Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

by Anne Blankman

  She stretched her hands behind her, groping blindly for the doorknob. Blood welled in her mouth—her teeth must have cut the inside of her cheek. Her fingers brushed cold brass. The doorknob. She was almost free.

  “Thank you,” she said to Hitler. The effort to speak sent a dull ache pulsing through her jaw, but it was worth it to see his face slacken with confusion.

  “What—” he started to say as she twisted the doorknob and stepped back. The last thing she saw before she slammed the door shut was comprehension flash over his features and his mouth open in a furious shout.

  38

  IN THE CORRIDOR, DANIEL AND AN SA GUARD were struggling over a gun. All Gretchen could see was their arms jerking as they each held onto the weapon, trying to pull it free. They didn’t speak. The air was filled with their grunts and panting.

  Three guards lay on the ground, moaning, clutching their thighs, blood coursing between their fingers. A gun was still clipped to the youngest-looking fellow’s belt. Gretchen started to reach for it, then looked back at Daniel and his assailant. Their bodies were too close for her to shoot; she might hit Daniel instead. She wrestled a truncheon free from the young man’s belt instead and raced to where Daniel and the guard were fighting. Without hesitating, she smashed the truncheon onto the guard’s head. He crumpled instantly, the gun in his hand.

  “Let’s go!” Daniel yelled.

  Together they dashed down the corridor. The entrance to the stairway loomed up ahead, a tiny rectangle in the dimness. Gretchen was running so hard, each footstep jarred her burning jaw. The entrance was only a few feet away. Behind her, she heard the click of a door. She glanced over her shoulder.

  Hitler stood in his office entryway, his chest heaving with labored breaths. Something silver glinted in his hand—a pistol. He swung his arm up and aimed. She heard the click of the hammer being pulled back.

  “He’s going to shoot!” she screamed.

  They raced through the entrance to the stairway landing. There was a popping sound, then the splintering of wood as a bullet buried itself into the wall behind them.

  “Where are the rest of my guards?” Hitler screamed. “Somebody, get the Müller girl and the Jew! I want them dead!”

  As they skidded across the landing, Gretchen heard the thunder of footsteps coming up the stairs, right toward them.

  “More guards,” she breathed.

  “Upstairs.” Daniel turned and started running up the steps.

  “We can’t get out that way!”

  “Yes, we can!” His sharp tone left no room for argument.

  She dashed after him, tossing a glance over her shoulder. Hitler stood in the corridor, screaming at his guards, red-faced and furious. He wouldn’t chase them, she knew; he was far too careful with his personal safety to run after them into the darkness. His eyes met hers for an instant, and the iciness in them stopped her heart for a beat. She kept running, and he was gone from sight, his ragged voice reaching up the staircase after her, shouting for his guards.

  Here none of the wall sconces had been lit, so Gretchen felt as though they were racing up a steep hill at night. Where could they possibly be going? Did one of these stairway landings lead to a corridor that might provide another route out of this building? How could Daniel know which to take—

  And then she remembered: There was a secret passage in the Chancellery attic that led all the way to the Hotel Adlon. Hanfstaengl had said so at the gangsters’ ball, and she’d later told Daniel. They might actually get out of this place after all.

  Abruptly, the stairs stopped. There was nowhere else to go but down a corridor. They raced into the yawning blackness. Daniel flung open the first door they came to, its rusty hinges groaning in protest.

  “It’s the attic,” he said breathlessly. “Come on.”

  They stepped inside, closing the door softly behind them. Maybe the guards wouldn’t guess where they’d gone, and they could earn themselves a few more minutes to get away.

  In here, the darkness felt like a wall. Gretchen stepped forward, her toes bumping into something solid. A stair. Bracing her hand on the wall for balance, she hurried up the steps, moving by feel alone. She heard Daniel panting beside her.

  She raised her foot, meeting nothing but empty air. She brought her foot down and slid it forward. It was a flat floor. They must have climbed into the attic itself. Gretchen spun around blindly, her arms extended, reaching for the slope of a wall, the hardness of a door, anything.

