The Eye of the Abyss - [Franz Schmidt 01]

by Marshall Browne

  Maria had his dinner ready and he ate it quickly, immersed in his thoughts. He complimented her on the meal; nothing had been said about the family’s changed situation, but she must be worrying. First, he had to deal with the problem of his mother’s apartment, nervy Frau Bertha still in situ.

  What stone cell, iron bars, was Lilli staring at? That came like a splinter of glass into flesh. He couldn’t picture her circumstances. He’d a good visual imagination, but like a horse baulking at a jump it failed him now. Instead, he concentrated on the plan which might save her. Travelling home, eating his dinner, drinking his coffee, it had been evolving in his head like the most complex audit program he’d ever worked on.

  He thought on it as he retired to the bathroom and began the chore which he’d been postponing. He took saline solution and a small bowl from the cabinet, and laid a thick bath towel over the handbasin. He applied pressure under his eye. The prothesis shot out and he caught it deftly. He washed it in the solution, laid it on a clean handkerchief. He poured more of the solution into an eye-cup and bathed the socket. Then he positioned it in his fingers, and reinserted it. The suction took in half his eyelashes as well; painstakingly he sorted that out. He sighed; the nerves in the socket would ache for a day or two.

  He stood in the door of Trudi’s room. A few dolls had been taken; most waited on the shelves. He’d have Maria pack a box for Dresden. All her treasures to the little one. He closed off that thinking, went to his study, shut the door and sat down at his desk.

  The Dürer engraving was behind him, but the detail was engraved in his brain. The knight was riding out stern-faced on his quest, dogged by demons. Dürer had engraved him in 1513 - two hundred years after Schmidt’s forebear had gone with the Grand Master to Marienburg. What had happened there? His father’s archives were a blank on that period of the knights life. He’d next turned up in 1319 at Torun - documented fact. Then the family fable took over: he’d gone into a city on the Vistula River in disguise, subverted the city’s leaders, sabotaged the defences. Fact: the Order had taken this city. The mayor and corporation had been flung from the battlements, tethered at their necks. How had that group of widows lived afterwards? The perturbation of that age had faded to silence. As would these times, one day.

  The paragraph in de Sales’ book he’d kept to think about, too occupied for its complexity. He took out the copy he’d made and scanned it. The Order had assumed a military character in 1198, and towards the end of the crusades had left Palestine forever. In 1211 the first European enterprise had begun in Hungary when they’d colonised the Transylvanian borderlands. The Hungarian king had granted the knights extensive autonomy, but when their demands became excessive had expelled them in 1225. They’d moved to Poland. A Polish duke had needed their help against the pagan Prussians. The knights had wiped out most of the native Prussian population. Bloody conquest and cruel subjugation of the eastern Baltic lands followed, a mailed heel on a wide territory of vassal states, the population treated as slaves. In 1263 the Pope had allowed the knights to become traders, relieving them of their vow of poverty. Then — the salient information — the brief chronicle of a knight of the Order, in the period 1310—1315, who’d intrigued to become a high administrator, one of a group of knights opposed to the strategy of conquest, the cruelties, the greed for treasure and power. He’d begun to plot against the Order from within, a man who kept his counsel, who’d diverted wealth, scattered assets to counteract some of the evil, weakened it immeasurably ... in 1315, unmasked, tortured, and killed.

  A knight called Erik Streck.

  And now a Nazi called von Streck had appeared in the special reading room. What did it mean? A brittle thread reaching down the centuries? A meteor of fate heading earthwards through the cosmos, programmed to reach its destination at the point when his and the Nazi’s destinies were poised to move into the ascendant? He knew what Helga would think of such ideas.

  Herr Goebbels had said of the Fuehrer, ‘You are like a meteor before our astonished eyes ... ‘

  Schmidt sat perfectly still. The obscure connections vibrated around him. He put the paper aside, and deliberately corrected the course of his thinking.

  He’d said to Dressler, ‘I will have it.’ Two hundred thousand. In the platz the nucleus of the plan had come like a dart of light.

