The Arms Maker of Berlin (14 page)

They came close in 2004, after centrifuge components in Bauer crates were seized aboard a German freighter en route from Dubai to Libya. Bauer again managed to wriggle off the hook, but a few months later he retired as chairman of the family companies. His timing suggested he had brokered a deal to avoid further scrutiny, and one of the more strident Web sites commented: “Of all the Western industrialists tainted by tawdry connections to this ruthless field of endeavor, Kurt Bauer may well be the one with the most intimate knowledge of its innermost secrets and nefarious web of contacts.”

Melodramatic, perhaps, but it certainly explained the FBI’s current interest in currying favor with the man. Bauer’s Rolodex alone would be a valuable weapon in trying to dismantle the black market in nuclear materials, much less the man’s insider knowledge. The flip side was that any nation aspiring to build a bomb would also covet the information, and that seemed to narrow the possibilities for Holland’s “competition” to Iran or Syria, especially since the FBI was seeking a Middle Easterner. Probably Iran, given the current state of play.

Sobering news, to say the least. Competing with historians who might retaliate with a nasty review was one thing. Going up against an Iranian spy was quite another, especially if Nat ventured abroad, where Holland would be less able to protect him.

He realized his palms were sweating on the keyboard. Calm down, he told himself. You’re working for people who know all about this stuff. Surely they would warn him if things got too hazardous, right? It seemed like an appropriate time to check in with Holland. The agent picked up on the first ring.

“You should have told me the competition was Iran,” Nat said.

“Is this your idea of a progress report?”

“So you’re not denying it.”

“Sorry, I’m not hearing you well. Maybe I should call back.”

“I thought you’d at least be impressed that I’m doing my homework.”

“Point taken. I assume the storage locker was a dry hole.”

Nat mentioned his theory that Gordon had smuggled the folders out in his pants. He suggested that Holland have someone scan the surveillance video from that day forward to check for a return visit—by Gordon or anyone else.

“Good idea.”

“Where are you now? What’s all the hammering?”

“Gordon’s summer house. We did a top-to-bottom. They’re nailing the paneling back in place.”

Ouch. Yet another grievance for Viv.

“Find anything?”

“A box of your books, actually.”

“The one in the attic?”

“How’d you know?”

“I, uh, Viv told me.”

“Sounds like you did some poking around the other night. I also recall you leaving the house with a box.”

“Like I told you. A guest list, a few keepsakes.”

“Don’t remember you mentioning any keepsakes.”

“You’re right. This connection is terrible.”

“Whatever you say, Turnbull.”

“I need a favor.”

“Try me.”

“I want someone to keep an eye on my daughter. She moved into my house today for the summer. She got a hang-up call from my cell phone, the one I left in the library. Guy with a foreign accent.”

“Relax. We’re a step ahead of you. We’ve got her covered.”

“So you’re saying it had already occurred to you that she was in danger?”

“I’m saying you have no reason to worry. We’re on it.”

“If you’re ‘on it,’ then how come you didn’t get my cell phone back? You were going to go pick it up when the doors opened.”

“Our man was the first one in the library the next morning. It was already gone.”

“Meaning someone else must have been there when Neil Ford came for me.”

“Draw your own conclusions.”

“Why do I get the idea you’re downplaying the danger?”

“Am I?”

“This Middle Eastern character, for one.”

“He’s our concern, not yours. And do me a favor. Get yourself a new cell phone. You need to be accessible 24/7.”

“Tomorrow, if there’s time. I’ll be at the archives all day.”

“Happy hunting, then. I’ll await your call.”

Not exactly reassuring. Nat needed to know that Karen was okay. He tried her cell and got a recording. Then he called his house. When she didn’t pick up after three rings, he began to panic. She answered on the fourth.

“Karen?”

“There you are. I was worried about you.”

Likewise, he almost said. But he didn’t want to upset her.

“I guess you heard about Gordon.”

“News of the day here. I’m sorry, Dad. It must be horrible for you. Especially after the way he was outed in the
Wildcat
.”

“Not how he wanted to go out, that’s for sure.”

“How’s Mrs. Wolfe?”

“About like you’d expect. I offered her a ride to Wightman, but her sister was driving down.”

“Where are you, then?”

