Prussian Blue

FORTY-FOUR

Heydrich’s tall, smooth-faced adjutant, Hans-Hendrik Neumann, was waiting for us up at the Villa Bechstein. In his hand was a book about Karl Ferdinand Braun and the invention of the cathode-ray tube, which served to remind me that Heydrich had a habit of picking clever people from a variety of different backgrounds to work for him. Maybe this included me. Neumann had driven down from Salzburg with an order from Heydrich that had absolutely nothing to do with finding Karl Flex’s assassin and, in the wake of Kaltenbrunner’s clumsy attempt to have me arrested, everything to do with imposing his absolute authority on the Security Service.

“These two comedians from Linz,” said Neumann. “Where are they now?”

“In the jail cells beneath the Hotel Türken,” I said. “I stabbed one of them with a piece of glass.”

“I’m afraid his situation is not about to improve very much. Heydrich has some important questions he wants put to them. Before we shoot them and send the bodies back to Linz.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised at this news, but I was, and while I disliked the Gestapo intensely I didn’t appreciate being the reason why two men were going to be shot. “You’re going to shoot them?”

“Not me. The local RSD can do it. That’s what they’re for.” Neumann looked at Friedrich Korsch. “You. Criminal Assistant Korsch, isn’t it? Go and find the duty officer from the RSD and tell him to organize a firing squad for tomorrow morning.”

Korsch glanced back at me, and I nodded. Now wasn’t the right time to speak up for the two men from Linz. He got up and went off to find the RSD duty officer.

“The general wants these men to be made an example,” said Neumann. “Interfering with a police commissar from Kripo HQ carrying out Heydrich’s express orders—that’s you, in case you didn’t recognize yourself—is treasonable. And of course Kaltenbrunner will get the message this sends. But first, we have to interrogate them and make sure that they have told us absolutely everything.”

“I don’t think you’ll get much more out of them than I did.”

“Nevertheless those are the general’s orders. I’m to make them talk if I can. And then to shoot them both.”

“Be my guest. But I think they already told me all there is to know. Kaltenbrunner sent them. Surely it’s all that’s important here.”

From his trouser pocket Neumann took out an English punch and slipped it over his knuckles. Suddenly he looked like he meant business and I had a much clearer idea of why Heydrich kept him on as his adjutant. It wasn’t just his brain. Sometimes buttons needed to be pressed and faces rearranged. He grinned cruelly. “The general calls me his circuit breaker. On account of my background in electronics.”

Maybe it was a better joke when Heydrich made it but I doubted it. On the whole I didn’t share the same sense of humor as Himmler’s number two. And while I knew there was a streak of cruelty in me somewhere—it was impossible to have survived the trenches and not have one—on the whole I considered it was nearly always and very properly suppressed. But the Nazis seemed to revel in their cruelty.

“You’d probably call me all sorts of unpleasant names if I told you how very persuasive I can be,” said Neumann.

“No, not even if I thought so. But you tell me what the general wants to know and I’ll tell you what I think.”

He frowned. “These men would certainly have killed you, Gunther. I’d have thought you’d be quite glad to watch them receive a good beating.”

“I’m not the squeamish type, Captain. I’ve no love for either man. It’s you I’m thinking of. Besides, when you’ve questioned as many suspects as I have you learn never to trust what a man spits out of his mouth when you’ve beaten it from him. Mostly it’s just teeth and very little truth. There’s all that and the fact that there’s so much more happening here than the general ever dreamed of. Take my word for it. This business with Kaltenbrunner is a sideshow. There’s enough going on in Obersalzberg to put Martin Bormann in Heydrich’s pocket for the next thousand years. I can promise you he won’t be disappointed.”

Neumann shrugged and put away the brass knuckles. “All right. I’m listening. But I’m afraid there’s nothing you can say that’s going to save these men from a firing squad. By the way, I think you ought to be there when we shoot them. It won’t look right if you’re not present.”

Rudolf Hess was down in Berchtesgaden having a meeting with Party officials at the local Reichs Chancellery, which meant we had the villa to ourselves. So we went and sat in front of the fire in the villa’s drawing room. Wearing his shiny black boots and immaculate SS uniform, Neumann resembled something that had already been consumed by the flames, something heretical, something cured and apostate, like some modern Templar knight. With the SS, you always had the feeling that there was no limit to their zeal—that there was nothing they wouldn’t do in the service of Adolf Hitler. With a war looking imminent, this was an alarming prospect. I threw a few logs onto the fire and drew my chair a bit closer to the pyre. It wasn’t that I was very cold, I just thought there was less chance of there being a listening device hidden in a blazing fireplace. Then, over coffee drawn from the urn on the refectory table underneath the window, I told Hans-Hendrik Neumann everything I had found out since coming to Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg, and quite a bit more that I was still guessing at. He listened patiently, making notes in a little Siemens leather notebook. He stopped writing when I described the P-Barracks in Unterau.

Neumann grinned. “You mean Martin Bormann is actually running a brothel down here?”

“Effectively, yes. Bormann ordered it to be set up for the exclusive benefit of the local workers from P&Z. The weekly administration was being handled by Karl Flex, Schenk, and Brandt, like all the other moneymaking schemes he has running down here. But on a day-to-day basis I believe the place is now being run by a German-speaking Czech girl called Aneta.”

“Now, that is interesting.” Neumann started writing again.

“Is it?”

“Aneta what?”

“Her surname? I have no idea.”

“It doesn’t matter. I should like to meet this whore. As soon as possible. Perhaps you could drive me down there now.”

“I’m supposed to be running an investigation here, Captain. That’s why Heydrich sent me. To find the killer so that Hitler can come here and celebrate his birthday in total confidence that he’s safe. Remember?”

“Oh, surely. But I don’t think this need take up too much of your valuable time, Gunther.” Neumann closed his notebook and stood up. “Shall we?”