Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke (14 page)

GRETCHEN DIDN’T DARE MOVE. HER EYES STAYED
on Frau Fleischer, who glared back, unblinking. Her hand holding the gun was steady. Gretchen didn’t feel the shotgun shaking, only its cold barrel pressing into her temple.

In the sudden hush, she heard Daniel’s ragged breaths behind her, and then his low growl. “Let her go.”

“Who the devil are you?” Frau Fleischer demanded. “This girl’s pimp? And how dare you sneak into my office! Looking for business secrets, were you? Well, you’ll see how we deal with rivals trying to horn in on our territory!”

Business rivals? Did Frau Fleischer think she and Daniel belonged to a competing prostitution ring? She cursed herself for leaving her revolver upstairs.

“I’m sure we can come to an agreement of some sort.” Daniel sounded cool. His hand brushed Gretchen’s as he stepped
forward, but she didn’t risk looking at him because the shotgun was still held against her head. “We’re not trying to harm your business.”

“You must think I’m softhearted or stupid.” Frau Fleischer snorted. One-handed, she fished in her skirt pocket and pulled out a cigarette. She rolled the white cylinder between the fingers of her left hand. “I’m neither.”

Moving only her eyes, Gretchen scanned the parlor. There had to be a way out of here.

The gas lamps had been turned on low, gilding the room with glimmers of gold. There were a couple of shabby brocade sofas, a few spindly wooden chairs, a wireless on a stand in the corner. The doorway was easily twenty or thirty paces away. They would never make it.

“We don’t wish to infringe on your territory,” Daniel said. “We’re investigating Fräulein Junge’s murder. We wanted to see her lockbox, that’s all.”

The Frau’s eyebrows rose. “No one cares about our poor Monika’s murder except us. Besides, you’re too late. Some SA men came for it last week, the day after she was killed.”

Gretchen’s pulse leapt. Why would SA men, instead of the police, retrieve Fräulein Junge’s possessions unless they were somehow involved in her death? Beside Gretchen, Daniel sucked in a breath. He must have wondered the same thing. She stayed silent. The shotgun was pressed so insistently on her temple that the twin circles of the muzzle ground into her skin.

The front door burst open, blasting cold air into the parlor. Men’s voices mingled together. Their footsteps crossed the hall, stopping at the entryway. Three men peered in.

They were youngish, perhaps in their early thirties, and wore black suits and bowlers. Gold and diamond bands winked on their pinkie fingers.

“What’s this about?” the tallest man asked. He aimed a contemptuous look at Gretchen and Daniel. “These are just a couple of kids.”

“Kids or not, I caught them breaking into my office,” Frau Fleischer said. “They were looking for Monika’s lockbox.”

The men exchanged swift glances. “We’ll bring them to Iron Fist Friedrich,” one of them said. “He’ll know what to do.”

Iron Fist Friedrich . . . Who was he? Terror closed Gretchen’s throat.

The men seized her and Daniel, pushing them through the front hall and down the steps. A black Mercedes idled at the curb. A bearded man sat behind the driver’s wheel, picking his teeth with a pocketknife. Several paces away, a group of men stopped to watch, speechless and unmoving. Nobody was going to help them.

Gretchen was shoved inside the car so hard that she half fell, half landed on the backseat. She pushed herself upright. One of the men, smelling of cigarettes and beer, slid in beside her. Frantically, she searched for Daniel—they were pushing him into the backseat, too, and his eyes met hers, wide and confused—and then another man got in behind him, so she and Daniel were hemmed in on either side. The doors slammed shut, and the car started with a lurch, its tires slipping in the snow as it took a corner too fast, heading toward whatever awaited them.

Gretchen stared out the window, searching for a chance to escape. The car had crossed the Spree River, shining silver in the darkness, and was driving west along Unter den Linden. She recognized the street’s line of lime trees from photographs.

