by John Altman
He was just taking his first step when the Gestapo agent found another man to occupy his attention: a short, swarthy fellow weaving drunkenly down the sidewalk. Hobbs checked himself, watching.
The men were out of earshot, but he could guess the conversation easily enough. The Gestapo agent was requesting papers. The swarthy fellow patted himself down, found them, and offered them. They were evidently not enough to satisfy the Gestapo man, who then extended an offer to come into Schutzhaft, or protective custody. It was not an invitation that could be refused.
“Macht mit der Hacken,” the man ordered loudly: Make with the heels.
Hobbs looked away as they moved past.
After another five minutes, he saw Eva, walking quickly with her head down, wearing her snood and her plain winter coat. He licked his lips, tossed the cigarette aside, planted the cane, and began to shuffle toward her.
The mustache felt lopsided. Too late to fiddle with it now; he had come into view of the watchers. He kept walking, trying not to overact his role, using the cane sparingly.
Eva looked distracted. As they drew near to each other, she glanced up. Her eyes landed on his face without a spark of recognition. She looked down again, stepping to one side so they could pass each other. Hobbs waited—and waited—and then misplaced the cane, stumbling into her. At the same time, his free hand dipped into his pocket, withdrawing the letter.
“Oh!” she said. “Pardon me.”
He leaned his full weight against her—an old man who had lost his balance. Her hands moved reflexively to support him. “Danke,” he mumbled, and pressed the letter against her side.
She looked down at it, frowning.
“Take it,” he hissed.
She took the letter.
Then Hobbs was moving away, not looking back. He resisted the temptation to sneak a glance at the watchers. He forced himself to move slowly, evenly.
She had not recognized him.
He had thought that she would recognize him, once they were close to each other. But there had been nothing in her eyes except startled irritation. It made him feel disappointed. Was he so far from her mind, these days?
He kept walking. Now he risked a peek over his shoulder. The man in the doorway was still in the doorway—but watching him. He quickly turned his eyes back to the sidewalk. He was drawing near to the newspaper and book stand. The urge to hurry was strong. He bit it down.
Her face had looked older, wearier. Yet more beautiful than ever, in its ordinary way. The features had been more clearly defined. She was not a girl any longer. She had come into her own.
Then he was passing the newspaper stand. The man behind the counter was staring at him balefully. In the next moment, he was raising a hand, giving a signal to the one in the doorway.
Hobbs moved faster.
After another ten paces, he had reached the far corner of the block. Before turning, he glanced back over his shoulder. The man in the newspaper stand was pointing at him. The other was hurrying forward, hands in pockets. Eva was still moving away, continuing her walk as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
He stepped around the corner and then broke into a run.
A voice rang out, “Stehenbleiben!” Stop or I’ll shoot.
He kept running, throwing the cane aside.
Halfway down the block, he stepped into a recessed doorway. He bent down and pulled the Beretta from its holster, his heart thudding. He counted to three and then stepped out from the doorway.
The watcher was there—moving cautiously forward, one hand still in his pocket, the other holding a gun. When Hobbs stepped out, he looked almost comically surprised.
Hobbs raised the Beretta and fired three shots into the man’s chest: Fpp fpp fpp.
Then ran back in the direction from which he’d come. They had seen him passing the letter. The other man, therefore, had to be silenced as well.
The man in the book stand was fishing around beneath a stack of newspapers. Hobbs charged toward him, aiming the gun, straight-armed. He fired once; missed. A magazine hanging from a rack flapped as if taken by a sudden breeze. Then the man had his own gun in his hands. There was a sudden, flat crack. A bullet hissed through the air an inch from Hobbs’ ear.
He fired again, still moving forward, and again he missed.
The man returned fire. Hobbs felt a strong hand take his leg and push it out from under him. As he fell, he squeezed the trigger twice more. Fpp fpp.
When he looked up, the man was nowhere to be seen. But a stain of blood was on the flapping magazine, peppered with off-white shards of bone.
He gained his feet. One hand moved to his leg, searching for the wound. The bullet had entered just above his knee. When he put weight on the leg, it sent a rill of pain straight into his central nervous system, making his teeth clench.
If he could make the car, he still had a chance.
He began to move, dragging the leg. It was the right leg, the one that had given him trouble ever since the rugby injury years before. Ruined, now, beyond any doubt. Well, his rugby days had been finished anyway. He almost laughed at the thought.
For a moment, the pain welled, threatening to take him away. The edges of his field of vision blurred. Then the darkness receded, leaving him on his feet.
A whistle was blowing somewhere. Someone was calling after him. He ignored it.
He reached the corner. Eva was gone. Just as well. She had a better chance without him, now.
Halfway down the next block he became aware of feet pounding behind him. The whistle continued to blow, shrilly. He turned his head and saw two Gestapo agents in pursuit. He raised the Beretta and fired in their general direction, hoping to make them duck for cover. But the hammer clicked impotently on an empty chamber. Of course; the gun used a seven-shot magazine.
One of the Gestapo kept blowing his whistle. The other drew a pistol of his own and took long, careful aim. Hobbs turned again, dropped the empty Beretta, and hurried off.
