London Dawn (4 page)

“I expect.”

“When is this coming to pass?”

“Thursday.”

“Well, then, Friday evening we should take the boys for a boat ride on the Thames. You know how Owen loves anything to do with ships. Gets it from you, I imagine, his naval officer father.”

“The war was a long time ago.”

“It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. You served king and country, and he’s very proud of you. So is Colm. We all are.”

“King and country, eh?” He drew in on his cigarette. “My patriotism hasn’t done much for me, has it?”

“What do you mean?” She stopped rubbing his neck a moment and rested her chin on his shoulder. “You’re an MP and you’re on the ladder of success in the Conservative Party.”

“Am I? If I were ignored any more than I am by the Party I’d be as much a pariah as Churchill.”

“Oh, my goodness, you’re quite a long ways off from anything like that.” She took his jaw in her fingers. “I thought you liked Winston. You got along famously when your father had him up to Ashton Park at Christmas.”

“I admire his fight. And his national pride. But I don’t wish to be banished to the wilderness anytime soon and join him in solitary confinement.”

“You’re Lord Preston’s son. No one’s going to do that.”

“Not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet? Not ever.” She kissed him lightly on the
lips. “You really have got yourself tied up in knots. I shall have to unravel them.”

He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “How will Charlotte Squire do that, I wonder?”

“Oh, I have a tried and true Lancashire method.”

“Which is?”

“Me. Just me.”

She kissed him with a strength and passion that pushed him back farther and farther into the sofa. Her blue eyes glittering, she paused and looked down at his face.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“It’ll do for a start.”

“Will it?”

She placed both hands on his shoulders and kissed him much longer and with even more vigor. A tear slipped from the corner of his eye, and she drew back.

“Whatever’s the matter? Have I hurt you somehow?”

“I want you to be proud of me. I want you and the boys to be proud of me.”

“My goodness, Edward, we are proud of you, I’ve told you that. You’re a fine husband and a brilliant father. No one could ask for more.”

“I dread the day you’re disappointed with me. I dread it like the grave.”

“Edward. Stop it. That’s never going to happen. I adore you. Owen and Colm adore you.” She put her arms tightly around his back and hugged him to herself. “What’s gone wrong, love? What’s put a knife in your heart? You could never do anything that would turn the boys or me against you. It’s impossible.”

June 7, 1934

The Grand Hall at Olympia

Edward sat with his head down, two Blackshirts guarding his room from intruders. Sir Oswald Mosley had looked in on him just minutes before. The hall was crammed and the grounds were bustling. The rally would be a smashing success, and Edward would be the centerpiece of the event. Mosley’s delight had been obvious.

“Lord Preston’s son. An MP of the grand old Conservative Party
kicking off the traces and joining the British Union of Fascists to better serve his country. A true patriot. Why, you’ll sway thousands, Lord Edward. Mind you, stay right here until I announce you. We don’t want anyone to spot you and spoil the surprise. Especially the press. They’ll have full access to you once you’ve declared your allegiance to the BUF and have stepped down from the stage.”

Edward finished one cigarette and lit another off it before dropping it in the ashtray. A band was playing. He imagined the red, white, and blue lightning flag of the British Union of Fascists being unfurled. He heard some singing but couldn’t make out the words. Sir Oswald’s voice rang out over the Marconi public address system. Edward had heard a hundred similar speeches in public and whenever Sir Oswald sat across the table from him. But now he did not listen. Instead, he went over his own words in his head.

It sometimes becomes necessary in the long march of human progress for a man to break formation and head in another direction, keeping his steps in time with another band and another marching tune. That is what I am doing today. Not because I don’t love my country but because I do love my country. Not because I don’t honor truth and justice but because I honor them enough to change allegiances in order to better serve them. Not because I don’t care for the British public or its values but because I care for the British public above all others. God, country, the good of the British people
—
they are why I am declaring my break with the Conservative Party and announcing my membership in the British Union of Fascists. I follow an enlightened and blessed leadership straight ahead into Great Britain’s marvelous future. I invite you to join me. One country under one flag, one God, and one leader
—
Sir Oswald Mosley!

A Blackshirt ran up and caught his breath at the open door to Edward’s room. “We need your help!”

“What’s the matter?” demanded one of Edward’s guards.

“There are too many hecklers and they’re disrupting the rally. We’ll need everyone to clear them out of the hall.”

“Commies and Jews!” spat Edward’s guard. He glanced at Edward. “Wait here, sir. Don’t leave the room under any circumstances. We’ll sort this out.”

As soon as the Blackshirts left, Edward stood up and stepped into the hallway. He could hear the shouting and yelling and Sir Oswald making use of the public address system to speak above all the noise. There were
the sounds of things being smashed and broken. And then screaming. He crept through the corridor to a spot near the stage that permitted a view of most of the Grand Hall. Blackshirts were punching and kicking people and using choke holds as they dragged men and women outside. Many of the persons they wrestled with were fighting back. Sir Oswald kept trying to finish his speech, but the brawling got worse, breaking out all over the hall as Blackshirts beat heckler after heckler. Edward saw blood spring onto hands and faces. Sir Oswald stopped and stood back from the microphone.

Get out
.

The voice in his head was so strong Edward thought a man was behind him. He made his way quickly to a stage door that should have been guarded by Blackshirts. It was locked from the inside. He slipped the bolt and pushed it open. Blackshirts were fighting with people on the grass and in the parking lot. He tugged the brim of his top hat down to cover as much of his face as possible and made his way off the grounds and down the street. Bobbies ran past him. He continued to walk as swiftly as he could, finally taking an alley and emerging on another street, where he hailed a cab.

