by Allen Steele
Franc stopped, looked both ways in confusion. He had studied this area thoroughly, committing historical street maps to memory, yet all of a sudden he found himself disoriented. Memorizing map coordinates was one thing; being in the actual location was another.
“Do you remember which way we turn?” he asked.
Lea raised an eyebrow. “I thought you knew.”
“I thought I did, but . . .” Everything looks different on a map, he started to add, but that would only get her started. Right now, he didn’t need to have her needling him. On impulse, he turned to the right, strode down the sidewalk toward the intersection. He was positive that they were only two or three blocks from the Frankfurter Hof, and that the Kaiserstrasse would take them there . . . but two or three blocks in which direction?
He stopped again at the corner, turned around, looked at the statue. “Goethe,” he murmured as Lea joined him, nodding toward the twice-life-size figure of the German philosopher. “I didn’t read anything about passing this landmark, so maybe we’re . . .”
“Shh!” she suddenly whispered. “Walk the other way, John.”
John? He looked around, saw her beginning to walk away. “Lea, what . . . ?”
“Halten!” a voice shouted. “Wohin gehen sie?”
Franc froze. A few steps ahead, Lea did the same. Reluctantly, he slowly turned to face the person she had spotted before Franc had become aware of his presence.
The stocky figure approaching them wore a brown uniform shirt with a red swastika armband, dark brown jodhpurs tucked into knee-high leather jackboots; suspended from his belt was a ceremonial dagger. The short bill of his uniform cap, emblazoned with the Nazi eagle, shadowed a broad, beefy face. Most menacing of all, in his right hand he held a long, black-painted wooden baton, its handle wrapped with strips of leather. The baton’s surface was faintly scarred, as if it had recently seen heavy use.
One of the Sturmabteilung, the so-called brown shirts with whom the Nazi Party had effectively taken control over all of Germany. Street brawlers and thugs from the beer gardens where they had been recruited, they roamed the streets at will, a paramilitary force whose authority superseded that of the local Polizei. This one looked as if he had just come from a nearby tavern; his red tie was loosened and slightly askew, his shirttails wadded around his belt.
“Wohin gehen sie?” he repeated. As he came closer, Franc could smell the schnapps on his breath. He thrust out his hand. “Wo sind sie Urkunde?” he demanded, looking past Franc at Lea as he impatiently snapped his fingers at her. “Geben sie mir Urkunde! Schnell!”
The subcutaneous translator beneath Franc’s left ear interpreted his demands—Where are you going? Where are your documents? Give them to me, quickly!—but there was no point in pretending to be a German native. “Wie bitte,” he said, a little more hesitantly than necessary, pretending not to speak the language as well as he actually did. “Ich sprech kaum Deutsch . . . sphrechen sie Englisch?”
The brown shirt’s eyebrows raised a little. “Amerikaner?” he asked, and smirked with contempt when Franc nodded. “Amerikan Juden?”
“Nein, mein Herr,” Lea said stiffly, then she resorted to English. “We’re not Jews. We’re tourists. We’ve just come from the opera.”
“Ja. Der Oper, ja.” The Nazi regarded them stoically for a few moments, his hand still thrust forward. “I speak some English,” he said at last, slowly and carefully. “Show me your papers, please.”
Franc dug into the pocket of his covercoat, pulled out his American passport and German visa. Lea did the same, but the brown shirt ignored her while he opened Franc’s passport and unfolded his visa. He stared at the passport photo, then held it up against Franc’s face. Franc waited patiently. Both were immaculate forgeries, courtesy of the Artifacts Division; they could easily pass close inspection by German customs officials and Schutzstaffel, let alone the bleary-eyed scrutiny of a drunk barbarian. Yet this oaf was clearly looking for trouble, and Franc was aware that the S.A needed no reason to arrest or detain them; they were foreigners, and therefore deemed worthy of suspicion.
“Wo ist . . .” he started, then belched sourly and began again. “Where are you staying, Herr Pannes?”
“The Frankfurter Hof.” Franc shrugged sheepishly. “I’m afraid we got a little lost . . .”
