A Gypsy in Berlin Read online

  “I am merely doing my duty as a German citizen, following the directives of your officers,” Thomas said carefully, and reached for his pack of Pall Malls.

  Ulbricht caught his attention, shook his head again.

  Thomas left the cigarettes in his coat pocket and drank his coffee.

  “Perhaps you do not fully appreciate the delicacy of your position,” Himmler continued. “And there is also the situation of your father.”

  “Certain assurances have been given,” Thomas pointed out.

  “General Heydrich has authority over the SD and other police bureaus. His responsibilities do not extend to prisons or camps,” Himmler explained. “Those areas belong to me and other subordinates. Am I making myself clear?”

  Thomas nodded.

  Suddenly the usually humorless administrator of Germany’s security forces smiled thinly and looked at Ulbricht. “Hauptsturmfuehrer, didn’t I tell you that he was an intelligent man?”

  “Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”

  No longer smiling, Himmler said, “Herr Rost will continue to perform his duty, but out of respect for our overworked SD chief he will now report to you.”

  Ulbricht snapped the heels of his jackboots together, bowed slightly as he received his orders.

  “Let me get this straight,” Thomas said. “You want me to work directly for you?”

  “See, he learns quickly,” Himmler said to his aide. “Henceforth, Herr Rost, you will keep Hauptsturmfuehrer Ulbricht apprised of any developments in your search.”

  “You know what I am looking for?”

  “One of my longtime aides was murdered a few days ago,” Himmler said coldly. “I consider that an attack on the German Reich and the Party. The Kriminalpolizei has failed to solve the case and, it may well be that there are traitorous elements at work in the intelligence organizations. The unique talents of a civilian like yourself has certain advantages.”

  Like disposing of me afterward, Thomas realized. “General Heydrich knows of this change?”

  Ulbricht said, “Just think of it as a change in your lines of communication. The objective remains the same.”

  Himmler rose, pulled on his SS overcoat. “To keep up appearances, you will continue to stay in touch with Obersturmfuehrer Brandt. Just remember to contact Dieter Ulbricht first. He will assist you in framing your response to any questions by Brandt.”

  “You’re making me a double agent.”

  At the door, Himmler slapped his leather gloves on his coat. “Yes, that sounds like the term for it. Good luck, Rost.”

  After the Reichsfuehrer left the suite, Thomas said, “Not even the magician, Harry Houdini, could’ve succeeded in this situation. The demands are becoming impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Ulbricht said, and seemed to relax a bit. “You can smoke now.”

  Thomas lit a Pall Mall, sat back, head on a cushion. “You took Wolfgang Hinsel out of the hospital.”

  “A classic example of protective custody.” Ulbricht pulled the cord on the drapes, letting the dawn’s light chase away the shadows. “An orderly at Charité was prepping Hinsel’s arm for an injection. We think he meant to introduce an air bubble into a vein. A nurse seized the syringe and called us.”

  “The nurse is one of your informers?”

  “That hypodermic was a deadly weapon.”

  “But moving Wolf to a camp infirmary?”

  “That’s life in the Third Reich,” Ulbricht said, and helped himself to coffee.

  “You could’ve put him in a private clinic. There’s one close to St. Hedwig’s.”

  “Is that the kind of deal you made with Brandt for Bachmann?”

  “My standard fee nowadays. You spring a soul from Purgatory and I go back to work.”

  “I’ll ignore the sarcasm.” Ulbricht checked his watch. “Your friend was released from Sachsenhausen. What’s the problem now?”

  “How about my father?”

  “Peter Rost stays. Until mission accomplished.”

  Thomas got up slowly. “The Reichsfuehrer knows what General Heydrich has sent me after?”

  “That’s not for me to discern. Let’s just say Heinrich Himmler has taken a personal interest in finding the killer of a Sturmbannfuehrer. While you might not care about the fate of an SS officer, the Reichsfuehrer believes you are very interested in identifying the murderer of a Lutheran pastor, one known to help the Gypsies.”

