The Hess Cross (24 page)

As if Crown had been thinking aloud, Sackville-West said from Washington, D.C., "John, you'd better listen closely. I've said before that nothing can get in the way of your business in Chicago. I mean it. Nothing. That includes a pretty English girl. You've got to remember what she's doing. She's working for the Nazis. She's a traitor. And she'll pay for it. We don't have trials in our line of work, John. You know that. She's living her last days."

"I know that, sir."

"What you're seeing is what she wants you to see, what the Nazis want you to see. They're hoping you'll become attached to her. Don't get tricked. Do your job and keep your emotions out of this. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, whether you do or not, I know you'll do your task as if you did. Remember what I said, though, when her time comes."

Crown and Heather leisurely toured the Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec displays. She showed an amazing range of knowledge about the French impressionists. Crown tried to concentrate on what she said, but found he was keying on her lilting British voice. They hurriedly visited the rooms with paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and paused only briefly at the Dutch and Flemish art from the seventeenth century. They overloaded on the paintings and began passing many without even a glance.

On the steps of the Art Institute they admired the immense bronze lions guarding the entrance to the art treasures. Heather petted a lion's metal paw and sat on its concrete platform next to Crown. She leaned casually against the lion's leg and played with the back of Crown's hand until he turned it over so she could slip her hand into his. He did not look at her, so she leaned forward and peered up at him with her radiant smile. He looked away and would not play the game. She squeezed his hand and asked, "What's wrong, John?"

For a few seconds he continued to stare down Michigan Avenue. Finally he turned to her. Her auburn hair was brushed by the November wind, and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. She was wearing a tailored beige jacket over a white blouse and slim tapered pants the color of river sand, a lovely contrast to the dull, hard green and gold of the lion. A rush of emotion swelled up from his stomach and caught him in the throat. He opened his mouth to tell her how he felt, but swallowed it.

"No, nothing," he said as he forced a smile. "I have an ability to look reflective when I'm not thinking of anything."

Heather did not believe him, but changed the subject. "How do you think Hess's interviews are going?"

"I'm glad he got over his amnesia quickly. Fermi is really impatient to find out what Hess knows. Apparently he has a mass of data about the German experiments."

Crown rubbed his hands together to ward off the chilling fog rolling into the Loop from Lake Michigan. The fog bank rushed across Michigan Avenue and up Adams Street.

"What about the amnesia and the stomach cramps and all that? Is he faking?" Heather asked, scooting closer to Crown as the temperature plunged and more fog poured from the lake.

"The doctors don't think so. They say his symptoms are not unusual for a neurotic-schizoid under such pressure."

"What do you think?" asked Heather in a tone implying that Crown's thoughts would be decisive.

"During both interviews, Tuesday's and this morning's, I was struck by Hess's ability to pace the flow of information. Fermi questioned him for two hours today, and he got some useful data, but nowhere near everything Fermi thinks Hess knows. Hess may have mental problems, but he controls those interviews. Kohler frightens him, but when Hess is in the interview, Kohler isn't very effective, because Hess knows we want the information and will put up with him. Kohler can go only so far in that situation."

"I think Hess is just enjoying the attention," Heather said. "He likes being the center of things, so he prolongs the interviews, because when they're over, he'll go back to his cell."

"Maybe so. He's got a big ego. No question about that. Fermi will continue to question him until Hess has revealed all he knows. Then Hess goes back to his London
hospital cell. But I think he's up to something other than just being the center of things."

Heather looked quickly at him and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well," Crown said as he turned to watch the fog, "it's just a hunch. Hess is too controlled. He dribbles out just enough information to keep us interested. When Fermi gets into the heart of the questions about the German experiments, Hess's mind goes blank or he has pains in his abdomen. Like Kohler says, it's too convenient."

"What're you going to do about it?" she asked, and Crown thought he detected an apprehensive edge in her voice.

"I don't know yet. Something will come to me, though."

