They were only a few kilometers out of town when Moe said, after a glance in the rearview mirror, “Somebody following us. There must’ve been a lookout at the hotel.”
He floored the little car’s accelerator, but as Karl watched, going along a narrow valley road, the big black car behind kept getting nearer, emerging from each curve a bit closer.
“This road straightens out soon,” Moe said.
The black Mercedes loomed behind but did not smack into their rear bumper. “They’ll wait for the straight, then come alongside us,” Moe said, “and force us off the road.”
As soon as a stretch opened up, the Mercedes came alongside. Moe sped up. They fell behind a car length.
Karl gripped the armrest. “It’s two of those Gestapo guys,” he said over the engine roar. The car smelled hot, metallic. “The big blond one is grinning at us.”
“I don’t like it when they’re happy,” Moe said. “Hold on.”
They were approaching a rising curve to the left. They shot over the peak and started down. The moment the big car behind them edged over, Moe hit the brakes hard. He swerved left, into the opposing lane.
The Mercedes shot past them. He saw startled faces in the windows that flicked by.
The braking howl filled the air and drove Karl forward. He caught himself on the dashboard. There should be seat belts in these—
Moe slammed harder on the brakes as the Gestapo sped ahead. They were braking now.
When the car came to a screeching stop, Moe gunned it in reverse. Karl hung on. They skidded backward. Moving fast, Moe turned the wheel a hard right. They went into a slide. Shrieking tires. The front end slid around with eerie grace. They went up on two wheels. Hovered, leaning. Karl braced himself and they slammed down hard, pointed back the way they had come. Moe rammed the gear into forward and they took off. Away from the Gestapo, who had overshot them.
The engine roared. They hit high speed and then slowed, Karl looking back. “Can’t see them.”
“Take this, keep it close.” Moe produced the pistol from his jacket. Karl took the gun and, to keep it secure, put it between his legs. Freud would have loved that, he thought.
They fled. The engine whined in protest. A kilometer flew by.
Moe slowed, took them into a dirt road to the right. A hundred meters in he found a place to turn around and went back. He edged the car into a side slot where they were out of sight of the main road but could see anything that went by. Minutes ticked on, nobody speaking. The engine swarmed with heat, making the air wobble over the hood. A farm wagon came by, drawn by a tiny truck away from Zurich. Its tinny engine sounded like a joke to Karl in the warm, mellow air. He wondered what could happen next. More minutes.
“No following car. Good! Let’s go see.” Moe’s tone was steady, calm.
Karl realized his hands were still clenched around the seat mounts and his muscles ached with tension. He eased up, sighing. “Shouldn’t we just head for the border, some side road?”
“I don’t like having them behind us. We have to know where they are.”
Moe took his pistol back and snapped its action, feeding a round into the chamber. Then he set the hammer carefully down and put on the safety. “Here.” He handed it to Karl. “Have it ready for me.”
They turned out onto the paved road. All quiet. Moe drove carefully away from Zurich as they came back along the road and approached a rising curve. When they came over the crest, they saw first the wagon drawn by the small truck, and beyond it the Mercedes, upside down, about seventy meters beyond the truck. They hadn’t hit the truck, which was slowing.
“They must’ve gotten mad,” Moe said, stopping to appraise the view. “Easy to make errors of judgment that way.”
They slowed, crawled forward. Karl asked, “How can you tell?”
“Tire marks, see? Driver tried to make a U-turn halfway down the slope. On a flat road, that’d be no problem. On the gradient, the inside wheels are higher, so look at those black tire tracks. See, about two-thirds of the way through, they roll it.”
Karl estimated. “It went over fifty meters. See the torn grass? Top is caved in. Nobody moving in there.”
The farmer was already at the wreck, walking around the car, looking in. He tried the door, couldn’t open it.
Moe snorted. “Job done, I’d say. Those boys just got a little overexcited.”
They had to go off the road to inch by the Mercedes. The farmer waved at them and said in German, “Can I get help?”
“Ja.” Karl gestured, as if horrified. “Schnell.”
