The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02]

by Marshall Browne

  Schmidt, following, gave a pronounced nod indicating that he did.

  Funk plumped down on a sofa and peered at the auditor.

  ‘Karl! You haven’t taken his overcoat. Or his hat. What is wrong with you?’

  ‘Is he staying?’

  ‘Of course he’s staying, you fool!’

  The servant grimaced. ‘You’re so changeable.’

  ‘God save us.’ In a long-suffering gesture the president, this time, knocked his knuckles against his forehead. The servant took Schmidt’s overcoat and hat and flounced from the room. ’Come back and pour the champagne!’ Funk shouted after him.

  They sat side by side on the sofa. For a small, drunk man the president had an excellent appetite for caviar, and a great thirst for champagne. His tongue darted around his lips licking in every morsel, every drop. In a bizarre flash of recall, Schmidt visualised Freda Brandt’s greedy tongue.

  Schmidt ate a portion, and sipped the wine which had 1924 on the label. He’d had only a light breakfast and a sandwich for lunch, but these days he was rarely hungry. Nerves and tension had destroyed his appetite.

  The servant was going to be a problem. He’d taken up a position near the ice bucket as if on guard, eyes flicking between his master and the auditor. Funk turned on the man, and nearly fell sideways across the sofa. ‘Jesus Christ! Go away and do something.’

  To welcome his chief auditor, the president had removed his necktie and put on a plum-coloured smoking jacket, unbuttoned, over his striped office trousers. Schmidt’s nerves flickered. The leather strop which held the key ring wasn’t attached to the button on the waistband of his trousers.

  Funk patted his rotund waistline. ‘As you’ve seen, that fellow Heydrich keeps writing to me, demanding more funds for those camps he wants to build. That kind thinks money grows on trees.’ He shook his head. ‘The Czech gold arrives tomorrow, Fräulein Brandt informs me. She thinks she’s on the trail of more.’ He sighed. ‘Those Czech bankers were a crooked bunch.’ He dribbled champagne on his shirt. ‘Efficient, but a terrible woman, Schmidt.’ He giggled. ‘Should send her away to produce little soldiers for the Fuehrer. Put her out to stud, as the racing fellows say . . .There’re such places, you know.’

  Schmidt didn’t, and looked suitably impressed. His knee was being patted, no, kneaded.

  ‘I’ll be quite frank, dear Schmidt. Are you the man or the woman?’

  Schmidt nearly choked on his wine. The president leaned forward, gazing raptly, if blurrily, into his face, breathing out a sweet odour.

  This had been in the air — but so direct! Von Streck’s work, his ruthless, self-centred work. It had to be. Explicit information on the auditor’s sexuality, albeit false, had been fed into the file sent confidentially to Funk. That had to be the way of it; otherwise, this pervert wouldn’t be so certain of his ground.

  ‘Well, Schmidt?’

  Schmidt swallowed and cleared his throat. ’It depends on the occasion, Herr President.’

  Funk smacked the auditor’s knee and laughed uproariously. He emptied his glass at a gulp, spluttering, ‘You’re a handsome fellow, you know.’

  The servant was back, his expression dark, pouring, making sure his master’s glass was brim-full; making sure he was getting even drunker, Schmidt realised. Jealousy, as strong as the president’s champagne breath, exuded from the fellow. Schmidt put a hand over his glass and the man darted him an angry look.

  Schmidt’s face was polite and attentive. If Funk was intent on sexual activity, the dwarfish man should stop drinking. But maybe tonight was merely an opening gambit, with serious things to follow at a later date. The man’s head slumped back against the cushions, and the eyelids drooped until only slivers of his tiny black eyes were visible.

  Where were the keys? In his bedroom? The president’s head collapsed onto his chest.

  The telephone rang in a room across the hall. The servant, with an impatient look, hurried out.

