Page 18 of Echoes of Betrayal

Pemberton muttered that this was a private bank, only accessible by appointment. He rang the bell as Lizzie admired the 19th-century building which housed the Swiss bank. Everything about it pointed to immense wealth, and she realised she could not set foot in this establishment if she weren’t posing as Elizabeth Gale.

A liveried doorman opened the heavy door and ushered them inside after greeting Pemberton, whom Lizzie understood was a regular visitor at the bank. Her boss introduced her briefly, which she was pleased about because to accomplish her mission she would somehow have to gain access to the Swiss bank again. The evidence she required wasn’t sitting at the Legation, and it wouldn’t be available at a diplomatic gathering either. She must seek it out, and so far, she had made no progress in this endeavour.

They followed the doorman into the building through the silent marble entrance hall. The walls were wood-panelled, and several paintings adorned the space with understated elegance. Lizzie immediately got the sense she had entered a secret world, and adrenaline flowed through her as she realised she was getting closer to what she needed. Polish lingered on the air, and as they disappeared deeper into the building, Lizzie noted the interior was immaculate. Everywhere you went in London, lifts were out of order and needed maintenance, buildings had suffered bomb damage, and they could barely keep the vital services running. Jack said London was running on sheer grit, bloody-mindedness and British pride.

But this. This was another world altogether and was clearly untouched by the inconveniences of war. The banker’s office was on the first floor, and when they were announced, Ernst Brunner stood behind his desk in the large, high-ceilinged room and greeted them both formally. Lizzie had met him at the reception, and Tom Green had flagged him as a potential banking contact, so she was particularly excited to visit his inner sanctum in the normal course of events. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes as he welcomed her with a courteous nod and beckoned for them to be seated in the plush leather chairs.

Lizzie noticed the family photograph on his desk. It was clearly Brunner’s wife and two grown children; the boy dressed in Swiss army uniform.

Bruner gestured towards a silver tray bearing a crystal decanter and glasses on a side table. His mouth curved into a smile. ‘May I offer you a glass of schnapps to warm your bones?’

They all sipped the cherry drink, and Lizzie felt the alcohol seep into her chest. It was a Swiss custom to drink schnapps, and she was growing used to it. As she drained the glass, her eyes scanned the room, assessing her surroundings as she had been trained to do. An expensive-looking oil painting of the Alpine landscape her apartment overlooked caught her attention, and she guessed it might conceal a safe, but Brunner could just be a lover of fine art. The thought crossed her mind that the banker was fortunate the Nazis hadn’t ripped the valuable paintings off their walls like they had done in occupied Europe. That must be one benefit of their official neutral position, although she imagined their collaboration with the Nazis bought them more credit than any pretence of neutrality could.

The meeting was to sign two commercial contracts—one was a straightforward agreement for a large currency exchange, which Lizzie checked and then answered Pemberton’s questions before both men signed with an equal flourish.

Next was a contract for Swiss pharmaceutical goods, and the payments were to be handled by Brunner & Cie. Lizzie studied the document, picking it apart line by line. She’d had to improve her German written skills to pull off her cover in this position, and she had worked tirelessly in London with a tutor. Her High German was adequate to perform the role, but she was studious and made sure she had missed nothing. After explaining some clauses that she wanted to bring to Pemberton’s special attention; he asked a few perfunctory questions, and then they signed that contract too.

Brunner was an amiable man, and Lizzie took a liking to him. He wasn’t dismissive of her as a woman like many men in powerful positions, and he acknowledged her politely and even remarked on her careful handling of the contracts.

Brunner addressed Pemberton, his tone friendly. ‘I see you have a diligent and capable translator. That’s not always easy to find.’

‘Indeed, thank you. Miss Gale has quickly become indispensable to the Legation.’

Lizzie smiled at the banker and thanked him for the compliment. Their eyes met for a second, and she wondered if he were trying to convey something to her, but Pemberton stood and made movements to leave, and the silent exchange passed.

By the time they left the building and crossed the main square, a flurry of snow whirled around them, and they hurried towards the diplomatic car that awaited them at the kerb.

‘Looks as though the weather is turning,’ Pemberton said as Lizzie shivered in the back seat and pulled her coat tighter around her.

For the rest of the day as she sat at her desk working, her mind sifted through possibilities of how she could find her way back into Brunner & Cie. How might she forge a closer working relationship with the enigmatic Ernst Brunner? A familiar feeling in her gut told her he was a man who could be ripe for turning.

CHAPTER 16

Ernst Brunner returned to his desk after seeing the pair from the British Legation to the door where his man awaited to escort them out. No visitors roamed at will in the building, and the bank took the matter of security seriously. The vault in the basement that stored their wealthy clients’ safe deposit boxes containing gold, valuables, and documents was protected by thick steel doors and was unbreachable. It housed years of what they referred to as the bank’s sensitive files, stuffed with gold transfer documents and Reichsbank correspondence. If the Allies won the war and got even a glimpse of those damning documents, it would all be over for the prestigious bank his grandfather had founded. Ernst and his father had worked so hard to preserve the great man’s legacy, and the thought of it crashing down in a cloud of shame under his custody horrified him. The image cast a shadow over the rest of the day, and he tried to push it back into the dark recesses of his mind, but it kept rearing its ugly head.

