at the bar,” Daniel broke in. “We were hiding in a back room. How did you get out? Weren’t they going to arrest everyone?”

  “I don’t know! Minister Göring told us to get out. I came straight here. I wanted to—I wanted to . . .” Birgit faltered. Tears poured down her face. “They shot Friedrich. Like he was nothing.”

  “It’s horrible,” Gretchen said. “But, Birgit, we have to get out of here right now.”

  Birgit grabbed her arm. “You want to damage the National Socialists, don’t you?” At Gretchen’s impatient nod, she said, “Then take me with you. I’ll do whatever you want. Just give me the chance to hurt the men who killed Friedrich and Monika.”

  “Fine, but come on!” Daniel dashed down the rest of the stairs. Gretchen and Birgit clattered after him.

  At the door, they peered outside cautiously. Curious onlookers had gathered on front steps or peered through windows. Customers streamed up the bar steps into the Zwinglistrasse. They rushed off in different directions, heads down, silent. But free. Gretchen couldn’t understand it.

  Daniel walked quickly down the street, away from the bar. She and Birgit had to break into a jog to keep up. As they neared the corner, she glanced back. A police wagon was lurching to a stop in front of the bar. It must have come to transport Friedrich’s body to the morgue. Dead because he’d cared enough about Fräulein Junge to try to find out what had happened to her. Something broke through the shock fogging her brain, and she had to swallow a sob.

  She whipped her head around and kept running. The next street was dark except for the streetlamps, whose bulbs hung like misted pearls in the gloom. From within the tenements, lights blinked on and anxious faces appeared at the windows. Gretchen ducked her head to avoid the people’s probing gazes. She realized that her hat had fallen off at some point and she must look strange, rushing bareheaded through the street. Hunching her shoulders, she looked down, letting her hair fall forward to curtain her face.

  “Where should we go?” she asked.

  “We have to get out of Moabit. Göring and his men will probably begin patrolling the streets any minute.” Daniel sprinted down the sidewalk, Gretchen and Birgit close at his heels. He nodded at a faded Communist banner hanging above a wooden door. It must be a bar; Gretchen had seen plenty of Bavarian banners of blue and white dangling outside beer halls and cafés in Munich. “They might have a public telephone in there, and I need to make a phone call.”

  “To whom?”

  They reached the bar, and Daniel paused with his hand on the door, his chest heaving. “Tom Delmer.” He glanced at Birgit. “He’s a journalist friend of mine. He can help us get to Heinz Schultz, if he’s hidden at the Kuhle Wampe.” He looked back at Gretchen. “Herr Delmer might have valuable information for us, too. Remember? He said he was with Hitler in the Reichstag while it burned.”

  They took the S-Bahn to the Köpenick district, sitting nervously, their suitcases at their feet. Gretchen touched the revolver through her purse, needing its comforting presence. As long as she had it, she didn’t feel so helpless.

  Beneath the squeal of brakes along the track, she heard the thud of Friedrich’s body, over and over. She saw his little daughter smiling at them in the parlor, her high, childish voice asking if she was going to be late to school. Gretchen’s chest felt as though it were on fire.

  Friedrich would get no justice, of that she was certain. Göring would claim Friedrich had been shot while resisting arrest. A justifiable death, the report would conclude, then be put away to molder in a filing cabinet.

  And now she, Daniel, and Birgit were alone, without the Ringverein’s protection. She shuddered and thought of the people back in the bar, bent over their drinks, quiet until Göring and his subordinates had arrived. Now that she’d had time to think about it, his decision to let the customers go made sense. He must have realized there would be a public outcry if he ordered a mass roundup of law-abiding people, whose arrests he couldn’t blame on politics or criminal acts. Those men and women had been lucky tonight. Who knew how long it would be before Göring could arrest whomever he liked and no one would dare to protest?

  Daniel laid his good arm across her shoulders and drew her close. “I know,” he said quietly. “It’s awful. Nothing will ever make it right.”

  She rested her head on his chest, feeling the train’s jostling vibrate through his body and into hers. She thought of all the deaths that Hitler and his men were responsible for: her father and brother, Friedrich, Daniel’s cousin Aaron, countless political opponents who had been knifed in the street or bludgeoned in alleys. So many lives and so much waste. And although the train car was stiflingly hot, she felt as though she would never be warm again.

  28

  HERR DELMER MET THEM AT THE STATION. WHEN Daniel started to speak, he cut him off and hustled them toward a cream-colored Opel he said he’d borrowed from a friend. The Kuhle Wampe was too far to walk to, and the fields and forests were easy to get lost in at night, he added as he started the car. They’d done the right thing by asking for his help.

  The Opel crept from the curb into oncoming traffic. There were few automobiles on the road, and Gretchen had to bite her lip so she didn’t snap at Delmer to go faster. In the backseat beside her, Birgit looked out the window with dull eyes. Gretchen recognized the signs: Birgit was in shock. She reached over and squeezed Birgit’s hand. Birgit started.