The avenue was at least two hundred feet wide and jammed with stone buildings—jewelry stores, silver shops, apartment buildings, and fine hotels. Ladies in silk and furs and men in tuxedos hurried along, laughing, their steps the unsteady stagger of the inebriated. In the street, gleaming private automobiles and taxis glided past. No National Socialist flags dripped down the fronts of buildings; no shouts or running footsteps sounded through the closed car windows. They had entered a world made of satin and velvet.

Lights from the passing streetlamps flashed over the faces of the men sitting with her and Daniel. Grim, hard, alert. The one wedged between her and the door watched her. His grip on her arm was so tight, the blood thundered in her veins under his fingers. There was no way she could wrench herself free, fling the door open, and throw herself out.

“Where are you taking us?” Daniel’s voice cut through the silence.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” the driver said. “I’d shut your mouth, if I were you. Iron Fist Friedrich doesn’t like people who ask questions.”

Gretchen risked a look at Daniel. He managed to smile at her, but his face was pale. His left arm was pressed against her; through the layers of their clothes, the muscles of his arm contracted. Fear and fatigue must be taking a toll on his old injury.

Through the window, she saw the Reichstag rising up on her
left like a phantom. They couldn’t be going there. Not to Berlin’s seat of government, where Hitler now presided with President Hindenburg.
No
. She couldn’t see Uncle Dolf again. She heard someone wheezing for air and realized it was herself.

The Reichstag was set in an open plaza. Its pale sandstone walls looked ghostly at night. Two-hundred-foot-tall towers stood at each of its four corners. When she was younger, she had studied its photograph in her history textbook, thinking it looked like an Italian castle.

Now it was a darkened shell. Its numerous windows were black, its walls streaked with soot. The famous glass dome was completely gone. The place looked like an abandoned building.

They can’t be taking us there
, she told herself even as her chest grew tight. This was ridiculous: National Socialists didn’t use nicknames like “Iron Fist.” Whoever they were dealing with, it wasn’t Party men. Besides, Hitler was living a few miles south of here at the Chancellery. She wouldn’t see those wild blue eyes again, focusing on hers and pinning her in place. She wouldn’t hear that low, sinuous voice, chiding her for being stupid enough to fall in love with a Jew, then rising to an out-of-control shriek as he screamed that he would punish her for her betrayal.
Please
, she thought, laying a hand over her heart, begging it to slow down. Dimly, she realized the men were staring at her, and Daniel said sharply, “Stop the car. Something’s wrong with her.”

But the Mercedes shot across the Spree, pushing farther north. Gretchen sagged against the seat in relief. They weren’t taking her and Daniel to see Hitler. She could withstand anything, as long as she didn’t have to see him again.

Daniel’s hand brushed her leg. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

Before she could reply, the man beside Daniel growled, “No talking!” She gave Daniel a smile she hoped looked reassuring.

The streets narrowed and the fine buildings changed to crumbling brick tenements. Communist flags hung in some windows. Gretchen wondered at their owners’ boldness, for surely displaying support for the Communist Party after the Reichstag fire was an invitation for an arrest or a beating. Dilapidated factories rose up and fell away, their windows shuttered, their chimneys cold. They were in the slums.

The car rumbled over a bridge, pulling to a stop beside a sign reading
NEW JOHANNES CEMETERY
. Tiny white headstones dotted the ground, nearly indistinguishable against the snow.

Beyond the cemetery, pine trees speared toward the star-sprinkled sky. There was no one in sight. A fresh mound of dirt marked the spot where someone had recently been buried: a pile of brown in a sea of white. This was an ideal place to conceal another body—all their captors had to do was dig up the newly turned dirt and throw her and Daniel into the hole. Nobody would know they shared this grave. Was this—a quick death in a deserted cemetery—what lay ahead of them? Gretchen had to press her fist over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.

“Let’s go.” The man sitting beside her opened the door and got out.

As she scrambled outside, the frigid air hit her face like a slap. She’d left her coat at the rooming house, and the wind blew right through her skirt and silk blouse. She shivered.

