They scarfed down some moldy bread and tinned meat as Emma described her expedition to the Ore Mountains. They were gripped by her account, hanging on every detail. News of the bomb’s demise lifted their spirits considerably.
“Emma, I have something to show you. I hope you don’t mind my doing so,” Maria said, disappearing. She returned with a canvas. At the last moment, she turned its painted side toward Emma, whose hands flew to her mouth.
Her own image stared back at her from the painting, down to the smallest detail, including the exact shade of blue in her eyes, red in her cheeks, and blond in her hair. She looked intense, hungry for something she hadn’t quite achieved—or was she, Emma asked herself, projecting her current state of mind onto Peter’s canvas?
Peter, ever the planner, had in fact created portraits to memorialize each of them in advance of their deaths, including one of Emma and a self-portrait of himself.
What Emma didn’t readily recognize in the painting of her—which she feared might still end up in the gallery of the dead, depending on her next steps—was the air of confidence Peter had captured, a certain boldness in her face and her upright torso, a touch of wiseness in her overlapping hands, a determination in her lips, a sparkle in her knowing eyes, and a resilience that permeated her entire being.
Could this be the same person, she wondered, who once cried herself to sleep in a castle, forlorn at her inability to save her son? The same despairing woman who’d considered taking her own life because helplessness had engulfed her?
Yes, he’s captured me with his brush. But if I don’t figure out how to get Axel back safely, the transformation of the woman I’m looking at will mean nothing.
Was this the woman she had always been destined to become? No—she knew that without Nash, without Dieter’s deception, and without the other unique hardships and challenges she’d overcome in order to arrive at the place where she now sat, the painting’s imbued confidence and resilience, its sharp lines and colors, would hardly have been as defined, as vivid, or as real.
“I have another surprise for you,” Manfred said. “This one is also from Peter.” He placed an envelope on the table in front of Emma. Inside, she found the new identity card Kammler required to get to Zurich, along with his Argentinean passport.
“Peter rushed to complete these documents before the assassination attempt,” Maria said sadly. “I think he suspected that he was about to die.”
Emma looked upward with thanks.
She had everything she needed to close her deal with the SS commander and send him on his beach holiday. There were, however, a few more critical pieces of that plan to put in place—one, in particular, she hoped would come as a surprise to Kammler.
She started to cry. It was truly a day of gifts—beginning with the coin from Eva.
The surviving resisters told her that they had one last gift for her—if she wanted it.
“What else could you possibly give me that I don’t have already?” she asked.
“Your son,” Maria answered. “We all want to come to Hamburg to help you get Axel back. Then we’ll do everything we can to make sure the two of you escape this country safely.”
Manfred smiled, Kurt clapped his hands in anticipation, and Maria moved to hold Emma, who kept crying as she nodded, accepting their offer.
An hour later, they began to plot the details of their final assignment together.
Chapter 49
Monday, April 2, 1945
7:00 a.m.—Hamburg, Germany
Erich Petersen hung up the phone and dropped into his favorite breakfast chair.
The balding forty-year-old banker shook his head, trying to make sense of what he’d just been told. As the manager of his neighborhood’s local bank in Hamburg, he hadn’t missed a day of work in more than two decades—but suddenly that impressive run seemed to have come to an end.
After a long bout of silence, the smell of burned toast hovering in the air, Petersen’s wife, Hilda, intervened from across the table. “Well, Erich, are you going to tell me who was on the phone?”
“A woman named Trudi,” he said, trying to keep his voice even as he took a gulp of his coffee. “She said she works for Kammler—and I’m inclined to believe her.”
Hilda’s mouth dropped open, revealing dentures with a pale-yellow hue, the same color as her hair on a good day. “As in Dr. Hans Kammler?”
“That’s the one.” His eyebrows furrowed as he stroked his belly to soothe himself.
“Whatever would he want from you?” she asked, running their stained cotton tablecloth through her fingers.
“Apparently, Dr. Kammler wants me to stay home today. I’m not to go anywhere near the bank. And I’m not supposed to call anyone—or else . . .”
“Or else what?”
“I’ll be killed.”
“Well,” Hilda said, “that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”
—
“Is that it?” Manfred asked, reaching over the large mahogany desk to take several banking files from his secretary.
“Yes, sir, files for our three Hoffmaier accounts,” the young brunette answered, looking over her thick-rimmed glasses at the well-built man and his impeccable pin-striped suit. She knew that this temporary replacement for her boss, Herr Petersen, came from the highest ranks of the Nazi Party. He’d told her that he was here to take care of a highly confidential matter involving one of the bank’s clients who’d been labeled a traitor and stolen money from the state.
“Thank you. And your name is . . .” Manfred said, taking in her long legs and, by comparison, her very short skirt, her cheap perfume wafting over him.
“ . . . Caroline, sir,” she said. She had noticed that Manfred’s fingers had no rings on them.
He smiled at her, flipping through the files she’d handed him.
“Caroline, do you happen to know Dieter Hoffmaier?”
“Yes, of course. He comes in every couple of weeks, often with his son.”
