Free The Arms Maker of Berlin by Dan Fesperman Page A

yesterday?”
    He wished Holland would slow down with the questions.
    “Well?”
    “Same as always, I guess. Only sober. In a way he was almost happy spoiling for a fight. He looked pretty good. Or I thought he did.”
    “Was he especially agitated about anything?”
    “He wasn’t thrilled to be in jail, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t say he was overwrought. Viv’s the one I would have pegged for a breakdown. And you want me to tell her?”
    “Did you visit him last night?”
    “No.”
    “Or any other time since you saw him in the courtroom?”
    “No. That’s the only time.”
    “Any phone calls between you?”
    “None.”
    “You’re certain?”
    “Absolutely. What are you getting at?”
    “What about the girl, the German you met at the diner at lunch yesterday? Did she visit him?”
    At the mention of Berta he hunched over to hide the lingering evidence of his dream.
    “Doubtful. You’ll have to ask her.”
    “Did she relay any messages between you, either oral or written?”
    “As far as I know she hasn’t even spoken to him.”
    “Answer the question.”
    “No.”
    Holland stared for a few seconds, as if waiting for Nat to break. Then he stood quickly.
    “Get dressed. We’re going.”
    “There was one thing.” It had just occurred to Nat, along with a nasty stab of guilt.
    “Yes?”
    “Gordon told me yesterday to ask you guys for better protection. And I never did, of course. I thought it was just more of his usual dramatics.”
    “Protection? Against what?”
    “He said you’d know.”
    Holland shook his head, irritated.
    “He was talking nonsense. Just like this morning.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “In his only moment of consciousness, the EMT asked what he’d had for dinner the night before. He smiled and said he’d been to the Metropolitan Club in Washington. Those were his last words. The doctor figured it was some kind of private joke. Maybe you’d know the context?”
    “The Metropolitan Club? Never heard of it.”
    “You’re certain?”
    “He must have been delirious.”
    Yet the phrase tugged at some old memory, just out of reach. Not from his shared experiences with Gordon—they had never been to Washington together—but from somewhere. Viv might know. Ugh. Telling her was going to be an ordeal for both of them.
    But it wasn’t Viv he was thinking of by the time Holland and he reached the bottom of the stairs. It was Berta Heinkel. Obviously he had been impressed by her performance in the diner. But now he was upgrading his review, because she had seemed to know things about Gordon that the old man had never told him. And now he would never be able to ask.
    Over the next few days he would continue to be impressed. Because, by day’s end, Berta Heinkel’s peculiar expertise would be in great demand. And within a week she and Nat would be seated together on a Swissair nonstop from Washington to Bern—the very place where, long ago, Gordon Wolfe had begun assembling the makings of his own destruction.

SEVEN
    Berlin—December 20, 1941
    D ON’T YOU HATE PARTIES like this?”
    Not much of a pickup line, but the girl brightened as if someone had finally pushed the right button. Or maybe it was just the glow of the candles from the Christmas tree, a towering spruce that lit up the room even more than the Biedermeier chandeliers.
    “Don’t I ever,” she said above the roar of conversation. “It’s the uniforms I hate most. Everyone showing off, even the ones who aren’t in the Wehrmacht. What good is a uniform when you’re just working for some ministry, sitting in an office all day?”
    “Exactly,” the boy said.
    “Sometimes I think we’ve all gone a little mad with this war mentality. My name is Liesl, by the way. Liesl Folkerts. And you are?”
    “Kurt. Kurt Bauer. And I feel exactly the same.”
    He didn’t really. Nor did he hate the uniforms, except out of envy. He wished he was wearing one, if only because then he might look eighteen. If