Beneath her feet, the ground felt frozen; she could imagine
how hard the gravediggers must have worked to make a deep enough hole. Beyond the bridge, she picked out the slum’s sagging roofs and narrow chimneys, silvered by starlight. So far off. There was no way she and Daniel could make a run for it and find help. They were on their own.

THE TWO MEN STOOD BESIDE HER, THEIR RIGHT
hands raised, moonlight shining on their revolvers. Daniel climbed out of the car. His hat must have fallen off for he was bareheaded now, his dark hair disheveled. His eyes met hers and he mouthed,
Don’t worry
. His face looked so calm. Was he trying to protect her again? Or did he know something she didn’t?

The automobile roared off, leaving the four of them alone in the snow-covered cemetery.

“What are we doing here?” Daniel asked.

“We’re waiting.” The tall man looked incredulous. “Did you really imagine we would take you to our hideout? You won’t find out its location so easily. Friedrich will be brought here to deal with you instead.”

“There’s been a misunderstanding.” Gretchen hugged her arms around herself to keep warm. “Please, you must believe us—”

“Quiet!” The stocky man spun toward her and slipped in the snow, falling to his knees. The first fellow reached down to help him, and Gretchen saw her chance.

“Run!” she shouted at Daniel.

She raced across the field, dodging the headstones. She could hear Daniel’s footsteps crunching in the snow behind her—she thought she heard him yell, “Wait!” but that didn’t make any sense—and she ran on. Ahead the pine trees stretched along the horizon, a black mass in the starlit darkness. She plunged into the woods, moving so fast that the tree trunks were nothing more than a blur. Her breath heaved in her chest. Somewhere behind her an automobile engine purred, but she didn’t look back.

Daniel darted between the trees on her left. Behind them came the crash of branches breaking. She glanced over her shoulder. The men were rushing into the forest. Her foot caught on something, and her mind only had time to register that it was a tree root before she fell forward into the snow. She tried to scramble upright, but something was digging into her back, holding her down—a knee, she realized as she pushed against the weight—and then hands closed around her wrists and yanked her arms up, behind her back, immobilizing her. The cold snow burned her cheek.

She screamed, “Daniel, keep going!”

The man’s knee lifted, and she was dragged upright. The bearded driver glared at her—she’d been right when she’d thought she’d heard a car engine, she realized. Another man stood behind her, holding her by the wrists. She was going to die. She saw it in the men’s faces.

She was shaking, but the convulsions seemed distant, as
though they belonged to somebody else and she was watching from a distance. This couldn’t be happening. She was trembling so hard that she had to lock her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

Two of the men melted into the darkness, searching for Daniel.
Keep running
, she thought at him, wishing she could magically push her words into his brain. He had to get out of here. She couldn’t bear it if he was captured.

“Come,” the man clutching her wrists said. With his foot, he shoved at the back of her knee so her leg nearly buckled beneath her, the motion forcing her forward.

Dully, she walked out of the forest. Her legs felt so stiff that they nearly folded beneath her a few times. Snow had wetted the front of her blouse. She could feel goose bumps rising from her skin. The muffled sound of footfalls in snow reached her ears. She turned to look behind her. Daniel was weaving between the trees, shouting, “Stop! Don’t hurt her! Let me take her place!”

He was willing to sacrifice himself for her sake. Even though he must know his return wouldn’t make any difference.

The two other men appeared behind him, grabbing his arms and marching him closer. As he passed Gretchen, he murmured, “Trust me.”

She had never trusted anyone more. She nodded, even though she didn’t understand what he meant.

They were led back in the direction from which they had come. A man leaned against the black Mercedes parked in the lane beside the cemetery. As he pushed himself off the car, he straightened to his full height—he was at least six feet and built like a wall. An unbuttoned leather greatcoat flapped over his
three-piece suit. He looked to be about thirty-five. Beneath his black bowler hat, his eyes were expressionless as they flickered over Daniel, then her. This must be Iron Fist Friedrich. She saw no feeling in his face at all. They could hope for no mercy from him.

