I say. Call me back in an hour, or less, as things develop."
Things, however, had developed for the veteran intelligence officer, now the director of Consular Operations. No one had ever found a Sonnenkind. Even those once suspected were totally, angrily, deemed innocent children because of official papers and the perfectly Americanized, loving couples who took in the bereft orphans. But now, courts notwithstanding, a possible Sonnenkind had surfaced! A grown-up woman, once a child of Nazi Germany, now a highly desirable, accomplished academician who had snared a high-level officer of the State Department. It was a Sonnenkinder agenda if one ever existed.
Sorenson picked up his phone and touched the numbers for the private phone of the director of the FBI, a decent man of whom Knox Talbot had said, "He's okay."
"Yes?"
"It's Sorenson over at Cons-Op, am I disturbing you?" on this line, hell no. What can I do for you ?), I'll be up front. I'm transgressing into your area, but I don't have a choice."
"Do any of us at certain times?" asked the FBI director.
"We've never met, but Knox Talbot says you're a friend of his, which gives you a pretty clean slate with me. Where's the transgression?"
"Actually, I haven't gone over the line yet, but I want to, I think I have to."
"You said you had no choice."
"I don't believe I do. However, it's got to remain within Con sOp
"Then why call me? Isn't solo better?"
"Not in this case. I need a shortcut."
"Go ahead, Wcs-that's what Knox calls you. I'm Steve."
"Yes, I know. Steven Rosbician, the paradigm-of law enforcement."
"My troops carry the PR. way beyond the goal line. I was a white L.A. judge who got lucky, 'cause the blacks figured I was fair.
Your petition, please."
"Have you got a unit in Marion County, Illinois?" Fm sure we do. Illinois goes way back in our history. What city?"
"Centralia."
"Close enough. What do you need?"
"Anything you've got on a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schneider. They may be dead and I don't have an address, but I have an idea they may have immigrated from Germany in the early to middle thirties."
"That's not much to go on."
"I realize that, but in the context of our inquiry and considering the times, the Bureau may have a file on them."
"If we have one, you'll get it. So where's the transgression? I'm not that long in this 'job, but I don't see it."
"Then let me clarify, Steve. I'm going domestic, which is your province, and I can't give you the background for my inquiry. In the old days, J. Edgar, the hound, would have demanded it or slammed down the phone."
"I'm no goddamned Hoover, and the Bureau has changed considerably. If we can't cooperate with each other, full disclosure or no, where are we?"
"Well, it's kind of spelled out in our charters-"
"More honored in the breach, I'd suggest," interrupted Rosbician.
"Give me your secure fax number. Whatever we've got, you'll have within the hour."
"Thanks very much," said Sorenson, "and also, as you suggested, whatever I do from now on, I'll go solo."
"Why the bullshit?"
"Wait till you face a congressional hearing with six dour faces who don 't like you. Then you'll understand."
"Then I'll go back to a law firm and live a hell of a lot better."
"I like your perspective, Steve." Sorenson gave the FBI director the number of his secure fax machine.
Thirty-eight minutes passed before the loud beep of the Con sOp machine in his office preceded the emergence of a single page of paper from the FBI. Wesley Sorenson retrieved it and read the information.
Karl and Johanna Schneider came to the U.S. on January 12, 1940, expatriates from Germany with relatives in Cicero,
Illinois, who vouched for them, stating that the young male Schneider had skills that would easily find him work in the technical field of optometry.
Their ages were, respectively, twenty-one and nineteen. The stated reason for their leaving Germany was that Johanna
Schneider's grandfather was Jewish, and she was discriminated against by the Aryan Ministerium -in Stuttgart.
In March of 1946, Mr. Schneider, by then Charles rather than Karl, owned a small optometric factory in Centralia, and petitioned the Immigration Service to allow his niece, one
Janine Clunitz, an infant female child, to immigrate, as her parents had died in an automobile crash. The petition was granted and the Schneiders legally adopted the child.
In August of 1991, Mrs. Schneider died of heart failure. Mr.
Schneider, age 76, still resides at 121 Cyprus Street, Centralia,
Illinois. He has retired, but goes down to his business twice a week.