NOVEMBER 16TH, 1939

NOLTE AND BRANDT STRODE DOWN the corridor toward the office, Nolte testing yet another theory. “Maybe their relationship was incestuous?”

Brandt stared at him. “What kind of sick family did you come from?”

Nolte ignored the jibe. “It would explain why she was repeatedly willing to put up with his freeloading.”

Brandt was not convinced. “They are Aryan Lutherans!”

Nolte simply shrugged and Brandt shook his head hopelessly.

As they entered the office they stopped short. Nebe was already there drinking coffee with Georg, there was a chessboard set up between them. It meant nothing to Brandt but Nolte bit down on his lip; Nebe’s King was in repose. Nebe addressed them stoically, “Places, gentlemen.” He nodded to Georg to begin.

“So it was the late afternoon of the 7th. I walked through my sister’s yard carrying my tool case and suitcase, full of my underwear, socks and old sweaters. It would be a respectable gesture after all of her hospitality and I had no use for them. It wasn’t that I expected to get caught, getting rid of old things just felt right, part of the ceremony of leaving myself behind. Werner and son were out at some rally and it was Anna-Sophie who answered the door.

“‘Georg, what are you doing here?’ She was past the suspicion stage and simply alarmed to see me. It might have had something to do with Werner.

“‘Anna-Sophie …’ I eased through the door sideways and she stepped back a little to let me pass. ‘I’m leaving you whatever clothes I don’t want to have to lug around as well as what’s left of my tools.’

“She was terrified. ‘What will you do? How can you find a job without your tools?’

“I smiled at her, and it was an honest smile it really expressed what I thought I was feeling at the time. ‘It’s too difficult to care for them moving around. Besides, the way things are going I’m sure I’ll just have to retrain again in another skill anyway.’

“She leaned back against the wall. ‘Georg, what have you done?’ She sounded like she was crying and trying to sing at the same time.

“Her question suddenly reminded me of my son and the answer came to me in a flash, ‘Got a girl in trouble.’ I watched for the reaction and saw that my choice had been exactly the right reply.

“There was no more anger but also no more doubt. ‘This time will you marry her?’ Her stout resolution was admirable, or at least would have been under other circumstances.

“I was resolute in my own way. ‘No.’ I didn’t explain. She was convinced that men were by nature irrational, so I really didn’t need reasons.

“‘Don’t tell me it was that nice girl you brought out here?’ I couldn’t even remember when or who that had been, seemed like a past life.

“‘No, someone you don’t know.’ She tried to slap me but I blocked her arm. ‘I’m going to need some money. I’m down to my last ten Reich marks.’

“She stared at me as though she didn’t recognize me and was trying to remember who I was. Then she jumped from in front of me and ran through the house crying, stumbling up the stairs, covering her face with her hands, and keening. I picked up my cases and followed her. She ran into the bedroom and knelt down by the bed. At first I thought she was praying, but actually she was pulling out a box she had hidden under it, obviously a family trait. She opened it and grabbed out a fistful of money and thrust it at me. She closed her eyes and resorted to self-conscious theatrics so the worst was over. I made no move to take the money so she looked up and started counting the bills in her hand. ‘Is thirty marks enough?’

“‘Plenty.’ I took it and wadded it into my pocket. We stayed like that, me standing and her kneeling, watching each other and waiting for one to think of something to say.

“‘When will you be home again?’ she asked.

“I kissed her forehead tenderly. ‘This isn’t my home, it’s yours; but I thank you.’

“That seemed to upset her even more. ‘When will you be back then?’ The cords under her neck were tightening again. I didn’t really know so I couldn’t answer. ‘Never?’ she said. That might have been a relief, perhaps the only words that would have made her happy.

“‘Yes, I suppose it has to be never.’ There was another silence but that was finished too. I did an about-face and walked out of the house.

“I caught the last train from Stuttgart to Konstanz, then walked the two miles to the border. The moon was waning but still bright, running behind high narrow clouds, it seemed to flash on and off as the clouds riffled by in front of it perfect weather for sneaking across a border. The light was off for about three seconds at a time, just long enough for a person to move from one clutch of trees to the next, even if the border was being watched, and it would be better if it was, the guards would say that they’d been watching the crossing continuously and that no one had gotten through. I saw that school house 100 meters from the border and detoured to pass in front of it. I’d hoped that the customs guards would be looking over my head at the border crossing and as such would not see me.

