by Ryan Graudin
Look straight ahead. Fight with your weak.
At the end of it all, Yael realized, it did not feel very much like an ending. There was still so much more to her story. One of the larger pieces sat beside her in his undershirt. Arms speckled with goose bumps. Jaw made of edge. Though she’d finished talking, he kept listening with an intensity that set the skin on her own bare-wolf arm alight.
She watched him through the silent dark and thought of the next chapter.
“Yael Reider,” Luka said after a moment. “You’re impossible.”
“So are you, Luka Löwe.”
“I think we’re using the word differently, Fräulein of Infinite Faces, who speaks six languages and identifies poisons by smell.”
“A few months ago, I found the idea of a National Socialist poster boy with a heart just as absurd.” Yael placed her hand over his. The picture of her oldest self was still caught between Luka’s fingers. “But here we are.”
His touch tightened against hers. Goose bumps flared across both of their arms. This was no Kaiten kiss. No heaven and earth moving beneath her feet and passion torching her lips while the sun shone overhead. It was no train kiss either.
It was just a touch: skin to raw to skin. The simplest thing.
It was real.
She stared at their fingers: hers slender with neat oval nail beds, his crusted with engine grease, both made of fingerprints and cuticles and nerve endings that shot signals to their brains. (We’re touching!)
(What now?)
“I don’t want to be their poster boy,” Luka said in a husk of a voice. “I never wanted that.”
“Then why did you race?”
“My father.”
Kurt Löwe. Kradschützen. When Yael first read Luka’s file, she assumed the racer was carrying on a legacy, taking up the chrome handlebars of his father’s mantle. But there was an edge in the victor’s words that spoke otherwise.
“When I was growing up, all he ever talked about was the war: riding motorcycles through the Muscovy territories, killing commies. I thought he was a hero. He thought I was a weakling. I started racing because I wanted to prove him wrong, make him proud. But he had too much verdammt pride to share it. No matter how many races I won, it was never enough for him. I was never enough. I needed to be faster, stronger, better. Nothing made a difference. Not even becoming a poster boy.” His hand tensed under hers, as if he was about to pull away. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
It was Luka’s turn to look down at their hands and the picture between. “You’ve been through so much, and here I am complaining about my father.…” He drifted off. “It must seem so small to you.”
Yael started at her young self. “No person’s life is small,” she said.
“Yael.” Her name was gruff and velvet off Luka’s tongue: all at once familiar. “I don’t just want to be a member of the resistance. I want to do more. Fight. Stop this”—his fingers trembled over her photograph—“from happening.”
“That’s always been the goal,” Yael reminded him. “The National Socialists aren’t making it easy. I found a roster in Dr. Geyer’s office. There’s a whole detail of skinshifters dedicated to protecting Hitler. The SS-Maskiertekommando des Führers. The doppelgänger I shot in the ballroom was one of them. There are nineteen others.”
“Nineteen?” Luka gave a low whistle. “Scheisse. That’s some hefty survival insurance.”
Nineteen men who could vanish into a crowd, reappear on the Reichssender at a moment’s notice. Hydra heads, all of them. It wasn’t just a matter of weeding through the doppelgängers to find the real Hitler, but making sure none of them could spring back.…
“Then there’s the matter of the leak,” Yael went on. “Getting access to the Führer was difficult enough when the National Socialists weren’t expecting us. Now the SS could be waiting at any turn.”
“So turn a different way,” Luka said. “If the SS is expecting you to hunt down the real Führer and kill him, don’t. The odds of success sound a bit stacked anyway. Hitler could be sipping mineral water on some tropical beach right now for all we know.”
“Novosibirsk isn’t sending any reinforcements, and Reiniger’s only hope of winning Germania is to increase his army. That won’t happen unless we assassinate Hitler and lift the Wehrmacht’s fealty oath.” Not to mention the dance of politics with captive Hermann Göring. “The plan was perfect.”
“Best-laid, I know.” The starlight above was fit only for ghosts, but every centimeter of the victor’s face was shining as he went on. “What if you don’t have to kill Hitler again? What if all you need to do is destroy the idea of him?”
