The Bavarian Gate

31

"Should Auld Acquaintance…"

Before the day was over they'd both been debriefed, which took until evening because the OSS wanted everything. Among other things, he emphasized that it was Anna who led them to the British Home Guard station and turned them in.

Normally his mission officer would have debriefed him, but the man was away, and a young lieutenant did it. Handling it professionally, even the description of the Voitar and their ears, and the drills Macurdy had done-until Macurdy told about his visit to Hithmearc. The lieutenant got nervous then; it showed in his eyes, and conspicuously in his aura. He's afraid of me, Macurdy realized. He thinks I'm crazy.

Awakening spontaneously the next morning, Macurdy went to breakfast and found Anna there. Someone had arranged for MI5, the British counter-espionage service, to pick her up. "And Curtis, I'm afraid," she said. "I feel threatened by them. I was, after all, born here to an English mother, and they may consider me a traitor."

Her aura told him she really did feel threatened, though he couldn't imagine the threat being real.

"I'll see if I can do something about it," he said.

When the MI5 man arrived-a lieutenant less green- Macurdy was with her, and explained that she was a German national, working with him. "We've got a mission," he lied. "We'll be leaving before noon."

"Sorry, chap," the Englishman said, "but I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else. She's our responsibility now." Scowling, Macurdy stepped close, pushing his broken nose in the man's startled face. "Look, shit-for-brains, she and I have been working together for months. She may have been born in England, but you people never even heard of her until yesterday. So hear this, and hear it well. The only way you take her with you is to whip my ass first, and you don't have a chance in hell of doing that."

The man didn't flinch, only grimaced, as if he found such language and behavior offensive. "Your superiors shall hear of this," he said stiffly, and turning, stalked away.

They probably will, Macurdy thought ruefully, then turned and grinned at Anna. "Let's you and me go get a mission officer assigned to us right away," he said. "We need to find our Abwehr contacts and get them rounded up. Okay?"

She cocked her head at him. "Lieutenant Macurdy, you are a never-ending source of surprises. And yes I think we should." She paused thoughtfully. "Right now you're the only friend I have here, actually the only friend I have anywhere:"

That sobered Macurdy. With Anna in tow, he went to Personnel to see if Vonnie Von Lutzow was around; Vonnie knew the ropes there a lot better than he did.

He was around, now wearing a major's oak leaves on his collar. Macurdy got through to him by feeding a WAC secretary a cock-and-bull story. Von Lutzow had just returned from France again, and had spent the day before at Bushy Park, Eisenhower's new headquarters, reporting to the commander's G-2 on a mission he'd carried out in France. He seemed to have enjoyed his day with the high brass, as if the experience had been invigorating.

Macurdy sketched out his and Anna's situation, and Von Lutzow promised to get back to them that morning if possible, but just then he had a meeting to run to. He left them in his office, ordering his secretary to forget they were there. While waiting, Macurdy asked Anna if she knew anyone or anything that might be useful.

She smiled ruefully. "My spinster aunt Agnes," she said, "a rather dear soul, in her way, but an intransigent fascist." Anna explained that when she'd been a little girl in England, her mother's older sister, Agnes, had been her favorite aunt. Agnes had always been kind to her, and after they'd moved to Germany, their English vacations had been based on Agnes's flat.

When the war began, of course, all that had ended. Agnes had promptly and publicly renounced her fascist loyalties, and denounced those who didn't, including Anna's mother for abandoning England and taking German citizenship. But that had been a cover. Dear Aunt Agnes still did things for the Abwehr from time to time, unless she'd been found out since then.

When Anna had finished her story, Macurdy knew what he wanted to try.

When Von Lutzow returned, General Donovan's office had already called him, but he delayed calling back. When Macurdy told him what he had in mind, the major said he'd set it up. Then he took the two into an office whose occupant was on mission, and left them there. An hour later he was back with hastily drafted mission orders for Macurdy, and a temporary appointment for Anna as an agent, described as a German national. Which legally she was. As mission orders went, these were sketchy. They had to be; MI5 had already complained to Donovan's office, insisting that Anna was a British subject accused of treason. They also wanted Macurdy disciplined. Donovan's deputy had agreed to drag his feet, but the general was trying to cool the usual friction with MI5, so it was important that Anna be gotten out of sight.

