gold Montblanc fountain pen finally tipped the scales in my favor.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a perfectly American voice.
I fished a Day-Timer notebook out of my inside coat pocket and took out the weathered photograph from my grandfather’s box. I handed it to the woman. She looked at it for what seemed like a long time. Then she took my hand and pulled me inside.
She led me to a carpeted living room that held a sofa, two Queen Anne chairs, and a set of tall glass-fronted bookcases, which displayed a menagerie of porcelain figurines and heavy ornamental picture frames. The figurines looked like Hummels.
“Wait here,” she instructed. “I’ll only be a moment.”
I walked over to the window and looked out at the well-kept lawn. Had Nurse Anna Kaas ever dreamed she would wind up here? I was still standing like that when I heard someone catch a breath.
“My God,” said a deeper, almost rasping voice.
I turned. Standing in the foyer outside the living room was a woman of at least seventy-five, with silver hair and dark brown eyes. She leaned on the younger woman’s arm for support. She stared at me for some moments, then said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Are you Doctor Anna Hastings?” I asked, though I knew she had to be. “Formerly Anna Kaas?”
“Is Mac dead?”
“Yes, ma’am. He died three days ago. It was an accident. A helicopter crash. My grandmother died with him.”
The old woman nodded slowly, then stepped away from her support and walked across the carpet in measured steps. She stopped in front of me. I wanted to be polite, but my gaze kept wandering to the eyes of the younger woman, who was staring at me with a strange intensity.
Anna Hastings reached out and laid her hand against my cheek. “You could be him,” she said softly. “I almost can’t bear to look at you.”
“She could be you,” I said, nodding toward the young woman. Although, now that I had had time to study her, I saw subtle differences. The younger woman was more slender than Anna had ever been, and her cheekbones a bit higher.
“Katarina,” said Anna Hastings. “My granddaughter.”
I smiled at her. “I’m Mark McConnell. The third,” I added quickly. “That never really seemed relevant, but now—”
“You would have finished your training by now, of course,” Anna said. “You are a doctor?”
I nodded. “Emergency medicine.”
She laughed softly at that. “Fighter-pilot mentality.”
Her German accent was hardly noticeable. In fact, she probably spoke better English than I did.
“Sit down, sit down,” the old woman insisted. “Katarina will make some coffee.”
“Well, I really just came to . . . to give you the news.”
“All the way from the back of beyond and already you want to leave? Sit down, Doctor.”
It was on my way to the sofa that I noticed the picture. When I first looked at the shelves, I’d lost it among the others. Now it stood out like a beacon. It was black-and-white, with almost the same tint as the photo I had brought with me. It showed a man in his early thirties standing against a dark wooden beam. His intense countenance and lanky body could have been my own.
It was all so clear now. In the dark of that last night in the cottage, they had taken turns standing against the beam and taking each other’s picture, probably thinking that their images on film would be all that survived. I felt a hard lump in my throat.
“I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“Are you married, Doctor?” the old woman asked.
“What? Married? No.”
“People wait too long nowadays. Katarina is the same.”
Anna Hastings laughed. “Too picky, too shy. No one is good enough. Go make us some coffee, girl.”
Anna used one age-spotted hand to shoo me away from the shelves. “You go too, Doctor. Help her find the sugar. NutraSweet for her, of course. Go on, both of you.”
“But I really do have some questions—”
The former Anna Kaas put her hand over her mouth. It was then that I saw the great effort it was taking to maintain her composure. “Your grandfather was a great man,” she said. “A brave and a loyal man. What else does anyone need to know? There’s plenty of time to talk about the past. Go make the coffee. Please.”
Katarina took my hand and pulled me out of the room.
She led me into a spotless white kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a can of coffee. For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I told myself it was some kind of transference. That after hearing the story of the brave German nurse — who was actually the elderly lady in the next room — I had invested her granddaughter with her personality. But there was no denying the young woman’s beauty, or the intelligence behind her bright eyes.
“I’ve never seen her that upset,” Katarina said as she poured bottled water into the coffeemaker. “I think it might help her to talk to you. Even though she tries to pretend the past is dead, it haunts her. Were you planning to stay the night in New York? You have a hotel?”
“No. I’d really planned to fly back tonight.”
“Tonight? But that’s crazy. You can stay here with us—”
Suddenly she blushed, as if realizing she had overstepped some invisible line. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how it is in medicine. I’m sure you’ve got to get back right away.”
“Katarina,” I said softly. “I’m not really sure why I came up here. I really don’t have any plans at all.”
She looked at me very openly then, directly into my eyes. “Call me Kat,” she said. “That’s what everyone calls me.”
“Kat,” I said, testing the name on my tongue. “Kat, I would really love to stay. If you have room, of course.”
She smiled.
AFTERWORD
There was no concentration camp called Totenhausen in Mecklenburg. However, there were far too many camps like it throughout Germany and Poland. The medical experiments described in the book involving Dr. Clauberg are documented facts. Those involving meningitis are fictional, but do not approach in horror and effect some of the actual experiments carried out by the Nazis.
The Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military award, has been awarded to only one non-British citizen: an “unknown American warrior.” So far as I know, there is no “secret list” as described in Chapter One. The actual medal that would have been received by a non-British civilian for the type of mission described in the book would be the George Cross, which is relatively unknown to most Americans.
Achnacarry Castle is a real place, and during the Second World War produced some of the greatest unsung heroes in history. Colonel Charles Vaughan was the real C.O. of the Commando Depot there, and much of the credit for the exploits of its graduates — including the U.S. Army Rangers — goes to him. Sir Donald Walter Cameron was the real Laird of Achnacarry during the war, and also the father of the present laird, Sir Donald Hamish Cameron, who served with distinction with the Lovat Scouts during WWII. I fictionalized both Colonel Vaughan and the elder Sir Donald with the utmost respect and admiration.
The nerve gases described in
