“The problem is the cross-referencing,” Bernie said, walking past the rows of file cabinets. “They just threw everything in here and we’re still sorting it out. Himmler’s personal files are over there, the general SS ones here, but sometimes it pays to check one against the other if dates are missing. You know, what’s personal? That’s assuming Brandt’s files haven’t been mis filed. Which you can’t assume. They got involved in the rocket program in ‘forty-three, so you can skip all of these.” He waved away half the room. “Program was designated A-4, so we try to keep it all together in an A-4 section, but as I say, it pays to cross-check. Here,” he said, pulling a drawer, “happy reading.”
“And these would be what Brandt turned over?”
“Some of them. Sources aren’t indicated, but if they’re his, they’d be in here. Of course, the scientific documents were down in Nordhausen. Von Braun buried them for safekeeping-in some old mine, I think-so FIAT’s got them, but you only wanted Brandt’s, right?”
“Right.”
“Then you’re here,” he said, tapping the cabinet.
“Christ,” Jake said, looking at the long row of files.
“Yeah, I know. They were so busy covering ass you wonder when they got time to fight.”
“Well, the army. They live on the stuff, don’t they? I’d hate to see ours.”
“These are a little different,” Bernie said. “If you get bored, try the aeromedical files over there. Want to know how long it takes a man to freeze to death? It’s all there-blood temp, pressure, right down to the last second. Everything but the screams. I’ll be downstairs if you need any help.”
But the first folders, at least, were ordinary-memos, staff directives, summary reports, the sort of thing he might have found im any office files, American Dye in Utica, except for the black SS letterheads. A paper trail of a bureaucratic takeover, with a Trojan horse of laborers. Peenemunde had been built with foreign conscripts, but by July ‘43 the program had needed more, the extra hands only the SS could supply- haftlinge, detainees, a memorandum word for prisoners in the death camps. After that first requisition, the fatal bargain, the real files began, thick with dates and events, a flurry of paper between department heads to seize opportunity while it lasted. July 7, an A-4 demonstration for Hitler, who is impressed. July 24, the great fire raid on Hamburg. July 25, A-4 gets a top priority go-ahead to produce its rockets, vengeance weapons. August 18, Peenemunde bombed. August 19, as night follows day, Hitler orders Himmller to provide camp labor to speed production. Three days later, August 21, Himmler takes charge of constructing a new production site at Nordhausen, far away from the bombs. August 23, the first workers arrive, the horse inside the gates.
The next folders followed the race to build Aladdin’s cave, clawed out of the mountain to house the vast underground factory. File after file of numbing construction details, weekly progress reports, new camps for workers. Even as Jake’s eyes glazed over at the day-to-day tallies, he was watching a whole city take shape, the sheer scale of the thing right there in the numbers. Ten thousand workers. Two giant tunnels reaching two miles back into the mountain; forty-seven cross tunnels, each two football fields long. Bigger every day, the way the pyramids must have been built. The same way, in fact. The ten thousand were slaves. No mention of how many were dying-you bad to guess by the requisitions for replacements from Himmler’s endless supply. The whole terrible business obscured by engineering estimates and monthly targets. In Berlin, the reports were dated, stamped, and filed away. Had Emil seen them back at Peenemunde, where the scientists gathered at night over coffee to discuss trajectories?
Meanwhile, page by page, the tunnels grow, rockets begin to be built, more camps, and finally the takeover is official-8 August 1944 Hans Kammler, SS lieutenant general, replaces Dornberger as head of the program. Now the scientists and their wonder rockets belong to Himmler. Medals are passed out. Jake looked for a minute at the memo describing the ceremony. Peenemunde, not Berlin; no families; a special luncheon. There had been champagne. Toasts were exchanged.
More folders. February ‘45, the rocket team finally abandons Peenemunde. A request for a special train, air travel too risky for scientific personnel, with the skies crowded with bombers. Everyone south now, scattered in villages near the great factory. The prison population reaches forty thousand-spillovers from the eastern camps as the Russians get closer. In spite of everything, V-2s are still streaming daily out of the mountain on their way to London. More files in March-demands, improbably, for increased production. And then the sudden end to the paper. But Jake could finish the story himself- he’d already written it. April 11, the Americans take Nordhausen. A-4 is over. He leaned back in his chair. But what did it mean? Drawers full of details not known to him but presumably known to someone. Nothing worth flying to Berlin for, getting killed for. What had he missed?