The mission was risky, Von Lutzow pointed out. The local Abwehr apparatus would have known they were expected, and where, because on the night before the landing, the Abwehr would have been contacted by the submarine via radio. The message would have been no more than a code word, but when related to a previous and much more detailed message, it would have indicated when they'd land-namely the night after the code word was received-and on which of several candidate beaches.

That much Anna and Macurdy already knew. But now they'd show up two days late, which by itself was grounds for suspicion. And the Abwehr, of necessity, was not only paranoid, but ruthless with those they considered traitors.

On the other hand there were grounds for optimism, Von Lutzow went on. Spy missions were notorious for screwups. The Abwehr was well aware of that, expected it, and to some degree allowed for it. And a few days earlier, the Abwehr station chief and two of his key people had been picked up by MI5, undoubtedly leaving the local apparatus confused and temporarily leaderless. In fact, it was possible they'd never received the radio signal.

Presumably a new station chief was in place by now, but in an apparatus organized into cells, with restricted communication between cells, a lot of information could have been lost. And Anna could make their connection through Aunt Agnes, who almost certainly wouldn't know when or if a code-word had been received. Nor, presumably, would she have any reason to question Anna's story.

Finally, Anna read minds and Macurdy auras, and Anna would carry a 6.35mm Beretta pistol.

Meanwhile MI5 just might have a tap on her aunt's phone. Anna should keep the possibility in mind when she called. All in all it didn't look too sticky.

The next morning before daylight, a sergeant drove the two to a village in Essex, where shortly after dawn, Anna dialed her aunt on a public phone. After several rings, a voice answered: "This is Agnes Henderson."

"Aunt Agnes, I realize this is terribly early, and I hope it isn't too great a shock, but I'm your niece, Anna."

"Anna Really! What a nice surprise to hear from you! How is your dear mother?"

"I'm afraid I haven't seen her for months. I've been away on confidential business, to do with the war effort actually, and been hard to reach. The reason I'm calling is that I'm stranded here in Essex, in East Dunsford, and desperately need transportation to London. For myself and my husband It's quite urgent, I'm afraid. We have important business to transact there for our employer, and I do hope you can help me. "

"I see. Well." Anna could imagine the wheels turning in her Aunt's mind, and wished she could tune in telepathically at distances like that. "Let's see. It is now-6:12. Where can you be picked up?"

"I'm in the lobby of the Dunsford Inn. It's in the center of the village, easily found."

"I won't be able to pick you up myself, my dear, but someone will be along later today. I'm not sure when. How are they to recognize yon? I haven't seen you for years, you know."

"I'm still small, which doesn't surprise you, I'm sure. My husband is large he looks rather like a docker, actually-and limps from a war wound. Both of us are unkempt just now-almost as if we'd spent the night walking about the heath-but we'll take the opportunity to tidy up a bit."

"How may we recognize the person you're sending?"

"I don't know yet who it will be. I need to phone around. But he'll wear-let's see. Something in his cap. A small flag perhaps, or a sprig of something."

She paused. "This call is costing you or your employer money, my dear, so unless there is something else that must be said, I'll hang up."

"No, I think not. It was so nice speaking with you, and so good of you to help. We're registered here as Mr. and Mrs. Monday. And thank you again."

Anna hung up and turned to Macurdy. "And now, Mr. Monday, it is time to register. I hope they have a room with a private bath. I could use one, and then a nap." She lowered her voice. "Can I trust you?"

Macurdy laughed, and answered softly: "Colonel Landgraf trusted me, and you know how that turned out. But yes, you can trust me, and I'll trust you."

Macurdy was still napping when their pickup arrived. Anna had been waiting in the lobby with the Times, and leaving the man there, went up to et her "husband."

She wakened him with a sake. "He's here," she said quietly. "Our ride. He's Irish. He even has a sprig of shamrock in his cap! With his connections that's idiotic during wartime(Let's go before he draws attention."

