by Nina Berry
She flattened herself against the building and peered into the window in the doorway that led to the Von Albrecht kitchen. It lay dark, but through the doorway into the dining room the hall light shone, and three tall male figures were walking quickly in her direction before an abrupt turn that signaled they were going exactly where she’d guessed.
Into the basement.
They must have all gone down there. She’d gotten there in time to see the last three.
Time to pick another lock. Hairpins in hand, she glanced up and down the alley to make sure she was still alone. The windows above remained dark. Nothing but the smell of rotting garbage.
The lock on the back door was a simple one. She eased the door open.
A bell clanged overhead. She crouched down and froze.
The empty house gave no answer. She stood up slowly, and saw the bell, a simple dangling thing, hanging from the door frame above her. She stood on her tiptoes to hold the clapper still as she shut and relocked the door.
Something about the way the sounds bounced around told her that the building was now profoundly vacant. She wasted no time, running lightly down the stairs to Von Albrecht’s basement to press her ear against the door there and listen. Nothing but her own pulse came back to her. Of course, it was soundproofed. Still, somehow she knew no one would come running as she plied the hairpins again.
She’d picked this lock just yesterday, so now it opened to her in seconds. She creaked the door open to stand in the dark, holding her breath. No sounds, no movement. Nobody would work down there without light. Dieter and his boys must have gone down that second set of stairs she’d seen yesterday. They were using the tunnels.
She flipped on the lights to find the laboratory nearly empty. The cages with the animals inside, the lead box, the pile of notes, the measuring equipment—they were all gone.
This was bad. That was all Pagan could think, over and over. This is bad.
Her impulse was to run after Dieter, to follow him every step of the way. But how could she stop him and six of his most muscular friends? She needed help.
She left the lights on as she ran back upstairs, found a phone in the kitchen and dialed the Alvear Palace Hotel. The phone in Devin’s room rang and rang, so she hung up, called back and this time asked for her own suite.
Mercedes picked up the line. “Hello.”
Pagan exhaled in relief at the sound of her best friend’s voice. “M, it’s me. I need your help.”
“Tell me,” Mercedes said without hesitation.
“I’m in Emma’s house, alone. But...I can’t be specific in case this line is tapped, but the basement’s been cleaned out. Everything’s gone. Everything. I called Devin’s room, but he’s out. So I need you to leave a note for Devin—not with the hotel clerk. Put it under his door. Don’t be specific, in case someone else finds it. Tell him... Just tell him...” Her chaotic thoughts weren’t giving her an easy way to tell Devin what was going on without revealing everything.
“I’ll tell him you’re at your friend’s house, and it’s been cleaned out,” Mercedes said, calmly filling in the blanks. “Do you need him to come there?”
Did she? She might not be here long herself. “He’ll figure out what to do. He may be on his way here now—he knows I came over tonight, and he didn’t want me here later than ten.”
“It’s nearly that now. Do you think...?” Mercedes stopped herself, remembering that they couldn’t really talk openly on the phone. “I’m coming there right after I leave the note.”
“No! You’re not getting involved again, remember? Not like that. Anyway, I need you to stay there so I can call you if I find out where they went.”
“You can’t stay there.” Mercedes’s voice was low and urgent. “What if that man comes back?”
“I’ve always been good at improvisation,” Pagan said. “Gotta go. Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Mercedes said as Pagan hung up.
The floorboards creaked as she ran back down the hall and, on a whim, tried the door to Von Albrecht’s office. To her astonishment, the knob turned beneath her hand. It was worth a quick look.
She entered to find a musty, airless room, the windows shuttered, filled with bookcases and a desk. But it took only a moment to realize that the desk was empty. The drawers held nothing but a few pencils and a writing pad with half the pages torn away. Pagan moved to the filing cabinet, and it trundled open easily to show her its empty drawers.
This was worse than bad. Von Albrecht was done with his experiments. Either he knew he’d been found out and was burning bridges, or he’d moved his project along to the next phase.
And the next phase might involve something nuclear.
She left the office and went back down to the cleared-out laboratory. The actual cages and the big black box were gone. All of them would have been heavy, and far too noticeable to have hauled out the front door or the back alley, where prying neighborly eyes would see.
They must have taken everything out through the second staircase leading down. Through the tunnels.
She stared at a large half-empty bag of dog food that still rested there. That poor dog and the other animals could be dead now.
Maybe not. Despair was no earthly use to them or anyone else. But she had to know. She had to try. She couldn’t wait for Devin to come. She’d follow the Nazi boys and skulk, sneak, lurk. She’d play it smart and be Devin’s eyes and ears and hang back till help arrived. But she couldn’t stay here a moment longer.
Pagan sprinted to the narrower, older brick staircase in the basement that led farther down. The bricks reminded her of the tunnel she and Devin had walked through last night, from Julieta to Romeo.
This house wasn’t very far from the place she and Devin had exited using “Romeo,” and Julieta and Villa 31 were less than a mile from that, literally across the tracks. How many old tunnels were there and how many people were using them for their own secret purposes?
