by John Altman
Two riders on horseback, wearing military regalia, were approaching the bench. The man fell silent until they had passed. Eva’s eyes followed the horses longingly. Once she had ridden a great deal herself—long ago, when she had been very young, when the world had seemed filled with simple pleasures.
“The elder Klinger was a professor at the University of Berlin,” the man said quietly. “A teacher of the natural sciences. When the Reich Minister of Education began to force the curriculum of Rassenkunde on the faculty, however, Herr Klinger resisted.”
His eyes were unfocused, staring into the middle distance. He took the cigar from his lips and exhaled a stream of blue-tinged smoke into the wind.
“He was outspoken with his criticism. One night in 1934, he vanished. He has not been heard from since.”
My people, Eva thought darkly.
“Now. Our benefactors have no particular reason to believe that Herr Klinger is anything but faithful to the Reich. The fate of his father, however, leads them to speculate that perhaps he harbors certain … feelings … which he has kept to himself.”
Eva murmured assent.
“If the man did have such feelings—and if he was acquainted with certain higher-ranking men at Zossen, who would be capable of gleaning hints about Hitler’s plans …”
“I understand,” she said.
“Good. But you must tread softly. We do not know just where his loyalties lie.”
“Yes.”
“As I said: Klinger likes his vices. He can often be found at the bar of the Hotel Adlon after working hours, drinking and looking for women. He also likes his wife. But she exacts a high price for his infidelities. Jewels and furs. Herr Klinger is in rather serious debt. There are, you can see, several possible avenues of approach here.”
Eva nodded once more, and began to twist a lock of hair around her index finger.
“You must present him with an opportunity—a chance to remove himself from his financial straits, and at the same time to seek justice for the fate of his father.”
“Yes.”
“But softly—softly.”
“Yes.”
“Time is of the essence,” the man said. “Our benefactors are watching the weather. When it warms sufficiently, time will be up. We will meet again in one week at this bench. You’ll apprise me of your progress then.”
They sat for another minute in silence. Then the man stood, creakily. He put the cigar back between his lips. “Klinger is forty-five,” he said. “Short. Dark. With a mustache just turning gray. The seventh floor?”
“I highly recommend it.”
“Thank you, young lady. There are five hundred marks in the newspaper, to help you along. If Klinger proves valuable, more can be arranged. Auf Wiedersehen.”
“Auf Wiedersehen,” she said.
She watched as he moved away, haltingly, leaning on the cane. She kept watching until he was out of sight. Then she stood, folding the newspaper under her arm, and strolled slowly away in the other direction.
After a moment, a man sitting on a nearby bench came to his feet. He folded his own newspaper beneath his arm, pulled the brim of his hat lower over his face, gave Eva another moment to gain some distance, and then fell into step behind her.
LAKE WANNSEE, DÜSSELDORF
Hagen could feel another headache coming on.
He reached for the bottle of SS Sanitäts aspirin and twisted off the lid. He was going through the little aspirin bottles quickly these days—too quickly. It would have concerned him, if only he’d had the time to be concerned by such trivialities.
He took two of the pills, added a third, and washed them down with the last cold sip of ersatz coffee in the mug by his hand. He returned the vial to the drawer of his desk and sat still, waiting for the headache to soften a bit before he proceeded to the next bit of unpleasantness on his roster for this altogether unpleasant day.
Around him, the villa was filled with the soft, professional sounds of business progressing as usual. In a room to his left, spies were being trained: he could hear the muted whir of cameras and the intermittent crackling of radio sets. Farther down the hall, a sample interrogation was proceeding in polite, gilded tones.
The villa, a sprawling holiday resort of several dozen rooms, had been built in 1914 but only recently had been taken over by the SS Security Service—Hagen’s organization, the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst. Until a few months before, he thought, the sounds in the villa must have been very different indeed, as wealthy Berliners on vacation had slept, dined, played cards, and made love.
But times changed.
These days more than ever, times changed.
After a few minutes, the headache lost its edge, settling in for the duration as a dull thud. Hagen decided he could wait no longer. But the energy required for the task before him, which once would have been available in surfeit, felt beyond his grasp. Over the past few months, for the first time in his life, he had started to feel his age. The problem, no doubt, was a lack of activity. He sat behind this desk day after day, wrangling over minutia and nonsense.
He recognized, however, that he was no longer a young man. And he intended to age gracefully, if that was possible for a soldier such as himself. The time for active involvement in operations had passed. The maneuver in Holland had been his last. His legacy would come in the form of a pupil, a piece of clay to be molded in his image. And he had accepted this fact, as dispiriting as it sometimes seemed.
After a few moments, he exhaled a long, measured breath. He had been working too hard, he thought. He was feeling philosophical, and at his core he was not a philosophical man. A vacation was in order. If he could force himself to relax, things would look brighter.
A vacation. Still more idleness.
His lips pursed. After another moment, he summoned his resolve, shoved his chair back from the desk, straightened his dark tailored suit, and left the office.
He found William Hobbs standing on a balcony outside his room, facing the gray waters of Lake Wannsee and smoking a cigarette.
