Fatherland

in the freezing mud of the steppes, in the Libyan desert, in the clear skies over southern England or—like March—at sea. But these old men had fought their war—had bled and expended their middle age— on paper .
    Charlie was shaking her head. "You're not making any sense."
    "I know. To myself, perhaps. I bought you this."
    She unwrapped the mug and laughed, clasped it to her heart. "I'll treasure it."
    They walked quickly through passport control. Beyond the barrier, March turned for a final look. The two Swiss policemen were watching from the ticket desk. One of them—the one who had rescued them outside Zaugg's villa—raised his hand. March waved in return.
    Their flight number was being called for the last time: "Passengers for Lufthansa flight 227 to Berlin must report immediately..."
    He let his arm fall back and turned toward the departure gate.

2

    No whisky on this flight, but coffee—plenty of it, strong and black. Charlie tried to read a newspaper but fell asleep. March was too excited to rest.
    He had torn a dozen blank pages from his notebook, had ripped them in half and half again. Now he had them spread out on the plastic table in front of him. On each he had written a name, a date, an incident. He reshuffled them endlessly—the front to the back, the back to the middle, the middle to the beginning—a cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke billowing, his head in the clouds. To the other passengers, a few of whom stole curious glances, he must have looked like a man playing a particularly demented form of solitaire.

    July 1942. On the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht has launched Operation "Blue": the offensive that will eventually win Germany the war. America is taking a hammering from the Japanese. The British are bombing the Ruhr, fighting in North Africa. In Prague, Reinhard Heydrich is recovering from an assassination attempt.
    So: good days for the Germans, especially those in the conquered territories. Elegant apartments, girlfriends, bribes—packing cases of plunder to send back home. Corruption from high to low; from corporal to Kommissar; from alcohol to altarpieces. Buhler, Stuckart and Luther have an especially good racket in play. Buhler requisitions art treasures in the General Government, sends them under cover to Stuckart at the Interior Ministry—quite safe, for who would dare tamper with the mail of such powerful servants of the Reich? Luther smuggles the objects abroad to sell—safe again, for who would dare order the head of the Foreign Ministry's German Division to open his bags? All three retire in the 1950s, rich and honored men.
    And then, in 1964: catastrophe.
    March shuffled his bits of paper, shuffled them again.

    On Friday, April 11, the three conspirators gather at Buhler's villa: the first piece of evidence that suggests a panic. . .
    No. That wasn't right. He leafed back through his notes to Charlie's account of her conversation with Stuckart. Of course.

    On Thursday, April 10, the day before the meeting, Stuckart stands in Bülow-Strasse and notes the number of the telephone in the booth opposite Charlotte Maguire's apartment. Armed with that, he goes to Buhler's villa on Friday. Something so terrible threatens to overwhelm them that the three men contemplate the unthinkable: defection to the United States of America. Stuckart lays out the procedure. They cannot trust the embassy, because Kennedy has stuffed it with appeasers. They need a direct link with Washington. Stuckart has it: Michael Maguire's daughter. It is agreed. On Saturday, Stuckart telephones the girl to arrange a meeting. On Sunday, Luther flies to Switzerland: not to fetch pictures or money, which they have in abundance in Berlin, but to collect something put there in the course of three visits between the summer of 1942 and the spring of 1943.
    But already it is too late. By the time Luther has made the withdrawal, sent the signal from Zürich and landed in Berlin, Buhler and Stuckart are dead. And so he decides to disappear, taking with him whatever he removed from the vault in Zürich.
    March sat back and contemplated his half-finished puzzle. It was a version of events as valid as any other.
    Charlie sighed and stirred in her sleep, twisted to rest her head on his shoulder. He kissed her hair. Today was Friday. The Führertag was Monday. He had only the weekend left. "Oh, my dear Fräulein Maguire," he murmured. "I fear we've been looking in the wrong place."

    "Ladies and gentlemen, we