The Arms Maker of Berlin, page 27
Have you heard yet from your family, and your poor sister? One of my first thoughts after the terrible night of the raid was that this event would only make things worse for them, at a time when they can least afford it. Please send them my love, and, if possible, reassure me that they, too, have not been dragged into this awful abyss.
With all the idle hours now at my disposal, I confess to experiencing many moments of weakness when I try to imagine what will become of us. I do take some hope from the days that have already passed. The students who were arrested in Munich were tried and executed in only a day or two, and I believe that many of them were several years older than us. Perhaps the thinking here is that they will offer us a second chance. Or maybe I am being terribly naive in my wishful thinking, and their only intention is to drag out the process as long as possible. One of the others seems to think that we will be here for weeks, or even months, based on things that he has heard from his parents. It is the uncertainty which is hardest to take. My lowest moments seem to come when I dare to dream that we might still have a future.
All right, I must finish. The guard has promised to pick up this letter in the next hour just before the shift changes. Please stay strong, my darling.
All my love,
Liesl
As the days passed, Liesl’s notes continued, and Kurt always answered. He, of course, had not been interrogated since their imprisonment. But to cover for himself he wove elaborate descriptions of tough treatment and steadfast resistance, tales that were so deeply imagined that at times he almost believed them.
Word trickled in from the others. By the end of the second week he had received letters from everyone except Hannelore, although the only one he bothered to answer was Christoph, whom he had always admired.
Even poor Dieter sent him a message. It was obvious from his aggrieved and defensive tone that he had picked up on the suspicions of the others, and his shrillness only served to make him seem guilty. Kurt thought it best to say nothing at all on the subject, figuring that the whisper campaign and Dieter himself would do the job for him.
The third week brought devastating news from the outside. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been arrested. Details were sketchy, and Kurt agonized that his own revelations might have somehow led to it. It might have been easier to take if Bonhoeffer had been jailed at Plötzensee, where he could have joined their network of secret correspondence. Instead, the authorities took him to Tegel Prison, just across town.
But events within Plötzensee soon reminded them that they had plenty to fear regarding their own prospects. On the evening of May 13, nearly eight weeks after their arrival, Kurt heard a stir of activity outdoors. He looked out the window to see a single file of prisoners casting long shadows as guards led them into a low building between the cellblock and the outer wall. He counted thirteen in all. It was just before 7 p.m.
For the next half hour, a series of barked commands issued from the windows of the low building. Some were followed by muffled cries, others by a great slamming thud, which echoed across the yard. Finally there was a brief period of silence, followed by a frantic spell of hammering. When that stopped, the door of the building opened and two guards emerged, carrying a wooden coffin. Two more guards followed with a second coffin. Thirteen bodies came out in all.
The next morning he got the full story from a guard, who seemed to relish explaining what all the fuss had been about. The low building was the Plötzensee death chamber. The sickening thunks had come from the slamming blade of a guillotine. The prisoners that weren’t beheaded had been hanged from hooks along a rear wall. The thirteen victims were members of a resistance cell known as the Red Orchestra, for its ties to the Soviets.
The next few months brought further killings. The peak came on August 5, when nineteen more members of the Red Orchestra filed into the death house. But the worst was yet to come. In mid-August, the news arrived in a note from Liesl: Their trials had begun. Kurt had to pretend that he knew all about it and that he, too, was going into the dock. But he could only imagine how horrible it was as he read the descriptions from the others, as each was led into the so-called People’s Court for trial and sentencing.
The worst and most vivid account was Christoph’s.
Our judge was Roland Freisler, the devil himself in his awful red robes. He wore a perched crown hat and saluted like a madman, as if pointing to the thunderclouds and awaiting their command. He hardly listened to a word I said. He just screamed and sneered and berated me at every turn. When the end came he shouted the verdict of guilty, and then his sentence, screaming to the gallery, “This beet must be uprooted and replanted! Yank him from the ground, then bury him in it!” That is his way of saying I am to be hanged ten days from now, on the 29th of August, along with Ulrich and Dieter, who I am ashamed to admit that I have sorely misjudged in this affair.
What is the word from you, and have you been to court yet? I await your news with equal measures of dread and compassion. I am determined to carry myself with dignity and defiance to the very end, and I am confident that you will do the same.
Your loyal friend,
Christoph
Kurt crumpled the note in anguish. In the following days word arrived that Klara and Hannelore had also been sentenced to hang, but not until September 5. Kurt considered writing that he, too, had been sentenced to death, to keep the others from assuming the worst. But if he did, Liesl would know later that he had lied to the others. Before he could think up what to say, the news arrived that Liesl had inexplicably—to everyone else, at least—been sentenced merely to five years in jail. The official explanation was that she was the youngest of the three girls. That gave Kurt the out that he had been seeking, because at seventeen he was the youngest of the males, and the Nazis had generally avoided executing underage suspects, as long as you weren’t a Jew. The beheading at Plötzensee the previous year of a seventeen-year-old boy—yet another pamphleteer—had led to a rare public outcry against the government.
