The bartender’s brain told him the pair’s vocabulary was too complex for such a simple setting. His memory told him that this handsome young kid, wearing an unadorned gray military uniform, had been in trouble with the law. His experience as a man and a drink-pourer told him that any male in his right mind would already have made a move if in fact this beauty was a date and not an accomplice.
The Nazis left him alone to earn his living as a bartender and, in return, all they expected was a call once in a while to alert them to possible threats. His grizzled hand reached for the phone as casually as possible. He began to lift the black receiver to his ear, keeping one eye on the suspicious couple.
Suddenly, the blond girl with the ponytail did something that surprised him.
She leaped to her feet, reached over the table, and grabbed her companion, pulling him toward her. They locked lips, their hands beginning to flail, an apparent lesson in economy as pent-up demand met supply, his hand reaching for her chest before being knocked away mid-air—the supply chain broken, at least briefly.
She murmured something into his ear, and he, in turn, did the same to her. They nodded, grinning, picking up their jackets, moving away from the bar’s tiny wood-burning stove that until now had been the only source of heat in the room.
The bartender put down the phone. He and a few of his patrons smiled knowingly as the couple rushed toward him to pay up, clearly eager to close their whispered deal somewhere else.
—
“Why did you do that?” Magnus von Braun asked, looking over his shoulder at Emma as they walked briskly away from the bar, still inside the church. “I know I’m attractive…but usually women wait for me to kiss them.”
Emma shook her head at his brazen humor. “That old bartender was paying far too much attention to us,” she said. “By the way, Magnus, what a quick study you are. Didn’t take you long to reach for my breast.”
“Just wanted to make it look real,” he said with a wink. “Follow me, I know a spot where we can talk openly.”
He pulled a flashlight from his jacket pocket, flipped it on, and led the way forward to another part of the shuttered Lutheran church.
They ducked through a decrepit doorway and descended half a dozen stairs, the air noticeably cooler.
“What kind of room is this, anyway?” she asked, not yet able to see well enough to make out their surroundings. He moved his light from where it was focused on the floor and shined its beam around them.
“I thought you’d appreciate a bit of German history,” he answered. “This is a crypt where a Prussian duke and his family were supposedly buried in nameless tombs. We can sit here without being interrupted.”
“I would certainly hope so,” Emma replied. He laughed, and motioned for her to join him on a small set of stairs leading up to one of the crypt’s four tombs.
“Wow, you really know how to treat a girl,” she jested.
“Hey, I wasn’t the one who wanted to leave that bar!” he joked back, placing his jacket on the cobbled stair where he expected her to sit. Initially, she refused his offer, but he insisted, and the two of them settled in.
Emma had immediately liked Wernher von Braun’s brother. She even had to admit to herself that he wasn’t a bad kisser. Of course, she had no interest in him apart from his close connection to his brother—the rocket scientist who delivered deadly payloads. But his quiet demeanor, regal face, and keen mind made him attractive despite being only twenty-five.
Magnus placed his flashlight on the stair just above where they sat, its steady, reassuring beam directed between them and out into the blackness of the crypt.
The hidden string of contacts between them meant that he’d never know who had ultimately arranged this meeting. Following Emma’s return from the bridge mission, Paula had come through as requested.
Magnus returned to the story he’d started to tell before Emma kissed him in the bar—the story of his older brother, Wernher, who’d inspired Magnus to also study rockets. “At the age of twelve,” he recounted, “Wernher attached an explosive rocket to a small wagon and watched with wonder as it flew down one of Berlin’s busiest streets. My father was so embarrassed! He had to go and collect Wernher at the police station.” He shook his head, chuckling.
“Wernher was a musical prodigy,” he continued. “He played cello and piano, and even crafted his own compositions. He became torn between music and rockets, though he hadn’t excelled in math or science. But then a book changed his life: it was about space travel, written by a brilliant man named Oberth. Wernher was now inspired to send a rocket to the moon. This became his dream. His passion for music remained, but his work would be driven . . . by the symphonies of the universe instead.”
Emma offered a small smile.
“Wernher really was amazing. By twenty-four,” Magnus said, “he’d received a degree in aeronautical engineering and a Ph.D in physics, chemistry, and astronomy. After that, the Nazis made him an offer. They’d pay for his space rockets, but his research would start with military applications. He accepted, fully expecting to soon lasso the moon. When the war broke out, everyone’s dreams were put on hold.” Magnus sighed.
“After years of being employed by the Nazis, my brother the dreamer came to hate them and his work. Earlier this year he realized that London was the most likely target for his rockets—never the moon. And, unfortunately, when he shared his frustrations with a few close friends at a private party someone turned informant. The Gestapo jailed both Wernher and me.”
“I had no idea you were arrested,” Emma said.
“We’re both pilots. The Nazis believed we were disloyal and that we might fly across the border to escape their mad plans. A conviction for treason would ensure that we stayed put.”