“These kids are the reason I’ve been called away from a dice game?” Friedrich’s voice sounded like bits of gravel rubbing together. He slipped a cigar from his coat pocket and flicked a lighter into life, the orange flame hooding his eyes. “They look like a couple of scared rabbits, hardly business rivals.”

Gretchen’s guard tightened his grasp on her wrists. “Not just business rivals, Friedrich. They’re lovers. The boy came back for her.”

“Indeed.” Friedrich raised an eyebrow. Then he jerked his chin at Daniel. “Strip him to the waist. Get your whip,” he added to the bearded man. Gretchen started to gasp, “No,” but Iron Fist Friedrich went on.

“This gives me no pleasure,” he said to Daniel. “But we must hold fast to our rules. And you’ve broken the most sacred code of all—interfering with a competitor’s business affairs.” He nodded at Gretchen. “Let’s see what stuff his girl’s made of.”

“Beating me isn’t necessary.” Daniel sounded composed, but his pulse throbbed in his throat, where his collar had come undone. “I can’t be one of your rivals, and I’ll prove it.”

Two men removed Daniel’s overcoat. He put up his good hand, holding them off, and they waited, their arms tensed, ready to grab him if need be. Daniel gazed at the ground while he took off his shirt and undershirt. Shivering, he stood in the snow, stripped to the waist. It had been so long since Gretchen had seen
his injured arm bared that she had to swallow a moan. She had forgotten how shocking its appearance was. A long scar extended from his left shoulder to the elbow, from where the London doctor had cut his arm open to examine the damaged tissue. His arm looked pitifully thin compared to his muscular right limb.

A murmur of surprise rippled among the men.

A flush spread up Daniel’s neck. Still, he didn’t look at Gretchen, but stared at the snow, his body shaking with cold. She saw goose bumps dimpling the hard ridges of his chest. The way he hung his head tore at her heart. She wished he could understand that his scars made him even more beautiful to her.

Friedrich circled Daniel, studying his upper torso. “What happened to you? Were you born like this?”

“Does it matter?” Daniel sounded bitter. “Isn’t it enough to know that none of your competitors would want me in their ranks? I can hardly provide muscle, can I?”

Friedrich laughed. “A smart mouth on this one!” He gestured for Daniel to put his shirt on. “I like your spirit. Get in the car. If you tell me everything I want to know, then my men won’t have to beat your pretty girl.”

Gretchen raised her chin. She’d been beaten before, when Reinhard had discovered that she’d snooped in his room. Nothing these men could do to her would compare to how she’d felt that night, her eye swollen shut, her lips split, her knees and hands scraped from being flung to the floor.
I’m not afraid
, she told herself for the thousandth time.

Daniel’s eyes flashed onto Gretchen’s. “You’re safe,” he said softly. “These are
Ringverein
men.”

She stared at him in confusion. Wrestling clubs? What on
earth did athletic organizations have to do with anything?

Friedrich pitched his half-finished cigar into the snow, where it sizzled out. Together, he, the driver, and Daniel walked to the car. Gretchen watched them go, her mind spinning.

The Mercedes trundled across the bridge and back into the slums, leaving her alone with these three stone-faced men. They grabbed her arms and marched her over the bridge and down into the narrow, empty streets. The windows in the shabby brick tenements were dark, and none of the chimneys spiraled smoke into the sky. Several houses down, a cellar door opened and closed, letting out a blare of jazz music. A bar, perhaps. The avenue was silent except for the skittering of a dog’s toenails on the pavement. The beast slunk past, thin and mangy.

Where were they taking her? Was Daniel all right? He’d said they were safe with these fellows, but why would he think that?

The men brought her to a street corner. The sign read
ZWINGLISTRASSE
, but it meant nothing to her. A single streetlamp cast a pale glow over the surroundings: endless crumbling tenement buildings, no cars, a few Communist banners pasted in apartment windows. Where
was
she?

