Garden of Beasts (5 page)

“After everybody disembarks, some marines from the Hamburg consulate’ll come on board and take care of it.” Then Avery leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen about your mission, Paul. After we dock, you get off and Vince and I’ll take care of the situation with Heinsler. Then we’re going on to Amsterdam. You stay with the team. There’ll be a brief ceremony in Hamburg and then everybody takes the train to Berlin. The athletes’ll have another ceremony tonight but you go straight to the Olympic Village and stay out of sight. Tomorrow morning take a bus to the Tiergarten—that’s the Central Park of Berlin.” He handed the briefcase to Paul. “Take this with you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s part of your cover. Press pass. Paper, pencils. A lot of background about the Games and the city. A guide to the Olympic Village. Articles, clippings, sports statistics. The sort of stuff a writer’d have. You don’t need to look at it now.”

But Paul opened the case and spent some minutes looking carefully, going through the contents. The pass, Avery assured him, was authentic and he could spot nothing suspicious about the other materials.

“You don’t trust anybody, do you?” Manielli asked.

Thinking it’d be fun to sock the punk once, really hard, Paul clicked the briefcase closed and looked up. “What about my other passport, the Russian one?”

“Our man’ll give that to you there. He’s got a forger who’s an expert with European documents. Now, tomorrow, make sure you have the satchel with you. It’s how he’ll recognize you.” He unfurled a colorful map of Berlin and traced a route. “Get off here and go this way. Make your way to a café called the Bierhaus.”

Avery looked at Paul, who was staring at the map. “You can take it with you. You don’t have to memorize it.”

But Paul shook his head. “Maps tell people where you’ve been or where you’re going. And looking at one on the street draws everybody’s attention to you. If you’re lost, better just to ask directions. That way only one person knows you’re a stranger, not a whole crowd.”

Avery lifted an eyebrow, and even Manielli couldn’t find anything to razz him about on this point.

“Near the café there’s an alley. Dresden Alley.”

“It’ll have a name?”

“In Germany the alleys have names. Some of them do. It’s a shortcut. Doesn’t matter where to. At noon walk into it and stop, like you’re lost. Our man’ll come up to you. He’s the guy the Senator was telling you about. Reginald Morgan. Reggie.”

“Describe him.”

“Short. Mustache. Darkish hair. He’ll be speaking German. He’ll strike up a conversation. At some point you ask, ‘What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexanderplatz?’ And he’ll say, ‘The number one thirty-eight tram.’ Then he’ll pause and correct himself and say, ‘No, the two fifty-four is better.’ You’ll know it’s him because those aren’t real tram numbers.”

“You look like this’s funny,” Manielli added.

“It’s right out of Dashiell Hammett.
The Continental Op.
”

“This ain’t a game.”

No, it wasn’t, and he didn’t think the passwords were funny. But it
was
unsettling, all this intrigue stuff. And he knew why: because it meant he was relying on other people. Paul Schumann hated to do that.

“All right. Alexanderplatz. Trams one thirty-eight, two fifty-four. What if he flubs the tram story? It’s not him?”

“I’m getting to that. If something seems fishy, what you do is you don’t hit him, you don’t make a scene. Just smile and walk away as casually as you can and go to this address.”

Avery gave him a slip of paper with a street name and number on it. Paul memorized it and handed the paper back. The lieutenant gave him a key, which he pocketed. “There’s an old palace just south of Brandenburg Gate. It was going to be the new U.S. embassy but there was a bad fire about five years ago and they’re still repairing it; the diplomats haven’t moved in. So the French, Germans and British don’t bother to snoop around the place. But we’ve got a couple of rooms there we use from time to time. There’s a wireless in the storeroom next to the kitchen. You can radio us in Amsterdam and we’ll place a call to Commander Gordon. He and the Senator’ll decide what to do next. But if everything’s silk, Morgan’ll take care of you. Get you into the boardinghouse, find you a weapon and get all the information you need on the… the man you’re going to visit.”

We people say touch-off…

“And remember,” Manielli was pleased to announce, “you don’t show up in Dresden Alley tomorrow or you give Morgan the slip later, he calls us and we make sure the police come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

Paul said nothing and let the boy have his bluster. He could tell Manielli was embarrassed about his reaction to Heinsler’s suicide and he needed to jerk some leash. But in fact there was no possibility that Paul was going to lam off. Bull Gordon was right; button men never got a second chance like he was being given—and a pile of dough that would let him make the most of it.

