Garden Of Beasts

Chapter Five

The streets of Berlin were immaculate and the people pleasant, many nodding as he walked past. Carting the beat-up old briefcase, Paul Schumann was walking north through the Tiergarten. It was late morning on Saturday and he was on his way to meet Reggie Morgan.

The park was beautiful, filled with dense trees, walkways and lakes, gardens. In New York’s Central Park, you were forever aware of the city around you; the skyscrapers were visible everywhere. But Berlin was a low city, very few tall buildings here, “cloud catchers,” he overheard a woman say to a young child on the bus. On his walk through the park with its black trees and thick vegetation he lost any sense that he was in the city at all. It reminded Paul of the dense woods in upstate New York where his grandfather had taken him hunting every summer until the old man’s failing health had prevented them from making the trips.

An uneasiness crept over him. This was a familiar feeling: the heightened senses at the beginning of a job, when he was looking over the touch-off’s office or apartment, following him, learning what he could about the man. Instinctively he paused from time to time and would glance casually behind him, as if orienting himself. No one seemed to be following. But he couldn’t tell for sure. The forest was very dim in places and someone might easily have been eyeing him. Several scruffy men looked his way suspiciously and then slipped into the trees or bushes. Probably hoboes or bums but he took no chances and changed direction a number of times to throw off anyone who might be tailing him.

He crossed the murky Spree River and found Spener Street then continued north, away from the park, noting that, curiously, the homes were in vastly different states of repair. Some were grand while right next door might be others that were abandoned and derelict. He passed one in which brown weeds filled the front yard. At one point the house had clearly been very luxurious. Now, most of the windows were broken and someone, young punks, he assumed, had splashed yellow paint on it. A sign announced that a sale of the contents would be taking place on Saturday. Tax problems, maybe, Paul thought. What had happened to the family? Where had they gone? Hard times, he sensed. Changed circumstances.

The sun finally sets…

He found the restaurant easily. He saw the sign but didn’t even notice the word “Bierhaus.” To him it was “Beer House.” He was already thinking in German. His upbringing and the hours of typesetting at his grandfather’s plant made the translations automatic. He looked over the place. A half dozen lunchers sat on the patio, men and women, solitary for the most part, lost in their food or newspapers. Nothing out of kilter that he could see.

Paul crossed the street to the passageway Avery had told him about, Dresden Alley. He walked into the dark, cool canyon. The time was a few minutes before noon.

A moment later he heard footsteps. Then a heavyset man in a brown suit and waistcoat strode up behind him, working a toothpick in his teeth.

“Good day,” the man said cheerfully in German. He glanced at the brown leather briefcase.

Paul nodded. He was the way Avery’d described Morgan, though he was heavier than Paul had expected.

“This is a good shortcut, don’t you think? I use it often.”

“It certainly is.” Paul glanced at him. “Maybe you can help me. What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

But the man frowned. “The tram? Do you mean from here?”

Paul grew more alert. “Yes. To Alexander Plaza.”

“Why would you take the tram? The underground is much faster.”

Okay, Paul thought; he’s the wrong one. Get away. Now. Just walk slowly. “Thank you. That’s most helpful. Good day to you.”

But Paul’s eyes must have revealed something. The man’s hand strayed to his side, a gesture Paul knew well, and he thought: pistol!

Goddamn them for sending him out here without his Colt.

Paul’s fists clenched and he started forward but, for a fat man, his adversary was surprisingly quick and leapt back, out of Paul’s reach, deftly pulling a black pistol from his belt. Paul could only turn and flee. He sprinted around a corner into a short offshoot of the alley.

He stopped fast. It was a dead end.

A scrape of shoe behind him and he felt the man’s weapon against his back, level with his heart…

“Don’t move,” the man announced in guttural German. “Drop the bag.”

He dropped the briefcase on the cobblestones, feeling the gun leave his back and touch his head, just below the sweatband of his hat.

Father, he thought – not to the deity but to his own parent, gone from this earth twelve years.

He closed his eyes.

The sun finally sets…

The shot was abrupt. It echoed briefly off the walls of the alley and then was smothered by the brick.

Cringing, Paul felt the muzzle of the gun press harder into his skull and then the weapon fell away; he heard it clatter on the cobblestones. He stepped away fast, crouching, and turned to see the man who’d been about to kill him crumpling to the ground. His eyes were open but glazed. A bullet had struck him in the side of the head. Blood spattered the ground and brick wall.

He looked up and saw another man, in a charcoal-gray flannel suit, approaching him. Instinct took over and Paul swept up the dead man’s pistol. It was an automatic of some sort with a toggle on the top, a Luger, he believed. Aiming at the man’s chest, Paul squinted. He recognized the fellow from the Beer House. He’d been sitting on the patio, lost in his newspaper – Paul had assumed. He held a pistol, a large automatic of some kind, but it wasn’t pointed at Paul; he was still aiming at the man on the ground.

“Don’t move,” Paul said in German. “Drop the gun.”

The man didn’t drop it but, convinced the man he’d shot wasn’t a threat, slipped his own weapon into his pocket. He looked up and down Dresden Alley. “Shhhh,” he whispered then cocked his head to listen. He slowly approached. “Schumann?” he asked.

Paul said nothing. He kept the Luger aimed at the stranger, who crouched in front of the shot man. “My watch.” The words were in German, a faint accent.

“What?”

“My watch. That’s all I’m reaching for.” He pulled out his pocket watch, opened it and held the crystal in front of the man’s nose and mouth. There was no condensation of breath. He put the timepiece away.

“You’re Schumann?” the man repeated, nodding at the briefcase on the ground. “I’m Reggie Morgan.” He too fit the description Avery had given him: dark hair and mustache, though he was much thinner than the dead man.

Paul looked up and down the alley. No one.

The exchange would seem absurd, with a dead body in front of them, but Paul asked, “What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

Morgan replied quickly, “The number one thirty-eight tram… No, actually, the two fifty-four is better.”

Paul glanced at the body. “So then who’s he?”

“Let’s find out.” He bent over the corpse and began to rifle through the dead man’s pockets.

“I’ll keep watch,” Paul said.

“Good.”

Paul stepped away. Then he turned back and touched the Luger to the back of Morgan’s head.

“Don’t move.”

The man froze. “What’s this?”

In English Paul said, “Give me your passport.”

Paul took the booklet, which confirmed that he was Reginald Morgan. Still, as he handed it back, he kept the pistol where it was. “Describe the Senator to me. In English.”

“Just easy on the trigger, you don’t mind,” the man said in a voice that placed his roots somewhere in New England. “Okay, the Senator? He’s sixty-two years old, got white hair, a nose with more veins than he ought to have, thanks to the scotch. And he’s thin as a rail even though he eats a whole T-bone at Delmonico’s when he’s in New York and at Ernie’s in Detroit.”

“What’s he smoke?”

“Nothing the last time I saw him, last year. Because of the wife. But he told me he was going to start again. And what he used to smoke were Dominican cigars that smelled like burning Firestones. Give me a break, pal. I don’t want to die ’cause some old man took up a bad habit again.”

Paul put the gun away. “Sorry.”

Morgan resumed his examination of the corpse, unfazed by Paul’s test. “I’d rather work with a cautious man who insults me than a careless one who doesn’t. We’ll both live longer.” He dug through the pockets of the dead man. “Any visitors yet?”

Paul glanced up and down Dresden Alley. “Nothing.”

He was aware that Morgan was staring in chagrin at something he’d found in the dead man’s pockets. He sighed. “Okay. Brother, here’s a problem.”

“What?”

The man held up an official-looking card. On the top was a stamp of an eagle and below it, in a circle, a swastika. The letters “SA” appeared on the top.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, my friend, that you’ve been in town for less than a day and already we’ve managed to kill a Stormtrooper.”

Chapter Six

“A what?” Paul Schumann asked.

Morgan sighed. “ Sturmabteilung. Stormtrooper. Or Brownshirt. Sort of the Party’s own army. Think of them as Hitler’s thugs.” He shook his head. “And it’s worse for us. He’s not in uniform. That means he’s a Brown Elite. One of their senior people.”

“How did he find out about me?”

“I’m not sure he did, not you specifically. He was in a phone booth, checking up on everybody on the street.”

“I didn’t see him,” Paul said, angry with himself for missing the surveillance. Everything was too damn out of kilter here; he didn’t know what to look for and what to ignore.

Morgan continued. “As soon as you started into the alley, he came after you. I’d say he just took it on himself to see what you were up to – a stranger in the neighborhood. The Brownshirts have their fiefdoms. This must’ve been his.” Morgan frowned. “But still, it’s unusual for them to be so vigilant. The question is why is a senior SA man looking into ordinary citizens? They leave that to their underlings. Maybe some alert has gone out.” He gazed at the corpse. “In any event, this is a problem. If the Brownshirts find out one of their own has been killed they won’t stop searching until they find the murderer. Oh, and they will search. There are tens of thousands of them in the city. Like roaches.”

The initial shock of the shooting had worn off. Paul’s instincts were returning. He walked from the cul-de-sac to the main portion of Dresden Alley. It was still empty. The windows were dark. No doors were open. He held up a finger to Morgan and returned to the mouth of the alley, then looked around the corner, toward the Beer House. None of the few people on the street seemed to have heard the shot.

He returned and told Morgan that everything seemed clear. Then he said, “The casing.”

“The what?”

“The shell casing. From your pistol.” They looked over the ground and Paul spotted the small yellow tube. He picked it up with his handkerchief, rubbed it clean, just in case Morgan’s prints were on it, and dropped it down a drainpipe. He heard it rattle for a moment until there was a splash.

Morgan nodded. “They said you were good.”

Not good enough to keep from getting nabbed back in the United States, thanks to a little bit of brass just like that one.

Morgan opened a well-worn pocketknife. “We’ll cut the labels out of his clothes. Take all his effects. Then get away from here as fast as possible. Before they find him.”

“And who is ‘they’?” Paul asked.

A hollow laugh from Morgan’s lips. “In Germany now, ‘they’ is everybody.”

“Would a Stormtrooper wear a tattoo? Maybe of that swastika? Or the letters ‘SA’?”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“Look for any. On his arms and chest.”

“And if I find one?” Morgan asked, frowning. “What can we do about it?”

Paul nodded at the knife.

“You’re joking.”

But Paul’s face revealed that, no, he wasn’t.

“I can’t do that,” Morgan whispered.

“I will then. If it’s important he’s not identified, we have to.” Paul knelt on the cobblestones and opened the man’s jacket and shirt. He could understand Morgan’s queasiness but being a button man was a job like any other. You gave it one hundred percent or you found a new line of work. And a single, small tattoo could mean the difference between living and dying.

But no flaying was required, as it turned out. The man’s body was free of markings.

A sudden shout.

Both men froze. Morgan looked up the alley. His hand went to his pistol again. Paul too gripped the weapon he’d taken from the Stormtrooper.

The voice called again. Then silence, except for the traffic. A moment later, though, Paul could detect an eerie siren, rising and falling, growing closer.

“You should leave,” Morgan said urgently. “I’ll finish with him.” He thought for a moment. “Meet me in forty-five minutes. There’s a restaurant called the Summer Garden on Rosenthaler Street, northwest of Alexander Plaza. I have a contact who’s got information about Ernst. I’ll have him meet us there. Go back to the street in front of the beer hall. You should be able to get a taxi there. Trams and buses often have police on them. Stick to taxis, or walk, when you can. Look straight ahead and don’t make eye contact with anyone.”

“The Summer Garden,” Paul repeated, picking up the briefcase and brushing dust and grime off the leather. He dropped the Stormtrooper’s pistol inside. “From now on, let’s stick to German. Less suspicious.”

“Good idea,” Morgan said in the local tongue. “You speak well. Better than I expected. But soften your G ’s. It will make you sound more like a Berliner.”

Another shout. The siren grew closer. “Oh, Schumann – if I’m not there in an hour? The radio that Bull Gordon told you about, in the embassy building they’re working on?”

Paul nodded.

“Call in and tell them that you need new instructions.” A grim laugh. “And you may as well give them the news that I’m dead. Now, get out of here. Keep your eyes forward, look casual. And whatever happens, don’t run.”

“Don’t run? Why?”

“Because there are far too many people in this country who will chase you simply because you are running. Now hurry!” Morgan turned back to his task with the quick precision of a tailor.

The dusty, pitted black car pulled onto the sidewalk near the alleyway, where three Schupo officers stood, wearing spotless green uniforms with bright orange collar tabs and tall green-and-black shako hats.

A middle-aged mustachioed man in a three-piece, off-white linen suit climbed out of the passenger side of the vehicle, which rose several inches, relieved of his considerable weight. He placed his Panama hat on his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, which was swept back, and tapped the smoldering tobacco from his meerschaum pipe.

The engine stuttered, coughed and finally went silent. Pocketing the yellowing pipe, Inspector Willi Kohl glanced at their vehicle with some exasperation. The top SS and Gestapo investigators had Mercedes and BMWs. But Kripo inspectors, even senior ones like Kohl, were relegated to Auto Union cars. And, of the four interlocking rings representing the combined companies – Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW – it was, naturally, a two-year-old model of the most modest of those lines that had been made available to Kohl (while his car ran, to be generous, on petrol, it was telling that the initials “DKW” stood for the words “steam-powered vehicle”).

Konrad Janssen, smooth-shaven and hatless like so many of today’s young inspector candidates, emerged from the driver’s seat and buttoned his double-breasted, green silk suit jacket. He took a briefcase and the Leica case from the trunk.

Patting his pocket to make sure he had his notebook and evidence envelopes, Kohl wandered toward the Schupos.

“Hail Hitler, Inspector,” the older of the trio said, a familiarity in his voice. Kohl didn’t recognize him and wondered if they’d met before this. The Schupo – city patrolmen – might assist inspectors occasionally but they were not technically under the command of the Kripo. Kohl had little regular contact with any of them.

Kohl lifted his arm in a semblance of a Party salute. “Where’s the body?”

“Through there, sir,” the man said. “Dresden Alley.” The other officers stood at half attention. They were cautious. Schupo officers were very talented at traffic offenses and catching pickpockets and holding back crowds when Hitler rode down the broad avenue of Under the Lindens, but murder today called for discernment on their part. A killing by a robber would require them to protect the scene carefully; a murder by the Stormtroopers or the SS meant they should disappear as quickly as they could and forget what they’d seen.

Kohl said to the older Schupo, “Tell me what you know.”

“Yes, sir. That’s not much, I’m afraid. A call came into the Tiergarten precinct and I came immediately here. I was the first to arrive.”

“Who called?” Kohl walked into the alley then looked back at the other officers and impatiently gestured for them to follow.

“She gave no name. A woman. She heard a shot from around here.”

“The time she called?”

“Around noon, sir.”

“You arrived when?”

“I left as soon as my commander alerted me.”

“And you arrived when?” Kohl repeated.

“Perhaps twenty minutes past noon. Perhaps thirty.” He gestured down a narrow offshoot that ended in a cul-de-sac.

Lying on his back on the cobblestones was a man in his forties, over-weight. The wound in the side of his head was clearly the cause of death and he’d bled profusely. His clothes were disheveled and his pockets turned out. There was no doubt he’d been killed here; the blood pattern made this conclusion obvious.

The inspector said to the two younger Schupos, “Please, see if you can find witnesses, particularly anyone at the mouths of this alley. And in these buildings here.” He nodded to the two surrounding brick structures – noting, though, that they were windowless. “And that café we passed. The Beer House, it was called.”

“Yes, sir.” The men walked off sharply.

“Did you search him?”

“No,” the senior Schupo said then added, “Only to verify that he was not Jewish, of course.”

“Then you did search him.”

“I simply opened his trousers. Which I refastened. As you can see.”

Kohl wondered whether whoever had decided that the deaths of circumcised men were to be given low priority had considered that sometimes the procedure was performed for medical reasons, even presumably on the most Aryan of babies.

Kohl searched the pockets and found no identification. Nothing at all, in fact. Curious.

“You took nothing from him? There were no documents? No personal effects?”

“No, sir.”

Breathing heavily as he knelt, the inspector examined the body carefully and found the man’s hands to be soft, free of calluses. He spoke, half to himself, half to Konrad Janssen. “With these hands, trimmed nails and hair and residue of talcum on his skin, he doesn’t work labor. I see ink on his fingers but not much, which suggests he’s not in the printing trade. Besides, the patterns suggest the ink comes from handwriting, probably ledgers and correspondence. He’s not a journalist, for he would have traces of pencil lead on his hands and I can see none.” Kohl knew this because he’d investigated the deaths of a dozen reporters just after the National Socialists came to power. Not one of the cases had been closed; not one was being actively investigated. “Businessman, professional, civil servant, government…”

“Nothing under his nails either, sir.”

Kohl nodded then probed the man’s legs. “An intellectual man most likely, as I said. But his legs are very muscular. And look at those excessively worn shoes. Ach, they make my own feet burn just to glance at them. My guess is that he is a walker and a hiker.” The inspector grunted as he rose with some effort.

“Out for a stroll after an early lunch.”

“Yes, very likely. There is a toothpick, which might be his.” Kohl retrieved and smelled it. Garlic. He bent down and smelled the same scent near the victim’s mouth too. “Yes, I believe so.” He dropped the toothpick into one of his small brown paper envelopes and sealed it.

The young officer continued. “So, a robbery victim.”

“Certainly a possibility,” Kohl said slowly. “But I think not. A robber taking everything that the man had on him? And there aren’t any gunpowder burn patterns on the neck or ear. That means the bullet was fired from some distance. A robber would have been closer and confronted him face-to-face. This man was shot from behind and the side.” A lick of the stubby pencil tip, and Kohl recorded these observations in his crinkled notebook. “Yes, yes, I’m sure there are robbers who would lie in wait and shoot a victim then rob him. But that doesn’t fit what we know about most thieves, does it?”

The wound also suggested that the killer had not been the Gestapo, SS or Stormtroopers. The bullet in such cases usually was fired from point-blank range into the front of the brain or the back.

“What was he doing in the alley?” the inspector candidate mused, looking around as if the answer were lying on the ground.

“That question doesn’t interest us yet, Janssen. This is a popular shortcut between Spener Street and Calvin Street. His purpose may have been illicit but we’ll have to learn that from evidence other than his route.” Kohl examined the head wound again then walked to the wall of the alley, on which a considerable amount of blood was spattered.

“Ah.” The inspector was delighted to find the bullet, sitting where the cobblestones met the brick wall. He picked it up carefully with a tissue. It was only slightly dented. He recognized immediately that it was a 9mm slug. This meant it most likely came from an automatic pistol, which would have ejected the spent brass cartridge.

He said to the third Schupo, “Please, Officer, look over the ground there, every centimeter. Look for a brass shell casing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pulling his magnifying monocle from his waistcoat pocket and squinting through it, Kohl examined the projectile. “The bullet is in very good shape. That’s encouraging. We’ll see what the lands and grooves tell us back at the Alex. They’re quite sharp.”

“So the killer has a new gun,” Janssen offered, then qualified his comment. “Or an old gun that has rarely been fired.”

“Very good, Janssen. Those were to be my very next words.” Kohl put the slug in another brown envelope and sealed this one too. Writing more notes.

Janssen again looked over the corpse. “If he wasn’t robbed, sir, then why are they turned out?” he asked. “His pockets, I am referring to.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean he wasn’t robbed. I simply am not sure that robbery was the primary motive… Ah, there. Open the jacket again.”

Janssen pulled open the garment.

“See, the threads?”

“Where?”

“Right here!” Kohl pointed.

“Yes, sir.”

“The label has been cut out. Is that true of all his garments?”

“Identification,” the young man said, nodding, as he looked at the trousers and shirt. “The killer doesn’t want us to know whom he has killed.”

“Markings in the shoes?”

Janssen took them off and examined them. “None, sir.”

Kohl glanced at them and then felt the deceased’s jacket. “The suit is made of… ersatz fabric.” The inspector had nearly made the mistake of using the phrase “Hitler fabric,” a reference to fake cloth made of fibers from trees. (A popular joke: If you have a tear in your suit, water and expose it to sunlight; the cloth will grow back.) The Leader had announced plans to make the country independent of foreign imports. Elastic, margarine, gasoline, motor oil, rubber, cloth – all were being made from alternative materials found in Germany. The problem, of course, was the same with substitutes everywhere – they simply weren’t very good, and people sometimes referred to them disparagingly as “Hitler” goods. But it was never wise to use the term in public; one could be reported for uttering it.

The import of the discovery was that the man was probably German. Most foreigners in the country nowadays had their own currency to convert, which meant their buying power was quite strong, and none would willingly purchase cheap clothing like this.

But why would the killer wish to keep his victim’s identity secret? The ersatz clothing suggested there was nothing particularly important about him. But then, Kohl reflected, many senior people in the National Socialist Party were poorly paid, and even those who had decent salaries often wore substitute clothing out of loyalty to the Leader: Could the victim’s job within the Party or the government have been the motive for his death?

“Interesting,” Kohl said, rising stiffly. “The killer shoots a man in a crowded part of the city. He knows someone might hear the report of the gun and yet he risks detection to slice the labels out of his clothing. This makes me all the more intrigued to learn who this unfortunate gentleman is. Take his fingerprints, Janssen. It will be forever if we wait for the coroner to do so.”

“Yes, sir.” The young officer opened his briefcase and removed the equipment. He started to work.

Kohl gazed at the cobblestones. “I have been saying ‘killer,’ singular, Janssen, but of course there could have been a dozen. But I can see nothing of the choreography of this event on the ground.” In more open crime scenes the infamously gritty Berlin wind conveniently spread telltale dust on the ground. But not in this sheltered alley.

“Sir… Inspector,” the Schupo officer called. “I can find no casings here. I have scoured the entire area.”

This fact troubled Kohl, and Janssen caught his boss’s expression.

“Because,” the inspector explained, “he not only cut the labels from his victim, he took the time to find the shell casing.”

“So. He is a professional.”

“As I say, Janssen, when making deductions, never state your conclusions as if they are certainties. When you do that, your mind instinctively closes out other possibilities. Say, rather, that our suspect may have a high degree of diligence and attention to detail. Perhaps a professional criminal, perhaps not. It could also be that a rat or bird made off with the shiny object, or a schoolboy picked it up and fled at the terrifying sight of a dead man. Or even that the killer is a poor man who wishes to reuse the brass.”

“Of course, Inspector,” Janssen said, nodding as if memorizing Kohl’s words.

In the short time they’d worked together, the inspector had learned two things about Janssen: that the young man was incapable of irony and that he was a remarkably fast learner. The latter quality was a godsend to the impatient inspector. Regarding the former, though, he wished the boy joked more frequently; policing is a profession badly in need of humor.

Janssen finished taking the fingerprints, which he’d done expertly.

“Now dust the cobblestones around him and take photographs of any prints you find. The killer might’ve been clever enough to take the labels but not so smart to avoid touching the ground when he did so.”

After five minutes of spreading the fine powder around the body, Janssen said, “I believe there are some here, sir. Look.”

“Yes. They’re good. Record them.”

After he photographed the prints the young man stood back and took additional pictures of the corpse and the scene. The inspector walked slowly around the body. He pulled his magnifying monocle from his vest’s watch pocket again and placed around his neck its green cord, braided for him as a Christmas present by young Hanna. He examined a spot on the cobblestones near the body. “Flakes of leather, it seems.” He looked at them carefully. “Old and dry. Brown. Too stiff to be from gloves. Maybe shoes or a belt or old satchel or suitcase that either the killer or victim was carrying.”

He scooped these flakes up and placed them in another brown envelope then moistened the gum and sealed it.

“We have a witness, sir,” one of the younger Schupo officers called. “Though he’s not very cooperative.”

Witness. Excellent! Kohl followed the man back toward the mouth of the alley. There, another Schupo officer was prodding forward a man in his forties, Kohl estimated. He was dressed in worker’s clothes. His left eye was glass and his right arm dangled uselessly at his side. One of the four million who survived the War but were left with bodies forever changed by the unfathomable experience.

The Schupo officer pushed him toward Kohl.

“That will do, Officer,” the inspector said sternly. “Thank you.” Turning to the witness, he asked, “Now, your card.”

The man handed over his ID. Kohl glanced at it. He forgot everything on the document the instant he returned it, but even a cursory examination of papers by a police officer made witnesses extremely cooperative.

Though not in all cases.

“I wish to be helpful. But as I told the officer, sir, I didn’t actually see much of anything.” He fell silent.

“Yes, yes, tell me what you actually did see.” An impatient gesture from Kohl’s thick hand.

“Yes, Inspector. I was scrubbing the basement stairs at Number forty-eight. There.” He pointed out of the alley to a town house. “As you can see. I was below the level of the sidewalk. I heard what I took to be a backfire.”

Kohl grunted. Since ’33 no one but an idiot assumed backfires; they assumed bullets.

“I thought nothing of it and continued scrubbing.” He proved this by pointing to his damp shirt and trousers. “Then ten minutes later I heard a whistle.”

“Whistle? A police whistle?”

“No, sir, I mean, as someone would make through his teeth. It was quite loud. I glanced up and saw a man walk out of the alley. The whistle was to hail a taxi. It stopped in front of my building and I heard the man ask the driver to take him to the Summer Garden restaurant.”

Whistling? Kohl reflected. This was unusual. One whistled for dogs and horses. But to summon a taxi this way would demean the driver. In Germany all professions and trades were worthy of equal respect. Did this suggest that the suspect was a foreigner? Or merely rude? He jotted the observation into his notebook.

“The number of the taxi?” Kohl had to ask, of course, but received the expected response.

“Oh, I have no idea, sir.”

“Summer Garden.” This was a common name. “Which one?”

“I believe I heard ‘Rosenthaler Street.’”

Kohl nodded, excited to find such a good lead this early in an investigation. “Quickly – what did the man look like?”

“I was below the stairs, sir, as I said. I saw only his back as he hailed the car. He was a large man, more than two meters tall. Broad but not fat. He had an accent, though.”

“What kind? From a different region of Germany? Or a different country?”

“Similar to someone from the south, if anything. But I have a brother near Munich and it sounded different still.”

“Outside the country, perhaps? Many foreigners here now, with the Olympics.”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ve spent all my life in Berlin. And I’ve only been out of the fatherland once.” He nodded toward his useless arm.

“Did he have a leather satchel?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

To Janssen, Kohl said, “The likely source of the leather flakes.” He turned back. “And you didn’t see his face?”

“No, sir. As I say.”

Kohl’s voice lowered. “If I were to tell you that I won’t take your name, so you would not be further involved, could you perhaps remember better what he looked like?”

“Honestly, sir, I did not see his face.”

“Age?”

The man shook his head. “All I know is that he was a big man and was wearing a light suit… I can’t say the color, I’m afraid. Oh, and on his head was a hat like Air Minister Göring wears.”

“What kind is that?” Kohl asked.

“With a narrow brim. Brown.”

“Ah, something helpful.” Kohl looked the janitor up and down. “Very well, you may go now.”

“Hail Hitler,” the man said with pathetic enthusiasm and offered a powerful salute, perhaps in compensation for the fact he needed to use his left arm for the gesture.

The inspector offered a distracted “Hail” and returned to the body. They quickly collected their equipment. “Let’s hurry. To the Summer Garden.”

They started back to the car. Willi Kohl winced, glancing down at his feet. Even wearing overpriced leather shoes stuffed with the softest of lamb’s wool did little to help his distraught toes and arches. Cobblestones were particularly brutal.

He was suddenly aware of Janssen, at his side, slowing. “Gestapo,” the young man whispered.

Dismayed, Kohl looked up and saw Peter Krauss, in a shabby brown suit and matching felt trilby hat, approach. Two of his assistants, younger men, about Janssen’s age, held back.

Oh, not now! The suspect might be at the restaurant this very moment, not suspecting that he’d been detected.

Krauss walked toward the two Kripo inspectors leisurely. Propaganda Minister Goebbels was always sending out Party photographers to stage pictures of model Aryans and their families to use in his publications. Peter Krauss could easily have been a subject for a hundred such pictures: He was a tall, slim, blond man. A former colleague of Kohl’s, Krauss had been invited to join the Gestapo because of his experience in the old Department 1A of the Kripo, which investigated political crimes. Just after the National Socialists came to power the department was spun off and became the Gestapo. Krauss was like many Prussian Germans: Nordic with some Slav blood in his veins but office gossip had it that he’d been invited to leave the Kripo for the job on Prince Albrecht Street only after changing his first name from Pietr, which sniffed of the Slavic.

Kohl had heard Krauss was a methodical investigator though they had never worked together; Kohl had always refused to handle political crimes, and now the Kripo was forbidden to.

Krauss said, “Willi, good afternoon.”

“Hail. What brings you here, Peter?”

Janssen nodded and the Gestapo investigator did the same. He said to Kohl, “I received a phone call from our boss.”

Did he mean Heinrich Himmler himself? Kohl wondered. It was possible. One month ago, the SS leader had consolidated every police force in Germany under his own control and had created the Sipo, the plain-clothed division, which included the Gestapo, the Kripo, and the notorious SD, which was the SS’s intelligence division. Himmler had just been named state chief of police, a rather modest description, Kohl had thought at the time of the announcement, for the most powerful law enforcer on earth.

Krauss continued. “He’s been instructed by the Leader to keep our city blemish-free during the Olympics. We’re to look into all serious crimes near the stadium, Olympic Village and city center and make sure the perpetrators are swiftly caught. And here, a murder within shouting distance of the Tiergarten.” Krauss clicked his tongue in dismay.

Kohl glanced obviously at his watch, desperate to get to the Summer Garden. “I’m afraid I have to leave, Peter.”

Examining the body closely, crouching down, the Gestapo man said, “Unfortunately with all the foreign reporters in town… So difficult to control them, to monitor them.”

“Yes, yes, but-”

“We need to make sure this is solved before they learn of the death.” Krauss rose and walked in a slow circle around the dead man. “Who is he, do we know?”

“Not yet. His ID is missing. Tell me, Peter, this wouldn’t have anything to do with an SS or SA matter, would it?”

“Not that I know of,” Krauss replied, frowning. “Why?”

“On the way here, Janssen and I noticed many more patrols. Random stops to check papers. Yet we’ve heard no word about an operation.”

“Ach, that’s nothing,” the Gestapo inspector said, waving his hand dismissively. “A minor security matter. Nothing the Kripo need worry about.”

Kohl looked again at his pocket watch. “Well, I really must go, Peter.”

The Gestapo officer rose to his feet. “Was he robbed?”

“Everything’s missing from his pockets,” Kohl said impatiently.

Krauss stared at the body for a long moment and all Kohl could think of was the suspect sitting at the Summer Garden, halfway through a meal of schnitzel or wurst. “I must be getting back,” Kohl said.

“One moment.” Krauss continued to study the body. Finally, without looking up, he said, “It would make sense if the killer was a foreigner.”

“A foreigner? Well-” Janssen spoke quickly, eyebrows rising in his youthful face. But Kohl shot him a sharp look and he fell silent.

“What’s that?” Krauss asked him.

The inspector candidate made a fast recovery. “I’m curious why you think it would make sense.”

“The deserted alley, missing identification, a cold-blooded shooting… When you’ve been in this business for a time, you get a feel for the perpetrators in murders such as this, Inspector Candidate.”

“A murder such as what?” Kohl could not resist asking. A man shot to death in a Berlin alley was hardly sui generis these days.

But Krauss didn’t respond. “A Roma or Pole very likely. Violent people, to be sure. And with motives galore to murder innocent Germans. Or the killer might be Czech, from the east, of course, not the Sudetenland. They’re known for shooting people from behind.”

Kohl nearly added: as are the Stormtroopers. But he merely said, “Then we can hope that the perpetrator turns out to be a Slav.”

Krauss gave no reaction to the reference to his own ethnic origins. Another look at the corpse. “I will make inquiries about this, Willi. I will have my people make contact with the A-men in the area.”

Kohl said, “I am encouraged by the thought of using National Socialist informants. They’re very good at it. And there are so many of them.”

“Indeed.”

Bless him, Janssen too looked impatiently at his watch, grimaced and said, “We’re very late for that meeting, sir.”

“Yes, yes, we are.” Kohl started back up the alley. But he paused and called to Krauss, “One question?”

“Yes, Willi?”

“What kind of hat does Air Minister Göring wear?”

“You are asking…?” Krauss frowned.

“Göring. What kind of hat?”

“Oh, I have no idea,” he replied, looking momentarily stricken, as if this were knowledge that every good Gestapo officer should be versed in. “Why?”

“No matter.”

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail.”

As they hurried back to the DKW, Kohl said breathlessly, “Give the film to one of the Schupo officers and have him rush it to headquarters. I want the pictures immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man diverted his course and handed the film to an officer, gave him the instructions, then caught up with Kohl, who called to a Schupo, “When the coroner’s men get here, tell them that I want the autopsy report as soon as possible. I want to know about diseases our friend here might have had. The clap and consumption in particular. And how advanced. And the contents of his stomach. Tattoos, broken bones, surgical scars, as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember to tell them it’s urgent.”

So busy was the coroner these days that it might take eight or ten hours for the body even to be picked up; the autopsy could take several days.

Kohl winced in pain as he hurried to the DKW; the lamb’s wool in his shoes had shifted. “What’s the fastest route to the Summer Garden? Never mind, we’ll figure it out.” He looked around. “There!” he shouted, pointing to a newsstand. “Go buy every newspaper they have.”

“Yes, sir, but why?”

Willi Kohl dropped into the driver’s seat and pushed the ignition button. His voice was breathless but still managed to convey his impatience. “Because we need a picture of Göring in a hat. Why else?”

Chapter Seven

Standing on the street corner, holding a limp Berlin Journal, Paul studied the Summer Garden café: women who drank their coffees with gloved hands, men who would down their beers in large gulps and tap their mustaches with pressed linen napkins to lift away the foam. People enjoying the afternoon sun, smoking.

Paul Schumann remained perfectly still, looking, looking, looking.

Out of kilter…

Just like setting type, plucking the metal letters from a California job case and assembling words and sentences. “Mind your p ’s and q ’s,” his father would call constantly – those particular letters easy to confuse because the piece of type was the exact reverse of the printed letter.

He was now looking over the Summer Garden just as carefully. He’d missed the Stormtrooper watching him from the phone booth outside Dresden Alley – an inexcusable mistake for a button man. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

After a few minutes, he sensed no immediate danger but, he reflected, how could he tell? Maybe the people he was watching were nothing more than they seemed: normal joes eating meals and going about their errands on a hot, lazy Saturday afternoon, with no interest in anyone else on the street.

But maybe they were as suspicious and murderously loyal to the Nazis as the man on the Manhattan, Heinsler.

I love the Führer…

He tossed the paper into a bin then crossed the street and entered the restaurant.

“Please,” he said to the captain, “a table for three.”

“Anywhere, anywhere,” the harried man said.

Paul took a table inside. A casual glance around him. No one paid any attention to him.

Or appeared to.

A waiter sailed past. “You wish to order?”

“A beer for now.”

“Which beer?” He started to name brands Paul had never heard of.

He said, “The first. A large.”

The waiter walked toward the bar and returned a moment later with a tall pilsner glass. Paul drank thirstily but found he disliked the taste. It was almost sweet, fruity. He pushed it aside and lit a cigarette, having shaken the Chesterfield out of the pack below the tabletop so no one could see the American label. He glanced up to see Reginald Morgan strolling casually into the restaurant. Looking around, he noticed Paul and walked up to him, saying in German, “My friend, so good to see you again.”

