85
Present Day
Vienna
I TAKE THE ELEVATOR up to my floor. When I step off, I feel a chill run through me.
This was the precise spot earlier today where the man pulled a gun on me and took the letter from Hitler to Geli that I had just obtained.
It was the first time I’ve ever had a gun pointed at me. I hope it was the last.
I card my way into my hotel room. The first thing I see is my corduroy jacket lying on the floor. I dust it off, fold it, and place it neatly in my suitcase. This will be my last night in Vienna.
I look out the window, down at the street level by the garish Burger King. The young Asian woman is no longer at the table outside, but I spot her down the way, seemingly browsing through books at an outdoor bookstand.
I will need to lose her, as a spy might say. And I think I know how. I pick up my burner phone and make a call.
The next morning, I check out of my hotel and take an Uber to the Vienna train station. There I buy a cup of magical Viennese coffee. I swear, even purchased from a bistro at a train station, the coffee here is better than any in the world.
Next, I buy a train ticket with my credit card. When I turn away from the ticket window, I see the Asian woman, now in a blond wig, pretending to be looking at her phone.
I am getting better at imagining the creativity of these spies. I assume, for example, that she sees not only that I purchased a ticket to Berlin, but also that it will be leaving in forty minutes from platform 11, and that I will be sitting in car 9, seat A-1.
When it’s time, I walk down the lengthy platform and line up for the train. I find my seat, the one closest to the door, and keep my rolling bag with me, my knees nearly touching it.
I settle in for the ride. It’s a good eight hours to Berlin. I scribble my thoughts on a small notepad I carry with me. I don’t know if my suspicions are correct. It’s possible I’m chasing something that can’t be found.
I nod off for a while, too, jarring awake with my head craned unnaturally forward. Odd that I could fall asleep, given how tense I am. It shows the depths of my exhaustion. The past few days have been a bit more than I’d been prepared to handle.
Regensburg is the first stop, a large Bavarian town some three hours into the journey. A few people get up from their seats to disembark.
I am one of them. But I don’t do it right away.
I wait until most passengers have filtered out and others have begun to climb onto the train, starting to hunt and peck for their seats.
At the last moment, as I sense the doors about to shut, I pop up from my seat and slip out, mumbling wie bitte several times as I hurriedly rush off the train.
Was the Asian woman watching me? Was she ready for that maneuver? Did I telegraph my plan? Was I too obvious in allowing her to see that I had paid for a trip all the way to Berlin? Maybe. I am entirely out of my league in this world of espionage.
At the exit from the train station, I step into a small red car waiting at the curb. Monica Bauer, Thomas Bauer’s great-granddaughter, winks at me as she puts the car in drive.
However far removed she is from him in lineage, I like to think I see something in Monica that I surely would have seen in Thomas, if I’d the pleasure of knowing him. A spark, an energy, a soft-spoken power.
“Just over an hour to Munich,” Monica says as she looks in the rearview mirror. “Did we shake your tail, Eleanor?”
We both laugh. She’s trying to break the ice. But she is not unaware of the danger. I heard imminent relief in her voice over the phone last night, when I called her, just knowing I’d survived the encounter, even though I didn’t return with the prize.
“I want to hear this theory you mentioned on the phone,” she says.
“Go back to the night it all happened,” I say. “The night that your great-grandfather robbed Hitler’s safe. What do we know from his journal?”
She thinks it over. “He opened the safe. Everything was in envelopes. He swept all the envelopes into his backpack and closed it up. So the next thing he does once he leaves the Brown House… is hand off the backpack to Peter Helldorff.”
“Exactly,” I say. “If he gets caught by the SS, he doesn’t want them finding the backpack.
So he gives it to Peter, who drives away in one direction, while Thomas runs in the other direction on foot.
The plan is to meet later, to rendezvous at Fritz Gerlich’s hideaway—their safe house, so to speak—ninety minutes later. ”
“But we don’t know what Peter did during those ninety minutes.” Monica glances over at me.
“No, but we know one critical thing that Peter didn’t do,” I say.
“He didn’t turn it over immediately to the Nazis or Chief Müller.
Why not? Once Thomas has handed it to him, Peter has everything he needs.
Why not go directly to the chief? His work is done.
The Nazis can then arrest Thomas and Fritz Gerlich whenever they wish. But he didn’t do that. Why not?”
Monica doesn’t know. She’s trying to catch up with me.
“There can only be one reason that Peter didn’t immediately tell the chief that he’d recovered the contents of Hitler’s safe. He wanted to have a look inside first.”
“Ha!” Monica pounds the steering wheel. “Peter was a devious one.”
“Well, we already know that, don’t we? Look what he did to your great-grandfather and Fritz. He pretended to be on their side and betrayed them.”
I shift in the front seat. The faster Monica drives, the better I feel. The Asian woman with the colored wigs couldn’t possibly be keeping up.
Monica asks, “Why would Peter take that risk?”
“He wanted some insurance,” I say. “Something incriminating to potentially reveal later.”
Monica nearly jumps in her seat. “You think Peter kept something?”
“I do. Think about it. When he arrives at the rendezvous with Thomas and Fritz that night, the backpack has five envelopes in it. But back at the church in Vienna, it was accidentally revealed to me that there were six envelopes in Hitler’s safe.”
“So Peter kept whatever was in the sixth envelope,” says Monica. “Maybe for insurance. Maybe to reveal later. But if so, then how did that man at the church know about the sixth envelope?”
“Well, he said when Peter returned the contents of Hitler’s safe the next morning, whatever was in the sixth envelope was destroyed. It was ‘unusable.’ It couldn’t be ‘viewed’ anymore.”
“That doesn’t sound like a document,” says Monica. “Possibly a photograph?”
“Maybe,” I agree. “But that’s not my best guess.”
She looks over at me. “What is?”