The Honest Spy

by Andreas Kollender

  “We’re being rude to Herr Wegner,” he says.

  They go back inside. Fritz grabs the cheese he prepared and sets it out on the table. Pictures and documents are strewn about the living room, and photos, news clippings, and city maps hang on the walls. Wegner has filled many pages of his notepad and is now looking through Fritz’s documents. Fritz opens the door to the woodstove and holds a match to the paper already crumpled under a pyramid of kindling. After a few seconds the wood starts crackling, and warmth flows from the stove. He waits a moment, then adds some larger pieces.

  “Files were incinerated during the war,” he says. “The Nazis had filled so many pages with ink. They recorded everything: every bullet cartridge, every conversation. Every person. Himmler very publicly stated his pride at having mastered so well the logistics and intellectual challenges which ensured that . . . Jews were incinerated. Though he didn’t actually say intellectual, since Hitler detested intellectuals. They’re capable of thinking in multiple ways, whereas Hitler only thought in one way. Actually, I’m not sure if he was truly able to think at all.”

  “What great cheese,” Veronika says. This annoys Fritz for a moment, and then he sees her young cheeks bulging as she chews. He laughs. Try a little of the radish with that, he tells her. They’re fresh picked.

  Wegner taps a pen against his notepad.

  “That was your last visit to Bern before the end of the war,” he says.

  “And the worst,” Fritz says. “No bombs were falling, no panzers rolling in. And yet . . .”

  13

  A SILENT SHOT IN BERN

  Fritz spent only an hour at the diplomatic mission the next day. Most of the staff looked ashen and hopelessness showed in their faces. Fritz overheard them feigning loyalty to one another and lying about their belief that Germany would triumph. They’re all doing the same as me now, he thought. Only the doors to Weygand’s and von Lützow’s offices remained shut. Out in the yard, flames flickered in burn barrels, their intense orange a sharp contrast to the gray sky and moss-covered tree trunks. Hundreds of pages of damning material were curling to ashes and drifting out from the barrels, now just little black particles on the air.

  Dulles had told Fritz he should dangle the bait of asylum in Switzerland before von Lützow. Fritz wasn’t sure if the offer was a serious one, but he could care less either way. He just wanted to complete his work here and return to Berlin as fast as possible so he could get Marlene out of the city.

  Out in the hallway, Fritz chatted with a woman from the Visa Department about flowers in South Africa, waiting until Weygand left the office. When Weygand did leave, it was in the company of a nervous-looking Swiss customs official. Fritz thanked the woman for the nice chat and knocked on von Lützow’s door. He sat at the desk across from von Lützow and gestured toward the window.

  “Lovely country, Switzerland,” he said.

  “Oh indeed,” von Lützow said. “Especially the lakes. Quite wonderful.”

  “It would be even lovelier in peacetime,” Fritz said.

  Von Lützow didn’t respond. Unease showed itself in his eyes.

  “Asylum, Herr von Lützow? In Switzerland? Security for you, your wife, and the children. All you’d have to do is prevent files from being destroyed.”

  “Come again?”

  “All around you, people are starting to defect. Negotiations are being conducted in secret at the highest levels. Your superior, von Ribbentrop, is sitting in his mansion, drinking his family’s own champagne and pissing his pants real good. You don’t owe him any accountability.”

  Von Lützow stared at Fritz, the pomade in his black hair mixing with sweat.

  “Work with me.”

  Von Lützow bent down, pulled the wastepaper basket toward him, and vomited. Fritz looked out the window at a stripe of blue sky between two long and drawn-out banks of clouds.

  Von Lützow patted his mouth with a white hanky. “I could have you arrested on the spot.” He was out of breath, as if he’d climbed up one of the nearby hills without stopping.

  “You won’t do that,” Fritz said. “Nothing will happen to you. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin are demanding unconditional surrender and won’t negotiate with the Nazis. The Wehrmacht is beaten. And our so-called Wonder Weapons aren’t coming, Herr von Lützow. You sat here in Bern during the whole war. You haven’t done anything wrong—or at least, not much. They’re offering you a hand.”