They shook hands and he sat down across the table.

Morgan’s face was damp and he wiped it with his handkerchief. His eyes were troubled. “It was close. The Schupo pulled up just as I got away.”

“Anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so. I left by the far end of the alley.”

“Is it safe to stay here?” Paul asked, looking around. “Should we leave?”

“No. It would be more suspicious at this time of day to arrive at a restaurant then leave quickly without eating. Not like New York. Berliners won’t be rushed when it comes to meals. Offices close down for two hours so people can have a proper lunch. Of course, they also eat two breakfasts.” He patted his stomach. “Now you can see why I was happy to be posted here.” Looking around casually, Morgan said, “Here.” He pushed a thick book toward Paul. “See, I remembered to return it.” The German words on the cover were Mein Kampf, which Paul translated as “My Struggle.” Hitler’s name was on it. He’d written a book? Paul wondered.

“Thank you. But there was no hurry.”

Paul stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray but, when it was cool, slipped it into his pocket, ever careful not to leave traces that might place him somewhere.

Morgan leaned forward, smiling as if whispering a bawdy joke. “Inside the book’s a hundred marks. And the address of the place you’ll be staying, a boardinghouse. It’s near Lützow Plaza, south of the Tiergarten. I wrote down directions too.”

“Is it on the ground floor?”

“The apartment? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. You’re thinking of escape routes?”

Specifically he was thinking of Malone’s binge-nest with its sealed doors and windows and a welcoming party of armed sailors. “That’s right.”

“Well, have a look at it. Maybe you can swap if there’s a problem. The landlady seems agreeable. Her name is Käthe Richter.”

“Is she a Nazi?”

Morgan said softly, “Don’t use that word here. It will give you away. ‘Nazi’ is Bavarian slang for ‘simpleton.’ The proper abbreviation is ‘Nazo,’ but you don’t hear that much either. Say ‘National Socialist.’ Some people use the initials, NSDAP. Or you can refer to the ‘Party.’ And say it reverently… Regarding Miss Richter, she doesn’t seem to have any sympathies one way or the other.” Nodding at the beer, Morgan asked, “You don’t care for that?”

“Piss water.”

Morgan laughed. “It’s wheat beer. Children drink it. Why did you order it?”

“There were a thousand kinds. I’d never heard of any of them.”

“I’ll order for us.”

When the waiter arrived he said, “Please, bring us two Pschorr ales. And sausage and bread. With cabbage and pickled cucumbers. Butter if you have any today.”

“Yes, sir.” He took away Paul’s glass.

Morgan continued. “In the book there’s also a Russian passport with your picture in it and some rubles, about a hundred dollars’ worth. In an emergency make your way to the Swiss border. The Germans’ll be happy to get another Russian out of their country and they’ll let you pass. They won’t take the rubles because they won’t be allowed to spend them. The Swiss won’t care that you’re a Bolshevik and will be delighted to let you in to spend the money. Go to Zurich and get a message to the U.S. embassy. Gordon will get you out. Now, after Dresden Alley we must be extremely careful. Like I said, something is clearly going on in town. There are far more patrols on the street than usual: Stormtroopers, which is not particularly odd – they have nothing to do with their time but march and patrol – but SS and Gestapo too.”

“They are…?”

“SS… Did you see the two out on the patio? In the black uniforms?”

“Yes.”

“They were originally Hitler’s guard detail. Now they’re another private army. Mostly they wear black but some of the uniforms are gray. The Gestapo is the secret police force, plainclothes. They’re small in number but very dangerous. Their jurisdiction is political crimes mostly. But in Germany now anything can be a political crime. You spit on the sidewalk, it’s an offense to the honor of the Leader so off you go to Moabit Prison or a concentration camp.”

The Pschorr beers and food arrived and Paul drank down half of the brew at once. It was earthy and rich. “Now, that’s good.”

“You like it? After I got here I realized I could never drink American beer again. To be able to brew beer, it takes years of learning. It’s as respected as a university degree. Berlin is the brewing capital of Europe but they make the best in Munich, down in Bavaria.”

Paul ate hungrily. But beer and food were not the first things on his mind. “We have to move fast,” he whispered. In his profession every hour you were near the site of the touch-off increased the risk of getting caught. “I need information and I need a weapon.”

Morgan nodded. “My contact should be here any minute. He has details about… the man you’re here to visit. Then this afternoon we’ll go to a pawnshop. The owner has a good rifle for you.”

“Rifle?” Paul frowned.

Morgan was troubled. “You can’t shoot a rifle?”

“Yes, I can shoot one. I was infantry. But I always work up close.”

“Close? That’s easier for you?”

“It’s not a question of easy. It’s more efficient.”

“Well, believe me, Paul, it may be possible, though very difficult, to get close enough to your target to kill him with a pistol. But there are so many Brownshirts and SS and Gestapo hovering about that you’d without doubt be caught. And I guarantee that your death would be lengthy and unpleasant. But there’s another reason to use a rifle – he has to be killed in public.”

“Why?” Paul asked.

“The Senator said that everybody in the German government and the Party knows how crucial Ernst is to rearming. It’s important to make certain that whoever replaces him knows they’ll be in danger too if they take up where he left off. If Ernst dies in private, Hitler would cover it up, claim he’d been killed in an accident or died of some illness.”

“Then I’ll do it in public,” Paul said. “With a rifle. But I’ll need to sight-in the gun, get a feel for it, find a good killing field, examine it ahead of time, see what the breezes are like, the light, the routes to and from the place.”

“Of course. You’re the expert. Whatever you want.”

Paul finished his meal. “After what happened in the alley, I need to go to ground. I want to get my things from the Olympic Village and move to the boardinghouse as soon as possible. Is the room ready now?”

Morgan told him that it was.

Paul sipped more beer then pulled Hitler’s book toward him, rested it in his lap, flipped through it, found the passport, money and address. He took out the slip of paper on which was jotted the information on the boardinghouse. Dropping the book in his briefcase, he memorized the address and directions, casually wiped the note in beer spilled on the table and kneaded it in his strong hands until it was a wad of pulp. He slipped this into his pocket with the cigarette butts for later disposal.

Morgan lifted an eyebrow.

They told me you were good.

Paul nodded toward his satchel, whispering, “ My Struggle. Hitler’s book. What exactly is it?”

“Somebody called it a collection of 160,000 grammatical errors. It’s supposedly Hitler’s philosophy but basically it’s impenetrable nonsense. But you might want to keep it.” Morgan smiled. “Berlin is a city of shortages and at the moment toilet tissue is hard to find.”

A brief laugh. Then Paul asked, “This man we’re about to meet… why can we trust him?”

“In Germany now trust is a curious thing. The risk is so grave and so prevalent that it’s not enough to trust someone just because they believe in your cause. In my contact’s case, his brother was a union organizer murdered by Stormtroopers, so he sympathizes with us. But I am not willing to risk my life on that alone. So I have paid him a great deal of money. There is an expression here: ‘Whose bread I eat is whose song I sing.’ Well, Max eats a great deal of my bread. And he’s in the precarious position of having already sold me some very helpful and, for him, compromising material. This is a perfect example of how trust works here: You must either bribe someone or threaten him, and I prefer to do both simultaneously.”

The door opened and Morgan squinted in recognition. “Ah, that’s he,” he whispered. A thin man in worker’s coveralls entered the restaurant, a small rucksack slung over his shoulder. He looked around, blinking to acclimate his vision to the dimness. Morgan waved his hand and the man joined them. He was clearly nervous, eyes darting from Paul to the other patrons to the waiters to the shadows in the corridors that led to the lavatory and the kitchen, then back to Paul.

“They” is everybody in Germany now…

He sat at the table, first with his back to the door, then switched seats so that he could see the rest of the restaurant.

“Good afternoon,” Morgan said.

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail,” Paul replied.

“My friend here has asked that he be called Max. He has done work for the man you’ve come to see. Around his house. He delivers goods there and knows the housekeeper and gardener. He lives in the same town, Charlottenburg, west of here.”

Max declined food or beer and had only coffee, into which he poured sugar that left a dusty scum on the surface. He stirred vigorously.

“I need to know everything you can tell me about him,” Paul whispered.

“Yes, yes, I will.” But he fell silent and looked around again. He wore his suspicion like the lotion that plastered down his thinning hair. Paul found the uneasiness irritating, not to mention dangerous. Max opened the rucksack and offered a dark green folder to Paul. Sitting back so no one could see the contents, he opened it and found himself looking at a half dozen wrinkled photographs. They depicted a man in a business suit, which was tailored, the clothing of a meticulous, conscientious man. He was in his fifties and had a round head and short gray or white hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses.

Paul asked, “These are definitely of him? What about doubles?”

“He doesn’t use doubles.” The man took a sip of coffee with shaking hands and looked around the restaurant again.

Paul finished studying them. He was going to tell Max to keep the photos and destroy them when he got home but the man seemed too nervous and the American imagined him panicking and leaving them on the tram or subway. He slipped the folder into his satchel, next to Hitler’s book; he’d dispose of them later.

“Now,” Paul said, leaning forward, “tell me about him. Everything you know.”

Max relayed what he knew about Reinhard Ernst: The colonel retained the discipline and air of a military man though he’d been out of the service for some years. He would rise early and work long, long hours, six or seven days a week. He exercised regularly and was an expert shot. He often carried a small automatic pistol. His office was on Wilhelm Street, in the Chancellory building, and he drove himself to and from the office, rarely accompanied by a guard. His car was an open-air Mercedes.

Paul was considering what the man had said. “This Chancellory? He’s there every day?”

“Usually, yes. Though sometimes he travels to shipyards or, recently, to Krupp’s works.”

“Who’s Krupp?”

“His companies make munitions and armor.”

“At the Chancellory, where would he park?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been there.”

“Can you find out where he’ll be in the next few days? When he might go to the office?”

“Yes, I’ll try.” A pause. “I don’t know if…” Max’s voice faded.

“What?” Paul asked.

“I know some things about his personal life too. About his wife, daughter-in-law, his grandson. Do you want to know that side of his life? Or would you rather not?”

Touching the ice…

“No,” Paul said in a whisper. “Tell me everything.”

They drove down Rosenthaler Street, as quickly as the tiny engine could carry them, toward the Summer Garden restaurant.

Konrad Janssen asked his boss, “Sir, a question?”

“Yes?”

“Inspector Krauss was hoping to find that a foreigner was the killer and we have evidence that the suspect is one. Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“Evidence that suggests that he might be one. And not very strongly. Merely that he might have had an accent and that he whistled for a taxi.”

“Yes, sir. But shouldn’t we have mentioned it? We could use the Gestapo’s resources.”

Heavyset Kohl was breathing hard and sweating furiously in the heat. He liked the summer because the family could enjoy the Tiergarten and Luna Park or drive to Wannsee or the Havel River for picnics. But for climate he was an autumn person at heart. He wiped his forehead and replied, “No, Janssen, we should not have mentioned it nor should we have sought the Gestapo’s help. And this is why: First, since the consolidation last month, the Gestapo and SS are doing whatever they can to strip the Kripo of its independence. We must retain as much as we can and that means we need to do our job alone. And second, and much, much more important: The Gestapo’s ‘resources’ are often simply arresting anyone who seems in the least guilty – of anything. And sometimes arresting those who are clearly innocent but whose arrests might be convenient. ”

Kripo headquarters contained six hundred holding cells, whose purpose had once been like those in police stations everywhere: to detain criminal arrestees until they were released or tried. Presently these cells – filled to overflowing – held those accused of vague political crimes and were over-seen by Stormtroopers, brutal young men in brown uniforms and white armbands. The cells were merely temporary stops on the way to a concentration camp or Gestapo headquarters on Prince Albrecht Street. Sometimes to the cemetery.

Kohl continued. “No, Janssen, we’re craftsmen practicing the refined art of police work, not Saxon farmers armed with sickles to mow down dozens of citizens in the pursuit of a single guilty man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never forget that.” He shook his head. “Ach, how much harder it is to do our job in this moral quicksand around us.” As he pulled the car to the curb he glanced at his assistant. “Janssen, you could have me arrested, you know, and sent to Oranienburg for a year for saying what I just did.”

“I wouldn’t say anything, sir.”

Kohl killed the ignition. They climbed out, then trotted quickly up the broad sidewalk toward the Summer Garden. As they got closer Willi Kohl detected the scent of well-marinated sauerbraten, for which this place was known. His stomach growled.

Janssen was carrying a copy of the National Socialist newspaper, The People’s Observer, which featured Göring prominently on the front page, wearing a jaunty hat of a cut that wasn’t common in Berlin. Thinking of these particular accessories, Kohl glanced at his assistant; the inspector candidate’s fair face was growing red from the July sun. Did today’s young people not realize that hats had been created for a purpose?

As they approached the restaurant Kohl motioned Janssen to slow. They paused beside a lamppost and studied the Summer Garden. There were not many diners remaining at this hour. Two SS officers were paying and leaving, which was just as well, since, for the reasons he’d just explained to Janssen, he preferred to say nothing about the case. The only men remaining were a middle-aged fellow in lederhosen and a pensioner.

Kohl noted the thick curtains, protecting them from surveillance from inside. He nodded to Janssen and they stepped onto the deck, the inspector asking each diner if he’d seen a large man in a brown hat enter the restaurant.

The pensioner nodded. “A big man? Indeed, Detective. I didn’t look clearly but I believe he walked inside about twenty minutes ago.”

“He’s still there?”

“He hasn’t come out, not that I saw.”

Janssen stiffened like a beagle on a scent. “Sir, shall we call the Orpo?”

These were the uniformed Order Police, housed in barracks, ready, as the name suggested, to keep order by use of rifles, machine pistols and truncheons. But Kohl thought again of the mayhem that could erupt if they were summoned, especially against an armed suspect in a restaurant filled with patrons. “No, I think we won’t, Janssen. We’ll be more subtle. You go around the back of the restaurant and wait at the door. If anyone comes out, whether in a hat or not, detain him. Remember – our suspect is armed. Now move surreptitiously.”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man stopped at the alley and, with an extremely unsurreptitious wave, turned the corner and vanished.

Kohl casually started forward and paused, as if perusing the posted menu. Then he moved closer, feeling uneasiness, feeling too the weight of his revolver in his pocket. Until the National Socialists came to power few Kripo detectives carried weapons. But several years ago, when then Interior Minister Göring had expanded the many police forces in the country, he’d ordered every policeman to carry a weapon and, to the shock of Kohl and his colleagues in the Kripo, to use them liberally. He’d actually issued an edict saying that a policeman would be reprimanded for failing to shoot a suspect, but not for shooting someone who turned out to be innocent.

Willi Kohl hadn’t fired a weapon since 1918.

Yet, picturing the shattered skull of the victim in Dresden Alley, he now was pleased that he had the gun with him. Kohl adjusted his jacket, made sure he could grab the gun quickly if he needed to and took a deep breath. He pushed through the doorway.

And froze like a statue, panicked. The interior of the Summer Garden was quite dark and his eyes were used to the brilliant sunlight outside; he was momentarily blinded. Foolish, he thought angrily to himself. He should have considered this. Here he stood with “Kripo” written all over him, a clear target for an armed suspect.

He stepped further inside and closed the door behind him. In his cottony vision, people moved throughout the restaurant. Some men, he believed, were standing. Someone was moving toward him.

Kohl stepped back, alarmed. His hand went toward the pocket containing his revolver.

“Sir, a table? Sit where you like.”

He squinted and slowly his vision began returning.

“Sir?” the waiter repeated.

“No,” he said. “I’m looking for someone.”

Finally the inspector was able to see normally again.

The restaurant contained only a dozen patrons. None was a large man with a brown hat and light suit. He started into the kitchen.

“Sir, you can’t-”

Kohl displayed his identification card to the waiter.

“Yes, sir,” the man said timidly.

Kohl walked through the stupefyingly hot kitchen and to the back door. He opened it. “Janssen?”

“No one came through the door, sir.”

The inspector candidate joined his boss and they returned to the dining room.

Kohl motioned the waiter over to them.

“Sir, what is your name?”

“Johann.”

“Well, Johann, have you seen a man in here, within the past twenty minutes, wearing a hat like this?” Kohl nodded at Janssen, who displayed the picture of Göring.

“Why, yes, I have. He and his companions just left moments ago. It seemed rather suspicious. They left by the side door.”

He pointed to the empty table. Kohl sighed with disgust. It was one of the two tables next to the windows. Yes, the curtain was thick but he noted a tiny gap at the side; their suspect had undoubtedly seen them canvassing the patrons on the patio.

“Come, Janssen!” Kohl and the inspector candidate rushed out the side door and through an anemic garden typical of the tens of thousands throughout the city; Berliners loved growing flowers and plants but land was at such a premium that they were forced to use any scraps of dirt they could find for their gardens. There was only one route out of the patch; it led to Rosenthaler Street. They trotted to it and looked up and down the congested street. No sign of their suspect.

Kohl was furious. Had he not been distracted by Krauss they would likely have had more of a chance to intercept the large man in the hat. But mostly he was angry with himself for his carelessness on the patio a moment earlier.

“In our haste,” he muttered to Janssen, “we’ve burnt the crust, but perhaps we can salvage some of the remaining loaf.” He turned and stalked back toward the front door of the Summer Garden.

Paul, Morgan and the skinny, nervous man known as Max stood fifty feet up Rosenthaler Street in a small cluster of linden trees.

They were watching the man in the white suit and his younger associate in the garden, beside the restaurant, looking up and down the street, then they returned to the front door.

“They couldn’t be after us,” Morgan said. “Impossible.”

“They were looking for someone, ” Paul said. “They came out the side door a minute after we did. That’s not a coincidence.”

In a shaky voice, Max asked, “You think they were Gestapo? Or Kripo?”

“What’s Kripo?” Paul asked.

“Criminal police. Plainclothes detectives.”

“They were some sort of police,” Paul announced. There was no doubt. He’d suspected it from the moment he’d seen the two men approach the Summer Garden. He’d taken the window table specifically to keep an eye on the street and, sure enough, he’d noticed the men – a heavyset one in a Panama hat and a slimmer, younger one in a green suit – asking diners on the patio questions. Then the younger one had stepped away – probably to cover the back door – and the white-suited cop had walked to the posted menu, examining it for far longer than one normally would.

Paul had stood suddenly, tossed down money – paper bills only, on which fingerprints would be nearly impossible to find – and snapped, “Leave now.” With Morgan and a panicked Max behind him, he’d pushed through the side door and waited at the front of a small garden until the cop had gone inside the restaurant, then walked fast down Rosenthaler Street.

“Police,” Max now muttered, sounding near tears. “No… no…”

Too many people to chase you here… and too many people to follow you, too many people to rat on you.

I’d do anything for him and the Party…

Paul looked again down the street, back toward the Summer Garden. No one was in pursuit. Still, he felt an electric current of urgency to learn information of Ernst’s whereabouts from Max and get on with the touch-off. He turned, saying, “I need to know…” His voice faded.

Max was gone.

“Where is he?”

Morgan too turned. “Goddamn,” he muttered in English.

“Did he betray us?”

“I can’t believe that he would – it would mean his arrest too. But…” Morgan’s voice faded as he looked past Paul. “No!”

Spinning around, Paul saw Max about two blocks away. He was among several people stopped by two men in black uniforms, whom he apparently hadn’t seen. “An SS security stop.”

Max looked around nervously, waiting his turn to be questioned by the SS troopers. He wiped his face, looking guilty as a teenager.

Paul whispered, “There’s nothing for him to worry about. His papers are fine. He gave us Ernst’s photos. As long as he doesn’t panic he’ll be all right.”

Calm down, Paul told the man silently. Don’t look around…

Then Max smiled and stepped closer to the SS.

“He’s going to be fine,” Morgan said.

No, he’s not, Paul thought. He’s going to shank it.

And just at that moment the man turned and fled.

The SS troops pushed aside a couple they’d been speaking with and began running after him. “Stop, you will stop!”

“No!” Morgan whispered. “Why did he do that? Why?”

Because he was scared witless, Paul thought.

Max was slimmer than the SS guards, who were in bulky uniforms, and was beginning to pull away from them.

Maybe he can make it. Maybe -

A shot echoed and Max tumbled to the concrete, blood blossoming on his back. Paul looked behind him. A third SS officer across the street had drawn his pistol and fired. Max started to crawl toward the curb when the first two guards caught up to him, gasping for breath. One drew his pistol, fired a shot into the poor man’s head and leaned against a lamppost to catch his breath.

“Let’s go,” Paul whispered. “Now!”

They turned back onto Rosenthaler Street and walked north, along with the other pedestrians moving steadily away from the site of the shooting.

“God in heaven,” Morgan muttered. “I’ve spent a month cultivating him and holding his hand while he got details on Ernst. Now what do we do?”

“Whatever we decide, it’s got to be fast; somebody might make the connection between him” – a glance back at the body in the street – “and Ernst.”

Morgan sighed and thought for a moment. “I don’t know anyone else close to Ernst… But I do have a man in the information ministry.”

“You have somebody inside there? ”

“The National Socialists are paranoid but they have one flaw that offsets that: their ego. They have so many agents in place that it never occurs to them that somebody might infiltrate them. He’s just a clerk but he may be able to find out something.”

They paused on a busy corner. Paul said, “I’m going to get my things at the Olympic Village and move to the boardinghouse.”

“The pawnshop where we’re getting the rifle is near Oranienburger Station. I’ll meet you in November 1923 Square, under the big statue of Hitler. Say, four-thirty. Do you have a map?”

“I’ll find it.”

The men shook hands and, with a glance back at the crowd standing around the body of the unfortunate man, they started their separate ways as another siren filled the streets of a city that was clean and orderly and filled with polite, smiling people – and that had been the site of two killings in as many hours.

No, Paul reflected, the unfortunate Max hadn’t betrayed him. But he realized that there was another implication that was far more troubling: These two cops or Gestapo agents had tracked Morgan or Paul or both of them from Dresden Alley to the Summer Garden on their own and come within minutes of capturing them. This was police work far better than any he’d seen in New York. Who the hell are they? he wondered.

“Johann,” Willi Kohl asked the waiter, “what exactly was this man with the brown hat wearing?”

“A light gray suit, a white shirt and a green tie, which I found rather garish.”

“And he was large?”

“Very large, sir. But not fat. He was a bodybuilder perhaps.”

“Any other characteristics?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Was he foreign?”

“I don’t know. But he spoke German flawlessly. Perhaps a faint accent.”

“His hair color?”

“I couldn’t say. Darker rather than lighter.”

“Age?”

“Not young, not old.”

Kohl sighed. “And you said ‘companions’?”

“Yes, sir. He arrived first. Then he was joined by another man. Considerably smaller. Wearing a black or dark gray suit. I don’t recall his tie. And then yet another, a man in brown overalls, in his thirties. A worker, it seemed. He joined them later.”

“Did the big man have a leather suitcase or satchel?”

“Yes. It was brown.”

“His companions spoke German too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you overhear their conversation?”

“No, Inspector.”

“And the man’s face? The man in the hat?” Janssen asked.

A hesitation. “I didn’t see the face. Or his companions’.”

“You waited on them but you did not see their faces?” Kohl asked.

“I didn’t pay any attention. It’s dark in here, as you can see. And in this business… so many people. You look but you rarely see, if you understand.”

That was true, Kohl supposed. But he also knew that since Hitler had come to power three years ago, blindness had become the national malady. People either denounced fellow citizens for “crimes” they hadn’t witnessed, or else were unable to recall the details of offenses they actually had seen. Knowing too much might mean a trip to the Alex – the Kripo headquarters – or the Gestapo’s on Prince Albrecht Street to examine endless pictures of known felons. No one would willingly go to either of those places; today’s witness could be tomorrow’s detainee.

The waiter’s eyes swept the floor, troubled. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Kohl pitied him. “Perhaps in lieu of a description of his face, you could give us some other observations and we could dispense with a visit to police headquarters. If you happen to think of something helpful.”

The man looked up, relieved.

“I’ll try to assist you,” the inspector said. “Let’s start with some specifics. What did he eat and drink?”

“Ah, that’s something. He at first ordered a wheat beer. He must not have ever drunk it before. He only sipped it and pushed it aside. But he drank all of the Pschorr ale that his companion ordered for him.”

“Good.” Kohl never knew at first what these details about a suspect might ultimately reveal. Perhaps the man’s state or country of origin, perhaps something more specific. But it was worth noting, which Willi Kohl now did in his well-thumbed notebook, after a lick of the pencil tip. “And his food?”

“Our sausage and cabbage plate. With much bread and margarine. They had the same. The big man ate everything. He seemed ravenous. His companion ate half.”

“And the third man?”

“Coffee only.”

“How did the big man – as we’ll call him – how did he hold his fork?”

“His fork?”

“After he cut a piece of sausage, did he change his fork from one hand to another and then eat the bite? Or did he lift the food to his mouth without changing hands?”

“I… I don’t know, sir. I would think possibly he did change hands. I say that because it seemed he was always placing his fork down to drink the beer.”

“Good, Johann.”

“I am happy to aid my Leader in any way I can.”

“Yes, yes,” Kohl said wearily.

Switching forks. Common in other countries, less so in Germany, like whistling for taxis. So the accent may have indeed been foreign.

“Did he smoke?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Pipe, cigar, cigarette?”

“Cigarette, I believe. But I-”

“Didn’t see the brand of the manufacturer.”

“No, sir. I didn’t.”

Kohl walked across the room and examined the suspect’s table and the chairs around it. Nothing helpful. He frowned to see that the ashtray contained ash but no cigarette stubs.

More evidence of their man’s cleverness?

Kohl then crouched and struck a match over the floor beneath the table.

“Ah, yes, look, Janssen! Some flakes of the same brown leather we found earlier. Indeed it is our man. And there are marks in the dust here that suggest he set a satchel down.”

“I wonder what it contains,” Janssen said.

“That does not interest us,” Kohl said, scooping up these flakes and depositing them in an envelope. “Not at this point. The importance is the bag itself, the connection it establishes between this man and Dresden Alley.”

Kohl thanked the waiter and, with a longing glance at a plate of wiener schnitzel, he walked outside, Janssen behind him.

“Let’s inquire around the neighborhood to see if anyone saw our gentlemen. You take the far side of the street, Janssen. I’ll take the flower vendors.” Kohl laughed grimly. Berlin flower sellers were notoriously rude.

Janssen removed his handkerchief and wiped his brow. He seemed to give a faint sigh.

“Are you tired, Janssen?”

“No, sir. Not at all.” The young man hesitated then added, “It’s just that it seems our work sometimes is hopeless. All this effort for a fat dead man.”

Kohl dug his yellow pipe out of his pocket, frowning to see that he’d put his pistol into the same pocket and had nicked the bowl. He filled it with tobacco. He said, “Yes, Janssen, you’re right. The victim was a fat middle-aged man. But we’re clever detectives, aren’t we? We know something else about him, as well.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“That he was somebody’s son.”

“Well… of course he was.”

“And perhaps he was somebody’s brother. And maybe somebody’s husband or lover. And, if he was lucky, he was a father of sons and daughters. I would hope too that there are past lovers who think of him occasionally. And in his future other lovers might have awaited. And three or four more children he could have brought into the world.” He rasped a match on the side of the box and got a smolder going in the meerschaum. “So, Janssen, when you look at the incident in this way we don’t have merely a curious mystery about a stocky dead man. We have a tragedy like a spiderweb reaching many different lives and many different places, extending for years and years. How sad that is… Do you see why our job is so important?”

“Yes, sir.”

And Kohl believed that the young man did indeed understand.

“Janssen, you must get a hat. But for now, I’ve changed my mind. You take the shady side of the street. It will mean, of course, that you must interview the flower vendors. They’ll treat you to some words you won’t hear outside of a Stormtrooper barracks but at least you won’t return to your wife tonight with skin the shade of fresh beetroot.”

Chapter Eight

Walking toward the busy square to find a taxi, Paul glanced behind him from time to time. Smoking his Chesterfield, looking at the sights, stores, passersby, once again searching for anything out of kilter.

He slipped into a public rest room, which was immaculate, and stepped into a stall. He stubbed out his cigarette and dropped it, along with the cigarette butts and wad of pulp that had held the address of Käthe Richter’s boardinghouse, into the toilet. Then he tore the pictures of Ernst up into dozens of tiny pieces and flushed everything away.

Outside on the street again, he put aside the difficult images of Max’s sad and unnecessary death and concentrated on the job ahead of him. It had been years since he’d killed anyone with a rifle. He was a good shot with a long weapon. People call guns “equalizers.” But that’s not completely true. A pistol weighs perhaps three pounds, a rifle twelve or more. To hold a weapon absolutely still requires strength, and Paul’s solid arms had helped make him the best shot in his squadron.

Yet now, as he’d explained to Morgan, when he had to touch off someone, he preferred to do it with a pistol.

And he always came in close, close as breath.

He never said a word to his victim, never confronted him, never even let him know what was about to happen. He would appear, as silently as a big man could, behind the victim, if possible, and fire the shot into his head, killing him instantly. He would never think of behaving like the sadistic Bugsy Siegel or the recently departed Dutch Schultz; they’d slowly beat people to death, torment them, taunt them. What Paul did as a button man had nothing to do with anger or pleasure or the gritty satisfaction of revenge; it was simply about committing an evil act to eliminate a greater evil.

And Paul Schumann insisted on paying the price for this hypocrisy. He suffered from the proximity of killing. The deaths sickened him, sent him into a tunnel of sorrow and guilt. Every time he killed, another part of him died too. Once, drunk in a shabby West Side Irish bar, he concluded that he was the opposite of Christ; he died so that others might die too. He wished he’d been too smoked on hooch to remember that thought. But it’d stuck with him.

Still, he supposed Morgan was right about using the rifle. His buddy Damon Runyon had once said that a man could be a winner only if he was willing to step over the edge. Paul sure did that often enough, but he also knew when to stop walking. He’d never been suicidal. On a number of occasions he’d postponed the touch-off when he sensed the odds were bad. Maybe six to five against was acceptable. But worse than that? He didn’t -

A loud crash startled him. Something flew through a bookstore window onto the sidewalk a few yards away. A bookcase. Some books followed. He glanced inside the shop and saw a middle-aged man holding his bloody face. He appeared to have been struck on the cheek. A woman, crying, gripped his arm. They were both terrified. Four large men in light brown uniforms stood around them. Paul supposed they were Stormtroopers, Brownshirts. One of them was holding a book and shouting at the man. “You are not allowed to sell this shit! They’re illegal. They’re a ticket to Oranienburg.”

“It’s Thomas Mann,” the man protested. “It means nothing against the Leader or our Party. I-”

The Brownshirt slapped the bookseller in his face with the open book. He spoke in a mocking voice. “It’s…” Another furious slap. “Thomas…” Another, and the spine of the book broke. “Mann…”

The bullying angered Paul but it wasn’t his problem. He could hardly afford to draw attention to himself here. He started on. But suddenly one of the Brownshirts grabbed the woman by the arm and pushed her out the door. She fell hard into Paul and dropped to the sidewalk. She was so terrified she didn’t even seem to notice him. Blood ran from her knees and palms where the window glass had cut her skin.

The apparent leader of the Stormtroopers dragged the man outside. “Destroy the place,” he called to his friends, who began to push over the counters and shelves, rip the pictures from the walls, slam the sturdy chairs onto the floor, trying to break them. The leader glanced at Paul then delivered a powerful blow to the midsection of the bookseller, who gave a grunt, rolled over on his stomach and vomited. The Brownshirt stepped toward the woman. He grabbed her by the hair and was about to strike her in the face when Paul, out of instinct, grabbed his arm.

The man spun around, spittle flying from his mouth, set in a large, square face. He stared into Paul’s blue eyes. “Who are you? Do you know who I am? Hugo Felstedt of the Berlin Castle Stormtrooper Brigade. Alexander! Stefan!”

Paul eased the woman aside. She bent and helped up the other bookseller, who was wiping his mouth, tears falling from the pain, the humiliation.

Two Stormtroopers emerged from the store. “Who is this?” one asked.

“Your card! Now!” Felstedt cried.

Although he’d boxed all his life, Paul avoided street brawls. His father used to sternly lecture the boy that he should never compete in any event where no one oversaw the rules. He was forbidden to fight in school yards and alleyways. “You listening to me, son?” Paul had dutifully replied, “Sure, Pa, you bet.” But sometimes there was nothing to do but meet Jake McGuire or Little Bill Carter and take and give some knuckle. He wasn’t sure what made those times different. But somehow you knew without a doubt that you couldn’t walk away.

And sometimes – maybe a lot of times – you could, but you just plain didn’t want to.

He sized up the man; he was like the kid lieutenant, Vincent Manielli, Paul decided. Young and muscled, but mostly talk. The American eased his weight to his toes, balanced himself and struck Felstedt’s midsection with a nearly invisible straight right.

The man’s jaw dropped and he backed up, struggling for breath, tapping his chest as if searching for his heart.

“You swine,” one of the others cried in a high voice, shocked, reaching for his pistol. Paul danced forward, grabbed the man’s right hand, pulled it from the holster cover, and popped a left hook into his face. In boxing there is no pain worse than a solid blow to the nose and, as the cartilage snapped and the blood flowed onto his camel-brown uniform, the man gave a keening howl and staggered back against the wall, tears pouring from his eyes.

Hugo Felstedt had by now dropped to his knees and was no longer interested in his heart; he was gripping his belly as he retched pathetically.

The third trooper went for his gun.

Paul stepped forward fast, fists closed. “Don’t,” he warned calmly. The Brownshirt suddenly bolted up the street, crying, “I’ll get some help… I’ll get some help…”

The fourth Stormtrooper stepped outside. Paul moved toward him and he cried, “Please, don’t hurt me!”

Eyes fixed on the Brownshirt, Paul knelt, opened the satchel and began rummaging through the papers inside to find the pistol.

His eyes dipped for a moment and the Stormtrooper bent suddenly, grabbed some shards of window glass and flung them toward Paul. He ducked but the man launched himself into the American and caught him on the cheek with his brass-knuckled fist. It was a glancing blow but Paul was stunned and fell backward over his briefcase into a small weedy garden next to the store. The Brownshirt leapt after him. They grappled. The man was not particularly strong nor was he a trained fighter but, still, it took Paul a moment to struggle to his feet. Angry that he’d been caught off guard, he grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted sharply and heard a snap.

“Oh,” the man whispered. He sagged to the ground and passed out.

Felstedt was rolling into a sitting position, wiping vomit from his face.

Paul pulled the man’s pistol from his belt and flung it onto the roof of a low building nearby. He turned to the bookseller and the woman. “Leave now. Go.”

Speechless, they stared at him.

“Now!” he muttered sharply.

A whistle sounded up the street. Some shouts.

Paul said, “Run!”

The bookseller wiped his mouth again and glanced at the remains of their shop one last time. The woman put her arm around his shoulders and they hurried away.

Looking in the opposite direction down Rosenthaler Street, Paul noted a half dozen Brownshirts running in his direction.

“You Jew swine,” the man with the broken nose muttered. “Oh, you’re done for now.”

Paul grabbed the satchel, scooped the scattered contents back inside and began running toward a nearby alley. A glance behind. The clutch of large men was in pursuit. Where the hell had they all come from? Breaking from the alley, he found himself on a street of residential buildings, pushcarts, decrepit restaurants and tawdry shops. He paused, looking around the crowded street.

