No Dawn for Men (6 page)

Still, Himmler was not someone to be disobeyed or taken lightly. He controlled all of the SS and its sub-units, the SD, the Orpo, the Kripo, the Gestapo, the fledgling Waffen-SS. As to the Jews, Himmler hated them even more than Hitler. Indeed, Himmler had built the first of the concentration camps, at Dachau, and had personally designed the death’s head insignia for the guards’ uniforms. Himmler had
made
Heydrich, with the Fuhrer’s full support, and so many fanatically loyal followers; he could unmake him overnight. Thus the need for the meeting that had just ended with Lazarus, his mole in Operation Odin. Glancing first at his watch—he had ten minutes—and then at the agent’s neatly typed two-page report, Gruppenfuhrer Heydrich recalled their conversation.

Lazarus:  I have always thought this visit was a bad idea. The reporter, Fleming, I think he was spying in Moscow at the Vickers trial. He is MI-6.

Heydrich:  I told you, Goebbels wants it. Do not raise this point again. Just do your job. What has Fleming been up to?

Lazarus:  Nothing. As you have seen in my report, coffee on Unter den Linden this morning. He interviews the two professors today at 3:00 p.m.

Heydrich:  You will be there?

Lazarus:  Of course.

Heydrich:  Recording?

Lazarus:  Yes, the construction is perfect cover for our people.

Heydrich:  I see that Shroeder and Tolkien met last night, but you were unable to record.

Lazarus:  Yes, unfortunately.

Heydrich:  Why not.

Lazarus:  There was music playing.

Heydrich:  Had you not accounted for that?

Lazarus:  The Victrola has always been in the parlor. Shroeder must have brought it into his study for Tolkien’s visit. He must have placed it very near the microphone.

Heydrich:  What was the music?

Lazarus:  
Gotterdammerung
.

Heydrich:  And Tolkien? Is he the fool we think he is? This silly book.

Lazarus:  Dr. Goebbels says it has propaganda value.

Heydrich:  When does Tolkien leave?

Lazarus:  He has a five-day visa. The interviews are this afternoon, with film. Tomorrow, some additional footage in Berlin.
The professors visit the Altes. Etcetera.

Heydrich:  More nonsense.

Lazarus:  Tolkien leaves on Monday.

Heydrich:  As soon as he leaves, I want a demonstration.

Lazarus:  Shroeder says he needs the amulet.

Heydrich:  
Says?

Lazarus:  Yes, I believe he has it.

Heydrich:  You
believe
he has it.

Lazarus:  Yes, I believe he has it hidden somewhere in his apartment.

Heydrich:  Have you searched the apartment?

Lazarus:  Shroeder and Tolkien are going out to dinner tonight. We will search then.

Heydrich:  Good. If you find it, we will know that Shroeder has been playing us for fools.

Lazarus:  He will say it’s not the right one. He will have an excuse.

Heydrich:  Tell him that nevertheless we insist on a demonstration. On Monday.

Lazarus:  If he refuses?

Heydrich:  He will not refuse.

Lazarus:  He may rather die.

Heydrich:  He will not refuse.

Lazarus:  Shall we film it? Perhaps Frau Reifensthal?

Heydrich:  Yes. Please arrange it.

Heydrich’s secretary was knocking at his door, no doubt to announce Walter Rauff. The Gestapo chief slid the report into its Top Secret folder and opened a desk drawer to put it away, smiling as he remembered the brief quizzical look on his mole’s face when he said “
he will not refuse
” for the second time.

10.

Berlin

October 6, 1938, 6:00 p.m.

“Shall we walk?” Billie Shroeder said, taking Ian Fleming’s arm. “The Tiergarten is beautiful at this time of year.”

“Of course, it’s a lovely evening.”

They crossed Hermann Goering Strasse and entered the huge urban park under a filigreed wrought iron arch that reminded Fleming of the entrances to the Jardin Anglais in Geneva, where he had studied and had briefly been engaged to be married.

“So, how did it go?” Billie said.

“The old gents?” Fleming replied. “Topping. You were there.”

“They seemed quite relaxed and comfortable, smiling and discussing all of those old Norse gods,” Billie said. “But it’s your eye that matters, not mine.”

“And Kurt Bauer’s. He seemed very much in control.”

“The project is very important, and he is answerable to Goebbels.”

“I thought Himmler was Kurt’s boss, the SS.”

“I suppose he is on loan. I confuse these giants of the Reich. Don’t be so hard on Kurt. He is just doing his job.”

“Billie . . .”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

Billie squeezed his arm.
Thanking me,
Fleming thought,
for laying off Bauer, her college chum with the good heart.

“Why is this called the Animal Garden?” Fleming asked.

