The Hess Cross (19 page)

"I've never heard of anything like this. A sudden attack of complete amnesia?"

"Yes. The British psychiatrists have tested him again and again and found no reason to suspect the amnesia is not genuine."

"Well," said Fermi as he gathered his notes, "I suppose we should adjourn. John, can I see you for a moment?"

Kohler led Hess from the conference room. Hess moved like a blind man, with his hands extended in front of him, and with a wide, unsure gait. The strong-man act was over, and Kohler carefully and considerately led Hess by the arm.

"I'm really stumped, John," Fermi said after the door closed. Ludendorf and Heather had also remained.

"How's that?"

"Well, Hess was an important Nazi. Most people who rise that far in any government have only one specialty, politics. It's unheard of that Hess should know so much about a complicated and new field. I can't fathom that. His knowledge is extensive, and although his amnesia spell hit him before I could reach what for me would be new ground, I'm sure he knows some vital facts, material we must have."

"So his information isn't a ruse?"

"No, heavens no. It's legitimate, and I'm sure the Germans are worried sick about what he may reveal. I can see why you have such elaborate precautions to guard him. I'll have to interview him again. Maybe a couple of times. Professor, are you sure it will take two days for his amnesia to clear?"

"Usually a day or two. I'll call you as soon as it does."

"Good. Well, this has been a productive session," Fermi said, putting his papers into a briefcase. "I'll prepare my report for Mr. Sackville-West. The Germans are much further along on their bomb project than we suspected. It's frightening."

Aware of Fermi's tight schedule, Crown asked, "How many hours of interview will it take?"

"I don't know. My own little project is due for completion in about eight days, and it'll require most of my time. But Hess's information is critical, and I'll find time to interview him. You just let me know when he can remember again."

As they left the room, the physicist stopped Crown and said, "Maybe you can review my report to Sackville-West before I send it to him? We must convince him and his superiors of the impending peril of the German atom bomb. I'm convinced that, failing any colossal blunders, the type German scientists usually don't make, they'll have the bomb a full six months before we can have one."

Kohler and four guards walked Rudolf Hess from their car to his room on the second floor of the EDC house. Kohler asked them to stand by while he assisted the zombielike Hess to bed. He would knock when he wanted out of the bedroom.

After the door closed behind them, Hess immediately emerged from his trance and transformed again into the deputy führer. "Well, Kohler, how do you think it went?"

Kohler stood at attention and replied, "Just like you planned, Herr Reichsführer."

"I thought so, too. Fermi is a bright man. But you noticed that I gave him very little hard scientific information. Most of what I revealed, he already knew."

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer."

"He was quite startled to learn of our uranium
capabilities." Hess chuckled quietly. "It'll give him and the U.S. government something to worry about." Hess took off his coat and began to unbutton the shirt. "Did you notice anything about that John Crown?"

"No, sir. My job was to stare angrily and yell at you."

"That you did, Kohler. Quite impressively, too, I might add. But I observed Crown. He's suspicious. And I can tell he's dangerous. He doesn't have any hard facts, other than your fumbled attempt to kill him, but during my interrogation he was wary. I could see it in his face. He's going to pry and probe until he finds something. And we can't risk that, can we, Kohler?"

"No, Herr Reichsführer."

"You know why we initially tried to eliminate him. It's even more important now that his suspicion is aroused. Kill him. Do it soon, and do it professionally, as I know you can. Don't bungle it this time, Kohler. Good night."

X

O
HIO
V
ALLEY FARMERS
called the winter merely brisk. To the three German commandos rolling westward in an open boxcar, it was bitterly cold. Sliding the steel door closed would have made the journey bearable, but railroad police searched closed cars at every switchyard and passed by open cars. The lesson had cost Erich von Stihl his entire cigar supply.

"Where are we, Herr Oberst?" Willi Lange asked as he beat his arms across his chest to generate warmth.

"Call me Colonel, Lange, not Herr Oberst. We're about twenty miles west of Cleveland. We'll get to Chicago in a day and a half, assuming we keep getting these milk runs."

