THE Americans argued back and forth for another ten minutes, then March said quietly: “Aren’t you overlooking something, Mister Nightingale?”
Nightingale switched his attention reluctantly from Charlie. “Probably. You’re the policeman. You tell me.”
“It seems to me that all of us — you, me, the Gestapo — we all keep underestimating good Party Comrade Luther. Remember what he said to Charlie about the nine o’clock meeting: "you must be there as well".”
“So what?”
“He knew this would be your reaction. Don’t forget he had worked at the Foreign Ministry. With a summit coming, he guessed the Americans might want to throw him straight back to the Gestapo. Otherwise, why did he not simply take a taxi from the airport to the Embassy on Monday night? That’s why he wanted to involve a journalist. As a witness.” March stooped and picked up the documents. “Forgive me, as a mere policeman I do not understand the workings of the American press. But Charlie has her story now, does she not? She has Stuckart’s death, the Swiss bank account, these papers, her tape-recording of Luther…” He turned to her. The fact that the American government chooses not to give Luther asylum, but abandons him to the Gestapo — won’t that just make it even more attractive to the degenerate US media?”
Charlie said: “You bet.”
Nightingale had started to look desperate again. “Hey. Come on, Charlie. All that was off the record. I never said I agreed with any of it. There are plenty of us at the Embassy who don’t think Kennedy should come here. At all. Period.” He fiddled with his bow-tie. “But this situation — it’s as tricky as hell.”
EVENTUALLY they reached an agreement. Nightingale would meet Charlie on the steps of the Great Hall at five minutes to nine. Assuming Luther turned up, they would hustle him quickly into a car which March would drive. Nightingale would listen to Luther’s story and decide on the basis of what he heard whether to take him to the Embassy. He would not tell the Ambassador, Washington, or anyone else what he was planning to do. Once they were inside the Embassy compound, it would be up to what he called “higher authorities” to decide Luther’s fate — but they would have to act in the knowledge that Charlie had the whole story, and would print it. Charlie was confident the State Department would not dare turn Luther away.
Exactly how they would smuggle him out of Germany was another matter.
“We have methods,” said Nightingale. “We have handled defectors before. But I’m not discussing it. Not in front of an SS officer. However trustworthy.” It was Charlie, he said, whom he was most worried about. “You’re going to come under a lot of pressure to keep your mouth shut.”
“I can handle it.”
“Don’t be so sure. Kennedy’s people-they fight dirty. All right. Let’s suppose Luther has got something. Let’s say it stirs everybody up — speeches in Congress, demonstrations, editorials — this is election year, remember? So suddenly the White House is in trouble over the summit. What do you think they’re going to do?”
“I can handle it.”
They’re going to tip a truckful of shit over your head, Charlie, and over this old Nazi of yours. They’ll say: what’s he got that’s new? The same old story we’ve heard for twenty years, plus a few documents, probably forged by the communists. Kennedy’11 go on TV and he’ll say: ‘My fellow Americans, ask yourselves: why has all this come up now? In whose interest is it to disrupt the summit?’ ” Nightingale leaned close to her, his face a few centimetres from hers. “First off, they’ll put Hoover and the FBI on to it. Know any left-wingers, Charlie? Any Jewish militants? Slept with any? Because, sure as hell, they’ll find a few who say you have, whether you’ve ever met them or not.”
“Screw you, Nightingale.” She shoved him away with her fist. “Screw you.”
NIGHTINGALE really was in love with her, thought March. Lost in love, hopeless in love. And she knew it, and she played on it. He remembered that first night he saw them together in the bar: how she had shrugged off his restraining hand. Tonight: how he had looked at March when he saw him kissing her; how he had absorbed her temper, watching her with his moony eyes. In Zurich, her whisper: “You asked if he was my lover …He’d like to be…”
And now, on her doorstep, in his raincoat: hovering, uncertain, reluctant to leave them behind together, then finally disappearing into the night.
He would be there to meet Luther tomorrow, thought March, if only to make sure she was safe.
AFTER the American had gone they lay side by side on her narrow bed. For a long time neither spoke. The street lights cast long shadows, the window frame slanted across the ceiling like cell bars. In the slight breeze the curtains trembled. Once, there were the sounds of shouts and car doors slamming — revellers returning from watching the fireworks.
They listened to the voices fade along the street, then March whispered: “Last night on the telephone — you said you had found something.”
She touched his hand, climbed off the bed. In the sitting room he could hear her rummaging among the heaps of paper. She returned half a minute later carrying a large coffee-table book. “I bought this on the way back from the airport.” She sat on the edge of the bed, switched on the lamp, turned the pages. “There.” She handed March the open book.
It was a reproduction, in black and white, of the painting in the Swiss bank vault. The monochrome did not do it justice. He marked the page with his finger and closed the book to read its title. The Art of Leonardo da Vinci, by Professor Arno Braun of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
“My God.”
“I know. I thought I recognised it. Read it.”
The Lady with the Ermine, the scholars called it. “One of the most mysterious of all Leonardo’s works.” It was believed to have been painted circa 1483-6, and “believed to show Cecilia Gallerani, the young mistress of Lodovico Sforza, ruler of Milan”. There were two published references to it: one in a poem by Bernardino Bellincioni (died 1492); the other, an ambiguous remark about an “immature” portrait, written by Cecilia Gallerani herself in a letter dated 1498. “But sadly for the student of Leonardo, the real mystery today is the painting’s whereabouts. It is known to have entered the collection of the Polish Prince Adam Czartoryski in the late eighteenth century, and was photographed in Krakau in 1932. Since then it has disappeared into what Karl von Clausewitz so eloquently called "the fog of war". All efforts by the Reich authorities to locate it have so far failed, and it must now be feared that this priceless flowering of the Italian Renaissance is lost to mankind forever.”
He closed the book. “I think, another story for you.”
“And a good one. There are only nine undisputed Leonardos in the world.” She smiled. “If I ever get out of here to write it.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you out.” He lay back and closed his eyes. After a few moments he heard her put down the book, then she joined him on the bed, wriggling close to him.
“And you?” she breathed in his ear. “Will you come out with me?”
“We can’t talk now. Not here.”
“Sorry. I forgot.” Her tongue tip touched his ear.
A jolt, like electricity.
Her hand rested lightly on his leg. With her fingers, she traced the inside of his thigh. He started to murmur something, but again, as in Zurich, she placed a finger to his lips.
“The object of the game is: not to make a sound.”
LATER, unable to sleep himself, he listened to her: the sigh of her breath, the occasional mutter — far away and indistinct. In her dreams, she turned towards him, groaning. Her arm was flung across the pillow, shielding her face. She seemed to be fighting some private battle. He stroked the tangle of her hair, waiting until whatever demon it was had released her, then he slipped out from beneath the sheets.