The Swiss Courier Read online

  “You have the key?” Baumann asked.

  Gabi reached into the top of her shirt and pulled out a silver key hanging on a piece of string. The enormity of her first mission suddenly weighed on her shoulders. She inhaled and blew air through her lips. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Listen, everyone gets the jitters first time out.” Baumann’s smile caused the knots in her shoulders to loosen.

  He handed her a canvas bag with a flashlight. “Remember how we brought four safes into the office for a big test—and you cracked each one? I’m sure you can do it again. You have plenty of time. We tailed the German this afternoon but lost him when he crossed the border. His usual pattern isn’t to return for twenty-four hours, so you shouldn’t be bothered.” He patted her hand. “If you take longer than a half hour, though, I’ll check up on you.”

  Gabi nodded, taking in the strength from her handler’s cause. “Sorry. I’ll hurry.”

  She alighted from Baumann’s car and walked purposefully to the front door of the modest home. She grasped the door handle, then felt for the keyhole and found it. A hefty shoulder would probably bust the door wide open, but signs of forced entry would compromise the mission.

  Gabi’s fingers trembled slightly as she unloosed the key from her neck, noticing the key was still warm from her flesh. Then silently she slid the key into the keyhole and turned, unlocking the door with a small click.

  That was the easy part.

  Gabi slipped the key back around her neck and stepped inside, closing the door behind her and relocking it. She waited a few seconds, then reached inside the canvas bag for the flashlight. With barely a sound, Gabi moved through the maze of desks and cabinets, wastebaskets and chairs, to a rear bedroom with windows overlooking a quiet street. Outside, through the thin curtain, she could make out a couple walking their dog. A shiver traveled through her shoulders at the realization of where she was and what would happen if she were caught. She turned off her flashlight.

  A nosy neighbor could spot her rummaging around at any time. Then what a mess would she be in? Gabi swept those fearful thoughts from her mind and continued with her jaw set in determination. Her work mattered—besides, Dieter was just outside the building, backing her up.

  Gabi turned the flashlight back on and set it on the desk, pointing to the safe. She then moved to the back wall. Cautiously, she removed a framed print of a pastoral mountain scene—a kitschy rendition of the Matterhorn—and turned her attention to the safe hidden behind it. She was familiar with this safe—a case-hardened, wrought-iron TL 6 with anti-blowpipe protection. Most safecrackers would need sixty minutes to break into such a safe with tools and drills. She planned to take a lot less time by “manipulating” the combination lock.

  Her eyes fluttered shut, and she placed her tender fingertips on the dial, turning ever so slowly. Her fingertips listened for subtle clicks and bumps—any change in tension. Her whole concentration focused on the tactile edges of her fingers. In her mind’s eye she pictured the slip-clutches catching and the wheel lock lining up in grooves. Slowly to the right—there it was, so slight the slip. Then to the left, then right again.

  Her eyes popped open in surprise at the final click and the swinging motion of the safe door opening. Sweeping up a stack of papers, she moved back toward the large wooden desk and slid underneath, grabbing the flashlight from the desk and setting it on the floor. Her cupped hand directed the beam as she glanced at her booty.

  Bank statements.

  Mortgage deeds.

  Certificates of authenticity.

  Everything’s here.

  She paused at a sheet of paper that listed two columns of words, handwritten. Gabi scanned several printed words in the first column.

  Schnitzel

  Brass

  Garden

  Helmut

  Mincemeat

  The words—twelve in all—continued on, yet they made no sense.

  “Oh, well,” she whispered. “If they think this is worth me risking my life for, it must be something good.”

  She slid the paper on the top of the stack and read through the words until they were committed to memory. She knew that her mission wasn’t to copy them down. Not here. Not at home. But tomorrow in the safe room in the OSS offices. First, though, she needed to get out of there. Gabi returned the papers, shut the safe, and readjusted the framed print to the wall. Oh, yes . . . and to think of some romantic story to keep Andrietta at bay.

  “Guten abend.” A German-accented voice spoke from the shadows.

