Altenbruch, Germany: Wednesday 28 October
6:00 P.M. local time
The U-Boot Archiv lay on a narrow street not far from the deep blue waters of the North Sea. By the time Tobie parked her rented red Jetta outside the small, steeply gabled yellow archives building, the sun had already slipped low enough in the sky to throw long shadows across the pavement.
The archives had officially closed hours before. But at their approach, a wizened face appeared at one of the windows. A moment later they heard the lock on the front door turn.
“Velcome,” said the ancient, white-haired wisp of a woman who opened the door for them. Neatly dressed in a white blouse with a round collar, a spruce green cardigan, and a plaid wool skirt, she stood about five feet high and couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. In age, she might have been anywhere between eighty and a hundred. “I am Marie Oldenburg. I’ve been vaiting for you. Please, come in.”
She led them to a small office crowded with shelves and filing cabinets, all neatly ordered and gleaming with fastidious cleanliness. “Herr Herbolt tells us you are interested in U–114.”
“You know something about it?” asked Tobie, taking one of the seats the woman indicated.
“Yes, and no.” She sat behind a lovingly polished old desk, her gnarled hands folded before her. “I have been vorking in the archives for twenty years now, ever since Herr Bredow turned what vas once his private collection into a foundation. My husband, Hans, was a submariner, you see. He vas on U-648 when it disappeared on a mission in 1943. Ve haven’t yet discovered what happened to U–648. But ve have solved many riddles. Many riddles.”
Jax glanced at Tobie, but said nothing.
Marie Oldenburg cleared her throat. “You know that the numbers U-112 to U-115 vere to be assigned to four type XI-B vessels whose keels vere originally laid down before the war, but that there are no Kriegsmarine records of the submarines ever being finished or commissioned?”
“We heard there are no official records,” said Jax.
She nodded. “Germany had over a thousand U-boats in World War II. Ve have records here on nearly all of them. Some of our collections are so extensive that it is possible to trace the entire history of a submarine, from the laying of its keel to the day of its loss. Up until six months ago, I vould have told you no XI-B class boats ever existed.”
“So what happened six months ago?”
“A man named Karl Wertheim came to see us. I spoke to him myself. It seems his grandfather had vorked at the docks at Bremerhaven. After his death, the young Wertheim found a number of papers and other memorabilia in a trunk in his grandfather’s attic that he thought ve might be interested in purchasing. Amongst those papers vas the manifest of a U-114, dated March 1945.” She hesitated. “Or so he claimed.”
“The archives didn’t buy the papers?”
She spread her hands wide. “This is a nonprofit venture. Everything you see here and in the museum has been donated. I tried to convince the young man to contribute his grandfather’s papers to the archives, but he refused. He vouldn’t even let me copy them—he said it vould reduce their sale value.”
“But you saw them?”
“Some of them. Not, unfortunately, the manifest of U-114. The young man vas very secretive about it. He claimed that amongst its other cargo, U-114 carried a secret veapon—what you Americans like to call a veapon of mass destruction.”
Tobie felt a tingle of fear run up her spine. “You mean an atom bomb? Is that possible?”
Marie Oldenburg laced her fingers together on the desktop before her. “There is much debate concerning how far the German atomic program had actually progressed at the time of the surrender.” She paused. “Are you familiar with the vork of Wolfgang Palmer?”
Tobie glanced at Jax, but he shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”
“Herr Palmer is a journalist. He has spent years researching the German atomic program, and he tells me it is indeed possible that the Nazi government tried to send an atomic bomb to Japan—or at least the material to make such a bomb. But at the moment, ve have only young Wertheim’s vord that the XI-B even existed. Whereas for its cargo…” She let her voice trail away.
Jax said, “Where can we find this Karl Wertheim?”
Marie Oldenburg sighed. “Unfortunately, he is dead. Two of our members—both former submarine officers themselves—vent to see the young man, hoping to persuade him to donate the items in his grandfather’s name. But he told them he’d already listed them on eBay and had located an interested buyer. Two days later, his house caught fire and Karl Wertheim was found dead.”
“He died in the fire?”
“No. Someone had slit his throat.”