by Alan Gratz
I nodded, practicing the words in my head.
“Where will he take Simon?” I asked.
“It’s best you not know that,” Ma said. “The man you’re to meet will be the first of my network to ferry him out of the country, but by no means the last. Just do your part, and the network will see to the rest. God willing, Simon will be back in London by St. Patrick’s Day.”
“Where I’ll raise a pint of Guinness and sing the Irish national anthem in your honor,” Simon told us with a wry smile. “Now, where are you on this assassination business? Any clue to who they’re targeting?”
“We’re narrowing it down to a list of targets—an American businessman visiting Portugal, a French Resistance fighter in Algiers, a member of the Danish monarchy,” Ma said. “But it’s all speculation at this point. We haven’t got a solid shred of evidence one way or another. But Davin and I will deal with that.” She nodded at my father, and then looked back at Simon. “The first order of business is getting you out of here.”
“And then,” Da said firmly, “we will talk about how we get ourselves out of here.”
Air raid sirens screamed. Berliners ran for bomb shelters. Giant searchlights clicked on, buzzing as they warmed up. From high in the cloudy night sky, we could hear the low, steady, ominous drone of British airplanes growing closer.
And I, along with my SRD troop, stood right in the middle of the street, waiting to shoot them down with an antiaircraft gun.
The antiaircraft guns weren’t just “guns.” They were cannons. The barrel of the gun was a long, thin shiny silver proboscis like a mosquito’s nose, sticking out of a stocky jumble of gray hydraulic pistons and levers and gears that could swivel the cannon in any direction and any elevation. The giant mosquito stood on four thin legs that stretched out like an X on the ground beneath it—a perfect target for the bombers overhead.
X marks the spot.
And if the X wasn’t enough, the bombers could target the giant searchlights not three meters from each antiaircraft emplacement. We were just begging to be bombed.
The other boys didn’t see it that way. Or if they did, they hid it well. Excitement passed through our little group of a dozen boys like static electricity. They were going to be firing real guns, in a real war situation! At last, no more childish assignments checking IDs or raiding pool halls or tattling on unenthusiastic Hitler Youth. We were going to be doing real fighting.
The thooms of exploding British bombs began, and we heard the pok-pok-pok of the AA guns beginning to fire on the far side of the city. Our searchlight swept the sky. Black dots of death rained down, and white streaks of death shot up. The once-a-night aerial fistfight between Great Britain and Nazi Germany.
I was one of the boys assigned to run the artillery shells from the storage crate to the gun. Ours was one of the “88s,” the cannons that shot enormous 88mm shells that looked like bullets made for a giant’s rifle. The shells were two feet long and weighed more than twenty pounds each. The other boys and I had to constantly run back and forth, each of us carrying one in our arms, and hand them off to the boys who fed them into the metal insect’s butt. More boys ran the radar machine that helped find the planes in the cloudy skies, and others worked the controls to aim the gun and fire. Fritz and Max were on the team that fired.
The booming orange eruptions of flame grew near. A building a few blocks from us exploded, scattering brick and rubble into the street like a farmer casting seeds. We flinched, and I felt a little of the electric excitement fade away, replaced by fear. But then Fritz was screaming “Fire!” and our AA gun recoiled with the force of a colossal jackhammer, cracking the pavement as it sent its first shell hurtling into the sky. We all stood and watched, even though we’d been trained to reload and fire, reload and fire. In what seemed like slow motion, the tracer round arced high into the clouds and detonated with a distant poom between the hundreds of bomber planes flying by. We hadn’t hit a thing.
“Reload! Reload!” Fritz cried, and we fell back onto the routine we’d been trained for. Grab a shell from the crate, haul it to the gun, load it, aim it, shoot it. Grab a shell from the crate, haul it to the gun, load it, aim it, shoot it. The routine had been easy to follow in the training session in broad daylight, with no planes droning overhead, no bombs whistling as they fell on you.
