Authors: Robert Harris
The conversation on the tape resumed.
"You know who I am?"
"Yes."
Wearily:
"You say: what do I want? What do you think I want? Asylum in your country."
"Tell me where you are."
"I can pay."
"That won't—"
"I have information. Certain facts."
"Tell me where you are. I'll come and get you. We'll go to the embassy."
"Too soon. Not yet."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning. Listen to me. Nine o'clock. The Great Hall. Central steps. Have you got that?"
"Right."
"Bring someone from the embassy. But you must be there as well."
"How do we recognize you?"
A laugh.
"No. I shall recognize you, show myself when I am satisfied." Pause. "Stuckart said you were young and pretty."
Pause.
"That was Stuckart all over."
Pause
. "Wear something that stands out."
"I have a coat Bright blue."
"Pretty girl in blue. That's good. Until the morning, Fräulein."
Click.
Purr.
The clatter of the tape machine being switched off.
"Play it again," said March.
She rewound the tape, stopped it, pressed play. March looked away, watched the rusty water swirling down the plughole as Luther's voice mingled with the reedy sound of a single clarinet. "
Pretty girl in blue...
" When they had heard it through for the second time, Charlie reached over and turned off the machine.
"After he hung up, I came over here and dropped off the tape. Then I went back to the telephone booth and tried to call you. You weren't there. So I called Henry.
What else could I do? He says he wants someone from the embassy."
"Got me out of bed," said Nightingale. He yawned and stretched, revealing an expanse of pale, hairless leg. "What I don't understand is why he didn't just let Charlie pick him up and bring him straight to the embassy tonight."
"You heard him," said March. "Tonight is too soon. He daren't show himself. He has to wait until the morning. By then the Gestapo's search for him will probably have been called off."
Charlie frowned. "I don't understand . . ."
"The reason you couldn't reach me two hours ago was because I was on my way to the Gotenland marshaling yards, where our friends from the Gestapo were hugging themselves with joy that they had finally discovered Luther's body."
"That can't be."
"No, it can't." March pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. It was hard to keep his mind clear. "My guess is, Luther's been hiding in the rail yard for the past four days, ever since he got back from Switzerland, trying to work out some way of contacting you."
"But how did he survive all that time?"
March shrugged. "He had money, remember. Perhaps he picked out some drifter he thought he could trust, paid him to bring him food and drink; warm clothes, maybe. Until he had his plan."
Nightingale said, "And what was his plan, Sturmbannführer?"
"He needed someone to take his place, to convince the Gestapo he was dead." Was he talking too loudly? The Americans' paranoia was contagious. He leaned forward and said softly, "Yesterday, when it was dark, he must have killed a man. A man of roughly his age and build. Got him drunk, knocked him out—I don't know how he did it—dressed him in his clothes, gave him his wallet, his passport, his watch. Then he put him under a freight train with his hands and head on the rails. Stayed with him to make sure he didn't move until the wheels went over him. He's trying to buy himself some time. He's gambling that by nine o'clock this morning, the Berlin police will have stopped looking for him. A fair bet, I would say."
"Jesus Christ." Nightingale looked from March to Charlie and back again. "And this is the man I'm supposed to take in to the embassy?"
"Oh, it gets better than that." From the inside pocket of his tunic, March produced the documents from the archive. "On January 20, 1942, Martin Luther was one of fourteen men summoned to attend a special conference at the headquarters of Interpol in Wannsee. Since the end of the war, six of those men have been murdered, four have committed suicide, one has died in an accident, two have supposedly died of natural causes. Today only Luther is left alive. A freak of statistics, wouldn't you agree?" He handed Nightingale the papers. "As you will see, the conference was called by Reinhard Heydrich to discuss the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe. My guess is, Luther wants to make you an offer: a new life in America in exchange for documentary proof of what happened to the Jews."
The water ran. The music ended. An announcer's silky voice whispered in the bathroom, "And now, for you night lovers everywhere, Peter Kreuder and his orchestra with their version of 'Cheek to Cheek' . . ."