Yael stopped breathing. “What do you mean?”
“The Führereid makes soldiers swear unconditional obedience to ‘the leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler.’ Not his nineteen decoys. Proof of them alone would be enough to nullify the oath in some men’s minds. If we copied these files and printed them in Das Reich, if we found a way to expose the Doppelgänger Project on the Reichssender, it wouldn’t just be Wehrmacht soldiers rallying to General Reiniger’s cause.” The lit-ness of Luka’s brow and cheeks spread to his voice. “We know Hitler’s been using skinshifters, but the rest of the Reich has no idea.… Show the Reich what you showed me—get all that ‘sensitive information’ out there—and we’re sure to get more than a few civilians in the mix.”
Das Reich? The Reichssender? Civilians? Yael’s head spun with possibilities and oxygenless sparks. She took a new breath in, let the thoughts settle.
It wasn’t a terrible plan. It wasn’t even a bad one. It could actually be good. (After all, what better way to kill a hydra than by severing all its heads at once?) With the evidence of the Maskiertekommando and its origins out there, all trust in the Führer as a figure would be broken. Hitler’s unquestionable hold on the masses would, in fact, be questioned. (Real? Or doppelgänger?)
“That would cause chaos.”
“Exactly.” Luka grinned.
Breaking into the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda would be easier than infiltrating the Führerbunker. Possible, at least. “Accessing Das Reich’s printing press would be too time-consuming. We’d be better off using the Reichssender, but…”
“What?”
The truth Yael carried under her sweater, beneath her skin, was shocking. For most it would not go down well. Even with paper-and-ink proof. Even if she showed the world who she was, what she’d endured. “Who’s going to believe me?”
“It doesn’t have to be just your word against the National Socialists. Let me present the information on the Reichssender with you.” Luka was a candle unto himself. Face and words and faith: bright, bright. Alive and burning. “Before you shot fake-Führer, the entire Reich watched him give me a toast. They’ve watched me race for the past five years. They know me. Hell, some of them might even trust me. If I’m going to be Hitler’s verdammt poster boy, then I might as well use that status to hamstring the Saukerl.”
His fingers danced under hers. Nerves shouting louder than ever: WE’RE STILL TOUCHING! WHAT NOW? WHAT NOW?
“Luka, the Reichssender station is in the middle of Germania—”
“I know where it is. In the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. At the Ordenspalais on Wilhelm Street. SS central. Shares cups of sugar with the Chancellery. I’ve been there plenty of times for interviews. The front-desk girl has a collection of my autographs.”
Of course she does.
“I know you love sporting the jacket as a hat, but that won’t cut it this time,” Yael told him. “Walking down Wilhelm Street with Victor Löwe would be the equivalent of pasting a bull’s-eye to our backs.”
“The Ministry of Propaganda can’t be the only place with filming equipment,” Luka reasoned. “If we find a camera in Reiniger’s section of Germania, we can prerecord the presentation, the way they do with Chancellery Chats. All you’d have to sneak into the Ordenspala
is is the film reel.”
“It”—if there was another argument, Yael couldn’t think of it—“could work.”
“It will work.” Luka’s confidence was contagious. Spreading like fever-heat through his fingertips into hers until Yael’s insides were brimming. Nerves mixing with iron voice and hope that was not heavy.
What now?
—NOW WE MAKE OURSELVES—
Yael was not a monster. Luka was not the next generation of National Socialism. They were what the Reich would come to fear the most. A Jewish girl and a German boy holding the future and the past in their hands—together.
They sat this way for as long as they could—her wolves to his skin—until the barn door opened wider, bathing the yard with light. Miriam called them back.
Luka squinted at the brightness. “She’s not going to stab me, is she?”
“Not tonight.” Yael didn’t want to let go of his hand. “One last thing.”
Her picture was clearer under the new light, full of finer details: eyelash swoops and the frays of thread peeking from her collar. Yael stared eleven years back, took all the buzz and brim and feelings inside, and changed.
