For a fleeting moment, Hoffner wondered if the tone on the telephone, and now here, had something to do with Sascha’s visit to the Krolls. Had something been said? Was there a reason for the two fathers to talk? That would be unpleasant. Worse than that, Hoffner couldn’t for the life of him remember Kroll’s boy’s name. There was no way to return the compliment and move on quickly. “Thank you,” said Hoffner. “Yes. Sascha couldn’t stop talking about the lovely evening he had.”
“Good, good. Johannes really enjoys the time they spend together.”
“Johannes,” said Hoffner, doing his best not to show his relief. “Yes. I haven’t seen him in years. Also a wonderful boy.”
“Yes . . . Thank you.”
The two men stared at each other for several seconds. Finally, in a moment of sudden recollection, Hoffner blurted out, “The Deutscher Rundflug. The four of us went to the opening to see Knig fly. My old partner.”
“Yes,” said Kroll, remembering eagerly.
Hoffner had no inkling why they had slipped into this bizarre little scene. He had known Uwe for far too long. Nonetheless, he continued to watch as his friend nodded uncomfortably: it quickly became apparent that Kroll’s behavior had nothing to do with either of the boys. Finally, Hoffner said, “The material, Uwe. Is there something I should know?”
Kroll stopped nodding. “The material,” he repeated distractedly. “Yes.” He pointed to a chair and headed back behind his desk. “Why don’t you have a seat, Nikolai.”
Hoffner sat. Kroll sat, his mood more serious. “About the material. I ran a few tests.” He seemed unsure how to explain what he had found. “It’s military.”
This was the one thing Hoffner had hoped not to hear. “Military,” he repeated.
“Yes. Used during the war and, not surprisingly, developed here, at the Institute. There are files that are very”—Kroll tried to find the right word—“selective. I haven’t been able to look at all of them, but I’ve made an appointment for us to go up and see the Direktor. I’ve told him who you are, the work you do. He’s agreed to talk with us, but with the understanding that any information will remain strictly . . .” Again Kroll had trouble finishing the thought.
“Selective,” said Hoffner.
“Yes. Exactly.” Kroll stood and motioned to the door. “Shall we?”
Hoffner hesitated. “You mean now?”
“Yes.” Kroll was already out from behind the desk. “He’s expecting us. Please.”
The glass on the fifth floor office had the word DIREKTOR stenciled across it: Kroll knocked, then stepped through to an anteroom fitted with desk, chairs, and several filing cabinets. A plump woman, with her hair pulled back in the tightest bun Hoffner had ever seen, was seated behind the desk: he was amazed that the skin had yet to tear on her forehead. She stood.
“Good afternoon, Frau Griebner,” said Kroll, with a quick click of the heels: his anxiety had mutated into a strict Germanic decorum.
“Good afternoon, Herr Doktor Kroll.” She offered an equally perfect nod: her manner was as efficient as her hair. She took no notice of Hoffner. “I will tell the Herr Direktor you are here.” She stepped out from behind her desk and disappeared through a second door. Almost immediately she returned. “The Herr Direktor will see you now, Herr Doktor.” Hoffner followed Kroll into the office.
The room was large and filled with lamps, though the light seemed inclined to shine on only a few select areas. The rest of the space lay in half-shadows, less the result of poor positioning than of an ominous afternoon sky that hovered outside the four vast windows. The gloom seemed to be drawing the light out through the glass: Hoffner wondered if closing the drapes might, in fact, have helped to brighten the place up.
The Direktor had done his best to construct a small preserve of light for himself across the room. He got to his feet. “Herr Doktor Kroll,” he said. “Hello, hello.” He came out into the shadows to greet them. The Direktor was much younger than Hoffner had expected, a man of perhaps forty with a somewhat unruly moustache beneath a wide nose and basset hound eyes. Even more unexpected was the remarkable smile that seemed so out of place in the impressive, though dour surroundings.
“Herr Direktor,” said Kroll. “Allow me to present Herr Kriminal-Kommissar Nikolai Hoffner. Herr Hoffner, this is Herr Professor Doktor Albert Einstein.”
