The Hunt aka 27 (28 page)

“Herr Reinhardt was a frequent visitor at the home of a Jewish teacher named Isaac Sternfeld. Sternfeld taught political science at the university here until he was sent to Dachau.”

“Is he a Communist?”

“Nein,
a Social Democrat radically opposed to the Führer and the Nazi party. Before the Führer became chancellor, a group of students who were also frequent guests at Sternfeld’s started a pamphlet called
Die Fackel.
It was aimed mainly at students, a kind of college humor.
. .
uh, satire thing with a bit of a sting to it. Then after Herr Hitler

“The Führer,” Vierhaus corrected.

“Yes, the Führer, after the Führer became chancellor it became more pointed. That is when Reinhardt became involved, writing occasionally for it and editing it. Sternfeld was the advisor and it was printed by Oscar Probst.”

“The Berlin Conscience,”
Vierhaus said.

‘
J
a.
When the.
. .
uh..

“Repatriation?”

‘
J
a
. . .
repatriation
. . .
of the Jews began the students formed the Black Lily to help get Jews out of Germany.”

“Where did they get that name?” Vierhaus asked out of curiosity.

“There is no such thing as a black lily,
Herr Professor.
They meant it to be a phantom organization, just like the flower.”

“Schoolboy antics,” Vierhaus said, waving him off. “What else?”

“They moved money into Swiss ba
n
ks, arranged forged passports, transportation, everything.”

“Students?” Vierhaus said with astonishment.

Adler nodded.

“Students are doing this?!” Vierhaus said, shaking his head. He could imagine Hitler’s reaction to
that
bit of news.

“But very dedicated students,” said Adler.

“Politicized by Reinhardt and this St
e
rnfeld person, hmm?” Adler continued to nod.

“The editor of
Die Fackel
was a Jewish boy named Avrum Wolffson. He is now twenty-five years old. His best friends are Werner Gebhart and Joachim Weber. It is my understanding that Wolffson is the head of the Black Lily. Gebbart handles the movement of Jews out of the country, and Weber handles money, the paperwork, passports, false ID’s, such things.”

Vierhaus stroked his chin as he listened to Adler. Other things were becoming clear to him.

“So, now I think I know what happened to Otto Schiff and Tol Nathan. These students probably ran them out of the country. And they probably forced Simon Kefar to hang himself.”

“Simon Kefar worked for you, too?”

“You didn’t know that? Schiff, Nathan, Kefar, all very effective
Judenhascher like yourself. You knew them?”

“I knew Kefar casually. The others only by name.”

Vierhaus stroked his chin for a
moment
or two longer.

“How do they finance all this?” he asked finally.

“With contributions from rich Jews and sympathizers here and abroad.”

“This Wolffson and a couple of students created all this intrigue?” Vierhaus said, still unable to accept Adler’s theory.

“Actually I think it was Sternfeld who organized it anticipating the
. . .
repatriation. But Wolffson was a brilliant student, very pragmatic the way I understand it.”

“How do you know all this?”

Adler stared at him for several seconds. “Joachim Weber is my nephew,” he said. “The boy and I have never been close but I talk to my sister—his mother—frequently.”

“How many people are involved with this bunch?”

Adler shook his head. “Dozens, I assume. In Berlin, Munich, Linz, Paris, Zurich.”

“All Jews?”

“No. They are both Jews and Gentiles.”

“How did this get so far Out of hand!” Vierhaus said almost to himself. The Führer would be outraged. “And where do we find this Wolffson?”

“That is the problem,
Herr Professor,
nobody knows. There are no lists of the members, it is not a military-type organization.

It is like the flower, it seems not to exist. It is like a train that runs whenever necessary. Nobody has see
n
Wolffson in months. But I believe he must be in Berlin. And I have this.”

He handed Vierhaus a sheet of typing paper. There were two columns of names and addresses on it.

“These are forty-eight people who are related to Wolffson. That includes three generations up to fourth cousins and nephews. I have similar lists on Weber and Gebhart in the folder.”

Vierhaus was impressed. “That is a remarkable report, Adler.” He turned back to the list of names and ran his forefinger down each one. “You did this in a month?”

“Three weeks actually.”