Into herself.
It wasn’t an exact replica, but a reimagining. (Adolescence left much room for interpretation.) Her forehead was high, with an oblong bone structure. Brown hair grew long, curling at the ends, tickling the insides of her elbows. For the eyes Yael chose a color to match her mother’s. Pine-forest dark: made of cool shadows and rich earth. Altogether such a far cry from Adele Wolfe or Elsa Schwarz or the many other skins she’d spent her life slipping into.
This one fit.
A mirror would have been nice, but Yael didn’t really need one. She knew this face was right. She could see it in the way Luka was staring at her. His eyelids were raw from tears, and the fire of an idea, a plan, changing things still roared behind his indigo irises.
“It’s your best face yet,” he said.
CHAPTER 39
The road to Germania was not straight. They backtracked to retrieve their abandoned potato sacks before navigating the route Henryka had advised. North first—up bare-bones country lanes. It was Miriam’s turn to drive, and though the purple beneath her eyes was beginning to match the dawn sky, she did so without complaint. Exhaustion had made itself at home in Yael as well, but between the discomfort of the files wrapped to her torso and the thought of what lay ahead, she could only sleep in snatches.
Westward, the roadblocks and the lines of refugees grew thicker, as did the urge to—GRAB YOUR GUN ARM YOURSELF—every time a patrol rapped on Yael’s window. Every time she fought it back, reciting the same “transporting potatoes for my uncle” story (the one that felt thinner and thinner with every telling) as she listened to the sacks receive more knife wounds, waiting for someone to ask her to roll up her sleeve.
It never happened. Always they passed.
“The informant must not have known about this truck. They would’ve stopped us by now,” Yael reasoned. “That rules out any leak from Molotov.”
Miriam grunted. Most of the morning had been quiet—interrupted only by the motor’s steady hum and patrols’ questions.
“I wish you’d told me about the phone call, back in the office.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I know.” Yael’s hand slipped back into her pocket, found the smallest doll—uncovered so long that it was worn down to the grain. “It just takes some getting used to.”
“So does Herr Löwe.”
“You should call him Luka.”
Miriam’s lips pinched.
“So does Luka,” she relented. “If it had been him… would you have done what needed to be done?”
“You mean torture?” Vlad had trained Yael in this art as well. The practice stayed within her lines, but it was far easier to imagine breaking an SS-Schütze’s kneecaps than turning a knife on Luka. “It wasn’t him.”
That’s what I thought was written all over Miriam’s face.
The day turned grayer, cloaking most of the sun. The muddy back roads disappeared, giving way to pavement. (All smooth, asphalt autobahns led to Germania.) Their truck fit right in with the flood of Lebensraum refugees: common Volk crammed into Volkswagens, boys on bicycles, women walking in mud-stained dresses, even a few horse-drawn wagons. People were going to any lengths they could to avoid war.
All while running straight toward it.
It was well past noon, and rain had started slapping at the cracks in their windshield when the flow of feet and wheels slowed, forcing Miriam to downshift. They’d arrived at a crossroads, where a bouquet of white road signs shaped like arrows told them GERMANIA was close. Keep going 20 KM.
But the way was blocked. Barbed wire curled across the pavement—hastily strung. The SS soldiers next to it weren’t checking papers, but pointing to the alternate route with the muzzles of their Kar.98Ks.
“You can’t go this way!” Yael heard one of them yelling as she cranked down her window. “There’s a skirmish—”
A rumble—low, deep to the point of feeling—dipped out of the sky, cutting off the soldier’s words. Yael’s first thought was thunder, but there was no jagged light above, and soon she heard two more bellows: distant, close together.
Tanks.
If panzers and other armored vehicles were involved, then what lay ahead wasn’t just a skirmish. They’d reached the front lines. Or side lines, Yael corrected herself as she reenvisioned Germania’s battlegrounds as Henryka had described them to her over the radio. North of the river Spree belonged to the resistance. General Reiniger was still pushing beyond the capital’s borders, toward the North Sea.
