by John Altman
A thin smile flickered across Hagen’s face. Error or not, he was pleased that Frick had moved so efficiently. It confirmed his instincts about the man. He had chosen well, in selecting Frick as his protégé.
Others had disappointed him—Katarina Heinrich primary among them. Heinrich had been a remarkable talent, a rare and wonderful discovery. And yet she had turned into the greatest disappointment of Hagen’s career. After a year of intensive training at Hamburg, she had been sent to America, almost a decade before, and had promptly disappeared. Had she somehow been discovered, exposed, and arrested? In a way, Hagen would have liked to think so—at least that would not have been a betrayal. But he did not believe that was the case. Instead, he feared, she had simply removed herself from the game. She had been very young, and as a result, very fickle. And perhaps he had made a mistake in becoming too personally involved with the girl. He had confused the issue, in her mind if not in his own.
But Frick would not disappoint him. Initially, the man’s insistence on volunteering for duty in Poland had been troubling. It had made Hagen doubt Frick’s commitment to the SD. But his reservations had been misplaced. Frick was a good soldier.
And no harm had been done. Hobbs was wounded, on the run in a car that had been identified. Frick was resourceful, and would see the matter to a conclusion. So it would not be long.
He spun around in the chair again, and reached for his silver cigarette case. He lit a cigarette and watched as the wind teased the smoke into ribbons.
He had been working too hard, he thought. The pressure was taking its toll in subtle ways. Dulling his edge.
When this was finished, he would force himself to take a vacation.
FRIEDRICHSTADT, BERLIN
Eva consulted the leather-bound address book in her hand, verified that it matched the gilt-edged plaque on the door, and then paused for a moment before knocking.
The block around her was quiet. Gretl, she thought, was probably not even home. Gretl was probably taking advantage of the free day, out somewhere with one of her wealthy boyfriends. If that was the case, then her trip here would have been a waste. She would need to move on and try again later—in which case the chances of being approached and asked for her papers would increase dramatically.
She sincerely hoped that Gretl was home.
She hesitated for another moment, and then knocked twice.
No answer. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and transferred her case from her right hand to her left. Gretl was not here, and so she would need to stay in Berlin through another night. Her heart sank at the thought; the evening just passed had been trying enough. She had felt the clerk’s eyes on her as she had checked into the rooming house—boring into her, filled with questions. A young woman alone checking into a rooming house was suspicious. The best he could have thought was that she was a prostitute. The worst was that she was on the run—the truth.
She had spent the night in the nether region between wakefulness and slumber. In her half-formed dreams, Gestapo agents had come again and again to knock on the door of her room. Eva Bernhardt, they’d said, reading her name off her papers as she stood, sleep-addled, in the doorway. We have been looking for you, Fräulein. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
The night had been bad—but the day, if that was possible, had been even worse. She’d been unable to figure out where to go. She had no friends; her family did not know she’d returned to Germany. But her parents’ farm in Saxony was the place to which she felt drawn nevertheless. It seemed that there was safety in family. It was a variation on the urge to burrow into bed, she realized, to revert to childhood. In reality, going to the farm would be asking for trouble. If the Abwehr knew what she was, after all, then they would know about her family. She would not be safe there.
For all of the morning and part of the afternoon, she had sat in a park, struggling to hold back her tears, trying to think of an answer. Then, finally, she had decided to try Gretl. It was a desperate decision—but she was in a desperate state.
She turned from the gilt-edged plaque and looked at the street behind her. The street was bare of pedestrians; she felt very exposed standing here. A single car was parked on the Friedrichstadt, a Volkswagen. Except for drawings in newspapers, Eva had never seen one before. It was a curious-looking car, small and compact, with a clean, sleek shape. The Volkswagen—the people’s car—had been Adolf Hitler’s personal brainchild. “It should look like a beetle,” Hitler had commanded. “You have to look to nature to find out what streamlining is.” For a brief time, a couple of years before, it had seemed as if every German would soon own one of the affordable little VWs. But then the war had come, and production had been discontinued after only six hundred units. Most of the cars had gone to German generals, prominent businessmen, or Hitler himself.
