‘Where?’
‘Here. The Japanese fixed for her to come back with me. They found her a job in their embassy.’
‘That’s where Ribbentrop laid eyes on her. Even her German impressed him.’
The waiter arrived with the beers. Dieter watched him, saying nothing. The last couple of days Keiko had stayed the night in the apartment, occupying the spare bedroom. At dawn, both mornings, Dieter had blinked awake to find her bent over him, her fingers exploring the hollows on his face. On the bad days in Japan, and there were many, he’d begun to accept acute pain as a permanent part of his life but Keiko, in ways he failed to understand, first softened the pain, then made it go away.
Dieter reached for his beer. The SS men were on the move.
‘Do you believe in magic, Georg?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe you should.’
*
After the meal, Georg drove Dieter out to the airport where Hitler’s personal transport was based. The Regierungsstaffel occupied a discreet corner of the hardstanding, hidden from the sweep of the terminal. Major construction was under way to make Tempelhof the biggest airport in Europe and cranes towered over the building site. The road from the Reich Chancellery and the major ministries had also been improved over the last year to make life easier for the VIPs shuttling back and forth. The two sentries at the gate gave Georg the Hitler salute as he slowed to show his ID. Dieter had only his Luftwaffe pay book. The older of the two sentries made a careful note of his name and service number. Then a brief word from Georg was enough to get him nodded through.
Georg was living in a sunny first floor room in the accommodation block behind the biggest of the maintenance hangars. Dieter eyed the aircraft parked out front as they walked across the hardstanding. Three of them were Ju-52 tri-motors, adapted as VIP transport. The fourth, bigger, was new to Dieter.
‘Focke-Wulf Condor,’ Georg said. ‘This is a prototype. They’ve fitted it out to cross the Atlantic. Lufthansa want to run a service to New York. Extra fuel tanks and a lot of patience for the crossing if you happen to be a passenger. It’s a prestige project and some of my customers have got their eye on it.’
‘Like?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Ribbentrop?’
‘Of course. Carrying the flag in his new job, he thinks he’s pretty special. He wants armour plating and some newfangled automatic parachute. As long as he’s still in favour, he’ll probably get it.’
Dieter nodded. The more he was learning about the upper reaches of the Reich, the more he understood the need for armour-plating. Georg was right. These people were permanently at war.
Upstairs in his room, Georg brewed coffee while Dieter inspected more photos of his friend’s bride-to-be. Georg had never had any time for sharing inner secrets, something he regarded as a mark of personal weakness, and Dieter was surprised by the warmth in his voice. At the very least, this was an indication that Beata had somehow penetrated the seeming indifference that served as Georg’s personal armour plating.
‘Sometimes you get lucky,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe her when we first met and that feeling’s never gone away. It’s fine for you. You always fall on your feet. Me? I’m choosy.’
‘Meaning I don’t care?’
‘Meaning it matters less. Women? Aircraft? Bits of Spain you wouldn’t inflict on your dog? You cope. You always cope. You make the best of it. Often more than the best of it. I’m different that way. Things have to be right. Especially when it comes to women. Take Beata. You know the moment she had to become my wife? It was the second time out together. We were in a little place in the country. I’d been there before. It was quiet and it was nice. Excellent food. Wonderful Schnitzel. The kind of welcome you can depend on. Except they’d just built some barracks in the woods nearby, some training facility or other, really young kids, first-timers, out on their own, rough, ignorant, foolish. It was evening. Three of them came in for a drink. One of them was drunk already. A local said something he didn’t like and suddenly we’re looking at a fight. I got up, of course. The local man was at the next table. Then Beata told me to sit down. I couldn’t believe it. Sit down, Georg. Leave this to me. And you know what? She talked to the oaf, calmed him down, made him ashamed of himself, insisted he bought the poor man a drink. We got drinks, too. He had to stand us a bottle of Sekt. Beata again. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ He shook his head. ‘What a woman.’