“College Park. Via an afternoon in Baltimore.”

He told her about the odd visit to the storage locker. He didn’t mention Berta.

“So you’re saying he really was, like, a thief?”

“Looks that way.”

“Then maybe his little divorce from you was, like, a favor. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be trashing him. This must be hard.”

“Well, at least he left me with something to do. I may be on this for a while. The FBI wants me to follow up, see if I can find the material that’s still missing. Apparently the stakes are a little higher than I’d thought. Not that you should breathe a word of this to anyone, especially strangers.”

“Which reminds me. I got another one of those funny hang-ups from your cell. Same guy. You really should, like, cancel the number. I mean, he could cost you a fortune.”

The news made him angry. Where the hell were Holland’s people? He tried to keep his voice calm for Karen.

“Well, at least you’ve got Dave to keep you company.”

“Dave drove home to Cleveland. So don’t worry, you can rest easy.”

“Actually, I was kind of hoping he’d stick around.”

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

“I don’t like it that you’re there alone. Have you thought about visiting your mom until I’m back? Especially if I have to go off for a while?”

“Already trying to get rid of me?”

“No. It’s not like that at all.”

“You sure? I mean, you haven’t really been a full-time dad in like, what, five years?”

“No. Truthfully. I’ve been looking forward to this all semester. Just do me a favor. Lock the dead bolt till I’m back, and keep an eye out for anybody who might be paying a little too much attention to you or to the house. If they’re in an unmarked black Chevy, it’s probably just some federal people, making sure my stuff isn’t disturbed. Anybody else, let me know right away.”

“You’re making this sound dangerous.”

“I’m probably overreacting. But if I stay on this job much longer, maybe we’ll have to make other arrangements. Just for a while. Look, I’ll be back Tuesday night, so sit tight until then. And I hope you can go to the memorial service on Wednesday. I have to speak, so I’ll need the moral support. I might not be showing up alone, by the way. There’s this, uh, German researcher traveling with me.”

He was grateful she couldn’t see him blush.

“I’m guessing from your tone of voice that the German is a woman. And maybe even kind of hot?”

“Not hot. Just obsessed. Worse than me, even.”

“A perfect match.”

“Easy. Risky business, dating colleagues.”

“Risk is what makes it interesting.”

“You’re too young for us to be having this conversation.”

“But not too young to give you advice, especially when I’m the one with the boyfriends and you’re all alone.”

He was about to ask why “boyfriend” was plural when he heard her flipping pages. The ever present
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
, no doubt. Karen’s Holy Bible.

“Why do I have the feeling you’re about to quote some verse?”

“Because I am? Here it is. Poem 1377. From her ‘Life’ series.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Well. Are you going to read it?”

“Too embarrassing.” She giggled. “Besides, it will be more effective if you look it up later. It’s the perfect message to sleep on, especially if your German is there with you.”

“Separate rooms. And she’s not
my
German.”

“Well, read it anyway. And don’t worry, I won’t talk to any strangers.”

He tried to laugh. But it was far too easy to imagine her alone in the house. She’d be standing in the kitchen with the curtains open and a single light on, visible to anyone in the backyard. Those old mullioned windows, which you could unlock simply by smashing a single pane. He resisted the urge to phone Holland, lest the man conclude he had gone batty. Rest easy, he told himself. The feds are on the job.

Just before climbing into bed he fired up his laptop to track down the poem. He was hoping vainly for a bit of daughterly encouragement, or maybe a little solace over the death of a friend. But, no, Karen had of course become fixated on Berta.

Even so, he had to smile at the poem’s ring of truth. It was obvious that Karen knew him all too well in spite of their years of estrangement, and as he scanned the words he imagined her reading them aloud, embarrassed or not, in a tone of amused irony:

Forbidden fruit a flavor has
That lawful Orchards mocks—
How luscious lies within the Pod
The Pea that Duty locks—

Forbidden fruit, indeed. This assignment had it by the bushel, and not just in the form of Berta Heinkel.

For one thing, Nat couldn’t help but wonder if he was about to play one of those hidden roles in a momentous affair—the sort of obscure but significant action he always enjoyed unearthing years later. It was quite a temptation for a historian, this idea of a cameo upon the stage of his own discipline.

