Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

“No more. Not until I have received full payment for the transcript.”

“How soon can you have it?”

“Tomorrow. Sixteen hundred hours. And do not try to follow me to it. I am old, but I still remember my training, and I still have friends.”

“Sixteen hundred hours, then. I’ll be here.”

“One other thing. Two of you came in downstairs. Who’s the other one?”

Now how the hell did he know that?

“A colleague. She’s waiting on the landing.”

“If it’s that obnoxious hippie woman from the Free University, then I know how you found out my name. Bring her with you tomorrow. I have been avoiding her for two years, but now there is some information I want from her. It’s mandatory, part of my price. People have been poking around here lately, and I think she may be responsible.”

“What kind of people?”

“Tomorrow. Just bring her.”

Berta was waiting just outside the door. The music from next door was still loud enough that she couldn’t have overheard their conversation, even with her ear to the keyhole. Just as well. He had already decided not to tell her about Gordon’s visit in 1945.

“Success?” she asked.

He glanced back, wondering if Göllner was watching through the peephole.

“Outside.”

Nat checked the building entrance for a security camera but didn’t find one. Maybe Göllner had been watching from his window.

“Well?” she asked.

“He’ll have a copy of the transcript tomorrow at four. He wants ten thousand euros.”

“Greedy bastard!”

“If it’s everything he claims, it will be worth it. He says three people lost their lives as a result. I’m assuming he was referring to members of the Berlin White Rose.”

“Only three?”

“Isn’t that enough for you?”

Then he realized what she meant. Her Plötzensee fact sheet listed four fatalities. But one had simply been listed as “killed.” Göllner must have been referring to the executions. Of course, Nat couldn’t make that point, nor could Berta make hers, without either of them revealing their deception.

“Where will we get ten thousand euros?” she asked.

“I’m betting he’ll settle for half as a down payment.”

“But even five thousand is a lot. For me, anyway.”

“I’ll take out a cash advance on my plastic. It’ll probably max out my credit cards, so you’re welcome to chip in. Especially if you want to share the material.”

Her mouth dropped in surprise.

“You’re as bad as him,” she said. “I’ll have to check with my bank.”

“Maybe we should take care of that now, separately. We could probably use an afternoon off from each other. We can meet tonight back at the hotel. Deal?”

Berta gave him a searching look, but nodded. She seemed a little hurt, and it bothered him until he recalled what Willis Turner had said. She turned on her heel and strolled away without a further word. Nat watched her for a block. Then he turned in the opposite direction, rounded the nearest corner, and hailed a cab.

“The Free University in Dahlem,” he said. “History Department, on Koserstrasse.”

It was time to find out more about the real Berta Heinkel.

Professor Christian Hermann was an old acquaintance of Nat’s. They crossed paths at least once a year at some conference or another, and Hermann was always good for a beer and a few witty stories of his travels in Eastern Europe, where he had made a name for himself by plumbing state archives for captured Nazi documents. Some of his discoveries had been under lock and key for decades behind the Iron Curtain.

Hermann’s longtime obsession, however, was his search for the last original manuscript of Hitler’s sequel to Mein Kampf. Most people didn’t even know Hitler wrote a sequel, nor would they want to read it. But Hermann had been captivated by the idea of finding the Zweites Buch ever since learning that the first manuscript, discovered in 1958, was a collation of typescript and carbon copies, meaning that a second must also exist.

He had been searching for fourteen years. His operative theory was that it had ended up at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountaintop getaway, and that an American GI must have walked off with it when the troops looted the place in the spring of ’45. This meant he often sought out U.S. veterans, and Nat had helped arrange introductions to plenty of skeptical old men. As a result, Hermann was always willing to lend a hand, and when Nat phoned from the taxi the professor urged him to come by at once.

“You’ll have to press the buzzer downstairs. Classes are out, and I’m the only one here. Considering it’s a Friday you were lucky to catch me at all.”

The history department was in a frumpy stucco building in a leafy suburb. Nat scanned the dozens of posters in the foyer advertising upcoming symposia. No one could talk a subject to death like the Germans, leaving you in a funk of earnestness that could linger for days. He was disheartened to see that the topic of the Third Reich wasn’t mentioned on a single item. He had first noted this trend in the wake of 1995, following a six-year orgy of fiftieth-anniversary commemorations of the war. Having dutifully immersed themselves, the Germans then seemed to shake off the era like a wet dog taking shelter from the storm. And by then, of course, a hot new topic had come along-the deadly legacy of the Stasi, and East Germany’s security state-fresh corpses, more readily exhumed, not to mention that West Germans could participate in the discussion guilt free.

The buzzer sounded. Nat took the stairs. Christian Hermann was waiting with a cold pilsner.

“Turnbull! A perfect surprise. The department head is away, so we can drink all we like as long as we hide the empties. But you should have given me more warning. I’m preparing for a trip to Riga in the morning, so I can’t even treat you to dinner.”

“I’m lucky to be here at all, considering the weird little errand I’m on. It’s for a law enforcement client, so it’s not exactly pure research.”

Hermann frowned. He would never consider taking a government assignment. Hardly surprising for someone who studied his country’s most notorious regime.

“I’m not sure what my department head would find more objectionable. These beers or the idea that I’m helping a representative of George W. Bush.”

“That’s not where I need your help. I want advice on one of your colleagues.”

“From the Free University?”

“Yes. Berta Heinkel.”

Hermann raised his eyebrows and set his beer down on a student’s paper.

“My God. Are you mixed up with her romantically or professionally?”

“The latter.”

“They sometimes go together. That’s why I asked.”

“Which one usually produces worse results?”

“Ha! Good question. Although without firsthand experience I cannot say for sure.”

“How is she regarded professionally?”

“If you had asked me two years ago, I would have given her the highest marks. She is intelligent, a strong researcher. And dogged, very determined. Sound, too. Never sloppy in her methods. Or didn’t used to be. She was also teaching then, and students liked her.”

“What happened?”

“That’s what we’d all like to know. Frankly, I think she began to get a little obsessed. All of this White Rose business, do you know about it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I hope that’s not why you’re in Berlin. The further mythologizing of Hans and Sophie Scholl, student angel pamphleteers of Munich? Pardon my disrespect, but what a crock. Admirable, yes, but let’s not kid ourselves about their zero impact.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Christian. But my impression was that Berta has been on this White Rose hunt for ages, not just a few years.”