Hoffner recalled Kroll having mentioned Einstein once or twice, over the years. The man had come up with some theory that Kroll had described as either ludicrous or genius. Hoffner couldn’t remember which. The three shook hands and retreated to the desk. Einstein did his best to expand the pocket of light; even so, Hoffner and Kroll were forced to lean in over the edge of the desk in order to escape the shadows.
Einstein reached down and opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out a thin file with the word RESTRICTED in bold type across its front. There was also a long paragraph describing the penalties for disseminating the material, written in much smaller print below. “This is for a criminal case?” said Einstein.
“Yes, Herr Direktor,” said Hoffner.
Einstein nodded. “I’ve always been fascinated by criminal cases. They’re like little puzzles. Quite a bit like what we spend our time on.”
“Except no one ends up dead, Herr Direktor.”
Again Einstein nodded. “How little you know about science, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” He paused, then added, “Anyway, you wanted to hear about something that was meant to be helpful on the battlefield.” He slid the dossier over to Hoffner. “It was called Ascomycete 4. One wonders what happened to numbers one through three.” Einstein was the only one to enjoy the joke.
Hoffner took the folder and opened it. Kroll quickly interrupted: “That’s all very technical stuff, Nikolai. Formulations and so on.” Kroll reached over and flipped to the last few pages. “The gist of the thing is at the back. This bit here.” Again, Hoffner began to read, and again Kroll cut in. “It was developed for trench fatalities,” said Kroll. “And, on occasion, no-man’s-land retrievals.”
Hoffner looked up. Evidently there would be no need for reading. “For men already dead,” said Hoffner, inviting more of the lesson.
“Yes,” said Kroll. “During the beginning of the war—and later on, during the worst of the fighting—it was impossible to transport the dead back to the field hospitals in order to prepare them for burial. Too many bodies were rotting on the front. Not only was contagion an issue, but morale, as well. Men needed to know that if they went down, at least an entire corpse would be returned to their families. The military decided that it needed something to keep the bodies as fresh as possible so that, during those periods of isolation, they could minimize the distraction and disease produced by the corpses, and also treat the dead with as much decency as possible. So they came to the Institute.”
“And”—Hoffner scanned the front page—“to Doktors Meinhof and Klingman.”
“Two very capable chemists,” said Kroll. “They came up with the solution. Meinhof is now in Vienna, at the Bielefeld Institute. Klingman passed away about a year ago.”
“So how did you know it was this”—again Hoffner read—“Ascomycete 4 from the sample I gave you?”
“Actually,” said Kroll, “it didn’t take me that long. Once I separated out the components, there were trace elements of an unguent I’d seen only once before. It was in a sample that I’d been asked to analyze during the war.”
“A military request?” said Hoffner.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“You made the connection and it brought you to the restricted files.”
Now Einstein was impressed. “You’re very good at this, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”
“No, Herr Direktor,” said Hoffner, “just impatient.” He turned to Kroll. “And the components were the same?”
“Identical.”
Hoffner flipped to the back of the file; he scanned a few of the paragraphs. Kroll had been right to give him the condensed version. “And this co
mpound,” said Hoffner. “It’s now available outside the military?”
“That’s where the difficulty lies,” said Kroll. “All of this is still under lock and key here at the Institute. More than that, the research was discontinued in the middle of 1917. They stopped producing it. I won’t ask you where you got your sample.”
“Stopped?” said Hoffner. “Why?”
“Because they discovered that too much of it, if inhaled, acted as a very potent hallucinatory stimulant.”
This seemed to perk Einstein up a bit. “Not a bad little side effect, eh, Kriminal-Kommissar?”
Kroll continued: “Once the men on the line discovered its other use—well, how can you blame them, really? The General Staff did its best to restrict access—select doctors were the only ones who could get hold of the stuff—but then it no longer served the purpose for which it had been designed.”
“For a time,” added Einstein, “it actually became more popular than morphine. You can only imagine the embarrassment Meinhof and Klingman went through.”
