FROM THE BROW OF the hill the land spilled away in jade-green slopes to the cold, blue waters of Loch Assynt and the cloud-shrouded peaks of the Quinag Ridge beyond. Arlette couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The Highland light was so incredibly clear. In the near distance, the ruined tower of a lonely castle rose from a small promontory that jutted out into the lake. Waves rippled the surface of the loch, which stretched away into the hills and mountains. Cattle and sheep dotted the gorse and grass that lay before the white-stucco, slate-roofed, scattered cottages of the tiny crofting village of Inchnadamph.
“It’s so very beautiful, Richard. Dear God, to think that I might never have seen or heard of this.”
Amid a tracery of fields, a whitewashed, cut-stone manor house of thirty rooms or more stood alone. One line of beeches marked the road to the house. To the east there was what looked to be a playing field. To the west, where the fields sloped gently toward the loch, an inn, a shop of some sort and a house were clustered at the junction with the main road.
It was at once a land of mystery, of hopes for the future, yes, but of something else. Something almost indefinable. A great sadness that, in spite of the beauty, she felt only too deeply but could not understand.
Dwarfed by the landscape, the manor house commanded the eye, and she couldn’t help but wonder why Duncan, a man of modest means, had leased such a place.
In spite of the anorak and heavy turtleneck sweater, she shivered. Duncan was watching them. She knew he wasn’t happy to see her, knew he still didn’t approve of Richard’s loving her.
But this … this look of his was something else. A cold appraisal.
As they drove down into the valley, McPherson shouted the history of the place to her. The clan MacKenzie had owned the lands ever since the Restoration. They’d taken them by the sword from the MacLeods, whose chieftain had given succor to the fugitive James Graham, first marquis of Montrose, in late April of 1650.
“MacLeod broke the code of the Highlands. Och, he couldna resist the temptation and damned himself and his clan forever by turning Montrose in for silver.”
It had been the gibbet for the one and the sword for the other. Ardvreck Castle had fallen into ruin. Kincalda House had been built a little more than one hundred years later, and ever since then it had been home to the MacKenzies.
Salmon rods, golf clubs, a butter churn full of walking sticks were set against the wall next the windows that flanked the open door. Arlette went on ahead, and they could hear her steps echoing in the halls.
“Well, Richard, what do you think?”
“It’s a sight for sore eyes, Duncan. Has old MacKenzie passed away?”
“Och, no. He’s as fit as a fiddle. I simply made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“Those mountains … you know how the weather socks in …”
“The airfield will just have to do. Richard, we had to have a place to begin. Churchill was adamant.”
A school for agents and infiltrators. “And Arlette?” he asked. “Duncan, just leave her be. Sir Ernest has a spot for her.”
“Aye, that would be best.” More he wouldn’t say, but it was all too clear Richard was still very much in love with the girl, and equally clear that Churchill had plans for her.
They listened as Arlette’s steps came to them from the hall above. She hesitated, then went on. Perhaps she was looking into each of the rooms, perhaps she was just getting the feel of the place.
The steps stopped and they heard her no more.
“Duncan, I won’t have Arlette brought here for some sort of training, no matter what Mr. Churchill has asked.”
“The lass is far too timid, Richard. The Nazis …” He’d leave that unsaid, but Churchill, being Churchill, had wanted her evaluated. Indeed, he’d insisted on this. A first step for everyone.
Hagen went up the stairs after her, only to find Arlette had removed her shoes and had left them in the hall lest the noise give away the fact she’d come back to listen to them.
There were paintings on the walls, as he’d remembered—mostly eighteenth-century landscapes in gilt frames. Chandeliers hung in the stairwell. Above the open doorway to the west wing was a portrait of a Highland chief in full dress tartan with an unsheathed sword.
Arlette was looking curiously up at it. He chuckled at the worried frown. Without thinking, he said, “I never can remember if that’s Kenneth a Bhlàir, Kenneth of the Battle, or his son, Kenneth Og, the one who was murdered.”
“Richard, what is this place?”
Though he wasn’t to have told her, he did so anyway. Arlette placed her hands on his chest and looked steadily at him. “And now we both know one more thing we must keep from the Nazis.”
It was all so like a well down which they had been thrown. There would be no escape, not even here.
The letter was open on the bedside table in her room. The writing was in German, the postmark and stamps from Brazil.
Arlette ran her eyes quickly down the thin, pale blue paper. Too few diamonds, an uncertain source …a network of people …
They were to head for a river called the Jequitinhonha. The letter was signed, All my love, Irmgard.
The sister of the Baron Dieter Karl Hunter.
McPherson closed the door and came on into her room. “That letter was opened and then resealed, Arlette. The girl was crazy to have written Richard. Abwehr or SD agents know of it.”
She would not look at him. “Arlette, listen to me. If I could, I would leave Richard and you to your loving, but I can’t. Heydrich knows Richard’s greatest weakness is his feeling of responsibility for others. I daren’t show him this letter for fear he’ll do something foolish.”
“Yet if you don’t, what then? And the Fräulein Schroeder, Duncan? Would you rob Richard of his sense of decency?”
“Please try to understand that these times aren’t ordinary. We have to do things we wouldn’t normally do.”
“Like killing and murder?” she said, turning on him now. “Is that what you intend for this place?”
He crumpled the letter and threw it past her into the fire. “Richard is my friend. If you truly love him, you’ll leave him. Now I’ll say no more but that I think you weak and a danger to him.”
At dawn, mist shrouded the upper slopes of the Quinag Ridge. High above the loch a light drizzle began.
Duncan was in the lead, then Richard and finally Arlette. None of them had said anything for some time. It was as if Richard had sensed things weren’t right between them and had withdrawn.
As they picked their way across the screes, Arlette fell farther and farther behind.
Between the screes there were bare patches of lichen-encrusted bedrock. Out on the screes the boulders were sharp and angular. More than once she slipped and had to grab hold of the rocks.
More than once the slopes below her shot away to nothing, while those above were soon lost dizzily in the fog.
A smell of sulfur emanated from the rocks.
At last they came to a shelf on which stunted pine, gorse and peaty water enclosed the gray stone walls of a ruined cottage. Duncan didn’t give the place a second glance. With dogged determination, he skirted the ruins and headed off up the barren slopes at a punishing pace.
Richard went after him. The mist drifted, became shredded by the ghost of a wind.
At the far end of the loch it began to rain.
When a boulder came tumbling down on her, she was caught halfway out on a scree. It bounced, went this way, that way from so far above she couldn’t see it yet, couldn’t seem to move …
With a crash it appeared out of the fog, bounced nearby and rolled away. A rush of rubble followed, a thunder of it as she hugged the scree and cried out, “No! Please, no!”
The sound of the rubble roared away until it was only a trickle. Terrified, Arlette picked herself up and stood there uncertainly. Richard and Duncan must have heard the rockfall.
Badly shaken, she began to retrace her steps, planning to wait for them at the ruins. She has almost reached the shelf, was just starting down to it, when the sound of a rifle shot came flat and hard on the cold, damp air. The echo rolled away to rumble in among the hills.
Panicking again—caught out on that slope—she froze. For ten seconds her heart raced madly. She began to run, to slip and slide on the boulders.
When she reached the shelf, Arlette dodged in among the pines and threw herself behind a wall.
A second shot rang out and then a third, but by then she knew for sure they had been meant for her.
Sheep droppings, a scattering of moldy straw and rusty ironwork, the wheel of a barrow and the weathered remains of a scythe lay among the stones and clumps of moss.
Caught on a bit of gorse behind the ruins was the bright yellow-and-black tartan scarf Duncan had handed Arlette that morning.
There was a trail, a bit of a path that climbed from the shelf to the crest of a low ridge, then disappeared beyond it. To the east of the ruins the land rose and fell in humps and hollows. Upon an endless carpet of moss, heather, gorse and bog water, lay a dotting of giant boulders. Ethereal in the clinging mist, they brought to the utter silence a harsh and unfeeling omnipotence.