“Lost?” The brown shirt looked up sharply. “Was be-deutet das?”
“We don’t know where we are,” Franc said. Yes, the Nazi spoke English, but not very much, nor very well. “Can you tell us how to get to the Frankfurter Hof?”
“Ah! Lost. Ja.” He closed John’s passport and visa, but didn’t return them immediately. “It is down the street. A short distance.” He nodded past them, in the direction they had been taking on Kaiserstrasse before he stopped them. “You should be more careful, Herr Pannes. Frankfurt is a large city. Easy to get lost.”
“I understand, yes. Thank you for your assistance.”
The brown shirt nodded, then almost reluctantly he handed back Franc’s papers. “You may go. Auf wiedersehen.”
“Danke schön. Auf wiedersehen.”
“Heil Hitler,” the brown shirt muttered, almost as an afterthought, as he turned around and began staggering back the way he came.
Lea slowly let out her breath. “He didn’t even bother to check my papers,” she murmured, tucking her visa and passport back in her coat. “Not much regard for women, I see.”
Franc shook his head. “He wasn’t interested in you. He only wanted to harass me. Maybe I reminded him of someone he dislikes.” He smiled at her. “Nice move, speaking to him in English. They’re still giving Americans a wide berth, I think.”
“Not for very much longer.”
They continued down Kaiserstrasse, leaving the Cityring behind as they entered a long, narrow stretch of closed storefronts. Here and there, they spotted Nazi posters plastered to walls: recruitment propaganda for Nazi Youth, slogans for Strength Through Joy, heroic pictures of Adolf Hitler gazing down upon happy, industrious German workers. They came upon a tailor shop whose windows had been painted with a Star of David and the word Juden. Lea paused to regard it disdainfully; she was about to say something when Franc spotted someone walking down the opposite side of the street. He prodded her elbow, and she wisely kept her mouth shut as they hurried away.
Two blocks later, the Kaiserstrasse ended in a large plaza, and there they found the Frankfurter Hof. The city’s largest grand hotel, it sprawled across a city block on one side of the Kaiserplatz, its name inscribed above the Romanesque-columned archway between the five-story wings surrounding a central courtyard. Crossing the plaza, Franc and Lea strode through the archway and entered the courtyard; glancing up, he noticed the four carved Titans between the balconies of the fourth-floor rooms, their backs bowed as they held up the roof.
The uniformed doorman bowed gracefully as they walked through the front entrance, then helped Lea remove her coat. Taking off his own overcoat, Franc took a moment to glance around. The lobby was warm after the unseasonable coolness of the night, and it looked much the same as it did from the historical photos he had studied: velvet-upholstered chairs and sofas, with a grand piano in one corner and framed prints of country scenes on the papered walls. If his research was correct, then the registration desk would be through that archway to the left, with the elevators located only a short way from . . .
“Pannes! Hey, John!”
The voice was English-accented, and it came from the direction of the bar at the far end of the lobby. Looking around, Franc spotted several men seated around a low table. One, a ruddy-faced man in his mid-sixties, had raised his arm to gesture to him. “Come over here, man, and have a drink with us.”
“Be right there,” he called back, then he glanced at Lea. She gave him a wary smile; apparently his disguise was working. “I think some of the chaps want to see me,” he said. “Be a good girl, will you, and get our key from the front desk?”
“I’d be delighted to,” s
he said formally. She understood the protocol; in this age, proper ladies were not invited to share a nightcap with the gentlemen. “I’ll be up in the room.”
“Thank you, dear. I’ll come up soon.” He gave her a good-night kiss, then he folded his coat over his arm and marched across the lobby and up a short flight of polished oak steps to the hotel bar.
The bar was small and dimly lit, serenely masculine in the old European style: glass-fronted bookcases along dark oak-paneled walls, blue leather-backed chairs surrounding low tables, a long bar in front of mirror-backed shelves holding rows of liquor bottles. This time of night, it was nearly empty, save for the handful of men seated around a table beneath a classical painting. The barkeep, a stoical young man wearing a service tuxedo, studied Franc as he washed glasses in the sink behind the counter.
