The Arms Maker of Berlin (23 page)

Nat lengthened his stride and lowered his head, going all out. By then he could hear labored breathing—closing, closing. A hand fell on his shoulder, and he cried out as the grip spun him around. They lost balance. Nat landed on his rump, his pursuer atop him. They grappled clumsily. Nat, in a panic, saw a stubbled face, dark eyes leering eagerly, the sharp scent of sweat and cologne. He tried rolling free, but a huge hand pinned his chest, and a second thrust forward with a flash of metal lit by the streetlamp.

He wrenched sideways just enough to avoid a blow to the chest, but the blade tore his sleeve and sliced open his forearm, a line of heat. The attacker again raised the knife just as light exploded from a nearby hedge with a bright yellow flash and an unearthly bark—once, twice. His attacker cried out and fell away onto the sidewalk, gurgling as if he were choking. Nat scuttled crablike into the dewy grass, palms against pine needles.

Just as a sense of deliverance was sinking in, another set of hands clamped his shoulders, and a gruff voice whispered in Berliner German, “Don’t make a move,” while a second man gripped his forearms and pulled him roughly to his feet.

“What’s happening?”

“Quiet! Stay still!” The grip around his arms tightened.

Both men were dressed in dark clothes. Two more rushed forward from the shadows, one of them holstering a pistol in his jacket. All four wore gloves. Down on the sidewalk, his attacker lay still in a spreading pool of blood.

Seemingly from nowhere, a black Mercedes pulled to the curb with its lights off, followed closely by a second. The man behind him briskly patted Nat down from head to toe. The doors of the first car opened and the driver rasped, “Put him in. Let’s go.”

“Will someone just tell me what the hell’s going on?” Nat shouted.

The man behind him clamped a gloved palm over Nat’s mouth.

“Not another word!” he whispered harshly. “Get in the car. No struggling unless you want to end up like the other one.” He twisted Nat’s arm to show he meant business.

“Ow! Easy!”

They shoved him onto the backseat and piled in after him.

“Where are you taking me? Are you the police?”

“No questions.”

The driver started the engine, still no headlights. Nat twisted around for a view through the smoked windows and saw the body being loaded into the second car while someone else sluiced water onto the sidewalk to wash away the blood.

The whole thing had lasted no more than a minute or two, and the manpower and hardware employed were, in themselves, impressive—eight men in dark clothes and gloves, two unmarked cars, a gun with a silencer. Result: one man dead, a second captured, both wiped from the scene like fingerprints from a doorknob.

The car pulled away smoothly. He was flanked on both sides, and there were two men up front. No one said a word. By now Nat assumed that the initial assailant must have been a member of Holland’s “competition,” meaning he was from Iran or Syria. If so, then who were these people? And why the need for so much tidiness? More to the point, who would be capable of orchestrating it?

The answer seemed obvious. The same sort of fellow who could illegally obtain a Stasi file, of course. Kurt Bauer. No wonder the scene had unfolded with such industrial precision. Build a better shaver. Construct a neater abduction. It was all in the engineering.

After a block the driver switched on the headlights. The other car wasn’t following. Maybe Nat was going to be all right. He took a deep breath and realized he was shaking.

“Can someone tell me where we’re going?”

“Take care of him!” the driver barked, and before Nat could respond a hood came down over his head. A drawstring was cinched tight at the neck, and the darkness was complete. When he reached up to loosen it, someone slapped his hands away.

“Cuffs!” the driver said.

They wrenched his wrists behind him and tightly clamped a pair of handcuffs on them.

“C’mon! What is this?”

No one answered.

His breath was warm against the heavy fabric, which smelled of panic and old sweat. Nothing like the stench of fear to set your mind at ease. He thought of Karen, and how he should have called her earlier, and he wondered how long before he would talk to her again, if ever. She might even be meeting the same fate. Maybe these people were rounding up everyone, everywhere. If only he had stayed in contact with Holland, perhaps none of this would have happened. Fear and panic made him shout again.

“Where are you taking me!” He was embarrassed by the strangled tone, so he repeated it, this time trying to master his emotions. “I said, where are you taking me?”

Still nothing. Just the maddening hum of German engineering in full trim as the Mercedes leaned into a curve, purring like a great cat that has eaten its fill. He spent a few seconds trying to calm down, wondering how he might free himself. Fat chance, with all these people around him. For a while he tried to keep track of their course, but he had already lost count of the turns, and the hood kept him from even detecting the strobe of passing streetlamps. His arm stung, and blood was seeping onto his torn sleeve.