  Schmidt didn’t hesitate. He rose from the sofa and crept out into the hall. He could hear Karl talking in the adjacent room. Sure-footed, the auditor half-ran up the thick-carpeted staircase to the first floor. All doors were open, all lights were on. He stopped in a doorway. The study. Very neat. Unused. Work done elsewhere. His eye swept every table and ledge. Not a thing on the desk.

  He moved on. A guest bedroom. A towel and soap laid out on the bed. He kept going. Ah! The dressing room. He stepped through the doorway, the president’s office coat hung on a stand, a leather banknote case, fountain pens and other small personal items were scattered on top of a chest of drawers. No keys. Schmidt moved to the suspended coat. The key ring was bulky and heavy. He dived his hands into each side pocket. Empty.

  The room led to a bedroom, swiftly he entered this other inner sanctum. From below, Karl’s angry voice carried up, ‘Mein herr!

  The bedroom was large. The bed huge. The bunch of keys was five paces away on the bedside table; the big one to the safe splayed out from the rest as if to claim his attention.

  ‘Mein herr! Where are you?’

  Closer. Schmidt rushed across the room, slipping the box from his breast pocket as he went. He reached the table, laid the box flat, removed its lid.

  ‘Schmidt, where’ve you got to?’ Now the president’s peeved voice. But the servant was the one coming. Schmidt sensed rather than heard his approach along the passage. Accustomed to handling such keys, Schmidt lifted the bunch, keeping the large one clear, and pressed it firmly into the yielding substance. One second. Karl was in the dressing room, Schmidt heard his quick footfalls. He extracted the big key, wiping it between thumb and forefinger, noiselessly replaced the bunch on the table. He snapped the lid on the box, slipped it into his pocket, whirled and froze, gazing at a print on the wall.

  The whipcord-thin man pulled up short in the door. ‘Mein herr?’The voice was loaded with suspicion.

  Schmidt turned his head, straining silently to control his breathing. The man’s face was red with anger. The auditor said, ‘I was looking for the lavatory. I have not found it. I was distracted by these wonderful pictures.’ He waved a hand at the wall of pornographic art.

  The ink drawing he stood before showed a fat and elderly man, doubled over, buttocks held high, about to be penetrated by a bunchy-biceped youth with a giant phallus. Gleeful excitement seethed on both their faces.

  ‘At the end of the corridor,’ Karl spat out. He was pushed aside and Funk weaved into the room. The president squinted at the auditor. ‘So! You’ve found my secret gallery.’ His mouth fell open, as though the sight of the salacious drawings had shot an electric shock into his body. Schmidt’s heart was pounding. Perspiration had sprung out on his body.

  ‘My dear fellow . . . found your way to the heart of things. How delightful!’ Funk’s head seemed loose on his torso; no longer in its habitual tilt. He giggled. ‘No beating about the bush. Straight to the boudoir!’ He staggered over to the bed, then peered at his servant. ’Go away, Karl. Go to bed.’ The servant didn’t move. ‘D’you hear me, you insubordinate whelp?’

  With a pugnacious snort, the servant turned and went out through the dressing room. A vague smile lit up Funk’s face. ‘D’you like the bed? I imagine that Jew fucking his wife in it. I changed the mattress.’ He subsided on it.

  Schmidt sat down in an armchair. His legs were trembling. He could feel the shape of the camera in his pocket, the long box against his beating heart.

  The president lifted his head. ‘We’ve got them out of the economy, Schmidt . . . Now we’ve got to get them out of Germany.’ With that his head fell back and he began to snore.

  Karl was back at the first sound. ‘Are you leaving, mein herr? He will not wake.’ He stared at Schmidt with hatred.

  Schmidt nodded. ‘Yes, I’m leaving.’

  Moments later, Schmidt stepped out into the night, and expelled his fear and tension in a long breath. It had stopped snowing. He felt as if he had emerged from a dark and foul cave. The icy air was lik
e a friend’s touch. But he knew this wouldn’t be the last time he was summoned here. His life was spiralling down into darker and darker depths. But, tonight, he had what he’d come for.

