The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02]

by Marshall Browne

  Draft audit reports arrived from the industrious Gott. Most of the day he spent checking them and making notations thereon.

  In tandem with the passing hours, the odours of coffee, soup and coffee sequentially permeated his room.

  He paused in his work, visualising the president at the ministry, finalising his blueprint. Would the misshapen Funk, diminutive in stature but huge in power, recall Schmidt’s appearance at his house last night? The scene in the bedroom? Or would his mind have wiped it out as a wet cloth cleans a slate? Schmidt guessed that many of his nights finished that way.

  The auditor suspended this thinking, locking eyes with the Fuehrer. At Bankhaus Wertheim, the ex-officio Nazi director, Dietrich, had had the Fuehrer’s photograph in his room; a larger one, artistically lit. Dietrich sprang out of his memory: in the doorway, the knowing grin on his face, striding to Schmidt’s desk, placing his haunch on its edge, pulling out his cigarettes.

  Schmidt shuddered. However, it was history. The fellow had been shot by his own SS in a weedy courtyard last November, and his big corpse now mouldered in an unmarked grave. Schmidt’s work. Nor did Rossbach any longer prowl the Reichsbank’s corridors, avid for the flesh of young secretaries, for Anna von Schnelling’s. Schmidt’s work.

  Even for the normally patient Schmidt, the day passed at a dead slow pace. Freda Brandt remained silent and out of sight. She’d be preparing for the arrival of the gold. All the same, what else was she up to? At 5.30 pm the building began to shut down. No more footsteps, inanimate sounds took over: strangled black-humoured chuckles from the heating pipes . . . He stood up, put on his overcoat, scarf and hat and transferred the buff envelope into the outside pocket of his overcoat.

  Schmidt left the Reichsbank. Jaegerstrasse was, as usual, choked with home or restaurant-going officials and office workers, a dim, hurrying throng swathed in thick clothing. Schmidt stepped into the stream. ‘Don’t look for Rubinstein,’ he told himself. He must not put attention on the Jew. The ex-judge would find him; probably would be watching for his exit from the bank. If he’d been able to come.

  Again it struck the chief auditor that all the government ministries and institutions regurgitated their toilers in a single paroxysm. Rubinstein knew about these timings; it was an element of his continuing survival.

  The temperature had fallen to freezing point, but this evening Schmidt was unaware of it. The streets had been cleared of snow, only a residue lay in pristine white ribbons on the ornate building facades. Muffled conversations but mainly muffled footsteps enclosed him as he walked. At a steady pace, he headed for Wilhelmstrasse, turning his head neither left nor right. The envelope was in his right hand, inside the overcoat pocket. Nerves gripped him. Would he come? Had he been taken? The light-spangled main thoroughfare was now visible through the bobbing figures. In that well-lit concourse it would be harder for Rubinstein —

  ‘Herr Schmidt! Don’t turn! I’ll pass on your right and slip in front of you. To my left hand. If you have it.’ The voice was incisive but audible only to him. A body bumped him. His hand was out with the small envelope. ‘You’re being followed.’ The voice was gone, the envelope snatched away. Among the moving bodies ahead, Schmidt could not detect the Jew.

  Schmidt walked into Wilhelmstrasse and its burgeoning nightlife. Being followed. He thought about that. In proceeding with the pick-up, the Jew had taken a big gamble.

  ~ * ~

  At 6.45 pm Schmidt had come here after a series of evasive actions. In his thorough character, the auditor was painstaking and adept; also creative. His past confrontations with Dietrich at Wertheims had developed this proficiency, not to mention von Streck’s schooling. This street had little traffic and few pedestrians. At twenty-metre intervals, the streetlamps cast pale yellow circles on the pavement . . .

  The door was in a high brick wall. Anonymous. Little used, it appeared. It was unlocked but he had to push hard to open it enough to squeeze through.

