“All much too sensitive. You knew that. Everything needed to be discreet.”
“That’s right. Now I remember. They’re very big on discretion.” And before she could answer, “So you’ve been in Berlin for what—the last six, eight weeks?”
“What are you trying to say, Nikolai?”
He shook his head casually. “Nothing. I just want to get things straight.” His stare was no less penetrating. “You see, I had you here after the girl went missing. After your American friends discovered that she was gone. And long after Herr Vogt—that’s our sound man—started working on his new device. But now you tell me you were here before that. That’s very different, isn’t it?”
She pulled out her cigarettes. “What does this have to do with anything? I don’t believe I told you when I got to Berlin.”
“No, you never did. I must have just been assuming.” He watched as she lit up. “Who exactly was at those meetings?”
She shrugged as she let out a stream of smoke. “I don’t know. I don’t think it was studio people.”
“No one’s name you remember?”
“I never heard any names.”
Again Hoffner nodded slowly. “Yah. That would have been too helpful, wouldn’t it?”
She opted for a look of puzzlement. “Have I done something wrong, Nikolai? You’re being very cagey.”
“I’m being cagey.” He smiled as he came forward and stood. “I can drive you back to your hotel now.”
She waited. “I thought we were going to make some telephone calls?”
“No. We weren’t.”
As if on cue, puzzlement sank into self-reproach. “Nikolai, if there’s something I’ve done—”
“You can stop that. It’s not likely I’m going to believe it, whatever it is.”
“You’re being terribly unfair.” She continued to stare up at him. “I don’t even know what I’ve done. I wasn’t at those meetings. I was told when to show up, I was handed the canisters, and I was told to ship them out. You have to believe me. I saw two or three of these people leaving once—once—and that was by accident. It was the last time I drove out. I must have gotten there twenty minutes earlier than usual. I don’t know why. I didn’t think it would make any difference. Thyssen was always alone. This time he wasn’t, and he was furious. Three days later he was dead, and I panicked. I thought if I told you I’d been there . . . I don’t know.”
It was impossible to tell how genuine her vulnerability was. At each crucial turn, it came out with just the right touch of helplessness. The damnable thing was that it made sense.
“You don’t know what?” he said. “That I would have thought you’d killed him? Please. You’re much too clever for that.”
“I don’t deal with dead people every day, Nikolai.”
“No, you just track the living to deliver them up to someone else who can take care of that.”
It took a moment for the edge to return to her face. When it did, she looked as if she might say something. Instead, she stood.
The silence became too much for him, and he said, “What?”
Her cigarette was already in the ashtray. “I’ll take that ride back to my hotel now.”
Hoffner fought the urge to grab her by the arms, shake the strength out of her. As much as he hated her vulnerability, he felt lost without it. He stared a moment longer and said, “Fine,” and wondered when this would finally break him.
OUR FRIENDS THE FRENCH
THE SMELL OF WET CARDBOARD and dust lingered in the room as Hoffner opened another of the volumes stacked on the table in front of him. The books were massive things, their leather bindings already cracking from the damp. What genius had decided to keep records in these conditions was anybody’s guess. Not that the place was old. Berlin’s Handelskammer—Chamber of Commerce—had been established less than twenty-five years ago, three vaulted floors in the Italian-palazzo style along Dorotheenstrasse. At least someone had had the good sense to build an equally grand marble fireplace just off the entrance doors to the reading room. No one had bothered to light it, but still, there was hope.
A man was seated at a desk in front of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, his gray mustache and spectacles giving him just the right touch of place. He wore a stiff wing-collar shirt, a swallowtail coat, and a tie tucked neatly into his striped vest. The costume hadn’t changed in twenty years, and neither had his posture. He sat ramrod-straight, scribbling into a volume, with an occasional glance at the four or five men seated at the long-row tables. Two were young lawyers, from the look of their briefcases. They were here for the drudge work, although they were putting brave faces on it. Another had all the trappings of a much-too-eager academic deep at work on some dissertation, no doubt exploring the critical evolution of Berlin property codes between the years 1906 and 1911. Riveting stuff, to be sure.