  “What have you done, Herr Kolbe?”

  “I can guarantee your safety.”

  Von Lützow leaned over the wastebasket again. A sour odor permeated the office. Fritz took official Nazi letterhead off the desk and pitched it past von Lützow’s face into the wastebasket. Puke and swastikas, he thought.

  “I’m calling von Günther.”

  “Von Günther is about to make his own escape from Berlin.”

  Fritz had seldom seen a human being look so stunned. Von Lützow seemed to go utterly weak. He appeared as devoid of bearings as a man who’d suddenly found himself left exposed naked and alone in the middle of the desert, or atop some high mountain peak.

  “Do you seriously think all those funds being transferred to Switzerland are stockpiles for the Final Victory?”

  Von Lützow tugged at his tie, then reached for the phone; but the handset tumbled from his shaking hands and banged against the desktop. Fritz picked up the handset and hung it up. He knew he was taking a big risk, but he’d been doing plenty of that over the last few days. He was getting so close to that showdown he had wanted for so long. Von Lützow might not be a criminal, but he was still an emissary of Hitler, dutiful and subservient—and now out of his depth. Fritz guessed the man had never really bothered to take a good look at what was happening in the world created by Hitler. Still, Fritz didn’t have the time to make allowances for him now.

  “If you tell anyone about our conversation, I’m done for,” he said. “But, Herr von Lützow, if that happens, my friends will learn of it. And if anything happens to me, you’re a dead man.” Fritz drew the revolver from his jacket and waved it in an arc. Acting like this seemed immensely fitting, considering the game he’d been playing for years. Not for a second did he think he might look silly.

  “Have you gone crazy, Kolbe? Did you lose your mind?” Von Lützow’s stare was fixed on the gun. “You miserable traitor.”

  Fritz laughed bitterly. “Gas chambers, a war of extermination, the eradication of human beings. Herr von Lützow, you’re clearly a civilized man. So, who’s a traitor to Germany? Me?”

  Von Lützow uttered a sound that seemed to come from deep within his heart and gut and mind. His shirtfront was wet, and his eyes darted around. Fritz kept playing his game. He played it meanly and viciously, startled by the nasty pleasure it gave him.

  “And if anyone hears about our little get-together? You won’t be the only one who’s done for. Your family will suffer. Greatly.” The lies came easily to him. He’d have to tell Marlene about this. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t.

  “You . . . You . . .” Von Lützow’s intended epithet became a question, expressing all his astonishment about Fritz Kolbe. “You?” he blurted, as if he still couldn’t comprehend it was Fritz who was sitting across from him, holding a gun.

  Fritz put the revolver away. “It’s out of my hands, Herr von Lützow. If it were up to me, your family would be left out of it.”

  “You’re a paid errand boy.”

  “Not paid, Herr von Lützow.”

  “A real man does not betray his country.”

  “These people you depend on are going to leave you out in the ice cold. Weygand calls the shots here now. He is the one Berlin talks about when the conversation turns to Bern. Not you. So don’t go telling me you still trust a man like Weygand.”

  “He stands with Germany and our Führer.”

  “Please. Stands with the Führer? I highly doubt it. Now, here’s what I need you to do. By tomorrow morning, write down everything you know about any funds
being transferred. Banks, middlemen, addresses, figures, routes—all of it. Think long and hard. Ask yourself where your future lies. Speak with your wife.” Fritz paused. Speak with your wife? It was one of those sayings a person hears so often they utter it absentmindedly, without recognizing any emptiness or falseness in it.

  “Maybe not with your wife,” Fritz added.

  “I talk over everything with my wife.”

  “She doesn’t with you, however.”

  “What—”

  “It doesn’t matter now. That’s your problem. It’s nothing that concerns me. Whoever you do speak with, do not mention my name. Understand?”

  “How can a person be so depraved?”

  “Christ, von Lützow, the war is almost over. Something new will come. We can play a part in making it better—far better. Starting now.”

  Fritz stood and looked down at von Lützow. The man had spread his arms out wide on the desk.

  “Think it over. Use reason.”

