His Majesty's Hope (12 page)

The walls were thick and the windows narrow. There was an
empty fireplace built into one wall, and a sink and toilet on the other. An unmade bed stood on one end, and a makeshift desk piled high with papers and books sat near the windows.

A young man with a full head of dark hair and a small pencil mustache looked up from reading at his low desk. “To what do I owe this honor?” he asked in perfect English.

“Good morning, Krueger,” the Constable said. “You know Masterman. And this is—”

Masterman took over the introduction. “This is Agent Hugh Thompson. Thompson, meet Mr. Stefan Krueger.”

Hugh nodded, not quite sure what Tower etiquette was. The Constable withdrew, but the Yeoman kept guard with the door open.

“Please, gentlemen—sit down,” Krueger said. Hugh and Masterman sat on the thin mattress of the bed.

“Time for another mission, Herr Krueger,” Masterman said.

“Yes,” Krueger said, looking pleased, glancing at Hugh. “I thought it might be. My handlers get nervous when I don’t check in for a while.”

“And they’ve been in contact.” Masterman handed Krueger the piece of paper. “I assume you’ve tried using the disk?”

“Yes.” Krueger shrugged. “It doesn’t work, and these letters and numbers don’t mean anything to me, I’m afraid.” He handed the paper back.

“We’re going to get our people on it,” Masterman told him. “When we’ve broken it, we’ll come back to you.”

Hugh cocked his head. “Who’s your handler at the Abwehr?”

“Why?” Krueger grinned. “You have friends in Germany?”

Hugh was silent.

“Mr. Krueger,” Masterman said, warning in his voice.

“All right, all right,” the German said. “I work with two agents,
named Ritter and Krause.” Hugh didn’t recognize the names. Then Krueger continued. “They work under someone they call The Boss. Have you heard of
him
?”

A wave of hatred hit Hugh with full force. He nodded a silent yes, but he knew more than Krueger—that The Boss was actually a woman. That she was, in fact, Maggie’s mother.

And yes, Hugh had heard of her, knew her all too well, in fact—because years ago she had assassinated his father.

He felt hate stir in him, hot and bitter. Hugh wasn’t the kind of man who acted rashly. He didn’t shout, he didn’t slam, but what he did do was obsess in silence, until his anger grew to incandescence.

The train came to a stop at Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin with the hiss of steam and the screech of brakes. Maggie grabbed her suitcase from the overhead luggage shelf.
I’m here!
she thought, her heart racing.
Berlin!

Maggie’s ideas of Germany had always been informed by the country’s famous mathematicians—Friedrich Bessel, Bernhard Riemann, and David Hilbert—and its famous schools—the Universities of Göttingen, Munich, and Würzburg. And the Berlin of her imagination was the city of the golden thirties—a film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Marlene Dietrich, with Bauhaus sets, and a score by Kurt Weill.

Of course, that Germany, that Berlin, was long gone—replaced by the Third Reich.

And her immediate mission? To find Gottlieb Lehrer.
Pretend you’re in love, pretend you’re in love
, she admonished herself, which only seemed to make her more nervous. Love was one thing she didn’t want to think about.
And certainly not about Hugh. Or John. They told you at Beaulieu
—stay in the present.
Don’t think of the past or the future—you’ll just get in trouble that way
.

Lehrter Bahnhof was the largest railway station in Europe, called “the palace among stations.” But all the terminal’s neo-Renaissance grandeur was lost on Maggie as she sat on a hard wooden bench in the thick, humid heat. She resettled her hat, pulled at her gloves, and kept a close eye on the handbag on her lap and the suitcase at her feet. Gottlieb would be wearing a boutonniere of blue forget-me-nots, she’d been told, to match the forget-me-nots on her own specially made hat. To give herself something distracting to do, she pulled out her knitting.
Better practice before meeting Berlin’s Madame Defarge
.

As Maggie began a row of stockinet stitch, she was approached by two police officers. “Good morning,
gnädiges Fräulein,
” said the taller one, sporting a thick white mustache. He was older, too old for the army most likely, as was his shorter and leaner partner.

“Good morning, officers,” Maggie said brightly, slipping the knitting back into her handbag. She’d hoped that, as a woman, she would pass through Berlin unobtrusively.
Apparently not
.