Dieter smiled. This, from Georg, was a major speech but he could visualise the scene, Georg watching the incident unfold with something close to disbelief, reluctant as ever to trust anyone else. He’d always been a stranger to both risk and the workings of fate, insisting that a wise man learned to depend only on logic and good sense. But now there was this Beata in his life, opening doors he never knew existed.
‘How old is she?’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Older than you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Has she had boyfriends before?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You haven’t asked her?’
‘No. What would be the point?’
The question, so unforced, was deeply revealing but Dieter knew he meant it. Beata’s previous life would probably remain a secret. All that mattered was the fact that she’d slotted so neatly into Georg’s plans. They would doubtless be perfectly matched, have three brilliant children, and would cherish each other for ever. Dieter could think of worse outcomes but not many.
Georg wanted to talk about the wedding. Dieter’s stories about the aircraft carrier and the seaplane had disturbed him.
‘Why?’
‘Because I have something in mind. A present, if you like.’
‘For Beata?’
‘Of course.’ He poured the coffees and brought them over to a small table beneath the window. ‘She knows what I do. She knows I fly all these big names around. But what she doesn’t know is what I was up to before. She knows about Spain and the Legion and some of the times we had but I don’t think she’s ever really grasped what it means to be a fighter pilot.’
‘Then take her up. Borrow a trainer. Put her in the back. Show her what you can do, what it feels like.’
‘I’m not sure that would be wise. She had a trip in a glider once. She said it made her ill.’ Georg glanced up. He was toying with his coffee cup, a moment of indecision, trying to frame a question or perhaps a favour. Not at all the Georg Dieter remembered.
‘You told me you were frightened,’ Georg said at last.
‘Of what?’
‘Flying. You told me at the restaurant. You told me you’d lost your nerve.’
‘That’s true. I did.’
‘So why did that ever happen? Haven’t you asked yourself?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t know the answer. Falling out of the 109 didn’t help. And nor did what happened afterwards. You end up being someone a bit different. It takes getting used to. Keiko says I’m living with a stranger. All I have to do is ask him to leave.’
The thought put a frown on Georg’s face. This kind of talk, to him, was plain crazy.
‘So who is this stranger?’
‘Me, Georg. It’s me. I’m the stranger.’
‘So how do you get the stranger to leave?’
‘I’ve no idea. But she’s definitely working on it.’
‘You feel better?’
‘Much better. There are kinds of pain you never want to live with. Just now they’re heading for the door.’
‘And this is Keiko’s doing?’
‘Yes. Entirely. It’s a skill she has. A technique. In a moment you’re going to ask me whether I’m grateful. The answer is yes but if you want the truth it’s much worse than that. I think I’m in love with the woman.’
‘Because she’s making you better?’
‘Because she’s a mystery. Because I don’t understand her. And because I coul
d probably spend the rest of my life trying.’
‘The rest of your life?’
‘Make that a couple of months. Maybe longer. Whatever. I don’t know. All that matters is she cares enough to try and get me back in the air.’
‘That’s what you want?’
‘Of course. Diplomacy, all that Reich shit, must have its rewards. But they’re lost on me.’
‘Have you talked to anyone about what happens next?’
‘Not really. Not formally. So far I’ve been on leave. Next week I have to report to the Air Ministry. You know the way it works. The decision will be theirs.’
‘They’ll check you out. Make sure you’re safe.’
‘Of course.’
‘That might take a while. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe I can talk to one or two people. Just a private word. Someone like Goering.’
‘Goering?’ Dieter blinked. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
Georg reached for his beer. Then came the look again, weighing up the wisdom of some inner decision.
‘The wedding is the weekend after next,’ he said. ‘That gives you ten days to get back in a serious aircraft. It has to be a 109. The new “E” series is a beauty. Power you wouldn’t believe and lots more range. The boys in Spain can’t believe it. There are a couple of Emils over at Johannistahl. They’re still using them for tests. The right word in the right ear and I could get you in the cockpit by Thursday.’
‘But why the hurry?’
‘I just told you. The wedding. I want Beata to see what flying really looks like. I want it to be a present, a surprise.’
