nest of rooms, most of them empty or piled with broken furniture and other junk. They came to a wine cellar, where two other men waited; these two men moved aside a large rack of wine bottles, exposing a square hole cut in the bricks. Michael and Mouse followed the woman through a tunnel, into the basement of another row house-and there the rooms were well lit and clean, and held boxes of hand grenades, submachine gun and pistol ammunition, explosive detonator caps, fuses, and the like. The gray-haired woman led Michael and Mouse to a large chamber where several men and women were working at sewing machines. Racks of clothes-most of them German uniforms-stood around the room. Tape measures were produced, suits and shirts were chosen and marked for size, and a crate of shoes was brought out for the baron and his valet to go through. The women who took Mouse’s measurements clucked and fretted, knowing it was going to be a long night of shortening trousers, shirt and coat sleeves. A man with hair clippers and a razor appeared. Someone else brought in buckets of hot water and cakes of coarse white soap that could scrub the warts off a frog. Under the strokes of clippers, razor, and soap, Michael Gallatin-who was no stranger to transformation-began to merge with his new identity. But as he changed, he recalled the aromas of cinnamon and leather, and he found himself wondering whose face lay behind the veil.
4
The black Mercedes arrived promptly at nine in the morning. It was another moody day, the sun hidden behind the thick gray clouds. The Nazi high command rejoiced at such weather: the Allied bombers scrubbed their missions when the clouds closed in.
The two men who emerged from the row house on the edge of the railroad tracks were vastly changed from those who’d entered it the evening before. The Baron von Fange was clean-shaven, his black hair neatly trimmed and the weariness slept out of his eyes; he wore a gray suit and vest, a pale blue shirt with a thin gray-striped tie and a silver stickpin. On his feet were polished black shoes, and a beige camel-hair topcoat was draped over his shoulders. Black kid gloves completed his attire. One might have guessed the clothes were tailor-made. His valet, a short stocky man, was similarly clean-shaven and had a fresh haircut that did nothing for his large, unsightly ears. Mouse wore a dark blue suit, and a plain black bow tie. He was utterly miserable; the shirt’s collar was starched to the point of strangulation, and his new, glossy black shoes pinched his feet like iron vises. He’d also learned one of the duties of a valet: manhandling the calf-skin luggage, full of clothes for both the baron and himself. But, as Mouse hefted the luggage from the row house to the trunk of the Mercedes, he had to give the tailors credit for their attention to detail: all the baron’s shirts were monogrammed, and even a scrolled FVF had been worked into the suitcases.
Michael had already said his goodbyes to Gunther, Dietz, and the others. He settled himself into the backseat of the Mercedes. When Mouse started to climb into the back, Wilhelm-a big-shouldered man with a waxed gray mustache-said, “A servant rides in the front seat,” and firmly shut the rear passenger’s door in Mouse’s face. Mouse, grumbling under his breath, took his place in the front. Michael heard the Cross of Iron jingle in the little man’s pocket. Then Wilhelm started the engine, and the Mercedes slid smoothly away from the curb.
A partition of glass separated the front and rear seats. Michael smelled Echo’s aroma in the car, a heady scent. The car was perfectly clean: no handkerchiefs, no pieces of paper, nothing to give a clue to Echo’s identity. Or so Michael thought, until he opened the shining metal ashtray on the back of the driver’s seat; in it there was not a trace of ashes, but instead a green ticket stub. Michael looked closely at the lettering on it: KinoElektra. The Cinema Elektra. He returned the stub to its resting place and closed the ashtray. Then he opened a little hinged rubber flap between himself and Wilhelm. “Where are we going?”
“We have two destinations, sir. The first is to visit an artist.”
“And the second?”
“Your lodgings while you enjoy Berlin.”
“Will the lady be joining us?”
“A possibility, sir,” Wilhelm said, and that was all.
