way. He’s too useful to us to care one way or the other.”
Hoffner watched the self-satisfied indifference across the desk.
Georg-an agent of British Intelligence. Hoffner was torn between a feeling of pride and terror.
“How long?” he said.
“How long what?”
“How long has Georg been with you?”
Wilson looked up. “What is it you want, Herr Inspe-” He caught himself. “Herr Hoffner?”
“He wouldn’t have told me. You know that.”
Wilson continued to stare. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t have.” He waited, then reached down to the bottom drawer. He returned with a bottle and two glasses and placed them on the desk: it seemed every office in Berlin was fitted with a set. “You really had no idea, did you?” Hoffner said nothing and Wilson poured. “Amazing how he fell into our laps. But then, everything got tossed around in ’thirty-three, didn’t it?” Wilson recorked the bottle, took his glass, and sat back.
“I’m sure it’s easy to see it that way, from a distance.”
“No, no, I know,” Wilson said blandly. “I’m sure Georg was devastated. Angry. Six years with Ufa and they throw him out.” Hoffner’s eyes remained empty. “Ufa-Tonwoche has always been a second-rate newsreel studio,” Wilson said. “Georg was too good a cameraman and director to be stuck there. He was lucky to move on.”
“So you made him your offer before they found his work too degenerate?” Hoffner took his glass. “Or was that later when you recognized his talents and his anger?” He drank.
Wilson took another cigarette from the box and lit it. “I think I’m going to continue calling you inspector, Inspector. It’ll make me feel so much better about all this.”
“Is that in some manual someplace?”
Wilson smiled as he exhaled. It was his first honest expression in the last ten minutes. “I’m sure it is.” He took another pull. “You’re expecting me to say that my father was some old beat cop, tough, hard-drinking, and this is my way of making him proud.”
“No,” Hoffner said. He finished his own cigarette and began to crush it out. “Your father was a banker- Harrow, Eton-the same places you went. The only moment of real disappointment came when you chose Oxford over Cambridge-or Cambridge over Oxford-whichever let him know you were your own man.” Hoffner let go of the cigarette. “He finds the whole newsreel business silly, but if he only knew what it was you were really doing … Closer?”
To his credit, Wilson had kept his smile. “It was Winchester, then Cambridge.”
“My mistake.” Hoffner brushed the ash from his hands. “Old beat cops don’t produce men like you, Herr Wilson. They produce the boys who go and die for your principles.”
Wilson’s eyes showed a moment of genuine regard. Both men knew it had no place here.
Hoffner said, “I’ve been thinking of taking a trip to Spain.”
“Have you? Bit dodgy there right now.”
“I’m going after him.”
“No, I don’t think you are.”
“And why is that?” Hoffner watched as Wilson took a drink. “Where was he filming, Herr Wilson?”
“The retired Kripoman decides to go and-”
“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I know. Get himself killed. I’ve been warned.”
“Oh, I don’t care if you get killed.” There was nothing malicious in the voice, not even a hint of that very brave English self-sacrifice. Wilson was simply trying to move them beyond the obvious. “I’m sure that would be tragic in some meaningless way-and isn’t that always the worst sort of tragedy-but I just don’t think you’d be much good. Do you even have Spanish or Catalan?” Hoffner said nothing, and Wilson continued. “Nothing better than seeing a nice little German in his climbing boots and short pants, sweating his way from one cafe to the next, asking about his boy gone missing: ‘Excuse me, senor, do you speak German?’ ”
“And I imagine Georg was fluent?”
Wilson gave nothing away. “Now if the boy happened to be some sad-sack Communist or socialist out to fight back the new fascists, I doubt anyone pays much attention. More troubling when the boy works for a British newsreel company-and a Jew to boot-and his daddy starts asking around. You see where I’m going with this?”
Hoffner looked at the bald pate across from him; even the shine seemed more credible now. “You really think the SS doesn’t know exactly what you are?”
“What the SS does or doesn’t know isn’t my concern. I just don’t like helping them along. And if they’re interested in Georg, so much the easier to let his sixty-year-old father lead them right to him.”
“I’m glad I inspire so much confidence.” Hoffner set his glass on the desk. “And why would the SS be so concerned with Georg?”
“The Spanish fascists haven’t a chance if they don’t get help from the outside; we both know that. And we both know where that help will be coming from. The trouble is, we’re all promising not to get involved in Spain- England, Russia, Italy, France. Even the Germans are willing to make that promise. Imagine if someone starts nosing around and finds out that the Nazis won’t be keeping their word. Especially when they’re the ones throwing the big international party out at their new stadium. Not so good for the image. Not so good for Georg.” He took a last pull and crushed out the cigarette in the ashtray.
“So what did you send Georg off to find?”
Wilson flicked something from his finger and sat back casually. “I didn’t send him off to find anything.”
Men like this were always so effortless with a lie, thought Hoffner. “I see-because of that promise you’ll all be making not to get involved.”
“We
“Yes, I’m sure that’s true.”
Wilson was no less glib. “We do happen to be running a news organization, Inspector. On occasion that means having to film the news. Barcelona and its Olimpiada-that was news. So Georg went.”
“And he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Whatever the reason he went, there’s nothing I can do to stop you from going after him now. I’m just hoping you understand what’s at stake.”
“Georg’s life, I think.”
“Oh, is that what you think this is about-a single life?” Wilson set his glass on the desk. “If you’re that naive you won’t make it out of the Friedrichstrasse Banhof.”
“I’m not much on trains.”
“Then he’ll be dead by the time your boat docks.”
“I’ve always found flying much more efficient.”
For the first time Wilson hesitated. It was the silence that held him.
“You have a plane,” he finally said. “That’s good. That’s very good.” He took another cigarette and lit up. “Don’t tell me how or where. Unregistered planes are a rare thing to get hold of these days.”
Wilson stared at Hoffner for another few moments and then was on his feet. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and stepped over to the floor safe. Kneeling down, he used two of the keys to open it. He retrieved a single sheet of paper and shut the door. He set the page in front of Hoffner. There were five words written on it:
HISMA: BERNHARDT, LANGENHEIM; HANSHEN: VOLLMAN
“His last wire,” said Wilson. “Five days ago from somewhere in Barcelona. It’s impossible to say where.”
Hoffner continued to stare at the sheet. “And you’ve decided I should have this now?”
Wilson sat. “We don’t have enough people in there to send someone looking for him. You know that. Not that sending someone in would be much good. But since you’re taking that trip…”
“These are German names. I’m a German.”
Wilson was now leaning back, his eyes fixed on Hoffner. “I’ll keep that in mind. We think these are the names of contacts he made or locations. The trouble is, we need to keep a low profile. As I said, not the time for us to be digging around. Hisma and Hanshen might be names. More likely they’re not. That’s where I’d start.”
“Very generous of you.”
“Yes-it is. Of course, you don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
It was Wilson’s strongest card: giving Hoffner a way out and knowing he would never take it.
Hoffner picked up the sheet. “From the look of it, Bernhardt and Langenheim are connected to Hisma.