Hagen hunted the terrain, then ran his eyes slowly along the distant line where mist and rock joined. There was scant cover. She had run out there and had left the scarf behind lest it give her away again.
Gradually the sun rose to break through the clouds and burn off the mist. Out over the moor nothing stirred. Behind him on the heights of the Quinag Ridge there was no sign of Duncan. As if in defiance of the sun, it began to rain.
The cleft was not too steep. Where the burn fell over the edge of the moor, it plunged to a pool some thirty feet below her.
From there the woods—thin in places, thick in others—spread out toward the northeast, to a road and then more hills and moors beyond.
Arlette squinted over a shoulder at the afternoon sun. Once down in the cleft by the pool, she’d be out of sight. Once through the woods, she could follow the line of the road until she came to the village.
How she loathed this place, the feel of it, the endless silence, the hours of never knowing if he’d shoot at her again.
Easing herself forward on her seat, she began to make her way down into the cleft. Shadows hugged the inner wall, but on the opposite side of the burn she found a place to rest and bathe her blistered feet.
Pulling off her boots, she eased her feet into the icy water, then lay back on the ground and stared up at the sky. Everything in her said to leave while she could and seek the safety of the woods.
Exhaustion made her eyes close.
When Hagen found her, she was fast asleep but awoke at once. Motioning her to stay where she was, he searched the moor, then came down to her and spilled three empty brass cartridge casings from his hand.
“Did you get a look at him?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Arlette, they didn’t mean to hit you, only to see how well you’d respond.”
Never for a moment would she forget the look in his eyes. One of defeat, of betrayal, of loss for the friend he’d once known. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I found these on a rock up there at the top of the cleft. If he’d wanted to kill you, he could so easily have done so.”
Hurriedly, she told him about the letter, of what it must mean.
He nodded and said, “I’ll go back into Germany anyway. I’ll do what I can to save them.”
“Then I will go back to Antwerp and help you all I can.”
It had been said so quickly, and yet in that moment he knew that no matter how hard he tried to dissuade her, she’d do as she’d said.
On Thursday the rain was gone. Across the sky gossamer clouds scudded, leaving patches of blue between.
The tower of Ardvreck Castle was really only three stories high, the remains of the other walls somewhat less. Moss clung to the gray stone blocks.
One curious thing set the tower apart. It was round at the base, but above the first story it was square and slotted so that it looked out on the world and the loch like a haunted gallows tree.
There was a cattle gate of peeled poles, a bit of a stone wall that ran on either side of the path to the water’s edge. Beyond the castle, the land rose in a grassy mound to the low summit of the promontory.
Arlette let herself in at the gate. They had spent the days of the storm as prisoners of themselves. Nothing had seemed to work. She couldn’t go to Richard and say, Let’s just drive to Inverness to see the shops, to have tea someplace. Anything. He couldn’t say to her, There’s a film I’d like you to see.
Instead, he had worked with Duncan. Oh, for sure they had fought. Richard could never forgive his friend for what had happened. He’d threatened to quit, to take her to America, but he’d known only too well the reality of things. Dee Dee Schroeder and Irmgard Hunter were very much on his mind, and yes, Duncan had been ordered to “evaluate” her, and yes, she was still being seen as a threat to Richard’s work.
More than once she had caught them talking about her. Twice she’d overheard Duncan saying, “They’ll kill her, Richard. You canna continue to take up with the lass. She’ll drag you down and then where will we be?”
Arlette knew that Richard felt he ought to break things off with her, that he was torn by guilt and was continually arguing with himself.
Willi would laugh at her if he knew how little she was enjoying herself. She’d have to go back to him, would have to continue with the lie, though she’d hate herself for doing so.
Exploring the ruins did no good. When Richard found her, she was sitting in the sun out of the wind.
“Where’s Duncan?” she asked.
“Gone to Lochinver to meet his father. I said we’d like to have the day to ourselves.”
“And would we? Richard, what’s to become of us?”
In silence they walked back to Kincalda House, and when he had shut the door behind them, Arlette went through to the stairs and started hesitantly up.
She was a virgin and afraid, had all those nagging thoughts of an unmarried girl, all those worries, yet wanted him.
Hagen waited, not knowing what to do. When he reached the room, she was standing in front of the fire.
“So, it is only the two of us, Richard.”
They kissed, she trembling with uncertainty. They touched. She said, “Here, let me. Please.” A whisper.
As Richard watched, Arlette pulled off her sweater. She undid her blouse and slid the straps of her slip off her shoulders. Reaching up behind her back to unhook the brassiere, she gave him an embarrassed glance.
He took a step closer. She said, “No, please. Stand back a little.”
Her breasts spilled into view, high, upturned, round and firm, the nipples seeming to strain at him, the nubby bumps around them in halos of rose.
Hagen held them. Tenderly he kissed her on the lips, then lowered his head to brush his lips across each nipple. Waves of pleasure ran through her, ripples of it. Repeatedly he kissed each breast, then found her throat, her lips, her hair, his arms enfolding her at last as she ran her hands up over his shoulders.
Arlette pulled off the rest of her things. It felt so good to be naked in his arms. Not wrong, not evil, not a sin.
Hagen slid his hands down over the soft, smooth arch of her back. He held her by the seat and drew her closer. She fought for air and tilted back her head, pressed her middle against him. Now his kisses came lightly on her throat, her breasts, and she gave a soft laugh, a gentle chuckle of rapture and whispered, “My love. Oh, my love.”
Naked, Hagen stood there looking down at her as she lay on the hearth rug. The copper tones in her hair were burnished by the flickering light. The slim, flat tummy, the tangled clutch of auburn curls in the soft V of her slightly parted legs drew his gaze. She held her breasts and nervously parted her lips …
He said, “You’re so very beautiful.”
Self-consciously, Arlette kept on looking up at him. His shoulders were fine and strong, the muscles corded at his waist. The curly hairs of sand began at his chest.
Lowering her eyes, she found the maleness of him hung below a thatch of sandy curls. She had never seen a naked man before, a penis only in paintings and sculptures and but briefly.
Tenderly, Hagen began to explore her body. He kissed her on the lips several times, resisted the pull of her arms.
Trembling, she felt his lips against each breast, he sucking the nipples now and running his tongue around them until rushes of warmth had spread again to her loins. He stroked her tummy, stroked each breast. Now her tummy, now a breast, now her throat, her lips. He kept himself there as she felt his hand between her legs, moistening her, parting her, touching, touching … Dear God, what was he doing? “Richard …”
Desperate now, she clung to him, but it went on and on, his fingers … his fingers … the rushes of pleasure building, building until the ache within her became unbearable and she parted from him with a gasp, gave a cry—and kissed him harder, harder!
Crying out, she arched her body and came. Every part of her went mad with joy. For ages she throbbed within, then caught a breath and caught it again. Realized at last that he was inside her.
Her knees were raised on either side of him. Sweat dampened her brow and clung to her upper lip. There was moisture in her eyes, a film of it.
It felt so good to have him inside her.
Even as she lay there in wonder still, a part of her glowed. Never for a moment had she imagined it would be like this. Arlette thrust her hips up at him and then it started all over again, the thrusting of his penis, the smoothness of it, the thickness, the depth …
Richard came, and she felt him throbbing deeply inside her, warm, so warm.
Wrapping her legs about him, she held him tightly to her. It was done. Done at last! And, dear God, how well it had been done.
On September 13, in a speech at Nuremberg, Hitler ranted at the Czechs, accusing them of murder and oppression. Chamberlain hurried to Berchtesgaden on the fifteenth, and while he was there, the Russians began massing troops in the Ukraine.
On September 22 the government of Czechoslovakia fell, while Polish troops gathered to invade that strife-torn country and take back territory Poland claimed as its own.
