“I have no idea.”
“That, I think, will be your first assignment,” the red-bearded man said with a smile. “To find out”
During the next few weeks Oppenheimer learned that the two American Sergeants had one simple objective: to make $50,000 each on the Berlin black market. He also learned that they both knew exactly what they would do with the money.
Sergeant Packer was going to buy a certain ranch with his, just outside of Abilene. The Sergeant, who had taken a liking to Oppenheimer and occasionally referred to him as “a pretty good little old Jew boy,” often described the ranch in loving detail. The descriptions were so graphic that it became almost as real to Oppenheimer as his own former home in Frankfurt. Sometimes, in his dreams, the two places became blurred.
But Oppenheimer took more than a dream from Sergeant Packer. He also took from him his accent and his detailed knowledge of the city of Abilene, Texas. Both, Oppenheimer felt, might prove useful someday, although he wasn’t at all sure how.
The red-bearded Master Sergeant’s dreams were of a somewhat different nature. Before enlisting in the Army, Sergeant Sherrod had been an assistant professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles. Twice he had turned down a battlefield commission. His postwar dreams were clearly mapped out — provided he reached his $50,000 black-market goal.
“With half of it, I intend to buy oceanfront lots,” he sometimes told Oppenheimer. “I don’t care much which ocean, as long as it’s warm — Spain, Southern California, Florida, Hawaii, and maybe even the Caribbean will do. The remaining twenty-five thousand I intend to plunk into something called IBM, which is a stock I am convinced will make spectacular gains during the next few years. Then, after a few more years of penury in Academe, I will be able to tell the world to go fuck itself — to use one of Pecos Bill’s more graphic expressions.”
“You know what he is, don’t cha, Hans?” Sergeant Packer said.
Oppenheimer shook his head. “No. What?”
“He’s a fuckin’ Communist, that’s what.”
“Are you, Sergeant?”
The red-bearded man smiled. “A renegade Marxist perhaps, but scarcely a Communist. There’s a difference, you know.”
“Yes,” Oppenheimer said. “I know.”
By the time the Russians were given the plates, the two Sergeants had made perhaps $5,000 each, mostly from cigarettes whose sales Oppenheimer had negotiated in the thriving black market that had sprung up in the Tiergarten.
“I don’t understand,” Sergeant Packer had said. “You mean to say we just gave those fuckers the plates to print up their own money?”
“Exactly. Our Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Morgenthau, seems to believe that nothing is too good for our gallant Russian allies, including the privilege of printing their own money, which we, of course, eventually will have to redeem. From what I understand, the Russians intend to pay off their troops with it.”
“You mean it’s gonna be good money?”
“Just as sound as the occupation marks that we print. Naturally, the Russians are wise enough to issue one proviso. Their troops will have to spend the money in Germany, not in Russia.”
“You know something?” Sergeant Packer said thoughtfully. “Some of those old Russian boys ain’t been paid in two-three years.”
“More, in some instances,” said Oppenheimer.
“Now, just what item would they like to spend all that lovely money on, Hans?” Sergeant Sherrod said.
“Watches,” Oppenheimer said promptly. “In Russian villages there is often only one man who is rich enough to own a watch. A watch is a symbol of considerable substance.”
“You mean to say everybody has to go see this one old boy just to find out what time it is?” Sergeant Packer said, obviously shocked.
“Well, there are clocks, I suppose.”
“How much are they paying for watches, Hans?” the red-bearded Sergeant asked.
“It varies. But it’s somewhere between five hundred and a thousand dollars.”
“But if all these old Russian boys’re gonna be paid all at once,” Sergeant Packer said, “then the price for watches is gonna go up, right?”
“The inexorable law of supply and demand, which I’ve been scoffing at for years,” Sergeant Sherrod said, “will again go into operation. Our problem is supply. Where are watches plentiful?”
“Switzerland,” Oppenheimer said.
“Ah, but how does one get into and out of Switzerland undetected with a suitcase full of watches?”
“It can be done.”
Sergeant Sherrod stared at Oppenheimer carefully. “Could you do it?”
“Yes.”
“For some reason,” Sergeant Sherrod said, “I thought that you might.”
Carrying $5,000 in U.S. currency taped to his stomach, Oppenheimer used the same routes and the same crossing into Switzerland near Singen that he had used during the war. Nothing was changed now, except that it was easier.
In Zurich, he bought one hundred wristwatches a few at a time from different dealers. Most of the watches had black faces with sweep second hands, and all of them had easily removable backs. The Russians liked to open their watches up and examine their insides. They also liked to count the jewels. A few dabs of fingernail polish would increase the number of jewels in each watch that Oppenheimer bought from seventeen to twenty-one.
Back in Berlin, the three men fed the black-faced watches slowly to the Russians. They became such highly prized items that the last five sold for $1,500 each. The two Americans’ total profit, less expenses, amounted to $97,500. They sent the money back to the States in the form of postal money orders, never more than $1,000 at a time. Less than a week after they sent the final $1,000, the Army woke up to what was going on and clamped down. But by then, Sergeant Packer had bought his 640-acre ranch, and Master-Sergeant Sherrod had bought his first 100 shares of stock in International Business Machines and was negotiating by mail for three beachfront lots in Malibu.
Kurt Oppenheimer’s share amounted to $10,000, which he took in the form of cigarettes. In Berlin in 1945 he discovered that he was a very rich man. He also discovered something else while occasionally answering Sergeant Sherrod’s Headquarters Company telephone. He discovered that he was usually mistaken for an American.
It was while pondering this information one evening in a café on the Kurfürstendamm that he spotted the Gauleiter from Bavaria. The Gauleiter’s name was Jaschke, and during the war he had ranked high on the death list of Oppenheimer’s long-destroyed organization. The Gauleiter had made it a point to cleanse his district of Jews. By 1943, not one was left. All 1,329 of them — men, women, and children — were either dead or in concentration camps. The Gauleiter, Oppenheimer remembered, had been given some sort of commendation.
Oppenheimer followed Jaschke from the café. On a dark street, he accosted the Gauleiter with “Your name is Jaschke.”
“No, it is not. You are mistaken. My name is Richter.”
As in the dream about Himmler, Oppenheimer slowly drew the Lüger from a pocket of his raincoat and aimed it as Jaschke. “Your name is Jaschke,” he repeated, wondering what would happen next.
“No, no, you are wrong. See, I have proof.” Jaschke reached for his inside coat pocket, and Kurt Oppenheimer squeezed the trigger of the Lüger. He was slightly surprised when the pistol fired, and even more so when most of the top of Jaschke’s head seemed to explode.
Oppenheimer turned and walked away. He had been wondering what to do with his newly acquired black-market wealth and now he knew. It was very much like having an avocation and the leisure to pursue it. He would again seek out those who needed killing and kill them. You are quite mad, you know, he was promptly informed by the old, familiar mocking self whom he had not heard from in several months.