The photographs on the mantel and the ones that Morgan's contact, Max, had shown him had been several years old but there was no doubt that the man standing in front of him was Reinhard Ernst.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Hail Hitler," Paul said. "Forgive me if I am disturbing you, sir."
"Hail," the man replied lethargically. "You are?"
"I am Fleischman. I am measuring for carpets."
"Ah, carpets."
Another figure glanced into the room, a large, black-uniformed guard. He asked to see Paul's papers, read them carefully and then returned to the ante-office, pulling up a chair just outside the door.
Ernst asked Paul, "And how big a room do I have here?"
"Eight by nine and a half meters." Paul's heart was pounding; he'd nearly said "yards."
"I would have thought it bigger."
"Oh, it is bigger, sir. I was referring to the size of the rug. Generally with fine floors like this our customers want a border of wood visible."
Ernst glanced at the floor as if he'd never seen the oak. He took his jacket off and hung it on a suit form beside his desk. He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and rubbed them. Then he sat forward, pulled on some wire-rimmed glasses and read some documents.
"You are working on Sunday, sir?" Paul asked.
"As you," Ernst replied with a laugh, not looking up.
"The Leader is eager to finish the renovations to the building."
"Yes, that is certainly true."
As he bent to measure a small alcove Paul glanced sideways at Ernst, noting the scarred hand, the creases around the mouth, the red eyes, the demeanor of someone with a thousand thoughts percolating in his mind, someone carrying a thousand burdens.
A faint squeal as Ernst swiveled in his chair to face the window, removing his glasses. He seemed to soak up the glare and heat of the sun hungrily, with pleasure, but with a hint of regret, as well, as if he were a man of the outdoors not happy that his duty kept him desk-bound.
"How long have you done this work, Fleischman?" he asked without turning.
Paul stood, clutching the notebook at his side. "All my life, sir. Since the War."
Ernst continued to bask in the sun, leaning back slightly, eyes closed. Paul walked quietly to the mantel. The bayonet was a long one. It was dark and had not been sharpened recently but it was still quite capable of death.
"And you enjoy it?" Ernst asked.
"It suits me."
He could snatch the grisly weapon up and step to Ernst's back in one second, kill him quickly. He'd killed with a blade before. Using a knife is not like fencing in a Douglas Fairbanks movie. The blade is merely a deadly extension of the fist. A good boxer is a good knife man.
Touching the ice...
But what about the guard outside the door? That man would have to die too. Yet Paul never killed his touch-off's bodyguards, never even put himself in a situation where he might have to. He might kill Ernst with the blade, then knock the guard out. But with all the other soldiers around, somebody might hear the ruckus and they'd arrest him. Besides, his orders were to make sure the death was public.
"It suits you," Ernst repeated. "A simple life, with no conflicts and no difficult choices."
The phone buzzed. Ernst lifted it. "Yes?... Yes, Ludwig, the meeting went to our advantage.... Yes, yes... Now, have you found some volunteers? Ach, good.... But perhaps another two or three... Yes, I'll meet you there. Good afternoon."
Hanging up the phone, Ernst glanced at Paul then toward the mantel. "Some of my mementos. I've known soldiers all my life, and we all seem to be pack rats of memorabilia like this. I have many more items at home. Isn't it odd how we keep souvenirs of such horrendous events? It sometimes seems mad to me." He looked at the clock on his desk. "Are you finished, Fleischman?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"I have some work to do now in private."
"Thank you for allowing the intrusion, sir. Hail Hitler."
"Fleischman?"
Paul turned at the doorway.
"You are a lucky man to have your duty coincide with your circumstance and your nature. How rare that is."
"I suppose it is, sir. Good day to you."
"Yes, hail."
Outside, into the hallway.
With Ernst's face and his voice burned into Paul's mind, he walked down the stairs, eyes forward, moving slowly, passing invisibly among the men here, in black or gray uniforms or suits or the coveralls of laborers. And everywhere the stern, two-dimensional eyes staring down at him from the paintings on the walls: the trinity whose names were etched into brass plates, A. Hitler, H. Goring and P. J. Goebbels.