Prominent businessmen, she thought.
Some of Gretl’s boyfriends were prominent businessmen.
And so perhaps Gretl was home after all.
She knocked again, forcefully; this time she kept knocking.
Finally, sounds came from behind the door. A muted giggle, a secretive murmur. Eva stood up straighter. An instant later, the door was opening and Gretl was there, resplendent in a black silk gown with a white orchid on her breast. “Eva!” she said.
“Gretl,” Eva said. “I’m sorry to stop by this way …”
There was a man behind her, wearing a tuxedo, peering suspiciously over her shoulder. Gretl’s eyes flicked to the man, then flicked back to Eva. “It’s not the best time,” she said. “Can you come back—”
“No. Gretl. No. I can’t.”
“I’m sorry, Eva, but it’s really—”
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Eva said, and then added, “Please.”
Gretl’s brow furrowed. After a moment, she stepped ruefully aside, to allow Eva entrance.
“Joseph, this is Eva. We work together. Eva, this is my friend Joseph.” Her voice took on a tone of reprimand. “We were just on our way out,” she said.
Joseph was frowning, clearly displeased at the interruption.
“Give us a minute,” Gretl said. “Would you mind terribly? Fix yourself a drink.”
She took Eva’s hand without waiting for an answer, then led her down a long hallway to a spacious bedroom.
The apartment was phenomenal—and far beyond the means of anyone else working at the Rundfunk. Gretl’s boyfriends were apparently not lacking in generosity. They passed an antique clock and moved into a bedroom done in white: a pale spread on the bed, cream-colored flowers displayed in a glass vase, and a tremendous wardrobe that looked like, but must not have been, pure ivory. A mahagony dresser, twin nightstands with matching doilies, the vague scent of lilac. Gretl gestured her toward the bed impatiently.
“I hate to be rude,” she said. “And it is nice to see you outside of the office, for once. But we were just getting ready to leave. And I’m afraid it’s not really the best night for you to come along.”
“I’m sorry,” Eva said. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“Well—what is it?”
“I need a favor.”
“What favor?”
Eva looked down into her lap. What role should she play now? Needy; pitiful, but not too pitiful. She summoned the emotions and then looked up, into Gretl’s face.
“Gretl,” she said. “I know we hardly know each other …”
“My God,” Gretl interrupted. “Is that blood?”
“What?”
Gretl leaned down. “Oh. No. It’s lipstick.”
Eva touched a hand self-consciously to the corner of her mouth.
“You’re a mess,” Gretl said gravely. “Don’t you have a mirror in your flat?”
“Well, I …”
“Come here. Look.”
She took Eva’s hand again and brought her to the framed mirror atop the dresser. Eva saw that her lipstick was horribly smeared, into something approximating the shape of a butte
rfly. She felt herself starting to blush. Gretl opened a drawer of the dresser, withdrew a handkerchief, licked it, and began to dab at Eva’s cheek.
“You’ve got to take better care of yourself. How do you expect to find a man looking like that?”
“You’re right. I know.”
“It’s just common sense,” Gretl said. “You do the best you can with what you have. Stop fidgeting. Hold still.”
“I’ve got other things on my mind.”
“Yes, I can see that. Are you going to tell me, or am I supposed to guess?”
Eva steeled herself. “I need to stay here tonight,” she said. “And I need a car.”
Gretl lowered the handkerchief, her eyes flickering.
“You know so many men,” Eva went on quickly. “I figured that one of them must have a car. And I’ve got money—”
“This is a joke. Right?”
Their eyes locked in the mirror; Eva slowly shook her head.
Footsteps moved down the hall. “Gretl,” a voice said.
“One minute,” Gretl said.
“They’re going to start without us,” Joseph said petulantly.
Gretl went to the door, pushed it closed, and turned back to face Eva.
