“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 marshalling yards, where 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, Sturmbann-fuhrer?”
“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 goods 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 Polizei 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 the twentieth of January 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, you would 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 I’m in Heaven…”
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 was 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 this in English. March stared at him. “What are you saying, Mister Nightingale?”
“I’m saying, Sturmbannfuhrer, 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 on to the floor “—before they open the Embassy gates to a man you say is probably a common murderer.”
“But Luther is 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 authorisation. 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 put on 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 got yourself mixed up in here?”
The Americans argued back and forth for another ten minutes, then March said quietly: “Aren’t you overlooking something, Mister Nightingale?”
Nightingale switched his attention reluctantly from Charlie. “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 had worked 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 US 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 bow-tie. “But this situation — it’s as 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
