Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

“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 Göllner.”

“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 Göllner, 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.

Berlin-Thursday,December 10,1942

Kurt 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?”