Echoes of Silence

by Patrick W O'Bryon

  Ryan understood. But he wouldn’t reveal his espionage role no matter how obviously Brandt was on to him. In truth, his lines of communication with both Ellington and Canaris appeared severed so he’d get no outside help should he sign up for this scheme. “Just how do you intend to get proof of this devious enterprise out of the country? Aren’t border controls extremely tight?” He thought of his experience at Weil am Rhein.

  Anton Kessler finally spoke up: “I don’t know to what extent my friend Gregor has told you of my enterprises, so allow me to clarify. I specialize in the movement of goods and people into and out of the Reich. My network of routes and pliable border agents makes for a very lucrative trade.” He tapped the ash from his cigar. “Two of my best people are waiting down in the car as we speak, ready to work with you on this. They handle difficulties in an efficient manner, so you needn’t give a thought to international borders.”

  Ryan accepted this information with a nod and turned back to Brandt. “Such an operation requires careful planning and is extremely high-risk. How soon do you need an answer?”

  Brandt had refilled his pipe and was tamping down the tobacco. “You are here right now, so that shows a willingness to work on behalf of Frau Friedrich. And your current legal situation remains precarious, given you’re an active target of a Gestapo manhunt and your cover story is at best tenuous.” He grinned. “So I believe we already have your answer. The rest is mere logistics. But it is imperative you know that time is of the essence. We’ve only two days to make a go of this.”

  “Two days? But that’s impossible!” Ryan impatiently ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay, fine. So tell me exactly how this theft helps Isabel?”

  She came around the sofa and put a hand on his shoulder. “Just hear him out, Ryan.”

  “Let me explain the rush,” Brandt continued. “We have an engraver working inside the print shop, a trustworthy man, and we also have a deliveryman who serves as our eyes and ears. After hours he drinks with two of the guards, so we know pretty well what’s going on from their standpoint.” The inspector glanced up and Isabel’s nod encouraged him to continue. “So here’s the story: this SS operation of Himmler’s has been a fiasco from day one. Every petty faction within his Berlin security apparatus wants control so they can take credit should it succeed. And it’s literally a money-mill, so they’re certainly siphoning off fake currency along the way.” He set the pipe aside without lighting it. “They started with civilian printers under SS oversight and the product proved shit. Next they brought in a guy they call ‘the professor,’ a mathematician and physicist considered an expert in serial numbers and the like. He authenticates the finished product but understands little of the creative process itself. It seems counterfeiting is a fine art. Anyway, Himmler is fed up with delays and turnover. He’s fuming and his lackeys are under extreme pressure to produce the goods.”

  Ryan considered for a moment. He had practical concerns. “Surely the place is well guarded. How do you make this happen without bloodshed?”

  Brandt exchanged another glance with Kessler. “I’ll get to that in a moment, but first you need to understand what we’re dealing with. After a number of failures someone finally suggested scouring the prisons for professional counterfeiters, a captive work force whose continued existence will depend on producing a satisfactory product. Naturally, the word went out to the Criminal Police detailing the type of inmate being sought, and I knew a particularly fine candidate. I arranged his transfer to Sachsenhausen and he now lives at the shop around the clock.”

  “Your engraver.”

  “As you’ve surely guessed,” Isabel took a seat on the arm of Ryan’s chair, “it’s Karl.”

  Ryan gave her an understanding smile. “I suspected at the word ‘counterfeiter.’” So isn’t it time you told me why you still work at that horrible camp now that Karl’s somewhere here in Berlin?”

  “First hear the inspector out, then you’ll understand.”

  Ryan looked to Brandt. “So, if I’ve got this straight, Herr Kessler’s men and I waltz into an SS print shop under German guise, have Isabel’s husband slip me a printing plate or fake banknote or whatever, and then I stroll over the border with proof of Himmler’s scheme?”

  Brandt, his pipe finally lit, shook out the match. “More or less. It does get a bit more complicated, since Karl must get out with you.”

  “The devil you say! It goes from grand theft to aiding and abetting a prison escape?”