  “That’s his angle?” From memory, Thomas envisioned a ten-year-old picture of Himmler and Bormann at the foot of the stairs to the Fuehrer’s Munich apartment.

  “Don’t even try to figure him out,” Ulbricht advised. “My advice is, keep it simple. In the meantime, stay on the trail of whatever General Heydrich wants.”

  “You don’t want to know?”

  Ulbricht shrugged. “In the end, you will show me.”

  Chapter 22

  LONG LINES OF GURNEYS stretched down both sides of the institute’s corridor outside the pathology lab. Soiled sheets covered the bodies. The smell of formaldehyde seeped from under the laboratory’s double doors, infiltrating the close weave cotton, enveloping the recumbent forms. Even as his nostrils were assailed by the gaseous compound, Thomas threaded his way between the gauntlet of the dead and into the cutting room. The lab was cold and dark and silent. He fumbled for the light switch and, instantly, bright lights shined onto the green tile walls and cement floor.

  Clear puddles of an unknown liquid dotted the floor, turning parts of the room into an indoor version of a lake district. He bent down to pick up one of several empty glass bottles. The label identified the container’s former contents as embalming fluid. With forced calm, he lit one of his Pall Malls in an effort to combat the overpowering aroma.

  With growing unease, he noted that papers were strewn across the floor—stapled reports, torn folders, single sheets of onionskin. A file cabinet lay on its side, drawers emptied of contents. The desk had been ransacked, every cavity bore the marks of a thorough search. Even the typing slab had been pulled out and left on the floor. Heavy medical textbooks—volumes on anatomy and pathology, toxins and poisonous compounds—had been swept from the bookshelf, cracking the spines.

  “Johanna?” he said quietly.

  He hoped that she’d heeded his plea to leave Berlin. Lifting the receiver of the desk phone, he started to dial her home number, but there was no dial tone. He traced the line to the wall and saw the broken connector, the tip of a scalpel embedded in the jack where the plug had been. A loathsome bile rose up in his throat and he tasted fear. As he looked around for a sign that she had escaped whatever destructive force had visited her lab, his eyes rested on the stainless steel tables in the center of the room. Only one table was occupied, covered with a clean sheet. He resisted the urge to run away and walked through the papers and detritus on the damp floor to the autopsy table.

  From the shape of the cloth he had a premonition of what lay underneath. For a moment, his resolve wavered, and then his right hand swept aside the cloth and he gazed into her open eyes, gray and lifeless. Her hair was in disarray; curly red strands stuck out like a radial halo.

  “My sweet Johanna.” He lowered his head onto hers, forehead to forehead. “I wasn’t here to protect you. Dear God, forgive me.”

  He wanted to sit down and cry, to simply give up and submit to the inevitable. The hand of an executioner had stalked him for days, openly mocking his passage with an open-air gallery of victims that had become more and more personal. Finally he straightened up, gathered his remaining strength and pulled the cloth down to her ankles, examining her body for wounds. He found none, not a mark on her. Lacking the energy or will to inspect her back, he replaced the cloth cover up to her neck.

  “God rest your beautiful soul,” he said, and for the last time kissed her lips.

  Initially, he recoiled from the cold flesh. Then his mouth lingered on hers, savoring this last union. His tongue picked up a gritty substance on her lips and, as he raise
d his head for a final look at his former wife, he wiped at his lips with the back of a hand. On her lower lip he spotted white crystalline powder.

  Covering her head with the cloth he went to the pile of texts, found the one on poisons and turned to the index. What to look for? he asked himself. The possibilities were many and he wasn’t a chemist with a well-equipped lab to test them. Also, he knew that he wasn’t a pathologist with a range of experience to draw upon in order to narrow down the choices. But he recalled some of his selfish arguments with his ex-wife, about her devotion to lab work and the dead. And in spite of his anger at the time, he had listened to her explain some of her discoveries on behalf of the departed. As a result, he didn’t have to identify the powder.

