by Ryan Graudin
It took five minutes to encode these questions, along with tactical facts. Another ten minutes passed before they received Henryka’s best guess: Novosibirsk’s army—with its numbers and equipment—should have no trouble reaching Moscow. Storming the Kremlin and demanding Reichskommissar Freisler’s surrender would be more difficult, but possible.
“It’s not the seizure of Moscow I’m worried about,” one of the nameless comrade commanders offered. “None of this is of consequence if the National Socialist regime survives. Hitler won’t suffer Moscow to remain in our hands.”
“I agree with Comrade Commander Chekov,” Pashkov said. “What chance does this revolution really have of succeeding?”
This same question was trapped with the biscuit crumbs in Yael’s teeth, looping alongside all of Irmgard’s handwritten notes. There were so many different ways to word it: Is victory possible? Can you hold out for six more days/weeks/months? How much red will it take? Yael chose to transmit the most succinct option.
CAN WE WIN?
The pause was shorter than normal. When the Polish woman answered, she used codeless, full-flesh words: “I don’t know. W-we weren’t prepared for this. A putsch, certainly. A revolution, somewhat. But Hitler still alive, on the Reichssender, telling people they’ll be crushed if they resist…”
Hitler’s survival changes things. That’s what Miriam had told Yael in the graveyard village. That’s what Yael could see here, cast in the television’s sickly glow. He’d always been monstrous, but now when Yael watched Hitler looming on the screen, she was reminded of the many-headed hydra she’d read about in a book on Greek mythology. Cut off a head and two more sprang back. Try to kill him once, twice, fifty times, and he only grew stronger, crippling entire nations with a single speech.
Hitler wasn’t supposed to be the person who changed things. That had been Volchitsa’s calling, the one Yael had tried—so hard—to fulfill with 20,780 kilometers of race and a ballroom bullet. But what had changed? The wrong man was dead, an even worse one was alive, and Yael sat beneath a chordless piano, feeling more helpless than she had in Tokyo’s streets, running as the putsch ignited and exploded half a world away.
Back to code:
REINIGER PUSHING NORTHWEST TO OPEN NORTH SEA PORT FOR SUPPLY LINES AND BRITISH AID. SS CALLING IN REINFORCEMENTS FROM SUBDUED TERRITORIES. FÜHREREID DIVIDING WEHRMACHT. DESERTION RATE GROWING.
“What is a—a Führereid?” Comrade Commander Pashkov asked.
“It’s a fealty oath,” Yael explained in swift Russian. “Every soldier in the Reich is required to swear unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler himself. One of the main ideas behind both the first and the second Operation Valkyrie was that Hitler’s death would free the Wehrmacht soldiers from the Führereid and allow them to choose new allegiances.”
“Who would’ve thought the Germans would be so honor-bound to their horrors,” Pashkov muttered.
“Not all of them,” Yael said. Not Erwin Reiniger. Not all the other Wehrmacht officers who’d tossed away their Iron Cross reputations for this plot. Not all the thousands of soldiers who’d made the choice to stay and fight on the resistance’s side of the Spree.
More letters were pouring in. A final diagnosis. Two questions.
VICTORY IN GERMANIA REQUIRES MOMENTUM SHIFT. IS NOVOSIBIRSK OUR ALLY? CAN TROOPS BE SENT?
Yael held her breath as Miriam translated. The Soviet officers exchanged shorthand glances, D-O-U-B-T spelled out with brown eyes and blue.
“Moscow is our priority,” Comrade Commander Chekov began. “We simply don’t have enough resources to storm Germania and maintain our control over Muscovy. Even considering the companies we’re scheduled to meet in Novgorod.”
Miriam’s forehead furrowed, still ridged with piano-key indents. “What of the armies on their way to reclaim old Leningrad? Perhaps if we diverted them—”
“Is it even a feasible option?” asked one of the unnamed commanders. “How many weeks would it take our army to fight its way through the central Reich? Does General Reiniger have the resources to hold out that long?”