  “What were you doing in the bar tonight?” Gretchen asked.

  “I took the evening off and was on a date.” Birgit smiled faintly. “Some date, huh?”

  “Herr Cohen, what’s this about?” Delmer asked. “You said so little on the telephone.”

  “We suspect a fireman has been hiding out at the tent camp since the Reichstag blaze,” Daniel said.

  “What the devil does a fireman have to do with Fräulein Junge’s murder?” Delmer demanded.

  “We think the fireman knew something incriminating about the fire, and Minister Göring slipped up and mentioned him to Fräulein Junge. She was killed in order to keep her quiet. If we can find the fireman and prove the National Socialists set the fire, then we could destroy them forever.”

  Delmer sighed. “More conspiracy theories? Haven’t the National Socialists and the Communists done enough mudslinging to make you heartily sick of the fire by now?”

  “The fireman’s brother was murdered,” Daniel said. “Probably by a professional. The brothers looked alike and lived together. It’s possible the killer made a mistake. We think the fireman came home, found his dead brother, and disappeared because he knew they’d return for him. Whatever he knows, it’s important.”

  Delmer shot Daniel a sharp look. The
n he punched the accelerator. The car raced down a deserted lane surrounded by fields. Ahead, Gretchen saw the ragged black shadows of pines against the night sky.

  “You were at the fire,” she said to Delmer. “What did you see?”

  “I was outside the Reichstag five minutes after the blaze broke out,” Delmer said. He spoke in the same clipped tone Daniel used when he was relating past events, and Gretchen wondered if all reporters had the ability to assemble their thoughts into a coherent story at an instant’s notice. “A cordon had been erected around the building, and no one was allowed past it. When Hitler’s motorcar arrived, I rushed after him, and was just quick enough to attach myself to the fringe of his entourage as they went up the Reichstag steps. Later I learned that Hitler had come straight from a dinner party, where Herr Hanfstaengl had called him with the news that the Reichstag was burning.”

  Hanfstaengl! So he was mixed up in this mess, too. Gretchen felt a stab of disappointment. Somehow, she’d hoped he wouldn’t get sucked into the Party’s dirty dealings. Think, don’t feel, she commanded herself. At the gangsters’ ball, Hanfstaengl had mentioned that he was staying at Minister Göring’s palace—the same palace that was connected to the Reichstag by an underground tunnel. What might Hanfstaengl have seen that night while the Reichstag turned to flame less than two hundred yards away?

  Starlit fields flashed past. The car shuddered from the effort of going so fast. Delmer tapped the brake.

  “Göring met us in the lobby,” he said. “He’d been working late and had come directly from his office at the Prussian Ministry. He was shouting that the fire was undoubtedly the work of Communists. The police had already arrested one of the incendiaries, but Göring promised there were bound to be more.”

  The trees loomed on the horizon, a tangled mass of black. Between their trunks, Gretchen glimpsed the silvery gleam of water. It must be the Müggelsee. Almost there now.

  The car barreled along the road. Daniel stared at Delmer. “What else? Hitler must have done something.”

  “Our group went to the part of the Reichstag that was still in flames,” Delmer said. “Firemen were working frantically with hand pumps. Never have I seen such fury on Hitler’s face. He screamed, ‘God grant this is the work of the Communists! You are witnessing the beginning of a new era in German history. This fire is the beginning.’”

  Gretchen’s mind whirled. She had suspected the National Socialists had set the fire themselves, so they could declare a state of emergency and pave the way for Hitler to assume dictatorial powers someday. And so they could frame the Communists for a terrorist act. But Hitler had sounded as though he hadn’t known who had started the blaze—although he hoped it had been the Communists.

  His words sounded like those of an innocent man.

  Confusion hampered Gretchen’s tongue. She wanted to ask Delmer more questions, but her thoughts were spinning too fast. Was it possible that Hitler hadn’t ordered the burning of the Reichstag? Then what had Herr Schultz discovered that had angered Göring so deeply—and had led him to have Fräulein Junge silenced before she could mention it to anyone?

  The car slowed down. Delmer’s eyes met Gretchen’s in the rearview mirror. “That’s not all. When we went to inspect the burnt-out Session Chamber, Hitler flew into a rage. He screamed, ‘Our enemies will be destroyed! All Communist deputies will be hanged!’”

  Gretchen frowned. That couldn’t be right. Over the years, she’d heard Hitler harangue his opponents many times. But always in an eloquent stream of words, carefully vague so he could incite his supporters to violence while distancing himself from their brutal acts. That was how he kept his hands clean. He never would have spoken so plainly in front of men who weren’t his faithful followers, and certainly not a foreign correspondent for a British paper.

  Unless . . . unless Hitler had been caught off guard and had said the first things that came into his head. No carefully rehearsed speeches, just immediate rage. And he would have been surprised only if he hadn’t planned the fire himself. None of the National Socialists would have dared to do it without his blessing.