  A chill traveled up her spine and she turned quickly—just in time to see the form of a large man lunging at her. A shoulder plowed into her chest, and a cry escaped with her breath. Pain exploded through her, and she felt herself falling as the power of the large man propelled her to the ground. His full weight pressed on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

  Breathe. Fight. Breathe, she urged herself.

  Her arms and legs flailed, but the attacker clasped both wrists and flipped her over on her stomach, pinning her arms behind her back. It all happened so quickly. He wrenched her arms, causing a searing pain to rush through her shoulders. Don’t give up. Fight. Fight. The faces of her family members flashed through her thoughts, and she knew she could not give up. Where was Dieter?

  She continued to thrash about, attempting to free herself, when a leather-clad hand covered her mouth. Panic shot through every cell as a second hand reached around and clasped her throat. The man’s fingers tightened, choking the air from her lungs. Dear God!

  Gabi bit into one of the fingers over her mouth, sinking her teeth deep.

  “Aagh!”

  The grip released.

  She turned long enough to see a swing of his right arm. Gabi buried her face in her hands, preparing for the blow. His fist ricocheted off her skull and slammed into the parquet floor. The man screamed a second time.

  Pain shot through Gabi’s head, and a rush of nausea rose in her throat. She jerked back, preparing to fight him off, when she heard another pained cry. This one louder than before. Her assailant stumbled above her, a stunned look on his face.

  Gabi lifted her gaze, and her heart leapt as she noticed Dieter standing just behind the man. Raised over Dieter’s head, a tire iron glimmered in the dim glow from the flashlight.

  She watched as Dieter swung again, and the second blow slammed against the assailant’s back. The large man staggered once before crashing against the desk. Dieter advanced, swinging wildly and making contact with the man’s shins. Another scream split the air, followed by curses, as the man sunk to his knees.

  “Let’s go!” Baumann extended a hand to Gabi, then he windmilled the tire iron toward the man in a threatening manner, as if daring him to make a move.

  Gabi rose from the ground, ran out of the room, out of the house, and sprinted for the car. As clear as the pain radiating through her, she knew her life as a simple pastor’s daughter would never be the same.

  4

  Gestapo Regional Headquarters

  Heidelberg, Germany

  Sunday, July 30, 1944

  9:32 a.m.

  Sturmbannführer Bruno Kassler glanced at the framed photographs on the beige walls of his high-ceilinged office. The steely gazes on the portrait of Himmler to his left, and the autocratic Führer to his right, prompted the Gestapo bureau chief to wonder if the walls also had eyes . . . or ears.

  He figured they did.

  He reached for the top folder from one of the large stacks on his desk. Each folder contained sensitive material, and it was his job to find yet another traitor to be pruned from their midst. The bureau chief rubbed his eyes as the words before him blurred. How many hours had he pored through them? How many more would it still take?

  A distinctive rap sounded on his door. Kassler cocked his head, knowing his underling, Corporal Becker, waited on the other side. The pause between the second and third knock was characteristic of the twenty-year-old Heidelberger whose Ad
am’s apple stuck out so far that Kassler wondered if his throat did the knocking.

  “Come in,” Kassler grunted.

  Corporal Becker swung the door open and struggled to roll a mahogany table inside Kassler’s rectangular office. Becker shoved the table inside and worked it in next to his superior’s Biedermeier three-drawer desk and trio of lacquered chairs.

  “Guten morgen, Major.” Becker patted the sturdy lockbox that sat on the rolling table. “As you requested, I have pulled the remaining dossiers of those working at the University of Heidelberg.” The corporal straightened his shoulders with pride.

  Kassler surveyed his desktop, noting the dossiers he still had to go through. “There’s more?”

  Kassler ran both hands through his slick black hair and considered mentioning he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of a Sunday off since Stauffenberg and his band of murderous turncoats had unleashed their violent attack on the Führer. Yet complaining would do little good.