A Mercedes glided to a stop beside them. Friedrich got out, then Daniel. Relief exploded in Gretchen’s chest. She had to force herself not to run to him.

“According to this boy,” Friedrich said to his comrades, “he and his girl wish to solve our Fräulein Junge’s murder.”

They murmured, obviously surprised, but Friedrich silenced them with a flick of his gloved hand. “The boy has satisfied my curiosity for the moment. Put them upstairs.”

“But then they’ll know where we keep our hideout!” a man objected.

Friedrich looked annoyed. “Don’t question my authority! Take them upstairs immediately.” He stuck a new cigar in his mouth and studied Gretchen through the haze of smoke. “We’ll begin the test tomorrow.”

Gretchen didn’t dare ask what he meant. Silently, she followed the men into a brick building. They guided her and Daniel through a lobby and up a stairwell, twisting around until they reached the fourth floor and there were no more stairs to climb. She had expected a corridor lined with doors, like in an ordinary apartment building, but there was only one door. Presumably this hideout took up the entire story.

They led her and Daniel through a rabbit’s warren of small rooms, dark and empty except for tables and chairs. They pushed them into another room. Gretchen glimpsed white plaster walls before the door slammed shut and a key rasped in the lock. She and Daniel were alone.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, peering into her face.

“I had to tell this Friedrich fellow the truth,” he said. “As long as he understands we want to solve the murder of one of his employees, we’re safe. I had to give him our real names. He’ll have his men look into our backgrounds, and Gisela Schröder and Leopold Schmidt have no pasts. I’m sorry,” he added when she shrank back, her heart in her throat. “I know you’d prefer that we remain anonymous. But
Ringverein
men despise the National Socialists. You don’t have to worry about them betraying us.”

“What do these men want with us?” she whispered, afraid they might be listening on the other side of the door. “Why do you call them
Ringverein
?”

“
Ringverein
are what they’re called, but not what they are.”
Daniel ran his hands over the walls and shook his head. “These are rock solid.”

She joined him. Her damp blouse still stuck to her back, but the pain had dulled to a steady ache. The plaster walls were smooth, unadorned by decorations or pictures, and the floor was linoleum crusted with dirt. A room off a kitchen, perhaps, since wisps of heat pushed through a wall, possibly from a stove. Moonlight filtered through the single barred window, stretching lines of white across the room.

“The
Ringvereine
are shrouded in secrecy.” Daniel shook the bars in the window. “But I know a little. They started about forty years ago, when the Berlin underworld began to organize itself into clubs that were originally set up like workers’ unions. The first was dedicated to its members’ physical fitness through wrestling, so the name has stuck all these years.”

Gretchen pressed her ear to the wall, listening for any indication that there was someone else in the apartment. From far off, footsteps tramped back and forth. At least one man had remained to guard them. “The Berlin underworld? You mean organized crime?”

“Yes. Before I finished Gymnasium, I used to visit the
Berliner Zeitung am Mittag
’s office, begging for a job.” He turned away from the window, half smiling at her. “Not that they were interested in hiring a student. But I did pick up information from the crime reporters—you’re shaking,” he interrupted himself.

Quickly, he strode across the room. “You should get out of these wet clothes.” He started unbuttoning her blouse with his good hand. For an instant, Gretchen stood still. The sensation of his fingers through the thin fabric of her shirt was feather-light.
Never before had he dared to touch her so intimately. Not even when they were traveling together to England, staying in run-down hotels, lying in the sheets and kissing each other breathless.

Now, everywhere he touched, her skin turned to flame. She sucked in a shaky breath. The sound seemed to startle Daniel, for he stepped away, his hands falling to his sides. He cleared his throat.

“I beg your pardon.” His voice was stiff.

“It’s all right, I mean, I wasn’t expecting—” Gretchen stammered. Her face felt hot. Before she could figure out what to say next, Daniel turned his back to her and slid off his coat. He held it out to her without looking.

“Here, you can wear this once you’ve taken off your things. It should keep you warm.”