Clandestine (42 page)

Naked, she would have screamed at her husband, as would the kids.

Cutting the rubber away, Kohler heard himself saying, ‘
Scheisse
, it's white. Two hours but glass broken when? Get out of here, Colonel.'

Teasing the pencil out, he handed the charge of plastic to this
eingefleischter
and ducked down under that clotted mass to lay the pencil as far from them as possible. ‘If it goes off next to my foot, that's it,
mein Lieber
, so we really should retreat.'

Kleiber hadn't listened. He had gone up that brick lateral and would now have to be told. ‘Standartenführer, maybe we should talk to Louis first since he met with that girl this afternoon.'

Darkness had fallen, and when the truck finally came to the villa in Neuilly where Gestapo Boemelburg kept such prisoners, Anna-Marie felt the touch of Arie's hand on her own.

The gates to the drive off the rue de Rouvray were wide open as if expecting someone, but had those two the chief inspector wanted already been taken to Drancy, or had the gates been left this way for new arrivals?

Blinkered, the blue-washed headlamps of the truck revealed so little, the thought of what lay ahead filled her with dread.

‘I'll keep the engine running,' said Arie. ‘If I have to, I'll ram anything that tries to block us.'

He'd be shot, and he knew it, and maybe he wanted this, especially if she and Emmi were taken, but when told at 3 rue Vercingétorix of what was to come, he hadn't objected, had simply reached out to her and had said, ‘If it has to be, then that's what we'll do.'

But now? she wondered. Was it all to be but a desperate gamble,
Blitz
uniforms or not, forged letters too?

‘Sitting here won't solve things,' said Emmi.

There were no suitcases waiting at the kerb, and when that little light above the door went out, the gates behind them began to close.

For some time now, nothing further had been heard from Hermann or from Kleiber. Though not necessary, St-Cyr knew he couldn't help but say, ‘Oil of vitriol is most unkind, Kriminalrat. In situations such as this it is very doubtful if even immediate assistance would be of any use.'

Irritably flinging his cigarette away, Ludin turned on him. ‘
Verdammter Franzose
, is it that you think I haven't realized that? If Kleiber's killed, I'll be blamed far more than anyone. There have been no such screams.'

‘
Ach
, that is precisely what I'm implying:
Das auslösende Element
.
*
Had you counted them, you would have discovered that there were originally thirty-two jugs of that acid in those rows over there against that wall. Circles in the dust indicate that six have been removed.'

‘And since two have surfaced, four remain unaccounted for.'

Sickened by the sight, Kohler let his gaze sift carefully over everything as light from the torch glinted from the bottles. Upright on a bricked recess in the lateral, two of them faced Kleiber whose back was to the opposite wall and who must have dropped his torch. A third was right above the colonel, a fourth just upstream and weighting down the makeshift raft on which it rode.

Wired, and with another of the white time pencils ticking its little life away, this fourth bottle had two 8-ounce cartridges of Nobel 808 taped to it.

The voice that came was far from steady.

‘Kohler, I'm caught on something.'

‘
Ach
, don't try to talk. It's a loose strand of barbed wire and it's hooked to the back of your waders.'

‘HE'S A SADIST! CORROSIVE BURNS AND UTTER AGONY, ARE THOSE WHAT HE WANTS?'

‘Easy. Just go easy, eh? Try not to move or we'll both go up.'

‘I've shit myself.'

‘I would too.'

Slowly, carefully, deliberately, felt Kleiber, Kohler got his hands around behind until there was but the embrace of death.

‘It's rusty, Standartenführer. Made to look as if just something that had been tossed in here years ago.'

‘The Reichssicherheitshauptamtchef is demanding that we get these
Banditen
, not just the diamonds. Both will put you back on your feet. Loyal to the Führer, Kohler; loyal to the Greater Reich.'

‘And Oona and Giselle?'

‘Our Heinrich has made far too many mistakes already. That was one of them, and I will personally see that it is corrected and they are returned.'

The lying son of a bitch, but there was no sense in worrying about it now. First one barb was freed and then another, but the mush of hair and hides in the main channel was causing the water here to back up and rise, only to then suddenly fall, and this last hook just couldn't be freed. Not yet. ‘There's unfortunately a little something else, Standartenführer.'

