Famous Last Words (31 page)

and others crouched with their heads below the windows, expecting to be ambushed.

This was the afternoon of Thursday the 1st of August. The Windsors’ destination was Lisbon. That evening the American liner S.S. Excalibur sailed from the mouth of the Tagus and out along the coast of the Estoril. The sun had not set; the stars had not risen; but the sea was already dark and all the western windows on the shore appeared to be on fire.

In one of the staterooms a gramophone was playing:

…Though my world may go awry

In my heart will ever lie Just the echo of a sigh, Goodbye…

FIVE

1940

End fact. Try fiction.

Ezra Pound

Captain Freyberg’s Operations Centre (Pro;ec( Eh’sium) was set up next to Mauberley’s suite in the rooms once occupied by Greta Garbo. There Freyberg had installed his filing cabinets; specimen collections: photographic equipment: and

hung the American flag above his desk. His desk was a metal thing with shallow drawers and locks that were always jamming or freezing. The contents of these drawers were mostly

old and mouldy Tootsie Rolls and Beecham’s Candy-Coated Gum—hard as gravel—but there were also sheets of foolscap scrawled with shouts and exclamation points. There were

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typewriters (three), telephones (not yet connected), a blackboard crudely nailed to the wall and a map of Europe showing

where the death camps were. The field telephone, whose

range at the best of times was less than a mile. was set on Freyberg’s desk so he could check with the larger communications system down in the town. Freyberg’s cot was also

in this room (the salon) since the bedroom had been commandeered for another use.

In the bedroom—strung with white hot lights as if he

expected to grill Al Capone—Freyberg had laid a tarpaulin over the floor and there were shovelfuls of ashes dotted like a kid’s toy mountain range along one side. Each of the piles was numbered—“shovel one”, “shovel two”, “shovel three”

etc.—all the ashes having been removed from the bathtub next door in Mauberley’s suite. From “one” to “twentyeight”

the shovelfuls denoted top to bottom.

When Quinn went in this particular night. Freyberg appeared to be playing with a set of cut-outs on his desk. The

only other person in the room was Dufault, a typist who was pecking at requisitions, probably for specimen bottles in which to display the ashes.

“So,” said Freyberg, “your Duchess got away.”

“You know as well as I do she didn’t ‘get away’,” said

Quinn. “In the last resort she did her duty.”

“Unh-hunh. Duty’s such a lovely word, isn’t it Quinn?

Covers almost everything.”

“Almost. Although I can’t believe it covers what you’re doing. Sir.”

The clerk stopped pecking.

Freyberg shot him a look and the pecking continued.

“You hungry, Quinn?”

“No thankyou. Captain.” Quinn hated chocolate bars. They rotted your teeth and stained your tongue.

“Sit down,” said Freyberg.

“My feet are cold,” said Quinn. “I’m better off standing, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“Sit down.”

Quinn sat down.

“I want you to see my newest collection: just completed.

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And 1 thought maybe yo”— being so -artistic’—might help me make an arrangement so they can be framed.”

“Oh. yes?”

Quinn tilted his head s0 he could see the cut-outs spread across the desk between himself and Freyberg—Freyberg

pushing them around like pieces in a puzzle. All of them were cut from cloth. Each was a different colour; each in the shape of a triangle. Maybe insignia; regimental badges maybe.

Maybe just a game that Freyberg had invented.

“Each of these triangles.” Freyberg said. “was cut from the breast of a prison unifoi’““1-”

“Oh.”

“That’s right. From Dachau.”

Quinn couldn’t help but sigh. He was so sick of Dachau-sick of its stench in his mi”d, so sick of the very word, that he wanted to scream. now Freyberg wanted his artistic

judgement so he could frame these sick. crazy patches on a wall. “Well—the pink should be mounted next to the violet.”

he said “and the gfeen next over from the red. and

the vellow…well…it would look okay with the black.”

In a way. he wasn’t kidding. He was just delivering a

colour scheme that wouldn’t clash. But in another way, he walked on glass and kne^ it. sensing that Freyberg might reach out and strike him, even with Dufault the typist in the room.