On the ground floor he turned toward the glaring front doorway that opened onto Wilhelm Street, footsteps echoing loudly. Webber had provided used boots, a good addition to the costume, except that a hobnail had worn through the leather and tapped loudly with every step, no matter how Paul twisted his foot.
He was fifty feet from the doorway, which was an explosion of sunlight surrounded by a halo.
Forty feet.
Tap, tap, tap.
Twenty feet.
He could see outside now, cars streaming past on the street.
Tenfeet...
Tap... tap...
"You! You will stop."
Paul froze. He turned to see a middle-aged man in a gray uniform striding quickly to him.
"You came down those stairs. Where were you?"
"I was only--"
"Let me see your documents."
"I was measuring for carpets, sir," Paul said, digging Webber's papers out of his pocket.
The SS man looked them over quickly, compared the photo and read the work order. He took the meter stick from Paul's hand, as if it were a weapon.
He returned the work order then looked up. "Where is your special permit?"
"Special permit? I wasn't told I needed one."
"For access upstairs, you must have one."
"My superior never told me."
"That's not our concern. Everyone with access to floors above the ground needs a special permit. Your party membership card?"
"I... I don't have it with me."
"You are not a member of the Party?"
"Of course, sir. I am a loyal National Socialist, believe me."
"You're not a loyal National Socialist if you don't carry your card." The officer searched him, flipped through the notebook, glanced at the sketches of the rooms and the dimensions. He was shaking his head.
Paul said, "I am to return later in the week, sir. I can bring you a special permit and Party card then." He added, "And at that time I can measure your office as well."
"My office is on the ground floor, in the back--the area not scheduled for renovation," the SS officer said sourly.
"All the more reason to have a fine Persian carpet. Of which we happen to have several more than have been allotted. And nothing to do but let them rot in a warehouse."
The man considered this. Then he glanced at his wristwatch. "I don't have time to pursue this matter. I am Security Underleader Schechter. You will find my office down the stairs and to the right. The name is on the door. On with you now. But when you come back, have the special permit or it will be Prince Albrecht Street for you."
As the three men sped away from Wilhelm Square, a siren sounded nearby. Paul and Reggie Morgan looked uneasily out the windows of the van, which stank of burned cabbage and sweat.
Webber laughed. "It's an ambulance. Relax." A moment later the medical vehicle turned the corner. "I know the sounds of all the official vehicles. It's helpful knowledge in Berlin nowadays."
After a few moments Paul said quietly, "I met him."
"Met whom?" Morgan asked.
"Ernst."
Morgan's eyes widened. "He was there?"
"He came into the office just after I got there."
"Ach, what do we do?" Webber said. "We can't get back inside the Chancellory. How will we find out where he'll b
e?"
"Oh, I found that out," Paul said.
"You did?" Morgan asked.
"I had time to look over his desk before he arrived. He'll be at the stadium today."
"Which stadium?" Morgan asked. "There are dozens in the city."
"The Olympic stadium. I saw a memorandum. Hitler's having photographs of senior Party officials taken there this afternoon." He glanced at a nearby clock tower. "But we have only a few hours to get me into place. I think we'll need your help once again, Otto."
"Ach, I can get you anywhere you wish, Mr. John Dillinger. I work the miracles... and you pay for them. That is why we are such good partners, of course. And speaking of which, my American cash, if you please." And he let the transmission of the van scream in second gear as he held out his right hand, palm up, until Morgan dropped the envelope into it.
After a moment Paul was aware that Morgan had been looking him over. The man asked, "What was Ernst like? Did he seem like the most dangerous man in Europe?"
"He was polite, he was preoccupied, he was weary. And sad."
"Sad?" Webber asked.
Paul nodded, recalling the man's fast yet burdened eyes, the eyes of someone waiting for arduous trials to be over with.
The sun finally sets....
