by James R Benn
“It’s a damned bizarre war,” I said.
“Wait. Tonight should be positively surreal,” she said.
“Dulles is attending?” Kaz asked.
“Oh yes, Allen will make his entrance fashionably late. Victor and I will bring him up to speed about who’s there, and then he’ll start chatting with diplomats, bankers, fascists, lawyers, and even more sordid types.”
“Who are they?” I said.
“Journalists, those who can be trusted to stay off the record,” she said with a lilting laugh. “And probably a few evadees.”
“I thought Switzerland put all military personnel in internment camps,” I said.
“Those are internees,” Maureen said. “Now pay attention, see if you can follow the bouncing ball. If you’re shot down and parachute onto Swiss soil, you become an internee. If your parachute lands elsewhere or if you escape from a German POW camp and make it into Switzerland while evading capture, you’re an evadee. Evadees get to stay in cushy ski hotels, which are mostly empty, given the shortage of tourists these days. They can travel with the proper permissions. Don’t ask me to defend the logic, but it’s how the Swiss do things.”
The car pulled up in front of a palatial house, the kind of joint that had a fountain out front, wide steps leading up to a giant front door, and a wrought-iron fence around the grounds to keep out the commoners. Big windows and smiling, sleek people in fine clothes. Gravel crunched under the tires as Lasho drove the Opel around the fountain and let us out.
“I will be nearby,” he said, his eyes moving constantly, checking each person as they came close. “It is tempting.”
“What is?” Kaz asked.
“To prove what they say about Sinti. That we are all thieves. There will be much to steal in such a grand house.”
“Resist the impulse, Anton. I’d much prefer you to find Hannes than the family silver,” Maureen said. “Now move, boys, before all the canapés are gone.”
We followed Maureen’s clicking heels up the steps. She gave our names to a big guy at the door. He looked like a pro. Hooded eyes scanning the arriving guests, short haircut, and a well-cut tux that couldn’t hide the bulge of his holster. A slightly smaller guy with a clipboard stood off to his side and checked off our names. He nodded us through, his look lingering on me for a fraction of a second. Maybe he made me for a cop, or maybe I looked like I didn’t belong. Kaz fit right in with this crowd, and Maureen was a known quantity, so I was deserving of a second glance, which I got, and no more. Which would not have been the case if we’d come packing with telltale bulges like the doorman’s. Maureen told us she’d gotten our measurements from her tailor in Geneva and arranged for the tuxedos to be altered. I had a double-breasted job, and it fit like I glove. I looked like a million bucks. An unarmed million bucks, which isn’t necessarily the best combination.
We moved through the foyer into what formerly was a grand ballroom, like you see in the movies, where once upon a time ladies in big hooped skirts waltzed around the dance floor with men in frock coats. A waiter carrying a tray of drinks slowed down enough for us to snag glasses of champagne, and we flowed through the crowd in Maureen’s wake as she cheek-kissed her way to one corner of the room.
“Now to see who’s here, who’s talking, and who’s stalking,” Maureen said, delicately picking up a smoked salmon canapé from a roving waiter.
“Stalking who?” I said, stuffing salmon on a tiny piece of rye bread into my mouth.
“This is a gathering of rich industrialists, government officials, movers and shakers in Swiss high society,” she said. “Someone always wants something. It’s instructive to watch and see who is circling for the kill and who tries to slip away. Now don’t bother trying to remember all the names, dear boy. Simply soak up the decadent ambiance.”
Maureen downed her champagne and grabbed another glass, taking three steps up a staircase to a wide landing. The curving stairs led to a mezzanine along one side of the room, decorated with paintings of stern-faced Swiss through the ages. The height advantage gave us a perfect view of the crowd. Jewels draped around graceful necks sparkled as women in brightly colored gowns linked arms with men in their black-and-white uniforms. Smiles and laughter lit faces untroubled by war and destruction. They all had the pampered skin of the rich, soft and creamy, marred by nothing more than ruddy cheeks from the ski slopes.
“There are Germans, here, of course,” Kaz said, his champagne untouched.