Then the men fell silent. There was nothing more to say. Sounds filled the damp, pungent air around them: the wind, the shusssh of the waves, the baritone grind of the
Manhattan
’s engines—a blend of tones that he found oddly comforting, despite Heinsler’s suicide and the arduous mission that lay ahead. Finally the sailors went below.

Paul rose, lit another cigarette and leaned against the railing once more as the huge ship eased into the harbor in Hamburg, his thoughts wholly focused on Colonel Reinhard Ernst, a man whose ultimate importance, to Paul Schumann, had little to do with his potential threat to peace in Europe and to so many innocent lives but could be found in the fact that he was the last person that the button man would ever kill.

Several hours after the
Manhattan
docked and the athletes and their entourage had disembarked, a young crewman from the ship exited German passport control and began wandering through the streets of Hamburg.

He wouldn’t have much time ashore—being so junior, he had a leave of only six hours—but he’d spent all his life on American soil and was bound and determined to enjoy his first visit to a foreign country.

The scrubbed, rosy-cheeked assistant kitchen mate supposed there were probably some swell museums in town. Maybe some all-right churches too. He had his Kodak with him and was planning to ask locals to take some snapshots of him in front of them for his ma and pa. (
“Bitte, das Foto?”
he’d been rehearsing.) Not to mention beer halls and taverns… and who knew what else he might find for diversion in an exotic port city?

But before he could sample some local culture he had an errand to complete. He’d been concerned that this chore would eat into his precious time ashore but as it turned out he was wrong. Only a few minutes after leaving the customs hall, he found exactly what he was looking for.

The mate walked up to a middle-aged man in a green uniform and a black-and-green hat. He tried out his German.
“Bitte…”

“Ja, mein Herr?”

Squinting, the mate blundered on,
“Bitte, du bist ein Polizist,
uhm, or a
Soldat?
”

The officer smiled and said in English, “Yes, yes, I am a policeman. And I
was
a soldier. What can I help you for?”

Nodding down the street, the kitchen mate said, “I found this on the ground.” He handed the man a white envelope. “Isn’t that the word for ‘important’?” He pointed to the letters on the front:
Bedeutend.
“I wanted to make sure it got turned in.”

Staring at the front of the envelope, the policeman didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, yes. ‘Important.’” The other words written on the front were
Für Obersturmführer-SS, Hamburg.
The mate had no idea what this meant but it seemed to trouble the policeman.

“Where was this falling?” the policeman asked.

“It was on the sidewalk there.”

“Good. You are thanked.” The officer continued to look at the sealed envelope. He turned it over in his hand. “You were seeing perhaps who dropped it?”

“Nope. Just saw it there and thought I’d be a Good Samaritan.”

“Ach, yes, Samaritan.”

“Well, I better scram,” the American said. “So long.”

“Danke,”
the policeman said absently.

As he headed back toward one of the more intriguing tourist sites he’d passed, the young man was wondering what exactly the envelope contained. And why the man he’d met on the
Manhattan,
the porter Al Heinsler, had asked him last night to deliver it to a local policeman or soldier after the ship docked. The fellow was a little nuts, everybody agreed, the way everything in his cabin was perfectly ordered and clean, nothing out of line, his clothes pressed all the time. The way he kept to himself, the way he got all wet-eyed talking about Germany.

“Sure, what is it?” the mate had asked.

“There was a passenger on board who seemed a little fishy. I’m letting the Germans know about him. I’m going to try to send a wireless message but sometimes they don’t go through. I want to make sure the authorities get it.”

“Who’s the passenger? Oh, hold up, I know—that fat guy in the checkered suit, the one who passed out drunk at the captain’s table.”

“No, it was somebody else.”

“Why not go to the sergeant-at-arms on board?”

“It’s a German matter.”

“Oh. And you can’t deliver it?”

Heinsler had folded his pudgy hands together in a creepy way and shook his head. “I don’t know how busy I’ll be. I heard you had leave. It’s real important the Germans get it.”

“Well, I guess, sure.”

Heinsler had added in a soft voice, “One other thing: It’d be better to say you found the letter. Otherwise they might take you into the station and question you. That could take hours. It could use up all your shore leave.”

The young mate had felt a little uneasy at this intrigue.

Heinsler had picked up on that and added quickly, “Here’s a twenty.”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the man had thought, and told the porter, “You just bought yourself a special delivery.”