  When Fritz reached the doorway, von Lützow ran after him.

  “Germany isn’t just Hitler. It includes Hitler right now, but that’s just a phase. But . . . treason? Just what are you thinking, betraying a whole system? You’re handing people over to the enemy.”

  Fritz pictured Walter at the campfire during their safari. He saw Käthe’s cracked skull, and Katrin’s little back on the dock.

  “We’ll see each other tomorrow, Herr von Lützow,” he said. “After that I’m traveling back to Berlin, to the Office, where there’s hardly anyone left. Come with me. See for yourself what’s become of Berlin, of all those trusty servants in the Foreign Office and everywhere else. Come with me.”

  “My post is here.”

  “Don’t let any more files be destroyed. Cases are being prepared to take the Nazi leadership to trial.”

  Von Lützow ran back over to the wastebasket and retched again.

  “My God, man, you’ll come out of this fine. Get control of this place. You’re the boss here! So pull yourself together. Those money transfers. The files. You’ll figure it out.”

  On the sill of the window looking over the yard stood a bottle of cognac next to some balloon glasses. Fritz poured a glass half full and placed it on the desk before von Lützow. Light from the window found the glass and cast a swirling shadow of cognac on the desk pad.

  Fritz headed north. He left the street right before the bridge and made his way down to the bank of the Aare. He smoked a cigarette and wondered whether the river might have any trout. He thought about Horst Braunwein. It seemed decades ago that he’d gone fishing with that young towhead in South Africa. Cape Town, Katrin, peace—all so long ago. It had been a whole other life.

  He scrambled back up to the street and kicked off the mud that was starting to dry into a crust on his shoes. Several passersby looked at him. “You have to go off the beaten path sometimes,” he told them. “It does a person good.”

  Musorksky was waiting in his hotel room. Fritz recognized him at once. The man was pale. His thick, dark overcoat spread over his body like a blanket.

  “What, you haven’t been shipped off to Siberia yet?”

  “The Soviet Union is prepared to pay you much money for information on General Gehlen. Very much money. If you wish, a peaceful life in Moscow. A wonderful city with a great history.”

  “One can’t serve two masters at the same time, Herr Musorksky.”

  “Herr Kolbe, listen. It is very important to us. The class enemy is—”

  “Important for us?” Fritz interrupted. “Or for you?”

  “There are rumors of major financial transactions between German and Swiss banks. Do you not grasp what is going on here? The capitalists work together, always. Even in this war. America and Germany. You are not the sort of man who plays along, Herr Kolbe.”

  “Perhaps I’ll go back to Africa.”

  “Where the black race is being exploited by Western imperialism? What did you fight for anyway?”

  “Look here, Musorksky. I’m fed up to here with all the speeches and lectures, all the lofty ideals—the whole damn mess. I’m sure the Soviet agencies are doing just as much as the Americans or British. But don’t count on me to be part of it. I’ve never claimed to work for anyone. I work against someone. So any for there might be is my affair, and mine only.”

  “I could resort to violence.”

  Fritz laughed. He leaned against the wall, genuinely amused. With a naturalness previously unimagined, he drew his revolver for the second time that day. He looked down at his hand. It was steady. His momentary doubt was swept away by one crystal-clear thought: You’ve already come all this way. He sighed.

  “You really think I’ve gone this far just to let myself be sidelined by you and your bullshit ideas?”

  Musorksky looked unimpressed by the gun. He pursed his lips as if sucking on a bitter lozenge.

  Would he really be able to shoot Musorksky? Sink a bullet into the man’s gut?

  “How did you get files here?” Musorksky said. “Courier mail, that right? We can do that too. An envelope gets sent to us at a cover address, a completely safe affair. All we need is one file, one envelope—information on Gehlen and his cutthroats. And put the revolver away. That’s an American model, they’re good. But you can’t keep going around pulling guns on people like that.”

  “Just go nab Gehlen. He’s always out East somewhere.”