‘You mean a display?’
‘Exactly. Her parents have a summer home on the lake at Gatow. We’re having a celebration in the garden after the ceremony. You could display for twenty minutes and be back with us within the hour. As I said, it would be a present. You wouldn’t even have to wrap it up.’ Georg extended a hand. ‘Deal?’
8
KARLOVY VARY, SUDETENLAND, 6 MAY 1938
Tam Moncrieff took a train to Folkestone late that same afternoon. The ferry cast off as dusk began to gather and it was dark by the time he landed in Boulogne. Ballentyne had provided him with a railway ticket through to Karlovy Vary in Czechoslovakia. The ticket, to his mild surprise, entitled him to a private sleeping berth and he awoke as the train shuddered to a halt in Frankfurt the next day. By mid-afternoon he was queuing for passport checks on a windswept platform on the Czech border, listening to fellow passengers from Nuremberg discussing how much quicker the crossing might be once the Führer sorted the situation out.
The situation. Renata, according to Ballentyne, had gone ahead. Tam hadn’t seen her since their encounter on the Essex coast but he was assured that she’d be on the platform at Karlovy Vary to meet the train. Over a breakfast of boiled eggs and slightly burned toast in the Mayfair safe house, Ballentyne had wished him luck with the programme of discreet meetings that Renata had already arranged. These were Czechs with their fingers on the fitful pulse of the infant democracy and would doubtless tell him a great deal about morale, as well as prospects for the near future.
Now, as the train clattered into the Sudetenland, Tam sat by the window trying to avoid the attentions of a small but persistent dachshund belonging to an overdressed woman who must have been in her late fifties. Impressed by his German, she seemed to believe he came from the Rhineland and because she’d never laid eyes on his passport he was content to leave it that way. Deception, he told himself, had to become a way of life. Why not start now?
The Sudetenland lay in the rolling green hills south of Dresden. This part of Czechoslovakia, the ancient lands of Bohemia and Moravia, was full of German-speaking Sudetens who looked to Berlin rather than Prague. There were more than three and a half million of them and lately, under the leadership of a vocal Sudeten politician called Konrad Henlein, they’d made it plain that they wanted to rid themselves of the heavy hand of the Czech government. In the eyes of most observers in Paris and London, this was the perfect overture to Hitler’s next move into Central Europe, and only days ago, in front of an enormous crowd in Karlovy Vary, Henlein had tabled a set of unnegotiable demands to set the Sudetens free.
Tam had managed to absorb this much in a briefing from Ballentyne but what remained unclear was the attitude of the Western democracies in the face of such pressure. Would the French honour their treaty obligations to the Czechs in the event of a German invasion? And if so, would the British support the French? Ballentyne, as imperturbable as ever, had smiled at the questions. In his view, the future, like the past, was a river. Where it flowed next depended on circumstances, some foreseen, others not. Tam, in a phrase he wouldn’t forget in a hurry, might become one small but important particle of those circumstances. Good hunting. And God bless.
Renata was waiting beyond the ticket barrier. Tam scarcely recognised her. The tan she’d acquired had deepened and something had happened besides that. Back on the Essex coast in Jaywick, she’d been on the shortest of fuses, an angry woman short-changed by false promises and beached by a situation beyond her control. Now, she looked transformed.
‘This is Edvard,’ she said simply.
A tall, bony figure stepped out of the shadows beside the left-luggage office. His work trousers were giving out at the knees and a button was missing from his once-white shirt but his smile warmed the space between them. He might have been a day labourer with a pound or two in his pocket and the prospect of an interesting evening to come. He radiated a sense of anticipation that Renata appeared to share.
Edvard seized Tam’s bag and led the way out of the station. The plaza outside was already full. Making his way through the waiting crowd, Edvard plunged into a maze of narrow streets on the far side of the square. One alley led to another. The press of people began to thin. At length, alone in a cul-de-sac lit by a single street lamp, Edvard rapped at a door. At length it opened. Tam glimpsed a scrawny arm and a woman’s face before his bag disappeared inside and the door slammed shut.
