The Traitor's Emblem (26 page)

“I assure you, sir, my commitment is absolute.”

“Well, then, there is one way you can regain the trust of this office.”

Finally the penny was about to drop. Heydrich had summoned Jürgen with a proposition in mind. He wanted something from him, and that was why he’d piled on such pressure from the start. He probably had no idea what Jürgen had been doing that night in 1923, but what Heydrich did or didn’t know didn’t matter: his word was law.

“I’ll do anything, sir,” Jürgen said, already a little calmer.

“Well, then, Jürgen. I can call you Jürgen, can’t I?”

“Of course, sir,” he said, swallowing his anger that the other man was not returning the courtesy.

“Have you heard about Freemasonry, Jürgen?”

“Of course. My father was a member of a lodge when he was young. I think he soon tired of it.”

Heydrich nodded. It didn’t come as a surprise to him, and Jürgen deduced that he’d already known.

“Since we took power, the Masons have been . . . actively discouraged.”

“I know, sir,” said Jürgen, smiling at the euphemism. In Mein Kampf, a book every German had read—and had on display at home, if they knew what was good for them—Hitler had pronounced his visceral hatred of Masonry.

“A good number of the lodges have dissolved voluntarily or reorganized. Those particular lodges were of little significance to us, as they were all Prussian, with Aryan members and nationalist tendencies. Having dissolved voluntarily and handed over their member lists, no measures have been taken against them . . . for the moment.”

“I gather, then, that some lodges are still troubling you, sir?”

“It is quite clear to us that many lodges have remained active, the so-called humanitarian lodges. The bulk of their members are of a liberal bent, Jews, that sort of thing . . .”

“Why don’t you simply ban them, sir?”

“Jürgen, Jürgen,” said Heydrich in a patronizing tone, “that would only hinder their activity, at best. As long as they retain a scrap of hope, they will continue to meet and talk about their compasses and squares and all that Judaic rubbish. What I want is each of their names on a little fourteen-by-seven card.”

Heydrich’s little cards were famous throughout the party. A vast room next to his office in Berlin stored information on those considered “undesirable” by the party: Communists, homosexuals, Jews, Masons, and generally anyone inclined to comment that the Führer seemed a little tired in his speech today. Whenever someone was denounced, a new card would join the other tens of thousands. The fate of those who appeared on the cards was as yet unknown.

“If Masonry were banned, they’d simply go underground like rats.”

“Precisely!” said Heydrich, smacking his hand down on the desk. He leaned in toward Jürgen and said in a confidential tone: “Tell me, do you know why we want the names of this rabble?”

“Because Masonry is a puppet of the international Jewish conspiracy. It’s well known that bankers like Rothschild and—”

A huge guffaw interrupted Jürgen’s impassioned speech. Seeing the face of the baron’s son fall, the head of State Security restrained himself.

“Don’t parrot the Völkischer Beobachter editorials back to me, Jürgen. I helped write them myself.”

“But, sir, the Führer says—”

“I have to wonder how far the dagger that took your eye went in, my friend,” said Heydrich, studying his features.

“Sir, there’s no need to be offensive,” said Jürgen, furious and confused.

Heydrich flashed an ominous smile.

“You’re full of spirit, Jürgen. But that passion must be governed by reason. Do me a favor, don’t become one of those sheep bleating at demonstrations. Allow me to give you a little lesson in our history.” Heydrich stood up and began to walk around the large table. “In 1917, the Bolsheviks dissolved all the lodges in Russia. In 1919, Béla Kun got rid of all the Masons in Hungary. In 1925, Primo de Rivera banned lodges in Spain. That year Mussolini did the same in Italy. His Blackshirts dragged the Masons out of bed in the middle of the night and beat them to death in the streets. An instructive example, don’t you think?”

Jürgen nodded, surprised. He knew nothing about this.

“As you can see,” Heydrich continued, “the first act of any strong government that intends to remain in power is to get rid of—among others—the Masons. And not because they’re following orders about some hypothetical Jewish conspiracy: they do it because people who think for themselves cause a great deal of trouble.”

“What exactly do you want from me, sir?”

