The Hunt

“Ja, to help Negroes escape to Philadelphia.”

Keegan chuckled. “Right,” he said. “So what got them so hot on you all of a sudden?”

“We also keep the German people informed of what is really going on here, so they can never say they did not know what was happening. They can never lie about it, they will have to say, ‘Yes, we knew and we turned away our eyes.’ That is what The Berlin Conscience is for. Anyway, a man died a few days ago. A Jew named Herman Adler. He was a Judenopferer. He was also Joachim Weber’s uncle.” He nodded toward the young man at the table.

“Your uncle turned other Jews in to the SS?”

Joachim nodded and looked down at the table. “He betrayed me and Avrum,” he said, and nodded toward the young man with the gun, the silent one. “And Werner Gebhart there.”

“My God.”

“Adler was one of the best they had,” said Wolffson. “He was responsible for the arrest of dozens of people. Jews, Gentiles, Gypsies. We tried to reason with Herman, offered to get him out of the country. But he was arrogant about it. There was some yelling, some anger, and then he had a heart attack. Just like that he was dead. We felt sorry for Herman. He was scared. He was doing the only thing he could do to stay alive.”

“He betrayed too many of us,” Joachim, the nephew, said bitterly. “Our grief over him was brief.”

“Then the thought occurred to me that perhaps we could make an example of him, a lesson to other hunters,” said Wolffson. “So we wrote a story about what he—and the other Judenopferers are doing. I realize now it was a stupid thing to do. It merely goaded the wolf. The Gestapo has become obsessed with destroying the Black Lily ever since.”

“And Jenny?”

“Also Adler. He made the Kettenglied—the connection. But we did not know it at the time.”

“God, why didn’t she tell me? Maybe I could have.

His voice trailed off as the horror of the situation began to sink in.

“She was protecting us,” Weber said. “The less people know, the better.”

“I should have guessed. She was so secretive about her new apartment. Didn’t want anyone to know her address or phone number.”

The fierce-eyed one with the gun, Weber, said nothing. He simply glared at Keegan.

“The last time she moved it was because she got one of our pamphlets in the mail,” said Wolffson. “She knew it was a trick, we would not mail anything to her.”

“I don’t understand,” Keegan said.

“It’s one of the things the Gestapo does,” said Wolffson. “Germans are required to report anything of a subversive nature. So they send one of our pamphlets to everyone on a particular street and if these people don’t report getting it, they are accused of a subversive act.”

“So she moved?”

Wolffson nodded. “And the only way the Gestapo could have gotten her address is by following you or me—or getting her phone number, which was not in her name.”

Keegan stared in silence, thinking about what Wolffson had just said. I didn’t even give the phone number to Bert or to Weil, thought Keegan. It couldn’t have been me.

“You and I were the only ones who knew where she was, Keegan.”

Keegan was getting angrier but he controlled himself. “I told you before, I didn’t tell a soul.”

“Did you telephone her from your hotel?” Wolffson asked.

“What the hell He stopped. Was it possible that they had tapped his phone n Paris, got her number and tracked her down? My God, was he responsible?

“Did you?” Wolffson asked.

“I tried to call her. There was no answer.”

“The Nazis are all over Paris. And I don’t think there is a hotel operator in the entire city that cannot be bribed. All they needed was her phone number to get her address.”

“Jesus.” Keegan paced back and forth for a few moments. He lit one cigarette off another.

“She contacted the Lily in Paris. They flew her to Leipzig and drove her into Berlin,” Wolffson said. “So Vierhaus had lost her. He was desperate.”

It all began to come together for Keegan.

“And had Conrad Weil call me, knowing I would call her. He was in on it. My old friend, Conrad. I should have suspected something was up when he called me. Conrad bends with the wind, he told me so himself. And von Meister was there waiting for me to take the bait.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, truly sorry. But what does Jenny have to do with all this?”

“Nothing, really. I am sure Vierhaus thinks she can give me up but she cannot. She doesn’t even know about this place. She delivered The Berlin Conscience, distributed some leaflets, that’s all. But they think she knows where I am and I am the one they want. Me, Gebhart here and Joachim. We are the leaders of the Black Lily.”

“How did you get involved in this?”