Both cars were empty of people, but a toy wooden fortress sat somewhat incongruously on the back seat of the second. Even the Gestapo had children.
Russell walked in through the front entrance and turned left into the outer office, where two of the visitors were chatting to the young woman whom they thought was the book keeper. Russell knew better - her name was Erna, and she was one of Thomas's many nieces, recently apprenticed to the family business. The actual bookkeeper, Ali Blumenthal, would have disappeared through the door leading to the printing rooms the moment the cars appeared in her window. By this time Ali would be wearing a star-adorned overall and wielding a broom. Jews were not allowed to do clerical work.
'Who are you?' rapped out one of the men. 'And what do you want?' 'I'm the owner's brother-in-law,' Russell said. This didn't seem the moment to admit that he was no longer married to Thomas's sister.
'Well you'll have to take your turn. Sit there.'
Russell did as he was told, straining his ears to hear the conversation taking place in the inner office above the usual clatter of the presses. Thomas seemed to be doing most of the talking. 'I have explained all this to Groening,' he said with exaggerated patience. 'I cannot fill my government orders if you people keep threatening to decimate my workforce. If I were to lose all the people on this list I dread to think what my output would shrink to.'
A softer voice interjected, one that Russell could not quite decipher. The one word he recognised was juden, and only because it was repeated several times.
'That's nonsense,' Thomas replied, raising his voice a little. 'The Jews I employ are treated as they should be. They have separate toilets and washrooms, and they work the sort of hours which such people should work. You and I could argue for hours about how these particular Jews managed to make themselves essential to the running of this business, but that would not make the slightest difference to the fact that they are. Once the war is won, and I am not up to my ears in urgent government contracts, I will happily take them down to the station and load them on a train for the East myself. But until that day comes...'
The Gestapo man was not convinced. The Reichsminister had decreed that Berlin should become judenfrei, and the process was now underway. It was irreversible. If one factory owner was granted exemptions, they would all want them, and nothing would be achieved. Herr Schade would simply have to find other workers. He would have no trouble getting hold of Russian prisoners, and they could learn anything that Jews could learn.
'If you persist with this nonsense,' Thomas told him, 'I shall have to take the matter up with Gruppenfuhrer Wohlauf.'
This name induced a few moments' silence, and even pricked the ears of the two Gestapo men in the outer office. When their superior in the next room resumed talking it was in a quieter, more conciliatory tone. Russell was impressed. He knew that Thomas had been deliberately widening his circle of influential acquaintances, but Wohlauf was one of Heydrich's proteges, and hardly a name to be taken in vain.
Two Gestapo officers emerged, the older one thin with glasses and a pale angry face, the younger one plumpish and harassed-looking. The former gave Russell a passing glare, and half paused in his stride, as if the need for a scapegoat had been both recognised and deferred in a few split seconds. All four of them passed out through the door, and seconds later the engines of their two cars burst into simultaneous life.
Russell walked into the inner office, and found Thomas at the window, a fist massaging his left temple.
'Wohlauf?' Russell asked with mock incredulity.
Thomas gave him a wry smile. 'Would you believe I had dinner with him and his wife last week? Lotte is in the same Bund Deutscher Madel group as his older daughter, and she found out a few months ago that Papa has a passion for sailing. I eventually dug up a mutual acquaintance and engineered a chance meeting. We may be going up to Rugen Island together in the spring.'
'The sacrifices we make.'
'He's not such a bad chap really. Well, he is; but for a Gruppenfuhrer in the SD he doesn't come across too badly. There's none of the usual obsession with Jews - he seems to despise all races more or less equally.' 'Will he play ball if you need him to?'
'God knows. I hope I don't have to ask.'
'What was it about this time?'
'A list of our Jewish workers for deportation. You know some of them live on the premises? Eleven single men, all over fifty. They were thrown out of their apartments in Wedding and Moabit so we put up some bunks in one of the old storehouses. Nothing special, I'm afraid - I have to keep convincing the Gestapo that I hate the Jews as much as I need them. Anyway, some bright spark down at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse dug up some regulation forbidding Jews from staying overnight at their workplaces, and decided it was a good excuse for putting my lot on the next train.'
'But you've saved them?'
'For the moment. Untangling all the relevant red tape will take me the rest of the morning, but it should be okay. For my eleven, that is. All it really means is that eleven others will be chosen in their place.'
There was no reply to that.
'Is this just a social call?' Thomas asked.
'Yes. We tried to ring you yesterday before I remembered that you were away. How are Hanna's family?'
'Good.'
'No news from Joachim?'
'Nothing for weeks,' Thomas said breezily. 'Look, John, I've got to deal with this business. Why don't we have lunch - how about Wednesday? The Russischer Hof, like we used to. One o'clock.'
'Make it one-thirty. And don't bring along any Gruppenfuhrers.'
'Everyone needs a Gruppenfuhrer, John.'
Seeing Thomas almost always lifted Russell's spirits, and watching the Gestapo sweep out in a collective temper-tantrum had lifted them higher than usual. And despite sitting for the better part of an hour on a hard wooden seat in a tram that probably pre-dated Bismarck, he still felt like smiling when he reached Wilhelmstrasse.
Dr Schmidt soon brought him back to earth. Klin had fallen, Ribbentrop's spokesman announced with a repulsive smirk, and the map behind him, though less crowded with sweeping arrows than Promi's version, showed how important that might be. The left wing of the German forces closing on Moscow would soon be due north of the city, and poised to sweep around behind it. Another 'biggest encirclement battle of all time' seemed on the cards.
The main business of the day, to which Schmidt turned with some reluctance, was the conference to renew the Anti-Comintern Pact. It was due to begin on the following day, and delegations from all the allies, both willing and reluctant, would be arriving today or tomorrow morning. The official renewal ceremony was tomorrow afternoon, and Foreign Minister Ribbentrop would be making the keynote speech on Wednesday. This would also be broadcast on the radio and printed in full in the newspapers.
'The word "ubiquitous" springs to mind,' Ralph Morrison whispered to Russell.
'Not to mention "unavoidable".'
The Fuhrer, Schmidt continued, would be arriving on Thursday for important consultations with the various presidents and prime ministers.
'He's only just left,' an American further down the table muttered.
Schmidt glared at the guilty party, and concluded with the announcement of a special European postage stamp, released to celebrate the continent's new-found unity.
'United in despair,' Morrison said as he got up. 'You know it's Thanksgiving on Thursday. I wish to Christ I was back in the States.'