The Arms Maker of Berlin (15 page)

A security guard hustled into view, keys and handcuffs jangling.

“This one’s a thief,” the librarian said, finally releasing her grip. “Caught her in the act a few weeks ago, and now she’s back. Please escort her from the building, but search her first. Strip her if you have to.”

“Hold it, now,” Nat said. “I can vouch for her.”

“Should I call PG County police?” the guard asked, ignoring Nat.

“Not if she’s clean. Just take her card and kick her out. In fact, take her card now.”

Berta grudgingly handed over her ID and looked sheepishly toward Nat as the librarian read aloud the name.

” ‘Christa Larkin.’ No wonder you got in. The real name’s Berta something, isn’t it?”

So that’s why she had been keeping her head down. Yet even now her expression was more defiant than shamed.

“I’ll meet you out front,” she said to Nat. He nodded, dumbfounded.

“Not out front,” the librarian said. “You’re leaving the property entirely.”

Nat wanted to challenge that, but the crowd of gawkers had grown, so he watched in silence as the guard led Berta away. Nat waited for the crowd to break up before following the librarian back to the service counter. The Icarus personnel file was still in his right hand.

“Could I have a word?” he said in a low voice. The tall woman abruptly looked up.

“Aren’t you Dr. Turnbull? I’m surprised you’re keeping such disreputable company.”

“Look,” Nat whispered—heads were already turning—”I don’t know what went on before, but I can assure you she wasn’t here today to steal anything.”

“Sure she wasn’t. Why else use a fake ID. Last time she tried to take an entire folder.”

“Maybe it got mixed in with her papers.”

“It was stuffed beneath her blouse, tucked in her jeans. She would have made it, too, if the guard downstairs hadn’t been staring at her boobs. He saw the green cardboard between her buttons.”

“A whole folder?” Her words had knocked the wind out of him.

“Just like the one you’re holding. In fact—”

Her mouth dropped open.

“This one?” he asked.

“For ‘Icarus.’ Yes. It had just been declassified.”

No wonder Berta had been so dismissive of his findings. She’d already seen them. But why steal a file that you could copy? To sell it? Possibly. Or maybe she wanted to make sure no one else ever saw it.

“I should probably take that off your hands, sir,” the librarian said.

“I, uh, need to make some copies first,” he said weakly. Fortunately she nodded.

He headed to his desk before she could change her mind. It now seemed important to get as much done today as possible. By tomorrow who knows what sort of orders would have come down from the archival overlords. He was now guilty by association.

As it turned out, though, the only item of interest for the rest of the day came not in a folder but in an e-mail message from CIA archivist Steve Wallace, who replied to Nat’s earlier request:

“Hi, Nat. Job No. 79-003317B currently too hot to touch. Sorry. As for the four items which I understand you have already seen, I may soon have further info, but only if you’re willing to swap. Watch this space.”

So Steve knew all about the boxes found in the Adirondacks and wanted to arrange a quid pro quo. Nat could live with that. It sounded like there might be high-level disagreement over the handling of these materials, and he wondered why.

H
E FOUND
B
ERTA WAITING
in the shade of the bus shelter on Adel-phi Drive, well off the premises. She began talking before Nat was even within twenty yards. Perhaps she saw the look in his eye, the one that said this had better be damned good or you’re finished.

“It was all a stupid mistake. I was in too much of a hurry that day. I was desperate.”

“Obviously.”

“My camera was broken, the copy machines were tied up, the place was closing in ten minutes, and I had to catch a flight. I didn’t even have a chance to see if anything was worth copying. My grant was running out and the whole trip was crashing. It was stupid, all right? I was going to mail it back once I made copies. But it wasn’t like there was anything worthwhile. You saw how I reacted when you showed me. I couldn’t care less.”

“Finished?”

She nodded.

“Of course you couldn’t care less, because you’d already seen it. And if it’s so unimportant, then why did you try to make sure no one else would ever see it?”

“It wasn’t like that. I told you.”

