XPD

49

Someone had parked a large truck so that it obscured the view from the windows that faced away from the courtyard. Kleiber did not think that the truck had been parked like that by chance. All he could see of it from the kitchen window was the bottom of a gigantic K for Kleenex, or perhaps it was Kelloggs-he could not see enough of the truck to decide, it was so close to the wall.

From the front window there was a view of the pool, artificially blue, lit by underwater floodlights, and the other three sides of the units which made up the motel. Behind the low, sloping roofs there were a few dusty palm trees and a high chimney which at night was lighted by a red warning light. Kleiber wondered whether that meant they were near an airfield, but there was little sound of aircraft. He knew they must be near Washington.

It had been like this ever since leaving Geneva. The Americans hauled him round the country like freight, never divulging where they were, where they had been or where they were going. They did not trust him; he could hardly blame them. Would they eventually kill him, he wondered. Was this process just a way of ensuring that there was no paperwork, no trace, no witnesses to his having arrived in the USA?

‘You say the Hitler Minutes never existed?’ he asked the Englishman. He did not wait for him to reply. ‘Well, I know they did exist.’

‘Really,’ said Stuart, without displaying too much interest. ‘How could you know?’

‘I was at the Merkers mine when Wever and Breslow delivered them there.’

‘So you were the mysterious Reichsbank Director Frank?’ Kleiber nodded and smiled. ‘Is that why Dr Böttger and the others selected you to get them back?’

‘Can I have a drink?’ said Kleiber. Stuart broke the sealed cap of the whisky bottle and poured some into the clear plastic beakers the motel provided. He had watched Kleiber fidgeting but now, with the drink in his possession, he was calm and made no haste to consume it. ‘No, it was the other way round. I selected them,’ He put the whisky to his mouth and drank some. ‘I selected them. I went to them and told them that someone named Lustig was collecting material to make a film. I told them he was digging deeply into the story of the Kaiseroda mine. I told them he’d already found an officer named MacIver who was spilling his guts out and that the story of the Hitler Minutes was sure to surface. I’d had money from Böttger before for such missions; I knew he’d buy this project.’

‘Well, you won’t get any more cash from him, Kleiber. He knows now that you were working for Moscow.’

Kleiber’s mouth tightened but he managed to force a strained smile. ‘What did he say?’

‘I wasn’t there,’ said Stuart. ‘But they’re returning a hundred million dollars to the bank in Geneva. Their official explanation is that there was a computer error. The name of Friedman is not mentioned.’

‘Young Stein will benefit,’ said Kleiber. ‘He’ll take the money and get married to Mary Breslow… that’s the final joke, eh?’

‘A lot of people will benefit,’ said Stuart, who knew that the final horrible joke was yet to come. ‘There’s Delaney, the night-club owner, an ex-gangster named Petrucci, Pitman’s nephew in Arkansas… They’ll all benefit but the real beneficiaries are the clients of the bank, they’re the people you swindled, Kleiber.’

‘Put away your violin,’ said Kleiber.

‘How did you hear that Lustig was making a film?’

‘I was having dinner with Max Breslow one evening in Frankfurt. He mentioned the film quite casually. He asked me if I thought it could prove dangerous to us. I told him it wouldn’t be dangerous if the production was in our hands. I told him I might be able to raise enough money to buy Lustig out.’

‘Did Breslow know the money came from Böttger?’

Kleiber settled back in his chair and sat in silence for a moment before replying. ‘Max Breslow was a war casualty. When he was a young soldier he had guts. Once, long ago, he was tough, Mr Stuart, in the way that you and I are tough.’

‘Do we have something in common?’

‘You don’t fool me with your soft voice and your fancy accent, your old school tie and your vague smiles and deferential manner; I recognize the killer in you, Mr Stuart. I’ve had too many like you on my payroll to make a mistake.’

‘And Max Breslow?’

‘He believed that propaganda shit that the Nazis fed us all. He couldn’t see that the penpushers writing all that stuff about Aryans, the historical destiny of the Fatherland and ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer, were writing it because it paid better than doing translations of Karl Marx.’

‘But there came a time when doing translations of Karl Marx paid better?’

‘You play the music; I’ll sing the words, Mr Stuart. But poor old Max wasn’t so adaptable. When he realized that the Nazis were just another set of crooked politicians, it broke his spirit. He was never the same again. Now what is he-a nothing!’

‘But he took over the Lustig film when you asked him.’

