The Grave of Truth (19 page)

‘Why not?' Minna asked. ‘Why is she so immune? I've never understood how that convent has been able to defy someone like you, Herr Holler, and refuse to let you or Sigmund talk to her. That woman was with Eva when she had the baby; her husband knew where it was being hidden, and she must have known it too!'

‘You underestimate the power of the Vatican,' Heinrich Holler said. ‘Gretl Fegelein went through the denazification courts and was acquitted. She took refuge in that convent as soon as she was released from custody, and I have it on the best authority that the Vatican undertook to protect her for the rest of her life. It was made clear to me, and to others, notably the CIA in the early days, that any violation of Gretl Fegelein's sanctuary in the convent would cause a major diplomatic rupture with the Papacy. So she cannot be made to answer any question. And she certainly won't be persuaded. We've tried, as you know very well, Frau Walther.'

‘This time, I'm going to try,' Minna said.

It was Curt Andrews who discovered that Günther Mühlhauser was missing. Holler had politely but firmly refused to introduce him to Sigmund Walther's widow; as a sop to the American's professional pride he suggested that he arrange a meeting with Mühlhauser. And Andrews, aware that he was being sidetracked, decided to pay Heinrich Holler back in kind. Instead of telephoning and making an appointment for himself and Holler, he went direct to Mühlhauser's office. His secretary seemed flustered, and Andrews detected uncertainty when she said he had left his office. He could be very engaging when he chose and he asked his questions so gently that she answered without realizing that it was none of his business where Mühlhauser had gone.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘Someone called here this morning, a young man, not very pleasant looking—he refused to give his name—he was quite rude to me, in fact, and when Herr Mühlhauser came out to see him, he sent me away. The next thing I knew Herr Mühlhauser was rushing out after this man—he didn't even put his hat on—and when I tried to ask him when he'd be back, he didn't answer! He looked terribly upset. He hasn't phoned in or anything. I did telephone his wife, but he hadn't come home. I really don't know what can have happened.'

‘Well, don't worry,' Andrews said kindly. She was a woman in her middle fifties, plain and efficient, but unused to coping with the unexpected. So a young, tough-mannered man had called on him, and Mühlhauser had gone rushing out—Andrews smelled conspiracy; whether on the part of Heinrich Holler, whom he didn't trust an inch, or someone else he wasn't sure. But he was sure that Mühlhauser wasn't going to be around to be asked questions. Whoever had killed Otto Helm and the ex-valet Schmidt wasn't going to make the same mistake and get to his victim too late.

‘I think I'd better go and see Frau Mühlhauser,' he said. ‘Could you give me the address?'

The secretary hesitated: ‘I'm sorry, but I'm not supposed to give Herr Mühlhauser's private address or telephone number to anyone, sir.'

‘I do understand,' Curt Andrews said. ‘But I think you can give it to me.' He took an ID card out of his pocket and handed it to her. It appeared to be issued by the West German police in Bonn. Curt Andrews always carried ID cards when he travelled; he had British, French, Italian and West German cards, and even one from East Germany. The secretary looked at it, and said, ‘Oh, oh dear. Yes, of course. I'll get the address for you.' Andrews put the card back in his pocket. Languages were another of his talents. His German was fautless, so was his French; Italian was more difficult but he could manage well in the regions, where local dialects made every outsider sound different. He had never mastered the long English vowels; the forged Scotland Yard Special Branch ID had never been used.

‘Here, I've written it down, and the telephone number,' she said. He took the piece of paper, and thanked her. ‘Don't worry,' he said again. ‘I'm sure everything is all right. I'll get Herr Mühlhauser to call you, when I see him.'

Holler had given him a car and a driver; Andrews swung his big body into the back seat, and gave the driver Mühlhauser's address.

Albert Kramer was back in his office. He told his secretary he was taking no calls and didn't want to be disturbed for the next half-hour. He needed time to think; he lit a cigarettte and noticed that his hand was unsteady. He wasn't surprised. He couldn't imagine anyone who would have been unmoved at the end of Günther Mühlhauser's interrogation.

