was something for which he would never apologize. With his head wreathed in aromatic smoke he added conspiratorially, “If we are lucky, we will find Schroeder alive and we can send our top operative to interview him.”
Frau Goetz had come into the room and stood in front of the closed window, her broad body all but blocking the light streaming through. She had heard this last comment, and on this one subject, she would voice her concerns. “You two should leave her alone. You pressure her too much. She has her own life to live.”
“Frau Goetz, Anika is my granddaughter and she helps us because she wants to, not because of any pressure.” Eisenstadt and Frau Goetz had had this debate every time he’d asked his granddaughter to assist them. He would never set foot in his native Germany again. Austria’s complicity in the Holocaust was almost as reprehensible, but in his line of work, he needed to be in the center of things. Anika, who lived in Munich, had become an unpaid assistant whenever they needed something from there. Deep down, he knew her aid was more out of loyalty than conviction but he took help wherever he could get it.
“She would be married with children by now if she wasn’t helping you two every time you wanted something.”
“There is where you are wrong,” Theodor said quickly, for he loved Anika as much as her grandfather. “Anika would be climbing every mountain between Antarctica and Spitzbergen if it wasn’t for us. We are helping her find her focus.”
“You are helping her find
Eisenstadt fumbled a pocket watch from his cardigan sweater and noted the time. “Yes, thank you. Theo, I will see you tomorrow and maybe we’ll get something new from the mail.”
“I am going to work late tonight. Maybe we already have something on Major Schroeder in our files.”
“Very well. I will see you tomorrow.”
A few blocks from the Institute was a high-rise building that rose from the heart of a quaint neighborhood. It was an eyesore of modern architecture filled with subsidized apartments for low-income families. From the top two floors, there was an unobstructed view into the walled yard behind the Institute. At that height and distance, the garden was a small grassy speck amid the city’s asphalt and stone. In one apartment on the very top floor, a remote recording device that used a laser to measure sound vibrations against glass had been installed, its beam fired at the window in Jacob and Theodor’s office. Unknown to the two Nazi hunters, an enemy they thought vanquished sixty years before was recording every word they said.
MUNICH, GERMANY
The Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Munich’s largest hospital, was also the city’s chief trauma center. No matter how often the roof was swept, grit blew into an eye-closing maelstrom whenever a rescue chopper landed on the designated helipad. Dr. Anika Klein shielded her face from the blast as the white MBB helicopter swooped over the building’s edge and settled on its skids. Her cotton scrubs rippled in the wind, flattening against her lean body as she fought her way toward the craft.
The helicopter’s side door crashed open and the life-flight paramedic jumped out holding an IV bag over his head, a thin coil of tubing trailing back to the patient’s arm.
“He went asystolic about thirty seconds ago,” he shouted over the turbine’s din. “This is the second liter of Ringer’s since the first ambulance reached the accident.”
Anika wasn’t listening. All she heard was that the patient’s heart had stopped. Right now everything else was details. Without waiting for the orderlies to transfer the stretcher to the gurney, she hopped up and straddled the accident victim, keeping her knees away from the blood saturating the sheets under his body. Pulling away the blankets, she noted his skin across his torso was deeply bruised, his ribs probably broken. She began CPR anyway, compressing his chest to keep his heart forcing blood through his body. Only when she had her rhythm did she once again pay attention to the paramedic.
“He was unconscious even while they pulled him from the car. Blood pressure’s too low to measure. His pulse has been thready since we took off.”
“What about his injuries?” she asked as the stretcher was maneuvered out of the chopper’s cargo area and onto the gurney.
“Both feet crushed, multiple tib-fib fractures in both legs. Right arm nearly severed, right clavicle fractures, lacerations to face, legs, and back. Pupils are nonreactive. Likely closed head injury.”
“Was he wearing a seat belt?”
“No.”
Anika finally looked at the face of her patient. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. “Asshole.”
She knew the driver would be coming to the hospital too. He’d be wheeled straight to the morgue, where his parents could claim him. He had been the same age as the man whose life Anika now held in her hands. An hour ago, they’d been playing Formula One driver on the Autobahn in a stolen Porsche. Now both were dead, though one had a slim chance of coming back.
Astride her patient like a jockey, Anika rode the gurney toward the waiting elevator, her upper body sawing with the beat of the CPR. An orderly had a ventilation bag over the patient’s face and forced air into his lungs in time with her movements. Once the elevator doors closed, she felt a sudden calm overcome her. It was always like this. For the first frantic moments she worked without thought, her training guiding her hands and her body. And now came the descent to the emergency room. She had forty seconds before the door opened again and until that time there was nothing she could do except maintain the CPR’s steady cadence. Her mind was freed.
It was the gift that kept her sane amid the carnage of negligence, stupidity, and increasingly, violence. Her eyes were on her hands, but her consciousness was focused on nothing at all. She was completely detached now, actually as calm as though she were in a trance. It was the same when she ran marathons. The last quarter of the distance was not run with the body but with the mind.
She became aware that her heartbeat was synchronized with her CPR.
The doors opened, and just as quickly the chaos returned. The orderlies wheeled the gurney down a bright hallway toward an open trauma bay. The life-flight helicopter had radioed information about the car crash victim during their inbound journey so nurses and another doctor were waiting. A portable defibrillator was standing by, and a nurse was poised with jelly and the electrodes for the heart monitor. Voices crashed above the sounds of electronics. Amid the pandemonium, Anika continued massaging the patient’s chest until everyone was ready to take over.
She shifted her weight so the heart monitor could be attached to his bare torso, its green line showing activity only when she compressed his body. When she stopped, he’d flatline once again. The gurney wheels were locked down, and an orderly stood to help Anika from the table, but she vaulted off like a longtime horsewoman, landing lightly on her rubber-soled shoes.
A nurse intubated him, running a direct oxygen hose into his mouth to keep his lungs working. The second doctor, Petr Heimann, had the defib’s paddles positioned in an instant. “Clear!”
The young man convulsed as electricity jolted his body. The heart monitor gave a matched spike but returned to a steady whine.
“Again,” Anika called.
The defibrillator charged and Heimann sent another blast through the dead man. This time a slow beat followed the spike.
