The Arms Maker Of Berlin Part 15

"Something's funny," Nat said. "Have you got any shots from farther down the hall?"

"Sure. Camera 5."

"Let's see 'em. Arrival and departure."

Boland complied. Gordon arrived at the bottom of the screen at 1:12 and walked slowly up the hall, staying on camera for eleven steps. At 1:38 he reappeared in the opposite direction, but with an altered gait. He paused halfway to hitch up his pants.

"Does it look to you like he's limping?"

"Yes," Berta said. Now she was leaning forward intently. "Run it again."

Boland wrinkled his nose at the sound of her accent. She obviously didn't fit his idea of who should be working for the FBI. But he did as she asked.

"Maybe he stiffened up while he was on the floor, looking at everything," Nat said.

"No," Berta said. "It's something else."

They watched again.

"It's like his pants were bothering him," Nat said.

Then it came to him, a bolt straight from memory.

"Holy s.h.i.t," he whispered. "It's just like George Wood."

"You're right," Berta said in amazement.

"Woody who?" Boland asked. By now he was as engrossed as they were.

"George Wood," Nat said, unable to resist the urge to teach. "Code name for an old German spy named Fritz Kolbe. During the war he smuggled doc.u.ments out of the Foreign Ministry by taping them to his thigh and carrying them all the way to Switzerland by train. All Gordon had to do was make it to the parking lot."

"But why not just take them out in a briefcase?" Berta asked.

"Maybe he knew someone was watching him. Either way, if he hid them up at the summer house, I suppose the FBI will find them soon enough."

"No!"

"Afraid so. Holland said they'd be making a thorough search as soon as Viv left. They'll take the place apart board by board before they come up empty."

"Scheise!"

"Hey, I thought you were working for for the FBI," Boland said warily. the FBI," Boland said warily.

"Like I said, contract employees. If an agent comes up with the goods first, we'd, uh, lose our commission."

"Oh."

"Gordon's rental agreement-how old is it?"

Boland checked the invoice.

"Wow. Way before my time. Nineteen seventy-eight."

"Place looks newer."

"They've modernized a few times, but this was one of the first self-storage joints in the city. He must have been one of the original customers."

Seventy-eight, Nat thought. Probably around the time bulldozers started knocking down the neighborhood to make way for industry. He had a feeling those boxes had been sitting around Fairfield, one way or another, for quite a while.

THEIR NEXT STOP was the National Archives, right down the road in College Park. They had two days to search for leads before returning to Wightman, so Nat had booked a pair of rooms at a Holiday Inn. An impatient message from Holland was waiting at the front desk when they checked in: "Where are you? Please call." was the National Archives, right down the road in College Park. They had two days to search for leads before returning to Wightman, so Nat had booked a pair of rooms at a Holiday Inn. An impatient message from Holland was waiting at the front desk when they checked in: "Where are you? Please call."

Berta took her key and announced curtly that she would be eating room service and retiring early. Hot and cold, this strange woman. Or maybe just cold, now that she had secured Nat's cooperation. Just as well, considering his first order of business. Holland could wait. It was time to check up on Berta's credentials.

He quickly found her name on the Web site of the history department at Berlin's Free University. The thumbnail bio matched what she had told him. Several published papers were referenced. Most concerned the Berlin activities of the White Rose. A slender thread of scholarship, even by the eccentric standards of historians. Berta's grandmother must have told her some great tales to get her this hooked.

Surprisingly, there were almost no other online traces of Berta or her work. No quotes in the media. No speeches or seminars. It told him two things: She didn't crave attention, and she kept to herself.

Next, he Googled Kurt Bauer. Holland was right. It took about ten minutes to figure out why the FBI must be interested in helping the man.

Nat was already familiar with the family's industrial dynasty. The Bauers were a sort of junior version of the Krupps-not as rich or colorful but nearly as well connected-by virtue of their long-standing ability to produce weapons for emperors and despots the world over. Kurt entered the picture during the postwar years, when he took over management of the company in his early twenties, an impressively callow age for an arms merchant. The company's rise from the ashes was a prototype of West Germany's "economic miracle," which had been nurtured by the Western Allies as a hedge against communism.

Today most people knew the Bauer name from coffeemakers, televisions, and aircraft components. But it was the company's dealings in a more arcane line of products that had attracted the FBI's interest. Or so Nat concluded from a series of hits on Web sites tracking nuclear proliferation.

In the 1970s a shipment of Bauer jet nozzles was used to help enrich uranium for South Africa's nuclear bomb program. In the '80s and '90s, Bauer plants provided isostatic presses, vacuum furnaces, and specialized tubing to shady middlemen, who in turn funneled the parts to Libya, Israel, and Iraq.

Most of the Web sites had an axe to grind, and several tried to imply that Kurt was an unreconstructed n.a.z.i. It didn't take a professional historian to see that their case was half-baked. Kurt's dad, Reinhard, had certainly been a card-carrying member, and he had employed slave labor in his wartime factories. But even Reinhard joined the Party late, which suggested opportunism more than zeal. It was the same reason he later tried to curry favor with Dulles-because it was good for business. If the man were alive today he would probably be working for an outfit like Halliburton, cutting deals with dictators and then helping to engineer their downfall. Whatever paid the bills.

Other critics tried to d.a.m.n Kurt by a.s.sociation with his older brother, Manfred, who had served with a Wehrmacht unit implicated in some atrocities on the eastern front. But Manfred was killed at Stalingrad, and Kurt himself had been too young for the army during most of the war. According to the sketchy biographical record on the Internet, the Bauer family fled to Switzerland when Kurt was eighteen. That must have been when he met Gordon, if Berta's information was credible. Maybe the archives had the answer.

