The German Suitcase (26 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

It didn’t take long for the groups of prisoners searching the Revier for Max to reach the end of the corridor where Jake’s quarters were located. Dr. Cohen was standing in front of the door, now, his face covered by a surgical mask as they rushed toward him.

“There’s an SS man in here!” a prisoner, waving a pistol, shouted. “Have you seen him?”

“No, no I haven’t,” Cohen replied, his eyes darting to the weapon, warily.

“What’s in there?” the prisoner asked, gesturing to the door as the others surged around him.

“Doctor’s quarters,” Cohen replied, holding out a hand to stop them. “You can’t go in there.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Dr. Ezra Cohen, Chief of Staff. I’m in charge of the Revier, and—”

“Not anymore!” the prisoner shouted. He pushed Cohen aside and charged through the door followed by his club-wielding colleagues.

“Wait! Wait! Don’t go in there!” Cohen shouted, trying to stop them. “There’s a patient in there. He—”

Inside the room, Jake and Hannah were standing on opposite sides of the bunk tending to a patient. They whirled, as if startled by the intrusion, peering above surgical masks as the group of rabid prisoners encircled the bunk where the outline of a figure could be discerned beneath the pile of ragged blankets that concealed it.

The ringleader, brandishing the pistol, grabbed a fistful of the bedding. His eyes darted to an SS collar insignia peeking from beneath it. Instead of firing his weapon or pulling the covers off, he flinched and froze in place at the sight of the SS man’s face. The prisoner’s eyes were wide in startled recognition. And so were Max’s. The prisoner hovering over him was pasty and gaunt now, and his head had been shaved, but Max had no doubt that the man with the pistol, the man who was about to execute him was the farmer he had spared during his first shift on the ramp, along with his robust wife, sickly teenage son, and elderly grandparents—the latter subsequently culled-out and executed by Radek.

The two men’s eyes were locked in tense uncertainty when Cohen dashed into the room after the prisoners. “You fools!” he exclaimed, breaking the moment. “That patient has full-blown typhus! It’s lethal and highly contagious! I tried to warn you. The sooner you leave, the better!”

“Typhus?!” one of the prisoners exclaimed.

“He’s right. Let’s get out of here!” the farmer exclaimed, acknowledging Max with a veiled smile as he lowered the pistol and headed for the door. “Check the meeting room,” he ordered the others who were already hurrying toward it.

“Wait!” Hannah called out stepping to the supply cabinet. “You must all scrub down.” She removed a bottle of disinfectant from the cabinet and handed it to one of the prisoners. “Head to toe, clothing, everything. Go to the shower hall, now! Right now! Or you’ll all die!”

Spooked by Hannah’s entreaty, the mob of prisoners wasted no time falling over each other to see who could get out the door first. It would have been comical if not for the fact that it had been so threatening.

Hannah closed the door, then removed her mask as did Jake and Cohen. Three sighs of relief greeted Max as he emerged from beneath the bedding in his SS uniform. He sat up and swung his jackboots over the side of the bunk, letting out a long breath. “He recognized me. I thought I was finished.”

“Someone you spared, wasn’t it?” Cohen said.

Max nodded somberly. “There is a God…”

“Not without Hannah’s quick thinking,” Cohen said. “If they’d gone into the meeting room and found Captain Kruger, they’d have killed us all. Nothing could’ve stopped them then. Not even that fellow.”

“You stopped them. All of you. You’ve got more courage than anyone I know,” Max said, his eyes welling with gratitude. He got to his feet and, addressing Jake, said, “I don’t know what you had in mind, but whatever it is, we better get on with it.”

Jake nodded and broke into a wily smile. Within minutes, he had Max out of his SS uniform and seated in a chair in his undershorts. He fetched some scissors from a cabinet and handed them to Hannah. “He needs a haircut.”

Max looked puzzled. “A haircut?”

Jake nodded. “One like mine.” He pointed to his quarter-inch long bristle and sat on the bunk trying to catch his breath.

“You mean a lice-cut,” Hannah quipped, referring to the scalping which had been made mandatory for all prisoners in an effort to combat the spread of typhus.

“We’re also going to need some dirt,” Jake said as Max’s wavy thatches began falling to the floor.

Now, it was Cohen who looked puzzled. “Dirt?”

Jake nodded. “Dirt. You know, soil, from the ground. The stuff we plant things in? A couple of pocketfuls should do it.”

Cohen hurried from the room into the corridor and through the nearest exit onto the grounds. The Spring thaw had softened the soil and the pockets of his uniform were easily and swiftly filled. He was on his way back to Jake’s quarters when a member of the medical staff got his attention and took him aside.

Moments later, Hannah was putting the finishing touches on Max’s scalping when Dr. Cohen, his pockets bulging, returned and said, “I have bad news…”

“The camp is out of dirt?” Jake cracked.

“Captain Kruger…” Cohen said, grimly. “Massive subdural trauma. Nothing my people could do. I’m sorry.”