Without looking at him, Charlie held out her hand. March took it. She laced her fingers into his and squeezed, hard. Good, he thought, she should be afraid. Her grip tightened. Their hands were linked like parachutists' in free-fall. Nightingale had his head hunched over the documents and was murmuring "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ" over and over again.
"We have a problem here," said Nightingale. "I'll be frank with you both. Charlie, this is off the record." He
was talking so quietly they had to strain to hear. "Three days ago, the President of the United States, for whatever reason, announced he was going to visit this godforsaken country. At which point, twenty years of American foreign policy were turned upside down. Now this guy Luther, in theory—if what you say is true—could turn it upside down again, all in the space of seventy-two hours."
Charlie said, "Then at least it would end the week the right way up."
"That's a cheap crack."
He said it in English. March stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, Sturmbannführer, that I'm going to have to talk to Ambassador Lindbergh and Ambassador Lindbergh is going to have to talk to Washington. And my hunch is, they're both going to want a lot more proof than this"—he tossed the photocopies onto the floor—"before they open the embassy gates to a man you say is probably a common murderer."
"But Luther's offering you the proof."
"So
you
say. But I don't think Washington will want to risk all the progress that's been made on detente this week just because of your . . . theories."
Now Charlie was on her feet. "This is insane. If Luther doesn't go straight with you to the embassy, he'll be captured and killed."
"Sorry, Charlie. I can't do that." He appealed to her. "Come on! I can't take in every old Nazi who wants to defect. Not without authorization. Especially not with things as they are."
"I don't believe what I'm hearing." She had her hands on her hips and was staring at the floor, shaking her head.
"Just think it through for a minute." He was almost pleading. "This Luther character seeks asylum. The Germans say: hand him over, he's just killed a man. We say: no, because he's going to tell us what you bastards did to the Jews in the war. What will that do for the summit? No—Charlie, don't just look away.
Think
. Kennedy gained ten points in the polls
overnight
on Wednesday. How's the White House going to react if we drop this on them?" For a second time, Nightingale glimpsed the implications; for a second time he shuddered. "Jesus Christ, Charlie, what have you gotten yourself mixed up in here?"
The Americans argued back and forth for another ten minutes, then March said quietly, "Aren't you overlooking something, Mr. Nightingale?"
Reluctantly Nightingale switched his attention from Charlie to March. "Probably. You're the policeman. You tell me."
"It seems to me that all of us—you, me, the Gestapo— we all keep underestimating good Party Comrade Luther. Remember what he said to Charlie about the nine o'clock meeting:
'You must be there as well.'
"
"So what?"
"He knew this would be your reaction. Don't forget, he used to work at the Foreign Ministry. With a summit coming, he guessed the Americans might want to throw him straight back to the Gestapo. Otherwise, why did he not simply take a taxi from the airport to the embassy on Monday night? That's why he wanted to involve a journalist As a witness." March stooped and picked up the documents. "Forgive me, as a mere
policeman
I do not understand the workings of the American press. But Charlie has her story now, does she not? She has Stuckart's death, the Swiss bank account, these papers, her tape recording of Luther..." He turned to her. "The fact that the American government chooses not to give Luther asylum but abandons him to the Gestapo—won't that just make it even more attractive to the degenerate U.S. media?"
Charlie said, "You bet."
Nightingale had started to look desperate again. "Hey, come on, Charlie. All that was off the record. I never said I agreed with any of it. There are plenty of us at the embassy who don't think Kennedy should come here. At all. Period." He fiddled with his bowtie. "But this situation—it's tricky as hell."
Eventually they reached an agreement. Nightingale would meet Charlie on the steps of the Great Hall at five minutes to nine. Assuming Luther turned up, they would hustle him quickly into a car, which March would drive. Nightingale would listen to Luther's story and decide on the basis of what he heard whether to take him to the embassy. He would not tell the ambassador, Washington or anyone else what he was planning to do. Once they were inside the embassy compound, it would be up to what he called "higher authorities" to decide Luther's fate—but they would have to act in the knowledge that Charlie had the whole story, and would print it. Charlie was confident the State Department would not dare turn Luther away.