  Dr. Rost had performed autopsies on the murdered pastor and SS officer, and her own killer was probably the same person. All he had to do was find her reports on them. Her work would lead him to the killer, assuming that the reports had not been located and carried off. From the state of the lab, the papers had not been left in the open.

  Once, during their brief marriage, Johanna had confided that she kept her purse in a certain drawer—the last place anyone at the institute would look, she’d claimed. Well, the drawers of the desk and file cabinet had been searched. He lit another cigarette and turned slowly in a circle, taking in everything. When he’d nearly completed the circle, he was facing the sliding steel drawers set into the wall. He went to the first one and pulled on the handle. A long narrow tray rolled out with a corpse on it, lying supine, the internal organs in a bag between his legs. A tag on a big toe provided the body’s name—Philipp Witte. He rolled the drawer back into place and opened the second one. Another cut up body appeared, according to the toe tag, a man named Rudolf Pohl. The prospect of viewing the contents of every drawer sapped his courage.

  Suddenly, he remembered is ex-wife’s unscientific interest in numerology. She’d asked him about any American superstitions regarding numbers and he’d, half-jokingly, mentioned the most common one. Now he moved down the rows of drawers to number thirteen. Steeling his nerves he rolled open the drawer and...on the tray, were her leather purse and two file folders.

  “She knew what it meant,” he said softly, and scanned the pages of the top folder. He glossed over most of the typed entries to the usual standard questions. It was the narrative section that would provide the answer. And there, in her elegant handwriting, she gave the actual cause of death. Aloud, Thomas read, “Potassium chloride killed Philipp Witte.”

  Down the hall a door slammed and he heard voices arguing loudly. He set the report back on the tray, slid the tray closed and went to the double doors, heart in mouth. The way into the lab was also the only way out. The voices, a man and a woman, were coming closer, then another door slammed and he heard nothing.

  Thomas debated whether to leave now or risk discovery and arrest.

  Chapter 23

  TRUE TO CHARACTER, curiosity won out and Thomas returned to the thirteenth drawer and slid the tray out again. He opened the second file folder, the one on Rudolf Pohl. Make that Sturmbannfuehrer Pohl, he told himself. According to Dr. Rost’s report, the SS officer had an elevated blood alcohol level plus, as she’d noted before, barbiturates in his system. Nevertheless, she had concluded, it was the same deadly substance found in the pastor’s body that had killed the Sturmbannfuehrer.

  Thomas set down the folder and went back to the heavy text on poisons. Through the index he found the entry on potassium chlorate, an oxidizing agent used in making matches and explosives. There was a lengthy explanation of potassium chloride, in powder or solid form, used in manufacturing fertilizers. Listed next was potassium cyanide, an obvious poison with a single legitimate application; that is, in mining operations.

  Back to the compound with chloride and its physiological effect on the human organism, he read how it was a killing salt if enough was injected into a vein. The substance effectively interrupted the heart’s natural electrical impulses, which stopped that most vital organ from beating. Actually, as little as 50cc’s of the compound was virtually guaranteed to do the job and the method was, supposedly, not painless. Oh, really? Who had volunteered that last bit of information?

  Besides, why was powder left on her mouth? Thomas wondered. Going back to the autopsy table, he lifted the sheet off her right breast, checked her armpit for a telltale pinprick...but found nothing. While replacing the sheet his hand brushed her throat and he spotted a tiny red dot. The entry wound.

  Even in his drug-addled condition last night, he’d heard Helga’s reassurances—her prior work as a nurse. So his minder had killed his wife, too.

  Taking the files and her purse, he went to the double doors and pushed one open a couple of inches. That’s when an office door up the hall swung open and he heard a familiar click of heels. A second later, Helga Schmitt and Obersturmfuehrer Brandt appeared. Thomas entered the hall and tripped a nearby fire alarm—sending a loud clanging noise down the corridor—and, as Heydrich’s aides turned toward him, dashed by, pausing only to tip over a gurney, depositing a broken corpse on the floor between them.

  “Thomas, come back!” Helga yelled. “We won’t hurt you!”