She padded down the brick stairs and pressed an ear to the door. Silence. And the knob turned beneath her hand. Clearly if you made it this far, Von Albrecht figured you had permission to go farther.
The door hinges squealed as she opened it, pushing her back to hide against the door frame, waiting for someone in the darkness to notice.
Water dripped and splashed somewhere in the distance. Air stirred faintly, signaling a wide-open space around her. But no one called out. No footsteps came running.
Pagan fumbled around for a light switch. She really should carry a flashlight or something when she went snooping. She moved blindly down the wall, feeling. Something tickled her forehead.
She ducked, swiping at it, fearing bats or bugs. But her hand grabbed hold of a small chain. She gave it a pull. Something overhead buzzed, and a light went on.
She was indeed inside another brick tunnel, one wider than Julieta’s. Lights had been strung haphazardly from arch to arch around the fifty-foot-wide space, which was empty except for one large metal table she recognized from the lab. Shards of glass littered the floor beneath it. This must be the last of the equipment they were moving tonight.
The air was warm and oppressively humid. Mold and dank lived here. To her right, the tunnel narrowed sharply to an archway. Rumbling echoes traveled through it. That must be Dieter and the boys, moving the last of the equipment through the tunnels. But to where?
She ran to the arch and paused, looking toward the rumbling sounds down a long, narrow brick tunnel, dark but for bobbing lights far in the distance.
Praying there were no open pits or random boulders between her and them, Pagan set off down the tunnel at a quick walking pace. She needed to get closer, but it was stupid to run when you couldn’t see what was under your feet.
But her pace must have been faster than theirs, slowed by their cargo. She neared
the lights and heard one of them calling something that sounded like, “How’s the loading going?” in German.
She slowed. Faint light etched seven large male silhouettes ahead of her pushing large rectangular things—carts, probably—loaded with boxes. The wheels made grating noises on the uneven ground.
“Nearly done,” someone else said, and an eighth male shape walked up to Dieter’s crew. He was also carrying a flashlight, and his beam just brushed her shoe before continuing its arc over the tunnel as he turned to walk with the others.
“The object is aboard the ship,” he continued. “We should be ready to weigh anchor as soon as you lot are done with this and the area is secured.”
Ship? That’s where the lead box had gone. That had to be the “object” this guy was talking about.
Cart wheels squeaked.
“The traitors in Berlin will get a nice surprise in a couple of weeks.” A familiar voice, low and full of contempt. Dieter.
Wait, wait—Berlin? That’s where they were taking their nuclear present?
Of course! The date of January 30 was weeks away, but it would take a ship at least a week to get anywhere near Germany, and more time to transport something overland from there to Berlin. That’s why everything was being moved now—to make the January 30 deadline in Europe.
“Using the Americans’ own plutonium to poison them and the rest who occupy Berlin,” the first boy said. “Your father’s a genius.”
Using American plutonium? Had she heard that right? Somewhere she’d heard that plutonium was even nastier than uranium. Maybe Von Albrecht had a way to get it into the water supply in Berlin or something, to poison people. That was no better than a bomb. But how could it be American?
“I know he doesn’t want me to go with him, but I’m hoping to persuade him otherwise,” Dieter was saying.
“Americans are idiots,” the first boy said. “They recruited him to come work for them in the first place!”
“Arrogant, more like,” said Dieter. “They thought he’d be grateful they didn’t hang him at Nuremburg.”
“Arrogant idiots,” the boy said with a laugh. “On that perhaps we can agree. Nearly ten years since he stole their plutonium and still they couldn’t find him.”
“They underestimate him,” Dieter said. “After the anniversary, they won’t do that again.”
Pagan couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. From what these boys were saying, the Americans had recruited Von Albrecht after the war and he’d stolen their plutonium and gotten away with it. No wonder the CIA had been so eager to get her here to identify him. They needed to find him to cover up their own mistake.
But if they were so anxious, why hadn’t they moved instantly to recapture or kill him once she’d told Devin he was their man?
Then she remembered the lead box. Maybe after her report indicating the nuclear material still being in his possession, they’d decided to approach with caution.
And her snooping had given them the January 30 date. They’d all thought they had more time. Maybe the CIA was hoping to lure Von Albrecht from his home, away from his plutonium, to nab him.
Instead, he was setting sail for Berlin with that plutonium, tonight.
It was easy to follow Dieter and the boys now that they were talking. They weren’t even trying to be stealthy, and the rattle and squeak of their carts covered any possible sound from her footsteps. Apparently the Americans weren’t the only arrogant idiots on the planet.
* * *
The brick tunnels transitioned to cement for a few hundred yards, then to rock. Moss and stranger growths sponged over the walls. The farther they went, the wetter everything got. She couldn’t be far from the river now.
The reality of what she had overheard was still filtering through her thoughts. How could the US let a man guilty of atrocious crimes like Von Albrecht off the hook? Could any contribution he made to the US nuclear program possibly justify that? Maybe they hadn’t known the extent of his crimes when they first recruited him. That seemed unlikely. At best.
It got worse.
