by Kay Kenyon
A pause. She could imagine him calculating, trying to handle her. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you, for Christ’s sake?”
Kim took a deep breath. It felt like falling on a knife. Things that you said couldn’t be taken back. Things that you did. “Why do you want to know?”
“Elaine. Once you start distrusting the Office . . . you’ll fall. You’ll fall a very long way.”
She stared at the earpiece for a few beats. Then she carefully placed it in the cradle.
28
A SAFE FLAT, THE ALEXANDERPLATZ
LATER THAT AFTERNOON. Kim sat on the narrow bed, feet pulled up, head resting on her knees. The confining box of her flat: ancient wallpaper with vertical maroon stripes. A gas ring with cracked enamel teapot. The wooden table and chair.
Amid the world spinning out of control, she did approve of the orderliness of the wallpaper, yet she missed her timetable for the London and North Eastern Railway. It was her talisman, had gotten her out of a jam in Wales when she desperately needed a map of England. She was not superstitious, but not having the LNER timetable nudged up in her list of worries.
Such as: the call with Duncan. She had refused to come in, refused to tell him where she was. Something she would not have thought possible just a few weeks ago: she had gone rogue.
She no longer trusted Duncan, not after Bibi had decided to put flowers in the window and after Albert had tried to slow down her departure from the house. It might all have an innocent explanation. It might be standard procedure not to tell an agent that house staff were on the station payroll. And the housekeepers might have genuinely feared for her safety, thought that she had panicked and was incapable of making her own decisions. Maybe, maybe. But if it wasn’t standard procedure to withhold knowledge of such backup, it raised questions about Duncan’s reliability. Had he been suborned by the Nazis? It was not unusual for spies to infiltrate intelligence organizations, or to be bribed or blackmailed into cooperating with the enemy.
Bibi and Albert. Would they phone Alex and reveal that she claimed to be meeting him in Bonn? Because if they did, Alex’s Gestapo friends might try to round her up.
She hugged her knees. What was this Aerie in Tolzried? Where, even, was Tolzried? Sonja confirmed that the Nachkommenschaft existed. It was corroboration of the Monarch operation, or good enough. The great secret she had been sent to Berlin to find. With this last piece they might well be convinced about the Nachkommenschaft operation. But now she had no time to get word to London. Even if she could, there was a big problem. Hannah would only work with her.
She followed the faded maroon stripes, the watermarks angling down from the ceiling.
Her thoughts, now beginning to line up.
DOROTHEENSTÄDTISCHER FRIEDHOF, BERLIN
DUSK. A bouquet of flowers in hand, Hannah waited by the mausoleum until Captain Nagel left his Mercedes and his chauffeur and threaded his way among the graves.
She wore a threadbare black wool coat, dressed up with a scarf. It would not do to look shabby in such a nice cemetery, but the Oberman Group’s stockpile of clothes was distributed in flats no longer safe, now that Zev was held by the Gestapo.
Some two hundred meters distant, on the far side of this portion of the cemetery, Nagel’s chauffeur was having a cigarette while taking a piss, offering her an opportunity to enter the vicinity of Sonja’s grave without attracting his notice.
How convenient that the Nachkommenschaft avoided the daylight hours. As dusk came on, no one else was within sight in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof.
Sonja Nagel had been buried yesterday. Hannah’s source at the funeral home had told her that no ceremony had occurred, nor was one planned, a situation that greatly disappointed her. These Nazis could make such a fuss about the death of their own, but perhaps they did not consider Sonja one of theirs. But if they had gone through with a graveside ceremony, what a lovely opportunity it would have been to take care of a pack of vultures all at once!
Hannah trailed among the graves, glancing at the headstones as though looking for the right one. The cemetery was a landscape of artwork, with elaborate memorials and bronze statues. She wondered if Sonja had been accorded a distinguished resting place, or if she had died in disgrace. At least she had been buried. Not all dead had that honor.