“Yes, but you’re a liar.”

Her face creased and she began to cry. He had expected that, but was nonetheless unprepared. Because all of it—her embarrassment, her shame, and now her sorrow—seemed genuine. Maybe her lame explanation was at least partially true. He’d certainly heard sillier tales of misconduct. Researchers did strange things while caught in the grip of gold fever, especially when facing the cruel limitations of closing hours and dwindling grants. Even so, pulling a stunt like that at the National Archives was on another level. It was a place where you were monitored not only by tigress librarians but also by surveillance cameras. You weren’t even allowed to wear a sweater or overcoat, or bring in a bag or briefcase. Every piece of paper from the outside was stamped and inspected upon entering
and
leaving. Berta’s actions bordered on professional insanity.

“If you don’t believe me, I understand.” She wiped away the tears. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“How’d you get the new ID?”

She fumbled in her bag and showed him a fake New Jersey driver’s license. Christa Larkin, of Hackensack.

“When I came here last week I went to the security station and had them make me a new ID, like I was visiting for the first time. Then all I had to do was avoid that bitch who’d nailed me before.”

Nat would have liked to check the date of her new archives ID to at least verify that part of her story, but the librarian had confiscated it.

“You’ve seen how obsessive I get,” she said. “It always rubs people the wrong way.”

“I know. It’s a disease. I’ve had it myself.”

“Let me know if you ever find a cure.”

For the first time in days she offered the beginnings of a smile, then quickly shut it down, receding back into the role of uber-Berta.

“Well, I do know this,” Nat said. “Another screwup like this and we’re finished.”

“I’ll prove myself. And I am still in good standing with the archives we’ll need to check in Bern and Berlin.”

“Whoa now. We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

“Not really, no. Look, I’ll show you.”

He half expected her to produce a stolen document from her blouse. Instead, she retrieved her camera and found an image for him.

“It’s a memo, newly declassified, from a Swiss source to the OSS. He was feeding them information on the local flatfoots.”

The “flatfoots” were the Swiss operatives who kept tabs on Allied and Axis spies. By war’s end, the Swiss had arrested more than a thousand people on espionage charges. The memo Berta had found—to Loofbourow in Zurich in December 1944—said that operative Icarus and source Magneto II had drawn increased Swiss scrutiny due to a recent flurry of clandestine meetings. Their local shadows were then mentioned by name in hopes that
no
(Dulles) could persuade the Swiss to back off, especially with the war winding down. So there it was, further evidence linking Gordon Wolfe and Kurt Bauer. The names of the Swiss operatives were Gustav Molden and Lutz Visser.

“Molden’s and Visser’s surveillance reports might be in the State Archives in Bern,” Berta said. “I have a source there. And Molden is alive.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I had to do
something
while I was waiting. So I went online with a wireless connection and found a Gustav Molden, age eighty-eight. He lives within blocks of where he was working during the war. The age is right, and he’s the only Gustav Molden in Bern.”

Yes, she was beyond help all right. Banished to a bus bench and she had kept right on working. And with impressive results, no less.

“Switzerland, then. Okay, I can buy that. But why Berlin?”

“Martin Gollner.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Remember when I said in the Adirondacks that I had a few names for you? He’s one of them. He was Gestapo, a junior investigator. During the war he interrogated Kurt Bauer. I’d like to know what was said, wouldn’t you?”

Nat spent all of five seconds deliberating.

“I’ll finish up here tomorrow,” he said, “while you pursue more overseas leads. The memorial service is in Wightman on Wednesday. Can you leave that night for Bern?”

“Do I look like I have anything else to do?”

“Maybe we should we try reaching Molden and Gollner, set up an interview.”

She shook her head.

“A call could scare them off. We should just show up.”

Obviously she, too, had experience in tracking ghosts. Best to sneak up on them whenever possible, an approach that Gordon Wolfe had always favored.

Nat then heard a faint echo of Gordon’s voice inside his head, laughing lightly and offering encouragement. Death had done wonders for the old boy’s disposition. He hadn’t sounded this welcoming in ages.