  He wearily reached for several dossiers. “Let’s see what you’ve found.” The top two were of no interest, but the third was marked Bonhoeffer, Karl Friedrich. The Gestapo chief opened its contents and scanned the report. Mid-thirties. Professor of physical chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. Recently transferred from the University of Leipzig.

  “Hmm,” he muttered. The name Bonhoeffer rang a bell. “Think of something, sir?” Becker swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “This name Bonhoeffer. Do you recognize it?”

  Becker relaxed. “Karl Bonhoeffer has a brother named Dietrich who was arrested last year for helping Jews escape to Switzerland. He also played a key leadership role in the Confessing Church.”

  “The what?”

  “Surely, you remember, Major. Members of the clergy who’ve opposed the policies of our Führer—especially the National Socialists’ treatment of the . . . Juden.” Becker spat the last word.

  “Ja, of course.” Kassler glanced down at the dossier. His weary limbs gained strength as zeal to please Berlin surged through him. “Does this Karl Bonhoeffer share the same views?” He sat straighter in his chair.

  Becker stiffened to attention, locking his arms behind his back. “Apparently not. He was questioned thoroughly by the Sicherheitsdienst before he was allowed to work under Herr Doktor Heisenberg and—”

  “Heisenberg?” Kassler interrupted. His heartbeat quickened as he recalled the name. Just three months ago, Heisenberg and his brainy scientists had moved from the University of Berlin to Heidelberg because of intense Allied bombing raids. According to a colleague in the German capital, Heisenberg’s team was secreted away to the University of Heidelberg because they were working on a Wunderwaffe—a wonder weapon—that would guarantee a victory for National Socialism. With the American and British forces breaking out of the Normandy beachhead, and the Eastern Front getting closer to the Fatherland, the need for such a weapon increased by the day.

  “And these dossiers . . . are they all for those working under Doktor Heisenberg?” Kassler patted the pile.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps they may be slightly more interesting than the others. Although, I doubt they’ll amount to much.” Kassler steepled his fingers, leaning forward on his desk, and feigned boredom. But he could tell Becker wasn’t fooled. The young man leaned forward, as if hoping to gain a glimpse into Bonhoeffer’s file.

  Kassler shut the file and waved the young corporal away. “Thanks for your help. You are dismissed. I’ll glance over these while you retrieve the next set.”

  Becker clicked the heels of his leather boots and snapped a stiff-armed salute. “Heil Hitler!”

  Kassler half-raised his right arm. “Heil Hitler,” he said, as his subordinate turned on his heels.

  The door closed with a loud thud and a click, and Kassler’s shoulders tightened. A huge lump formed in his throat as he returned his attention to the stack of dossiers. He knew as a Gestapo major that digging out the dirt on possible opponents to the Führer was his duty. But more than that, due diligence could also lead to his glory.

  His chest swelled at the remembrance of the crowd’s roar at the last rally, lifting their voices and their arms in high salute. Heat expanded within Kassler’s chest even more as he imagined being one of the men chosen to stand by Hitler’s side. Surely, someone who discovered a high-level traitor would receive such an honor, even someone as young as him, not even in his thirties.

  If he could not unlock the power of the Führer, at least he could hold the keys for a while and feel their weight.

  Kassler flipped through Bonhoeffer’s file once again, seeing nothing of importance. He set it down and perused the next set of folders. Something in the third dossier caught his eye.

  Engel, Joseph

  Born 7 April, 1917

  A1918

  Kassler buzzed his young assistant, who stepped in right away.

  “Yes, sir?” Becker inquired.

  “This A1918? What does it mean?”

  “May I take a look?”

  Becker walked around to the side of the desk. “An A before the year means that the person was adopted that year.”

  The hair on the back of Kassler’s neck lifted. His mind clicked into a higher gear, and he had a strong hunch there was more to this adoption—more that needed to be uncovered. His co-workers often called Kassler’s intuition pure luck, but he believed he’d been gifted with a sixth sense to know when something was amiss. And so far, following this sense had yet to lead him astray.

  “So Engel was adopted in 1918. Do we have any information on that?”

