Avery looked at Paul, who was staring at the map. “You can take it with you. You don’t have to memorize it.”

But Paul shook his head. “Maps tell people where you’ve been or where you’re going. And looking at one on the street draws everybody’s attention to you. If you’re lost, better just to ask directions. That way only one person knows you’re a stranger, not a whole crowd.”

Avery lifted an eyebrow, and even Manielli couldn’t find anything to razz him about on this point.

“Near the café there’s an alley. Dresden Alley.”

“It’ll have a name?”

“In Germany the alleys have names. Some of them do. It’s a shortcut. Doesn’t matter where to. At noon walk into it and stop, like you’re lost. Our man’ll come up to you. He’s the guy the Senator was telling you about. Reginald Morgan. Reggie.”

“Describe him.”

“Short. Mustache. Darkish hair. He’ll be speaking German. He’ll strike up a conversation. At some point you ask, ‘What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexanderplatz?’ And he’ll say, ‘The number one thirty-eight tram.’ Then he’ll pause and correct himself and say, ‘No, the two fifty-four is better.’ You’ll know it’s him because those aren’t real tram numbers.”

“You look like this’s funny,” Manielli added.

“It’s right out of Dashiell Hammett. The Continental Op. ”

“This ain’t a game.”

No, it wasn’t, and he didn’t think the passwords were funny. But it was unsettling, all this intrigue stuff. And he knew why: because it meant he was relying on other people. Paul Schumann hated to do that.

“All right. Alexanderplatz. Trams one thirty-eight, two fifty-four. What if he flubs the tram story? It’s not him?”

“I’m getting to that. If something seems fishy, what you do is you don’t hit him, you don’t make a scene. Just smile and walk away as casually as you can and go to this address.”

Avery gave him a slip of paper with a street name and number on it. Paul memorized it and handed the paper back. The lieutenant gave him a key, which he pocketed. “There’s an old palace just south of Brandenburg Gate. It was going to be the new U.S. embassy but there was a bad fire about five years ago and they’re still repairing it; the diplomats haven’t moved in. So the French, Germans and British don’t bother to snoop around the place. But we’ve got a couple of rooms there we use from time to time. There’s a wireless in the storeroom next to the kitchen. You can radio us in Amsterdam and we’ll place a call to Commander Gordon. He and the Senator’ll decide what to do next. But if everything’s silk, Morgan’ll take care of you. Get you into the boardinghouse, find you a weapon and get all the information you need on the… the man you’re going to visit.”

We people say touch-off…

“And remember,” Manielli was pleased to announce, “you don’t show up in Dresden Alley tomorrow or you give Morgan the slip later, he calls us and we make sure the police come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

Paul said nothing and let the boy have his bluster. He could tell Manielli was embarrassed about his reaction to Heinsler’s suicide and he needed to jerk some leash. But in fact there was no possibility that Paul was going to lam off. Bull Gordon was right; button men never got a second chance like he was being given – and a pile of dough that would let him make the most of it.

Then the men fell silent. There was nothing more to say. Sounds filled the damp, pungent air around them: the wind, the shusssh of the waves, the baritone grind of the Manhattan ’s engines – a blend of tones that he found oddly comforting, despite Heinsler’s suicide and the arduous mission that lay ahead. Finally the sailors went below.

Paul rose, lit another cigarette and leaned against the railing once more as the huge ship eased into the harbor in Hamburg, his thoughts wholly focused on Colonel Reinhard Ernst, a man whose ultimate importance, to Paul Schumann, had little to do with his potential threat to peace in Europe and to so many innocent lives but could be found in the fact that he was the last person that the button man would ever kill.

Several hours after the Manhattan docked and the athletes and their entourage had disembarked, a young crewman from the ship exited German passport control and began wandering through the streets of Hamburg.

He wouldn’t have much time ashore – being so junior, he had a leave of only six hours – but he’d spent all his life on American soil and was bound and determined to enjoy his first visit to a foreign country.

The scrubbed, rosy-cheeked assistant kitchen mate supposed there were probably some swell museums in town. Maybe some all-right churches too. He had his Kodak with him and was planning to ask locals to take some snapshots of him in front of them for his ma and pa. (“Bitte, das Foto?” he’d been rehearsing.) Not to mention beer halls and taverns… and who knew what else he might find for diversion in an exotic port city?

But before he could sample some local culture he had an errand to complete. He’d been concerned that this chore would eat into his precious time ashore but as it turned out he was wrong. Only a few minutes after leaving the customs hall, he found exactly what he was looking for.

The mate walked up to a middle-aged man in a green uniform and a black-and-green hat. He tried out his German. “Bitte…”

“Ja, mein Herr?”

Squinting, the mate blundered on, “Bitte, du bist ein Polizist, uhm, or a Soldat? ”

The officer smiled and said in English, “Yes, yes, I am a policeman. And I was a soldier. What can I help you for?”

Nodding down the street, the kitchen mate said, “I found this on the ground.” He handed the man a white envelope. “Isn’t that the word for ‘important’?” He pointed to the letters on the front: Bedeutend. “I wanted to make sure it got turned in.”

Staring at the front of the envelope, the policeman didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, yes. ‘Important.’” The other words written on the front were Für Obersturmführer-SS, Hamburg. The mate had no idea what this meant but it seemed to trouble the policeman.

“Where was this falling?” the policeman asked.

“It was on the sidewalk there.”

“Good. You are thanked.” The officer continued to look at the sealed envelope. He turned it over in his hand. “You were seeing perhaps who dropped it?”

“Nope. Just saw it there and thought I’d be a Good Samaritan.”

“Ach, yes, Samaritan.”

“Well, I better scram,” the American said. “So long.”

“Danke,” the policeman said absently.

As he headed back toward one of the more intriguing tourist sites he’d passed, the young man was wondering what exactly the envelope contained. And why the man he’d met on the Manhattan, the porter Al Heinsler, had asked him last night to deliver it to a local policeman or soldier after the ship docked. The fellow was a little nuts, everybody agreed, the way everything in his cabin was perfectly ordered and clean, nothing out of line, his clothes pressed all the time. The way he kept to himself, the way he got all wet-eyed talking about Germany.

“Sure, what is it?” the mate had asked.

“There was a passenger on board who seemed a little fishy. I’m letting the Germans know about him. I’m going to try to send a wireless message but sometimes they don’t go through. I want to make sure the authorities get it.”

“Who’s the passenger? Oh, hold up, I know – that fat guy in the checkered suit, the one who passed out drunk at the captain’s table.”

“No, it was somebody else.”

“Why not go to the sergeant-at-arms on board?”

“It’s a German matter.”

“Oh. And you can’t deliver it?”

Heinsler had folded his pudgy hands together in a creepy way and shook his head. “I don’t know how busy I’ll be. I heard you had leave. It’s real important the Germans get it.”