It was bait. Heather would surely report his suspicions to whomever she was calling. They would be prompted to act quickly, perhaps rashly. Their inability to find Crown in a nonpublic place would make them even more nervous. They would try to kill him at their first opportunity. Crown would give them that chance when he was ready. He would know when they were coming.

Over rack-of-lamb dinner at the Berghoff, conversation again turned to the deputy führer.

"He just doesn't come across as a cutthroat, like the Nazis are always depicted," Heather said while she cut tender lamb away from the bones.

"You don't know enough about him, then." Crown swallowed and asked, "Have you ever heard of Hess's part in the Night of the Long Knives?"

She shook her head.

"During Hitler's rise to power, he had an army of thugs and criminals called the SA, the Sturmabteilung. They started out as bouncers who beat up hecklers when Hitler spoke in beer halls or on soap boxes in town squares. The SA was headed by Ernst Roehm, a homosexual, a drunkard,
and a sadist, who soon turned the SA into his private army of three million men. It grew larger than the German Army, Navy, and Air Force combined.

"Hitler used the SA to solidify his own position in Germany. Soon, though, Ernst Roehm began to flex his SA muscle. Hitler felt that he, Hitler, was losing control of the SA and that Roehm was using it to wrest the Nazi party leadership from him. It's apparent that Himmler, Hess, and others were jealous of Roehm's strength, and they fed Hitler rumors of Roehm's ambitions."

"Were the rumors true?"

"Some, maybe. Most were not. Anyway, Hitler decided to get rid of Roehm."

Crown paused to savor the lamb. Heather asked, "Well, what happened?"

"Hess and the others convinced Hitler that just getting rid of Roehm wouldn't be enough. He needed to liquidate all the SA leaders suspected of allegiance to Roehm. So Hess, Himmler, Goebbels, and Göring drew up lists of those they wished killed. If they could show that the victims had some connection with the SA, fine, but it wasn't necessary. They included on the lists those with whom they had personal grievances. Anyone unfortunate enough to have made an enemy of these men during the early years of the Nazi party was in this way condemned to die. On June 30, 1934, Ernst Roehm and hundreds of others were murdered. So Hess is just like the rest—plotting, scheming, murdering. Don't single him out for undeserved sympathy."

Crown chewed on the lamb, indicating the grisly story was over, but Heather demanded more details. "How did Roehm die?"

Crown looked at her and wondered whether he should complete the history lesson. Why not? She might as well know the mentality of her bosses.

"Even the official German story is seamy. Goebbels' press said Hitler almost single-handedly stormed the hotel in
Wiessee where Roehm and several other SA officials were staying. Hitler marched to Roehm's room, stood outside the door, and yelled, 'News from Berlin, Herr Roehm.' When Roehm shouted, 'Come in,' Hitler burst into the room, where he found Roehm in bed with a young boy. Hitler screamed at Roehm about the SA chief's treacherous acts and then had him arrested and sent to Stadelheim prison. Several days later, Roehm was given a pistol with one shell in it and told to do the honorable thing. He refused. Ten minutes later someone opened his cell door and shot him several times. Rudolf Hess has bragged he was Roehm's killer."

Heather involuntarily cringed at Hess's name. She asked in a low, tight voice, "And the others?"

"No one knows how many were killed. The SS used the supposed Roehm plot to get rid of their enemies all through Germany. It was the first mass murder under Hitler's command, and it was the night Hitler became the absolute dictator of Germany. He did it with the help of Rudolf Hess."

It was the low point of their afternoon. Telling her of Hess's infamy was not part of his grand design to flush out Miguel Maura's murderers. It was a foolish attempt to shake her loose from her employers, to put a chink in her loyalty, to make her think about what she was doing, as if he was in eighth grade telling a favorite girl nasty rumors about the boy she had a crush on. It didn't work then. It wouldn't work now. It was juvenile, but as Sackville-West had said, her time would come. She would soon leave his life, leave it violently and permanently. Crown was desperate. He wanted to be her first priority.

It was a confused, fumbling tactic, and he gave it up. Heather had committed herself to the perfidy and was probably being well paid for it. Matters of the heart rarely surfaced through sizable doses of money. Those who believed otherwise weren't familiar with a hard profession.