  A garden. Deep in snow. Dark, but illuminated faintly by electric light that flowed from a house where a party was going on; in three thin but high windows, uniformed and besuited men and gowned women created an animated triptych. Schmidt glanced around. Shadowy stone statues, snow-mantled, lurked within the walls. It resembled a small public garden.

  Schmidt sucked in his breath and smelled a cigar. One of the statues had come alive: a figure’d stepped out of a wall embrasure. Von Streck — judging from its grotesque width. It dipped into deeper shadow. The next instant the special plenipotentiary materialised at the auditor’s side.

  ‘Good evening, Schmidt. I’m sorry I can’t invite you to cocktails. Exceedingly boring anyway. Party hacks, none of the top people, and there’re no microphones out here.’

  Schmidt nodded warily in the darkness.

  ‘I presume you have it.’

  Schmidt drew out the thin box and handed it over.

  ‘Good. The key will be in your postbox tomorrow evening.’

  Von Streck remained immobile and now Schmidt absorbed the functionary’s anger.

  ‘Well, Schmidt, unlike the Gestapo I know where your Reichsbank colleague is. A dangerous development for the mission; for you.’

  Schmidt kept quiet. He understood that this man had many resources unknown to him.

  ‘You will separate yourself from her at the earliest opportunity.’ A muffled burst of laughter came from the lighted room. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Mein herr, I must assist her escape.’ Schmidt almost whispered the words. He was thinking hard. The functionary wouldn’t act while she was at his flat. But away from there? The blond henchman was an assassin and no doubt, had dealt with Rossbach. Quietly he drew frosty air into his lungs, weighing his words. He had to make his position crystal clear.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mein herr, I trust you will do nothing to impede her escape. I’m bound to say that should a misfortune befall her, arranged by yourself, my part in the mission would cease.’

  The formal words and phrasing fell into the night.

  Von Streck took out a cigar, put it between his lips, but made no attempt to light it. ‘That’s a very dangerous thing to say to me, Schmidt.’ A statement of fact; the voice held no emotion. ‘You’re disturbed by the injustice, the thuggery and killings that surround us. I understand that. The symptoms are regrettable but our strength must be reserved to extract the tumour.’ The plenipotentiary’s eyes glowed. ‘Whatever you propose to do, be very, very careful.’

  The party was not so dull. Dance music had begun.

  Almost musingly, von Streck added, ‘Your compulsion to save this woman is part of your strength as well as your weakness. You’re a man with an agile mind. And luck. But all luck is finite . . .’The functionary reached in his pocket. ’I have a gift for you. Not pleasant, but necessary.’ He held out his hand. Schmidt peered at it. A beam of light from the house glistened on two capsules in the gloved palm. ‘You simply break the casing with your teeth and swallow. Death is instantaneous. I’ve one sewn into the sleeve of my overcoat, one into my suit coat.’ He looked aside at the festivity beyond the terrace. ‘Neither of us should be taken alive.’

  Schmidt felt the life drain out of him at these words. But why? This was part of the nuts and bolts of his existence.

  ‘That tea-party group is a futile little shadow-play of opposition. When you spit into a wind, Schmidt, take care the spit doesn’t come back in your face.’

  Schmidt thought: Whatever I do, is Anna doomed?

  ‘You’re proficient with the camera?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Von Streck leaned close and seized the auditor’s sleeve in a powerful grip, and in a steel whisper, said, ’The mission, Schmidt. The mission!’

  Schmidt stepped out to the street and pulled the door closed behind him. Quickly he turned his head to check the vicinity. All clear. So it seemed. He peered at his watch under a streetlight. The meeting had taken ten minutes; it seemed like an age.

  In the dar
kness of a doorway, light flashed on something bright. Boot-caps. Schmidt, heart instantly pounding, made out the huge shadowy figure. He nodded to himself and turned away. Wherever von Streck was, the blond giant was never far away; he would have been watching to see if the auditor was followed.