‘This is where you live, my friend. The lady of the house is very accommodating. Anything you need,’ Edvard grinned, ‘within reason.’
Edvard’s German, heavily accented, was otherwise perfect. He checked his watch and conferred briefly with Renata before giving her a hug and disappearing back towards the mouth of the alley. She watched him go, a smile on her face, and then turned back to Tam.
‘Tonight the Nazis are holding a rally. We need to be there. Afterwards Edvard has someone you must meet. Come.’
It took nearly half an hour to get back to the centre of town. The streets were choked and once they got to the square itself there was barely room to stand. A band were playing on a hotel balcony and the women in the crowd had linked arms, swaying with the music. Renata slipped her arm through Tam’s, joining in, swapping some joke or other with the women behind while Tam’s gaze sought out the faces upturned to catch the spotlights roaming across the vast gathering. Most of the men looked a little like Edvard: lean, fit, scruffy, poorly shaved. Many of them wore swastika armbands and the moment a figure appeared on the planked scaffold that served as a stage, a deep roar gathered in the belly of the crowd.
‘Hen-lein!’ they shouted. ‘Hen-lein!’
Some of the men were punching the air, a gesture that seemed to link the Communist salute to something darker from the other side of the frontier. Tam had last witnessed scenes like this in Germany, a decade and a half ago, when he’d sampled a rally or two during his stay in Berlin. This was in the early years of the Nazi movement. The capital had been full of working men, by no means convinced about the NSDAP brawlers in their fancy uniforms, and night after night political rhetoric had given way to violence as the Brownshirts and the Reds squared off.
Then, Tam had marvelled at how volatile and how easily manipulated a crowd could be. Given a decent orator, a man of passion, a man who knew how to use language and gesture, ten thousand people became putty in his hands. Much later, back
from Germany, Tam had watched the same dark magic at work at the Nazi rallies so meticulously staged in the cradle of the regime at Nuremberg. Even on newsreel films, even in the smoky darkness of an Edinburgh cinema, you were a fingertip away from abandoning every shred of rationality. The pillars of light, he thought. The forest of raised arms. The sheer theatricality of the moment, scored for abandon and the most terrifying ecstasy. The Nazis knew how to make love to crowds, how to toy with them, how to raise them to a howling climax, orchestrated by the demonic tub-thumping figure on the spotlit rostrum.
Was Henlein this good? Could he mould the crowd the way his master in Germany did? By now he’d started speaking and Tam knew at once that the answer was no. Effective? Yes. Well-informed? Undoubtedly. But there was something missing, perhaps a sense of ruthlessness or maybe ownership. At Nuremberg, the crowd belonged to Hitler. It was his business to cast a spell on them, something he perfected in speech after speech. The soaring rhetoric, the wild theatrics, the moments of bathos when he risked seconds of total silence, carried not a scintilla of self-doubt. He was the man in charge. He was the leader. He was there to point the way to a glorious future, purged of countless enemies. Henlein, on the other hand, was a bureaucrat, a man of facts and figures, far more cautious, infinitely more reasonable, and probably hamstrung by the smallness of his part in the enfolding European drama. Ballentyne had hinted that this grey-suited man on the stage up front was in the pocket of Berlin. And watching him, Tam sensed that Henlein knew it.
The speech, compared to Hitler’s diatribes at Nuremberg, was mercifully brief. Henlein took the crowd through the Eight-Point Declaration he’d drawn up just a week and a half earlier. This was the gun they were holding to the heads of the Czechs in Prague, a ruthless bunch of Slav patriots with their collective foot on the neck of the Sudetenland. These people, Henlein said, had badly misjudged the Sudetens. They’d underestimated their loyalty to the mother tongue and the mother country. In the name of the hated Versailles Treaty, they’d tried to fob them off with vassal status. But the Sudetens, millions of them, knew better than that. Because Prague was on the wrong side of history and unless they conceded on every point then history, in ways that Henlein declined to describe, would exact a savage price.
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