“I want you to infiltrate the Masons. I’ll give you good enough contacts. You’re an aristocrat, and your father belonged to a lodge some years back, so they’ll accept you without too much fuss. Your aim will be to get hold of the list of members. I want the name of every Mason in Bavaria.”

“Will I have carte blanche, sir?”

“Unless you hear anything to the contrary, yes. Wait here a moment.”

Heydrich walked to the door, opened it, and barked a couple of instructions to an adjutant sitting on a bench in the corridor. The subordinate clicked his heels and returned a few moments later with another young man dressed in outdoor clothes.

“Come in, Adolf, come in. My dear Jürgen, allow me to introduce you to Adolf Eichmann. He’s a very promising young man who’s working at our Dachau camp. He specializes in, shall we say . . . extrajudicial affairs.”

“A pleasure,” said Jürgen, extending his hand. “So you’re the man who finds his way around the law, eh?”

“Likewise. And yes, sometimes we have to bend the rules a little, if we’re ever to hand Germany back to its rightful owners,” Eichmann said, smiling.

“Adolf has requested to join my office, and I’m inclined to make the move easy for him, but first I’d like him to work alongside you for a few months. All the information you obtain you’ll deliver to him, and he will be responsible for making sense of it. And when you complete this task, I believe I will be able to send you to Berlin, on a mission of greater magnitude.”

45

I’ve seen him. I’m sure of it, thought Clovis as he elbowed his way out of the tavern.

It was a July night and already his shirt was drenched with sweat. But the heat didn’t bother him too much. He had learned to overcome it in the desert, when he first discovered that Reiner was following him. He had had to abandon a promising diamond mine in the Orange River basin in order to throw Reiner off the scent. He had left behind the last of his excavation materials, taking only essentials with him. At the top of a low ridge, rifle in hand, he had seen Paul’s face for the first time and put his finger on the trigger. Afraid that he might miss, he had slid over to the other side of the hill, like a snake in tall grass.

He’d then lost Paul for several months, until he’d been forced to flee again, this time from a whorehouse in Johannesburg. That time Reiner had spotted him first, but from afar. When their eyes met, Clovis had been stupid enough to show his fear. He knew at once that the cold, hard shine in Reiner’s eyes was the look of the hunter memorizing the shape of his prey. He managed to escape through a secret back door, and even had time to go back to the dump of a hotel where he was lodged and throw his clothes into a suitcase.

It was three years before Clovis Nagel grew tired of feeling Reiner’s breath on the back of his neck. He couldn’t sleep without a weapon under his pillow. He couldn’t walk around without turning to check whether he was being followed. And he didn’t stay in any one place longer than a few weeks, for fear that one night he might awake to the steely shine of those blue eyes, watching him from behind the barrel of a revolver.

Finally he gave up. Without funds he couldn’t run forever, and the money the baron had given him had run out long ago. He started writing to the baron, but not one of his letters was answered, so Clovis boarded a boat bound for Hamburg. Back in Germany, on his way to Munich, he had felt momentarily relieved. For the first three days he was convinced that he had lost Reiner . . . until one night he went into a tavern close to the train station and recognized Paul’s face amid the throng of customers.

A knot formed in Clovis’s stomach, and he fled.

As he ran as fast as his short legs would carry him, he realized the dreadful mistake he had made. He’d traveled to Germany without any firearms because he was afraid of being stopped at customs. He still hadn’t had time to get a hold of anything, and now all he had to defend himself with was his switchblade.

He removed it from his pocket as he ran down the street. He wove in and out of the cones of light cast by the streetlamps, running from one to the next as though they were islands of salvation, until it occurred to him that if Reiner was following him, Clovis was making things too easy for him. He turned right down a darker side street that ran parallel to the train tracks. A train was approaching, rattling along on its way to the station. Clovis didn’t see it, but he could smell the smoke from the chimney and feel the vibration in the ground.

A sound came from the other end of the side street. The ex-marine was startled and bit his tongue. He started running again, his heart almost leaping out of his mouth. He could taste blood, an ill omen of what he knew would happen if the other man caught up with him.

