Pursuit Read Free Page A

work, the risks, would be done and taken by the “younger” members, while the “older,” “safer” members would collect whatever reward was to be garnered in these foreign endeavors. And if these “younger” members were ever caught, he knew they could count on blessed little help from the Group. No, the Group would depend upon their silence and loyalty, even to the gallows.
    And that “financial” help that had been offered, together with an escape route? If he knew anything at all about the banking brains seated at the table, any war criminal who made it to safety abroad through the sponsorship of the Group would have complete records kept of every pfennig he received, so that he could never deny having received them. And fingerprints or no fingerprints, and new identities or no new identities, those financial geniuses at the table could trace a man through his bank account better than any security department could through his prints or the name on his identity card.
    To be saved by the Group, in short, meant to become enslaved by the Group. No, that road was not for Helmut von Schraeder.
    And as for their considered opinion that the war was lost; well, that was a conclusion he had reached a long time before, when these shopkeepers were making fortunes and were still inept enough to lose the war. He had known the war was lost when Stalingrad fell, when Hamburg had been blasted into rubble by Allied bombers and Goering’s vaunted air force and Hamburg’s scientifically advanced air defenses—the model for all German air defenses—had been meaningless. And he had started his own plans then, not waited for an invitation to a meeting of the Strasbourg Group to save his skin for their own ends.
    The chairman had finished speaking; the meeting was breaking up. A small group was gathered about the man who had raised the question of the meeting’s legitimacy; he seemed to be arguing volubly. A suicide, von Schraeder thought disdainfully, and joined Willi, leaving the room and walking down the broad, carpeted stairs to the main lobby. They saw the bar was filling rapidly, and walked outside. The two uniformed men walked to the curb and von Schraeder raised his arm to signal his driver, but Willi quickly pulled it down.
    â€œLet’s talk a bit first,” he said. “You have time, I’m sure. Let’s take a short walk and talk.” He started off and von Schraeder, after a glance over his shoulder, followed. Behind him his driver was coming from the parking area and the colonel knew the man would keep the car exactly five paces behind him as he walked.
    Willi turned in the direction of the river; ahead of them the spires of the cathedral were outlined against a cloudless summer sky. The major turned to look up at his taller companion.
    â€œWell? What do you think?”
    â€œIt sounded very good,” von Schraeder said, his voice sounding quite sincere.
    â€œEspecially for you,” Willi said. “I saw the pictures of you being decorated by Himmler not so long ago. And I’ve been reading about you; Eichmann seems to hold you in high regard.” He tried to sound objective but there was a slight touch of envy in his voice, as if being a candidate for a war-crimes trial and almost certain execution were somehow to be desired, if only in the abstract as building reputation. He glanced at von Schraeder. “That’s the sort of record I imagine it would be well to escape from, once the war is over.”
    â€œI couldn’t agree more,” von Schraeder said, and smiled genially.
    â€œOf course,” Willi went on, “if Klaus Stauffenberg is successful, we’ll be demanding total amnesty in return for an instant surrender. The Allies certainly should be willing to forgo what really amounts to petty revenge on a few men, in return for the Allied lives that would be saved if the war should continue, don’t you