The driver swung the wheel sharply left, and the engine echoed as if they had just entered a tunnel. Nat’s stomach told him they were plunging downhill, below street level. The springs sagged as they hit a speed bump and went deeper into a series of right turns—three, four, five, then more for at least a minute longer until they stopped.

By then they must have been several stories underground, and when a door opened he detected the bunkerlike smell of damp concrete. The engine shut off. More doors opened. Whatever they were planning to do, he sensed it was about to happen.

“Get him out,” a voice said sternly from outside the car. “Quickly.”

Maybe they would take off the hood and all would be revealed. Bauer himself would be there, seated in a big swivel chair like some caricature of a tycoon gone mad. He would puff a cigar and scold Nat for reckless research. Then he would hand over a folder of forged documents, his version of setting the record straight, and the thugs would unlock the cuffs and send Nat on his way, chastened but intact.

But no. The hood stayed on. His assailants gripped him tightly as they climbed from the car.

“Bring him here,” the voice commanded. “This is where we get rid of him.”

Not at all what he wanted to hear. Yet, for all his dread and panic and thundering pulse, part of him wasn’t a bit surprised. Hadn’t he predicted as much for years, in class after class, albeit with a glibness totally inappropriate to the current moment? And as the men yanked him forward, Nat’s own words returned to him like a prophetic taunt:

“History plays for keeps, and so do I.”

TWENTY-ONE

Berlin—February 18, 1943

T
HE SHRILL CRY
of a police whistle pursued them down Uhlandstrasse. Thank God for the blackout, or they would have been easy prey as they ran down the sidewalk.

“There’s a U-Bahn station coming up,” Kurt hissed in the dark Liesl and Hannelore were barely keeping pace. They rounded the corner and half stumbled down the steps of the station as the whistle sounded again.

“Hurry!” Liesl shouted.

Hannelore, predictably, had fallen farther behind, but when they reached the platform Kurt saw that luck was with them. A train lay waiting, rumbling like an animal ready to pounce. They clambered aboard just as a harsh voice shouted from the stairway.

“Halt! Polizei!”

Luckily, the subway driver either didn’t hear or was more worried about his timetable, because the doors jolted shut and the train lurched forward. With a rising moan it was soon hurtling into the tunnel. Kurt saw a fleeting image of a huffing policeman arriving on the platform with two black-clad Gestapo officers in his wake. Then, darkness, and the empty clatter of the tracks. He exhaled loudly and sagged forward in his seat. Sweat dripped from his nose onto the slatted wooden floor. His body stank, but so did everyone else’s these days. Between the ban on weekday bathing and the shortage of decent soap, every railcar smelled like a sweatshop.

Kurt looked across the aisle. Hannelore had of course taken the seat next to Liesl. Lately, Kurt and Hannelore seemed to be competing every day for Liesl’s time and attention. But at the moment he was angrier at Hannelore’s slowness.

The occasion for their close call was the fourth meeting of the Berlin White Rose. It was supposed to have been the first meeting to produce tangible results. Kurt had finally been able to steal a boxful of paper from his father’s offices. Eight full reams—four thousand sheets in all. Given the regime’s mania over seditious literature, a cache like that was as valuable as diamonds.

White Rose pamphlets out of Munich had been spreading across the country in recent weeks, and the local Gestapo was in a frenzy to keep the material out of Berlin. Anti-Nazi graffiti that appeared by night was gone by morning. Their group had decided that only an explosion of locally produced pamphlets could overcome such diligence.

Helmut Hartert had drafted their first message and was standing by with his printing press. The fourth meeting had been called to vote on the final wording. Then Kurt was supposed to hand over the paper so that the printing could begin.

He had lugged his precious cargo up five flights of stairs to the site—an empty loft above an exclusive dress shop. Christoph Klemm had chosen the place after a week of scouting. The shop, owned by his uncle, had been shuttered by the Propaganda Ministry after Goebbels deemed luxury items an affront to the long-suffering troops.

It was a relief to get rid of the paper, especially after the risks Kurt had taken to acquire it—swiping his father’s keys from a pants pocket long enough to make a wax impression, getting a set of copies made by a shady old Bolshevik in a Kreuzberg tenement, dodging the night watchman and his snarling dog, lugging the damn box through the dark along the rat-infested wharves of the Hohenzollern Canal, and, finally, hauling the dangerous cargo to the meeting aboard the S-Bahn.

But now it had come to nothing. The meeting had been under way for only half an hour when the excitable Dieter, posted as a rooftop lookout, cried out from above:

“Polizei! Five of them, and they’re coming up!”