Now, as he walked away from the policeman and headed back toward the waterfront, he wondered absently what had happened to Heinsler. The young man hadn’t seen him since last night. But thoughts about the porter vanished quickly as the mate approached the venue he’d spotted, the one that seemed like a perfect choice for his first taste of German culture. He was, however, disappointed to find that Rosa’s Hot Kitten Club—the enticing name conveniently spelled in English—was permanently closed, just like every other such attraction on the waterfront.

So, the mate thought with a sigh, looks like it’ll be churches and museums after all.

Chapter Four

He awoke to the sound of a hazel grouse fluttering into the sky from the gooseberry bushes just outside the bedroom window of his home in suburban Charlottenburg. He awoke to the smell of magnolia.

He awoke to the touch of the infamous Berlin wind, which, according to young men and old housewives, was infused with an alkaline dust that aroused earthy desires.

Whether it was the magic air, or being a man of a certain age, Reinhard Ernst found himself picturing his attractive, brunette wife of twenty-eight years, Gertrud. He rolled over to face her. And he found himself looking at the empty indentation in their down bed. He could not help but smile. He was forever exhausted in the evenings, after working sixteen-hour days, and she always rose early because it was her nature. Lately they had rarely even shared so much as a word or two in bed.

He now heard, from downstairs, the clatter of activity in the kitchen. The time was 7
A
.
M
. Ernst had had just over four hours of sleep.

Ernst stretched, lifting his damaged arm as far as he could, massaging it and feeling the triangular piece of metal lodged near the shoulder. There was a familiarity and, curiously, a comfort about the shrapnel. Ernst believed in embracing the past and he appreciated all the emblems of years gone by, even those that had nearly taken his limb and his life.

He climbed from the bed and pulled off his nightshirt. Since Frieda would be in the house by now Ernst tugged on beige jodhpurs and, forgoing a shirt, stepped into the study next to the bedroom. The fifty-six-year-old colonel had a round head, covered with cropped gray hair. Creases circled his mouth. His small nose was Roman and his eyes set close together, making him seem both predatory and savvy. These features had earned him the nickname “Caesar” from his men in the War.

During the summer he and his grandson Rudy would often exercise together in the morning, rolling the medicine ball and lifting Indian clubs, doing press-ups and running in place. On Wednesdays and Fridays, though, the boy had holiday-child-school, which began early, so Ernst was relegated to solo exercise, which was a disappointment to him.

He began his fifteen minutes of arm press-ups and knee bends. Halfway through, he heard: “Opa!”

Breathing hard, Ernst paused and looked into the hallway. “Good morning, Rudy.”

“Look what I’ve drawn.” The seven-year-old, dressed in his uniform, held up a picture. Ernst didn’t have his glasses on and he couldn’t make out the design clearly. But the boy said, “It’s an eagle.”

“Yes, of course it is. I can tell.”

“And it’s flying through a lightning storm.”

“Quite a brave eagle you’ve drawn.”

“Are you coming to breakfast?”

“Yes, tell your grandmother I’ll be down in ten minutes. Did you eat an egg today?”

The boy said, “Yes, I did.”

“Excellent. Eggs are good for you.”

“Tomorrow I’ll draw a hawk.” The slight, blond boy turned and ran back down the stairs.

Ernst returned to his exercising, thinking about the dozens of matters that needed attending to today. He finished his regimen and bathed his body with cold water, wiping away both sweat and alkaline dust. As he was drying, the telephone buzzed. His hands paused. In these days no matter how high one was in the National Socialist government, a telephone call at an odd hour was a matter of concern.

“Reinie,” Gertrud called. “Someone has telephoned for you.”

He pulled on his shirt and, not bothering with stockings or shoes, walked down the stairs. He took the receiver from his wife.

“Yes? This is Ernst.”

“Colonel.”

He recognized the voice of one of Hitler’s secretaries. “Miss Lauer. Good morning.”

“And to you. I am asked to tell you that your presence is required by the Leader at the chancellory immediately. If you have any other plans I’m asked to tell you to alter them.”

“Please tell Chancellor Hitler that I will leave at once. In his office?”

“That is correct.”

“Who else will be attending?”

There was a moment’s hesitation then she said, “That’s all the information I have, Colonel. Hail Hitler.”

“Hail Hitler.”

He hung up and stared at the phone, his hand on the receiver.

