The doctor-professor scoffed. “We won’t have time. By Monday morning? No, no, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can. We have to. Our work is too important to lose in this skir mish. We’ll have another session at the college tomorrow afternoon. I’ll write up our magnificent vision of the new German army for the Leader. In my best diplomatic prose. I know the right turn of phrase.” He looked around. Another whisper: “We’ll cut the air minister’s fat legs out from underneath him.”

“I suppose we can try,” Keitel said uncertainly.

“No, we will do it,” Ernst said. “There is no such thing as ‘trying.’ Either one succeeds or one does not.” He realized he was sounding like an officer lecturing a subordinate. He smiled wistfully and added, “I’m no happier about it than you, Ludwig. This weekend I had hoped to relax. Spend some time with my grandson. We were going to carve a boat together. But there’ll be time for recreation later.” The colonel added, “After we’re dead.”

Keitel said nothing but Ernst felt the doctor-professor’s head turn uncertainly toward him.

“I am joking, my friend,” the colonel said. “I am joking. Now, let me tell you some marvelous news about our new navy.”

Chapter Thirteen

The greened bronze of Hitler, standing tall above fallen but noble troops, in November 1923 Square, was impressive but it was located in a neighborhood very different from the others Paul Schumann had seen in Berlin. Papers blew in the dusty wind and there was a sour smell of garbage in the air. Hawkers sold cheap merchandise and fruit, and an artist at a rickety cart would draw your portrait for a few pfennigs. Aging unlicensed prostitutes and young pimps lounged in doorways. Men missing limbs and rigged with bizarre leather and metal prosthetic braces limped or wheeled up and down the sidewalks, begging. One had a sign pinned to his chest: I gave my legs for my country. What can you give me?

It was as if he’d stepped through the curtain behind which Hitler had swept all the trash and undesirables of Berlin.

Paul walked through a rusty iron gate and sat facing the statue of Hitler on one of the benches, a half dozen of which were occupied.

He noticed a bronze plaque and read it, learning that the monument was dedicated to the Beer Hall Putsch, in the fall of 1923, when, according to the turgid prose set in metal, the noble visionaries of National Socialism heroically took on the corrupt Weimar state and tried to wrest the country out of the hands of the stabbers-in-the-back (the German language, Paul knew, was very keen on combining as many words as possible into one).

He soon grew bored with the lengthy, breathless accolades for Hitler and Göring and sat back, wiped his face. The sun was lowering but it was still bright and mercilessly hot. He’d been sitting for only a minute or two when Reggie Morgan crossed the street, stepped through the gate and joined Paul.

“You found the place all right, I see.” Again speaking his flawless German. He laughed, nodding at the statue, and lowered his voice. “Glorious, hmm? The truth is a bunch of drunks tried to take over Munich and got swatted like flies. At the first gunshot Hitler dove to the ground and he only survived because he pulled a body of a ‘comrade’ on top of him.” Then he looked Paul over. “You look different. Your hair. Clothes.” Then he focused on the sticking plaster. “What happened to you?”

He explained about the fight with the Stormtroopers.

Morgan frowned. “Was it about Dresden Alley? Were they looking for you?”

“No. They were beating these people who ran a bookshop. I didn’t want to get involved but I couldn’t let them die. I’ve changed clothes. My hair too. But I’ll need to steer clear of Brownshirts.”

Morgan nodded. “I don’t think there’s a huge danger. They won’t go to the SS or Gestapo about the matter – they prefer to mete out revenge by themselves. But the ones you tangled with will stay close to Rosenthaler Street. They never go far afield. You’re not hurt otherwise? Your shooting hand is all right?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

“Good. But be careful, Paul. They’d have shot you for that. No questions asked, no arrest. They’d have executed you on the spot.”

Paul lowered his voice. “What did your contact at the information ministry find about Ernst?”

Morgan frowned. “Something odd is going on. He said there are hushed meetings all over Wilhelm Street. Usually it’s half deserted on a Saturday but the SS and SD are everywhere. He’s going to need more time. We’re to call him in an hour or so.” He looked at his watch. “But for now, our man with the rifle is up the street. He closed his shop today because we are coming in. But he lives nearby. He’s waiting for us. I’ll call him now.” He rose and looked around. Of the divey bars and restaurants here, only one, the Edelweiss Café, advertised a public telephone.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

As Morgan crossed the street, Paul’s eyes followed him and he saw one of the disabled veterans ease close to the patio of the restaurant, begging for a handout. A burly waiter stepped to the railing and shooed him away.

A middle-aged man, who’d been sitting several benches away, rose and sat next to Paul. He offered a grimace, which revealed dusky teeth, and grumbled, “Did you see that? A crime how some people treat heroes.”

“Yes, it is.” What should he do? Paul wondered. It might be more suspicious to stand up and leave. He hoped the man would fall silent.

But the German eyed him closely and continued. “You’re of an age. You fought.”

This was not a question and Paul assumed it would have taken extraordinary circumstances for a German in his twenties to have avoided combat during the War.

“Yes, of course.” His mind was racing.

“At which battle did you get that?” A nod toward the scar on Paul’s chin.

That battle had involved no military action whatsoever; the enemy had been a sadistic button man named Morris Starble, who inflicted the scar with a knife in the Hell’s Kitchen tavern behind which Starble died five minutes later.

The man looked at him expectantly. Paul had to say something so he mentioned a battle he was intimately familiar with: “St. Mihiel.” For four days in September of 1918 Paul and his fellow soldiers in the First Infantry Division, IV Corps, slogged through driving rain and soupy mud to assault eight-foot-deep German trenches protected by wire obstacles and machine-gun nests.

“Yes, yes! I was there!” The beaming man shook Paul’s hand warmly. “What a coincidence this is! My Comrade!”

Good choice, Paul thought bitterly. What were the odds that this would happen? But he tried to look pleasantly surprised at this happenstance. The German continued to his brother-in-arms: “So you were part of Detachment C! That rain! I have never seen so much rain before or since. Where were you?”

“At the west face of the salient.”

“I faced the Second French Colonial Corps.”

“We had the Americans against us,” Paul said, searching fast through two-decade-old memories.

“Ah, Colonel George Patton! What a mad and brilliant man he was. He would send troops racing all over the battlefield. And his tanks! They would suddenly appear as if by magic. We never knew where he was going to strike next. No infantryman ever troubled me. But tanks…” He shook his head, grimacing.

“Yes, that was quite a battle.”

“If that’s your only wound you were lucky.”

“God was looking out for me, that’s true.” Paul asked, “And you were wounded?”

“A bit of shrapnel in my calf. I carry it to this day. I show my nephew the wound. It is shaped like an hourglass. He touches the shiny scar and laughs with delight. Ah, what a time that was.” He sipped from a flask. “Many people lost friends at St. Mihiel. I did not. Mine had all died before then.” He fell silent and offered the flask to Paul, who shook his head.