Mama hadn’t only helped a Nazi escape the US. She’d helped a Nazi carrying stolen American plutonium.
A wave of dizziness overtook Pagan. She stopped dead and had to lean against a wet wall.
Had Mama known about the plutonium? Had she known about Von Albrecht’s experiments? Or was she simply being a good German?
Pagan didn’t want those facts to matter. Mama was dead. Her crimes were done and paid for, one way or another, with her suicide. But knowing what had been in her mother’s mind mattered to Pagan. It mattered more than anything.
Well, it didn’t matter more than stopping Von Albrecht’s shipment from going out. Later on she could suss out the dark meanings behind this all. She had to keep track of them until Devin or someone with authority could arrive.
Pagan pushed herself away from the wall and doggedly kept walking after Dieter’s crew. Her mother had helped make Von Albrecht’s schemes possible. It was fitting that her daughter was trying to stop him.
A gray spot appeared in the blackness ahead, and the tunnel around her gradually lightened. When the floor became cement and she spotted a lightbulb glinting in the ceiling ahead, Pagan hugged the wall even closer and slowed her pace. If Dieter or his boys looked back, she might be visible now.
Finally the tunnel sloped up, the floor slippery with mud and mildew. Pagan stopped and watched the boys try to shove their carts up the ramp, only to slide back down. Dieter and the eighth boy disappeared, then ran back down with buckets and sprinkled sand on the floor.
Once they had completely disappeared, she ventured forward and looked up.
She made her way carefully up the ramp into what appeared to be a warehouse, as Dieter’s carts clattered farther away. The walls here were corrugated metal and wood. Metal shelves, most of them empty, towered toward the ceiling. Voices floated down to her, and an engine rumbled distantly.
“Better hurry,” she heard the eighth boy’s voice echo. “We’re about to lift anchor.”
Pagan startled forward and nearly tripped. About to lift anchor? Once they were at sea, the ship and its deadly cargo would be tough to trace. She had planned to hang back, to play it safe. But if they were about to lift anchor...?
Don’t be stupid. If Mercedes had alerted Devin, he must be either following her through the tunnels by now or he’d sent his helpers through the city looking for her and for Von Albrecht. She was going to play this one smart. One girl against all these armed boys—even Pagan knew better than to tempt fate that way.
Her skin crawled with anxiety as she paused on the ramp and poked her head up. Her eyes were at ground level of a warehouse floor, mostly empty again. Dieter and his friends were walking away from her toward a large open door.
Sounds filtered through the door: the low snarl of a large engine, and voices. A cool breeze that smelled like oily water stirred her hair.
Keeping low and in the shadow of the doorway, Pagan followed the boys wheeling their carts outside.
The deep call of a foghorn blasted the air with a chest-shaking grumble. She peered around the edge of the doorway to see a ship, its masts looming not fifty yards to her left. She was at the docks, with the water chilly and black stretching out before her. Cranes like giant insect legs groaned and swung crates onto the ship, which was big, but not some enormous cargo-carrying thing owned by a shipping line, small enough to be privately owned. Either Von Albrecht had leased it, or he had some big pockets behind him, helping to get the plutonium to Europe.
The wind lifted her skirt and scattered goose bumps over her arms. Men dotted the dock leading up to the gangway, and Dieter and his thugs were now approaching the crane with their carts. She needed to alert the authorities, have them stop the ship. But how?
The area
was lit only in spots—the warehouse door, the crane, the gangway and the section of the ship’s deck where the cargo was being loaded. No sign of a pay phone to call Devin or the cops.
She ducked back into the warehouse and did a quick survey. No phones in there, either. No office where a manager might have a phone. Nothing but shelving and crates, and a tunnel that led to the Von Albrecht house.
She could go back. Now that she knew where the cargo was going, she could tear all the way back to that terrible basement and call Mercedes or the cops from there.
But that was a mile or more away and would take her at least another half an hour. The eighth boy had told Dieter they were nearly ready to lift anchor. By the time Devin or anyone else reached the dock, the ship would be long gone.
If only she could sink or scuttle the damned boat. Where was a torpedo when you needed one?
No, no. Play it smart. It’s a huge ship swarming with evil men. Leave it alone.
The warehouse doors swung open, and she ducked back behind a shelf.
“Just a few more crates to go,” a man said. “Then I must say farewell to you, my son.”
That voice.
The high, nasal tones could belong to no one else.
“Don’t make me stay here while you go to glory, Father,” Dieter said. “Let me come with you. I could be useful in Berlin.”
They walked up to a set of crates and a cage very much like the one that had held the dog, one shelf over from Pagan. She peered through the shelving at Von Albrecht’s stoop-shouldered form, clad in a khaki trench coat and gray fedora as he walked by his son’s side. Behind them came three of Dieter’s boys, pushing a cart.
“You have already proven yourself to me,” Von Albrecht said. “You and your friends have been instrumental in guarding the house and obtaining and moving materials. Before that you kept any spying eyes from the house and monitored the behavior of the Jews and others who might have been searching for me. You’ve done more than enough.”