“My dear lady, I don’t blame anyone. Not that week.”
“I don’t mean that. I told him not to come.”
“Ah.”
“I was the coward.”
“Frau Brandt—”
“No, it’s true.” She lowered her head and took a sip of coffee. “I was afraid we’d both be killed if he waited. I didn’t want another death. It was crazy to come then-there wasn’t time. I told him to leave with his father before it was too late. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t care. It was foolish, but that’s how it was. Why do you want to know this?”
“But his father didn’t leave either,” Gunther said, not answering. “Only the files. Did he mention them?”
“No. What files?”
“A pity. I’m curious about those files. It’s how he got the car, I think. You remember there were no cars then. No gas either.”
“His father said he came with SS.”
“But even they had no cars for personal matters. Not then. So it must have been for the files. What files, do you think?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Or the Americans.” He turned around to Jake. “What do the Americans say? Did you find out?”
“Admin files, Shaeffer said. Nothing special. No technical secrets, if that’s what you mean.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know how to read them. Not like our Herr Teitel. A genius with files, that one. In his hands, a weapon.” He raised his hand, uncannily like Bernie in the courtroom, the invisible file a kind of gun. “He knows.”
“Well, if he does, he isn’t saying, and he’s been sitting under them for weeks now. It’s his home away from home.”
“What is?”
Jake stared at him, then turned to the map. “The Document Center,” he said quietly, putting his finger down on Wasserkafersteig, a short line, just a byway off the Grunewald. “The Document Center,” he said again, moving his finger left. A straight line across the Grunewald, under the Avus, where they’d stopped in the rain, a straight line to the lake.
“You’ve thought of something?”
“Tully had an appointment with Bernie, right? The next day. But he came early. Why would anyone want to see Bernie?” He moved his finger back to the street. “Files. Nobody knows those files better than he does. He’d be the man to see.” He thought of Bernie racing in to dinner, folders cascading over the startled serving man-the night, in fact, Tully was killed. He tapped his finger on the map. “That’s where Tully went. The numbers connect here.”
Gunther got up and looked where he was pointing, hand over chin in thought. “Bravo,” he said finally. “If he went there. Unfortunately, only he can tell us.”
“No, they keep records, a sign-in book. He’d be in there.” He looked at Gunther. “Want to bet? Even money.”
“No,” Gunther said, turning back to the map, thoughtful. “Now what?” Jake said, reading his face. “Nothing. I wonder, how did he know to look?” “Emil must have said something. They did a lot of talking at Kransberg. They were friends.” “An expensive friend, perhaps.” “How do you mean?”
“Meister Toll-he wasn’t the type to do anything for free.” Jake looked at him. “No, he never did anything for free.”
It was late, but he had to know, so they made the long drive back to Zehlendorf. The same narrow street rising up from the dark woods, the wire fence spotted with floodlights. A guard chewing gum.
“We’re closed, bub. Can’t you read?” He jerked his thumb at a posted sign.
“I just want to see the night duty officer.”
“No can do.”
“For Captain Teitel,” Jake said quickly. “He has a message for him.”
A name that literally opened doors here, or at least the mesh gate, which instantly swung back.
“She stays here,” the guard said. “Make it quick.”
The hallway guard, half asleep with his feet propped up on the sign-in desk, seemed startled to see anyone at this hour. If Tully had been here, it hadn’t been late.
“Captain Teitel asked me to check the sign-in book for him.”
“What for?”
“Some report. How do I know? Can I see it, or what?”
The guard looked at him, dubious, but pushed the book around, a desk clerk with a hotel register.
“How far back does this go?” Jake said, beginning to leaf through it. “I need July sixteenth.”
“What for?”
“Your needle stuck?”
The guard pulled out another book, opening it to the right page for him. Jake started scrolling down, running his finger under the names. A busy day. And suddenly there it was-Lt. Patrick Tully, a script to match the riding boots, showy. Signed in and out, no times. He looked at it for a second, the closest he’d been to him since the Cecilienhof, no longer elusive, caught where the numbers connected. He took the photograph from his breast pocket, an off chance.
“You ever see this guy?”
“What are you, an MP?”
“You see him?”
He glanced at the picture. “Not that I know of. You get people in and out here. After a while, they all look alike. What did he do?”
“Anybody takes a file, they sign it out, right?”
“Nobody takes files out of here. Can’t.”
“Teitel does.”
“No, he brings them in. Nothing goes out unless you brought it in the first place. Not while I’m on duty, anyway.”
“Okay, thanks. That’s all I needed.”
The guard began to pull the open book back.
“Wait a minute,” Jake said, his eye caught by a florid signature. A few names down, Breimer, a rounded B. And underneath, Shaeffer. Where they’d gone that evening.
“Anything wrong?”
Jake shook his head, then closed the book. “I don’t know.”
Outside he stood for a moment, struck by the lights, just as he had when he’d walked into Liz’s picture. Shaeffer had been here that day too. Two visits.
“Did you get what you wanted?” Lena said in the jeep.
“Yes, he was here. I was right.”
“And the files?”
“Tomorrow. Come on, we’ll go home. You got some sun.”
She looked down at her skin, red under the floodlights.
“Yes, you were right about that too,” she said with an edge.
“What’s the matter?” Jake said as the jeep started down the hill.
“Nothing. They’re so important, the files?”
“Tully thought so. He was here-I knew it.”
“More numbers, for Emil’s weapons. That’s what’s in themnumbers?”
“Not according to Shaeffer.”
“But Emil came for them. That’s what the policeman thinks. Not for me.”
“Maybe he came for both.”
“To make more weapons? The war was finished.”
“To trade. That’s what they have, the scientists-numbers to trade.”
