Clandestine (25 page)

Oona and Giselle were at the mercy of such, Chantal and Muriel, too, and Gabi but neither Louis nor himself could dwell on this. They had to push these two and Ludin to get what they could before it was too late. ‘And you've been keeping the traders in Lisbon, Madrid and Zurich happy, have you?' he asked Frensel.

The laugh was rich and full, felt St-Cyr, for Reichsmarschall Göring had insisted on fencing such stones, the Reich desperately needing foreign exchange and gold, since few, if any, countries would accept Reichsmark. ‘Tungsten from Portugal and Spain, Hermann. Watches, microscopes and other precision instruments from the Swiss. Ball bearings, too, and machine tools.'

‘Guns, Louis, even those on the Messerschmitt ME 109s that fired the cannon shells Oona and her husband and children had to dodge during the exodus. But the Swiss do need our coal to keep warm and to run things, so fair's fair and we'd better not question the matter.'

‘Wolframite, Kohler,' said Johannes Uhl, sucking on a tooth.

‘The name tungsten goes by,' said Frensel, stabbing a potato to slice off a morsel to add to the cabbage. ‘Tungsten carbide is next to diamond in hardness and it, and its steels, if I may say so, are fast replacing many of the uses of industrial diamonds and putting certain people out of work. Grinding powders, Kohler. Grinding wheels, too, and wire-drawing dies. All formerly done by using industrial diamonds. I personally have it on the best of authority—the Reichsmarschall himself, you understand—that the Luftwaffe are having great success with tungsten-carbide, armour-piercing shells. Instantly they destroy the Russian T-34 tanks, making the Soviets shit themselves.'

‘But … but there isn't nearly enough of it,' interjected Uhl, lifting the spoon he had taken to using on the sauce. ‘The supply is vastly limited and the cost astronomical, especially when smuggled into France and shipped to the Reich. Wolframite concentrate's price just keeps shooting up and up and now fetches more than 130,000 Swiss francs a tonne, so the industrial diamonds I attend to still have a very definite place in our war industries.'

‘An iron, manganese tungstate, Hermann, containing the industry-accepted sixty percent tungsten oxide. The British own some of the mines in those supposedly neutral countries of Spain and Portugal, and as a result it often has to be carried in sacks on the back and sometimes across not one but two borders at night and in the rain if lucky.'

‘Or if you wish it,' went on Uhl, ‘28,886 American dollars, so you can, I trust, understand why the Reichsmarschall, who is also my friend and superior officer, requires what that girl knows and is carrying.'

And yet more information, felt St-Cyr, knowing Hermann would have felt the same.

Timidly dipping a crust into the vichyssoise, Ludin thought to sample it. Instead, he reached for the bitters and said, ‘Josef Meyerhof also gave her, and this we know, Kohler, his family's life diamonds.'

He having had to cough up the information probably. ‘And knowing this, even though you and that no-name SD colonel had a
Spitzel
aboard who left dribbles of coins for you to follow, you let her leave Amsterdam?'

‘We had to wait until Meyerhof's contact person was finished dealing with her,' said Ludin.

‘But by then she was already on her way?'

‘In a stolen Wehrmacht truck, but this we did not learn of until later.'

‘And in another note left for you by that
Spitzel
?'

‘The first such note, yes, but one that I didn't leave with the coins for that Jew-lover Oona of yours to find.'

‘Louis, that's why all the so-called secrecy. That's why it hasn't kept Rudy de Mérode and his gang from trying to follow us everywhere we go. That
was
Sergei Lebeznikov who just ducked into the kitchens, wasn't it?'

After having had a good look at who had come all the way from Berlin. ‘He'll be asking the waiters if anything further can be added to what he has already discovered, Hermann.'

‘They and the other
gestapistes français
must be wanting a share, or maybe even all of it if they can get to her first.'

Lenz and Mérode could well be useful, thought Ludin. ‘Meyerhof was director of the Amsterdam protection committee, Kohler. As such, he had the names and locations of all those they had blacklisted for selling to the Reich. He also made frequent trips to Paris before and even right up to and into the Blitzkrieg, so would have had plenty of opportunity to illegally bring diamonds here to hide.'

