Maggie unpacked, but in the way she was trained—so that she’d be able to leave at a moment’s notice. She looked out the window. No drainage pipe, and it was a long, long way down.
At dinner, in the servants’ dining room with Frau Graf and Herr Mayer, the gardener and all-around workman, Maggie learned even more about her new employer and his family. She learned that Oberg loved his new summer house in Wannsee. She learned that since his wife had died, he’d had numerous affairs with various actresses and cabaret singers, but never anything serious. She learned that, before the war, he’d been a lawyer and his main love was his work. And that when he returned home after a long day, he’d often spend hours in his study, poring over his files and papers.
Now that’s a useful bit of information, Maggie decided, taking a bite of herring salad.
She also learned that, because he was deaf in one ear, Oberg couldn’t serve in the military. And because of his fanatical party loyalty he had risen high in the ranks. He wasn’t just ambitious—he believed, truly believed in what the Nazi party stood for—the Master Race and Aryan superiority. Moreover, he was a huge favorite of Hitler’s, who considered him an example of all that was German: intelligent, cultured, and refined, as well as a proponent of Lebensraum, anti-Semitism, Führerprinzip, and Weltanschauung.
Herr Mayer explained that Herr Oberg was one of the financial managers in Hitler’s private department, the Chancellery of the Führer.
“What sorts of projects does he work on?” Maggie asked.
“He works under the auspices of State and Party Affairs,” Herr Mayer answered, mouth full of herring, proud of his employer. “He’s extremely important—has a big office near the Tiergarten.”
“Really?” Maggie said. “What’s the project?”
Frau Graf helped herself to more bread. “Geheime Reichssache,” she added, putting a finger to her lips.
Secret Reich Matters? Maggie thought. Interesting …
“It’s an important project, is all we know,” Herr Mayer added.
“Impressive.” And good to know, indeed.
David and Freddie walked out of the Piccadilly Theatre on Denman Street in the West End.
“It’s wonderful to get out and do something fun for a change,” David remarked, as they made their way through the crowd.
“Agreed,” Freddie said. “It was good of Noël Coward to give us all something as light and frothy as Blithe Spirit—although it’s getting some criticism.”
“What?” David said, aghast, as they took a right on a shadowy side street. Their evening shoes smacked against the cobblestones. “What was it Emmet Fox said? ‘Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.’ ”
“Oh, they’re saying, ‘How horrible to be making fun of the dead in the midst of war,’ et cetera, et cetera.…” They walked farther down the street, people becoming less frequent, the only light from a half-moon and the stars.
“Nonsense!” David replied, voice booming with post-theater enthusiasm. “I loved it, especially Margaret Rutherford. Now that’s what I call stage presence.”
“Shall we go to the White Swan, old thing?” Freddie said, clapping a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Nightcap?”
A shadow moved behind them, and a voice called out, “Bloody pansies!”
David and Freddie whipped around. From the shadows emerged three men, beer bottles in their hands.
“Yeah, because you look like pansies to me. Right, Bill?”
“They dress like pansies, they walk like pansies, they’re going to the White Swan like the pansies all do …”
“So they must be pansies,” the first one finished. “Bloody arse bandits.” He broke his bottle against the wall. The smashed pieces rained to the ground. He stood there in the darkness, moonlight glinting off the jagged broken glass.
David and Freddie locked eyes. They were outnumbered. “Look, we don’t want any trouble—” David began.
“You might not want it, but trouble’s here for you, cottager,” said the first man. “Get ’em, boys.”
The two others grabbed David and Freddie and threw them against a brick wall. The man with the bottle inched closer. “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”
Freddie kneed the man who was restraining him, hard, in the groin. “Ooooowww!” As the man howled in pain, he dropped his hands from around Freddie’s neck.
“Run!” David cried.