He left the last file open on the table and went outside for a smoke, sitting on the steps in the sun. A yellow afternoon light washed the trees of the Grunewald. Hours, to find nothing. Had Tully spent the day here?
“Need a break?” Bernie said from the doorway. “You lasted longer than most. Maybe you have a stronger stomach.”
“They’re not like that. Office politics, mostly. Production stats. Nothing.”
Bernie lit a cigarette. “You don’t know how to read them. That s not German, it’s a new language. The words mean something else.”
“ Haftlinge,‘’ Jake said, an example.
Bernie nodded. “Poor bastards. I guess it made it easier for the secretaries to type. Instead of what they really were. See the ‘disciplinary measures’? That’s hanging. They strung them up on a crane at the tunnel entrance so everybody had to pass under when they went to work. They let them swing for a week, until the smell got bad.”
“Discipline for what?”
“Sabotage. A loose bolt. Not working fast enough. Maybe they were the lucky ones-at least it was quick. The others, it took weeks before they dropped. But they did. The death rate was a hundred and sixty a day.”
“That’s some statistic.”
“A guess. Somebody took a pencil and averaged it out. For what it’s worth.” He walked over to the steps. “I take it you didn’t find what you wanted.”
“Nothing. I’ll go through them again. It has to be there somewhere. Whatever it is.”
“Trouble is, you don’t know what you’re looking for and Tully did.”
Jake thought for a minute. “But not where. He must have been fishing too. That’s why he wanted your help.”
“Then maybe he didn’t find it either.”
“But he came. His name’s right there in the book. It has to be here.”
“So now what?”
“Now I look again.” He flicked the cigarette end into the dusty yard. “Every time I think I’m getting someplace, I’m back where I started. Tully getting off a plane.” He stood up and brushed the seat of his pants. “Hey, Bernie, can I twist your arm for another favor? Talk to your pals in Frankfurt again-see if Tully’s on a flight manifest for July sixteenth. On whose okay. I asked MG, but if I wait for them I’ll be eighty. They have this way of getting lost in somebody’s In box. And see if anybody knows where he went the weekend Brandt left.”
“Frankfurt, they said.”
“But where? Where do you spend the weekend in Frankfurt? See if he said anything.”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. Just a loose end. At least it gives us something to do while I figure out these files.”
Bernie looked up. “You know, it’s possible he got it wrong-that there isn’t anything here.”
“There must be. Emil came to Berlin for them. Why would he do that if there’s nothing in them?”
“Nothing you want, you mean.”
“Nothing he’d want either. I just read them.”
“That depends how you look at it. Want a theory?” Bernie paused, waiting for Jake to nod. “I think von Braun sent him.”
“Why?”
“It took about two weeks to round up the scientists after we got to Nordhausen. They were all over the place down there. Von Braun himself didn’t surrender until May second. So what were they doing?”
“I give up, what?”
“Putting their alibis in order.”
“That’s a DA talking. Alibis for what?”
“For being part of what you just read about,” Bernie said, nodding toward the building. “‘It wasn’t us, it was the SS. Look, it’s right here. They did everything. We’re just the eggheads.’ Might be a useful thing to have when people start asking questions. Which we did, after we got a look at their factory help. Von Braun was the team leader-he had the technical files, the real trump card. But these aren’t bad as a bargaining chip. Clean hands.” He held up his own. “‘Let’s shake and make a deal. Here are the specs and the drawings. Let’s make some rockets together. The rest of it-you can see, we weren’t responsible, it was SS.’”
“But it was SS-it’s all there.”
“Then he was right to want them, wasn’t he? He’s even convinced you.”
“Come on, Bernie, they didn’t string anybody up. They were in Peenemunde until February-it says so in the files. How much could they know?”