“What are they clucking about?” Luka’s elbow mashed into an old photo of himself, 1955 issue, as he pushed himself up from his newspaper perch. “Am I the only one who could go for more biscuits? A wash would be nice, too. I’m all for natural musk, but this Eau de Muscovy Wilderness Trek is a bit much.”
All seven Soviet officers stared at the double victor, Reich’s face on top of Das Reich’s face. The room’s very air was alert—as if electric charges had slipped away from their machines, into eyes and ears and veins.
“What did he say?” Comrade Fox Brows growled.
“He wants a bath,” Yael explained. “You shouldn’t worry. Victor Löwe doesn’t understand Russian.”
“But you do.” The officer’s red eyebrows twitched. “Forgive me, comrades, but I don’t think we should be discussing such things in front of the prisoners. Nor is there any point in debating this until we’ve established an open line with Novosibirsk.”
Several of the comrade commanders nodded. The radio crackled—Henryka waiting for an answer. The room’s static anxiety started migrating onto Yael’s skin, stiffening her arm hairs, wreathing through her wolves.
“Agreed,” Chekov said. “Have one of the radio units brought here. Comrade Mnogolikiy will take over the communications with Germania. Contain the prisoners to the rear of the house. Allow them food and baths, but under no circumstance should they be permitted near this room.”
Prisoners. After all this, they still thought of Yael as a threat. Yael, too, felt threatened, the adrenaline under her skin buzzing.
—DON’T LET THEM LOCK YOU AWAY—
She couldn’t just sit here—captive to red tape and politics—while her friends died. “No! Let me stay and—”
Miriam stepped in front of her: a fresh scent of lilies, chin set to the side. Something in the way she moved—so deliberately in front of the comrade commanders’ stares—killed Yael’s argument, leaving its corpse right there in her throat.
“Remember what I told you,” Miriam whispered in German. “Be careful. Play the prisoner. Let me take care of this.”
Her third wolf was protecting her, the way she always had.
Slowly, slowly, Yael nodded.
PLEASE HOLD. MATTER IS BEING DISCUSSED.
CHAPTER 26
Felix was listening.
He lay on the floor between slanting towers of papers, pretending to be asleep. (It wasn’t so difficult with the morphine weight against his lids.) He kept his eyes closed and his breathing light in order to eavesdrop on the radio conversation. Russian was beyond Felix, but the German parts—read aloud by a woman named Irmgard—were easy enough to understand. Felix clung to every detail he could. (Names: Erwin Reiniger. Plans: Pushing northwest to a North Sea port.) He’d need as much information as he could squirrel away to prove his loyalty to Baasch and ensure his family’s safety.
If they were still alive.
If. Was there a more torturous word? A more free-fall feeling?
Felix wanted a solid yes/no answer to ground him. He wanted to walk over to that radio and make the call to SS-Standartenführer. He wanted to hear Papa’s voice, Mama’s weeping. He wanted to explain to Baasch that he was still trying to fix things.…
A peek through hazed eyelashes showed Felix that the radio was in touching distance, but there’d be no reaching it. The girl and the others kept talking. German and Russian swirled through the musty ink air like a pair of dueling sparrows: all clatter and chat. Voices rose and fell and rose and fell until finally Luka said something about a wash, and Felix’s stretcher was carried out of the room and into the hallway.
Taxidermy animals glared down with glass eyes and useless fangs. Crooked frames—holding not portraits but honest-to-goodness insects—punctuated the wall space between bookshelves. And…
Was that a telephone?
Felix couldn’t be certain. The stretcher-bearer
guards were carrying him too fast—already they were turning a corner, setting him down on the floor—but it sure looked like it. Squat-toad shape, black as some of the beetles pinned in those pictures.
If the guards left him here alone. If Felix could get out into the hall undetected. If the telephone was actually a telephone. If he could spin its rotary dial through the number Baasch had made him memorize. If he could connect with the SS-Standartenführer’s office and explain. If, if, if…
But as soon as the guards’ boots scuffed away, Luka’s burst in. The victor flopped onto the bed and started sloughing off his shoes. The first boot hit the ground, its open end and… fruitful… smells too close to Felix’s face.
The mechanic coughed.
Luka paused. “You awake, Wonderboy? Need any morphine?”