  “Listen, Herr Lemmon. I am personally responsible for getting Karl into this mess. Over a decade back I arrested him for small-scale counterfeiting and forgery. During interrogation I discovered a kindred political spirit and a fine young man, so instead of putting him behind bars for years, I put him undercover. I needed someone to keep an eye on Nazi thugs. But that decision put me on the hook for everything he and Isabel subsequently suffered. I am cleaning up the mess if it’s the last thing I do, and should our plan fail, it may well be.”

  “And Isabel goes with us?”

  She spoke up: “Though I work here as ‘Isabel Friedrich,’ I still have my American passport squirreled away. The inspector had a forger update my journalism credentials, so I can leave anytime.”

  Ryan turned to Brandt. “Our mutual friend Becker, I presume?”

  “As you know, he does make a convincing document.”

  “So if you couldn’t get Karl released from prison through your own channels, how were you planning to get him out of the counterfeiting shop before I entered the picture?

  Isabel’s eyes filled with hope as she explained. “We hadn’t arrived at a definitive plan when you showed up and the solution became clear. “You, Ryan, are our godsend. Once we know Karl’s free, I leave Berlin and he joins me in Zürich.”

  Ryan was convinced. Helping Isabel reunite with her husband was reason enough. Getting Ellington and the COI solid proof of this counterfeiting operation would be icing on the cake. “Listen, inspector, I’m willing to move forward, but I’ll need twenty-four hours to think this through and strategize with Herr Kessler’s men. This will have to run like clockwork if we’re to pull it off.”

  “Understood,” Brandt said. “But just to clarify—we’ll need your thoughts and proposals by morning.”

  Fed up with surprises, Ryan wanted the whole picture. “Why in God’s name’s this infernal rush?”

  “An untimely change of command. Isabel learned of it at Sachsenhausen just a few days back, and the clock is ticking. Himmler wants harsher oversight for this ‘Operation Andreas,’ especially as they bring in convicts as the primary workforce. He’s chosen a man known for working inmates to death by the hundreds if not thousands and enforcing discipline with torture.”

  Isabel’s voice turned brittle as she interrupted the inspector. “It can’t get worse than this, Ryan—it’s Johann Hallinger, the same man who destroyed our lives!” Her fists were clenched, her jaw trembling. “That son-of-a-bitch is now a lieutenant colonel in the SS, and he’ll recognize Karl the minute he steps into that shop. We’re talking the devil incarnate!”

  With the memory of Gestapo torture seared in his own flesh, Ryan understood her fury and her fears. “And he takes over in two days?”

  Brandt fished eyeglasses from his vest pocket and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief. “Hallinger’s been in charge of one of the concentration camps of a growing complex in the Ostmark called Mauthausen-Gusen. Apparently he anticipated a promotion to full command of the whole operation as a reward for his innovation and performance, so this Operation Andreas assignment appears to him a major career setback.” He removed a small photograph from his wallet. “His plane arrives tomorrow evening at Tempelhof, and we don’t expect him to arrive happy.” Brandt put on the glasses and glanced at the photo before handing it over to Ryan. “Decent likeness, I’m sure, though a few years old, taken covertly when he was a rising Nazi thug on my personal watch list. He’s close to your size and build.”

  Ryan
noted closely-cropped dark hair, an arrogant twist to the mouth, and soulless eyes. He returned the picture. “So why the charade? Why not pull a nighttime smash and grab before Hallinger shows his face?”

  “There are night guards, of course, and the Gestapo would be on your tail with a Reich-wide alert within hours. This needs to happen quickly and quietly, and with no alarms until you’ve made a clean get-away.”

  “Does Karl know he’s about to be freed?”

  “Not yet. But now with you on board, we’ll let him know something’s in the works.” He put the photo back in his wallet. “We thought we had more time.”

  “What’s the layout?”

