Garden of Beasts

by Jeffery Deaver

  "No, sir, at least not regarding the families in Gatow. Quiet, hardworking, apparently decent folk. Jews, yes, but they did not practice their religion. They were, of course, not involved in the Party but they were not dissidents. As for the Polish workers, they had come here from Warsaw only three days before their deaths to plant trees for the Olympics. They were not Communists or agitators that anyone knew."

  "Any other thoughts?"

  "There were at least two or three killers involved. I noted the footprints, as you instructed me. Both incidents, the same."

  "The type of weapon used?"

  "No idea, sir. The casings for the shells were gone when I arrived."

  "Gone?" An epidemic of conscientious murderers, it seemed. "Well, the lead slugs may tell us. Did you recover any in good shape?"

  "I searched the ground carefully. But I couldn't find any."

  "The coroner must have recovered some."

  "I asked him, sir, and he said none were found."

  "None?"

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  "My irritation is not directed at you, Gendarme Raul. You are a credit to your profession. And forgive me for disturbing you at home. You have children? I think I hear an infant in the background. Did I awaken him?"

  "Her, sir. But when she is old enough I will tell her of the honor of being awakened from her dreams by such a famed investigator as yourself."

  "Good day."

  "Hail Hitler."

  Kohl dropped the phone in the cradle. He was confused. The facts in the murders suggested an SS, Gestapo or Stormtrooper killing. But had that been the case, Kohl and the gendarme would have been ordered at once to stop the investigation--the way Kripo detectives had been told instantly to cease looking into a recent black-market food case when the investigation found leads to Admiral Raeder of the navy and Walter von Brauchitsch, a senior army officer.

  They weren't being prevented from pursuing the case but they were encountering foot-dragging. What to make of the ambiguity?

  It was almost as if the killings, whatever the motive, had been dangled before Kohl as a test of his loyalty. Had Commander Meyerhoff called the Kripo at the behest of the SD to see if the inspector would refuse to handle cases involving Jew and Pole killings? Could this be the case?

  But, no, no, that was too paranoid. He was thinking of this only because he'd learned of the SD file on him.

  Kohl could come up with no answers to these questions and so he rose and wandered through the silent halls once more to the Teletype room to learn if another miracle had occurred and his counterparts in America had seen fit to respond to his urgent inquiries.

  The battered van, hot as an oven inside, pulled up on Wilhelm Square and parked in an alley.

  "How do I address people?" Paul asked.

  "'Sir,'" Webber said. "Always 'sir.'"

  "There won't be any women?"

  "Ach, good question, Mr. John Dillinger. Yes, there may be a few. But they will not be in official positions, of course. They'll be your peers. Secretaries, cleaners, file clerks, typists. They will be single--no married women may work--so you will say 'Miss.' And you may flirt a little if you like. That would be appropriate from a workman but they will also understand if you ignore them, wishing only to get your job done as efficiently as possible and get back home to your Sunday meal."

  "Do I knock on doors or just enter?"

  "Always knock," Morgan offered. Webber nodded.

  "And I say 'Hail Hitler'?"

  Webber scoffed. "As often as you like. One has never gone to prison for saying that."

  "And that salute you do. The arm in the air?"

  "Not necessary," Morgan said. "Not from a workman." He reminded, "And remember your G 's. Soften them. Speak as a Berliner. Lull suspicions before they arise."

  In the back of the sweltering van Paul stripped off his clothes and pulled on the coveralls Webber had provided. "Good fit," the German said. "I can sell them to you if you wish to keep them."

  "Otto," Paul said, sighing. He examined the battered identity card, which contained a picture of a man resembling himself. "Who's this?"

  "There is a warehouse, not much used, where the Weimar stored files of soldiers who fought in the War. There are millions of them, of course. I use them from time to time for forging passes and other documents. I locate a picture that resembles the person buying the documents. The photographs are older and worn but so are our identity cards because we must keep them with us at all times." He looked at the picture then up at Paul. "This is a man who was killed at Argonne-Meuse. His file notes that he won several medals before he died. They were considering an Iron Cross. You look good for a dead man."

