Free The Eye of the Abyss by Marshall Browne

Why was he allowing a trace of irony about Nazi dogma to show? Schmidt shook his head. He felt in need of a short recovery period.
    Dietrich’s absence and the missing birth certificate had bought a little time. Presumably, Herr Wertheim believed he could quarantine himself and his auditor from the repercussions that would follow her escape – if that was intended. He was ninety-nine per cent certain it was.Yet, if the G-D had misjudged the situation, the outcome for Franz Schmidt – and his family – could be disastrous. It chilled his heart. He opened the file which she’d handed him. Getting the scheme into play under the eyes of Dietrich was going to be not only challenging but dangerous. That was a one hundred per cent certainty.

9
    S ENIOR DETECTIVE DRESSLER was out on a case – his own. With his rolling, nearly silent walk, he entered a maze of eighteenth-century streets in the city’s inner eastern district. Fifteen years he’d pounded this beat, patrolled it as a detective for the past ten. Efficiently he observed black beards, black clothing, intense confidential conversations, figures floating in the opaque afternoon. He smelled soup; absorbed the foreignness and watchfulness. Light cords were being pulled; the lights barely illuminated the brandy-coloured interiors.
    He was a human almanac on local petty crime: safebreakers, burglars, pickpockets. He knew the faces of many of the small-traders who watched his giant figure pass by, some of their names. They knew him, and every public official who went that way. Behind his back, their children imitated his walk. His wife’s people, working, and watching. For many years, he’d been a near insider; involved in family gatherings. In the early ’thirties, her family had left, scattering across Europe like chaff in a wind.
    He proceeded under an archway into a narrow defile, dank as a sewer. He couldn’t help wheezing. His damned damaged lungs. He wondered if the sunlight ever got down here even in summer. The more he thought about it the less confidence he had in Herr Wertheim. Now, at this late hour, he
was consumed by the need to find an alternative plan. In the war he’d never panicked; he’d studied the terrain behind him as painstakingly as that in front, plotting a line of withdrawal. Several times it had saved him, and his men. He peered at the houses, looking for a number.
    They were waiting for him. He’d telephoned a man, and it’d been arranged. Perspiring, breathless in a phone booth, he’d had to bear down with all his desperation to overcome the man’s reluctance.
    â€˜Here we are,’ he said, as though she was by his side. He turned, scrutinised the street, and entered a building. He climbed a stone stairway to the third floor, his body brushing the walls.What a hole! The Propaganda Ministry was cunning, with its films of rats swarming in narrow spaces. The room smelt rotten with damp. The three men waiting for him had kept their overcoats and hats on. The smell of body odour was strong; their brows sparkled with beads of sweat.
    Dressler felt pity. He nodded and took the vacant chair facing them and said in his dolorous voice, ‘I’m sorry to bring you here. Thank you for agreeing to see me. I have a problem. I understand it has been explained.’
    Collectively, they studied this minor official of the Third Reich who’d stepped from one existence into another. They understood his deadly dilemma. He’d called in several favours to be here. They knew all of this. Their fear and uncertainty were palpable. It would be up to Rubinstein, the man in the centre, who stared at the detective, squinting – as though he was trying to see into his soul. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles Rubinstein’s face was not always this serious; he was well known for his mordant wit. At that moment, in his own mind, he was playing the Devil’s Advocate. Or was it Russian