  “Our delivery guy says twelve or so working a twelve-hour dayshift in the main rooms. He’s made us a sketch. At least four SS guards on duty at all times; one at the front gate, another at the building entrance or the rear gate when a delivery comes, two always inside. Plus there’s the shop foreman Ehrlich, an obnoxious type, we hear. Langer, the math ‘professor,’ stops by most days to keep tabs on the finished product, but always on his own schedule and never mornings. A late sleeper.”

  “And when does Hallinger actually inspect his new command?”

  “Day after tomorrow at nine a.m. Thanks to Frau Friedrich’s access at the camp, we know his schedule from the time of his flight to where he’ll stay upon arrival. That’s why she still heads out there daily—to make sure there aren’t any changes to foul us up.”

  “So you delay him long enough for me to assume his role, then Herr Kessler’s men and I spirit away Karl and proof of the counterfeiting.”

  “Frau Friedrich said you were a smart one.” Brandt broad smile revealed tobacco-stained teeth. “Yes, Herr Lemmon, you are to become a brutal Obersturmbannführer.” Brandt promised to go over everything when they next met. “Finally, Herr Lemmon, I took the liberty of having our forger Becker create identity papers mimicking Hallinger’s. Our mutual friend happened upon a photograph of you and I must say the work is excellent, as always.”

  Kessler wrapped up the meeting with few words for Ryan: “My men will follow your lead, and personal risk and violent response aren’t a problem. It’s what they do, and they’re well compensated for it. But the success of the actual enterprise rests on your shoulders, so I suggest you be at your best.” He rose from the chair. “We meet tomorrow morning at ten. Gregor will get you the address of my townhome.”

  “I’ll have to call in sick again for the morning,” Isabel clarified, “but I must be at the camp by afternoon to confirm Hallinger’s schedule.”

  Brandt put away his eyeglasses and smoothed the wrinkles from his waistcoat. He rose cautiously, holding on to the arm of the chair. Ryan suspected arthritic knees. “Let me know what else you’ll need and I’ll get it for you.” The inspector gave the smiling Isabel a fatherly hug. “I’ve waited years to make this right for you, dear lady.” He requested his coat and hat.

  Kessler snuffed out his cigar and stood ramrod straight as he awaited his own outerwear. “Welcome aboard,” he said to Ryan as they shook hands all around.

  After observing the sedan pull out from the curb, Ryan closed the narrow gap in the blackout drapes and broke the silence. “If you don’t mind, Izzy, I believe I could use that Cointreau now.”

  CHAPTER fOURTEEN

  Berlin, Germany

  Delbrückstrasse 6a

  December 1941

  Karl leaned away from the magnifying glass and flexed his back muscles, helping to relieve the pain between his shoulder blades. Nearly a decade of incarceration and foul treatment had taken a toll on his body. He removed the wire-rimmed glasses and gently rubbed his eyes. His forging of the fifty-pound banknote was approaching perfection, but he fully expected his shop mates to botch things on the production end. Many notes would be ill-cut and unable to fool the most myopic bank teller. On others, the loose fibers in the rag-based paper would reveal something amiss, even if one overlooked the odd texture of the paper itself. One press run might place the watermark too high with respect to the seated figure of Brittania in the upper left corner, then the next might show a faded black tint obvious to any practiced eye. The fault wouldn’t lie with his expression of the soul of the note in the plate before him. This ill-trained team simply lacked the motivation to perfect their counterfeiting skills, and the procurers of supplies had yet to duplicate the precise nature of the British product.

  He observed the others toiling in the shop. The men’s brows were constantly furrowed in concentration, their ears long immune to the mechanical clank and clunk of the nearby presses. Some hunched over tables, tearing the rag paper to mimic the edges of genuine banknotes. Others mistreated the pristine banknotes to give them a patina of rough usage, then pricked the currency to mimic the banking practices of the British, who favored pins over rubber bands. Still others bundled approved product for storage in the room known as their “Bank of England.”

  He sighted the length of the shop and spotted the blond and balding foreman. A true devotee of his Führer Adolph Hitler, Ehrlich bossed with a discipline as rigid as his posture and his lips pursed as tight as his sphincter. His ultimate task was evaluating the finished bills as they arrived at the bundling station. True to form, very few made it past his approval stage.