Freddie punched the other man, and he, too, fell to the ground, whimpering and clutching his face. “No,” Freddie managed. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Think you’re a big man, do you?” the first man sneered. With that he took the broken beer bottle and turned toward Freddie. But when David stepped in front of Freddie, the man thrust it into David’s abdomen.
“Ah!” David screamed. “Jesus!” The man pulled out the bottle, now glistening black with blood. David’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled against the wall.
There was a noise, and a group from the theater approached. One of the women screamed, a gloved hand to her mouth. “What’s going on here?” a man shouted.
The two attackers who’d fallen scrambled to their feet. They ran.
Freddie sank to his knees beside David. “Help him.” He glanced up at the approaching people looking down in shock at all the blood. “Call an ambulance! Someone! Please—help him!” He cradled David’s head in his hands. “Breathe—breathe, damn it!”
It was after midnight at Bletchley Park. In his office, lit by a single green banker’s lamp, windows blinded by thick blackout curtains, Edmund Hope again wrote the numbers Hugh had given him on the green chalkboard on the wall.
He sat back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, sipping from a mug he’d filled from his flask of gin. The letters and numbers danced in front of his eyes, mocking him.
NAF9H20
51649900161
515700247
51604700350
51595000479
51588900466
51588480049782
5158165005055
515804570056176
515764560058494
He’d already run statistical analyses on the numbers, and had come up with nothing. “Damned onetime pad cipher,” Edmund said. He put one hand over his eyes and massaged his temples.
There was a shadow in the doorway. “Can’t be that bad—can it?” Alan Turing entered, rumpled but still bright-eyed and alert.
“I’ve tried everything,” Edmund admitted. “Everything. But it’s no use—without anything more to go on …”
Turing turned to the chalkboard. Then he looked at Edmund, his brown eyes dancing. “That’s because you’re looking at it all wrong. It’s not a code.”
Edmund looked up, shocked. “What?”
“I said, old boy, ‘It’s not a code.’ It’s a message—and a pretty straightforward one at that.”
Edmund looked back at the letters and numbers on the chalkboard. Turing took a sniff. “Maybe you should go easier on the gin?” Edmund looked down at his mug, then made a pretense of pushing it away. “Look, it’s simple, really,” Turing said. “What stands out in the first line?” He jabbed at it with a finger.
Edmund threw up his hands. “I don’t know. And at this point I’m starting not to care.”
“H two O!” Turing chortled. “Water!” He walked over to the chalkboard. “And what is NaF?”
“Sodium fluoride,” Edmund said, blinking. He sat up, starting to rally. “But what about the nine, then?”
“Nine stashes of the fluoride set to go into water. Look at the nine numbers below—they’re not in code—they’re latitude and longitude symbols. Nine of them.”
Edmund was pulling out a map from his desk. “If that’s so, they’d all be pretty close together …”
“Exactly!” Turing said, clapping Edmund on the back.
Edmund, reading the symbols on the map, said, “They’re all
locations close to London.”
“I’m sure you’d have figured this out on your own, but, let me guess—they’re all reservoirs, hence the H two O.”
“My God.” Edmund whistled through his teeth. “So, someone is planning—”
“To drop unknown amounts of fluoride into nine different London water reservoirs.”
“But what would that do? Poison us?”
Turing bit his lip as he thought. “Depends. On how much fluoride and how much water—our two variables. I’m a mathematician, not a chemist—and not God, after all.” He walked out, calling over his shoulder as he left, “And do bathe, Edmund—you smell like a distillery.”
Clara and Cook were in her study, going over dinner plans for the week. “No, no need for anything on Friday or Saturday—I’ll be at the ballet and then the opera.”
“Ma’am …” Cook began. She was a slight woman, with a beakish nose and gray hair covered by a starched white linen cap.
“What?” Clara snapped. “I don’t have all day.”
“I’ve noticed—well, I’ve noticed some food missing. Bread, mostly, but some meat and cheese, too. Some fruit. Just a little here and there, but I wanted to let you know. I don’t want me or the staff to be accused of stealing …”
Clara looked up from her menus. “It’s nothing you need concern yourself with,” she said to the older woman. Then, “You may go.”
