The Swiss Courier: A Novel (6 page)

“Certainly, sir. Now, as I was saying . . .”

Kassler gazed out the narrow window of his office, watching the passing of automobiles, the movement of people, the gentlest swaying of the trees lining the boulevard. The summer sun slanted rays of light through the window, making a rectangular pattern on the floor.

Yet even the dazzling summer afternoon couldn’t brighten his dark thoughts. Deep in his gut something told him that traitors threatened the reign of the thousand-year Reich. Traitors in his power to stop . . . if only he’d get the break he needed.

He stood, paced to the window, and watched a beautiful example of an Aryan woman cross the street below. But even she did not hold his interest. He returned to his chair and flipped open the file he now knew by heart.

Though Kassler’s informants at the University of Heidelberg relayed snatches of information they’d tracked down about the work being done on the wonder weapon, it wasn’t much help. The rudimentary descriptions of their quantum equations dulled his brain. Still, Kassler wasn’t ready to give up.

Kassler’s phone rang, and he answered, tapping his fingers on the file.

Becker cleared his throat. “A young woman identifying herself as Fräulein Huber from the Recorder’s Office is on the line.”

“Put her on.” He leaned back in his chair and let out a slow breath.

Following a click on the phone line, Kassler spoke with aloofness. “
Ja
, Fräulein Huber. Were you able to find more information?”

“I’m afraid our office doesn’t hold the
Juden
files, Major Kassler. Locally, that comes under the Schutzstaffel. I made a call, but they wouldn’t release the information.” She let out a sigh. “I’m sorry I could not be of more help. Would you like the phone number?”

“Of course.” Kassler reached for a pencil.

Within minutes, Kassler had the Spandau SS office on the line.

“I was expecting your call,” a corporal said. “We have our procedures that we must follow before giving out this level of information—”

“Understood.” Kassler leaned forward in his chair. He could tell from the level of formality in the corporal’s voice that he’d indeed found something of interest.

“Very good. Abraham and Hena Cohn were married May 18, 1917, at the Temple Rykerstrasse in Spandau.”

“Did they have any children?”

“Only one. A son Joseph was circumcised on his eighth day by a
mohel
named Rabbi Horowitz.”

So Joseph Engel was a vermin after all.

Kassler willed himself to remain calm. “Very good. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“No, sir. I could investigate the disposition of this Cohn clan. If they were shipped to the camps, we would have a record.”

“That won’t be necessary, Corporal. I know their whereabouts, thank you.”

Kassler hung up the phone and leaned back in his desk chair, looking first at the portrait of the Führer and then the Reichsführer. As much as his enthusiasm propelled him to call for a crack SS unit and truck, he hesitated. Joseph Engel had no suspicion his ruse was up.

Time was on Kassler’s side.

Gabi refused to rub the lump on the back of her head despite the low-level throbbing. Refused to roll up the white sleeves of her blouse in spite of the sun’s rays falling on her shoulders, lest the curious gazes of her co-workers look too closely. The woman who’d dared to break into a safe, to put up a fight against a man twice her size, seemed like someone in a dream. Were it not for the bruised evidence from the man’s hands, Gabi would think the spy in the night was someone other than herself. Instead, she continued with the job she was hired to do, working with the intensity of one whose employers required nothing more than her daytime hours.

With ramrod posture, Gabi consulted her dog-eared copy of
Langenscheidt’s German-English
dictionary and thumbed through the alphabet. Ninety percent of the time, translating the intercepts was fairly mundane and predictable: battalion strength, petrol supplies, troop movements, and battlefield reports. But this communiqué from an informant in Heidelberg contained a German word that she wasn’t familiar with—
Strahlung
.

It took her ten seconds to locate the noun in her Wörterbuch. The definition read:
Strahlung:
n. 1. radiation. 2. rays.

