His first impression was how cluttered the office was: papers, booklets, account sheets, bound reports, maps, letters. They covered Ernst’s desk and a large table in the corner. Many books sat on the shelves, most dealing with military history, apparently arranged chronologically, starting with Caesar’s Gallic Wars. After what Käthe had told him about German censorship, he was surprised to find books by and about Americans and Englishmen: Pershing, Teddy Roosevelt, Lord Cornwallis, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Nelson.

There was a fireplace, empty this morning, of course, and scrubbed clean. On the black-and-white marble mantel were plaques of war decorations, a bayonet, battle flags, pictures of a younger, uniformed Ernst with a stout man sporting a fierce mustache and wearing a spiked helmet.

Paul opened his notebook, in which he’d sketched a dozen room plans, then paced off the perimeter of the office, drew it and added dimensions. He didn’t bother with the measuring stick; he needed credibility, not accuracy. Walking to the desk, Paul looked over it. He saw several framed pictures. These showed the colonel with his family. Others were of a handsome brunette woman, probably his wife, and a threesome: a young man in uniform with, apparently, his own young wife and infant. Then there were two of the same young woman and the child, taken several years apart and more recently.

Paul looked away from the pictures and quickly read over dozens of papers on the desk. He was about to reach for one of the piles of documents and dig through it, but he paused, aware of a sound – or perhaps an absence of sound. Just a softening of the loose noises floating about him. Instantly Paul dropped to his knees and set the measuring stick on the floor, then began walking it from one side of the room to the other. He looked up as a man slowly entered, glancing at him with curiosity.

The photographs on the mantel and the ones that Morgan’s contact, Max, had shown him had been several years old but there was no doubt that the man standing in front of him was Reinhard Ernst.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Hail Hitler,” Paul said. “Forgive me if I am disturbing you, sir.”

“Hail,” the man replied lethargically. “You are?”

“I am Fleischman. I am measuring for carpets.”

“Ah, carpets.”

Another figure glanced into the room, a large, black-uniformed guard. He asked to see Paul’s papers, read them carefully and then returned to the ante-office, pulling up a chair just outside the door.

Ernst asked Paul, “And how big a room do I have here?”

“Eight by nine and a half meters.” Paul’s heart was pounding; he’d nearly said “yards.”

“I would have thought it bigger.”

“Oh, it is bigger, sir. I was referring to the size of the rug. Generally with fine floors like this our customers want a border of wood visible.”

Ernst glanced at the floor as if he’d never seen the oak. He took his jacket off and hung it on a suit form beside his desk. He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and rubbed them. Then he sat forward, pulled on some wire-rimmed glasses and read some documents.

“You are working on Sunday, sir?” Paul asked.

“As you,” Ernst replied with a laugh, not looking up.

“The Leader is eager to finish the renovations to the building.”

“Yes, that is certainly true.”

As he bent to measure a small alcove Paul glanced sideways at Ernst, noting the scarred hand, the creases around the mouth, the red eyes, the demeanor of someone with a thousand thoughts percolating in his mind, someone carrying a thousand burdens.

A faint squeal as Ernst swiveled in his chair to face the window, removing his glasses. He seemed to soak up the glare and heat of the sun hungrily, with pleasure, but with a hint of regret, as well, as if he were a man of the outdoors not happy that his duty kept him desk-bound.

“How long have you done this work, Fleischman?” he asked without turning.

Paul stood, clutching the notebook at his side. “All my life, sir. Since the War.”

Ernst continued to bask in the sun, leaning back slightly, eyes closed. Paul walked quietly to the mantel. The bayonet was a long one. It was dark and had not been sharpened recently but it was still quite capable of death.

“And you enjoy it?” Ernst asked.

“It suits me.”

He could snatch the grisly weapon up and step to Ernst’s back in one second, kill him quickly. He’d killed with a blade before. Using a knife is not like fencing in a Douglas Fairbanks movie. The blade is merely a deadly extension of the fist. A good boxer is a good knife man.

Touching the ice…

But what about the guard outside the door? That man would have to die too. Yet Paul never killed his touch-off’s bodyguards, never even put himself in a situation where he might have to. He might kill Ernst with the blade, then knock the guard out. But with all the other soldiers around, somebody might hear the ruckus and they’d arrest him. Besides, his orders were to make sure the death was public.

“It suits you,” Ernst repeated. “A simple life, with no conflicts and no difficult choices.”

The phone buzzed. Ernst lifted it. “Yes?… Yes, Ludwig, the meeting went to our advantage… Yes, yes… Now, have you found some volunteers? Ach, good… But perhaps another two or three… Yes, I’ll meet you there. Good afternoon.”

Hanging up the phone, Ernst glanced at Paul then toward the mantel. “Some of my mementos. I’ve known soldiers all my life, and we all seem to be pack rats of memorabilia like this. I have many more items at home. Isn’t it odd how we keep souvenirs of such horrendous events? It sometimes seems mad to me.” He looked at the clock on his desk. “Are you finished, Fleischman?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“I have some work to do now in private.”

“Thank you for allowing the intrusion, sir. Hail Hitler.”

“Fleischman?”

Paul turned at the doorway.

“You are a lucky man to have your duty coincide with your circumstance and your nature. How rare that is.”

“I suppose it is, sir. Good day to you.”

“Yes, hail.”

Outside, into the hallway.

With Ernst’s face and his voice burned into Paul’s mind, he walked down the stairs, eyes forward, moving slowly, passing invisibly among the men here, in black or gray uniforms or suits or the coveralls of laborers. And everywhere the stern, two-dimensional eyes staring down at him from the paintings on the walls: the trinity whose names were etched into brass plates, A. Hitler, H. Göring and P. J. Goebbels.

On the ground floor he turned toward the glaring front doorway that opened onto Wilhelm Street, footsteps echoing loudly. Webber had provided used boots, a good addition to the costume, except that a hobnail had worn through the leather and tapped loudly with every step, no matter how Paul twisted his foot.

He was fifty feet from the doorway, which was an explosion of sunlight surrounded by a halo.

Forty feet.

Tap, tap, tap.

Twenty feet.

He could see outside now, cars streaming past on the street.

Tenfeet…

Tap… tap…

“You! You will stop.”

Paul froze. He turned to see a middle-aged man in a gray uniform striding quickly to him.

“You came down those stairs. Where were you?”

“I was only-”

“Let me see your documents.”

“I was measuring for carpets, sir,” Paul said, digging Webber’s papers out of his pocket.

The SS man looked them over quickly, compared the photo and read the work order. He took the meter stick from Paul’s hand, as if it were a weapon.

He returned the work order then looked up. “Where is your special permit?”

“Special permit? I wasn’t told I needed one.”

“For access upstairs, you must have one.”

“My superior never told me.”