“Everybody knew,” he said sharply, using his courtroom voice, making another case. “That’s what no one wants to believe. Everybody knew. Renate Naumann knew. Gunther knew. Everybody in this goddamn country knew. You think somebody who could get an SS car those last weeks didn’t know? They didn’t stop hanging people after February-they had to have seen it. Not to mention all the oth ers. They had forty camps for workers there, Jake, forty, and people were dying in all of them. They knew.“
“That doesn’t make them-”
“No, just accessories. You think they’re any better because they knew how to work a slide rule? They knew.” He stopped, dropping his prosecutor’s voice. “And I can’t touch them. Lucky for them the SS liked to take all the credit. So they’re off a very big hook. Worth coming to Berlin for, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, it’s a theory. Got a better one?”
“Then why send Emil? Why not some flunky?”
“Maybe he was the only one willing to go. He had a wife here.”
Jake looked away, then shook his head. “Except he didn’t come alone. There were two men with him. Why risk sending him?”
“He knew what to look for.”
Jake sighed. “So did Tully. He came here. There has to be something. And I’m missing it.”
Bernie shrugged. “You read the files.”
“Yes,” he said, then looked up. “But I’m not the only one. Keep my seat warm, will you? I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get a second opinion.”
Shaeffer had moved from bed to chair, but the bandage was still in place, apparently itching now, because he was scratching himself when Jake walked in.
“Well, my new partner,” he said, pleased to have a diversion. “Got something for me?”
“No, you’ve got something for me.” Jake sat on the bed. “You went to the Document Center to read the A-4 files. What did you find?”
Shaeffer looked at him, a boy surprised at being caught, then smiled. “Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right, nothing.”
“That must have been disappointing. After looking twice.”
“Real shamus, aren’t you?”
“Your name’s in the sign-in book. Tully’s there too. Same day. But you knew that.”
Shaeffer looked up. “No.”
“But you’re not surprised either.”
Shaeffer scratched himself again, saying nothing.
Jake stared at him, then sat back, folding his arms over his chest. “We could do this all day. Want to tell me what you were looking for, or should we play twenty questions?”
“What? Something I didn’t already know, that’s what. I didn’t find it.”
Jake unfolded his arms. “Talk to me, Shaeffer. This isn’t as much fun as you think. Man follows Tully to a place same day he’s killed, looks at the same files, carries the same kind of gun that killed himI’ve known people convicted on less.”
“Now who’s being funny. For ten cents I’d pop you one. I told you, I didn’t know he was there.”
“Let’s try it a different way. Brandt said something to Tully. I assume you picked this up on one of your taps?”
Shaeffer nodded. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. You know, the monitors jot down things that might be of interest-when they’re listening. So you get these scraps. You have to figure out the rest yourself. Unless it’s technical-then they take down everything.”
“And this wasn’t.”
“One of their personal chats. This and that. And then he says, ‘Everything we did, it’s in the files.’ Words to that effect, anyway. Nothing funny about that-it was all there in Nordhausen, they didn’t hold anything back. Tons of the stuff. They want to use it themselves, right? So why hold anything back? And then he walks and I’m going through the transcripts and I thought, what if? Maybe he means the other files. It’s worth a check. But nothing new there, unless you saw something I didn’t. So I figured he did mean the Nordhausen files.”
“But Tully didn’t think so. And he knew something you didn’t.”
“What?”
“The rest of the conversation.”
Shaeffer considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “But there’s nothing there. I looked.”
“Twice.”
“So twice. Maybe my German’s not as good as yours.”
“How’s Breimer’s? He’s in the book too. Is that why you asked him along? Or did he have reasons of his own?”
“He’s out of this-”
“Tell me or I’ll ask him myself. Partner.”
Shaeffer glared at him, then dropped his shoulders and began picking at the adhesive tape. “Look, we’re walking a fine line here. These guys are the best rocket team in the world-there’s nobody else near them. We have to have them. But they’re German. And some people are sensitive about that. It’s one thing if they just followed orders-who the hell didn’t? — but if there’s anything else, well, we can’t embarrass Breimer. We need his help. He can’t-”
“Give jobs to Nazis.”
“To bad ones, anyway.”
“And you thought there might be something embarrassing in the files.”
“No, I didn’t think that.” He looked away. “Anyway, there wasn’t. I don’t know what the hell Brandt meant, if he meant anything. The important thing is what wasn’t there. These guys are clean.”