The British navy mobilized. French and German troops tensely faced each other across the narrow strip of no-man’s-land that lay between the Maginot and Siegfried lines.
Munich came on September 29 and 30. According to Neville Chamberlain there would be “Peace in our time,” as the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy settled the fate of Czechoslovakia without a shot having been fired or a Czech having been present.
On October 1 the Germans marched into the Sudetenland and the next day Poland occupied that part of Czechoslovakia known as the Teschen.
This left only the Hungarian demands to be settled. What had once existed was no more.
TO HAGEN RICHARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP
FROM WINFIELD FRANK ALBERT 10B THE MEWS MAGPIE LANE OXFORD ENGLAND
Apprehensively Arlette glanced over the cable. Going through to
Richard’s office, she found him still on the telephone to Berlin. Patiently she waited. Richard wanted clearance to go back to Augsburg, to the Man diesel-engine factory. The Ministry of the Interior was refusing.
At last he gave up and said harshly, “Then I can’t be responsible for what happens, Herr Dekker. The heads on those threading machines just won’t get replaced.”
Reluctantly Dekker gave in but insisted Richard must check the clearance with a higher authority when in Berlin.
Grimly Hagen hung up, then seeing her worried frown, gave her a comforting smile. “So, what’s new?”
“Another cable from Duncan. This one from the Oxford address.”
“You look a picture.”
“Richard, please!”
“I thought all girls liked to be complimented. How’s Willi these days?”
“Fine, he’s just fine.” Damn him for teasing her. “Now will you be serious?”
“I like it when you get mad at me.”
“I’m not mad. I’m worried. Richard, why won’t you and Duncan funnel the messages through me? It would be so much safer. My shorthand’s good. I could take them down. You could fit things into orders for the shop or things you want to discuss with de Heer Wunsch.”
“The telephone lines are being tapped—we’re almost certain of it. Besides, Duncan can’t give you things for the shop.”
She swept her eyes anxiously over him. She knew that night after night he’d been watching her place and trying to pin down who had been following her.
“Will you come to the club tonight?” she asked. “Cecile says it’s okay for us to use her place. She’s a little jealous—who wouldn’t be—but …” Arlette gave him a shrug and fell silent.
Hagen reached out to take the cable from her. “I have to work late. It’s …”
“It’s not wise of us. Yes, I know it isn’t, but I want to see you, Richard. I want … Oh, you know what I want.”
Her eyes had found the desk—she couldn’t look at him. She was still so very shy.
“Don’t be afraid to say you want to make love.”
“Cecile won’t mind.”
“Cecile will mind, and that’s one reason I don’t think it’s such a good idea for us to use her place.”
“And the other reasons?” she asked sharply.
“You know very well what I mean.”
“There’s a ten o’clock mass at the cathedral. If I were to … Richard, you could be there. I could …”
“Let them follow you there?”
“Yes.”
“Arlette …”
“Be there, and then I will go straight home afterward. I won’t see you tonight! You can follow them and find out who they are.”
When decoded, the message read:
TO ALICE FROM THE CARPENTER
CANARIS ABWEHR CONTACT TRAVELLERS’ CLUB LINKED TO INSPECTOR LAFLEUR PAUL PARIS SÛRETÉ / LAFLEUR IN PAY OF HEYDRICH’S SD / EVIDENCE OF WELL-ORGANIZED NAZI FIFTH COLUMNS IN FRANCE BELGIUM AND HOLLAND SUGGESTS WAR IMMINENT / WHITE RABBIT REQUESTS SIGNAL DIAMOND STOCKS MEGADAN ROUTE EARLIEST POSSIBLE DATE / AS YET NO OFFICIAL SANCTION CAN BE GIVEN CONVINCE ANTWERP COMMITTEE TO SHIP WHILE TIME STILL AVAILABLE / REALIZE LACK OF GUARANTEES MAY BE A PROBLEM / URGE UTMOST CAUTION IF RETURNING TO REICH
Working after hours, Hagen wrote out a reply.
TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE
BELGIUM STEADFASTLY MAINTAINS NEUTRALITY IN FACE OF MOUNTING TENSIONS / KING LEOPOLD STILL REFUSES TO LET DIAMONDS LEAVE / TRADERS WILL NOT I REPEAT NOT SHIP WITHOUT FIRM GUARANTEES RECEIVED BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN WRITING / FLYING TO BERLIN 3 NOVEMBER / REQUEST YOU TAKE HUYSMANS ARLETTE TO ENGLAND FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE / ALICE
It was all so stupid. In the face of the inevitable the diamond stocks still languished in Antwerp.
To be on the safe side he took the cable down to the Central Railway Station rather than phone it in.
Then he waited in a call box.
Sure enough, someone went up to the wicket and a copy of his cable was passed over. Within hours the message would be in Otto Krantz’s hands or in someone’s from the Abwehr.
They’d make of it what they could. To try to stop the man would only tell them that he knew.
Damas saw Hagen leave the Central Station, and when the diamond salesman was crossing the square, he picked up his trail. Others would watch the girl’s place. She could be taken at any time. Berlin’s interest was very much in Hagen—his activities while in Antwerp, where he went, whom he saw—dates, times, places. Even which restaurants he favored.
The girl was simply the mayonnaise that might or might not have gone sour.
When Hagen went into the cathedral, Damas was surprised, for Hagen wasn’t what one could call religious. Nor was he of any particular faith.
Uncertain how to handle things, the schoolmaster waited in the shadows beneath the awnings of a perfume shop. Could he chance a cigarette? Tailing Hagen always keyed him up. One had to be so careful.
Sliding his left hand into the pocket of his trench coat, he closed his fingers over the pistol. Why had the diamond salesman gone in there if not to meet the girl?
The cathedral was crowded. These days so many people were worried there’d be war. Arlette hurriedly crossed herself and, squeezing between the rows, knelt to bow her head. Would Richard come? Would he see her? Would he find the two men who had followed her from Madame Hausemer’s? They’d kept right after her. She’d run—they’d forced her to do this, forced her to give away the fact that she’d known they were there.
And now? she wondered anxiously.
Framed by Corinthian columns, Rubens’s masterpiece, The Elevation of the Cross, soared above everything. All the candles had been lit. The gold of the cross behind the altar served only to make one focus on the painting.
Richard, she whispered silently. Richard, please be careful. I don’t like this. Something isn’t right.
Not three rows in front of her and a little to one side and across the center aisle, a man had turned to look at her. Laughing, grinning, a week’s growth of stubble on the fleshy cheeks and double chin. In a flash she remembered him in the street outside the Café Lindenbos, remembered the young engineer, the screech of brakes and then … and then …
Quickly she bowed her head. Richard … Richard, my darling, please forgive me for suggesting this.
Across the square and along from the man who had followed him, Hagen waited in the darkness, and when the service was over and Arlette would have turned for home, he started out. Joining a group of people, he used them as cover, but they went off toward the Grote Markt to find a brightly lit cafe in the shadow of the cathedral.
Alone for a few moments, he felt exposed. Antwerp’s gas lanterns had long since been electrified, but here they still jutted out from the walls.
The man paused at a corner to light a cigarette—a good sign. Irritably waving out the match, he drew in deeply before flipping up the collar of his coat and sliding his hands into its pockets.
Then he started out again but headed for the docks.
Four hours later and back at the office, Hagen encoded another message, this time typing it out using two sheets of carbon paper and the Magpie Lane address.
Each of the copies would go into widely separated mailboxes.
TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE
SD KEY OPERATIVE ANTWERP DAMAS KARL CHRISTIAN NUMBER 239 THE WAALSEKAAI APARTMENT THREE FOURTH FLOOR AT BACK / SCHOOLMASTER AGE ABOUT 40-45 TALL THIN LEFT-HANDED SMOKES CIGARETTES A HARD MAN TO TAIL / ARLETTE A SECONDARY ASSIGNMENT BUT STILL DEFINITELY BEING WATCHED / URGENT YOU GET HER TO LONDON AS SOON AS POSSIBLE THEN NOTIFY BERNARD / ALICE
It was nearly 4:00 a.m. when he slipped into the Club Chez Vous via the back door that led to the kitchens. Cecile was still up, the place all but empty. Though there were two glasses on the table in front of her, one hadn’t been used.
“Richard, just what the hell do you and that girl you’ve got up there think you’re doing?”
“Is Arlette here? I thought …”
“You thought! You didn’t think. She was followed on her way home but lost them. The poor kid was terrified. Berke found her crying on the back steps and brought her in. I’ve had to telephone that landlady of hers six times just to calm the woman down.”
Hagen ran an exasperated hand through his hair. Had Damas purposely drawn him off so as to find out what was up?
“Look, I told her I didn’t want us coming here. It’s too dangerous for us and for you.”
“Just what the hell are you involved in?”
“Nothing. It’s all a mistake.”
“That’s some mistake! Are you screwing that kid upstairs in my place?”
“Cecile …”
“My God, I hope you wear a sock for her sake!”
“Please try to understand.”
“Why? What’s it got to do with me?”
“I thought this was a place for your friends to meet.”
“It is. Now tell me honestly, does this business have anything to do with Dieter Karl and his sister?”
“Exactly how much did Arlette tell you?”
“Enough for me to know you’re working for the British and that Dieter and you can no longer be friends.”
Cecile had met Dieter in Berlin in 1936. Dieter had been quite envious. Anyone with an eye for beautiful women would have been.
“Things are piling up on you, Richard. Look, I don’t want to know but I do think you’d better get her out of this if not for your sake, then for hers. Now go on up to my bedroom—I’m sure you still remember where it is—and tell her you’re safe.”
She reached for the bottle and Hagen took it from her to refill her glass.
Strains of a recording of “Begin the Beguine” filtered up from the club below. Unable to sleep, Arlette lay in the darkness on her side. It was all so unfair! Why couldn’t they simply have had a life of their own?
She heard the door softly open and close. Anxiously she sat up. “Cecile …” she began.
“Arlette, it’s me.”
They came together in a rush, she bouncing out of bed, he stepping quickly toward her. They fell back onto the bed, Arlette softly crying, “Richard … Oh, Richard …”; Hagen saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
Still in her slip and stockings, she lay beneath him, his hands under her, her arms wrapped tightly around him. “Love me, Richard. Love me, please!”
Nothing seemed to matter but that they have each other. Richard’s hands slid under her slip and up over the tops of her stockings. His lips were parted. She could feel the tip of his tongue, felt his fingers as they touched the skin above her stockings. Caressing it now, softly so softly as she drew in a breath and found his lips again.
“I want you,” she said, her breath coming in a rush.
When she heard him hurrying to undo his belt, Arlette yanked off the rest of her things. “Hurry … please hurry. Richard, I have to have you.”
In a rush he touched her thighs, her hips, her breasts and wrists as he slid himself up over her to stretch her arms above her head and press his lips to hers. Parting them, he slid his tongue inside her mouth as his penis nudged her, she lifting up, arching hard, splitting her body apart to receive him, always thrusting … thrusting. Ripples of pleasure all over again, waves of it. No thought of the men who had followed her. No thought.
Arlette felt him coming, felt every muscle of him throbbing deeply inside her. Then it was done and she was crying, was kissing him again. Longer now. Murmuring sweet urgent things, then lifting a breast to his lips, running her hand through his hair.
As they lay in the darkness she heard him say, “I’ve arranged a code with Bernard. If you hear me use the word obstacle in the course of some instructions for the shop, Bernard is to insist that de Heer Lietermann and the Committee send the diamond stocks to England right away, and they’re to be sent only by ship.”
“In the Megadan.”
She felt him nod his head. “If you don’t hear from Duncan, you’re to contact him and get out yourself—the sooner the better. Go to Ostend and cross over there. With luck, he’ll have sent someone to accompany you.”
“And the ones who followed us tonight?”
“You leave them to Duncan.”
This was a Richard she hadn’t known. “Why must you go back into the Reich? Why must you do this thing?”
“You know the answers.”
“Then take the diamond this time. Give it to the Nazis, Richard. Get Lev’s daughter and son-in-law out. Do this for us.”
His flight left at six in the morning. At six-thirty Arlette was waiting outside the office. November’s wind was cruel, the street so utterly desolate she had to wonder how it would look if the Nazis were to invade.
Empty like this—the whole city without a soul to walk its streets or stand as she did, with her back to the wind. It was all so unfair—criminal of them!
At seven o’clock Lev came along to find her. The tears were very real, and as she wiped them away, he said, “So, he’s gone again, and you who are engaged to the son of a butcher in Ostend must broadcast a different love to the world at large. Come on, I think we both need some coffee. Would you like a piece of honey cake with it?”
They took the lift up to the fourth floor. As the thing stopped, she felt Lev’s arms about her. “The risks, Arlette. The chances he must take.”
“He’s taken the pendant with him.”
“It’s hidden in one of the drill bits. I fixed a metal plug to hold it in and made him a key to get it out.”
“They’ll find it, Lev. I know they will. I have this feeling.”
Lev clucked his tongue. There was about the building that same inevitability of emptiness. It made her shiver. Their steps sounded loudly.
He got her to make the coffee, and when he unwrapped the honey cake Anna had included with his lunch, he cut the slice in two. “Let’s each of us eat it slowly so as to think of the past and hope for the future.”
All along the Friedrichstrasse the shops were busy. Throngs of people sought the pavements as if the euphoria over Austria and the Sudetenland could never end.
Berlin was all aglitter. Munich had been a triumph for Hitler.
On the Leipzigerstrasse—a far better shopping street—the action was even more frenzied. Couples strolled arm in arm. The uniforms were everywhere, the gray-green of the Wehrmacht, the blue of the Kriegsmarine, that of the Luftwaffe.
The black of the SS, the Schutz Staffel.
In a nation of uniforms, all were proudly accepted.
The taxi headed west along the Unter den Linden. An early snow, whose wet flakes all but refused to melt, did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm. Floodlights lit the museums and government buildings. Lovers stood, policemen walked.
No one had bothered him at the frontier. He’d been allowed in without a raised eyebrow. From Essen he’d gone to Frankfurt—still had a folded copy of the Frankfurter Zeitung.
Hagen set it on the seat beside him. When he’d rung Dee Dee’s flat there’d been no answer.
They turned onto the Kurfurstendamm. Soon the bright lights of the film theaters were everywhere, clashing with those of the bars and cafes. A giant billboard recommended Berliner Kindl. Another defied it by recommending Dortmunder Union.
The burned-out bulbs of a nude cabaret signaled that streak of false purity the Nazis had brought to the city. No naked maidens riding white stallions as at the Munich torch-lit fetes, no orgies as in Hitler’s new artists’ center there. None save in the sleazy bars Heydrich knew.
The lights were out in Dee Dee’s flat. “Wait for me, will you?” he said.
When he rang the buzzer there was no answer. When he stood looking up at her windows, he felt a renewed and growing sense of uneasiness.
Aschinger’s was cheap and good, a place to stand and eat or sit, and he went there to wait, knowing that he’d been followed.
A beaming Otto Krantz soon pushed his way through to the counter. “Richard, how’ve you been? Glad to see you’re back.”
Krantz took in the half-eaten bowl of pea soup with ham, the plate of little sausages, the stein of beer and the cheese on rye with sauerkraut.
“You’re one of us, my friend. Hah, this weather, Richard.” He tossed his fedora onto the counter, used a stumpy forefinger to order the same. “So, how’ve you been?”