  Perhaps they had been looking at this all wrong. The papers had reported that the Dutch arsonist was half blind, so they had assumed that his poor eyesight would have prevented him from working alone. But what man could be better prepared to run through the Reichstag in pitch blackness than one who was accustomed to moving in the dark? Had Schultz discovered that a single man, not the Communist Party, had been behind the blaze, thus putting himself in danger?

  If the Dutchman had set the blaze on his own . . . then there was no Communist conspiracy. No reason to declare a state of emergency. No reason to pass the Enabling Act. And no reason to put dictatorial powers within Hitler’s grasp.

  This was a secret well worth killing for.

  The rumble of tires on grass pulled Gretchen out of her thoughts. Delmer was parking the car alongside the road. “We’re here.”

  As Daniel and Delmer got out, Gretchen hesitated, peering through the window at the closely clustered pine trees. The waters of the Müggelsee shone between the black trunks. What if the National Socialists were even now creeping through the forest toward the tent camp? They had known that Friedrich’s men had questioned Herr Schultz’s neighbor. Had they spoken to the same woman and figured out the significance of Schultz’s camping tent?

  The car engine ticked as it cooled down. There were no other automobiles on this lonely road, no figures moving among the trees. Gretchen left the car, nearly slipping on the ice-hardened grass. Birgit slithered out after her.

  Daniel had paused at the edge of the forest to look at her. Beneath his fedora, his eyes looked worried. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she lied.

  He laid his hand on her cheek, the sensation of his cold fingers jolting her. He must have forgotten to put on his gloves. “You and Birgit should stay in the car. If you feel like you’re in danger, start driving and don’t turn back.”

  She would never leave him. “I’m coming with you.”

  His smile seemed sad. “I wish I could protect you from this—”

  “Hurry up!” Delmer whispered.

  They plunged into the forest. Gretchen glanced behind her to see Birgit following them, a flimsy stick in her hand as a weapon.

  The branches of the pines formed such a dense canopy overhead that Gretchen couldn’t see the light of the stars. She moved as quickly as she dared, her hands outstretched for possible obstacles. In front of her, Daniel’s and Delmer’s footsteps crunched on pine needles and the water lapped on the shore. She heard something else that sounded like laundry snapping on the line.

  The trees thinned. Between the pines, Daniel and Delmer stood motionless, their heads cocked as if listening. Gretchen stopped beside them.

  Several feet ahead, the shore began, a strip of sand stretching out to the icy lake. Under the last line of trees, a handful of simple wooden posts had been screwed into the ground. A few strips of black-and-white-striped canvas flapped from one of them. The tent camp had been dismantled for winter, as Daniel had said. The shore stood silent and empty.

  Except for a flash of white beneath the trees, on the forest’s outskirts. Gretchen touched Daniel’s hand and pointed to the left. He nodded, his eyes narrowing. Then he crept forward, Delmer a pace behind.

  Gretchen fished her revolver out of her purse.

  “Gretchen,” Birgit gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Shh.” Gretchen made a cutting motion with her free hand, and her friend subsided into silence.

  Quickly, she wove between the trees after Daniel and Delmer. She stepped with her knees braced for the recoil’s impact, as Hitler had taught her. Her finger on the trigger was steady. Blood thudded in her ears, and the sound of her breathing seemed as loud as an ocean’s waves battering the shore. She took tiny sips of air, trying to be quieter.

  As they neared the flicker of white, it sharpened into a canvas tent strung between two
trees.

  The fireman’s. It had to be.

  The tent had been pitched under the final cluster of pines, and its flaps hung open, showing there was no one inside. The patch of sand directly in front of the tent was crisscrossed with footprints. Someone—perhaps several someones—had been here, recently enough so their marks hadn’t been erased.

  They were too late.

  The sudden crack of a twig seemed as loud as a gunshot. Gretchen jumped and scanned their surroundings, her heart pounding. A half-dozen yards away, along the curving shoreline, several shadowy figures emerged from the curtain of trees. They moved so fast, she caught only their outlines, but that was enough to recognize the distinctive shapes of their knickers and caps. They were SA men. Silver glinted in their hands; knives, maybe.

  The men charged across the shore toward them. For an instant, Gretchen stood rooted to the spot, feeling her heart thud in her chest. All she could think over and over was no. Even as her mind seemed to be frozen, though, her arm raised her weapon. She squinted. Ten men, at least. There were too many of them to shoot; by the time they got within range, she’d only be able to squeeze off a couple of shots before the others reached her and wrestled her gun away.

  Daniel shoved her hard between the shoulder blades. “Run!”

  She turned and raced into the forest. The pines whipped past, skinny lines of black and green; they would provide no protection for her to hide behind. She kept running, her breath crashing so hard in her ears that she couldn’t hear how close the SA men were. She didn’t dare look back.

  She raced between the pines, dodging and weaving, praying her uneven movements would keep her off target if the SA had pistols. A low-hanging branch hit her in the face, but she didn’t even feel it.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught a dark blur falling to the ground. “Gretchen!” cried a girl’s voice.