He stepped past a vendor selling secondhand clothing and, when the man was looking away, slipped a dark green jacket off a rack of men’s garments. He rolled it up and started into another alley to put it on. But he heard shouts from nearby. “There! Is that him?… You! Stop!”

To his left he saw three more Stormtroopers pointing his way. Word had spread of the incident. He hurried into the alley, longer and darker than the first. More shouts behind him. Then a gunshot. He heard a sharp snap as the bullet hit brick near his head. He glanced back. Another three or four uniformed men had joined his pursuers.

There are far too many people in this country who will chase you simply because you are running…

Paul spit hard against the wall and struggled to suck air into his lungs. A moment later he burst out of the alley into another street, more crowded than the first. He inhaled deeply and lost himself in the crowds of Saturday shoppers. Looking up and down the avenue, he saw three or four alleys branching off.

Which one?

Shouts behind him as the Stormtroopers poured into the street. No time to wait. He picked the nearest alleyway.

Wrong choice. The only exits from it were five or six doors. They were all locked.

He started to run back out of the cul-de-sac but stopped. There were now a dozen Brownshirts prowling through the crowds, moving steadily toward this alley. Most of them held pistols. Boys accompanied them, dressed like the flag-lowering youngsters he’d met yesterday at the Olympic Village.

Steadying his breathing, he pressed flat against the brick.

A swell mess this is, he thought angrily.

He stuffed his hat, tie and suit jacket into the satchel, then pulled on the green jacket.

Paul set the bag at his feet and took out the pistol. He checked to make certain the gun was loaded and a round chambered. Bracing his arm against the wall, he rested the weapon on his forearm and leaned out slowly, aiming at the man who was in the lead – Felstedt.

It would be difficult for them to figure out where the shot had come from and Paul hoped they’d scatter for cover, giving him the chance to lam through the rows of nearby pushcarts. Risky… but they’d be at this alley in a few minutes; what other choices did he have?

Closer, closer…

Touching the ice…

Pressure slowly increasing on the trigger as he aimed at the center of the man’s chest, the sights floating on the spot where the diagonal leather strap from belt to shoulder covered his heart.

“No,” the voice whispered urgently in his ear.

Paul spun around, leveling the pistol at the man who’d come up silently behind him. He was in his forties, dressed in a well-worn suit. His thick hair was swept back with oil and he had a bushy mustache. He was some inches shorter than Paul, his belly protruding over his belt. In his hands was a large cardboard carton.

“You may point that elsewhere,” he said calmly, nodding down at the pistol.

The American didn’t move the gun. “Who are you?”

“Perhaps we may converse later. We have more urgent matters now.” He stepped past Paul and looked around the corner. “A dozen of them. You must have done something quite irksome.”

“I beat up three of them.”

The German lifted a surprised eyebrow. “Ach, well, I assure you, sir, if you kill one or two, there will be hundreds more here within minutes. They’ll hunt you down and they may kill a dozen innocent people in the process. I can help you escape.”

Paul hesitated.

“If you don’t do as I say they will kill you. Murder and marching are the only things they do well.”

“Put the box down.” The man did and Paul lifted his jacket, looked at the waistband then gestured for him to turn in a circle.

“I have no gun.”

The same gesture, impatient.

The German turned. Paul patted his pockets and ankles. He was unarmed.

The man said, “I was watching you. You removed your jacket and hat – that’s good. And you stood out like a virgin on Nollendorf Plaza in that gauche tie. But it is likely you’ll be searched. You must discard the clothes.” A nod toward the satchel.

Running footsteps sounded nearby. Paul stepped back, considering the words. The advice made sense. He dug the items out of the satchel and stepped to a trash bin.

“No,” the man said. “Not there. If you wish to dispose of something in Berlin don’t throw it into food bins because people foraging for scraps will find it. And don’t throw it into the waste containers or the Gestapo or the V-men or A-men from the SD will find it; they regularly go through garbage. The only safe place is the sewer. No one goes through the sewers. Not yet, in any case.”

Paul glanced down at a nearby grating and reluctantly shoved in the items.

His luck-of-the-Irish tie…

“Now I’ll add something to your role as an escaper-from-dung-shirts.” He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted several hats. He selected a light-colored canvas crush hat. He unfurled and handed it to Paul then replaced the others. “Put it on.” The American did so. “Now, the pistol too. You must get rid of it. I know you are hesitant, but in truth it will do you little good. No gun carries enough bullets to stop all the Stormtroopers in the city, let alone a puny Luger.”

Yes or no?

Instinct again told him the man was right. He crouched down and tossed the gun down the grating as well. He heard a splash far below street level.

“Now, follow me.” The man picked up the carton. When Paul hesitated he whispered, “Ach, you’re thinking, how can you possibly trust me? You don’t know me at all. But, sir, I would say that under the circumstances the real question is, how can you not trust me? Still, it’s your choice. You have about ten seconds to decide.” He laughed. “Doesn’t that always seem to be the way? The more important the decision, the less the time to make it.” He walked to a door, fiddled with a key and unlocked it. He glanced back. Paul followed. They stepped into a storeroom and the German swung the door shut and locked it. Watching through the greasy window, Paul saw the band of Stormtroopers step into the alley, look around, then continue on.

The room was densely packed with boxes and crates, dusty bottles of wine. The man paused, nodding to a carton. “Take that. It will be a prop for our storytelling. And perhaps a profitable one too.”

Paul looked at the man angrily. “I could have left my clothes and the gun in your warehouse here. I didn’t have to throw them out.”

The man jutted out his lower lip. “Ach, yes, except that this isn’t exactly my warehouse. Now, that carton. Please, sir, we must hurry.” Paul set the satchel on top, hefted the box and followed. They emerged into a dusty front room. The man glanced out the filthy window. He began to open the door.

“Wait,” Paul said. He touched his cheek; the cut from the brass knuckles was bleeding slightly. He ran his hands over some dirty shelves and pat ted his face, covering the wound, and his jacket and slacks. The smudges would draw less attention than the blood.

“Good,” the German said and pushed the door wide. “You are now a sweaty laborer. And I will be your boss. This way.” He turned directly toward a cluster of three or four Stormtroopers, speaking to a woman who lounged against a street lamp, holding a tiny poodle on a red leash.

Paul hesitated.

“Come on. Don’t slow up.”

They were almost past the Brownshirts when one of them called to the two men, “You there, stop. We will see your papers.” One of his friends joined him and they stepped in front of Paul and the German. Seething that he’d given up his gun, Paul glanced to his side. The man from the alley frowned. “Ach, our cards, yes, yes. I am very sorry, gentlemen. You must understand we’re forced to work today, as you can see.” A nod toward the cartons. “It was unplanned. An urgent delivery.”

“You must carry your card with you at all times.”

Paul said, “We are only going a short way.”

“We are looking for a large man in a gray suit and brown hat. He is armed. Have you seen anyone like that?”

A consulting glance. “No,” Paul said.

The second Brownshirt patted both the German and Paul for weapons then grabbed the satchel and opened it, glanced inside. He lifted out the copy of Mein Kampf. Paul could see the bulge where the Russian passport and rubles were hidden.

The German from the alley said quickly, “Nothing of interest in there. But now I recall that we do have our identification. Look in my man’s carton.”

The Brownshirts glanced at each other. The one holding Hitler’s book tossed it back inside, set the satchel down and ripped open the top of the carton that Paul held.

“As you can see, we are the Bordeaux Brothers.”

A Brownshirt laughed, and the German continued. “But you can never be too sure. Perhaps you should take two of those with you for verification.”

Several bottles of red wine were lifted out. The Stormtroopers waved the men on. Paul picked up the satchel and they continued up the street.

Two blocks farther on, the German nodded across the street. “In there.” The place he indicated appeared to be a nightclub decorated with Nazi flags. A wooden sign read: The Aryan Café.

“Are you mad?” Paul asked.

“Have I been right so far, my friend? Please, inside. It’s the safest place to be. Dung-shirts aren’t welcome here, nor can they afford it. As long as you haven’t beaten any SS officers or senior Party officials, you’ll be safe… You haven’t, have you?”

Paul shook his head. He reluctantly followed the man inside. He saw immediately what the man meant about the price of admission. A sign said: $20 U.S./40 DM. Jesus, he thought. The ritziest place he went to in New York, the Debonair Club, had a five-buck cover.

How much dough did he have on him? That was nearly half the money Morgan had given him. But the doorman looked up and recognized the mustachioed German. He nodded the men inside without charging them.

They pushed through a curtain into a small dark bar, cluttered with antiques and artifacts, movie posters, dusty bottles. “Otto!” the bartender called, shaking the man’s hand.

Otto set his carton on the bar and gestured for Paul to do the same with his.

“I thought you were delivering one case only.”

“My comrade here helped me carry a second one, ten bottles only in his. So that makes the total seventy marks now, does it not?”

“I asked for one case. I need only one case. I will pay for only one case.”

As the men dickered, Paul focused on the loud words coming from a large radio behind the bar. “… modern science has found myriad ways to protect the body from disease and yet if you don’t apply those simple rules of hygiene, you can fall greatly ill. With our foreign visitors in town, it is likely that there may be new strains of infection, so it is vital to keep in mind rules of sanitation.”

Otto finished the negotiation, apparently to his satisfaction, and glanced out the window. “They’re still there, prowling. Let us have a beer. I will let you buy me one.” He noticed Paul looking at the radio, which no one in the bar seemed to be paying attention to, despite the high volume. “Ach, you like the deep voice of our propaganda minister? It’s dramatic, yes? But to see him, he’s a runt. I have contacts all over Wilhelm Street, all the government buildings. They call him ‘Mickey Mouse’ behind his back. Let us go in the back. I can’t stand the droning. Every establishment must have a radio to broadcast the Party leaders’ speeches and must turn the sound up when they are transmitting. It’s illegal not to. Here they keep the radio up front to satisfy the rules. The real club is in the back rooms. Now, do you like men or women?”

“What?”

“Men or women? Which do you prefer?”

“I’m not interested in-”

“I understand, but since we must wait for the Brownshirts to grow tired of their pursuit, please tell me: Which would you rather look at while we have the beer you’ve so generously agreed to buy me? Men dancing as men, men dancing as women or women dancing as themselves?”

“Women.”

“Ach, me too. It’s illegal to be a homosexual in Germany now. But you would be surprised how many National Socialists seem to enjoy one another’s company for reasons other than discussing rightist politics. This way.” He pushed through a blue velvet curtain.

The second room was for men who enjoyed women, it seemed. They sat down at a rickety wicker table in the black-painted room, decorated with Chinese lanterns, paper streamers and animal trophies, as dusty as the Nazi flags hanging from the ceiling.

Paul handed back the canvas cap; it disappeared into the man’s pocket with the others. “Thanks.”

Otto nodded. “Ach, what are friends for?” He looked for a waiter or waitress.

“I’ll be back in a moment.” Paul rose and went to the lavatory. He washed the smudges and blood off his face and combed his hair back with lotion, which shortened and darkened it, making him appear somewhat different from the man the Brownshirts were seeking. His cheek was not badly cut but a bruise had formed around it. He stepped out of the washroom and slipped backstage. He found the dressing room for performers. A man sat at the far end, smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper. He didn’t pay any attention as Paul dipped his finger into a pot of makeup. Returning to the lavatory he smoothed the cosmetic over the bruise. He had some experience with makeup; all good boxers knew the importance of concealing injuries from their opponents.

He returned to the table, where he found Otto gesturing toward the waitress, a pretty, dark-haired young woman. But she was busy and the man sighed in irritation. He turned back, regarding Paul closely. “Now, you are obviously not from here because you know nothing of our ‘culture.’ I’m speaking of the radio. And of the dung-shirts, whom you would not have antagonized by fighting had you been a German. But your language is perfect. The faintest of accents. And not French or Slav or Spanish. What breed of dog are you?”

“I appreciate the help, Otto. But some matters I’ll keep to myself.”

“No matter. I’ve decided you’re American or English. Probably American. I know from your movies – the way you make your sentences… Yes, you are American. Who else would have a troop of dung-shirts after him but a brash American with big balls? You are from the land of heroic cowboys, who take on a tribe of Indians alone. Where is that waitress?” He looked about, smoothing his mustache. “Now, introductions. I am presenting myself to you. Otto Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Webber. And you?… But perhaps you wish to keep your name to yourself.”

“I think that’s wiser.”

Webber chuckled. “So you beat up three of them and earned the endless affection of the Brownshirts and the bitch brood?”

“The what?”

“Hitler Youth. The boys scurrying among the legs of the Stormtroopers.” Webber eyed Paul’s red knuckles. “You perhaps enjoy the boxing matches, Mr. Nameless? You look like an athlete. I can get you Olympic tickets. There are none left, as you know. But I can get them. Day seats, good ones.”

“No thanks.”

“Or I can get you into one of the Olympic parties. Max Schmeling will be at some.”

“Schmeling?” Paul raised an eyebrow. He admired Germany’s most successful heavyweight champ and had been in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium just last month to see the bout between Schmeling and Joe Louis. Shocking everyone, Schmeling knocked out the Brown Bomber in the twelfth round. The evening had cost Paul $608, eight for the ticket and the six C-notes for the bum bet.

Webber continued. “He will be there with his wife. She is so beautiful. Anny Ondra. An actress, you know. You will have a truly memorable evening. It would be quite expensive but I can arrange it. You need a dinner jacket, of course. I can provide that too. For a small fee.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Ach,” Webber muttered, as if Paul had made the mistake of his life.

The waitress stopped at their table and she stood close to Paul, smiling down at him. “I am Liesl. Your name is?”

“Hermann,” Paul said.

“You would like what?”

“Beers for us both. A Pschorr for me.”

“Ach,” Webber said, sneering at the choice. “Berlin lager for me. Bottom- fermented. A large.” When she glanced at him her look was cool, as if he’d recently stiffed her on a check.

Liesl gazed into Paul’s eyes a moment longer then offered a flirtatious smile and walked to another table.

“You have an admirer, Mr. Not-Hermann. Pretty, yes?”

“Very.”

Webber winked. “If you like, I can-”

“No,” Paul said firmly.

Webber raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to the stage, where a topless woman gyrated. She had loose disks of breasts and flabby arms, and even from a distance Paul could see creases around her mouth, which kept up a fierce smile as she moved to the scratchy sound of a gramophone.

“There is no live music here now, in the afternoon,” Webber explained. “But at night they have good bands. Brass… I love brass. I have a gramophone disk I play often. The great British bandleader, John Philip Sousa.”

“Sorry to tell you: He’s American.”

“No!”

“It’s true.”

“What a country that must be, America. They have such wonderful cinema and millions of motorcars, I hear. And now I learn they have John Philip Sousa too.”

Paul watched the waitress approach, slim hips rocking back and forth. Liesl set the beers down. She’d put on fresh perfume, it seemed, in the three or four minutes she’d been away. She smiled at Paul and he grinned back then glanced at the check. Not familiar with German currency and not wishing to draw attention to himself fumbling with coins, Paul gave her a five-mark note, which was about two bucks, four bits, he guessed.

Liesl took the difference to be a tip and thanked him heartily, gripping his hand in both of hers. He was afraid she’d kiss him. He didn’t know how to ask for the rest of the money back and decided to put the loss down to a lesson about German customs. With another adoring glance, Liesl left the table then instantly grew sullen at the prospect of waiting on other tables. Webber clinked his stein against Paul’s and both men drank deeply.

Webber eyed Paul closely and said, “So. What kind of cons do you run?”

“Cons?”

“When I first saw you in the alley, with that gun, I thought: Ach, he’s no Soci or Kosi-”

“What?”

“Soci – a Social Democrat. It used to be a big political party until it was outlawed. Kosis are the Communists. They’re not only outlawed; they’re dead. No, I knew you were not an agitator. You were one of us, a con runner, an artist-of-dark-dealings.” He glanced around the room. “Don’t worry. As long as we’re quiet it’s safe to talk. No microphones here. No Party loyalty either, not inside these walls. After all, a man’s dick is always more reliable than his conscience and National Socialists have no consciences to start with.” Webber persisted: “So what kind of cons?”

“I don’t do cons. I came over for the Olympics.”

“You did?” He winked. “There must be a new event this year that I’ve not heard of.”

“I’m a sportswriter.”

“Ach, a writer… yet one who fights Brownshirts, keeps his name to himself, walks around with a peashooter of a Luger, changes clothes to avoid pursuers. And then slicks back his hair and puts on pancake.” Webber tapped his own cheek and smiled knowingly.

“I happened to run into some Stormtroopers attacking this couple. I stopped them. As for the Luger, it was one of theirs. I stole it.”

“Yes, yes, so you say… Do you know Al Capone?”

“Of course not,” Paul said, exasperated.

Webber sighed loudly, genuinely disappointed. “I follow American crime. Many of us do, here in Germany. We are always reading crime shockers – novels, you understand? Many are set in America. I followed with great interest the fate of John Dillinger. He was betrayed by a woman in a red dress and shot down in an alley after they’d been to the cinema. I think it was good he saw the film before they killed him. He died with that small pleasure within him. Though it would have been better yet had he seen the film, gotten drunk, bedded the woman and then been shot. That would have been a perfect death. Yes, I think that, despite what you say, you are a real mobster, Mr. John Dillinger. Liesl! Beautiful Liesl! More beer here! My friend is buying two more.”

Webber’s stein was empty; Paul’s was three-quarters full. He called to Liesl, “No, not for me. For him only.”

As she disappeared toward the bar she tossed Paul another adoring look, the brightness in her eyes, the slim figure reminding him of Marion. He wondered how she was, what she was doing at the moment, which would be six or seven hours earlier in America. Call me, she’d said in their last conversation, thinking he was bound for Detroit on business. Paul had learned you could actually place a telephone call across the Atlantic Ocean but it cost almost $50 a minute. Besides, no competent button man would think of leaving such evidence of his whereabouts.

He looked over the Nazis in the audience: some SS or soldiers in their immaculate black or gray uniforms, some businessmen. Most were tipsy, some were well into their afternoon drunks. All smiled gamely but seemed bored as they watched a very unsexy sex show.

When the waitress arrived she did indeed have two beers. She set one in front of Webber, whom she otherwise ignored, and said to Paul, “You may pay for your friend’s but yours is a present from me.” She took his hand and placed it around the handle of the stein. “Twenty-five pfennigs.”

“Thank you,” he said, reflecting that the extra marks from the fiver would probably have bought him a keg. He gave her a mark this time.

She shivered with pleasure, as if he’d slipped her a diamond ring. Liesl kissed his forehead. “Please enjoy.” And headed off again.

“Ach, you got the familiar discount. Me, I have to pay fifty. Of course, most foreigners pay a mark seventy-five.”

Webber drained a third of the stein. He wiped the residue from his mustache with the back of his arm and pulled out a pack of cigars. “These are vile but I rather like them.” He offered the pack to Paul, who shook his head. “They are cabbage leaves soaked in tobacco water and nicotine. It’s hard now to find real cigars.”

“What line are you in?” Paul asked. “Aside from being a wine importer.”

Webber laughed and squinted a coy gaze at Paul. He worked to inhale the acrid smoke and then said thoughtfully, “Many different things. Much of what I do is to acquire and sell hard-to-find items. Military goods are in demand lately. Not weapons, of course. But insignias, canteens, belts, boots, uniforms. Everyone here loves uniforms. When husbands are at work, their women go out and buy them uniforms, even if they have no rank or any affiliation. Children wear them. Infants! Medals, bars, ribbons, epaulets, collar tabs. And I sell them to the government for our real soldiers too. We have conscription again. Our army is swelling. They need uniforms, and cloth is hard to come by. I have people from whom I acquire uniforms and then I alter them somewhat and sell them to the army.”

“You steal them from one government source and sell them back to another.”

“Ach, Mr. John Dillinger, you are very funny.” He looked across the room. “One moment… Hans, come here. Hans!”

A man dressed in a tuxedo appeared. He looked suspiciously at Paul but Webber assured him that they were friends and then said, “I have come into possession of some butter. Would you like it?”

“How much?”

“How much butter or how much the price?”

“Both, naturally.”

“Ten kilos. Seventy-five marks.”

“If it’s like last time, you mean you have six kilos of butter mixed with four kilos of coal oil, lard, water and yellow dye. That is too much to pay for six kilos of butter.”

“Then trade me two cases of French champagne.”

“One case.”

“Ten kilos for one case?” Webber looked indignant.

“Six kilos, as I explained.”

“Eighteen bottles.”

With a dismissing shrug the maître d’ said, “Add more dye and I’ll agree. A dozen patrons refused to eat your white butter last month. And who could blame them?”

After he had left, Paul finished his beer and shook a Chesterfield out of the pack, once again keeping it below the level of the table so that no one could see the American brand. It took him four tries to light the cigarette; the cheap matches the club provided kept breaking.

Webber nodded at them. “I didn’t supply those, my friend. Don’t blame me.”

Paul inhaled long on the Chesterfield and then asked, “Why did you help me, Otto?”

“Because, of course, you were in need.”

“You do good deeds, do you?” Paul raised an eyebrow.

Webber stroked his mustache. “All right, let us be honest: In these days one must look much harder for opportunities than in the past.”

“And I’m an opportunity.”

“Who can say, Mr. John Dillinger? Perhaps no, perhaps yes. If no, then I’ve wasted nothing but an hour drinking beer with a new friend and that is no waste at all. If yes, then perhaps we can both profit.” He rose, walked to the window and looked out past a thick curtain. “I think it is safe for you to leave… Whatever you are doing in our vibrant city, I may be just the man for you. I know many people here, people in important places – no, not the men at the top. I mean the people it is best to know for those in our line of work.”

“What people?”

“The little people, well placed. Did you hear the joke about the town in Bavaria that replaced its weathervane with a civil servant? Why? Because civil servants know better than anyone which way the wind is blowing. Ha!” He laughed hard. Then his face grew solemn again and he finished the stein of beer. “In truth, I’m dying here. Dying of boredom. I miss the old days. So, leave a message or come see me. I’m usually here. In this room or at the bar.” He wrote the address down on a napkin and pushed it forward.

Glancing at the square of paper, Paul memorized the address and pushed the paper back.

Webber watched him. “Ah, you’re quite the savvy sportswriter, aren’t you?”

They walked to the door. Paul shook his hand. “Thank you, Otto.”

Outside, Webber said, “Now, my friend, farewell. I hope to see you again.” Then he scowled. “And for me? A quest for yellow dye. Ach, this is what my life has become. Lard and yellow dye.”

Chapter Nine

Reinhard Ernst, sitting in his spacious office in the Chancellory, looked over the carelessly formed characters in the note once again.

Col. Ernst:

I await the report you have agreed to prepare on your Waltham Study. I have devoted some time to review it on Monday.

Adolf Hitler

He cleaned his wire-rimmed glasses, replaced them. He wondered what the careless lettering revealed of the writer. The signature was particularly distinctive. The “Adolf ” was a compressed lightning bolt; “Hitler” was somewhat more legible but it sloped curiously, and severely, downward to the right.

Ernst spun around in his chair and stared out the window. He felt just like an army commander who knew that the enemy was approaching, about to attack, but not knowing when he would strike, what his tactics would be, how strong was his force, where he would establish the lines of assault, where the flanking maneuver would come.

Aware too that the battle would be decisive and the fate of his army – indeed, of the whole nation – was at stake.

He wasn’t exaggerating the gravity of his dilemma. Because Ernst knew something about Germany that few others sensed or would admit out loud: that Hitler would not be in power long.

The Leader’s enemies, both within the country and without, were too many. He was Caesar, he was Macbeth, he was Richard. As his madness played itself out he would be ousted, murdered, or even die by his own hand (so astonishingly manic were his rages), and others would step into the immense vacuum after his demise. And not Göring either; greed of soul and greed of body were in a footrace to bring him down. Ernst’s own feeling was that, with the two leaders gone (and Goebbels pining away for his lost love, Hitler), the National Socialists would wither, and a centrist Prussian statesman would emerge – another Bismarck, imperial perhaps but reasonable and a brilliant statesman.

And Ernst might even have a hand in that transformation. For, short of a bullet or bomb, the only sure threat to Adolf Hitler and the Party was the German army.

In June of ’34, Hitler and Göring murdered or arrested much of the Stormtrooper leadership during the so-called Night of the Long Knives. The purge was felt necessary largely to appease the regular army, which had become jealous of the huge Brownshirt militia. Hitler had regarded the horde of thugs on one side and the German military – the direct heirs of the nineteenth century’s Hohenzollern battalions – on the other, and without a moment’s hesitation chose the latter. Two months later, upon President Hindenburg’s death, Hitler took two steps to solidify his position. First, he declared himself the unrestricted leader of the nation. Second – and far more important – he required the German armed forces to pledge a personal oath of loyalty to him.

De Tocqueville had said that there would never be a revolution in Germany for the police would not allow it. No, Hitler wasn’t concerned about a popular uprising; his only fear was the army.

And it was a new, enlightened military that Ernst had devoted his life to since the end of the War. An army that would protect Germany and its citizens from all threats, perhaps ultimately even from Hitler himself.

Yet, he reflected, Hitler was not gone yet, and Ernst couldn’t afford to ignore the author of this note, which was as troubling to him as the distant rumble of armor approaching through the night.

Col. Ernst: I await the report…

He had hoped that the intrigue Göring set in motion would fade away, but this piece of onionskin paper meant that it would not. He understood that he had to act quickly to prepare for and repel the attack.

After a difficult debate, the colonel came to a decision. He pocketed the letter, rose from his desk and left his office, telling his secretary that he would return within a half hour.

Down one hall, down another, past the ubiquitous construction work in the old, dusty building. Workers, busy even on the weekend, were everywhere. Building was the metaphor for the new Germany – a nation rising from the ashes of Versailles, being reconstructed according to Hitler’s often-quoted philosophy of “bringing-into-line” with National Socialism every citizen and institution in the country.

Down another hallway, under a stern portrait of the Leader in three-quarter view, looking slightly upward, as if at his vision for the nation.

Ernst stepped outside into the gritty wind, hot from the broiling afternoon sun.

“Hail, Colonel.”

Ernst nodded to the two guards, armed with bayonet-mounted Mausers. He was amused at their greeting. It was customary for anyone near cabinet rank to be addressed by his full title. But “Mr. Plenipotentiary” was laughably cumbersome.

Down Wilhelm Street, past Voss Street then Prince Albrecht Street, with a glance to his right at No. 8 – Gestapo headquarters in the old hotel and arts-and-crafts school. Continuing south to his favorite café, he ordered a coffee. He sat for only a moment and then walked to the phone kiosk. He called a number, dropped some pfennigs into the slot and was connected.

A woman’s voice answered. “Good day.”

“Please, Dame Keitel?”

“No, sir. I am the housekeeper.”

“Is Doctor-professor Keitel available? This is Reinhard Ernst.”

“One moment, please.”

A moment later a man’s soft voice came through the line. “Good day, Colonel. Though a hot one.”

“Indeed, Ludwig… We need to meet. Today. An urgent matter has come up about the study. You can make yourself available?”

“Urgent?”

“Extremely so. Can you come to my office? I’m awaiting word on some matters from England. So I must be at my desk. Four P.M. would be convenient?”

“Yes, of course.”

They rang off and Ernst returned to his coffee.

What ridiculous measures he needed to resort to simply to find a phone not monitored by Göring’s minions. I have seen war from the inside and from the out, he thought. The battlefield is horrible, yes, inconceivably horrible. But how much purer and cleaner, even angelic, is war, compared with a struggle where your enemies are beside, not facing, you.

On the fifteen-mile ride from downtown Berlin to the Olympic Village, along a wide, perfectly smooth highway, the taxi driver whistled happily and told Paul Schumann that he was anticipating many well-paying fares during the Olympics.

Suddenly the man grew silent as some ponderous classical music poured from a radio; the Opel was equipped with two, one to dispatch the driver and one for public transmissions. “Beethoven,” the driver commented. “It precedes all official broadcasts. We will listen.” A moment later the music faded and a raw, passionate voice began speaking.

“In the first place, it is not acceptable to treat this question of infection frivolously; it must be understood that good health would depend and does depend on finding ways to treat not only the symptoms of the disease, but the source of the illness, as well. Look at the tainted waters of a stagnant pond, a breeding ground for germs. But a fast-moving river does not offer the same climate for such danger. Our campaign will continue to locate and drain these stagnant pools, thereby offering germs and the mosquitoes and flies that carry them no place to multiply. Moreover-”

Paul listened for a moment longer but the repetitious rambling bored him. He tuned out the meaningless sound and looked at the sun-baked landscape, the houses, the inns, as the pretty suburbs west of the city gave way to more sparse areas. The driver turned off the Hamburg highway and pulled up in front of the Olympic Village’s main entrance. Paul paid the man, who thanked him by lifting an eyebrow but said nothing, remaining fixed on the words streaming from the radio. He considered asking the driver to wait but decided it would be wiser to find someone else to take him back to town.

The village was hot in the afternoon sun. The wind smelled salty, like ocean air, but it was dry as alum and carried a fine grit. Paul displayed his pass and continued down the perfectly laid sidewalk, past rows of narrow trees perfectly spaced, rising straight from round disks of mulch in the perfect, green grass. The German flag snapped smartly in the hot wind: red and white and black.

Ach, surely you know…

At the American dorms he bypassed the reception area, with its German soldier, and slipped into his room through the back door. He changed his outfit, burying the green jacket in a basket full of dirty laundry, there being no sewers handy, and putting on cream-colored flannels, a tennis shirt and a light cable-knit sweater. He brushed his hair differently – to the side. The makeup had worn off but there was nothing he could do about that now. As he stepped out the door with his suitcase and satchel a voice called, “Hey, Paul.”

He glanced up to see Jesse Owens, dressed in gymnasium clothes, returning to the dorm. Owens asked, “What’re you doing?”

“Heading into town. Get some work done.”

“Naw, Paul. We were hoping you’d stay around. You missed an all-right ceremony last night. You’ve gotta see the food they got here. It’s swell.”

“I know it’s grand, but I gotta skip. I’m doing some interviews in town.”

Owens stepped closer then nodded at the cut and bruise on Paul’s face. Then the runner’s sharp eyes dropped down to the man’s knuckles, which were raw and red from the fight.

“Hope the rest of your interviews go better than the one this morning. Dangerous to be a sportswriter in Berlin, looks like.”

“I took a spill. Nothing serious.”

“Not for you maybe,” Owens said, amused. “But what about the fellow you landed on?”

Paul couldn’t help but smile. The runner was just a kid. But there was something worldly about him. Maybe growing up a Negro in the South and Midwest made you mature faster. Same with putting yourself through school on the heels of the Depression.

Like stumbling into his own line of work had changed Paul. Changed him real fast.

“What exactly are you doin’ here, Paul?” the runner whispered.

“Just my job,” he answered slowly. “Just doing my job. Say, what’s the wire on Stoller and Glickman? Hope they haven’t been sidelined.”

“Nope, they’re still scheduled,” Owens said, frowning, “but the rumors aren’t sounding good.”

“Good luck to them. And to you too, Jesse. Bring home some gold.”

“We’ll do our best. See you later?”

“Maybe.”

Paul shook his hand and walked off toward the entrance to the village, where a line of taxis waited.

“Hey, Paul.”

He turned to see the fastest man in the world saluting him, a grin on his face.

The poll of the vendors and bench-sitters along Rosenthaler Street had been futile (though Janssen confirmed that he’d learned some new curses when a flower seller found out he was troubling her only to ask questions, not to buy anything). There had been a shooting not far away, Kohl had learned, but that was an SS matter – perhaps about their jealously guarded “minor security matter” – and none of the elite guard would deign to speak to the Kripo about it.

Upon their return to headquarters, however, they found that a miracle had occurred. The photographs of the victim and of the fingerprints from Dresden Alley were on Willi Kohl’s desk.

“Look at this, Janssen,” Kohl said, gesturing at the glossy pictures, neatly assembled in a file.

He sat down at his battered desk in his office in the Alex, the Kripo’s massive, ancient building, nicknamed for the bustling square and surrounding neighborhood where it was located: Alexander Plaza. All the state buildings were being renovated except theirs, it seemed. The criminal police were housed in the same grimy building they’d been in for years. Kohl did not mind this, however, since it was some distance from Wilhelm Street, which at least gave some practical autonomy to the police, even if none now existed administratively.

Kohl was also fortunate to have an office of his own, a room that measured four meters by six and contained a desk, a table and three chairs. On the oak plain of the desk were a thousand pieces of paper, an ashtray, a pipe rack and a dozen framed photographs of his wife, children and parents.

He rocked forward in his creaking wooden chair and looked over the crime scene photographs and the ones of the fingerprints. “You’re talented, Janssen. These are quite good.”

“Thank you, sir.” The young man was looking down at them, nodding.

Kohl regarded him closely. The inspector himself had taken a traditional route up through the police ranks. The son of a Prussian farmer, young Willi had become fascinated with both Berlin and police work from the story-books he’d read growing up. At eighteen he’d come to the city and gotten a job as a uniformed Schupo officer, went through the basic training at the famed Berlin Police Institute and worked his way up to corporal and sergeant, receiving a college degree along the way. Then, with a wife and two children, he’d gone on to the institute’s Officers School and joined Kripo, rising over the years from detective-inspector assistant to senior detective-inspector.

His young protégé, on the other hand, had gone a different route, one that was far more common nowadays. Janssen had graduated from a good university several years ago, passed the qualifying exam in jurisprudence, then, after attending the police institute, he was accepted at this young age as a detective-inspector candidate, apprenticed to Kohl.

It was often hard to draw the inspector candidate out; Janssen was reserved. He was married to a solid, dark-haired woman who was now pregnant with their second child. The only time Janssen grew animated was when he talked about his family or about his passion for bicycling and hiking. Until all police were put on overtime because of the approaching Olympics, detectives worked only half days on Wednesday and Janssen would often change into his hiking shorts in a Kripo lavatory at noon and go off on a wander with his brother or his wife.

But whatever made him tick, the man was smart and ambitious and Kohl was very fortunate to have him. Over the past several years the Kripo had been hemorrhaging talented officers to the Gestapo, where the pay and opportunities were far better. When Hitler came to power the number of Kripo detectives around the country was twelve thousand. Now, it was down to eight thousand. And of those, many were former Gestapo investigators sent to the Kripo in exchange for the young officers who’d transferred out; in truth, they were largely drunks and incompetents.

The telephone buzzed and he picked it up. “This is Kohl.”

“Inspector, it is Schreiber, the clerk you spoke to today. Hail Hitler.”

“Yes, yes, hail.” On the way back to the Alex from the Summer Garden, Kohl and Janssen had stopped at the haberdashery department at Tietz, the massive department store that dominated the north side of Alexander Plaza, near Kripo headquarters. Kohl had shown the clerk the picture of Göring’s hat and asked what kind it was. The man didn’t know but would look into the matter.

“Any luck?” Kohl asked him.

“Ach, yes, yes, I have found the answer. It’s a Stetson. Made in the United States. As you know, Minister Göring shows the finest taste.”

Kohl made no comment on that. “Are they common here?”

“No, sir. Quite rare. Expensive, as you can imagine.”

“Where could I buy one in Berlin?”

“In truth, sir, I don’t know. The minister, I’m told, special-orders them from London.”

Kohl thanked him, hung up and told Janssen what he’d learned.

“So perhaps he’s an American,” Janssen said. “But perhaps not. Since Göring wears the same hat.”

“A small piece of the puzzle, Janssen. But you will find that many small pieces often give a clearer picture of a crime than a single large piece.” He took the brown evidence envelopes from his pocket and selected the one containing the bullet.