“Teitel doesn’t think they’re so clean.”
“He’s a Jew. What do you expect?”
Jake looked over at him. “Maybe not to hear an American say that,” he said quietly.
“You know what I mean. The guy’s on a fucking crusade. Well, he’s not getting these guys. There’s nothing there.”
Jake stood up. “There must be. Something Tully figured he could sell to the Russians.”
“Well, not that they were Nazis. The Russians don’t care.”
“And neither do we.”
Shaeffer raised his head, poster-boy chin out. “Not these guys.”
Outside, the light had begun to fade, the lingering soft end of the day. In the billet they’d be getting ready for dinner, the old woman ladling soup. Jake left the jeep and walked down Gelferstrasse, thinking of that first evening when Liz had flirted with him in the bath. About the time Tully must have been reading files, waiting for someone. Or had he been surprised? Start the numbers over. Tully arriving at the airport. Somewhere in the blur of Liz’s pictures, unless they were just another empty file too.
The old man was setting the table as he passed by the dining room avoiding the drinks crowd in the lounge. Upstairs, his room had been dusted and aired, the pink chenille spread stretched tight. Maid service. Liz’s photographs were stacked neatly on the vanity table, just as he’d left them, in no particular order. The wrecked plane in the Tiergarten, some DPs off in the corner. Churchill. The boys from Missouri. Another, but not a duplicate, the pose slightly shifted. Liz was like all the photographers he’d known-snap lots of pictures and pretend the good one was the only one you’d taken, a random art. One he’d missed before, him looking at the rubble in Pariserstrasse, shoulders slumped, his face slack with disappointment. In a magazine, without a caption, he might have been a returning soldier. He glanced up at his real face in the mirror. Somebody else.
The airport. He pulled the glossy out of the pile and studied it, moving his eyes slowly over the picture as if he were developing it, trying to sharpen figures in the blur. The effect, oddly, was like looking at the shot in Pariserstrasse, a scene out of context. Had he really been there? A second of time he’d missed. Ron standing at the center with his cocky grin, the Tempelhof crowd swirling behind him. The back of a head that might be Brian Stanley’s, the bald spot catching the light. A French soldier with a pompom hat. Nothing. He picked up the next photograph, almost the same but angled, Liz having moved farther left. If you flipped from one to the other, the figures moved, like old posture pictures. Off to the right, a small gleam. Polished boots? He brought the photograph close to his face, fuzzier, then held it out again. Maybe boots, the right height, but the face was indistinct. He flipped them again, but the gleam didn’t move. If it had been Tully, he’d been standing still, his side to the camera, looking left.
The knock was no more than a polite tap, scarcely audible. Jake swiveled to see the old man’s head poking around the door.
“Excuse me, Herr Geismar. I don’t mean to disturb you.”
“What is it?”
For a second the old man just looked, blinking, and Jake wondered if he was seeing his daughter again in her usual seat, dusty with powder.
“Herr Erlich said to ask you about the basement room. The photographic equipment? It’s not to hurry you, but you understand, we need the room. When it’s convenient.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot. I’ll clean it out right away.”
“When it’s convenient,” he said, backing out.
Jake followed him down the stairs and was almost at the basement door when Ron came out of the lounge, glass in hand. “I thought I saw you slinking around. Dining in tonight?” The same grin, as if he were still in the photograph.
“Can’t. I’m just clearing out Liz’s things. Where should I send them?“
“I don’t know. Press camp, I guess. Listen, don’t run away, I’ve got something for you.” He took a folded paper from his pocket. “Don’t ask me why, but they okayed it. She requested it, they said. There something between you two I don’t know about? Anyway, you’re in. Just show them this.” He held out the paper. “Don’t forget, you don’t own this one. Everybody gets a piece of this.”
“A piece of what?”
“The interview. Renate Naumann. The one you asked for, remember? Christ, here I’m turning cartwheels for the Soviets and you could care less. Typical.”
“She asked to see me?”
“Maybe she thought you’d catch her good side. I wouldn’t wait on this, by the way. The Russians change their minds every five minutes. Besides, you could use the story. The natives are getting restless.” He pulled a telegram from the same pocket and held it up.
