The One Man (6 page)

“Very good.” The driver put Strauss's bag in the front and climbed in behind the wheel. “Everyone's waiting. Have you ever been to Estoril?”

In about forty minutes, they reached the coast and arrived at the posh seaside resort, home to the glamorous casino where the displaced royalty of Europe wagered for exit visas in evening attire, mingling with British and German spies. The car came to a stop in front of a tile-roofed, two-story home facing the sea behind a high iron gate and a stucco outer wall: 114 Rua do Mare. The villa could have belonged to any well-heeled Portuguese family seeking seclusion and a pleasing view of the sea, but, in fact, it was the summer retreat of the Catholic archbishop. The high walls and remote location, far away from the spy nests in Lisbon and before the summer crowds, made it the ideal location for the men Strauss had flown to meet.

The front gate opened and the Opel came to a stop in the courtyard. A large, Florentine-styled fountain stood in the center. Someone came out to meet him, a short, neatly tailored man with a goatee who introduced himself as Ricardo Oliva, from the International Refugee Committee, and escorted Strauss down a vaulted loggia into the main house. In a large room dominated by a huge stone fireplace and a candled chandelier, a small crowd was waiting for him. The first to greet him was the archbishop's adjunct, a balding man of about fifty in a black frock and crucifix, who introduced himself as Monsignor Correa.

“Thank you for arranging this,” Strauss said, shaking the clergyman's hand. “And please convey my government's thanks to His Eminence for offering the privacy of his home.”

“Privacy is the only weapon we have today,” the monsignor said, nodding, “but soon, it is our hope that such vile business be seen by the world and out in the light of day. In fact, there are some things more pressing than political or religious neutrality. Even in the midst of war.”

“That is our hope too,” Strauss said to him.

He went around the room and met various representatives from the refugee groups from Bern and Stockholm, two bearded Orthodox rabbis who spoke no English and whom Strauss greeted with the traditional Hebrew
“Shalom, rebi
,
”
and finally Alexander Katzner of the Jewish World Congress, whose efforts in trying to smuggle Jews out of occupied territory was well known back home. They all seemed to meet Strauss with great anticipation.

“We are glad you're here.” Katzner greeted him warmly. “It is time that the world see what we've known has been going on for some time.”

“Your president must now see,” one of the refugee committee representatives said, “what we've been facing. And then act.”

“Please, please … Leave our guest to get his bearings. Would you care for something to eat, Captain?” Monsignor Correa took Strauss by the elbow. “I know it's been a long trip.”

Strauss thanked him but politely declined. “I'm eager to get going, if it's all the same.”

“By all means. I understand. This way, then…” The monsignor opened an adjacent double door and led Strauss into a spacious, formal dining room. “They are waiting for you in here.”

Seated at the long, wooden table with two large, gold candelabras in the center were Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler.

*   *   *

The two men were dark and thin, dressed in suits that seemed way too baggy, and remained seated as everyone came in the room. They had been out of the camp for only a few weeks and their hair was only beginning to grow in. Wetzler, whom Strauss recognized from photographs, had a small mustache. His Czech compatriot, Vrba, was smoking, seemingly nervously, and remained seated. A Czech member of the War Refugee Committee acted as translator.

First, Strauss shook their hands and congratulated them on their brave escape. “You both showed remarkable courage. All the world owes you a great debt.” A cup of black coffee was put in front of him with a piece of hard sugar.

The Czech translated and the two men nodded, mildly enthusiastic.

“This is their report,” Katzner, of the Jewish World Congress, said, pushing a thick sheaf of papers in front of Strauss. “But I think you are already familiar with the important details. For a long time it's been no secret what's been going on. What everyone here wants to know is, what is the delay with a response? This is not war the Nazis are waging against us. It's murder.”

“I'm a military man, not a diplomat,” Strauss said, “but I want to assure you that even the president has been made aware.”

“You are a Jew yourself, are you not?” a Swede from the refugee board inquired of him.

Strauss nodded. “Yes.”

“So you must see this clearer than anyone. Thousands upon thousands are dying every day. How does your government not act?”

