The Arms Maker of Berlin

TWENTY-NINE

Bern, Switzerland—September 8, 1944

I CARUS STILL WOULD NOT RETURN Kurt’s calls. Nor would anyone else from the American legation.

Day after day Kurt delivered the same disappointing news to Erich Stuckart: not yet, but soon. He could tell Stuckart was beginning to doubt him. If only his father were better. Reinhard would know how to arrange an audience with someone, if only for show. But he was still bedridden, withering away at the Bellevue on a diet of room-service meals that he barely touched. His marching orders to Kurt grew more incoherent by the day.

Kurt held Stuckart and Schlang at bay by telling them that the Americans were too preoccupied with events elsewhere. There may have been some truth to it. The Allied armies had come ashore at Normandy and were smashing their way across France. Paris was liberated, the Rhine was in sight, and the Swiss border to France was now open to all Allied traffic. In the east, the Soviets were pushing the Germans across Poland and the Baltics. To the south, in Italy, Mussolini had been deposed and the Germans were in retreat. Soon the Fatherland would be squeezed in a vise, and, as with so many previous wars, there was already boastful talk of finishing the job by Christmas. Maybe the Americans simply didn’t have time for any expat Germans, whether “white” or “black,” especially when, according to news reports, they were pursuing a policy of unconditional surrender.

But just as Kurt was about to lose hope, he returned to his room after a late lunch to find a handwritten message stuffed under the door: “The Münster. 15:00 hrs. Icarus.”

Finally, this was it. A meeting at the cathedral, mere blocks away. Kurt checked his watch. Only fifteen minutes. A knock at the door made him jump.

“Yes?”

“It’s Mother.”

“I’m busy!”

She paused, unaccustomed to such brusque treatment, but right now he didn’t care.

“Your father wanted me to remind you that you are due at the factory in an hour.”

“I can’t make it. A more pressing appointment has come up.”

“More pressing than your family’s livelihood?”

He threw open the door. She was quivering in anger. He brushed past her and spoke over his shoulder.

“Yes, Mother. More pressing. Because it does concern our livelihood. I’ll explain it to Father later. Tell him it involves the Americans.”

He didn’t wait for her reply.

Ten minutes later he crossed the cobbles of Münsterplatz toward the towering steeples of the cathedral. No one was waiting outside, and he was early. Should he go inside?

He decided to linger by the door. To kill time he looked up at the colorful figures carved on the central portico, just overhead. Under the circumstances, they were a little frightening—a sword-wielding archangel in combat with a menacing demon, amidst a mob of the Chosen and the Damned. Not a fight you could afford to lose.

A figure brushed passed him on the right, startling him. It was Icarus.

“I meant inside, stupid,” the American muttered. “Wait out here a minute, then join me. Take the row just in front of mine.”

The man’s manner was infuriating, but Kurt did as he was told, counting off the seconds under his breath and then pushing open the heavy door. The apse was gloomy, and the cool air smelled of candle wax. He walked through to the main hall, where a slanting sunbeam marked his path. Icarus sat in a pew toward the front, wearing the stupid leather jacket. His head was bowed as if in prayer. Kurt strolled down the aisle and slid into the forward pew, stopping when he was maybe five feet away.

“I have much to tell you,” Kurt offered in a stage whisper.

“Never mind that,” the American hissed. “You’re here to listen. Keep your face to the front.”

As arrogant as ever, but his German was still excellent. If Kurt hadn’t known better, he would have guessed Icarus was from the Rhineland.

“You came across around the middle of May, right?”

“Yes,” Kurt answered.

“So you’ve had nearly four months to get acclimated. How well acquainted are you with some of the more recent arrivals from Germany?”

Was this a veiled reference to Erich Stuckart? Kurt didn’t think so. He had met few Germans other than Erich, but it sounded like Icarus was hoping for the opposite, so he played along.

“Pretty well. I’ve met quite a few.”