“You’ve read it?”
“Had to. Regulations.”
“And?”
“‘Great mail response hero story,’” he quoted without opening it. “‘Send new copy ASAP. Friday latest.’” He tapped Jake’s chest with both papers. “Saved by the bell, hero. You owe me one.”
“Yeah,” Jake said, taking them. “Put it on my bill.”
Liz’s darkroom was a small, musty enclosure near the coal bin, with deep wooden crates in one corner for root vegetables. A table with three trays for solutions under a dangling light fixed with her portable red bulb. A few tins of developer and some prints hanging from a string like laundry. A box of matte paper. Why not let the old couple have it all? It was bound to be worth something in the market. But who took photographs these days? Were there weddings anymore in Berlin?
Liz, at any rate, had taken a lot. The table was littered with contact sheets, the loose pile held down by a heavy magnifying glass, the kind librarians use to read small type. Jake looked through it, and the postage-stamp frames zoomed up to life size. Powerful enough to see if a gleam was coming off boots. He put it in his pocket, then stacked the rest of the equipment at one end of the table. Against the wall there was a side table with another set of prints. He flipped through. The same pictures he’d seen upstairs, but different shots, not quite as sharp-discards, the ones no editor would ever see. The Chancellery. The airport again, Ron still grinning, but the background even less clear. It was when he held it up to the dim light, looking for boots, that his eye caught the dull shine of the gun hanging on the wall.
He put down the print, reached for the holster, and brought it over to the light. A Colt 1911. But everyone had one-standard issue. He took it out, surprised at its weight. The gun she should have been wearing in Potsdam. Three of them in the market. He stared at it for a minute, reluctant even now to let his mind follow the thought through. Had it been fired? They could match the bullet, the carbon firing marks as distinctive as fingerprints. But this was crazy. He opened the gun. An empty chamber. He lifted it to his nose. Only a hint of old grease, but what had he been expecting? Did the smell of firing hang in the chamber like ash, or did it drift away? But no bullets. Not even loaded, a showpiece to keep the wolves away. So much for Frau Hinkel, surrounding him with deception. He dropped the gun onto the prints, then scooped up the pile with both hands and carried it all back upstairs.
The magnifying glass was small, but it did the trick-the background still wasn’t sharp, but at least the blurs took shape. Uniforms passing in front of other uniforms. Definitely boots. He followed the line up-an American uniform, a face that might have been Tully’s, had to be, anchored by the boots. So Liz had caught him after all. But so what? There was nothing he hadn’t known before. Tully had arrived and now stood looking left at something. Jake moved the glass across the picture. But there was only the back of Brian’s head, the same uniforms as before, none of them looking toward Tully, and then the white edge.
He sat back and tossed the picture on the table, frustrated, Ron’s grin a kind of taunt. When his face fell on its double in the pile, he even seemed to move his head in a laugh. One more, Liz would have been saying, moving around for a better angle, Ron the fixed point in a stereoscope. How many had she taken? Jake leaned forward, grabbing up the prints. Enough for a small panorama? He collected the airport shots from the discard pile and laid them out with the others in a fan shape, ignoring Ron, piecing together the overlapping bits of background-Brian’s head on Brian’s head, moving left, matching the exit doors, until the edges were covered and he could look across the crowd with Tully.
He picked up the magnifying glass and moved in a straight line left from Tully’s face-soldiers going about their business, the annoying bulk of Ron’s head blocking the view behind, but now more faces beyond the edge of the first picture, some sharper than others, a few looking back in Tully’s direction. Somebody waiting with a jeep. Jake forced himself to move the glass slowly-in the crowd you could miss a face in a blink-so that when he neared the edge he caught it, a shape out of place, narrow straight board patches across the shoulders, the wrong uniform. Russian. He stopped the glass. Body turned toward Tully, as if he had sighted him, and then the face, almost clear among the blurs because it was so familiar, the broad cheeks and shrewd Slavic eyes. Sikorsky had met him.