But nothing happened.

For for a moment, anyway.

Freyberg pushed the pieces of cloth in a row and sat back nibbling the end of his chocolate bar. When he spoke, at last, it was not to Quinn but to the air between himself and the small faded things laid out before him.

“Violet stands for Conscientious Objectors,” he said. “Green for common criminals. Pin)^ for homosexuals. Black for ‘antisocials’.

Red for politicals. Yellow for Jews. And you see…two yellow triangles make the 5tar of David. Fascinating, hunh?

Methodical; concise; no wastage. Even a moron can remember them…memorize then*- Morons, by the way—the mentally deficient—weren’t accorded or awarded colours. No

time to sew them on between arrival and departure.”

Quinn was watching the patches of cloth and could see

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where the stitching had come unravelled or been clipped—

more than likely by Freyberg himself, walking amongst the victims, stooping every once in a while to add to his collection.

There was a clicking sound in Freyberg’s throat and Quinn looked up to see the Captain staring at him; sweating.

“What do you want me to do, Captain Freyberg? Choose

a colour and wear it?”

Nothing was forthcoming. Nothing. Just the clicking in

Freyberg’s throat.

Dufault gave up pecking altogether and even the pretence of looking at the keys. He swivelled in his chair to watch.

What he saw was Freyberg sweating—with his mouth clamped shut—and Quinn’s perfect haircut, razored on his perfect neck above his perfect collar.

Then Freyberg said; “I don’t think your colour’s there, Lieutenant Quinn.”

“Oh? What colour’s that?”

“I’m not quite sure. Whatever colour you like, I guess.

Maybe brown for asshole; maybe purple for prick. Take your pick.”

Quinn didn’t bother to answer. He debated standing up,

but he thought; why should I? It will only make him think he’s won.

“Well at least you’re lucky, sir,” he said. “No trouble picking the colours for you. Like I said—the yellow and the black go together okay.”

Freyberg’s tongue made a foray over his bottom lip and

then retreated in behind his teeth. “I’m not a Jew,” he said.

“Oh.” Quinn could not help smiling. Freyberg had fallen—

tripped—but not where Quinn had thought he would. He

had thought the good Captain would deny being antisocial.

“Anyway, sir,” he said, “you can still wear the black triangle.

It shouldn’t clash with your uniform.”

“I am not a Jew,” Freyberg repeated; speaking to the desk and to the decals.

“Does it matter?” said Quinn.

FR1;Berlin: August, 1940

Walter Schellenberg was a graduate of the best academies and held a university degree. He was poised; he was educated; he was charming. He was also a killer. As one of

Himmler’s bright young men, he was a master of deceit. He never relied on physical disguise. Instead he became the characters he played, much as an actor trained by Stanislavsky might do. He had played the character of Schaemmel

entirely from the inside. Fritzi Schaemmel lived. The ears and eyes and hands were Schellenberg’s, but what was heard and what was seen and what was touched was Schaemmel’s.

Schaemmel had walked down English streets; parlayed

information face to face with British agents: sat in the inner circles of the Dutch, the French and the Danish Undergrounds.

He had slept with men and women, boys and girls

and made them all believe he loved them. Schaemmel was

an expression of Schellenberg’s genius—a genius that was to propel him all the way to the top until Major Schellenberg had become a MajorGeneral: Chief of Bureau IV (Gestapo) Counterespionage of the Reich Central Security Office.

On Friday, August 2nd, Schellenberg and Estrade returned to Berlin where a meeting took place between them and the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. von Ribbentrop had requested the meeting. Schellenberg had insisted

Estrade be present. They met after lunch on the 3rd.

von Ribbentrop came to them. He seemed most anxious the meeting take place at the Central Security Headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstrasse. The impression given was that von Ribbentrop was being considerate, though Estrade had her own impression the Foreign Minister preferred that Schellenberg not be seen on the Wilhelmstrasse quite so soon after

his return from Portugal. Perhaps there was more to the Windsor conspiracy than met the eye.

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Throughout the early part of the interview. Estrade merely sat to one side and listened. It was her first encounter with anyone so high in the order of things as von Ribbentrop.