Guardedly the salesman chose to discuss the weather and the international situation. Krantz broke a fistful of rusks into his soup and added salt and pepper. “Herr Heydrich wishes us to have a little talk, but first, a question or two of my own.”
Hagen tossed off the last of his beer. Krantz ordered another for him. “Fräulein Schroeder, Richard. Did she have friends or relatives in the country perhaps?”
“Did she …?”
“Gott in Himmel, I’m sorry. You thought … but of course. No, she’s fine—at least as far as we know.”
“But she’s not at her flat.”
The policeman’s expression was bland. Slowly Krantz shook his head. “I was rather hoping you might tell us where she is.”
Had Canaris made good his promise? Had the admiral managed to get her out of the country?
“The Gruppenführer …” said Krantz, savoring his soup as one would a juicy piece of gossip. “He’s really quite fond of the woman. If you could … as a favor.” The Berliner shrugged.
“Herr Krantz, I don’t know where she is. I was hoping you’d tell me.”
The spoon went into the soup again. The Berliner puddled the rusks and drowned them in the gray-green. Bits of ham floated up. “When I find out, I’ll be sure to let you know. So, now let us come to business. Whatever you and the admiral have agreed to, the Gruppenführer wishes you to extend the same to us.”
Hagen reached for his coffee. He thought to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Grinning, he set down his mug. “Perhaps we’d better talk outside.”
Krantz lit up. Were they putting rat shit in the tobacco? “Gott in Himmel.” He coughed and wheezed in.
They’d take a little stroll but first he’d finish his meal.
TO WINFIELD MRS LOIS ANNE INVERLIN COTTAGE BLACK DOWN HEATH PORTESHAM ROAD DORCHESTER ENGLAND
FROM HAGEN RICHARD HOTEL ADLON BERLIN
CHAMBERLAIN HAILED AS A SAINT STOP EVERYONE SAYS HE DID HIS VERY BEST AND SUCCEEDED IN OVERCOMING AN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK STOP HITLER DIDN’T YIELD ONE BIT BUT SHOWED HOW SHREWD HE WAS AND GAINED ALL MANNER OF CONCESSIONS STOP THE GENERAL FEELINGS ARE OF PEACE BUT EVERYONE IS STILL WATCHING IN CASE THERE IS A TURN FOR THE WORSE STOP MY FEELINGS ARE THAT YOU SHOULD RELAX STOP DON’T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT ME STOP LOVE HAGEN
SD Antwerp had again entered the offices of Dillingham and Company. Karl Christian Damas had sent word of two books in English he’d found in the director’s desk but hadn’t removed.
Through the Looking Glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The Belgian had said some passages had been lightly marked and that Wunsch had left a bookmark at one poem. “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”
Krantz read the cable over again. Lost in thought, he fingered the cigarette case. Where would it all lead? What would Heydrich really do?
Hagen and he had walked and talked for nearly an hour. They’d finished up with a coffee at the Cafe des Westens and had watched the nightlife stroll up and down the Damm.
Then the bastard had gone back to his hotel and at 4:00 a.m. had sent this wire.
He did his very best had come from verse one, line three of “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” The rest of the quotes had come from page 21 of Through the Looking Glass.
Unknown as yet, the message when decoded would read:
TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE
OFFER MEGADAN ROUTE EXTENDED SD VIA KRANTZ £50,000 PAYABLE ZURICH ACCOUNT / RAILWAY ROUTE HELD BACK / IMPERATIVE DIAMOND STOCKS BE MOVED / BELIEVE PLANS IN PLACE TO SEIZE THEM / ALICE
Hamburg was shrouded in gray. Around the harbor the forest of cranes swung eerily back and forth in the mist. Day and night the offloading and loading went on. Ships from all over the world came here.
Hagen stood in the director’s office of Blohm and Voss, Germany’s largest shipbuilding yard. The skeleton of another cruiser funneled his view down into the harbor. Motor torpedo boats, landing barges—they had several of these as well as submarines. The din of the riveting hammers intruded, as did the flash of acetylene torches.
The office had been put at their disposal. Unknown to him, Dieter Karl and Irmgard had arrived back from Brazil, Dieter tanned and fit but cautious and demanding.
A meeting here—ostensibly in secret. Dieter and the Abwehr had chased after him. Very worried about Dee Dee and Irmgard, Hagen found he could barely control his anger.
“Dieter, you’ll never get diamonds out of the Congo unless you work through the cartel, buying on the open market. If Canaris thinks the Abwehr and the SS have the best security systems in the world, he’d better think again. Each washing and concentrating plant—each mine if need be—is enclosed by barbed, electrified wire fences. There are patrols with dogs that are no less fierce than those of the SS. The Bantu who work there sign on for periods of three months and they don’t come out until someone says they can.
“When they pass through the gates, they go into a shed to strip off and leave their clothes and anything else they might have brought—even a pipe and tobacco pouch. Then they pass through the showers, are disinfected and given a suit of work clothes.”
Dieter grinned. “You’re making it sound like one of the camps.”
Hagen didn’t react. “They live and work within that compound until their tour of duty is up. But—” he paused “—they never know exactly when they’ll be told to leave—what day, what hour—so they can’t plan ahead. On the way out they leave their work clothes, shower and are body-searched—and I mean searched.
“Sometimes a fellow will swallow a diamond or two. The fear in his eyes nearly always gives him away. Castor oil, an enema or a fist in the guts—whichever way, he’s forced to get rid of it. And again, he never knows if he’ll be selected, for there are always random checks as well.”
Was Richard afraid they might try without his help? “But you have said the deposits at Mbuji-Mayi are almost totally industrials? Surely the security is not so tight for those?”
“About two percent are gems. One stone, even at today’s prices, is a lifetime’s work for several men. Some still try to steal, and I feel sorry for them because they’re nearly always caught.”
“And the tool diamonds?”
“About three percent. Look, doing it illegally just isn’t worth the try.”
“But some do get by. This security of La Forminière’s is not so good as you say.”
Dieter would never understand. “Only a white man could accomplish what you’re thinking of, and even he couldn’t get enough diamonds past the mine security to keep the whole of your war machine going.”
“We are not at war, and we do not plan to be.” A white man … a Belgian …
“When it comes, we both know there’ll be a blockade.”
“The British will still need diamonds to run their industries. They won’t close those mines, Richard. They wouldn’t be able to.”
“Mbuji-Mayi’s production is almost totally of crushing boart. Sure you need it, but how are you going to get it out of the mines, and if you should manage that, how will you get it past the blockade?”
“There must be ways. We will see.”
“And the tool diamonds you’ll need?”
“You told Canaris it might be possible—from Tshikapa, I presume, with your help.”
“With my help, Dieter. Mine! A company of my own so that you can work through the official channels even if there is a blockade.”
“I must have my assurances that you really have our interests at heart.”
“And I want to know what’s happened to Dee Dee. Just where is she, Dieter? The admiral promised me he’d get her out.”
Richard could be such a fool at times. “Steps are being taken to find out. Believe me, I’m just as upset by her disappearance as are you and Irmgard.”
“But are you upset by what’s happened to her? Heydrich, Dieter. Heydrich!”
“You know I am. Now, please. The Antwerp stocks? The admiral wishes to know if there have been any new developments? Which of the channel ports will they use to send the railway cars across?”
“I’d like to see Irmgard, Dieter. I’d like to know that she’s okay.”
“You’ll see her soon enough.”
Hagen clenched a fist and turned away to the windows. “I want the fifty thousand first, Dieter. It should have been deposited to my account by now.”
“The channel port they’ll use, Richard?”
“I don’t know which one. Not yet. But I can’t see them sending the diamonds through France. They’d be afraid the French might seize them.”
No love lost among such allies, the truth at last. “Then it has to be Zeebrugge or Ostend.”
“That’s correct.”