  And that’s where it stood — work in progress, but already an illuminated page set out with stylised capitals, and rich-coloured illustrations. And with it Wagner’s excitable face, as though the deputy foreign manager knew he was the key. A workable plan in its first phase with Wagner’s co-operation. In the second, as it stood — suicidal.

  Schmidt looked at his watch: 8.35 pm. He rang the exchange. Were they intercepting Wagner’s calls? Another risk to be run, but now he felt the steel in him; in his brain, in his heart, as though a sword, never previously unsheathed, had been drawn.

  ~ * ~

  22

  W

  ELL, WELL, MY friend. A meeting here? At this ll hour? What’s got into you?’Wagner grinned slyly if If over the rim of his glass. ’Is my auditing colleague peeling off as do our brave aviators, into a fearless dive!’ He studied Schmidt curiously. What was really on his mind were the events surrounding his colleague’s imbroglio with the general-director’s secretary. How in hell had he stayed out of the clutches of the Gestapo? Poor Fräulein Cream Cakes. There was no derision in the use of his private nickname for her; it came only with a sentimental feeling. A sad, sad, business.

  Schmidt winced at the beerhall noise, at his colleague’s flippancy. Though what mood was Wagner really in? And what did he really think about this summons? He glanced around the huge hall, at the riot in progress. He’d chosen this place because of its uproarious crowds.

  It was a reversal of their usual roles. The late-night beer-drinking session was Wagner’s homeground. In a moment, his attitude was going to change when he heard why he’d been called here. His unkempt hair was sprayed out, cigarette going, eyes drooping against the smoke. Despite his night-owl reputation he looked most vulnerable at night.

  Behind these observations Schmidt was ordering his thoughts. Time was short. He said, ‘Today Herr Dietrich warned me against you. Have you been opposing him by any chance?’

  Wagner stirred. ‘Aha! We haven’t crossed swords directly. You can put it down to my old political affiliations. No doubt he’s briefed himself on that through his contacts in those gangster agencies watching over your intemperate colleague. Though, I did have a run-in with Otto the other night that seemed to fascinate Herr Health and Sunshine. Otto was blind drunk. Unedifying sight.’

  ‘That’s the kind of situation you should be wary of. Dietrich’s a trained watcher. He’s watching all of us for clues to fill in the picture he’s building up. Who knows what his instructions are from Berlin. ’And he knows about me and the Order, he thought. But how much? He continued, ‘He’s a man with multiple objectives.’

  Wagner shrugged. ‘I agree they’re devious bastards, but you’re making that Nazi sound more interesting than he is. Franz, with your record are you really the fellow to be telling me to take care?’ He glanced at the auditor with nervy amusement.

  Schmidt ignored that. He wasn’t quite ready. He said, ‘A dose of excitement today?’

  ‘The Field-Marshal?’ Wagner struck a match and lit a cigarette. ‘The million that slippery crook banked with us doesn’t belong to him. Have you heard the story? A lunatic at the Reichsbank wrote out a cheque for a million and sent it to him. The Reichsbank’s moving heaven and earth to get it back, but he’s not letting go. Absolute thievery!’ He laughed sardonically. ‘Aided and abetted by the respected old house of Wertheim & Co.’

  Schmidt stared at his colleague. He was in touch with his auditing counterparts at the Reichsbank, but hadn’t heard a whisper about this. Wagner grinned. Everything was coming out the way he’d predicted. ’This morning at any moment I felt Dietrich might’ve disappeared up the Field-Marshal’s arse.�
� Schmidt frowned his distaste. ’Sorry,’ Wagner chuckled.

  They were sitting side by side on a pew-like seat. Now. Decisively Schmidt turned his head, began to speak into Wagner’s ear. Calmly, he communicated Lilli’s situation, her father’s efforts, his own. Wagner’s eyes had sprung open.

  ‘I require two hundred thousand, at least.’

  Wagner drew in his breath sharply. ‘God Almighty!’ He laid down his cigarette.

