TWENTY-FIVE
ERICH STUCKART WALKED into the rain to retrieve his morning paper from a mailbox marked “Schmidt,” a stooped old man on a soggy lawn. Nat recognized him from the photo in Berta’s portfolio, the one shot he hadn’t been able to identify until now. The two of them watched from across the street through the streaked windshield of a rental car. Nat had picked it up that morning expressly for this trip.
The way Berta had explained it the night before, Stuckart had faked his fatal car accident with the help of a Munich policeman. Another cop had let her in on the secret. Supposedly West German intelligence was in on the scheme, doing a favor for a Cold War source. Now you could visit his headstone at a local cemetery, where an urn of ashes was stored in a small vault. Nat wondered if the irony of using a crematorium as a stage prop had enhanced Stuckart’s satisfaction with the ruse. A whole new life, and he didn’t even have to change his monogram.
In fact, he’d barely changed his neighborhood. Hohengatow was just across the Havel River from the Grunewald. Sail four miles downstream and you could dock at his father’s old villa on the Wannsee. A few blocks farther and you’d be at the house where the Wannsee Conference was held. Talk about balls. It was the one detail that had finally convinced Nat that Berta’s story must be true. Because who would ever make up anything so bizarre: that a fellow so desperate to escape his past would nonetheless settle just upstream from the site where his father had earned eternal infamy as an architect of Hitler’s Final Solution.
“Nice house,” Nat said to Berta, as they watched Stuckart shut the door behind him.
“He still has the family’s old motorboat. It’s considered a vintage model now.”
“You say he slammed the door in your face?”
She nodded.
“Hard to believe you only tried once. By your standards that’s practically sane.”
“He threatened me with the police.”
“Well, I’ll threaten him with the CIA. Or better still, the New York Times. You wait here.” They had already agreed he would go it alone, even though she was still pouting about it. “Don’t worry. I take very good notes.”
“As long as you’re willing to share them.”
“Here’s something else I’ll share. G?llner wants to see you when we go back this afternoon. He seems to think you have something to do with the people who’ve been poking around his place lately.”
She frowned and wrinkled her nose.
“I work alone. You should know that as well as anyone.”
Nat watched her reaction carefully. She seemed genuinely puzzled by the accusation. Good. Also, to his relief, no one had followed them on the drive out to Hohengatow. The lonely road had been quite empty at this early hour. Qurashi’s death must have left the Iranians shorthanded.
“Well, you can take that up with G?llner. At least this time he’ll let you in the door. Now if I can just get Stuckart to do the same for me.”
Nat stepped into the chilly rain.
Stuckart answered his knock. Even at his advanced age, his resemblance to photos of his father was striking—the long face, the narrow, sloping nose, the undersized mouth, the wide-awake eyes, like those of a lurking owl, watching for prey. There was a calmness to his demeanor that was hard to reconcile with the monstrosities he had engineered. But, no, Nat reminded himself, that was his father’s doing, not the son’s. No real guilt here, except by association. As far as he knew.
“Herr Schmidt?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Nathaniel Turnbull, a historian from the United States. I was wondering if I might have a few minutes of your time?”
The door was already closing. Nat put his foot forward like a pushy salesman and held out his hands. He wasn’t usually so aggressive, but he wasn’t often this close to such valuable memories.
“I’m aware of your real identity, so that’s not an issue. I have no wish to make it public knowledge.”
Stuckart pushed harder and raised his voice.
“If you please, sir. I have nothing to say to you and I never will.”
“I haven’t come to ask about you. It’s about Kurt Bauer.”
This at least made him stop shoving the door against Nat’s foot.
“Look,” Nat said, “just let me tell you exactly what this is and isn’t about.”
Stuckart let go of the door, but didn’t back away. He was breathing heavily. Nat dropped his hands to his sides, but kept his foot in place.