Hoffner let the cover of his book drop just too loudly, so as to bring some life to the room. The man at the desk was evidently immune, the academic too engrossed to take any notice. Only the lawyers looked over, but that was more to indulge the distraction than anything else.
“That’s the second time you’ve done that,” Leni whispered. She was seated across from him, her own stack of books barely dented. “They’re looking over every few minutes anyway.”
An hour ago, the drive from the Alex to the Hotel Adlon had been another standoff in silence, until she had turned to him and slapped him across the face. Luckily, he had already been parked in front of the hotel, so no harm done. He had expected it to be the last dramatic gesture before her exit from the car, but she had just sat there staring ahead. And then she had laughed and said, “That was a little over the top, wasn’t it?”
“No,” he answered. “I was due for another beating. Once a day seems to be working just fine.”
“You know you have to believe me.”
Hoffner continued to stare out the windshield. “Do I?” There were any number of reasons he could have reached past her and opened her door. There was only one to keep him where he was. He turned on the car. “No more surprises,” he said, and pulled out into traffic.
Now, another short ride and various volumes later, they were no closer to finding what they needed. He had given her the task of digging through any Letters of Incorporation from the last three months that included Alfred Hugenberg’s name. According to the city records, Hugenberg had been busy. Thus far, she had come across four references to add to his three. None was promising in the slightest.
“This is going to take all day,” she said as she ran a finger down the page, scanning for the name. “And you won’t tell me why I’m doing this?”
“And ruin the excitement? It’s police work. That should be reward enough.”
“Very glamorous. So when do we start shooting at people?”
“Well, you could try the professor over there, although he looks quite fast. It might just be the twitch, though.”
The man at the desk looked over and cleared his throat. It was enough to provoke a nod of apology from Hoffner.
Two hours later, he was onto his sixth volume and twelfth Hugenberg citing. It was as a board member for a firm called Mentor Bilanz. The names alongside were again of no help. Hoffner was about to move on when he noticed a small marking following the name of the firm. It looked to be part of the z until he bent forward and realized it was a tiny cross. Looking down to the bottom of the page, he noticed—crammed in just below the last line of text—the same cross followed by a string of almost indecipherable words. He brought his nose almost to the page and read affiliate IvS, undersigned W. Canaris, W. Lohmann, Capts.
Hoffner continued to stare. It took him another moment to reach for his notebook. He sat up and flipped to the pages with his notes on the files from the Phoebus Film Studio. Scanning through, he found the listing of the signatures that had appeared on the purchasing document for the warehouses out in the Hasenheide. Instantly, he knew he had been right to look here. There were ch
eck marks next to the first three names: T. von Harbou, J. Goebbels, K. Daluege.
Only the last had a question mark next to it: W. Lohmann.
The link to Hugenberg was growing more interesting by the minute.
Hoffner quietly pushed back his chair and walked over to the desk. The man shifted his glance, but nothing else. “I have the name of a second firm, mein Herr,” said Hoffner. “I would like to cross-reference it with any other names.”
Hoffner had tried this two and a half hours ago with the limited partnership Ostara KG, also named in the Hasenheide document, but it had come up empty. The man took the slip of paper and headed through a private door along the far wall. Ten minutes later he returned with four cards in hand.
He spoke in a dry whisper. “I remind you, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar, this is not information you may show to anyone outside the Polizei Presidium, unless they are listed on the cards themselves, or have a legal claim, which would require proper court papers as verification.” He peered past Hoffner toward Leni and then back again.
“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I remember you telling me the last time, mein Herr.”
The man nodded and handed Hoffner the cards.
At the desk Hoffner spread them out and began to read.