“A car?”
Eva had crossed to the bed. Now she picked up her case and withdrew the five hundred marks she’d received from the man at the River Havel. She tossed it onto the bedspread, and they both looked at the greasy roll of bills.
“Just for a few days,” Eva said. “A rental.”
Gretl’s eyes remained fixed on the money.
“That’s five hundred marks,” Eva said. “Just get me a car—any car. I’ll be out of the way first thing in the morning. You’ll never see me again.” She licked her lips, then added her first lie: “I’ll have a friend bring the car back here. Door-to-door service.”
“You quit your job?” Gretl asked, still looking at the money.
“I guess I did. They just don’t know it yet.”
“What is it, Eva? A family problem?”
“Yes. A family problem.”
Gretl finally tore her eyes away from the bills.
“Gretl,” the voice called. “I’m going to leave without you, sweetest dumpling, if you don’t hurry up.”
Gretl turned to the mirror. She adjusted the strap of her gown so that it was falling off her shoulder. Then she pinched at her cheeks, raising the color. She turned back to Eva. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she promised.
“Absolutely not,” Joseph said.
He and Gretl were standing in the living room. The wireless had been turned on, playing loud Wagner in an effort to drown out the argument. But his voice climbed over the music, stridently:
“Absolutely not. Forget it.”
“Joseph,” Gretl said. “She’s a friend of mine …”
“No.”
“Darling, please. It’s just for a—”
“I said no.”
“Darling,” Gretl purred. “Please …”
Eva stood just outside the doorway, listening.
“As if I don’t give you enough,” Joseph said.
Across from the living room, in the kitchen, the man’s overcoat hung draped across the back of a chair. The last of the day’s light shone through Venetian blinds, striping it with shadow.
“Do you think it’s easy to get champagne these days?” Joseph said. “Do you think this all comes for free? Well, it doesn’t. I pay for it—in one way or another. There are other currencies besides money, you know. But of course you do. Look who I’m talking to.”
“There’s no need to get nasty,” Gretl said.
Eva looked at the overcoat. It was hanging slightly askew, weighed down by one pocket. She crossed the hallway and slipped her hand into the coat. Sure enough, the keys were there, cool to the touch.
“It’s never enough for you. That’s the problem with being an only child, Gretl. You come to think that you deserve everything, and more.”
“You know—just forget I asked.”
Eva slipped the keys out, turned them over thoughtfully for a moment.
“I will,” Joseph said.
“Good. I wish you would.”
“Well, then, I will. I’ll forget you ever asked.”
“Good.”
Eva crept toward the front door. A floorboard creaked; her breath caught in her throat. But the Wagner was still playing, the military strains drowning out everything but Joseph’s voice:
“But you did ask, didn’t you? You’re always asking, it seems. Always wanting more. Sometimes I wonder, Gretl. Sometimes I wonder just what I get from our arrangement.”
Eva stepped outside, the keys clutched tightly in one hand. She jogged to the Volkswagen without looking back over her shoulder. Even from the street, she could hear the man’s voice, still rising:
“If I’ve got a limit, then you’re going to find it, aren’t you? Never happy with what I offer. Never happy with what you’ve got.”
The keys fit.
She got into the car, almost bumping her head on the low roof. The VW was tiny. She tossed her case on the passenger-side seat, then started the engine.
“Why don’t you ask one of your other boyfriends? You’ve got plenty. Oh, you may not think I know. But I know. I know more than you think, my sweetest dumpling. Maybe one of them is an easier touch than old Joseph. Maybe one of them has got a car for you. Or for your friend. If it is for your friend. You’ve got lots of friends, don’t you? You make friends so easily.…”
Eva smiled despite herself. She immediately brushed it from her face. There was nothing amusing about what she was doing to Gretl. But she was desperate. She had no other choice.
She had left the money on the bed, at least.
“I think I’ve changed my mind about tonight,” Joseph was saying. “I think I’d rather go alone, than with a girl who’s ready to take advantage of me every chance she gets.”