Under probing fingertips that barbed wire had been fixed to another that was plain and not rusty and ran up the bricks behind Kleiber and across the top and down to those two bottles, behind which was yet another eight-ounce cartridge of the 808 but not a time pencil. Here, and leaning a little to one side so that its hand-clasp would definitely slip away, was a No. 36 British Mills grenade. Pull the pin and count but remember there are only four seconds until its spring-loaded striker detonates it.

‘Standartenführer, I can't defuse this. I haven't another pin nor could I pull the one out and insert another fast enough even with the torch in my teeth.'

‘Free me then. Once this is cleared, we'll find out what that bastard was hiding.'

‘A cache of weapons, a wireless set, who gives a damn? Just bugger off while you can, now that I've unhooked you and not hooked myself.'

‘Before you reached me you shouted something about St-Cyr and that Netherlander.'

Shit! ‘Only that we should talk to Louis since he might have found out something.'

‘I thought you said he had met with the
Schlampe
.'

‘Me? In the spot you were in, you'd have thought anything.'

‘Then when we have her, we'll use her to get this one.'

In the foyer of the villa where Giselle Le Roy and Oona Van der Lynn were being held, there was a telephone, and as two
gestapistes français
joined him, this SS Captain Oster finished reading the letter and saw the stamp and signature. Pausing to reconsider something, he finally said, ‘Fräulein Schellenberger, this states that they are to be sent to Stutthof KZ, yet my instructions specifically state their final destination is Mauthausen.'

There was only one way to handle this. ‘By whose order?'

‘Kriminalrat Ludin.'

‘But is an order from the Reichssicherheitshauptamtchef to be countermanded by anyone other than the Führer?'

‘
Ach
, of course not, but always we must check to see if a mistake has been made.
Einen Moment
. I will telephone Gestapo Boemelburg. Your papers, please.'

Now what were they to do—shoot him, shoot the other two and the cook-housekeeper, then search for still others?

‘Ihre Papiere, Fräulein.'

‘Entschuldigen Sie, bitte!'

‘Dank.'

But Herr Oster didn't use the telephone here. Instead, he started­ for another.

‘Zum Teufel, Haupsturmführer,'
called out Emmi, ‘these two bitches are not the only ones we have to collect tonight. This
is
Neuilly, isn't it and still the home of far too many?'

The tall one with the shoulders and the years, having stayed closer to the door and exit, had at last spoken. ‘Then give me the order papers for those as well, Fräulein.'

‘You have no authority to even look at those,' swore Emmi. ‘Don't overstep.'

‘Surely Herr Kaltenbrunner's letter is sufficient,' said Anna-Marie, ‘or is it your wish that the report I must file should fully detail the reason for such a delay?'

These two … Both wore the uniforms of signals auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht. Neither were SS or from the police unless undercover, and the younger one who had been doing all the talking until the other's outburst, had forgotten to snap her handbag closed, Madame Décour having indicated this with but the slightest of nods. ‘Herr Boemelburg will be at Maxim's. It will take but a moment for a waiter to bring him a telephone or lead him to one.'

Silently, as if needing replacements, felt Anna-Marie, that cook-housekeeper had returned to gazing at her slippers, while the two Parisians were simply watchful and Oona Van der Lynn and Giselle Le Roy sat side by side knowing only that Drancy awaited. Packed and ready, their small suitcases were next to the door, and yes, Mademoiselle Le Roy looked as if she had recently fallen or been badly beaten. But what was to happen when the real truck arrived and would it find Arie's still in the drive?

Unbearable, this waiting was an agony, but when Oster briskly returned, he snapped her papers into her hand, brought his heels together, saluted and said, ‘Fräulein Schellenberger,
Alle ist korrekt.
'

But was it? Had he even used the phone or had he just had a good look through her papers and noted down the essentials?

He would keep the letter—he had to, felt Anna-Marie, wishing that she had first considered the ramifications of their doing this when the chief inspector had asked it of her.