But it did seem to violate some unwritten rule of the profession. And he, as well as anyone, knew how often such actions, no matter how well-meaning, produced unintended consequences. He was also aware of the typical fate of influential minor players. The reason history tended to forget them was that they were so often erased by the very forces they set in motion. Blotted out, like the names in a classified document.

Nat folded up his laptop and slid beneath the sheets, but he didn’t fall asleep for hours.

THIRTEEN

T
HE VOICE
of Gordon Wolfe spoke from the printed page, and Nat was stunned by its disclosure. Now the voice was laughing, the old man enjoying a postmortem chuckle over the little joke he’d played only moments before his death.

“Sly old bastard,” Nat muttered to himself. “So
this
is what you meant.”

The occasion called for a celebratory shot of Gordon’s bourbon. Alas, food and drink were forbidden in the vast reading room of the National Archives. But no rules could keep out the ghosts, which always flourished in this haunted chamber despite a picture-window view onto a sunny suburban forest.

The document before him was an OSS employment form that Gordon had filled out on October 5, 1943. To Nat’s surprise, it included code names, countersigns, and secret ID numbers, hardly what you’d expect to find on a job application for a clerk or translator. The line that had just spoken to Nat was on the “Agent’s Check List,” an item that asked the applicant to provide a “Question and Answer by which agent may identify himself to collaborators.”

Gordon had offered this: “Q. Where did you have dinner the last evening you were in Washington, D.C.? A: The Metropolitan Club.” It was an eerie echo of his jailhouse exchange with the paramedic two mornings ago. Faced with death, the stricken Gordon Wolfe had journeyed back in time to his first day on the job as a spy.

For Nat, this was the thrilling beauty of research—an addictive power to commune with the dead. Better than a Ouija board, this stuff.

“See this?” he whispered, sliding the paper toward Berta.

She read it, nodded, then turned back to her own work. It was already apparent that only a reference to the White Rose or Kurt Bauer would get a rise out of her. Well, tough luck, because Nat was determined to build a new dossier on Gordon as part of their quest.

Nat was no stranger to declassified OSS archives, but his previous work had focused on OSS contacts with the German resistance. This time he was venturing into less-familiar territory, so he had sought out archivist Bill Staley, a genial old gnome who had been guiding prospectors into these shadowy mine shafts for decades. Staley knew not only where the gold was but also who had buried it, and with what brand of shovel.

“Young Turnbull,” Staley said, greeting him in the reference room. “Welcome back.”

Nat turned to introduce Berta, but she was gone. The latest in a series of antisocial moments since their arrival downstairs.

“Sorry to hear about Gordon. I saw his obituary in this morning’s
Post
.”

The
New York Times
had also run a story. Mercifully, neither mentioned Gordon’s alleged thievery or the fact that he had died in jail, although the
Times
did refer to the brouhaha over his embellished military record. Holland must have worked overtime to keep a lid on things, and Nat wondered why.

Surely if Berta’s source at the archives had heard about the arrest, then Staley must have, too. But the man’s face betrayed no hint of recognition, only the doleful mien of someone who has endured yet another death of a valued contemporary. The ranks were thinning fast for the wartime crowd.

“I’m here because of Gordon,” Nat said. “I’m looking for materials from his OSS days.” Realizing that sounded awkward with the man not even buried, he added, “I’m speaking at his memorial service. Thought I might fill in a few blanks.”

“I don’t know much about his work in Bern. Mostly clerical, I think. Only person to ever show any interest was some college kid about a year ago. Foreign exchange student. Not sure if she came up with anything. Wouldn’t have anything to do with me once I pointed her in the right direction.”

Probably Berta. No wonder she was laying low. It would also explain her lack of enthusiasm for this track of research. But why hadn’t she shared her results—or lack of them—rather than letting him waste time covering the same ground?

Staley first checked the finding aids, thick volumes cross-referenced by name, place, and subject. None listed a single mention of “Wolfe, Gordon.”

“Could he have had a code name?” Nat asked.

“Doubt it. But we can check the OSS master list.”

That search also came up empty. Nat was on the verge of moving to the next topic when Staley raised a finger.

“We got a new batch of declassified material a few weeks ago. Those always yield a few new identities. It’s still indexed under CIA numbers, but I’d be happy to check.”