“Whatever you tell me will go no further than my notebook,” Nat said. Stuckart began shaking his head. “Unless—” Nat raised a finger in warning. He felt like a bully, but what the hell. No matter how young Stuckart had been during the war, he had nonetheless been a Nazi, and from the looks of his house he was still living off the bounty of his father’s high rank. “Unless you choose not to speak with me. In which case I know quite a few other historians who would love to know where you live and what your real name is. There are also a few journalists who would find the story of your so-called death quite amusing, although I doubt your friends in law enforcement would care for the publicity.”
“I did nothing! I was a damned boy, and I only wish to be left in peace.”
“I understand. And Kurt Bauer was only a boy, too. But he’s not anymore, is he? And he has gotten to keep his name without ever having to disappear.”
Stuckart shook his head. He still looked exasperated, but he backed into the hall.
“Fifteen minutes. No more.”
He led Nat to a sitting room. A tiny woman with white hair and sparkling blue eyes peeped around the corner from the rear. She looked terrified.
“It’s all right, Marlene. No need to phone anyone. Why don’t you take Snowflake for her walk?”
A white toy poodle, immaculately groomed, showed its face at the mention of its name. The woman called after it and the two of them disappeared. Stuckart remained on his feet as they listened to the jangling of a leash, the click of tiny paws on a tile floor, the back door opening and shutting. Stuckart then settled into the middle of a grand old couch and glared at Nat.
A lot of old money was on display here—mostly in heavy oil paintings from the nineteenth century in gilded frames. Mounted high on a far wall was the head of a stag, flanked by fierce-looking boars, tusks shining in the gloom. Nat wondered if they had been killed in the Grunewald. Stuckart’s father had almost certainly held conversations beneath their gaze as well, perhaps even with Hitler, and almost certainly with Himmler. Bad spirits galore. The glass eyes of those dead beasts had witnessed it all.
“You disapprove of me living this well, don’t you?” Stuckart said. “I can tell by the way you look at everything. Your smug superiority. Well, let me tell you something, I am not afraid of your threats. I, too, have friends in the news media, and certainly with the police. If you fail to keep your word, you will hear from them, and for a long time.”
“It sounds like we have an understanding, then. In that case we should begin.”
Nat took out his notebook.
“You and Bauer. You were school chums, correct?”
“In fact, we are still friends. Not everyone is so narrow-minded as some people.”
“What was he like then?”
“The same as now. Smart. Sober. A careful man who decides what he wants and then goes and gets it. He also knows the value of loyalty. We both do. In fact, if you really want to talk about Kurt Bauer, it would be much more productive to speak with the man himself. I am sure he would be quite happy to arrange an appointment.”
“Maybe. Although I’m told he isn’t too eager to discuss the war years.”
“Of course not. No German knows how to have that discussion properly. Not anymore, because everyone has already made up their minds about how to feel about you. Before you even say a word they decide what you must have been like, and their judgment is always final.”
“Let’s not talk about Germany, then. What about Switzerland in the summer of ’44? You and Kurt were in Bern, weren’t you?”
Stuckart eyed him carefully and said nothing. He reached into his shirt pocket for a lighter and a pack of West cigarettes. The lighter chirped, and he inhaled deeply.
“Yes. We were in Bern. But we hardly saw each other. We were too busy for fun by then. Too preoccupied. I might have seen him in passing once or twice, but that was all.”
A lie, of course, but Nat decided to save his ammunition and revisit the question later. No sense pissing the old man off just as he was warming up.
“Preoccupied with what?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Everything was coming down upon our heads, and upon the heads of our families. We were doing all we could to secure our futures.”
“Kurt’s future seemed to end up a little brighter than yours.”
“Because he is wealthier, you mean? That is not everything, you know. Even the Nazis didn’t believe that.”
“Not just wealth. Power, influence. Stature. Kurt Bauer can go out in public under his own name and everyone is fine with that. A Stuckart, on the other hand—”
“You’d be surprised how much of that so-called stature is because of the money. And he is part Jew, you know, which is an advantage nowadays. Not that it shouldn’t be, of course.”
“Bauer is Jewish?”