  ‘Careful.’

  Wagner was shaking his head, disbelievingly. Like many at Wertheims he’d been fascinated by the revelation of the Franz Schmidt—Fräulein Dressler imbroglio. He’d guessed more would be going on, but was staggered by this. He pushed his thin shoulders back against the pew. ‘No more lectures from you, Franz ... two hundred thousand! What kind of wonder-man is this Jew?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I must take him at face value, accept Dressler’s judgement.’

  ‘Yes?’ Wagner stared down the barn-like hall, as though trying to penetrate a smoky battlefield.

  ‘I’ve undertaken to find the money.’ Wagner’s stare shot back to his colleague. The hubbub washed around them like surf swirling through rocks, their talk as lost as a tiny mollusc tossed about in foaming seawater. As Schmidt had calculated. ‘I need to get into the Party’s safe.’

  Beneath an iron circle impregnated with coloured electric lights crudely imitating candles, a group of middle-aged workers raucously burst into a marching song from the Great War. In rough time, they thumped their steins on the boarded table. Had Wagner heard him? From a side-room, SA men gathered in a storm centre, abruptly launched into competition with the veterans, roaring out the ‘Horst Wessel’ song.

  Oblivious to the uproar, the deputy foreign manager turned to Schmidt. ‘Herr Chief Auditor, I’ve been seriously misjudging you. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that.’

  Schmidt waited. Neither response was required, but he understood. He said, ‘I need your safe combination.’

  ‘You do, indeed. And my dear Franz, I remind you, one other.’

  ‘That’s not a problem.’

  Wagner remembered his beer, and took a long draught. He laughed in disbelief.

  ‘Will you do it?’

  The vehement competition between the marching song and the Nazi folk anthem had crashed to a stop. Wagner’s eyes gleamed. He leaned forward, guarded, out of character. ‘The Nazis have my number because of the Social Democratic membership. The Gestapo are watching my flat — though, I think, not tonight. Dietrich, I suspect, smells some kind of rat about me. And you propose I help thieve a large portion of the hard-won funds of the NSDAP to assist a Jewess, interesting lady though she is, flee our country! Am I a lunatic? Are you mad?’ His eyes shone with half-horrified amusement. Schmidt shrugged. Wagner was putting on one of his acts. ‘Of course I’ll do it my dear Franz. What else do I have to do with my life?’

  Schmidt relaxed his shoulders. ‘Neither of us fancies suicide. Beyond the act a plan is needed to give us cover. I’ve the glimmer of an idea on that.’ It was conceivable that he might find such a plan.

  ‘Franz, I hope you come up with something. Everywhere I look in my department I see your green-inked fingerprints. Best use gloves for this little adventure.’

  Through a corridor in the drifting tobacco smoke, Schmidt was looking straight into the eyes of Herr, von Streck.

  ‘My God!’ he exclaimed softly. Suddenly his eye was stinging, the Nazi’s face blurring.

  ‘What?’Wagner’s head had jerked around.

  ‘Don’t look now. The man across the room, in the astrakhan coat. I know him. He’s a high Nazi functionary.’

  Wagner swore. ‘Not a lip-reader, I trust.’

  A large blond man was with the Nazi, and they were both staring at Schmidt. He thought rapidly: Is this a coincidence? He’d omitted von Streck from his diatribe to Wagner. Had his phone — Wagner’s — been tapped? The two Nazis were getting up, plainly coming towards them, the plenipotentiary looming broader and broader. Wagner was fumbling for cigarettes. They arrived at the bankers’ table. Schmidt stood up, and felt the full weight of the ironical eyes. The big blond man, head and shoulders over von Streck, stood back, hard eyes switching from Schmidt to Wagner.

  ‘Well, well, Herr Schmidt! You drink beer?’ The mole stood out like a beacon on his cheek, the homburg was held lightly in his beringed, hairy fingers.

  ‘On occasion, mein herr.’

  ‘And tonight is one such.’ He looked at Wagner.