  To her left, something creaked. A door. Daniel must have found it. She rushed toward the sound. Faintly, she could make out Daniel’s outline. He was gesturing at her to hurry.

  She stumbled through the opening. Here the air was musty and hot. She flung her arms out and they knocked into walls. Such a narrow space. This had to be the secret passageway. Heedless of the dark, she raced forward, the floorboards groaning underfoot. She kept her hand on the wall, following the passage’s curves. Where were they now? The next building was the Foreign Office, but beyond that, she had no idea. Behind her, Daniel’s ragged breathing crashed in her ears.

  She smacked face-first into a wall. She was so anxious she didn’t even feel the impact. In an instant, she and Daniel were running their hands over the wall—there it was, the cold metal of a doorknob—and together they yanked the door open and she raced through first.

  This passage was as dark and twisty as the previous one. There was no sound beneath them. Presumably whatever ministry building they were in, it was closed down for the night. Faintly, she caught the now-familiar rasp of a door’s hinge. The guards had found the door to the attic.

  They kept running. They reached another door. Gretchen bumped into it so hard she was breathless. Daniel ripped the door open. His hand rested on the small of her back, urging her on, and she raced forward into the endless black. In the distance, the guards shouted something unintelligible. They must be gaining on her and Daniel. She surged forward in a desperate burst of speed.

  She careered face-first into another wall. Her lips were on fire, but she ignored the pain, touching the wall all over, searching for another doorknob. Blood, hot and coppery, dripped from her mouth onto her chin. She’d split her lips open.

  There was no doorknob. They must have come to the end of the passage. She tried to speak and had to spit out blood; the inside of her mouth still throbbed from Hitler’s punch. “The hotel—”

  “We must be in the Adlon’s attic,” Daniel panted. “Come on!”

  The darkness made it impossible to make sense of their surroundings. She bumped into furniture—chairs, bedside tables, lamps with the shades missing. This must be where the hotel staff stored extra or broken supplies.

  Nearby, she heard Daniel stumble. “Here are the stairs!”

  She ran toward his voice. Below them shone slivers of gold—it must be the light from the downstairs hallway showing around the spaces where the door hadn’t fitted properly in its frame. The four lines of light were all the illumination they needed to race down the steps. They barged through the door into a brightly lit corridor. The sudden glare dazzled Gretchen’s eyes. She raced on, starbursts exploding before her as her vision adjusted.

  A back staircase spiraled below them. Together they ran down. The steps were empty, thankfully; guests must take the elevator. Gretchen risked a glance over her shoulder. Nothing yet. But the guards must be on their way.

  She whipped her head around to face front. The stairs wound down and down until they reached another corridor. Daniel pushed through the door at its end, and Gretchen saw the polished marble of the lobby gleaming ahead of them.

  Without a word, they charged toward it. Bellboys in gold braid and guests in suits and silk frocks stared at them. The man behind the reception desk shouted, “You ruffians stop this instant!” but they kept going, making for the massive front door.

  A porter in pale blue opened it for them, his movements automatic, his expression startled as they pounded past him and onto the sidewalk
, skidding to a stop to get their bearings. Up and down Unter den Linden cars crawled the clogged thoroughfare, and along the pavement men and women in fancy evening dress strolled and chatted. Lights blazed from the fine hotels lining the avenue.

  “This way.” Daniel nodded toward the left.

  They walked fast, not wanting to draw attention by breaking into a run. Everyone they passed, Gretchen imagined turned to look at them. Up ahead, the golden statues atop the Brandenburg Gate gleamed in the night. They were close to the entrance of the large park known as the Tiergarten.

  They reached the edge of an open plaza. Daniel glanced at Gretchen. “We’ll cut through the Tiergarten to the Zoo Station. It’s a train stop on the other side of the park. In a few minutes, we can be on our way out of the city.”

  Hopelessness washed over Gretchen. “They took my purse. We can’t pay for train tickets.”

  “We’ll hide in the lavatory when the conductor checks tickets. Then we can figure out our next step.”