Nagel had now noted her approach, but ignored her. A diminutive woman with flowers. What could be more natural, less concerning, in a cemetery? The SS Nachkomme officer stood alone in a tree-shrouded plot.
She had guessed that Nagel might come here by himself. Such a one would have complex social anxieties. Not for him a crowd around a hole in the ground with people shedding tears and expressing condolences. Nagel would have no idea how to respond to such people and might have just enough humanity left to know that he was not fit for occasions like funerals. No, Rikard Nagel, like all Nachkommenschaft, preferred to be alone.
She drifted closer. Now she had his complete attention.
“Excuse me,” she said as she approached. “I am looking for the grave of someone. Sonja Nagel.” She glanced at the new headstone. A simple one. “Is this she?”
“Who are you?” he snapped.
She came closer. “I am Carla. Did she ever mention me?”
“There is no Carla. I would remember. Go away.”
Hannah allowed herself the beginning of a smile. “Well, if there is no Carla, then who would I be?”
On alert, he unsnapped the holster on his belt.
“I am a friend,” Hannah said, feigning alarm. In that moment he hesitated. Fatally.
She dropped the flowers and pointed the pistol at his chest. “Das Rotes Mädchen, actually,” she murmured. And fired.
He did not fall. She fired again, this time aiming more carefully for his heart.
Nagel went to his knees, then collapsed. Ghoulishly, he began crawling. Not toward her, but toward the grave with its newly turned earth.
She followed him a few steps, hearing him hoarsely whisper, “Sonja.”
It surprised her. Perhaps he had some feeling for his wife after all.
He bled very hard onto the grave, but he did not move or speak again.
She noted that the chauffeur, who had dashed toward them after the first shot, was almost through the trees. Hannah picked up the bouquet again. When he burst into full view, she shouted, “Help!”
Stalking onto the gravesite, he took in Nagel lying on the ground, a woman in mourning.
“The man . . .” She pointed behind her. He crept closer, both hands on his gun, sweeping. He motioned her aside.
As she passed him, she took him out with one shot.
Before she left, she placed the flowers on Sonja’s grave, saving one for her buttonhole.
29
PRENZLAUER BERG, BERLIN
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16. At 4:10 PM the city was already in heavy dusk. In the sleeting rain, people carried paper-wrapped parcels close to their chests, mufflers around their faces. Kim had guessed wrong again about what to wear. No one used galoshes over their shoes; her coat was too fine. The scarf was good, though, the one Franz had given her.
Hannah met her behind an abandoned house. A small patch of weeds corralled by the neighbors’ fences, each a different kind, leaning inward.
Kim followed her to a place where she opened horizontal doors leading underground. They descended the stairs. Hannah’s flashlight clicked on as she lowered the doors. At the bottom, they were in a room smelling of mold and coal dust. Hannah led her into a room with boarded-up windows near ground level. The air was the heavy cold of basements, where frigid air sank and stayed. Tidy, though. Shelves with candles, a stack of clothing and tins of food. A chair and a barrel to sit on.
Hannah waved her to the chair. “I keep thinking I will never see you again.” She took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Kim.
“I think the same.”
They smoked and let ner
ves settle.
No one would call Hannah beautiful. Dark slashes of eyebrows, deep-set eyes, a face some might describe as pixie-like. Unruly short hair, carnelian in the light, mahogany in the fog. Wisps sprang free from her wool cap. But a strong face. Interesting.
Hannah broke the silence. “So you have come to persuade me to go to England.”
“No.”
Hannah smirked. “Everyone wants something.”
“I want to hear the plan.”
A raised eyebrow. Hannah savored her cigarette, watching Kim, maybe gauging what she was made of. How much a patriot, a good subject of His Majesty’s Government, how much the rebel.
“The nest of Monarch,” Hannah began, “is in the Bavarian Alps. Near Tolzried, as you know. This is one of Hitler’s retreats, which he gives to the Nachkommenschaft.”