A bullet hammered into the sidewalk two feet away, sending up a chip of concrete. He ducked. Then he could see the Talta, fifty feet away, impossibly distant.
His vision clouded again. When it cleared he was behind the wheel, somehow. The keys were in his hand, but his hand was slicked with blood. He promptly dropped the keys. When he bent down to retrieve them, the rear windshield blew out. If he hadn’t ducked …
His fingers skittered over the keys, found slippery purchase. He raised them, jammed them into the ignition, and fired it.
When he looked into the rearview mirror, he saw the two Gestapo directly behind the car: one taking aim again, patiently; the other still blowing his damned whistle.
He threw the car into reverse and jammed his foot down onto the accelerator.
The double thump brought a lunatic grin to his lips.
His hands moved for the gearshift again. The gears gnashed as he tried to find first. Then it had clicked into place; the Talta was lurching forward. A moment later, he was half a block away, gaining speed.
The Gehls, he thought. They would need to extend themselves one final time before they were rid of him. They would need to help him patch the leg, or he would have little chance of making it to the extraction site.
William, he thought. You bollixed that up, but good.
But perhaps Eva would still have a chance. If she read the letter … if she moved quickly enough …
He forced the thought from his mind. Time for it later. But it kept nagging. He had sealed her fate. For the second time in his life, he had put Eva in danger.
His chest felt hollow. His mind was spinning in strange, nightmarish directions. The bullet in his leg. Christ, it hurt.
He pushed it all away. Focus, he thought.
He focused. And drove.
Eva heard the shots as she was stepping around the corner farthest from her apartment.
She cocked her head, listening. The letter that the old man had forced on her was clutched tightly inside her pocket.
She wondered if the shots had anything to do with the old man. They probably did. She did not know who he was—but she knew he meant trouble.
She was probably minutes from being arrested.
She was probably about to die.
After a moment, she made herself continue walking.
Her fingers worked at the letter in her pocket. She wanted to open and read it right now, right here in the street. Perhaps it would explain something. But there were too many eyes out here. No, the letter needed to wait until she had reached her apartment again.
If she reached her apartment again.
She kept walking, with an effort, at a normal pace. Acting again, she suddenly realized, as she had been at the Hotel Adlon with Klinger. Her role tonight was that of Eva Bernhardt, sleepwalker. Calm, content with her lot, on a simple evening stroll.
Something to do with Klinger, she thought. Something to do with the word he had whispered: Schlieffen. Perhaps they had arrested him, and he had confessed telling her the word. But if that was the case, why was she still at liberty? And who was the old man?
She turned the third corner, and headed back toward her apartment.
Halfway down the block, a corpse lay sprawled on the sidewalk.
Three policemen were clustered around the dead man. Eva crossed the street, averting her eyes. How would she have felt, in this situation, had she been innocent? Nervous, focused on herself, trying to avoid becoming involved. She portrayed these feelings in her walk and her demeanor, and none of the men glanced in her direction.
When she turned the last corner, she saw another cluster of policemen, surrounding the little newspaper and book stand across from her building. A few Gestapo agents mingled with them. They were looking down at something inside the stand, speaking in low voices.
She closed the distance to her apartment. Nobody moved to stop her.
She let herself in, descending the four steps, and opened the three locks. Then she was safe inside her own apartment—except that she didn’t feel safe. The mask of impassivity dissolved; her face contorted like a child’s on the verge of a crying fit.
She took the envelope from her pocket, tore it open, and began to read.
Dearest Eva, the letter began.
She recognized the handwriting immediately: a spiky, nearly illegible scrawl. The old man’s face clicked back into her mind’s eye. That tremendous, ridiculous white mustache. A fake mustache, she realized suddenly. The hunched posture, the cane; all a disguise.
The old man had been Hobbs.
She turned her eyes back to the letter.
Dearest Eva:
The Abwehr is watching you. You’re not safe in Berlin any longer. I’ve come to help you get out.
An airplane will meet us on 15 March just north of Gothmund, on the Trave River. A fisherman named Thomas Brandt will shelter you until the extraction. His door on the Fischerweg will have a circle carved into the top right corner. Identify yourself as his cousin. I will meet you there before 15 March.
You must complete your mission if possible before going to Gothmund. But if you don’t, go anyway. Take care. You cannot let them follow you to the extraction site.
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I’ve taken great risks to reach you with this message. I hope you realize that means something.
Good luck.
There was no signature.
She read the letter twice. A laugh started to bubble up behind her lips. If it came out, it would be hysterical. She covered her mouth with one hand. Her heart was accelerating inside her chest. It seemed it would keep accelerating until it had burst. She waited; at last her heart began to slow. The urge to laugh passed. But she kept her hand plastered over her mouth, just to be safe, as she read the letter again.
The Abwehr is watching you.
Then she was swinging over to the other extreme: cool and distant, watching herself from the outside. The threat of laughter was gone. She took her hand from her mouth.
An airplane will meet us on 15 March.
Today was the eleventh. That left only four days.