FOURTEEN

Berlin—Thursday, December 10, 1942

K
URT BAUER NO LONGER RODE
his bicycle past Liesl’s house each and every day, pinging his bell in hopes she would appear at the window. Fifteen tries without a response finally convinced him he was a making a lovesick fool of himself, and as weeks turned to months he avoided her side of town altogether, not even venturing into the Grunewald.

But one evening toward sunset eleven months later, with the anniversary of their breakup approaching, he found himself exiting the Krumme Lanke U-Bahn stop with his bicycle. As if drawn by a homing beacon, he began pedaling hypnotically toward the quaint little house on Alsbacherweg. He had no clear plan in mind. He knew only that he had to return to the scene. So on he rode even as his hands grew numb.

Pale light cast long shadows across the small lawn, and he braked to a stop as if facing a shrine. Looking up to her window, he flexed his left thumb to flick the tiny bell. Once, twice, a third time. Then he waited, breath huffing like steam from an idling locomotive.

Was it his imagination, or had the curtain twitched? He watched until his eyes hurt from the cold, but nothing budged. Finally he turned and pedaled away, slower now, but still with a sense of mission. He crossed the frozen ground of leafy woodland trails for twenty minutes until he reached the sand beach of the Wannsee.

Kurt stared across the chop toward the far horizon, where a pale band of orange lined the treetops in the last light of dusk. You couldn’t see the Stuckart villa from here, so he settled for the nearest familiar landmark—the conference house where Erich’s father had gone that day for the big meeting. Kurt now viewed it as a symbol of his failure—of that terrible moment when his nerve had faltered and Liesl’s had exceeded the bounds of common sense. So many things he should have done differently.

Fortunately no harm had come to Liesl as the result of her reckless remarks, although the elder Stuckart had looked into the matter further the following morning. He had then passed along his findings to Reinhard Bauer, father to father. Kurt’s dad took him aside that night after dinner.

“Herr Stuckart told me of this foolishness with that Folkerts girl you’re seeing. Are you sure you’re quite sane, spending time with people like her?”

“What of it?” Kurt answered, not wanting to admit she had rejected him.

“What
of
it? Well, seeing as how you only seem capable of thinking of yourself, go ahead and forget for a moment what this could have meant for your family, or for our future livelihood. Do you realize what can happen to people who say things like that, and, in turn, to all of their friends?”

Kurt stared at the floor, unwilling to even nod. The pain Liesl had inflicted still hurt more than anything his father could dish out.

“Well, do you?”

“Yes,” Kurt said without looking up.

“They line you up and shoot you, or drop you from a gallows. Or maybe they lop off your head. Not that you get to choose. And first, of course, they take you down to the cellar on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, where they do God knows what so that you’ll tell them whatever they want to hear. That is why I want you to stay away from people like the Folkerts girl, who, by the way, according to Stuckart’s sources, also spends her Sunday afternoons meeting with friends at that renegade Pastor Bonhoeffer’s house. Or did you, perhaps, already know this?”

Kurt kept his head down.

“As I suspected. You are even more foolish than I thought. That is why I’m making this more than a request or a plea. It is an order. Understand? You will no longer see this girl. For the sake of all of us.”

Kurt looked up abruptly.

“You needn’t worry,” he said in disgust. “She refuses to see me anymore.”

His father’s look of relief was infuriating, and Kurt was only enraged further by the hypocrisy of his father’s next words.

“She was right, of course. That’s why it was so dangerous for her to say it. The war is lost. Any fool can see it.”

Then, as if to make it clear he wasn’t faulting the current leadership, or the German national character, Reinhard Bauer proceeded to analyze the situation from the point of view of an industrialist. Perhaps he saw it as another opportunity to further his son’s education, because he then took out pencil and paper and began toting up precise columns of numbers. Production quotas and available raw materials. Shortages across the board. Here was the reason Germany could no longer win, he said. Because they could no longer outproduce the American and Russian makers of guns, planes, and ammo.

