“Herr Speer?” Dyer replied, making a bow of his head and offering his hand.
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Speer said. “I’ve been reading with great interest your paper on the malleability of tungsten carbide.”
“Which paper?” Dyer asked, on the edge of rudeness. “There have been several.”
“The one you delivered at Dresden,” Speer answered, seemingly ignoring Dyer’s tone.
“That was the last,” Dyer said.
Speer looked at Peis the way he would look at a servant.
“We will be an hour,” Speer said, dismissing him,“perhaps a little longer. Could I impose further on your kindness and ask you to arrange for Professor Dyer to be returned afterward to wherever he wishes?”
“It will be my pleasure, Herr Reichsminister,” Peis said.
“You are very kind,” Speer said.
“I am at your service, Herr Reichsminister,” Peis said.
Since there was time before he had to retrieve his car, Peis walked the new fence surrounding the plant. The professional cop in him liked what he saw. In his judgment, whoever had set up the fence knew what he was doing. It would be difficult for any undesirable to get into the plant area. Or to get out of it.
He noticed too, on his journey of inspection, that the fence enclosed an open area large enough to build laborer barracks. He had heard that the Todt Organization was recruiting laborers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands—and even from the East—to work in German industry. They could not, of course, be permitted to roam freely around Germany.
After his tour, he settled into his Mercedes-Benz and started the engine. It was a waste of fuel, but he wanted the engine running anyway, partly because he intended to turn on the radios (unless the engine was running, the radios quickly drained the battery), but primarily because it was cold: Whatever the virtues of the Mercedes’ diesel engine, it was a sonofabitch to start when it was cold. He did not want Reichsminister Speer to remember him as the SS officer whose car couldn’t be made to run. Peis himself didn’t mind some additional warmth either.
Over the shortwave radio, Peis checked in with both his headquarters and the detachment guarding the Reichminister’s railcar at the Bahnhof. He then tuned in Radio Frankfurt on the civilian band radio.
The news was that the Wehrmacht in Russia continued to adjust its lines and inflict heavy casualties upon the enemy. But then there was a surprise:
In blatant violation of international law, at four that morning, United States naval, air, and ground forces had started shelling and bombing French North Africa. Later, an American invasion force was sent ashore on both Atlantic and Mediterranean beaches. Terrible casualties were inflicted upon innocent, neutral civilians, etc., etc., etc.
The invasion was obviously successful, Peis concluded. Otherwise, the announcer would have gleefully proclaimed that it had been thrown back into the sea.
Why didn’t the Americans mind their own damned business? Peis wondered. Germany had no real quarrel with America. What the hell did they want with French North Africa, anyhow? There was nothing there but sand and Arabs riding around on camels.
And then he remembered that he actually knew somebody in French North Africa, a policeman like himself: Obersturmbannführer SS-SD (Lieutenant Colonel) Johann Müller, who had been raised on a farm in Kolbe not three miles from where Peis sat, was on the staff of the Franco-German Armistice Commission for Morocco.
Müller, who came home to see his mother from time to time, had once been a simple Wachtmann (Patrolman) on the Kreis Marburg police. But he had been smart enough to join the Nazi Party early on, and he had been transferred to Berlin and commissioned in the SS-SD. And now he was a big shot.
Who just might, Peis thought, spend the rest of the war in an American POW cage. But better that, Peis decided, than the Eastern Front.
It was an hour and a half before he saw Professor Friedrich Dyer walking toward the car.
“You won’t mind, Professor, if I see the Reichsminister safely onto his train?” Peis said when Dyer had gotten into the car.
“We all must do our duty,” Dyer said dryly.
Peis discreetly followed the Reichsminister’s convoy to the Hauptbahnhof.
On the way from the Hauptbahnhof to the university, Peis asked, as casually as he could,“What did Reichsminister Speer want with you?”
There was no reply for a moment, as Dyer considered his response.
“We spoke of the molecular structure of tungsten carbon alloys,” Dyer finally said. "Specifically, the effect of high temperatures on their dime
nsions, and the difficulties encountered in their machining.”
Peis had no idea what that meant, and he suspected that Dyer, aware of that, was rubbing his ignorance in his face. Yesterday, the professor would not have dared antagonize him. But they both knew that things had changed.