‘Thousands and thousands of carats, Kohler. Gems—industrials, too, of course,' said Frensel, having shoved his plates aside to rest forearms on the table, hands clasped tightly. Big hands, swastika knuckle-dusters in gold too.

‘Millions,' said Uhl. ‘I personally have uncovered the lies in the record books of all such firms. Each paper of high quality industrials, each packet or cloth bag, was to have been weighed and recorded, you understand, but many were not and I have recovered thousands they attempted to hide from me.'

Taking out a silver toothpick, Frensel went to work as he said, ‘As I have myself, Kohler. Those diamond Jews were a close lot. All decisions were done in committee and no one else was ever allowed in, but no longer, of course. Now we have put a stop to it and to them.'

‘There was a handkerchief,' said Ludin, having shoved the soup aside. ‘A bit of childhood embroidery. This has not been mentioned, Kohler. Why is that, please?'

Rocheleau must have told him everything and some. Dismayed by the request, Louis had begun to fish about in his coat pockets. Laying the empty cartridge casings on the table, he then found the slugs only to go back for more.

‘
Ach
, I have it, Chief,' said Kohler. ‘It was drenched and I simply shoved it away. Perfume, but I can't tell which. Maybe you can.'

And a ‘breather,' as the Americans used to say in that other war. ‘It's called Sleeping, Hermann. It's one of Schiaparelli's. Very delicate, very feminine, and indicative of its user but not as decisively so as Molinelle's No. 29 or Muriel's Mirage.'

‘But will it help to lead us to her if she does manage to get past the controls and into Paris?'

‘Ah, one never knows, does one,
mon vieux
?' said Louis, quickly­ pocketing it. ‘Even the smallest of things can open up an investigation. One tries. One simply never gives up and it is, after all this talk of diamonds, still very much a murder investigation. Gestapo Boemelburg has ordered us to find the killer of those two bank employees,
meine Herren
, Osias Pharand as well.'

‘My boss and his,' said Hermann. ‘Herr Uhl, to give us some idea of what is really involved, what's the current price of the lowest grade of industrial diamond?'

And on the
schwarzer Markt
where all such things were bought and sold. ‘Boart is at 450 guilders a carat, having gone up from three in the summer of 1940 and just before the Blitzkrieg.'

‘So in round figures a kilo would be worth what?' asked Hermann.

‘In Reichskassenscheine about 2.25 million,' said Uhl.

The Occupation marks, and at twenty to one in France, about 45 million francs, or 1 million dollars or 225,000 pounds sterling.

‘She was a borderline sorter, Kohler,' said Ludin, ‘and will not only know of the value but which stones are roughly equal, either as gems or industrials.'

‘A half-and-half sorting out those that are half-and-half, Louis. Either one or the other.'

‘Ah here, at last, is Standartenführer Gerhard Kleiber,' said Uhl, jumping to his feet to raise an arm in salute.

‘Who?' exclaimed Hermann.

‘Exactly,' said Frensel, having also leaped up to salute.

‘And the one, Louis, from the Warsaw ghetto uprising of April and May. The one who, under Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who thought it would be all over in a day or two and not three weeks, volunteered to flush the last of the recalcitrants from the sewers.'

Kleiber didn't waste time or words. In rain-spattered cap and open grey topcoat, with Iron Cross First Class at the throat, Close-Combat Clasp in gold on the chest and silver Wound Badge for three or four, he slapped a letter down in front of Hermann and said, ‘Read it to that “partner” of yours.'

Verdammt!
felt Kohler. Lebeznikov was watching from the kitchen doors. Kaltenbrunner had signed and dated the letter, and had furiously stamped it with everything the Reichssicherheitshauptamt­ had including, in red wax, his signet ring. ‘Flown in from Berlin, Louis. It seems we're now members of this
Sonderkommando
and are to be made a party to all of its secrets. If anyone, including that one who has just vanished out the back door of the kitchen, should try to horn in on things and stop us, all we have to do is show them this.'

Tree-lined and pleasant in the morning's growing light, with mist rising off the nearby Seine, the turning leaves of the avenue Foch gave impressionistic touches to those of the Bois de Boulogne. Behind the wheel for a change, St-Cyr told himself they should see it as it once was. After all, it could well be their last time.