The Kripo had its own forensics laboratory, dating back to when the Prussian police force had been the nation’s preeminent law enforcer (if not the world’s; in the Weimar days, the Kripo closed 97 percent of the murder cases in Berlin). But the lab too had been raided by the Gestapo both for equipment and personnel, and the technical workers at headquarters were harried and far less competent than they had once been. Willi Kohl, therefore, had taken it upon himself to become an expert in certain areas of criminal science. Despite the absence of his personal interest in firearms, Kohl had made quite a study of ballistics, modeling his approach on the best firearms laboratory in the world – the one at J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C.

He shook the bullet out onto a clean piece of paper.

Placing the monocle in his eye he found a pair of tweezers and examined the slug carefully. “Your eyes are better,” he said. “You look.”

The inspector candidate carefully took the bullet and the monocle while Kohl pulled a binder from his shelf. It contained photographs and sketches of many types of bullets. The binder was large, several hundred pages, but the inspector had organized it by caliber and by number of grooves and lands – the stripes pressed into a lead slug by the rifling in the barrel – and whether they twisted to the left or the right. Only five minutes later Janssen found a match.

“Ach, this is good news,” Kohl said.

“How so?”

“It is an unusual weapon our killer used. Look. It’s a nine-millimeter Largo round. Most likely from the Spanish Star Modelo A. Good for us, it is rare. And as you pointed out, it is either a new weapon or one that has been fired little. Let us hope the former. Janssen, you have a way with words: Please send a telegram to all police precincts in the area. Have them query gun shops and see if any have sold a new or little-used Star Modelo A in the past several months, or ammunition for such a gun. No, make that the past year. I want names and addresses of all purchasers.”

“Yes, sir.”

The young inspector candidate took down the information and started for the Teletype room.

“Wait, add as a postscript to your message a description of our suspect. And that he is armed.” The inspector gathered up the clearest photographs of the suspect’s fingerprints and the inked card of the victim’s. Sighing, he said, “And now I must try to be diplomatic. Ach, how I hate doing that.”

Chapter Ten

“I am sorry, Inspector Kohl, the department is engaged.”

“Entirely?”

“Yes, sir,” said the prim bald man in a tight suit, buttoned high on his chest. “Several hours ago we were ordered to stop all other investigations and compile a list of everyone in the files with a Russian background or pronounced appearance.”

They were in the ante-office of the Kripo’s large identification division, where fingerprint analysis and anthropometry were performed.

“ Everyone in Berlin?”

“Yes. There is some alert going on.”

Ah, the security matter again, the one that Krauss had deemed too insignificant to mention to the Kripo.

“They’re using fingerprint examiners to check personal files? And our fingerprint examiners, no less?”

“Drop everything,” the buttoned-up little man replied. “Those were my orders. From Sipo headquarters.”

Himmler again, Kohl thought. “Please, Gerhard, these are vital.” He showed him the fingerprint card and the photos.

“They are good pictures.” Gerhard examined them. “Very clear.”

“Put three or four examiners on it, please. That’s all I’m asking.”

A pinched-face laugh crossed the administrator’s face. “I cannot, Inspector. Three? Impossible.”

Kohl felt the frustration. A student of foreign criminal science, he looked with envy at America and England, where forensic identification was now done almost exclusively by fingerprint analysis. Here, yes, fingerprints were used for identification but, unlike in the United States, the Germans had no uniform system of analyzing prints; each area of the country was different. A policeman in Westphalia might analyze a print in one way; a Berlin Kripo officer would analyze it differently. By posting the samples back and forth it was possible to achieve an identification but the process could take weeks. Kohl had long advocated standardizing fingerprint analysis throughout the country but had met with considerable resistance and lethargy. He’d also urged his supervisor to buy some American wire-photo machines, remarkable devices that could transmit clear facsimile photographs and pictures, such as of fingerprints, over telephone lines in minutes. They were, however, quite expensive and his boss had turned down the request without even taking the matter up with the police president.

More troubling to Kohl, though, was that once the National Socialists came to power fingerprints took on less importance than the antiquated system of Bertillon anthropometry, in which measurements of the body, face and head were used to identify criminals. Kohl, like most modern detectives, rejected Bertillon analysis as unwieldy; yes, each person’s body structure was largely different from another’s, but dozens of precise measurements were needed to categorize someone. And, unlike fingerprints, criminals rarely left sufficient bodily impressions at the scene to link any individual to the site of the crime through Bertillon data.

But the National Socialists’ interest in anthropometry went beyond merely identifying someone; it was the key to what they termed the “science” of criminobiology: categorizing people as criminal irrespective of their behavior, solely on their physical characteristics. Hundreds of Gestapo and SS labored full-time to correlate size of nose and shade of skin, for instance, to proclivity to commit a crime. Himmler’s goal was not to bring criminals to justice but to eliminate crime before it occurred.

To Kohl this was as frightening as it was foolish.

Looking out over the huge room of long tables, filled with men and women hunched over documents, Kohl now decided that the diplomacy he’d summoned up on the way here would have no effect. A different tactic was required: deceit. “Very well. Tell me a date you can begin your analysis. I must tell Krauss something. He’s been nagging me for hours.”

A pause. “Our Pietr Krauss?”

“The Gestapo’s Krauss, yes. I’ll tell him… what shall I tell him, Gerhard? It will take you a week, ten days?”

“The Gestapo is involved?”

“Krauss and I investigated the crime scene together.” At least this much was true. More or less.

“Perhaps this incident relates to the security situation,” the man said, uneasy now.

“I’m sure it does,” Kohl said. “Perhaps those very prints are from the Russian in question.”

The man said nothing but looked over the pictures. He was so slim; why did he wear such a tight suit?

“I will submit the prints to an examiner. I will call you with any results.”

“Whatever you can do will be appreciated,” Kohl said, thinking: Ach, one examiner? Most likely useless, unless he happened to find a lucky match.

Kohl thanked the technician and walked back up the stairs to his floor. He entered the office of his superior, Friedrich Horcher, who was chief of inspectors for Berlin-Potsdam.

The lean, gray-haired man, with a throwback of a waxed mustache, had been a good investigator in his early days and had weathered the seas of recent German politics well. Horcher had been ambivalent about the Party; he’d been a secret member in the terrible days of the Inflation, then he quit because of Hitler’s extreme views. Only recently had he joined again, reluctantly perhaps, drawn along inexorably by the course the nation was taking. Or perhaps he was a true convert. Kohl had no idea which was the case.

“How is this case coming, Willi? The Dresden Alley case?”

“Slowly, sir.” He added grimly, “Resources are occupied, it seems. Our resources.”

“Yes, something is going on. An alert of some sort.”

“Indeed.”

“Have you heard anything about it, I wonder?” Horcher asked.

“No, nothing.”

“But still we are under such pressure. They think the world is watching and one dead man near the Tiergarten might ruin the image of our city forever.” At Horcher’s level, irony was a dangerous luxury and Kohl could detect none in the man’s voice. “Any suspects?”

“Some aspects of his appearance, some small clues. That’s all.”

Horcher straightened the papers on his desk. “It would be helpful if the perpetrator was-”

“-a foreigner?” Kohl supplied.

“Exactly.”

“We shall see… I would like to do one thing, sir. The victim is as yet unidentified. This is a handicap. I would like to run a picture in The People’s Observer and the Journal and see if anyone recognizes him.”

Horcher laughed. “A picture of a dead body in the paper?”

“Without knowing the victim we are largely disadvantaged in the investigation.”

“I will send the matter to the propaganda office and see what Minister Goebbels has to say. It would have to be cleared with him.”

“Thank you, sir.” Kohl turned to leave. Then he paused. “One other matter, Chief of Inspectors. I am still waiting for that report from Gatow. It’s been a week. I was wondering if you perhaps had received it.”

“What was in Gatow? Oh, that shooting?”

“Two,” Kohl corrected. “Two shootings.”

In the first, two families, picnicking by the Havel River, southwest of Berlin, had been shot to death: seven individuals, including three children. The next day there’d been a second slaughter: eight laborers, living in caravans between Gatow and Charlottenburg, the exclusive suburb west of Berlin.

The police commandant in Gatow had never handled such a case and had one of his gendarmes call the Kripo for help. Raul, an eager young officer, had spoken to Kohl, and had sent photos of the crime scene to the Alex. Willi Kohl, hardened to homicide investigations, had nonetheless been shocked at the sight of the mothers and children gunned down. The Kripo had jurisdiction over all nonpolitical crimes anywhere in Germany, and Kohl wished to make the murders a priority.

But legal jurisdiction and allocation of resources were two very different matters, particularly in these crimes, where the victims were, Raul informed him, Jews and Poles, respectively.

“We’ll let the Gatow gendarmerie handle it,” Horcher had told him last week.

“Homicides of this magnitude?” Kohl had asked, both troubled and skeptical. The suburban and rural gendarmes investigated automobile accidents and stolen cows. And the chief of the Gatow constabulary, Wilhelm Meyerhoff, was a dull, lazy civil servant who couldn’t find his breakfast zwieback without help.

So Kohl had persisted with Horcher until he got permission to at least review the crime scene report. He’d called Raul and coached him in basic investigation techniques and had asked him to interview witnesses. The gendarme promised to send the report to Kohl as soon as his superior approved it. Kohl had received the photographs but no other materials.

Horcher now said, “I’ve heard nothing, Willi. But, please – Jews, Poles? We have other priorities.”

Kohl said thoughtfully, “Of course, sir. I understand. I only care that the Kosis don’t get away with anything.”

“The Communists? What does this have to do with them?”

“I didn’t form the idea until I saw the photographs. But I observed there was something organized about the killings – and there was no attempt to cover them up. The murders were too obvious to me. They seemed almost staged.”

Horcher considered this. “You’re thinking the Kosis wanted to make it appear that the SS or Gestapo were behind the killings? Yes, that’s clever, Willi. The red bastards would certainly stoop to that.”

Kohl added, “Especially with the Olympics, the foreign press in town. How the Kosis would love to mar our image in the eyes of the world.”

“I will look into the report, Willi. I’ll make some calls. A good thought on your part.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now, go clear the Dresden Alley case. If our chief of police wants a blemish-free city, he shall have one.”

Kohl returned to his office and sat heavily in his chair, massaging his feet as he stared at the photographs of the two murdered families. It was nonsense what he had told Horcher. Whatever had happened in Gatow, it was not a Communist plot. But the National Socialists went for conspiracies like pigs for slop. These were games that had to be played. Ach, what an education he’d had since January of ’33.

He put the pictures back into the file folder labeled Gatow/Charlottenburg and set it aside. He then placed the brown envelopes of the evidence he’d collected that afternoon into a box, on which he wrote Dresden Alley Incident. He added the extra photographs of the fingerprints, the crime scene and the victim. He placed the box prominently on his desk.

Ringing up the medical examiner, he learned the doctor was at coffee. The assistant told him that Unidentified Corpse A 25-7-36-Q had arrived from Dresden Alley but he had no idea when it would be examined. By that night possibly. Kohl scowled. He had hoped the autopsy was at least in progress, if not finished. He hung up.

Janssen returned. “The Teletypes went out to the precincts, sir. I told them urgent.”

“Thank you.”

His phone buzzed and he answered. It was Horcher again.

“Willi, Minister Goebbels has said that we cannot display the picture of the dead man in the newspaper. I tried to convince him. I was at my most persuasive, I can tell you. I thought I would prevail. But in the end, I was not successful.”

“Well, Chief of Inspectors, thank you.” He hung up, thinking cynically: most persuasive, indeed. He doubted the call had even been made.

Kohl told his inspector candidate what the man had said. “Ach, and it will be days or weeks before a fingerprint examiner can even narrow down the prints we found. Janssen, take that picture of the victim… No, no, the other one – where he looks slightly less dead. Take it to our printing department. Have them print up five hundred etchings. Tell them we’re in a great hurry. Say it’s a joint Kripo/Gestapo matter. We can at least exploit Inspector Krauss since it was he who made us late for the Summer Garden. About which I am still perturbed, I must say.”

“Yes, sir.”

Just as Janssen returned, ten minutes later, the phone buzzed once more and Kohl lifted the handset. “Yes, Kohl here.”

“It is Georg Jaeger. How are you?”

“Georg! I am fine. Working this Saturday, when I’d hoped for the Lust-garten with my family. But so it goes. And you?”

“Working too. Always work.”

Jaeger had been a protégé of Kohl’s some years before. He was a very talented detective and after the Party had come to power had been asked to join the Gestapo. He’d refused and his blunt rejection had apparently offended some officials. He found himself back at the uniformed Order Police – a step down for a Kripo detective. As it turned out, though, Jaeger excelled at his new job too and soon rose to be in charge of the Orpo precinct in north-central Berlin; ironically he seemed far happier in his banished territory than in the intrigue-mired Alex.

“I am calling with what I hope is some help, Professor.”

Kohl laughed. He recalled that this was how Jaeger had referred to Kohl when they were working together. “What might that be?”

“We just received a telegram about a suspect in a case you are working on.”

“Yes, yes, Georg. Have you found a gun shop that sold a Spanish Star Modelo A? Already?”

“No, but I heard of some SA complaining that a man attacked them at a bookshop on Rosenthaler Street not long ago. He fit the description in your message.”

“Ach, Georg, this is most helpful. Can you have them meet me where the assault occurred?”

“They won’t want to cooperate but I keep the fools in line if they’re in my precinct. I’ll make sure they’re there. When?”

“Now. Immediately.”

“Certainly, Professor.” Jaeger gave the address on Rosenthaler Street. Then he asked, “And how is life back at the Alex?”

“Perhaps we’ll save that conversation for another time, over schnapps and beer.”

“Yes, of course,” the Orpo commander said knowingly. The man would be thinking that Kohl was reluctant to discuss certain matters over a telephone line.

Which was certainly true. Kohl’s motive for ending the call, though, had less to do with intrigue than with the pitched urgency he felt to find the man in Göring’s hat.

“Ach,” the Brownshirt muttered sarcastically, “a Kripo detective has come to help us? Look, comrades, here’s an odd sight.”

The man was over two meters tall and, like many Stormtroopers, quite solid: from day labor before he joined the SA and from the constant, mindless parading he would now do. He sat on the curb, his can-shaped, light brown hat dangling from his fingers.

Another Brownshirt, shorter but just as stocky, leaned against the store-front of a small grocery. The sign in the window said, No butter, no beef today. Next door was a bookshop whose window was shattered. Glass and torn-up books littered the sidewalk. This man winced as he held his bandaged wrist. A third sat sullenly by himself. Dried blood stained his shirt-front.

“What got you out of your office, Inspector?” the first Brownshirt continued. “Not us, surely. Communists could have shot us down like Horst Wessel and it wouldn’t’ve pried you away from your cake and coffee at Alexander Plaza.”

Janssen stiffened at their offensive words but Kohl’s glance restrained him and the detective looked the men over sympathetically. A police or government official at Kohl’s level could insult most low-level Stormtroopers to their faces with no consequences. But he now needed their cooperation. “Ah, my good gentlemen, there’s no reason for words like that. The Kripo is as concerned about your well-being as everyone else’s. Please tell me about the ambush.”

“Ach, you’re right, Inspector,” the larger man said, nodding at Kohl’s carefully chosen word. “It was an ambush. He came up from behind while we were enforcing the law against improper books.”

“You are…?”

“Hugo Felstedt. I command the barracks at Berlin Castle.”

This was a deserted brewery warehouse, Kohl knew. Two dozen Stormtroopers had taken it over. “Castle” could be read “flophouse.”

“Who were they?” Kohl asked, nodding at the bookstore.

“A couple. A husband and wife, it seemed.”

Kohl struggled to maintain a look of concern. He looked around. “They escaped too?”

“That’s right.”

The third Stormtrooper finally spoke. Through missing teeth he said, “It was a plan, of course. The two distracted us and then the third came up behind. He laid into us with a truncheon.”

“I see. And he wore a Stetson hat? Like Minister Göring wears? And a green tie?”

“That’s right,” the larger one agreed. “A loud, Jew tie.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He had a huge nose and fleshy jowls.”

“Bushy eyebrows. And bulbous lips.”

“He was quite fat,” Felstedt contributed. “Like on last week’s The Stormer. Did you see that? He looked just like the man on the cover.”

This was Julius Streicher’s pornographic, anti-Semitic magazine that contained fabricated articles about crimes that Jews had committed and nonsense about their racial inferiority. The covers featured grotesque caricatures of Jews. Embarrassing even to most National Socialists, it was published only because Hitler enjoyed the tabloid.

“Sadly, I missed it,” Kohl said dryly. “And he spoke German?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“A Jew accent.”

“Yes, yes, but perhaps another accent. Bavarian? Westphalian? Saxon?”

“Maybe.” A nod of the big man’s head. “Yes, I think so. You know, he would not have hurt us if he’d come at us like a man. Not a cowardly-”

Kohl interrupted. “Might his accent have been from another country?”

The three regarded one another. “We wouldn’t know, would we? We’ve never been out of Berlin.”

“Maybe Palestine,” one offered. “That could have been it.”

“All right, so he attacked you from behind with his truncheon.”

“And these too.” The third held up a pair of brass knuckles.

“Are those his?”

“No, they’re mine. He took his with him.”

“Yes, yes. I see. He attacked you from behind. Yet it’s your nose that has bled, I see.”

“I fell forward after he struck me.”

“And where was this attack exactly?”

“Over there.” He pointed to a small garden jutting into the sidewalk. “One of our comrades went to summon aid. He returned and the Jew coward took off, fleeing like a rabbit.”

“Which way?”

“There. Down several alleys to the east. I will show you.”

“In a moment,” Kohl said. “Did he carry a satchel?”

“Yes.”

“And he took it with him?”

“That’s right. It’s where he had his truncheons hidden.”

Kohl nodded to the garden. He and Janssen walked to it. “That was useless,” his assistant whispered to Kohl. “Attacked by a huge Jew with brass knuckles and truncheons. And probably fifty of the Chosen People right behind him.”

“I feel, Janssen, that the account of witnesses and suspects is like smoke. The words themselves are often meaningless but they might lead you to the fire.”

They walked around the garden, looking down carefully.

“Here, sir,” Janssen called excitedly. He’d found a small guidebook to the men’s Olympic Village, written in English.

Kohl was encouraged. It would be odd for foreign tourists to be in this bland neighborhood and coincidentally lose the booklet in just the spot where the struggle had taken place. The pages were crisp and unstained, suggesting it had lain in the grass for only a short time. He lifted it with a handkerchief (sometimes one could find fingerprints on paper). Opening it carefully, he found no handwriting on the pages and no clue to the identity of the person who’d possessed it. He wrapped up the booklet and placed it in his pocket. He called to the Stormtroopers. “Come here, please.”

The three men wandered to the garden.

“Stand there, in a row.” The inspector pointed to a spot of bare earth.

They lined up precisely, as Stormtroopers were exceedingly talented at doing. Kohl examined their boots and compared the size and shape to the sole prints in the dirt. He saw that the assailant had larger feet than they and that his heels were well worn.

“Good.” Then to Felstedt he said, “Show us where you pursued him. You others can leave now.”

The man with the bloody face called, “When you find him, Inspector, you will call us. We have a cell at our barracks. We will deal with him there.”

“Yes, yes, perhaps that can be arranged. And I will give you plenty of time so that you can have more than three men to handle him.”

The Stormtrooper hesitated, wondering if he was being insulted. He examined his crimson-stained shirt. “Look at this. Ach, when we get him, we’ll drain all the blood out of him. Let’s go, comrade.”

The two walked off down the sidewalk.

“This way. He ran this way.” Felstedt led Kohl and Janssen down two alleys into crowded Gormann Street.

“We were sure he went down one of these other alleys. We had men covering the far ends of them all but he disappeared.”

Kohl surveyed them. Several alleys branched off from the street, one a cul-de-sac, the others connecting to different streets. “All right, sir, we will take over from here.”

With his comrades gone, Felstedt was more candid. In a low voice he said, “He is a dangerous man, Inspector.”

“And you feel that your description is accurate?”

A hesitation. Then: “A Jew. Clearly he was a Jew, yes. Crinkly hair like an Ethiopian, a Jew nose, Jew eyes.” The Stormtrooper brushed at the stain on his shirt and swaggered away.

“Cretin,” Janssen muttered, glancing cautiously at Kohl, who said, “To be kind.” The inspector was looking up and down the alleys, musing, “Despite his own strain of blindness, though, I believe what ‘commandant’ Felstedt told us. Our suspect was cornered but managed to escape – and from dozens of SA. We will look in the trash containers in the alleys, Janssen.”

“Yes, sir. You think he discarded some clothing or the satchel to escape?”

“It is logical.”

They inspected each of the alleys, looking into the trash bins: nothing but old cartons, papers, cans, bottles, rotting food.

Kohl stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, glancing around and then asked, “Who does your shirts, Janssen?”

“My shirts?”

“They are always impeccably washed and pressed.”

“My wife, of course.”

“Then my apologies to her for having to clean and mend the one you are presently wearing.”

“Why should she need to clean and mend my shirt?”

“Because you are going to lie down on your belly and fish into that sewer grating.”

“But-”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I’ve done so, many times. And with age, Janssen, comes some privilege. Now off with your jacket. It’s lovely silk. No need to repair that as well.”

The young man handed Kohl his dark green suit jacket. It was quite nice. Janssen’s family was well off and he had some money independent of his monthly inspector candidate salary – which was fortunate, considering the paltry compensation Kripo detectives received. The young man knelt on the cobblestones and, supporting himself with one hand, reached into the dark opening.

As it turned out, though, the shirt was not badly soiled after all, for the young man called out only a moment later, “Something here, sir!” He stood up and displayed a crumpled brown object. Göring’s hat. And a bonus: Inside it was the tie, indeed gaudy green.

Janssen explained that they’d been resting on a ledge only a half meter below the sewer opening. He searched once more but found nothing else.

“We have some answers, Janssen,” Kohl said, examining the inside of the hat. The manufacturer’s label read, Stetson Mity-Lite. Another had been stitched inside by the store. Manny’s Men’s Wear, New York City.

“More to add to our portrait of the suspect.” Kohl took the monocle from his vest pocket, squinted it into his eye and examined some hairs caught in the sweatband. “He has medium-length dark brown hair with a bit of red in it. Not black or ‘crinkly’ at all. Straight. And there are no stains from cream or hair oil.”

Kohl handed the hat and tie to Janssen, licked the tip of his pencil and jotted these latest observations into his notebook, which he then folded closed.

“Where to now, sir? Back to the Alex?”

“And what would we do there? Eat biscuits and sip coffee, as our Stormtrooper comrades think we do all day long? Or watch the Gestapo siphon off our resources as they round up every Russian in town? No, I think we’ll go for a drive. I hope the DKW doesn’t overheat again. The last time Heidi and I took the children to the country we sat outside Falken-hagen for two hours with nothing to do but watch the cows.”

Chapter Eleven

The taxi he’d taken from the Olympic Village dropped him at Lützow Plaza, a busy square near a brown, stagnant canal south of the Tiergarten.

Paul stepped out, smelling fetid water, and stood for a moment, orienting himself as he looked about slowly. He saw no lingering eyes peering at him over newspapers, no furtive men in brown suits or uniforms. He began walking east. This was a quiet, residential neighborhood, with some lovely houses and some modest. Recalling perfectly Morgan’s directions, he followed the canal for a time, crossed it and turned down Prince Heinrich Street. He soon came to a quiet road, Magdeburger Alley, lined with four-and five-story residential buildings, which reminded him of the quainter tenements on the West Side of Manhattan. Nearly all of the houses flew flags, most of them National Socialist red, white and black, and several with banners bearing the intertwined rings of the Olympics. The house he sought, No. 26, flew one of the latter. He pressed the doorbell. A moment later footsteps sounded. The curtain in a side window wafted as if in a sudden breeze. Then a pause. Metal snapped and the door opened.

Paul nodded at the woman, who looked out cautiously. “Good afternoon,” he said in German.

“You are Paul Schumann?”

“That’s right.”

She was in her late thirties, early forties, he guessed. A slim figure in a flowery dress with a hemline well below the knees, which Marion would have labeled “pretty unstylish,” a couple of years out of date. Her dark blonde hair was short and waved and, like most of the women he’d seen in Berlin, she wore no makeup. Her skin was dull and her brown eyes tired, but those were superficial qualities that a few square meals and a couple of nights’ undisturbed sleep would take care of. And, curiously, because of these distractions it made the woman behind them appear all the more attractive to him. Not like Marion’s friends – Marion herself too – who sometimes got so dolled up that you never knew what they really looked like.

“I am Käthe Richter. Welcome to Berlin.” She thrust a red, bony hand forward and shook his firmly. “I didn’t know when you’d be arriving. Mr. Morgan said sometime this weekend. In any case, your quarters are ready. Please, come in.”

He stepped into the foyer, smelling naphtha from moth repellent and cinnamon and just a hint of lilac, perhaps her perfume. After she closed and locked the door she looked through the curtained side window once again and examined the street for a moment. Then she took the suitcase and the leather satchel from him.

“No, I-”

“I will carry them,” she said briskly. “Come this way.”

She led him to a door halfway down the dim corridor, which still had the original gas lamps installed next to the newer electric fixtures. A few faded oil paintings of pastoral scenes were on the walls. Käthe opened the door and motioned him inside. The apartment was large, clean and sparsely furnished. The front door opened onto the living room, a bedroom was in the back, to the left, and along the wall was a small kitchen, separated from the rest of the living area by a stained Japanese screen. Tables were covered with figurines of animals and dolls, chipped, lacquered boxes and cheap paper fans. There were two unsteady electric lamps. A gramophone was in the corner, next to a large console radio, which she walked to and turned on.

“The smoking room is in the front of the building. I am sure you are used to a men-only smoking room but here everyone may use it. I insist on that.”

He wasn’t used to smoking rooms at all. He nodded.

“Now, tell me if you like the rooms. I have others if you do not.”

Glancing quickly at the place, he said, “It will suit me fine.”

“You don’t wish to see more? The closets, run the water, examine the view?”

Paul had noted that the place was on the ground floor, the windows were not barred and he could make a quick exit from the bedroom window, the living room window or the hallway door, which would lead to other apartments and other means of escape. He said to her, “Provided the water doesn’t come out of that canal I passed, I’m sure it will be fine. As for the view I’ll be working too hard to enjoy it.”

The radio tubes warmed up and a man’s voice filled the room. Brother! The health lecture was still going on, more talk of draining swamps and spraying to kill mosquitoes. At least FDR’s fireside chats were short and sweet. He walked over to the set and turned the dial, looking for music. There was none. He shut it off.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“It’s your room. Do as you wish.” She glanced at the silent radio uncertainly then said, “Mr. Morgan said you’re an American. But your German is very good.”

“Thanks to my parents and grandparents.” He took the suitcase from her, walked into the bedroom and set it on the bed. The bag sank deep into the mattress, and he wondered if it was filled with down. His grandmother had told him that she’d had a down bed in Nuremberg before they immigrated to New York, and as a boy Paul had been fascinated at the thought of sleeping on bird feathers.

When he returned to the living room Käthe said, “I serve a light breakfast, across the hall, from seven to eight A.M. Please let me know the night before when you’d like to be served. And there is coffee in the afternoon, of course. You’ll find a basin in the bedroom. The bathroom is up the hall, to be shared, but for now you are our only guest. Closer to the Olympics it will be much more crowded. Today you are the king of number twenty-six Magdeburger Alley. The castle is yours.” She walked to the door. “I will get afternoon coffee now.”

“You don’t have to. I actually-”

“Yes, yes, I will. It’s part of the price.”

When she stepped into the hall Paul went into the bedroom, where a dozen black beetles roamed the floor. He opened his briefcase and placed the copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, containing the fake passport and rubles, on the bookcase. Removing his sweater, he rolled up the sleeves of his tennis shirt, washed his hands then dried them on a threadbare towel.

Käthe returned a moment later with a tray containing a dented silver coffeepot, a cup and a small plate covered with a lace doily. She set this on the table in front of a well-worn couch.

“Please, you will sit.”

He did, rebuttoning his sleeves. He asked, “Do you know Reggie Morgan well?”

“No, he just answered an advertisement for the room and paid in advance.”

This was the answer Paul had been hoping for. He was relieved to learn that she had not contacted Morgan, which would have made her suspect. From the corner of his eye he felt her glance at his cheek. “You are hurt?”

“I’m tall. I’m always banging my head.” Paul touched his face lightly, as if he were hitting himself, to illustrate his words. The pantomime made him feel foolish and he lowered his hand.

She rose. “Please, wait.” A few minutes later she’d returned with a sticking plaster, which she offered him.

“Thanks.”

“I have no iodine, I’m afraid. I looked.”

He went into the bedroom, where he stood in front of the mirror behind the washstand and pressed the plaster to his face.

She called, “We have no low ceilings here. You will be safe.”

“Is this your building?” he asked, returning.

“No. It is owned by a man who is presently in Holland,” Käthe replied. “I manage the house in exchange for room and board.”

“Is he connected to the Olympics?”

“Olympics? No, why?”

“Most of the flags on the street are the Nazi – National Socialist, I mean. But you have an Olympic flag here.”

“Yes, yes.” She smiled. “We are in the spirit of the Games, aren’t we?”

Her German grammar was flawless and she was articulate; she’d had a different, and much better, career in the past, he could tell, but the ragged hands and cracked nails and such tired, tired eyes told a story of recent difficulties. But he could also sense an energy within her, a determination to see life through to better times. This, he decided, was part of the attraction he felt.

She poured him coffee. “There is no sugar at the moment. The stores have run out.”

“I don’t take sugar.”

“But I have strudel. I made it before the supplies ran short.” She took the doily off the plate, on which sat four small pieces of pastry. “Do you know what strudel is?”

“My mother made it. Every Saturday. My brother and sister would help her. They’d pull the dough so thin that you could read through it.”

“Yes, yes,” she said enthusiastically, “that is how I make it too. You did not help them stretch the dough?”

“No, I never did. I’m not so talented in the kitchen.” He took a bite and said, “But I ate plenty of it… This is very good.” He nodded toward the pot. “Would you like coffee? I’ll pour you some.”

“Me?” She blinked. “Oh, no.”

He sipped the brew, which was weak. It had been made from used grounds.

“We will speak your language,” Käthe announced. And launched into: “I have never been over to your country but I want very much to go.”

He could detect only a slight v ’ing of her w ’s, which is the hardest English sound for Germans to form.

“Your English is good,” Paul said.

“You mean ‘well,’” she blurted, smiling to have caught him in a mistake.

Paul said, “No. Your English is good. You speak English well. ‘Good’ is an adjective. ‘Well’ is an adverb – most of the time.”

She frowned. “Let me think… Yes, yes, you are right. I am blushing now. Mr. Morgan said you are a writer. And you’ve been to university, of course.”

Two years at a small college in Brooklyn before he dropped out to enlist and go fight in France. He’d never gotten around to finishing his studies. When he’d returned, that was when life got complicated, and college fell by the wayside. In fact, though, he’d learned more about words and books working for his grandfather and father in the printing plant than he figured he’d ever learn in college. But he told her none of this.

“I am a teacher. That is to say, I was a teacher. I taught literature to youngsters. As well as the difference between ‘will’ and ‘shall’ and ‘may’ and ‘can.’ Oh, and ‘good’ and ‘well.’ Which I am now embarrassed about.”

“English literature?”

“No, German. Though I love many English books.”

There was silence for a moment. Paul reached into his pocket, took out his passport, handed it to her.

She frowned, turning it over in his hand.

“I’m really who I say I am.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The language… You asked me about speaking English to see if I’m really an American. Not a National Socialist informer. Am I right?”

“I…” Her brown eyes quickly examined the floor. She was embarrassed.

“It’s all right.” He nodded. “Look at it. The picture.”

She started to return it. But then she paused, opened it up and compared the picture to his face. He took the booklet back.

“Yes, you are right. I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Schumann.”

“Paul.”

Then a smile. “You must be quite a successful journalist to be so… ‘perceptive’ is the word?”

“Yes, that’s the word.”

“The Party is not so diligent, nor so wealthy, as to hire Americans to spy on little people like me, I am thinking. So I can tell you that I am not in favor.” A sigh. “It was my fault. I was not thinking. I was teaching Goethe, the poet, to my students and I mentioned simply that I respected his courage when he forbade his son to fight in the German war of independence. Pacifism is a crime in Germany now. I was fired for saying that, and all my books were confiscated.” She tossed her hand. “Forgive me. I am complaining. Have you read him? Goethe?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You would like him. He is brilliant. He spins colors out of words. Of all the books taken from me, his are the ones I miss the most.” Käthe glanced hungrily at the plate of strudel. She hadn’t eaten any. Paul held the plate out to her. She said, “No, no, thank you.”

“If you don’t eat one, then I’ll think that you ’re the National Socialist agent trying to poison me.”

She eyed the pastry and took one. She ate it quickly. When Paul looked down to reach for his coffee cup he noted from the corner of his eye that she touched up pastry flakes from the tabletop on her fingertips and lifted them to her mouth, staring at him to make sure he wasn’t looking.

When he turned back, she said, “Ah, but now, we have been careless, you and I, as often happens on first meetings. We must be more cautious. This reminds me.” She pointed toward the telephone. “Always keep it unplugged. You must be aware of listening devices. And if you do make a call, assume that you are sharing your conversation with a National Socialist lackey. That is true especially for any long-distance calls you make from the post office, though phone kiosks on the street are, I’m told, relatively private.”

“Thanks,” Paul said. “But if anybody listened to my conversations all they’d hear is pretty boring talk: What’s the population of Berlin, how many steaks will the athletes eat, how long did it take to build the stadium? Things like that.”

“Ach,” Käthe said softly, rising to leave, “what we have said this afternoon, you and I, would be considered boring by many but would easily merit a visit from the Gestapo. If not worse.”

Chapter Twelve

Willi Kohl’s battered Auto Union DKW managed the twenty kilometers to the Olympic Village west of the city without overheating, despite the relentless sunlight that forced both officers to shed their jackets – contrary both to their natures and to Kripo regulations.

The route had taken them through Charlottenburg and, had they continued southwest, would have led them toward Gatow, the two towns near which the Polish workers and the Jewish families had died. The terrible pictures of the murders continued to toss about in Kohl’s memory like bad fish in his gut.

They arrived at the main entrance of the village, which was bustling. Private cars, taxis and buses were dropping off athletes and other personnel; trucks were delivering crates, luggage and equipment. Jacketed once more, they walked to the gate, showed their ID cards to the guards – who were regular army – and were let inside the spacious, trimmed grounds. Around them men carted suitcases and trunks along the wide sidewalks. Others, in shorts and sleeveless shirts, exercised or ran.

“Look,” Janssen said enthusiastically, nodding toward a cluster of Japanese or Chinese men. Kohl was surprised to see them in white shirts and flannel trousers and not… well, he didn’t know what. Loincloths, perhaps, or embroidered silk robes. Nearby several dark, Middle Eastern men walked together, two of them laughing at what the third had said. Willi Kohl stared like a schoolboy. He would certainly enjoy watching the Games themselves when they began next week but he was also looking forward to seeing people from nearly every country on earth, the only major nations not represented being Spain and Russia.

The policemen located the American dormitories. In the main building was a reception area. They approached the German army liaison officer. “Lieutenant,” Kohl said, noting the rank on the man’s uniform. He stood immediately and then grew even more attentive when Kohl identified himself and his assistant. “Hail Hitler. You are here on business, sir?”