“Do you remember all those men who came here from America during the Olympic Games?” he asked.

Kurt nodded, holding his tongue. The Bauer companies had thrown a reception in 1936 for a delegation of manufacturing tycoons from the American heartland. At the time, Berlin had been putting its best face forward for a skeptical world. Every street was clean. Bums and ne’er-do-wells were swept from view. The Americans, to a man, had spoken enviously of the orderly nature of the new regime. No unions, no strikers, and no one stirring up the rabble. Everything worked, and everything ran on time. FDR could learn a thing or two from Hitler, they gushed.

But now those same men were working overtime to make sure Berlin was reduced to cinders, so of course defeat was inevitable.

“What that means, Kurt, is that if you really want to go running around with young girls who insist on speaking their mind, then all you have to do is wait. Because it will only be a matter of years, or even months, before the fighting will end. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

He then stormed upstairs to his books and phonograph records, and refused to accompany his father to a reception at the home of a Siemens executive.

As the months passed, Kurt kept expecting the pain to fade. He had always recovered quickly from such things before. But he couldn’t shake his deep sense of loss over Liesl. Nor did it help that he sometimes glimpsed her at the university. Once he called out her name, but she didn’t even glance back. Now, with winter returning, the pain of estrangement was as fresh as ever.

Other aspects of his life, on the other hand, were only getting more complicated. His biggest worry was that he might soon be a soldier. He had just turned seventeen. As Erich’s father had predicted, there was talk of lowering the age of conscription. With an entire army surrounded at Stalingrad, it seemed likely any day.

In addition, a pall of worry had fallen over the Bauer household. Manfred hadn’t been heard from in weeks on the eastern front, and there was a new cloud over his sister Traudl’s prospects for marriage. Two grim fellows from the SS Racial Office had visited ages ago to collect family genealogical information. They were supposed to have completed their background check in three months. But it had now been eleven months, and the case was still on hold due to unspecified complications. Reinhard refused to discuss it, and Kurt’s mother grew deathly silent every time Traudl brought it up. The would-be bride, at least, was making the most of the delay, by hoarding enough fabric coupons for their seamstress to make the grandest possible dress. And she never had to fret about the safety of her prospective groom. Bruno Scharf had been posted to the coast of France, and his letters spoke glowingly of a farmhouse billet with fresh eggs and a cellar full of wine.

But the strangest and most troubling development had come to Kurt’s attention that very morning, when his father had again taken him aside for a chat. Reinhard had returned the previous night from a visit to some of their suppliers in Switzerland, where the family had a factory near Bern.

Kurt shut the door behind him as his father instructed, figuring he was about to be subjected to a rehash of Reinhard’s efforts to ensure speedier and more bountiful deliveries. It soon became clear that something more momentous was in the works. At first the elder Bauer did nothing but pace. When he finally came to rest in his desk chair, his face was ashen.

“Kurt, the things I am about to tell you must not pass beyond these walls. Not to anyone, under any circumstances. Not even your mother is to know. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You must promise.”

“I promise.”

Reinhard took a deep breath and planted his hands on his knees.

“Do you remember a man I once brought to the house to introduce to your brother, an investment banker, Gero von Gaevernitz?”

“Vaguely. Wasn’t his father some kind of professor?”

“Yes. Years earlier, but correct.”

An indistinct image of a handsome—even dashing—fellow in a double-breasted suit with short, wavy hair came fleetingly to mind. His mother had been charmed by the man, but he remembered little else. In those carefree days Kurt hadn’t been expected to pay attention to such callers, so he hadn’t.

“Well, he’s in Switzerland now, and I am afraid he is not a supporter of our current government. But he is nonetheless a useful man among the Germans there, and last night I met with him. Or, rather, I met with one of his representatives.”

“He is in business there?”

“No. Well, yes. It’s rather more complicated than that. I suppose the polite term for his new line of work would be that he is an information broker. He collects bits and pieces, makes introductions for his clients, that sort of thing.”