“Remarkable indeed. The Gestapo has been investigating this for months with no success.”

“They are not Jews,” Adler said, almost in a whisper.

“Very true, Herman. It takes one to catch one, eh?” He smiled at Adler, who began to relax. The jeweler wiped sweat off the back of his neck. “If you can find him, sir, I think I can produce enough proof to

“I do not care about proof,” Vierhaus said, waving his hand as he scanned the list. “Give me names
and
addresses and I will get confessions from these schoolboys. I don’t need proof.”

Vierhaus started to say something else and then stopped. His finger was poised over one of the names.

“This is his sister? Jennifer Gould?’

“Half-sister,
Herr
Professor.
Her mother married the Jew, Wolffson. She is a Catholic, I believe.”

“You have no address on her?”

“Nein.
She moved about three months ago and dropped out of sight.”

“Hmm,” said Vierhaus. “We seem
t
have an epidemic of vanishing
.

Vierhaus looked up suddenly, his eyes squinting into a dark corner of the room, and then he slapped his hands together. Adler was startled by the sharp sound in the quiet room.

“I
know
where she is!” Vierhaus said. He pulled open a desk drawer and clawed through file folders. He pulled one, out. Inside were copies of the weekly reports of military spies in half a dozen major European cities, including von Meister in Paris. Vierhaus licked his thumb and flipped through the pages, then stopped. “Yes, of course. Keegan”

Vierhaus leaned back and smiled, proud of himself not only for reading these dull reports every week but for remembering the brief reference to Keegan and the Gould woman.

“She’s a singer,” he sneered. “She sings American nigger jazz. And she is a friend of that American liar, Rudman.” He looked at Adler and smiled. “Perhaps she knows where Wolffson is. Perhaps she is the
Kettenglied
to the Black Lily. And she is in Paris.”

Adler scurried down the street toward a small delicatessen with his satchel still clutched to his chest. It had started to rain, a persistent mist that slowly collected on hair, skin and clothing. He hunched his shoulders up. He needed to take a pill. His heart was racing with excitement. A shop, he thought. And a decent place to live, possibly even an Aryan IIJ card. It was all very dizzying.

As he passed a sedan parked at the curb, a hoarse voice said from behind him: “Herman Adler.” He started to turn but as he did two muscular arms encircled his, cla
m
ping them to his sides. The satchel fell to the ground.

Adler opened his mouth to speak but before he could get the words out a wad of cotton was
jammed against his nose. He smelled the stinging-sweet odor of chloroform a moment before he passed out. As two men shoved him into the car, a small bottle of pills fell out of Adler’s vest pocket and rolled into the gutter.

Vierhaus had a few minutes before he had to leave for his dinner appointment. He leaned back in his chair. He had to move cautiously for the time being, particularly in working with Himmler. A great many Germans were sympathetic to the Jews, particularly the officials and bureaucrats in the provinces. Hitler did not want to jeopardize his power over them. At this point the Führer needed everyone’s support. Vierhaus’s work with mixed bloods and renegades could not become general knowledge, not for a while at least. But there were many who knew and believed in the purification work. Theodor Eicke was one of them.

He snatched up the phone and placed a call to the brutish ex-brownshirt, now a member of the SS and manager of the camp at Dachau. Eicke was known for his inflexible harshness. As a member of the SA he had once beaten a Jew to death with his bare hands. At Dachau he had killed a prisoner with a shovel. Eicke was a man Vierhaus could deal with.

“Teddy, it is Willie Vierhaus,” he said when Eicke’s harsh voice answered.

“Willie! How are things in Berlin?”

“Excellent. Everything goes very wel
l
. And with you?”

“Oh, fine. This is a lovely town.”

“And the camp?”

“Running well.”

“No troubles?”

“
N
ein.
The Jews give us very little trouble, it’s the political prisoners who are a problem. But we have it under control. Our only problem is crowding.”

“The new camp at Sachsenhausen ‘will be ready in the spring, that should give you some relief. And they are planning others at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald

‘
J
a, very good.”

“And Anna? How is she?”

“She complains occasionally. We ha
v
e had an escape attempt or two and always at night. The wire always gets them but it is quite annoying. The static from the wires wakes her up.”