  Webber then handed him the two work permits that would allow him access to the Chancellory. Paul had left his own passport and the fake Rus sian one at the boardinghouse, had bought a pack of German cigarettes and carried the cheap, unmarked matches from the Aryan Cafe; Webber had assured him he'd be searched carefully at the front of the building. "Here." Webber handed him a notebook and pencil and a battered meter stick. He also gave him a short steel rule, which he could use as a jimmy on the lock in Ernst's office door if need be.

  Paul looked these items over. He asked Webber, "They're really going to fall for this?"

  "Ach, Mr. John Dillinger, if you want certainty, aren't you in the wrong line of work?" He took out one of his cabbage cigars.

  "You're not going to smoke that here?" Morgan asked.

  "Where would you have me smoke it? On the door stoop of the Leader's abode, striking the match on an SS guard's ass?" He lit the stogie, nodded at Paul. "We will be waiting here for you."

  Hermann Goring strode through the Chancellory building as if he owned it.

  Which, he believed, he one day would.

  The minister loved Adolf Hitler the way Peter loved Christ.

  But Jesus eventually got nailed to a T of wood and Peter took over the operation.

  That is what would happen in Germany, Goring knew. Hitler was an unearthly creation, unique in the history of the world. Mesmerizing, brilliant beyond words. And because of that he would not survive to see old age. The world cannot accept visionaries and messiahs. Wolf would be dead within five years and Goring would weep and beat his breast, pierced by pitched, genuine sorrow. He would officiate during the lengthy mourning. And then he would lead the country to its position as the greatest nation in the world. Hitler said that this would be a thousand-year empire. But Hermann Goring would steer his regime on the course to forever.

  But, for now, smaller goals: tactical measures to make certain that it was he who stepped into the role of Leader.

  After he'd finished his eggs and sausage, the minister had changed clothes again (he normally went through four or five outfits a day). He was now in a flamboyant green military uniform, encrusted with braids, ribbons and decorations, some earned, many bought. He had dressed for the part because he felt like he was on a mission. And his goal? To tack Reinhard Ernst's head to the wall (Goring was, after all, hunting master of the empire).

  The file exposing Keitel's Jewish heritage tucked under his arm like a riding crop, he strode down the dim corridors. Turning a corner, he winced in pain from his wound--the bullet he'd taken in the groin during the November '23 Beer Hall Putsch. He'd swallowed his pills only an hour before--he was never without them--but already the numbness was wearing off. Ach, the pharmacist must have gotten the strength wrong. He would berate the man about this later. He nodded to the SS guards and stepped into the Leader's outer office, smiling to the secretary.

  "He asked that you go in at once, Mr. Minister."

  Goring strode across the carpet and then entered the Leader's office. Hitler was leaning against the edge of his desk, as he often did. Wolf was never comfortable sitting still. He would pace, he would perch, he'd rock back and forth, gazing out windows. He now sipped his chocolate, set the cup and saucer on the desktop, and nodded gravely to someone sitting in a high-backed armchair. Then h
e looked up. "Ah, Mr. Air Minister, come in, come in."

  Hitler held up the note Goring had penned earlier. "I must hear more about this. It's interesting that you mention a conspiracy.... Our comrade here, it seems, has brought similar news of such a matter too."

  Halfway through the large office, Goring blinked and stopped abruptly, seeing the other visitor to the Leader's office rise from the armchair. It was Reinhard Ernst. He nodded and offered a smile. "Good morning, Mr. Minister."

  Goring ignored him and asked Hitler, "A conspiracy?"

  "Indeed," Hitler said. "We have been discussing the colonel's project, the Waltham Study. It seems some enemies have falsified information about his associate, Doctor-professor Ludwig Keitel. Can you imagine? They've gone so far as to suggest that the professor has Jewish blood in him. Please, sit, Hermann, and tell me about this conspiracy you've uncovered."

  Reinhard Ernst believed that for as long as he lived he would never forget the look on Hermann Goring's puffy face at that moment.

  In the ruddy, grinning moon of flesh, the eyes registered utter shock. A bully cut down.

  Ernst took no particular pleasure in the coup, however, because once the shock bled out, the visage turned to one of pure hatred.