“Radiation” was a word she wasn’t familiar with. “Rays,” of course, were what the sun emitted. She wasn’t quite sure which word usage was correct. It would help if she could read the entire message to gain context. But on this occasion, the message was judged too sensitive to put in the hands of just one translator, and Gabi had been given random paragraphs. She looked around the room, wondering who else was working on the Heidelberg communiqué.

Gabi returned to her notepad and fiddled with the syntax of a long phrase preceding
Strahlung
. She hesitated typing the words, knowing how much could be riding on her translation of this sentence.

She remained lost in thought when her supervisor, Frau Schaffner, dropped by her desk. Since intrusions were rare in her section, several typists in the room stopped clacking their keys as they glanced her way.

“Herr Baumann asked if he could see you for a moment,” Frau Schaffner whispered. “And don’t forget to lock up your work.”

“Of course, Frau Schaffner. I’ll be right there.”

Gabi pulled out the center desk tray and inserted the teletype message into the drawer, then locked it. She reached into her purse for her rosewood hairbrush, then quickly stroked it through her blonde hair before striding down the hall to Dieter Baumann’s corner office. Through the plate glass window separating Dieter’s office and the typing pool, she could see him working behind his desk. She even caught a glimpse of the Rhine River beyond Dieter’s hunched shoulders.

She’d been in his office enough times to appreciate its view overlooking the Rhine and Basel’s north bank, but she had to admit she appreciated the man behind the desk even more.

If it hadn’t been for Dieter saving her . . . a chill traveled down her shoulders at the thought. She owed her life to him.

Dieter stood to greet Gabi, casting a handsome smile. “Please take a seat, Fräulein Mueller. How are you feeling?”

Gabi instinctively rubbed her left shoulder, still tender. “Sore, but I’ll be fine,” she said in an upbeat tone, hoping Dieter focused on her smile rather than any nonverbal cues revealing that she was still shook up. Instead, she hoped to project an eagerness for a second mission even as she battled apprehension.

“I’m concerned about your welfare. You got roughed up a bit—”

“Nothing a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix. Really, I’m fine.”

Gabi settled into a wooden chair, clasping her hands on her lap, and ignored the stares of the women in the typing pool who worked just on the other side of the partition window.

Instead, she focused on the view outside. From her vantage point, she could see that the Mittlere Brücke—one of Basel’s three bridges that spanned the Rhine—was sparsely populated with foot traffic. Morning light reflected off the puddles from last night’s rain and the sparkling reflections of booted footsteps disrupting it.

“Well, looks like we’ll have a nice summer day outside,” Dieter remarked, as if he was reading her thoughts. “Folks are getting a head start on our National Independence Day. You have plans for the First of August?”

“I’m taking the train tomorrow to the mountains to see my brothers. Andreas and Willy are guarding the American pilots interned in Davos. They complain there isn’t much to do—just sitting around and learning American slang—so I thought I would surprise them.”

“Good for you. I’m sure your brothers will enjoy a visit from their beautiful sister.” Dieter’s crisp blue eyes held her gaze.

She looked into her lap, not sure if she heard right. Was he calling her beautiful?

“Actually, they’re mostly looking forward to seeing what goodies I bring from home. My mother’s chocolate torte is the best.”

“I’m sure you’re wonderful around the kitchen as well. A lady of many talents.” Baumann was clearly flirting.

Gabi tried not to imagine what it would be like to date someone such as him. Even though she judged him to be in his late twenties, just a few years older than she, he seemed so sophisticated, so . . . Gabi pursed her lips, refusing to let her mind go there.
Time to cut to the chase.

“This is all very flattering, Herr Baumann, but I’m sure you didn’t call me into your office to discuss my baking abilities.”

“You’re correct—Gabi. May I use your given name?”

“That would be fine, but I’m more comfortable with calling you Herr Baumann.”

“Very well.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I called you in today to relay a message from Mr. Dulles, who is back in Bern. He told me to tell you ‘Good job.’” Dieter used the English expression. “It was amazing the way you cracked open that safe. And the information you found is one more piece of the puzzle in our struggle against our common enemies. Mr. Dulles said you can expect to be called upon again.”

