“Got that? Right?” The Slav nodded. “Well go on then!” He shuffled away and Friedman gestured to his mouth. “Dumb. Had his tongue cut out in the war. The ideal worker!” He laughed and clapped March on the shoulder. “So. How goes it?”
“Well enough.”
“Civilian clothes. Working the weekend. Must be something big.”
“It may be.”
This is the Martin Luther character, right?” March made no reply. “So you’re dumb, too. I see.” Friedman flicked cigar ash on the clean floor. “Fair enough by me. A brown-pants job. Possibly?”
“A what?”
“Zollgrenzschutz expression. Someone plans to bring in something they shouldn’t. They get to the customs shed, see the security, start shitting themselves. Drop whatever it is and run.”
“But this is special, yes? You don’t open every case every day?”
“Just in the week before the Fuhrertag.”
“What about the lost property, do you open that?”
“Only if it looks valuable!” Friedman laughed again. “No. A jest. We haven’t the manpower. Anyway, it’s been X-rayed, remember-no guns, no explosives. So we just leave it here, wait for someone to claim it. If no one’s turned up in a year, then we open it, see what we’ve got.”
“Pays for a few suits, I suppose.”
“What?” Friedman plucked at his immaculate sleeve. “These poor rags?” There was a sound and he turned round. “Looks like you’re in luck, March.”
The Slav was returning, carrying something. Friedman took it from him and weighed it in his hand. “Quite light. Can’t be gold. What do you think it is, March? Drugs? Dollars? Contraband silk from the East? A treasure map?”
“Are you going to open it?” March touched the gun in his pocket. He would use it if he had to.
Friedman appeared shocked. “This is a favour. One friend to another. Your business.” He handed the case to March. “You’ll remember that, Sturmbannfuhrer, won’t you? A favour? One day you’ll do the same for me, comrade to comrade?”
THE case was of the sort that doctors carry, with brass-reinforced corners and a stout brass lock, dull with age. The brown leather was scratched and faded, the heavy stitching dark, the hand-grip worn smooth like a brown pebble by years of carrying, until it felt like an extension of the hand. It proclaimed reliability and reassurance; professionalism; quiet wealth. It was certainly pre-war, maybe even pre-
Great War- built to last a generation or two. Solid. Worth a lot.
All this March absorbed on the walk back to the Volkswagen. The route avoided the Zollgrenzschutz -another favour from Friedman.
Charlie fell upon it like a child upon a birthday present and swore with disappointment when she found it locked. As March drove out of the airport perimeter she fished in her own bag and retrieved a pair of nail scissors. She picked desperately at the lock, the blades making ineffective scrabblings on the brass.
March said: “You’re wasting your time. I’ll have to break it open. Wait till we get there.”
She shook the bag with frustration. “Get where?”
He ran a hand through his hair.
A good question.
EVERY room in the city was booked. The Eden with its roof-garden cafe, the Bristol on Unter den Linden, the Kaiserhof in Mohren Strasse — all had stopped taking reservations months ago. The monster hotels with a thousand bedrooms and the little rooming houses dotted around the railway termini were filled with uniforms. Not just the SA and the SS, the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht, the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls, but all the others besides: the National Socialist Empire War Association, the German Falconry Order, the National Socialist Leadership Schools…
Outside the most famous and luxurious of all Berlin’s hotels — the Adlon, on the corner of Pariser Platz and Wilhelm Strasse — the crowds were straining at the metal barriers for a glimpse of celebrity: a film star, a footballer, a Party satrap in town for the Fuhrertag. As March and Charlie passed it, a Mercedes was drawing up, its black- uniformed passengers bathed in the light of a score of flashguns.
March drove straight over the Platz into Unter den Linden, turned left and then right into Dorotheen Strasse. He parked among the dustbins at the back of the Prinz Friedrich Karl Hotel. It was here, over breakfast with Rudi Halder, that this business had really begun. When was that? He could not remember.
The manager of the Friedrich Karl was habitually clad in an old-fashioned black jacket and a pair of striped pants and he bore a striking resemblance to the late President Hindenburg. He came bustling out to the front desk, smoothing a large pair of white whiskers as if they were pets. “Sturmbannfuhrer March, what a pleasure! What a pleasure indeed! And dressed for relaxation!”
“Good afternoon, Herr Brecker. A difficult request. I must have a room.”
Brecker threw up his hands in distress. “It is impossible! Even for as distinguished a customer as yourself.”
“Come, Herr Brecker. You must have something. An attic would do, a broom cupboard. You would be rendering the Reichskriminalpolizei the greatest assistance…”