“That’s right.” He described the suspect and asked if the officer had seen such a man.

“No, sir, but there are many hundreds of people in the American dormitories alone. As you can see, the facility is quite large.”

Kohl nodded. “I need to speak to someone who is with the American team. Some official.”

“Yes, sir. I will arrange it.”

Five minutes later he returned with a lanky man in his forties, who identified himself in English as one of the head coaches. He wore white slacks and, although the day was very hot, a white chain-knit sweater vest over his white shirt. Kohl realized that while the reception area had been nearly empty a short time before, now a dozen athletes and others had eased into the room, pretending to have some business there. As he remembered from the army, nothing spread faster than news among men housed together.

The German officer was willing to interpret but Kohl preferred to speak directly to those he was interviewing and said in halting English, “Sir, I am being a police inspector with the German criminal police.” He displayed his ID.

“Is there some problem?”

“We are not certain yet. But, uhm, we try to find a man we would like to speak to. Perhaps you are knowing him.”

“It’s quite a serious matter,” Janssen offered with perfect English pronunciation. Kohl had not known he spoke the language so well.

“Yes, yes,” the inspector continued. “He had seemingly this book he lost.” He held up the guidebook, unfurled the handkerchief around it. “It is given to persons with the Olympic Games, is it?”

“That’s right. Not just athletes, though, everybody. We’ve given out maybe a thousand or so. And a lot of the other countries give out the English version too, you know.”

“Yes, but we have located too his hat and it was purchased in New York, New York. So, mostly likely, he is Americaner.”

“Really?” the coach asked cautiously. “His hat?”

Kohl continued. “He is being a large man, we are believing, with red, black brown hair.”

“Black brown?”

Frustrated at his own lack of foreign vocabulary, Kohl glanced at Janssen, who said, “His hair is dark brown, straight. A reddish tint.”

“He wears a light gray suit and this hat and tie.” Kohl nodded toward Janssen, who produced the evidence from his case.

The coach looked at them noncommittally and shrugged. “Maybe it would help if you told us what this was about.”

Kohl thought again how different life was in America. No German would dare ask why a policeman wished to know something.

“It is a matter of state security.”

“State security. Uh-huh. Well, I’d like to help. I sure would. But unless you’ve got something more specific…”

Kohl looked around. “Perhaps some person here might be knowing this man.”

The coach called, “Any of you boys know who these belong to?”

They shook their heads or muttered “No” or “Nope.”

“Perhaps then I am in hopes you are having a… yes, yes, a list of peoples who came with you here. And addresses. To see who would be living in New York.”

“We do but only the members of the team and the coaches. And you’re not suggesting-”

“No, no.” Kohl believed that the killer was not on the team. The athletes were in the spotlight; it would be unlikely for one of them to slip away from the village unseen on his first full day in Berlin, murder a man, visit several different places in the city on a mission of some sort, then return without arousing suspicion. “I am doubting this man is an athlete.”

“So. I can’t be much help, I’m afraid.” The coach crossed his arms. “You know, Officer, I’ll bet your immigration department has information on visitors’ addresses. They keep track of everybody entering and leaving the country, don’t they? I heard you fellows in Germany are real good at that.”

“Yes, yes, I was considered that. But, unfortunate, the information does not present a person’s address in his home. Only his nationality.”

“Oh, tough break.”

Kohl persisted. “What I am also been hoping: perhaps a manifest of the ship, the Manhattan passenger list? Often it is giving addresses.”

“Ah, yeah. That I’ll bet we do have. Although you realize there were close to a thousand people on board.”

“Please, I am understanding. But still I would most hopefully like to see it.”

“You bet. Only… I sure hate to be difficult, Officer, but I think this dorm… you know, I think we might have diplomatic status. Sovereign territory. So, I think you’d need a search warrant.”

Kohl remembered when a judge needed to approve the search of a suspect’s house or the demand to turn over evidence. The Weimar Constitution, creating the Republic of Germany after the War, had many such protections, most borrowed from the American. (It contained a single, rather significant flaw, though, one that Hitler seized upon immediately: the right of the president to indefinitely suspend all civil rights.)

“Oh, I’m merely looking at a few matters here. I am having no warrant.”

“I’d really feel better if you got one.”

“This is a matter of certain urgency.”

“I’m sure it is. But, hey, it might be better for you too. We sure don’t want to ruffle any feathers. Diplomatically. ‘Ruffle feathers,’ you know what I mean?”

“I am understanding the words.”

“So how ’bout if your boss called the embassy or the Olympic Committee. They give me the okay, then whatever you want, I’ll hand it to you on a silver platter.”

“The okay. Yes, yes.” The U.S. embassy probably would agree, Kohl reflected, if he handled the request properly. The Americans would not want the story to circulate that a killer had gotten into Germany with their Olympic team.

“Very good, sir,” Kohl said politely. “I am be contacting the embassy and the committee as you suggest.”

“Good. You take care now. Hey, and good luck at the Games. Your boys’re going to give us a run for our money.”

“I will be in attendance,” Kohl said. “I am having my tickets for more than a whole year.”

They said good-bye and Kohl and the inspector candidate stepped outside. “We will call Horcher from the radio in the car, Janssen. He can contact the American embassy, I am sure. This could be-” Kohl stopped speaking. He’d detected a pungent smell. Something familiar, yet out of place. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do-?”

“This way. Quickly!” Kohl began walking fast, around the back of the main American building. The smell was of smoke, not cooking smoke, which one detected often in the summer from grilling braziers, but wood smoke from a stove, rare in July.

“What is that word, Janssen? On the sign? I cannot make out the English.”

“It says Showers/steam room. ”

“No!”

“What’s the matter, sir?”

Kohl ran through the door into a large tiled area. The lavatory was to the left, showers to the right, and a separate door led to the steam room. It was this door that Kohl ran to. He flung it open. Inside was a stove on top of which was a large tray filled with rocks. Nearby were buckets of water, which could be ladled onto the hot rocks to produce steam. Two young Negroes in navy blue cotton exercising outfits stood at the stove, in which a fire was blazing. One, bending down to the door, had a round, handsome face with a high hairline, the other was leaner and had thicker hair that came down farther on his forehead. The round-faced one stood and closed the metal stove door. He turned around, cocking his eyebrow toward the inspector with a pleasant smile.

“Good afternoon, sirs,” Kohl said, once again in dreaded English. “I am being-”

“We heard. How are you doing, Inspector? Grand place you fellows made for us here. The village, I mean.”

“I smelled smoke and was grown concerned.”

“Just getting the fire going.”

“Nothing like steam for achin’ muscles,” added his friend.

Kohl stared through the glass door of the stove. The damper was wide open and the flames raged. He saw some sheets of white paper curling to ash inside.

“Sir,” Janssen began sharply in German, “what are they-?” But Kohl cut him off with a shake of his head and glanced at the first man who’d spoken. “You are…?” Kohl squinted and his eyes went wide. “Yes, yes, you are Jesse Owens, the great runner.” In Kohl’s German-accented English, the name came out “Yessa Ovens.”

The surprised man extended his sweaty hand. Shaking the firm grip, Kohl glanced to the other Negro.

“Ralph Metcalfe,” the athlete said, introducing himself. A second handshake.

“He’s on the team too,” Owens said.

“Yes, yes, I have heard of you, as well. You won in Los Angeles in the California state at the last Games. Welcome to you too.” Kohl’s eyes dipped to the fire. “You take the steam bath before you exercise?”

“Sometimes before, sometimes after,” Owens said.

“You a steam man, Inspector?” Metcalfe asked.

“Yes, yes, from time to time. Mostly now I soak my feet.”

“Sore feet,” Owens said, wincing. “I know all about that. Say, why don’t we get outa here, Inspector? It’s a heck of a lot cooler outside.”

He held the door open for Kohl and Janssen. The Kripo men hesitated then followed Metcalfe into the grassy area behind the dorm.

“You’ve got a beautiful country, Inspector,” Metcalfe said.

“Yes, yes. That is true.” Kohl watched the smoke rise from the metal duct above the steam room.

“Hope you have luck finding that fellow you’re looking for,” Owens said.

“Yes, yes. I am supposed it is not useful to ask if you know of anyone who weared a Stetson hat and a green tie. A man of large size?”

“Sorry, I don’t know anyone like that.” He glanced at Metcalfe, who shook his head.

Janssen asked, “Would you know anyone who came here with the team and perhaps left soon? Went on to Berlin or somewhere else?”

The men glanced at each other. “Nope, afraid not,” Owens replied.

“I sure don’t either,” Metcalfe added.

“Ach, well, it is being an honor to meet you both.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I was followed news of your races in, was it the Michigan state? Last year – the trials?”

“Ann Arbor. You heard about that?” Owens laughed, again surprised.

“Yes, yes. World records. Sadly, now we are not getting much news from America. Still, I look forward to the Games. But I am having four tickets and five children and my wife and future son-in-law. We will be present and attending in… shifts, you would say? The heat will not be bothering you?”

“I grew up running in the Midwest. Pretty much the same weather there.”

With sudden seriousness Janssen said, “You know, there are a lot of people in Germany who hope you don’t win.”

Metcalfe frowned and said, “Because of that bull – what Hitler thinks about the coloreds?”

“No,” the young assistant said. Then his face broke into a smile. “Because our bookmakers will be arrested if they accept bets on foreigners. We can only bet on German athletes.”

Owens was amused. “So you’re betting against us?”

“Oh, we would bet in favor of you,” Kohl said. “But, alas, we can’t.”

“Because it’s illegal?”

“No, because we are only poor policemans with no money. So run like the Luft, the wind, you Americans say, right? Run like the wind, Herr Owens and Herr Metcalfe. I will be in the stands. And cheering you on, though perhaps silently… Come, Janssen.” Kohl got several feet then stopped and turned back. “I must ask again: You are being certain no one has worn the brown Stetson hat?… No, no, of course not, or you would have telled me. Good day.”

They walked around to the front of the dormitory and then toward the exit to the village.

“Was that the ship’s manifest with the name of our killer on it, sir? What the Negroes burned in the stove?”

“It is possible. But say ‘suspect,’ remember. Not ‘killer.’”

The smell of the burning paper wafted through the hot air and stung Kohl’s nose, taunting him and adding to the frustration.

“What can we do about it?”

“Nothing,” Kohl said simply, sighing angrily. “We can do nothing. And it was my fault.”

“Your fault, sir?”

“Ach, the subtleties of our job, Janssen… I wished to give nothing away about our purpose and so I said we wished to see this man about a matter of ‘state security,’ which we say far too readily nowadays. My words suggested that the crime wasn’t the murder of an innocent victim but perhaps an offense against the government – which, of course, was at war with their country less than twenty years ago. Many of those athletes undoubtedly lost relatives, even fathers, to the Kaiser’s army, and might feel a patriotic interest in protecting such a man. And now it is too late to retract what I so carelessly said.”

When they reached the street in front of the village, Janssen turned toward where they had parked the DKW. But Kohl asked, “Where are you going?”

“Aren’t we returning to Berlin?”

“Not yet. We’ve been denied our passenger manifest. But destruction of evidence implies a reason to destroy it, and that reason might logically be found near the point of its loss. So we’ll make some inquiries. We must continue our trail the hard way, by using our poor feet… Ach, that food smells good, doesn’t it? They’re cooking well for the athletes. I remember when I used to swim daily. Years ago. Why, then I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain a gram. Those days are long behind me, I’m afraid. To the right here, Janssen, to the right.”

Reinhard Ernst dropped his phone into its cradle and closed his eyes. He leaned back in the heavy chair in his Chancellory office. For the first time in several days he felt content – no, he felt joyous. A sense of victory swept through him, as keen as when he and his sixty-seven surviving men successfully defended the northwestern redoubt against three hundred Allied troops near Verdun. That had earned him the Iron Cross, first-class – and an admiring look from Wilhelm II (only the Kaiser’s withered arm had prevented him from pinning the decoration on Ernst’s chest himself) – but this success today, which would be greeted with no public accolades, of course, was far sweeter.

One of the greatest problems he’d faced in rebuilding the German navy was the section in the Versailles treaty that forbade Germany to have submarines and limited the number of warships to six battleships, six light cruisers, twelve destroyers and twelve torpedo boats.

Absurd, of course, even for basic defense.

But last year Ernst had engineered a coup. He and brash Ambassador-at-Large Joachim von Ribbentrop had negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, which allowed submarine construction and lifted the limitation on Germany’s surface navy to 35 percent of the size of England’s. But the most important part of the pact had never been tested until now. It had been Ernst’s brainstorm to have Ribbentrop negotiate the percentage not in terms of number of ships, as had been the measure at Versailles, but in tonnage.

Germany now had the legal right to build even more ships than Britain had, as long as the total tonnage never exceeded the magic 35 percent. Moreover, it had been the goal all along of Ernst and Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the navy, to create lighter, more mobile and deadlier fighting vessels, rather than behemoth battleships that made up the bulk of the British war fleet – ships that were vulnerable to attack by aircraft and submarines.

The only question had been: Would England claim a foul when they reviewed the shipyard construction reports and realized that the German navy would be far bigger than expected?

The caller on the other end of the line, though, a German diplomatic aide in London, had just reported that the British government had reviewed the figures and approved them without a second thought.

What a success this was!

He drafted a note to the Leader to give him the good news and had a runner deliver it in person.

Just as the clock on the wall was striking four, a bald, middle-aged man wearing a brown tweed jacket and ribbed slacks stepped into Ernst’s office. “Colonel, I just-”

Ernst shook his head and touched his lips, silencing Doctor-professor Ludwig Keitel. The colonel spun around and glanced out the window. “What a delightful afternoon it is.”

Keitel frowned; it was one of the hottest days of the year, close to thirty-four degrees, and the wind was filled with grit. But he remained silent, an eyebrow raised.

Ernst pointed toward the door. Keitel nodded and together they stepped into the hallway outside and then left the Chancellory. Turning north on Wilhelm Street they continued to Under the Lindens and turned west, chatting only of the weather, the Olympics, a new American movie that was supposed to open soon. Like the Leader, both men admired the American actress Greta Garbo. Her film Anna Karenina had just been approved for release in Germany, despite its Russian setting and questionable morality. Discussing her recent films, they entered the Tiergarten just past the Brandenburg Gate.

Finally, looking around for tails or surveillance, Keitel spoke. “What is this about, Reinhard?”

“There is madness among us, Doctor.” Ernst sighed.

“No, are you making a joke?” asked the professor sardonically.

“Yesterday the Leader asked me for a report on the Waltham Study.”

Keitel took a moment to digest this information. “The Leader? Himself?”

“I was hoping he would forget it. He has been wholly preoccupied with the Olympics. But apparently not.” He showed Keitel Hitler’s note and then related the story of how the Leader had learned of the study. “Thanks to the man of many titles and more kilos.”

“Fat Hermann,” Keitel said loudly, sighing angrily.

“Sssh,” Ernst said. “Speak through flowers.” A common expression nowadays, meaning: Say only good things when mentioning Party officials by name in public.

Keitel shrugged. In a softer voice he continued, “Why should he care about us?”

Ernst had neither the time nor the energy to discuss the machinations of the National Socialist government to a man whose life was essentially academic.

“Well, my friend,” Keitel said, “what are we going to do?”

“I’ve decided that we go on the offensive. We hit back hard. We’ll give him a report – by Monday. A detailed report.”

“Two days?” Keitel scoffed. “We have only raw data and even that’s very limited. Can’t you tell him that in a few months we’ll have better analysis? We could-”

“No, Doctor,” Ernst said, laughing. If one could not speak through flowers, a whisper would do. “One does not tell the Leader to wait a few months. Or a few days or minutes. No, it’s best for us to do this now. A lightning strike. That’s what we must do. Göring will continue his intriguing and may meddle enough so that the Leader digs deeper, doesn’t like what be sees and stops the study altogether. The file he stole was some of Freud’s writings. That’s what he mentioned in the meeting yesterday. I think the phrase was ‘Jew mind-doctor.’ You should have seen the Leader’s face. I thought I was on my way to Oranienburg.”

“Freud was brilliant,” Keitel whispered. “The ideas are important.”

“We can use his ideas. And those of the other psychologists. But-”

“Freud is a psycho analyst.”

Ach, academics, Ernst thought. Worse than politicians. “But we won’t attribute them in our study.”

“That’s intellectually dishonest,” Keitel said sullenly. “Moral integrity is important.”

“Under these circumstances, no, it’s not” was Ernst’s firm response. “We’re not going to publish the work in some university journal. That’s not what this is about.”

“Fine, fine,” Keitel said impatiently. “That still doesn’t address my concern. Not enough data.”

“I know. I’ve decided we must find more volunteers. A dozen. It will be the biggest group yet – to impress the Leader and make him ignore Göring.”

The doctor-professor scoffed. “We won’t have time. By Monday morning? No, no, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can. We have to. Our work is too important to lose in this skir mish. We’ll have another session at the college tomorrow afternoon. I’ll write up our magnificent vision of the new German army for the Leader. In my best diplomatic prose. I know the right turn of phrase.” He looked around. Another whisper: “We’ll cut the air minister’s fat legs out from underneath him.”

“I suppose we can try,” Keitel said uncertainly.

“No, we will do it,” Ernst said. “There is no such thing as ‘trying.’ Either one succeeds or one does not.” He realized he was sounding like an officer lecturing a subordinate. He smiled wistfully and added, “I’m no happier about it than you, Ludwig. This weekend I had hoped to relax. Spend some time with my grandson. We were going to carve a boat together. But there’ll be time for recreation later.” The colonel added, “After we’re dead.”

Keitel said nothing but Ernst felt the doctor-professor’s head turn uncertainly toward him.

“I am joking, my friend,” the colonel said. “I am joking. Now, let me tell you some marvelous news about our new navy.”

Chapter Thirteen

The greened bronze of Hitler, standing tall above fallen but noble troops, in November 1923 Square, was impressive but it was located in a neighborhood very different from the others Paul Schumann had seen in Berlin. Papers blew in the dusty wind and there was a sour smell of garbage in the air. Hawkers sold cheap merchandise and fruit, and an artist at a rickety cart would draw your portrait for a few pfennigs. Aging unlicensed prostitutes and young pimps lounged in doorways. Men missing limbs and rigged with bizarre leather and metal prosthetic braces limped or wheeled up and down the sidewalks, begging. One had a sign pinned to his chest: I gave my legs for my country. What can you give me?

It was as if he’d stepped through the curtain behind which Hitler had swept all the trash and undesirables of Berlin.

Paul walked through a rusty iron gate and sat facing the statue of Hitler on one of the benches, a half dozen of which were occupied.

He noticed a bronze plaque and read it, learning that the monument was dedicated to the Beer Hall Putsch, in the fall of 1923, when, according to the turgid prose set in metal, the noble visionaries of National Socialism heroically took on the corrupt Weimar state and tried to wrest the country out of the hands of the stabbers-in-the-back (the German language, Paul knew, was very keen on combining as many words as possible into one).

He soon grew bored with the lengthy, breathless accolades for Hitler and Göring and sat back, wiped his face. The sun was lowering but it was still bright and mercilessly hot. He’d been sitting for only a minute or two when Reggie Morgan crossed the street, stepped through the gate and joined Paul.

“You found the place all right, I see.” Again speaking his flawless German. He laughed, nodding at the statue, and lowered his voice. “Glorious, hmm? The truth is a bunch of drunks tried to take over Munich and got swatted like flies. At the first gunshot Hitler dove to the ground and he only survived because he pulled a body of a ‘comrade’ on top of him.” Then he looked Paul over. “You look different. Your hair. Clothes.” Then he focused on the sticking plaster. “What happened to you?”

He explained about the fight with the Stormtroopers.

Morgan frowned. “Was it about Dresden Alley? Were they looking for you?”

“No. They were beating these people who ran a bookshop. I didn’t want to get involved but I couldn’t let them die. I’ve changed clothes. My hair too. But I’ll need to steer clear of Brownshirts.”

Morgan nodded. “I don’t think there’s a huge danger. They won’t go to the SS or Gestapo about the matter – they prefer to mete out revenge by themselves. But the ones you tangled with will stay close to Rosenthaler Street. They never go far afield. You’re not hurt otherwise? Your shooting hand is all right?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

“Good. But be careful, Paul. They’d have shot you for that. No questions asked, no arrest. They’d have executed you on the spot.”

Paul lowered his voice. “What did your contact at the information ministry find about Ernst?”

Morgan frowned. “Something odd is going on. He said there are hushed meetings all over Wilhelm Street. Usually it’s half deserted on a Saturday but the SS and SD are everywhere. He’s going to need more time. We’re to call him in an hour or so.” He looked at his watch. “But for now, our man with the rifle is up the street. He closed his shop today because we are coming in. But he lives nearby. He’s waiting for us. I’ll call him now.” He rose and looked around. Of the divey bars and restaurants here, only one, the Edelweiss Café, advertised a public telephone.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

As Morgan crossed the street, Paul’s eyes followed him and he saw one of the disabled veterans ease close to the patio of the restaurant, begging for a handout. A burly waiter stepped to the railing and shooed him away.

A middle-aged man, who’d been sitting several benches away, rose and sat next to Paul. He offered a grimace, which revealed dusky teeth, and grumbled, “Did you see that? A crime how some people treat heroes.”

“Yes, it is.” What should he do? Paul wondered. It might be more suspicious to stand up and leave. He hoped the man would fall silent.

But the German eyed him closely and continued. “You’re of an age. You fought.”

This was not a question and Paul assumed it would have taken extraordinary circumstances for a German in his twenties to have avoided combat during the War.

“Yes, of course.” His mind was racing.

“At which battle did you get that?” A nod toward the scar on Paul’s chin.

That battle had involved no military action whatsoever; the enemy had been a sadistic button man named Morris Starble, who inflicted the scar with a knife in the Hell’s Kitchen tavern behind which Starble died five minutes later.

The man looked at him expectantly. Paul had to say something so he mentioned a battle he was intimately familiar with: “St. Mihiel.” For four days in September of 1918 Paul and his fellow soldiers in the First Infantry Division, IV Corps, slogged through driving rain and soupy mud to assault eight-foot-deep German trenches protected by wire obstacles and machine-gun nests.

“Yes, yes! I was there!” The beaming man shook Paul’s hand warmly. “What a coincidence this is! My Comrade!”

Good choice, Paul thought bitterly. What were the odds that this would happen? But he tried to look pleasantly surprised at this happenstance. The German continued to his brother-in-arms: “So you were part of Detachment C! That rain! I have never seen so much rain before or since. Where were you?”

“At the west face of the salient.”

“I faced the Second French Colonial Corps.”

“We had the Americans against us,” Paul said, searching fast through two-decade-old memories.

“Ah, Colonel George Patton! What a mad and brilliant man he was. He would send troops racing all over the battlefield. And his tanks! They would suddenly appear as if by magic. We never knew where he was going to strike next. No infantryman ever troubled me. But tanks…” He shook his head, grimacing.

“Yes, that was quite a battle.”

“If that’s your only wound you were lucky.”

“God was looking out for me, that’s true.” Paul asked, “And you were wounded?”

“A bit of shrapnel in my calf. I carry it to this day. I show my nephew the wound. It is shaped like an hourglass. He touches the shiny scar and laughs with delight. Ah, what a time that was.” He sipped from a flask. “Many people lost friends at St. Mihiel. I did not. Mine had all died before then.” He fell silent and offered the flask to Paul, who shook his head.

Morgan stepped out of the café and gestured.

“I must go,” Paul said to the man. “A pleasure meeting a fellow veteran and sharing these words.”

“Yes.”

“Good day, sir. Hail Hitler.”

“Ach, yes. Hail Hitler.”

Paul joined Morgan, who said, “He can meet us now.”

“You didn’t tell him anything about why I need the gun?”

“No, not the truth, at least. He thinks you’re German and you want it to kill a crime boss in Frankfurt who cheated you.”

The two men continued up the street for six or seven blocks, the neighborhood growing even shabbier, until they came to a pawnbroker’s shop. Musical instruments, suitcases, razors, jewelry, dolls, hundreds of other items filled the grimy, iron-barred windows. A “Closed” sign was on the door. They waited only a few minutes in the vestibule before a short, balding man showed up. He nodded to Morgan, ignored Paul, looked around then let them inside. He glanced back, closed and locked the door, then pulled the shade.

They walked farther into the musty, dust-filled shop. “Come this way.” The shopkeeper led them through two thick doors, which he closed and bolted, then down a long stairway into a damp basement, lit only by two small yellow bulbs. When his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light Paul noted that there were two dozen rifles in racks against the wall.

He handed Paul a rifle with a telescopic sight on it. “It’s a Mauser Karabiner. A 7.92-millimeter. This one breaks down easily so you can carry it in a suitcase. Look at the scope. The best optics in the world.”

The man clicked a switch and lights illuminated a tunnel, perhaps one hundred feet long, at the end of which were sandbags and, pinned to one, a paper target.

“This is completely soundproofed. It is a supply tunnel that was dug through the ground years ago.”

Paul took the rifle in his hands. Felt the smooth wood of the sanded and varnished stock. Smelled the aroma of oil and creosote and the leather of the sling. He rarely used rifles in his job and the combination of sweet scents and solid wood and metal took him back in time. He could smell the mud of the trenches, the shit, kerosene fumes. And the stink of death, like wet, rotting cardboard.

“These are special bullets too, which are hollowed out at the tip, as you can see. They are more likely to cause death than standard cartridges.”

Paul dry-fired the gun several times to get a feel for the trigger. He pressed bullets into the magazine then sat down at a bench, resting the rifle on a block of wood covered with cloth. He began to fire. The report was earsplitting but he hardly noticed. Paul just stared through the scope, concentrating on the black dots of the target. He made a few adjustments to the scope and then slowly fired the remaining twenty rounds in the box of ammunition.

“Good,” he said, shouting because his hearing was numb. “A good weapon.” Nodding, he handed the rifle back to the pawnbroker, who took it apart, cleaned it and packed the gun and ammunition into a battered fiber-board suitcase.

Morgan took the case and handed an envelope to the shopkeeper, who shut the lights out in the range and led them upstairs. A look out the door, a nod that all was clear and soon they were outside again, strolling down the street. Paul heard a metallic voice filling the street. He laughed. “You can’t escape it.” Across the street, at a tram stop, was a speaker, from which a man’s voice droned on and on – yet more information about public health. “Don’t they ever stop?”

“No, they don’t,” Morgan said. “When we look back, that will be the National Socialist contribution to culture: ugly buildings, bad bronze sculpture and endless speeches…” He nodded at the suitcase holding the Mauser. “Now let’s go back to the square and call my contact. See if he’s found enough information to let you put this fine piece of German machinery to use.”

The dusty DKW turned onto November 1923 Square and, unable to find a place to park on the hectic street, narrowly avoided a vendor selling questionable fruit as it drove halfway over the curb.

“Ach, here we are, Janssen,” Willi Kohl said, wiping his face. “Your pistol is convenient.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s go hunting.”

They climbed out.

The purpose of the inspector’s diversion after they left the U.S. dormitory was to interview the taxi drivers stationed outside the Olympic Village. With typical National Socialist foresight, only cabdrivers who were multilingual were allowed to serve the village, which meant both that there was a limited number of them and that they would return to the village after dropping off fares. This, in turn, Kohl reasoned, meant that one of them might have driven their suspect somewhere.

After dividing the taxis up between them, and speaking to two dozen drivers, Janssen found one who’d had a story that did indeed interest Kohl. The fare had left the Olympics not long before with a suitcase and an old brown satchel. He was a burly man with a faint accent. His hair did not seem on the long side or to have a red tint but it was slicked straight back and dark, though that, Kohl reasoned, might have been due to oil or lotion. He said he had been wearing not a suit but light-colored casual clothing, though the driver couldn’t describe it in detail.

The man had got out at Lützow Plaza and vanished into the crowds. This was one of the busiest, most congested intersections in the city; there were few hopes of picking up the suspect’s trail there. However, the cabdriver added that the man had asked directions to November 1923 Square and wondered if he could walk to it from Lützow Plaza.

“Did he ask anything more about the square? Anything specific? His business? Comrades he was hoping to meet? Anything?”

“No, Inspector. Nothing. I told him that it would be a long, long hike to the square. And he thanked me and got out. That was all. I was not looking at his face,” he explained. “Only at the road.”

Blindness, of course, Kohl had thought sourly.

They had returned to headquarters and picked up printed handbills of the Dresden Alley victim. They then had raced here, to the monument in honor of the failed putsch in 1923 (only the National Socialists could turn such an embarrassing defeat into an unqualified victory). While Lützow Plaza was too large to search effectively, this was a far smaller square and could be more easily canvassed.

Kohl now looked over the people here: beggars, vendors, hookers, shoppers, unemployed men and women in small cafés. He inhaled the air, pungent, ripe with the scent of trash, and asked, “Do you sense our quarry nearby, Janssen?”

“I…” The assistant seemed uncomfortable with this comment.

“It’s a feeling,” Kohl said, scanning the street as he stood in the shadow of a courageous, defiant bronze Hitler. “I myself don’t believe in the occult. Do you?”

“Not really, sir. I’m not religious, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, I haven’t given up on religion completely. Heidi would not approve. But what I’m speaking of is the illusion of the spiritual based on our perceptions and experience. And I have such a feeling now. He’s near.”

“Yes, sir,” the inspector candidate said. “Why do you think so?”

An appropriate query, Kohl thought. He believed young detectives should always question their mentors. He explained: because this neighborhood was part of Berlin North. Here you could find large numbers of War wounded and poor and unemployed and closet Communists and Socis and anti-Party Edelweiss Pirate gangs, petty thieves and supporters of labor who’d gone to ground after the unions were outlawed. It was populated by those Germans who sorely missed the early days: not Weimar, of course (no one liked the Republic), but the glory of Prussia, of Bismarck, of Wilhelm, of the Second Empire. Which meant few members of the Party and its sympathizers. Few denouncers, therefore, ready to run squealing to the Gestapo or the local Stormtrooper garrison.

“Whatever business he’s up to, it’s in places like this that he’ll find support and comrades. Stand back somewhat, Janssen. It is always easier to spot a person on the lookout for a suspect, such as us, than to spot that suspect himself.”

The young man moved into the shadows of a fishmonger’s store, whose stinking bins were mostly empty. Gamy eels, carp and sickly canal trout were all he had for sale. The officers studied the streets for a few moments, looking for their quarry.

“Now let us think, Janssen. He got out of the taxi with his suitcase – and the incriminating satchel – at Lützow Plaza. He did not have the car drive him directly here from the Olympics possibly because he dropped his bags off where he is now staying and came here for some other purpose. Why? To meet someone? To deliver something, perhaps the satchel? Or to collect something or someone? He has been to the Olympic Village, Dresden Alley, the Summer Garden, Rosenthaler Street, Lützow Plaza and now here? What ties these settings together? I wonder.”

“Shall we survey all the stores and shops?”

“I think we must. But I will tell you, Janssen, the food-deprivation concern is now serious. I am actually feeling light-headed. We will first query the cafés and, at the same time, get some sustenance for ourselves.”

Inside his shoes Kohl’s toes flexed against the pain. The lamb’s wool had migrated and his feet were stinging once again. He nodded to the closest restaurant, the one he’d parked in front of, the Edelweiss Café, and they stepped inside.

It was a dingy place. Kohl noted the averted eyes that typically greeted the appearance of an official. When they were through looking over the patrons on the off-chance that their Manny’s New York suspect might be here, Kohl displayed his ID to a waiter, who snapped instantly to attention. “Hail Hitler. How may I assist?”

In this smoky dive, Kohl doubted anyone had even heard of the position of maître d’, so he asked for the manager.

“Mr. Grolle, yes, sir. I will get him at once. Please, sit at this table, sirs. And if you wish some coffee and something to eat, please let me know.”

“I will have a coffee and apple strudel. Perhaps a double-size piece. And my colleague?” He lifted an eyebrow at Janssen.

“Just a Coca-Cola.”

“Whipped cream with the strudel?” the manager asked.

“But of course,” Willi Kohl said in a surprised voice, as if it were a sacrilege to serve it without.

As they were walking back from the gun dealer toward the Edelweiss Café, where Morgan would call his contact at the information ministry, Paul asked, “What will he get us? About Ernst’s whereabouts?”

“He told me that Goebbels insists on knowing where all the senior officials will be appearing in public. He then decides if it is important to have a filming crew or a photographer present to record the event.” He gave a sour laugh. “You go to see, say, Mutiny on the Bounty, and you don’t even get a Mickey Mouse cartoon until twenty minutes of tedious reels of Hitler coddling babies and Göring parading in his ridiculous uniforms before a thousand Labor Service workers.”

“And Ernst will be on that list?”

“That’s what I’m hoping. I hear the colonel doesn’t have much patience for propaganda, and he detests Goebbels as much as Göring, but he has learned to play the game. One does not succeed in the government in this day and age without playing the game.”

As they approached the Edelweiss Café, Paul noticed a cheap black car sitting on the curb beside the statue of Hitler, in front of the restaurant. Detroit still seemed to have one up on the German auto industry. While he’d seen some beautiful Mercedes and BMW models, most of the cars in Berlin were like this one, boxy and battered. When he returned to the United States, and had the ten G’s, he’d get the car of his dreams, a shiny black Lincoln. Marion would look swell in a car like that.

Paul was suddenly very thirsty. He decided he’d get a table while Morgan made his call. The café seemed to specialize in pastry and coffee but on a hot day like this, those had no appeal to him. Nope, he decided; he’d continue his education in the fine art of German beer making.

Chapter Fourteen

Sitting at a rickety table at the Eidelweiss Café, Willi Kohl finished his strudel and coffee. Much better, he thought. His hands had actually been shaking from the hunger. It wasn’t healthy to go without food for so long.

Neither the manager nor anyone else had seen a man fitting the suspect’s description. But Kohl hoped someone in this unfortunate area had seen the victim from the Dresden Alley shooting. “Janssen, do you have the pictures of our poor, dead man?”

“In the DKW, sir.”

“Well, fetch them.”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man finished his Coca-Cola and walked to the car.

Kohl followed him out the door, absently tapping the pistol in his pocket. He wiped his brow and looked up the street to his right toward the sound of yet another siren. He heard the DKW door slam and he turned back, glancing toward Janssen. As he did, the inspector noticed a fast movement just beyond his assistant, to Kohl’s left.

It appeared that a man in a dark suit, carrying a fiberboard musical instrument case or suitcase, had turned and stepped quickly into the courtyard of a large, decrepit apartment building next door to the Edelweiss Café. There was something unnatural about the abruptness with which the man had veered off the sidewalk. It struck him as somewhat odd as well that a man in a suit would be going into such a shabby place.

“Janssen,” Kohl called, “did you see that?”

“What?”

“That man going into the courtyard?”

The young officer shrugged. “Not clearly. I just saw some men on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of my eye.”

“Men?”

“Two, I believe.”

Kohl’s instincts took over. “We must look into this!”

The apartment building was attached to the structure on the right and, looking down the alley, the inspector could see that there were no side doors. “There’ll be a service entrance in the back, like at the Summer Garden. Cover it again. I’ll go through the front. Assume that both men are armed and desperate. Keep your pistol in your hand. Now run! You can beat them if you hurry.”

The inspector candidate sprinted down the alley. Kohl too armed himself. He slowly approached the courtyard.

Trapped.

Just like at Malone’s apartment.