“Treason!” She sucked in her breath, absorbing the word and its implications. “So how is it that you’re sitting with me?”
“Kammler intervened. He needed our knowledge and our rockets. Ever since our release, Wernher has been watched night and day. They don’t want to lose one of their top scientists. They worry that he might defect to the Americans or the Russians. I’m also watched, but much less so, which is why I’m here tonight—and he isn’t.”
“How unsettling for you,” Emma said, touching his arm. At the back of her mind, however, she already knew that this unexpected tension between the von Brauns and the Nazis would dovetail nicely with what she was trying to achieve.
“You can see why we have to be very careful,” Magnus said, eyeing Emma closely. “But Wernher and I decided to keep taking calculated risks to move us forward, which is why we agreed to this meeting. A most trusted source said it would be in our best interests to attend.”
“Your instincts were good,” Emma said. “And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure your brother’s dream comes true.”
—
“Good night, Vater.”
“Good night.”
“Vater?” the eight-year-old blond boy said into the darkness of his room.
“It’s past your bedtime. No more talking,” the boy’s father said as he prepared to leave, hoping to quiet his ever-curious son.
“Are we living in a detective story?”
“No, we are not.”
“I’m serious, Vater.”
“No, we don’t live in a detective story. We’re real people, living in Hamburg,” he said, feeling his annoyance slipping toward anger.
“Then why did we change our last name to a made-up name?”
“Let’s talk about this another time,” the father said firmly.
The boy recoiled. He didn’t relent, though. He had his mother’s tenacity. “Well, if we’re not living in a detective story, then why did that man watch me in the playground at school today and follow me all the way home?”
“Which man?” Dieter asked, flipping the light swit
ch back up.
—
It was past midnight. They had been in the chilly crypt for almost an hour and a half. Emma had finally persuaded Magnus to take his jacket back from underneath her.
He’d turned his flashlight off several times to save power, since the light had grown noticeably dimmer. She’d found the mood in the burial place eerie from the start, but it became much worse whenever Magnus extinguished the light, the chamber and its tombs pitch-black, their voices echoing off and around the deceased.
Emma had readily won Magnus over with a tentative plan for the war’s end and the months leading up to it, pieces of which they’d talked through, some in detail, while others needed to be figured out.
At the heart of their deal, Magnus pledged to quietly undermine the Nazis’ rocket efforts, especially those related to anything involving atomic material. Emma, in return, committed to finding the brothers a “safe landing” after the war in a country big enough to fit their dreams. They shook hands on this.
Already Emma knew that her greatest challenge in coming through on her part of the bargain would be negative perceptions of the von Brauns and their links to the Nazis. According to Maria’s sources, Wernher’s V-2 rockets had already killed hundreds of innocent civilians in London, beginning a couple of months earlier with the death of a three-year-old girl as she lay in bed.
Did this make the von Brauns child murderers? She pushed the question aside, knowing some people would inevitably answer a resounding yes.
It was late and they’d both begun to yawn, but Emma still needed information about one of the two remaining men she had to influence.
Magnus peered across at her, wondering how someone could look so beautiful in just baggy trousers and a thick jacket. He took in all of her one last time, warning her that his light was going off again.
Emma stood up as the light disappeared. She needed to be on her feet to stimulate the circulation of both her blood and her ideas, and to fend off the cold that had seeped into her every bone.
“I want to better understand your boss, Hans Kammler,” she said. “Tell me, what does he care about?”
“We try to stay out of his way,” Magnus confessed. “He scares us, though Wernher more than me. Kammler specializes in systematic terror. He has gleefully used his engineering expertise to oversee the building of many of the death camps.”
Emma noted to herself that Magnus obviously knew much more about Hitler’s final solution than his colleague Erhard Wolf did. She returned to the question she had once asked Paula about Kammler’s scientists.
“So in your estimation, Magnus, what’s the last thing Kammler would want to risk losing right now?” she asked.
He nodded, not needing to reflect. “I’d guess his priority is to avoid losing this war, but for different reasons than even a year ago. Then, it was still about national pride and the ascendance of the Aryan race. Now Kammler’s greatest fear is probably losing and being brought to trial for what he’s done, a potential humiliation that has many senior Nazis wringing their hands. Of course, the very small group of people who know about this disintegration bomb is hoping it will indeed work and turn the tide of war back in our—their favor.”
“Would Kammler ever kill himself if it becomes clear that he can no longer avoid losing?”
“I doubt it,” Magnus answered. “Hitler and Goebbels will die one way or another rather than live in a world not governed by their Third Reich. That’s less likely with Kammler. He loves himself too much to want to die, and he’s a pragmatist. I’d say the Nazi regime has been more of a means for exerting his sick power than an end in itself.”