A building across the street detonated suddenly, showering us with wooden splinters and bits of masonry. I ducked and put a hand to my helmet to keep it in place as a piece of metal shrapnel pinged off it. The explosion was so loud my ears rang, and I saw instead of heard Fritz calling for another round. All about us the air was filled with dark black smoke that smelled like gunpowder and ash.
I glanced at my watch. 3:15. I had to keep an eye on the time. I had to be at the rendezvous at exactly 3:45 to take Simon across the city to the next agent in Ma’s network.
I hefted another cartridge and turned to take it to the gun when the other boys erupted in a cheer. I blinked and looked up at the strobing night sky. A bomber plummeted from the clouds, trailing fire and smoke.
We had actually shot down a British airplane.
I felt sick. I slumped against the radar machine that searched the skies for targets. We had shot down a British airplane. I had shot down a British airplane! Maybe not all by myself, but I had helped. Was the artillery shell that hit the bomber one of the ones I had hauled over? Simon had been shot down just like this, by an antiaircraft emplacement outside Berlin, and now I had done the same thing to someone else. I didn’t know how many RAF officers were on that bomber. Were they already dead, or were they parachuting into enemy territory? Whichever it was, I’d killed them, whether it was now or later.
I’d joked with Simon that I had a deal with Allied bombers. I didn’t shoot at them, and they didn’t shoot at me. But now I had shot at them. It had always been a kind of joke, but deep down I’d really believed it—that no British bomb would ever kill me.
Now all deals were off.
Another bomb hit the same building across the street, cratering the lot and knocking us all off our feet. I hauled myself up on the radar machine, and found myself staring at a panel of knobs and readouts for calibrating the thing. I did the German Look to make sure I was alone, then twisted every dial I could way out of position. If we hit anything now, it would be by complete and utter accident.
The AA gun kept up a steady pace. Poom. Poom. Poom. Poom. At optimum speed, we were supposed to be getting off fifteen to twenty rounds per minute, but because it was our first night—and because we were all thirteen to seventeen years old—it was probably more like five to seven rounds per minute. But that was still too many shots at British bombers for my taste.
I snuck another peek at my watch. 3:27. I still had time to kill—which I suddenly realized was a very bad way of putting it.
“You’re missing everything!” one of the boys told Fritz, and I smiled to myself. My sabotage had worked! I would have to be sure to always do that before the planes came.
One of the older SRD boys—I think his name was Ottmar—laughed. “Come on, Quex! How do you expect to kill that scientist if you can’t even shoot down a plane?”
One of Ottmar’s buddies—Erhard, I think, though I was always getting the two boys confused—laughed and punched Ottmar in the shoulder.
I fumbled the handoff of my next artillery shell. Kill a scientist? What were they talking about?
Fritz did the German Look. He caught me gaping at them and shot Ottmar (Erhard?) an angry frown, as if to say, See? Be quiet! People are listening! They went back to work, and I slipped around to the other side of the AA gun to think.
Was that what Fritz and Max and, I guessed, Erhard and Ottmar, had been pulled away to do? Was that what the “science team” meant? That they were training to … what, assassinate some scientist somewhere?
And then a deeper thought struck me with all the force of an Allied bomb.
Fritz and Max and Ottmar and Erhard were the assassins
my parents were looking for, and an Allied scientist was their target.
I was lost in thought when Max appeared in front of me. “I know why we’re not hitting anything,” he snarled. “Because you sabotaged the radar machine!”
I put my hands up. “No, wait,” I told Max. “I didn’t do anything.”
Max took a step toward me, and I took two steps back. “I saw you,” he said. “You twisted the knobs. You did it on purpose!”
I did the German Look, hoping nobody else had heard him. Max and I were on the other side of the AA gun, the thundering, booming AA gun, and nobody else was around. But any minute, Max was going to tell the others.
Unless I went on the offensive.
I lunged for Max, grabbing his right arm and twisting it behind his back. He cried out in pain, then started to holler for help. I wrenched his arm up higher.
“Don’t,” I said, “or I’ll break it.”