“The building shut up for the night. The windows and shutters were closed. It seemed to be some kind of government home for children; I looked around but there were no other buildings except for the one behind me. The guards might have been hiding behind the trees but there really seemed to be no reason for them to be doing that, it was a cold night. I walked straight toward the border. There was no logical way they could stop me. If I had heard shouting, I’d have started to run. It would have taken an expert marksman to bring me down, zigzagging among the trees in the erratic moonlight, not to mention that every expert marksman in the Reich was being put to use elsewhere. I figured it was a pretty safe bet.

“There were no shouts. I walked up to the border and stopped. Suddenly there was no rush. I wondered if I had forgotten something. Once in Switzerland I wouldn’t be able to make myself turn back. That moment there on the border was my one chance to think it all through from the beginning, sped up by internal simulation, but I had forgotten nothing. Or had I?

“I realized right then that I had made one oversight. The escape had never been part of the master plan. It had always appeared easy so there had been no reason to dedicate any thought to it. When I used to live in Konstanz I had crossed the border so many times that it seemed almost impossible not to be able to cross the border; ergo, there was nothing to plan. That was my mistake. I’d created a future I couldn’t actually imagine, but I was carried forward into it step-by-step by the process of preparation. There I was with the future behind me and there was nothing to do but wait. It was like waiting for combat orders, nobody ever gets used to it, just scared.

“My life had been at stake all along but that was different. The danger was point blank, hard edged, in front of me. It would be comparatively easy to handle because there would have been something to do about it. There would still have been a next step in the plot to carry me forward and out of it. Suddenly there was nothing to do but wait. I thought of the thirty something hours ahead and time lost its continuity. It split into a sequence of identical empty moments of nothing to do but wait. A repetition that changed so little it seemed to be happening in progressively slower motion. It ended in a fixed wax museum pose, staring into the knowing smirk of my next fat, cunning landlady. My stomach knotted and the taste of sauerkraut came up into my mouth. I gulped it back down and blinked. The moonlight was smooth and steady because even the clouds had stopped moving. There had to be something that I could recheck.

“I didn’t cross the border. I walked back to the railroad station in Konstanz. The ticket seller was asleep and I banged on the window until he woke up. ‘One ticket to Munich, roundtrip.’

“The next train wasn’t till morning so I sat on a bench outside and waited for dawn. That was alright because I was used to staying up all night and allowed me to think about the future for the first time. I would mail back a detailed plan of the bomb so that no one else would be blamed for it. I would look for a job in a clock factory and do menial labor until I could find one. The future promised to be exactly like the past. I took out the play, no better way to kill time than making someone else’s life seem like your own.

“I reached Munich at 9:00 a.m. and the BürgerBräuKeller half an hour later. The breakfast rush was over and the waiters were waiting for something to do. They all saw me come in and smiled at me, the cashier whispered behind my shoulder and it carried clearly in the silence.

“‘He’s one of the plain clothes men sent to protect the Führer,’ she said. ‘He’s been here almost every night.’

“I walked into the ballroom in broad daylight, knowing that my perfectionism had gone too far, it was making me careless, but that thought was thin and far away. The room was vacant. I glanced through the door to check that the hall was empty, but that was my only precaution. I squatted in front of the pillar and removed the timer. I had it out and clear of the door when a slight tug warned me. I stopped and closed my eyes then gently replaced the box between the bricks. I had forgotten to disconnect the trip wires from the detonators. I lit a cigarette and waited for my hands to stop trembling. I unscrewed the lock nuts that held down the wires and removed the timer box, opened the lid, and checked the clocks against my wristwatch. They hadn’t gained or lost a second; it was working perfectly and I felt an irrational disappointment. I replaced the timer in the brick cavity and reconnected the trip wires. I closed the door in the paneling. It had been stupid to come back, an insane mistake. I’d lost a day and almost blown myself up. But, finally, it was over.”

“The problem,” said Nebe, “was that the invasion couldn’t be delayed more than 36 hours, otherwise the schedule would have broken down. Continuous alert couldn’t be maintained any longer.”

Nolte leapt to his feet. “Why are you telling him this?”

“If he understands it all, it will be easier for him to talk about. You want to play tricks and games? Then you stop being his friend. He can’t be honest unless he trusts us.”

Nolte clicked his tongue but Nebe went on, “The weather could break anytime. He had to be back in Berlin that night. The airport remained closed so he had to take the train. There hadn’t been sufficient time to change the railroad timetable, it would have had to be recomputed to keep the trains from running into each other and that would have taken days. That was why the Führer had his private railroad car attached to the back of the Munich train which returning would execute the 21:30 express route, the last train to Berlin that night. For once, he had to cut a speech short. The streets had been cleared along the way but it would still take fifteen minutes to reach the station. He had to leave the beer hall by 21:10 in order to reach Berlin that same night. The report stated that he actually left at 21:07, at least according to the watch of an Alte Kampfer who followed Hitler’s party out. As I recall, your bomb detonated 21:20, just thirteen minutes later.”

