Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

“I still tried sending him messages, but nothing ever got through. I wanted to use our code, but by then I had lost the book. Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen it since.”

She had it with her now, tucked into her purse, and she pulled it out while Nat watched. She thumbed it open to the front, where her name was written in the hand of a young woman.

“Then Mr. Jurgens came along. Wilhelm had always had his eye on me. Once he had been after my father to arrange a marriage, but even my father wasn’t that old-fashioned. Not then, anyway. A kind man, really, but so old. Or that’s how it seemed when you were twenty, as I was. He was forty-four, a businessman. He owned this hotel and several more properties in the city. And he was very kind. I suppose he must have been, to marry some stupid pregnant girl who had shamed her family. My father and he worked it all out between them, like a real estate transaction. He bought off my father’s shame, and in return he got a pretty young wife to help run his hotel.

“By the time I gave birth to Bernhard, Gordon had left for Berlin with Mr. Dulles. And then when he returned, well, I suppose you can figure out the rest. He was heartbroken when he found out, and I was, too. Because even by then I could tell it was his baby. One look at little Bernhard’s face and you could see it in every feature.”

No wonder she had burst into tears when Murray Kaplan came along.

“So when did Gordon get back in touch?”

“It was years later, the month after Wilhelm died. That’s when the first bank notice arrived. It told me I had a new, numbered account at Zürcher Bank and said that deposits would be made quarterly. I thought at first it must be something Wilhelm had arranged to be done in the event of his death. But the next day a letter arrived from Gordon explaining everything. I tried to stop the deposits, but the bank refused. Gordon had set it up in a way where he had that kind of control. He said to think of it as my OSS pension. From then on, the payments came every quarter. I got the latest one just a month ago. Over the years I have given a lot of it away. Charities and churches. But frankly it has helped us through a few rough times. It helped pay for Bernhard’s first house.”

“Did he ever visit?”

“Not once. I think we both knew what a disaster that would be. But he always sent a letter, every quarter. It’s how I learned about you. About everything except, well, all of this.” She gestured to the report.

“Did you write back?”

“Of course. To his office address. He was very clear on that point. Have those letters turned up as well?”

“No. Not one.”

“Just as well. He loved his wife, you know. But I don’t think that he was ever the same person again.”

“Viv didn’t think so, either.”

The comment hung in the air while they sipped tea.

“This money he wired you,” Nat said. “Do you mind if I ask the amount? It’s important for me to know, believe it or not.”

She told him. It was a perfect match for the number Holland had mentioned weeks earlier, while smearing Gordon’s name. So, yes, Gordon Wolfe had indeed blackmailed Bauer, but only for payments that went straight to one of Bauer’s victims. Gordon must have taken great pleasure in being able to make the man squirm even as he showered generosity on Sabine. And he must have found some way to convince Bauer that killing him would only release the secrets to the world at large. That way, Bauer had no choice but to keep playing along. Until, of course, he found a way to fight back, by offering the secrets of his nuclear black book to whoever could locate Gordon’s buried treasure first, an action that had unleashed the resources of two powerful governments.

It meant that the storage locker in Baltimore had no longer been safe or adequate. That was why Gordon had gone to such lengths to secure the materials here in Switzerland, locked beneath layers of his own cryptic clues, with Nat holding all the keys.

He wondered briefly how the old man had managed to transport the files here. With a quick visit? By mail? Via some trusted courier? Who knew? Either way, he had fooled them all. Maybe the feds now had his secrets, but so did Nat. And he knew just what remained to be done with them.

They drank more tea, and talked a while longer about the past, and about Bernhard, and what this would all mean to the boy. Or to the man, rather. Bernhard was sixty-two, for goodness’ sake.

“What will you do next?” she asked.

“I’m leaving tonight for Berlin.”

“To see Bauer?”

“As soon as I’ve wrapped up a few loose ends.”

“What if he refuses to meet with you?”

“If the loose ends are what I think, then he’ll see me. Maybe not for long, but long enough.”

Sabine paused, and then glanced with distaste at the “Fleece” report.

“Something tells me that my story won’t be remaining a secret for much longer.”

“It will if you want it to.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Absolutely.”

She sat quietly for a moment. Watching her face, Nat figured she was reviewing all of the possible consequences, for better and for worse.

“But if you keep this silent, Bauer wins.”

“Not really,” Nat replied. “He still won’t have the one thing he always wanted most.”

“Perhaps. But he’ll still have respectability. His reputation. His family’s place in history.”

“Yes. He’ll still have all that.”

“Then use it. However you need to. Just give me a day or two. Enough time for Bernhard to get used to what it all means.”

“Is five days enough?”

“Yes. But why five?”

“That’s how long it is until the fourth of June. It’s the one and only time I’ll know exactly where to find Bauer. Alone, and out in the open.”

“Then here’s to the fourth of June.” Sabine clicked her teacup to his. “Do what you must. And good luck.”

Berlin- Monday, June 4, 2007

Kurt Bauer bought flowers from the kiosk at the Beusselstrasse S-Bahn station, just as he always did. The vendor was nearly as old as he was, and her fingers were just as gnarled. Kurt handed her three euros and grasped the bundle of wet newspaper, wrapped at the stems. It was a spring bouquet, mostly daffodils. Liesl would have liked the scent. He waited for the light to change and slowly crossed the highway.

The walkway took him over a bridge, high above a stinking canal, and then across a busy Autobahn. A desolate route, perhaps, but that was how Kurt preferred it. All too soon he would be too feeble to walk, and he would have to journey here by limousine. Too bad. Half the appeal of his monthly pilgrimage was his use of public transport and the way it let him blend into the surroundings, just like any other Berliner.

He turned the corner onto a narrow lane, which had been buckled and bowed by the large trucks of a nearby shipping firm. The lane ran alongside a high brick wall that had once surrounded the prison, the very wall Kurt had viewed from his cell for five months running. He paused to catch his breath, and shifted the bouquet to his left hand. Then he entered the stone courtyard of the Plötzensee Memorial.

It looked as if he had the place to himself. Good. Other visitors made him uncomfortable, especially young ones. If you were of a certain age and dressed in a certain way-prosperously but conservatively-they tended to regard you with suspicion, or outright hostility. As if you were Hitler himself, come to gloat over the dead.

Kurt never bothered anymore to go inside the site’s centerpiece, a brick shed that had been built to resemble the old death house. Once had been enough. The hangman’s meat hooks lined a far wall. They gave him the shakes.