Jake looked again, afraid the face would dissolve in the fuzzy crowd, something he only thought he saw. No mistake-Sikorsky. Who’d been interested in Nordhausen. Who’d had Willi watch Professor Brandt. It’s a common name, I think, he’d said to Lena outside the Adlon. Connected to Emil, where the numbers met. And now connected to Tully. Sikorsky, who’d been the greifer at Potsdam, a different connection. Jake stopped, letting the glass go and reaching without thinking across the table for the gun, feeling the same prickling unease he’d felt behind the Alex. Not different, maybe the same connection after all, a direct line to him, blundering after Tully, the only one unwilling to let it go. Not Shaeffer. Not Liz. He looked up into the mirror at the man Sikorsky had pointed out, standing behind Liz in the market.
Now that he knew, what did he do with it? Call Karlshorst for an interview? He left the billet in an excited rush and then stood in the middle of Gelferstrasse, suddenly not sure which way to turn. A few lights had come on in the dusk, but he was alone in the street, as deserted as a western town before a shoot-out. He felt the gun, strapped to his hip. In one of Gunther’s stories he’d be facing down the posse until the cavalry arrived. With an empty gun. He moved his hand away, feeling helpless. Who could he go to? Gunther, shopping for a new employer? Bernie, absorbed in a different crime? And then oddly enough, he realized he was already where he needed to go. Don’t forget whose uniform you have on. The cavalry was just down the street, scratching at a bandage.
Breimer had joined Shaeffer for dinner, the two of them sitting with trays on their laps. Jake stopped halfway through the door.
“What?” Shaeffer said, reading his face.
“I need to see you.”
“Shoot. We don’t have any secrets, do we, congressman?”
Breimer looked up expectantly, fork in hand.
“Sikorsky has him,” Jake said.
“Has who?” Breimer said.
“Brandt,” Shaeffer answered absently, without looking at him. “How do you know?”
“He met Tully at the airport. Liz took a picture-no mistake. Sikorsky’s had him all along.”
“Fuck,” Shaeffer said, pushing away the tray.
“That’s what you thought, isn’t it?” Breimer said to him.
“I thought ‘might.’”
“Well, now you know,” Jake said. “Has.”
“Great. Now what do we do?” Shaeffer said, not really a question.
“Get him back. That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
Shaeffer looked up at him. “It would be nice to know where.”
“Moscow,” Breimer said. “The Russians don’t have to go through the damn State Department to get things done-they just do it. Well, that’s that,” he said, leaning back. “And after all we-”
“No, he’s in Berlin,” Jake said.
“What makes you say that?”
“They’re still looking for his wife. Brandt’s no good to them if h^e won’t cooperate-they want to keep him happy.”
“Any suggestions?” Shaeffer said.
“That’s your department. Put some men on Sikorsky. It’s just a matter of time before he goes visiting.”
Shaeffer shook his head, thinking. “That might be a little unfriendly.”
“Since when did that stop you?”
“You boys don’t want to go starting anything,” Breimer said unexpectedly. “Now that we’re in bed again.” He picked up the Stars and Stripes on the windowsill. Russia joins war on japs. “Just in time for the kill, the bastards. Who asked them?” He put his fork down, as if the thought had ruined his appetite. “So now we play nicey-nicey and they’d just as soon slit your throat as look at you. If you ask me, we picked the wrong fight.”
Jake looked at him, disturbed. “Not if you read the Nordhausen files,” he said. “Anyway, maybe you’ll get another chance.”
“Oh, it’s coming,” Breimer said, ignoring Jake’s tone. “Don’t you worry about that. Godless bastards.” He looked over at Shaeffer. “But meanwhile you’d better keep the cowboy stuff to a minimum, I guess. MG’ll be bending over for the Russians now.” He paused. “For a while.”
“It’s no good anyway,” Shaeffer said, still thoughtful. “We can’t tail Sikorsky. They’d pick it up in a minute.”
“Not if you had the right tail,” Jake said, leaning against the bookshelf, arms folded.
“Such as?”
“I know a German who knows him. Professional. He might be interested, for a price.”
“How much?”
“A persil”
“What’s that?” Breimer said, but nobody answered. Instead, Shaeffer reached for a cigarette, staring at Jake.
“I can’t promise that,” he said, flicking his lighter. “My signature doesn’t mean shit. He’d have to work on spec. Of course, if he actually located Brandt-”
“You’d find a better signature. I’ll ask.”