Kleiber laughed. ‘You think he might have turned me down, eh? Max is finished; nearly bankrupt. Who’d invest money in one of Breslow’s shoddy little films? His house is mortgaged to the very limit, he’s got no money saved, and only put his daughter through college by selling off his wife’s jewellery piece by piece. Sure, he jumped at the chance of taking over the Lustig film with the finance guaranteed, and a standard producer’s fee. He couldn’t afford to do otherwise.’

‘And all the time you were reporting to Moscow?’

‘The Russians were threatening to release some phoney evidence about me being implicated in war crimes.’

Stuart allowed the word phoney to go unremarked. ‘And the KGB approved of your idea to involve Böttger and his Trust?’

‘The Trust provided perfect cover, and through them I got help from people who would never have helped the Russians. And what expertise! I could never have arranged that hundred million dollar coup against Pitman’s bank without having all the resources of the Trust behind me.’

‘What exactly did you tell Dr Böttger?’

‘They didn’t need much persuasion. Those fat businessmen could see the economic consequences of rewriting the history books to make Hitler into a hero. They didn’t want anyone saying that he’d been clever enough to make Winston Churchill come cringing.’

‘But Churchill changed his mind; Churchill turned down the peace terms.’

‘So Churchill becomes the warmonger who continued with the war that caused twenty million deaths. Any way you present the facts, Hitler comes out best.’

‘And that would have hurt the West German economy?’

‘Publicity and controversy leading on to speeches and demonstrations. Neo-Nazis fighting left-wingers in the streets. Once it started there is no telling where it might have ended.’

‘Especially with General Shumuk pulling the strings,’ said Stuart, but Kleiber had never heard of Shumuk and did not respond to this remark.

‘We Germans are like that,’ said Kleiber. ‘We’re always too anxious to please the people who conquer us. We flatter them and imitate them. Split down the centre, we now have two halves each trying slavishly to adopt the system, myth and methodology of our masters. But Böttger knew that West Germany needs the untarnished memory of Churchill and Roosevelt in a way that the other western countries don’t need them. Moscow Centre thought Böttger might be right and judging from the effort your people put into it, London did too.’ He smiled, and drank more whisky.

Stuart said, ‘They thought it might be a blow to the value of sterling on the international exchanges. It doesn’t need much to start a run. They worried about the psychological effect the idea of Churchill’s asking for peace would have on American public opinion. Here in the US, most anglophilia depends on Churchill’s wartime reputation as a man who never considered giving up the struggle. My people worried too about public opinion in those countries which Churchill was prepared to consign to the Nazi empire. Some of those countries now sell Britain oil and vital raw materials. There was plenty to worry about.’

At the sound of conversation outside, Kleiber got to his feet and went to the window. He looked across the pool to the units where two men in white coats were going to examine Grechko’s body. He watched them enter the door and then turned back to Stuart. ‘I was there,’ he said suddenly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘I guessed,’ said Stuart. ‘I got your army service record. You were attached to the Führerhauptquartier for roughly the period of the Churchill visit. You were an intelligence officer: I guessed it was an attachment for security purposes, for the summit meeting.’

Kleiber looked at him. The British were like that. He never knew quite where he was with them, but they didn’t frighten him in the way the CIA men did.

‘I went out to the site with Dr Todt and the survey team. Before they even started on it.’

‘It was built specially for the Churchill meetings?’

‘Sure. It wasn’t much of a place. It’s still there. A couple of years ago I stopped off and had coffee at the hotel there. It’s not much changed: a church, a hotel and a few houses… a concrete bunker, plus a few wooden huts. Wolfschlucht, Hitler named it.’

‘So you were there before Churchill arrived?’

‘I helped arrange the new passes and the perimeter and so forth. It was a small party that arrived. No military attachés or war correspondents, no one in civilian clothing at all. It was obviously something very unusual. We were told only that it was to be a conference, and thought Mussolini was coming north. I suppose that’s what we were intended to think.’

‘But it was Churchill.’

‘He was the only one in civilian clothes. He wore a misshapen, grey rollbrim hat, a spotted bow-tie and a lumpy looking overcoat. His plane had no markings as I recall. We saw ten Messerschmitt fighters in loose formation above Churchill’s de Havilland when it arrived. They continued to circle while he landed at Le Gros Caillou, near Rocroi in France, about ten kilometres from us. They brought him up to Brûly in a Fiesler Storch communications aircraft. There was just room to land in the field behind the hotel.’

‘Churchill was alone?’