“Lead the way.”

That was where they struck gold, taking even Staley by surprise. On a list of seven previously undisclosed code names, “Icarus” turned up next to Gordon’s name.

“I’ll be damned,” Nat said. “Wonder why they took so long to declassify that?”

“Bottom of the pile?”

“You really think it’s that simple?”

“No.” Staley smiled. “But it’s what they’d want me to say.”

With the new point of reference, fresh leads were suddenly abundant, including the Icarus personnel file. It, too, was part of the new batch of material, meaning that probably few, if any, historians had seen it.

Nat and Berta filled out requests for the materials they wanted, and a young librarian hauled out a pair of squeaking pushcarts piled with narrow gray boxes, just like the four that had turned up in Gordon’s summer home. Berta and he set up their cameras and tripods on adjoining desks and hunkered down.

The Icarus file held Gordon’s employment form, the one with the reference to the Metropolitan Club. A stack of attached memos offered the flavor of Gordon’s earliest assignments.

Routine stuff, mostly. Dulles sent him to meet with a shadowy young emigre from France who was offering information in exchange for passage to the United States. Gordon’s report concluded the fellow was a con man.

“Agreed,” Dulles scribbled in the margin, initialing it with his trademark “AWD.”

Some assignments came to Icarus via Zurich operative Frederick Loofbourow, an interesting fellow in his own right. A U.S. commercial attache on leave from an executive job with Standard Oil, Loofbourow was right out of the Dulles mold of gentleman spy, with posh digs on the Zurich waterfront.

Nat then came across a memo dated October 29, 1943, which stopped him cold. By that time, Nat knew, Dulles had been preoccupied with his new star source—German diplomat Fritz Kolbe, alias George Wood, the fellow who had taped all those stolen documents around his thigh. Thanks to Kolbe, for example, Dulles knew well in advance about the ill-fated July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. To clear the board for meetings with Kolbe, Dulles pawned off some of his lesser sources to other operatives, including Icarus. And one of those sources was Reinhold von Bauer, Kurt Bauer’s father.

“Henceforth, 543 to handle Magneto,” Nat read. He recognized Bauer’s code name from the stolen files he had reviewed for the FBI.

Gordon, as operative 543, didn’t seem impressed by what Magneto had to offer.

“Magneto continues to insist on relocation to Switzerland,” Gordon wrote. “I repeated your insistence that he is far more valuable to us in Berlin. Claims family is under pressure from personal circumstances, but would not elaborate. Said his son can also help us. Told him I would await your advisement.”

“Cannot meet him at present,” Dulles replied. “Stick to your guns. AWD.”

A promising lead. But when Nat turned the page the trail went cold. Staring up at him was a canary-colored sheet of cardboard with the words “Withdrawal Notice, Access Restricted.” Below, in smaller print, was the usual boilerplate: “Now Filed in CIA Job No. 79-003317B. Four items have been withdrawn because they contain security classified information or otherwise restricted information.”

The withdrawal was dated three weeks ago, the very day the rest of these materials had become public. Someone had gotten cold feet at the last second. Holland? Although the FBI and the CIA still weren’t exactly pals, maybe the Agency had asked for some last-minute sanitizing. And that made Nat think of Steve Wallace, a CIA archivist he had met years ago at a history seminar. Wallace, a decent source if used sparingly never revealed classified information. But he sometimes nudged you in the direction of other materials, already public, that gave you what you needed. Nat opened his laptop to shoot Wallace an e-mail. Then he showed Berta the withdrawal notice.

“I’m finding those, too,” she said with a frown. “But look at this.”

She handed him a tattered clothbound notebook with the letters “H-P” inked on the spine. It was a Dulles logbook, stuffed with detailed alphabetical listings for his sources and contributors. “Magneto” had his own page of dated, typewritten notations.

Nat had been through that very logbook years earlier. But at the time he hadn’t known Magneto’s identity. No one else would have either, unless they’d had access to the information in the stolen boxes that had turned up at Gordon’s.

Nat read the first paragraph, which included a boldfaced addition:

Source Magneto is a German businessman with excellent connections in France, Germany, and Switzerland. Resourceful, intelligent, hitherto reliable. Source’s son connected with the German underground
.

“And look on the very next page,” Berta said.

