Against every resentful impulse, Danforth admired the cool way Bannion dealt with murder, not just the tools to carry it out, but the geometries of it, how a woman with a baby might suddenly move toward the target and in that moment be torn to shreds, leaving the target no more than inconvenienced by the blood on his uniform. It is hard sailing that makes a seaman, one of Danforth’s ancestors had once written, and at this moment Danforth felt himself but a weekend yachtsman in comparison to the two others.
“Rache has provided a lot of information,” Bannion said. “And he can also supply the weapons and whatever else we need.”
With that, they went directly to Anna’s room, and there Bannion offered the information he’d gotten from Rache.
“It’s very general,” Bannion said. “But it’s worth knowing.”
He was speaking almost exclusively to Anna, the two of them united by the deadly plot, a couple as mutually murderous, Danforth thought, as any in noir fiction.
Bannion opened a notebook and drew several concentric circles, at the center of which he made a large, black
“At the outer rim you have the SS,” he said. “Black uniform. Death’s-head on the cap. They patrol, stand around, do drawings of the places our friend is to make an appearance, check things like bridges and water towers. They seem to be focused on a long shot. They’re convinced the British are spying on everything.”
Anna and Danforth stared at his crude drawing.
“Closer in you have something called the
This was very detailed information, and it struck Danforth that Rache and his Communist comrades must surely be plotting the same murder, a conviction that buoyed him with hope. If they struck first, and succeeded, then Anna would be saved.
“But none of this matters if he’s simply stepping out of a car and the crowd surges forward,” Bannion continued matter-of-factly. “We’d just need to be at the front of that crowd. As a rule, aim for the back of the head. It’s a more likely shot because once a target moves past, security tends to focus on what lies ahead of him, not what’s behind. And if possible, we should fire at the same time.”
To this last bit of rudimentary instruction, Bannion added, “So now the task is to find the right place and right moment.”
And so for the next few days Danforth moved about Berlin, scouting places the target might have some likelihood to appear. There were the steps of the Reichstag, of course, but they were blanketed in security. He walked the length of Unter den Linden as well, since at any point Hitler might drive along this route in his open touring car. But the car would be moving, and the target’s exposure would be limited in time and narrow in space, and there would be guards on the running boards, any one of whom might shift and in that movement receive a bullet in the thigh or stomach or wrist that had been destined for the target’s head.
During the same time, Rache provided Bannion with yet more information about schedules and public appearances and how to get access to the railway station where Hitler’s special train awaited his often quite arbitrary travel plans.
Years later, still working to uncover the pattern of the plot, Danforth would come across a book that meticulously recorded the Fiihrer’s movements in September of 1939: trips to Bad Polzin, quick tours of Komierowo, Topolno, Vistula, special trains to Plietnitz, journeys to Gross-Born and Ilnau, then on to the front lines at Bialaczow, Konskie, Kielce, Maslow, on to Lodz, on to Breslau-Lauenburg, on to Danzig, Wiskitki, Davidy, Stucewice, on and on and on to the very outskirts of Warsaw, frenetic journeys into the heart of a war it had been Anna’s hope — or claim of hope — to stop.
All this research was carried out in the early days of August amid yet more rumors of impending war and with a sense of urgency that continued to build until, in what seemed to Danforth a kind of exhaustion, Bannion made a surprising choice.
“There is only one place we can be sure of,” he said.
They were sitting in the small pension where Bannion had taken a room and through whose tiny windows light barely penetrated.
“A place in Munich,” Bannion added. “A restaurant.” He laughed. “An Italian restaurant, of all things.” He glanced at the paper where he’d written the name. “It’s called the Osteria Bavaria. It’s at Schellingstrasse sixty- two.” He looked up from the paper, his gaze directly on Anna. “He goes there quite often when he is in Munich, and he will be in Munich for some sort of celebration next week.”
“A restaurant?” Danforth asked. “Won’t it be crowded outside?”
“It wouldn’t be done from the outside,” Bannion said. Again he turned his attention to Anna, a gesture that struck Danforth as a cue for her to take over.
“I would be inside the dining room, Tom,” she said.
“How would you manage that?” Danforth asked. “Won’t the restaurant be closed for him?”
“No,” Bannion answered with complete authority. “And last April, a British agent filed a report that said he was able to get very close to Hitler in this same restaurant.”
“A woman would be even less likely to be thought of as a threat,” Anna said.
Now Bannion took over again. “She’ll book a table at Osteria Bavaria for every night he’s in Munich.”
“But booking a table every night — won’t that be noticed?” Danforth asked.
“Of course it will,” Bannion answered. “There’s an organization called Group Nine. They’re responsible for checking out any foreigners who suddenly appear before or during a visit. Anna’s name will certainly show up.”
“But my name will already have appeared in an earlier investigation,” Anna added. “As an assistant art dealer