They were strolling easily under an awning of tall gold-and red-leafed branches, the trees lining both sides of the cinder path stately, well-kept maples and oaks in their full autumn glory. The last of the day’s brilliant sunshine was at their backs, casting long shadows of their bodies.
On stilts,
Fleming thought, enjoying the touch of Billie’s hand on his bicep.
Still in shape,
he thought,
thank God, all that MI-6 training, worse than Eton and that bloody scrumming about.

“It was a private hunting ground at one time,” Billie said. “A few hundred years ago. There is still a zoo.”

“Ah yes, medieval Europe. The good old days.
Le droite du seigneur,
by God.”

“Ian.” Another squeeze of the arm and a smile.

“Of course the war ended all that, not that it ever mattered much to me. My brother inherits.”

“
Ian
.”

“Joking old girl,”

“I’m quite relieved.”

“Shall we sit,” Fleming said. They were approaching a small lake, ringed by trees, with benches very close to its edge. They walked in silence and, once seated, Billie moved close and again took Fleming’s arm.

“Don’t be offended, Herr Fleming,” Billie said, “but you are not married, are you?”

“Of course not, heaven forbid.”

“Ah, heaven forbid . . .”

Billie looked away, at the fiery reflection of the trees on the flat lake surface.

“I suppose I should not have invoked heaven.”

“It’s just an expression,” Billie said. “Still, it is
heaven
that sanctions marriage, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never thought of it quite that way, but you may be right.”

“My father says your family is quite important.”

“Not true.”

“That your father died in the war.”

“True.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine.”

“And now?”

“Thirty.”

“Please forgive the inquisition, but . . .”

“But what?”

“You seem not determined to bed me, unlike so many men I meet nowadays.”

 
Breathing room,
Fleming thought, a strategy that had become natural to him when it came to certain women.

“You’re a sweet girl, Billie. Fire away.” Fleming reached across his chest and covered Billie’s hand with his as he said this.

“No more questions. But you may ask
me
.”

 
You’re not a virgin, I hope,
Fleming thought, suddenly nervous.

They were silent for a moment, then Billie said, “I see. I have a
little
experience, but not much.” Fleming, taken aback, turned to look at Billie, who smiled at him, then put her head on his shoulder. Her silky dark brown hair smelled faintly of gardenia, or perhaps jasmine, transporting him for a moment from the marshal atmosphere of Berlin, from the winter and the war that was about to descend on Europe, to a place he could not name. Europe-bound, it was his first heady whiff of the tropics, a world he had not yet experienced.

“Your hair, it smells lovely,” Fleming said.

Something about Billie’s reply, a barely audible murmur, touched the Englishman’s heart. He pulled away slightly and with his free hand lifted Billie’s face gently by the chin so that they were looking into each other’s eyes.
Damn,
he thought,
bloody hell
.

“Shall we get back?” Billie said. “Perhaps we can have a drink in my room before dinner.”

11.

Berlin

October 6, 1938, 7:00 p.m.

Draco sit meus dux,

Crux non sit mea lux,

Satana, aggredere,

Mihi da quod rogo,

Quod mihi offert bonum est,

Bibam laete toxicum.

 
“Franz, I’m at a loss,” said Tolkien, “this seems to be an invocation to the devil.” He was holding a letter-sized piece of parchment that was under glass in a simple wooden frame.

“It is. Shall I translate it for you?”

“Please.”

 
“‘
Let the dragon be my guide
.
Let not the cross be my light
.
Step forward Satan
.
Give me what I ask
.
What you offer me is good
.
I will gladly drink the poison.
’”

 
“Is it . . . is it the reverse of the
Vedo Retro Satana
? Can it be?”

“It is.”

 
The two dons were standing at the waist-high parapet on the roof of Franz Shroeder’s apartment building. Below them the lights of the vast seven-hundred-year-old city were beginning to come on, at first one by one, then in small numbers, then in swaths that finally stretched from the city center to its encircling suburbs. The forest and farmland beyond the perimeter of this brightly lit grid were doing the opposite, going from pearly gray to pitch black before their eyes. To their left, not far from central Berlin, planes were landing and taking off at Templehof Airport, some entering and emerging from the completed section of the huge, curved main terminal complex that was under construction day and night. Unter den Linden, Freidrichstrasse, the King’s Highway, Wilhelmstrasse and the other main avenues of the metropolis were lit by moving automobile headlights and stately gas streetlights, some of them over a century old, curving away into the distance. The new chancellery and other government buildings, all draped in blood-red Nazi banners, were floodlit from above and below. Hitler’s
Germania
lay spread out before them. It looked every bit the world capital he envisioned it to be.

“It’s made from wolf skin,” Shroeder said.

“Wolf skin?”