“I’m sure,” said Hoffner as he tried to digest all of the information.
Einstein said to Kroll, “You know, it just now occurs to me that that was probably the same problem you were looking into when they gave you the original unguent to analyze. The hallucinogenic side effects.”
Kroll nodded, considering it for the first time himself. “That’s probably true, Herr Direktor. I never thought of that.”
“Yes,” said Hoffner, interrupting the riveting sidebar. “But would they have destroyed the stock they still had?”
Einstein said, “Oh, I doubt that. Too much potential as a weapon, don’t you think? The chance to develop it into a hallucinatory gas, that sort of thing.”
Unfortunately, Hoffner knew Einstein was right. “And would one slathering keep a body fresh indefinitely?”
“That was another problem,” said Kroll. “It had to be reapplied quite frequently. Hence the large quantities and the hallucinations.”
“How frequently?” said Hoffner.
“Very frequently,” said Kroll. “At least two or three times a day.”
“So, how much of the stuff would one need to keep a body fresh for, say, six weeks?”
“Six weeks?” Kroll said incredulously. “Not possible. You’re talking liters and liters. Vast amounts.”
Hoffner was pleased to hear it. “So nothing your average officer would have been able to ferret away?”
“Impossible,” said Kroll with complete certainty. “It was designed to insulate the flesh for two, maybe three days, and that with constant supervision. And even that became impractical. Too many bodies to manage. The whole thing proved to be a disaster.”
Hoffner sat back and again let the information settle. At least the lone army psychopath was no longer a possibility, not that the alternative was all that much more appealing. “And you’re sure that what I gave you is this same compound?”
“Absolutely. The chemical makeup is unique. It’s like a signature. Meinhof and Klingman might just as well have attached their thumbprints to it. It’s Ascomycete 4, Nikolai. No question.”
The three men sat in silence for nearly half a minute. Hoffner could tell that Einstein wanted to ask a few questions of his own, but was choosing not to venture out of his own realm. Maybe the positioning of the light was more than just bad happenstance. Insulation could be so very comforting.
Hoffner spoke to Einstein: “I could demand all the relevant files, Herr Direktor. This is, after all, a Kripo investigation.”
“Yes, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar, you could, but then I would have to get in touch with the Office of the General Staff—” Einstein stopped himself. “There is still an Office of the General Staff, isn’t there?”
“Yes, Herr Direktor,” said Hoffner.
“Good,” said Einstein, mildly relieved. “One doesn’t always know these days, what with the revolution. Anyway, given the peculiarity of this case, I’m not sure you’d want them to hear that you’re looking into it, just yet.” The knowing smile returned. “I could be wrong, but that’s up to you, of course.”
Hoffner nodded. “Point well taken, Herr Direktor.”
Again, the room grew quiet. Einstein said, “I imagine this only complicates your case, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”
“Yes, Herr Direktor,” said Hoffner. “It does.”
Einstein nodded coyly. “That’s not always such a bad thing.”
“I know, Herr Direktor. But right now it doesn’t make things any easier.”
The air outside was pleasantly dry as Hoffner lit a cigarette and stepped onto the plaza. It made the cold all the more piercing and gave the smoke a certain crispness as it raced down into his lungs.
Kroll had been nice enough to run through the remaining files with him, but there had really been nothing more to see. The names of the officers on the General Staff had been omitted, as had any firms that had been used to transport or produce the compound in any large quantities. It was all just science, and that, as Kroll had pointed out, was probably of little use to the Kripo.
“Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”
Hoffner turned around. To his complete surprise, he saw Hans Fichte heading toward him. Hoffner tried to remember if he had left a note for Fichte back at the Alex. He knew he hadn’t, which made Fichte’s appearance all the more puzzling.
Fichte was eating something out of a brown bag. He tossed both it and the bag into a dustbin, and quickly made his way over. “Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” he repeated.
“Hans. What are you doing here?”
“They told me you were with the Direktor. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Or interrupt your lunch.”
“That, too.”
Hoffner stared at Fichte. “So . . . Are you going to explain how you found me here, or do I have to guess?”
Fichte’s face brightened. “A wire came in for you back at the Alex. It was marked ‘urgent.’ On the off chance, I checked the switchboard logs to see if you had made any telephone calls today. There was the one to Herr Doktor Kroll late this morning, so . . .” Fichte left it at that.
Hoffner reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his cigarettes, and offered one to Fichte. “Nicely done, Hans.” Fichte took the cigarette; Hoffner used his own to light it, and they began to walk. “So what’s so urgent?”
Fichte coughed several times, unaccustomed to the quality of the tobacco. “Two things. First, a wire came in from Bruges. They’re putting through a call to you at one o’clock this afternoon. I didn’t want you to miss it.”
The Belgians were also full of surprises, thought Hoffner: he had been hoping to hear from them by next Monday at the earliest. “So, nothing at Missing Persons?” The two continued across the plaza.
“Pleasant little spot,” said Fichte. “They actually laughed when I mentioned Brussels. They’re dealing with close to twelve hundred Berliners who’ve gone missing since November. I had no idea.”
“Then let’s hope our girl isn’t from Berlin.” Fichte nodded and Hoffner continued, “You said two things.”
There was a hesitation as Fichte reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded newspaper. “I trust you haven’t seen this.” He handed the paper to Hoffner. “This afternoon’s edition.”
It was a copy of the BZ. Hoffner took it and scanned the front page.
“Page four, at the bottom,” said Fichte.
Hoffner flipped it open. It took him no time to find it. When he did, he stopped and stared in disbelief. Fichte could see the anger rising in his eyes. “That son of a bitch,” was all Hoffner could get out.
It took them forty minutes to get back to the Alex, enough time for Hoffner to cool off. Even so, he headed straight for the KD’s office as Fichte trailed behind.
Without knocking, Hoffner pushed open the door. Luckily, Präger was alone: he looked up calmly as Hoffner bore down on him. “Something I can do for you, Nikolai?”
Hoffner pl
anted the article in front of him. “Have you seen this, Herr Kriminaldirektor?”
Präger continued to look up at Hoffner; he then slowly picked up the paper and began to read. The telltale chewing of the inner cheek told Hoffner that he had not.
After nearly a minute, Präger said, “I love how they say ‘sources in the Kripo.’ That always gives it such a nice ring of truth.”
“And we have no idea how this got out,” said Hoffner.
Präger shook his head as he reread several of the passages. “It’s obviously from someone who knows something about the case,” he said, still scanning. “At least two victims. A vague reference to something on the back, though no mention of a knife.” He looked up at Hoffner. “This reads more like a teaser. I’m guessing they’ve got more information than they’re letting on.”
“Agreed,” said Hoffner. “You know we had a nice little chat with Weigland last week.”
“Yes,” said Präger, with just a hint of reproach. “Kriminal-Oberkommissar Braun stopped in to ask me to make sure you understood the parameters of the case.” With mock sincerity, Präger said, “You do understand the parameters of the case, don’t you, Nikolai?”
“It’s just Oberkommissar now,” said Hoffner. “That’s the way they like it upstairs.”
“Well, we’re not upstairs, are we?” Präger handed the paper back to Hoffner. “The Polpo likes its turf, Nikolai, but there’s no reason they would do this. Just consider yourself lucky there wasn’t any mention of Luxemburg.”
“Yes, I’m feeling very lucky.” Hoffner knew Präger was right: the Polpo had nothing to gain by it. No one wanted the hysteria this might produce. Still, Hoffner had his doubts. “They’ve got Luxemburg,” he said. “Of course she wouldn’t be mentioned.”
Präger disagreed. “This isn’t the way they’d go about it. Also, there are too many other possibilities—a family member of one of the victims, someone downstairs. Any one of them could have let this out. It’s the BZ, Nikolai. This story didn’t come cheap.” Präger turned to Fichte. “So, Herr Kriminal-Assistent, what do you think? Is this the Polpo?”
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