Exactly how they would smuggle him out of Germany was another matter.
"We have methods," said Nightingale. "We
have
handled defectors before. But I'm not discussing it. Not in front of an SS officer. However trustworthy." It was Charlie, he said, whom he was most worried about. "You're going to come under a lot of pressure to keep your mouth shut."
"I can handle it."
"Don't be so sure. Kennedy's people—they fight dirty. All right. Let's suppose Luther
has
got something. Let's say it stirs everybody up—speeches in Congress, demonstrations, editorials—this is election year, remember? So suddenly the White House is in trouble over the summit. What do you think they're going to do?"
"I can handle it."
"They're going to tip a truckful of shit over your head, Charlie, and over this old Nazi of yours. They'll say: what's he got that's new? The same old story we've heard for twenty years, plus a few documents, probably forged by the Communists. Kennedy'!! go on TV, and he'll say, 'My fellow Americans, ask yourselves: why has all this come up now? In whose interest is it to disrupt the summit?' " Nightingale leaned close to her, his face a few centimeters from hers. "First off, they'll put Hoover and the FBI on to it. Know any left-wingers, Charlie? Any Jewish militants? Slept with any? Because sure as hell, they'll find a few who say you have, whether you've ever met them or not."
"Screw you, Nightingale." She shoved him away with her fist. "Screw
you
!"
Nightingale really was in love with her, thought March. Lost in love, hopelessly in love. And she knew it, and she played on it. He remembered that first night he had seen them together in the bar: how she had shrugged off his restraining hand. Tonight: how he had looked at March when he saw him kissing her; how he had absorbed her temper, watching her with his moony eyes. In Zürich, her whisper:
"You asked if he was my lover. . . He'd like to be."
And now, on her doorstep, in his raincoat: hovering, uncertain, reluctant to leave them behind together, then finally disappearing into the night.
He would be there to meet Luther tomorrow, thought March, if only to make sure she was safe.
After the American had gone they lay side by side on her narrow bed. For a long time neither spoke. The streetlights cast long shadows, the window frame slanted across the ceiling like cell bars. In the slight breeze the curtains trembled. Once there were the sounds of shouts and car doors slamming—revelers returning from watching the fireworks.
They listened to the voices fade along the street, then March whispered, "Last night on the telephone—you said you had found something."
She touched his hand, climbed off the bed. In the living room he could hear her rummaging among the heaps of papers. She returned half a minute later carrying a large coffee-table book. "I bought this on the way back from the airport." She sat on the edge of the bed, switched on the lamp, turned the pages. "There." She handed March the open book.
It was a reproduction, in black and white, of the painting in the Swiss bank vault. The monochrome did not do it justice. He marked the page with his finger and closed the book to read its title.
The Art of Leonardo da Vinci
, by Professor Arno Braun of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
"My God."
"I know. I thought I recognized it. Read it."
"
Lady with an Ermine,
" the scholars called it. "One of the most mysterious of all Leonardo's works." It was believed to have been painted circa 1483-86, and "believed to show Cecilia Gallerani, the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan." There were two published references to it: one in a poem by Bernardino Bellincioni (died 1492); the other, an ambiguous remark about an "immature" portrait, written by Cecilia Gallerani herself in a letter dated 1498. "But sadly for the student of Leonardo, the real mystery today is the painting's whereabouts. It is known to have entered the collection of the Polish Prince Adam Czartoryski in the late eighteenth century, and was photographed in Krakau in 1932. Since then it has disappeared into what Karl von Clausewitz so eloquently called 'the fog of war.' All efforts by the Reich authorities to locate it have so far failed, and it must now be feared that this priceless flowering of the Italian Renaissance is lost to mankind forever."