“How are you then tonight, guv’nor?” asked the driver as he edged into traffic.

Edward stared at the trucks and cars and wagons that streamed back and forth and watched men and women mingling on the sidewalks and in front of the shops.

“Never better,” he replied.

The end of June, 1934

The Hartmanns were still in hiding when the baron arrived at midnight, his Luger in his fist as he hurried up the ladder into the attic where the family was waiting. Seeing the gun, Albrecht immediately stood up in the cramped space.

“So you’ve finally come to do what you planned all along?”

The baron’s face was hard and sharp. “I had to shoot my driver.”

“What? Why?”

“Before he shot me. I also had to shoot the man and woman who have been keeping you here.”

Albrecht’s face tightened. “I never heard the shots.”

“I had the Luger under a pillow.”

“What on earth are you doing, Baron?” asked Catherine, her arms around Sean and Angelika. “Why are you on this killing spree?”

“We are betrayed. Herr Hitler has begun a purge of the Brownshirts and the Communists and everyone else he perceives as a threat to his grip on power. My driver said he had been ordered to execute me because I was hiding Jews. But his shot hit the car door. Mine hit him in the throat. When I left the car I saw the man of the house peering through the window. He aimed a rifle at me but I ducked out of sight. I thought he had mistaken me for Gestapo. But I heard him shout to his wife to get the other gun and go to the back door and shoot von Isenburg. I entered through the outside cellar door and came up into the hall behind the woman. I snatched a pillow and placed it over the Luger and shot her as she turned. You heard nothing but the man did. He rushed into the hall and I shot him as well.”

Catherine shook her head. “Why have they turned against you? Aren’t you still SS?”

“Someone has suggested I’m harboring Jews and spiriting them out of the country. It did not come from Hitler or the
Reichstag
. It was one or two individuals spreading the word to others. But whoever they are, they know what I’m doing and where our safe houses are. If they were able to persuade my driver, they have a great deal of influence indeed. I trusted him with my life.”

The baron was white. He put the Luger in his trench coat pocket and sat down on a trunk.

“People are being murdered all over Germany tonight. I’m no threat to Hitler’s power, nor is he killing SS. Someone is using all the bloodshed and mayhem to cover up my own death. I don’t believe this has anything to do with Hitler’s purge. It has to do with stopping what I’m doing. Someone doesn’t want me getting you out of the country. Someone doesn’t want you to live, Albrecht, or continue to write your books against the Third Reich.”

“But we’re not Jews,” protested Catherine.

“They used that to stir up the people they informed. To get them good and angry at me.”

“Wouldn’t using Albrecht’s name get them angry enough?”

“No. Not if they’re unaware of his books or that they were burned.
As for the anonymous books and pamphlets that have been distributed across the country, no one knows he’s the author of those except the SS. It was better for those hunting us to say I was protecting Jews who had been charged with crimes against Germany. That’s something the simplest people understand. That’s something they feel duty-bound to bring to a halt.”

“Who have all these people with their attics and cellars thought they were protecting?”

“Refugees from Communist persecution. They understood they were keeping you from harm at the hands of left-wing death squads.”

Albrecht stared at the baron a long time.

“Catherine and I have talked about you. Gerard, you make no sense. Every day we’re expecting a trap. Why should you rescue us? Why should you help me survive and write more books against Adolf Hitler? You are SS. You think he is the savior of Germany. Yet here we are, less than fifteen miles from the Swiss border, and it is you who have brought us here.”

The baron looked at his hands. “It was necessary to fool everyone. To make everyone believe. Even you. I am where I wish to be. Deep inside the Nazi organization, trusted by my fellow SS, I have been close enough to Herr Hitler on several occasions to pull out my Luger and shoot him through the head. But the time is not yet. Brutal as he is, Hitler is still the only one capable of bringing our nation out of the bones and ashes of the war. In two years our athletes will be winning gold medals in Berlin. He will give us back an army and air force and navy. So long as this trend continues I am his bodyguard. Yet I remain his executioner. If he crosses the line and is bad for Germany, I kill him. In a few years it will be even easier for me to do than it is now.”

“But you are discovered.”

“I told you. None of this is the doing of Berlin. Berlin is not hunting the SS. It is only a few. These few who turned my driver and the household here against me are using the purge as a smokescreen.”

Albrecht sat back down. “Who is it? Who has done this to you?”

The baron continued to study the veins and creases on the backs of his hands. “I am tempted to take you across the border tonight. On my authority. But who knows how far this person’s reach extends? The border guards may have been alerted. A person will come to this house in the morning. Probably a carload. The perpetrator of all this will be in the car
or will have told those who arrive what to expect and what to look for. In either case, I will find out who is the source of all my trouble—by direct confrontation with the individual or by questioning those who drive up. I will get a name one way or the other.”

He lifted his head. Seeing the pinched faces of Sean and Angelika he smiled. “I am sorry for all your weeks of running and hiding, my dears. I’m sorry I’ve frightened you with my gun and my stories. I am your friend and your uncle even though for some time it hasn’t seemed that way to you or to your mother and father. But trust me, I will get you across the border, and you will soon be in your chalet in Pura. First, however, you must catch up on your sleep. I’m going to guard the house while you rest. No one will get past me. In the morning we will have a good breakfast and be on our way. All right?”

Neither Sean nor Angelika responded.

The baron got to his feet. “I will be downstairs. A car will come in the morning. It will come very early. They would have expected a phone call from the driver or from the husband and wife. Now they must find out for themselves what has happened.”