Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

“I tried to reach you,” she said through her fingers. “I was scared. There was nowhere else to go, so I came here.”

“Scared of what?”

“Someone had searched my room. I think they were looking for the memory chips.”

“You sure it wasn’t just the innkeeper tidying up? These B &Bs are pretty finicky.”

“They’d picked the lock. Things were missing from my suitcase.”

Nat saw her suitcase now, lying open on the floor. The nightgown wasn’t the only silky item. She had packed well for this kind of scene. He was tempted to sit on the bed, then thought better of it and opted for the chair, still clutching the wooden box. Maybe it was that Berta’s ambition made him wary, or that Gordon had called her a damned nuisance and then dropped dead. Or maybe it was that he would have enjoyed nothing better right now than to snuggle up next to her on the bed.

Her eyes had adjusted to the light and she looked better than ever. Shoulders bare, except for the white silk straps. Hair in suggestive disarray.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you?” he said.

“Good at what?”

“Manipulating people.”

He had expected to get a rise out of her, but she took it in stride.

“I can be. When there’s something I want badly enough. But not with you.”

“How do you see that?”

“Because we both want the same thing. You might just as easily manipulate me.”

He smiled, admiring her skill.

“Holland returned our cameras, by the way. I don’t know if you were able to tell yet from our work this afternoon, but you were right about the boxes. Four folders are missing. The feds have asked me to find the missing items. On their tab. Interested?”

She nodded, but surprised him by showing no sign of excitement.

“Where do you think we should start?” she asked.

The sheet slipped farther down her torso, showing some cleavage. Healthy tone to her skin for this early in the spring, yet no hint of a tan line. Of course, topless sunbathing wasn’t exactly taboo in Europe. Nat cleared his throat, hoping to also clear his head.

“I was thinking Baltimore.” He figured that would get a reaction, but her face remained blank. He opened the old box in a way that kept her from seeing the contents, and pulled out the key. “This fits a storage locker there. It’s our first stop.”

“All right. Are they paying my way, too?”

“Long as I’m in charge.”

“Good. I’ve maxed out my credit cards. We’d better get some sleep. Shall you take the floor, or I?”

Well, he supposed that answered one question.

“Throw me a pillow.”

She nodded and complied, somehow managing to make the toss without letting the sheet drop a stitch farther. Then she lay back down and shut her eyes. Oh, definitely no manipulation going on here, he thought, smiling to himself as he turned out the light.

As he tried to get comfortable in the dark, he wondered anew what it was that drove her. Scholarly zeal, of course. All the best historians were competitive. But there had to be something more. He was about to drift off when she spoke up from the bed.

“I have some names I can share. Old contacts of Gordon Wolfe’s and Kurt Bauer’s, people who might have once handled the records, or have some leads.”

Throwing him a bone. It was a start.

“Living or dead?”

“Living. In Bern and Berlin. We can visit them, now that we have a budget.”

“Great. But with any luck the trail will end in Baltimore.”

Her silence told him she thought otherwise, which troubled him because it suggested she knew more than she was letting on. He had better check out her credentials, first chance he got. Until then, or until she opened up more, perhaps “arm’s length” was indeed the best policy. Funny how sensible that sounded down there on the cold, hard floor.

Nat’s great hopes for Baltimore died with the swipe of a card, the turn of a key, and the opening of an iron door. There before him on the concrete floor, looking lost and forlorn in the five-by-five storage locker, was a single item, barely bigger than a fist. It was wrapped in bubble plastic and smothered in tape. Definitely not the missing folders.

Berta said nothing, but Nat sensed an I-told-you-so chill.

At least they hadn’t wasted much time getting there. He had planned on using Sunday to drive Viv back to Wightman for a Wednesday memorial service. She instead decided to wait on her sister, which freed Berta and him to catch a midday flight from Albany to Baltimore. They drove straight to Fairfield, rattling down its potholed lanes among the rail yards and chemical plants of an industrial waterfront. Fittingly, they wound up briefly on Tate Street, where Viv and Gordon had lived after the war. Only one house remained on the block, and it was boarded up. The trail ended at a fenced compound with a “U-Store-Em” sign out front. Nat bounded from the car, but his excitement was short-lived.

“Well, let’s see what it is,” he said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

He slit the tape with a car key and unwrapped the plastic. Inside was an old book with a red cloth cover and a German title, Der Unsichtbare Henker (The Invisible Hangman), by Wolf Schwertenbach. Was this the crime novel that had made Viv so jealous? He doubted Viv had been familiar with the author, but Nat certainly was. Wolf Schwertenbach was the pen name of the late Paul Meyer, a Swiss diplomat who during the war opened a secret back channel between the Swiss and German intelligence agencies. He was also an OSS source who met Dulles several times. But none of that seemed to explain why Gordon had gone to the trouble of putting the book into storage.

The publication date was 1933, although this was a 1937 printing. Nat checked inside the front jacket. Sure enough, a girl’s name was penned in cursive in an upper corner, just as Viv had said. “Sabine Keller.”

“Noir pulp by a hack diplomat,” Berta said. “Not even a first edition. You might get five euros for it. Shall we go?”

“Hold on.”

Nat flipped carefully through the brittle pages. No hidden note. No scribbles in the margins. No cryptic inscriptions from the famed author. But on page 186 he found the very wildflower Viv must have seen. Crushed yellow blossom, bent stem. Nothing special, like edelweiss. Just a buttercup plucked from a field. He left it in place, feeling that somehow Gordon would have preferred that.

“Shall we go?” Berta repeated.

“Let’s see who’s on duty.”

They walked to a small office. A big fellow with a buzz cut and a weight lifter’s build looked up from a cramped desk behind the counter.

“Would you be Matt Boland?” Nat asked, using the name from the business card.

“That’s me.” He seemed surprised to actually be speaking with a customer.

“Do you keep records of customer visits?”

Boland shook his head.

“For some people that’s half the point. You’re not a cop, are you?”

“I’m here for a friend. So you have no way of knowing when somebody would have last visited locker 207?” Nat held up the key and swipe card.

“If that key belongs to you, wouldn’t you know?”

“It was a colleague’s. He died yesterday.”

“Sorry.”

“His name was Gordon Wolfe. Ring a bell?”

“Can’t say it does.”

“Have you got the paperwork for 207?”

“How do I know you didn’t steal that key?”

Nat pulled out the FBI letter of introduction and placed it on the counter.

“Maybe this’ll help.”

“You said you weren’t cops.”

“We’re not. Let’s just say we’re working on contract.”

“Is this some kind of terrorist thing?” Boland was getting into the spirit of things.