Morgan glanced at the shops and buildings and flags on the wide avenue of Under the Lindens. He asked, "Is that a problem?"
"Problem?"
"Will meeting him make you hesitate to... to do what you've come here for? Will it make a difference?"
Paul Schumann wished to God that he could say it would. That seeing someone up close, that talking to him, would melt the ice, would make him hesitate to take that man's life. But he answered truthfully. "No. It will make no difference."
They sweated from the heat, and Kurt Fischer, at least, sweated from fear.
The brothers were now two blocks from the square where they would meet Unger, the man who was to spirit them away from this foundering country and reunite them with their parents.
The man they were trusting with their lives.
Hans stooped down, picked up a stone and skipped it across the waters of the Landwehr Canal.
"Don't!" Kurt whispered harshly. "Don't draw attention to us."
"You should relax, brother. Skipping stones doesn't draw attention. Everybody does it. God, it's hot. Can we stop for a ginger beer?"
"Ach, you think we are on holiday, don't you?" Kurt glanced around. There were not many people out. The hour was early, the heat already fierce.
"See anyone following us?" his brother asked with some irony.
"Do you want to stay in Berlin? All things considered?"
"All I know is that if we give up our house, we'll never see it again."
"If we don't give it up, we'll never see Mother and Father again. Probably we'll never see anyone again."
Hans scowled and picked up another stone. He got three skips this time. "Look! Did you see that?"
"Hurry up."
They turned into a market street, where vendors' booths were being set up. There were a number of trucks parked on the streets and sidewalks. The vehicles were filled with turnips, beets, apples, potatoes, canal trout, carp, cod oil. None of the most-in-demand items, of course, like meat, olive oil, butter and sugar. Even so, people were already queuing up to find the best--or rather the least unappetizing--purchases.
"Look, there he is," Kurt said, crossing the street and making for an old truck parked off the side of the square. A man with curly brown hair leaned against it, smoking as he looked through a newspaper. He glanced up, saw the boys and nodded subtly. He tossed the paper inside the cab of the truck.
It all comes down to trust....
And sometimes you're not disappointed. Kurt had had doubts that he would even show up.
"Mr. Unger!" Kurt said as they joined him. They shook hands warmly. "This is my brother, Hans."
"Ach, he looks just like his father."
"You sell chocolates?" the boy asked, looking at the truck.
"I manufacture and sell candy. I was a professor but that is not a lucrative job any longer. Learning is sporadic but eating sweets is a constant, not to mention politically safe. We can talk later. Now we should get out of Berlin. You can ride in the cab with me until we get near the border. Then you will climb into a space in the back. I use ice to keep the chocolate from melting on days like this, and you will lie under boards covered with ice. Don't worry, you won't freeze to death. I've cut holes in the side of the truck to let in some warm air. We'll cross the border, as I do every week. I know the guards. I give them chocolate. They never search me."
Unger walked to the back of the truck and closed the gate.
Hans climbed into the cab, picked up the newspaper and started reading. Kurt turned, wiped his brow and looked out one last time over the city in which he'd spent his entire life. In the heat and the haze, it seemed Italian, reminding him of a trip he'd taken to Bologna with his parents when his father was lecturing for a fortnight at the old university there.
The young man was turning back to climb into the truck next to his brother when there was a collective gasp from the crowd.
Kurt froze, eyes wide.
Three black cars skidded to a stop around Unger's truck. Six men jumped out, in black SS uniforms.
No!
"Hans, run!" Kurt shouted.
But two of the SS troops raced to the passenger side of the vehicle. They ripped the door open and dragged his younger brother onto the street. He fought back until one struck him in the gut with a truncheon. Hans yelped and stopped struggling, rolling on the ground, clutching his belly. The soldiers pulled him to his feet. "No, no, no!" Unger cried. Both he and Kurt were shoved against the side of the truck.
"Papers! Empty your pockets."
The three captives did as they were told.
"The Fischers," said the SS commander, looking over their identity cards and nodding in recognition.