“Not Jewish. But he has Jewish blood. There was that whole thing with his sister’s marriage.”
Nat had never heard a word of this, and he suspected Berta hadn’t either. The odd thing was the way Stuckart seemed to revel in the information, as if he had just brought the man down a few pegs. The two men’s relationship seemed complex, to say the least, and Nat wondered what lay at the heart of it.
“His sister’s marriage? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that.”
“She was supposed to marry an SS man. But it was called off after the background check by the Racial Office. Some ancestor turned up, ages earlier, a great-great-grandmother or something, who turned out to be a Jew. So, naturally—”
“Were there other consequences?”
“Not any real ones. There was never any question of that. His family was far too valuable to the war effort. There must have been thousands of those marriage background checks, and I never heard of a single one that led to anything beyond a few broken hearts. But of course Kurt’s father didn’t know that. The poor man panicked, nearly had a breakdown. And once you let certain people in the Gestapo see this sort of fear, well, I’m sure you can imagine how they might choose to take advantage.”
“Bribes?”
Stuckart shrugged, but a sly grin said he knew better. Maybe G?llner also knew better.
“Was that why the family left for Switzerland?”
Stuckart shrugged again, and this time he didn’t smile. He took another long drag from his cigarette before speaking.
“As I said, Kurt and I hardly saw each other in Bern. I never had a chance to ask.”
“This news about the Jewish ancestor, then—you heard that from other people?”
“I may have seen Kurt in Berlin just before he left. We were both still too young for the draft, so we had time for socializing, such as it was, with the blackout and all. They even closed the beer gardens, you know. Worst decision the Cripple ever made.”
“Did your father know about this problem with the Bauers’ ancestry?”
“Of course.”
“And he didn’t order you to stop seeing him?”
“You know, people always assume that any German in those days would have simply been appalled to find out that a friend had even a drop of Jewish blood.”
“Can’t imagine why they’d think that.”
“See? You are the same. And in my case, it is only because of my father, and some meeting he supposedly attended, and a single law that bears his signature. Say what you will, but I am not at all ashamed of my father. He was a legal technician, nothing more. They asked him to draft laws and he did so, just as he was obligated to do. Not by the German Reich, but by his professional code of conduct. The same way that any lawyer would defend some criminal, some murderer, to his very last breath if that was his duty. Does that mean the lawyer is complicit in the murder? Of course not.”
“Yes, I see your point.” The last thing Nat wanted to encourage was further lecturing. “So his Jewishness didn’t bother anybody, then—is that what you’re saying?”
“It was merely some old blood, a mistake made long ago by a distant relative. Or not a mistake, but you know what I mean. I suppose there was some reaction among a few people. But no one of importance. His girlfriend, for example. If anything, she was probably pleased by it. Not because she was a Jew, of course. More because of her politics. I always suspected that deep down she was a little Bolshevik.”
Stuckart laughed, the smoke issuing in bursts.
“What makes you say that? Because of this little group they were mixed up in, the White Rose?”
Stuckart’s smile disappeared.
“I don’t know a thing about any of that.”
“Nothing?”
“Quite right.”
“But wasn’t Bauer arrested? Surely you heard about that. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, even put into prison for a while.”
“I don’t know.”
“Your best friend goes to jail for five months and you don’t know about it?”
“We were friends, not best friends. And if these things indeed happened, then it must have been during a period when I didn’t see him much. There were a lot of bombings of the city in that period. Life wasn’t exactly proceeding in a normal fashion. So when people went missing from your life for a while, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary.”
“I see.” Lying son of a bitch. But why cover for Bauer on a matter that, presumably, would make the man look good, even noble? “What else do you remember about Bauer’s girlfriend?”
“Not so much. It was a poor match. My father detested her. But all the same he was fine with letting her dine in his house, because that is the kind of man he was.”
“Tolerant.”
“Of course. His duties and his work he kept to one side, his friendships and his hospitality he kept to another. As is only proper.”