  He turned a corner into a short hallway and barged through a swinging door and found himself outside on a loading dock. Jumping over a low cart laden with medical supplies, he landed on his right side on the parking lot. Picking himself up, he scrambled to gather the contents of the reports, grabbed the purse and ran for Johanna’s car. The driver’s side door was locked. He emptied her purse on the roof of the Cabriolet, found the key ring and unlocked the door. While scooping the items back into her bag he saw Brandt on the dock, pointing at him. Helga aimed her pistol in his direction and a shot rang out. The round ricocheted off a lamppost behind the BMW.

  He lowered himself behind the steering wheel, inserted the key and started the motor. Skipping the usual engine warm-up, he found reverse gear and backed out, tires spinning on the frozen pavement. The rear window shattered and, through the rear view mirror, he saw Helga bracing her arms on the cart for another shot.

  In first gear Thomas raced the car away from the institute’s back section, the bodywork shuddering from the impact of .32 caliber bullets. Thankfully, the rounds missed him and the all-important tires. One last glance into a side mirror at a pair of running figures and he was out of the hospital’s sprawling campus and onto Invalidenstrasse. He checked the fuel gauge. Almost a full tank, one of the few benefits for a doctor in days of strict rationing. He followed the route Brandt’s driver had taken on Sunday, except that he turned west out of the Tiergarten and entered Wilmersdorf. As the road cut to the southwest, Nurnbergerstrasse became Hohenzollern Damm.

  He couldn’t take a chance stopping at his apartment to pack a travel bag—a guard would certainly have been posted. Something else nagged at him. He whacked the steering wheel. The license plates! Ordnungpolizei patrols would be alerted, exposing him to that most common pitfall, the traffic stop. He pulled over into a quiet residential street and parked in front of a black BMW 326 sedan. After looking up and down the road, he checked the windows of nearby residences. Satisfied, he rummaged in the trunk, found the toolkit and took out a screwdriver and pair of pliers. Squatting down, he removed the plates from the sedan, replacing them with those from Johanna’s car. He dropped the tools in his trunk and drove away, keeping to legal speeds.

  He couldn’t change the color or shape of the BMW but, hopefully, he’d done enough to get clear of the city. Although Heydrich’s operatives had the police at their disposal, he told himself, it was unlikely that they would risk raising the profile of this business to a full-scale manhunt.

  One final duty to perform and he was free of Berlin.

  In the forested suburb of Zehlendorf, he stopped at a café and ordered a cup of tea. With drink in hand and change from the transaction, he went to the public phone near the back door and dialed the number for Werderscher-Markt.

  “Inspect
or Beck’s office, please,” he told the switchboard operator.

  There was an audible click and a baritone voice announced, “This is Inspector Weiss.”

  “I need to speak to Rutger Beck.”

  “He is unavailable. You can talk to me.”

  “Where is Inspector Beck?”

  “He called in sick. You can talk to me.”

  A wave of fear ran down Thomas’ spine. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Rost? Is this Herr Rost? Where are you now?”

  Thomas hung up. His fingers shook as he lit a cigarette and looked over his shoulder. Then he deposited more coins and dialed again.

  “Hello?” a woman answered.

  “Sigrid, this is Thomas.”

  “Oh, Thomas,” her voice broke, “they’ve taken him away.”

  “Who took him?”

  “Two men in leather coats.” Her voice rose an octave. “They said they were Gestapo and drove off with him in a black Mercedes.”

  “When was this?”

  “Minutes ago, just before you called.”

  Try to remain calm, he reminded himself. “Sigrid, I want you to pack a suitcase, take the children and go to your mother’s. The snowstorm is over, the roads are clear. You can make Hamburg by this evening.”

  “Where have they taken my husband?”

  “Listen to me, Sigrid. You can help Rutger by leaving Berlin. His car is available?”

  “Yes, but why have the Gestapo arrested him? He’s a policeman!”

  “I’ll try to find out. Be at your mother’s place tonight. Promise?”