Hobbs was a large man, well over six feet tall, and fit, with an ex-athlete’s build that was just starting to tend toward fat. He had a defeated look about him today, Hagen thought: tired and jaded and weary-eyed, with his sandy-blond hair teased into a rat’s nest by the wind.
Hagen joined him by the railing, lighting a cigarette of his own. For several moments, neither man spoke. The water of the lake lapped quietly in the breeze. Finally, Hobbs cleared his throat.
“You’ve got something to tell me,” he said.
He spoke roughly—proud of his humble roots, Hagen thought; eager to identify himself as East End instead of Oxford. Hagen considered suggesting that they move inside, out of the wind, to have their conversation. But Hobbs looked settled in, somehow at home against the gray lifeless background. It would be easier to give the man the news here.
“I’ve received word from Reichsleiter Himmler,” Hagen said. “You’re not to be allowed to leave Germany—at least, not for the immediate future.”
Hobbs said nothing. His broad shoulders sagged a bit as his eyes continued to scan the lake. The news could not have come as a surprise, of course. By now he must have been expecting it. But it was one thing to expect such news and another to hear it said aloud. Hagen gave the man a minute before continuing.
“In time we may make a different arrangement. But for now you’re to remain with us. We’ll be finished with the debriefing in another few days; then you’ll go to Berlin.” He paused. “I’ll see to it that you’re taken care of there.”
Again Hobbs said nothing.
“You have my apologies,” Hagen said. “But you must understand, it is out of my hands.”
Hobbs took a final, vicious drag from his cigarette and then flicked it off the balcony. “Were you given a reason?” he asked.
“It seems you are considered a security risk.”
“Even after my contributions here?”
Hagen shrugged
.
Now Hobbs turned to face him more fully. A crooked smile played across the man’s mouth. There was something self-hating in that smile, something so bitter that it was difficult to look at straight on.
“But surely, Herr Hagen, there’s something I could do to change the situation. Give me a moment. I’ll think of it.”
Hagen knew what the man was driving at. The implication was that they were pulling out on the deal only to increase the strength of their bargaining position. The extension of that implication suggested a desire to insert Hobbs back into England as a double agent, to continue spying for the SD.
Hagen very nearly gave the man an answer: that Himmler and Heydrich did not trust Hobbs that far. Returning him to England as a double agent had been too tempting an opportunity to reject out of hand—they had genuinely hoped that he would impress them with his trustworthiness. But now, after four months of debriefing, Hobbs had done little to impress them. He drank too much and the information he provided was faulty, often contradictory. He was a man with few scruples and no real loyalties. He was also a dangerous man, trained at tradecraft by MI6, the most practiced espionage organization in the world. And so the decision to ship him off to Berlin, where he would be out of harm’s way and available for the future, was not a bargaining tactic. It was non-negotiable.
Before he could say this, however, Hobbs rushed on:
“If you’ve got in mind what I think you’ve got in mind, then my price just went up.”
A faint smile tugged at Hagen’s lips. Hobbs the play-actor had said much the same thing, he was remembering, back at the café in Holland.
“We’ve got nothing in mind,” he said, “except exactly what I’ve said.”
“That’s ridiculous. Think of what I could offer.”
“The decision is out of my hands.”
Hobbs stared at him for a moment, hard. Then he lit another cigarette and turned to look again at the lake.
“Tell me,” he said slowly. “Am I really to be sent to Berlin? Or am I to be sent somewhere else—more permanent?”
“You will be settled in Berlin. A nice little apartment on Leipziger Strasse. And presently you will receive your money and your resort. All that has changed is the timing.”
Hobbs looked unconvinced.
“It is not as bad as you seem to think. You will live well in Berlin. You will have money. A woman, if you like.”
Hobbs snorted.
“We appreciate the value of your contribution,” Hagen said. “It will not be forgotten.”
“Dill died for this, you know.”
Hagen said nothing.
“Dill had a son. I was his godfather.”
Hagen held his tongue.
“Bloody hell,” Hobbs said colorlessly, and tossed his cigarette, barely smoked, off the balcony.
“Come inside,” Hagen suggested. “We have some final matters to discuss before the move can be implemented.”
For a moment, Hobbs didn’t react. Then he grunted. His broad shoulders slouched even lower, and he turned to follow Hagen back into the villa.
2
THE HOTEL ADLON: MARCH 1940
Tonight would be the night.
Eva made the decision upon finishing her second Rauchbier. The beer was watered down but still went straight to her head: she felt tipsy, fluttery, and somewhat naughty. She allowed the naughty feeling to show on her face. Klinger, of course, would also need to know that tonight would be the night. How did the old saying go? It took two to tango.
Otto Klinger, sitting beside her at the bar of the Hotel Adlon, had one hand resting on her knee. He was kneading the flesh there absently as he spoke about his Iron Cross.