“Of course.” Nat wished he had all this on tape, if only for the circuitous marvel of Stuckart’s rationalizations. He had heard some splendid examples over the years from Germans of that era, but this was a virtuoso performance.
The discussion of Bauer’s girlfriend, however, had jarred loose his memory of Berta’s findings on the deaths at Pl?tzensee Prison, plus all those photos of the elderly Bauer arriving at the site on the fourth day of every month, flowers in hand.
“This girlfriend. I suppose you’re referring to Liesl Folkerts?”
Stuckart tilted his head and gave Nat a long, silent look, as if reappraising his questioner. His next words emerged with great deliberation.
“How much, exactly, have you dug up on old Kurt?”
Was it Nat’s imagination, or had Stuckart’s tone contained a hint of gleeful malice? Yes, this was a complicated friendship.
“Bits and pieces. She died, didn’t she? Some misadventure at Pl?tzensee Prison?”
“She was killed in a bombing raid. There was a big one that night, and the prison took a direct hit. A few people even managed to escape as a result, but Liesl was buried under a collapsed wall. Kurt was inconsolable.”
“I thought you didn’t see him any then?”
“This was all secondhand, of course. From mutual friends. As for myself, I, uh, didn’t see him again until—”
“Switzerland?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s go back there for a second.”
Stuckart shrugged and reached again for his cigarettes. He stubbed out the first one even though it was only half finished.
“As I told you, we hardly saw each other in Bern. I recall running into him once on the Kornhaus Bridge, but that was about it.”
Nat consulted his notes from the Swiss surveillance reports.
“This meeting on the bridge, would that have been on the twentieth of July, 1944?”
“I have no idea. It was so long ago. That could have been the date, but I would hardly describe it as any sort of ‘meeting.’”
“Well, I’m not sure what else you would call it. You and Kurt were witnessed together on the bridge. Then both of you walked to a house in Altenberg, where you were inside for several hours.”
Stuckart was stone-faced, silent. Nat continued.
“A few days later you visited him at his room at the Bellevue, where his family had a suite. You stayed two hours, then the two of you had dinner together on the terrace, where you were also seen chatting with members of the German legation. One of them was a new addition to the staff of the Gestapo.”
Stuckart exhaled twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils. A long column of ash drooped from his cigarette, on the verge of collapse.
“Where did you come by this ludicrous hearsay?”
“It’s not hearsay. It’s a surveillance report by Swiss intelligence. An original, not a copy. Swiss agents observed a third lengthy meeting between the two of you as well. It was also attended by the new staff member of the Gestapo. Maybe now that I’ve refreshed your memory you could fill in some of the details?”
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”
“Isn’t possible, or isn’t desirable? Why keep protecting Bauer?”
“Look, when I said earlier that Kurt Bauer and I were still friends, perhaps I was being a bit boastful. We are in touch from time to time, but we really don’t see each other. Not face-to-face, or out in public. So, naturally, we never have occasion to revisit these old conversations, meaning that my memory of any time we may have once spent together has faded over time. Quite a bit, in fact. Do you see?”
“Yes, I see. And I’m beginning to understand your friendship. It’s based on mutual leverage, because you both have something to hide. For you, the Stuckart identity. For him, something that happened during the war, here or in Bern. In a strange way you’re still valuable to each other. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that he helped arrange your little vanishing act, in that fake accident. You probably didn’t have the right connections at the time. But he did. And he was glad to help, because if his own secret ever got out, well, that would be almost as embarrassing as having people know you were the son of a convicted war criminal.”
“I think it is time for you to leave, Dr. Turnbull.”
“I think so, too. Your memory’s not getting any better.”
Nat stood. Stuckart struggled to his feet.
“Remember,” the old man said, “you have your threats, but I also have mine. If you do not keep your word, I will not hesitate to take action.”
“Don’t worry, Herr Schmidt. I know how to keep a secret.”
“Oh, I am not at all worried. You’re the one who should be worried.”