Max writhed in my grip. “You’ll never get away with this!” he said. He was probably right, but I didn’t see any other way out.
“Who’s the scientist you’re supposed to kill?” I asked.
Max went still, and I felt light-headed. So I’d been right. Fritz and Max and Ottmar and Erhard had been training to kill an Allied scientist!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max said.
I twisted his arm. “Tell me.”
Max cried out. I glanced around, but we were still alone, the big AA gun shielding us from being heard or seen. For now.
“Okay. Okay! It’s some Jewish scientist,” Max spat out.
“Who?” I said, wrenching his arm again.
“Goldsmit! Hendrik Goldsmit.”
“When? Where?”
“At some science conference somewhere! I don’t know. They haven’t told us where or when. I swear!”
“Why you? Why Fritz? Or Erhard? Or Ottmar?”
“I—I don’t know,” Max said. “Maybe because I can speak English.”
I was surprised. “You speak English?”
Max swore at me in the King’s English, and I had to admit he was pretty good at it.
My mind reeled. I had to tell my parents a man named Hendrik Goldsmit was the target as soon as I could. But I had to meet Simon first, help him get out of Berlin. What time was it? And what was I going to do about Max?
Max took advantage of my reverie. He slammed the heel of his boot down on my toe, making me jump back. He twisted himself around and slipped free, clutching at his injured arm as he staggered back from me.
I could run now, get away while the others had to stay at their post, but then Max would rat me out and my whole career as a spy would be over. I could never come back. I’d have to leave Germany with Simon, if that was even possible. And what about my parents? How would they get out of Berlin? Would they be captured? Killed?
Worse?
The Germans have a great word for seeing everything that can go wrong play out in your head. They call it Kopfkino—“head cinema.” And what I saw playing out on the movie screen in my head was the end of everything.
I yanked my Hitler Youth dagger from its sheath.
Max’s eyes went wide, as if he couldn’t believe I might really be an enemy agent, even though he’d caught me sabotaging the gun. He fumbled at the snap on his dagger’s sheath. I should have jumped him then, but I hesitated. Could I really do this? Could I really kill another person in cold blood?
Max drew his dagger. Took a step toward me.
And then Max exploded.
A huge piece of shrapnel, the shredded tip of a destroyed British bomber’s wing, we later found out, fell out of the sky and ripped Max in two like he was made of paper.
But Max wasn’t made of paper. He was made of flesh and blood and bone that exploded all over me and knocked me to the ground. One second he was there, snarling at me, and the next second he was just … gone.
The horror of what I’d seen—what I would never, ever be able to unsee—made me vomit and collapse to my knees. The stink of blood and guts and vomit filled my head, and I thought I was going to pass out. I was shaking so badly I almost couldn’t move, but I had to get as far away from the carnage as I could. I dragged myself around to the other side of the gun, where the other boys were still working.
Fritz saw me covered with blood and ran to me. I pointed to the other side of the AA gun, and some of the boys went to look. They came back crying and pale, and more than one of them bent over the AA gun’s spidery legs to wretch.
I shook with both horror and guilt. I had wanted to keep Max from telling on me for sabotaging the AA gun, for pumping him for information about the science team, and now he was dead. It was hard not to think I’d caused it somehow, that my wishing him quiet had killed him.
Dully, I remembered that I was supposed to be somewhere else. I wiped Max’s blood from the glass on my wristwatch. 3:40! It would take me longer than five minutes to get to my rendezvous with Simon. I was going to be late.
I turned to go.
And that was when the Edelweiss Pirates attacked.
The Edelweiss Pirates came streaming out of a nearby alley, screaming, “Eternal war with the Hitler Youth!”
The AA gun team was still reeling from Max’s death, and we were slow to understand what was going on. The Edelweiss Pirates were on us before we could think, attacking with clubs and broken bottles and daggers. The SRD had been conducting more and more raids on the cinemas and pool halls and pubs where the Edelweiss Pirates hung out all day, and this was their payback—attacking us when we least expected it, when the numbers were in their favor.