Macurdy got up and put on his sweater, the only outer garment he had. "And remember not to talk," she reminded him. "It's best if he thinks you speak only German-I'm sure the station chief does-but the innkeeper knows you're a Yank."

He'd do better than simply not talk, he decided. Once out of the inn, he'd reinstate fully his persona of Montag the retarded, Montag the handicapped.

In the lobby, the Irishman hardly glanced at him. His aura reflected a low level of curiosity and a simmering discontent. He'd taken the shamrock from his cap though, as if he'd only worn it for Anna's recognition.

Also, he'd brought along a small bag from Alice, with travel odds and ends for Anna. Seemingly she suspected her niece had arrived by submarine, a reasonable supposition.

Despite his dourness, the Irishman drove wisely, observing the speed limits all the way to London. It was dusk when they got there. Macurdy had wondered if they'd be delivered to Agnes, but instead they were taken to a tenement in a working class neighborhood, where their driver led them up two flights of stairs and knocked at an apartment door.

"Who is it?"

Macurdy couldn't identify the accent.

"It's Wicklow, come to ask after my spectacles."

The door was thin; Macurdy could hear someone moving around inside. Then it opened, and a smallish balding man looked out at them questioningly through thick glasses. The Irishman fished a small-folded paper from his watch pocket and handed it to him. The baldheaded man unfolded it and read, then looked up. "Come in. Come in."

"Not I," the Irishman muttered, "I've things to do," then turning, slouched toward the stairs.

Anna stepped inside, Macurdy following, the bald man closing the door behind them. He looked them up and down without speaking, then led them into the kitchen, and after gesturing them to sit, sat down himself. "What language shall we use?" he asked in English.

"Deutsch," Anna answered in German. "You were no doubt given erroneous names for us. I am Anna Hofstetter, and he is Kurt Montag. He speaks only German."

The man's eyebrows arched. "Only German?" he said. "It is strange to send someone here who speaks only German." He turned to Macurdy. "How did you come here? Under the circumstances."

"We came in an Unterseeboot!" Macurdy's pride and pleasure sounded childish. "All the way from"-he paused as if groping for the place name-"Saint-Nazaire. That is in France."

Their host's eyebrows had jumped again, not at what Montag had said, but at his dialect. "You are Baltic German!"

"Jawohl."

"It is good to hear baltisches Deutsch after so long. Where are you from? East Prussia I think."

Their host proved talkative, soon addressing himself more to Anna than to Montag, because she seemed much the more intelligent. He was an ethnic German from Lithuania, from Memel, where his father had worked in a shipyard, when there was work to be had. Times had been hard. As a child, he himself had gotten involved in the underworld, and later inpolitical issues. "Here," he said, "I pass as a Litvak, a Jew," and chuckled sourly. "I am known as Israel Geltman. At ten I was a runner for a criminal syndicate, and the fences to whom I carried messages were mostly Jews. I got on their good side by learning Yiddish. In Memel there weren't enough Germans, the Yiddish wasn't too different from German anyway."

Then he asked more about Kurt Montag-where he'd grown up, what he'd done. Not primarily out of curiosity; he was examining the two, watching for signs of deceit. Macurdy was considerably protected by his mentally dull persona, and at length Geltman asked, "Fraulein Hoftetter, what is it that Herr Montag does, that he has been sent here?"

"He has certain-abilities, Herr Geltman, which I am not free to talk about, and you are better off not to know. Be content that he is not here to handle cargo on the docks, as he did before he was-discovered."

Geltman looked at Macurdy thoughtfully; he had no idea what she was talking about. "Excuse me, Fraulein. I did not realize…"

"Of course. One would not realize. That is another virtue of Herr Montag's: People look at him and do not realize."

She paused. "I presume you will be notifying someone that we are here?"

He nodded and stood up. "Please excuse me. I must make a phone call." He went into his living room, and they could hear him speaking Yiddish on the phone. When he was done, he came back in. "It will be awhile before someone arrives. When did you last eat?"

"At noon."