Michael closed the flap. He glanced at Mouse, who was busy trying to stretch his shirt collar with a forefinger. Last night, while they’d slept in the same room, Michael had heard Mouse sobbing. Mouse had gotten out of his bed and stood at the window in the darkness for a long time. Michael listened to the soft clink of the Iron Cross as Mouse had turned it over and over in his hand. Then, sometime later, Mouse had sighed deeply, snuffled his nose on his sleeve, and crawled back into his bed. The tinkling noise of the Iron Cross had ceased, and Mouse slept with the medal clenched in his fist. For now, at least, his crisis of the soul had passed.
Wilhelm was an expert driver, which was good because the streets of Berlin were nightmares of horse-drawn wagons, army trucks, tanks, and streetcars, not to mention the areas that were clogged with smoldering rubble. As they drove toward the address of Theo von Frankewitz and a light rain began to patter down on the windshield, Michael mentally reviewed what he’d learned from the dossiers.
There was no new information about Jerek Blok; the man was a Hitler fanatic and a loyal Nazi party member whose activities since leaving his command of Falkenhausen concentration camp were shrouded in secrecy. Dr. Gustav Hildebrand, son of a German pioneer in the field of gas warfare, had a home near Bonn, where Hildebrand Industries was located. But there was a new item of interest: Hildebrand also maintained a residence and lab on the island of Skarpa, about thirty miles south of Bergen, Norway. As a summer home, that would be quite a journey from Bonn. And as a winter retreat… well, the winters were very long and very arctic that far north. So why did Hildebrand work in such an isolated place? Surely he could have found a more idyllic location. It was a point that merited looking into.
Wilhelm drove slowly along Victoria Park, as rain slashed through the budding trees. It was another area of row houses and small shops, and pedestrians hurried along under umbrellas.
Michael opened the flap once more. “Are we expected?”
“No, sir. Herr von Frankewitz was home at midnight; we’ll find out if he’s still in.” Wilhelm was just creeping the Mercedes along the street. Looking for a signal, Michael thought. He saw a woman cutting roses in the window of a flower shop, and a man standing in a doorway trying to get an uncooperative umbrella open. The woman put her roses in a glass vase and set them in the window, and the man got his umbrella open and walked away. Wilhelm said, “Herr Frankewitz is in, sir. That’s his apartment building.” He motioned to a structure of gray bricks on the right. “It’s apartment five, on the second floor.” He braked the Mercedes. “I’ll be driving around the block. Good luck, sir.”
Michael got out, his coat collar up against the rain. Mouse started to get out, too, but Wilhelm grasped his arm. “The baron goes alone,” he said, and Mouse started to pull angrily away but Michael told him, “It’s all right. Stay in the car,” and then he strode to the curb and into the building Wilhelm had indicated. The Mercedes drove on.
The building’s interior smelled like a damp tomb. Nazi slogans and epithets had been painted on the walls. Michael saw something slink past in the gloom. Whether it was a cat or a very large rodent, he couldn’t tell for sure. He went up the staircase, and found the tarnished number “5.”
He knocked on the door. Down the hallway, an infant squalled. Voices, a man and woman’s, raised and tangled in argument. He knocked again on the door, aware of the small two-shot derringer in its special pocket of his vest: a gift from his hosts. No answer. He balled his fist to knock a third time, beginning to wonder if Wilhelm had gotten his signals crossed.
“Go away,” a man’s voice said from the other side of the door. “I don’t have any money.”
It was a tired gasp of a voice. The voice of someone whose breathing wasn’t right. Michael said, “Herr von Frankewitz? I have to talk to you, please.”
A silence. Then: “I can’t talk. Go away.”
“It’s very important.”
“I said I have no money. Please… don’t bother me. I’m a sick man.”
Michael heard footsteps shuffling away. He said, “I’m a friend of your friend in Paris. The opera lover.”
The footsteps stopped.
Michael waited.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Frankewitz rasped, standing close to the door.
“He told me you’d done some painting recently. Some metal work. I’d like to discuss it with you, if I may.”