“The U.S. government is interested in all lives threatened under the Nazi regime,” Strauss said, though the words sat like an undigested piece of meat in his gut and had a hollow ring. It was clear the people here looked on Strauss's visit as a sign that the kind of military response they were all pleading for would soon follow. That the United States, home to the most Jews in the world outside of Europe, would send in an air strike against the camps or bomb the train tracks leading in. That his visit brought long-sought hope at last from the Allies.

But that wasn't why he was here.

Nodding almost apologetically, Strauss turned to Vrba and Wetzler. He reached in his briefcase and took out a folder. “There is a photograph I'd like to show you both.” The Czech translated his words. Strauss took out an eight-by-ten photograph and slid it across the table. First to Rudolf Vrba, who took a sideways glance at it. “Do you recognize this man?”

As the Czech translated, the escapee looked at Strauss without giving any recognizable sign.

“At the camp,” Strauss explained further. “Have you seen him? Is he there?”

Vrba slowly picked up the photograph of Alfred Mendl.

Vrba had short dark hair, a flat nose, and sharp, low eyebrows. His mouth had an upward curve on one side, giving him an almost impish quality. While Strauss waited, he took a long look. Finally Vrba looked back at him.

“Sorry.” He shook his head, speaking in halting English.

Strauss felt a stab of disappointment. This was his last hope. Many people's last hope. A year's work hung in the balance. He passed the photo over to Wetzler. He had more of a studious face, with a high forehead and bushy eyebrows. He studied the photograph for a long time, but then slid it back across the table with kind of an indifferent shrug.

“Please,” Strauss urged him. “Look at it again. It's important.”

Wetzler glanced at it again almost perfunctorily and then reached onto the table for a Portuguese cigarette. As he did so, his sleeve bunched up and Strauss's eyes were drawn to the bluish numbers written into the underside of the escapee's wrist. Wetzler lit the cigarette and took a drag. Then he spoke for a long time in Czech, never once taking his eyes off Strauss.

“Mr. Wetzler wants to know…” the Czech finally translated, “what has this man done that deserves your attention above all others? Hundreds of innocent people die every day. Women, children. As soon as they get off the trains they are stripped of the possessions and gassed. They are all good people…” Wetzler spoke quickly, and the translator did his best to keep up. “They all lead worthwhile lives. Who is
this
man, that you travel all this way and need to know if he is there?”

The escapee slid the photograph back across the table, as if awaiting a reply.

“There is no answer,” Strauss said, meeting the man's eyes. “There is only urgency. Though I understand your plea. And I will take it back with me to the highest levels of my government. You have my promise.”

The escapee sniffed, flicking an ash into the ashtray. His eyes darted toward his friend, Vrba, as if there were a kind of silent agreement between them. Waiting a moment, Strauss went to place the photo of Mendl back in his briefcase.

Then Rudolf Vrba suddenly said in heavily accented English, but with a begrudging nod: “He is there. Your man. Of course, that was two months ago. Hundreds die every day. So who knows for sure…?”

Strauss felt a surge of optimism run through him.
He is there.
These were the very words he had traveled across the ocean to hear. “How can you be sure?” he asked the Czech. “There must have been thousands of faces there. And he must look different now. Everything has changed.” Recollection was one thing, but Strauss needed confirmation. Something firm.

Vrba shrugged. “He was some kind of professor, is it not right? At least that was what people called him.”

“Yes.” Strauss nodded, his blood galloping now. “He was.”

“And besides, there is always LR seven…”

“
LR seven…?
” Strauss looked back in confusion. He jotted the number down on a pad. “What is that?”

“Lower right molar. I studied dentistry back home. They brought him to me once. For an abscess.” His impish mouth curved into a smile. “In the camp, I never looked at faces too closely. But I never forget a tooth.”

 

EIGHT

That night, Strauss sat at the bar at the Hotel Sao Mamede, on a dark side street, a world away from the noise and festive life of the casino. Even farther from the Pallácio Estoril Hotel and its bustling, wood-paneled bar where German and British spies mingled over cognac and where everyone who stepped in was sure to end up on someone's list.