“John. Come over and sit down.” The oldest gentleman at the table, an Englishman about the same age as John Pannes, motioned to a vacant chair. “How was the opera?”
“It was . . . very German,” Franc said drily as he took a seat, and the other men chuckled knowingly. “It’s really much more Emma’s sort of thing. I only went along because she insisted.”
The other man smiled as he reached for a pack of Dun-hills next to his drink. Franc recognized him immediately: George Grant, an assistant manager for the London office of the Hamburg American Line. Since John Pannes worked for the same company, they knew each other as business associates. “I’ve never followed it myself,” he admitted as he shuffled a cigarette from the pack. “By the way, have you met these fellows? They’re sharing our flight with us tomorrow . . . well, most of them, at any rate.”
Two of the others introduced themselves with cordial handshakes. Franc pretended not to know them, although he was all too familiar with them. Edward Douglas, in his late thirties, was an advertising executive from New Jersey. Although it was now a secret, history would later record that, while in Germany doing marketing research on behalf of his company’s chief client, General Motors, Douglas had also been covertly gathering information for the U.S. Navy on German manufacturing capability. Yet the Gestapo had recently become aware of his espionage activities, and now he was fleeing Germany before he could be arrested as a spy. Dolan Curtis, on the other hand, was nothing more nor less than the president of a perfume-importing company in Chicago; like Pannes himself, he had been visiting Germany on business, and now was heading home to America.
The fourth man at the table, though, was an unfamiliar face: prematurely balding, with a trim mustache, his wire-rim glasses framed a pair of inquisitive eyes. As he bent across the table to pick up a briar pipe from the cut-glass ashtray, he offered his right hand to Franc. “Bill Shirer,” he said mildly. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Pannes.”
Franc was barely able to conceal his astonishment. Too late, Shirer noticed the look of recognition on his face. “Bill Shirer?” he said as they shook hands. “Not the columnist William Shirer . . . ?”
Douglas laughed out loud as Shirer smiled indifferently. “Bill, you’re becoming famous,” he said, giving the journalist a slap on the knee. “Now even John’s heard of you, and he hardly ever reads the papers.”
“I pick it up on occasion,” Franc said, recovering quickly. Yet in the years to come, William L. Shirer’s reputation would outgrow his present job as a European correspondent for the Universal Press Syndicate. As an eyewitness to the events leading to World War II, he would later write several books about the Nazi regime, including its definitive history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Indeed, Franc had studied that same book while preparing himself for this expedition. Shirer’s presence here, though, was a surprise. “I thought you were based in Berlin, Mr. Shirer.”
“Bill, please.” Shirer settled back in his chair as he lit a match and held it to the bowl of his pipe. “I still am, but I’ve just taken a new job. Radio correspondent for the Columbia Broadcasting System. I’m down here doing a little research for a story.”
“And here I thought you were going to take us up on our offer.” Grant gave Shirer a sly wink. “We can still get you a ticket, if you care to change your mind. The flight’s not even half-booked.”
Franc was about to inquire what they were talking about, but decided to remain quiet. If it involved Hamburg American Lines, then John Pannes would have probably been privy to it. Fortunately, Dolan Curtis raised the question. “George offered you a ticket on the Hindenburg?” he asked, and Shirer nodded as he sucked on his pipe. “Why didn’t you take him up on it?”
“Entschuldigen sie?” Douglas raised his hand, signaling the barkeep. “Konnen sie mir helfen, bitte?”
“I would have liked to,” Shirer said, as the barkeep walked over, carrying his service tray, “but I have to turn it down. My editors didn’t want me to leave Berlin just now.” He shrugged. “I can see their point. A couple years ago, the Hindenburg was major news, but now another flight to New York . . . well . . .”
“Old hat. I suppose you’re right.” Grant turned to the barkeep and pointed to the empty glasses on the table. “Another round for all of us, please.” Apparently the waiter understood English, for he nodded. Grant looked at Franc. “What will you have, John. Your usual?”