After dinner they walked through the lobbies of several
hotels along Michigan Avenue. It was an enjoyable pastime Crown had picked up years before. He viewed lobbies of the prestigious hotels just as he viewed French impressionism—artwork that should be appreciated and preserved. It always pained him when the massive chandeliers came down to make way for more modern lighting or when the circular leather couches were replaced with sofas and easy chairs. There should be a museum of the great hotel lobbies.

They descended to the Illinois Central Randolf Street station and boarded the train for Hyde Park. As Crown knew it would be, the station and train were crowded with commuters en route to South Shore, Blue Ridge, and Rocky Island. Crown and Heather sat on the car's uncomfortable wicker seats as the heating vents along the floor pumped suffocating amounts of hot air into the packed car. His eyes watched commuters' hands.

An interminable age later, the conductor called the Fifty-ninth Street station, and they exited the car. Crown gulped the cool air as if he had been holding his breath since Randolf Street. He opened his coat wide and felt the wind chill his damp armpits. From the station ramp they saw the long row of cars winding their way through the midway. The headlights were suffused by smog and fog and were smeared together like a string of Christmas-tree bulbs seen through a frosted window. At the far end of the midway the headlights disappeared in the mist like an apparition.

They descended the ramp's steep steps to Fifty-ninth Street and walked south across the midway to Heather's hotel. Crown walked quickly to keep abreast of the five or six people walking his way. They were his shield to the hotel.

Crown paused at the hotel door, as he had on previous evenings. They put their arms loosely around each other and began the little ritual that marked the end of a day together.

"It was fun today, Heather. I'm not looking forward to you going back to London."

"I'm not either." She lightly nuzzled his neck.

Crown glanced quickly through the hotel doors to the lobby phone booth, where in a few minutes he would again confirm Heather's duplicity. That goddamn phone booth. With a suddenly tired voice he said, "Well, we've got another interview with Hess tomorrow. I'll see you then."

Once again it was a maladroit, blundering good-bye produced by the intermingling of his desire for her with his fear and disheartenment over what she was doing to him.

She clung to him longer than before, and he thought he felt her tremble slightly as she pressed into him. One of the pensioners who live in the hotel, a gray-haired old lady with a dilapidated mink stole wrapped twice around her throat, passed them on the steps and clucked appreciatively.

Heather released his neck and looked up at him for a long moment, until Crown dumbly asked, "What?"

"John," she whispered with a voice he had never heard before, "I don't want you to go tonight."

"What?" He had heard her. He needed time to think. Was he being set up? Were gunmen waiting in her room?

"I want to be with you tonight," she said softly as she gently pulled him into the hotel lobby toward the elevator.

Crown's mind raced. He was being seduced or murdered, and he didn't know which. With his hand concealed by his overcoat, he pulled the Smith and Wesson from his waistband, pulled back the hammer, and aimed it at Heather's side. She was unaware of it as she told the elevator operator her floor. It was an old rule in Crown's profession, a rule clearly understood and honored by all countries' agents. The one who leads you into an ambush is the first to die. It made the bait think twice before volunteering for the task. Crown's feelings for Heather caught up with his training as
the elevator climbed. He lowered his gun, but only slightly. He would make the decision when forced to do so.

The elevator bounced to a halt on the fourth floor, and as the operator pulled the accordion door back, she looked at him and said in a low, reassuring voice, "My room's this way, John."

Crown waited until the elevator had disappeared, and then raised his pistol behind her. She clung to him as they approached her door, and didn't notice Crown's darting eyes or his halting breath. Heather disengaged herself from him in front of room 412 and fumbled in her purse for the key. She had stopped smiling, and her hands were shaking. The key scratched against the lock for several seconds before she calmed herself sufficiently to insert it.

She swung the door open, and as she turned to him, Crown put his arm around her back, once again concealing the weapon. She wrapped both arms around his neck and said, "John, help me. I'm not very good at this."

He increased tension on the trigger and said, "Sure, honey. You go in first, and I'll be right behind you."