There was only one other couple, drinking Aperol and nuzzling in a quiet corner.

Here no one would notice him. No desk clerk would look through his messages. Strauss read over the cable he had just sent back to Washington, D.C.

It was to a telex number established solely to get his message into Colonel Donovan's hands unobserved. Mostly, it described the mundane details of his trip. Clients seen, orders pending. An application to the Department of Minerals. All fake, of course. Made up.

It was only the message's last line that carried any meaning.

“You're not going to help us, are you?” Alexander Katzner appealed to him after Vrba and Wetzler's admission, the real purpose of Strauss's visit now made clear.

No. I cannot.

Strauss had studied Torah until his teens. His father's family still had relatives in Europe. He thought of the numbers he'd seen etched into Wetzler's wrist. If they would send in planes to bomb the fucking sites, he would man the first plane himself.

The barman came up to him.

“Scotch,” Strauss ordered. “Whatever's best.” He wasn't normally a drinker, but tonight, thinking of what Donovan's reaction would be, a drink seemed the right thing.

Hundreds of innocent people die every day
, Wetzler said to him.
What has this man done that he deserves your attention above all others?

“How do you not feel it yourself?” one of the war refugee officials looked in Strauss's eyes. “As a Jew?”

Yes, he felt it.
How it ached him that he could not answer.

It just wasn't why he was here.

The barman brought his scotch. Strauss downed it in a gulp. He felt his heart light up. He smiled, imagining his boss's response, three thousand miles away, when he received the news.

He ordered one more.

An abscess …
Strauss had to laugh and shook his head. At least now they knew where he was. In a place more hell than living. Now all they had to do was get him out.

Fishing looks promising here,
he had ended the cable.
Get your pole ready. Catfish is in the pond.

 

NINE

EARLY MAY, TWO WEEKS LATER
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THAT SAME MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH FDR, STIMSON,
MORGENTHAU, AND DONOVAN

Roosevelt stared at Strauss, who set his papers on the table. “We're talking about this man that's in Auschwitz, Captain … You said there was another way?”

“Yes.” Strauss glanced at his boss, Donovan. The OSS chief nodded for him to go on. “If we can't buy him out, or can no longer barter for him,” the captain cleared his throat, “then I suggest we simply take him.”

At first no one said a thing.

“Take him…?”
Treasury Secretary Morgenthau looked at him as if he hadn't heard correctly. “You mean just go in there? Into a death camp guarded by a thousand Germans. In the middle of occupied Poland?”

Strauss felt the dubious reaction. This was absolutely the biggest stage he had ever played on.
And maybe the last,
the thought occurred to him. He looked back at the treasury secretary, one of the president's closest confidants, a man he knew he would need to convince, and nodded firmly. “Yes, that's what I'm suggesting, sir.”

Strauss turned toward Henry Stimson as the air in the room grew thick with skepticism. “You say you need this man, don't you, Mr. Secretary?”

FDR's secretary of war nodded grudgingly. “He was a professor. In Lvov. Electromagnetic physics. He's one of only two people in the world who has this precise expertise. Without him,” he turned to the president, “I'm afraid our people out West feel we would fall further behind.”

It was the first time Strauss had heard that phrase, “out West,” but it was clear it was something big. Word had filtered out within the intelligence network that they were close to delivering a weapon of decisive magnitude.

“You say he's one of two…?” Roosevelt kept his gaze on Stimson.

“Yes. But according to General Groves,” the OSS chief cut in, “the only one
not
currently working for the Germans in
their
own uranium experiments,” Donovan clarified.

“I see.” Secret scientific experiments on nuclear fission to produce a chain reaction capable of creating a weapon a thousand times more powerful than the world had ever seen were racing forward on both sides of the Atlantic, in the United States, at Los Alamos, New Mexico—“out West”—headed up by physicist Robert Oppenheimer and his military overseer, General Leslie Groves. In this room, only Roosevelt and his secretary of war knew the real stakes of this race and that the outcome of the war would likely go to the winner.