Liesl, while overjoyed to hear his life had been spared, seemed to suspect that his family’s prominence must have had something to do with it. She concluded that this must have worked to protect her as well, because in her next note she asked, “Is there nothing your father can do for the others, or, at the very least, for Hannelore?”
He decided that the safest bet was to play along, so he replied, “With regret and no small measure of shame, I must reveal that my father has expended all of his possible influence, and I can assure you that even that did not come without many sacrifices, in light of what the government now knows about my family.”
Executions at Plötzensee always began at 7 p.m. On the day that Christoph, Ulrich, and Dieter were to be killed, Kurt lay on his bed waiting in dread for the groan of the downstairs door and the tramp of feet toward the death chamber. They were right on schedule. He couldn’t bear to watch, and when he heard Christoph’s voice, wavering yet loud, yell, “Our memory will outlive our killers!” he shut his eyes tightly and sobbed in shame. Then he clamped his thin pillow around his ears, pressing hard and humming like a boy afraid of thunder, so that he wouldn’t hear the shouted orders, the muffled cries, or the hammering of the coffin lids.
His humming wasn’t loud enough, so he began singing like a madman—old tunes from kindergarten, Christmas carols, whatever came to mind. And when he opened his eyes much later and dropped the pillow, which was soaked in tears and sweat, he saw that it had grown dark outside. His untouched dinner sat cold on a tray the guards had brought. The only sound was the twitter of a nightingale, tuning up for the evening. A half hour later an air raid siren wailed into action, and he listened for the distant drone of approaching bombers. On came the flak guns and the bomb bursts, and for a change he welcomed them. The searchlights seemed to sweep the sky clear of all the ill spirits that had been set loose from the death chamber.
For the next several days he ignored contact with everyone, even Liesl. At noon on September 3 he finally wrote her. He had just penned the salutation when there was a knock at the door. Guards never knocked, so he wondered who it could be.
“It’s Göllner. Your time is up.”
For a harrowing moment Kurt was convinced that their deal was off and that he was about to be led downstairs to the death chamber, where he would find Liesl already hanging by a hook. Instead, Göllner entered with a sheaf of documents.
“These are your release papers. Come downstairs. All you have to do is sign.”
He sagged in relief, not least because it meant he would not have to endure the executions of Klara and Hannelore. In his mounting guilt he had even begun to admire Hannelore’s reckless defiance.
“And Liesl?” he asked. “She is being released, too?”
“There has been a slight delay where she is concerned. Nothing to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why they sent me. To explain, so there will be no fuss. She will be coming out later, perhaps at midnight. Some sort of glitch with the paperwork. But, as I said, not to worry. You will have three weeks to spend with your lady love before going off to the army. Maybe she will volunteer for the nursing corps and you will see her at the front.”
Kurt wanted to punch him, but knew better.
“Come on. Your father is waiting.”
He stepped out the door of his cell with a feeling of immense relief. Then he saw a face watching from a small window in the opposite door. What if the neighboring prisoners had overheard Göllner? If Hannelore found out, she might still poison the well for him. He kept his head down and his eyes to the floor. Now that he was on the verge of freedom, he found himself reverting to old resentments.
Kurt’s father greeted him with a huge hug. It was the first time he had ever seen tears in the man’s eyes, and it moved him deeply. But he reverted to his skittishness as they crossed the prison yard toward the front gate. He could feel the eyes of the other prisoners on his back. Fortunately, no one called out his name. He hoped that Hannelore, Klara, and Liesl had cells facing in another direction, because surely they would misunderstand. Or, worse, they would understand all too clearly.
But he cheered himself with the reminder that by tomorrow at this time Liesl also would be free. She would have no choice but to write it off as some strange act of mercy or political influence. Hannelore might argue otherwise, but she would soon be dead. Not the best of circumstances for beginning the rest of their lives, but certainly preferable to the ghastly alternative.
The thought made him glance over his shoulder as he approached the gate. His last sight inside the prison was of the low brick chamber of death, with its guillotine and its hangman’s hooks. He shivered, and then stepped into freedom. Tomorrow he would begin putting all of this behind him.
Instead, of course, the bombers came once again that very night, and by morning Kurt was back on the scene, kneeling in the rubble, clawing at the smoldering bricks until he found her legs, and then her hand, still curled around the document that was supposed to have set her free.
TWENTY-FOUR
THEY SHOVED NAT through a door and onto an elevator. He was still hooded, but each extra second without a gunshot or a blow to the head made him dare to hope that something other than the worst lay ahead. Why go to the trouble to take him into this building unless something besides an execution awaited?
They stepped off the elevator into a hallway with lights so bright they even penetrated the gloom of the hood. His escorts maintained their silence. He wasn’t sure how many were still with him, other than the ones at either side, gripping his forearms.
“Just ahead?” one muttered.
“Yes. It’s supposed to be unlocked.”