For all the excitement of the encounter, Nat realized as he was describing it to Berta that he really hadn’t learned much new information. As a result, she was suitably unimpressed. The one item that seemed like a genuine revelation—verification that Liesl Folkerts had been Bauer’s girlfriend—bounced right off her. Meaning she probably already knew. He considered telling her that he had found her stash of photographs, then decided against it. No sense bickering just before their important meeting with G?llner.
“You should have called me in,” she said. “I could have gotten more out of him.”
“You’d have only gotten us thrown out of the house quicker. Besides, G?llner’s transcript should tell us what Stuckart was trying to hide.”
“Maybe.”
They grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby Imbiss. Feeling upbeat about their prospects, he ordered a Schulteiss lager with his Currywurst. Maybe they would soon have something to celebrate.
WHEN THE APPOINTED HOUR ARRIVED, Martin G?llner was waiting for them on the sidewalk outside his building. It was immediately clear he was in no condition to transact business.
His body was flattened against the pavement with his black overcoat fanned out around him like the garments of a melted witch. Two policemen stood over the body while a third taped off the scene. G?llner’s skull had split on impact. The crack oozed pink foam like an overripe melon. Blood pooled around his open mouth. His house slippers had somehow remained on his stocking feet.
Nat looked up toward the fifth floor, where lace curtains blew out from G?llner’s open window. Was it his imagination, or did he hear the oompah blat of a tuba issuing faintly from the neighbor’s nonstop Oktoberfest? One of the policemen pulled back the flaps of G?llner’s overcoat. No papers of any kind were visible.
“Come on,” Nat hissed. “Let’s try to get in while there’s still a chance.”
They dashed through the building’s open front door, and they were out of breath by the time they reached the fifth-floor landing. Brassy music was indeed playing loudly from the apartment across the hall, and G?llner’s door was ajar. They passed through to the living room with its flapping curtains. No sign of any documents. They reached the door of the bedroom just as a middle-aged cop in plastic gloves looked up from G?llner’s bureau.
“What’s going on? Who the hell are you?”
“We, uh … had an appointment with Herr G?ll … uh, Mannheim.”
“Well, this is a crime scene, and you’ve f*cked it up enough already, so don’t move a muscle.” He approached them with a weary air. “Identification, please.” Exactly what Nat had hoped to avoid. “C’mon. Both of you.”
The cop scanned the entry stamp in Nat’s passport.
“American,” he muttered. “You arrived only yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“Zurich.”
“What is your business here?”
“I’m a historian. Here’s my university ID. Mannheim was an old Gestapo man, named Martin G?llner. Was he pushed?”
The policeman took the ID while ignoring the question.
“Someday we’ll be through with all of these people,” he said. “Then there will be no more of their messes to clean up. Then all we’ll have is old people dying the way they always do, with no complications from the past. My partner will want to speak with both of you.”
A half hour later they were back on the sidewalk, having just finished speaking with a detective, who said he might want to talk with them later as well. Nat watched as G?llner’s body was carted to an ambulance. His only sorrow was of a professional nature, and not simply because they had missed out on the transcript. G?llner’s death meant that another portal to the past had closed forever. One less eyewitness to the most murderous era in history.
He now had to confront the issue of Berta Heinkel. In revealing the whereabouts of Stuckart she had presumably placed her last card on the table, and no matter what Holland said, Nat needed to get away from her. The woman trailed death like the train of a wedding gown, and he didn’t want to be the next person to trip on it. It was time for a clean break.
“Maybe we could come back later,” Berta said. “See if we can get in.”
“I’ve no doubt you could. You’re pretty skilled in that department.”
“What do you mean?”
“Larceny of all kinds. You’re the expert.”
“I admitted I was overzealous at the archives, but—”
“I was talking about the storage locker. The way you followed Gordon there and then broke in. Climbed a fence, wore a cap. You should see the surveillance video—you’re a star. For a plain old historian you really are multitalented. You can jimmy a lock, fake a license, seduce a source. Seduce. No wonder you like that word. It’s your best trick, pun intended. So I’m sure you’d be able to get into this dump. But you heard the cop. There were no papers found. Nothing suspicious except the way he died, flying out the window in his overcoat. So tell me, did you break into the jail, too, on the night Gordon died? Or did you just pay someone else to mix too many pills into his dinner?”