Fortunately, Christoph had devised elaborate contingency plans for just such an emergency, although the box of precious paper had to be abandoned. They climbed to the roof to make a breathtaking crossing of the back alley to a neighboring building, on a span of stout but wobbly beams. To Kurt, the blackness below seemed bottomless, especially with the cold wind rushing up his trouser legs. He was surprised no one fell.

Christoph then pulled in the planks behind them while everyone clambered down the stairs of the rear building. This allowed them to emerge into the streets one block over from where the cops were still trudging upstairs and shouting orders.

They scattered in twos and threes, but even then the police had nearly caught his threesome. Thank goodness Kurt had removed everything from the box of paper that might have identified its source. With his sister’s wedding still on hold, his father was already nervous enough about official scrutiny without being linked to this.

Kurt looked across the subway car to offer Liesl a smile, but she didn’t notice. She seemed badly shaken. Her eyes were huge, as if the night’s drama had come as a complete shock. He fought back a surge of anger. “What did you expect?” he wanted to shout. “This is not a game. This is exactly what we bargained for!”

Just as quickly the thought disappeared, and he wanted to hold and protect her. But he couldn’t, of course, with Hannelore in the way. Liesl leaned across the aisle to speak. Hannelore and he bent forward to listen. Their three heads nearly touched.

“What do you think happened tonight?” Liesl whispered. “Were we betrayed?”

“No one in our group has the guts to betray us,” Hannelore said scornfully.

No one but her, she meant. She had often criticized their timid progress.

“Dieter said something to me just before the meeting, about one of the neighbors acting suspicious,” Liesl said. “He said someone from next door was prowling around outside. Maybe they heard us and thought we were thieves, looting the dress shop.”

“Dieter,” Kurt said with disdain. “He should have told everyone.”

Hannelore nodded. Dieter was one of the few subjects they agreed on.

They broke their huddle and sat up again, beginning to relax. That was when Kurt noticed a propaganda poster just above Hannelore’s seat. It featured the ubiquitous duo of loose-lipped troublemakers, Frau Knoterich and Herr Bramsig. The Frau’s uncanny resemblance to Hannelore, along with his giddiness over their narrow escape, provoked a sudden burst of nervous laughter.

“How can you possibly find this funny?” Hannelore whispered. “We barely made it.”

The heads of a few passengers turned their way.

“Sorry. It’s just that—” No, he’d better not.

“Well?” A challenging tone, as irritating as ever, so he took the plunge.

“It’s the poster above your head. I couldn’t help but note the resemblance.”

Hannelore turned to look. Unfortunately, so did Liesl. As if that weren’t bad enough, a foul-smelling old man seated near Kurt began laughing in a succession of wheezes.

“You’re right!” the fellow exclaimed. “She
is
Frau Knoterich. It’s her doppelganger!”

Liesl must have also been giddy, because to Kurt’s amazement she, too, laughed.

Hannelore was outraged, but the reddening of her cheeks only sharpened the resemblance, which sent the old man into a fresh gale of laughter. As the subway pulled into the next stop she stood angrily and flung open the doors.

“You two,” she said loudly, “can just ride home with all the Nazis!”

The other riders turned away in shocked silence as she disappeared across the platform. The old man stood nervously and shuffled to another seat. When the car was under way again, no one spoke, which made the two-minute ride to the next stop seem more like ten. Liesl and Kurt scampered out of the car, and to their relief no one followed. As soon as the train departed they burst into laughter and fell into each other’s arms.

“My God, but that was close,” Liesl said. “Of all things for you to think of at a time like that. Frau Knoterich! What made it worse was that the old guy next to you looked like Herr Bramsig. I felt terrible for Hannelore, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“Oh, she’ll get over it.”

“Yes, but will she get over you?”

“So you’ve noticed she doesn’t like me?”

“And also that the feeling is mutual. Even at the meetings you never agree. What’s wrong with you two? Don’t we all want the same thing?”

Yes, Kurt thought. We all want Liesl. And for now, at least, he had her to himself.

Twenty minutes later they reached their bicycles and pedaled off to Liesl’s house. On arrival Kurt discovered more good fortune. Liesl’s parents were still away, visiting friends. Liesl’s sister was gone, too. A night that had careened so close to disaster suddenly seemed full of promise. Such were the fortunes of wartime, Kurt supposed. Nothing was certain. Luck was all.

When Liesl turned on the light, yet another pleasant surprise was revealed.

“Look!” she cried. “Chocolate!”

It was true. An entire bar, perhaps half a pound, poking from butcher paper with only a corner missing. You could already smell it, like something from another era.

“My mother said she’d have a surprise for us, but this is amazing.”

“I haven’t had any chocolate since …” Kurt paused.