It was in more recent decades that the Bauer nuclear dealings had become most interesting. In the late '90s the company supposedly helped ship heavy water to North Korea and Pakistan. That transaction linked Bauer for the first time to A. Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's A-bomb program and an infamous supplier of nuclear know-how to several rogue nations. The Bauer-Khan partnership continued through further transactions in parts and technology, according to the proliferation Web sites. Each deal was more d.a.m.ning, but Bauer's role became progressively harder to pin down. As a result, investigators for the German government hadn't yet laid a glove on him.

They came close in 2004, after centrifuge components in Bauer crates were seized aboard a German freighter en route from Dubai to Libya. Bauer again managed to wriggle off the hook, but a few months later he retired as chairman of the family companies. His timing suggested he had brokered a deal to avoid further scrutiny, and one of the more strident Web sites commented: "Of all the Western industrialists tainted by tawdry connections to this ruthless field of endeavor, Kurt Bauer may well be the one with the most intimate knowledge of its innermost secrets and nefarious web of contacts."

Melodramatic, perhaps, but it certainly explained the FBI's current interest in currying favor with the man. Bauer's Rolodex alone would be a valuable weapon in trying to dismantle the black market in nuclear materials, much less the man's insider knowledge. The flip side was that any nation aspiring to build a bomb would also covet the information, and that seemed to narrow the possibilities for Holland's "compet.i.tion" to Iran or Syria, especially since the FBI was seeking a Middle Easterner. Probably Iran, given the current state of play.

Sobering news, to say the least. Competing with historians who might retaliate with a nasty review was one thing. Going up against an Iranian spy was quite another, especially if Nat ventured abroad, where Holland would be less able to protect him.

He realized his palms were sweating on the keyboard. Calm down, he told himself. You're working for people who know all about this stuff. Surely they would warn him if things got too hazardous, right? It seemed like an appropriate time to check in with Holland. The agent picked up on the first ring.

"You should have told me the compet.i.tion was Iran," Nat said.

"Is this your idea of a progress report?"

"So you're not denying it."

"Sorry, I'm not hearing you well. Maybe I should call back."

"I thought you'd at least be impressed that I'm doing my homework."

"Point taken. I a.s.sume the storage locker was a dry hole."

Nat mentioned his theory that Gordon had smuggled the folders out in his pants. He suggested that Holland have someone scan the surveillance video from that day forward to check for a return visit-by Gordon or anyone else.

"Good idea."

"Where are you now? What's all the hammering?"

"Gordon's summer house. We did a top-to-bottom. They're nailing the paneling back in place."

Ouch. Yet another grievance for Viv.

"Find anything?"

"A box of your books, actually."

"The one in the attic?"

"How'd you know?"

"I, uh, Viv told me."

"Sounds like you did some poking around the other night. I also recall you leaving the house with a box."

"Like I told you. A guest list, a few keepsakes."

"Don't remember you mentioning any keepsakes."

"You're right. This connection is terrible."

"Whatever you say, Turnbull."

"I need a favor."

"Try me."

"I want someone to keep an eye on my daughter. She moved into my house today for the summer. She got a hang-up call from my cell phone, the one I left in the library. Guy with a foreign accent."

"Relax. We're a step ahead of you. We've got her covered."

"So you're saying it had already occurred to you that she was in danger?"

"I'm saying you have no reason to worry. We're on it."

"If you're 'on it,' then how come you didn't get my cell phone back? You were going to go pick it up when the doors opened."

"Our man was the first one in the library the next morning. It was already gone."

"Meaning someone else must have been there when Neil Ford came for me."

"Draw your own conclusions."

"Why do I get the idea you're downplaying the danger?"

"Am I?"

"This Middle Eastern character, for one."

"He's our concern, not yours. And do me a favor. Get yourself a new cell phone. You need to be accessible 24/7."

"Tomorrow, if there's time. I'll be at the archives all day."

"Happy hunting, then. I'll await your call."

Not exactly rea.s.suring. Nat needed to know that Karen was okay. He tried her cell and got a recording. Then he called his house. When she didn't pick up after three rings, he began to panic. She answered on the fourth.

"Karen?"

"There you are. I was worried about you."

Likewise, he almost said. But he didn't want to upset her.

"I guess you heard about Gordon."

"News of the day here. I'm sorry, Dad. It must be horrible for you. Especially after the way he was outed in the Wildcat Wildcat."

"Not how he wanted to go out, that's for sure."

"How's Mrs. Wolfe?"

"About like you'd expect. I offered her a ride to Wightman, but her sister was driving down."

"Where are you, then?"

"College Park. Via an afternoon in Baltimore."

He told her about the odd visit to the storage locker. He didn't mention Berta.

"So you're saying he really was, like, a thief?"

"Looks that way."

"Then maybe his little divorce from you was, like, a favor. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be trashing him. This must be hard."

"Well, at least he left me with something to do. I may be on this for a while. The FBI wants me to follow up, see if I can find the material that's still missing. Apparently the stakes are a little higher than I'd thought. Not that you should breathe a word of this to anyone, especially strangers."

"Which reminds me. I got another one of those funny hang-ups from your cell. Same guy. You really should, like, cancel the number. I mean, he could cost you a fortune."

The news made him angry. Where the h.e.l.l were Holland's people? He tried to keep his voice calm for Karen.