  “He is long gone. Say you don’t deliver us the goods on him. Say you don’t pass us material so we too have something in our hands—as soon as the war’s over, your American friends will start working with that very same General Gehlen. This I guarantee you.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Do not be naïve, Herr Kolbe. Just a few documents on Gehlen’s activities in the East, for us, back in my homeland. Say, ten pages of damning details. That would be enough.”

  “Who put you on my trail, Musorksky? Who? How did you find me?”

  Musorksky rubbed his forehead. Fritz could see the man was under great pressure. Maybe he had been given this one last chance to get Fritz on board, after his previous capture of Fritz backfired.

  “A whisky?” Fritz asked. Musorksky gazed out the window and nodded. Fritz poured two glasses but kept his gun hand free, picking up only one glass and handing it to Musorksky.

  Musorksky gulped greedily. He watched the gun from a corner of his eye. “Your hand’s shaking,” he said.

  “Nonsense.”

  “If you say so. The Americans are going to work with Nazis, Herr Kolbe. You must be clear on this.”

  “I won’t be coming to Bern anymore, Herr Musorksky. This is my last trip here. I’m returning to Berlin tomorrow morning. I leave all this to you.”

  “And what if I saw to it that Berlin learns of your activities?”

  Fritz sat down without taking an eye off Musorksky. A sudden wave of weariness washed over him. “Keep on threatening to expose me in Berlin and I’ll have to shoot you right here, Musorksky. An intruder in my room . . . Dulles will make sure the story sticks.”

  “Allen Dulles is keen on building the world’s greatest intelligence service. You don’t figure into those plans much.”

  “The President of the United States reads my reports. I have Dulles to thank for that. I count plenty. So. Who told you about me?”

  “A little birdie—”

  “In London. All right, you bastard. Have yourself one more capitalist American whisky and then disappear.”

  Fritz tossed the bottle across the room. Musorksky managed to snatch the missile from the air with both hands. He opened the cap and drank straight from the bottle. Fritz was now certain the man had been given an ultimatum. His threat must have been a bluff—if Fritz were dead, they couldn’t get their information on Gehlen.

  “You have no idea what you’ve gotten mixed up in, Herr Kolbe. People like you, no training in this field—they get trampled on.” Musorksky pressed his hands together and rubbed them as if about to squash some
thing.

  “You should escape to the mountains, Musorksky. I hear Siberia is freezing cold.”

  “The SS and other German units butchered so many in Russia. You know that? You have any idea the damage they inflicted? And the Wehrmacht as well.”

  “You know quite well some of the intelligence I delivered to Dulles went straight to Moscow. What do you want from me?”

  Musorksky pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “Gehlen. Gehlen, goddamn it! You’re making him a nice and cozy bed to lie in, Kolbe.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “The man possesses extensive intelligence about the way our country wages war. About our armaments, our strategies. He’ll tempt the Americans. He’ll make them an offer. You really don’t understand that?”

  “He’ll rot in prison.”

  Musorksky buried his face in his hands. “He will not!” he screamed. “Someday you’ll be horribly sorry about all this. A man like you—it will affect you brutally. Someday it’ll hit you. The blinders will be taken from your eyes. I offer you my hand, Kolbe. Grab hold. We take care of our friends. And if you wish to live in the West, please do. That’s not a problem.”

  “Feel free to keep the bottle.”

  “Kolbe!”

  “You’re just another of those, those—”

  “What about Allen Dulles? What makes him any different than me?”

  “Take the bottle when you go.”

  Musorksky did. Fritz stared at the door through which he disappeared. Better you than me, he thought.

  He went down to the little hotel restaurant and ordered trout with boiled potatoes. He thought about what Musorksky had said, about Dulles’s questions regarding surveillance in the Nazi state, and about Priest’s reference to a new war beginning after this war ended, as Musorksky had just implied would happen. He’d stopped deluding himself that the Americans would not cooperate with Nazis subordinates. But surely they would stick men like Gehlen in prison. How could they cooperate with men like that? They couldn’t. No, it was impossible. Such a move would hurt the Americans’ standing in international politics. Wouldn’t it? And no new Germany would reintegrate a Gehlen. The idea was ridiculous.