“Where are you coming from?”

“Hannover Hauptbahnhof,” Maggie answered, forcing herself to smile.

“And what are you doing in Berlin?”

A few people stopped and watched her being questioned. There was too much attention on her. Maggie’s heart began to beat faster. “I’m meeting a friend.”

“A friend?”

She felt light-headed. The fluorescent overhead lights suddenly seemed blinding and the wooden bench beneath her very hard.
Well, here goes nothing
. “A
special
friend.” Maggie tried her best to look coquettish.

The two officers exchanged a look. “And what do you have in your suitcase?”

If they opened her suitcase, they would find both the crystals
and the transmitting device. Some instinct, raw, primal, and strong, took over.

“Explosives!” She cocked her head to one side, batted her eyelashes, and gave them a sparkling smile.

The two officers looked at her, then at each other for a long moment. And then they began to laugh. They laughed loudly, and so heartily that even some of the onlookers began to smile and chuckle, before turning to go about their business once again. The tension dissipated—crisis averted.

“Well, just make sure the timer’s working,
gnädiges Fräulein,
” the taller one said, slapping his partner’s back.

“Have a good visit in Berlin,” added the other, dabbing at his forehead with his handkerchief. “He’s a lucky fellow, your young man is.”

As they walked away, she saw Gottlieb. She was as sure as she could be, given the description: medium height, athletic build, close-cropped blond hair—almost albino white—and green eyes, emerald like a stained-glass window. His face was long—too long to be handsome. It was the face of a knight on a medieval tombstone, and his ears stuck out. He was sporting an unmistakable sky-blue forget-me-not boutonniere and a fedora with a knife-sharp crease. His posture was impeccable.

Then he saw her and their eyes met. “My dearest Margareta!” he called, across the station’s waiting room.

Maggie made herself jump up, careful to take the suitcase with her. She ran to him and threw her arms around him, banging him in the back with the case.

“Ooops.” She laughed. “Sorry.”
All right
, she thought,
at least he doesn’t smell bad. More like shaving soap and 4711 cologne than anything else
. “Dearest Gottlieb!” she exclaimed.

“Let me take a look at you,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and moving her back so he could see her. He studied her
as though he were trying to absorb her all at once. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said, using the more intimate form of you,
“du,”
as he kissed her hand.

Maggie looked back at him just as intently. He might have stepped off a German propaganda poster, she decided, ears notwithstanding. She felt hysterical laughter beginning to rise in her throat—the culmination of sleeplessness and nerves. She tried to turn it into a winsome smile.

When it seemed as though that might fail as well, and laughing was inevitable, she threw her arms around him and clamped her mouth onto his. After a few seconds of what looked like passion, but actually felt awkward and absurd, Maggie drew away. She felt ridiculous, but at least her urge to giggle had passed.

“Yes, just as beautiful as ever, my little
Schatzi,
” Gottlieb said finally, catching his breath. “You must be tired and hungry after your long train journey. Come, let me show you home to freshen up, and then you can have something to eat and rest. Sound good?” he asked, picking up her suitcase in one hand and offering his arm.

Maggie wrapped her arm around his and smiled. “Of course. Whatever you say—
Schatzi
.”

Maggie and Gottlieb left the Lehrter Bahnhof and took the trolley to his apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg, passing by the massive buildings of Berlin-Mitte, the civic center. Unlike London, there was little bomb damage here, she noticed, although when she did see one bombed-out building, its façade blown off and interior curiously intact, like a doll’s house, she couldn’t help but think of John.
He might have done that. He, or Nigel, or one of our friends
. It was an unsettling thought—that after living through the Blitz in London, people she actually knew were dropping bombs on others.

Gottlieb’s flat was on the seventh floor of an older building on
a tree-lined street. On the door’s handle perched a tiny wrought-iron mouse. Above the mouse, watching its prey intently, was an iron cat. “Charming,” she remarked.

Gottlieb held open the door for Maggie and she stepped in.

Inside, the building smelled of floor polish and age. A worn tiled staircase wound around an elevator cage. “After you,” he said, holding her suitcase in one hand while opening the elevator’s outer door and then pulling aside the brass grate with the other.

“You’re sure this is safe?” Maggie asked warily. She hadn’t come all the way to Berlin to die in an elevator.

