Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“Point taken, sir.”

“Drive the Mercedes into the garage,” said Schellenberg.

Meyer didn’t have an inspection pit, but he did have a garage ramp, and as soon as we’d retrieved the gold bars from underneath the rocker plates, I drove the Mercedes up the ramp. Meyer handed Schellenberg a hacksaw and he started to cut through a section of the car’s exhaust pipe.

“By the way, Captain Gunther,” said Meyer. “Call it professional curiosity, but before I forget, you said it was only yesterday you realized who killed Dr. Heckholz. How did you work out that it was Leuthard who killed Heckholz and not Schelli’s men?”

I described how the dying Heckholz had made a Swiss flag out of a pool of his own blood on a white floor.

“That was clever of you,” he said.

“Not really. You see, it took me a whole year to think of that. Which doesn’t say much for my powers of detection. Sometimes a stupid man is only a couple of good guesses away from looking clever. The same is true in reverse, of course. But there’s that mark against me and now this. I mean, the way I’d figured, the general here was in this whole thing for himself. I’m used to that, you see. The fact is, everyone in Germany is looking after himself these days. Me included. It’s become a national pastime. Anyway, the truth is, Paul, I’m feeling about as clever as a man with the brains of a potato. So the next time you’re writing a detective story, see if you can work out a way of making your hero look stupid. It’ll be much more realistic that way.”

“A stupid detective? That could never work. Readers wouldn’t like it. That’s much too like real life for the readers of detective stories. The writers, too. No one wants realism, Bernie. They get enough of that at home and when they read the newspapers. They read books to escape from real life, not to be reminded of it. Take my word for it, realism plays very badly in modern fiction.”

I grinned. “I guess you know your business. But I know mine, too.”

“Do you read much, Bernie?”

“Some. There’s not much else to do at night in Germany, these days. Provided the electricity is working.”

“What do you enjoy reading?”

“History, mostly. But not as much as I enjoy watching a general getting his hands dirty.”

A few minutes later Schellenberg removed a section of the exhaust pipe from which he then extracted a carefully wrapped tube of papers that was about a meter in length.

We took the tube of papers into the house. On the desk in Meyer’s study, and under the eyes of a rather severe and Flemish-looking family group portrait, we tried spreading the plans out on his narrow desk; but we soon moved them onto the floor where it was easier to keep them flat and see what was what. From time to time I glanced around at our surroundings. The house was full of rough timber ceilings, nut wood floors, Gothic cupboards, old tapestries, tiled ceramic stoves, and expensive works of fine art. Thanks to Bernard Berenson’s last book on old masters, I knew they were expensive because they had gold frames that were even bigger than the paintings. That’s what’s called connoisseurship. But you didn’t need to be a connoisseur to see that the most beautiful thing in the house was Patrizia herself. Quite possibly she was Meyer-Schwertenbach’s second wife — she was certainly young enough. And that’s what’s called cynicism. Although I can’t imagine there was a man there — myself included — who’d seen the dogs with their muzzles on her lap having their ears folded who didn’t envy them just a little. She and Eggen came and found us in her husband’s study and listened carefully as Schellenberg described what was in the German plans.

“I had these plans stolen to order from the Bendlerblock’s Strategic Planning Section,” said Schellenberg. “On the day after the building was hit by an RAF bomb. That way I didn’t think they would be missed. Or at least not for long.”

“So that was you, was it?” I said. “Clever. You know they asked me to investigate the theft of some plans. To avoid involving the Gestapo.”

“What did you conclude?”

“That they’d been destroyed in the fire.”

Schellenberg nodded. “Good.”

“I was told not to worry too much because it turned out there were copies of the plans kept at the Wolf’s Lair, in Rastenburg. So I dropped it.”

“This plan was code-named Operation Christmas Tree,” he explained, “and is dated October 1940. This was submitted for consideration by General Ritter von Leeb of Army Group C in response to a directive from General Halder of the General Staff’s Operations Section. German forces — the blue arrows — would attack from occupied France in the west, from Germany in the north, and from Austria in the east. The black arrows represent Italian forces, who would attack from the south. The number of German divisions — twenty-one — is a strong indication of the expected level of resistance. Von Leeb estimated as many as four hundred and seventy thousand Swiss troops would oppose ours. But the real reason the plan was set aside was because Hitler made the decision to attack Russia in the spring of the following year. Perhaps even earlier, as a memo attached here shows Christmas Tree was canceled as early as November eleventh, 1940.”

“And so,” said Meyer, “but for the Russian invasion we might now be living under the Nazis.”

“A Swiss invasion could still happen,” said Schellenberg. “As this later plan proves. Operation Province-in-Waiting was prepared in the summer of 1941, by Colonel Adolf Heusinger, chief of the Operations Division of the Army General Staff. It was Heusinger who planned Operation Barbarossa for the invasion of the Soviet Union.”

“He was a busy man in 1941,” I said. “Wasn’t he?”

“You can see here how Province-in-Waiting differs from Christmas Tree. For one thing, there will be a Rhine crossing, in twilight or fog. With seaplanes carrying lightly armed troops landing on the main Swiss lakes, including Zurich, Lucerne, and Geneva. The idea being that these troops would attack Swiss border defenses from the rear, rendering fortifications worthless. Himmler calls this plan the Swiss Project, and until recently it remained the one most likely to be implemented in the event that Hitler decided he needed a quick victory to restore the faith of the German people in his leadership. Himmler even named the man who will head up the Nazi police state that Switzerland will become: an SS major-general called Gottlob Berger. He’s always been a very vigorous Nazi, with all that such an appellation entails.”

“The man’s an absolute swine,” I said. “He runs the main SS office in Berlin.”

“You said ‘until recently,’” observed Patrizia. “Are we finally safe?”

“I regret to say no,” said Schellenberg. “Recent events in Italy have made Switzerland strategically important as never before. With the collapse of Mussolini and the Italian fascists now imminent, the responsibility for defending Italy now rests with the German Army. That means Italian supply routes are critical. Which means that new plans are being formulated even as we speak. I happen to know that another SS general, Hermann Böhme, who is also the chief of the Austrian military intelligence service, has been charged by Himmler with devising a new invasion plan by the end of the year, for implementation in the summer of 1944.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “And this is the man who wants to extend peace feelers toward the Allies.”

“As I said, Himmler likes a sure thing.”

“But,” interjected Patrizia, “you’ve often said, Schelli, that our forces were highly respected by the Wehrmacht. That Swiss marksmanship and our fighting spirit would help to deter them.”