  Now he had to get back into his flat. Whoever was tailing him would surely be watching it to pick up his trail. The Gestapo or the SD. Freda Brandt’s limping companion and the Reichsbank manager herself must be the sponsors of that as, according to von Streck, they’d been of Herr Fischer’s murder. He trusted that they hadn’t entered the flat. Yet surely that could only be a matter of time.

  Too many time-bombs were ticking away. Deep in the lint of his overcoat pocket, his fingers found the two capsules.

  ~ * ~

  31

  S

  AVIGNY PLATZ, 9.15 pm. Walking across the frosty expanse from the tramcar, Schmidt breathed a breath of relief. The flat was in darkness. Covertly he looked for his shadower, but it was harder to ascertain this status. Several obscure figures were moving in the vicinity.

  The clock shop was still lit up. Schmidt walked toward his building. In Potsdamer Platz he’d bought bread, cheese, milk, a few chilly apples, and carried them in a paper bag.

  As usual, no-one was in the foyer of his building and the stairs were deserted. He climbed them. Before inserting his key in the lock he peered down the stairs, and waited. No-one appeared.

  This time she heard his key.

  In the study, again the guttering candle, the orange glow from the fire — the same strained face enlivened with flickering shadows. She went to the radio and switched it on.

  ‘Good evening, Herr Schmidt.’

  ‘Good evening, fräulein. The photograph’s been delivered.’ He put down the bag of food then removed his outer garments and hung them in the hall. He wanted her to call him Franz -and to call her Anna, but he found it difficult to break with the formality ingrained in him.

  He switched on an electric light and stood gazing at his hands. How had von Streck found out she was here? Was one of his people following him? That’d be a better outcome than the Gestapo or SD. He snapped out of this and returned to the study. ‘I’ve brought food.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll make supper.’ But she remained still, her eyes searching his face for more news.

  ‘I’ve heard nothing about your friends.’ He thought: Nothing to ease her damnable vigil.

  Goebbels was on the wireless again. Tonight it was the temporary coal shortage. The confident voice he’d heard at the exhibition saturated the room. ‘This era is our era. We love this era. Our hearts beat faster because of its manly character . . . we rise above temporary inconveniences . . .’

  Schmidt shrugged at her. She managed a smile, said over her shoulder as she went out to the kitchen with the food, ‘Is the bank surviving without me?’

  ‘I can’t speak for Foreign Bank Relations, but I find it a darker and drearier place.’ He was talking to her back, but she raised a hand to acknowledge his remark. He was surprised at himself. Again he noted her determined walk.

  They ate the supper in the kitchen, then took their coffee into the study. Goebbels had finished and the ubiquitous evening concert was in full flood. Schmidt said, ‘The man doing the passport will be competent.’ He wished to reassure her.

  She nodded. ’Major Hoffmann is also highly competent.’

  Schmidt concurred. But he didn’t know how competent or lucky a man the major was. Could the Abwehr officer come up with something to put fear into the Swiss doctor? The idea that’d sprung half-formed into his mind might be impossible to implement. Really, Hoffmann would have to be a miracle worker.

  She was watching him. ‘Herr Schmidt, every moment I’m here is a great trial for you.’

  Schmidt stared back. ‘Please call me Franz.’

  She smiled. ‘Then you must call me Anna.’

  Schmidt nodded seriously. He dropped his gaze. He’d tried, but he couldn’t understand the extraordinary effect in Fischer’s room when their eyes had first met. He loved his wife and child— but they seemed to exist in a parallel universe. He’d had that same feeling with Lilli Dreisler. The incident with Freda Brandt was different; a case of her naked sexual aggression blowing his long abstinence to pieces.

  ‘You’re thoughtful and sad, Franz.’

  He looked up and gave one of his slight, enigmatic smiles.

  He could have responded with: We both have much to be sad about. But that was a thought, not something to say.