"Ah. I suppose I must offer you super." He took boiled potatoes an boiled beef from the ice ox, heated them, and put out unleavened bread and margarine. "I eat and live like a real Jew," he said. "Ironic, is it not? I have even been circumcised! But I do not go to the synagogue. Fortunately, it is enough to be a secular Jew. Otherwise I'd have had to spend years learning all their verdammte rules." He shrugged, then smiled. "Actually it is not a bad life. I make eyeglasses. Not very many; enough to serve as cover."

When they'd eaten, he took two narrow mattresses from a cupboard. To Macurdy they looked like those on army cots, right down to the blue stripes. "You might as well sleep," Geltman said. "We can't know when you'll be sent for, and I must leave. I have contacts of my own to see to."

Macurdy awoke to dawn light filtering through sooty unwashed windows. Anna still slept. His watch read 6:14, Greenwich Daylight Time; he wondered when they'd be picked up, or whether someone would come there to examine them. Geltman hadn't returned, so he poked among the man's books. Most were in English, but some were in Hebrew script, Yiddish, Macurdy supposed, and wondered if Geltman could actually read them. If in fact Geltman read any of them; his life history didn't suggest someone who read much. After a while, Macurdy settled on one, a stout volume entitled-History of England from the Accession of James the Second, by Thomas Babington Macaulay. He didn't, he realized, know much about English history, so sitting on a sooty windowsill beside the bookcase, he browsed the book for quite a while, returning it to the shelf whenever he heard feet in the hall.

While he browsed, Anna got up and disappeared into the bathroom, to emerge muttering that the tub wasn't fit for swine. She was poking around the small kitchen when Macurdy heard voices in the corridor and popped the book into its slot again. One of the voices was Geltman's, followed a moment later by a key rattling in the lock. While donning his Montag persona, Macurdy made a mental note to check Macaulay out of the Nehtaka County Library someday. Fritzi would like it too.

Geltman brought with him a long, rawboned man with quick nervous movements and a Cockney accent. Dispensing with introductions, which was understandable, Geltman told his guests they were leaving right away. "To breakfast," he added.

A taxi was parked at the curb. The Cockney got in behind the wheel, Geltman beside him, Anna and Montag in back, and drove off. The two men in front talked the whole trip in Yiddish, which surprised Macurdy: It hadn't occurred to him there were Jewish cockneys. He understood snatches of it from its kinship to German and its sprinkling of English. They were talking about the war, and rationing.

About two miles from Geltman's, the driver let them out. Geltman paid him presumably the cabby had to account for his gas if not his time-and led them into a Chinese restaurant. It was nearly empty of customers at that hour, and so quiet, it seemed to Macurdy that sound was somehow suppressed there. The Chinese host even walked soundlessly. Geltman asked for a private room, "Just large enough for four or five." Nodding, the Chinese led them to one, smiled, presented them with small, dog-eared menus, and left.

Geltman spoke quietly to Anna in English. "We will meet someone here," he said, then gave his attention to the menu. Shortly a waitress arrived with tea, and following Geltman's lead, Anna and Montag ordered the "Assorted Chinese Favorites." They had no idea whether Geltman was familiar with the plate or not.

Before the food arrived, the man they were waiting for came in, sitting down without asking, his cool gaze appraising Anna and Montag. Macurdy evaded it, while Anna returned it calmly, no doubt reading the man's thoughts. Finally their visitor spoke to her, quietly and in very proper, public school English, with a hint of accent that Macurdy guessed was Scandinavian.

"Are you familiar with Professor Gebhardt? Personally or by reputation?"

"I've never heard of him," Anna replied. "What of Friedrich Krohn?"

"He's well enough known. He publishes the Volkischer Beobachter, or did at one time."`

"Anything else?"

"Not insofar as I'm aware."

"Colonel Sanne?"

"I'm not free to speak of Colonel Sanne; I was assigned elsewhere, previous to my present activity"

The man paused to digest that for a few seconds. "And what of Aktion Hess?"

She snorted, as if impatient with the questions. "Many people knew of that, though most not by name. It was talked about openly where I was previously assigned."

Her answers opened Macurdy's eyes; Anna was more than simply a psychic recruited for the Voitik Project. He began to see why MI5, and perhaps more, the SIS would be interested in her.