"A boring, drab country, Colonel." Hans Graf blew through his hands. "No Black Forest, no Bavarian Alps, no history. Just cornfields."

Drab, perhaps, thought von Stihl, but also terrifying. For hundreds of miles the train had passed cities overflowing with foundries, mills, refineries, and manufacturing
plants. None of the vast countryside lay untended. Wheat-and cornfields, orchards, vast cattle herds, coal mines, and logging camps crowded the land. And the country was geared for war production. Germany was a midget by comparison. General Rommel was right about a war with the U.S. A deep sense of foreboding had settled over von Stihl.

"Hey, Schwachheit, how come you're not cleaning your beloved Schmeisser? The cold getting to you?" Graf challenged. Crisp wind rushing through the boxcar had turned Graf's scar under his ear into a crimson sun. The ever-present malicious sneer was exacerbated by the cold.

Willi Lange sat opposite the open door with his knees tucked under his chin. His oilcloth roll lay carefully at his feet. It was impossible to ignore Graf in those close quarters.

"It's clean," Lange said, wishing the blond giant would look for something else to divert himself with.

"How do you know? You haven't put it together for at least an hour."

"It's clean, Graf. Why don't you play with your SS dick and get off my back?"

Graf's smirk lowered dangerously. "Those are big words for a little Wehrmacht corporal, Schwachheit. If it wasn't for your protector here"—nodding to von Stihl—"you'd eat them."

"Graf," said von Stihl in a tired voice barely audible over the clacking of the train, "I'm telling you again, take it easy. You'll have enough to get worked up about when we get to Chicago."

"As for you, von Stihl, I'm SS. I don't take orders from a Wehrmacht colonel."

"Graf, you received your instructions directly from SS Obergruppenführer Eicke. Those were to follow my orders. Do you understand this, or do I report to the lieutenant general you breached your loyalty oath?"

Graf was silent. He stared at von Stihl and then at Lange, conveying a threat von Stihl was sure the SS stormtrooper would someday try to execute.

Goddamn SS fanatics. Von Stihl had strenuously objected to the Generaloberst when Graf was added to the team. The general said he understood, but because of certain unmentioned pressures, the standard euphemism for SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler's meddling, an SS soldier had to be a member of the group.

The Schutzstaffel, or SS, was a separate entity from the Wehrmacht, the German Army. The SS was Nazi Germany's black-uniformed, sinister watchdog. It was Hitler's merciless, conscienceless strong arm that beat the German citizenry and peoples of conquered lands into compliance. German laymen and military personnel were rarely granted glimpses of the SS, which considered itself a new sect with its own rituals and customs. Their high-front black dress caps and jackboots put them above the German police and army troops. SS troops were accountable only to their superiors.

The SS was the brainchild of Heinrich Himmler, the retiring, pince-nez-wearing schoolteacher from Munich whose hobby was growing herb gardens. Himmler was a peasant mystic whose devotion to National Socialism stemmed from his fear of the corrupt web of international Jewry. He feared only one man, Adolf Hitler. So immersed in satanic evil was Himmler that few high-ranking Nazis could stand his presence. Hermann Göring once complained that when Himmler entered the room, Göring was seized with the urge to vomit.

The Schutzstaffel, or Guard Echelon, was the crystallization of Himmler's anagogic interpretation of German history and his call for a new order of German knighthood. The SS had several branches, each with a specialty. The
Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police, or Gestapo) ferreted out, interrogated, and disposed of enemies of the Reich in Germany and occupied countries. The Totenkopfverbände (Death's-Head battalion) guarded the concentration camps and later provided fighting units. The Waffen SS were elite combat troops that rivaled the Wehrmacht.

Hans Graf, the purple-scarred, overbearing commando leaning against the boxcar door frame, was a product of Himmler's vision. He had reported to the SS Junkerschule at Bad Tölz in the Bavarian Alps on November 9, 1937, the anniversary of the Munich Beer Cellar Putsch. The school at Bad Tölz accepted 400 officer candidates a year. Each applicant was required to show genealogical records dating back to 1750 proving he was of pure Germanic stock. Wives' records were searched back to 1800. The entrance requirements were so strict as to physical condition that up until 1936 an applicant was not accepted if he had one filled tooth. Those whose trunks were too long, noses too big, or knees too knobby were not admitted. Phrenologists searched each candidate's head for non-Aryan protuberances. Education, however, was not a prerequisite for admission. Grade-school dropouts and college graduates were admitted without distinction.