“And this freighter, the Megadan? Is it really to be a ploy or do the traders intend to use it?”
Dealing with Canaris had been one thing, Dieter quite another. “I can only repeat what I know to be the case. Look, I want something for myself, Dieter. I can’t be forever shuttling back and forth across Europe. Besides, if war comes and they do manage to move the diamonds to London, you’ll need me in the Congo. With my own production and those I’ll buy on the open market, I can see that you get all the diamonds you’ll ever need.”
“You’ll be subject to the blockade just like everyone else.”
“I’ll get around it by setting up a dummy company in the States. Orders from there go to the mine, and I ship to a third and neutral country. Only you and I know what’s really going on. You fly in and out, or you use a submarine.”
Hunter took his time. Studying Richard had become an obsession of Heydrich’s. The admiral wanted absolute proof he’d work for them.
There was a Dutchman in Amsterdam, a crook named Klees. Word had it that Richard was making a little money on the side.
Knowing what he did of him, it simply wouldn’t wash.
There was also Irmgard and the letters she had written to him; Richard’s cables, too—not just suspicions of a code but almost the proof.
Yet Richard could help them so much.
“All right. I’ll tell the admiral to authorize the funds.” He grinned then and got up, felt Richard’s firm handshake. “So, we are partners at last.”
But partners with whom? wondered Hagen.
The headquarters of the Berlin Municipal Police was in a massive gray stone building on the Alexanderplatz. From the roof terrace there was a superb view of the inner city’s bustling life. Krantz waved away the choice of meeting place. “Old haunts die hard, Richard. I still have occasion to work closely with these boys.”
The Berliner flipped up the collar of his overcoat. “It’s a bitch of a wind but private up here.”
Hagen waited. The police radio tower was directly behind Krantz. Ice clung to its iron crosspieces. A swastika flag flapped mercilessly from its top.
“The Fräulein Schroeder, Richard. Word has come to me that she’s in the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Me, I thought you’d like to know.”
Hagen felt sick. Ravensbrück … “Can nothing be done to get her out?”
Krantz found his cigarette case and lit up. “Herr Heydrich must have had his reasons. An argument, a bun in the oven—Gott in Himmel, how should I know? But, to get her out? Yes, I think there is a possibility.”
They knew, then, of his meeting in Hamburg with Dieter.
The Berliner rubbed a thumb over the tarnished head of the kaiser. “A deal, I think. Yes, that would be best. Everything you give to the admiral you will give to me and some.”
“What guarantees have I got that you’ll let her out of that place?”
The snort of laughter was there, the quick drag on the cigarette. “None. But, she can be whisked away at a word. Switzerland, Zurich, if you like. All Herr Heydrich has to do is wave his magic wand.”
What could be easier? Hagen told him about the alternate plan to use the railway cars. “The Megadan is just a ploy.”
Krantz nodded. A rusty shit box of a freighter, SD Antwerp had said.
“And the money?” asked Hagen.
The Berliner grinned. “We will let the admiral pay you. It wouldn’t be right of us to do so twice. Not for the same thing.”
They went indoors and along a corridor to one of the offices. Krantz tossed his cigarette case onto the desk and asked to be excused. “I’ll only be a moment, then I can give you a lift back to your hotel.”
Krantz had left his cigarette case on top of a clipboard. Hagen nudged the case aside and read the memo.
TOP SECRET
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WILL BE ISSUED AT 11:55 P.M. NOV. 9, FROM GESTAPO HEADQUARTERS.
BERLIN NO. 234404 9.11.2355
TO ALL GESTAPO STATIONS AND GESTAPO DISTRICT STATIONS
TO OFFICER OR DEPUTY
THIS TELEPRINTER MESSAGE IS TO BE SUBMITTED WITHOUT DELAY:
AT VERY SHORT NOTICE, AKTIONEN AGAINST JEWS, ESPECIALLY AGAINST THEIR SYNAGOGUES, WILL TAKE PLACE THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF GERMANY. THEY ARE NOT TO BE HINDERED. IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE POLICE, HOWEVER, IT IS TO BE ENSURED THAT LOOTING AND OTHER PARTICULAR EXCESSES CAN BE PREVENTED*
Between twenty thousand and thirty thousand Jews were to be arrested, the wealthy in particular.
He’d have to wait—have to carry on as if nothing were to happen. He couldn’t try to send anything out right away, no matter how much he wanted to. Nor could he attempt to warn anyone yet.
Krantz had left him with the temptation, but Heydrich had been behind it. Now they would wait to see what he’d do. Key phrases—the date, an action against the Jews. They’d hope to use these to help them decode what he’d sent.
The diamond was clear, a cushion-shaped macle whose top and bottom had been ground perfectly flat. A viewing window had been cut and polished in one side and through this, with the microscope, he could see inside the stone.
As always, he was impressed and humbled by Lev’s skill, more so now because of what he knew would happen and the need to get a warning out.
The diamond was one of a sequence of twenty-two such stones in one of the wire drawing machines of a small factory on the outskirts of Berlin. Copper wire of 1.8 mm in diameter entered the first diamond in the sequence and was then reduced in twenty-two stages to wire of 0.21 mm.
The hole through its center had been drilled using steel sewing machine needles, grades of diamond dust of varying sizes and very high speeds of rotation. From top to bottom the hole looked like a funnel whose spout opened slightly into a small cone.
The walls of the hole had been carefully polished; the stone was of far better quality than most gem diamonds simply because die stones had to be that way or else they would break.
There were pressure rings around the top of the hole, the first signs of wear. They’d have to do.
Leaning back from the microscope, Hagen patiently explained the problem to the foreman and asked to call Antwerp. The blitz call took a good ten minutes to get through, and when he heard Arlette on the line, he hoped she’d understand and do the right thing.
“Mijnheer Hagen, is that you?” she asked.
The line cleared. “Arlette, have you a pencil handy?” She said she had, but he found his throat had suddenly gone dry and he was shaking.
Frantically Arlette searched for something to say. “Richard …” God forgive her for saying his name like that! “Mijnheer Hagen, I … I have broken my pencil. A moment, please.”
He waited, seeing her at her desk. “Arlette …”
“Please continue now, Mijnheer Hagen.” I love you very much.
“It seems a shame to have to ask it but could you get the shop to send me a set of replacement die stones for the Metz und Langbehen plant in Berlin?”
There were some other things, and she took down everything he said. Then he was saying goodbye, and she was sitting there, staring at her notepad.
Bernard Wunsch nervously took the pad from her. The word obstacles hadn’t been mentioned.
“It seems a shame” had come from “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” The girl was softly crying.
“Are you working for the British too?” he asked.
She gave a nod. “I must relay this to England but not let the Germans know I’ve done so.”
Then it was true.
Arlette wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I will go to a place I know of this evening. That will be okay, I think.”
What kind of a world was it becoming? “The club of Cecile Verheyden?” he asked.
She gripped her stomach, wanted suddenly to throw up. “Yes.”
Unknown to them, the message read:
TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE
MOST URGENT YOU WARN JEWS IN GERMANY OF SS POGROM THE NIGHT OF 9-10 NOVEMBER / DIRECTIVE SENT TO ALL SS UNITS READS 2355 HOURS / SORRY BUT I HAVE TO DO WHAT I CAN / ALICE
At 3:30 on the morning of November 8 the Motzstrasse was clothed in darkness. From the direction of the Nottendorfplatz, a car crept up the street.
It reached number 87 and for a while sat there. Then the window of the passenger door was rolled down and the beam of a flashlight shone up the steps before fleeing to a nearby entrance.
Out of the darkness two men hurried over to the car. Hagen cursed his luck. Krantz was having the place watched around the clock.
The two men got into the car and it was driven slowly away.
For almost an hour he searched the frigid darkness for the third man, only to find the street deserted.
