Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

Sabine furrowed her brow in apparent confusion. This time her son supplied the answer-a bit sheepishly, Nat thought.

“Dr. Turnbull believes that Miss Larkin may have left through the back entrance. She is not answering her phone. We were about to go up and check her room.”

Sabine shook her head disapprovingly.

“You see, Bernhard?”

“I know, Mother. You were right.”

“Bernhard gave her the parcel before I arrived, or I never would have allowed it. But by then she was preparing to check in to her room, and I decided it would be impolite to ask for it back. She did seem very tired, but I’m afraid it was her pretty face that won him over.”

Like father, like son. Because, for all of Sabine’s wrinkles, the contours of past beauty remained. She must have been a stunner.

They climbed the stairs in brooding silence. Bernhard knocked loudly, and there was no answer. He unlocked the door.

The bed was still perfectly made. No luggage was in sight. Through the bathroom door Nat saw that every towel was folded in place on the rack. Even the paper seal on the toilet was unbroken.

“Oh, dear,” Bernhard said. “I am such a fool.”

“But look,” Sabine said. “On the dresser!”

It was a small padded mailing envelope, five by seven inches, the kind you can buy in any U.S. post office. Tape had been peeled back from one end, and a flap was open.

“That’s the parcel,” she said.

Nat was stunned.

“All of it?”

“I don’t know if everything is still inside. But it’s certainly the envelope we’ve been holding for you.”

It was too small. There was no way four folders, or even their contents, could be squeezed inside it. Even Berta must have realized that right away. Maybe that explained her convincing look of weariness. She would have been devastated. Unless, of course, Gordon had somehow shrunk everything to a more manageable size-microdots, for instance, approaching the job as a spy might have.

Nat stepped to the dresser and reached inside the envelope. There were two pieces of paper, that’s all. On the first one he recognized Berta’s handwriting. It was a note on hotel stationery, scribbled only hours ago:

We have come for nothing, as you can see. But to once again prove my good intentions I have decided to let you share in the bounty of our disappointment. I still have my own leads to pursue, and will be willing to share them if you are willing to share your own findings with me. I believe that I am not the only one who has been hoarding secrets. If this is your desire, then I suspect you will know where to find me soon, on the fourth day of the new month.

At the Plötzensee Memorial, she meant, when she would presumably be stalking Bauer yet again. She must have realized he had rummaged through her photographs.

He checked the second page. It was typed on an old sheet of onion-skin, just like the stuff in the OSS archives. But it was dated only a few months ago:

Dear Nat,

Given the various neuroses associated with our profession, I suppose you will be trying to read between the lines here for all sorts of hidden meanings. But my message to you is blessedly simple and straightforward: Look no further. Leave the past in the past. Because even when we do our work well, we can only fathom the faintest of outlines of purpose and intent. The rest vanishes forever, and none of our tools can rescue it from obscurity. Rest easy, then. Let Sabine take good care of you during your stay, and please accept my humblest regards, as well as my deepest apologies if you believe that I have led you astray.

Fondly,

Gordon

Nat sagged onto the bed. He handed the page to Sabine, who read it carefully while Bernhard looked over her shoulder.

“Oh, dear,” she exclaimed softly. “I assume this is not what you were hoping for.”

“No. Not at all.”

“I will get your bags,” Bernhard said quietly. He practically tiptoed out of the room.

Sabine waited until they could no longer hear his footsteps.

“If it is not too forward of me, may I ask what you did expect to find?”

“Old documents. A bunch of OSS materials. The key to the past for a lot of people. Gordon. Kurt Bauer. You and your son, too, if I had to guess. Am I right in making that connection?”

“Yes,” she said faintly, looking very prim, even a little chastened.

“Does Bernhard know that Gordon was his father?”

She shook her head as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Don’t worry,” Nat said. “I won’t tell him.”

“But I should. And I should tell you about all that happened. But I’m afraid that my version is incomplete, and now there are parts of it that I will never find out. Things that Gordon always kept from me. That’s why I had high hopes for that parcel as well. You wouldn’t believe how many times I nearly opened it to take a peek.”

Bernhard clomped back upstairs with Nat’s bags. Sabine hurriedly wiped her eyes and turned away so her son wouldn’t see her face.

“I am going home for a while,” she announced over her shoulder, her voice barely under control. She paused at the threshold and seemed to gather herself. “Bernhard, please take good care of our guest until I return. I think he would probably like to rest now.”

NAT TOOK A LONG SHOWER, then wrapped a towel around his waist and unpacked his suitcase. He removed Gordon’s box of keepsakes and placed it on the dresser next to the typewritten letter, as if letting them mingle might somehow produce a new and better outcome. He stared at the items in the gloom of early evening and tried to feel something-a presence or a clue, anything that might tell him what to do next.

There was only exhaustion. No spirit call and no flash of inspiration. Just the dead, dull feeling that Gordon was gone forever, silenced for all time.

He lay down on the bed, afloat on weariness and frustration, although Berta’s decision to leave the package behind was oddly touching. He attributed it to the personal nature of Gordon’s note. Even she hadn’t been able to overlook that. Or maybe she simply still wanted his help, having implied as much. Now that they were again at a dead end, he might even consider her offer. Truly, this business of theirs was a shared sickness.

Shutting his eyes, he gave in to jet lag and drifted off. Sleep was dreamless, and it was dark when he awakened. The towel was dry, the room chilly. He was debating whether to dress for dinner or call it a night when the answer came to him, making him sit up so quickly that the bed shook.

It was a moment of sudden insight, much in the way that someone stumped by a crossword puzzle puts it down for an hour and then clearly sees every answer the moment he returns. Nat now realized what he had been missing before, and it was so easy that he laughed.

He stepped to the dresser, refreshed. Then he gathered up Gordon’s letter and the box of keepsakes and took everything back to the bed, too excited now to even consider eating or sleeping. He flipped on the bedside light, and as he reread the letter everything seemed obvious. The key words leaped out like a playground taunt:

Read between the lines… hidden meanings… Look no further. And, then, Gordon’s most obvious hint of all: The rest vanishes forever, and none of our tools can rescue it from obscurity.

Holding the letter at a low angle, Nat peered across it like a landscape and saw that it had a pebbly look, as if it had been moistened and then allowed to dry. He opened the wooden box and took out the bottle of “secret ink powder” along with the folded instructions that Gordon had written just after the war.

He read quickly. If Gordon really had used this stuff, or, more likely, something a lot like it but much newer, then all Nat had to do now was find a fluorescent light to read the hidden message. None here, and none in the bathroom. He was on the verge of racing downstairs when he realized he was practically naked. So he dressed and clattered down to the lobby with his shoes untied, taking the stairs two at a time while shouting for Bernhard.