After passing the exhausting physical, Graf was issued the twenty-seven pieces of the SS uniform, which included the black trousers and tunic and black helmet. On the right lapel of the tunic were the two lightning flashes that formed the menacing double S.

Graf's transformation began at 6:00
A.M.
the second day, when his blood type was tattooed under his left armpit. Then for months Graf and his classmates ran right, ran left, lay down, stood up, crawled, and jumped as they learned to follow orders. Each day had two hours of saluting practice. The right hand was in position six steps before reaching a superior and stayed rigid until three steps after
passing the officer. Each day had three hours of the goose-step march. Should any of the candidates' legs not be rigid at the end of the third hour, an extra hour was added. Meals were eaten in stiff-back, chin-out position, and the silverware was moved only horizontally and vertically. These were called square meals. At any time day or night when an officer yelled "Motto," all candidates yelled back in one voice "
Meine Ehre heisst Treue
." "My honor is loyalty." A late or quavering voice meant another hour goose-stepping.

Bad Tölz also stressed practical information. Graf learned six ways to break a man's neck. He spent hours on the firing range, mastering the intricacies of the Luger pistol, Schmeisser submachine gun, mortars, and bazookas. His class studied the effect of automobile exhaust on a dog that has been locked into a glass box. They saw how various barbiturates and paralyzants affected dogs. The instructor carefully noted how each ingredient would affect a human. The class learned how injections of phenol, petrol, and turpentine will rapidly kill a man. They practiced giving intravenous injections on cadavers brought from the local mortuary. A cadet who fainted was given an extra hour of solitary goose-stepping.

Evenings were occupied with political and racial education. The histories of the Nazi party and the SS were studied. The differences in the European races were explained. The marching song of the SS and the "Horst Wessel Song" were sung. Biographies of SS leaders were committed to memory: Himmler, Heydrich, Dietrich, Hausser, Steiner. Histories of the distinguished SS divisions were reviewed: Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Division Das Reich, Division Totenkopf, and many others. Each division had battalions whose histories were learned.

Grueling months passed. The candidates' minds and bodies were torn down and poured into the SS mold. Nazi
doctrine was pounded into them. They became lean and hard. Above all, they were taught to follow orders without question.

On April 20, 1938, Hans Graf received his permanent SS pass and swore allegiance to the Führer:

I swear to thee, Adolf Hitler,

As Führer and chancellor of the German Reich,

Loyalty and bravery.

I vow to thee and to the superiors whom thou shall appoint

Obedience unto death, so help me God.

Graf's training was not as yet completed, however, for he had to earn the Reich's sport badge and learn the SS catechism, an imitation of the Catholic ritual:

      
Question: Why do we believe in Germany and the Führer?

      
Answer: Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany, which He created in His world, and in the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us.

      
Question: Why do we obey?

      
Answer: From inner conviction; from belief in Germany, in the Führer, and in the movement and in the SS; and from loyalty.

As did all SS candidates, Graf then spent several months in the Labor Service and several more months in the Wehrmacht. His Wehrmacht report was excellent, and on November 9, 1938, one full year after his admission to the officers' school, Graf received his dagger and was commissioned into the SS at the moving ceremony at the National Socialist shrine in Munich.

SS Untersturmführer (Second Lieutenant) Graf was assigned to the Totenkopf Battalion, Oberbayern Regiment, at the Dachau concentration camp. Here he excelled. As a youth the handsome blond had been expelled from several schools because of his remarkable talent for destruction
and disorganization. His SS training captured and channeled this skill, and it manifested itself in the professional subjugation of the prisoners in his eight Dachau barracks. Graf mastered the two fundamentals of effective enslavement: change the prisoners' routine frequently, without apparent reason, to deprive them of the comfort of a set pattern; and savagely punish infractions of even the smallest rule.