“Oh, yes, Opa.” The boy’s face blossomed into a huge smile. “I could run around the tracks.”

“You run quickly.”

“Gunni at my child-school and I ran a race from the oak tree to the porch and he’s two years older than I but I won.”

“Good, good. Then you will enjoy the afternoon. You’ll come with me and you can run on the same track that our Olympians will race on. Then when we see the Games next week you can tell everyone that you ran on the same track. Won’t that be fun?”

“Oh, yes, Opa.”

“I have to go now. But I’ll return at noontime and pick you up.”

“I’ll practice running.”

“Yes, you do that.”

Ernst walked to his den, collected several files on the Waltham Study, then found his wife in the pantry. He told her that he would pick up Rudy later that day. And for now? Yes, yes, it was Sunday morning but still he had to attend to some important matters. And, no, they couldn’t wait.

Whatever else they said about him, Hermann Göring was tireless.

Today, for instance, he’d arrived at his desk in the air ministry at 8 A.M. A Sunday, no less. And he’d had a stop to make on the way.

Sweating furiously, he had marched into the Chancellory a half hour before that, making his way to Hitler’s office. It was possible that Wolf was awake – still awake, that is. An insomniac, the man often stayed up past dawn. But, no, the Leader was in bed. The guard reported that he’d retired about five, with instructions not to be disturbed.

Göring had thought for a moment then jotted a note and left it with the guard.

My Leader,

I have learned of a matter of concern at the highest level. Betrayal might be involved. Significant future plans are at stake. I will relate this information in person as soon as it suits.

Göring

Good choice of words. “Betrayal” was always a trigger. The Jews, the Communists, the Social Democrats, the Republicans – the backstabbers, in short – had sold out the country to the Allies at the end of the War and still threatened to play Pilate to Hitler’s Jesus.

Oh, Wolf got hot when he heard that word.

“Future plans” was good, as well. Anything that threatened setbacks to Hitler’s vision of the Third Empire would get the man’s immediate attention.

Though the Chancellory was merely around the corner, it had been unpleasant to make the trip, a large man on a hot morning. But Göring’d had no choice. He couldn’t telephone or send a runner; Reinhard Ernst wasn’t a competent enough intriguer to have his own intelligence network to spy on colleagues but any number of others would be delighted to steal Göring’s revelation about Ludwig Keitel’s Jewish background and hand it to the Leader as if it were their own discovery. Goebbels, for instance, Göring’s chief rival for Wolf’s attention, would do so in a heartbeat.

Now, close to 9 A.M., the minister was turning his attention to a discouragingly large file about Aryanizing a large chemical company in the west and folding it into the Hermann Göring Works. His phone buzzed.

From the anteroom his aide answered. “Minister Göring’s office.”

The minister leaned forward and looked out. He could see the man standing to attention as he spoke. The aide hung up and walked to the doorway. “The Leader will see you in a half hour, sir.”

Göring nodded and walked to the table across his office. He sat and served himself food from the heaped-high tray. The aide poured coffee. The air minister flipped through the financial information on the chemical company but he had trouble concentrating; the image that kept emerging from the charts of numbers was of Reinhard Ernst being led from the Chancellory by two Gestapo officers, a look of bewilderment and defeat on the colonel’s otherwise irritatingly placid face.

A frivolous fantasy, to be sure, but it provided some pleasant diversion while he scarfed down a huge plate of sausage and eggs.

Chapter Twenty-One

In a spacious but dusty and unkempt Krausen Street apartment, which had been in existence from the days of Bismarck and Wilhelm, a half kilometer southeast of the government buildings, two young men sat at an ornate dining room table. For hours they’d been engaged in a debate. The discussion had been lengthy and fervent because the subject was nothing less than their survival.

As with so many matters nowadays the ultimate question they’d been wrestling with was that of trust.

Would the man deliver them to salvation, or would they be betrayed and pay for that gullibility with their lives?

Tink, tink, tink…

Kurt Fischer, the older of the two blond-haired brothers, said, “Stop making that noise.”

Hans had been tapping the knife on the plate that had held an apple core and some rinds from cheese, the remnants of their pathetic breakfast. He continued the tink for a moment more and then set the utensil down.

Five years separated the brothers but there were other gulfs far wider between them.

Hans said, “He could denounce us for money. He could denounce us because he’s drunk on National Socialism. He could denounce us because it’s Sunday and he simply takes a fancy to denounce someone.”

This was certainly true.

“And, as I keep saying, what’s the hurry? Why today? I would like to see Ilsa again. You remember her, don’t you? Oh, she is as beautiful as Marlene Dietrich.”

“You are making a joke, aren’t you?” Kurt replied, exasperated. “We’re concerned for our lives and you’re pining away for a big-titted girl you’ve known for less than a month.”

“We can leave tomorrow. Or why not after the Olympics? People will leave the Games early, toss away their day tickets. We can get in for the afternoon events.”

This was the crux of the matter, most likely: the Olympics. For a handsome youth like Hans, there would be many Ilsas in his life; she was not particularly pretty or bright (though she did seem particularly loose by National Socialist standards). But what troubled Hans the most about their escape from Germany was missing the Games.

Kurt sighed in frustration. His brother was nineteen, an age at which many men held responsible positions in the army or a trade. But his brother had always been impulsive and a dreamer, and a bit lazy, as well.

What to do? Kurt thought, taking up the debate with himself. He chewed on a piece of dry bread. They’d had no butter for a week. In fact, they had little of any food left. But Kurt hated to go outside. Ironically, he felt more vulnerable there – when in fact it was probably far more dangerous to be in the apartment, which was undoubtedly watched from time to time by the Gestapo or the SD.

Reflecting again: It all came down to trust. Should they or should they not?

“What was that?” Hans asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Kurt shook his head. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. The question had been addressed to the only two people in the world who would have answered honestly and with sound judgment. Their parents. But Albrecht and Lotte Fischer were not present. Social Democrats, pacifists, the couple had attended a worldwide peace conference in London two months ago. But just before they returned, they’d learned from a friend that their names were on a Gestapo list. The secret police were planning to arrest them at Tempelhof when they arrived. Albrecht made two attempts to slip into the country and get his sons out, once through France and once through the Czech Sudetenland. He was refused entry both times, nearly arrested the second.

Ensconced in London, taken in by like-minded professors and working part-time as translators and teachers, the distraught parents had managed to get several messages to the boys, urging them to leave. But their passports had been lifted and their identity cards stamped. Not only were they the children of pacifists and ardent Socis, but the Gestapo had files on the boys themselves, it seemed. They held their parents’ political beliefs, and the police had noted their attendance at the forbidden swing and jazz clubs, where American Negro music was played and girls smoked and the punch was spiked with Russian vodka. They had friends who were activists.