Berta’s mouth was agape, her eyes shocked. He had blindsided her, and for the first time since they’d met she seemed truly flustered. Even the confrontation over her thievery at the National Archives hadn’t unstrung her like this. When she finally spoke, her voice was a whisper.
“Pills? What are you talking about?”
“Ask Willis Turner.”
“I didn’t kill Dr. Wolfe. I could never kill anyone. You’d know that if you really knew me.”
“I don’t think I’m willing to take the risk of really knowing you. Turner and Holland would be happy to take your offer, though. Why don’t you call them?”
“When did you talk to them?”
“Does it matter?”
His cell phone rang.
“That’s one of them now, isn’t it?” she said. “I guess you’ve missed your time to report in on me. Like an informant.”
“You should know. You’re the one with the Stasi file.”
She slapped him, hard, then turned away just as her face dissolved into tears. He had expected the anger, but not this. She sobbed as his phone rang again, but as he stepped toward her she broke into a run, coat flapping, just like G?llner’s must have done as he sailed to his death. Let her go, he told himself. Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted?
The cops were watching the dustup with interest, so he turned in the opposite direction to take the call. The screen showed that it was from a blocked number.
“Nat?”
It was Steve Wallace, his archival source at the CIA.
“Jesus, Steve, how’d you get this number? Never mind. Stupid question.”
“I’m on an official line, so I’ll keep it short. Still can’t really help you. The properties in question remain unbearably hot. But seeing as how most of the heat is coming from our poor cousins across the Potomac”—the FBI, he meant—“I can at least advise you strongly to check your e-mail, preferably within the hour. But I’m expecting compensation. I understand you may have pictures?”
“I do indeed. And I’m a good sharer.”
“Great. Send them all. And don’t call back.”
“That hot, huh?”
But Wallace had already hung up, which was answer enough. Nat looked around. More cops were arriving, and more gawking bystanders. No sign of Berta, thank goodness, although he didn’t feel as relieved as he would have expected. Did he miss her? Or was he just wondering where she might be headed without him? Perhaps she had one last source up her sleeve.
He caught a cab back to the hotel. She had checked out only moments earlier. Paying on his card, of course. He pocketed the receipt and went straight upstairs, figuring he had better check right away for Wallace’s e-mail. The CIA man had seemed to imply there was some sort of electronic shelf life.
There it was, waiting with a simple “FYI” on the message line. Also clamoring for attention was a message from Berta. He clicked on it first. Judging from how long it took to come up, he was half expecting a photo, maybe even the one of Stuckart. A final peace offering. Instead, it was a brief farewell.
“Sorry I was such a disappointment. Best of luck. Regards, Berta.”
He had expected more. He clicked on the Wallace e-mail, which also got straight to the point:
“OSS paperwork shows shipping of the four boxes handled in Bern Nov. 8, 1945, by Gordon Wolfe and Murray Kaplan. Kaplan on OSS payroll, Dec. ’44 to Dec. ’45. Current address: 14147 Palm Bay Court, Candalusa, Fla.”
A live source, then. Someone who might have a key memory. More to the point, it was information unknown to Berta Heinkel. Now that the Iranian with the blowtorch was dead, she might well be his main competitor. It was enough to convince him to find another hotel room for the evening, so he signed off and caught the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, checking his flanks at every stop. He took a room on the twentieth floor of an ugly high-rise and logged back on to his laptop to Google Murray Kaplan. The local wireless server was terrible, and it took forever to boot up. Even then, the search came up practically empty, although it did produce a phone number for Kaplan. He dialed it.
In Florida it was noon. Kaplan’s wife said her husband was out back. He came on the line and seemed wary when Nat said he wanted to reminisce about Gordon Wolfe. He nonetheless agreed to a noon interview the following day.
