Pray for a Brave Heart

by Helen Macinnes

  A corner of one’s own, like this: it wasn’t so much to ask, it wasn’t so difficult to obtain—except for the jobs that had to be done, the business of life pulling you away, pushing you out from your own thoughts or from the ideas that others could offer you. Jobs to be done, the business of living. Were they the things that unsettled you? Or were they merely an excuse?

  He reached over to the bookshelf and pulled out the thin book of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems. It fell open easily at “Day in Autumn”. So Keppler liked to read this too. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich nimmermehr…

  The homeless man finds it too late to build.

  The lonely man will keep his loneliness,

  Will lie awake, will read, will write long letters,

  Will wander to and fro under the trees

  Restlessly, while the leaves run from the wind.

  Keppler was back in the room, a strange mixture of excitement and triumph. “Make any more guesses?” he asked when he had regained his breath.

  “Only about the shape of my own life.” Denning pushed the book of poems back into place on the shelf. He tried not to look too curiously at the envelope in Keppler’s hand.

  Keppler smiled suddenly. “Here,” he said, “read this and see if it makes any sense.” He held out the envelope. “I looked at it, down in the hall. Couldn’t resist it,” he admitted.

  “Doesn’t it make sense?”

  “In its own field, yes. Of considerable importance, I’d say. But as you’ll see, there isn’t a thing in this report about the Herz diamonds. Or about Charles Maartens.” Keppler shook his head. “Yet there must be some connection. Why else should Meyer have held that pack of cigarettes in his hand when he saw he was a marked man? Why underline its importance in just that way?” He laid the envelope on Denning’s knee. Yes, he thought as he moved over to his desk, Meyer himself was the connection, Meyer and whatever he had verified in Bern today. That was the connection between this report and the Herz diamonds.

  Denning opened the envelope, an ordinary-sized envelope able to be slipped safely inside a man’s pocket. Inside, there was a stiff sheet of cream paper, glossy, hard, cracking where it had been folded carefully between the paragraph spacings. The typewritten text was clear, perhaps even heavier, more intense than the original had been. And this, thought Denning as he unfolded the page, this had been a small black dot—no more than a period at the end of a sentence or of an address on an envelope, no more than a flaw on a piece of cigarette paper. And this, he thought as he began reading, was Max speaking. Max had written this just before he left Frankfurt. Less than a week ago. Five days ago, to be exact.

  For a moment, he saw Max quite clearly. Too clearly. Max with a smile in his intelligent brown eyes as he stood among the piles of books, the open trunk, the discarded magazines in a Berlin room. Max saying, “—when we meet in Bern, I’ll be able to fill in a lot of gaps for you.”

  Denning passed a hand wearily over his eyes. For a moment, the heavy black type blurred and shifted. For a minute, he sat quite still, not reading.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Keppler’s voice asked from across the room.

  Denning nodded. He began reading.

  11

  MAX MEYER’S LAST WORD

  The page was closely typed, single-spaced. There were three major paragraphs—three case histories, seemingly—followed by a small separate note. Concise, factual, written with abbreviations and ellipses so that as much information as possible could be packed into one page. Max Meyer had worked carefully over this composition.

  Denning read the case histories quickly through, then— letting his mind enlarge the cryptic phrases into fuller sentences and a richer context—he began to read again. The three case histories became alive: they became three men.

  Alexander Burkart was the first. He was a neurologist of established reputation who had worked in Vienna until 1938, in Zurich until 1945, and then (apparently he had trusted the Communists more than the Nazis) had returned to his clinic in the Russian sector of Vienna. He had no political affiliations, his sole interest was research. In 1949, he was “invited” to Leningrad. From then until July, 1952, he was consistently praised in the Soviet press. In that month he escaped to Falken, Switzerland. His appearance there was given no publicity. In March, 1953, Alexander Burkart arrived legally, quietly, in the United States. Since then he had been living and working, again without any publicity, in Baltimore.

