The Swiss Courier: A Novel (14 page)

“Steady, Mr. Engel. We’re not here to harm you.” Under his coat, the man wore a frayed dress shirt that had turned beige since its last wash.

Definitely not Gestapo issue.
But who?

“I’m . . . I’m afraid I don’t understand what’s going on.” Joseph dared to lock eyes with the man.

The leader waved off Joseph’s observation. “There are a lot of things you don’t understand, Professor Engel, but there will be a time to explain everything later. We must move quickly because our situation is tenuous and very dangerous.”

Professor Engel?
The way his name rolled off the man’s tongue caused the tiny hairs on the back of Joseph’s neck to rise. Of course—the bomb. His work. His discovery.

“So you mean I’m not under arrest?”

“Not at all. But you were about to be taken in for questioning by the Gestapo. I can assure you, my friend, that they would not have been as kind.”

“But why? What have I done?”

“So many questions, Professor. For now, the most important thing is your safety. Besides, the less you know the better. Information is life’s most valuable commodity these days.” He nodded his chin to a man standing nearby.

The “Gestapo” guard grasped Joseph’s left elbow to steer him. “Right this way, sir.”

The man led Joseph ten steps to a flatbed truck stacked with wire-bound bales of hay. At the rear of the truck, several bales had been removed, revealing a crawl space large enough for two men.

“Wilhelm will join you for the night,” the soldier said. As if on cue, a man dressed in farm clothes joined them. “Now up you go.”

“In there?” Joseph pointed to dark space.

“Yes.” The leader pushed him forward. “You and Wilhelm will sleep there. It’s too dangerous to drive past curfew. Roadblocks everywhere. We will wait until daylight before continuing our journey.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Surely, Herr Engel, you wouldn’t expect us to answer that.” The leader shook his head, and then he motioned to Wilhelm. “You have that extra handkerchief to gag Herr Engel?”

“But if I’m not a prisoner—” Joseph tugged again on his bound wrists.

“Please, Herr Engel. Standard operational procedure. It’s for your own security.”

Wilhelm reached for a cream-colored oversized handkerchief in his back pocket. “This is merely a precaution, Professor. Is there anything more to say before I bind you?”

“Yes. What about these handcuffs? And how do you expect me to sleep in such an uncomfortable place?”

“I apologize for the restraints as well as the accommodations, Herr Engel. But I suggest you accept the situation. It would be better for all of us.”

Wilhelm tightened the handkerchief around Joseph’s face, then boosted him onto the flatbed. Another soldier helped the two of them settle into their sleeping cave before closing off the entrance. Two threadbare pillows and blankets, both in grimy conditions, had been fashioned into makeshift beds. “
Schlafen sie gut
,” Wilhelm said. “
Bis Morgen
.” Joseph, his hands shackled and mouth gagged, lay on his side and rested his head upon a blue-and-white-striped pillow that reeked of dirt and sweat. As he lay there, he listened to the other man’s rhythmic breathing and wondered what the morning would bring. Thus far, he’d avoided the war—safely ensconced in university laboratories and classrooms, listening to lectures, participating in experiments, and sleeping in his own bed. His only disruption had been waking up with equations dancing in his head.

Now his shoulders ached from his hands being handcuffed, and the gag in his mouth pulled too tight—not to mention the ache in his legs from being unable to stretch out in the small space. With each breath, questions filled his mind, only matched with thoughts of escape. They hadn’t tortured him . . . yet. But there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen. No doubt the knowledge he carried within him—information about the wonder weapon and the university’s research—was of value to many.

Joseph breathed in the earthy scent of hay and considered the man’s words,
You were about to be taken in by
Gestapo, and I can assure you that they wouldn’t have been
so kind . . .

Again, more questions. What did the Gestapo want with him? After all, he worked for the government. His work could help their cause.

Joseph’s thoughts journeyed back to his apartment. Aching loss shot through his heart as he considered Jäger’s death.

Surely, if they were trying to help him, they wouldn’t have killed his colleague. No matter what they say, they cannot be trusted. No matter what they do— An aching sob escaped his gag, and his shoulders trembled.

His world of relative calm and safety, he feared, was in his past. What kind of future lay in store? He didn’t want to try to guess. Still, he knew that Someone cared for him—Someone who did know exactly where he was.

With every worry that filled his mind, he offered it up to the Lord. Actually, “offer” was a weak term. Joseph imagined holding those fears in his hands and casting them at the foot of God’s throne.

And as he lay there, wondering how many hours had passed, and how many still remained until morning, a Scripture came to mind. One his father had taught him as a young boy—2 Timothy 1:7.

God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

He could hear his father’s voice in his thoughts.

A sound mind. It was what he needed most . . .

To know what to do.

To know how to keep his secrets his own.

To know whom to trust.

“Are we ready to transmit?” The Gestapo captain—as he was known on this mission—ran a hand down his dingy white shirt, aware that the recipient at the other end of the short-wave transmission waited anxiously for news about the abduction. Code name for this Swiss contact was “Big Cheese.”

He regarded the message that would be tapped out in Morse code as quickly as his hands would allow. The problem wasn’t his team’s ability to send the information. The problem was not knowing if it would be intercepted in the process—or if
they’d
be intercepted.

Somewhere out there in the night, the real Gestapo had stationed trucks with listening devices in different Heidelberg neighborhoods. The purpose was to intercept clandestine transmissions and to determine where they were coming from. Was a truck parked around the corner? He had no way of knowing.