Gabi felt her lips form a slight smile. She looked away, her heartbeat quickening from a mix of excitement and anxiousness. Not that the translation work wasn’t interesting, but undercover work . . . well, she could really make a difference.

An awkward silence filled the air.

“Fräulein Mueller—Gabi—I was wondering if we could discuss your new role in a more informal setting, one without prying eyes.” Dieter tilted his head toward the translation pool. Gabi glanced at a dozen women, each with their heads down, clacking away on their typewriters. One or two glanced Gabi’s way, then quickly resumed her typing chores.

“Yes, I suppose . . .”

“Perhaps after work we could have a coffee. I promise not to take too much of your time.”

Gabi nibbled on her lower lip and felt a slight tightening in her shoulders. His request seemed out of the ordinary, but then again, undercover work demanded such peculiar encounters, right? Perhaps this was one of those odd rendezvous.

A thought stirred. She let out a sigh as Eric’s face filled her thoughts. “I just remembered. I’m meeting someone after work.”

Baumann arched an eyebrow.

“He’s just a friend. A good friend, I can assure you. He attends the church my father pastors.”

“Oh, I see. I suppose we’ll have to meet another time.” Dieter’s voice hinted of disappointment. As if turning a page, he continued, “Well, this can wait. Shall we meet after the First of August celebration?”

Gabi sensed there was no way she could say no. “That will be fine.” She smiled. “In fact, I look forward to it, Herr Baumann.”

Bruno Kassler hated long lunch meetings, especially with obliging officials from the Heidelberg Gemeinde eager to stay in the Gestapo’s good graces.
City Hall bootlickers, every
last one of them.
He entered his office with a stomach leaden from too much Ruladen and Spätzle and set his gabardine hat with the National Socialist insignia on a wooden clothes tree. Before tackling a slug of new paperwork, he straightened the SS bolts on the lapels of his black dress uniform, knowing that with one glance of the Knights Cross with an Oak Leaf cluster on his left breast, any good German would recognize the high status of his position.

In just three years, steady promotions moved him from a lowly commander in Section A, investigating sabotage and assassination attempts, all the way to SS Brigadeführer, the most important—and fear-inspiring—post in the region. No wonder local politicos wanted to have lunch with him.

Although he was only twenty-eight years of age, men and women far older treated him with the respect his rank deserved. And for enemies of the Reich, a Luger held pointblank between insouciant eyes had a way of turning a smirk into a plea for mercy. And what of pulling the trigger? He had done it so many times he’d lost count.

The discovery—
his
discovery—of a Jew working on sensitive military research in his hometown portended all sorts of opportunities. How best to turn this to his maximum advantage?

He’d rounded up the last of the Jews in the Heidelberg region more than a year ago. Now, at least, he had something to focus his attention on. The cowardly attempt on the Führer’s life netted a couple dozen arrests in his jurisdiction, but Kassler knew those troublemakers had no connection to Stauffenberg’s plotters. They’d pleaded innocence in a rain of tears, right up to the moment ten-gauge piano wire was cinched around their cowardly throats at the courtyard gallows.

Now, a
grosser Fisch
was swimming in his pond. How best to reel him in? What made the most sense for his future with party leaders?

Kassler picked up the thin file marked
Engel, Joseph.
Nothing since Engel’s adoption indicated he was even remotely connected with the loathsome Jewish race. No records of him belonging to a synagogue or joining a Zionist organization. His academic career had been exemplary. Single, with few close friends.

He’s in love with equations.
Kassler snorted. Engel, a physics wizard, exempt from being handed a rifle and told to go fight the Russians.

Kassler considered what a contact in Berlin had told him yesterday: Heisenberg’s weapons project was cloaked in secrecy because the scientists were developing a bomb that could level a city the size of London.