Georg stared straight ahead, how could he have possibly imagined that Hitler would cut a speaking engagement short?

“21:20! But I had set it for 21:15!”

Nebe shook his head in amazement. “Maybe the old man’s watch was fast.”

Georg was inconsolable. “I should have set it earlier. To come so close …” He crumpled his face morosely.

“No, Georg, you made the only logical assumption. A speech is far more likely to start late than end early. It was a good honest try. You didn’t lose by incompetence; it was the luck of the dice. Just think, he wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place.”

“Yes,” Georg gazed at Nebe as if overcome by inspiration. “You should have been a teacher, you explain things so well. Maybe, if I’d had a teacher like you …”

Nebe beamed. Georg was actually sucking up to him; that was something new. He was finally beginning to act like a criminal. If they had achieved nothing else thus far in this parody of an interrogation at least they were teaching him how criminals were expected to act. If he could only learn to lie a little more convincingly, the situation might yet be saved.

“But,” said Georg, “I can’t understand why he changed his mind so many times, doesn’t that make a bad impression?”

Nebe smiled at his innocence. “The Führer believes that the only defense against assassination is to be totally unpredictable. Of course that can’t work so well against a man like you who doesn’t pay attention. He reversed himself one too many times and ended up precisely where you had expected him to be.”

“I think you have given three theories about that thus far,” Nolte said, “and they all contradict each other.”

Nebe was deadpan. “We always have to enumerate the possibilities. At least one of them has to be true.”

Nolte seemed to think it wise to change the subject. “Georg, we’re going to have to bring in your mother and your sister.”

“What for?” Georg was alarmed and confused.

“You wanted to play the game. You have to play it by the rules. The rules are that we have to confront you with your family.” Nolte looked to Nebe for confirmation.

Nebe nodded and pressed a buzzer on his desk. Then he continued to talk. “It doesn’t have to happen, Georg.”

Georg was now even more confused. “I thought you just said it did?”

Nebe gave him an indulgent look. “It’s up to you. We can keep them out of it. Even arrange a small pension. All you have to do is tell us who was in on the plot with you. That’s all we have ever wanted to know right from the beginning.”

Georg sagged forward and dropped his head; he seemed to shrink inside his clothes. “There is no one else …,” said the voice out of the lowered head.

Two Anwarters entered with atrophied expressions of hauteur. Nebe made a renaissance gesture, raising his right forefinger a fraction of an inch. The Anwarters stayed in the door way.

“Then lie,” Nolte suggested. And Georg looked up in alarm. “Make it up. Say the English put you up to it. Your family is at stake.”

Georg nodded emphatically. “The English put me up to it!” he parroted obediently. The detectives looked at each other.

“One more try,” said Nolte. “There was that girl. Helga? Hannah?”

“There were too many of them,” Georg said it as though it had all happened a long time ago.

“OK. How about this one?” Nolte said and pulled Hannah’s photo out of the dossier.

Georg laughed and made faces. “Her! Why would I ever want anyone to know I went with a girl that ugly?”

“Thank you, Georg,” said Nebe. He raised his eyebrows at the Anwarters, pointed to Georg and made a flicking motion with his hand. The Anwarters quickly marched forward, laid hands on Georg, and heel-and-toed out fast. The door closed gently.

The detectives stretched and writhed themselves awake. “That was entertaining, yet not quite satisfying.” Nolte was inordinately smug; Brandt simply shrugged. “Maybe it’s all a trick to make us lose interest.” To his mind at least Nolte’s cleverness had reached its expiration date.

Nebe deliberately forced his shoulders back to take the kink out of his spine. He started packing his briefcase. “Don’t look for subtleties where there aren’t any, you’ll drive yourself crazy. In any case, bring in his mother. You tell her that we’re going to torture him horribly if he doesn’t talk. She begs him to talk and then we torture him horribly.”

“Think he’ll talk?” Brandt appeared hopeful.

“No.” Nolte had rummaged through the dossier and came out with a form filled in with tiny copper-plate script. “Or rather yes, all he does is talk but he never actually says anything. Here’s the medical report: his heart is sound enough, so he should be able to live though it. But, isn’t it a little soon?”