“Who are his clients?”

Reinhard cleared his throat and smoothed a wrinkle on his trousers.

“The Americans, mostly. Or exclusively, perhaps.”

Kurt was shocked.

“So he is in the intelligence business. A spy. And you met with him?”

“With his representative.”

“Does that really make a difference?”

“No. Not if anyone here ever found out.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because I plan to see him again, next time I go back. This time it will be Gero himself. And at some point, if you’re not sent off to war, I’m hoping that you may also have a chance to meet him. Assuming, of course, that I can arrange a travel pass, so that you can accompany me across the border.”

For a man who had been so appalled by Liesl’s mere words, this news was beyond astounding.

“Dad, what exactly are you saying?”

“That I have begun planning for our future. The family’s. The company’s. And, frankly, the Fatherland’s. These people running our country now …” He paused, fully aware that he had entered uncharted waters. “Well, I think we all know they’re not going to survive much longer. When the war ends, they’ll be gone. The Allies will insist. And when that happens, we’re going to want—need—friends among the Allies. People we can talk to, and who might be willing to trust us. The Russians? Forget it, unless you’re a Bolshevik. The Americans are our hope. Those men you met during the Olympic Games, people like them. And people like Gaevernitz, who, by the way, is a dual citizen. He’s American, too.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He wasn’t exactly advertising it back then. But it’s why he fled the country, about a year ago.”

“And he’s spying now for the Americans?”

Kurt’s father winced at the word, but he nodded.

“My long-term goal is to meet with Gero’s boss, although some elaborate arrangements may be required. If I do, I will try to reach some sort of understanding. For later.”

“What sort of elaborate arrangements?”

“Middlemen. Secure locations. Evidently these things are quite complex. They have to be, I suppose, because the Gestapo and the Abwehr have people all over Bern as well. You see them in rail stations, hotel lobbies. All types from all sides, right there together. It takes some getting used to, I must say. You can’t just meet people out in the open.”

“And when you have this meeting, what sort of things will you tell them that a spy would want to know?”

Another wince.

“I can assure you it would be nothing you would ever be ashamed of, or that would place anyone’s life in danger. Just my impressions on how things are going here. Information on industrial production. What we have lots of, what we lack. Morale, the state of our workforce. Transportation issues.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“In case something happens to me. If I was unable to return across the border, or was detained, then you will know where you must try to go, and who you must contact.”

“Gaevernitz?”

“Or his boss, in Bern. An American named Allen Dulles. He arrived only a month ago, but he is reputed to be the personal representative of President Roosevelt. He has taken up residence in the city center, at 23 Herrengasse. I want you to remember that address. Can you?”

“23 Herrengasse. Allen Dulles.”

“Very good. But repeat it to no one. Not as long as you are on German soil, and certainly never to anyone in Berlin.”

“Of course.”

“And, Kurt?”

“Yes.”

“You should also know that I have been contemplating this kind of action for quite a while. It is one reason I was so appalled last year when I heard about the remarks made by that Folkerts girl. Now that I have chosen this path, we must remain above suspicion in every possible way. So I certainly hope that you have had no further contact with her.”

“No, sir,” he said dolefully. “I have not seen her at all.”

“And what about her circle of friends? I’m told the Gestapo has put a guard outside that fellow Bonhoeffer’s house, so I doubt anyone in his right mind goes there anymore.”

Kurt was aghast, but tried not to show it.

“No. She’s the only reason I ever saw any of them.”

“Good. Because this is not a game, Kurt, especially with the war going so badly. Many Germans will be trying to arrange the same sort of accommodations, and the authorities know it. Take great care in what you say and who you are seen with. Mere words are no longer worth taking a risk for. Mere words will not bring an end to our current disastrous situation. Actions, on the other hand, can make a difference, and may help build a better future. That is why I have made my choice. It is why you must be prepared to fill my shoes, if necessary. For the sake of our family.”