Through the smashed windshield he saw two bodies heaped up like a collection of parts, not men. Blood spattered the side windows, bright red turning brown at the edges. One head was all blood. The Mercedes had held up pretty well, but not its contents.
“Let’s go,” Karl said. “Nothing can help those guys anymore.”
7.
They reached Geneva on the main road by midafternoon. Moe brought them into a small parking lot a few hundred meters from the train station. It was a pleasant day and everyone was smiling, but Moe said, “Stay sharp. The Gestapo has plenty of agents in Geneva. We know that quite well. A few of our OSS guys died finding that out.”
Karl’s job was to call the hotel manager in Zurich. Moe stayed out of sight, saying, “I’m conspicuous.” A station clerk let Karl make the call, charging a hefty fee. Karl mangled his French and German to tell the man to take the train and pick up his car. “Your keys we’ll leave with the station master. Tell him your name. There will be more money in the envelope. Sorry we had to do this.”
“I think I know your reasons,” the man said. “Amerikaner, ja?”
“Uh, ja.”
“Good luck to you both. May all this be over soon.”
Not quite soon, Karl thought. If we survive today, that is.
He went out into the main hall of the train station and out toward the tracks. There were long lines stretching from the ticket booths, and Karl wondered about getting back to the French coast. The dust drops were picking up, a newspaper headline he had glimpsed said in big red type. He ambled back toward the car and Moe appeared, out of nowhere. “Off to the right,” Moe said. “In the Opel.”
Karl knew enough now to just fake a move upward, then glance—and there they were. Three faces, surveying the crowds, trying to look inconspicuous. He turned to remark to Moe that they were obvious Gestapo types, but Moe was gone.
Karl walked on, wondering what to do. No doubt there were other Gestapo, or simply spotters, around the train station. Maybe he had been targeted already? He moved into the thick of the crowd, and then, when a truck blocked the view from behind him, ducked into a narrow alley. As he walked to the end of it, Moe appeared suddenly from a narrow side alley. “Good dodge,” he said. “Now we need a cab.”
“Why?”
“They can’t easily follow us in this traffic. Anyway, we’re headed for the airport.”
“Why?”
Moe shook off the question. “Go out and hail a cab. Now. Bring it around back here, near the tracks. I’ll come out fast.”
Karl did this, scrupulously not looking for Gestapo. He snagged the cab and directed the cabbie with finger pointing and stuttering German. Moe appeared out of nowhere, got in, and Karl said, “Flughafen, bitte.”
They got there swiftly, with Moe hushing him when he tried to ask what was up. The Swiss airport was small and modest, three boxy buildings. Once out, their bags in hand, Moe directed Karl to a sign saying GEFREITE. Karl vaguely knew this meant “military.” A small man rose from behind a desk, asking, “Darf ich Ihnen helfen?”
“Wir möchten ein Flugzeug chartern, bitte.”
“Das ist sehr teuer,” the man said. A personal plane would be expensive, indeed. Karl asked if they would they take the Allied-made francs. A skeptical scowl.
“Tell him we have real cash.” Moe opened a wallet Karl had not seen him use, full of bills. “Wir sind Amerikaner.” Moe turned to Ka
rl and said, “That about uses up my words.”
The man gaped as Moe laid out crisp American bills, all hundreds. It took eight before the man nodded. “Wohin wollen Sie?”
“Rome,” Moe said. “Schnell, bitte.”
The plane had to be sorted out, but their bags got tagged and tickets punched. They sat in a deserted private lounge of old brown sofas, waiting. It smelled of cigarettes; people were still nervous about flying, and they medicated themselves before it. Karl wondered if there was a bar in this place. “That guy overcharged us,” he said.
“Sure. You want quick service, you pay. A universal language.”
“You’re always one step ahead of me.”
“This isn’t your area. I needed you to do the physics talk in the garden.”
“He was trying to give away just enough. Otherwise, he stayed clear.”
“I liked how you handled Heisenberg. He figured right away you were a Jew. That helped. He knows what’s going on in Germany, everywhere they occupy.”
“This late, he must.”
“I figure he sees the whole Reich is facing the breaking point. If we get Hitler, finally, the only power base left, aside from the domestic police, is the field marshals out fighting us and the Soviets. Heisenberg prob’ly thinks the marshals are still real patriots. Not Nazis.”