“Were you aware that Herr Hoffmaier has three accounts with our small branch, all registered to the same address and carrying his first and last name but with three different middle initials?”
Her foot toed at the large office’s dark-blue carpet. “I didn’t know that, sir.”
“Any idea why someone would do such a thing?” he asked.
She paused, the whites of her eyes showing as she looked up at the high Romanesque ceiling, then sideways in thought. “To hide money, or to not keep it all in one place where someone might take it from him?”
He smiled. “That’s right, Caroline. This client has done bad things, but he can’t hide from our government. We’re going to liquidate his accounts, transferring his ill-gotten funds where they belong. Will you help me?”
She turned away, trying to hide her frown. She felt bad for Hoffmaier’s son, with whom she sometimes played while his terse father met with her boss. She soon recovered, turning back to Manfred with a smile and agreeing to help in any way she could.
Manfred intended to spend some informal time with Caroline, but right now he had work to do. He didn’t miss being a banker, but it did feel good to be back punching away at his adding machine and playing with other people’s money amid the trappings of a bank—large stone columns, polished marble, and gold railings. You wouldn’t know there’s a war going on, he thought as he looked around.
By noon, the necessary documentation and transfers had been completed, with the funds destined to pass through a series of German and international accounts before ending up in an untraceable Swiss bank account in Emma’s name.
Manfred didn’t take everything, though. In one of Dieter’s three accounts, he left 1,058 Reichsmarks. That was all that remained after Manfred took the equivalent of 8,726 pounds—the same amount Dieter himself had taken from the account he’d shared with Emma five years ag
o.
Not a Reichsmark more, not a Reichsmark less. Those were Manfred’s instructions from Emma, and he’d followed them despite being tempted to leave each account with an elegant “0,” just to emphasize the status of the man who’d stolen the funds in the first place.
Before leaving, Manfred took care of one other detail: he arranged to meet Caroline for a late dinner at her apartment. Such an arrangement would only help to further cement her loyalty throughout the day. He reminded her that everything they did together was to remain absolutely confidential. She nodded, a grin spreading across her rosy cheeks. He straightened his tie, tightened his cufflinks, and strode out of the bank. Apart from Caroline, no one was quite sure what he’d done or why.
His first task had been completed without complications. Time for lunch, and then he’d move on to his second task. He walked toward the secondhand BMW sedan he’d bought when they arrived in Hamburg four days ago.
The excess funds from Emma’s art auction had proved helpful on many fronts.
—
Emma sat on Axel’s blue bedspread, looking up and down, taking in everything.
Kurt had managed to break into Dieter’s house through a small window, disabling alarms on both doors before letting Emma in. The youngster had then disappeared. He’d be busy over the next hour.
Today, on one of the most important days of her life—as she negotiated the return of her son and the penalties to be exacted from her husband—Emma had decided to orchestrate things from afar, becoming directly involved only when needed. Given her state of mind and her colleagues’ unique abilities, she’d chosen to delegate most responsibilities, something Nash encouraged in situations like this.
It felt surreal to be here in Axel’s bedroom, surrounded by his toys, books, balls, insect collections, and the tattered stuffed bear on his pillow. She’d given him that bear. She picked it up and buried her face in it, breathing deeply, the soft scent of her son filling her, taking her back to the thousand times she’d put him to bed, told him how much she loved him, and kissed his forehead before turning out the light.
In the corner, on a small table, Emma spotted a framed photograph. She got up, almost afraid to look, but knowing that she had to. It was Axel and his father on the edge of a football pitch, watching the local team. Axel had his hand to his mouth, shouting. He seemed older than eight. He looked at least ten, his light hair wavy like hers, his dimple, height, and lean body inherited from his father. Dieter had aged considerably, his own blond hair now shaved down to stubble, revealing a bald spot. With his wrinkles, she reflected, he looked a decade older than his thirty-one years.
To one side of the photo was a replica of a green German warplane, an Arado biplane, if she recalled the name correctly. The airplane was guarded by dozens of tiny metal German soldiers pointing their guns in all directions.
On the other side of the photo of Axel and his father was a trophy—second place in a Hitler Youth running race—and, beside it, a school award for penmanship.
A deep, unexpected sob escaped Emma.
She fell back on the bed.
She’d missed so much.
And her son’s world was so foreign to her, so different from the safer, more naïve surroundings she’d grown up in. Born in 1916, she remembered nothing of the first war, other than its aftermath. Axel had known only war during his lifetime. The city he lived in—a large port and an industrial center—had been one of the most heavily pummeled cities anywhere on the globe during the previous two years. She’d been told that half of Hamburg was destroyed during an eight-day blitz by the Allies in 1943, with tens of thousands killed and the rest wounded or scarred for life by the relentless hounding of enemy planes and bombs.
Thank God he survived.
There were other differences between them: he’d had only one parent to get him through these times, and she could only guess what kind of father Dieter had been. She’d had a loving, nurturing team of two and couldn’t imagine otherwise.
And Axel would know only German, of course—whereas her native tongue was English, followed by German.
More to the point, she told herself, Axel was German. She was British.