You must complete your mission if possible before going to Gothmund. But if not, go anyway.
Her mission. To convince Klinger to try to get a look at the OKW files. She had failed at that, if she truly had run out of time. Yet he had given her the one clue: Schlieffen. One that might mean more to others than it meant to her. They will know.
Until this point, the letter made sense. For she had known, deep down, that she was being watched. She hadn’t confronted the thought consciously—the implications were too disturbing—but deep down she had known.
The last few lines of the letter, however, were confusing.
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
Hobbs, begging forgiveness? She had never thought she would see the day.
I’ve taken great risks to reach you with this message. I hope you realize that means something.
She folded the letter.
From outside came the sounds of activity. An ambulance siren. The dead man she had passed during her walk, she thought. Suddenly, she understood: The man had been watching her. Perhaps he had seen Hobbs passing the letter to her. And perhaps Hobbs had killed the man.
If that was the case, a knock might come on the door at any moment.
And this time it wouldn’t be Klinger. This time it would be the Abwehr, or the Gestapo.
You’re not safe in Berlin any longer.
Those words had been written before the dead man had caused such a commotion outside. Now, she thought, they were doubtless even more true.
She stood for another moment. A euphoric panic was rising inside her. Every moment she stood here, her chances of escaping decreased. She needed to leave. To abandon all of it: her job, her mission, her dull and lonely life. And not to look back.
Why did that thought make her feel euphoric? She had given up on Hobbs long ago. Even if he had changed, she wanted no part of him.
She heard footsteps moving toward the front door of the building. She tensed. She was too late, even now. They were coming for her.
Then the footsteps were moving past. Someone was laughing. She relaxed, exhaling.
She read the letter one final time and then crumpled it into a ball. Suddenly, that seemed insufficient. She carried it to the sink, found a box of matches beneath the stove, and lit one. When the flame touched the paper, it turned into a tongue, licking greedily.
She dropped the paper into the sink and watched it turn to ash.
Stood for one more moment, thinking.
Then she started to move.
5
LAKE WANNSEE
Hagen stood in the arched doorway of the villa’s dining room, considering.
The crystal chandelier overhead was dark. The Oriental carpet underfoot smelled of antiseptic cleaning fluid. Eight Queen Anne chairs stood neatly lined against one wall. Yet even in its current state of disuse, the room gave an impression of muted opulence. It took only a small leap of imagination to picture the space as it had been during the villa’s glory days: voices raised in warm conversation, the chime of champagne glasses following a toast. It must have been quite a sight in those days, Hagen thought. He would have liked to see it—to raise his own glass of champagne and, for a fleeting moment, to worry about nothing.
A woman came up behind him, preceded by a waft of perfume. “Gerhard,” she said.
He turned. “Angelika.”
“Herr Frick is waiting in your office.”
He frowned with surprise. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
The woman departed silently; after a moment her perfume followed. Hagen took another few seconds before leaving the dining room, trying to organize his thoughts. There was too much on his mind these days. Too many secrets, too many half-truths, to keep straight. Had he scheduled an appointment with Herr Frick this morning? He was certain he had not. So why was the man here?
Could it be news about Hobbs, so soon?
There was only one way to find out.
He spent a last moment looking at the quiet dining room, imagining the phantom toasts and the voices raised in cozy camaraderie; then he turned, and moved slowly down the corridor to his office.
“We paid a visit to Wilmersdorf this morning,” Frick said. “The man had been there, beyond any doubt. When we came through the door, Frau Gehl was in the process of disposing of bloody bandages. If we’d been an hour faster, we would have him right now.”
For some reason, Frick’s eyes gave a guilty flicker as he said it. Hagen noticed this, then dismissed it. He and Frick had been running in very different circles for the past few months. It would be a mistake to think that he could read the man’s tacit signals as if nothing had changed. Hagen was more on the wavelength of a bureaucrat, these days, than a soldier. He had sunk that far.
“A radio transmitter was discovered in the attic,” Frick continued. “And so it seems fair to assume that Hobbs has been in contact, via the airwaves, with his spymasters in Britain. I am of the opinion that Herr Gehl will be able to enlighten us as to the man’s destination—with the proper encouragement. The Gehls are in our custody at Number Eight Prinz Albrecht Strasse. My associate is interrogating them even as we speak.”
Hagen nodded approvingly.
“Hobbs has taken their car—a blue Talta. And judging from the bandages, he’s been rather seriously wounded. Soon, now, we’ll have our man.”
“Excellent,” Hagen said.
“I thought you would be pleased—and would want to be kept advised of my progress.”
Had there been another guilty flicker there? No; it was only in Hagen’s mind.
“Thank you, Herr Kriminal Inspektor. You’ve done well.”
Frick stood, saluted. “The next time we speak,” he said, “I will have even better news.”
He left the office, and Hagen looked after him for a few seconds. Then he spun in his chair, to look out through the open window at Lake Wannsee.
Frick had found the man’s trail more quickly than he had anticipated. Almost too quickly. Perhaps it had been an error in judgment, to set him on Hobbs’ track so soon.