‘There was one person with him, a British colonel in civilian clothes. The Führer had a small guard of honour made up from the SS Begleit Kommando and the army’s FBB. Churchill was invited to inspect them but he waved the guard commander away. The two leaders went directly to the wooden hut where the secretaries and translators were waiting. The Führer greeted Churchill at the door of it; the two men did not shake hands. I got the idea that Churchill was making sure that there were no photographers there. He had stipulated that beforehand. We had special instructions to confiscate all cameras from everyone, and there were notices in the barrack huts threatening the death sentence for anyone not handing his camera over to the security service.’

‘So who was present at the meeting?’

‘Hitler, Churchill, Churchill’s colonel, our translator from the Foreign Office… ’ Kleiber scratched his head. ‘That’s all, I think. Nearby there were secretaries and two more translators waiting in case they were needed.’

‘So who wrote up the Hitler Minutes?’

Kleiber smiled. ‘Reichsführer Himmler had a bureaucratic turn of mind. He persuaded the Führer that some proper record of the proceedings must be made. The Führer was nervous about compromising the talks and eventually Himmler took it upon himself to rig an underground line and a hidden microphone so that one of the army’s shorthand writers could keep a record of what was said.’

‘Who was that?’

‘You’ve guessed already, haven’t you?’ said Kleiber. ‘It was Franz Wever. The Führer used him many times for keeping shorthand notes of important meetings. He was one of the best shorthand writers they had.’

‘Franz Wever.’ So Wever had known who Reichsbank Director Frank really was.

‘He even denied it to me. That’s funny, isn’t it? He denied it to me: the man who helped to rig the cable to the hut where he was sitting. Franz was terrified that someone would find out about it. He was frightened that he’d be murdered on account of his secret.’

‘And eventually he was murdered because of it.’

Kleiber pulled a face and seemed about to argue the facts but decided against it. Franz Wever’s death was not a subject he wished to discuss with a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

‘Hitler was clever,’ he said. ‘He knew how to be modest and magnanimous. Instead of adopting the manner of the conqueror he was quiet spoken and polite to Churchill. He was a wonderful judge of character, you see. He knew he’d get far more out of Churchill if he behaved like an English gentleman in the presence of another such “lord”.’

‘But Hitler’s terms were tough. You must have read the transcript.’

‘Considering the situation, no. He admired the British Empire but he envied it too. His first concern was to make the German war machine entirely independent in terms of raw materials-rubber, oil, tungsten, chrome and so on. He was obviously planning to attack the USSR once the west was resolved.’

‘You mean he would have taken over British colonies?’

‘He said the Union Jack would continue to fly everywhere from Vancouver to Calcutta to Hong Kong but he wanted his trading links secured. A large proportion of the British merchant fleet would have come under German control. Hitler had drafted some ideas about that. Then of course there was the Royal Navy. Germany could not have permitted Britain to retain control of the Atlantic sea routes; it would have been like offering Churchill a chance to have his hands round our throat.’

‘Occupation of Britain?’

‘No. Just a few Germans in sensitive posts. Himmler to vet all senior police appointments. It would have given us enough control, or at least warning in time to counteract trouble.’

‘There was no shouting?’

‘No shouting at all. The summit went off remarkably well. The second meeting was very late-after midnight-and then there was the final meeting on the morning of Wednesday, June 12. That was even more promising. Churchill and the Führer even shook hands. There were some muttered cheers. Churchill was smoking a cigar and smiling… To be allowed to smoke a cigar in the presence of the Führer-this was something unprecedented. We were all sure that the peace had been arranged. At least until the following Sunday.’

‘What happened on Sunday?’

‘It began very warm. I went past the church and saw four army officers kneeling in prayer. They were offering prayers for peace, they said. Hitler’s driver brought the big black three-axle Mercedes tourer up through the trees. Its roof was folded back, as it was for the big parades. The Führer drove to Schloss Acoz, near Charleroi, Belgium. I was one of the security detail that accompanied him.’

‘Schloss Acoz?’

‘To meet the young colonel who’d been with Churchill. He’d come to withdraw Churchill’s offer. He was a tall fellow, much taller than the Spanish staff officer who was with him. Spain was neutral of course. The Spanish officer came along to guarantee the safety of the Englishman. They were both in civilian clothes. The meeting took place in the open. There were just the three of them standing under the trees, the sun dappling the ground and making patches on the men as they shifted positions. Hitler was stiff. We saw his face tighten. We all knew that was a danger sign. The English colonel spoke first. He went on talking for two or three minutes. He had no notes to refer to but it was obviously a prepared message that he had committed to memory. Then Hitler asked some questions and there was a general conversation. The Spanish general said very little; he was there just to conduct the Englishman and be responsible for his safety.’

‘No one made a record of that conversation?’