Jake and Hannah sighed in dismay.

Max’s posture slackened. He slumped in the chair, collecting himself. “Otto was a good man,” he finally said. “And a fine doctor who died upholding his oath.”

They took a few moments to regroup, then resumed their work with renewed vigor. At Jake’s direction, Hannah and Cohen rubbed the dirt into Max’s scalp and onto his face and neck, working it into every pore; then Jake had Max scrub his hands, wrists, feet and ankles with it, and force it beneath his nails, making certain they became chipped and broken in the process. He kept at it until it had been worked into the lines of his palms, knuckles, forehead, lips and teeth.

When Max had acquired the filthy patina typical of long term imprisonment, Jake removed his ragged uniform with the yellow triangle and prisoner ID number stitched above the pocket and handed it to him. “One size fits all,” he joked, though they were of similar height and build. “You’ll need to get rid of that SS underwear,” Jake went on; and, pointing to the religious medal hanging around Max’s neck, added, “You won’t be needing that any more, either.”

Max winced. He’d worn it for more than a decade, since that day at the Vatican with his parents, and was unhappy at the thought of parting with it. With a grudging nod, he slipped the chain over his head and handed the medal to Jake, who gave it a passing glance and put it on. The glittering disc settled against the sores on his chest next to the key that hung from the loop of string. Max’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“The penicillin didn’t work; maybe Saint whoever-the hell-he-is will,” Jake replied with a sarcastic cackle.

“It’s Thomas More, Patron Saint of humanists and statesman. He taught by example that government, above all, is an exercise in virtue.”

“Well, we all know what happened to him,” Jake said, bowing his head as if waiting for the ax. “They say it’s painless. Much faster than typhus, too.”

“Don’t say that,” Hannah pleaded. “There’s always a chance. Max and I are your doctors, and we both—”

“Enough,” Jake interrupted. “No speeches about the dangers of self-diagnosis. I’m finished. We all know it. You’re Hannah’s doctor, now,” he said turning to Max. “You know what she needs. Please make sure she gets it.”

“Of course, I will, but you can’t just give up. You can’t just—” Max paused, glimpsing his reflection in the mirror above the sink, and did a little double take unable to recognize himself. Indeed, in a matter of minutes, the handsome scion of a wealthy and prominent Catholic family, resplendent in the crisp silver and black uniform of an SS officer, had been transformed into a filthy concentration camp prisoner dressed in an ill-fitting uniform of ragged, striped denim with a yellow triangle that designated he was a Jew.

“Mazel tov,” Jake said with a cagey grin.

“Thanks, I’ll need it,” Max replied, wrapping his arms around Jake’s bony shoulders. They hugged each other for a long moment, their eyes welling with emotion. When they separated, Max’s remained riveted to his image in the mirror—to the prisoner identification number A198841 sewn on the pocket above the yellow triangle. Indeed, despite the convincing transformation and poignant moment, Max’s mind was racing to identify potential threats to his survival; and he had just realized that there was one more thing that he had to acquire in order to fully secure his cover; something that would be of vital importance when it came to being processed by the Americans; and thanks to that horrific night when Radek assaulted Hannah in the brothel, Max was certain he knew how to go about getting it.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The morning after he emailed the two photos to the Bio-metrics lab in Los Angeles, Adam returned to Paul Diamond’s desk in
The Times
newsroom to wait for a reply. In the event that Facial Recognition Technology determined the photos were not of the same person, thereby proving Dr. Jacob Epstein was an imposter and possibly a war criminal, Adam was using the time to rough out a much-revised version of his story.

It was close to noon when Stacey joined him. It had gotten to the point where she would come dashing into the lobby with her container of coffee, and the security guard would hand her a Visitor’s Pass as she hurried past his desk and through the turnstile that controlled access to the elevators without breaking stride. “Hi…Anything?”

Adam shook his head no.

“I just finished briefing Tannen. Needless to say he’s ready to jump out the nearest window.”

“Makes two of us.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Paul. It feels weird sitting here with him gone. Like I’m at a wake or something.”

“So? This isn’t rocket science, Clive,” Stacey said, pausing to drain her latte. “Just have all emails from Bio-Metrics forwarded to your address.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Adam set it up with a few keystrokes and mouse-clicks; and, they were soon bounding up one of the red-sheathed staircases to Adam’s work cubicle on the mezzanine above the newsroom where they resumed their vigil.

A short time later, the anxiously-awaited response appeared. “There it is!” Adam exclaimed, his eyes darting to his inbox which read:
[email protected]
. The Subject Box read: FRT Report. He opened it with a mouse click. A few seconds passed before the data filled the screen, and Adam groaned. “Shit…”

“It’s a match, right?” Stacey prompted.

Adam nodded, glumly. “Ninety-six percent. Paul was right. This was a total waste of time.”