“Since when?” she asked.

He had been about to say, “since December,” when his father and he had attended yet another holiday party at the Stuckarts’ house. But he didn’t want her to know that he still kept in touch with Erich. Did she really expect him to give up everything from his past life? Besides, if he changed his habits too much, people would get suspicious. He was sneaking around enough as it was. Tonight his parents thought he was seeing a mindless Heinz Ruhmann comedy at the Ufa-Palast, on a date with Heidi Falken, whom he hadn’t spoken to in ages.

“Oh, I don’t know. A long time.”

“Mmmm,” she said, taking the tiniest of bites. “Here.”

She broke off another piece and held it out. He opened his mouth, and she placed it on his tongue. Kurt licked a bit of melted chocolate from her fingertips, and she smiled. He was about to follow up with a kiss, but she abruptly backed away and refolded the butcher paper.

“We should save it. We can divide it when everyone else is home.”

Her voice was quieter, and he could tell she was still a little fragile. Understandable. One stumble and they would have all been sitting in Gestapo interrogation cells by now, down in the basement on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

“How ‘bout some music?” he said, flipping on the radio.

Maybe that would calm her down. With any luck the stations wouldn’t be playing the nationalist dreck that had recently dominated the airwaves. Three days of national mourning had followed the announcement two weeks ago of the German surrender at Stalingrad, and ever since then the radio had played little more than dirges and marching songs. And of course there was never any jazz or swing, not the real stuff, just the counterfeit local version that had been approved for public consumption. Lately everyone seemed too cowed to show any joy, lest some officious snoop decide you weren’t “supporting the troops” in a suitably serious manner.

But there was no music tonight, only a familiar hectoring voice backed by an obliging crowd. It was Goebbels, shouting something about the new plan for victory in the east.

“So much for that idea,” Kurt said, reaching for the Off switch.

“No, wait. I want to hear it. We need to know what he’s up to. Please.”

Well, that would certainly end his chances for the evening, Kurt thought. Nothing quite like the venom of the Cripple to get a girl out of the mood. He sighed and took a seat, sagging onto the Folkertses’ leather couch, which smelled like her father’s pipe tobacco. At least the chocolate was good. The taste lingered sweetly on his tongue.

“Did you hear that?” she hooted scornfully. “He said we should all try to emulate Frederick the Great, right after saying that by the end of the Third Silesian War he was fifty-one years old, had no teeth, suffered from gout, and was tortured by a thousand pains. Well, that should really inspire the masses.”

The problem was that the masses
did
sound inspired—over the radio, anyway. Kurt wondered who was in the audience. Handpicked Party loyalists, perhaps, although there sure were a lot of them. As if in answer to Kurt’s question, Goebbels began describing the crowd gathered at his feet.

I see before me a cross-section of the whole German people in the best sense of the word! In front of me are rows of wounded German soldiers from the eastern front, missing legs and arms—

“Then how are they clapping?” Liesl said derisively.

Behind them are armaments workers from Berlin tank factories—

“Good God,” Kurt said. “This must have been what they were talking about the other day at the office. An order came in to send at least a hundred workers to the Sportspalast tonight. That’s them you’re hearing—Bauer employees, screaming their lungs out. Too bad they didn’t send some of the Poles instead. They’d have eaten him alive.”

“Your dad’s using captured Poles?”

“Czechs, too. A whole boxcar arrived just the other day. Jews, mostly. Sticks and bones. Some didn’t even make it off the train, and they smelled like an outhouse. I wonder where they sleep at night, because it’s not like we have anyplace handy.”

“Where
do
they go?”

“A government compound, I guess. Some sort of barracks. Who knows?”

“It’s probably horrible. You should find out. Do something about it.”

“Liesl, not even my dad can tell Speer and Sauckel what to do with guest workers.”

” ‘Guest workers.’ You make it sound like they’re glad to be invited.”

“How do you know they aren’t? Have you seen the newsreels from Warsaw? There’s nothing left of the place.”

She shook her head, but said nothing more, apparently unwilling to argue the point. Or maybe she was just exhausted, because she sagged against him on the leather cushions. The warmth and pressure of her body produced an immediate reaction. An erection stiffened against his trousers.

“Listen to him now,” she said.

The Cripple had raised his voice to a tumult. Kurt could easily picture the wiry man’s emphatic gestures, elbows thrust out at right angles as he waved his forefinger like the barrel of a Luger. It might have all been silly and melodramatic if not for the crowd, which was lapping it up, roaring a huge “Ja!” at every command. He was exhorting them with a series of questions now, appealing to their deepest need for vengeance.