A chill ran down her back. My instinct was not wrong. With much effort, she steeled herself for what was to follow. “But how—”
He didn’t let her finish. “My first suspicion you were not who you presented yourself rose after we found out Herr Schmiedecker was a Soviet agent and you seemed on good terms with him. Just out of curiosity, I surveyed you two. I must compliment you on your composure, you stood cool at all times, and I would have abandoned my doubts but . . . once your face betrayed you.”
She chose to remain silent, suddenly aware of the rumbling and thunder that indicated a heavy battle approaching.
“Remember, on June fifteen two years ago, we drove by gallows on which your friend Rita hung peacefully?”
At the recollection, she cowered inwardly.
“I see you remember. I pulled some strings, and it turned out she was the one who married. And who played the part of the maid of honor?” She saw a small, ironic grimace forming at the edges of his lips. “What do you think I initiated?”
Feeling nausea, which hovered inside her like a supplementary presence, she sat upright and took deep, steadying breaths, willing herself to remain quiet. Sometimes silence helped to draw more information.
“I assigned a tail to you.”
So, she was hunted. Not the hunter. More like a pawn in the game.
“Shadowing you was the greatest success of my anti-Underground mission. My second Iron Cross is on the way. But now, we don’t have much time to talk about me. Let’s talk about you.”
“I’m all ears, Herr Hauptsturmführer.”
He opened his mouth when a series of explosions somewhere in the near distance made him blink. “Well.” He swallowed. “You have plenty of sins before the Soviet power. Your Motherland won’t forgive you for killing two Underground members, one of them a turncoat Polizei. Thanks to you, we managed to track the whole Underground group and its leader, Sergey Vladimirovich Posokhov. Besides, how could you explain to your Soviet authority shooting him personally albeit with my pistol?”
“How would they learn such details?”
“Even if we temporarily leave, many of our loyal people will stay.” He seemed to be basking in the knowledge of his power over her. “Agnesya is on your conscience as well. We caught her in the act when you spilled coffee and slipped the military information into the soiled tablecloth. Bravo, Fräulein Kriegshammer.” With his leg balanced on his left knee, he seemed perfectly composed. “And your soft spot.” He smirked.
She knew what would follow, which made her heart catch in her throat.
“We could just get rid of the little girl who happened to be a child of two Underground members and the aunt of the girl’s mother, but here you deceived us. We still counted on the accomplices to exercise their care and mercy to the family of their valued members who were killed . . . by you . . . But it happened to be you, keeping the girl and the old woman alive. You have a compassionate heart, being a cold-blooded killer at the same time. You are an enigma to me, Fräulein Kriegshammer,” he pronounced with what sounded like admiration. “Have you heard enough to have no doubt you are trapped with your real compatriots?”
In between two evils, the thought surfaced. And she’d be paying for it forever. No exit, she realized. “Your arguments are overwhelming,” she said, her eyes catching his.
“I—” he made a significant pause “—could be in fact a guardian angel to you. I’m ready to save your neck. But at a price, of course.”
“To become a double agent?” A hireling, a puppet of two masters.
“I’m afraid it is the only way for you to get out of this predicament, Fräulein Kriegshammer.”
“I am with you, Hauptsturmführer Hammerer.” She rose up. “Heil Hitler!”
“I had no doubt, you are a reasonable person. We need people like you, and in the service to the German Reich you’ll achieve great results. I already know what you will do.” He uncrossed his legs, stood, and smoothed his jacket. “But now, we are leaving. Do you need anything from your apartment?”
She wouldn’t go without her father’s scarf. “Yes,” she said, maybe too harshly, since his eyes squinted at her.
“Well then, help me to the car with this box, please.” He took two bigger ones. She caught herself on the realization that in the course of the conversation she’d ceased to notice the building kept trembling from explosions.
With the motor running, Hammerer’s Horch was packed with suitcases and boxes. He pushed three more in the back and opened the door for Ulya to climb in the back passenger seat.
They drove in silence past the disabled carcasses of Wehrmacht vehicles, navigating between the luminous, incandescent ruins now a forest of thin, tall chimneys erect in the place of the houses that had vanished in flames, the smoke swirling through the air, a choking fetid smell.
At the corner of Zamkovaya Street, the car turned right. At the sight of her house, the driver hit the brakes just about two meters in front of a shell-hole still smoldering. Hammerer climbed from the car either to open the door for Ulya or to accompany her.
Without looking back, Ulya ran to the building. Suddenly, the ground shook, a wave undulated under her feet, a blast force of air, a dull thump into her chest, then . . .
IV
The Hammer and Sickle Returns
Ulya
Vitebsk
57
June 1944
When she came to, Ulya found herself lying on her back, looking at a tarpaulin ceiling that trembled most likely from a breeze.
The last thing she remembered was Hammerer climbing from the car and a wave that threw her high in the air. What happened to him? Through a terrible headache
