The Arms Maker of Berlin (34 page)

Was it unseemly to think of using his friend this way? Yes, certainly, but wasn’t Erich doing the same? He realized something else as well: Once you had dipped your toes into the cold water of betrayal and withstood the initial shock, it was much easier to contemplate a second plunge, as long as you could make it work to your advantage.

“I’ll give it some thought,” he said finally.

“I suppose that’s all I can ask for. Truth be told, even my father put some feelers out in the same direction—toward this Dulles fellow everyone keeps mentioning. None of it went anywhere, I’m afraid. Apparently the Americans have put all of the Stuckarts on some list of ‘black’ Germans. But the Bauers, I’m told, have landed in the ‘white’ column. So anything that you might say on our behalf, well, you see what I’m getting at.”

“Absolutely. How about another drink?”

“Capital!”

Kurt began to feel better about his family’s prospects. Even with the dark memory of Liesl still clouding his judgment, he might yet work things to their advantage on other fronts. But his optimism was shortlived.

“You know,” Erich said, while handing him a drink, “Schlang also mentioned someone else who is looking for help. Someone who is still in Germany, and I’m told you’re familiar with him as well.”

“Yes?”

“Martin Gollner.”

He realized instantly that this must have been Erich’s plan all along. Coax him to help out, then show him they had the means to ruin his standing with the Americans, in case he was reluctant. Hadn’t Schlang already hinted as much? It was powerful leverage.

Yet for the moment it only made him more determined to pursue a course of action that would benefit his family alone, and to hell with everyone else. Maybe that was always the nature of wartime once you moved beyond the front lines—every man for himself. He was certainly prepared to fight on those terms, but he knew he had better measure his words carefully with Erich.

“Yes,” he said, “I know Gollner.”

“Well, he has a few ideas on how to impress the Americans, and he seems to believe you’re the one person who might be able to make them see things his way.”

“Does he really?”

“Oh, yes. Would you like to hear them?”

“Even if I don’t, something tells me that Herr Schlang will soon be asking more persuasively.”

Erich laughed, then gave Kurt another companionable slap on the back. Anyone watching through the window would have thought they were the best of friends, laughing about old pranks.

“You know, Kurt, I always wondered how you got better marks than me in school. Now I’m beginning to see why.”

Kurt smiled thinly, and Erich kept talking. He spent the next two hours laying out the details of Gollner’s plan, and Kurt realized that his life was about to become a lot more complicated.

But he did more than just listen. He planned, too, plotting an alternate strategy, one better tailored to his own needs—not that he would ever share any of the details with Stuckart or Schlang. He could play at this game of unholy alliances as well as they could, and, in the process, not only win but also bring harm to those who had wronged him and his family.

Their meeting lasted until 2 a.m. By then, Kurt was already contemplating his next move. Best of all, he had stored up loads of information to pass along to the disagreeable American he knew only as Icarus.

TWENTY-NINE

Bern, Switzerland—September 8, 1944

I
CARUS STILL WOULD NOT RETURN
Kurt’s calls. Nor would anyone else from the American legation.

Day after day Kurt delivered the same disappointing news to Erich Stuckart: not yet, but soon. He could tell Stuckart was beginning to doubt him. If only his father were better. Reinhard would know how to arrange an audience with
someone
, if only for show. But he was still bedridden, withering away at the Bellevue on a diet of room-service meals that he barely touched. His marching orders to Kurt grew more incoherent by the day.

Kurt held Stuckart and Schlang at bay by telling them that the Americans were too preoccupied with events elsewhere. There may have been some truth to it. The Allied armies had come ashore at Normandy and were smashing their way across France. Paris was liberated, the Rhine was in sight, and the Swiss border to France was now open to all Allied traffic. In the east, the Soviets were pushing the Germans across Poland and the Baltics. To the south, in Italy, Mussolini had been deposed and the Germans were in retreat. Soon the Fatherland would be squeezed in a vise, and, as with so many previous wars, there was already boastful talk of finishing the job by Christmas. Maybe the Americans simply didn’t have time for any expat Germans, whether “white” or “black,” especially when, according to news reports, they were pursuing a policy of unconditional surrender.

But just as Kurt was about to lose hope, he returned to his room after a late lunch to find a handwritten message stuffed under the door: “The Munster. 15:00 hrs. Icarus.”

Finally, this was it. A meeting at the cathedral, mere blocks away. Kurt checked his watch. Only fifteen minutes. A knock at the door made him jump.

“Yes?”

“It’s Mother.”

“I’m busy!”

She paused, unaccustomed to such brusque treatment, but right now he didn’t care.

“Your father wanted me to remind you that you are due at the factory in an hour.”

“I can’t make it. A more pressing appointment has come up.”

“More pressing than your family’s livelihood?”

He threw open the door. She was quivering in anger. He brushed past her and spoke over his shoulder.

“Yes, Mother. More pressing. Because it does concern our livelihood. I’ll explain it to Father later. Tell him it involves the Americans.”

He didn’t wait for her reply.

