Who are you?” The hauptsturmfuhrer stood behind the third truck of their convoy, hand on his sidearm. He was addressing somebody inside the cargo bed.
Klaus suspected he knew who Spalcke had caught rummaging through the truck. He donned his coat in the corridor as he once again passed the hiss and warble of the radio operator's room on his way back outside. Apparently Spalcke's tirade had awakened most of the inn.
Reinhardt had made it down first. When Klaus approached, he did a double take. “What happened to you?”
Klaus checked himself in the driver's side mirror. His skin was red and creased where he'd had the cloth pressed to it. Little black flecks of dried blood peppered his upper lip and part of his chin.
“Forget it,” said Klaus. He jerked his chin at Spalcke. “Let's take care of this so I can sleep.”
By then, Spalcke had sent one of the LSSAH troops into the truck. The soldier emerged a moment later with the barrel of his rifle nudging the ribs of Ernst Witt. Witt climbed out of the truck and stood shivering on the street with his hands resting on his head.
“Please,” he said. “This isn't what you think.”
“Oh? Because I think you're a spy and a saboteur.” Spalcke unbuttoned the flap covering his Walther.
“No, no!” Witt shook his head wildly. “I'm, I'm an admirer. I want to join you!”
Reinhardt said, “By hiding away like a rat in our truck?”
Witt turned. His eyes opened wider when he saw Reinhardt, and his face lost a little more color. But then he saw Klaus, and his features softened. “Klaus! Please, tell them! You know me.”
Spalcke turned. “Is this true?”
“I met him last night. At dinner. I don't think he's a saboteur. He told me he works for IG Farben. I think he's—”
“Hauptsturmfuhrer! Hauptsturmfuhrer!” More shouting cut short Klaus's response. The radio operator, a twenty-year-old boy with jet-black hair and an ugly, crooked nose, came running from the inn.
Witt took advantage of the distraction and tried to run. The soldier who had flushed him from the truck reacted calmly. He leveled his rifle and shot the fleeing man in the back. Witt landed facefirst on the street.
“Are you out of your goddamned mind?” said Klaus. “You've just killed an SD officer.”
The radio operator continued his clamoring. “Hauptsturmfuhrer Spalcke!”
Spalcke turned to him. “Quiet.” Then he turned to Klaus. “What did you say?”
“I tried to warn you. I think he was from the Sicherheitshauptamt. Keeping an eye on us.”
Spalcke turned pale. “Why do you say that?”
“He kept asking about our work, the recruitment. Our training. My feelings about the program.”
“Oh.” Spalcke slumped against the truck. “What do we do?”
“We?” Reinhardt laughed. “This isn't my problem. That poor defenseless man was shot on your orders. You're the one who'll hang.”
Spalcke put his hands to his forehead. “Oh,
Klaus watched the steam rising from Witt's blood as it seeped through his coat onto the snow. His muffler was a brilliant blue. Klaus felt a pang of sympathy for the artless, tragically overenthusiastic man.
The radio operator tried again. “Please, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer, it's urgent.”
“Oh, for Christ's sake,” said Reinhardt. “
“I've been trying to tell you. The Soviets are moving west.”
“What?” Klaus and Spalcke said it simultaneously.
“They have armored columns pushing through Poland. They've already engaged our remaining forces there.”
Reinhardt sneered at Klaus as he stalked over to Witt's body. “He wasn't from the SD, you idiot.” He kicked the dead man in the ribs. “He was Red Orchestra.”
Marsh was in the air before the advanced forces of the Red Army approached the Oder River, which, according to reports, was capped with four feet of ice. The warlocks moved the inclement weather as the Soviets advanced, opening a corridor straight to Berlin for Stalin's troops. And, Marsh hoped, maintaining a bulwark to keep them the hell away from von Westarp's farm.
His second trip to Germany proceeded via slower and more mundane avenues than the first. Marsh flew from Scotland to Sweden in an RAF Mosquito; rode two hundred bumpy miles in the cargo bed of a fisherman's truck, hidden under tubs of ripe cod; crossed the Baltic Sea to Denmark in a fishing boat cloaked by extremely heavy fog, courtesy of Milkweed; and finally entered Germany at Flensburg in the middle of the night. The Danish Underground had smuggled hundreds of Jews out of the country via much the same route in reverse.
All told, the journey took twenty-one hours. Far too long. The Soviets were moving faster than anybody had thought possible. The supernatural winter had proved more destructive to the embedded German troops than even the warlocks had predicted. But now the plan was in motion, and the time for fine adjustments had passed.
An avalanche goes where it will.
Eidolons are not tactical weapons.
In Flensburg, wearing the captain's uniform of an SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer, Marsh commandeered a car from the sleepy local Wehrmacht garrison. Officially, of course, his uniform didn't give him that authority. But the Wehrmacht lieutenants knew better than to contradict an officer of the Waffen-SS. Particularly one with direct orders from Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler's command staff.
Marsh knew his best bet was to avoid dealing directly with the SS command structure for as long as he could. The experts in MI6 had done their best, but his papers wouldn't fool the most experienced officers. God knew he had a slim chance of fooling Himmler's staff, if anybody bothered to trace Marsh's cover story back up the chain of command.
Which was likely to become a problem. Himmler's interest in von Westarp's work extended from its earliest days, not long after his stint in the Thule Society twenty years ago. And Himmler, seeing the REGP as his own pet project, kept its records close at hand. Meaning the files Marsh sought to destroy were housed at 9 Prinz-Albrecht- Strasse: headquarters of the SS.
Thus, in addition to the counterfeit uniform, Marsh also wore Gretel's battery on his belt. When the time came, he'd attach the wires to the minute pieces of adhesive tape hidden on his scalp. The hopes were twofold: first, that most people in the SS still hadn't met a member of the Gotterelektrongruppe in the flesh; second, that members of the Gotterelektrongruppe received special consideration.
At the Flensburg garrison, he also commandeered an extra coat, hat, and gloves. But the deeper he drove into Germany, the less effective they became. The warlocks had summoned a cold unlike anything Marsh had ever experienced. They had infused this weather with the Eidolons' arcane hatred of man, creating a cunning and malicious entity. It slipped through every seam in his clothing. The rubber door moldings of his Mercedes lost their pliability, leaving gaps around the door through which entered the wind. His breath turned to frost where it touched the cold windshield glass.
Each passing mile found it harder to keep the heavy staff car on the road. His journey might have been altogether impossible had the warlocks not opened a corridor for him as they were also doing for the Red Army. But it also helped that the impending invasion had sent the Reich into chaos and panic. Every available soldier was converging on Berlin to aid in the defense of the capital. Convoys of heavy transports packed down the snow, leaving the roads slick but navigable by the Mercedes. Yet in places the roads were impossible even for the transports; Wehr -macht engineering detachments labored to clear downed trees from the roads with bulldozers and, in some cases, flamethrowers.
He made better time after falling in behind a panzer unit. The tanks' treads crushed the snow flat enough that his Mercedes could clear it.
Sunrise found Marsh entering Hamburg. He arrived not far behind two convoys awkwardly funneling themselves onto the city streets. The troop transports brimmed with soldiers trembling in their heaviest winter gear—those lucky enough to have such gear—as well as blankets and anything else they could find to ward off the