Franc had no idea what John Pannes usually drank. “Nothing for me, thank you,” he said, then he turned back to Shirer. “I’m sorry you’re not coming along,” he said, which was only half a lie; although he would have enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with this soon-to-be-legendary writer, history might have suffered a terrible loss if William Shirer had been aboard the Hindenburg. “So what story are you covering down here?”
Shirer pretended not to hear. Stoking his pipe, he glanced away, as if casually studying the books on the wall. No one else spoke, and for a few moments there was an uncomfortable silence at the table. The barkeep took his time gathering their glasses, then he returned to the bar and busied himself preparing their drinks. When he was gone, Shirer bent over the table. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. “The walls have ears, you know.”
“He means that you have to be careful these days.” Douglas cast a meaningful glance at the barkeep. “You never know who’s an S.D. informant. And our friend here has been keeping the bar open for us a little longer than usual.”
Franc nodded. The Sicherheitdienst, the internal security directorate allied with the Gestapo, had infiltrated every aspect of daily life in Nazi Germany during this time. At one point, they employed nearly a hundred thousand people to eavesdrop upon their fellow citizens and report any anti-National Socialist activities to the secret police. Nonetheless, Franc couldn’t help but wonder whether Shirer’s visit to Frankfurt had anything to do with his own research.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the Hindenburg, does it?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Shirer raised a curious eyebrow. “No. I’m just talking to some Catholic clergymen who are disturbed about recent events.” His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Why, is there something about the Hindenburg I should know?”
Franc wondered how Shirer would react if he told him, even in private, that the S.S. had heard rumors—and even a letter from an alleged psychic in Milwaukee, sent last month to the German embassy in Washington, D.C.—that a bomb was going to be placed aboard the airship. Yet there was no way he could let the journalist know this. History had to be allowed to take its course.
“No,” he said. “Just a thought.”
Shirer nodded, yet his piercing blue eyes remained locked on Franc through the pale smoke rising from his pipe. Somehow, in those intangible, almost telepathic ways a good journalist develops over years of experience, Shirer knew that John Pannes was lying. And Franc, playing the role of John Pannes, wondered if Shirer would recall this conversation four nights later, when he would be informed that the Hindenburg had mysteriously exploded while landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
But, of course, by then John and Emma Pannes would be dead. . . .
There was
a clink of glasses from behind them. The barkeep was returning to their table, his tray laden with schnapps, vodka, and bourbon. As he set down the drinks, Franc made a pretense of checking his watch. “Gentlemen, it’s getting a little late for me,” he said. “Emma’s probably wondering where I am by now.” He pushed back his chair, stood up. “If you’ll excuse me. . . .”
“By all means.”
“Of course.”
“See you tomorrow, John.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pannes.” William Shirer stood, offered his hand once more. “Next time you’re in the country, look me up.”
“I’d be delighted to, Bill,” Franc said, as they shook hands for the last time.
Monday, January 14, 1998: 6:02 P.M.
The parking lot outside the Metro station was well-lighted, yet not bright enough to put Murphy’s mind at ease. Long stretches of darkness lay between the evenly spaced lampposts, and the long ranks of snow-covered automobiles held many shadows.
He had walked about halfway down the center row, glancing over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being followed, before he realized that he couldn’t recall exactly where he had parked his car this morning. Somewhere toward the back of the lot; he had driven down the length of one row, then doubled back and driven all the way up another before he had found an empty space, which he vaguely remembered as being close to the fence. In his haste to catch the next train, though, he hadn’t taken note of the row number; all he had done was lock the door, shove the keys in his pocket, and dash to the platform.
Christ. For a guy with a Ph.D. in astrophysics, sometimes he could be the dumbest guy on the planet. For the first time in several hours, irritation replaced fear. The wind had picked up again, and now it blew glistening sheets of snow off the hoods of the cars parked around him. He pulled the hood of his parka up around his head as he marched through the icy fog, and wished again that he had held out for a NASA job in Alabama or Texas.