“I need everything you can get from them on the current state of play in the border areas of Germany. Some of your own knowledge is probably still operative, too. Rail connections, travel logistics, what sort of papers and documents are necessary for what kind of people, or for different professions. The kinds of food coupons you’d be likely to carry. Are you getting this?”

“Yes. Should I be writing it down?”

“Hell, no. Unless you want to be arrested. But I want you to retain it, all of it.”

“Okay. Travel logistics. Especially in the border areas.”

“For both civilians and off-duty military. And also for guest workers with mobility, if anyone knows. What roads are still open, what trains are still running. Anything you can get.”

Kurt was thrilled. Everything Icarus wanted fit perfectly in the scenario for an infiltration scheme, which was exactly what Göllner was proposing, and Kurt had his own version in mind. The man’s urgency suggested the Americans were in a hurry.

“Okay,” Kurt whispered.

He heard Icarus sliding toward the end of the pew.

“Wait!” Kurt hissed.

Icarus stopped, but didn’t slide back. Then he spoke.

“The answer to your question is no, I can’t pay you, and no, I can’t guarantee you or anyone else a spot on the ‘white’ list, and no, you can’t see the boss.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted. I was going to offer you something better—a firsthand source of everything you’re seeking. A Gestapo man in Munich.”

The cathedral was so quiet he could hear Icarus breathing, mulling it over. Kurt decided to add a further enticement.

“This Gestapo man stands ready to help any infiltrator get established inside Germany. He was recently reassigned from Berlin, so he has the seniority and the security connections to make it work.”

Icarus inched back down the pew.

“And you know this how?”

“I won’t tell you that. My source will only let me reveal it to Mr. Dul—”

“Shut up! Never say his name. Meeting him is out of the question. He’s not in the country right now, anyway.”

Probably in liberated France, Kurt guessed.

“Then I will wait.”

He figured Icarus was staring a hole in his back, trying to gauge his stubbornness. For once Kurt had the upper hand.

“Okay,” Icarus hissed. “I’ll set it up when he’s back. But only one meet.”

“One is enough. When?”

“I’ll let you know. But probably the first week in October.”

“That’s almost a month.”

“If your news can’t wait, then tell me now.”

“No. But I’ll need a day’s notice, so I can have the freshest information possible.”

“I’ll be in touch the day before, then.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting.”

And I’ll be planning, too, Kurt thought. Planning and scheming in a way that he never had before. He would do this not only for his family and the future, but also for Liesl and the past. Because experience had taught him a painful lesson: You won only when you made the stakes personal. From here on out, that was how he would play it, no matter who paid the price.

NEARLY FOUR WEEKS LATER: Another note under the door. Another summons to the Münster—same time, same pew. Icarus again in his battered jacket, prayerfully relaying the news from on high.

“Tomorrow night, ten o’clock. Meet me at the gazebo in the park around the corner. It will be after blackout, so I’ll flick my lighter and you’ll follow. Stay twenty yards back and listen out for the flatfoots. But watch me carefully. It’s not a direct route, and you could end up lost in somebody’s tomato patch. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you have everything you promised?”

“Of course.”

“You’d better. Both our asses are on the line.”

Icarus slid down the pew, stood, and strolled away.

Kurt walked to Erich’s for final preparations. To his dismay, Schlang was also there.

“I have been in touch with our friend Göllner for the latest,” Schlang said. “Railway timetables, necessary documents, everything the Americans have asked for. Study these notes, then burn them. If you’re stopped on the bridge, drop them in the river.”

He handed Kurt a brown envelope. The three of them then went over the tentative script for Kurt’s meeting with Dulles. Schlang made Kurt recite his planned spiel several times before the other two were satisfied. But Kurt already had his own ad-libs in mind.