“Hope so.”
“Those guys at the station, that the Gestapo sent after us—it means they want to know what we learned. God help Heisenberg, though.”
“I think a Nobel keeps him safe, for a while.”
Moe shrugged. “Maybe. Heisenberg’s some sort of moral weasel, to me. A klutz when it came to bomb physics, as you teased out of him. But still devoted to Deutschland über Alles. He’s just doing the smart thing, for the circumstances.”
A ground crew was working on a nearby small passenger plane, two props. Moe pointed. “Good. I told one of those mechanics I don’t want to go over the Alps with one engine.”
Karl said nothing. Moe was relaxing, stretching his long legs as they watched the airplane get fueled. “As for us, I figure it’s easier to get to Rome fast than into France slow. Especially now, with that damn dust everywhere.”
Karl let moments pass. “Y’know, I was scared through all this. Especially today.”
Moe nodded. “Aristotle once remarked that to know courage you must also first know fear.”
Karl tried to make himself feel elated, and failed. “I’m not cut out for this.”
“Maybe the baseball helps me. I’m used to watching the players, to pick off a base stealer or a guy who takes too big a lead from the bag. Seeing the big picture.”
“You’re a philosophical ballplayer, for sure.”
Moe sat back, basking a bit. “I took philosophy at Yale. I liked what Kant says, how’s he put it? ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.’ Heisenberg the genius proves that.”
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
8.
Their airplane taxied into place outside, with ground crews attending. Karl picked up his suitcase, eager to go. Private plane. Now, this is the way to travel. . . .
He barely noticed a soft sound from behind, a whisk of air. Karl turned. At the back of their waiting room a door swung open and a phalanx of German officers entered, stepping together as if on parade. Karl saw them first. His jaw dropped. Moe had been studying their airplane. He turned, saw them too, and casually glanced back at the airplane, plainly estimating the distance.
“We can’t make it,” he whispered. “Those officers are carrying sidearms too.”
Karl tried to look uninteresting, head ducked down, fidgeting with his luggage. But with stiff steps the lead German officer came right up to them and stopped, scowling. Another officer beside him said in clear though accented English, “We have come to talk.”
Moe looked them over thoroughly before replying, “We are diplomatic personnel. You have no cause—”
“We know who you are,” the lead officer said in a more clipped, efficient English.
He was graying and sober, with a long face creased by care. Karl thought the accent was Prussian. The guy certainly had an air of being in charge, but Karl did not know the complicated German rank insignia. A slow cold formed in him. Here was the true enemy. One he had helped kill many thousands of, and would again if he had the slightest chance.
The officer drew himself up, and the others around him followed suit. “We wish to speak, that is all.”
Karl could not let that go. “Who do you think we are?”
A confident, sliding smile. “You were sent here to interrogate Heisenberg. The Gestapo missed you at first, but you dealt with them when they finally understood.”
Moe shrugged. “We exchanged pleasantries with Professor—”
“For espionage.” Still the smile.
By this time the officers and guards had spread out into a semicircle. Their faces were intent, guarded, bodies stiff, tense.
Karl thought, We were so close! and said, “I am a physicist and was interested in Professor Heisenberg’s new field theory.” This at least was somewhat true, but he doubted that would matter.
“Do not fear for your safety. I should introduce myself.” He waved a hand and two officers nodded, left the room. “I am Admiral Canaris, commander of the Abwehr.”
Instantly Moe said, “I gather you are of an anti-Hitler faction in the Abwehr? Are there many such in your Military Intelligence agency?”
“You presume correctly. You have studied us, I see.” Another stiff bow. “I was alerted to your presence by our embassy here. We have agents there.”
“How’d you find us?”
“Originally, an observation by our trade mission. You, Mr. Berg, we have quite a file on.”
“I’ll bet. You know I’m a civilian—”
“Ballplayer of some kind, yes. You have other roles as well, we know. You may know something of our Abwehr. Among our Kriegsorganisationen, ah, war organizations, I have formed a circle of like-minded Wehrmacht officers. We wish an end to this war.”
