“All in good time,” Holland said. “And don’t forget to submit your expenses. In fact, have a nice meal on us. Take that old Swiss woman and her son, too. You’ve earned it.”
The federal entourage climbed into the Mercedes, and the car pulled away from the curb. Nat made sure to offer his most forlorn expression to give Holland something to remember him by. He guessed they’d be heading straight to the airport to catch a flight to Berlin. Then on to Bauer’s house.
Good for them. Nat didn’t begrudge them their victory. In fact, as the car eased out of sight, he felt downright triumphant on their behalf, and he broke into a huge, relaxed grin.
He took his time before making his next move, in case they or anyone else had posted a tail. First he returned to the Cafe William Tell, where he apologized profusely for having walked out on his breakfast. He then enjoyed a fine lunch, tipping extra generously.
Heading south, he passed a leisurely hour by strolling to the Fraumunster for a look at the Chagall stained- glass windows. Impressive, even inspiring. Or maybe that was just the mood he was in. Finally convinced that the coast was clear, he returned to the Lowenstrasse branch of Zurcher Bank AG shortly after 4 p.m., where he sought out the unflappable Herr Schmidt and announced that he would like to retrieve a few more items and then close the account. It would take only a few minutes, he said.
Once the door had shut on the small room in the back, Nat unlocked the steel drawer and removed both envelopes. He pocketed the old one for delivery to Sabine. Then he pulled out Gordon’s note from the new one. When he unfolded it, out dropped the third and last of the flash drive wafers, the copy that even Holland hadn’t counted on.
Nat signed the proper forms for Herr Schmidt. Monique then escorted him to the glass door up front. It was 4:29 p.m. She had a set of keys, ready to lock up for the day.
“Au revoir,” Nat said cheerily to Monique. “Auf wiedersehen,” he called out to Herr Schmidt. Switzerland was such a wonderful place.
He set out for the Bahnhof, and this time no one stopped him. He detoured briefly to an Internet cafe, where he logged on just long enough to plug in the flash drive and copy the images onto an e-mail attachment. He sent one copy to his own address, and another to Karen for good measure. He told her that all was well and that he expected to be home within a week.
He bought a beer at the station just before boarding, and when the train was safely out of the Bahnhof he toasted his smiling reflection in the window of the railcar. For the moment, he could even live with the idea of letting Kurt Bauer think that he, too, had just won. Nat felt certain that very soon, perhaps as early as this evening, Bauer would be exulting in his triumph, believing that never again would he have to answer to anyone like Nat or Berta.
And that was fine with Nat. Because his newest hunch, the one he had developed while reading the “Fleece” report, plus other recent items, might yet provide enough leverage to make even a shamed Bauer break his silence. But only if his hunch was true-and there was only one way to find out. Nat took out his cell phone and punched in the number for Steve Wallace, his friend at the CIA. Wallace had told him not to call, but what were friends for?
Being a reliable employee, Wallace answered on the first ring.
“Hi. Don’t hang up.”
“Make it fast. Very fast.”
“I don’t need information, just a favor. An easy one.”
“Sure it is.”
But when Wallace heard Nat’s request, he actually agreed. Furthermore, he promised to do it. He knew just the person. One phone call to Berlin ought to do the trick, he said.
Nat then phoned Sabine.
“I have something important for you to read. Several things, actually, but some of it I need to download and print out on your office computer. Think you could get Bernhard out of the way for an hour or so? I doubt you’d want him to see any of this before you’ve both had a chance to talk things over.”
“Come straight to the hotel. I’ll take care of it and meet you there.”
She was waiting at the front desk. Within half an hour Nat had printed out the images from the pages of the “Fleece” report. He handed Sabine the copies along with Gordon’s aging letter. She nodded grimly when she saw the heading. Then she took everything back to the breakfast room along with her reading glasses and a cup of tea.
“Bernhard will be back soon. Please ask him to mind the store and not to disturb me.”
Nat waited quietly on a couch in the lobby. He heard her sob once, but the only other sound was the occasional shuffling of papers and the rattle of her teacup in its saucer. Bernhard arrived and accepted his marching orders without a word of protest. You could tell he sensed that something important was in the air. A few minutes later his mother emerged. Her eyes were clear, her expression resolute. Just the sort of woman you could depend on to get you back across the border when all the odds were against you.
“Come on back, Dr. Turnbull.”
Bernhard glanced over from the desk but didn’t say anything. Sabine shut the door behind them and Nat took a seat.
“Tea?” she said.
“Please.”
Sabine had just brewed a fresh pot, and she poured them both a cup. Then she sat down and looked into his eyes.
“Painful reading,” she said. “It made it all so fresh.”
“I can only imagine. So what happened between the two of you? Afterward, I mean.”
“Bernhard happened.”
“That I figured. But how come you didn’t, well…”
“Marry Gordon?”
He nodded.
“I would have. Happily. But by the time I learned I was pregnant, they were keeping me out of sight. And of course by then I was all in a panic. Because, you see, I was certain the baby was the spawn of one of those terrible SS men. A little Nazi incubus. They had raped me several times by the time Gordon shot them. There was a third soldier, too. He also raped me, but he had gone on patrol. It was a miracle we made it back at all, with the shape Gordon was in. Some farmer in the woods helped us those last few miles or I don’t know what I would have done.”
“What happened when you finally got to Schaffhausen?”
“A contact met us, and the wheels began to turn. They took Gordon away to a hospital. Dulles and his people debriefed me, then packed me off straightaway to my family in Adelboden and told them to keep me out of sight. When the morning sickness began, I knew I wanted to end the pregnancy, but my father wouldn’t allow it. So he moved me away again, to an aunt’s house in a further valley. Someplace where my father knew Gordon would never find me. That was okay with Dulles, too, because they wanted to bury all of this as fast and as deep as possible.
“I still tried sending him messages, but nothing ever got through. I wanted to use our code, but by then I had lost the book. Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen it since.”
She had it with her now, tucked into her purse, and she pulled it out while Nat watched. She thumbed it open to the front, where her name was written in the hand of a young woman.
“Then Mr. Jurgens came along. Wilhelm had always had his eye on me. Once he had been after my father to arrange a marriage, but even my father wasn’t that old-fashioned. Not then, anyway. A kind man, really, but so old. Or that’s how it seemed when you were twenty, as I was. He was forty-four, a businessman. He owned this hotel and several more properties in the city. And he was very kind. I suppose he must have been, to marry some stupid pregnant girl who had shamed her family. My father and he worked it all out between them, like a real estate transaction. He bought off my father’s shame, and in return he got a pretty young wife to help run his hotel.
“By the time I gave birth to Bernhard, Gordon had left for Berlin with Mr. Dulles. And then when he returned, well, I suppose you can figure out the rest. He was heartbroken when he found out, and I was, too. Because even by then I could tell it was his baby. One look at little Bernhard’s face and you could see it in every feature.”
No wonder she had burst into tears when Murray Kaplan came along.