The plan as Schlang envisioned it was for Göllner to help the Americans establish an infiltrator in Munich. Göllner would then use the Americans’ help to sneak into Switzerland. Once he was in Bern, Göllner’s middleman would be Erich, which would allow the Stuckarts to get their foot in the door with the Americans, with Schlang riding their coattails. Kurt was supposed to buttress the case for both Erich and Schlang by revealing afterward to Dulles that the whole scheme had been their idea. Kurt’s reward for helping out would be Göllner’s silence. Everyone would hold their tongues about his role in the White Rose disaster, and Göllner would ensure that all Gestapo documents related to the matter were destroyed.

But Kurt had no intention of tailoring his actions to their needs. Schlang and Stuckart were merely a means to an end. Nor did he trust Göllner to hold up his end of the deal. Kurt, who still had his own contacts in Germany thanks to the family business, had only two objectives: to use the American mission to discredit and silence Göllner before the man made it out of Germany and to convince Dulles that he had done his best to help, no matter how the mission turned out. Any failure would have to be engineered to reflect poorly on someone else—preferably Göllner, although Schlang or even Erich Stuckart would suffice.

The next day arrived with a blast of crisp autumn breezes. Leaves swirled through the parks. A half-moon lit the way as Kurt arrived for his rendezvous, his overcoat buttoned to the neck. He peered toward the dark shape of the gazebo. A light flickered with a chirp, and he paused to let Icarus set the pace. No one seemed to be following.

They proceeded to a promenade along the edge of the park. Far below, the Aare sparkled faintly. You could hear the water rushing through the floodgates. Icarus turned onto a walkway that headed downward on stone steps. Kurt barely saw him cut right onto a poorly graded path along the steep hillside. Moments later he was pushing through brambles as bare branches snapped at his face. He could no longer see Icarus, and had to follow by sound.

They emerged into a terraced garden, its arbors covered with grapevines that had shed most of their leaves. Icarus appeared fifteen feet ahead as a moving shadow. Kurt heard the creak of a rusty hinge, then the thunk of wood against metal. He came to a heavy door built into a stone wall at the rear of a private garden. He pushed it open and emerged into a moonlit glade.

From there the going was easier, steadily uphill across two terraces to another small gate that opened onto a slate path. The path led to the rear door of a house, and the door opened just as he arrived. An older gentleman with a pipe in his mouth stood in a pool of light cast from a sconce in the hallway. He was grinning.

“Kurt Bauer?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Welcome. I understand we have a lot to discuss.”

So this was Dulles. His German was terrible, no better than that of a Polish guest worker, and the cotton candy smell of his pipe tobacco made Kurt think of vendors at Oktoberfest. For a moment he was very much a boy again, and a little overwhelmed by the role he was about to play.

Dulles led him into a cozy parlor at the front of the house, where Icarus was waiting on a couch. A fire was going on the hearth. The flames lit a glittering array of drinks in a row of crystal decanters on a side table. The room smelled strongly of pipe smoke, as if all the curtains and upholstery were imbued with its scent. Dulles dropped another log on the fire, then prodded it with a brass poker before turning to face Kurt.

“Please, have a seat.”

He motioned toward a wing chair facing the couch.

“And please accept my apologies for my very bad German. From here on out we may be better off if our friend Gordon here acts as interpreter, if that’s all right with you.”

Gordon. So that was Icarus’s name. Kurt was surprised Dulles had used it, and apparently so was Gordon. The two of them exchanged glances—Gordon’s tight and a little resentful, Kurt’s with a mild hint of triumph. Kurt answered in English.

“It’s all right,” he said, surprising both Americans. “We should speak your language. My grammar is maybe not always so perfect. But this I think will be better for us, yes?”

Another glare from Gordon. The interesting part was that Dulles wasn’t missing a bit of their interplay. He just stood there puffing his pipe, eyeing them as carefully as a teacher mediating between two brilliant but difficult students.

“You did say he had hidden talents, Gordon. And, yes, I know you don’t like me using your name. But seeing as how we’ve brought him along this far, don’t you think we might as well establish a certain level of trust?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As for you, young Mr. Bauer, please give my regards to your father, who I understand is ailing. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to pay him a visit, but surely you can see how that might create difficulties for both of us.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Henceforth, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer that you use the name ‘Magneto II’ in any written or telephone correspondence, official or otherwise. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well.”