“We do this by the book,” Nebe announced then braced one foot against the desk and pulled up his silk knee sock where it had peeled back from his thick patrolman’s calf. He adjusted the other but in the act of bending his belt slid down and his belly popped out. He pulled his pants back up over it.

Nolte watched, waiting for him to say something more but apparently the subject was closed. “You mean to say it’s already over and we’re just going through the motions.”

“I wouldn’t take that from him!” Brandt advised.

Nebe gave Brandt the benevolent smile one gives a loyal hound dog, then buttoned his coat, picked up his briefcase, zipped it shut, and then put it down. “Why won’t he save his life?” he said. A nice thing about being a senior officer was that your rhetorical questions got answered.

“I really don’t know,” said Brandt on cue.

Nebe took a chance. “His accomplices are in England by now, so what difference can it make?” If he said it confidently enough, maybe, just maybe, he could make himself and the others believe it, and that would be halfway to making it a truth.

“Yes,” said Nolte.

Nebe picked up his briefcase again and shivered. Nolte and Brandt looked away politely. “If only he were a real intellectual,” said Nebe. “They feel obliged to have an explanation for everything.” But they were all out of “real” intellectuals; erudite carpenters were probably the best they could hope for from here on out.

“Want to bring in his girlfriend?” asked Nolte. He got up also and was spinning the brass knuckles from finger to finger in a game of long practice. “He tried to protect her, sounds like a vulnerable point.”

Nebe stared at him in amazement, enunciating clearly. “Are you insane? Remember what he told us, about leaving for Munich? If she confirms his statement … that means more German workers plotting against the Führer.” He looked back at the desk and did a double take. “There was a roll of masking tape there, what happened to it?”

“He must have taken it. I’ll go get him.” Nolte was always looking for an excuse.

“Forget it. What can he do with a roll of masking tape? Let’s get out of here.” He twitched his head at Brandt, who rushed to open the door for him. “I’m half tempted to let him escape just to follow him and see where he goes.”

“Don’t say that, even as a joke,” Nolte protested.

“But of course, that kind of inventiveness would be a sign of desperation.” Nebe said and walked out to the hall with his two assistants following at a respectful two steps behind. Beyond the window, the sky was black. He checked his watch, but again he’d forgotten to wind it.

“Sorry, I have to …,” said Brandt gesturing towards the toilet at the end of the hall. “Heil Hitler and goodnight!”

“Heil Hitler!” cried Nolte and saluted, Nebe noticed that the brass knuckles were hanging from his pinky.

“Why do you carry those?”

Nolte slid the weapon back into his pocket with his practiced gesture. “I’m too old to carry a teddy bear.”

“Think I’ll get some too,” said Nebe as they headed for the stairs.

The hall was over lit, as nightmarish as if the light were the spirit of inquiry itself. When they reached the street floor, Nolte paused, pulled out his notebook, flipped back through the pages and began to read. “He said he had dinner at the beer hall and then went to the storeroom. Something doesn’t make sense. He had three alternatives: he could have paid his check and then walked back to the ballroom instead of walking out, but that would have attracted attention. He could have hidden in the storeroom and paid his check the next morning, but if they had any kind of accounting system at all they’d know he paid the next morning for a check from the night before and would know that he had stayed over. So, what did he do?” Nebe stopped walking to listen courteously, so Nolte talked faster. “If he didn’t pay the check at all, the second or third time he tried it, they’d be waiting for him. So, he didn’t do that. On the other hand, it would be a hard place to get out of without paying a check. So, he didn’t have dinner. He went straight to the ballroom and had breakfast the next morning and paid before he left. That’s what I have.” Nolte’s face jerked at him, point blank.

Nebe took out his own notebook and checked. “You are forgetting one very significant detail: the staff had come to believe that he was part of the Führer’s plain clothes security detail.”

Nolte was indignant. “That is what Elser wants us to believe.”

Nebe gave his most pontifical smile. “It makes sense that not even the wait staff at the beer hall could imagine Weber was such an idiot as to have left the ballroom totally unguarded. That would give them plenty of reasons to overlook a variety of irregularities, would it not?”

“Shit.” Nolte hated being caught out.

“The place to start is always the small contradictions.” Nebe stretched his patience a bit further. “Suppose then that you have it right and I have it wrong, then what?”

Nolte’s expression brightened. “That would prove that he was lying.”

