Holcroft had spent most of the time in the upstairs lounge, at a single chair in the right rear corner, his black attaché case against the bulkhead. It was easier to concentrate there; no straying eyes of an adjacent passenger could fall on the papers he read and reread, again and again.
He had begun with the letter from Heinrich Clausen, that unknown but all-pervading presence. It was an incredible document in itself. The information contained in it was of such an alarming nature that Manfredi had expressed the collective wish of the Grande Banque’s directors that it be destroyed. For it detailed in general terms the sources of the millions banked in Geneva three decades ago. Although the majority of these sources were untouchable in any contemporary legal sense—thieves and murderers stealing the national funds of a government headed by thieves and murderers—other sources were not so immune to modern scrutiny. Throughout the war Germany had plundered. It had raped internally and externally. The dissenters within had been stripped; the conquered without, stolen from unmercifully. Should the memories of these thefts be dredged up, the international courts in The Hague could tie up the funds for years in protracted litigations.
«Destroy the letter,» Manfredi had said in Geneva. «It’s necessary only that you understand why he did what he did. Not the methods; they are a complication without any conceivable resolution. But there are those who may try to stop you. Other thieves would move in; we’re dealing in hundreds of millions.»
Noel reread the letter for perhaps the twentieth time. Each time he did so, he tried to picture the man who wrote it. His natural father. He had no idea what Heinrich Clausen looked like; his mother had destroyed all photographs, all communications, all references whatsoever to the man she loathed with all her being.
Berlin, 20 April 1945
MY SON.
I write this as the armies of the Reich collapse on all fronts. Berlin will soon fall, a city of raging fires and death everywhere. So be it. I shall waste no moments on what was, or what might have been. On concepts betrayed, and the triumph of evil over good through the treachery of morally bankrupt leaders. Recriminations born in hell are too suspect, the authorship too easily attributed to the devil.
Instead, I shall permit my actions to speak for me. In them, you may find some semblance of pride. That is my prayer.
Amends must be made. That is the credo I have come to recognize. As have my two dearest friends and closest associates who are identified in the attached document. Amends for the destruction we have wrought, for betrayals so heinous the world will never forget. Or forgive. It is in the interest of partial forgiveness that we have done what we have done.
Five years ago your mother made a decision I could not comprehend, so blind were my loyalties to the New Order. Two winters ago—in February of 1943—the words she spoke in rage, words I arrogantly dismissed as lies fed her by those who despised the Fatherland, were revealed to be the truth. We who labored in the rarefied circles of finance and policy had been deceived. For two years it was clear that Germany was going down to defeat. We pretended otherwise, but in our hearts we knew it was so. Others knew it, too. And they became careless. The horrors surfaced, the deceptions were clear.
Twenty-five months ago I conceived of a plan and enlisted the support of my dear friends in the Finanzministerium. Their support was willingly given. Our objective was to divert extraordinary sums of money into neutral Switzerland, funds that could be used one day to give aid and succor to those thousands upon thousands whose lives were shattered by unspeakable atrocities committed in Germany’s name by animals who knew nothing of German honor.
We know now about the camps. The names will haunt history. Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz.
We have been told of the mass executions, of the helpless men, women and children lined up in front of trenches dug by their own hands, then slaughtered.
We have learned of the ovens—oh, God in heaven—ovens for human flesh! Of the showers that sprayed not cleansing water but lethal gas. Of intolerable, obscene experiments carried out on conscious human beings by insane practitioners of a medical science unknown to man. We bleed at the images, and our eyes burst, but our tears can do nothing. Our minds, however, are not so helpless. We can plan.
Amends must be made.
We cannot restore life. We cannot bring back what was so brutally, viciously taken. But we can seek out all those who survived, and the children of those both surviving and slaughtered, and do what we can. They must be sought out all over the world and shown that we have not forgotten. We are ashamed and we wish to help. In any way that we can. It is to this end that we have done what we have done.
I do not for a moment believe that our actions can expiate our sins, those crimes we were unknowingly a part of. Yet we do what we can—I do what I can—haunted with every breath by your mother’s perceptions. Why, oh eternal God, did I not listen to that great and good woman?
To return to the plan.
Using the American dollar as the equivalent currency of exchange, our goal was ten million monthly, a figure that might appear excessive, but not when one considers the capital flow through the economic maze of the Finanzministerium at the height of the war. We exceeded our goal.
Using the Finanzministerium, we appropriated funds from hundreds of sources within the Reich and to a great extent beyond, throughout Germany’s ever-expanding borders. Taxes were diverted, enormous expenditures made from the Ministry of Armaments for nonexistent purchases, Wehrmacht payrolls rerouted, and monies sent to occupation territories constantly intercepted, lost. Funds from expropriated estates, and from the great fortunes, factories, and individually held companies, did not find their way into the Reich’s economy but, instead, into our accounts. Sales of art objects from scores of museums throughout the conquered lands were converted to our cause. It was a master plan carried out masterfully. Whatever risks we took and terrors we faced—and they were daily occurrences—were inconsequential compared to the meaning of our credo: Amends must be made.
Yet no plan can be termed a success unless the objective is secured permanently. A military strategy that captures a port only to lose it to an invasion from the sea a day later is no strategy at all. One must consider all possible assaults, all interferences that could negate the strategy. One must project, as thoroughly as projection allows, the changes mandated by time, and protect the objective thus far attained. In essence, one must use time to the strategy’s advantage. We have endeavored to do this through the conditions put forth in the attached document.
Would to the Almighty that we could give aid to the victims and their survivors sooner than our projections allow, but to do so would rivet attention to the sums we have appropriated. Then all could be lost. A generation must pass for the strategy to succeed. Even then there is risk, but time will have diminished it.
The air-raid sirens keep up their incessant wailing. Speaking of time, there is very little left now. For myself and my two associates, we wait only for confirmation that this letter has reached Zurich through an underground courier. Upon receipt of the news, we have our own pact. Our pact with death, each by his own hand.
Answer my prayer. Help us atone. Amends must be made.
This is our covenant, my son. My only son, whom I have never known but to whom I have brought such sorrow. Abide by it, honor it, for it is an honorable thing I ask you to do.
Your father,
HEINRICH CLAUSEN
Holcroft put the letter facedown on the table and glanced out the window at the blue sky above the clouds. Far in the distance was the exhaust of another aircraft; he followed the streak of vapor until he could see the tiny silver gleam of the fuselage.