  ‘You’ll soon be on your way to safety.’

  ‘I’ll be sorry to leave you,’ she said simply.

  They looked at each other in silence.

  He wondered what her feelings were for Hoffmann? She must know that the major was in love with her. It was obvious to him.

  The moment passed. She pointed at the etching. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘Yes. A wedding present from my father.’

  She regarded him thoughtfully. ‘It has a special symbolism for you in these terrible times. Am I right?’

  He gave a grim smile. ‘That could be said.’ She was puzzling over his character, his situation, his objectives. He wished her luck. To himself, it was all part riddle; his actions toward her would have to speak for themselves.

  He said, ‘The majority view is that it is a noble and positive message, but some think it depicts a robber knight riding out accompanied by evil companions. Dürer left no interpretation, he simply called it “The Rider”.’

  She turned her head to stare into the fire. ‘These times will pass. If I’m able to leave, it will only be with the hope of returning.’ Her soft voice merged with the hiss of the fire. Her eyes fell on Trudi’s lovely doll.

  He studied her face in profile. She was beautiful; the bone structure as delicate as Meissen porcelain; her skin, with that translucent quality. Yet a vital aura of strength and hope flowed from her, with touches of humour, like a painter’s highlights on a vase.

  Schmidt’s mind produced these artistic, constructive images. Lilli Dreisler and her fate were often in his thoughts. Were such imperilled women to move through his life like ships passing in the night? With all his heart, he hoped for her escape from their benighted country.

  Like one such ship, circling back to search for persons fallen overboard, his thoughts turned to Dresden — to his family. Asleep and safe in their beds; one could only trust that some God of Providence was watching over them all.

  ~ * ~

  It was 3.20 am and Major Hoffmann was conscious of how long his day had been, as he drove out to Hellersdorf through deserted inner suburbs, along streets slick with melted snow. However, he wasn’t weary, just keyed-up. It was a thirty-minute drive through the sleeping city. Only a convoy of Luftwaffe trucks, grinding out from their depots to link up with the autobahn for the east, drew his attention; more steel-clad evidence that the build-up for the Fuehrer’s Polish ambitions was mounting.

  The major gazed ahead, his gloved hands capably steering the small car. At 1.00 am he’d despatched the mission to Belgium. The agents, a man and a woman, shook hands with him. Their mission had been planned for weeks but the woman carried a packet — an extra task. A packet destined to be in Oxford by this time tomorrow - if all went well; since leaving Schmidt’s flat he’d worked hard and fast to prepare its contents.

  Hoffmann was taking a big risk, yet one he’d run a hundred times. For years Anna had burned in his mind like a gold medallion portraying a Roman woman he’d seen long ago in a museum. For the pragmatic Hoffmann, that was an unusual flight of imagination.

  He turned the car into a drive and its headlights gingerly fingered tree-trunks. Tyres crunching gravel, he drew up before the clinic that showed only a few service lights.

  Hoffmann strode through the front door into the overheated interior. A solitary white-clad nurse sat behind a reception desk, her face illumed by a reading lamp. He showed her his identification and told her what he requ
ired.

  A minute later, by torchlight, she led him into a darkened room and switched on a bedside lamp. Eugene was fully awake, lying on his back, propped up by pillows.

  The two men shook hands and the nurse withdrew. Hoffmann pulled up a chair, took off his overcoat, sat down and leaned close to his friend. In terse statements he explained what had happened and what he’d put in train.

  Eugene listened to the amazing developments. ‘You’ve taken a great risk,’ he said quietly.

  Hoffmann said, ‘We’ve had no trouble on this run before. They’ll get through. My request will be in the professor’s hands tomorrow.’

  He spoke with forcible conviction, yet also kept his voice low. ’If we don’t receive the required document from the English, or if it can’t arrive in time, I’ve a contingency plan.’ He’d already prepared a counterfeit document that might trick the doctor into cooperating.