  But on the second of May, 1953, Burkart had left Baltimore, taking a few clothes and books. And all that could explain this sudden departure was a typewritten sheet of paper, a brusque letter, which stated that, as Burkart could not live or work in America, “a fascist country filled with hysteria and warmongering,” he was returning to his clinic in Vienna. The signature was identified as Burkart’s. And only the fact that two scientists, with whom he was working at Johns Hopkins, happened to call on Burkart that Saturday evening and had found the letter before his landlady discovered it, enabled the disappearance to be kept as quiet as his arrival in the U.S.A.

  The two colleagues could not believe the letter: Burkart had begun a series of experiments for whose success he held the highest hopes; he was keenly excited about his research and had often praised the freedom of his working conditions; the books which he had seemingly taken were replaceable anywhere, but the notes and important material on which he had been working had been left in his laboratory safe. His colleagues immediately relayed their suspicions to the authorities at Johns Hopkins, who at once communicated with the Immigration Service, the F.B.I., and the C.I.A. The Immigration Service reported that only three weeks previously, Burkart had taken out his first papers for citizenship, and had also made inquiries about the possible immigration of his sole surviving relatives— his daughter and son-in-law, who had been living in Munich since 1946. Within two days of the disappearance, the search was on. It was important to handle the whole matter with the greatest secrecy: Burkart’s life could be at stake. While the F.B.I. followed a lead to a foreign freighter, ultimate destination Hong Kong, which had fuelled at Baltimore on the second of May for its leisurely journey down the eastern seacoast of America, the C.I.A. arm of the search reached Munich. Burkart’s daughter was tactfully questioned, but knew nothing. The search spread farther through Western Germany. Meyer’s office was alerted.

  “In this way,” he wrote, “I first heard of Falken.” That was on the sixth of May.

  (On eighth May, the freighter had reached Havana, where it was searched by Cuban police despite heavy protests of the captain. A seaman, “seriously ill”, was found in a locked cabin: he was identified, by accompanying U.S. agents, as Alexander Burkart. He was “heavily drugged and in a pitiful condition”. But he was safe. The search was called off.)

  The name of Falken, however, was not allowed to be forgotten. Only three days later, on the ninth of May, Meyer was to stumble across it once more, this time in connection with a man of considerable fame, called Heinrich Kahn.

  Dr Heinrich Kahn was a nuclear physicist who had returned from exile, in 1945, to his home in East Germany. By 1949, he was reported to be working in Russia. Some time early in 1953, he had escaped. First news of this came from a small town in the Rhineland, which reported with considerable pride in its weekly paper that Heinrich Kahn, the famous scientist about whom the world had been speculating for eight years, was spending a few days with relatives in Erzbaden before leaving for America. The editor of the Erzbaden Anzeigner welcomed Kahn, congratulated him on his dramatic escape, and offered all good wishes for his future in the United States. There, in that gesture of good will, in that editorial written with so much polish and care, was Heinrich Kahn’s death sentence.

  The editorial paragraph came to Meyer’s attention on the ninth of May, when Kahn disappeared on the road to Stuttgart, from where he had intended to fly to America. Some quick research among Immigration Service files showed that Kahn had arrived, five months ago, in Switzerland; that he had lived
in Falken under an assumed name and identity, and then in Bern, where he had worked as a janitor. (The files were closed permanently when a man—trying to escape from a car which had been halted on the outskirts of Bayreuth by a flat tyre— was shot as, crying for help, he almost reached a group of workmen. The man was Heinrich Kahn. His two murderers, who had been changing the tyre, escaped.)

  Meyer grimly noted: “Careless operation—insufficient drugs. Murderers—described by witnesses—Storm-trooper types. Car travelling towards E. Germany.”