  Weber, Henning and the others manned the presses and followed the routine procedures, inspecting their personal stage of production with only a casual eye. Luther, the only other engraver, tried his best but lacked the gift and hand that made Karl’s plates shine. Everyone knew that, in the final approval stage, Ehrlich would leave no doubt how incompetent he found his underlings. Sadly, the man lacked the skills to show a better way.

  Some workers wore uniforms beneath their smocks, others neat civilian garb with white collars and dark neckties. Karl’s required dress was different. He alone wore the blue-and-gray stripes of a camp prisoner. His tunic bore a five-digit prison number on the chest, the cloth badge a red triangle identifying him as a political prisoner and an overlapping triangle in yellow for his Jewish heritage. Together they formed a Star of David.

  At day’s end the others left for home but Karl remained behind, confined to a closet beneath the stairs with a cot and no window. Two guards stood watch for the night. For Karl it was a paradise of privacy after years of communal suffering, and the available food seemed decadent, almost sinful, after the starvation rations of the camps. A solitary cupboard held his personal possessions: a few smokes, a safety razor, a bar of shaving soap.

  Tucked in a seam of the cot’s iron frame was a tiny photo sent by Isabel during his first year of incarceration. Suspecting it might be tossed by the censors, she had cleverly secreted it behind a false backing within the envelope. With bent edges and an image now faded by time and wear, the 35mm contact print showed a woman against the imposing backdrop of a cathedral. But that woman, her features unrecognizable, was the love of his life. Their baby had not survived, but had she lived beyond that last letter? Before sleep each night he dwelt on the image, recalling her features and crafting stories of her current whereabouts. Had she married another? Was she now a mother of beautiful children and living again in Chicago?

  The disparaging attitude of his colleagues paled in comparison to the harsh physical treatment he’d experienced at the hands of camp guards, yet it remained a constant aggravation. The printers made no effort to hide their disgust with taking direction from a Mischling, a half-Jew in prison pajamas. This attitude was aggravated by Karl’s disapproval of their printing efforts. Ehrlich berated that same apathetic production of his colleagues, but saved his special physical punishments for Karl’s slightest infraction: failing to rise quickly when addressed by an SS officer, daring to light up without permission, or nodding off after the long, tedious hours. Any error in demeanor and he would forego all meals for a day, sit cross-legged for an entire 12-hour shift, or squat on his heels until his legs buckled. “Strength through obedience,” Ehrlich barked.

  At times Karl had con
sidered adding the tiniest of errors to each of his engraving blocks, perhaps a subtle alteration of one of many markers the British already hid to call attention to forgeries. But, despite the conviction he would never go free and thus had little to lose if discovered, he couldn’t bring himself to spoil his own creations. His engravings remained perfect.

  A decade had passed since he’d committed his life to fighting fascism. Those years had not been easy. Already bruised and hurting from the fight that robbed him of wife and unborn child, he was dragged to a cellar somewhere in the city and forced to down liters of castor oil. They repeatedly beat him across his bloated belly until he soiled himself, adding one more level of humiliation. Then the heroes of the new Germany led him through the streets seated backwards on an ox, a sign at his neck branding him “Jewish traitor to the Fatherland.” Following this public degradation, they beat him senseless and delivered him to a cell. He recovered only because other political prisoners nursed him back to a semblance of health. The court trial that followed was a mockery of justice, the prosecutor and his appointed defender both making the same case for his condemnation and incarceration.

  That first year in prison was the hardest, for he still hoped to reunite one day with his beautiful Isabel. Soon her letters stopped and he received no further word. After serving out his sentence, the guards thrashed him again for good measure before transport first to the Esterwegen camp for political dissidents, then later to the Dachau concentration camp. He was deemed an undesirable, socially unfit to live and work among solid citizens of the Third Reich. At Esterwegen the SS had not yet assumed full security duties and a few SA guards involved in his initial arrest and mistreatment singled him out for ongoing abuse. His survival relied on the selfless acts of other political inmates.