A scraping sound from behind a door she hadn’t noticed before. At her startled look, Hannah shook her head. Don’t worry.
Hannah removed a ragged pair of gloves and flexed her fingers to keep them warm. “You would go to the Aerie as a recruited volunteer. I have cover materials for you. From the state, is it Arizona? Albuquerque?”
Strange to hear these words in a slum in Berlin. “New Mexico.”
“Yes. We have the credentials. Many Talents have been arriving; some are not Germans. The non-Germans are lesser recruits. But they will all—Germans, foreigners, civilians, SS—become Annakova’s Nachkommenschaft.”
She went on. “You go in. You kill Irina Annakova. Afterward, there is a secret way out, our man knows this, so you escape.”
“Why doesn’t your man—Tannhäuser—kill her?”
“He will not go so far; he helps, a little.” She shrugged. “Once they lose the mother of the beasts, gradually her monsters fade. Many lives saved, Russia is delivered from a bad queen, the revolution is secure. And when Hitler goes to war with Europe, he must do so without the Nachkommenschaft.”
“There is one problem with this plan,” Kim said.
“Yes, what?”
“I am not going to kill this woman. I don’t do that.”
“Well, I thought you would say this.” She ground out the cigarette into a chipped coffee saucer. “And, in truth, I wouldn’t want to turn you into a killer. To become like me. But there is another way.”
Another way. Kim’s heart sank. It was going to be hard now, she felt sure.
“You can deliver a disabling drug, one that will destroy her Talent.”
“Not poison.”
“No.”
“How can you have such a thing?”
“I have it. Do you trust me?”
“Hannah. I need to know, I need to know everything.”
The woman sighed. “All right.” She got up and paced to the boarded-up window, peering out through the slats.
“I told you that my father tested me. His laboratory in Cologne. But it was because of something that happened. In those days I would sometimes go to my father’s office and bring him his lunch.
“There was a young man in the lab; we became lovers. He had a Talent, object reading. He began to notice a heightened ability and unpleasant symptoms as well. The symptoms came on quickly because of our frequent . . . touching; obviously not at three-month intervals. He had been tested in support of the research, and when my father retested him, he had a much higher rating. He suspected that I had the rumored Talent, which is catalysis, but which at that time had no official term. He broke things off with me and left his position at the university.
“But I had lost the man I loved; I faced a difficult life, trying to avoid touching people, wondering if they were Talents. My father reached out to his contacts. One man, a doctor in Norway, had a drug. One that would disable the catalysis ability, which he believed was a diseased state of the body, unlike other Talents. A few years previously, this researcher had been approached by a couple. The wife had a trauma view ability. Her Talent was increasing, and the madness came upon her, rapidly worsening. The doctor finally diagnosed the husband as a catalyst. It spurred him to develop a treatment and the husband underwent it, enduring some side effects. Weight loss, fatigue, insomnia. My father secured the tincture for me. But I never wanted to risk it.”
“How do you take the drug? The catalyst swallows it?”
“No. Stomach acid destroys it. Through the skin is the best way. We would transfer the tincture by making contact with a very sensitive part of her skin. The palms of her hands.” Hannah saw the understanding come into Kim’s face. “Yes. During the purification ceremony.”
It was intriguing; deliver a treatment that would neutralize this bizarre ability. What if they could actually pull this off? A long shot. But intriguing: “It’s permanent?”
“My father thought yes, from what the doctor told him.”
A thunk from the next room.
“Who’s in there?”
Hannah got up and beckoned Kim to follow. She pulled aside a door that was off one of its hinges. In the next room, darker, with pools of water on the floor, sat a person tied to chair. Blindfolded and gagged.
“Here is an American we found. Nora Copeland. On her way there from Albuquerque.” Hannah approached the woman, who turned her head to follow the sound of the voice. “She was very much looking forward to joining Hitler’s team.” She turned to the bound woman. “Weren’t you.”
The woman furiously shook her head.
“If you are going to lie, you keep the blindfold on for a week.”
