“All the Naval records were sent here?”
“Most of them. The U-boat war journals weren’t declassified and returned to us until the late seventies. But then they came here, yes. The Naval records are by far the most complete. The Army, less so. The Air Force holdings were heavily destroyed and are very fragmentary.”
“So how complete are the U-boat records?”
“Not as complete as one might wish, I’m afraid, especially with regard to the later period. The archives have no material at all on nearly three hundred U-boats that were commissioned into service at the end of the war. The last months of the war were very chaotic, you know. The Allies carpet-bombed our cities virtually every night, killing hundreds of thousands-some say millions. Many records were lost. Some U-boats were commissioned that we don’t even know existed.”
Jax stared down the length of the Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse, to where one of the old medieval gates of the city was still visible. “Let me guess: U-114 is one of those.”
“I’m afraid so. Until the wreckage was found off Denmark, we had nothing on it. Your government originally identified it as a Type XB submarine, but as far as we know, only eight Type XB submarines were built. Two survived to surrender at the end of the war, and six are known to have been sunk. Because they were so large, they were very useful for carrying cargo long distances. But their size also made them disastrously slow and difficult to maneuver.”
“What do you mean, the wreckage was ‘originally’ identified?”
The professor was silent as they cut between two tall, narrow buildings to emerge in the Münsterplatz, the open marketplace surrounding the ancient cathedral. “I’ve been studying the photographs Matt sent of U-114 on the seabed,” he said, “and I don’t believe it was a Type XB. They were originally designed as minelayers, you know; when they were used as transports, they carried most of their cargo in their mineshafts. The XB was unique in that it only had two torpedo tubes, at the stern.”
Jax drew up short. “But U-114 definitely had a forward torpedo room.”
The German paused to look back at him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.” He’d seen it himself.
Herbolt nodded. “Then I suspect we’re dealing with a Type XI-B U-cruiser.”
October said, “That’s significant?”
“Very,” said the professor, leading the way across the open square, “when you consider that there are no official records of any of the Type XI-Bs ever becoming operational. We know that four keels were laid down in the shipyards of Deschimag AG Weser, in Bremen. But it was assumed they were all scrapped prior to completion.”
Jax said, “They were big?”
“Oh, yes. Over one hundred sixteen meters long, and some nine and a half meters wide. They were quite large.”
“The XB class subs were-what? Three hundred feet long?”
“Eighty-nine meters, yes.”
Jax tried to picture the U-boat they’d seen resting on a barge in the shipyard in Kaliningrad. Had it been three hundred feet, or closer to four?
“There have been persistent rumors that at least one class XI-B was completed near the end of the war,” said the professor, “and sent out on a secret mission.”
“As part of Operation Caesar?”
Herbolt paused before a colorful renaissance hall with a ground-floor arcade and fancifully decorated gables. “It’s possible.”
“What kind of rumors are we talking about?”
“Reports from dockworkers, mainly.” The professor glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more.” He started to turn away, then hesitated. “There is one other place you might try. The official archives are here, in Freiburg. But there is something called the Deutsches U-Boot Museum-Archiv, in Altenbruch. It began as a private collection held by a former submarine officer named Horst Bredow, but it eventually grew so large he turned it into a nonprofit foundation run by volunteers. They have gathered everything they can find on Germany’s U-boats, not just copies of the official records, but also things like letters, memoirs, transcriptions of firsthand accounts by survivors. If anything does exist on this U-114, that is where you’ll find it.”
Jax stared off across the old German square, filled that morning with market stalls piled with buckets of sunflowers and shiny pyramids of apples and trays of fresh pastries. “Do you think U-114 could have been carrying gold?”
Herbolt shrugged. “It is possible. After Stalingrad, many here in Germany knew the war was lost. Corporations such as I. G. Farber and Krupp Industries were converting their holdings into gold and sending it out of the country, to places like Portugal and Argentina. But if what I believe is true-that one of the XI-B class U-boats was rushed into commission and sent on a special mission-then I think it was carrying something more important than rich men’s gold.”
“Something like-what?”
The German shrugged again. “I’m not going to speculate. Talk to the people at the Deutsches U-Boot Museum-Archiv. I’ll tell them to expect you.”
October said, “Where is Altenbruch?”
“In Cuxhaven, on the North Sea.” Setting down his briefcase, he held out the bulky brown-paper-wrapped package. “I almost forgot. Matt wanted you to have this.”
“What is it?” said Jax, taking the parcel.
“Something he seems to think you may need.” The professor picked up his briefcase again and turned to leave. “Just be careful to open it in private. We have very strict rules on firearms here in Germany.”
38
Yasnaya Polyana, Russia: Wednesday 28 October
11:10 A.M. local time
The farmhouse lay on the edge of a desolate glen, just beyond the outskirts of Yasnaya Polyana. Sturdily built of red brick and stout timbers by some long-vanished German, it now boasted a statue of Lenin that stood surrounded by flowerbeds like a Kaliningrad version of a garden gnome, thought Rodriguez. As he watched, a cold wind ruffled the surface of the nearby duck pond and rattled the yellowing leaves of the elms that sheltered an old black-and-white cow.
They’d pulled off into a rutted track surrounded by a tangled growth of birch and oak in what might once have been a field, sixty years ago. Leaning against the trunk of a gnarled oak, he swept his field glasses across the farmyard to the ancient barn and henhouse, and then back. Stefan Baklanov’s mother was on the porch, a big basin clamped between her knees as she shelled a mound of peas with quick, practiced movements.
Salinger said, “Looks like she’s alone. We can take over the place in a minute. She’ll never know what hit her.”
“No. This kid knows we’re after him. We don’t do anything that might spook him. We leave the place alone and wait. Let him come to us.”
Salinger watched, his eyes narrowing, as an old Lada crept down the nearby narrow road to disappear around a bend. “When’s Borz supposed to get here?”
“Tonight.”
Rodriguez watched the woman below stand up and stretch, the basin of peas balanced on one hip. She was built long and bony, with dark hair just beginning to go gray and a face lined by worry and hard work. She walked into the house, the door banging behind her. He said, “I want a tap put on her phone. Can you do that?”