  ~ * ~

  Twenty kilometres from where Schmidt contemplated his dismal night, in the café behind the Wehrmacht Headquarters, Captain von Beckendorf and Major Hoffmann were seated at the table where they’d met the evening Eugene had returned from the sanatorium. They’d spent most of the day together. So far as his duties were concerned the major was a free agent who put in irregular hours that fitted the nature of the work.

  At 10.15 am they’d met in a remote part of the misty Tiergarten. Hoffmann had thought it best to break the news of Elisabeth’s arrest to Eugene in a place where he would have some control over his friend’s reaction. Eugene gave a shudder that shook his body, however he kept silent while Hoffmann told him all he’d found out, and done. Hoffmann had contacts close to the SS, who were exploring whether intercession on the teacher’s behalf might be possible. But with Himmler’s personal interest in the case . . . He’d been frank with Eugene.

  ‘It was that Swiss doctor,’ was all that Eugene said. But the tone drew a sharp look from his friend.

  Now, the vivacity of the café walling them into a private enclave, Hoffmann leaned his pugilistic-damaged face close. ’You cannot, must not, think of Elisabeth now. The time for that will come later. Anna is still free. She must have our full attention.’ Having said this, in an urgent but low voice, he sat back. The redheaded man felt pity and dread for his friend. Eugene would never return to duty. His days were strictly numbered.

  Hoffmann checked the room. No-one was paying them attention. He edged forward again. ‘This is what I propose.’

  He told Eugene of two Abwehr agents who were to enter Belgium in a few days. A man and a woman. ‘Reliable people. With us. I can send three. Anna speaks French. I can arrange the necessary papers. Presumably she has her passport . . .’

  He waited, watching Eugene’s gaunt face, downcast to the table. From the bulge in his suit coat he saw his friend now carried his Luger.

  Eugene looked up at last. ‘No, my dear friend. It would endanger too many. Above all, the work.’

  Hoffmann forced control on himself, whispered, ‘For God’s sake, what are we going to do then?’

  ‘We can get her away to the country. To a friend’s place.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work. Not for long. Look what happened to the pastor. Food and other registrations are coming, and the network of snoopers is expanding daily.’

  They were silent. In one stark instant, their deep involvement in the failed plot to kill the Fuehrer last September overshadowed their thoughts. It was amazing the Gestapo hadn’t got a grip on it; doubtless something was suspected, but nothing had been pinpointed. They’d be sniffing around and watching, though, and Hoffmann had killed one such.

  A man in a dark suit sitting across the room stood up, and went to a telephone booth in the corner. He didn’t look at the two Abwehr men as he passed by.

  ‘Let’s go,’ the major said. ‘We can talk further as we walk.’ They put on their overcoats and hats and left the café.

  The man in the café going to telephone had made Hoffmann uneasy. To his experienced eye he looked like an agent. They walked up Wilhelmstrasse into a side-street that cut through to Pariser Platz. The air was crisp after the snowfall, and there was no wind. Turning to his friend, Hoffmann said, ‘We can’t leave her with the auditor for long.’ Despite Eugene’s intuition about the fellow, he was amazed that they were trusting this stranger, a Nazi Party member. Only Eugene’s fine record in selecting agents, and Anna’s attitude, had stopped him from more forcible arguments against it. And now he knew more about Schmidt.

  Eugene was silent.

  ‘I’ve found out something about him.’

  Eugene turned his head to his friend.

  ‘He’s connected to Manfred von Streck.’

  ‘Von Streck!’ Eugene sounded incredulous.

  Hoffmann gave a terse nod. ‘I’ve heard von Streck’s attached to the Interior Ministry. However, I’ve seen him with Canaris, and he’s known to Oster. So what’s his game?’

  They walked on, each surmising why the head and deputy head of the Abwehr would be in contact with such a man.

  Eugene stopped dead, and put a restraining hand on Hoffmann’s arm. ‘If Schmidt is connected to that mystery fellow, what does it mean? Von Streck’s a ruthless Nazi. Yet he appears intimate with our superiors, who we know are plotting against the Fuehrer. Is there something going on we don’t know about?’