  The third case history dealt with Karel Hálek, teacher, writer, university president, a Nobel Prize candidate who had escaped from Czechoslovakia late in 1952. Travelling to London in May, 1953, where he was to lecture at University College, he had broken his journey at Bonn, to meet several of his old colleagues and pupils, now exiles like himself. He had been prevailed upon by his friends to give a talk on “The Perversions of Teaching”. Hálek’s reputation was too great to have the lecture kept the secret it was intended to be. An American journalist—the European editor of Policy—Andrew Waysmith, was interested in Hálek’s work and reappearance. He attended the lecture. Waysmith noted that there were several outsiders besides himself; that after the lecture was over, Hálek had been embarrassed, even disturbed by one questioner who—in the most gentle and friendly way—referred vaguely to Hálek’s “stay in Falken”. Hálek evaded that question and left the lecture hall quickly. Waysmith followed to ask him for an interview on Czechoslovakia, which would be published in Policy whenever Hálek considered it safe to appear in print. Hálek agreed, and arranged for a meeting with Waysmith on the following day.

  But on the next day, the fifteenth of May, Waysmith learned that Hálek had received a telegram asking him to leave as soon as possible for London, and that he had already taken an early plane. Waysmith wired his magazine’s representative in London to make contact with Hálek and arrange for the interview. Having no reply, Waysmith telephoned London. His representative was away for the week-end. By Monday, the eighteenth of May, he was reached. He assured Waysmith that Hálek was not expected until the twentieth of May—why this fuss and bother? With a few well-chosen phrases, Waysmith got him to fuss and bother too. He reported back that Hálek had not arrived, and still was not expected until the twentieth of May.

  Waysmith then checked with Hálek’s friends in Bonn: two of them had accompanied him to the airport, but hadn’t actually seen him enter the plane for London; the telegram had seemed authentic—it had contained certain references which Hálek had accepted as positive identification; no one was alarmed. Waysmith decided to risk looking foolish. He drove to Frankfurt and sought out Meyer for advice.

  These were the three men. Burkart; Kahn; Hálek. 2nd May; 9th May; 15th May.

  Near the foot of the page, Meyer had added his own observations. First, there was a pattern to these acts of violence: all the men had escaped with great secrecy; all had some connection with Falken; all had considerable reputations—“propaganda value”, as Meyer wrote; their abduction back to Communist countries was to be kept secret, too—so that few people would know they had rebelled. Secondly, abduction on this scale cost money: hired thugs had to be paid, and paid anonymously. Nothing was to be traced to the source that ordered these abductions. Thirdly, Hálek had not been found. By this time, all information about Falken must have been forced out of him. (“They’re playing rough,” was Meyer’s guess.) The next move would be against the escape committee at Falken—their files or records would give the present addresses of the exiles who were still free. And soon, they wouldn’t be. The move against them would be quick, complete.

  Meyer’s last entry was unexpected. “In April, a sum of $3,000,000 was lifted from the account of Richard van Meeren Broach with the National City Bank of New York, and transferred to Switzerland. Broach has renounced (see New York Times, March 14, 1953) his United States citizenship. He is now living in Falken.”

  Denning lifted his eyes and found Keppler studying him.

  “Yes?” Keppler asked, coming forward to take Meyer’s report.

  “Who is this Broach?”

  “Obviously a man who likes a dramatic gesture. He has applied for Swiss citizenship, but that isn’t how he phrases his action: the renunciation is what he wants emphasised. Meanwhile, he is still using his American passport.”

  Denning said thoughtfully, “Any connection with the Broach family?” They came from New York, a decent enough family on the whole: they had performed some public service and a lot of good works as well as having collected overmuch money.

  “He’s the only surviving son. The other was killed in the last war. This one is around forty. He dabbled in Communism twenty years or so ago. Then he seemed to have lost interest.”

  “Seemed?”

  “That’s the story he has established in the mind of the public. He’s still openly leftist in sympathies, but many of us are.”

  “Then what interests you in him?”

  “He had visited Switzerland before. Last year, we discovered that he used us for rather a secretive entry into Czechoslovakia to attend a Cultural Congress in Prague.”

  “But I’ve noticed some honest men attending Communist-run congresses. Out of curiosity or hope, I suppose.”

  “Honest men don’t hide their attendance. They don’t travel under a false name, or stay secretly with organisers of the congress, or meet only with highly placed officials. To do all that, you have to have influential friends.”

  “The Communists kept his visit secret?”

  “Completely, although all other foreign visitors were publicised. He came back to Geneva at the end of a week talking about his walking trip through the Engadine.”