Paul and Reggie Morgan stood, panting from the brief sprint, in a gloomy courtyard, filled with trash and a dozen browning juniper bushes. Two teenage boys in dusty clothes tossed rocks at pigeons.

“Not the same police?” gasped Morgan. “From the Summer Garden? Impossible.”

“The same.” Paul wasn’t sure they’d been spotted, but the younger officer, in the green suit, had glanced their way just as Paul had pulled Morgan into the courtyard. They had to assume they’d been seen.

“How did they find us?”

Paul ignored the question, looking around him. He ran to the wooden entrance door in the center of the U of the building; it was closed and locked. The first-floor windows were eight feet off the ground, a tough climb. Most were closed but Paul saw one was open and the apartment it let onto appeared deserted.

Morgan noticed Paul’s glance and said, “We could hide there, yes. Pull the blinds. But how do we climb up?”

“Please,” Paul called to one of the boys who’d been pitching rocks, “do you live here?”

“No, sir, we just come to play.”

“Do you want to earn a whole mark?”

“Greet God, sir,” one said. His eyes went wide and he trotted over to the men. “Yes, we do.”

“Good. But you must act quickly.”

Willi Kohl paused outside the courtyard entrance.

He waited a moment until he was sure Janssen would be in position in the back and then turned the corner. No sign of the suspect from Dresden Alley or the man with the suitcase. Only some teenage boys standing around a pile of wooden milk crates across the courtyard. They glanced up uneasily at the officers and began to walk out of the courtyard.

“You, boys!” Kohl called.

They stopped, looked at each other uneasily. “Yes?”

“Did you just see two men?”

Another uncomfortable shared glance. “No.”

“Come here.”

There was a brief pause. Then simultaneously they began sprinting, vanishing from the courtyard, raising puffs of dust beneath their feet. Kohl didn’t even try to pursue them. Gripping his pistol, he looked around the courtyard. All of the apartments on the ground floor had curtained windows or anemic plants resting on the sills, suggesting they were occupied. One, though, was curtainless and dark.

Kohl approached it slowly and noticed that on the dusty ground below the window were indentations – from the milk cartons, he understood. The suspect and his companion had paid the boys to carry the crates to the window then replace them after the men had climbed into the apartment.

The inspector, gripping his pistol tightly, pressed the button for the building’s janitor.

A moment later a harried man arrived. The wiry, gray janitor opened the door and glanced with a nervous blink at the pistol in Kohl’s hand.

Kohl stepped inside, looking past the man into the dark corridor. There was motion at the far end of the hall. Kohl prayed that Janssen would remain vigilant. The inspector had at least been tested on the battlefield. He’d been shot at and had, he believed, shot one or two enemy soldiers. But Janssen? Though he was a talented marksman, the boy had fired only at paper targets. How would he do if the matter came to a gun-fight?

He whispered to the janitor, “The apartment on this floor, two to the right.” He pointed. “It is unoccupied?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kohl stepped back so he could keep an eye on the courtyard in case the suspects tried to leap out the window and run. He told the janitor, “There’s another officer at your back entrance. Go fetch him at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

But just as he was leaving, a stocky old woman in a purple dress and blue head scarf waddled toward them. “Mr. Greitel, Mr. Greitel! Quickly, you must call the police!”

Kohl turned to her.

The janitor said, “The police are here, Mrs. Haeger.”

“Ach, how can that be?” She blinked.

The inspector asked her, “What do you require the police for?”

“Theft!”

Instinct told Kohl that this had something to do with the pursuit. “Tell me, ma’am. Quickly now.”

“My apartment is in the front of the building. And from my window I noted two men hiding behind the stack of milk crates, which I must point out you have been promising for weeks you will cart away, Mr. Greitel.”

“Please continue. This matter could be most urgent.”

“These two were skulking. It was obvious. Then, just a moment ago, I saw them stand and take two bicycles from the rack next to the front entrance. I don’t know about one of the bicycles but the other was clearly Miss Bauer’s, and she has had no male companion for two years, so I know she would not have been lending him the bicycle.”

“No!” Kohl muttered and hurried outside. Now he realized that the suspect had paid the boys simply to drop a couple of the crates beneath the window to leave the marks in the dust but then to return them to the pile, behind which the men had hidden. The boys then were probably told to act furtive or uneasy, making Kohl think this was how the suspects had gotten into the building.

He burst from the courtyard and looked up and down the street, seeing living proof of a statistic that he, as a diligent police officer, knew well: The most popular form of transportation in Berlin was the bicycle, hundreds of which clogged the streets here, hiding their suspects’ escape as effectively as a cloud of dense smoke.

They’d ditched the bikes and were walking down a busy street a half mile from November 1923 Square.

Paul and Morgan looked for another café or tap room with a phone.

“How did you know they were in the Edelweiss Café?” Morgan asked, breathing hard from the fast cycling.

“The car, the one parked on the curb.”

“The black one?”

“Right. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But something clicked in my mind. I remembered a couple of years ago, when I was on my way to a job. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one going to visit Bo Gillette. Some cops from Brooklyn got there first. But they were lazy and parked outside, halfway up over the curb, figuring it was an unmarked car, so who’d notice? Well, Bo noticed. He shows up, understands they’re looking for him and vanishes. It took me a month to find him again. In the back of my mind I was thinking, police car. So when the younger guy stepped outside I realized right away it was the same man I’d seen on the patio of the Summer Garden.”

“They’ve tracked us from Dresden Alley to the Summer Garden to here… How on earth?”

Paul thought back. He hadn’t told Käthe Richter he was coming here and he’d checked a dozen times to make sure nobody had been following him from the boardinghouse to the cab stand. He’d told nobody at the Olympics. The pawnbroker might have betrayed them here, but he wouldn’t have known about the Summer Garden. No, these two industrious cops had trailed them on their own.

“Taxis,” Paul finally said.

“What?”

“That’s the only link. To the Summer Garden and here. From now on, if we can’t shank it, we have the driver drop us two, three blocks from where we’re going.”

They continued away from November 1923 Square. Some blocks farther on they found a beer hall with a public phone. Morgan went inside to make the call to his contact while Paul ordered ales and, edgy and vigilant, kept watch outside. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see the two cops hurrying up the street, still on their trail.

Who the hell were they?

When Morgan returned to the table he was troubled. “We have a problem.” He took a sip of the beer and wiped his mustache. He leaned forward. “They’re not releasing any information. Word came from Himmler or Heydrich – my man’s not sure who – but no information about public appearances of Party or government officials is to be released until further notice. No press conferences. Nothing. The announcement went out just a few hours ago.”

Paul drank down half the beer. “What do we do? Do you know anything about Ernst’s schedule?”

“I don’t even know where he lives, except somewhere in Charlottenburg. We could stake him out at the Chancellory maybe, follow him. But that’ll be very hard. If you’re within five hundred feet of a senior party official you can be expected to be stopped for your papers and detained if they don’t like what they see.”

Paul reflected for a moment. He said, “I have a thought. I might be able to get some information.”

“About what?”

“Ernst,” Paul said.

“You?” Morgan asked, surprised.

“But I’ll need a couple of hundred marks.”

“I have that, yes.” He counted out bills and slipped them to Paul.

“And your man in the information ministry? Do you think he could find out about people who aren’t officials?”

Morgan shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. But I can tell you one thing without doubt – that if the National Socialists have any skill at all, it is gathering information on their citizens.”

Janssen and Kohl left the courtyard building.

Mrs. Haeger could offer no descriptions of the suspects, though, ironically, this was due to literal, not political, blindness. Cataracts in her eyes had allowed the busybody to observe the men hiding, then and making off with the bicycles but rendered her unable to give any more details.

Discouraged, they returned to November 1923 Square and resumed their search, making their way up and down the street, talking to shop vendors and waiters, flashing the etching of the victim and inquiring about their suspect.

They had no success – until they came to a bakery across from the park, hidden in the shadow of Hitler’s statue. A round man in a dusty white apron admitted to Kohl that he’d seen a taxi pull up across the street an hour or so ago. A taxi here was an unusual occurrence, he said, since residents could not afford them and there was no earthly reason for anyone from outside the neighborhood to come here, at least not in a cab.

The man had noticed a big man with slicked-down hair climb out, look around and then walk to the statue. He’d sat down on a bench for a short time then left.

“He was wearing what?”

“Some light clothing. I didn’t see very clearly.”

“Any other features you noticed?”

“No, sir. I had a customer.”

“Did he have a suitcase or satchel with him?”

“I don’t believe so, sir.”

So, Kohl reflected, his assumption was correct: most likely he was staying somewhere near Lützow Plaza and had come here on an errand of some sort.

“Which way did he go?”

“I didn’t see, sir. Sorry.”

Blindness, of course. But at least this was a confirmation that their suspect had indeed arrived here recently.

Just then a black Mercedes turned the corner and braked to a stop.

“Ach,” Kohl muttered, watching Peter Krauss get out of the vehicle and look around. He knew how the man had tracked him down. Regulations required that he inform the department’s desk officers every time he left the Alex during duty hours and where he would be. He’d debated about not sharing this information today. But ignoring rules was hard for Willi Kohl and before he left he’d jotted down, November 1923 Square, and the time he expected to return.

Krauss nodded a greeting. “Just making the rounds, Willi. Wondering how the case is coming.”

“Which case?” Kohl asked, solely to be petulant.

“The body in Dresden Alley, of course.”

“Ach, it seems our department resources are diminished.” He added in a wry tone, “For some unknown reason. But we think the suspect might have come here earlier.”

“I told you I would check with my contacts. I’m pleased to report that my informant has it on good information that the killer is indeed a foreigner.”

Kohl took out his pad and pencil. “And what is the suspect’s name?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“What is his nationality?”

“He wasn’t able to say.”

“Well, who is this informant?” Kohl asked, exasperated.

“Oh, I can’t release that.”

“I need to interview him, Peter. If he’s a witness.”

“He’s not a witness. He has his own sources, which are-”

“-also confidential.”

“Indeed. I’m merely telling you this because it was encouraging to learn that your suspicions have been confirmed.”

“ My suspicions.”

“That he was not German.”

“I never said that.”

“Who are you?” Krauss asked, turning to the baker.

“The inspector here was asking me about a man I saw.”

“Your suspect?” Krauss asked Kohl.

“Perhaps.”

“Ach, you are good, Willi. We’re kilometers from Dresden Alley and yet you’ve tracked the suspect to this hellhole.” He glanced toward the witness. “Is he cooperating?”

The baker spoke in a shaking voice. “I didn’t see anything, sir. Not really. Just a man getting out of a taxi.”

“Where was this man?”

“I don’t-”

“Where?” Krauss growled.

“Across the street. Really, sir, I didn’t see anything. His back was to me. He-”

“Liar.”

“I swear to… I swear to the Leader.”

“A man who swears a false oath is still a liar.” Krauss gestured toward one of his own young assistants, a round-faced officer. “We’ll take him to Prince Albrecht Street. A day there and he’ll give us a complete description.”

“No, please, sir. I want to help. I promise you.”

Willi Kohl shrugged. “But the fact is you have not helped.”

“I told you-”

Kohl asked for the man’s identity card.

With shaking hands, he handed the inspector his ID, which Kohl opened and examined.

Krauss glanced at his assistant again. “Cuff him. Take him back to headquarters.”

The young Gestapo officer pulled the man’s hands behind him and clamped on the irons. Tears filled his eyes. “I tried to recall. I honestly-”

“Well, you will recall. I assure you that.”

Kohl said to him, “We are dealing with matters of great importance here. I would rather you cooperated now. But if my colleague wants to take you to Prince Albrecht Street” – the inspector lifted an eyebrow to the terrified man – “things will go badly for you, Mr. Heydrich. Very badly.”

The man blinked and wiped his tears. “But, sir-”

“Yes, yes, they will indeed…” Kohl’s voice faded. He looked at the ID card again. “You are… where were you born?”

“Göttburg, outside of Munich, sir.”

“Ah.” Kohl’s face remained placid. He nodded slowly. Krauss glanced at him.

“But, sir, I think-”

“And the town is small?”

“Yes, sir. I-”

“Please, silence,” Kohl said, continuing to stare at the identity card.

Krauss finally asked, “What is it, Willi?”

Kohl gestured the Gestapo inspector aside. He whispered, “I think the Kripo is no longer interested in this man. You can do with him as you wish.”

Krauss was silent for a moment, trying to make sense of Kohl’s sudden change of heart. “Why?”

“And, please, as a favor, don’t mention that Janssen and I detained him.”

“Again, I must ask why, Willi?”

After a moment Kohl said, “SD Leader Heydrich came from Göttburg.”

Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SS’s intelligence division and Himmler’s number two, was considered the most ruthless man in the Third Empire. Heydrich was a heartless machine (he’d once impregnated a girl then abandoned her because he detested women with loose morals). It was said that Hitler disliked inflicting pain but tolerated its use if it suited his needs. Heinrich Himmler enjoyed inflicting pain but was inept at using it to further his goals. Heydrich both enjoyed inflicting pain and was a craftsman at its application.

Krauss glanced at the baker and asked uneasily, “Are they… are you saying they’re related, you think?”

“I prefer not to take the chance. At the Gestapo you have a far better relation with SD than the Kripo does. You can question him without much risk of consequence. If they see my name connected to him in an investigation, my career could be over.”

“But still… interrogating one of Heydrich’s relatives?” Krauss looked down at the sidewalk. He asked Kohl, “Do you think that he knows anything valuable?”

Kohl studied the miserable baker. “I think there is perhaps more he knows but nothing particularly helpful to us. I have a feeling what you sense him being evasive about is nothing more than his practice of thinning flour with sawdust or using black-market butter.” The inspector glanced around the neighborhood. “I’m sure that if Janssen and I keep at it here we can learn whatever information might be found regarding the Dresden Alley incident and at the same time” – he lowered his voice – “keep our jobs.”

Pacing, Krauss was perhaps trying to recall if he’d mentioned his own name to this man, who might in turn relay it to his cousin Heydrich. He said abruptly, “Remove the cuffs.” As the young officer did, Krauss said, “We’ll need a report on the Dresden Alley matter soon, Willi.”

“Of course.”

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail.”

The two Gestapo officers climbed into their Mercedes, circled the statue of the Leader and sped into traffic.

When the car had gone Kohl handed the baker back his ID card. “Here you are, Mr. Rosenbaum. You may go back to work now. We will not trouble you again.”

“Thank you, oh, thank you,” the baker said effusively. His hands were shaking and tears dripped into the creases around his mouth. “God bless you, sir.”

“Shhhhh,” Kohl said, irritated at the indiscreet gratitude. “Now get back into your store.”

“Yes, sir. A loaf of bread for you? Some strudel?”

“No, no. Now, your store.”

The man hurried back inside.

As they walked to their car Janssen asked, “His name was not Heydrich? It was Rosenbaum?”

“Regarding this matter, Janssen, it is better for you not to inquire. It will not help you become a better inspector.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man nodded in a knowing way.

“Now,” Kohl continued, “we know that our suspect got out of a taxi there and sat in the square before he went on his mission here, whatever that might have been. Let’s ask the benchwarmers if they saw anything.”

They had no luck with this crowd, many of whom were, as Kohl had explained to Janssen, not the least sympathetic to the Party or police. No luck, that is, until they came to one man sitting in the shadow of the bronze Leader. Kohl looked him over and smelled soldier – either regular army or Free Corps, the informal militia that was formed after the War.

He nodded energetically when Kohl asked about the suspect. “Ach, yes, yes, I know who you mean.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“I am Helmut Gershner, former corporal in Kaiser Wilhelm’s army.”

“And what can you tell us, Corporal?”

“I was speaking to this man not forty-five minutes ago. He fit your description.”

Kohl felt his heart pound quickly. “Is he still around here, do you know?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Well, tell us about him.”

“Yes, Inspector. We were speaking of the War. At first I thought we were comrades but then I sensed something was odd.”

“What was that, sir?”

“He spoke of the battle of St. Mihiel. And yet he was not troubled.”

“Troubled?”

The man shook his head. “We lost fifteen thousand captured at that battle and many, many dead. To me it was the black-letter day for my unit, Detachment C. Such a tragedy! The Americans and the French pushed us back to the Hindenburg Line. He knew much of the fighting, it seemed. I suspect he was there. But the battle was not a horror to him. I could see in his eyes he found those terrible days as nothing. And” – the man’s eyes flared in indignation – “he would not share my flask in honor of the dead. I don’t know why you are looking for him but this reaction alone made me suspicious. I suspect that he was a deserter. Or a coward. Perhaps he was even a backstabber.”

Or perhaps, Kohl thought wryly, he was the enemy. The inspector asked, “Did he say anything of his business here? Or anywhere?”

“No, sir, he did not. We spoke for only a few moments.”

“Was he alone?”

“I think not. He seemed to join another man, somewhat smaller than he. But I didn’t see clearly. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention, sir.”

“You’re doing fine, soldier,” Janssen said. To Kohl, the inspector candidate offered, “Perhaps that man we saw in the courtyard was his colleague. A dark suit, smaller.”

Kohl nodded. “Possibly. One of the companions at the Summer Garden.” He asked the veteran, “What was his age, the larger man?”

“About forty, plus a year or two. The same as myself.”

“And you got a good look at him?”

“Oh, yes, sir. I was as close to him as I am to you right now. I can describe him perfectly.”

Greet God, Kohl thought; the plague of blindness is over. He glanced up the street, looking for someone he’d observed on their search of the area a half hour earlier. He took the veteran by the arm and, holding up one hand to stop traffic, led the limping man across the street.

“Sir,” he said to a vendor in a paint-stained smock, sitting beside a cheap pushcart displaying pictures. The street artist looked up from a floral still life he was painting. He set down his brush and rose in alarm when he saw Kohl’s identification card.

“I am sorry, Inspector. I promise you I have tried many times to obtain a permit but-”

Kohl snapped, “Can you use a pencil or only paints?”

“I-”

“Pencil! Can you use one?”

“Yes, sir. I often began with a pencil to do the preliminary sketch and then I-”

“Yes, yes, fine. Now, I have a job for you.” Kohl deposited the limping corporal in the shabby canvas chair and shoved a pad of paper toward the artist.

“You wish me to do a drawing of this man?” the vendor asked, game but confused.

“No, I wish you to do a drawing of the man this man is about to describe.”

Chapter Fifteen

The taxi sped past a large hotel, from which fluttered black-white-and-red Nazi flags.

“Ach, that’s the Metropol,” the driver said. “You know who is there presently? The great actress and singer Lillian Harvey! I saw her myself. You must enjoy her musicals.”

“She’s good.” Paul had no idea who the woman was.

“She is making a film just now in Babelsberg for UFA Studios. I would love to have her as a fare but, of course, she has a limousine.”

Paul glanced absently at the posh hotel – just the sort of place where a movie starlet would stay. Then the Opel turned north, and abruptly the neighborhood changed, growing seamier by the block. Five minutes later Paul told the driver, “Please, here will do.”

The man dropped him at the curb and, alert to the risks of taxis now, Paul waited until the vehicle had disappeared in traffic before walking two blocks to Dragoner Street then continuing to the Aryan Café.

Inside he didn’t have to search hard for Otto Webber. The German was sitting at a table in the front bar, arguing with a man in a dirty light blue suit and a flat-topped straw boater hat. Webber glanced up and beamed a great smile toward Paul then quickly dismissed his companion.

“Come here, come here, Mr. John Dillinger! How are you, my friend?” Webber rose to embrace him.

They sat. Before Paul could even unbutton his jacket, Liesl, the attractive young waitress who’d served them earlier, made a beeline for him. “Ach, you’re back,” she announced, resting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard. “You could not resist me! I knew it! What will it be now?”

“Pschorr for me,” Paul said. “For him a Berlin beer.”

Her fingers brushed the back of his neck as she stepped away.

Webber’s eyes followed Liesl. “It seems that you have yourself a special friend. And what does bring you back? The allure of Liesl? Or have you been beating up more dung-shirts and need my help?”

“I thought we might be able to do some business, after all.”

“Ach, your words are like Mozart’s music to me. I knew you were a sharp one.”

Liesl brought the beers immediately. Paul noted that at least two customers who’d ordered earlier had not been served. She wrinkled her face, looking around the bar. “I must work now. Otherwise I would sit and join you and let you buy me schnapps.” Resentfully she strode off.

Webber slammed his glass into Paul’s. “Thank you for this.” He nodded after the man in the baby-blue suit, who was now at the bar. “Such problems I have. You wouldn’t believe them. Hitler announced a new car at the Berlin Auto Show last year. Better than the Audi, cheaper than the DKW. The Folks-Wagon, it is to be called. A car for everybody. You can pay by installments then pick it up when you’ve paid in full. Not a bad idea. The company can make use of the money and they still keep the car in case you don’t complete the payments. Is that not brilliant?”

Paul nodded.

“Ach, I was lucky enough to find thousands of tires.”

“Find?”

Webber shrugged. “And now I learn that the damn engineers have changed the wheel size of the piss-ant little car. My inventory is useless.”

“How much did you lose?”

Webber regarded the foam in his beer. “I haven’t actually lost money. But I will not make money. That is just as bad. Automobiles are one thing this country’s done well. The Little Man’s rebuilt all the roads. But we have a joke: You can travel anywhere in the country in great speed and comfort. But why would you want to? All you find at the other end of the road are more National Socialists.” He roared with laughter.

Liesl was looking at Paul expectantly from across the room. What did she want? Another order for beer, a roll in the hay, a marriage proposal? Paul turned back to Webber. “I will admit you were right, Otto. I am something more than a sportswriter.”

“If you are a sportswriter at all.”

“I have a proposal.”

“Fine, fine. But let us talk among four eyes. You understand the meaning? Just the two of us. There’s a better place to speak and I need to deliver something.”

They drained their beers and Paul left some marks on the table. Webber picked up a cloth shopping bag with the words KaDeWe – the World’s Finest Store printed on the side. They escaped without saying good-bye to Liesl.

“Come this way.” Outside they turned north, away from downtown, from the shops, from the fancy Metropol Hotel, and plunged into the increasingly tawdry neighborhood.

There were a number of nightclubs and cabarets here but they’d all been boarded up. “Ach, look at this. My old neighborhood. It’s all gone now. Listen, Mr. John Dillinger, I will tell you that I was very famous in Berlin. Just like your mobs that I read about in the crime shockers, we had our Ringvereine here.”

Paul was not familiar with the word, whose literal translation was “ring association,” but, with Webber’s explanation, decided it meant “gang rings.”

Webber continued. “Ach, we had many of them. Very powerful. Mine was called after your Wild West. We were the Cowboys.” He used the English word. “I was president of it for a time. Yes, president. You look surprised. But we held elections to choose our leaders.”

“Democracy.”

Webber grew serious. “You must remember, we were a republic then, our German government was. It was President Hindenburg. Our gang rings were very well run. They were grand. We owned buildings and restaurants and had elegant parties. Even costume balls, and we invited politicians and police officials. We were criminals, yes, but we were respectable. We were proud and we were skillful too. Someday I may boast to you of my better cons.

“I don’t know much about your mob, Mr. John Dillinger – your Al Capone, your Dutch Schultz – but ours began as boxing clubs. Laborers would meet to box after work and they began protection rings. We had years of rebellion and civil unrest after the War, fighting with the Kosis. Madness. And then dreadful inflation… It was cheaper to burn banknotes for heat than to spend them on wood. One of your dollars would buy billions of marks. Times were terrible. We have an expression in our country: ‘The devil plays in the empty pocket.’ And all of our pockets were empty. It’s why the Little Man came to power. And it’s how I made myself a success. The world was barter and the black market. I bloomed in such an atmosphere.”

“I can imagine,” Paul said. Then he nodded at a boarded-up cabaret. “And the National Socialists have cleaned everything up.”

“Ach, that’s one way to put it. Depends on what you mean by ‘cleaned up.’ The Little Man isn’t right in the head. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t like women. Or men. Watch how he holds his hat over his crotch at rallies. We say he’s protecting the last of Germany’s unemployed!” Webber laughed hard. Then the smile faded. “But it’s no joke. Thanks to him, the inmates have taken over the prison.”

They continued in silence for a time. Then Webber stopped and pointed proudly to a decrepit building.

“Here we are, my friend. Look at the name.”

The faded sign read in English, The Texas Club.

“This used to be our headquarters. Of my gang ring, the Cowboys, I was telling you. It was far, far nicer then. Watch your step, Mr. John Dillinger. There are sometimes men sleeping off hangovers in the entryway. Ach, did I lament already how times have changed?”

Webber had delivered his mysterious shopping bag to the bartender and collected an envelope.

The room was filled with smoke and stank of garbage and garlic. The floor was littered with cigarette and cigar butts, smoked down to tiny nubs.

“Have only beer here,” Webber warned. “They can’t adulterate the kegs. They come sealed from the brewery. As for everything else? Well, they mix the schnapps with ethyl and food extract. The wine… Ach, do not even ask. And as for food…” He nodded at sets of knives, forks and spoons chained to the wall next to each table. A young man in filthy clothing was walking around the room rinsing the used ones in a greasy pail. “Far better to leave hungry,” Webber said. “Or you might not leave at all.”

They ordered and found seats. The bartender, staring darkly at Paul the whole time, brought beers. Both men wiped the lips of the glasses before drinking. Webber happened to glance down and then frowned. He lifted his solid leg over his opposite knee and examined his trousers. The bottom of his cuff had frayed through, threads dangling.

He examined the damage. “Ach. And these trousers were from England! Bond Street! Well, I’ll get one of my girls to fix it.”

“Girls? You have daughters?”

“I may. Sons too perhaps. I don’t know. But I am referring to one of the women I live with.”

“Women? All together?”

“Of course not,” Webber said. “Sometimes I’m at one’s apartment, sometimes at another’s. A week here, a week there. One of them is a cook possessed by Escoffier, one sews as Michelangelo sculpted, one is a woman of considerable experience in bed. Ach, they’re all pearls, each in her own way.”

“Do they…”

“Know of each other?” Webber shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. They don’t ask, I don’t say.” He leaned forward. “Now, Mr. John Dillinger. What can I do for you?”

“I am going to say something to you, Otto. And you may choose to stand up and leave. I’ll understand if you do. Or you can stay and hear me out. If so, and if you can help me, there will be some very good money in it for you.”

“I’m intrigued. Keep talking.”

“I have an associate in Berlin. He just had a contact of his do some research on you.”

“On me? I’m flattered.” And he truly seemed to be.

“You were born in Berlin in 1886, moved to Cologne when you were twelve and back here three years later after your school expelled you.”

Now Webber frowned. “I left voluntarily. The story is often misre-ported.”

“For theft of kitchen goods and a liaison with a chambermaid.”

“ She was the seductress and-”

“You have been arrested seven times and served a total of thirteen months in Moabit.”

Webber beamed. “So many arrests, such short sentences. Which attests to the quality of my connections in high places.”

Paul concluded: “And the British are none too happy with you because of that rancid oil you sold their embassy cook last year. The French, as well, because of the horsemeat you passed off as lamb. They have a notice posted not to deal with you anymore.”

“Ach, the French,” he sneered. “So you are telling me that you wish to make sure you can trust me and that I am the clever criminal I purport to be, not a stupid criminal like a National Socialist spy. You are merely being prudent. Why would I be insulted at this?”

“No, what you may be insulted about is that my associate has arranged to make some people in Berlin aware of you, some people in our government. Now, you’re free to choose to have nothing more to do with me. A disap pointment but understandable. But if you do decide to help us, and you betray me, these people will find you. And the consequences will be unpleasant. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Bribery and threat, the cornerstones of trust in Berlin, as Reggie Morgan had said.

Webber wiped his face, lowered his gaze and muttered, “I save your life and this is how you treat me?”

Paul sighed. Not only did he like this improbable man but he saw no other way to get any wire on Ernst’s whereabouts. But he’d had no choice in having Morgan’s contacts look into Webber’s background and to make arrangements to ensure he didn’t betray them. These were precautions that were vital in this dangerous city. “So, I suppose we finish our beers in silence and go our separate ways.”

After a moment, though, Webber’s face broke into a smile. “But I will admit I am not as insulted as I ought to be, Mr. Schumann.”

Paul blinked. He’d never told Webber his name.

“You see, I had my doubts about you too. At the Aryan Café, our first meeting, when you walked past me to refresh your makeup, as my girls would say, I palmed your passport and had a look. Ach, you didn’t smell like a National Socialist but, as you suggest, one can never be too careful in this mad town of ours. So I made inquiries about you. You have no connection with Wilhelm Street that my contact was able to uncover. How was my skill, by the way? You felt nothing, did you, when I took your passport?”

“No,” Paul said, smiling ruefully.

“So I think we have achieved enough mutual respect ” – he laughed wryly – “to be able to consider a business proposition. Please continue, Mr. John Dillinger. Tell me what you have in mind.”

Paul counted out a hundred of the marks Morgan had given him and passed them to Webber, whose eyebrow rose.

“What do you wish to buy?”

“I need some information.”

“Ach, information. Yes, yes. That could cost one hundred marks. Or it could cost much more. Information about what or whom?”

He regarded the dark eyes of the man sitting across from him. “Reinhard Ernst.”

Webber’s lower lip jutted out and he cocked his head. “So at last the pieces fall into place. You are here for a very interesting new Olympic event. Big-game hunting. And you have made a good choice, my friend.”

“Good?” Paul asked.

“Yes, yes. The colonel is making many changes here. And not for the country’s benefit. He’s getting us ready for mischief. The Little Man’s a fool but he gathers smart people around him and Ernst is one of the smartest.” Webber lit up one of his foul cigars. Paul, a Chesterfield, breaking only two matches from the cheap box to get a flame this time.

Webber’s eyes were distant. “I served the Kaiser for three years. Until the surrender. Oh, I did some brave things, I’ll tell you. My company once advanced over a hundred meters against the British and it only took us two months to do it. Earned us some medals, that one did. Those of us who survived. There are plaques in some villages that say only, To the fallen. The towns couldn’t afford enough bronze to put all the names of the dead on them.” He shook his head. “You Yankees had the Maxims. We had our Machine-Gun. Same as the Maxims. We stole the design from you, or you stole it from us. I don’t recall which. But the Britons, ach, they had the Vickers. Water-cooled. Now, that was a snuff grinder, for you. That was quite a piece of metalwork… No, no, we don’t want another war, what ever the Little Man says, none of us do. That would be the end of everything. And that’s what the colonel is up to.” Webber slipped the hundred marks into his pocket and puffed on his vile ersatz cigar. “What do you need to know?”

“His schedule at Wilhelm Street. When he arrives for work, when he leaves, what kind of car he drives, where he parks, will he be there tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, what routes he takes, any cafés he favors in the area.”

“One can find out anything, given enough time. And egg.”

“Egg?”

He tapped his pocket. “Money. I must be honest, Mr. John Dillinger. We are not talking about palming off three-day-old canal trout from the Landwehr as fresh from the Havel. This is a matter that will require me to retire for a time. There will be serious repercussions and I will have to go underground. There will be-”

“Otto, just give me a number.”

“Very dangerous… Besides, what is money to you Americans? You have your FDR.” In English he said, “You’re rolling on dough.”

“ In dough,” Paul corrected. “A number?”

“A thousand U.S. dollars.”

“What?”

“Not marks. They say the Inflation’s over but nobody who’s lived through that time believes it. Why, in 1928 a liter of petrol cost five hundred thousand marks. And in-”

Paul shook his head. “That’s a lot of money.”

“But it’s really not – if I get you your information. And I guarantee I will. You pay me only half up front.”

Paul pointed to Webber’s pocket, where the marks resided. “ That’s your down payment.”

“But-”

“You get paid the rest when and if the information pans out. And if I get approval.”

“I’ll have expenses.”

Paul slipped him the remaining hundred. “There.”

“Hardly enough but I’ll make do.” Then Webber looked over Paul closely. “I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“About you, Mr. John Dillinger. What’s your tale?”

“There is no tale.”

“Ach, there’s always a tale. Go ahead, tell Otto your story. We’re in business together now. That’s closer than being in bed. And remember, he sees all, the truth and the lies. You seem an unlikely candidate for this job. Though perhaps that is why you were chosen to visit our fair city. Because you seem unlikely. How did you get into this noble profession of yours?”

Paul said nothing for a moment, then: “My grandfather came to America years ago. He’d fought in the Franco-Prussian War and wanted no more fighting. He started a printing company.”

“What was his name?”

“Wolfgang. He said printing ink was in his veins and claimed that his ancestors had lived in Mainz and worked with Gutenberg.”

“A grandfather’s stories,” Webber said, nodding. “Mine said he was Bismarck’s cousin.”

“His company was on the Lower East Side of New York in the German-American area of the city. In 1904 there was a tragedy – over a thousand people from there were killed in an excursion ship fire in the East River. The General Slocum.”

“Ach, what a sad thing.”

“My grandfather was on the boat. He and my grandmother weren’t killed but he was badly burned saving people and he couldn’t work any longer. Then most of the German community moved to Yorkville, farther north in Manhattan. People were too sad to stay in Little Germany. His business was going to fail, with Grandpapa being so sick and fewer people around to order printing. So my father took over. He didn’t want to be a printer; he wanted to play baseball. You know baseball?”

“Ach, of course.”

“But there was no choice. He had a wife and my sister and my brother and me to feed – my grandparents now too. But he, we would say, rose to the occasion. He did his duty. He moved to Brooklyn, added English-language printing and expanded the company. Made it very successful. My brother couldn’t go into the army during the War and they ran the shop together when I was in France. After I got back I joined them and we built the place up real nice.” He laughed. “Now I don’t know if you heard about this, but our country had this thing called Prohibition. You know-”

“Yes, yes, of course. I read the crime shockers, remember. Illegal to drink liquor! Madness!”

“My father’s plant was right on the river in Brooklyn. It had a dock and a large warehouse for storing paper and the finished jobs. One of the gangs wanted to take it over and use it to store whisky they’d smuggle in from the harbor. My father said no. A couple of thugs came to see him one day. They beat up my brother and, when my father still resisted, they put his arms in our big letterpress.”

“Oh, no, my friend.”

Paul continued. “He was mangled badly. He died a few days later. And my brother and mother sold the plant to them the next day for a hundred dollars.”

“So you were out of work and you fell in with a difficult crowd?” Webber nodded.

“No, that’s not what happened,” Paul said softly. “I went to the police. They weren’t interested in helping find these particular killers. You understand?”

“Are you asking if I know about corrupt police?” Webber laughed hard.

“So I found my old army Colt, my pistol. I learned who the killers were. I followed them for a week straight. I learned everything about them. And I touched them off.”

“You-?”

He realized that he’d translated the phrase literally; it would have no meaning in German. “We say ‘touching off.’ I put a bullet into the backs of their heads.”

“Ach, yes,” Webber whispered, unsmiling now. “‘Snuffing,’ we’d say.”

“Yes. Well, I also knew whom they worked for, the bootlegger who’d ordered my father tortured. I touched him off too.”

Webber fell silent. Paul realized he’d never told the story to anyone.

“You got your company back?”

“Oh, no, the place had been raided by the feds, the government, before that and confiscated. As for me, I disappeared underground in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. And I got ready to die.”

“To die?”

“I’d killed a very important man. This mob leader. I knew that his associates or someone else would come to find me and kill me. I’d covered my tracks very well, the police wouldn’t get me. But the gangs knew I was the one. I didn’t want to lead anybody to my family – my brother’d started his own printing company by then – so instead of going back into business with him I took a job in a gym, sparring and cleaning up in exchange for a room.”