“Absolut sicher sein,”
he said, which Maggie roughly translated to the British expression “safe as houses.” She smiled.

The elevator ground to a squeaky halt on the seventh floor. “This is ours.” Gottlieb opened both doors, then led Maggie down the dim hallway. It smelled as though someone was cooking liver and onions and, from behind closed doors, she could hear a dog bark.

She followed him to black-painted double doors marked 7B. “And, here we are!”

Across the hallway, a door creaked open. A tiny, elderly German woman with piercing eyes appeared in the shadows.

“Good morning, Frau Keller,” Gottlieb said. “May I introduce Margareta Hoffman? A good friend from Rome.”

“How do you do?” Maggie said.

Behind the woman, a miniature schnauzer appeared, still yapping. “Quiet, Kaiser!” the old woman said, ignoring Maggie.

She spoke directly to Gottlieb. “I want you to know, Herr Lehrer, that I don’t approve of unchaperoned female guests. I don’t believe in these new morals, or these so-called Brides of Hitler.”

Gottlieb gave her his most charming smile and took out his key. “Yes, Frau Keller.”

“And I don’t want any noise. Do you understand? No late-night drunken comings and goings.
Ordnung muß sein!
”

There must be order!
Maggie translated.

“Yes, Frau Keller,” he said, turning the key in the lock.

She gave a sigh. “When you took the apartment, they told me you were a quiet young man, studious. Wanted to be a priest someday. Now you’re bringing home”—she looked Maggie up and down—
“women.”

“Just one woman, Frau Keller,” he corrected serenely, opening the door. She was about to reply when he hurried Maggie inside.

“Intrusive old bat,” he muttered.

“I’ll report you!” they heard, as he closed the thick door.

Maggie’s first impression was that the room was clean and almost empty. Spartan, in fact. “You live here?”

“My humble abode,” Gottlieb replied.

The walls were bare. The only furniture was an old, moth-eaten sofa and a brass floor lamp. Next to the sofa was a stack of newspapers. There was a card table with a VE 301 People’s Receiver radio. Plate-glass windows with ancient-looking blinds looked over Hannover Square.

She walked to the window and looked out. Sure enough, on a bench in the square sat a gray-haired woman, hunched over her knitting, silver needles flashing in the sun.
Ah, my Madame Defarge
.

“Get away from the window!” Gottlieb snapped.

“What? Why?” Maggie said, even as she stepped away from the glass and dropped the blind.

“We must be careful of
everything
these days. Always assume you’re being watched. Don’t trust anyone. Didn’t you learn anything in your British spy school?”

“Yes, of course I did.” Maggie felt her temper flare.

“This isn’t your first mission, is it?” Gottlieb looked at her closely.

“No,” Maggie answered. Then, hearing the defensive tone she used, she added, “I mean, I’ve done work in London, and also at Windsor …”

“But this is your first mission abroad?” Gottlieb was incredulous. “The first time you’ve ever dealt with Nazis?”

It’s a yes-or-no question, Hope
. “Yes.”

“
Mein Gott
, what have you sent me?” Gottlieb exclaimed.

Maggie was tired. Her muscles ached from the parachute drop. She was alone and, she was starting to admit, scared. And now her contact, the only person she knew in Berlin, in all of Germany, was doubting her? “Don’t judge me until you’ve seen me work,” she snapped.

Gottlieb glared, then held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine.”

An unused-looking galley kitchen was behind one door and a bathroom behind the other, with dark-green tiles, black and white trim, and a large salmon-pink tub. “No baths, except on Saturday and Sunday,” Gottlieb instructed. “And please be frugal with the toilet paper. It’s issued ‘according to needs.’ ”

The sunny bedroom had a balcony overlooking a courtyard with a small burbling fountain. The only furniture was a twin bed and a small bedside table with a reading lamp. Over the bed hung a wooden crucifix. The books on the table were the Bible, Goethe’s
Faust
, Ignatius of Loyola’s
Spiritual Exercises
, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
The Cost of Discipleship
with a white-beaded rosary draped over them. A postcard of the German boxer Max Schmeling was tacked to the wall. Maggie opened the table drawer to search for listening devices. It was empty, except for a Walther pistol. She closed the drawer.