“You’re talking about hiring a German?” Breimer said.
“Why not? You do,” Jake said.
Breimer’s head snapped back, as if he’d been slapped. “That’s an entirely different matter.”
“Yeah, I know, reparations.”
“You don’t want to get mixed up with Germans,” Breimer said to Shaeffer. “FIAT’s an American operation.”
“Suit yourself,” Jake said. “Somebody’s got to get to Sikorsky__ he’s the only lead we’ve got.“
Shaeffer looked at him through the smoke, not saying anything.
“Well, you guys think it over,” Jake said, moving away from the shelf, impatient. “You wanted me to find Brandt. I found him. At least how to find him. Now the ball’s in your court. Meanwhile, can I borrow some ammo?” He patted the gun. “Liz was fresh out. Same Colt, too,” he said to Shaeffer.
“I thought press weren’t allowed to carry arms,” Breimer said, missing the look between them.
“That’s before I started working for FIAT. Now I get nervous. I notice you carry one.” He nodded toward the bulge in Breimer’s pocket.
“For your information, this is going to a boy’s father in my district.”
Shaeffer opened the drawer to his nightstand, took out a box, and threw it to Jake.
“Careful you don’t shoot yourself with it,” Jake said to Breimer. “Hell of a way to lose an election.” He sat on the bed and fit the bullets into the gun, then snapped it closed. “There, that’s better. Now all I have to do is learn how to use it.”
Shaeffer, who’d been quiet, running the tip of his cigarette around the ashtray, now looked up. “Geismar, this isn’t going to work, you know.”
“I was kidding. I know how-”
“No, with Sikorsky. We’re not going to get anywhere with a tail, yours or ours. I know him. If he’s got Brandt stashed away, even his own men aren’t going to know where. He’s careful.”
“They must have their own Kransberg. Start there.”
Shaeffer looked down at the ashtray again, avoiding eye contact. “You have to bring her in.”
“Bring who in?” Breimer said.
“Geismar’s a friend of the wife’s.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake-”
“No,” Jake said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Yes, she is,” Shaeffer said quietly, jaw set. “She’s going to see her husband. And we’ll be right behind her. It’s the only way. We’ve been waiting for Brandt to come to her. Now the fun’s over. We have to give Sikorsky what he wants. It’s the only way to flush him out.“
“Like hell it is. When did you get this bright idea?”
“I’ve been thinking it over. There’s a way to work it, but we need her. You set it up with Sikorsky-or get your friend to do it, even better. That might be worth a persil. She goes to visit, we’ll have a team on her the whole time. There’s no danger to her, none. We get them both back. I guarantee it.”
“You guarantee it. With bullets all over the place. Not a chance. Think again.”
“No bullets. I said, there’s a way to work it. All she has to do is get us there.”
“She’s not bait. Got it? Not bait. She won’t do it.”
“She’d do it if you asked her,” Shaeffer said calmly.
Jake got up from the bed, looking from one to the other, both sets of eyes fixed on him. “I won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“And risk her? I don’t want him back that much.”
“But I do,” Shaeffer said. “Look, the best way to do this is nicemakes for a better team effort. But it’s not the only way. If you won’t bring her in, I’ll do it myself.”
“After you find her.”
“I know where she is. Right across from KaDeWe. You think we didn’t watch you?” he said, almost smug.
Jake looked at him, surprised. “You should have watched harder, then. I moved her. I wanted to keep her out of the Russians’ hands. Now it looks like I’ll have to keep her out of yours too. And I will. Nobody touches her, understand? One move and we’re gone again. I can do it, too. I know Berlin.”
“You used to. Now you’re just a guy in uniform, like the rest of us. People do what they have to do.”
“Well, she doesn’t have to do this. Get another idea, Shaeffer.” He started moving toward the door. “And by the way, I resign. I don’t want to be a deputy anymore. Go watch someone else.”
Breimer had been following this like a spectator, but now interrupted, his voice smoothing over, folksy. “Son, I think you forget whose side you’re on. Kind of thing happens when you get your head up some kraut skirt. You need to think again. We’re all Americans here.“
“Some of us are more American than others.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you haven’t got my vote. No.”