  “No, it appears not.” Becker took the liberty of flipping through a few pages of the dossier. “It states here that he attended Spandau Schule for kindergarten and the primary grades. That is in western Berlin. His parents were Thomas and Eva Engel.”

  “I can read. And I know where Spandau is!” Kassler waved Becker away, and the younger man hurried from the room, again closing the door behind him. Kassler picked up the phone. “Fräulein, get me the Recorder’s Office in Spandau. Schnell!”

  Kassler set the handset on the broad-bottom black phone and waited to be patched through. Twenty seconds later, the Phillips phone rang.

  “Hello?” He impatiently drummed his fingertips on his desk.

  “Sir, did you ring? This is Fräulein Huber from the Recorder’s Office.”

  A smile tipped his lips, and he softened his tone. The woman on the other end sounded young, beautiful, and impressionable— his favorite type. “Ah, Fräulein Huber, Sturmbannführer Bruno Kassler from the Gestapo bureau in Heidelberg. Tell me, are you able to look up adoptions in your district?”

  “Yes, but my search will go faster if you can provide a name and date, sir.”

  “I have a name, but no exact date.” He clicked his tongue. “But surely that will be hardly a problem for someone such as yourself.”

  Kassler heard the slightest intake of breath on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, sir, and the name?”

  “I would like you to look up an adoption of Joseph Engel, sometime in 1918.”

  “Very well, sir. I will call you back when I learn something.”

  Kassler set the phone back on the cradle, straightened in his chair, and continued reading Engel’s file, confident that his instincts were leading him down a rewarding path.

  University of Heidelberg Research Lab

  Basement Room

  10:04 a.m.

  Joseph Engel readjusted his clipboard in hand, jotting down notes, as did the other half-dozen, white-coated junior physicists who circled Professor Heisenberg in rapt attention, even on this Sunday morning. To any outsider, the metallic cylinder before them, standing upright in meter-deep water, would appear as nothing of importance. But as Joseph peered into the wooden tank, his eyes widened with expectation, knowing today’s events could change the history of nuclear science forever.

  “Gentlemen, German physics is poised to take
a momentous step forward in our research,” Heisenberg began. “For months, we have worked under the assumption that slow neutrons do not have the energy to blast a nucleus apart. We are about to conduct an experiment to see if two atoms will be slightly lighter than the parent uranium atom by the equivalent of one-fifth of a proton.”

  Deutsche Physik. How many times had Engel heard Dr. Heisenberg proudly insert that phrase into his speech? German physics—like German literature—was the envy of the world. It was German physicists, Heisenberg lectured, who filled blackboards with mathematical symbols that won Nobel prizes. Brilliant theorists like Max Planck, Philipp Lenard, and Johannes Stark had developed quantum theory and unlocked the fundamental discoveries of atomic processes. And Joseph hoped one day his contributions would equal theirs.

  Professor Heisenberg’s lecture about slow neutrons droned on, interrupting Joseph’s thoughts. “I once heard a colleague say, ‘Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.’ Gentlemen, we shall put that idea to the test today.”

  Joseph snapped to attention. He’d heard that quote before. Whose words were those? Then he remembered: Albert Einstein, the celebrated physicist.

  Of course, Joseph thought, Heisenberg didn’t dare attach a name to the quote. Einstein was Jewish.

  Whispers in the hallway claimed Heisenberg maintained back-channel contacts with several Jewish physicists and mathematicians who’d fled across the Atlantic and resettled in America. These distinguished scientists had lost their teaching posts shortly after Hitler became German chancellor in 1933. With a stroke of a pen, all Jews were banned from government posts within days of Hitler’s installation. Since universities were state institutions, anyone Jewish was driven off like an uninvited guest.

  Many of Germany’s best and brightest—scientists like Victor Weisskopf and Fritz Reiche—quietly fled with their families to academic institutions like Oxford University outside London or Princeton University in New Jersey, where they resumed their research on atomic particles. Of course, Joseph had also heard that those who—for one reason or another— had remained behind until Germany invaded Poland now found different work at “relocation” camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. Camps that had whispered rumors all their own.