  Sirens wailed behind them. Gretchen couldn’t stop herself from looking back. Three police cars swarmed down Unter den Linden, screeching to a halt in front of the Hotel Adlon. Officers scrambled out of the cars. One yelled, “The station just radioed in! Roadblocks are being set up across the city!”

  “Good!” another shouted back. “Guard the entrance!”

  The men disappeared inside, leaving one behind at the front door. Gretchen and Daniel looked at each other. His face had drained white.

  “Keep going,” he said shakily. “We’ll hide in the Tiergarten until we decide what to do.”

  There was no escape. She knew Hitler too well to doubt what he would do next: He would have every train, every bus, every automobile leaving the city searched. They would never get out of Berlin.

  Her legs felt wooden with fear. Somehow she kept walking across the square toward the park entrance. A few men hustled past, but they didn’t look in their direction.

  Each step she took, she wished she could run. But two fleeing figures would draw curious eyes. She and Daniel kept walking. They reached the gate’s pillars, and finally Daniel started to run. She fell into step alongside him and they raced into the blackness stretching across the park.

  The snow-scattered grass feathered out in all directions, intersected by walkways and riding paths. Gretchen had hoped for the oblivion of darkness, but as they moved deeper into the Tiergarten, she saw little lamps flickering from the trees. People strolled the paths, arm in arm, talking quietly.

  Gretchen and Daniel kept off the paths, trying to stay in the pockets of shadows between the trees. Her legs shook with exhaustion. It had been hours since she’d had anything to eat or drink, and she knew it was sheer adrenaline that kept her moving. When she stumbled over a tree root, Daniel stopped running and put a steadying hand on her arm.

  “Are you all right?” He touched her split lips. Even the light pressure of his finger made her cringe in pain.

  “Yes,” she said. “What about you?”

  His expression darkened. “I’m fine,” he said, though his abrupt tone told her he was anything but.

  “There’s no way out of the city,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, shaking in the cold wind. “Hitler will have every vehicle searched. Even private automobiles . . .” She trailed off.

  Daniel stared at her, his eyes dark and narrowed. Gretchen practically felt electricity leaping through the air between them.

  Because there was one car in the city that no policeman or SA officer would dare to stop. The most famous automobile in all of Berlin—Detective Chief Superintendent Ernst Gennat’s Daimler, the Toboggan.

  39

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, GRETCHEN AND DANIEL waited at the southwest corner of the park near Zoo Station. The rattle of locomotives along the tracks carried on the harsh wind. Plumes of smoke curled across the sky, gray on black. The occasional shuffle of footsteps sounded on the sidewalk as a weary traveler or burgher returned home, and each time, Gretchen shrank against Daniel. He kept his good arm around her shoulders, leaning down to say, “It can’t be much longer. He said he would come.”

  She nodded, searching the darkened street for the glistening curves of Gennat’s Daimler. Back in the park, they’d cleaned Daniel up as best they could; she’d wetted her handkerchief with snow and wiped the blood and dirt from his face and hands. Nothing could be done about the unnatural angle of his broken fingers or his bloodshot, blackened eyes, but he looked like someone who’d been in a bar brawl, not a boy on the run. His appearance would have to pass muster, because she had refused to leave him alone in the park to telephone Gennat at police headquarters. Wherever they went from now on, they went together.

  They had found a café with a public telephone down the street from the park, and Gretchen scrounged a couple of coins out of her skirt pocket—not enough for train tickets, but plenty to make a call. She had been terrified that Gennat might want to bring Daniel in—after all, when she’d gone to him for help, he’d said he would try to track Daniel down and have him placed within the homicide department’s custody—but it was a risk they had to take. There were no other options left.

  Daniel had insisted on being put through immediately to Superintendent Gennat. He’d refused to tell the officer on telephone duty who he was, just as Gretchen had a few days ago, saying instead to mention “Friedrich” to the detective. The Ringverein man’s name had worked again; within a few minutes, Gennat had come on the line. Daniel had said they had met through Iron Fist, and he and his companion had found themselves without transportation.