He smoked rapidly, staring ahead of him through the cigarette haze, not seeing his surroundings. The others had wanted to kill Mühlhauser and the child. One of them, Brandt, who was too hotheaded and rough for his own good, had smashed the old man in the face and knocked him to the ground. Kramer had stopped them hurting him. His brain was working at top level, clear and calculating, refusing to be hurried into anything that might prove to be a mistake. And murdering Günther and Beatrix Mühlhauser was exactly the kind of unpremeditated act of vengeance which could destroy them all. He would have liked to shoot Mühlhauser; it was the little girl, calmly reading comic books in the next room, who saved her father's life. A vanished father and daughter would entail the biggest manhunt West Germany had seen for years.

She had been taken from school on the same pretext as Günther; an accident at home. The man who was amusing her had got her out of school. His face would be remembered; so would Brandt, who had tricked Mühlhauser into going with him. Albert made his decision, and Mühlhauser, who had been expecting death, burst into tears.

He had walked out of the house, holding his daughter by the hand, bound by Kramer's final threat. Beatrix was the hostage for his silence.

Kramer opened his cupboard and poured himself a drink of cognac. It was incredible; he kept going over the facts to himself, trying to see any way in which Mühlhauser could have lied. But he hadn't been able to fault him. And instinctively he knew that what he heard was the truth. A truth so fortuitous that it was no wonder his hard hands were shaking. With excitement. With a fierce joy and expectation. Now, more than ever, he needed to get hold of Sigmund Walther's papers.

‘Günther! What have you done to yourself?' He saw the expression on his wife's face and put a hand to his cheek. It was throbbing and obviously the bruise was coming out. He said gently to his daughter, ‘Go and play, darling. I want to talk to Mummy.'

Hilde Mühlhauser put her arm round him protectively. ‘What happened? Did you fall—and why have you brought Beatrix home so early—'

‘Come into the kitchen,' he said. ‘I've got things to tell you.'

She didn't interrupt him; he watched in anguish the horror in her eyes, and felt her draw away from him.

‘You—' she said, ‘you were one of
them
—oh, my God!' Hilde had been terribly distressed by a recent television programme about the extermination of the Jews. He had tried to dissuade her from watching. Now he saw his wife's love shrivel and die as he told her what he had been and why he was sent to Siberia. He blinked back tears, but he didn't falter. He told her everything except the secret which had bought his life from the Russians. And done the same for Beatrix and himself that afternoon. The blow had shaken him badly; his face throbbed and pain scorched up and down his neck and shoulder, where he had fallen on the floor.

‘Something happened today,' he said. ‘It involved Beatrix.'

She gave an angry cry and started up. He said, ‘It's all right, she didn't know anything about it.' Then he told her about the men from Odessa.

‘I'll never forgive you,' Hilde Mühlhauser said. ‘Never. You brought your child into this filthy business—I want to know exactly what happened. Otherwise,' she looked at him and he saw real hatred in her eyes this time, ‘otherwise I'm going to the police!'

‘You can't,' he said. ‘The people who threatened us were Nazi sympathizers. They're very powerful still. One word about this afternoon and they'll harm Beatrix.' He didn't dare say ‘kill' although that was the word Kramer had used.

‘Oh, you swine,' Hilde said. ‘You swine!' She suddenly began to cry. He tried to put his arm round her but she jerked away.

‘We've got to decide what to do,' he said slowly. ‘I was thinking about it on the way home.'

‘I don't care what you do,' his wife said. ‘I'm taking Beatrix home with me. You can do what you like. I'll get a divorce.' She sobbed into her hands.

That was when the doorbell rang. Beatrix was nearest the hall; she put down her doll and opened the door. Then she went to the kitchen door. She saw her mother crying and her father standing looking oddly helpless, with a horrible blue and yellow mark on his face. Behind her stood Curt Andrews.

‘Take my advice, Frau Mühlhauser,' he said a little later. ‘Don't do anything in a hurry.' He had listened to the almost hysterical accusations of the young woman against her husband. Andrews didn't sympathize with either of them. To him the human tragedy of broken trust and fear was merely a nuisance, because it took up time. He pacified the wife and defended the husband, not because he believed his own arguments, but to defuse a potentially dangerous situation. He didn't want Hilde Mühlhauser grabbing her child and running off to Bavaria. He didn't want any attention drawn to the family.