“And you waited to die. But I can’t help but notice that you’re still extremely alive, Mr. John Dillinger. How did that transpire?”

“Some other men-”

“Gang leaders.”

“-heard what I’d done. They hadn’t been happy with the man I’d killed, the way he’d done business, like torturing my father and killing policemen. They thought criminals should be professionals. Gentlemen.”

“Like me,” Webber said, thumping his chest.

“They heard how I’d killed the gangster and his men. It had been clean, with no evidence left behind. And no one innocent was hurt. They asked me to do the same to another man, another very bad man. I didn’t want to but I found out what he’d done. He’d killed a witness and the man’s family, even his two children. So I agreed. And I touched him off too. They paid me a lot of money. Then I killed someone else. I saved up the money they paid me and bought a small gym. I was going to quit. But do you know what it means to get into a rut?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Well, this rut has been my life for years…” Paul fell silent. “So that’s my story. All truth, no lies.”

Finally Webber asked, “It bothers you? Doing this for a living?”

Paul was silent for a moment. “It should bother me more, I think. I felt worse touching off your boys during the war. In New York, I only touch off other killers. The bad ones. The ones who do what those men did to my father.” He laughed. “I say that I’m only correcting God’s mistakes.”

“I like that, Mr. John Dillinger.” Webber nodded. “God’s mistakes. Oh, we’ve got a few of those around here, yes, we do.” He finished his beer. “Now, it’s Saturday. A difficult time to get information. Meet me tomorrow morning at the Tiergarten. There is a small lake at the end of Stern Alley. On the south side. What time would be good for you?”

“Early. Say eight.”

“Ach, very well,” Webber said, frowning. “That is early. But I will be on the moment.”

“There’s one more thing I need,” Paul said.

“What? Whisky? Tobacco? I can even find some cocaine. There’s not much left in town. Yet I-”

“It’s not for me. It’s for a woman. A present.”

Webber grinned broadly. “Ach, Mr. John Dillinger, good for you! In Berlin only a short time and already your heart has spoken. Or perhaps the voice is from another part of your body. Well, how would your friend like a nice garter belt with stockings to match? From France, of course. A bustier in red and black? Or is she more modest? A cashmere sweater. Perhaps some Belgian chocolates. Or some lace. Perfume is always good. And for you, of course, my friend, a very special price.”

Chapter Sixteen

Busy times.

There were dozens of matters that might have been occupying the mind of the huge, sweating man who, late this Saturday afternoon, sat in his appropriately spacious office within the recently completed 400,000-square-foot air ministry building at 81-85 Wilhelm Street, bigger even than the Chancellory and Hitler’s apartments combined.

Hermann Göring could, for instance, resume work on the creation of the massive industrial empire that he was currently planning (and that would be named after him, of course). He could be drafting a memorandum to rural gendarmeries throughout the country, reminding them that the State Law for the Protection of Animals, which he himself had written, was to be strictly enforced and anyone caught hunting foxes with hounds would be severely punished.

Or there was the vital matter of his party for the Olympics, for which Göring was constructing his own village within the air ministry itself (he’d managed to get a look at the plans for Goebbels’s event and upped his own gala to outdo the mealworm by tens of thousands of marks). And, of course, there was the ever-vital matter of what he would wear to the party. He could even be meeting with his adjutants regarding his present mission within the Third Empire: building the finest air force in the world.

But what forty-three-year-old Hermann Göring was now preoccupied with was a pensioner widow twice his age, who lived in a small cottage outside Hamburg.

Not that the man whose titles included minister without portfolio, commissioner for air, commander in chief of the air force, Prussian minister president, air minister and hunting master of the empire was himself doing any of the legwork regarding Mrs. Ruby Kleinfeldt, of course. A dozen of his minions and Gestapo officers scurried about on Wilhelm Street and in Hamburg, digging through records and interviewing people.

Göring himself was staring out the window of his opulent office, eating a massive plate of spaghetti. This was Hitler’s favorite dish and Göring had watched the Leader picking at a bowl of it yesterday. Seeing the unconsumed portion triggered an itch within Göring that had festered into a fierce craving; so far he’d had three large helpings today.

What will we find about you? he silently asked the elderly woman, who knew nothing of the bustling inquiry about her. The investigation seemed absurdly digressive, considering the many vital projects currently on his calendar. Yet this one was vitally important because it could lead to the downfall of Reinhard Ernst.

Soldiering was at the core of Hermann Göring, who often recalled the happy days of the War, flying his all-white Fokker D-7 biplane over France and Belgium, engaging any Allied pilot foolish enough to be in the skies nearby (a confirmed twenty-two had paid for that mistake with their lives, though Göring remained convinced he’d killed many more). He might now be a behemoth who couldn’t even fit into the cockpit of his old plane, a man whose life was painkillers, food, money, art, power. But if you asked him who he was at heart, Göring’s answer would be: I am a soldier.

And a soldier who knew how best to turn his country into a nation of warriors once again – you showed your muscle. You didn’t negotiate, you didn’t pad around like a youth making for the bushes behind a barn to secretly puff away on his father’s pipe – the behavior of Colonel Reinhard Ernst.

The man had a woman’s touch about this business. Even the faggot Roehm, the head of the Stormtroopers killed by Göring and Hitler in the putsch two years ago, was a bulldog compared with Ernst. Secret arm’s-length deals with Krupp, nervously shifting resources from one shipyard to another, forcing their present “army,” such as it was, to train with wooden guns and artillery in small groups, so they wouldn’t draw attention. A dozen other such prissy tactics.

Why the hesitancy? Because, Göring believed, the man’s loyalty to National Socialist views was suspect. The Leader and Göring were not naive. They knew their support was not universal. You can win votes with fists and guns; you cannot win hearts. And many hearts within their country were not devoted to National Socialism, among them people at the top of the armed forces. Ernst could very well be intentionally dragging his Prussian heels to keep Hitler and Göring from having the one institution they needed desperately: a strong military. It was likely Ernst himself even hoped to accede to the throne if the two rulers were deposed.

Thanks to his soft voice, his reasonable manner, his smooth ways, his two fucking Iron Crosses and dozens of other decorations, Ernst was currently in Wolf’s favor (because it made him feel close to the Leader, Göring liked to use the nickname women sometimes referred to Hitler by, though the minister, of course, uttered the intimacy only in his thoughts).

Why, look at how the colonel had attacked Göring yesterday on the issue of the Me 109 fighter at the Olympics! The air minister had lain awake half the night, enraged over that exchange, picturing again and again Wolf turning his blue eyes to Ernst and agreeing!

Another burst of rage swept through him. “God in heaven!” Göring swept the spaghetti dish to the floor. It shattered.

One of his orderlies, a veteran of the War, came running, stiff on his game leg.

“Sir?”

“Clean that up!”

“I’ll get a pail-”

“I didn’t say mop the floor. Just pick up the pieces. They’ll mop this evening.” Then the huge man glanced at his blousy shirt and saw tomato stains on it. His anger doubled. “I want a clean shirt,” he snapped. “The china is too small for the portions. Tell the cook to find bigger. The Leader has that Meissen set, the green and white. I want plates like those.”

“Yes, sir.” The man was bending down to the shards.

“No, my shirt first.”

“Yes, Air Minister.” The man scurried off. He returned a moment later, bearing a dark green shirt on a hanger.

“Not that one. I told you when you brought it to me last month that it makes me look like Mussolini.”

“That was the black one, sir. Which I’ve discarded. This is green.”

“Well, I want white. Get me a white shirt! A silk one!”

The man left then came back once more, with the correct color.

A moment later one of Göring’s senior aides stepped inside.

The minister took the shirt and set it aside; he was self-conscious of his weight and would never think of undressing in front of a subordinate. He felt another flash of rage, this time at Ernst’s slim physique. As the orderly picked up the shards of china, the senior aide said, “Air Minister, I think we have good news.”

“What?”

“Our agents in Hamburg have found some letters about Mrs. Kleinfeldt. They suggest that she is a Jew.”

“‘Suggest’?”

“ Prove, Mr. Minister. They prove it.”

“Pure?”

“No. A half-breed. But from the mother’s side. So it’s indisputable.”

The Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race, enacted last year, removed Jews’ German citizenship and made them “subjects,” as well as criminalized marriage or sex between Jews and Aryans. The law also defined exactly who was a Jew in the case of ancestral intermarriage. With two Jewish and two non-Jewish grandparents, Mrs. Kleinfeldt was a half-breed.

This was not as damning as it could be but the discovery delighted Göring because of the man who was Mrs. Kleinfeldt’s grandson: Doctor-professor Ludwig Keitel, Reinhard Ernst’s partner in the Waltham Study. Göring still didn’t know what this mysterious study was all about. But the facts were sufficiently damning: Ernst was working with a man descended from Jews and they were using the writings of the Jew mind-doctor Freud. And, most searing of all, Ernst had kept the study secret from the two most important people in the government, himself and Wolf.

Göring was surprised that Ernst had underestimated him. The colonel had assumed that the air minister wasn’t monitoring telephones in the cafés around Wilhelm Street. Didn’t the plenipotentiary know that in this paranoia-soaked district those were the very phones that yielded the most gold? He’d gotten the transcript of the call Ernst had made to Doctor-professor Keitel this morning, urgently requesting a meeting.

What happened in that meeting wasn’t important. What was critical was that Göring had learned the good professor’s name and had now found out that he had Yid blood in his veins. The consequences of all this? That largely depended on what Göring wished those consequences to be. Keitel, a part-Jew intellectual, would be sent to the camp at Oranienburg. There was no doubt about that. But Ernst? Göring decided it would be better to keep him visible. He’d be ousted from the top ranks of government but retained in some lackey position. Yes, by next week the man would be lucky to be employed scurrying after Defense Minister von Blomberg, carting the bald man’s briefcase.

Ebullient now, Göring took several more painkillers, shouted for another plate of spaghetti and rewarded himself for his successful intriguing by turning his attention back to his Olympic party. Wondering: Should he appear in the costume of a German hunter, an Arab sheik, or Robin Hood, complete with a quiver and a bow on his shoulder?

Sometimes it was next to impossible to make up one’s mind.

Reggie Morgan was troubled. “I don’t have the authority to approve a thousand dollars. Jesus Lord. A thousand? ”

They were walking through the Tiergarten, past a Stormtrooper on a soapbox sweating fiercely as he hoarsely lectured a small group of people. Some clearly wished to be elsewhere, some looked back with disdain in their eyes. But some were mesmerized. Paul was reminded of Heinsler on the ship.

I love the Führer and I’d do anything for him and the Party…

“The threat worked?” Morgan asked.

“Oh, yes. In fact, I think he respected me more for it.”

“And he can actually get us useful information?”

“If anybody can, he’s the one. I know his sort. It’s astonishing how resourceful some people can be when you wave money toward them.”

“Then let’s see if we can come up with some.”

They left the park and turned south at the Brandenburg Gate. Several blocks farther on they passed the ornate palace that would, when the repairs after the fire were finished, become the U.S. embassy.

“Look at it,” Morgan said. “Magnificent, isn’t it? Or it will be.”

Even though the building wasn’t officially the U.S. embassy yet, an American flag hung from the front. The sight stirred Paul, made him feel good, more at ease.

He thought of the Hitler Youth back at the Olympic Village.

And the black… the hooked cross. You would say swastika… Ach, surely you know… Surely you know…

Morgan turned down an alleyway and then another and, with a look behind them, unlocked the door. They entered the quiet, dark building and walked down several corridors until they came to a small door beside the kitchen. They stepped inside. The dim room was sparse: a desk, several chairs and a large radio, bigger than any Paul had ever seen. Morgan flipped on the unit and as the tubes warmed up it began to hum.

“They listen to all the overseas shortwave,” Morgan said, “so we’re going to transmit via relays to Amsterdam and then London and then be routed through a phone line to the States. It’ll take the Nazis a while to get the frequency,” the man said, pulling on earphones, “but they could get lucky so you have to assume they’re listening. Everything you say, keep that in mind.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll have to go fast. Ready?”

Paul nodded and took the set of headphones Morgan offered him, then plugged the thick jack into the socket he pointed to. A green light finally came to life on the front of the unit. Morgan stepped to a window, glanced out into the alleyway, let the curtain fall back. He pulled the microphone close to his mouth and pushed the button on the shaft. “I need a transatlantic connection to our friend in the south.” He repeated this then released the transmit button and said to Paul, “Bull Gordon’s ‘our friend in the south.’ Washington, you know. ‘Our friend in the north’ is the Senator.”

“Roger that,” said a young voice. It was Avery’s. “Be a minute. Hold on. Placing the call.”

“Howdy,” Paul said.

A pause. “Hey there,” Avery responded. “How’s life treating you?”

“Oh, just swell. Good to hear your voice.” Paul couldn’t believe that he’d said good-bye to him just yesterday. It seemed like months. “How’s your other half?”

“Staying out of trouble.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Paul wondered if Manielli had been mouthing off to any Dutch soldiers the same way he wisecracked in America.

“You’re on a speaker here,” came Manielli’s irritated voice. “Just to let you know.”

Paul laughed.

Then staticky silence.

“What time is it in Washington?” Paul asked Morgan.

“Lunchtime.”

“It’s Saturday. Where’s Gordon?”

“We don’t have to worry about that. They’ll find him.”

Through the headset a woman’s voice said, “One moment, please. Placing your call.”

A moment later Paul heard a phone ring. Then another woman’s voice answered, “Yes?”

Morgan said, “Your husband, please. Sorry to trouble you.”

“Hold the line.” As if she knew not to ask who was calling.

A moment later Gordon asked, “Hello?”

“It’s us, sir,” Morgan said.

“Go ahead.”

“Setback in the arrangements. We’ve had to approach somebody local for information.”

Gordon was silent for a moment. “Who is he? General terms.”

Morgan gestured to Paul, who said, “He knows somebody who can get us close to our customer.”

Morgan nodded at his choice of words and added, “My supplier has run out of product.”

The commander asked, “This man, he works for the other company?”

“No. Works for himself.”

“What other options do we have?”

Morgan said, “The only other choice is to sit and wait, hope for the best.”

“You trust him?”

After a moment Paul said, “Yes. He’s one of us.”

“Us?”

“Me,” Paul explained. “He’s in my line of work. We’ve, uhm, arranged for a certain level of trust.”

“There’s money involved?”

Morgan said, “That’s why we’re calling. He wants a lot. Immediately.”

“What’s a lot?”

“A thousand. Your currency.”

A pause. “That could be a problem.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Paul said. “You’ve got to make it work.”

“We could bring you back from your trip early.”

“No, you don’t want to do that,” Paul said emphatically.

The sound from the radio could have been a wave of static or could have been Bull Gordon’s sigh.

“Sit tight. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“So what would we get for my money?”

“I don’t know the details,” Bull Gordon said to Cyrus Adam Clayborn, who was in New York on the other end of the phone. “They couldn’t go into it. Worried about eavesdropping, you know. But apparently the Nazis have cut off access to information Schumann needs to find Ernst. That’s my take.”

Clayborn grunted.

Gordon found himself surprisingly at ease, considering that the man he was speaking to was the fourth-or fifth-richest human being in the country. (He had ranked number two but the stock market crash had pulled him down a couple of notches.) They were very different men but they shared two vital characteristics: they had military in their blood and they were both patriots. That made up for a lot of distance in income and station.

“A thousand? Cash?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I like that Schumann. That was pretty sharp, his reelection comment. FDR’s scared as a rabbit.” Clayborn chuckled. “Thought the Senator was going to crap right there.”

“Looked like it.”

“Okay. I’ll arrange the funds.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Clayborn preempted Gordon’s next question. “’Course, it’s late Saturday in Hun-ville. And he needs the money now, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Hold on.”

Three long minutes later the magnate came back on the line.

“Have ’em go to the clerk at the usual pickup spot in Berlin. Morgan’ll know it. The Maritime Bank of the Americas. Number eighty-eight Udder den Linden Street, or however the hell you say it. I can never get it right.”

“ Unter den Linden. It means ‘Under the Linden Trees.’”

“Fine, fine. The guard’ll have the package.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“Bull?”

“Yes, sir?”

“We don’t have enough heroes in this country. I want that boy to come home in one piece. Considering our resources…” Men like Clayborn would never say, “my money.” The businessman continued. “Considering our resources, what can we do to improve the odds?”

Gordon considered the question. Only one thing came to mind.

“Pray,” he said and pressed down the cradle on the phone then paused for a moment and lifted it once more.

Chapter Seventeen

Inspector Willi Kohl sat at his desk in the gloomy Alex, attempting to understand the inexplicable, a game played nowhere more often than in the halls of police departments everywhere.

He had always been a curious man by nature, intrigued, say, by how the blend of simple charcoal, sulfur and nitrate produced gunpowder, how undersea boats worked, why birds clustered together on particular parts of telegraph lines, what occurred within human hearts to whip otherwise rational citizens into a frenzy when some weasely National Socialist spoke at a rally.

His mind was presently preoccupied with the question of what sort of man could take another’s life? And why?

And, of course, “Who?” as he now whispered aloud, thinking of the drawing done by the street artist at November 1923 Square. Janssen was now having it too printed up downstairs, as they’d done with the photo of the victim. It wasn’t a bad sketch by any means, Kohl reflected. There were some erasures from the false starts and corrections but the face was distinctive: a handsome square jaw, thick neck, hair a bit wavy, a scar on the chin and a sticking plaster on his cheek.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

Willi Kohl knew the facts: the man’s size and age and hair color and probable nationality, even his likely city of residence. But he’d learned in his years as an investigator that to find certain criminals, you needed far more than details like this. To truly understand them, something more was required, intuitive insights. This was one of Kohl’s greatest talents. His mind made connections and leaps that occasionally startled even himself. But now, none of these was forthcoming. Something about this case was out of balance.

He sat back in his chair, examining his notes as he sucked on his hot pipe (one advantage of being with the ostracized Kripo was that Hitler’s disdain for smoking did not reach here, to these unhallowed halls). He shot smoke toward the ceiling and sighed.

The results from his earlier requests had not been forthcoming. The laboratory technician had not been able to find any fingerprints on the Olympic guidebook that they’d found at the scene of the brawl with the Stormtroopers, and the FPE (yes, Kohl noted angrily, still only one examiner) hadn’t found matches for the prints from Dresden Alley. And still nothing from the coroner. How the hell long does it take to cut a man open, to analyze his blood?

Of the dozens of missing persons reports that had flooded into the Kripo today, none matched the description of the man who was certainly a son and maybe a father, maybe a husband, maybe a lover…

Some telegrams had arrived from precincts around Berlin, reporting the names of those who’d bought Spanish Star Modelo A pistols or Largo ammunition in the past year. But the list was woefully incomplete and Kohl was discouraged to learn that he’d been wrong; the murder weapon was not as rare as he’d thought. Perhaps because of the close connection between Germany and Franco’s Nationalist forces in Spain, many of these powerful and efficient guns had been sold here. The list as of the moment totaled fifty-six people in Berlin and environs, and a number of gun shops remained to be polled. Officers had also reported that some shops kept no records or were closed for the weekend.

Besides, if the man had come to town only yesterday, as it now seemed, he most likely hadn’t bought the gun himself. (Though the list might yet prove valuable: The killer could have stolen the gun, taken it from the victim himself or gotten it from a comrade who had been in Berlin for some time.)

Understanding the inexplicable…

Still hoping for the passenger manifest for the Manhattan, Kohl had sent telegrams to port officials in Hamburg and to the United States Lines, the owner and operator of the vessel, requesting a copy of the document. But Kohl wasn’t optimistic; he wasn’t even sure if the port master had a copy. As for the ship line itself, they would have to locate the document, create a copy and then post or Teletype it to Kripo headquarters; that could take days. In any event, there’d so far been no response to these requests.

He had even sent a telegram to Manny’s Men’s Wear in New York, asking about recent purchasers of Stetson Mity-Lites. This plea too was presently unanswered.

He glanced impatiently at the brass clock on his desk. It was getting late and he was starving. Kohl wished either for a break in the case or to return home for dinner with his family.

Konrad Janssen stepped into his doorway. “I have them, sir.”

He held up a printed sheet of the street artist’s rendering, fragrant with the scent of ink.

“Good… Now, sadly, Janssen, you have one more task tonight.”

“Yes, sir, whatever I can do.”

One further quality of serious Janssen was that he had no aversion to working hard.

“You will take the DKW and return to the Olympic Village. Show the artist’s picture to everyone you can find, American or otherwise, and see if anybody recognizes him. Leave some copies along with our telephone number. If you have no luck there, take some copies to the Lützow Plaza precinct. If they happen to find the suspect tell them to detain him as a witness only and to call me at once. Even at home.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Janssen… Wait, this is your first murder investigation, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, you never forget the first one. You’re doing well.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

Kohl gave him the keys to the DKW. “A delicate hand on the choke. She likes air as much as petrol. Perhaps more.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be at home. Telephone me with any developments.”

After the young man had gone Kohl unlaced and removed his shoes. He opened his desk drawer, extracted a box of lamb’s wool and wound several pieces around his toes to cushion the sensitive areas. He placed a few strategic wads in his shoes themselves and, wincing, slipped his feet back inside.

He glanced past the picture of the suspect to the grim photographs of the murders in Gatow and Charlottenburg. He’d heard nothing more about the report from the crime scene or interviews of any witnesses. He supposed that his fiction about the Kosi conspiracy he’d pitched to Chief of Inspectors Horcher had had no effect.

Gazing at the pictures: a dead boy, a woman trying to grasp the leg of a man lying just out of reach, a worker clutching his worn shovel… Heartbreaking. He stared for some moments. He knew it was dangerous to pursue the case. Certainly dangerous for his career, if not his life. And yet he had no choice.

Why? he wondered. Why this compulsion he invariably felt to close a murder case?

Willi Kohl supposed it was that, ironically, in death he found his sanity. Or, more accurately, in the process of bringing to justice those who caused death. This was his purpose on earth, he felt, and to ignore any killing – of a fat man in an alley or a family of Jews – was to ignore his nature and was therefore a sin.

The inspector now put the photographs away. Taking his hat, he stepped into the hallway of the old building and proceeded down the length of Prussian tile and stone and wood worn down over the years but nonetheless spotlessly clean and polished to a shine. He walked through shafts of low, rosy sun, which was the main source of illumination at headquarters this time of year; the grande dame of Berlin had become a spendthrift under the National Socialists (“Guns before butter,” Göring proclaimed over and over and over), and the building’s engineers did all they could to conserve resources.

Since he’d given his car to Janssen and would have to take a tram home, Kohl continued down two flights to a back door of headquarters, a shortcut to the stop.

At the bottom of the stairs signs pointed the way to the Kripo’s holding cells, to the left, and to the old-case archives straight ahead. It was in this latter direction that he headed, recalling spending time there in his days as a detective-inspector assistant, reading the files not only to learn what he could from the great Prussian detectives of the past but simply because he enjoyed seeing the history of Berlin as told through its law enforcers.

His daughter’s fiancé, Heinrich, was a civil servant but his passion was police work. Kohl decided he would bring the young man here sometime and they could browse through the files together. The inspector might even show him some of the cases Kohl himself had worked on years ago.

But, as he pushed through the doorway, he stopped fast; the archives were gone. Kohl was startled to find himself in a brilliantly lit corridor in which stood six armed men. They were not, however, in the green uniforms of the Schupo; they wore SS black. Almost as one, they turned toward him.

“Good evening, sir,” one said, the closest to him. A lean man with an astonishingly long face. He eyed Kohl carefully. “You are…?”

“Detective Inspector Kohl. And who are you?”

“If you’re looking for the archives they are now on the second floor.”

“No. I’m simply using the rear exit door.” Kohl started forward. The SS trooper took a subtle step toward him. “I’m sorry to report that it is no longer in use.”

“I didn’t hear about that.”

“No? Well, it has been the case for the past several days. You will have to go back upstairs.”

Kohl heard a curious sound. What was it? A mechanical clap, clap…

A burst of sunlight filled the hallway as two SS men opened the far door and wheeled in dollies holding cartons. They turned into one of the rooms at the end of the corridor.

He said to the guard, “That door is the one I’m speaking of. It appears to be in use.”

“Not in general use.”

The sounds…

Clap, clap, clap and, beneath it, the rumbling of a motor or engine…

He glanced to his right, through a partially open doorway, where he glimpsed several large mechanical devices. A woman in a white coat was feeding stacks of paper into one of them. This must be part of the Kripo’s printing department. But then he observed that, no, they weren’t sheets of paper but cards with holes punched in them and they were being sorted by the device.

Ah, Kohl understood. An old mystery had been answered. Some time ago he’d heard that the government was leasing large calculating and sorting machines, called DeHoMags, after the firm that made them, the German subsidiary of the American company International Business Machines. These devices used punched cards to analyze and cross-reference information. Kohl had been delighted when he’d learned of the leases. The machines could be invaluable in criminal investigations; they might narrow down fingerprint categories or ballistics information a hundred times faster than a technician could by hand. They could also cross-reference modus operandi to link criminal and crime and could keep track of parolees or recidivist offenders.

The inspector’s enthusiasm soon soured, though, when he learned that the devices were not available for use by the Kripo. He’d wondered who’d gotten them and where they were. But now, to his shock, it seemed that at least two or three were less than a hundred meters from his office and guarded by the SS.

What was their purpose?

He asked the guard.

“I couldn’t tell you, sir,” the man replied in a brittle voice. “I have not been informed.”

From inside the room the woman in white looked out. Her hands paused and she spoke to someone. Kohl couldn’t hear what was said, nor see the person she was speaking to. The door slowly swung shut as if by magic.

The guard with the vertical face stepped past Kohl and opened the door that led back up the stairs. “Again, Inspector, as I said, there is no exit here. You will find another door up one flight and-”

“I’m familiar with the building,” Kohl said testily and returned to the stairs.

“I brought you something,” he said.

Standing in Paul’s living room in the Magdeburger Alley boardinghouse, Käthe Richter took the small package with a curious look: cautious awe, as if it had been years since anyone had given her a present. She rubbed her thumbs on the brown paper covering what Otto Webber had located for him.

“Oh.” She uttered a faint exhalation as she looked at the leather-bound book on whose jacket was stamped Collected Poems of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

“My friend said it’s not illegal but it’s not legal either. That means it will soon be illegal.”

“Limbo,” she said, nodding. “It was the same with American jazz here for a time, which is now forbidden.” Continuing to smile, Käthe turned the volume over and over in her hands.

He said, “I didn’t know his names run in my family.”

She glanced up with a quizzical look on her face.

“My grandfather was Wolfgang. My father was Johann.”

Käthe smiled at the coincidence and flipped through the book.

“I was wondering,” he said. “If you’re not busy, perhaps some dinner.”

Her face went still. “As I told you, I am able to serve only breakfast, not-”

He laughed. “No, no. I want to take you out to dinner. Perhaps see some sights in Berlin.”

“You want to…”

“I would like to take you out.”

“I… No, no, I couldn’t.”

“Oh, you have a friend, a husband…” He’d glanced at her hand and seen no rings but he wasn’t sure how one declared commitment in Germany. “Please, ask him to come too.”

Käthe was at a loss for words. Finally she said, “No, no, there is no one. But-”

Paul said firmly, “No ‘but’s. I’m not in Berlin for very long. I could use somebody to show me around town.” He gave her a smile. In English: “I’ll tell you, miss, I ain’t taking no for an answer.”

“I don’t understand ‘ain’t,’” she said. “But I have not been to a restaurant for a long time. Perhaps such an evening could be enjoyable.”

Paul frowned. “You’ve got the English wrong.”

“Oh, what should it be?” she asked.

“The proper word is ‘ will ’ be enjoyable, not ‘could.’”

She gave a faint laugh and agreed to meet him in a half hour. She returned to her room, while Paul showered and changed.

Thirty minutes later, a knock on the door. When he opened it he blinked. She was an entirely different person.

Käthe was wearing a black dress that would have satisfied even fashion goddess Marion in Manhattan. Close fitting, made from a shimmery material, a daring slit up the side and tiny sleeves that barely covered her shoulders. The garment smelled faintly of mothballs. She seemed slightly ill at ease, embarrassed almost to be wearing such a stylish gown, as if all she’d worn recently were housedresses. But her eyes shone and he had the same thought as earlier: how a subdued beauty and passion radiated from within her, wholly negating the matte skin and the bony knuckles and pale complexion, the furrowed brow.

As for Paul, his hair was still dark with lotion but was now combed differently. (And when they went out, it would be hidden by a hat very different from his brown Stetson: a dark, broad-brimmed trilby he’d purchased that afternoon after leaving Morgan.) He was wearing a navy blue linen double-breasted suit and a silver tie over his white Arrow shirt. At the department store where he’d bought the hat he’d also picked up more makeup to cover the bruise and cut. He’d discarded the sticking plaster.

Käthe picked up the book of poems, which she’d left in his room to go change, and flipped through the pages. “This is one of my favorites. It’s called ‘Proximity of the Beloved One.’” She read it aloud.

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.

I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams.

I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes;

At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes.

I hear you when the billows rise on high,

With murmur deep.

To tread the silent grove where wander I,

When all’s asleep.

She read in a low voice and Paul could picture her up in front of a classroom, her students spellbound by her obvious love of the words.

Käthe laughed and looked up with bright eyes. “This is very kind of you.” She then took the book in both strong hands and ripped the leather binding off. This part she threw into the trash bin.

He stared at her, frowning.

She smiled sadly. “I will keep the poems but should dispose of the portion that shows most obviously the title and the poet’s name. That way a visitor or guest will not accidentally see who wrote it and won’t be tempted to turn me in. What a time we live in! And I will leave it in your room for now. Best not to carry some things with you on the streets, even a naked book. Now, let’s go out!” she said with girlish excitement. She switched to English as she said, “I want to do the town. That is what you say, is it not?”

“Yep. Do the town. Where do you want to go?… But I’ve got two requirements.”

“Please?”

“First, I’m hungry and I eat a lot. And, second, I’d like to see your famous Wilhelm Street.”

Her face again went still for a moment. “Ach, the seat of our government.”

He supposed that, being someone persecuted by the National Socialists, she would not enjoy that particular sight. Yet he needed to find the best location for touching off Ernst, and he knew that a man by himself was always far more suspicious than one with a woman on his arm. This had been Reggie Morgan’s second mission today – not only had he looked into Otto Webber’s past but he’d gotten the wire on Käthe Richter too. She had indeed been fired from a teaching job and had been marked down as an intellectual and a pacifist. There was no evidence that she’d ever informed for the National Socialists.

Now, watching her gaze at the poetry book, he felt pangs of guilt about employing her in this way, but he consoled himself with the thought that she was no fan of the Nazis, and by helping him in this unwitting way she’d be doing her part to stop the war Hitler was planning.

She said, “Yes, of course. I will show you. And for your first requirement I have just the restaurant in mind. You will like it.” She added with a mysterious smile, “It’s just the place for people like you and me.”

You and me…

He wondered what she meant.

They walked out into the warm evening. He was amused to note that as they took the first step toward the sidewalk both their heads swiveled from side to side, looking to see if anyone was watching.

As they walked, they spoke about the neighborhood, the weather, the shortages, the Inflation. About her family: Her parents had passed away and she had one sister, who lived in nearby Spandau with her husband and four children. She asked him about his life too, but the cautious button man gave vague answers and continually steered the conversation back to her.

Wilhelm Street was too far to walk to, she explained. Paul knew this, recalling the map. He was still cautious about taxis but, as it turned out, none was available; this was the weekend before the Olympics began and people were pouring into town. Käthe suggested a double-decker bus. They climbed aboard the vehicle and walked up to the top deck, where they sat close together on the spotless leather seat. Paul looked around carefully but could see no one paying particular attention to them (though he half-expected to see the two policemen who’d been tracking him all day, the heavy cop in the off-white suit, the lean one in green).

The bus swayed as they drove through the Brandenburg Gate, narrowly missing the stone sides, and many of the passengers gave a gasp of humorous alarm, like on the roller coaster at Coney Island; he supposed the reaction was a Berlin tradition.

Käthe pulled the rope and they disembarked on Under the Lindens at Wilhelm Street, then walked south along the wide avenue that was the center of the Nazi government. It was nondescript, with monolithic gray office buildings on either side. Clean and antiseptic, the street exuded an unsettling power. Paul had seen pictures of the White House and Congress. They seemed picturesque and amiable. Here the facades and tiny windows of the rows upon rows of stone and concrete buildings were forbidding.

And, more to the point tonight, they were heavily guarded. He’d never seen such security.

“Where’s the Chancellory?” he asked.

“There.” Käthe pointed toward an old, ornate building with a scaffolding covering much of the front.

Paul was discouraged. His quick eyes took in the place. Armed guards in front. Dozens of SS and what appeared to be regular soldiers were patrolling the street, stopping people and asking for papers. On the tops of the buildings were other troops, armed with guns. There must have been a hundred uniformed men nearby. It would be virtually impossible to find a shooting position. And even if he were able to, there was no doubt that he’d be captured or killed trying to get away.

He slowed. “I think I’ve seen enough.” He eyed several large, black-uniformed men demanding papers from two men on the sidewalk.

“Not as picturesque as you’d expected?” She laughed and started to say something – perhaps “I told you so,” but then thought better of it. “If you have more time, don’t worry; I can show you many parts of our city that are quite beautiful. Now, shall we go to dinner?” she asked.

“Yes, let’s.”

She directed him back to a tram stop on Under the Lindens. They got aboard and rode for a brief while then climbed off at her direction.

Käthe asked what he’d thought of Berlin so far in his short time here. Paul again gave some innocuous answers and turned the conversation back to her. He asked, “Are you going with anyone?”

“‘Going’?”

He’d translated literally. “I mean romantically involved.”

Straightforward, she answered, “Most recently I had a lover. We no longer are together. But he still owns much of my heart.”

“What does he do?” he asked.

“A reporter. Like you.”

“I’m not really a reporter. I write stories and hope to sell them. Human interest, we’d say.”

“And you write about politics?”

“Politics? No. Sports.”

“Sports.” Her voice was dismissive.

“You don’t like sports?”

“I am sorry to say I dislike sports.”

“Why?”

“Because there are so many important questions facing us, not just here, but everywhere in the world. Sports are… well, they’re frivolous.”

Paul replied, “So is strolling down the streets of Berlin on a nice summer evening. But we’re doing it.”

“Ach,” Käthe said testily. “The sole point of education in Germany now is to build strong bodies, not minds. Our boys, they play war games, they march everywhere. Did you hear we’ve started conscription?”

Paul recalled that Bull Gordon had described the new German military draft to him. But he said, “No.”

“One out of three boys fails because they have flat feet from all the marching they do at school. It’s a disgrace.”

“Well, you can overdo anything,” he pointed out. “I enjoy sports.”

“Yes, you seem athletic. Do you body-build?”

“Some. Mostly I box.”

“Box? You mean the sort where you hit other people?”

He laughed. “That’s the only kind of boxing there is.”

“Barbaric.”

“It can be – if you let your guard down.”

“You joke,” she said. “But how can you encourage people to strike each other?”

“I couldn’t really tell you. But I like it. It’s fun.”

“Fun,” she scoffed.

“Yeah, fun,” he said, growing angry too. “Life’s hard. Sometimes you need to hold on to something fun, when the rest of the world is turning to shit around you… Why don’t you go to a boxing match sometime? Go see Max Schmeling. Drink some beer, yell till you’re hoarse. You might enjoy it.”