“Sorry if it hurts, mates, sorry we can’t stay,” they sang,
“We’re Edelweiss Pirates, and we’re on our way.
We march by banks of Ruhr and Rhine
And smash the Hitler Youth in twain,
Our song is freedom, love, and life,
We’re Pirates of the Edelweiss!”
A boy hit me in the back with a table leg, and I crumpled to the ground. It was the wake-up call I needed. My shock over Max’s death washed away like blood under peroxide, replaced by the adrenaline rush of a fistfight. The Pirate came at me again and I swept out a leg, knocking him to the ground. I threw myself on top of him before he could get up again, pinning the hand that held the table leg to the ground. He looked up at me in abject horror, probably because I was covered in Max’s blood and guts. I used his momentary shock to crack a fist across his face, and he passed out. As I climbed up off him, I was surprised to realize I recognized him—he was the boy who’d run off crying when he was kicked out of the Hitler Youth trials because of his asthma.
All around me, the AA gun team was swarmed by Edelweiss Pirates. Like me, the rest of the Hitler Youth boys had started slow and wobbly, but just as quickly their weakness had been knocked out of them. They were fighting back in earnest now, many of them with their Hitler Youth daggers in hand. I snatched mine up from where I’d dropped it and checked my watch. 3:46! I was officially late, and I hadn’t even left yet. Simon would be standing in the shadows of the alley, hoping not to be caught by a passing air raid patrol while he waited for me. I had to get to him!
I threaded my way through the melee, stopping to defend myself against a boy with a broken bottle. I had just driven him off when I saw Fritz surrounded by three Edelweiss Pirates. Two of them had clubs, and the other had a knife. Fritz was doing everything I’d taught him to do in a fight—right stance, right balance, right defensive position—but not even I could fend off three boys like that, especially if they were all a head taller than me, as they were to little three-cheeses-tall Fritz. If somebody didn’t help him, he was going to get really hurt. Maybe even killed.
I glanced at my watch again, and back at Fritz. Fritz, who hadn’t talked to me in days. Fritz, who threw himself into pool halls looking for fights. Fritz, who was part of a secret mission to kill a Jewish scientist.
Fritz, who had saved my life.
I curs
ed in German, then in English, and threw myself at the boy with the knife. I drove him headfirst into the paved street, and he howled. Fritz had already gone after one of the other two, ducking a swing from the boy’s club and jabbing at his leg with his dagger. I ran at the remaining boy from the side, knocking him to the ground. He swung his club at me and it glanced off the side of my head. My temple exploded with pain. I put a hand to the throbbing, tender lump on my head and rolled away. The Pirate twisted and raised his club to hit me again, but he screamed and jolted as if someone had just stuck a cattle prod in his back. It was Fritz. He kicked the boy in the back again, and the Pirate dropped his club and writhed in pain.
Fritz reached down and helped me up. He didn’t look as wild or bloodthirsty as he had when he’d led the pool hall raid or the attack on Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher. He looked cold. Hard. The exploding bombs, the AA gun, the evisceration of Max, the ambush by the Edelweiss Pirates—this was war. We weren’t playing games anymore, and we both knew it.
“Thanks,” I told him.
“You too,” he said.
Fritz ran to help another Hitler Youth beset by Edelweiss Pirates, and I looked at my watch. 4:02. I was very, very late now.
I ran.
It took me only ten minutes to run what would usually have taken me fifteen, even dodging all the fires and craters and piles of rubble in the streets. But it didn’t matter.
When I got to the rendezvous point, Simon was already gone.
I sat with my mother and father in Da’s office, waiting for word that Simon had somehow reached the next rendezvous point outside Berlin. He hadn’t come back to the embassy last night, which meant he’d tried to make it on his own.
Or he’d been captured.
The morning sun was just breaking through the smog of dust and smoke that hung over the city. I hadn’t slept since I’d come home from the air raid. I’d been too worried about Simon. Too guilt-stricken over missing my appointment.