“Later on, they replaced the silver with silver trim. Some of the very last medals were cast from one piece, and had no silver at all. They were brass. Brass! But mine, Eva darling, is a real one. Pure silver. A beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Sometime I really must arrange to show it to you.…”
Klinger was shaped like a barrel, short and thick, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and an easy smile. A charmer, Eva thought. He reminded her of Hobbs in that way. His mustache was almost as fastidiously well kept as Hobbs’ had been; he carried himself with a similar swagger. And his disarming smile, like Hobbs’, had no doubt toppled many a young woman into many a bed over the years.
But she did not think about Hobbs anymore, if she could help it.
She forced herself to focus on Klinger.
She had met him at this same bar almost three weeks before, stationing herself beside the man rather shamelessly. He had chatted her up at once—after slipping his wedding ring unobtrusively into a pocket of his cheap suit—and with a great deal of suavity. Eva had found herself enjoying the experience, giving subtle indications of interest and then backtracking almost immediately. She had made him work for it.
Klinger had promptly mentioned his position at OKW, managing to make it sound like much more than clerk’s work, and had then mentioned his service during the Great War, alluding to the Iron Cross he had been awarded. This, she realized later, had been the groundwork for his proposition. After an hour of conversation, on that first night, he had suggested that she might like to see his Iron Cross sometime. If she was interested, perhaps they could arrange a rendezvous. At this moment, he was late for a meeting—his meeting, no doubt, was supper with his wife—but he would very much like to share his Iron Cross with her at some point in the near future.
Eva had given him a heavy-lidded stare. She had surprised herself with her ability to play the cool seductress. After all, she had always been a quiet girl. But this other identity had been lurking just beneath the surface, it seemed, waiting patiently for a chance to come out. No doubt this was what Hobbs had seen in her: a hint of promise, a gleam of natural talent. An instinct for the game, that she had not even seen within herself.
And it was fun. She felt like Marlene Dietrich. Perhaps she had less to work with: her cheeks were not quite hollowed to perfection, and her eyes, no matter how she tried, refused to smolder. But at least half of the act, she was coming to realize, had nothing to do with physical beauty. It had more to do with attitude. And the attitude, she had. She had been perfecting it for years as recreation—practicing emotions in front of the mirror, miming feelings she had read off of others’ faces. Long-suffering patience, from her mother—a small down-turning of the lips, with a glint of drowsy joy in the eyes to balance the frown. From her father, the opposite: spirited impatience, because the fields never did exactly what he wanted them to do. Over the dinner table or at night in front of the fire, he had projected a constant desire to get back to work, to forgo such human weaknesses as sleep and food, and instead concentrate entirely on his farm.
The small tricks of expression had been gathering, without her realizing it, into quite a nice little arsenal. From the girls at the dance halls—prettier girls than she—the careless toss of the hair and the demure aversion of the eyes. From her fellow governesses in England, the impeccable posture, the pretense of propriety that made one wonder what lay beneath. And from Hobbs himself, the illusion of confidence, of not caring much one way or the other. There was nothing more certain to attract attention than the illusion of not caring.
At some point, she had allowed, she might like to see Klinger’s Iron Cross. But she did not think a rendezvous for the purpose was quite in order.
After that, it had been an easy matter to reel him in.
They had met twice more at the bar of the Adlon, seemingly by chance, and although Klinger had neglected to bring his medal, he had pressed her fervently for the outside tryst. Now she had decided that tonight would be the night. Until now, Hobbs had been the only lover of her life. The prospect of taking another, despite the obvious complications, was darkly thrilling.
“Not that I’ve got anything against the Party,” Klinger was saying. “The Nazis have done some fine things for this city. Fine things. Once upon a time, this very bar would have been overrun b
y homosexuals, you know—sixteen-year-old boys in lederhosen with their cocks hanging out. And the streets outside would have been overrun by whores. Not the few you see these days—the ones that come out like rats to take advantage of the blackout—but whores by the dozen. Goebbels has done a fine job of cleaning up the city. But does that mean I need to join the Party? I think not. They’re doing just fine without me.”
Could he sense that Eva had made her decision about tonight? She thought he could. His hand, working at her knee, felt knowing.
“But they’ve done wonders in cleaning up the city,” Klinger said. “Sex is best left indoors—out of public view.” He grinned at her. “Eh?”
She smiled back at him.
“Eh?” he said again, and his hand moved slowly up her thigh.
“Absolutely,” she said, and raised her glass to cover the smile before it could crack.
When it was over, Klinger pushed himself off the bed and wandered into the kitchen. Eva lay still, listening, as he fixed drinks.
She had done it. It was finished.
And it had not been so bad.
In fact, it had been rather nice. Klinger was very different from Hobbs. He smelled different, he moved differently, and he held her differently. And there was less at stake—in her heart, if not in the larger scheme of things—which left her free to enjoy the experience more. With Hobbs, after all, she had been in love. She had believed that she would have only one lover in her life, the man she would marry. As a result she had put terrific pressure on herself to enjoy the time spent in bed with him. When she had failed, she knew that she had disappointed them both.
But with Klinger the sex was nothing but a pleasant diversion. It hardly mattered whether the girl lying beneath him was Eva or somebody else. And that phenomenon, although she never would have expected it, had made things … well, nice.