  The Leader didn't seem to notice the silent exchange between the men. He tapped several documents on the desk. "I asked Colonel Ernst for information about his study on our military he is currently conducting, which he will deliver tomorrow...." A sharp look at Ernst, who nodded and assured him, "Indeed, my Leader."

  "And in preparing it he learned that someone has altered records of the relatives of Doctor-professor Keitel and others working with the government. Men at Krupp, Farben, Siemens."

  "And," Ernst muttered, "I was shocked to find that the matter goes beyond that. They have even altered records of the relatives and ancestors of many prominent officials in the Party itself. Planting information in and around Hamburg, mostly. I saw fit to destroy much of what I came across." Ernst looked Goring up and down. "Some lies referred to people quite high up. Suggestions of liaisons with Jewish tinkers, bastard children and the like."

  Goring frowned. "Terrible." His teeth were close together--furious not only at the defeat but at Ernst's hint that Jewish ancestry might have figured in the air minister's past, as well. "Who would do such a thing?" He began fidgeting with the folder he held.

  "Who?" Hitler muttered. "Communists, Jews, Social Democrats. I myself have been troubled lately by the Catholics. We must never forget they oppose us. It's easy to be lulled, considering our common hatred for the Jews. But who knows? We have many enemies."

  "Indeed we do." Goring again cast a look at Ernst, who asked if he could pour the minister some coffee or chocolate.

  "No, thank you, Reinhard," was the chilly reply.

  As a soldier Ernst had learned early that of all the weapons in the arsenal of the military the single most effective was accurate intelligence. He insisted on knowing exactly what his enemy was up to. He'd made a mistake in thinking that the phone kiosk some blocks away from the Chancellory was not monitored by Goring's spies. Through that carelessness, the air minister had learned the name of the coauthor of the Waltham Study. But fortunately Ernst--while appearing to be naive in the art of intrigue-- nonetheless had good people placed where they were quite useful. The man who regularly provided information to Ernst about goings-on at the air ministry had last night reported, just after he'd cleaned up a broken spaghetti plate and fetched the minister a clean shirt, that Goring had unearthed information about Keitel's grandmother.

  Disgusted to have to be playing such a game, yet aware of the deadly risk the situation posed, Ernst had immediately gone to see Keitel. The doctor-professor had supposed that the woman's Jewish connection was true but he'd had nothing to do with that side of the family for years. Ernst and Keitel had themselves spent hours last night creating forgeries of documents suggesting that businessmen and government officials who were pure-blooded Aryan had Jewish roots.

  The only difficult part of Ernst's strategy was to make certain that he got to Hitler before Goring did. But one of the techniques of warfare that Ernst was committed to in strategic military planning was what he called the "lightning strike." By this he meant moving so quickly that your enemy had no time to prepare a defense, even if he was more powerful than you. The colonel blustered his way into the Leader's office early this morning and laid out his conspiracy, proffering the forgeries.

  "We will get to the bottom of it," Hitler now said and stepped away from the desk to pour himself more hot cocoa and take several zwiebacks from a plate. "Now, Hermann, what about your note? What have you uncovered?"

  With a smiling nod toward Ernst, the huge man refused to acknowledge defeat. Instead he shook his head, with a massive frown, and said, "I've heard of unrest at Oranienburg. Particular disrespect for the guards there. I'm worried about the possibility of rebellions. I would recommend reprisals. Harsh reprisals."

  This was absurd. Being extensively rebuilt with slave labor and renamed Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp was perfectly secure; there was no chance for rebellion whatsoever. The prisoners were like penned, declawed animals. Goring's comments were told for one purpose only: out of vindictiveness, to lay a series of deaths of innocent people at Ernst's feet.

  As Hitler considered this, Ernst said casually, "I know little about the camp, my Leader, and the air minister has a good point. We must make absolutely certain there is no dissent."

  "But... I sense some hesitation, Colonel," Hitler said.

  Ernst shrugged. "Only that I wonder if such reprisals would be better inflicted after the Olympics. The camp is not far from the Olympic Village, after all. Particularly with the foreign reporters in town, it could be quite awkward if stories leaked out. I would think it best to keep the camp as secret as possible until later."