Eva hadn’t driven a car for years, not since she had used her father’s truck around the farm. But it was like riding a bicycle, wasn’t it? Once you learned, you never forgot.
She switched on the headlamps by mistake, switched them off, then tried to pull away from the curb. The Volkswagen coughed and stalled. She reached for the keys again, twisting them. The engine rolled, caught. She aimed it into the street and drifted forward.
Gretl, she thought. I’m sorry.
But the smile winked back, for just a fraction of a second, before she banished it from her face for good.
WILMERSDORF
Hitler’s Reichsautobahn was the world’s first superhighway system, and a marvel of engineering; it had been built by members of the Labor Service without the benefit of machinery. But what the system offered in ease of travel, to Hobbs’ present way of thinking, was compromised by a lack of privacy.
He left the autobahn not far outside Berlin, in favor of serpentine back roads that made the Talta jounce and rattle like a set of castanets. For nearly an hour, he was able to convince himself that he would be secure enough on these roads. During that time he passed no motorized traffic, a single bicycle, and an old woman pulling a small cart.
Then, all at once, he couldn’t convince himself any longer. The Talta, of course, was an invitation to trouble. As he had been pulling away from the Gehls’ house in Wilmersdorf, he had seen a black Mercedes drawing up behind him. For a panicky moment, he had believed that his time had run out—for the car belonged to the Gestapo. And the Talta, with its rear windshield missing, with the blood of the SS staining the bent fender, was as good as a beacon advertising his presence.
But the Mercedes had not followed him. Instead it had moved to the curb; two men in black suits had come out. The last thing he had seen was the men striding purposefully up the walk to the Gehls’ house. So it wasn’t his time that had run out, not yet. For the Gehls, however …
He didn’t want to think about i
t.
He needed to get rid of the car. Stay focused on the moment.
But the thought of abandoning the Talta, with his leg in its current condition, was not an alluring one. Gehl had helped to remove the bullet, wash the wound, and apply bandages; but neither of them were doctors. Even the slow steady pressure of keeping his foot on the gas made his thigh throb angrily.
Bollixed it all up, he thought.
He had to get rid of the car. Choose one of these leafy glens, hide the Talta in the foliage, and then …
… and then what?
Walk? Not on this leg; not for long.
Catch a ride? There wasn’t a cover story in the world that would explain a wounded man, speaking schoolboy German, walking alone along the side of these back-country roads.
So he kept driving.
The day cooled as clouds passed in front of the sun. The breeze coming through the empty rear windshield took on an icy tinge. Presently he felt the first stirrings of an appetite. He reached for the satchel on the passenger-side seat, dug through it, and removed a hunk of bread. He ate half of it and then tucked it back into the bag. His supplies were limited; he would need to make them last.
He didn’t even have a gun. He had thrown it away when it had run out of ammunition. Stupid.
He shrugged off his doubts as best as he could, and kept driving.
As the sky darkened by degrees, the doubts returned. Had Eva gotten away quickly enough? Or had he doomed her, with his sloppy contact? Nothing to be gained, of course, by thinking about it. Either she had or she hadn’t.
But he couldn’t help himself.
He had doomed her, of course. He had caused one hell of a scene outside her apartment. She would have needed to move like the wind to avoid arrest, after a scene like that. She had already been under observation, after all. Why observation, and not arrest? That part he couldn’t figure out. Perhaps Canaris had wanted to use her as bait … as flypaper, to attract spies like Hobbs himself.
And he had also doomed the Gehls. The SS would find the radio transmitter in the attic; they would have their proof. Even at this moment, no doubt, Ernst Gehl was in the basement of Number 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse, suffering the thumbscrews and fingernail splints of the Gestapo. Would the man tell them the location of the extraction site? If he did, then there was hardly a point in continuing. But perhaps Gehl would not tell. And what other choice was there? Giving up. Which was really no choice at all.