How were the Germans able to pin point each agent in Berlin, without Whitehall not having a clue as to how this was being done?
“What mistakes are we making?” Otto remembered Maxi once saying when the last group was picked up. “Could it be Captain’s Payne’s search for this occult secret weapon was the very thing that had worked against him?”
Rumors of German counter-intelligence using the occult were getting louder and not being laughed at any more – by those out in the field or those in London.
The plane took off, swirling the falling snow into a beautiful geometric pattern for the three men and one woman watching below as it headed west to the horizon.
“It’s safe now. Herr Bush will take care of it America.”
“I hope you’re right Herr Thyssen,” said the woman, “personally I don’t trust him, that’s nearly all of our emergency funds.”
Fritz Thyssen, the industrialist and original financial backer of Adolf Hitler, was now silently moving his assets out of Germany because of Adolf Hitler – all because of one word of truth the leader of the Nazis didn’t want to hear. Fritz Thyssen was the only one in the inner Nazi circle brave enough to speak it, and because he did, was now ever increasingly falling out of favor with Adolf Hitler. Fritz knew it was only a matter of time before he ended up like the other members of those who helped Hitler rise to power in the early days – like Ernst Julius Gunther Röhm, Chief of the SA or Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment) in 1919.
“We have to trust him.” Fritz said as the plane disappeared over the horizon. “We have no choice now.” The woman shook her head in disbelief. “Besides,” The once most powerful steel magnate in Germany continued, “Herr Bush and Harriman were our biggest investors.”
On the plane the pilot and co-pilot were putting together the pieces of the puzzle of this job to determine what exactly the job was, whom it affected, and what their cargo was. They already knew this was part of a black operation between countries – or higher – that’s why they were hired.
“From Fritz Thyssen to Prescott Bush of United Banking Corporation, well, well…”
The two had flown other assignments for UBC bank before, delivering crates from America to the Voor Handel en Scheepvaart Bank in Rotterdam, as well as to banks in Argentina and the Middle East. Each flight was from and to private airfields thus avoiding customs.
The copilot did a quick calculation in his head based on the number of boxes and the weight of what they were transporting.
“Gold. We must be carrying gold.”
Chapter 17 – The Darkness
Eva-Marie carefully inspected the newspaper a previous client left in the shop. She was not reading what the editors of the Berliner Kurier wrote, but rather deciphered a series of marks made in several advertisement boxes on page 27. This code was from an anti-Nazi couple, Dagmar and Aare Lampe, who sent their messages to Herr Stephan Johanstall. The Lampe newspaper code was then translated on to the ‘button code’ that Stephan had created.
“How late is Jens?” Stephan asked, poking his head through the black velvet curtains.
“Over two hours.” Eva-Marie answered in a worried tone.
“I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe we should close early and see if he sent an alternative message to the house.”
“You can go, Stephan, I’ll wait here in case he or his son shows up.”
Stephan didn’t like walking in the streets of Berlin alone since November 9th, 1938 – Kristallnacht. Although now Jewish, his store windows were smashed simply because of his association with Jewish artists. He slipped back behind the curtains and muttered; “If you’re going to stay then I will as well.”
“That’s sweet of you to stay, just to be here with me.” Eva-Marie joked. She knew of Stephan’s fear, which after living with him all these years became obvious. However, she not once let on she knew. She was with him on “The Night of Broken Glass”, and knew the possibilities of hate on the streets of Berlin – back then and for them to this day.
While boiling some water for tea, Stephan heard the jingle of the bell triggered by the shop door opening.
“Marie!”
Eva-Marie answered the voice with a laugh. There was only one person in the world that called his wife just ‘Marie’. “Come in, come in, my taxi driving friend.” She said with glee.
“Would you like some tea?” Stephan asked without even looking up while straining a brew in his small porcelain pot.
“I just heard Uncle Manfred is here in Berlin.” Maxi said, concerned.
Stephan put down the strainer and took a deep breath. ‘Uncle Manfred’ was the code name for Captain Best Payne, who had a priority gold label – which meant all must be done to get him back to Britain should he be found. Now that Payne was located in Berlin, Stephan had to plan what would become the most daring escape out of Nazi Germany.
Maxi sat down. He had been controlling alternating waves of excitement and nervousness for several hours and was exhausted doing so.
“Milena saw his name on the hotel register and saw him going to one of his appointments.” Milena was actually Lena Mienke, a cleaning woman at the Gestapo ‘hotel’, where they keep their special detainees – or guests – as the Gestapo referred to them.
“If she confirmed it was he, then we have to go in.”
While not permitted to clean rooms with prisoners – these were cleaned only after being emptied – she was allowed into all but two administrative offices on the 5th floor, which was her floor. While the other cleaning ladies may look at heir floor as simply their job, Lena Mienke looked at the 5th floor as her domain. She knew what was in every drawer in every desk. She also had skimmed through every file in the locked filing cabinets – the key having been copied a day when Colonel Hassler left it on his desk two years prior. Several of these files she memorized, then after transcribing them passed these on to Maxi, who then passed on to Otto, who then radioed them to London.
Stephan held up a small mug of tea to Maxi, who waved it off as Eva-Marie entered the room.
“We did indeed find Uncle Manfred.” Stephan said as Eva-Marie took the cup out of his hands that he was offering to Maxi.
Eva-Marie took a sip of the hijacked tea, draped one of the curtains open so she could see the door, then watched the legs of the pedestrians passing by in the front window.
“Did Milena have any other news?”
“Seems there is a awful lot of infighting between the Gestapo and SS over materials going to someplace over in Antarctica, called New Swabia.”
“What? New Swabia…?” Eva queried, perplexed she had never heard the name, being the top student at her university in geography.
“I’m not sure, all we could figure from what Milena could get her hands on is a base somewhere southeast of Argentina. They named the region after the ship that carried their third expedition there in 1938, and that a lot of money, scientists, technicians and materials are going there.” Stephan took a sip of tea and exhaled slowly, then repeated, “A lot of money.”
“No wonder they’re fighting.” Maxi tried to inject some humor.
“No, they are fighting over the wonder weapons. Something very secret being built. So secret, they don’t even want it in Germany. From what I can put together, they are building some machine that defies gravity. The reports describe incredible speeds… and look…” Stephan began to draw with his white tailor chalk, “ the planes don’t even have wings!”