Funnelled by the wide and beautiful avenue, the view rose gradually and magnificently to the more distant, wooded hills of the Fort Mont-Valérien, in Suresnes, and those of the suburb of Saint-Cloud. ‘October is surely Paris's month, Hermann. Haussmann, as you can see, must have had this in mind when he laid out the avenue in 1854. A triumph, isn't it?'

‘That fort's the main execution ground and those woods around it hide the hurriedly dumped corpses of far too many, as you well know, so please don't forget it. This summons has to mean trouble.'

Hermann had had a bad night. ‘Maman was not overly tall, nor was Grand-mère. Their feet never extended beyond the foot of that bed, nor have my own.'

At 0646 the old time, 0846 the new, had come the fist-pounding­, at 3 Rue Laurence-Savart in the 20th. It was now 0859 hours, Monday, 4 October.

Number eighty-four didn't hold the office of Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei/Höherer SS und Polizeiführer of France Karl Oberg, the butcher of Poland. That was at number seventy-two, but number eighty-four was also on the north side and just before the boulevard Lannes and the
place
Dauphine.
*
Though there was but a scattering of cars, all of the Occupier, one ancient hackney gave momentary thoughts of the
belle époque
whose sumptuous mansions these houses had once been, the street internationally famous. Indeed, the Palais Rose was at number fifty.

‘Stop daydreaming!' said Hermann, longing for a fag.

‘
Ach, Inspektor
, had you taken the time to notice, you would have seen that the
Standartenführer
's temporary office is on the second floor.'

‘That was him at the windows holding a Schmeisser and satchel­ of ammo while watching for us, was it?'

‘Death in the offing by piano wire, is it, for having kept things from him and Herr Ludin?'

The office was in what had once been the billiards and smoking room. Firmly pressing a nicotine-stained forefinger down on the green baize and on Queen Wilhelmina's head, a disgruntled Kriminalrat shoved a coin toward them.

‘When and where?' managed Kohler, picking it up and passing it to Louis.

‘The Porte de Versailles at 0810,' said Kleiber, watching them closely.

Three of Bolduc's bank vans also used that entrance, as did a certain Werner Dillmann. ‘But not arrested?'

‘Half the load in payment as usual, I gather,' said Kleiber.

‘The coin having been slipped to some trustworthy who was told to bring it here?'

‘And now, since I have already had the safehouse where she is surrounded, you will soon see how things are done.'

From the avenue Foch to the Gare de l'Est was not far with the colonel at the wheel of his tourer. Serving northeastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond, there was constant activity: Wehrmacht trucks and men in plenty with duffel bags and rucksacks, staff cars, too, and
gazogènes
, buses, horse-drawn wagons,
vélos
and
vélo-taxis
and plenty of citizens with suitcases, some even with sacks of potatoes. To the west of the station, St-Cyr knew that along the nearby rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis were shops, cafés and restaurants; to the east, where they were now heading, wholesale garment works, haberdasheries and hosiers, and once off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, rag dealers, stamp mills, machine shops and such.

A captain, an SS Haupsturmführer, crashed his heels together and gave the salute. ‘All secured as ordered, Sturmbannführer. Those to be interrogated, waiting.'

The fool, felt Kohler. Under guard and down the street a little were gathered eighty or so from the surrounding flats and ateliers, all of them justifiably enraged and miserable.

The courtyard of 22 rue du Terrage was long and narrow and well chosen, the cheek-by-jowl houses and ateliers on either side of a ground floor and one storey, but a labyrinth. Broken shutters were above the door to a former stable into which that
passeur
's
truck would have been hastily tucked. Outside a carpenter's tin-plated atelier and home, salvaged lumber stood waiting. Old windows being refurbished were next to a glazier's, metal-work outside another. Bricks in front of a mason's, prevented anyone from easily stealing a chained cement mixer with two flats. Downspouts, electrical cables and wires seemed everywhere, even two old dogs that sensed that things were not quite right and had hidden under a broken bench.

‘Totally of the people, Hermann, and not a soul now but ourselves.'

Only at the far end was there any sign of tidiness in flaking paint and bricks that climbed to faded, lace curtains. The courtyard's cast-iron communal tap constantly dripped. Laundry had been strung but could no longer be watched, and to the scent of leather tanning on the Quai de Valmy, came the not-too-distant pounding of a stamp mill.