Ten minutes later he crossed the cobbles of Munsterplatz toward the towering steeples of the cathedral. No one was waiting outside, and he was early. Should he go inside?

He decided to linger by the door. To kill time he looked up at the colorful figures carved on the central portico, just overhead. Under the circumstances, they were a little frightening—a sword-wielding archangel in combat with a menacing demon, amidst a mob of the Chosen and the Damned. Not a fight you could afford to lose.

A figure brushed passed him on the right, startling him. It was Icarus.

“I meant inside, stupid,” the American muttered. “Wait out here a minute, then join me. Take the row just in front of mine.”

The man’s manner was infuriating, but Kurt did as he was told, counting off the seconds under his breath and then pushing open the heavy door. The apse was gloomy, and the cool air smelled of candle wax. He walked through to the main hall, where a slanting sunbeam marked his path. Icarus sat in a pew toward the front, wearing the stupid leather jacket. His head was bowed as if in prayer. Kurt strolled down the aisle and slid into the forward pew, stopping when he was maybe five feet away.

“I have much to tell you,” Kurt offered in a stage whisper.

“Never mind that,” the American hissed. “You’re here to listen. Keep your face to the front.”

As arrogant as ever, but his German was still excellent. If Kurt hadn’t known better, he would have guessed Icarus was from the Rhineland.

“You came across around the middle of May, right?”

“Yes,” Kurt answered.

“So you’ve had nearly four months to get acclimated. How well acquainted are you with some of the more recent arrivals from Germany?”

Was this a veiled reference to Erich Stuckart? Kurt didn’t think so. He had met few Germans other than Erich, but it sounded like Icarus was hoping for the opposite, so he played along.

“Pretty well. I’ve met quite a few.”

“I need everything you can get from them on the current state of play in the border areas of Germany. Some of your own knowledge is probably still operative, too. Rail connections, travel logistics, what sort of papers and documents are necessary for what kind of people, or for different professions. The kinds of food coupons you’d be likely to carry. Are you getting this?”

“Yes. Should I be writing it down?”

“Hell, no. Unless you want to be arrested. But I want you to retain it, all of it.”

“Okay. Travel logistics. Especially in the border areas.”

“For both civilians and off-duty military. And also for guest workers with mobility, if anyone knows. What roads are still open, what trains are still running. Anything you can get.”

Kurt was thrilled. Everything Icarus wanted fit perfectly in the scenario for an infiltration scheme, which was exactly what Gollner was proposing, and Kurt had his own version in mind. The man’s urgency suggested the Americans were in a hurry.

“Okay,” Kurt whispered.

He heard Icarus sliding toward the end of the pew.

“Wait!” Kurt hissed.

Icarus stopped, but didn’t slide back. Then he spoke.

“The answer to your question is no, I can’t pay you, and no, I can’t guarantee you or anyone else a spot on the ‘white’ list, and no, you can’t see the boss.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted. I was going to offer you something better—a firsthand source of everything you’re seeking. A Gestapo man in Munich.”

The cathedral was so quiet he could hear Icarus breathing, mulling it over. Kurt decided to add a further enticement.

“This Gestapo man stands ready to help any infiltrator get established inside Germany. He was recently reassigned from Berlin, so he has the seniority and the security connections to make it work.”

Icarus inched back down the pew.

“And you know this how?”

“I won’t tell you that. My source will only let me reveal it to Mr. Dul—”

“Shut up! Never say his name. Meeting him is out of the question. He’s not in the country right now, anyway.”

Probably in liberated France, Kurt guessed.

“Then I will wait.”

He figured Icarus was staring a hole in his back, trying to gauge his stubbornness. For once Kurt had the upper hand.

“Okay,” Icarus hissed. “I’ll set it up when he’s back. But only one meet.”

“One is enough. When?”

“I’ll let you know. But probably the first week in October.”

“That’s almost a month.”

“If your news can’t wait, then tell me now.”

“No. But I’ll need a day’s notice, so I can have the freshest information possible.”

“I’ll be in touch the day before, then.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting.”

And I’ll be planning, too, Kurt thought. Planning and scheming in a way that he never had before. He would do this not only for his family and the future, but also for Liesl and the past. Because experience had taught him a painful lesson: You won only when you made the stakes personal. From here on out, that was how he would play it, no matter who paid the price.

N
EARLY FOUR WEEKS LATER:
Another note under the door. Another summons to the Munster—same time, same pew. Icarus again in his battered jacket, prayerfully relaying the news from on high.

“Tomorrow night, ten o’clock. Meet me at the gazebo in the park around the corner. It will be after blackout, so I’ll flick my lighter and you’ll follow. Stay twenty yards back and listen out for the flatfoots. But watch me carefully. It’s not a direct route, and you could end up lost in somebody’s tomato patch. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you have everything you promised?”

“Of course.”

“You’d better. Both our asses are on the line.”

Icarus slid down the pew, stood, and strolled away.

Kurt walked to Erich’s for final preparations. To his dismay, Schlang was also there.

“I have been in touch with our friend Gollner for the latest,” Schlang said. “Railway timetables, necessary documents, everything the Americans have asked for. Study these notes, then burn them. If you’re stopped on the bridge, drop them in the river.”

He handed Kurt a brown envelope. The three of them then went over the tentative script for Kurt’s meeting with Dulles. Schlang made Kurt recite his planned spiel several times before the other two were satisfied. But Kurt already had his own ad-libs in mind.

The plan as Schlang envisioned it was for Gollner to help the Americans establish an infiltrator in Munich. Gollner would then use the Americans’ help to sneak into Switzerland. Once he was in Bern, Gollner’s middleman would be Erich, which would allow the Stuckarts to get their foot in the door with the Americans, with Schlang riding their coattails. Kurt was supposed to buttress the case for both Erich and Schlang by revealing afterward to Dulles that the whole scheme had been their idea. Kurt’s reward for helping out would be Gollner’s silence. Everyone would hold their tongues about his role in the White Rose disaster, and Gollner would ensure that all Gestapo documents related to the matter were destroyed.

But Kurt had no intention of tailoring his actions to their needs. Schlang and Stuckart were merely a means to an end. Nor did he trust Gollner to hold up his end of the deal. Kurt, who still had his own contacts in Germany thanks to the family business, had only two objectives: to use the American mission to discredit and silence Gollner before the man made it out of Germany and to convince Dulles that he had done his best to help, no matter how the mission turned out. Any failure would have to be engineered to reflect poorly on someone else—preferably Gollner, although Schlang or even Erich Stuckart would suffice.

The next day arrived with a blast of crisp autumn breezes. Leaves swirled through the parks. A half-moon lit the way as Kurt arrived for his rendezvous, his overcoat buttoned to the neck. He peered toward the dark shape of the gazebo. A light flickered with a chirp, and he paused to let Icarus set the pace. No one seemed to be following.

They proceeded to a promenade along the edge of the park. Far below, the Aare sparkled faintly. You could hear the water rushing through the floodgates. Icarus turned onto a walkway that headed downward on stone steps. Kurt barely saw him cut right onto a poorly graded path along the steep hillside. Moments later he was pushing through brambles as bare branches snapped at his face. He could no longer see Icarus, and had to follow by sound.

They emerged into a terraced garden, its arbors covered with grapevines that had shed most of their leaves. Icarus appeared fifteen feet ahead as a moving shadow. Kurt heard the creak of a rusty hinge, then the
thunk
of wood against metal. He came to a heavy door built into a stone wall at the rear of a private garden. He pushed it open and emerged into a moonlit glade.

From there the going was easier, steadily uphill across two terraces to another small gate that opened onto a slate path. The path led to the rear door of a house, and the door opened just as he arrived. An older gentleman with a pipe in his mouth stood in a pool of light cast from a sconce in the hallway. He was grinning.

“Kurt Bauer?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Welcome. I understand we have a lot to discuss.”

So this was Dulles. His German was terrible, no better than that of a Polish guest worker, and the cotton candy smell of his pipe tobacco made Kurt think of vendors at Oktoberfest. For a moment he was very much a boy again, and a little overwhelmed by the role he was about to play.

Dulles led him into a cozy parlor at the front of the house, where Icarus was waiting on a couch. A fire was going on the hearth. The flames lit a glittering array of drinks in a row of crystal decanters on a side table. The room smelled strongly of pipe smoke, as if all the curtains and upholstery were imbued with its scent. Dulles dropped another log on the fire, then prodded it with a brass poker before turning to face Kurt.

“Please, have a seat.”

He motioned toward a wing chair facing the couch.

“And please accept my apologies for my very bad German. From here on out we may be better off if our friend Gordon here acts as interpreter, if that’s all right with you.”

Gordon. So that was Icarus’s name. Kurt was surprised Dulles had used it, and apparently so was Gordon. The two of them exchanged glances—Gordon’s tight and a little resentful, Kurt’s with a mild hint of triumph. Kurt answered in English.

“It’s all right,” he said, surprising both Americans. “We should speak your language. My grammar is maybe not always so perfect. But this I think will be better for us, yes?”

Another glare from Gordon. The interesting part was that Dulles wasn’t missing a bit of their interplay. He just stood there puffing his pipe, eyeing them as carefully as a teacher mediating between two brilliant but difficult students.

“You did say he had hidden talents, Gordon. And, yes, I know you don’t like me using your name. But seeing as how we’ve brought him along this far, don’t you think we might as well establish a certain level of trust?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As for you, young Mr. Bauer, please give my regards to your father, who I understand is ailing. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to pay him a visit, but surely you can see how that might create difficulties for both of us.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Henceforth, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer that you use the name ‘Magneto II’ in any written or telephone correspondence, official or otherwise. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well.”

Gordon then spoke up, a bit brusquely, as if hoping a more businesslike tone would keep things from getting any chummier.

“Did anyone follow you?”

“Not that I could tell.”