quickly took a seat on one of its benches, careful to face away from the building, but glancing toward it from time to time. He had no idea what to do now, and it seemed to him that he’d come to Bannion in a state of total confusion, expecting that by some miracle the two of them could find a way to help Anna escape the peril she was in.
He heard a vague commotion and turned back toward the building. Bannion was being led to the car, and even from a distance Danforth could see that he’d not gone quietly. One eye was nearly swollen shut, and blood trickled from his nose. For a time, he slumped, almost casually, against the wall. Then, as if seized by a sudden stiffening of will, he straightened himself, sank one hand into the pocket of his trousers, and with no hint of hesitation, brought that same hand to his mouth.
“Herr Danforth?”
He turned to find a tall man standing before him accompanied by two other men, all of them in long leather coats.
“I am Gustav Volker,” he said. “Gestapo. There are some questions we’d like to ask you.”
“About what?”
“Would you come with me, please?” Volker said, and with a nod he ordered the other men to take up positions to Danforth’s left and right. “I’m sure you can explain everything, Herr Danforth.”
Danforth glanced back toward the building. A knot of men had now gathered around where Bannion lay face-up on the sidewalk, his body utterly still.
“This way,” Volker ordered, and he jerked Danforth around. “Please.”
He tried to remain entirely calm as he was escorted to the car, but once they were inside Gestapo headquarters, he felt the old terror creep over him. He had no doubt that they’d brought him here because they’d discovered the plot and were looking for him to confirm what they already knew. He recalled the earlier “interrogation” Bannion had ordered carried out, all the pain he’d endured, how near he’d come to breaking before it had been abruptly halted.
That had all turned out to be a ruse, of course, but this was not a ruse, as he well knew, and they would stop at nothing, and in the end, he knew that he would break, that their names would spill from him, along with every element of the plot.
He reached into his jacket pocket as unobtrusively as possible, fingered the folded handkerchief and retrieved the tablet that had been meant for Anna.
Later it would seem to him that his decision had come not because he feared torture or that he might break under it, but because it offered the only way to bring their deepest suspicions to himself and thus divert them from Anna. They would find no pistol on Anna, after all, or in her room. They would find no cyanide tablet save the one crushed between his teeth. He knew that his death was no guarantee of her escape, but it offered the only slender service he could render her, and as he placed the tablet between his lips and then bit down, he felt that surge of ancient knighthood he’d read about in books. This he would do for the woman he loved, the only act of true sacrifice he had ever known.
“Herr Danforth.”
Danforth turned toward Volker, the severed tablet in his mouth. Why, he wondered, had he not yet felt the slightest effect of the cyanide? He was by no means a student of lethal poisons, but he’d heard that this one acted almost instantly.
“Come in,” Volker said.
Danforth followed him into the office, expecting to collapse at any moment, his body rocked by seizures during the few seconds it would take for him to die.
“Sit down, Herr Danforth,” Volker said.
Danforth did as he was told.
“Allow me,” Volker said, and before Danforth could stop him, he lit a cigarette and handed it to Danforth.
“Now,” Volker said as he opened the folder on his desk. “Let us proceed.”
During the next few minutes Danforth waited for the cyanide to kill him until it became clear that whatever he’d bitten into had not been cyanide at all. By then Volker was well into his interrogation, and Danforth had learned that there was not a single element of the plot of which he was unaware save that Danforth had known of it.
“We are told she is a Jew and we know her companion is a Communist,” Volker said, “but we know you are neither, and your father assures us that you are not a political person.”
“My father?” Danforth asked.
“Your father, yes,” Volker said. “We contacted him when we learned of your association with this woman — her real name is Klein, I believe?”
“Why would my father tell you anything about her?”
“Because your father has been a great friend to Germany for a long time, Herr Danforth.”
“A friend of Germany?” Danforth asked hesitantly.
“He shares many of our beliefs, as I’m sure you know,” Volker said. “That the Reds must be stopped and, of course, that the Jews are a poisonous tribe.”
Danforth felt the last grain of the fake cyanide dissolve beneath his tongue. “I see.”
“He sends you his best regards, by the way,” Volker added. He absently glanced through the papers in the folder. When he looked up it was clear to Danforth that something darker was on his mind. “It is because your father has been such a friend to us that we are — how shall I say this? — overlooking your associations.” He closed the folder. “We have more than enough information to detain you, Herr Danforth, but we see no reason to keep you from leaving Germany as soon as possible.” He leaned forward with a force whose violent threat could not be mistaken. “You will be leaving our country very soon, is that not so, Herr Danforth?”
Danforth nodded.