When the heavy door clicked shut behind Cook, Clara allowed herself a smile. “Oh, Mausi,” she said. “Stealing crumbs now, are we? But not as clever as you think. And certainly not as clever as I am.”
She picked up the black phone’s receiver and dialed. “Hello, Joseph,” she purred.
On the other end of the line, static cracked and then a man’s voice said, “Liebling—how wonderful to hear from you!”
“I just wanted to check in, to see what you’ve learned about our Margareta Hoffman.”
“She left Berlin.”
“What do you mean, she’s left Berlin?”
The line crackled and Goebbels cleared his throat. “The last we know is that she took a typing test for Göring. Wasn’t hired.”
“And then?”
“Then she … vanished. She’s probably left the country by now.”
“What about Gottlieb Lehrer? Surely he must know her whereabouts?”
“A ‘lover’s quarrel,’ ” Goebbels said. “They fought and she left. He allegedly hasn’t heard from her since.”
Clara was silent, her hands snaking around the metal telephone cord.
“Clara? Are you there?”
“She could still be here, in Berlin.”
“Why’s this girl so important to you?”
“Let’s call it a hunch. I don’t believe she is who she says she is.”
“Well, I hope you have more than a ‘hunch’ about Operation Aegir.”
Clara took a sharp breath. The truth was that she hadn’t heard from her contact in some time, and she had no news. “Going well, quite well, of course.”
“Because if it starts to go south—like that Windsor affair—well, Clara, I don’t need to tell you that you’re on thin ice with Canaris, especially these days.… Even I might not be able to save you this time.”
“Of course it will go as planned,” Clara snapped. Then, in silkier tones, “Now, about the opera tonight—you’ll be there, yes?”
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when the war ends?” John whispered to Ernst.
The doctor inspected the incision. “You’re healing nicely,” Ernst said, pulling John’s shirt back down. “After the war is over, I will find my wife, Frieda. And then we will find somewhere to live. Somewhere safe.”
John sat up. Ernst looked over at him. “Are you married?”
“Not married, but as soon as I get home, I’m going to remedy that. My girl—Maggie—she’s the only thing that’s getting me through this mess.”
“Good for you. We’re in the same boat, then.”
“I know she’s back home, waiting for me, praying for me. That’s what keeps me going.”
That night, in her small, tidy room on the top floor of the villa at Wannsee, Maggie finally had a chance to think.
Since she’d returned to London from training, everything had happened so quickly—the mission, the jump, coming to Berlin, meeting up with Gottlieb … Not to mention meeting her mother and learning she had a half sister.
Maggie brushed her hair, turned out the light, and crawled into bed. Although the bed was soft and the linen pillowcases smelled like lavender, it was hard to feel sleepy as she lay wondering who’d slept there before, where that person was now.
But they’d warned her against that. Think in German, breathe in German, sleep in German, be German.… It was sweltering and the room was stuffy. Maggie tossed and turned. It would be easier if I wasn’t sleeping in a bed I suspect belonged to a deported Jew, Maggie thought. SOE didn’t cover this.
She realized she wasn’t angry with Gottlieb. No, Gottlieb was one of the brave few working against the Nazis. He’d taken an enormous risk in taking her in, and even though she was gone, her association with him did put him, and his group, in continued danger. It will be worth it, Gottlieb, Maggie thought. I know it. Then, It will be worth it—right?
The room was dark, blackout curtains pulled tightly shut. All Maggie could hear was the wind in the birch trees near the window and, distantly, the drone of planes. She remembered Princess Lilibet and Princess Margaret at Windsor Castle—they’d been able to identify each plane by the sound of its engine, saying “theirs” or “ours” as the aircraft passed overhead.
What if I should have gone back? Maggie thought, starting to doubt herself. What was it she’d said to Noreen before she’d left? “Piece of cake.” Ha! What a fool I was, Maggie thought. This is no game.