“Opa, you have no shoes on!” Rudy had come up beside Ernst, still clutching his drawing. He laughed, looking at his grandfather’s bare feet.

“I know, Rudy. I must finish dressing.” He looked for a long moment at the telephone.

“What is it, Opa? Something is wrong?”

“Nothing, Rudy.”

“Mutti says your breakfast is getting cold.”

“You ate
all
your egg, did you?”

“Yes, Opa.”

“Good fellow. Tell your grandmother and your mutti that I’ll be downstairs in a few moments. But tell them to begin their breakfast without me.”

Ernst started up the stairs to shave, observing that his desire for his wife and his hunger for the breakfast awaiting him had both vanished completely.

Forty minutes later Reinhard Ernst was walking through the corridors of the State Chancellory building on Wilhelm Street at Voss Street in central Berlin, dodging construction workers. The building was old—parts of it dated to the eighteenth century—and had been the home of German leaders since Bismarck. Hitler would fly into tirades occasionally about the shabbiness of the structure and—since the new chancellory was not close to being finished—was constantly ordering renovations to the old one.

But construction and architecture were of no interest to Ernst at the moment. The one thought in his mind was this: What will the consequences of my mistake be? How bad was my miscalculation?

He lifted his arm and gave a perfunctory “Hail Hitler” to a guard, who had enthusiastically saluted the plenipotentiary for domestic stability, a title as heavy and embarrassing to wear as a wet, threadbare coat. Ernst continued down the corridor, his face emotionless, revealing nothing of the turbulent thoughts about the crime he had committed.

And what
was
that crime?

The infraction of not sharing all with the Leader.

This would be a minor matter in other countries, perhaps, but here it could be a capital offense. Yet sometimes you
couldn’t
share all. If you
did
give Hitler all the details of an idea, his mind might snag on its most insignificant aspect and that would be the end of it, shot dead with one word. Never mind that you had no personal gain at stake and were thinking only of the good of the fatherland.

But if you didn’t tell him… Ach, that could be far worse. In his paranoia he might decide that you were withholding information for a reason. And then the great piercing eye of the Party’s security mechanism would turn toward you and your loved ones… sometimes with deadly consequences. As, Reinhard Ernst was convinced, had now occurred, given the mysterious and peremptory summons to an early, unscheduled meeting. The Third Empire was order and structure and regularity personified. Anything out of the ordinary was cause for alarm.

Ach, he should have told the man
something
about the Waltham Study when Ernst had first conceived it this past March. Yet the Leader, Defense Minister von Blomberg, and Ernst himself had been so occupied with retaking the Rhineland that the study had paled beside the monumental risk of reclaiming a portion of their country stolen away by the Allies at Versailles. And, truth be told, much of the study was based on academic work that Hitler would find suspect, if not inflammatory; Ernst simply hadn’t
wanted
to bring the matter up.

And now he was going to pay for that oversight.

He announced himself to Hitler’s secretary and was admitted.

Ernst walked inside the large ante-office and found himself standing before Adolf Hitler—leader, chancellor and president of the Third Empire and ultimate commander of the armed forces. Thinking as he often did: If charisma, energy and canniness are the prime ingredients of power, then here is the most powerful man in the world.

Wearing a brown uniform and glossy black knee boots, Hitler was bending over a desk, leafing through papers.

“My Leader,” Ernst said, nodding respectfully and offering a gentle heel tap, a throwback to the days of the Second Empire, which had ended eighteen years before, with Germany’s surrender and the flight of Kaiser Wilhelm to Holland. Though giving the Party salute with “Hail Hitler” or “Hail victory” was expected from citizens, the formality was rarely seen among the higher echelon of officials, except from the drippier sycophants.

“Colonel.” Hitler glanced up at Ernst with his pale blue eyes beneath drooping lids—eyes that for some reason left the impression that the man was considering a dozen things at once. His mood was forever unreadable. Hitler found the document he sought and turned and walked into his large but modestly decorated office. “Please join us.” Ernst followed. His still, soldier’s face gave no reaction but his heart sank when he saw who else was present.

Sweating and massive, Hermann Göring lounged on a couch that creaked under his weight. Claiming he was always in pain, the round-faced man was continually adjusting himself in ways that made one want to cringe. His excessive cologne filled the room. The air minister nodded a greeting to Ernst, who reciprocated.