It was headed “Magneto II.” It began with a physical description from an interesting source:

Would put his height at 511,” full head of hair clipped short and brown. Typical Prussian features, well built although reduced by recent privations. Eyes wide apart, blue-gray, frank in expression. Unworldly but has acquired ease in conversation through his recent travels. Shape of head oval, ears medium but stand out slightly from head. (Icarus, 05/24/44)

“You think Magneto II is Kurt?” Nat said.

“Has to be.”

The logbook contained only two other citations for Magneto II. The first, a bit ominous in its abruptness, was dated only three months before Germany surrendered:

Relationship terminated. (02/10/45)

The last entry was dated five months after the surrender. Dulles wrote it the week he departed occupied Germany to return for good to the United States:

Magneto II file to storage. To be transferred to 109. (10/8/45)

Nat didn’t need to look up code number 109. It belonged to William “Wild Bill” Donovan, chief of the OSS. Whatever information the agency had collected on Kurt Bauer, someone had decided it needed special handling by the nation’s reigning spymaster once the war was over. Unless, of course, the file never made it to Donovan.

“I’m betting that a Magneto II dossier is one of the four missing folders,” Nat said.

“My thoughts, too.”

“We should make copies,” he said. “But we’ll need a permission tab.”

“I’ll get one,” Berta said.

Nat turned next to Gordon’s expense filings. There were a few surprises. The first was that he had stayed at the Bellevue Palace during his first three nights in Bern. It was the city’s finest hotel. Yet another indicator that Dulles had expected great things. During his first week of employment Gordon bought a bicycle license and a monthly rail pass, which gave him some mobility. In January 1944 he moved up to the next level, so to speak, by purchasing a 1937 Ford Tudor sedan for 3,500 Swiss francs and splitting a monthly gasoline ration with two other operatives. He also bought one of the requisite tools of the World War II spy trade, a Minox miniature camera.

But it was the last page that produced the most astonishing item. In December 1944 Gordon bought a Walther .38-caliber pistol and ammunition, for 201.65. The seller was the W Glaser Waffen Shop, Lowenstrasse 42, Zurich. Nat recognized the name and address from the box Gordon had left him. Where was the gun now, he wondered? And why had Gordon needed one in peaceful old Bern?

Oddly, that was the final expense report in the file, even though Gordon had kept on working for Dulles for another five months of the war, plus several months afterward in occupied Germany. Had the other vouchers been lost? Removed? Moments later Nat happened upon another possible explanation, in a Loofbourow memo from April 30, 1945, the date of Adolf Hitler’s suicide: “543 has been moved to Mrs. Carroll’s house on Seestrasse. In light of Fleece, I see no further need for his immediate services.”

Was Fleece a source or an operation? Or perhaps something else altogether? Nat looked around for Berta to ask if she had seen any such reference, but she was still getting authorization to make copies. He checked the finding aids with Staley, who had never come across the term. There was no reference anywhere to “Fleece.”

He did find another mention of the “Mrs. Carroll” on Seestrasse, in a message from Dulles to Loofbourow from several years earlier: “Go ahead and rent the space in Zurich from Mrs. Carroll for use in case an agent is ‘traveling black.’”

In other words, the address was a safe house. Meaning they had put Gordon under wraps during the final days of the war. Strange. Switzerland hadn’t been a place where lives were often at risk.

Nat’s thoughts were interrupted by a woman’s shout from across the room.

“Come back here! Turn around!”

He looked up to see one of the librarians pursuing Berta, who was walking briskly toward the exit. The librarian, a tall woman with long arms toned by years of hauling boxes, broke into a run and clapped a hand on Berta’s shoulder. The reading room, normally cloaked in contemplative silence, was instantly abuzz.

“I knew it was you!” the librarian shouted. Nat stood up just as Berta looked toward him, face forlorn. She ducked a shoulder to free herself, but the woman held on.

“Security!” the librarian shouted. “Someone call a guard!”

“Don’t touch me!” Berta shouted, yanking back as the woman held firm. Nat bounded toward them. The librarian’s fingers were making white marks on Berta’s skin. Researchers in every corner stood to get a better view. Others drifted closer like kids toward a schoolyard brawl. Forget the dead voices of history—this was live action.