“Champagne? Stockings?”

“Otto,” Paul said. “I think the only transaction we’re interested in involves what we were talking about yesterday.”

“Ach, yes, Mr. John Dillinger. Except I have some news you may not like. All of my contacts report that a veil of silence has descended on Wilhelm Street. Something has made them cautious. Security has become higher than ever. And all this in the last day. There is no information anyone has about this person you were mentioning.”

Paul’s face twisted in disappointment.

Morgan muttered, “I spent half of last night coming up with the money.”

“Good,” Webber said brightly. “Dollars, correct?”

“My friend,” the slim American added caustically, “you don’t get paid if we don’t get results.”

“But the situation is not hopeless. I can still be of some assistance.”

“Go on,” Morgan said impatiently. He looked down again at his slacks, brushing at a smudge.

The German continued. “I can’t tell you where the chicken is but what would you say if I can get you into the henhouse and you could find out for yourself?”

“The-”

He lowered his voice. “I can get you into the Chancellory. Ernst is the envy of all the ministers. Everyone tries to snuggle close to the Little Man and get offices in the building but the best that most of them can do is to find space nearby. That Ernst abides there is a source of anguish to many.”

Paul scoffed. “I looked it over last night. There’re guards everywhere. You couldn’t get me in there.”

“Ah, but I am of a different opinion, my friend.”

“How the hell can you do it?” Paul had lapsed into English. He repeated the question in German.

“We have the Little Man to thank. He is obsessed with architecture. He has been renovating the Chancellory since he came to power. Laborers are there seven days a week. I will provide a workman’s outfit, a forged identification card and the two passes that will get you into the building. One of my contacts is doing the plastering there and he has access to all the documentation.”

Morgan considered this and nodded, now less cynical about the idea.

“My friend tells me that Hitler wishes rugs in all the offices on the important floors. That will include Ernst’s. The carpet suppliers are measuring the offices. Some have been measured, some have not. We will hope Ernst’s has not. In the event it has been, you can make some excuse about having to measure again. The pass I will give you is from a company that is known for, among other things, its fine carpeting. I will also provide a meter stick and a notebook.”

“How do you know you can trust this man?” Paul asked.

“Because he’s been using cheap plaster and pocketing the difference between its cost and what the state is paying him. That’s a death offense when you’re building Hitler’s seat of power. So I have some leverage with him; he wouldn’t lie to me. Besides, he thinks only that we’re running some scam to undercut the price of carpets. Of course, I did promise him a bit of egg.”

“Egg?” Morgan asked.

It was for Paul to interpret. “Money.”

Whose bread I eat is whose song I sing…

“Take it out of the thousand dollars.”

“I wish to point out that I don’t have the thousand dollars.”

Morgan shook his head, reached into his pocket and counted out a hundred.

“That’s fine. See, I’m not greedy.”

Morgan rolled his eyes at Paul. “Not greedy? Why, he’s like Göring.”

“Ach, I take that as a compliment, sir. Our air minister is a very resourceful businessman.” Webber turned to Paul. “Now, there will be some officials in the building, even on Sunday. But my man tells me they will be senior people and will be mostly in the Leader’s portion of the building, to the left, which you will not be allowed near. To the right are the lower-level-officials’ offices – that’s where Ernst’s is. They, and their secretaries and aides, will most likely not be there. You should have some time to browse through his office and, with luck, find his calendar or a memo or notation about his appointments in the next few days.”

“This is not bad,” Morgan said.

Webber said, “It will take me an hour or so to put everything in place. I will pick up the coveralls and your papers and a truck. I’ll meet you by that statue there, the woman with the large bosom, at ten A. M. And I’ll bring some pants for you, ” he added to Morgan. “Twenty marks. Such a good price.” He smiled then said to Paul, “Your friend here eyes me with a very particular look, Mr. John Dillinger. I don’t believe he trusts me.”

Reggie Morgan shrugged. “I will tell you, Otto Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Webber.” A glance at Paul. “My colleague here told you about the precautions we’ve taken to make certain you don’t betray us. No, my friend, trust is not the issue. I’m looking at you this way because I wish to know what the hell you think is wrong with these trousers of mine?”

He saw Mark’s face in the young boy’s before him.

This was to be expected, of course, seeing the father in the son. But it was still unsettling.

“Come here, Rudy,” Reinhard Ernst said to his grandson.

“Yes, Opa.”

The hour was early on Sunday and the housekeeper was removing breakfast dishes from the table, on which sunlight fell as yellow as pollen. Gertrud was in the kitchen, examining a plucked goose, which would be dinner later that day. Their daughter-in-law was at church, lighting candles to the memory of Mark Albrecht Ernst, the very same young man the colonel saw now echoed in his grandson.

He tied the laces of Rudy’s shoes. He glanced once more at the boy’s face and saw Mark again, though noted a different look on his face this time: curious, discerning.

It was uncanny really.

Oh, how he missed his son…

It was eighteen months since Mark had said good-bye to his parents, wife and Rudy, all of them standing behind the rail at Lehrter Station. Ernst had given the twenty-seven-year-old officer a salute – a real salute, not the fascist one – as his son had boarded the train to Hamburg to take command of his ship.

The young officer was fully aware of the dangers of the ramshackle vessel yet he’d wholly embraced them.

Because that is what soldiers and sailors do.

Ernst thought about Mark daily. But never before had the spirit of his son come so close to him as now, seeing these familiar expressions in his own grandson’s face, so direct, so confident, so curious. Were they evidence that the boy had his father’s nature? Rudy would be subject to the draft in a decade. Where would Germany be then? At war? Peace? Back in possession of the lands stolen away by the Treaty of Versailles? Would Hitler be gone, an engine so powerful that it quickly seizes and burns? Or would the Leader still be in command, burnishing his vision of the new Germany? Ernst’s heart told him he should be vitally concerned about these questions. Yet he knew he couldn’t worry about them. All he could focus on was his duty.

One had to do one’s duty.

Even if that meant commanding an old training ship not meant to carry powder and shells, whose jerry-rigged magazine was too close to the galley or engine room or a sparking wire (no one would ever know), the consequences being that one moment the ship was practicing war maneuvers in the cold Baltic and the next she was a cloud of acrid smoke over the water, her shattered hull dropping through the blackness of water to the sea floor.

Duty…

Even if that meant spending half one’s days battling in the trenches of Wilhelm Street, all the way to the Leader, if necessary, to do what was best for Germany.

Ernst gave a final tug on Rudy’s shoelace to make sure it wouldn’t come undone and trip the boy. Then he stood and looked down at this tiny version of his son. Acting on impulse, very unusual for Ernst, he asked, “Rudy, I have to see someone this morning. But later, would you like to come with me to the Olympic stadium? Would you like that?”