Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

Nat set out for the town center. He tried seeing the place through Gordon’s eyes by thinking back to an item he had found in the archives, a Dulles memo to his mistress and Girl Friday, Mary Bancroft, which described how he had taken their newest operative out for an introductory stroll.

Gave 543 the grand tour. Christened him Icarus, seeing as how he literally fell to us from the sky. He finds it quite a lark being here in Shangri-la and comes across as a sharp tack. A Princeton man, and his German is first rate. We’ll start him slow and see how well he learns to walk-or fly, as the case may be with our Icarus. Let’s hope he doesn’t emulate all of his namesake’s destiny. The sun is very hot in our business.

Dulles described their progress stop by stop, and Nat followed their route. He proceeded with an odd sense that at any moment he might spot them up ahead or catch a whiff of pipe smoke. Reaching the Nydegg Bridge, he gazed down at the green river, swollen by spring melt, and then crossed to the city’s famed bear pit, where shaggy beasts loped in the sunlight, craning their necks toward the moms and children at the rim.

I told Icarus those bears were like us, hemmed in by every border, unable to roam. Yet see how everyone approves of their presence and smiles down on them? He, too, would receive such favorable treatment, so long as he lived by their rules and didn’t stray. Try breaking free and they would hunt you down. So work hard, but behave.

Nat followed their trail to the Cathedral of Bern, or Münster, where the young spy and his master had inspected the magnificent central portico, a profusion of painted characters carved against a colorful tableau. The Archangel Michael stands tall with his sword as he fights a demon worthy of the Axis Powers. On either side are teeming mobs-to the left, robed in white, the Chosen; to the right, naked and wretched, the Damned.

That will be us up there someday, I told him, cast among the winners or losers. Your work may well decide which.

From there they proceeded to the Dulles bachelor digs on Herrengasse, eluding a flatfoot by detouring to the back entrance through a small park behind the Münster, with its sweeping view of the river. Today a small orchestra was playing in the gazebo, just as Swiss musicians had played throughout the war. Shangri-la indeed, Nat thought, when you could stroll to your boss’s house to the tempo of a Strauss waltz.

With dusk falling, Dulles had prepared a crackling fire to ward off the October chill. He then brought out the port, sherry, and brandy. They must have talked tradecraft, because two days later Dulles sent Icarus a typewritten checklist, 1 through 9, headlined “The Technique of Intelligence.”

Some high notes from our discussion, he scribbled in the margin.

Most of it was standard fare: 3-Assume that every phone call is over-heard, and so on. But the last item seemed just as appropriate for a prowling historian as for a budding spy, not only for its wisdom but for its strong sense of foreboding:

9-Be skeptical of everything, everybody. Don’t let pride of discovery blind you as to worth of individual or info.

Nat checked his flanks, half expecting to notice several people watching from behind newspapers and hat brims. But his untrained eye saw only shoppers on their way to market.

Before heading to the Bahnhof he pulled from his pocket the faded old matchbook Gordon had left in the wooden gun box. Nat had brought all of the strange items with him, partly out of superstition. The matchbook advertised the Hotel Jurgens on Aarbergergasse. Not a single match had been used. Obviously a keepsake, but why? There had been no reference to the place in his tourist guidebook, which made Nat wonder if it still existed. But when he turned the corner a few minutes later, there it was-middle of the block with a modest sign over the entrance.

He stepped into the small lobby, barely big enough for a couch and an easy chair. The place wasn’t particularly modern. Yet, at least on this floor, it was clean and well kept. He figured it for one of those hotels where the floors squeaked, the radiators whined, and the windows stuck, but you always had clean linens and ample heat for the rawest winter night. No one was at the desk, but when he cleared his throat a chambermaid poked her head out of the office. She held a stack of towels.

“Is the manager in?”

“Nein. No. Back soon, one hour. But the rooms, they are not free.”

Her way of saying there were no vacancies, probably. He wasn’t sure what he would have asked the manager anyway. He supposed he had naively believed that in some strange way he would know right off what to do, but this time his intuitive powers failed him. Not a single vibe. Maybe jet lag was to blame. Or maybe there was nothing to find.

He glanced again around the lobby, and when it became clear that he was making the maid uncomfortable he said good-bye. Halfway down the block he turned, feeling he must be missing something. But before he could determine what it was, his new cell phone rang. He had bought one in Wightman that would also work in Europe.

“Success,” Berta said. “Karsten has arranged for a viewing.” A male. Of course. “He’ll have Molden’s and Visser’s surveillance reports ready for us at 3 p.m. Since I’m done early, why don’t I meet you at Molden’s house? Maybe you should go up first to break the ice. It’s a nice sunny day. We could invite him to lunch.”

“You should be there, too, when he opens the door. With an old fellow it never hurts to show a pretty face.”

Molden seemed grateful for the company and invited them in. He certainly wasn’t dressed for visitors-droopy brown sweater frayed at the elbows, wool pants dotted with lint, white socks, house slippers. A bald spot like a tonsure gave him a monkish air, and his apartment smelled of dust and old cheese. On the other hand, a state-of-the-art sound system blared a Debussy prelude, and his coffee table brimmed with new magazines.

“So you want to talk about my work during the war?” he asked, smiling wistfully. “Now those were enjoyable days. Bern was the spy capital of Europe, you know. And my job kept me out of the army. No marching through the mountain snow for me, thank God. With my luck the Germans would have invaded the day I arrived at the frontier.”

He placed a hand on the small of Berta’s back as he spoke, having warmed to her right away, as Nat had predicted. It was easy to see why. Rather than suiting up in her usual ensemble, Berta had worn a button-up silk blouse the color of fresh cream. It was tucked tightly enough into a trim pair of black slacks to show every contour.

When they suggested lunch, Molden steered them toward a café in the sunny Bärenplatz, only blocks away. They took a table bordering the square, where vendors sold vegetables and cheeses beneath colorful awnings. Molden and Nat ordered tall glasses of lager and platters of Röstí-fried potatoes piled high with melted cheese and two eggs, sunny-side up. Berta got mineral water and a salad.

“What were conditions like during the war?” Nat asked, still hungry for atmospherics.

“Well, there were all the shortages. The bumpkins in the hills didn’t have much beyond their kitchen gardens and their cows. Cheese on the table, morning, noon, and night. But here? Not so bad. And there was a strong sense that we were the last light left on in the whole house of Europe. Everyone else had rolled up their awnings and put things under lock and key. Hiding under the bed until the last bomb fell.”

“While you fellows partied on.”

“The ones with expense accounts did, anyway. I mean, look at Dulles. The man had gout . All of us laughed about that. But for a young fellow like me, it was a strange way to come of age. Working in a trade where nobody was who he said he was and everyone had something to hide.”