Here she was in a room with a man who sat everyday in a room with the Fuhrer. She was discreetly appalled by what she saw. A man wearing spats. A man who carried a walking stick. A man who perspired. A human man. Most interesting.

Schellenberg and Ribbentrop spoke in guarded detail about the plot to kidnap the Windsors. Estrade, knowing her place, was silent. The fascination was all in watching two intelligent men sitting down to complete a jigsaw puzzle whose

pieces were patently invisible.

The salient facts were known to both players. Sometime

in the fall of 1940 or the spring of 1941 a full-scale invasion of Britain would take place. This operation would be difficult but not impossible. On the other hand, there were

certain cards that—if they could be played—might save a great many German lives and reduce the loss of sophisticated equipment and expended energies—energies and equipment better saved for the inevitable war with Russia.

One of these cards was already in the works and would

soon be known as the Battle of Britain. Another of the cards was the infusion of hundreds of German agents into the

American political scene—financed with massive German

funds—whose job it was to prevent the re-election of President Roosevelt and to foment strife on the labour front. This card, too, was paying off handsomely. Henry Ford, who kept the Fuhrer’s picture framed on the wall above his desk, played it from the side of management, refusing to let the workers’ union into his factories, bringing the whole of an industry to a standstill. John L. Lewis, on the other hand, playing from the side of Labor, had effectively shut down most of America’s coal mines. Roosevelt conceded he was “in trouble” and if he were to lose the election, Britain would lose its most effective ally.

The final card to be played would be the kidnapping of

the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

When the directive came down from Hitler ordering the

Windsors be detained in Europe, it had automatically been sent to both the Foreign Office and the Central Security

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Bureau. Presumably the theory was: if you tell two men to do precisely the same job it is more than likely one of them will succeed in doing it. ,

Himmler for his part had dispatched Walter Schellenberg.

And von Ribbentrop… .Well, it was not yet known.

Schellenberg’s plan was as Major Gerrard had told the

Duke of Windsor; the Marques de Estella would persuade

the Windsors to return to Spain, where they would be the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Avila at their hunting lodge in the mountains along the Portuguese border. Once ‘in Avila’s hands, they would be betrayed and placed under house arrest.

But Schellenberg also had a back-up plan.

If the Marques de Estella could not “persuade” the Windsors to cross into Spain, they would be taken at gunpoint

by Schellenberg himself, with the help of Estrade and other servants in the villa who had been bribed. Avila’s role in all of this was to be the same whether he received the Windsors as willing guests or as unwilling visitors: he was to turn the key and hand it over to Schellenberg.

This, then, had been the plot formulated by the Albrechtstrasse.

“And the Wilhelmstrasse…?” Schellenberg smiled at von Ribbentrop, who looked into his lap and brushed away some luncheon crumbs still caught in the folds of his trousers.

“Surely, now it is over and we have both proved the losers, your Excellency can give at least a hint of what he had in mind…?”

At last von Ribbentrop had gathered all his crumbs and

he placed them, rolled in a tiny ball of dough, into the ashtray on Schellenberg’s desk. “My plan was your plan, Major.

Point by point; step by step—the very same as your own.”

Schellenberg’s smile did not retract a fraction. “Point by point; step by step, the same as mine?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“But who was your Excellency’s agent7 Who was acting

in your Excellency’s behalf?”

von Ribbentrop took great satisfaction in giving his answer.

“You were, Major.”

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“If”

“Yes.”

Schellenberg was still smiling.

“Well, well,” he said. “So I have been working all this time for you.”

von Ribbentrop made no reply to this. Schellenberg would have to draw whatever conclusion he was able.

One conclusion, however, von Ribbentrop prayed the Major would never draw—which was that the Duke of Avila, far from being prepared to turn the key on the Windsors and hand it over to Schellenberg, had instead been prepared to turn the key on Schellenberg and hand it over to von Ribbentrop.

For the Duke of Avila was the very centrepiece of

Penelope’s Spanish wing.

So von Ribbentrop left Major Schellenberg with the

impression that, indeed, he had been working “all this time”