Clovis came to a dead end. Unable to go any farther, he hid behind a pile of wooden crates that smelled of rotting fish. Flies buzzed around him, settling on his face and hands. He tried to wave them away, but another noise and a shadow at the entrance to the alley made him freeze. He tried to slow his breathing.

The shadow became the silhouette of a man. Clovis couldn’t make out his face, but there was no need. He knew perfectly well who it was.

Unable to stand the situation any longer, he lunged toward the end of the alley, knocking over the pile of wooden crates. A couple of rats ran terrified between his legs. Clovis followed them blindly and saw them disappear through a half-open door that he had unwittingly passed in the darkness. He found himself in a dark corridor and took out his cigarette lighter to get his bearings. He allowed himself a couple of seconds of light before tearing off again, but at the end of the corridor he tripped and fell, grazing his hands against some damp cement steps. Not daring to use the lighter again, he picked himself up and started to climb, ever alert to the slightest sound behind him.

He climbed for what seemed like an eternity. Finally his feet alighted upon a stretch of flat ground and he dared to flick on his lighter. The trembling yellow light revealed that he was in another corridor, at the end of which was a door. He pushed it and it wasn’t locked.

I’ve thrown him off the scent at last. This looks like an abandoned warehouse. I’ll spend a couple of hours here, till I’m sure he’s not following me, Clovis thought, his breathing returning to normal.

“Good evening, Clovis,” said a voice behind him.

Clovis turned, pressing the button on his switchblade. The blade jumped out with a barely audible click, and Clovis threw himself, his arm extended, toward the figure waiting by the door. It was like trying to touch a moonbeam. The figure stepped aside, and the steel blade missed by almost half a meter, fixing itself in the wall. Clovis tried to pry it out but had barely managed to remove the filthy plaster before a blow knocked him to the ground.

“Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while.”

The voice came out of the darkness. Clovis tried to get up, but a hand pushed him back down. Suddenly a white ray split the gloom in two. His pursuer had turned on a flashlight. He pointed it at his own face.

“Does this face look familiar to you?”

Clovis studied Paul Reiner at length.

“You don’t look like him,” said Clovis. His voice was hard and tired.

Reiner pointed the flashlight at Clovis, who put his left hand over his eyes to shield himself from the glare.

“Point that thing somewhere else!”

“I’ll do whatever I want. We’re playing by my rules now.”

The beam of light moved from Clovis’s face to Paul’s right hand. He was holding his father’s Mauser C96.

“Very well, Reiner. You’re in charge.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

Clovis moved his hand to his pocket. Paul took a threatening step toward him, but the ex-marine pulled out a packet of cigarettes and held it up to the light. He also took some matches, which he carried in case his lighter fuel ran out. There were only two left.

“You’ve made my life impossible, Reiner,” he said, lighting a filterless cigarette.

“I know a bit about ruined lives myself. You destroyed mine.”

Clovis laughed, a deranged sound.

“Are you amused by your imminent death, Clovis?” asked Paul.

The laugh caught in Clovis’s throat. If Paul’s voice had been angry, Clovis wouldn’t have felt so frightened. But his tone had been casual, calm. Clovis was sure Paul was smiling in the darkness.

“Easy, there. Let’s just see—”

“We’re not going to see anything. I want you to tell me how you killed my father, and why.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“No, of course you didn’t. That’s why you’ve been on the run for twenty-nine years.”

“It wasn’t me, I swear it!”

“So who, then?”

Clovis paused for a few moments. He was afraid that if he answered, the young man would simply shoot him. The name was the only card he held, and he had to play it.

“I’ll tell you if you promise to let me go.”

The only response was the sound of a hammer being cocked in the darkness.

“No, Reiner!” screamed Clovis. “Listen, it’s not just about who killed your father. What good would it do you, knowing that? What matters is what happened before. The why.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“Go on, then. I’m listening.”

46

“It all started on August 11, 1904. Before that day we’d spent a couple of wonderful weeks in Swakopsmund. The beer wasn’t bad by African standards, the weather wasn’t too hot, and the girls were very obliging. We’d just returned from Hamburg, and Captain Reiner had named me his first lieutenant. Our boat was due to spend a few months patrolling the coast of the colonies, in the hope of striking fear into the English.”