“Get heavier shutters,” Vierhaus
suggested
.

‘
J
a, ja,”
Eicke said and laughed.

“Listen Teddy, I have a favor to ask. You have a prisoner there called Sternfeld.”

“The teacher?”

‘
J
a.
He may have information about a group which calls itself the Black Lily. The Führer is most anxious to get all the information he can about this organization. I thought perhaps you might employ some of your more persuasive methods on this Sternfeld.”

“I am sorry, Willie. You are a little late.”

“Late?”

“Sternfeld is dead. About a month ago.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was allergic to hard work,” Eicke said with a chuckle. “But pneumonia actually did him in.”

“Damn!”

“Sorry,” Eicke said. “Do we have anyone else here who might have information?”

“I don’t know,” Vierhaus said. His disappointment was obvious in his tone. “I will look into it.”

“Well, Willie, if you find we do just give me a ring,” Eicke’s gruff voice answered. “We could make the Brandenburg Gate sing the ‘Horst Wessel’ if we had to—but we have no luck at all with corpses.” And he laughed.

Vierhaus leaned back in his chair and finished his coffee. He had to break the Black Lily and unless Adler came up with new information, Vierhaus had only one lead left. Jennifer Gould.

Adler awoke with a splitting headache. He was lying on a cot in a dark room. He sat up slowly, his feet groping under him for the floor. Then he saw his satchel, sitting beside the bed. The top was flared open and the satchel was
empty
. A light suddenly burst on. It was about thirty feet away, a spotlight aimed straight at him. A man sat silhouetted on a chair in front of it.

“Who are you?” Adler demanded, squinting into the light. “Why are you doing this to me? I have nothing
. .

The silhouetted man’s arm moved. There was a flare of light as he threw something toward Adler. The file folders from his satchel smacked the floor and slid to his feet, the contents splayed out around them.

“You are wrong, Herr Adler,” the silhouetted man said in a flat monotone that sounded as if he were purposely disguising it. “You do have something. What is this, work in progress?”

“That is none of your business.”

“We know everything you have done. Fifteen families, sixty- four people, all sent to the work camp at Dachau. You have become an executioner, killing your own people.”

“They are not
my
people.”

“They are the same blood.”

“Leave me alone!” Adler said miserably.

“We have an offer for you, Herman Adler. We will take you out of Berlin tonight. By this time tomorrow you will be in a neutral country with a passport and tickets to either England or America. But first, you must tell us what you reported to Vierhaus.”

“I cannot leave Germany
. .

“Of course you can. You live in a hovel like a cockroach and you betray your friends. You cannot keep it up, Herr Adler.

Accept our offer and you will be a free man with a job awaiting you.

“As what, an apprentice gem cutter to some English snob? I am a German! This is my country.”

“No. It is no longer your country or my country. We can’t vote, own property, go to decent restaurants, have a job. For God’s sake, man, they took your property, your bank account, your home, everything you own. How can you spy for them?”

“I am trying to stay alive!” Adler cried out passionately.

“We
all
are. That is why you cannot keep this up.”

Adler squinted across the room at him. “And what are you going to do if I refuse? Kill me?”

The silhouetted man paused for several seconds. He stood and walked out of the halo of light. Adler squinted and turned his face, blinded temporarily by the spotlight. The man stood in the darkness, the tip of his cigarette glowing intermittently.

“No,” he said, finally. “What we will do is this. We will print your face on the front page of
The Berlin Conscience
with a story listing every Jew you have given to them. We will see that every Jew in Germany knows who you are and what you do. Since you will no longer be of any use to the
Judenopferer
Vierhaus or anybody else, they will either kill you or send you to Dachau with the people you have betrayed. Think about that.” He used the harsh term
Judenopferer,
which meant “Jew sacrificer” rather than the slightly less offensive
Judenhascher.

Adler shook his head violently. “No, no! I can’t do it. They will kill me.” Adler felt a familiar tremor in his chest.

“You have no choice. Freedom and forgiveness now, or you are most certainly a dead man. Who did you give up tonight, Adler? We may still have time to save them.”

“Nobody,” Adler lied. “Vierhaus sent for me.”

“Why?”