  There had been a long pause. Then Gennat had said in his sandpaper voice, “I shouldn’t like to refuse a favor from the friends of a fallen friend. Particularly innocent friends.” He laid such emphasis on the word that Daniel’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Tell me where to meet you.”

  Which was why they had been standing outside the Tiergarten for the past half hour, afraid to talk. Gretchen kept looking at Daniel, as if he might disappear if she didn’t keep her gaze on him constantly. He smiled at her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, savoring the sensation of his bones and muscles through his coat. He smelled of blood and sweat and unwashed skin. But he was alive. Whatever horrors he’d been through, they’d find a way to cope with them together.

  The wind blew little pieces of trash across the street. Somewhere a door opened and shut, releasing a blare of jazz music. A man strode past, clutching a briefcase. Gretchen peered into the road, nerves clenching her stomach. Gennat was taking too long. What if he didn’t come, or worse, arrived with a squadron of brownshirts?

  The harsh glare of a car’s headlamps hit her in the face. As she blinked, struggling to see clearly, an automobile purred to a stop at the curb. Gennat’s Toboggan.

  He had come, as he had promised. Tears of relief burned in Gretchen’s eyes.

  The overweight detective heaved himself out of the passenger’s seat. “Hurry! Into the trunk!”

  Gennat’s driver jumped out, wearing a patrolman’s dark blue uniform and helmet. He opened the trunk, gesturing for Gretchen and Daniel to climb in.

  There was no time to think. Daniel pushed the medical bags, rolled-up maps, and boxes of tools to one side, and Gretchen clambered inside. She lay down, curling herself into a ball. For an instant, Daniel’s body blocked the stars as he climbed in, then the car settled as he lay beside her. The driver slammed the trunk shut, enclosing them in the dark.

  As the car started with a lurch, Gretchen rolled into Daniel. The edge of a box dug into her back, and she heard glass bottles of chemicals clinking together.

  The car sped down the street. The tires rumbled over the asphalt, such a quick revolution that the sound became a relentless blur.

  Daniel’s good hand found hers and squeezed. She squeezed back. They would escape to England. She promised herself nothing less. The evidence they’d needed to prove the truth about the Reichstag fire might have been destroyed, but she’d learned som
ething equally valuable: Hitler planned to start a war. And he didn’t want anyone to know it yet. She had no idea what to do with his secret, but together she and Daniel would figure out something. And they’d find a way for both of them to be happy in England, just as they had promised each other.

  The car whipped around a corner on two wheels. Gretchen slid into Daniel, feeling his arm encircle her. They lay crushed together along the edge of the trunk until the car righted itself. Bruised and aching, Gretchen inched herself back into her old position. She rested on her side, staring up into the impenetrable dark, the tips of her fingers touching Daniel’s.

  When the car finally stopped, Gretchen’s and Daniel’s bodies were so cramped that they had difficulty scrambling out of the trunk. The patrolman had parked on the side of a country road. Long fields stretched out, the tall grasses sighing in the wind. The noise and light of Berlin seemed far away.

  Gennat stood with his hands in his pockets, his expression remote. “We’re right outside Leipzig,” he said. “This car’s too distinctive for us to stop within the city, but you can walk to the train station. Get on the first train available, and whatever you do, don’t turn back.” He pulled a few bills from his wallet and gave them to Daniel. “This ought to get you to the border.”

  Daniel shook the detective’s hand. “Thank you. There’s no way we can repay you for what you’ve done.”

  Gennat sighed. Moonlight touched his face, highlighting the hollows beneath his dark eyes. “Escape and fight, and that will be payment enough for me.” He nodded in the direction of a line of buildings, black walls against the night sky. “You’d better start walking.”

  “Thank you.” Gretchen wished there were better words to express the depth of her gratitude. But Gennat seemed to sense it, for he smiled at her for the first time and tipped his hat.

  “Good-bye,” he said and got into the car. The automobile swept in a wide semicircle across the road, then shot back toward Berlin, its taillights fading to dots.