Stacey looked uncharacteristically earnest. “So, that means the guy in the old passport photo either is Dr. Jacob Epstein…which would mean the Dr. Jacob Epstein we know and love really is Dr. Jacob Epstein; or, he’s an imposter…who switched passport photos with the real Dr. Epstein…which would mean Dr. Epstein really isn’t Dr. Epstein. Furthermore, even if he is an imposter…who we suspect might be Max Kleist, he could be somebody else as well; and whoever he is, we still don’t have a way to verify either of the scenarios I just laid out.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Well, Stace, it sort of lacks your legendary copywriter’s clarity; but it sounds about right.” He kicked back in his chair and stared up at the massive skylight. “The only way we’ll get a definitive FRT analysis is to get our hands on an old photo of Dr. Epstein—like one taken during the War—that we know, for a fact, is him.”

“Or one of Max Kleist,” Stacey added.

“Talk about shooting for the moon.”

Stacey groaned in agreement. “We’ve run out of sources, haven’t we?”

Adam nodded. “Tell me about it. The question of the day is: Where the hell’s it going to come from?”

That same morning, directly across town at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Ellen Rother, her assistant, Ben Hertzberg, and an archival shipping specialist were in Ellen’s office, preparing Dr. Jacob Epstein’s vintage Steinbach and its contents for shipment to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Each item on the table had been tagged or labeled with an identification number at the time Ellen photographed and catalogued it. Now, the shipping specialist was wrapping the suitcase in bubble wrap prior to crating it. Ben was wrapping the individual items in appropriate packing material. Some in layers of bubble wrap, others in sheets of soft cellular foam, and yet others in plastic archival bags which he secured between pieces of stiff cardboard. Ellen was checking each off on a master list as it was wrapped and placed in a shipping container.

After neatly folding and packaging Jake’s striped prison uniform, Ben slipped the dog collar into an archival bag, then took the hardcover copy of
All Quiet on the Western Front
from the table. The eighty-year-old volume, in the original German, had intrigued Ben from the moment he first saw the
Mein Kampf
dust jacket. On discovering Remarque’s novel within, he quickly reasoned it had been used to camouflage the gray cloth cover because it had been banned by the Nazis. Now, he opened it carefully and turned the pages which, though darkened with age, were of acid-free stock and hadn’t become brittle. He ran a fingertip over the soft texture of the paper and took a moment to appreciate the fineness of the printing, then closed it. He was sliding the book into a plastic archival bag when it slipped from his grasp. Despite his efforts to capture it in mid-air, the volume fell to the floor. It landed on the carpet, spine up, with the front and back covers and about half the pages splayed left and right. Ben gasped and stood staring at it in disbelief. “I…I can’t believe I did that…” he said under his breath.

Ellen glanced over with concern. “What happened?”

Ben flushed with embarrassment. “The bags… they’re…they’re kind of slippery…I…”

“Is it all right?”

Ben picked up the book gingerly, and began examining it. His expression brightened. “None of the pages are torn or creased,” he reported with relief as he closed it slowly and examined the cover. “Well, one corner’s a little bumped; but other than that I think it’s okay.”

“It’s a very old book, Ben. Chances are it’s a pre-existing condition,” Ellen said, absolving him. She was about to make a notation on her checklist when something about the book caught her eye. “What’s that?” she asked pointing to what appeared to be a narrow strip of wax paper sticking out from the spine.

Ben grasped the half-inch-long protrusion and tugged gently, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Careful,” Ellen cautioned, “Don’t tear it.”

Ben stood the book on the table as if putting it on a shelf, and, gingerly, opened it—approximately half the pages to the left and half to the right. This relaxed the spine, which he realized was what happened when it fell, allowing the slip of paper to emerge. He grasped it again, and slowly pulled it from the space between the spine and the bound edges of the pages. It turned out to be a glassine sleeve which contained a strip of 35MM black-and-white negatives. The pages of the book were of a high quality stock that had texture and thickness; and the 287 pages of text along with the flyleaves, and title and copyright pages made for a hefty two-inch thick volume. The spine was just wide enough for the long, narrow sleeve to be slipped behind it; and that’s exactly what Jake Epstein eventually did with it on that day sixty-five years ago when Anika Kleist came to the cabin at Partnach Gorge with the forged passports and travel documents, and gave him the negatives.

Ben removed the strip of film from the sleeve and, holding it by the edges, raised it to the light to see a row of passport type photos. They appeared to be of two men and two women; but it was impossible to determine what the subjects looked like, let alone identify them. Because these were negatives, everything was reversed. The blacks were clear, the whites were black and the rest, confusing tones of gray. “I guess one of these guys is probably Dr. Epstein.”

Ellen shrugged. “In my experience, probably…is the operative word, there. I’ll run a routine scan and enter it in the document log.” She plucked the strip of film from Ben’s fingers, and nodded to the table. “You keep on with that. Oh, and a…do me favor, will you?”

“Sure. Name it.”

“Get a grip,” Ellen said with, what for her, was a rare flicker of humor.