The visitor nodded as if satisfied, and stood up. "Thank you for an interesting conversation, Miss Hofstetter," he said, and nodding, left.

Macurdy would have liked to ask her questions of his own, but there sat Geltman, so they simply waited till their meal was brought to them. Then they ate and left.

A different cab sat at the curb, its flag down. When the driver saw them come out, he reached over and raised it. "Cab!" Geltman called, and the driver, getting out, opened the back. They climbed in, and a moment later the driver pulled away from the curb without asking their destination or being given one. Geltman said nothing; obviously their transportation had been prearranged, perhaps with the help of the Yiddish-speaking Cockney or Anna's Scandinavian questioner.

For several minutes the cabby followed a seemingly random course, as if watching for a possible tail, then drove west for a mile or more toward the city's heart, as always passing through or around bomb-shattered blocks and burned-out neighborhoods, the damage put to order, but awaiting less demanding times to be rebuilt.

Turning north, they entered a residential district and stopped in front of a flat, then went to the entrance, where the driver, not Geltman, pressed one of the buttons by the door. A round speaker grid sounded, the voice electronic, female, and British. "Who is it?"

"Miss Henderson," the driver said, an obvious reference to Aunt Agnes. If there'd been any doubt before, Macurdy told himself, this killed it: Theirs was not an ordinary cabby. "Just a moment. Someone will be down."

They waited. In perhaps two minutes the door was opened by an oriental male. This one had curly, hair: part Chinese and part something else. The man also reminded him a bit of Roy Klaplanahoo-shorter, perhaps five feet nine, and even burlier, but giving a similar sense of physical strength.

The eyes were different though-slanted, hooded, suspicious. "Come in," he said after a moment, his voice surly. Macurdy found himself surprised the man had actually spoken. Geltman and the cabby stayed behind, no doubt to leave in the cab, and Anna and Montag followed the oriental up flights of stairs, through the smell of old carpet, mildew and disinfectant, to the third floor flat, where he let them into a small foyer, then a sitting room. There they were met by an attractive young woman with wire-rimmed glasses.

"You are Anna Hofstetter?" she asked.

"I am. Though the cabby announced me as Miss Henderson." The woman ignored the comment, and did not give her own name. Without looking at him she asked, "I take it then that this is Mr. Monday."

"That's right."

"When did you arrive?"

Macurdy's guts grabbed. This was a moment of threat.

"I might better ask why you didn't," Anna replied. "We were put ashore three nights back and spent several hours freezing on the beach while we waited. When dawn came and your people hadn't, we walked to a road, caught a ride, took a room and slept."

She paused, staring critically at her questioner. "The next night we walked back to the beach, which was not an easy task for Mr. Monday, with his war wounds. Hopefully you can appreciate the risk, going about like that so near the coast, with Mr. Monday speaking only German! No one came that night, either, so we returned to East Dunsford and called my Aunt. We'd have been quite stranded if it weren't for her."

The young woman had stiffened. "You must recognize the strain on operations here," she countered. "Captain Streicher and two others were arrested last Wednesday, and operations were totally disrupted. We'd expected you some time, but didn't know on what night. We never received the signal."

Anna nodded. "Quite understandable. And I suppose one never knows if the-transportation-will get through the naval and aerial patrols."

"Of course."

It felt to Macurdy as if the two women had worked out a needed basis of mutual respect. For a moment he'd been prepared to cast a shock wave at the Oriental, if there were trouble. For at that moment he realized what had been missing in his lessons at the schloss: To cast an emotion effectively, he, at least, needed to feel emotion.

"You've eaten, I presume," the woman said.

"Within the hour. After your Scandinavian questioned us."

"Well then. You'll have another bit of a wait, but it shouldn't be extreme. Meanwhile I've work to do." She gestured at the oriental. "Bahn will look after you. You'll find magazines and newspapers. Don't believe the news from the war fronts. It's all lies."

"Naturally."