Gordon then spoke up, a bit brusquely, as if hoping a more businesslike tone would keep things from getting any chummier.

“Did anyone follow you?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“And not that you’d notice.”

Dulles gently intervened.

“You see, there’s this Swiss fellow named Gustav who is paid to follow our friend Gordon, so chances are that someone has been assigned to you as well, or will be soon. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Fortunately this fellow Gustav isn’t very good.” He turned toward Gordon. “Didn’t you say he’s been getting a bit lazy?”

“He does like his beer,” Gordon said. “Walk past enough cafés and eventually he’ll stop off for a cold one. I’m pretty sure I lost him before the gazebo.”

“Very good,” Dulles said. “Shall we begin?”

The younger men nodded. Kurt again felt called before the headmaster. But, all in all, the atmosphere was to his liking. Dulles had a pleasant manner, a polished ease. It didn’t hurt that the room was nice and toasty on such a sharp autumn night, and the firelight cast a conspiratorial glow, conducive to sharing secrets. To complete the effect, Dulles decanted a fine brandy from the side table and filled three snifters.

“How about some of this while we’re working? Don’t suppose your mother would mind, would she, Kurt? I know Gordon’s old enough, even though he doesn’t look it. That’s one thing war does. Makes early drinkers of us. That was certainly my experience when I was posted here in 1917. I had a room then at the Bellevue Palace, just like you. Not bad waking up to a view of the Jungfrau every morning, is it?”

“My room looks onto an air shaft.”

Dulles found this extremely funny, and laughed generously. Gordon sulked.

“So, then, young man. What do you have for us?”

Kurt went through his rehearsed spiel on the logistics of travel inside Germany. To his surprise, no one took notes. He found out why when Dulles began asking questions.

“Is the maximum limit for travel without special authorization papers still thirty kilometers?”

“Uh, yes. I think so.”

“On the matter of food rations. I’m told that a good alternative to the monthly cards, especially for someone hoping to stay longer, is a special traveler’s coupon, an urlauber Lebensmittelkarte, good for up to six months. Know where we might get one?”

“Not at the moment.”

As the questions continued, their detail and precision made him realize the Americans had plenty of sources like him, and probably many that were better. He realized that his information on Göllner was the only way he had gotten in to see Dulles.

Appropriately enough, Göllner was the next subject. Dulles quizzed Kurt for several minutes before assuming a pensive expression and standing up from his chair. He poked the logs, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney while the embers whined. Then he sat, sipped his brandy, and leaned forward until his face was only a few feet from Kurt’s.

“You know this fellow Göllner personally, correct?”

“We’ve met several times.”

“Enough to make a judgment on his character?”

Yes, and his judgment was that Göllner was a slimy opportunist who would duck out at the first hint of real danger. But that wouldn’t sell it the way he needed to, so Kurt nodded instead.

“Speak up, young man. A nod isn’t going to suffice on a matter like this.”

“Yes,” Kurt said. “Well enough to judge his character.”

“And?”

“You can take him at his word. If he says he’ll help, he’ll help. And I am certain he wishes to cross over. He was recently transferred from Berlin against his wishes, and I am told he is pretty much his own boss down there. All he really wants at this point is to gain favor with the Americans.”

“Him and a thousand others, half of them con artists,” Dulles said distractedly. “But if we’re going to take the plunge, this is the time to do it. So here’s what we want from him. We’d like him to help an infiltrator, one of our own people, get established and settled in. To provide enough support for our operative to stay in the area for maybe two weeks, or at least long enough to get a good look at the lay of the land and find out where the assets are and who’s guarding what. That sort of thing. Then, and only then, will we be able to assist him in crossing over. Do you think he’s capable of all that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. I can’t say I’m a great believer in this type of operation. Never have been. I’ve always believed that if you have an inside source, it is best to keep them in place, rather than endangering your own people. But apparently this is what they’re eager for now in Washington.”

Gordon, who hadn’t said a word in minutes, spoke up.

“It’s our best bet, sir. And it sounds solid to me, which should count for something, seeing as how it’s my neck that will be on the block.”

He let the phrase hang.

Kurt was stunned to learn that Gordon was going to be the infiltrator, but he supposed he should have figured as much. Gordon’s fluency in German, his age, and his eagerness made him an obvious choice. The funny thing was, up to then Kurt had regarded him as an American version of Dieter—all talk and no action. But as he studied the young man’s face he decided there was a lot of Christoph in him as well. If they had been on the same side, then who knows, they might even have become friends. Although all he could recall now was the man’s arrogance in dealing with the Bauer family. If Gordon became a casualty of Kurt’s machinations against Göllner, then so be it, as long as someone besides him got the blame.

Dulles stood to pour more brandy.

“The way I see it,” he finally said, “the biggest problem for any male agent in Germany is that his cover has to explain his military status, or lack of it. All the controls on the train lines are now directed toward combing out every available man for the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm. Unless you can account for why you’re not serving, then you’re apt to have trouble. Don’t you agree, Kurt?”

“Yes, I do.” He was pleased to see that this made Gordon angry.

“If I went in civilian clothes,” Gordon said, “I could pose as Gestapo, or SD. Or maybe some sort of engineer.”

“Possibly.” Dulles relit his pipe. “Or you could always go in uniform. Of course, then you’d have to worry about running afoul of the MPs, unless you’ve got some good excuse for being away from your unit. And you’d be out there with no backup, no radio. Completely isolated. Still, with the right cover it could work, as long as young Bauer’s information here is as good as he says.”

“I certainly wouldn’t do anything to damage my family’s prospects, not with the way things stand now,” Kurt said.

Dulles gave him a long look.

“No, I don’t suppose you would. And if I wasn’t prepared to trust you, then I wouldn’t be sharing any of this. But since you’re going to be the one to relay it to Göllner, then I suppose I have no choice.”

Dulles turned to Gordon.

“I hate to say this, Gordon, because I know how gung ho you are. But in some ways we’d be better off sending a woman. Plenty of good covers available for them—confidential secretary to some Party functionary, or to a war-important businessman, like Mr. Bauer’s father here. They never have to explain why they’re not off at the front.”

Gordon was crestfallen. Then his eyes lit up in the glow of the flames.

“Or you could send a pair of us,” he said. “A man in uniform, me, with some sort of cover to explain why he’s in transit. Plus a woman traveling as his wife, who would also be a built-in backup in case something happened to me.”

“She would also double the possibility for something to go wrong,” Dulles said. “But I see your point. We could spare Evelyn, but she might not be available for a while.”

“I can think of someone even better,” Gordon said, grinning slyly.

“You’re not thinking of that waitress friend, the one we helped out of a jam?”

“She speaks the language, knows the area, and better still, she knows me.”

“I’ll bet, and in every sense of the word. Still, it’s your neck. As long as you think she would be up to it. Do you trust her?”

“As much as I trust anyone.”

“That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

“Yes, I trust her. More to the point is whether she trusts me. It would be asking a lot. But she does owe us, which for our purposes makes her useful. That is what you’re always looking for, isn’t it, sir? Useful people?”

Dulles smiled.

“You’re a fast learner, Gordon. And with what we’re planning tonight, you’re going to have to be. You sure you’re ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what about you, young Mr. Bauer? Can you keep a few more secrets along with the ones already stuffed in your head?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. We will call this operation Fleece. And it’s not going to happen overnight. Both of you must be prepared to participate in a lot of advance planning.”

Exactly what Kurt wanted to hear. The more time he had, the better the chances his own machinations would succeed.

“Then let’s get down to work,” Dulles said. “And do pay attention. From here on out, we can’t afford to have a single thing go wrong.”