“Oodles of them, darling,” Maureen said. “Behave yourself.”
“Do not be concerned. I left my revolver at the hotel,” Kaz said.
“Well, I wouldn’t come unarmed,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got a .25 caliber Browning in my clutch. Haven’t had to use it yet, but I’ll admit, I could put the six rounds to good use in this crowd. See those two men standing near the window, a third of the way across the room?”
“The guy with the thick lips and long face? Next to the dour older fellow?” I said.
“Yes. The thick-lipped gent is Emil Bührle, owner of Oerlikon industries. You’ve perhaps heard of his guns?”
“The twenty-millimeter Oerlikon cannon?” Kaz said. “They are used by every major power.”
“And produced under license to Oerlikon in all those nations, which makes Emil a very rich man. Perhaps the richest in Switzerland. Of course, all the weapons manufactured here in Switzerland are sold directly to the Nazis.”
“Hardly seems like a neutral act,” I said.
“Oh, Emil would sell to anyone. And he will, once the Allies reach the Swiss border. Now the man he’s talking with, that’s Kurt von Schroder. Heinrich Himmler’s favorite banker. He does all the important transactions for the SS.”
“This is pretty one-sided, all these Nazis doing business openly,” I said, tossing back my drink and looking for another. “So much for neutrality.”
“It’s not only the Swiss and the Germans, dear Billy,” Maureen said. “One of von Schroder’s jobs is to take cash payments from IT&T and pass them onto Himmler. Our very own International Telephone and Telegraph has serious business interests in Nazi Germany through their subsidiaries. It’s von Schroder’s job to look out for them, and bribing Himmler is one way IT&T makes certain those subsidiaries keep paying dividends.”
“What do you mean?” I said, having a hard time believing any American company would do that.
“They own twenty-five percent of Focke-Wulf, which produces the best fighter plane the Germans have. It brings them a tidy profit and they keep the wheels of commerce greased with payments to Himmler and his bunch,” Maureen said. “Sad to say, it’s the truth.”
“A truth I doubt we will read in the newspapers,” Kaz said. “What do those two men have in common?”
“Emil is a big art collector. Von Schroder has put him in touch with Hermann Goring, who sells him artwork at cut rates. You know, stuff they stole from Jews. Emil likes Impressionists and Postimpressionists, especially. I hear there’s a Cézanne he’s after. Maybe that’s what they’re chatting about.”
“I’m glad you said I don’t have to remember their names. Are there any nice people here?” I asked.
“Bless your sweet soul, Billy, I doubt it. Oh, wait, goodness prevails,” Maureen said, waving at two men who were making their way to her. She explained one was a Swiss lawyer and the other a German diplomat, but we shouldn’t hold it against either of them.
“Herr Doktor Veit Wyler, and Vice Consul Hans Bernd Gisevius,” she said, after giving them our names and supposed occupation. “Dear friends, this is a group that bears no deep scrutiny. Billy asked if there were any decent sorts in the room and I almost gave up hope until I spotted you two. Have a nice chat while I go powder my nose.”
“Dr. Wyler, is it your clients who bear no scrutiny?” Kaz asked as he cast a wary eye toward Gisevius, Ger
man diplomats not being high on his list for party chitchat.
“You must not take Miss Conaty very seriously,” Wyler said. “She is a delightful person, but prone to exaggeration.” Wyler had a round face and a pleasant smile. Only the bags under his eyes hinted at the secrets he held.
“I agree on both counts,” Gisevius said. “But in this case, she hardly exaggerates. Veit is famous in certain circles, infamous in others.” Gisevius clapped Wyler on the shoulder, grinning broadly. He was slightly older, tall, with graying blond hair and intelligent eyes behind tortoise-shell glasses.
“How so?” I asked.
“He is a legal genius,” Gisevius said. “He’s helped a number of Jewish refugees make it across the border. Veit found an obscure paragraph in an old law volume, which said that no person crossing the border into Switzerland wearing any part of a Swiss army uniform could be turned away. Probably something dating from the Napoleonic Wars. So he gathered up as many old uniforms as he could and distributed them at the more well-known crossing points. Brilliant!”
“I would not think your government would consider it so brilliant,” Kaz said, his mouth turned down in disdain.
“No, but things are not always as they seem, are they, gentlemen? Now, please excuse me, there is someone I must speak with.” Gisevius gave a little bow. I expected him to click his heels, but he didn’t oblige.
“Is that true?” I asked.
“Yes,” Wyler said. “I expect it is why I was invited by the Red Cross. Although, with the number of government officials here, I wondered if I’d be arrested instead.” He smiled, to show it was a joke. The kind of joke that’s only funny because it might be true.
“Then I am surprised to see you in company with a Nazi,” Kaz said.
“And me being a Jew,” Wyler said. “I should be shocked myself.” He raised his glass to us as a farewell and wandered off.
“There is much about this place I do not understand,” Kaz said. “I almost prefer the battlefield.”
“Almost,” I said. “But there’s a lot to be said for champagne and no shrapnel on the side.” We nibbled on pâté canapés while waiting for Maureen to return, wary of being surrounded by Nazi bankers. Boston bankers were bad enough. Too many people I knew had lost their homes during the Depression for me to feel any kindness toward the business class. Especially ones wearing little swastikas on their lapels.
“You two look lost,” Henri Moret said, one of the few decent banker gents I’d met. He carried a small black briefcase, no drink or food in hand.
“It’s not my usual crowd,” I said. “You working?”
“I have some papers to deliver to Mr. Huber. Bank business. Have you seen him?”
“Wouldn’t know him,” I said. “Maureen’s been giving us the lowdown on the nefarious characters in the room, but then she took off.”
“You were talking with Wyler, I saw,” Henri said. “A good man. You heard about his uniform trick?”
“Yes,” Kaz said. “And we also met a very strange German. Hans Bernd Gisevius.”
“Best not to ask too many questions about Hans,” Henri said. “Ah, here’s Victor.”
“Sorry I’m late. I was looking for a friend I expected to see here,” Victor said. “Vadim Fournier, who works in Huber’s finance office.”
“Too bad, Vadim’s always the life of the party,” Henri said. “Not the staid banker type at all.”
“Anyway, you fellows should have waited for me this morning,” Victor said, patting his pockets. Henri seemed to recognize the routine and withdrew his silver cigarette case, opening it and offering Victor one of the Parisienne cigarettes lined up neatly inside, before taking one for himself. As he flicked his gold lighter, his eyes moved to the side, spotting someone on the mezzanine. “Did you hear about the shooting, Henri?”
“No, but tell me later. There’s Huber, and I need to get this to him. I’ll be back.”
We watched Henri take the steps up to the mezzanine and work his way to Huber, who was surrounded by a semicircle of friends, admirers, or lackeys. It was hard to tell the difference.
“It must be damned important,” Victor said. “Henri always likes to hear the latest news and gossip from the streets.”
“He had papers from the bank for Huber to sign,” I said. “I guess banker’s hours don’t apply to the wealthier clients.”
“It’s a foolish banker who ignores a man with Max’s holdings,” a voice from behind me said. “Hello, Victor. What are you up to these days?”
“Thomas McKittrick,” Victor said, as I stepped aside to make room in our little circle. “I don’t think you’ve met my colleagues.” Victor gave our names and little else about us. “Mr. McKittrick runs the Bank for International Settlements.”
“I thought I knew most of the consular staff,” McKittrick said, as he gave us the once-over. He had a large, wide forehead made even more pronounced by a thatch of receding white hair.
“They don’t let us out of the office very often,” I said. “What’s an American doing running a Swiss bank?”
“Swiss? Hardly,” McKittrick said with a laugh. “I guess you don’t work on the financial side with Victor.” I gave a noncommittal nod.
“BIS was created after the last war, to help transfer reparations from Germany to other nations,” Victor explained. “Today it serves as an international central bank for other central banks.”
“So it’s not the kind of bank where I can deposit my pennies,” I said.
“Not quite,” McKittrick said, with a condescending smile, his eyes already searching out company more equal to his stature.
“Perhaps you will be back in the reparations business soon enough,” Kaz said.
“I hope not. Last time around, the victors were too harsh on Germany. If Germany loses this war, I hope wiser heads prevail,” McKittrick said.
“If?” I said. “I’d say it’s only a matter of time.”
“A German defeat could mean a Soviet army in the heart of Europe,” McKittrick said. “That would be a disaster.” He seemed stunningly unaware of the disasters wrought by the Third Reich already. Or uncaring.
“We will not allow it,” another voice said in a gruff German accent. Our circle widened to include a stocky gray-haired man with heavy jowls and a Nazi Party pin on his lapel. “The Bolsheviks have no place in modern Europe.”
“Herr Hermann Schmitz,” McKittrick said, laying a friendly hand on the shoulder of the new arrival. “He serves on the board of the BIS. This is Mr. Boyle and Mr. Kazimierz of the American consular staff. You know Victor Hyde, I believe.”
“Ja, Victor, we know each other. But these gentlemen I have not met.” He leaned forward and squinted his eyes, like a guy who needed glasses but didn’t want to admit it.
“Please excuse me,” Kaz said, his voice like ice. He turned away, finding Dr. Wyler nearby and joining him in conversation.
“Quite rude,” McKittrick said, guiding Schmitz away. He glanced at Kaz and Wyler, then leaned in close to speak to Schmitz. “Another Jew, probably,” I heard him say.
“Admirable restraint on your friend’s part,” Victor said. “An incident here would do us no good.”
“We’re more used to killing Nazis than making small talk with them,” I said. “McKittrick seems to have no trouble with it, though.”
“No. His bank has helped launder a good deal of stolen gold. Twenty-three tons from Czechoslovakia, for instance.”
“Jesus, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys around here?” I asked.
“That’s easy,” Victor said. “The good guys are the ones who wonder about that very question. The bad guys don’t even understand it.”
“Like McKittrick?” I asked.
“He likes gold, whatever the source. He has certified Nazis on his board of directors. He doesn’t care for Jews very mu
ch, not to mention our Soviet allies. Does that answer your question?”
Kaz rejoined us at the same moment as did Henri, a glass of champagne in hand.
“Do you know who that man was?” Kaz asked, his mouth set in a grim line of anger.
“Schmitz? Besides being on the board of BIS, he’s chairman of the board at IG Farben. Why?” Victor asked.
“Do they make fighter planes as well?” I asked.
“Billy, you should spend more time actually reading the intelligence reports the fine people at SHAEF put together for us. IG Farben is a major Nazi arms manufacturer and uses vast numbers of slave laborers. One of their products is a gas called Zyklon B.”
“What’s that?” Henri asked. I’d heard of Zyklon B, and felt a shudder at the thought of a fellow American’s hand on the shoulder of the Nazi businessman whose company produced it.
“It is a poison gas. Very fast acting. It is used to murder vast numbers of Jews and others in the extermination camps,” Kaz said. “That man is the worst kind of mass murderer. He profits from it.”
A waiter passed by, halting at the edge of our circle with a platter of cheeses and smoked ham. No one was interested. At this point, hiding out in the hills of occupied France and living on stale bread seemed preferable to another moment in this gathering of the evil, the elite, and the greedy.
“Look who I found, boys,” Maureen said, making her way through the crowd with Dulles in tow, her arm linked with his. “What’s to report?”
“Nazis, bankers, industrialists, the usual crowd,” Victor said. Then his gaze lifted to the mezzanine. “But there’s a threesome we haven’t seen before.”
McKittrick was introducing Schmitz to Max Huber. The two of them were shaking hands while McKittrick grinned like a Boston banker foreclosing on the O’Hara widow.
“What’s the head honcho at IG Farben got in common with the president of the Red Cross?” I asked.
“Money?” Henri said.
“Or maybe they’re working a deal,” Victor suggested. “Something that would make Schmitz look good after the war. Releasing slave laborers or something like that.”