The first was for the affiliate company IvS, now written longhand as Ingenieurkantoor voor Scheepsbouw, apparently a Dutch firm. His best bet was that this was an engineering office for some kind of shipbuilding enterprise, but he had no idea to what end. The card also listed offices in Cádiz, Spain, and Istanbul, Turkey. The second was for a firm named Caspar-Luftfahrt-Werke with aircraft design offices in Lindingö, Sweden. The third was simply called The LA Company. It listed no locations and no products. All three referenced Mentor Bilanz, but with no explanation of the link. The last, and only German, listing was for a privately supported bank, Berliner Bankverein, whose chairman was a Captain Walther Lohmann of the German Navy.
Dutch shipbuilders, Swedish aviation experts, and what seemed to be a very private California firm, and all fueled by German money. Apparently the film business was taking on all sorts of new partners. Hoffner wondered how much Leni’s Hollywood friends had failed to tell her about their interests.
She peered over, and he quickly retrieved the cards.
“Something good?” she said.
He finished taking notes and picked up the cards. “We’re done here.”
At the desk, Hoffner noticed the professor watching Leni move to the door. It was only a moment, but time enough to see a little grin perk up the sallow, if longing, face.
THE ADDRESS FOR the Berliner Bankverein turned out to be somewhere in the middle of the Spree River. Hoffner had guessed as much. It was why Leni was now waiting in the car, and why he was sitting in an office on the fourth floor of Der Bendlerblock, a mammoth compound of white stone just south of the Tiergarten. Imposingly impotent, it housed the Ministry of Defense, General Staff Headquarters, and the Offices of Naval Personnel.
As ever, a police badge required several viewings from a string of ever-more-impressive ranks before a white-haired Fregattenkapitän finally agreed to see him.
“A condition of the heart, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar.” The Fregattenkapitän was scanning the pages of a surprisingly thin dossier on his desk. “That is the reason why Herr Kapitän Lohmann took early pension in March of 1923.”
“And before 1923?” asked Hoffner.
The man continued to flip through. “You say this is all routine, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar?”
Hoffner had sized up the Herr Fregattenkapitän the moment he had stepped into the office. The full display of ribbons on his chest and the weathered skin spoke of a life lived at sea. The appointment to Berlin had been the Navy’s way of easing him out. To his credit, the Herr Fregattenkapitän was taking the slap with a dignified resentment.
Hoffner said, “The Kapitän’s name came up as a witness in an old case. A burglary in 1921. The man finishes his sentence in a month, and we’re obliged by the court to inform anyone involved. Unfortunately, our files were damaged. These things happen, as you well know. We had the Kapitän listed, but nothing else. As I said, all very routine.”
“And his history in the Navy? This is routine, as well, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar?” The Herr Fregattenkapitän looked up for the first time in several minutes.
“Bureaucrats,” said Hoffner with a knowing nod. “They get their hands into everything these days. I lose four hours’ work so they can have all their forms and sheets properly filled out. Unfortunately, I don’t make the rules, Herr Fregattenkapitän.”
The man was back with the dossier. He, too, was nodding. “None of us do, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. Some of these people seem to enjoy sitting behind a desk more than perhaps is necessary.” He turned to the front page of the file and said, “So why don’t we try and get you back to your work as quickly as possible.”
The Herr Fregattenkapitän read through Lohmann’s appointments: noncombat logistics specialist during the war; member of a subcommission in 1918–1919 to negotiate the disposition of the merchant fleet and to direct shipments of emergency food supplies to Germany; lead negotiator in 1919–1920 for the return of German prisoners of war; and finally commander of the Naval Transport Division in October of 1920.
He stopped for a moment when he read this. “Really?” This was more for himself than for Hoffner. “I wasn’t aware of that.” He looked across the desk. “I wasn’t posted to Berlin until ’24. It seems that your Herr Kapitän was a king among bureaucrats.” He quickly raised a hand in apology. “Very important, of course. The Navy doesn’t run without them. But not a sailor. My guess, the heart. You can’t have that sort of thing on deck, can you?”