  This idea didn't please Hitler, Ernst could see at once. But before Goring could protest, the Leader said, "I agree it's probably best. We'll deal with the matter in a month or two."

  When he and Goring would have forgotten about the matter, Ernst hoped.

  "Now, Hermann, the colonel has more good news. The British have completely accepted our warship and undersea boat quotas under last year's treaty. Reinhard's plan has worked."

  "How fortunate," Goring muttered.

  "Air Minister, is that file for my attention?" The Leader's eyes, which missed little, glanced at the documents under the man's arm.

  "No, sir. It's nothing."

  The Leader poured himself yet more chocolate and walked to the scale model of the Olympic stadium. "Come, gentlemen, and look at the new additions. They're quite nice, don't you think? Elegant, I would say. I love the modern styling. Mussolini thinks he invented it. But he is a thief, of course, as we all know."

  "Indeed, my Leader," Goring said.

  Ernst too murmured his approval. Hitler's dancing eyes reminded him of Rudy's when the boy had shown his Opa an elaborate sand castle he'd built at the beach last year.

  "I'm told the heat might be breaking today. Let us hope that will be the case, for our picture-taking session. Colonel, you will wear your uniform?"

  "I think not, my Leader. I am, after all, merely a civil servant now. I wouldn't want to appear ostentatious in the company of my distinguished colleagues." Ernst kept his eyes on the mock-up of the stadium and, with some effort, avoided a glance at Goring's elaborate uniform.

  The office of the plenipotentiary for domestic stability--the sign painted in stark Gothic German characters--was on the third floor of the Chancellory. The renovations on this level seemed largely completed, though the smell of paint and plaster and varnish was heavy in the air.

  Paul had entered the building without difficulty, though he'd been carefully searched by two black-uniformed guards armed with bayonet-mounted rifles. Webber's paperwork passed muster, though he was stopped and searched again on the third floor.

  He waited until a patrol had walked down the h
allway and knocked respectfully on the rippled-glass window in the door to Ernst's office.

  No answer.

  He tried the knob and found it unlocked. He walked through the dark anteroom and toward the door that led to Ernst's private office. He stopped suddenly, alarmed that the man might be here, since the light under the door was so bright. But he knocked again and heard nothing. He opened the door and found that the brilliance was sunlight; the office faced east and the morning light streamed viciously into the room. Debating about the door, he decided to leave it open; closing it was probably against regulations and would be suspicious, if guards made rounds.

  His first impression was how cluttered the office was: papers, booklets, account sheets, bound reports, maps, letters. They covered Ernst's desk and a large table in the corner. Many books sat on the shelves, most dealing with military history, apparently arranged chronologically, starting with Caesar's Gallic Wars. After what Kathe had told him about German censorship, he was surprised to find books by and about Americans and Englishmen: Pershing, Teddy Roosevelt, Lord Cornwallis, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Nelson.

  There was a fireplace, empty this morning, of course, and scrubbed clean. On the black-and-white marble mantel were plaques of war decorations, a bayonet, battle flags, pictures of a younger, uniformed Ernst with a stout man sporting a fierce mustache and wearing a spiked helmet.

  Paul opened his notebook, in which he'd sketched a dozen room plans, then paced off the perimeter of the office, drew it and added dimensions. He didn't bother with the measuring stick; he needed credibility, not accuracy. Walking to the desk, Paul looked over it. He saw several framed pictures. These showed the colonel with his family. Others were of a handsome brunette woman, probably his wife, and a threesome: a young man in uniform with, apparently, his own young wife and infant. Then there were two of the same young woman and the child, taken several years apart and more recently.

  Paul looked away from the pictures and quickly read over dozens of papers on the desk. He was about to reach for one of the piles of documents and dig through it, but he paused, aware of a sound--or perhaps an absence of sound. Just a softening of the loose noises floating about him. Instantly Paul dropped to his knees and set the measuring stick on the floor, then began walking it from one side of the room to the other. He looked up as a man slowly entered, glancing at him with curiosity.