Waking Lev’s daughter and son-in-law was like waking the dead! The echoes of his first hammered in the hall. No time … “Goddamn it, open up in the name of the Führer!”
Moses, terrified and blinking at the unaccustomed light, timidly opened the door. “Herr Hagen …”
He shoved past him in a rush and nudged the door closed. Rachel hurried into the hall only to stop suddenly at the sight of him.
As calmly as he could, Hagen told them what was going to happen. “You mustn’t tell anyone. Just get dressed and leave while you can. Use the morning rush hour to cover yourselves. Take a little food and water, a blanket perhaps—so little, no one will notice.”
“And where shall we go?” asked Tannenbaum bitterly.
“Haven’t you any relatives in the countryside? Isn’t there someone, some Gentile who’ll take you in for a few days until things blow over?”
The bookseller snorted at this. “Her grandparents perhaps.”
“Good.” He realized then that the husband had meant the cemetery. “Could you stand it there for a day or two? Look, I need time to work something out.”
The cemetery … “It’s at Weissensee, in the northeastern suburbs. So far the Nazis have left it alone. There are crypts, Moses. Perhaps we could …?” Rachel left it unsaid.
They’d never leave the flat and he knew it! “Get dressed and I’ll go there with you.”
The tramcar ride was the loneliest he’d ever made. At four-thirty the city was just beginning to awaken. At five-thirty the dawn had not yet broken. At six-fifteen the beam of their flashlight revealed that the cemetery had been left untended for some time. Ivy covered many of the stones that lay flat on the ground. The grass was thick and soaked with dew, the air damp and cold. Weeds had grown up everywhere and their bare, dead stalks protruded from among the standing stones.
Rachel took the lead. Soon their shoes were soaked through. Hagen wondered if the couple would be all right, if Krantz had had them followed. He cursed Heydrich for the bastard he was. He was grateful for the size of the place.
When they came to a small white oval set in an upright slab of black marble, he saw the photograph of Lev’s mother. There was a passage in Hebrew; above this, the star of David.
“I never knew her,” said Rachel, “yet I come here often for my father’s sake.”
“There’s a crypt just over the hill, Herr Hagen. Perhaps it will do.”
The light fled away to angels, blue-green with verdigris, that guarded the door. Hagen broke the rusty padlock with a stone.
“I’ll be back, don’t worry. But for now you must stay here and keep out of sight.”
“And how do we know you’ll be back?”
“Moses, please. Herr Hagen has risked his life to do this.”
Hagen glanced over his shoulder. “Look, if I’m not back within four days you’ll know I’m in trouble. Wait at least until then—longer if you can.”
Quickly he told them of the route through the border crossing at Emmerich and handed Rachel the pendant.
They couldn’t help but see the worth of it.
Shaking hands very formally, they said goodbye. He hated to leave them. Even with the pendant they stood so little chance.
Horcher’s was crowded as usual. From the far side of the dining room came the strains of a waltz, from the tables whose occupants were nearly all in uniform, the sounds of cutlery and talk, broken now and then by sudden bursts of laughter.
Seated at a table for four, not far from the central buffet, Hagen waited.
Already he’d been waiting for some time.
Two tables from him Goering and Heydrich were earnestly discussing something, while Goebbels smirked and Himmler remained fastidiously remote.
At another table the generals Guderian, Jodl and von Brauchitsch added wineglasses to their maneuvers.
Heydrich had simply ignored him. There was no sign of Canaris.
When a hand touched his shoulder, Hagen turned suddenly to look up and saw the warning and the fear in Irmgard’s eyes.
She was wearing navy blue, with a stark white blouse and dark tie. The crispness of the uniform suited her. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” she asked, her voice despondent.
“I didn’t know you were working for the Abwehr.”
“Dieter,” she whispered, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “Didn’t he tell you?”
Hagen refused to answer. What was she playing at? She looked well-tanned and fit, her hair lightened by the sun. But had Canaris sanctioned the meeting under Heydrich’s watchful gaze? Just what the bloody hell was going on?
Picking at the tablecloth, she said, “Tell me how things are. It’s been so long. Dieter sends his regrets. As you can see, he and Herr Piekenbrock were to have joined us. Business … always it is business these days.”
Hans Piekenbrock was the Abwehr’s second in command.
Fortunately the waiter came. Hardly glancing at the menu, she ordered something, he the same. He thought of Rachel and her husband and decided that no matter how much he might need Irmgard’s help, he couldn’t risk asking for it.
When she said, “I’m to drive you to Munich this evening,” he knew that the admiral wanted him out of Berlin.
The street was strangely silent, while all around them the sound of breaking glass came harshly.
Gripping the steering wheel, Irmgard eased her foot back down on the accelerator. As the Daimler began to move slowly forward, she glanced tearfully into the rearview mirror, then at Richard, who was grim and silent.
In each town and village it had been the same, but here—here in Munich at two o’clock in the morning when people should have been asleep? Dear God, no!
The wail of another fire engine came, but it was over on the Briennerstrasse where the shops were so expensive and fashionable.
Street after street had been littered with broken glass. Each time they had tried to get through some place it had been the same. All the windows of the Jewish shops had been smashed. Roving jackbooted gangs of drunken SS and storm troopers had run howling from street to street. What they hadn’t looted, they had set afire either intentionally or by accident.
“Richard, pray for us. I don’t like this.”
“Just get down the street. Maybe we can work our way around them.”
Again she glanced into the rearview mirror. They passed a department store whose mannequins wore the furs and suits of winter. They passed an antique shop, a jeweler’s.
Halfway down the block, he told her to back up.
“I can’t. They’re behind us.”
Time stopped. The mob of fifty—a hundred perhaps—paused. Their torches seemed to waver.
Then, with a shout of rage, the carnage began. As the mob surged past each shop, the windows shattered and showers of glass spilled onto the walks and the street beyond.
Unable to take her eyes from the rearview mirror, Irmgard clung to the steering wheel. Unable to take his gaze from the street in front of them, Hagen gritted his teeth in anger.
All too soon the order banning looting was forgotten. As blood ran down their fingers, they fought their brothers for the choicest things.
Those who objected to the looting and the damage were dragged into the street and savagely beaten. Now and then a Gentile shop was left like an island in the storm. When they reached the car, the mob surged around it, then began to rock the Daimler violently. Hagen tried to stop them. Someone smashed the windshield. Irmgard was grabbed and dragged kicking and screaming from the car. He forced his door open and went down in a welter of blows as she shrieked, “I work for the Abwehr, damn you! The Abwehr! He is Admiral Canaris’s friend!”
Someone must have heard her, for they backed away as if threatened by the plague. As she clutched her torn coat, Irmgard stood in the light from the headlamps defying them. “The Abwehr,” she said. “The Abwehr.”
Grinning, leering now, they backed away a little more, but to prove their worth, to make up for things, they dragged a young Jewish woman into the lights.
As Irmgard’s screams joined those of their victim, they tore the nightclothes from the woman. Not content with raping her, four of them seized the woman by the arms and legs and pitched her through the window of her father’s shop. Then they tossed a torch in after her and ran.
The bedroom of the Villa Hunter overlooked the gardens far from the carnage and the smoke that still hung over parts of the city. As the dawn came up, Hagen turned away from the window. The pogrom had been far too extensive. It wouldn’t be over for weeks. The arrests would go on and on. The borders would be closely watched.
The young Jewish woman who had been raped had died in his arms.
“Irmgard, I need your help. There’s something I’d better tell you.”
Her gaze moved over the bandages, the gash in his forehead, the blackened eyes and battered chin. “I work for the Abwehr, Richard. Remember? If Canaris had had his way I would have slept with you last night. That was the order—get Richard Hagen out of Berlin and into your arms.”
“Or else?”
She didn’t answer. He said, “Brazil … there was trouble, Irmgard. Why not tell me about it?”
She answered, “I tried to send some letters to you and found out the truth about my brother.”