The woman turned away, then paused and looked back. "By the way," she said, "my name is Alice," then left the room. Anna caught Macurdy's displeasure at the prospect of sitting around for an indeterminate time with nothing he could safely do, so she translated aloud to him from the paper, from articles on the war. Pausing several times to repeat in German, "You see now, Kurt, why it is so important to the Fatherland that you are here. When it is all over, you will be a very great hero."

The wait was shorter than he'd expected. The buzzer sounded three short blasts in rapid succession, startlingly loud and harsh.

There'd been no call from the front entrance-this was someone with access to the building-but Bahn got quickly to his feet, stepped to the door, and opened it.

The new station chief stepped inside and spoke in pure American English. "Hello, Bahn. Have we had visitors yet?" Stepping into view, he looked toward Anna and Montag, and Macurdy's blood froze. He made a flash self-review: His hair had been lank then, now it was bur-cut. And he'd known no German.

Anna was getting to her feet. Slowly, clumsily, Montag followed suit, standing round-shouldered, gaze fixed on the floor, looking as small as he could, creating an image of a different him, while opening his mind to Anna.

The man switched to German. "Ah! Fraulein Hofstetter I presume. And this must be Herr Montag." Abruptly he stiffened, and his right hand shot out in the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!" he barked, but not too loudly, then relaxed and smiled. "You will excuse my slowness in greeting you properly. It is a practice I've had to repress since I've been here."

He stepped toward them and shook first Anna's hand, then Montag's, showing no suspicion. Macurdy had regained his composure, but did not relax his exaggerated Montag persona. Apparently since they'd passed the preliminary vetting by the Irishman, Geltman, and the Swede or whatever he was, Hansi was accepting them at face value.

"I am Oberleutnant Hans Dietrich Schweiger, and as you have realized, I am the station chief here. I am also known as John Sweiger, of Portland, Oregon, USA. I report on the war for the Associated Press, and on occasion have spoken to the American public via NBC radio." He smiled wryly. "Journalists are the only contact Americans have with what, to Europeans and the English, are the realities of war."

He examined Montag more closely now, looking not for falsenesses, but at a claim he found hard to accept, even from Berlin-that this creature, this refugee from the eugenics authorities, was an actual, functioning psychic who could cast confusion and panic through SHAEF, and disrupt the invasion.

Or had the eugenicists already had him? The fellow certainly seemed cowed; he could almost smell his timidity. He'd heard rumors that thousands of the feeble-minded had been sterilized, and assumed it meant castration.

"Well," he said, "we have work to do, you and I. Fraulein Hofstetter, if you and Herr Montag will come with me to my office…" He turned and led them down a hall to the study: a fairly large room with a desk, file cabinets, supply cabinets, work table, and a gas fireplace. "I'm afraid I'm not fully operational here yet," he told them, "though Fraulein Gwynne has made major headway. We've had to move some of my things out to make room, and assemble, move in and organize a good deal of material for my new responsibilities. All having to be done very carefully, you understand. I have also been obtaining the materials which Herr Montag must have to carry out his mission here. And of course, I must continue my duties as a journalist, which not only provide my cover identity, but provide important contacts and information."

From the supply cabinet he took a map tube and laid it on the work table, then from a file cabinet, several large envelopes, meanwhile continuing to talk. "I've arranged locations from which Herr Montag can see both the Bushy Park headquarters and Norfolk House. I have even-" he paused to flash a grin at them "-have even obtained floor plans of both buildings, marked with the departments assigned to different areas."

"There may be difficulty getting near enough to recognize individual personnel, but perhaps we can work around that." From one envelope he took photo prints of uniformed men. "Here are enlarged photos of all the major ones: Eisenhower, Tedder, Montgomery, Smith, Leigh-Mallory… all of them. The names are on the bottom. And here are photos of some of the lesser fish, with their names and what they do. Can he work from photos?"

"I don't know that he's ever tried," Anna said. "And I must tell you, being in a strange country has affected him. He has always been shy; now he's become somewhat depressed. He will be happier when he has things to do. In training he was sometimes like a happy child."

She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Do you have a photo of someone we can test him on? They'd need to be in a building he can see-in a known part of the building-and we'd need some way of knowing whether he's had an effect or not. We should look into that before we go further."