  ‘Keep moving,’ Hoffmann said warningly. ‘That could well be the case. There’s plenty Oster keeps to himself.’ They both knew the anti-Nazi colonel lived on a knife-edge.

  ‘Only a fool would trust von Streck,’ Eugene muttered. ’Is he a Nazi mole, worming his way into the Abwehr?’

  ‘Oster is smarter than that.’

  Blood had flecked Eugene’s lips. He fumbled for a handkerchief. ‘Perhaps that’s exactly how von Streck presents himself to Himmler — to cover himself.’ He began to cough.

  Hoffmann looked at his friend with deep concern. Eugene was exhausted, fighting to keep going. ‘You’ll come home with me tonight. It’s deathly for you walking around like this.’

  ‘Anna . . . trusts . . . Schmidt,’ Eugene said between the bursts of coughing. Hoffmann nodded. Anna’s face was in his mind’s eye. He put his arm around his friend’s shoulders. Regaining his breath, Eugene said bitterly, ‘Now the Gestapo are looking into me. Where is there room to move?’

  ‘We must find it,’ the major replied grimly. He glanced back. His eye had been caught by a movement. He stared hard. A shadowy figure had stepped back into an unlit doorway.

  ‘We’re being followed,’ he muttered. ‘The fellow at the café, I think. Gestapo or SD. He might’ve recognised you. They’ll have your photograph.’

  They walked on. Hoffmann was thinking hard. ‘Whom had the man phoned?’They’d run a risk in going to the café. Everywhere was risky.

  They turned a corner and the major pulled Eugene into a doorway next to area steps. Eugene reached in his pocket. ‘No,’ Hoffmann said. ‘Quiet.’

  Moments later rubber-soled shoes sucked at the snow-wet pavement. The man came cautiously around the corner and stared ahead. Then his eyes flicked to the left and saw the two figures in the recess. Hoffmann stepped out. ‘What can we do for you, mein herr?’

  The man’s hand shot to his overcoat pocket. The major’s fist drove forward and struck the other’s forehead with as shuddering a blow as he’d ever thrown in the ring. The man went down as if pole-axed and his skull cracked against the pavement like a gunshot. Hoffmann was breathing hard. Eugene hadn’t moved, except the Luger was now in his hand.

  Hoffmann went forward and peered at the fallen agent’s face. It was the man from the café. He whispered. ’Dead, I think. But this will make sure.’ Eugene watched the street while the major did something with the man’s head. The next moment, going backwards, he hauled the corpse down the steps to the basement level. He ran back up and tossed a hat down the steps. He pivoted, scrutinising the vicinity. Not a soul in sight.

  They hurried away.

  Hoffmann had decided what he would do. He glanced at his watch: 10.25 pm. It might buy his friend a few days. If the dead agent had identified and reported sighting Eugene, the future was grim. But perhaps he’d reported only that he had two suspicious-looking people under surveillance. Time would tell. He cared nothing for the man’s death, only for the consequences to his work and his friends.

  Now he would go to dear Anna - and this Schmidt. Pray to God they were still in the clear.

  ~ * ~

  28

  S

  CHMIDT WALKED with the other disembarking passengers across the platz. Fifty metres from his apartment he stopped and stared toward the third floor. Fully dark. Unlike the flats below and above, where electric light showed. He peered a
t his watch: 10.31 pm. Relentlessly, the tension of the past hours had accumulated in his system. His nerves felt as tight as guitar strings; in his head it seemed that a sinister tune was being plucked from them. The Reichsbank chief, sprawled drunkenly on the bed, was an image in his head at one with the bedroom’s pornographic drawings.

  Schmidt was in thrall to images and impressions — knew that it assisted holding back his fear and tension. Flexing his shoulders in the thick overcoat, he went on. Now he had this litany of disaster to communicate to the Reichsbank secretary. If she was still there. Nothing could be counted on.

  Two minutes later he climbed the stairs, and quietly inserted his key in the lock.