“Kakfif,” she said bluntly.

“What?”

“Kakfif,” Käthe repeated. “It’s a shortening for ‘Completely out of the question.’”

“Suit yourself.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’m a pacifist, as I was telling you today. All my friends in Berlin are pacifists. We don’t combine the idea of fun with hurting people.”

“I don’t walk around like a Stormtrooper and beat up the innocent. The guys I spar with? They want to do it.”

“You encourage causing pain.”

“No, I discourage people from hitting me. That’s what sparring is.”

“Like children,” she muttered. “You’re like children.”

“You don’t understand.”

“And why do you say that? Because I’m a woman?” she snapped.

“Maybe. Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“I’m not talking about intelligence. I only mean that women aren’t inclined to fight.”

“We aren’t inclined to be the aggressor. We will fight to protect our homes.”

“Sometimes the wolf isn’t in your home. Don’t you go out and kill him first?”

“No.”

“You ignore him and hope he goes away?”

“Yes. Exactly. And you teach him he doesn’t need to be destructive.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Paul said. “You can’t talk a wolf into being a sheep.”

“But I think you can if you wish to,” she said. “And if you work hard at it. Too many men don’t want that, however. They want to fight. They want to destroy because it gives them pleasure.” Dense silence between them for a long moment. Then, her voice softening, she said, “Ach, Paul, please forgive me. Here you are, being my companion, doing the town with me. Which I haven’t done for so many months. And I repay you by being like a shrew. Are American women shrews like me?”

“Some are, some aren’t. Not that you are one.”

“I’m a difficult person to be with. You have to understand, Paul – many women in Berlin are this way. We have to be. After the War there were no men left in the country. We had to become men and be as hard as they. I apologize.”

“Don’t. I enjoy arguing. It’s just another way of sparring.”

“Ach, sparring! And me a pacifist!” She gave a girlish laugh.

“What would your friends say?”

“What indeed?” she said and took his arm as they crossed the street.

Chapter Eighteen

Even though he was a “lukewarm” – politically neutral, not a member of the Party – Willi Kohl enjoyed certain privileges reserved for devout National Socialists.

One of these was that when a senior Kripo official had moved to Munich, Kohl had been offered the chance to take his large four-bedroom apartment in a pristine, linden-lined cul-de-sac off Berliner Street near Charlottenburg. Berlin had had a serious housing shortage since the War and most Kripo inspectors, even many at his level, were relegated to boxy, nondescript folk-apartments, thrown together in boxy, nondescript neighborhoods.

Kohl wasn’t quite sure why he’d been so rewarded. Most likely because he was always ready to help fellow officers analyze crime scene information, make deductions from the evidence or interview a witness or suspect. Kohl knew that the most invaluable man in any job is the one who can make his colleagues – and superiors especially – appear invaluable as well.

These rooms were his sanctuary. They were as private as his workplace was public and were populated by those closest to his heart: his wife and children and, on occasion (sleeping always in the parlor, of course), Charlotte’s fiancé, Heinrich.

The apartment was on the second floor and as he walked, wincing, up the stairs, he could make out the smells of onions and meat. Heidi kept to no schedule in preparing her food. Some of Kohl’s colleagues would solemnly declare Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays, for instance, to be State Loyalty Meat-free Days. The Kohl household, at least seven strong, went without meat often, owing to scarcity as well as cost, but Heidi refused to be bound by a ritual. This Saturday night they might have aubergine with bacon in cream sauce or kidney pudding or sauerbraten or even an Italian-style dish of pasta with tomatoes. Always a sweet, of course. Willi Kohl liked his linzertorte and strudel.

Wheezing from the walk up the stairs, he opened the door just as eleven-year-old Hanna raced to him. Every inch the little blonde Nordic maid, despite her parents’ brown hair, she wrapped her arms around the large man. “Papa! Can I carry your pipe for you?”

He fished out the meerschaum for her. She carried it to the rack in the den where dozens of others sat.

“I’m home,” he called.

Heidi stepped into the doorway and kissed her husband on both cheeks. A few years younger than he, she’d become round over the course of their marriage, developing a smooth extra chin and huge bosom, adding pounds with each child. But this was as it should be; Kohl felt you should grow both in soul and in girth with your partner. Five children had earned her a certificate from the Party. (Women with more offspring had higher accolades; producing nine children won you a gold star. Indeed, a couple with fewer than four offspring were not allowed to call themselves a “family.”) But Heidi had angrily stuffed the parchment into the bottom of her bureau. She had children because she enjoyed them, enjoyed everything about them – giving them life, raising them, directing their course – not because the Little Man wished to swell the population of his Third Empire.

His wife vanished then returned a moment later, bearing a snifter of schnapps. She let him have only one glass of the potent drink before dinner. He grumbled about the rationing occasionally but he secretly welcomed it. He knew far too many policemen who didn’t stop with the second glass. Or second bottle.

He said hello to Hilde, his seventeen-year-old, lost as always in a book. She rose and hugged him and then returned to the divan. The willowy girl was the family scholar. But she’d been having a difficult time lately. Goebbels himself said that a woman’s sole purpose was to be beautiful and populate the Third Empire. The universities were largely closed to girls now, and those admitted were limited to two courses of study: domestic science (which earned what was contemptuously called the “pudding degree”) or education. Hilde, however, wished to study mathematics and science and ultimately become a university professor. But she would be allowed to teach only lower grades. Kohl believed both of his older daughters were equally smart but learning came more easily to Hilde than to vivacious and athletic Charlotte, four years older. He was often amazed at how he and Heidi had produced such similar and yet vastly different human beings.

The inspector walked out onto his small balcony, where he would sometimes sit and smoke his pipe late at night. It faced west and now he gazed at the fierce red-and-orange clouds, lit by the vanished sun. He took a small sip of the harsh schnapps. The second was kinder and he sat down comfortably in his chair, trying hard not to think about fat, dead men, about the tragic deaths in Gatow and Charlottenburg, about Pietr – forgive me, Peter – Krauss, about the mysterious churning of the DeHoMags in the basement of the Kripo. Trying not to think about their clever Manny’s New York suspect.

Who are you?

A clamor from the front hall. The boys were returning. Feet thudded powerfully on the stairs. Younger Herman was first through the doorway, swinging it shut on Günter, who blocked the door and started for a tackle. They then noticed their father, and the wrestling match ceased.

“Papa!” Herman cried and hugged his father. Günter lifted his head in greeting. The sixteen-year-old had stopped hugging his parents exactly eighteen months ago. Kohl supposed sons had behaved according to that schedule since the days of Otto I, if not forever.

“You will wash before dinner,” Heidi called.

“But we swam. We went to the Wilhelm Marr Street pool.”

“Then,” their father added, “you will wash the swimming water off of you.”

“What are we having for supper, Mutti?” Herman asked.

“The sooner you bathe,” she announced, “the sooner you’ll find out.”

They charged off down the corridor, teenage-calamity-in-motion.

A few moments later Heinrich arrived with Charlotte. Kohl liked the fellow (he would never have let a daughter marry someone he did not respect). But the handsome blond man’s fascination with police matters prompted him to query Kohl enthusiastically and at length about recent cases. Normally the inspector enjoyed this but the last thing he wanted tonight was to talk about his day. Kohl brought up the Olympics – a sure conversation deflector. Everyone had heard different rumors about the teams, favorite athletes, the many nations represented.

Soon they were seated at the table in the dining room. Kohl opened two bottles of Saar-Ruwer wine and poured some for everyone, including small amounts for the children. The conversation, as always in the Kohl household, went in many different directions. This was one of the inspector’s favorite times of the day. Being with those you loved… and being able to speak freely. As they talked and laughed and argued, Kohl looked from face to face. His eyes were quick, listening to voices, observing gestures and expressions. One might think he did this automatically because of his years as a policeman. But in fact, no. He made his observations and drew his conclusions because this was an aspect of parenthood. Tonight he noted one thing that troubled him but filed it away in his mind, the way he might a key clue from a crime scene.

Dinner was over relatively early, in about an hour; the heat had dampened everyone’s appetite, except Kohl’s and his sons’. Heinrich suggested card games. But Kohl shook his head. “Not for me. I will smoke,” he announced. “And soak my feet, I think. Please, Günter, you will bring a kettle of hot water.”

“Yes, Father.”

Kohl fetched his foot-soaking pan and the salts. He dropped into his leather chair in the den, the very chair his father had sat in after a long day working in the fields, charged a pipe and lit it. A few minutes later his oldest son walked into the room, easily carrying the steaming kettle, which must have weighed ten kilos, in one hand. He filled the basin. Kohl rolled up his cuffs, removed his socks and, avoiding looking at the gnarled bunions and yellow calluses, eased his feet into the hot water and poured in some salts.

“Ach, yes.”

The boy turned to go but Kohl said, “Günter, wait a moment.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Sit down.”

The boy did, cautious, and set the kettle on the floor. In his eyes was a flash of adolescent guilt. Kohl wondered, with amusement, what transgressions were fluttering through his son’s mind. A cigarette, a bit of schnapps, some fumbling exploration of young Lisa Wagner’s undergarments?

“Günter, what is the matter? Something was bothering you at dinner. I could see it.”

“Nothing, Father.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

In a soft but firm voice Willi Kohl now said, “You will tell me.”

The boy examined the floor. Finally he said, “School will start soon.”

“Not for a month.”

“Still… I was hoping, Father. Can I be transferred to a different one?”

“But why? The Hindenburg School is one of the best in the city. Headmaster Muntz is very respected.”

“Please.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. I just dislike it.”

“Your grades are good. Your teachers say you are a fine student.”

The boy said nothing.

“Is it something other than your lessons?”

“I don’t know.”

What could it be?

Günter shrugged. “Please, can’t I just go to a different school until December?”

“Why then?”

The boy wouldn’t answer and avoided his father’s eyes.

“Tell me,” Kohl said kindly.

“Because…”

“Go on.”

“Because in December everyone must join the Hitler Youth. And now… well, you won’t let me.”

Ah, this again. A recurring problem. But was this new information true? Would Hitler Youth be mandatory? A frightening thought. After the National Socialists came to power they folded all of Germany’s many youth groups into the Hitler Youth and the others were outlawed. Kohl believed in children’s organizations – he’d been in swimming and hiking clubs in his teen years and loved them – but the Hitler Youth was nothing more than a pre-army military training organization, manned and operated, no less, by the youngsters themselves, and the more rabidly National Socialist the junior leaders, the better.

“And now you wish to join?”

“I don’t know. Everyone makes fun of me because I’m not a member. At the football game today, Helmut Gruber was there. He’s our Hitler Youth leader. He said I better join soon.”

“But you can’t be the only one who isn’t a member.”

“More join every day,” Günter replied. “Those of us who aren’t members are all treated badly. When we play Aryans and Jews in the school yard, I’m always a Jew.”

“ What do you play?” Kohl frowned. He had never heard of this.

“You know, Father, the game Aryans and Jews. They chase us. They aren’t supposed to hurt us – Doctor-professor Klindst says they aren’t. It’s supposed to be tag only. But when he isn’t looking they push us down.”

“You’re a strong boy and I’ve taught you how to defend yourself. Do you push them back?”

“Sometimes, yes. But there are many more who play the Aryans.”

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t go to another school,” Kohl said.

Günter looked at the cloud of pipe smoke rising to the ceiling. His eyes brightened. “Maybe I could denounce someone. Maybe then they’d let me play on the Aryan side.”

Kohl frowned. Denunciation: another National Socialist plague. He said firmly to his son, “You will denounce no one. They would go to jail. They could be tortured. Or killed.”

Günter frowned at his father’s reaction. “But I would only denounce a Jew, Father.”

His hands trembling, heart pounding, Kohl was at a loss for words. Forcing himself to be calm, he finally asked, “You would denounce a Jew for no reason?”

His son seemed confused. “Of course not. I would denounce him because he is a Jew. I was thinking… Helen Morrell’s father works at Karstadt department store. His boss is a Jew but he tells everyone he’s not. He should be denounced.”

Kohl took a deep breath and, weighing his words like a rationing butcher, said, “Son, we live in a very difficult time now. It is very confusing. It’s confusing to me and it must be far more confusing to you. The one thing that you must always remember – but never must say out loud – is that a man decides for himself what is right and wrong. He knows this from what he sees about life, about how people live and act together, how he feels. He knows in his heart what is good and bad.”

“But Jews are bad. They wouldn’t teach us that in school if it weren’t true.”

Kohl’s soul shivered in rage and pain to hear this. “You will not denounce anyone, Günter,” he said sternly. “That is my wish.”

“All right, Father,” the boy said, walking away.

“Günter,” Kohl said.

The boy paused at the door.

“How many in your school have not joined the Youth?”

“I can’t say, Father. But more join every day. Soon there won’t be anyone left to play the Jew but me.”

The restaurant that Käthe had in mind was the Lutter and Wegner wine bar, which, she explained, was well over a hundred years old and an institution in Berlin. The rooms were dark, smoky and intimate. And the place was devoid of Brownshirts, SS and suited men wearing red armbands with the hooked, surely-you-know cross.

“I brought you here because, as I said, it used to be the haunt of people like you and me.”

“You and me?”

“Yes. Bohemians. Pacifists, thinkers, and, like you, writers.”

“Ah, writers. Yes.”

“E.T.A. Hoffmann would find inspiration here. He drank copious champagne, whole bottles of it! And would then write all night. You’ve read him, of course.”

Paul hadn’t. He nodded yes.

“Can you think of a better writer of the German romantic era? I can’t. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King – so much darker and more real than what Tchaikovsky did with it. That ballet is pure puff, don’t you think?”

“Definitely,” Paul agreed. He thought he’d seen it one Christmas as a boy. He wished he’d read the book so he could discuss it intelligently. How he enjoyed simply talking with her. As they sipped their cocktails, he reflected on the “sparring” he’d done with Käthe on the walk here. He’d meant what he’d said about arguing with her. It was exhilarating. He didn’t think he’d had a disagreement with Marion in all the months they’d gone out. He couldn’t even remember her getting angry. Sometimes a new stocking would run and she’d let go with a “darn” or “damnation.” Then she’d press her fingers to her mouth, like the prelude to blowing someone a kiss – and apologize for cussing.

The waiter brought menus and they ordered: pig knuckles and spaetzle and cabbage and bread (“Ach, real butter!” she whispered in astonishment, staring at the tiny yellow rectangles). To drink, she ordered a sweet, golden wine. They ate leisurely, talking and laughing the whole time. After they’d finished, Paul lit a cigarette. He noticed she seemed to be debating. As if speaking to her students she said, “We have been too serious today. I will tell a joke.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Do you know Hermann Göring?”

“Some official in the government?”

“Yes, yes. He is Hitler’s closest comrade. He’s an odd man. Very obese. And he parades around in ridiculous costumes in the company of celebrities and beautiful women. Well, he finally got married last year.”

“Is that the joke?”

“Not yet, no. He really did get married. This is the joke.” Käthe gave an exaggerated pout. “Did you hear about Göring’s wife? The poor thing’s given up religion. You must ask me why.”

“Please, tell me: Why has Göring’s wife given up religion?”

“Because after their wedding night she lost her belief in the resurrection of the flesh.”

They both laughed hard. He saw that she was blushing crimson. “Ach, my, Paul. I’ve told a naughty joke to a man I don’t know. And one that could land us in jail.”

“Not us, ” he said, straight-faced. “Only you. I didn’t tell it.”

“Oh, even laughing at a joke like that will get you arrested.”

He paid the bill and they left, forgoing the tram and returning to the boardinghouse on foot, along the sidewalk that skirted the south boundary of the Tiergarten.

Paul was tipsy from the wine, which he rarely drank. The sensation was nice, better than a corn whisky zing. The warm breeze felt good. So did the pressure of Käthe’s arm through his.

As they walked, they spoke of books and politics, arguing some, laughing some, an unlikely couple maneuvering through the streets of this immaculate city.

Paul heard voices, men coming their way. About a hundred feet ahead he saw three Stormtroopers. They were boisterous, joking. In their brown uniforms, with their youthful faces, they resembled happy schoolboys. Unlike the belligerent thugs he’d taken on earlier in the day, this trio seemed bent only on enjoying the fine night. They paid no attention to anyone on the street.

Paul felt Käthe slowing. He looked down at her. Her face was a mask and her arm began to tremble.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t wish to pass them.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about.”

She looked to the left, panicked. The traffic on the street was busy and they were some blocks from a pedestrian crossing. To avoid the Brownshirts they had only one choice: the Tiergarten.

He said, “Really, you’re safe. There’s no need to worry.”

“I can feel your arm, Paul. I can feel you ready to fight them.”

“That’s why you’re safe.”

“No.” She looked at the gate that led into the park. “This way.”

They turned into the park. The thick foliage cut out much of the sound of the traffic, and soon the creek-creek of insects and the baritone call of frogs from the ponds filled the night. The Stormtroopers continued along the sidewalk, ignoring everything but their ebullient conversation and their singing. They passed by without even glancing into the park. Still, Käthe kept her head down. Her stiff gait reminded Paul of the way he’d walked after breaking a rib in a sparring session.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Silence.

She looked around, shivering.

“Are you afraid here?” he asked. “Do you want to leave?”

Still, she said nothing. They came to an intersection of sidewalks, one of which would take them to the left, south, out of the park and back to the boardinghouse. She stopped. After a moment she said, “Come. This way.” Turning, Käthe led him farther into the park, north, along winding paths. They finally came to a small boathouse on a pond. Dozens of for-hire boats rested upside down, nestled against one another. Now, in the hot night, the area was deserted.

“I haven’t been inside the Tiergarten for three years,” she whispered.

Paul said nothing.

At last she continued. “That man who has my heart?”

“Yes. Your journalist friend.”

“Michael Klein. He was a reporter for the Munich Post. Hitler got his start in Munich. Michael covered his rise and wrote much about him, about his tactics – the intimidation, the beatings, the murders. Michael kept a running count of the unsolved murders of people who were opposed to the Party. He even believed that Hitler had his own niece killed in thirty-two because he was obsessed with her and she loved someone else.

“The Party and the Stormtroopers threatened him and everybody at the Post. They called the paper the ‘Poison Kitchen.’ But before the National Socialists came to power they never hurt him. Then there was the Reichstagfire… Oh, look, you can just see it. There.” She pointed to the northeast. Paul caught a glimpse of a tall domed building. “Our parliament. Just weeks after Hitler was named chancellor, someone lit a fire inside. Hitler and Göring blamed the Communists and they rounded up thousands of them, Social Democrats too. They were arrested under the emergency decree. Michael was among them. He went to one of the temporary prisons set up around the city. They kept him there for weeks. I was frantic. No one told me what happened, no one told me where he was. It was terrible. He told me later that they beat him, fed him once a day at the most, made him sleep naked on a concrete floor. Finally a judge let him go since he hadn’t committed any crime.

“After he was released I met him at his apartment, not far from here. It was a spring day in May, a beautiful day. Two in the afternoon. We were going to hire a boat. Right here, at this lake. I’d brought some stale bread to feed the birds. We were standing there and four Stormtroopers came up to us and pushed me to the ground. They’d followed us. They said they’d been watching him since he’d been released. They told him that the judge had acted illegally in releasing him and they were now going to carry out the sentence.” She choked for a moment. “They beat him to death right in front of me. Right there. I could hear his bones break. You see that-”

“Oh, Käthe. No…”

“ – you see that square of concrete? That was where he fell. That one. The fourth square from the grass. That was where Michael’s head lay as he died.”

He put his arm around her. She didn’t resist. But neither did she find any comfort in the contact; she was frozen.

“May is now the worst month,” she whispered. Then she looked around, at the textured canopy of summer trees. “This park is called the Tiergarten.”

“I know.”

In English she said, “‘ Tier ’ means ‘animal’ or ‘beast.’ And ‘ Garten, ’ of course, is ‘garden.’ So, this is the garden of beasts, where the royal families of imperial Germany would hunt game. But in our slang ‘ Tier ’ also means thug, like a criminal. And that’s who killed my lover, criminals.” Her voice grew cold. “Here, right here in the garden of beasts.”

His grip tightened around her.

She glanced once more at the pond then at the square of concrete, the fourth from the grass. Käthe said, “Please take me home, Paul.”

In the hallway outside his door they paused.

Paul slipped his hand into his pocket and found the key. He looked down at her. Käthe in turn was staring at the floor.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“I’ve forgotten so much,” she said, looking up. “Walking through the city, seeing lovers in cafés, telling ribald jokes, sitting where famous writers and thinkers have sat… the pleasure in things like those. I’ve forgotten what that’s like. Forgotten so much…”

His hand went to the tiny scallop of cloth covering her shoulder, and then he touched her neck, felt her skin move against her bones. So thin, he thought. So thin.

With his other hand he brushed her hair out of her face. Then he kissed her.

She stiffened suddenly and he realized he’d made a mistake. She was vulnerable, she’d seen the site of her lover’s death, she’d walked through the garden of beasts. He started to back away but suddenly she flung her arms around him, kissing him hard, teeth met his lip and he tasted blood. “Oh,” she said, shocked. “I’m sorry.” But he laughed gently and then she did too. “I said I’ve forgotten much,” she whispered. “I’m afraid this is one more thing lost from my memory.”

He pulled her to him and they remained in the dim hallway, their lips and hands frantic. Images flashing past: a halo around her golden hair from the lamp behind her, the cream lace of her slip over the lighter lace of her brassiere, her hand finding the scar left by a bullet fired from Albert Reilly’s hidden Derringer, a.22 only but it tumbled when it hit bone and exited his biceps sideways, her keening moan, hot breath, the feel of silk, of cotton, his hand sliding down and finding her own fingers waiting to guide him through complicated layers of cloth and straps, her garter belt, which had been worn threadbare and stitched back together.

“My room,” he whispered. In a few seconds the door was open and they were staggering inside, where the air seemed hotter even than in the hot corridor.

The bed was miles away but the rose-colored couch with gull-wing arms was suddenly beneath them. He fell backward onto the cushions and heard a crack of wood. Käthe was on top of him, holding him in a vise grip by the arms as if, were she to let go, he might sink beneath the brown water of the Landwehr Canal.

A fierce kiss, then her face sought his neck. He heard her whisper to him, to herself, to no one, “How long has this been?” She began to unbutton his shirt frantically. “Ach, years and years.”

Well, he thought, not such a long time in his case. But as he lifted off her dress and slip in one smooth sweep, his hands sliding to the sweating small of her back, he realized that, while, yes, there’d been others recently, it had been years since he’d felt anything like this.

Then, gripping her face in his hands, bringing her closer, closer, losing himself entirely, he corrected himself once more.

Maybe it had been forever.

Chapter Nineteen

The evening rituals in the Kohl household had been completed. Dishes dried, linens put away, laundry done.

The inspector’s feet were feeling better and he poured out the water from the tub and then dried and replaced it. He tied the salts closed and put them back under the sink.

He returned to the den, where his pipe awaited. A moment later Heidi joined him and sat down in her own chair with her knitting. Kohl explained to her about his conversation with Günter.

She shook her head. “So that’s what it was. He was upset when he got home from the football field yesterday too. But he would say nothing to me. Not to a mother, not about such things.”

Kohl said, “We need to talk to them. Someone has to teach them what we learned. Right and wrong.”

Moral quicksand…

Heidi clicked the thick wooden needles together expertly; she was knitting a blanket for Charlotte and Heinrich’s first child, which she assumed would arrive approximately nine and a half months after their wedding next May. She asked in a harsh whisper, “And then what happens? In the school yard Günter mentions to his friends that his father says it’s wrong to burn books or that we should allow American newspapers in the country? Ach, then you’re taken away and never heard from again. Or they send me your ashes in a box with a swastika on it.”

“We tell them to keep what we say to themselves. Like playing a game. It must be secret.”

A smile from his wife. “They’re children, my darling. They can’t keep secrets.”

True, Kohl thought. How true. What brilliant criminals the Leader and his crowd are. They kidnap the nation by seizing our children. Hitler said his would be a thousand-year empire. This is how he will achieve it.

He said, “I will speak to-”

A huge pounding filled the hall – the bronze bear knocker on Kohl’s front door.

“God in heaven,” Heidi said, standing up, dropping the knitting and glancing toward the children’s rooms.

Willi Kohl suddenly realized that the SD or Gestapo had a listening device in his house and had heard the many questionable exchanges between himself and his wife. This was the Gestapo’s technique – to gather evidence on the sly then arrest you in your home either early in the morning or during the dinner hour or just after, when you would least expect them. “Quickly, put the radio on, see if there’s a broadcast,” he said. As if listening to Goebbels’s rantings would deter the political police.

She did. The dial glowed yellow but no sound yet came through the speakers. It took some moments for the tubes to heat up.

Another pounding.

Kohl thought of his pistol, but he kept it at the office; he never wanted the weapon near his children. Yet even if he had it, what good would it do against a company of Gestapo or SS? He walked into the living room and saw Charlotte and Heinrich, standing side by side, looking uneasily at each other. Hilde appeared in the doorway, her book drooping in her hand.

Goebbels’s passionate baritone began surging out of the radio, talking about infections and health and disease.

As he walked to the door, Kohl wondered if Günter had already made some casual comment about his parents to a friend. Perhaps the boy had denounced someone – his father, albeit unknowingly. Kohl glanced back at Heidi, who was standing with her arm around her youngest daughter. He unbolted the lock and swung open the heavy oak slab.

Konrad Janssen stood in the doorway, looking fresh as a child at holy communion. He looked past the inspector and said to Heidi, “Forgive the intrusion, Mrs. Kohl. It’s unforgivable at this late hour.”

Mother of God, Kohl thought, hands and heart vibrating. He wondered if the inspector candidate could hear the pounding in his chest. “Yes, yes, Janssen, the hour is not a problem. But next time, a lighter touch on the door, if you please.”

“Of course.” The young face, usually so calm, bristled with enthusiasm. “Sir, I showed the picture of the suspect all over the Olympics and half the rest of the city, it seemed.”

“And?”

“I found a reporter for a British newspaper. He’d come over from New York on the S.S. Manhattan. He’s been writing a story on athletic fields around the world and-”

“This Briton is our suspect, the man in the artist’s picture?”

“No, but-”

“Then this portion of your story doesn’t interest us, Janssen.”

“Of course, sir. Forgive me. It’s sufficient to say that this reporter recognized our man.”

“Ah, well done, Janssen. Tell me, what did he have to say?”

“Not a great deal. All he knew was that he is an American.”

This paltry confirmation was worth a burst heart? Kohl sighed.

But the inspector candidate, it seemed, was only pausing to catch his breath. He continued. “And his name is Paul Schumann.”

Words spoken in the dark.

Words spoken as if in a dream.

They were close, finding in each other a comfortable opposite, knee to back of knee, swell of belly to back, chin to shoulder. The bed assisted; the feather mattress in Paul’s bedroom formed a V under their joint weight and seated them firmly. They could not have moved apart had they wanted to.

Words spoken in the anonymity of new romance, the passion past, though only momentarily.

Smelling her perfume, which was in fact the source of the lilac he’d smelled when he’d first met her.

Paul kissed the back of Käthe’s head.

Words spoken between lovers, speaking of everything, of nothing. Whims, jokes, facts, speculations, hopes… a torrent of words.

Käthe was telling him of her life as a landlady. She fell silent. Through the open window they could hear Beethoven once again, growing louder as someone in a nearby apartment turned up the volume. A moment later a firm voice echoed through the damp night.

“Ach,” she said, shaking her head. “The Leader speaks. That’s Hitler himself.”

It was yet more talk about germs, about stagnant water, about infections.

Paul laughed. “Why’s he so obsessed with health?”

“Health?”

“All day long, everybody’s been talking about germs and cleanliness. You can’t get away from it.”

She was laughing. “Germs?”

“What’s so funny?”

“Don’t you understand what he’s saying?”

“I… No.”

“It’s not germs he’s talking about. It’s Jews. He’s changed all his speeches during the Olympics. He doesn’t say ‘Jew’ but that’s what he means. He doesn’t want to offend the foreigners but he can’t let us forget the National Socialist dogma. Paul, don’t you know what is happening here? Why, in the basements of half the hotels and boardinghouses in Berlin are signs that were taken down for the Olympics and that will be put back up the day the foreigners leave. They say No Jews. Or Jews Not Welcome Here. There is a sharp turn on the road to my sister’s home in Spandau. The sign warns, Dangerous Curve. 30 Kilometers Per Hour. Jews Do 70. It is a road sign! Not painted by vandals but by our government!”

“You’re serious?”

“Serious, Paul. Yes! You saw the flags on the houses of Magdeburger Alley, the street here. You commented on ours when you arrived.”

“The Olympic flag.”

“Yes, yes. Not the National Socialist flag, like on most of the other homes on this street. Do you know why? Because this building is owned by a Jew. It’s illegal for him to fly Germany’s flag. He wants to be proud of his fatherland like everyone else. But he can’t be. And how could he fly the National Socialist flag anyway? The swastika? The broken cross? It stands for anti-Semitism.”

Ah, so that was the answer.

Surely you know…

“Have you heard of Aryanization?”

“No.”

“The government takes a Jewish home or business. It’s theft, pure and simple. Göring is the master of it.”

Paul recalled the empty houses he’d passed that morning on the way to meet Morgan at Dresden Alley, the signs saying that the contents were to be sold.

Käthe moved closer yet to him. After a long silence she said, “There is a man… He performs at a restaurant. ‘Fancy,’ it would be called. That is to say the name of the establishment is Fancy. But it is fancy too. Very nice. I went to this restaurant once and this man was in a glass cage in the middle of the dining room. Do you know what he was? A hunger artist.”

“What?”

“A hunger artist. Like in the Kafka story. He had climbed into his cage some weeks before and had survived on nothing except water. He was there for everyone to see. He never ate.”

“How does-”

“He is allowed to go to the lavatory. But someone always accompanies him and verifies that he has had nothing to eat. Day after day…”

Words spoken in the dark, words between lovers.

What those words mean is often not important. But sometimes it is.

Paul whispered, “Go on.”

“I met him after he had been in the glass cage for forty-eight days.”

“No food? Was he a skeleton?”

“He was very thin, yes. He looked sick. But he came out of the cage for some weeks. I met him through a friend. I asked him why he chose to do this for a living. He told me he had worked in the government for some years, something in transportation. But when Hitler came to power he left his job.”

“He was fired because he wasn’t a National Socialist?”

“No, he quit because he couldn’t accept their values and wouldn’t work for their government. But he had a child and he needed to make money.”

“A child?”

“And needed money. But everywhere he looked, he could find no position that wasn’t tainted with the Party. He found that the only thing he could do with any integ – What is that word?”

“Integrity.”

“Yes, yes, integrity. Was to be a hunger artist. It was pure. It could not be corrupted. And do you know how many people come to see him? Thousands! Thousands come to see him because he is honest. And there is so little honesty in our lives now.” A faint shudder told him she was shivering with tears.

Words between lovers…

“Käthe?”

“What have they done?” She gasped for breath. “What have they done?… I don’t understand what has happened. We are a people who love music and talk and who rejoice in sewing the perfect stitch in our men’s shirts and scrubbing our alley cobblestones clean and basking in the sun on the beach at Wannsee and buying our children clothing and sweets, we’re moved to tears by the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, by the words of Goethe and Schiller – yet we are possessed now. Why?” Her voice faded. “Why?” A moment later she whispered, “Ach, that is a question for which, I’m afraid, the answer will come too late.”

“Leave the country,” Paul whispered.

She rolled about to face him. He felt her strong arms, strengthened from scrubbing tubs and sweeping floors, snake around him, he felt her heel rise and find the small of his back, pulling him closer, closer.

“Leave,” he repeated.

The shivering stopped. Her breathing grew more regular. “I cannot leave.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my country,” she whispered simply. “I can’t abandon it.”

“But it’s not your country any longer. It’s theirs. What did you say? Tier. Beasts, thugs. It’s been taken over by beasts… Leave. Get away before it gets worse.”

“You think it will get worse? Tell me, Paul. Please. You’re a writer. The way of the world isn’t my way. It isn’t teaching or Goethe or poetry. You’re a clever man. What do you think?”

“I think it will get worse. You have to get out of here. As soon as you can.”

She relaxed her desperate grip on him. “Even if I wanted to I cannot. After I was fired my name went on a list. They took my passport. I’ll never get exit papers. They’re afraid we’ll work against them from England or Paris. So they keep us close.”

“Come back with me. I can get you out.”

Words between lovers…

“Come to America.” Had she not heard? Or had she decided no already? “We have wonderful schools. You could teach. Your English is as good as anyone’s.”

She inhaled deeply. “What are you asking?”

“Leave with me.”

A harsh laugh. “A woman cries, a man says anything to stop the tears. Ach, I don’t even know you.”

Paul said, “And I don’t know you. I’m not proposing, I’m not saying we live together. I’m just saying you have to get the hell out of here. I can arrange that.”

In the silence that followed, Paul was thinking that, no, he wasn’t proposing. Nothing of the sort. But, truth be told, Paul Schumann couldn’t help but wonder if his offer wasn’t about more than helping her escape from this difficult place. Oh, he’d had his share of women – good girls and bad girls and good girls playing at being bad. Some of them he’d thought he’d loved, and some he’d known he had. But he knew he’d never felt for them what he felt for this woman after such a short period of time. Yes, he loved Marion in a way. He’d spend an occasional night with her in Manhattan. Or she with him in Brooklyn. They’d lie together, they’d share words – about movies, about where hemline lengths would go next year, about Luigi’s restaurant, about her mother, about his sister. About the Dodgers. But they weren’t lovers’ words, Paul Schumann realized. Not like he’d spoken tonight with this complicated, passionate woman.

Finally she said dismissively, irritated, “Ach, I can’t go. How can I go? I told you about my passport and exit papers.”

“This is what I’m saying. You don’t have to worry about that. I have connections.”

“You do?”

“People in America owe me favors.” This much was true. He thought of Avery and Manielli in Amsterdam, ready at a moment’s notice to send the plane to collect him. Then he asked her, “Do you have ties here? How about your sister?”

“Ach, my sister… She’s married to a Party loyalist. She doesn’t even see me. I’m an embarrassment.” After a moment Käthe said, “No, I have only ghosts here. And ghosts are no reason to remain. They’re reasons to leave.”

Outside, laughter and drunken shouts. A slurring male voice sang, “When the Olympic Games are done, the Jews will feel our knife and gun…” Then the crash of breaking glass. Another song, several voices singing this time. “Hold high the banner, close the ranks. The SA marches on with firm steps… Give way, give way to the brown battalions, as the Stormtroopers clear the land…”

He recognized the song that the Hitler Youth had sung yesterday as they lowered the flag at the Olympic Village. The red, the white and the black hooked cross.

Ach, surely you know…

“Oh, Paul, you can really get me out of the country, without papers?”

“Yes. But I’ll be leaving soon. Tomorrow night, I hope. Or the night after.”

“How?”

“Leave the details to me. Are you willing to leave immediately?”

After a moment of silence: “I can do that. Yes.”

She took his hand, stroked his palm and interlaced her fingers with his. This was by far the most intimate moment between them tonight.

He gripped her tightly, stretched his arm out and struck something hard under the pillow. He touched it and, from the size and feel, realized that it was the volume of Goethe’s poems that he’d given her earlier.

“You won’t-”

“Shhhh,” he whispered. And stroked her hair.

Paul Schumann knew that there are times for lovers’ words to end.