Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“More or less. Nobody’s gone missing lately, anyway.”

“Except Emil Brandt.”

“Yes, except Emil.”

“So now he’s on your list.”

“He’s on everybody’s list. He did all the calculations-he knows the whole program. I told you, we don’t want to lose this one. Not now, for sure.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Why not now?”

“The rocket team?” Schaeffer picked up the newspaper. “Can you imagine if the V-2s had carried one of these babies?”

“No, I can’t,” Jake said. London, gone.

“They’re everybody’s top pick,” Shaeffer said. “But we got them. And we’re going to keep them. All of them.”

“What if they don’t want to go?”

“They do. Even Brandt. He just wants to take his wife. Always the wife. We almost lost him once, after Nordhausen. We get the rockets, the blueprints, the team’s stashed away in Oberjoch. And he gives the slip and takes off for Berlin on some fucking wild goose chase. He was lucky to get out alive.”

“With his files,” Jake said casually, a shot.

Shaeffer waved his hand. “Admin. Not worth a damn thing. All the tech files were at Nordhausen. That was just an excuse to get his wife.”

“Admin? I thought they were SS files.”

“It was an SS program. They took it over. By that time they were taking over everything. For what it was worth.”

“They gave him a medal.”

“They gave everybody a medal. The scientists weren’t too thrilled about the SS taking over. Not the coziest guys you could think of. But what the hell, who gets to pick his boss? So they hand out some medals and it’s smiles again. They had a ton of them.” A floor in the Chancellery, heaped with Iron Crosses.

“Finally we get them to Kransberg,” Shaeffer was saying. “Keep them together, see? And he does it again. The others, we tell them the dependents’ll come later and they don’t like it much. But this one, no. He has to go shack up with her somewhere, have a little reunion. As if we don’t have enough to do. Go chasing her now. And we’re short-handed as it is. And now this.” He gestured to his wound.

“He’s not with his wife,” Jake said. “She doesn’t know where he is.”

Shaeffer looked at him, not saying anything for a moment. Then he took another cigarette from the pack on the bed, still buying time.

“Thanks for saving me the legwork,” he said calmly. “Want to tell me where she is?”

“No.”

“In our zone?”

Jake nodded. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“Well, that’s a relief, anyway.”

“What is?”

“Where she is. What do you think’s been keeping me up nights- what if the Russians get her first? That’d be an offer we couldn’t compete with. We’d lose him for sure.”

Bait. Jake looked out the window, feeling another jump of blood, as if the soldier behind the Alex had appeared again.

“She’d be better off with us, you know,” Shaeffer said, still calm.

“She’s all right where she is.”

But was she? The Russian had asked for her.

“Want to tell me how you found her?” Shaeffer said, watching him. “We tried everything. No fragebogen, no neighbors, nothing.”

“You might have tried his father. Why didn’t you, by the way?”

“His father?” Shaeffer said, surprised. “His father’s dead.”

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“Brandt told me so himself. I’m the one who debriefed him.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“You didn’t ask,” Shaeffer said, moving a checker into place.

“Well, he’s alive. I saw him. Why would Emil say that?”

Shaeffer shrugged. “Why didn’t you tell me where his wife was? People like to keep a little something back. Question of trust, maybe. He know anything?”

“No, he hasn’t seen him either. Nobody has. Nobody since Tully. But you’re not interested in him.”

Shaeffer looked down, smoothing out the sheet. “Look, let’s smoke a little pipe here. Since you’ve got your nose under the tent. I could use the help.”

“Doing what?”

“What you’ve been doing. We still have to find him. I’m out of commission. You’re not.”

“No thanks to you. Let’s start with Tully and see how we do.”

“They were friends at Kransberg. Well, friends. Brandt spoke English and Tully liked to listen. Late-night stuff. Brandt was the moody type. Depressed. How everything had gone wrong. You know, booze talk.”

“Tully told you this?”

“Well, it’s possible the rooms were bugged. So we could hear what the guests had to say.”

“Nice.”

“The Nazis put the taps in. We just took them over when we moved in.”

“Some difference.”

“I don’t think you understand how it is there. The scientists are bargaining. They want to make sure there’s work, some deal to get them out. So they don’t give everything all at once. A little at a time, to keep us interested. They check with von Braun before they tell us anything. I don’t blame them-they’re just looking out for number one. But we’ve got to know. Not just what’s on paper-what’s up here.” He tapped his temple.

“All right, so they’re pals.”

“And Brandt waltzes out of there and Tully drives him and no one tells us. So that by the time we do hear about it, he’s Mr. Innocent and Brandt’s gone and still nobody’s making the right connection.”

“Which is?”

“They think it’s a fuckup. Brandt cons Tully into giving him a pass. Just a nice guy.”

“And you don’t think so?”

“I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny either. I checked. The guy’s an operator. You know he was selling releases to Germans?”

“I heard.”

“A real piece of work. Twice sometimes-that’s how it came out. But they couldn’t prove it. His word against theirs. A bunch of Germans squealing. Who’s got time to investigate that? But Brandt- that’s something else. I get interested. And here’s the thing-it was Tully’s idea, skipping out. So I figure he’s up to his old tricks.”

“Tully’sidea?”

“Nobody thinks to check the taps,” Shaeffer said. “We only make transcripts when the guests are talking science. The rest of the time, our guys are reading a comic or taking a leak or something. So I get the monitor for that night and ask him what they were talking about. Nothing, he says, personal stuff. Like what? Nothing, Tully just told him they’d found his wife. Nothing,” he said sarcastically.

“But they hadn’t.”

“No. But I didn’t know that then. What I knew was that Tully’d got himself a paying customer. The one thing Brandt wanted. So I figure they negotiate a little private business. Brandt never made any noises about leaving before. He doesn’t clear it with von Braun-he just goes. Tully even drives him out. So when I hear that, I blow some whistles to yank Tully in, but by that time he’s gone too.”

“To Berlin. Why?”

“Payday, probably. They didn’t have money at Kransberg. I figured Brandt got the cash from his wife.”

“But he never found her.”

“Then Tully had one pissed-off German on his hands.” “No,” Jake said, shaking his head, thinking. “They didn’t meet up again in Berlin. Why would Tully want to do that if he’d lied about the wife?”

“Well, I didn’t know he had. See? I told you we could use you.” He leaned back, turning it over. “But he came.”

“Anything in the taps about friends in Berlin? Tully know anybody here?”

Shaeffer glanced up at him. “He knew Emil Brandt.”

“You trying to say Emil killed him?”

“I’m trying to say I don’t care. I just want him back. Tully’s not important.”

“He was important enough to shoot.”