Package picked up. Will move in morning. Await instructions
for final transfer.
He regarded his scribbled words on a piece of paper. Concise, and to the point.

The leader sat down at a table tucked in the corner of the cavernous garage and set to work.

His fingers worked furiously to tap out the message. After the final sentence miraculously shot through the nighttime air, the leader hoped—prayed—that they would not be discovered.

From the restaurant’s rear dining room, Pastor Leo Keller ignored the din of drinking songs that rose in crescendo with the volume of beer imbibed. Instead, he focused on the earnest faces of those gathered around him, yet he still found his mind wandering more often than it should.

The proprietor had warned Pastor Leo that his restaurant had become the
Treffpunkt
—meeting point—for the local Swiss community. Though these Swiss worked away from home—most were employed in technical positions at the Krupp ball bearing factory and munitions plants in and around Heidelberg—their hearts proved near to their mother country tonight. Apparently, the emotional tug of the First of August, and a longing for their homeland, was a potent combination for letting wartime steam rise to the ceiling where hop wreaths hung in orderly rows from rough-hewn wooden beams.

In the main room, an energetic accordion player moved seamlessly from one Swiss folklore song to another as couples clacked silver spoons to the sprightly music. Numerous heavy-breasted waitresses, in low-cut dirndls, slung liters of thick ale and placed them before the male-dominated crowd, whose cigarette smoke wafted upward and created a blue cloud that seemed to dance and sway with the music.

In a curtained-off dining room tucked away toward the rear of the restaurant, the pastor in his late fifties, with tufts of gray hair atop his dome, wasn’t about to complain. It was here that his underground church had been meeting thrice a week. On nights like this, the raucous music in the Brauhaus Vetter provided a convenient cover for a meeting.

Pastor Leo scanned the private dining room and regarded the three dozen members of his hardy flock. How their bravery touched him! His congregation probably numbered two hundred, but they somehow worked things out as to who would attend the church meetings and Bible study at the Brauhaus Vetter and who would stay home. Several took notes to share with the believers who couldn’t make it.

With midnight fast approaching, Pastor Leo figured the party in the front of the restaurant would break up soon. He cleared his throat and prepared to bring his sermon to a close.

“As this meeting of the saints comes to an end this evening, let me encourage you with what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans. Turn with me, if you will, to Romans 8:35–39. Beatrice, would you be so good as to read God’s Word for us?”

The young mother, whose husband was listed as officially missing in action by the German Army, took a second to find her place, then located the correct passage.

She stood and lifted her chin, her voice carrying over the music drifting through the thick, velvet curtain that separated the rooms. “‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’”

Pastor Leo allowed the Scripture passage to sink into the hearts of his flock. Then he nodded to Beatrice, who sat, seemingly unashamed of the tears that filled her eyes.

“Thank you, Beatrice.” The pastor sought to restrain his emotion. His eyes scanned the group as he composed himself. “The verb
separate
is a translation of the Greek word
chorizo
, which is only used thirteen times in the entire Bible. The root of this noun—
choro
—carries the idea of putting space, or room, between two things. What Paul is saying is that no one can put any ‘room’ between you and your Lord. No one can ‘distance’ you from his love—the love that sent Jesus to die on a cross to save sinners like you and me.”

Several believers murmured their agreement until he lowered his hands, asking for silence.
“Liebe Gemeinde
,
”
Leo intoned to the community of believers, “we are living in the midst of a horrible global war, the belly of the beast as it were, and followers of Christ who stand up for righteousness are enemies of the State. Be not afraid, however. Paul reminds that
nothing
can separate us from Christ, no matter how difficult our lives become or how much fear we live in.” He felt his chest tense as he preached these words.

Then the pastor dropped his head before continuing, this time with a voice thick with emotion. “And I have to tell you, personally, I live in great fear,” he confided, glancing from face to face. “I fear for the sound of jackboots approaching my apartment door in the middle of the night. I fear that I will be stopped while walking on the street, minding my own business, and be taken in for questioning. I fear our meetings here at the Brauhaus will be betrayed to the Gestapo.”

Again, his statements—not only as their pastor but also as their friend—elicited grunts of acknowledgment. The men stared at their shoes, and Pastor Leo knew their thoughts were not unlike his. Each German man, woman, and child found themselves contemplating their mortality with each passing day, especially as the Allies pressed in from all fronts. Though not all expressed their fears, he could read it on their faces. They could die today . . . or tomorrow . . . or next week.

“Excuse me, Pastor.”

Pastor Leo looked up to see the restaurant’s owner peeking his head through a velvet curtain hiding a French door. The genial owner, a fourth-generation proprietor of the Brauhaus Vetter, had prayed for Jesus Christ to come into his life a year earlier. Within two months after that life-changing event, he offered Pastor Leo a place for his flock to meet.

“Yes, Rudiger. I know we have to go.”

“It’s not that, Pastor. You can take your time tonight. I don’t think my rowdy customers are going anywhere soon. The Swiss are duller than dishwater, but when they start singing those songs they learned in school, they can make a fest half the night and still show up ready for work on time.” He laughed at his own humor. Then, as if remembering the true purpose for his interruption, his face fell. “Actually, Pastor, I’ve come here to inform you that I received a phone call.”

“Is everything all right?” Pastor Leo’s shoulders tightened, as if bracing them for another burden of bad news.

“Everything is fine. Someone would like to speak with one of your church members. Is Herr Becker here tonight?”

Benjamin Becker raised his right hand. “Present, sir.” He stood and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as if it hung on a string.