Nat looked up Candalusa, Florida. It was just below Daytona Beach. He reserved a seat on a midday flight to Miami with a connection to Daytona, then booked a car and an oceanfront motel. All set. After an early dinner from room service he stretched out on the bed fully dressed, telling himself he would check in with Holland in an hour. He’d then call Karen, just to make sure everything was okay.
Twelve hours later he awakened cold and out of sorts. It was 8 a.m.
Nat was irritated about oversleeping, but he was also refreshed, and for the first time in days his mind was lodged firmly in the twenty-first century. His thoughts were of anything but Nazis, or even Germany. Instead, he wondered if Karen’s grades had come in, if the Wightman police had yet recovered his phone, and whether he would still be welcome on campus if his current work dismantled what was left of Gordon Wolfe’s legacy.
A call to Holland was overdue, but Karen was who he really wanted to talk to. Alas, it was 2 a.m. in the States, and even she wasn’t that much of a night owl. So he brewed a cup of instant coffee while watching television, feeling lonely and far from home.
Then his phone rang. Karen’s number popped onto the display. Serendipity.
“Hi! I was just—”
“Dad! He’s in the house!” She was breathless.
“Who is? Where are you?”
“Someone broke in. I heard him downstairs, so I climbed out the window, onto the roof above the porch. Now I’m in the yard, but I can see him in your study. He’s looking for something.”
“Jesus, Karen! Call 9-1-1.”
“I did. The police are coming, but I’m scared. He’s at the window now. Omigod, I think he sees me!”
“Get out! Now. Run to a neighbor’s, or down the street. Go!”
“He’s opening the window! He’s coming!”
“Go, Karen! Just go!”
The call ended. Nat was frantic for more. He dialed back and got a recording, Karen’s cheerful voice asking him to please leave a message. His imagination filled in the blanks, and in his mind’s eye a man who looked like Qurashi chased the barefoot Karen across a dewy lawn while the neighbors slept, oblivious. The man grabbed a hank of her hair and wrestled her through the backyard to his car in a rear alley, while the cops pulled up cluelessly out front and shined flashlights at an empty house. Nat saw an equipment bag on the backseat, unzipped. Electrodes and a blowtorch.
He tried the number again with no success. Then a third time. Nothing but the maddening recording, Karen’s voice so full of youth and optimism. And here he was, jaded old Dad, unable to raise a finger because he was off in Berlin, dabbling in someone else’s history while his own needed him so urgently. For want of a nail. Posterity would deem him a no-show in this disaster, a failure to his daughter. Damn, damn, and damn. And where were the feds? Damn Holland and his promises, and damn himself.
Nat paced the tiny room. He banged his fist on the wall and cursed loudly. He needed fresh air, but he didn’t dare leave for fear his cell phone would lose its signal in the hall or the elevator. Three minutes passed without a word. Then four, then five. He considered calling his ex-wife from the room’s bedside phone, but he couldn’t face that yet. He was too certain of her reproach, and knew he deserved it.
Eight minutes. He tried Karen’s number, knowing he would never again be able to bear listening to this recording if the worst came to pass. He couldn’t even stand it now.
“This is Karen,” she chirped. “Please leave your name at—”
“Call, goddamn it!” he shouted.
Someone in the next room pounded on the wall for silence.
“F*ck off! Call. Please just call.”
Nine minutes.
Then his phone rang, her number on the display.
“Karen?”
A man’s voice: “Dr. Turnbull?”
“Who is this? Where’s Karen?” In his panic, Nat imbued the man’s words with a heavy accent and the worst of intentions.
“This is Sergeant Wilcox, Wightman Police. Your daughter’s fine, and the suspect is in custody. Would you like to speak to her?”
“Yes.” The clouds lifted. The storm passed. Nat exhaled with something between a laugh and a sob. “Put her on, please.”
He sank with relief onto the narrow bed. For the moment, history had decided to give him a pass.