Gestapo. Both men wore grey suits and black, snap-brimmed trilbies.
‘May I make a telephone call?’ Denham said. He felt a strange calm come over him, as if he’d expected them. Somehow, in his heart, he’d known it would come to this.
‘You’ll be back in the morning,’ the man said, stubbing his cigarette out on the rug. ‘You can telephone then.’
That, Denham knew, was a gross lie, but he wasn’t going to argue.
They escorted him downstairs, one in front and one behind.
A storm of applause was breaking across the speech on Reinacher’s radio as the speaker’s voice moved into high gear. ‘As for those seduced by the international Jewish press into doubting the Fuhrer’s desire for peace… I say this:… let them come to Berlin!
… Let them come to Berlin!..’
Frau Stumpf’s door was shut.
Outside, a grey Horch waited. The back door was held open; Denham got in and sat next to one of the Gestapo men while the other drove. How brisk and businesslike they were. No handcuffs, none needed. Such fear did these men inspire that citizens meekly did as they were told.
The smell of the car’s seat leather mingled with a faint odour of vomit.
‘I thought you boys only came at night,’ Denham said.
Neither answered.
The roads around Belle-Alliance-Platz were clogged with traffic as the evening rush approached, and the Horch was caught in a crawl behind a line of cars and yellow double-deckers. Neither Gestapo man seemed the least frustrated at their lack of progress. He wondered how long they’d been in his apartment. Both wound down their windows to smoke, but neither offered him a cigarette.
They turned onto the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, plunged in shadow as the sun moved into the west. Goring’s new Air Ministry passed by on the right, wall after wall of granite, the city’s latest pharaonic monstrosity. The car slowed to a halt, and the gates of the darkened Gestapo building swung inward without a sound.
T he mild-spoken Gallico had to raise his voice to be heard over the laughter, piano music, and clinking glasses in the Adlon’s upstairs bar. Reporters from every newspaper, radio station, and wire service in the world seemed to be drinking there this afternoon. He hadn’t touched his beer.
‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, leaning towards her. ‘You go hiding in a rosebush and overhear a private conversation between-’
‘I wasn’t hiding.’ Eleanor was looking over the rail next to their table. She could see right down into the lobby, where a couple of army officers were lounging on wicker chairs near the pagoda fountain, their laughter becoming more boisterous with each toast of schnapps. ‘I went to apologise to Brundage, followed him in there, but lost him in the dark; next thing I knew there were these men’s voices…’
She quickly told him the rest.
Gallico gave a slow whistle.
‘Bad, huh?’ she said.
‘Throwing the Jews off the relay team in case they win and embarrass Hitler? Well, it doesn’t cast old Avery in the best light
…’ He looked down into the lobby with a face that suggested several thoughts playing across his mind at the same time. A hearty laugh came from one of the officers at the fountain.
‘You’re not thinking I made this up to get back at that jerk?’ Eleanor asked.
‘No… I’m thinking of the politics. The UP boys have generally supported US participation in these Olympics. Now that our athletes are here in Berlin and winning medals, it could look, well, unpatriotic if we break this story now. And, sweetheart, I’m just wondering what they’ll say back home. The sour grapes between you and Brundage means you won’t be seen as the most impartial witness…’
‘Then you break the story.’
‘But I’ll need more proof.’
‘Confront him with it, Paul, and see how he reacts.’