Regardless, she told herself, these differences could be overcome by the natural bonds between a mother and a son—but she knew it would take time.
What truly mattered was the fact that she was so close to seeing him again. All those nights she’d kissed the photograph of him hidden in her Bible, dreaming of this day as she’d fallen asleep. If all went well, she’d soon be embracing her son in the flesh.
Emma brought an abrupt end to the stream of emotions, sniffling, wiping away tears, shaking her head, reminding herself that she had to stay disciplined. She could cry for the next hundred years, but not now. She needed to be at her best. The golden boy she valued more than anything else had yet to be transferred safely to her. And she suspected that Dieter would stop at nothing to keep the boy in the palm of his own hand.
The doorbell rang, causing her to jump. She rose and went downstairs, noting how sterile Dieter’s neat home seemed, with few personal touches—the house of occupants who expected to be on the move again.
She looked through the peephole on the front door and smiled. Kurt stood on the front steps. There was someone with him.
Emma opened the door.
Chapter 50
Monday, April 2, 1945
3:15 p.m.—Hamburg, Germany
Dieter walked rapidly, his tall frame driving him forward, the limp from an old foot injury still affecting his gait but not slowing him significantly.
He’d left his work at the fish cannery at 3:00 p.m., as always, but there were far more people in the streets today, cluttering the sidewalk. He had to be at Axel’s school before 3:30, when the children would come flying out the doors. Most of them walked on their own unless there were bombing raids, but ever since Axel told him about the man who’d followed him home, Dieter had made a point of accompanying his son to and from school.
He feared at the time that his past had caught up with him. He assumed that the senior officials in the Nazi Party who’d grown to mistrust and then hate him, only to have him disappear, had finally figured out his new identity and where he lived. The last thing he needed was for his enemies to take his son hostage and use the information they’d learn from the boy against him.
But after more than two and a half months of living outside his home with Axel in anticipation of an attempted arrest by the SS, he’d seen no further signs of his pursuers and decided to return. Dieter remained vigilant though, still collecting Axel every day and right on time.
Dieter looked at his watch and tried to pick up his pace, dodging people in front of him. It was a nice day, slightly clouded over but not raining, and, most important, Hamburg had been granted a brief reprieve from the incessant flyovers and bombings. People had taken to the streets to breathe, to see one another, and to enjoy a moment in time. So much of their existence was now spent huddled in basements following the wail of the warning sirens that sat atop buildings throughout the city.
He no longer had a working vehicle; his Volkswagen sat in his garage because one of its broken parts was no longer available given the wartime focus on building armaments. But walking had been good for him, a nice change from sitting at his desk managing the intake of fish into his plant. This was certainly not his passion, like political philosophy, yet it paid the bills. The death of his parents during the 1943 attack had hurt him financially, because for some reason they’d left him nothing in their will; he’d relied on them for money, so that he wouldn’t have to draw on his own modest savings, which he held in several different bank accounts.
“Sir, would you like to buy a flower for your lover?” a woman asked, bringing him to a halt with a weary rose. He couldn’t see her eyes or her full face, because she was wearing a wide straw hat, but the vendor who�
��d appeared in front of him—dressed in a loose flowing purple dress—seemed attractive: nice skin, blond hair, decent teeth, and big breasts. He checked his watch.
“My wife is no longer alive,” he said. “But sure, I’ll buy a flower. Maybe I can find someone to give it to who’s as gorgeous as you.”
“Thank you, sir,” the woman said in a lilting tone, willing to flirt for a customer.
Dieter reached for his wallet to pay. It wasn’t in the right front pocket of his trousers, where he usually kept it, which came as a mild surprise. He tried his left pocket—not there, either. Both hands slapped his back pockets. Nothing. Instinctively, he reached down and began to yank up his pantleg, where he always kept a long fish knife strapped to his calf. He stopped himself, deciding to leave it there for now.
His jaw clenched as he stared at the flower lady. He turned on his heel and saw the culprit, a freckled boy, blue hat and jacket, already on the run. He caught a glimpse of his leather wallet in the boy’s hand as the pickpocket began to merge into the crowd, back in the direction from which Dieter had just come.
Dieter started to run, bobbing up and down through the crowd, knowing that he could easily have outrun the pickpocket if there hadn’t been so many people between them. He shouted at those near the thief to stop him, but there was too much noise and confusion, and the boy was fast enough to evade anyone who might have tried.
Minutes later, Dieter prevailed. The boy dropped the wallet and kept running, disappearing into a swarm of people. Dieter picked the wallet off the pavement, satisfied to have reclaimed his money. He flipped through it, finding everything intact.
Stupid kid. If I see him again, I’ll skin him alive—like a fish from my factory.
It was almost 3:25. His bad foot had begun to ache. He knew that he had to push the pain aside, because he had just minutes to arrive at the school. He stepped into the road, accelerating, sprinting alongside cars, exhaust fumes filling his tired lungs. As he ran, coughing and wheezing, he thought back to the woman who’d tried to sell him a flower. She’d vanished into the crowds as quickly as she’d appeared, no doubt in pursuit of other buyers.
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