To the city and the darkness there was, felt St-Cyr, but thin bicycle traffic and an occasional car, while along the adjacent pavements many of those who remained hurried to the
métro
or to closer destinations, or waited for an
autobus au gazogène
that likely would never show up because the Occupier had the use of most of them.

On the rue Daru there were several gasoline-powered cars parked ahead alongside Chez Kornilov, while across the street, the artists' entrance to the Salle Pleyel had lost its wire-caged little blue light, probably to theft, Concierge Figeard being unable to attend to it.

Behind the wheel, Hermann was far too quiet. ‘Easy,
mon vieux
. Take another puff.'

‘It's your pipe!'

‘But it might help and that is what I believe Arie Beekhuis thought when he suggested she give me that tobacco.'

‘You made a deal. You
told
her that if she would attempt to rescue Oona and Giselle, we would arrange for the sale of that kilo of boart and see that an FTP
équipe
got its 45 million francs but in fivers! Are you crazy, after what I've just been through?'

Somehow he was going to have to get Hermann's mind off what had happened. Four of Kleiber's men had been torn to pieces­ by the blast, others badly burned. ‘You know as well as I that the SD and others, especially purchasing agencies such as Munimin-Pimetex use notes like these to purchase quantities of things and pay off others. Had we a quartz lamp, its UV light would, I'm all but certain, show the bluish-grey of the false, whereas the real would be soft-blue. It's a preferred currency,
mon vieux
. No one wants Reichsmark or francs if they can be paid in these.'

Though the Americans had, in mid-1941, suspended international trade in dollars, those, too, would be equally useful.

‘And with the British naval blockade, Hermann, the chances of any of them ever reaching the Bank of England for checking are minimal, and what others might suspect, if indeed they ever did, won't matter since the notes would immediately be used to buy the tangible and SD-Berlin must have plenty of them.'

The crinkle was good, felt Kohler, a sound so distinctive, bankers the world over used it to identify the real.

‘The sheen is also perfect,' he said, having briefly flashed a light. ‘It also has the deckle edges of handmade paper.'

‘And the ink is clearly Frankfurt black, as the Bank of England would have used, the pigment made from German charcoal, from grapevines that had been boiled in linseed oil.'

This wasn't good; it was terrible. ‘The SD must be having them made in one of the
Konzentrationslager
. Few will know of it, certainly not two dumb
Schweinebullen
like us. If we do what she has asked, we leave ourselves wide open to knowing of something that is so secret, only Kaltenbrunner and a few others know anything of it.
*
And that can only mean, even though they already have enough on us, Kleiber will be sure to mark us down for the piano wire, and if not him, Heinrich bloody Ludin or Kaltenbrunner himself.'

They
did
have reason to worry. ‘We still have to try.'

‘She might not have been able to do anything—had you even considered that?'

‘Yes, but how else are we to solve this investigation and negotiate a way out of it not just for ourselves, but for Oona and Giselle, if rescued, and for Gabrielle? A murderer who is murdered but with the help of a victim like that? Diamonds that
do
exist and others that may or may not, but will have to remain hidden if they do? Surely she deserves our continued help.'

‘You sound like a saint but have forgotten to mention the robbery of that van and that Sergei Lebeznikov took his son
and
that girl to this very restaurant.'

‘I am merely saying that we have no choice. We need to find and speak to Rheal Lachance and Émile Girandoux before Kleiber or Ludin try to stop us. Besides, it's late and this place has a reputation.'

Pungent with the collective aromas of food, perfume and tobacco smoke, Chez Kornilov was also loud, and through the din came the sounds of cutlery and plates, the shouts of white-bloused waiters wearing peaked peasant caps, colourful sashes about the waist and trousers tucked into brown leather riding boots. Crossed cavalry swords, Cossack uniforms with bandoliers, beautiful carpets and displays of knives adorned the walls, with brass samovars seemingly everywhere. And on the wall facing all who entered, a large colourful map showed Saint Petersburg and the Bay of Neva and river of the same—Leningrad to the Bolsheviks, and no mention of the endless siege being briefly lifted on 18 January of this year, the population dying at a rate of 20,000 a day.
*