The Arms Maker of Berlin Read Online Free PDF

voice a rasp.
    “Repairman.” Wearily, as if she had been up for hours, and maybe she had. “For the icebox. He’s gone to fetch a part.”
    Yet another item to mend in the house of the man whose very name meant durability for millions of consumers worldwide. Not that Kurt Bauer was any stranger to irony. Try to be good and play by the rules, and what did it earn you? Heartbreak, then ruin. Admit to any imperfection and they held it against you for life. Stray beyond the lines aggressively enough, however, and not only did you get things done, you also earned accommodation, even respect.
    But soon enough he would no longer have to worry about such things. At age eighty-one, Kurt Bauer had begun clearing the books, settling old accounts, and smoothing the path toward immortality, for himself and for his family’s esteemed name in the world of commerce. To his surprise, most of his unfinished business still had to do with the war, even though Kurt had been only nineteen the day Hitler finally did everyone a favor by blowing his brains out.
    A desire for vengeance also figured into Kurt’s plans. After decades of being on the defensive about certain delicate matters, he was at last in position to strike back. Those who had tormented him the longest, and had taken away what he cherished most, would finally answer for their crimes.
    Kurt would have said that love was the driving emotion behind his plans. But his brand of love was a case study in arrested development. Most people who reach his age have long ago discovered that love’s deepest pain comes from watching the suffering of others—our children as they stumble, our elders as they grow feeble, or our spouses as they succumb to pain and infirmity. But Kurt had no children, his parents died suddenly while he was bustling through his twenties, and his marriage had long ago devolved into a series of bloodless jousts, drained of empathy. He still viewed love through the eyes of a young man who has suffered a signature heartbreak. For him, the idea of emotional pain still boiled down to a single name: Liesl.
    As he lay in bed he rubbed a scar on his chest as if it were a battle medal that had been pinned there by a head of state. It was a comet’s tail of wrinkled pink flesh, carved by hot shrapnel on the morning of Liesl’s death.
    After his father delivered the news, the young Kurt had refused to believe it without seeing for himself. He jumped on a bicycle and raced through the streets to the prison just as the sky began clearing in the west to open the way for more bombers. The ride took a good half hour, and his lungs were heaving as he spied the first pile of fatal rubble through a breach in the outer wall. The place was still in chaos from the raid the night before—three prisoners had reportedly escaped—and Kurt walked through the opening as boldly as if he were a guard. Workers were already picking through the debris.
    Nearby, a pair of legs poked barefoot from beneath a collapsed wall. It made him light-headed with agony and fear. He wondered if he could even bear to look at her face. Why hadn’t they yet dug her out? Was it Liesl? Did he have the courage to check?
    A siren sounded. More bombers were approaching, black insects against the sky. The flak guns began to pound. Everyone ran for cover except Kurt, because he had resolved to see her, come what may. He pulled away a splintered doorframe, tore aside a pile of bricks, then knelt coughing in the dust as he dug blunt fingers into a mound of shattered masonry.
    That was when he saw the hand, poking from beneath a few bricks just to his right. A girl’s hand, covered in dust and grasping a sheaf of crumpled papers. Kurt snatched the papers, read them. They confirmed the worst possible news. This was Liesl, and these were her release documents, signed only moments before her death. She had been walking toward freedom when she was killed.
    The papers fell from his hands, and he sobbed loudly just as a