“We already know he’s lying, or at least for official reasons he has to be.” Nebe realized that his tone had become seismic because the desk sergeant looked up at them in alarm. “I have read the manual too. Who remembers every exact detail unless they’re lying, simply repeating a memorized script like a satyr play? Explanations of motives are usually fantasy. If a man appears rational you expect a rational motive, but real motives are rarely rational. Our contradictions contradict the contradictions of our contradictions. No man is sane enough to follow a rational motive with any consistency.” He stopped to gulp a breath and saw that the desk sergeant was signaling to him. He wound up the lecture. “The small contradictions prove he’s telling the truth. Big contradictions would have proven he was lying, but, much to our chagrin, there aren’t any.”

“Herr Oberst.” The desk sergeant was frantic. “Reich Minister Goebbels was on the line, but said not to interrupt you if you were interrogating.”

“Always the gentleman,” said Nebe. “Well? Get him back on the line!”

The desk sergeant literally galloped down the stairs and unlocked the door to the day captain’s office. Nebe followed, and was followed by Nolte who was followed by Brandt, who had just caught up with them. Nebe turned on the lights, which were mercifully dim, and sat down behind the desk. The day captain’s family stared at him carnivorously from out of a framed photograph. Nebe picked it up and put it face down and then talked to Berlin.

“Do you know what time it is?” Goebbels was accustomed to conducting the orchestra.

Nebe however was possessed of a fatalistic disregard for hierarchy, if they wanted him dead they would find an excuse no matter what, so no cause for worry. He was a condemned man one way or the other. “I’m returning your call, Herr Reich Minister.”

“That was five hours ago! Anyway, tell me what is happening, and I don’t give a crap about the psychobabble. We are in the business of creating myth, Herr Nebe, what can you tell me about that?”

“I couldn’t agree with you more …,” said Nebe.

“All myths are dramatic narratives because that is the most natural form for the depiction of conflict. War is the ultimate reality exactly because all things are born of conflict.”

Nebe was wary; he had to intervene before Goebbels could work himself into a fury. Nebe said, “Remarkable how well you express that.”

Magically the Minister’s tone softened to a mild lector’s pitch. “The Law itself is a myth. Suppose there actually was such a thing as the ‘Law,’ what properties would it have to have?”

Nebe would have answered the rhetorical question, but, of course, was not given the chance.

“The Law must be ‘Just but Merciful’—morally logical yet economically efficient. It must be completely unambiguous, however open to a range of interpretations. These contradictions cannot be resolved, but are an essential part of the definition of the Law itself: that it must be free from contradiction. Therefore, the Law does not and cannot actually exist.”

Nebe genuflected. “I am honored that you should deem to enlighten me so, Herr Minister.”

“The Law is a myth. Its function is to comfort the petty bourgeoisie, creating the illusion that there are limits imposed on the strength of the strong, but the only true Law is the Will!”

He’s not crazy, thought Nebe. He has to know that he’s full of shit. He has to know that I know he’s full of shit and now he’s daring me to say it. Ergo, I am in extreme danger. “You are an inspiration,” said Nebe.

“You are welcome.”

“Herr Reich Minister, if you would provide us with a transcript of exactly what you want him to say, we can wrap this up in a few hours.” There was dead silence on the other end of the phone for what seemed a very long time. Nebe crossed himself.

“That bad?” said Goebbels in a suddenly sane voice.

“I’m afraid so. It seems likely that he had introduced a few friends and colleagues into the plot but, if we uncover them, we have a conspiracy of German workers against the Reich, so the problem would be multiplied. There don’t appear to be any foreign connections. We’re going to try torture next but we’ve already threatened his family, and he’ll say anything we want and is more than willing to die, but he can’t provide any detail. I was counting on you.” There was another silence.

“No,” said Goebbels, “that would be a mistake. You don’t want to manufacture evidence. You would be placing yourself in competition with the Gestapo and the RuSHA.” The Racial Resettlement Office, aka the night-and-fog boys. “You don’t want to do that. Even worse, if any facts did happen to emerge later on then that would look like a cover-up.”

“We are aware of that Reich Minister, but If we don’t find a resolution to the case then the police will be discredited.”

“No,” said Goebbels. “It would be disappointing perhaps. A number of prominent people would probably lose interest in you; however, since their interests are in conflict, that could even be to your advantage in the end.”

“Thank you, Herr Reich Minister.” Nebe would have clicked his heels, but he had kicked off his shoes. He squatted fast and grabbed them from under the desk and, holding them under his chin, he clapped the heels together in front of the phone. Goebbels chuckled and hung up. Nebe put down his shoes and then the phone. He rested his fingertips on the desk and stared in front of him.

“What did he say?” asked Nolte.

Nebe let out a long breath and smiled. “He said to relax because we’re fucked no matter what we do.” He slipped into his shoes. “So, let’s go home.”