The drug was starting to wear off. Felix’s pain, both phantom and real, refused to be killed. He felt it flickering in the empty space above his right hand, swelling, hotter and hotter, against his bandage. Soon it’d be searing enough to make him sweat.
Another dose of morphine might take away Felix’s pain, but it would also make him sleep. He couldn’t risk missing his chance to reach the telephone just because some of his nerve endings wouldn’t accept their own death.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” Luka yanked off the second boot, dragged the first a civilized distance away from Felix’s face, and set both by the bed. “I’m going to scout out the kitchen situation. I’ll bring you back a ham or something.”
Felix watched the victor’s blistered heels slip out the door. He waited a moment, then another, and another…but no one else came into the bedroom.
He was alone.
It was impossible to tell, simply by sound, if the hallway was empty. This house had an old man’s body—creaking and groaning at every joint. Were those guards pacing the floorboards outside? Or years of arctic winters making themselves heard? Or wildlife ghosts trotting beneath their stuffed heads?
The image of Eurasian lynxes pacing down the hall, of moose knocking stacks of novels to the floor with velvet antlers, made Felix smile. The expression felt strange, almost cracked, against his cheeks. It vanished as soon as he rolled from the stretcher (PAIN) and used the bedpost to pull himself up (MORE PAIN). Felix could tell as soon as he stood that he wasn’t supposed to. His legs were jelly, and the floor slanted at odd angles beneath his every step. The bedroom was small—three, maybe four, full strides across—but what should’ve taken seconds became a journey of minutes. His route was roundabout, making use of whatever support his good hand could find: walls, wardrobe corners, a side table with an unfinished game of chess.
Felix was just half a step away from the door when his balance faltered. His arms flailed, trying to find something, anything, to steady him, and caught the edge of the chessboard. Thirty-two pieces—kings, queens, knights, pawns—clattered across the floor. Felix fell with them. The ground’s impact tore his breath from his lungs. He lay stunned, amid chess-fall and boot-stink.
“Felix?”
He looked up to find the girl—Yael—standing in the doorway, freshly bathed. Wet hair fell, near-translucent, around her face. The bloodstains and dirt of days were gone, as were her scabs. Her bruises had taken on a less violent greenish tinge. Even her clothing was softer: a lumpy, knitted sweater that looked like something Felix’s mother might have made. Back in the time before. Its sleeves were too long, dragging across the girl’s knuckles as she helped Felix into a sitting position.
“What happened?” Her eyes darted through the chess-piece casualties, landed back on Felix. (So sad. So bright. Too sad. Too bright.) Could she see him? Did she know what Felix had done? What he planned to do?
Don’t look at the door. Don’t think about the telephone behind it. Easier thought than done. Had it been this difficult for her—a liar in Wolfe’s clothing—hiding in plain sight? What had been going on behind Adele’s face, Adele’s eyes, when they camped in the evening sands, when he’d told her how much her family needed her? When she lifted her P38 and lashed it—red-hard—across his skull?
Felix clenched his teeth. Echoes of both pistol-whippings gathered at the edge of his jaw. “I tried walking.”
“Oh, Felix—” Yael’s lips pressed together, full of emotion he could only guess at: Stress? Suspicion? Sorry? “You’ve just experienced a major trauma. You should be resting.”
“It’s hard to rest with… everything that’s happened.” Don’t look at the door. Don’t think about SS-Standartenführer Baasch waiting for your call. “I don’t like sitting on my hands. Never have.”
“I’ve gathered that. Though I’d hardly call recovering from an amputation sitting on your hands.” She studied him. Her lips stayed tight. “Your face is looking better, at least.”
“Yours, too. If it is yours.” These last words stung, a little too true to what Felix felt inside. Gloves off, primal temper. He mustn’t let the girl see such raw emotions. It was his turn to take these things and twist them into something she wanted to hear. “It’s not the easiest to keep track of.”
“This face isn’t mine, but it isn’t anyone else’s either.” Yael cleared her throat. “I know I have a lot of explaining to do. How much did the SS tell you about me?”