“The Transport Division?” said Hoffner. “I’m not familiar with that, Herr Fregattenkapitän.”
The man nodded as if expecting the question. “No reason you should be, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. It’s relatively new.” He continued to explain: “The division is a recent creation made necessary by the restrictions after Versailles. All those ships we weren’t permitted to keep in the fleet. We had quite a few of them sitting idle once the treaty stripped us down to twelve destroyers, six battleships, and six cruisers.” It was clear that these numbers were never far from the Herr Fregattenkapitän’s thoughts. “And, of course, no submarines. Very generous of the English and French. The division is more of a commercial civilian enterprise than real Navy. You’d be surprised how many potatoes you can squeeze into an old troop frigate.”
“At least the ships are being used.”
“I suppose they are,” he said as he went back to the dossier. Turning to the last page, he again seemed caught by something.
“Yes?” said Hoffner.
The man flipped the page over, clearly expecting more. When all he found was the back cover of the dossier, he let go with an unexpected “Hmm.”
Hoffner waited until the Herr Fregattenkapitän looked up again. “Something wrong?”
The man closed the dossier and placed it inside the top drawer. “No, no. It’s just there’s usually a letter or form. It’s nothing.”
“A form?” said Hoffner with mock dread. “I’m not going to disappoint my clerks back at Alexanderplatz, am I?”
The Herr Fregattenkapitän tried a stiff smile. “A letter that details the officer’s decommissioning. They go missing all the time.”
Hoffner knew to return the smile. “So your clerks are as inefficient as ours are?”
The man’s relief was all too clear. “Exactly, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. The world is now run by eleven-year-olds. I can have someone try and find it for you.”
“No reason,” said Hoffner as he stood. “I have more than enough to get this off my desk. You’ve been very kind.”
Downstairs, Hoffner asked a young Oberleutnant at the entrance kiosk for the location of the Naval Transport Division. The main office, he was told, was on the third floor. However, if the Herr Kriminal-Oberkom
missar wanted the routing bureau, that was not in the building. Funnily enough, it turned out to be on the same street as the Berliner Bankverein, although Hoffner guessed that this time the address might just be above water.
LENI WAS WAITING in the passenger seat of the car, reading a newspaper, when Hoffner opened the door. He held two chocolate brioches in his hands.
“All those floors and guards just for a bakery?” she said as he slid in next to her. “And French pastry, to boot. Who’d have thought?” He handed her one, and she took a healthy bite.
“We take our sweets very seriously,” he said as he lapped at a bit of chocolate on his lip.
“Don’t you think they’d freeze in those little costumes?” She had the paper open to an advertisement for something coming up at the Palais der Friedrichstadt. “ ‘The Cassvan Ice-Dance Troupe,’ ” she read. “ ‘Four nights of high-culture skating ballet.’ ” She turned the picture toward him. Ten or so women were posing in a kick line, skates, silver scanties, and brassieres, and an odd sort of silky helmet on top. It was a nice collection of legs and cleavage. Leni said, “I’m guessing low culture means it’s just the little hats. Any interest?”
Hoffner pressed the starter. “There’s always interest.”
She folded the newspaper and said, “So—the Handelskammer and Reichswehr headquarters. Either Thyssen was making some very dull films or things are moving in a bizarre direction.”
He took the turn toward Potsdamer Platz and stuffed the last of the brioche in his mouth.
Leni said, “I thought it was ham in the early afternoon with Berliners. A nice little brötchen, pickles, maybe an onion or two?”
“You’re hungry?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
He took them past the Haus Vaterland dome at the center of the square, the statuettes above always reminding him of a kitsch St. Peter’s, crosses and faith tossed aside in favor of a robust cup of coffee and a few steins of bad beer. The swarms of people between the Kaffee Kempinski and the U-Bahn entrance were still thick from the lunch rush. There was no point in pulling over.
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