She turned and pulled the sheet over her head, braced for nightmares.
Chapter Thirteen
Maggie was unprepared for the sight of Alexandra Oberg the next morning in the sunroom.
Alexandra was slender, with blond braids and enormous sea-blue eyes. She also had an unmistakably burgeoning belly underneath her loose-fitting tea gown. She ran her hands over her bump possessively. Maggie guessed that the girl was at least in her third trimester, if not close to her due date, and suddenly realized why she might need a “companion.”
“Guten morgen, Fräulein Oberg,” Maggie said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Alexandra carefully lowered herself into one of the parlor chairs. “So, how is Papa treating you?” she asked.
“I haven’t had too much to do with your father, actually.”
“He’s worried about me,” Alexandra said, matter-of-factly. “And about the baby. Sit down, please.”
Maggie did. “How far along are you?”
“Thirty-five weeks. Feels like thirty-five months at this point.”
Alexandra’s face was pale and bloated, and her ankles were swollen. But she had a lovely smile. “I was making packages for the front, for a while,” she told Maggie. “But now my doctor wants me to stay at home. Bed rest.”
Maggie had heard of such things in late-stage pregnancy. “High blood pressure?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you lie down on the sofa and we’ll put your feet up. That will help the swelling.”
With a grunt, the girl raised herself, then waddled to the sofa, slipped off her shoes, and slowly lowered herself. Maggie took a number of needlepoint cushions and slid them under her charge’s feet to elevate them. “I’m supposed to be like this all day, but I get so bored,” Alexandra said. “Still, I know I’m lucky.”
“Oh?” Maggie said, trying to sound neutral. She’d never heard of an unwed mother refer to herself as “lucky.”
“I’m a ‘bride of Hitler’—carrying a baby for the Fatherland. It’s the greatest honor a racially pure woman can have.” Alexandra’s face fell slightly. “Even if my father doesn’t quit
e see it that way. But it’s every German woman’s duty—to bear as many children as possible for the Führer.” She patted her belly. “His father is Aryan—Nordic, of course. And after I’ve delivered I will give the child up to the Lebensborn.” The girl’s eyes shone with resolve.
“And the father?”
“He’s in the East, at the Russian front. An officer,” she said proudly. “He is doing his duty, and I am doing mine.”
“Were you … in love with him?”
“Gods, no!” Alexandra laughed. “We were at Mädchen camp and there was a party, a big bonfire with the Hitler Youth … Well,” she said, finally blushing, “you can imagine what happened.”
Maggie blinked, trying to take it all in. “Would you like anything to drink? Eat? Do you need a blanket?”
“Oh, I’m fine now that you’re here.” Alexandra closed her eyes. “Maybe you could read to me? There’s a copy of the Frauen Warte on the table there—would you read one of the articles?”
Maggie picked it up, a weekly Nazi magazine for women. On the cover was a drawing of massive German artillery, taking aim at a map of Great Britain. The cover caption read, The Rhythm of Labor Resounds Again in Our Nation’s Factories! We Have Clenched the Fist That Will Force England to the Ground!
Maggie fought a shudder. “Perhaps something lighter?”
“There’s a piece about German women,” Alexandra said, laying her arm over her eyes and settling in. “I’d like to hear that again.”
“Of course, gnädiges Fräulein.” And so Maggie read aloud, “We Women in the Struggle for Germany’s Renewal”—and tried to keep herself from screaming.
Evening Mass at St. Hedwig’s ended with Father Licht’s daily final blessing: “I pray for the priests in the concentration camps, for the Jews, for the non-Aryans. What happened yesterday, we know. What will happen tomorrow, we don’t. But what happened today, we lived through. Outside, the Synagogue is burning. It, too, is a house of God …”
Afterward, Father Licht found Elise. “And how are our friends doing?” the priest asked.
“Not too badly, considering,” she replied.
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