Tears running down his cheeks, Unger said to Kurt, "I didn't betray you. I swear I didn't!"
"No, he didn't," said the SS officer, who unholstered his Luger, worked the toggle to cock it and shot the man in the head. Unger dropped to the pavement. Kurt gasped in horror. " She did," the SS man added, nodding toward a large, middle-aged woman leaning out of the SS car's window.
Her voice, filled with fury, raged at the boys: "Betrayers! Swine!"
It was Mrs. Lutz, the war widow who lived on their floor in the apartment building, the woman who had just wished them a good day!
Shocked, staring at Unger's limp body, from which blood flowed copiously, Kurt heard her breathless scream, "You ungrateful pigs. I've been watching you, I know what you've done, I know who's been to your apartment. I write down what I've seen. You've betrayed our Leader!"
The SS commander grimaced with irritation at the woman. He nodded toward a younger officer and he pushed her back into the car.
"You have been on our list, both of you, for some time."
"We've done nothing!" Staring at Unger's blood, unable to look away from the growing crimson pool, Kurt whispered, "Nothing. I swear. We were just trying to be with our parents."
"Illegally escaping the country, pacifism, anti-Party activities... all capital offenses." He pulled Hans closer, aimed the pistol at his head. The boy whimpered. "Please, no. Please!..."
Kurt stepped forward fast. A guard slugged him in the belly and he doubled over. He saw the commander touch the gun to the back of his brother's head.
"No!"
The commander squinted and leaned back to avoid the spray of blood and flesh.
"Please, sir!"
But then another officer whispered, "We have those orders, sir. During the Olympics, restraint." He nodded toward the market, where a crowd had gathered, watching. "Foreigners might be present, perhaps reporters."
Hesitating for a long moment, the commander muttered impatiently, "All right. Take them to Columbia House."
Although it w
as being phased out in favor of the more ruthlessly efficient, and less visible, Oranienburg camp, Columbia House was still the most notorious jail in Berlin.
The man nodded at Unger's corpse. "And dump that somewhere. Find out if he's married and if so send his wife his bloody shirt."
"Yes, my leader. With what message?"
"The shirt will be the message." The commander put his gun away and strode back to his car. He glanced briefly at the Fischer brothers but his eyes didn't really see them; it was as if they were already dead.
"Where are you, Paul Schumann?"
Like his question yesterday to the then anonymous suspect-- Who are you?--Willi Kohl posed this query aloud and in frustration, with no immediate hope of an answer. The inspector had thought that knowing the man's name would speed the resolution of the case. But this was not so.
Kohl had received no reply to his telegrams to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the International Olympic Committee. He'd gotten a brief response from the New York City Police Department but it said only that they would look into the matter when "practicable."
This was not a word that Kohl was familiar with but when he looked it up in the department's English-German dictionary an angry scowl filled his face. Over the past year he'd sensed a reluctance by American law enforcers to cooperate with the Kripo. Some of this was due to anti-National Socialist sentiment in the United States. Some too, he believed, might have roots in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping; Bruno Hauptmann had escaped from police custody in Germany and fled to America, where he'd murdered the child.
Kohl had sent a second, brief telegram in his halting English, thanking the NYPD and reminding them of the urgency of the matter. He'd alerted the border guards to detain Schumann if he tried to leave but word would get only to the major crossings.
Nor had Janssen's second trip to the Olympic Village proved fruitful. Paul Schumann had not been officially connected to the American team. He had come to Berlin as a writer with no known affiliation. He'd left the Olympic Village the day before and no one had seen him since, nor did anyone know where he might have gone. Schumann's name wasn't on the list of those who had bought Largo ammunition or Modelo A's recently but this was no surprise since he'd only arrived with the team on Friday Rocking back in his chair, looking through the box of evidence, reading his penciled notes... Kohl looked up to see that Janssen had paused in the doorway, chatting with several other young plainclothed assistant inspectors and inspector candidates.