Another man sat in an ornate chair, sipping coffee, his legs crossed like a woman’s: the clubfooted scarecrow Paul Joseph Goebbels, the state propaganda minister. Ernst didn’t doubt his skill; he was largely responsible for the Party’s early, vital foothold in Berlin and Prussia. Still, Ernst despised the man, who couldn’t stop gazing at the Leader with adoring eyes and smugly dishing up damning gossip about prominent Jews and Socis one moment then dropping the names of famous German actors and actresses from UFA Studios the next. Ernst said good morning to him and then sat, recalling a recent joke that had made the rounds: Describe the ideal Aryan. Why, he’s as blond as Hitler, as slim as Göring and as tall as Goebbels.

Hitler offered the document to puffy-eyed Göring, who read it, nodded and then put it into his sumptuous leather folder without comment. The Leader sat and poured himself chocolate. He lifted an eyebrow toward Goebbels, meaning he should continue with whatever he had been discussing, and Ernst realized his fate regarding the Waltham Study would have to remain in limbo for sometime longer.

“As I was saying, my Leader, many of the visitors to the Olympics will be interested in entertainment.”

“We have cafés and theater. We have museums, parks, movie theaters. They can see our Babelsberg films, they can see Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow. And Charles Laughton and Mickey Mouse.” The impatient tone in Hitler’s voice told Ernst he knew exactly what kind of entertainment Goebbels had meant. There followed an excruciatingly long and edgy debate about letting legal prostitutes—licensed “control girls”—out on the streets again. Hitler was against this idea at first but Goebbels had thought through the matter and argued persuasively; the Leader relented eventually, on the condition that there be no more than seven thousand women throughout the metropolitan area. Similarly, the penal code provision banning homosexuality, Article 175, would be relaxed temporarily. Rumors abounded about Hitler’s own preferences—from incest to boys to animals to human waste. Ernst had come to believe, though, that the man simply had no interest in sex; the only lover he desired was the nation of Germany.

“Finally,” Goebbels continued suavely, “there is the matter of public display. I am thinking that perhaps we might permit women’s skirts to be shortened somewhat.”

As the head of Germany’s Third Empire and his adjutant debated, in centimeters, the degree to which Berlin women might be allowed to conform to world fashion, the worm of ill ease continued to eat away at Ernst’s heart. Why hadn’t he at least mentioned the
name
of the Waltham Study some months ago? He could have sent a letter to the Leader, with a glancing reference to it. One
had
to be savvy about such things nowadays.

The debate continued. Then the Leader said firmly, “Skirts may be raised five centimeters. That settles it. But we will not approve makeup.”

“Yes, my Leader.”

A moment of silence as Hitler’s eyes settled in the corner of the room, as they often did. He then glanced sharply at Ernst. “Colonel.”

“Yes, sir?”

Hitler rose and walked to his desk. He lifted a piece of paper and walked slowly back to the others. Göring and Goebbels kept their eyes on Ernst. Though each believed he had the special ear of the Leader, deep within him was the fear that the grace was temporary or, more frightening, illusory and at any moment he would be sitting here, like Ernst, a tethered badger, though probably without the quiet aplomb of the colonel.

The Leader wiped his mustache. “An important matter.”

“Of course, my Leader. However I may help.” Ernst held the man’s eyes and answered in a steady voice.

“It involves our air force.”

Ernst glanced at Göring, ruddy cheeks framing a faux smile. A daring ace in the War (though dismissed by Baron von Richthofen himself for repeatedly attacking civilians), he was presently both air minister and commander in chief of the German air force—the latter currently being his favorite among the dozen titles he held. It was on the subject of the German air force that Göring and Ernst met most frequently and clashed the most passionately.

Hitler handed the document to Ernst. “You read English?”

“Some.”

“This is a letter from Mr. Charles Lindbergh himself,” Hitler said proudly. “He will be attending the Olympics as our special guest.”

Really? This was exciting information. Both smiling, Göring and Goebbels leaned forward and rapped on the table in front of them, signifying approval of this news. Ernst took the letter in his right hand, the back of which, like his shoulder, was shrapnel scarred.

Lindbergh… Ernst had avidly followed the story of the man’s transatlantic flight, but he’d been far more moved by the terrible account of the death of the aviator’s son. Ernst knew the horror of losing a child. The accidental explosion on a ship’s magazine that had taken Mark was tragic, wrenching, yes; but at least Ernst’s son had been at the helm of a combat ship and had lived to see his own boy, Rudy, born. To lose an
infant
to the hands of a criminal—that was appalling.