  “And then he went back to America?”

  “By way of Guatemala.”

  “Has no one suspected that he may have been a ‘sleeper’ all these years?”

  “One of your United States agencies had several suspicions. And sometimes I have wondered if Broach didn’t want them to act against him, so that he could become a political martyr. You know the line: why am I being crucified for opinions I held in my youth? I grant you,” Keppler said quickly, noticing the expression on Denning’s face, “that honest men have every right to ask that question. But a man who has taken action has no right to disguise it as opinion. That is only misleading the public.”

  “And now he has come to live in Switzerland?”

  “After making an appeal that any honest man could have made. He refuses to live any longer in America—as a protest against political conditions. And I assure you that most Europeans don’t question his statement: they take it as another proof of all the stories they’ve been hearing about America.”

  Denning looked angrily at Keppler.

  “Don’t blame the Europeans entirely for believing that propaganda. How many well-meaning men in the United States have made speeches or written articles that added weight to the neutralists’ myth?” Keppler shook his head gloomily. “Hell is paved with overstatements.” He looked down now at Meyer’s report. “We had thought Broach was a kind of unhappy joke— he had plenty of money, but his father made it; he has some brains, but he’s a mental pygmy compared to men like Burkart or Kahn or Hálek; he has a distinguished name, but other men earned that for him.” His voice lost all amusement and turned bitter. “Well, now—there’s a lot of work to be done. And quickly. The pattern, as Meyer gives it, is clear; but the danger to decent people is great, because it is so urgent.”

  “At least, the enemy is no longer faceless.”

  “Not to us. But with all this purposeful secrecy, how would your country—or France—have any clear evidence to bring before the United Nations? A public protest, a public challenge could cancel other abductions. The Communists are quick to change tactics when they become a liability. But where is our clear evidence for the United Nations? My God, if so many people disbelieve a proved charge against spies and traitors, where would we stand with this?” He held
up Meyer’s report. Then, turning to the desk, he said, “I’d better start that work.”

  Denning sat still for a moment. Then he rose. “And I’d better get back to the hotel.”

  “You’re welcome to use my bed.” Keppler gestured to the adjoining room. “I won’t need it for the next two hours.”

  “If I have been having a night on the town, it will seem more natural if I get back by the dawn’s early light to catch up on my sleep.”

  Keppler considered that. Then he reached for the telephone. “I’ve told a taxi to come out here and get you.”

  Denning stared at him in amazement.

  “One of our taxis,” Keppler said patiently. Then he went back to the notes he was making, a man working out problems, arranging his course of action, mapping out his tactics. Soon, it was Denning’s guess, there would be considerable telephoning.

  Denning tried not to watch the man in the brown suit working so intently at his desk. When the blue eyes looked up at him for a moment, and the heavy eyebrows frowned, he knew that Keppler wasn’t even seeing him. and he suddenly thought, what did Keppler get out of all this, anyway? The answer was: nothing; nothing at all in a material sense. Neither money, nor fame, nor even public thanks. And there he was, beginning a job which could last days if not weeks and bring its share of danger, a job which cancelled all other work and private plans. Max Meyer, too, hadn’t calculated the cost to himself; nor had anyone at Falken who had aided some unfortunate human beings. What was it, then, that awakened such determination? Something in addition to patriotism—neither Switzerland nor America was directly threatened; the evil was aimed against powerless men, political exiles, foreigners to both Meyer and Keppler. Something far above political or religious considerations: who knew what opinions on politics or religion had been held by Burkart, Kahn, Hálek—or who cared? And there was the answer, perhaps. Neither Richard Broach nor Nikolaides would ever understand it. Keppler’s “danger to decent people” was not one of the steps in their thinking. Both of them, each in his different way, saw men and women not as human beings but as instruments. The bell rang above Keppler’s desk, again in a peculiar rhythm. “Fafner and I shall see you safely downstairs,” Keppler said, rising quickly. “And don’t be alarmed if your journey back to the hotel seems over-long. You may even change taxis half-way.”