  ‘May I introduce my colleague, Herr Wagner ... Herr von Streck.’

  The Nazi examined Wagner, nodded, slow and deliberate. ‘So this is Herr Wagner, deputy foreign manager.’

  Wagner bowed slightly. He’d become dead pale.

  Von Streck smiled coldly. ‘Gentlemen, have a good evening.’

  The Nazi duo, massive in their individual ways, left.

  ‘Thanks for introducing me,’ Wagner muttered, as they disappeared. ‘How in hell does he know me? And how do you know him?’

  ‘We met at the Municipal Library.’ Wagner stared incredulously. ‘I don’t know how he knows you.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Wagner growled.

  Schmidt was silent, also disturbed. It’d been a shock. He came back on track. ‘Tomorrow evening at six, in the vault?’

  Wagner nodded, spat out a shred of tobacco, and stuck the cigarette back between his lips. Schmidt said, ‘At short notice, could you find an excuse to go to Zurich?’

  Until this point in the evening, it had seemed to Otto that the good ship Wertheim had been loafing along through a rather placid and boring sea. Now, there was tension on the bridge — as though the deck officers had observed the barometer plunge.

  This transformation had been brought about by the senior of two Ruhr industrialists who were dining at the bank, putting aside polite conversation, and in a thick Swabian accent, getting down to tintacks. Using his blunt hands, as though assembling a structure before their eyes, he’d explained the project, the assistance they sought from the bank. The man’s milk-white face moved attractively as he spoke. When he stopped, it appeared as grave as a preacher reflecting on his just-delivered sermon. Herr Wertheim, seated next to his nephew, was reminded of a Lutheran pastor he’d disliked.

  The Wertheims, Dietrich, the other visitor, had watched the capable hands shaping elevations. The man’s firm wouldn’t normally have come within the bank’s ambit. However, he’d powerful connections in the NSDAP, and in the letter of introduction which he’d brought it was intimated that the Party’s private bankers should extend him every courtesy.

  He lifted his round eyes to Herr Wertheim. ‘We’ll be buying this business for a quarter of its true value. The Finance Ministry will see to that. We’ll be acting in tune with government policy. Government contracts for the output will follow.’ He sat back, shrugged, as though such strokes of good fortune were as predictable as night following day.

  Herr Wertheim smiled blandly. The man’s cold-blooded detachment didn’t surprise him. Discussions at this level concerning money usually ignored questions of morality. Though Wertheims hadn’t been involved, he was perfectly familiar with the new policy, which rested on the expropriation of Jewish businesses at ludicrously undervalued prices.

  ‘We await the finance,’ the industrialist said, spreading his hands.

  Herr Wertheim said, ‘We’ll study your proposal with great care.’

  ‘And very positively,’ Dietrich interposed. The letter of introduction was from SS Fuehrer Himmler.

  ‘Naturally,’ Otto agreed with a smile.

  The general-director said with the faintest hint of steel, ‘As I said, it will have the bank’s diligent consideration.’

  Alone, he stood at his window and watched the visitors depart. A black limousine drew up at the bank, a black-uni-formed SS driver held open its door. The car drifted off quietly along the darkened street. The general-director gave a cold smile.

  The unusual
nocturnal appointment fitted the nature of the business. He’d known that, along with their profitable accounts, the acquisition of the Nazis’ business would bring the bank face-to-face with their more grotesque strategies. The sea into which the bank was heading was skeined with different currents: for example, the one that’d brought the Field-Marshal through their doors this morning.

  His thinking turned to Lilli Dressler. Her arrest had shocked him, immobilised him for a brief period. Then the startling events encompassing Herr Schmidt, his mother and the fraulein, had come like a bombshell. The chief auditor had tried to get her away! Who would’ve believed it? What would be the consequences? Schmidt must be on very thin ice — though all was strangely quiet. With Dietrich lurking in the wings, Wertheim had decided not to question the auditor, and had merely written his condolences. They’d wait and see.