Ernst had done business with Pemberton many times, but he’d only met the young woman once before at the Stalder reception. There was something about her that had caught his attention, and he wondered whether she might be someone he could trust. Taking his pipe out of the desk drawer, he lit it and poured himself another schnapps to ease his unrest. The signed contracts signified a tidy chunk of profitable business for the bank, and he sat back in his large comfortable chair and drew on his pipe. The aroma of tobacco filled the room, and his thoughts circled back to the impressive British woman who handled herself impeccably and made the signing of the contracts seem effortless. Pemberton’s previous translator had been efficient, but this woman was outstanding. She was the type he would hire for his administrative staff without a second thought, but one couldn’t go poaching diplomatic staff, and besides, she had permission to work in Switzerland purely because of her role at the Legation.

Draining his glass in one gulp, Ernst considered how he might engineer another meeting with Miss Gale. Ever since the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad, he’d had a nasty feeling in his stomach that he had backed the wrong horse. Not that working closely with the Germans had been a conscious decision. Swiss banking culture was famous for its confidentiality and fuelled by gold transactions regardless of their source. Their origin typically went unquestioned. Early in the war, Swiss bankers, driven by greed and profit, had made an unspoken agreement to continue trading with Germany just as they always had. He had told himself it was purely the mechanics of Swiss finance, and it wasn’t his business to question those who made large gold deposits.

The truth was Brunner & Cie had profited wildly during the war years and the ease of laundering mountains of Nazi gold had seduced him, and he had turned a blind eye to the shocking reports of what was being done to cleanse Europe of the Jewish population. In December of the previous year, Ernst read that the Allied governments had publicly denounced Germany's intention to exterminate the Jews of Europe, following confirmation of Hitler’s plan.

Now the tides of war had turned dramatically since Stalingrad, and the Allies held the upper hand. Brunner knew too much to ignore the situation any longer, and he guessed bankers throughout Switzerland were contemplating the potential consequences of their financial collaboration with Germany. It was impossible to keep telling himself that the masses of gold flowing in were anything other than looted by the Nazis. They were robbing the Jews blind, even as they rounded them up and packed them off on trains to concentration camps in Poland, with the willing help of local police forces across occupied Europe. He and his partner had known the sordid reality for some time; the Germans had stolen the gold reserves from the national banks of occupied countries—the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. Norway and Poland evacuated their reserves in time, and in Poland the looting came from Jewish private assets and the theft from concentration camp victims themselves.

The Germans melted gold jewellery and fillings into Reichsbank ingots and mixed them with central bank gold to disguise the source. Swiss bankers rode the wave and simply chose to ignore the warnings.

Ernst’s son was a good boy who would inherit his share of the bank. He was mentoring him to take over when it came his day to retire, but for now the boy was serving in the Swiss army. If it weren’t for the war, he would have completed his mandatory military service by now and be working in the bank alongside his father, but every man of fighting age had to do his duty to defend Switzerland’s neutrality. The boy had asked some awkward questions about the German gold during a conversation when he was on leave. Evading telling him what was really happening had forced Ernst to confront the truth, and he was ashamed to admit to his son what the bank was doing, so he didn’t.

The Swiss had been relieved when the fear of a German invasion decreased after Hitler’s initial threats to occupy them. Nazi Germany needed Switzerland to launder its guilty gold, and this need kept them at bay. It had been a win-win situation for the Swiss and the Germans. Until recently. Ernst was brooding more and more on the very real consequences of what he had facilitated if the Nazis were to lose the war. He had broached the subject with his partner, Franz Hauser, several times, but he changed the subject. Ernst explained to him that they had time to consider taking certain actions that would protect the future of the bank, should the Allies indeed win the war which seemed increasingly likely, but his appeal fell on deaf ears.

Greed was a powerful emotion, and with a sinking feeling, Ernst had accepted the fact that he must act alone. He couldn’t confide in his partner as he no longer trusted him not to betray him with such a dangerous secret. German counterintelligence had ears and eyes everywhere, and if Ernst was to find a way to protect the future of Brunner & Cie, he must operate with great stealth and choose his next steps wisely.

Swiss counterintelligence agents were as dangerous as the Germans, for different reasons. Ernst knew their focus was to protect the illusion of Swiss neutrality at all costs, and they wouldn’t look kindly upon a banker taking things into his own hands to reveal the scale of the country's collaboration with Germany. The Swiss government was on a knife-edge and would be desperately scrambling to create a fictional post-war narrative that would cast them in a favourable light should the Allies win. If Switzerland’s banking empire were to survive and prosper after the war, they must avoid a great reckoning of their despicable laundering of the Nazi looting operation.

Ernst’s pipe had fizzled out whilst he was lost in thought, and now he tapped it and laid it down on the desk. The morning meeting had helped calm his confused mind, and he resolved to find a way to connect with Miss Gale again soon. A junior Legation employee, unlikely to attract attention, could be the perfect solution to his dilemma. It was a risk he was prepared to take to save his bank and secure his family’s future.

As he left the building and crossed town for his lunch meeting, his step was lighter than it had been in some time.

CHAPTER 17