‘Did this commandant have any idea that the money was fake?’
‘None at all, and he had no reason to suspect. Our copies of Russian currency were even more accurate than those British pounds we made for Krüger.’
‘But where did he think the money came from?’
‘We passed ourselves off as former Nazis who had looted huge quantities of gold during the war and smuggled it into Swiss banks. From there, with the help of unscrupulous bankers, we were able to exchange the gold for any currency we chose to purchase.’
‘But why would former Nazis care about a bunch of concentration camp inmates?’
‘We made no secret of the fact that these men had been part of Operation Bernhard, since we assumed the camp commandant would eventually figure it out on his own. We told him that we were planning to begin a counterfeit operation of American dollars, which was actually something Krüger had been working on before the war ended. Whether the commandant of Borodok cared one way or another what we were doing is still a mystery to me. All he cared about, I think, was lining his own pockets in exchange for the lives of a few men who were going to die before long, anyway.’
‘How did he get them out of the camp?’
‘It could not be done all at once without attracting suspicion, so we agreed that he would smuggle them out one at a time. He was already supplementing his income by selling the bodies of those who had died at the gulag as cadavers to various medical institutions, not only in Russia, but also in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The bodies were sealed inside barrels filled with formaldehyde and sent out on flatbed railcars along with wood cut from the forests around Borodok. Our men, listed as dead but still very much alive, were sent out among these shipments of barrels. For each man, thousands of roubles were smuggled back to Borodok inside the empty barrels, which were being returned so that more bodies could be placed inside them. Our contact worked at a hospital in Prague, so that was the place where our friends were delivered. From Prague, they travelled here to Germany. Seeing these men after they had spent two years labouring in a gulag was enough to break my heart, but at least they are free now. We provide them with housing, clothes and enough money to make a new start.’
Carter thought of the men he had seen that day in the bookshop, and how happy they had looked to see their friend, in spite of his ragged appearance.
‘And if they need documents,’ continued Thesinger, ‘we provide those as well.’
‘Are those also forgeries?’
‘Of course. It’s what we do.’
‘So why did you start working with Dasch?’ asked Carter.
‘We knew that the Russians had become aware of counterfeit roubles in circulation, and that they were searching for a source. It was only a matter of time before one of our shipments of currency was discovered. That was when we realised that we would have to begin working with black marketeers, since their livelihoods, just like ours, depended on being able to outwit the authorities. Our contract with Mr Dasch was to contain the final shipment of currency, which would secure the release of the last two men from Operation Bernhard still in captivity at Borodok. Of course, he thought he was transporting crates of whisky. He had no idea of their true value. When you and Major Wilby showed up with some of the currency, I almost did not recognise our own work! It was only with some difficulty that I spotted a slight variation in the print quality. You see, we took a shortcut in the construction of the intaglio plates, which need to be engraved by hand. This would have taken months to complete, and it was time we simply didn’t have.’
‘Why have you told me all this?’ asked Carter. ‘Are you planning on killing me now?’
‘No, Mr Carter.’ Thesinger gave him a pitying glance. ‘That might have been the method of the people who enslaved us, and perhaps even the method of the people for whom you’ve been working, but as far as we are concerned, there has already been enough killing. I brought you here because, after recent events, it seemed to me only a matter of time before you found your way on your own. And I am not optimistic about the treatment my friends and I would receive, either from your masters or from the Russians, no matter how noble our intentions. But you are the key to their knowledge. Without you, they may have several pieces of the puzzle, but they do not understand the picture they are trying to assemble.’
‘So you would like me to keep quiet.’
Thesinger nodded. ‘Precisely.’
‘Without actually killing me.’
‘If at all possible, yes.’
‘And how did you plan on doing that? With a slab of your counterfeit money?’
‘With something far more valuable,’ said Thesinger. He reached into the drawer of his desk and removed a handful of small booklets, which he handed to Carter.
They were passports. Swiss. German. American. Canadian. All of them brand new and unissued.
‘What makes you think I might need one of these?’ asked Carter.
‘Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,’ replied Thesinger, ‘but I imagine one of them might come in handy for Teresa Dasch when Mr Babcock and his friends have grown tired of waiting for us to appear and turn her over to the German police, along with her father and everyone who works for him. This, they will do. I assure you.’
Carter knew that Thesinger was right, and an idea began to form inside his head◦– no more than a shred of thought, but there was hope in it where no hope had been before. ‘You can fill this out correctly, with a photograph and issue stamps?’
‘Why not?’ asked Thesinger. ‘We made the whole passport from scratch. Everything else is child’s play by comparison.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t just stick with faking money.’
‘That would have been a waste of so much talent,’ said Thesinger. ‘So are we agreed, Mr Carter?’
For a while, Carter gave no reply. He was thinking about something his father had once said◦– that if you wanted to leave on your own terms, you had to wait for the precise moment in time when such a thing was possible. And if that moment ever came, you could not hesitate. ‘There is one final thing,’ he said at last.
Thesinger opened his arms. ‘Name it, Mr Carter,’ he said.
Carter turned to Garlinsky, who had been standing in a corner of the room the whole time, waiting and listening, his stare burning into the back of Carter’s head. ‘Dasch was terrified of you,’ he said.
‘Indeed he was,’ replied Garlinsky.
Carter jabbed a finger against his own chest. ‘I was terrified of you.’
‘I did have that impression.’
‘I have to know,’ he said. ‘What in God’s name are you?’ An assassin, thought Carter. Some kind of torturer, at least.
Garlinsky glanced across at Thesinger.
Thesinger shrugged. ‘You might as well tell him.’
‘I was a high school history teacher,’ said Garlinsky.
‘A teacher?’ mumbled Carter.
‘I spent twenty-five years in the classroom,’ explained Garlinsky, ‘perfecting a look to make a student’s blood run cold, and it has come in handy ever since.’