“Your vote? This isn’t a town meeting. There’s a war going on here.”
“You fight it.”
“Well, I intend to. And so will you. What do you think we’re doine here?”
“I know what you’re doing here. The country’s on its knees, and all you want to do is give favors to the people who put it there and kick everyone else in the balls. That your idea of our side?”
“Take it easy, Jake,” Shaeffer said.
“I’ve seen a lot of men die. Years of them. They didn’t do it to keep things fat for I. G. Farben.”
Breimer flushed. “Just who the hell do you think you are, talking like that?”
“It’s just his mouth,” Shaeffer said.
“Who?” Jake said. “An American. I get to say no. That’s what it means. I’m saying no to you, got it? No.”
“Of all the piss-ant-”
“Drop it, Jake,” Shaeffer said, his voice like a hand on Jake’s shoulder, pulling him back.
Jake looked at him, suddenly embarrassed. “Enjoy your dinner,” he said, turning to the door.
But Breimer was on his feet now, almost knocking over the tray as he got up. “You think I don’t know how to deal with guys like you? You’re a dime a dozen. You don’t want to play ball, I’ll get your ass fired right out of here. Bunch of pinks running around. All mouth, that’s what you are. And they love it, the Russians. Aid and comfort to the enemy, that’s what you’re doing, and you don’t even know it.”
“Is that why they took a shot at me?” Jake said, turning back. “Funny thing about that, though. An American shot Tully, not Sikorsky. So why did Sikorsky want to kill me? Seems like he might have been doing a favor for someone on our side. The one we’re all on. Who knows? Maybe you.“ Breimer gaped at him. ”But somebody, one of ours. Makes you a little reluctant to take sides. All things considered.“
“Geismar? See me tomorrow,” Shaeffer said. “We’ll talk.”
“The answer’s still no.”
“You don’t want to be alone out there too long. Think about it.”
“That’s it?” Breimer said. “Man thumbs his nose at the U.S. government and just goes back to his girlfriend and that’s it?”
“He’ll be back,” Shaeffer said. “We’re all a little hot under the collar here.” He looked at Jake. “Sleep on it.”
“I’m only thumbing my nose at you,” Jake said to Breimer, ignoring Shaeffer. “Feels good, too-kind of a patriotic gesture.”
“This is a waste of time,” Breimer said abruptly to Shaeffer. “Go pick her up. She’ll do what she’s told.”
Jake put his hand on the door, then turned back, his voice icy. “Maybe we should be clear about one thing. You lay a hand on her, one hand, and you won’t know what hit you.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“Try this. There’s a big hole in a national magazine waiting for me to fill it. Maybe a father in Utica getting his boy’s gun. There’s a congressman not too busy to run an errand of mercy. Picture them together, it practically brings tears to your eyes. Or maybe the same congressman in Berlin. Not so nice. Lobbying for Nazi war criminals on your tax dollars. While our boys are still dying in the Pacific. Here’s the picture layout. Farben ran a factory at Auschwitz. We get a shot of the Farben board, then right next to it one of the camp. One with a lot of bodies stacked up. I’ll bet we can even find an old one, prewar, of the Farben boys shaking hands with their friends at American Dye. For all I know, you’re in it too. Then a nice one of you-one of Liz’s, she always wanted a credit in Collier’s. I figure FIAT owes her.”
“Jesus, Geismar,” Shaeffer said.
“That’s a lie,” Breimer said.
“But I can write it. I know how to do it. I’ve written lots of lies- for our side. I can fucking write it. And you can spend the next two years denying it. Now leave her alone.”
Breimer stood for a moment without breathing, his eyes fixed on Jake. When he spoke, his voice was hard, not even a trace of back home. “You just burned one hell of a bridge for some German pussy.”
Jake opened the door, then looked back over his shoulder at Shaeffer. “Thanks for the ammo. Tell you what, if I do find him, I’ll send up a flare.”
Shaeffer was looking down at the floor as if someone had made a mess, but raised his head as Jake walked out.
“Geismar?” he said. “Bring her in.”
Jake walked past the GI guard and the nurse coming down the hallway for the trays. Then he was out in Gelferstrasse again, even more alone than before. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter