THIRTY-TWO
HOLLAND WAS UNABLE to resist the temptation of a victorious sneer. “Your laptop bag looks a little heavy,” he said. “Neil, why don’t you take it off his hands.”
Neil rummaged through it, showed the four folders to Holland, and then took it to a black Mercedes that had just rolled to the curb. A rear door opened. Neil put the bag on the backseat and shut the door. The automatic locks slammed home.
“And now your camera, please,” Holland said.
Nat glumly handed it over.
Holland clicked through enough frames to satisfy himself that this time the flash drive actually had something on it.
“Very good,” he said, ejecting the wafer into his hand. “Next for the hard part. Neil, please take Mr. Turnbull into the men’s room of this fine establishment here and search him head to toe for anything he might still have on his person. Thoroughly, please, like they taught you at Quantico.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Nat said. “You’ve got your chip.”
“I’ve got a chip. Neil?”
The young agent nodded. Nat followed him inside the restaurant, and they trooped toward the restrooms in the rear.
“Your boss isn’t very trusting.”
“Sorry, sir. But it’s—”
“Stop. Don’t say it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The bathroom smelled like those soap cakes that go in urinals. Neil locked the door behind them and frisked Nat efficiently—head to toe, just like Holland wanted. If the Swiss police had burst in, both men would have been arrested on morals charges, assuming that the Swiss still bothered with such things.
“You’re going to have to remove your trousers and shirt,” Neil said. “Also your socks and shoes.”
Nat undressed, but left his socks on. Neil rummaged through everything else.
“Socks, too.”
Nat sighed and did as he was told. As he peeled off the right sock he took care to keep the wafer from falling out.
“Hand them here, please.”
Neil held each sock by the toe and shook hard. When he shook the right one, the flash drive wafer clattered to the tile floor.
“Dr. Turnbull!”
“If you knew what was on it, you’d hardly blame me.”
Neil shook his head. Nat dressed without saying a word. By the time they stepped back onto the sidewalk they were both wearing such hangdog expressions that Holland burst into laughter. Neil handed over the second chip.
“Guess I can’t blame you for trying,” Holland said cheerily. “But look at it this way, Nat. You’ve done a great service to your country. And I mean that. We’ll be acting on this material immediately. Believe it or not, I do intend to uphold my end of the bargain on first dibs. Not that you haven’t already read some of the juicier stuff, I’m sure.”
“A lot of good that’ll do me without the copies to back it up.”
“As I said, first dibs.”
“When?”
“You know better than me the way those things work. However long it takes, I suppose.”
Years, in other words. If not decades.
“Can I at least have my camera back?”
“All in good time,” Holland said. “And don’t forget to submit your expenses. In fact, have a nice meal on us. Take that old Swiss woman and her son, too. You’ve earned it.”
The federal entourage climbed into the Mercedes, and the car pulled away from the curb. Nat made sure to offer his most forlorn expression to give Holland something to remember him by. He guessed they’d be heading straight to the airport to catch a flight to Berlin. Then on to Bauer’s house.
Good for them. Nat didn’t begrudge them their victory. In fact, as the car eased out of sight, he felt downright triumphant on their behalf, and he broke into a huge, relaxed grin.
He took his time before making his next move, in case they or anyone else had posted a tail. First he returned to the Café William Tell, where he apologized profusely for having walked out on his breakfast. He then enjoyed a fine lunch, tipping extra generously.
Heading south, he passed a leisurely hour by strolling to the Fraumünster for a look at the Chagall stained-glass windows. Impressive, even inspiring. Or maybe that was just the mood he was in. Finally convinced that the coast was clear, he returned to the L?wenstrasse branch of Zürcher Bank AG shortly after 4 p.m., where he sought out the unflappable Herr Schmidt and announced that he would like to retrieve a few more items and then close the account. It would take only a few minutes, he said.
Once the door had shut on the small room in the back, Nat unlocked the steel drawer and removed both envelopes. He pocketed the old one for delivery to Sabine. Then he pulled out Gordon’s note from the new one. When he unfolded it, out dropped the third and last of the flash drive wafers, the copy that even Holland hadn’t counted on.
Nat signed the proper forms for Herr Schmidt. Monique then escorted him to the glass door up front. It was 4:29 p.m. She had a set of keys, ready to lock up for the day.
“Au revoir,” Nat said cheerily to Monique. “Auf wiedersehen,” he called out to Herr Schmidt. Switzerland was such a wonderful place.
He set out for the Bahnhof, and this time no one stopped him. He detoured briefly to an Internet café, where he logged on just long enough to plug in the flash drive and copy the images onto an e-mail attachment. He sent one copy to his own address, and another to Karen for good measure. He told her that all was well and that he expected to be home within a week.
He bought a beer at the station just before boarding, and when the train was safely out of the Bahnhof he toasted his smiling reflection in the window of the railcar. For the moment, he could even live with the idea of letting Kurt Bauer think that he, too, had just won. Nat felt certain that very soon, perhaps as early as this evening, Bauer would be exulting in his triumph, believing that never again would he have to answer to anyone like Nat or Berta.
And that was fine with Nat. Because his newest hunch, the one he had developed while reading the “Fleece” report, plus other recent items, might yet provide enough leverage to make even a shamed Bauer break his silence. But only if his hunch was true—and there was only one way to find out. Nat took out his cell phone and punched in the number for Steve Wallace, his friend at the CIA. Wallace had told him not to call, but what were friends for?
Being a reliable employee, Wallace answered on the first ring.
“Hi. Don’t hang up.”
“Make it fast. Very fast.”
“I don’t need information, just a favor. An easy one.”
“Sure it is.”
But when Wallace heard Nat’s request, he actually agreed. Furthermore, he promised to do it. He knew just the person. One phone call to Berlin ought to do the trick, he said.
Nat then phoned Sabine.
“I have something important for you to read. Several things, actually, but some of it I need to download and print out on your office computer. Think you could get Bernhard out of the way for an hour or so? I doubt you’d want him to see any of this before you’ve both had a chance to talk things over.”
“Come straight to the hotel. I’ll take care of it and meet you there.”
She was waiting at the front desk. Within half an hour Nat had printed out the images from the pages of the “Fleece” report. He handed Sabine the copies along with Gordon’s aging letter. She nodded grimly when she saw the heading. Then she took everything back to the breakfast room along with her reading glasses and a cup of tea.
“Bernhard will be back soon. Please ask him to mind the store and not to disturb me.”
Nat waited quietly on a couch in the lobby. He heard her sob once, but the only other sound was the occasional shuffling of papers and the rattle of her teacup in its saucer. Bernhard arrived and accepted his marching orders without a word of protest. You could tell he sensed that something important was in the air. A few minutes later his mother emerged. Her eyes were clear, her expression resolute. Just the sort of woman you could depend on to get you back across the border when all the odds were against you.
“Come on back, Dr. Turnbull.”
Bernhard glanced over from the desk but didn’t say anything. Sabine shut the door behind them and Nat took a seat.
“Tea?” she said.
“Please.”
Sabine had just brewed a fresh pot, and she poured them both a cup. Then she sat down and looked into his eyes.
“Painful reading,” she said. “It made it all so fresh.”
“I can only imagine. So what happened between the two of you? Afterward, I mean.”
“Bernhard happened.”
“That I figured. But how come you didn’t, well …”
“Marry Gordon?”
He nodded.
“I would have. Happily. But by the time I learned I was pregnant, they were keeping me out of sight. And of course by then I was all in a panic. Because, you see, I was certain the baby was the spawn of one of those terrible SS men. A little Nazi incubus. They had raped me several times by the time Gordon shot them. There was a third soldier, too. He also raped me, but he had gone on patrol. It was a miracle we made it back at all, with the shape Gordon was in. Some farmer in the woods helped us those last few miles or I don’t know what I would have done.”
“What happened when you finally got to Schaffhausen?”
“A contact met us, and the wheels began to turn. They took Gordon away to a hospital. Dulles and his people debriefed me, then packed me off straightaway to my family in Adelboden and told them to keep me out of sight. When the morning sickness began, I knew I wanted to end the pregnancy, but my father wouldn’t allow it. So he moved me away again, to an aunt’s house in a further valley. Someplace where my father knew Gordon would never find me. That was okay with Dulles, too, because they wanted to bury all of this as fast and as deep as possible.
“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.”