Karl was unsure what this parrying meant, but said, “Does treatment of Jews come under your Abwehr?”
A frown, a dismissive wave. “We have nothing to do with the persecution of Jews. It is horrible, yes—but no concern of ours. We in the Abwehr hold ourselves aloof from it. I protested the rounding up of Jews in our Polish invasion.”
Several new officers came in, nodded. Canaris swept a hand toward the door in invitation. “Please join us for refreshments before your flight. I have told the airport officials to await you.”
“Suppose we want to leave now?” Karl asked as they were ushered down a side corridor lined with more German officers, into a room with chairs and a buffet table. Someone had hastily arranged an odd social event. There were even German soldiers serving as waiters, awkwardly dealing with a coffee machine and pastries. A sense of unreality crept over Karl, making him even more edgy. He wondered if they knew he was a Jew. Almost certainly, though he had pointedly not given his name. Moe didn’t either; they knew him.
“My name is Smith,” Karl said.
“Ah, yes, perhaps,” Canaris said mildly. “Mr. Smith, were you to leave now, would be bad. You would be neglecting your duty to do so, in fact.” A thin smile. “We wish you to carry back more information than you have already gathered.”
“Sie haben sehr gutes Englisch,” Karl said to stall. He watched several more officers quietly enter and stand by the walls.
“Thank you.” A Prussian nod. “I studied it. I have learned to trust the truthfulness of British intelligence, and now perhaps the Americans.”
Canaris gestured with authority, seating them at a round table with five chairs. The German uniformed waiters rushed to place before them dainty fresh pastries, which Canaris identified, pointing and rolling out their complicated names. “Bienenstich, Gugelhupf, Käsekuchen, Kirschtorte—Bitte, essen Sie!” With a flourish from the waiters, the coffee arrived in he
arty, steaming mugs. Karl felt a dizzying sensation of unreality. He was afraid yet able to keep his eyes from darting among the gray uniforms that embodied all he hated.
Canaris bit into a Kirschtorte and nodded with satisfaction. “Our most famous—ein Schwarzwälder. Cannot get these in Deutschland any longer. So I looked forward to this little expedition, for feasting reasons. Heisenberg had same motive, I believe.”
“He said as much,” Moe remarked, plainly moving the conversation along.
But Canaris was not to be rushed. “I was in contact with British intelligence during the Polish invasion. Then, during our conquest of the Soviets, we received a detailed report of all the enemy positions, matters known only to the British.” A lifted eyebrow.
After this swerve in topic, Canaris offered Karl another pastry. Let him ramble, Karl thought, and after a sip of the strong coffee, he took the light, airy confection. The cadre of officers had retreated to the other side of the room, beyond easy hearing. Canaris wanted to talk a bit, soften them up, and seemed more a diplomat than the stiff Prussian manner implied. He even smiled convincingly.
Moe slid in a mild, slow sentence. “Then you are speaking to them, the British, again?”
Canaris sighed. “No, alas. We in a certain faction of the General Staff High Command have tried. Carefully, of course. Detection would mean execution. Several signals to London went unanswered. We suspect someone is blocking these signals of compromise.”
“Compromise? You mean . . .” Karl let the sentence dangle.
“A negotiated cease-fire on our western front,” Canaris said with a steady gaze, poised as he delivered the words. Karl realized the man had rehearsed.
Suddenly it all seemed clear. The Abwehr had used Heisenberg as a stalking horse. Once they had spotted Moe and Karl from a distance, and the Gestapo had departed with Heisenberg, there was time to make contact. But the Gestapo were watching the hotel. So Abwehr held off, probably confused. The Gestapo were deadly, and yet this morning was the very last minute to make contact. Moe got them away so fast only the Gestapo could manage to follow. Then Moe’s deft chipping off the Gestapo pursuit had no doubt tangled up matters more. It also gave Canaris time. Maybe enough to fly here from Zurich? Then German army efficiency had sliced through the thicket, saving the Abwehr agenda at the last minute. As the German army now wanted to do with the whole war. At least, in the west.
The Berlin Project Page 36