“I told you, to meet me.” A sudden pain fired deep in his chest. He began to rub his chest with the flat of his hand.

“Why did he want to meet you? Did he want you to make some earrings for him? Or fix his cuckoo clock? Why did he send for you, Adler?”

“He lectured me to do better in the future.”

“You are lying.”

“No, no, I
. .

“Shh, shh, shh, Herman.” Another voice spoke up, this one from the shadows behind the lamp. “You are lying and we know it.’’

“You know how we know you are lying?” Still another voice said. “Because you are the best of the
Judenhascher
who work for him. The best, Adler, how does that make you feel, eh?”

“Did he bring you in to give you a medal, Herman? To kiss you on both cheeks and congratulate you for being such a good Jewish Nazi? Is that why you were there, Herman?”

“And what do you get for this?” The first voice said from the darkness. “Your room? It is not much bigger than a prison cell. You do not have enough food to feed an ant. They give you ration food and a few marks, isn’t that true? Good God, man, how do you live with yourself?”

“Do you ever consider the consequences of your actions?”

“It is the law!” Adler shrieked. “You are the traitors, not I.”

“It is
not
law,” the gravelly voice snapped back angrily, and there was a moment when it sounded vaguely familiar to Adler. “It is immoral. It is degrading. It is a violation of everything that is human and decent.”

“Why don’t you just kill me? That is what it is all about, isn’t it?” Adler said with a sudden burst of bravura and anger, straightening his shoulders and glaring into the shadows. The pain had subsided momentarily.

“We don’t kill, that is their game. We are trying to reason with you as we did with Schiff and Nathan.”

“And did you provide the rope Kefar used to hang himself?”

“Nein.
His conscience tied that knot,” the gravelly voice answered. Adler sat for a moment, staring away from the spotlight, trying to pick our forms in the shadows. The gravelly voice sounded more familiar.

“Listen to me, Herman,” the first man said in a sympathetic voice. “Stop now and I promise no one will ever know what you have done. We understand the pressures. But if you continue, there is no way you will ever wash the blood off your hands. Your people will shun you and the Nazis will break you like a twig.”

“Stop it!” the little man cried. The excitement of the meeting with Vierhaus coupled with his fear at the hands of his kidnappers began to take its toll on Adler. He was breathing hard. Sweat stained his shirt collar and bathed his face, which had turned the color of wet clay. He squeezed his chest with one hand and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace.

“1 need my pills,” he said, frantically searching his pockets. “Please, where are my pills?”

“There were no pills in your pockets, Herr Adler. I searched you thoroughly.”

“Of course there are pills,” he gasped. “I go nowhere without my pills.”

He stood up, lost his footing and one of his captors jumped from the darkness and grabbed him.

Adler clutched at the man’s shirt. “My pills,” he croaked. “Help me please.” And then his eyes bulged as he looked up at the man. He was short and broad-shouldered, a young man in his twenties with a heavy black beard
and
long hair. It took a moment for Adler to recognize his nephew.

“My God, Joachim, what are you d
o
ing?” he cried. “I am your Uncle Herman!”

The young man steered him back to the bed.

“Where are the pills, Uncle?” he asked in a calm voice.

“V-v-vest pocket
. . .“
His voice had diminished into a terrified whine. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he fumbled through the pockets. “Here, they
a
re here.” But there were no pills and the realization added t
o
the stress and anxiety Herman Adler was already experiencing. His heart was racing out of control, sending lightning streaks of pain into his chest and stomach. He started gasping for breath.

“Oh my God,” he croaked. He clutched his chest with both hands and bent over so his head was almost touching his knees.. “Help me. Help me.”

The other two captors had joined
W
eber. They loosened Adler’s tie and unbuttoned his collar.

“Take it easy,” the taller one, the silhouetted man, Avrum Wolffson, said gently, and began rubbing his wrists. “Try to relax. Your pills must have fallen out of your pocket. Take slow, deep breaths, don’t make it worse. We will try to get you a doctor. Get him some water, Werner.”

Adler looked up, his breath coming i
n
short rushes. “Why?” he asked pitifully and collapsed on the bed. By the time Werner Gebhart came back with the water, He
rm
an Adler was dead.