And yet Canaris had given her a job? That could only mean the admiral hadn’t been aware of the letters.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“Does it matter? Yes, I can see that it does. You’re such a good person, Richard. Me, I’ll carry on until they take my head. Now, please, what is it you need?”
They were on their way back to Berlin that morning in a van, borrowed from one of her father’s factories, that was full of new uniforms for the Wehrmacht. When they arrived at the cemetery in the late afternoon, the synagogue nearby was a blackened ruin. Only the outer walls still stood. Apart from an old woman and a gaping child, there wasn’t another soul about.
“Wait for me, will you?”
“No. I’m coming with you. You might need me, Richard.”
“Stay with the van. That way you won’t have to park it and draw attention to us. Come back in half an hour. Please.”
“Tell them I’ll hide them in Munich at the house. Tell them they’ll be safe.”
Ask for forgiveness—it was written in her eyes.
Hagen stood at the side of the road while she drove away. Then he headed into the cemetery. Just when he began to run, he’d never know. Just when he had torn open the heavy doors of the crypt, he wouldn’t remember.
Sunlight filtered into the depths. There wasn’t a sign of anyone.
Irmgard and he hadn’t spoken in hours. The night had come down long ago, yet still she drove the van with the same desperateness, though Berlin was now far behind them.
Another convoy of SS trucks appeared ahead of them, and she started out to pass it without a thought for the approaching headlamps. There was a screech of brakes—theirs, someone else’s, he didn’t know.
Some eighteen kilometers outside of Munich she turned off the autobahn to the west and followed more of the trucks until, at another turning, they had finally left them.
“The concentration camp at Dachau is not far, yes? So I thought this would be best for us. The greatness of the Germanic peoples, Richard. It is possible for us to build such things.”
The van slowed to a stop before the gates of Schloss Schleissheim, one of Munich’s loveliest castles.
“Dachau, and this, Richard. Ravensbrück—oh, yes, I know about Dee Dee. For me, I would have preferred that we could have walked together in the Nymphenburg’s Hall of Mirrors. Then we could have seen each other’s secrets, isn’t that right? Me, you, naked among the mirrors. Heydrich there, Canaris there, Hitler, Goering … all of them watching us.”
She switched off the headlamps. They would sit here in the darkness and she would let the cold and the damp seep into him.
Her voice was harsh. “You know you cannot say one damn thing about what has happened. You cannot object, cannot cry out. To do so is to admit that you tried, Richard, and for them that will be enough. As for me, I am simply your accomplice.”
“I couldn’t just let it happen.”
She hit the steering wheel. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, do you not see what they’re trying to do to you? Those two Jews were nothing. Nothing!
“And now … and now you have been forced to understand that Heydrich knows everything about you. Don’t try to fool them anymore. That’s the message he wants you to get.”
One of the night watchmen tried the entrance doors to the castle. No guns, no dogs, just an old man in the distance with a hand-held biscuit tin of a torch.
“Richard, we can never get Dee Dee out of Ravensbrück unless you cooperate. For you, for me, there is only one solution and that is to give them the Antwerp diamond stocks and to work for them to secure their diamond needs for the foreseeable future.”
She ran her hands around the steering wheel and stiffened her arms as if coming to a decision.
“You are caught in a power struggle between two monstrous organizations. The Abwehr are no better, no more decent, no less cruel than the SS and their Sicherheitsdienst. But Heydrich has the Gestapo. He’s Himmler’s boy, Richard. Canaris may think he has the ear of the Führer but Himmler kisses it always, and Heydrich knows this better than anyone. Those who choose to work for the right side will survive and prosper. Those who don’t, will join the Jews and others in the camps or the grave.”
Hagen heard himself asking, “What happened to you in Brazil?”
“As I said last night, I found out the truth about my brother.”
“Is Dieter working for Heydrich as well as for Canaris?”
“That is what I’ve been trying to tell you. Canaris still thinks Dieter is loyal to him. That is why he has asked him to meet with you, but that is also why Heydrich chose to ignore you at Horcher’s. For now Dieter will be excused the sister who is an enemy of the Reich. Besides, I can be useful to them with you. You’re still far too important to them, Richard. It would not be right to kill you yet, but always this must be the question in Heydrich’s mind. How useful are you to him and when must he have you killed?”
“Has Dieter been able to hire any diamond cutters and polishers?”
“Not yet, but they have a Dutchman who knows the industry and they have been able to persuade him to help them. They are also looking to set up a central fabricating shop. This will take time, so Dieter has some others to assist him, but I don’t know who they are.”
A Dutchman … Klees. “When will your brother leave for the Congo?”
Her brother. Not Dieter anymore. “In another week.”
Dieter had said there was someone else. A Belgian girl … Arlette. They’d kill her, too, if Richard wasn’t careful. They’d try to get to her …
“What about the cables I send?”
“They know you must be gathering intelligence for the British, but they still do not have your code. At least, I do not think they have.”
“Arlette, it’s Hagen here. How are things?”
“Fine … they are fine, mijnheer. I … I am so glad you’ve called. The flawless Ds you requested for your trading account have come in, and I have given de Heer Dunkelsbuhler your thanks.”
D for Duncan. She had sent the message over, but flawless Ds would only make the Scharführer Helmut Langer suspicious and the Gestapo would be listening in.
“Clear blue-white diamonds, Herr Scharführer. Gem diamonds of the highest grade.”
“Mijnheer Hagen, is there someone with you?”
He told her not to worry, that it was only the chief of security at the Messerschmitt factory in Augsburg. “We need a few grinding wheels and some other things, Arlette. A rush order. If you’ll take down a message for the shop, I’ll do my very best not to go too fast.”
When he rang off, Arlette felt lost and empty. She had wanted so much to tell him Lev’s daughter and son-in-law had arrived safely in Antwerp, that the man he’d sent to the crypt had reached them in time and had driven them to a railway station outside of Berlin.
That night, after eleven, she went to the club of Cecile Verheyden and telephoned Inverlin Cottage. The butler said that Mrs. Winfield was not available but that he would take down the message. So many grinding wheels, so many glass cutters.
When decoded, it would read:
TO THE CARPENTER FROM ALICE
ESCAPE LINE DEAD REPEAT DEAD / NOTIFY DE BEERS SECURITY HUNTER DIETER KARL WILL ATTEMPT CONTACT SMUGGLERS MBUJI-MAYI AND TSHIKAPA REGIONS CONGO / HUNTER IN PAY OF ABWEHR AND SD REPEAT SD / HUNTER SAILING 3 DECEMBER NORTH GERMAN LLOYD STEAMER ILSBERG OUT OF BREMERHAVEN / ATTEMPTS BEING MADE RECRUIT SKILLED WORKMEN DIAMOND TRADE AMSTERDAM SUSPECT KLEES ADVISE ACCORDINGLY / PRODUCTION ME 109 FIGHTERS AUGSBURG PLANT 120 UNITS PER MONTH MESSER-SCHMITT FACTORY BEING GIVEN PRIORITY OVER DORMER AND HEINKEL BOMBERS FOR DAIMLER-BENZ ENGINES / ENTRY TO MAN DIESEL-ENGINE FACTORY REFUSED / ALICE
The night was cold and the streets were lonely. At first Arlette was certain she was being followed, but then the steps faded away and she was left alone.
Damas watched as the girl went up the stairs to find the key in her purse and unlock the door. Light from the hall threw her silhouette at him, she pausing tensely, uncertain still.
Then she closed the door, had words with her landlady probably, and finally went up to her room to undress in the dark.
Berlin had urged the utmost caution. Something was not right. Krantz hadn’t been happy. Hagen had pulled a switch on them—Damas was certain of this and smiled at the thought.
When she parted the curtains to look down at the street and search its places of deeper darkness, Arlette found it empty.
* directive from Gestapo II Müller.