“Only that you can manipulate your appearance. They weren’t much for chatting,” Felix recalled. “The interrogation was pretty one-sided. None-sided, really. They kept trying to kick answers I didn’t know out of me. All I had to give them was the dogs, and I—I didn’t want to”—lies, lies, all lies—“but it hurt so much, and I just wanted the pain to stop.”
“Dogs?”
“On your arm.” He nodded at her sweater sleeve. “The tattoo.”
Yael pushed the tangled knots of yarn up her forearm to show him. “They’re wolves.”
So they were. He could see that now that he was closer.
“Wolves are Hitler’s favorite animal,” Felix told her. It was a vomit fact, spouted out of habit. When they were younger, Adele used to convey the knowledge to anyone who’d listen, her chest puffed with pride that the Führer’s sacred creature was also her surname. The coincidence inspired appropriate awe from their classmates, who oohed and aahed in the school’s play yard.
Yael did no such thing.
“We see different things in the creature.” She tugged her sleeve back down.
“Sorry.” Another reflexive, bile word. (Why should Felix be sorry?) “Adele used to brag about that fact a lot. But I suppose you already knew that.”
“I’m a skinshifter. Not a psychic.” The girl finally dropped her eyes from him and began picking up chess pieces. “That would’ve made the mission a whole lot easier. I studied your sister for a year: memorized all her school papers, her habits, her Hitler Youth records. I learned every single fact I could about you and Martin and your mama and papa. I know more about your family than I know about my own.”
Martin. Mama. Papa. The girl’s voice had changed—it was huskier than his sister’s—but she still said these names with the twist of the real Adele’s accent. As if she, too, were a Wolfe.
It was the wrong sort of closeness: one-sided, none-sided. It made Felix bristle.
“I learned everything I could about Adele so I’d be able to take her place in the race.” The girl kept talking, collecting pawns and bishops and rooks. “The night before the Axis Tour, I snuck into your sister’s flat, knocked her unconscious, and changed my face to match hers. Adele was taken back to the resistance’s headquarters. She’s been held there ever since.”
Felix felt his heart skip, then rev as sudden as a fuel-flooded engine. His sister at least was alive!
Yael went on. “When you showed up in the Olympiastadion, I thought for certain my cover was blown. That’s why I tried to knock you out of the race before Cairo. You were endangering yourself just as much as the mission. If you’d gone back home to Frankfurt, you would’ve been taken with your parents to a safe house by some resistanc
e operatives after I shot the Führer.”
At this, Felix’s pulse swerved, crashed. Everything he knew and everything he hoped were colliding, exploding in an irreconcilable ball of flames.
Gestapo torture → BOOM ← Resistance safe house
It took every ounce of Felix’s discipline not to let the shock reach his expression. He kept his face very, very still while taking stock of hers. “A-a safe house? Mama and Papa are in a safe house?”
“Of course. They’re with my friend Vlad. There’s no safer place in Europe. Trust me.” Her gaze looked true. Her words sounded earnest.
They would, Felix reminded himself. She’s an excellent actress.
But Yael had no reason to lie about this, and Felix had every need to believe her.
Trust me or his own eardrums? Papa’s voice, Mama’s tears. He’d heard them, as certain and devastating as the pain in his fingers.…
“I tried so hard to make you go home. I didn’t want to leave you behind in the Imperial Palace, especially with the SS swarming everywhere.” There was that sorrow again: Sadness with more facets than a diamond glinted behind Yael’s stare. She was looking at Felix’s pink oozing bandages, the ugly gape after his middle finger.
Maybe it was not all lies. Maybe she was sorry.…
But was she right?
Felix didn’t see how she could be. (Papa had talked to him on the telephone, for God’s sake!) The tricky thing about hope, however, was that it was an emotion immune to logic, and now Felix was hooked, dangling on the end of its thin string.
If the resistance had his family… that changed things. A lot of things.
“You had the world to worry about,” Felix said slowly, recalling their conversation. How much was broken, what could and could not be fixed. How many times would he revisit that room, see it afresh?
1: Adele, too stubborn to listen. Felix, trying to keep things from breaking.
2: The girl, not giving a Scheisse about the Wolfes. Felix, trying to save them.