‘You mustn't judge your husband,' he said. ‘If you'd been born a few years earlier you might have had to face the same decisions as he did. A lot of patriotic Germans joined the SS because they believed they were fighting for the survival of their country.'

‘Don't tell me
he
didn't know what they were doing? About the concentration camps, and the gas chambers!' She swung round on Mühlhauser, her face contorted. ‘I feel sick to my stomach,' she said. ‘The thought of touching you makes me sick!'

Andrews saw Günther Mühlhauser flinch and sag; a young wife had certainly got him by the balls, he thought. But not as much as the kid had got them both.

‘You may be angry with your husband,' he said, ‘but you don't want to risk anything happening to your child, do you?' That cut her short, he noted. She went a ghastly grey colour. ‘I thought she looked pretty upset when she saw you and her father quarrelling in the kitchen,' he said coldly. ‘That kind of thing is very bad for young children. And, after all, it's her safety we're really worried about; not whether your husband was a member of the SS administrative staff a hundred years ago. I should take a hold on yourself, Frau Mühlhauser, and go and calm her down, while I talk to your husband.'

Mühlhauser poured him some beer; the sitting room was stuffy and full of cigarette smoke.

‘You're in a mess, aren't you?' Andrews said. ‘Your Nazi friends have caught up with you, and you've nowhere to run. They've found out you talked to the Russians, and you're scared they'll fix a nice accident for you.' He watched Mühlhauser as he spoke. He hadn't believed the story and he was just waiting to smash it to pieces. Mühlhauser didn't answer. He had recovered himself while he talked to the American; he put his wife's reactions aside, because there was nothing he could do about them. It would take a lot of time and patience to win her back. If he ever could, after what she had learned. He had been thinking rapidly while he talked to Curt Andrews. This was the CIA man he had been warned about; luckily the West German counterpart was not with him. The more he remembered Kramer's voice, the more sure he became that it was he who had telephoned the warning. So the man sitting opposite was one of the CIA's top men. A man with authority, able to carry out promises if he made them.…

To Mühlhauser his release from the interrogation had seemed a miracle at first, but while he travelled home with Beatrix he recognized it was only a reprieve. They wouldn't kill him without killing Beatrix too. He would be punished for his betrayal later, when he imagined himself safe. Or, worse still, the threat to murder his child would be carried out, in the guise of an accident, if they thought he had betrayed his oath a second time.… Even if it wasn't true, there was no guarantee for Beatrix and none for him. He made up his mind at the same moment as Andrews exposed his story as a lie.

‘How do you explain your release from Siberia?' he asked. ‘You say you gave details of the events in the Bunker to the Russians and they let you off hanging?' He didn't give Mühlhauser time to answer. ‘And you say the people in Odessa didn't figure this out until now?
Now
they reckon you betrayed them and they're out to get you—'

‘I wasn't a war criminal,' Mühlhauser said. ‘They knew that—the Russians couldn't find anything against me.'

‘Except membership of the SS and intimate friendship with Himmler,' Andrews sneered. ‘That hanged lesser men than you, Mühlhauser, right here in the West!' He snapped his fingers contemptuously. ‘Your life wasn't worth that! You made a deal, and it's just catching up on you—'

‘Yes,' Mühlhauser answered. ‘Yes, I did. And I want to make one with you, Herr Andrews. But I want to know whether you can protect me and my family.'

Curt Andrews didn't show surprise. ‘I can protect you,' he said. ‘But only if it's worth my while.'

Mühlhauser tried to smile; it hurt his face and became a grimace. He had survived once, when all the odds were against him. He had survived Soviet Intelligence, the labour camps and, today, the merciless vengeance of his own kind. And now that his daughter's life was at stake, survival was all that mattered.

He faced Curt Andrews steadily.

‘I can tell you,' he said. ‘Not just what I told the Russians, but what I didn't tell them. And that's what I'll give in exchange for a refuge in the United States and the protection of the CIA.'