He paused, thinking. “If things got really bad, he’d look to escape to a hot beach in South America. Several countries there are pro-Nazi. But he’d need money and outside support. I’ve heard that he’s nowhere near as wealthy as he leads people to believe. You know, he’s been so focused on winning that I’ll bet he doesn’t have a plan for losing this war. And he won’t until losing is inevitable.”
“Interesting,” she said. “When Kammler intervened with the Gestapo to get you released from jail, did you or Wernher have to give him anything in return?”
“What do you mean?” he asked hesitantly.
“A gold coin is what I mean,” she said.
She couldn’t see his reaction in the dark, but she could tell from his voice that he’d been caught off guard. “I see you know about the coins,” he said, sounding impressed. “You know a lot, Emma, and I can’t imagine how, exactly. Yes, Kammler demanded that Wernher hand over his coin in return for our freedom.”
“That worked out well for Kammler,” she commented. “He got a coin and his brilliant scientists back in one deal. Just out of interest, do you know who gave Wernher his coin?”
“No idea,” Magnus said. “Wernher and I share everything, but after I stumbled across his coin one day he told me that the less I knew about it the better. I never asked again.”
She was starting to see a pattern. On the train, Wolf had also confided to her that he had a coin, though despite the mutual trust they’d built, he refused to say who gave it to him or why.
“So how has Kammler treated you since your release?” Emma asked.
“He doesn’t tell us nearly as much as he used to about the Nazis’ overall strategy and timing. And it’s kind of strange, but, apart from the basic work we do delivering our current rockets, he has us much more focused on researching the next generation of weapons—longer-range missiles—which will only be ready to launch well after the end of this war.”
“Excellent. I have all I need for now,” she said. “Thank you.”
He smiled. The pleasure had been all his. He couldn’t wait to see her again.
Minutes later, they bid each other farewell outside the church, scanning the snowy street for any unwelcome bystanders before heading off in different directions.
—
Emma lay in bed thinking about how nicely her plans were coming together, but the danger involved was increasing exponentially.
Her mind started to spin through a growing list of tasks ahead: she had to ask Ursula to travel to a town north of Berlin to check in with Wolf’s wife and children, since keeping them safe was part of the bridge deal. She’d intended to suggest Peter for this duty but Emma now required him to stay in the capital for an art project that only he could execute. She had to set up another meeting with Paula. She needed to contact Lady Baillie for some help and an update on Nash’s condition. She missed him more than ever and prayed that he’d had a strong recovery. If everything went according to plan, she’d be by his side in the early spring and Hitler would be dead. One more thing: she needed a coin to replace the one she’d lost to Berg. But, first, she had to speak with Gunter about her idea.
Half an hour later, Emma was still wide awake, staring up at the dark ceiling and wondering why she couldn’t fall asleep. Only then did she grasp that she’d been keeping her brain busy on purpose, warding off the thought she’d kept at bay for days—ever since they’d blown up the bridge.
She had killed a man.
She’d never killed anyone before. She was a nurse, and killing people went against everything she had been taught and everything she believed.
She’d also been trained by the military to defend herself and even to hurt people if necessary, but she’d never shot to kill until that guard tried to set her on fire. She now realized that his intent to inflict pain and even death on her, when she was so vulnerable, had transformed her in an instant—for the first time releasing some of the suppressed fury and shame that had been building and boiling ever since that humiliating night with Dieter.
Everett Nash had helped turn her life around with a new way of thinking—but he wasn’t a psychologist. It turned out the guard at the bridge might have been her best catalyst for true healing. And, because of the feelings h
e’d set free, she reflected, taking his life didn’t bother her nearly as much as she had expected. What bothered her was the knowledge that if anyone else tried to stop her from getting what she wanted, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.
Chapter 34
Monday, November 6, 1944
10:00 a.m.—Berlin
“An art auction?” Gunter said.
Emma sat with Gunter at the main table in their headquarters, sipping tea made from the dried leaves of local trees. The drink was warm and soothing, despite smelling a bit like dirty socks, an unavoidable trade-off.
“Yes, an art auction,” Emma said. “Because, as you’ve just told me, you want to kill Hitler, even though you know dozens of attempts have failed as a result of how unpredictable he is. You’ve also said that he rarely leaves himself unprotected, except in the company of those he trusts most or when he’s so immersed in an activity, such as a speech, that nothing else matters. And you’ve said that we should all be prepared to die. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Gunter said, putting his cup down.
“Well, what if we were to treat this as a negotiation instead of an assassination? And what if an auction happened to be the best means of negotiation, given our group’s range of interests and abilities?”
He cocked his head, squinting. “Just what are you getting at, young lady?”
Emma leaned toward him. “To start, I have a couple of interests to add to your list. First, there’s survival. While I’d like to see Hitler removed from power, I’d also like to live so I can see my son grow up, and have you and the others alive as well so you can visit us in jolly old England. So I think whatever approach we take, we need to learn from those who’ve failed and make Hitler more predictable, lowering his odds of survival—and raising our own.”
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