They stopped. A doorknob clicked. They led him inside, then a hand loosened the drawstring. The hood tickled past his nose and came free. Nat took a fresh breath of cool air and blinked into the brightness. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw he was in an office, standing at a desk. Seated behind the desk was Clark Holland.
Nat exhaled loudly, almost laughing in relief. He had never been this happy to see anyone, although it was clear from Holland’s face that the feeling wasn’t mutual.
The escorts quickly disappeared, shutting the door behind them. Holland didn’t even bother to say thanks.
“Maybe now I can finally get an update,” Holland said. “What happened to your arm?”
Nat began to shiver. The sweat on his back felt like melted snow, and his legs were limp. He looked down at his arm and saw that the bleeding had stopped.
“There was a knife. What the hell just happened? Who were those guys?”
“BfV, most likely. German domestic intelligence. But when I ask for help from the Germans I’m not exactly picky, so who knows for sure? Could even be contract employees. Effective, though, judging from the results.”
“They hooded me.”
“I noticed.”
“They scared the hell out of me, if you really want to know.”
“They have their own way of doing things. I don’t question their tactics as long as they produce the desired results. In exchange they sometimes offer the same courtesy to me, especially when I’m operating on their turf. You look like you could use a drink. I’m afraid all we have is water.” He shouted toward an open door to an adjoining room. “Neil? Come take care of our visitor, please.”
Neil Ford, the young agent who had tracked him down in the university library, came bounding around the corner with a first aid kit, a schoolboy grin, and an open bottle of Volvic mineral water.
“Hi, Dr. Turnbull.” Like they’d just run into each other at the mall.
“Just super to see you, Neil.”
“Same here!”
“I think Dr. Turnbull’s being sarcastic, Neil.”
“Oh.”
“Glad I’m not the only one who hasn’t lost his sense of irony,” Nat said. He was still pleasantly amazed to be in one piece, but his relief was giving way to anger.
“I wouldn’t complain if I were you, considering what almost happened.”
“Me dying, you mean?”
“Oh, he wasn’t going to kill you.”
“Comforting that you’re so sure. Then what did he want?”
“Same as me, I’d imagine. An update on your progress. Names, dates, whatever you’ve found out. You know, the things you’re supposed to be reporting every day.”
“You killed him for that?”
“Please. They killed him, and it was their call. I’m not here to make a nuisance of myself.”
“Are you officially even here?”
“Do you really expect an answer? Drink some water, then I’ll explain. Although you may want a second bottle before I’m finished. Just pretend it’s Gordon Wolfe’s cognac and the news shouldn’t bother you at all.”
“That bad?”
“Qurashi was a persuasive man. If he’d ever gotten a chance to sit you down for a confidential chat, just the two of you, you might have told him anything.”
“You knew his name?”
“Saeed Qurashi. Iranian national. Contract employee of MOIS, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He’s been following you since Zurich, more or less. One of his pals in the U.S. stole your cell phone.”
“The one who called Karen? If she’s in any way—”
“Relax. I told you, she’s covered. Even better than you were just now.”
“This Qurashi. I think I saw him in Bern, dressed like a housekeeper in the hotel. He may have copied the files off my laptop.”
“You might have reported that, you know. But as it happens, we already knew. Did it occur to you that your friend Berta might have invited you up to her room expressly so he could do that?”
“You really think so?”
“We’re not sure what to think about her. But that’s a topic for later. Qurashi was an agent, but he’s better known as an interrogator. A good one. Meaning a bad one.”
“I thought ‘enhanced techniques’ weren’t really torture anymore?”
“I’m not talking about something as tame as waterboarding. Not that you’d find it tame, but Qurashi wasn’t equipped for it. Care to see what the BfV found in his hotel room?”
Holland hefted a large shopping bag onto the desk with a heavy clank. First he pulled out a pair of electrical clamps hooked up to wires.
“God knows what these are supposed to attach to.”
Nat locked his knees. Holland dug into the bag again.
“Looks like he had an AC adapter for every specification. Careful traveler, our man Qurashi. Prepared for outlets of all nations. But I’ve saved the best for last.”
Holland held aloft a blowtorch attached to a canister of propane.
“Believe me, he wasn’t planning on using this to make crème brûlée. As I said, he was very persuasive.”
“I get the picture.”
“Yes, well, in case you need a further reminder of what’s at stake—Neil, could you bring me those intercepts?”
Neil Ford emerged again from the back, this time with a manila folder. He pointedly avoided looking at Nat as he handed it to Holland, who slid the folder across the desk.
“NSA intercepts, all from the past week. Most of these calls are between Qurashi and a control in Berlin, who we still haven’t identified, by the way, so don’t feel too damn smug. Take a look.”
“Who’s ‘Gateway’?” Nat asked.
“MOIS code name for Bauer. ‘Ferret’ is you.”
“ ‘Ferret’?”
“I’m told it’s a compliment. Read on.”
All his recent movements were detailed. So was an order, issued the previous day via the Berlin control, to “retrieve Ferret for questioning. Use all means at your disposal.”