Kim started to feel sick. She turned from the room and walked back into the other one.
“Let her go,” Kim said when they were alone again.
“What do you think, I am going to shoot her?”
“Yes, if necessary. War, you said.”
“Anyway, it is not necessary. I hold her for two weeks, maybe three. When you are safely out, I release her.” She tore off her heavy coat and threw it on the barrel. “You have all these objections. So cautious.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re rash?”
“Yes. But he was one who when he had a pistol and an SS man standing before him, he killed himself rather than one of Hitler’s butchers.”
The blindfolded woman was one of those intercepted by the Oberman Group. Hannah said she would release the woman; Kim wanted to trust this promise. She did, in fact, trust it. Hannah had a ruthless streak; her father’s death had made her hard, but she was not cruel.
“You said there’s a secret way out of the Aerie. If we got outside the compound, the German guards would still be close by.”
“Not close by. A tunnel extends under the Aerie and the exit is half a kilometer away, in the woods. You can then make your way to a place where one of your planes can land.”
“An airfield?”
“No. A place they will never suspect a plane would go. A lake—”
“A water landing? Hannah, no.”
“Remember, this is in the mountains. It is frozen.”
Kim thought about whether the Office would want a plane sent. Maybe they would. London wanted Hannah; they might want her very much. But the extraction they were now talking about involved more danger. “Can a plane land if there’s deep snow?”
“There is not much snow in that valley yet. It has been a dry winter so far, and the elevation is not high.”
Kim continued down her mental list of objections. “They may know my description. Rikard Nagel might have alerted them I’m a possible spy. I’d never pass their security.”
“Nagel will not tell them.” She picked at her gloves. “He was silenced. Yesterday.”
“You killed him.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. When Kim stared hard at her, she threw out, “You are shocked? Shocked that people die, cut down without a trial, that saboteurs blow up cars, shoot people in a cemetery?” Her eyes flashed. Ready for combat.
“In the cemetery?” At Sonja’s funeral? The air left her lungs. The sheer audacity of it, the foolhardiness. “You could have been kil
led.”
“He was alone.” She went to a small brazier in the corner. “You would like tea?”
Kim nodded, and Hannah nestled a few lumps of coal in the metal cradle. A little oil on the coal fed a quick fire. Then a samovar and a tin of tea leaves. Hannah looked up at Kim. “You are thinking how to get this information, this helpful drug, to the secret service. You are thinking they will do something.”
Yes, she was, even while knowing they wouldn’t risk it. They wouldn’t even believe it.
Hannah spit out a bit of loose tobacco. “But they don’t trust you. You are cozy with Jews in Berlin. Bad girl.”
Kim tried to focus on what was being asked of her. To be rash. Or perhaps merely bold. How had she gotten to this point, hiding in a Berlin slum with a fugitive and newly minted as a fugitive herself. And now this scheme. Hannah’s scheme, Hitler’s schemes. Where did it end, this contest for the world? And for her, where had it even begun? With her brother’s sacrifice in the Great War, that ever-present loss. But also with the creep of hatred into her adopted country, when Rose had been deemed a mental incompetent who must be locked away.
And now came a time for action, action more perilous than ever before.
They were not at war. Not yet. But now was the best time to act, when evil was still crawling out of its hole, not yet fully fledged.
Hannah brought two mugs.
Kim accepted the tea, fragrant, calming. “You said the operation only accepts 7 or above. What if Annakova can tell I’m not that high? Or what if they test incoming volunteers?”
“You are right; they do test.”
“I told you I am a 6.”
Hannah had taken off her gloves, cradling her cup, letting it warm her hands. Kim looked at her pale hands, her fingernails with coal soot under them.
Kim set aside her tea. “Oh, God.”
Hannah nodded. “You have figured out the plan.”
“Christ.” Now it was Kim’s turn to be angry. “Your plan is to turn me into one of them?”
“Now you know it all. You know everything.”