‘We were all out of earshot.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘Within forty-eight hours of the Churchill-Hitler conference our army had occupied Paris. By that Friday lunch-time Hitler was drafting tougher terms. And Churchill had talked with Roosevelt on the trans-Atlantic telephone. Roosevelt told him that if he was re-elected in November the USA would come into the war.’

‘How do you know that?’

“The Research Bureau of the Reichspost monitored the transatlantic telephone; it was a radio link with a very simple scrambling device. Roosevelt promised aid and that was enough to change Churchill’s mind. Hitler had the transcript within three hours. He knew what the answer was going to be.’ Kleiber scratched his nose. ‘Churchill phoned the French premier the night before he dispatched his courier. The French reacted immediately. On that same Sunday that the Führer went to Schloss Acoz, the French government resigned. Marshal Pétain took over and asked for peace. Churchill went on the BBC that Monday night and made a speech saying, that, “… we shall fight on unconquerable, until the curse of Hitler is removed from the brows of men.” By Friday, Hitler was sitting in Foch’s chair in the railway coach and hearing the peace terms that the French would have to accept.’

‘What about the Englishman who brought the message to Hitler?’

‘He returned with the Spanish general,’ said Kleiber.

‘I mean in respect of Operation Siegfried. Surely he’s another one who knows the secrets?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Kleiber. ‘He was one of the first people we had to check out. He must have been completely in Churchill’s confidence. He probably knew more about those secret meetings than any man, except for Hitler and Churchill. We ran a check on him some years ago. His name was Elliot Castelbridge, from the Coldstream Guards. He was awarded the DSO fighting in Italy, partially deafened by a shell burst at Cassino. He got another medal in northern Europe in 1944. I can’t remember the rest of it. We got the whole dossier through the British War Office. We know everything about Elliot Castelbridge.’

‘You say he’s dead?’

‘Long since dead,’ said Kleiber. ‘Died on the operating table after a motor car accident in 1959. Your people are thorough, I must say that for them. They had every last detail of that man’s life on paper. Death certificate, report by the operating surgeon, statements by the hospital registrar, blood transfusions, X-rays. Everything you could ever wish for in an investigation.’

‘Yes, they are thorough,’ said Stuart. That was truly an XPD, he thought. He heard the first of the cars arriving from Langley.

Stuart reached out suddenly to grab the front of Kleiber’s jacket. ‘Where is it, Kleiber?’ He banged him back against the wall with enough force to make the thin partition wall shake. ‘You came here to give it to Grechko. Grechko is dead; give it to me.’ The sound echoed. ‘Give it to me!’ Stuart slapped him. Kleiber’s head hit the plasterboard wall again, and a large table lamp fell to the floor and broke. Kleiber shook his head slowly and blinked; his eyes watered with pain and surprise. Boyd Stuart said softly, ‘Give me the photo Franz Wever sent to you general delivery in Los Angeles.’

Slowly Kleiber unbuckled his belt and slid it through the loops of his trousers. He unzipped the inside of the belt to open the money compartment and took out a very tattered snapshot and a single-frame 35-mm negative.

‘How did you know?’

‘You collected the cameras; you just told me so. You were in a unique position to get a photo of Hitler and Churchill shaking hands.’ Stuart smoothed the photo to look at it. ‘And you could hide in a good spot to get the picture, concealment would be expected of a security guard.’

Kleiber nodded.

It was a blurred photo; Hitler squinting into the light, Churchill-cigar in mouth-frowning as if perplexed. But the two men had grasped hands firmly in an unmistakable gesture of solidarity.

‘Now what?’ Kleiber asked. He wiped his face with his handkerchief, watching Stuart warily and still surprised that his guess about the Scotsman’s violent nature was so soon confirmed.

Stuart had discovered everything he wanted to know. Already he had begun to decide how much of it should go into his report to Sir Sydney Ryden. He looked at his watch and wondered if the cashier would complain if he went Concorde.

‘Now, what? Now nothing, Kleiber.’ The man was a repugnant creature but that made his job only marginally more bearable.

Stuart patted his pockets as if searching for cigarettes. He felt the box inside which the hypodermic was wrapped in cotton gauze, with a spare phial inside his silver cigarette case where it was not likely to be broken. He hated these XPD jobs that the laboratory experts arranged. It was horrible enough to dispose of men with gun, blade or explosive but these toxic chemicals were loathsome.

‘I’m sorry, Kleiber,’ he said. ‘But it’s the end of the story.’

‘I’m a soldier,’ said Kleiber. It was almost as if he welcomed the chance to die like a hero.