But the SS were directing them south, back into the depths of their own territory. The refugees obeyed without question. Only fools would want to drive into battle.
Fools and Yael.
Her heart twisted left with the steering wheel as Miriam followed the rest of the traffic. She drove only a few kilometers—south, south, farther south—before pulling to the shoulder and cutting the engine. “This is as far as the truck’s going to go. Any roads west will be blocked. If we want to cross over to General Reiniger’s territory, we’ll have to do it on foot.”
If only it were so straightforward. But there was nothing simple about navigating their way across an active front with a convalescent and no intelligence on where units were placed, all while trying to avoid becoming target practice for Reiniger’s own men…
“We should wait until it’s dark,” Yael said. She hated to delay, but they needed the darkness. So far no one from the passing stream of refugees had spared their truck a second glance; once Luka and Felix climbed out from under the potato sacks, this anonymity would be short-lived.
“Night’s better. Get some rest. We’ll need it.” Miriam slid back into her seat, eyes shut.
Yael did the same, listening to the sounds of rain tapping glass and distant battle song. Mausers spitting, panzers booming, death descending along with the storm. It was strangely lulling.
She slept off and on. There were not so many nightmares. Instead of aiming a gun at Adolf Hitler’s face, she held her picture up to a camera lens. All her wolves sat beside her in the Reichssender studio while she introduced them one by one to the all-hearing glass. An ON AIR light hung red above them. She was just introducing Aaron-Klaus when Miriam nudged her awake.
“Time to go.”
Twilight made the whole world heavier. Rain kept falling, and semiautomatics rattled the air. The sounds were terrible, but Yael took heart in their consistency. It meant Reiniger’s forces remained strong enough to hold their ground.
Now their merry band just had to get to it.
She climbed into the truck bed and wrenched the holey potato sacks aside one last time. Miriam had parked the truck far enough off the road to avoid the displaced Reichlings’ headlamps. Shadows were their ally as Yael opened the hidden compartment.
“How are you feeling?” was he
r first question to the pair.
“Wet.” Luka was, indeed, sopping when he sat upright. His hair plastered over his face and into his beard. Madman chic. At least there was no rice this time. “We there yet?”
“We have to take a walk first.” Some kilometers away, another round of bullets punctuated Yael’s sentence for her. “We’re going to try and reach Reiniger’s men on foot. Felix, can you keep up?”
“Do I have a choice?” he asked.
“We could try using the stretcher.”
“No.” Felix winced as he propped himself up. “You don’t have to drag me. I can walk.”
More shots in the distance. “If we’re spotted, we’re going to have to run.”
“Then a stretcher is definitely a bad idea.” Felix was emphatic. The boy was just as soaked as Luka. Blue-lipped and miserable in a way that made Yael want to wrap him up in a blanket.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“It’s his fingers that are gone, not his feet. He was trotting around the barn yesterday like a prize pony,” Luka told her. “How far do we have to go?”
“No idea. Could be we only have a few kilometers to crawl. Could be there’s an SS patrol waiting in those trees.” She nodded to a huddle of pines, drooping with the day’s rainfall. It was hardly large enough to hold a person’s attention, much less a patrol. But, as Vlad had told her, sizing up your enemy means accounting for every possibility. Underestimation gets you killed.
“Pass those up.” Miriam appeared, motioning to the guns.
Together, Luka and Felix delivered the arsenal. They had a sufficient amount of weaponry: a rifle and a handgun each, along with enough bullets to hold back a sizable onslaught. The ammunition pouches had been covered and were still dry. Yael strove to keep hers that way as she strapped it to her person.
The Doppelgänger Project papers were even more precious. They couldn’t muck their way through such a wet night without damaging them, so both girls stripped the documents from their bodies. Yael took the waterproof tarp that covered the ammo and swaddled the files (along with her own portrait and pocket talismans) three times over before stuffing them into a pack. This she handed to Miriam, who, they’d agreed, would take the lead. If she fell, Yael would be more likely to reach the bag.