Hansi nodded. "I believe you are right. But first we should eat."

He took them back into the sitting room, where Bahn was already fixing lunch. They had open-faced sandwiches with cheese paste, a kind of fish Macurdy wasn't familiar with, potato, rice pudding, and tea-not a lot of any of it. Macurdy decided that in countries where civilian rationing was tight, he'd been fortunate in eating military meals.

After lunch, Hansi showed Anna and Montag a picture of a man, obese and middle-aged. After having Montag study it, he took them by cab to a small park not far away, where he pointed out a building across the street and down half a block Speaking English, he directed Anna's attention to a 3rd-floor window. "That's his office. He's probably there right now. I know him well, and his secretary even better. He's an underworld associate of mine, a barrister who sometimes provides me with useful connections. Have Mr. Monday give it a try, then I'll drop in on him."

In an undertone, Anna briefed Montag as if he'd understood none of it, then showed him the man's picture again. "I want you to frighten this man, Kurt. Frighten him very badly."

Macurdy stared at the picture, then at the window, then closed his eyes. After two or three minutes, he nodded without talking. Hansi crossed the street and walked briskly down block to the building. Some minutes later they saw him returning; as he approached, he looked almost gleeful.

"It worked!" he said in English, and clapped Montag on the shoulder. "I asked to see him, and when his secretary buzzed, he didn't answer. She hesitated before she went to his door, as if she'd heard something peculiar. When she looked in, she backed away for a moment before stepping inside and closing the door."

When she came out, she was pale as a ghost, and said he couldn't see me just then. I pretended to be upset. `When did Chas start giving me the cold shoulder? I asked her. `We're supposed to be buddies!' She told me he was sick, and to `please go now.'

"So I left, but stopped outside the door and listened. I could hear her on the phone, urgent and upset-something about a doctor."

Hansi turned again to Montag, shook his hand, and congratulated him softly in German. "You did well! If der Fuhrer were here, he'd shake your hand himself!"

Montag's lips moved as if mumbling silently, never looking at Hansi's face.

Hansi shook Anna's hand too, and spoke in English again: "I admit I had my doubts, but he did it, and without you, he'd never have gotten here. This mission will be a major coup, I'm sure of it, and you're as vital to it as he is. You are a remarkable woman!"

While Hansi was speaking to Anna, Macurdy had looked up, and what he saw startled him-Hansi's aura reflected a sexual intention toward her. He found himself offended by it.

Hansi took them back to his apartment then. He had arrangements to make, he said. Meanwhile they would sleep in his spare bedroom. Then he left, and to kill time for both of them, Anna read to Montag again.

Bahn prepared much the same meal for tea and supper as for lunch, leaving Macurdy wondering whether it was his larder or his skills that were limited. Hansi returned late and said little, as if preoccupied, and disappeared into the room he shared with Alice Gwynne. By then Anna had tired of reading aloud, and there being little else to do, she and Macurdy went to their room and also got ready for bed. From Bahn, Anna had gotten a pallet, sheets, and blanket for Montag. As usual, he would sleep in his underwear, which now at least were clean, while Anna had a nightgown sent by Alice.

She had turned on a tiny night light, installed because of the blackout curtains, turned off the table lamp and sat down on one of the two chairs. Macurdy took the other, and they talked quietly. In German; if anyone was listening at the door, they wouldn't catch words, but they'd probably recognize the language. Anna asked what Macurdy had beamed to his test target, and grimaced when he told her: an image of the man's face, an image that would not be banished, with worms coming first from the nostrils, then the mouth, then the eyes.

Then she told what she'd learned with her telepathy. Some he'd observed for himself, in demeanors and auras: Bahn had changed from hostile- probably his normal state in new situations-to bored and indifferent. Alice Gwynne had changed from suspicious to friendly. And Hansi had designs on Anna's body. He was no longer an uncertain adolescent; now he considered any attractive female a sexual target.

"Despite sleeping with Alice Gwynne," Anna added, somewhat bemused. "And Alice is exceptionally attractive, wouldn't you say?" She paused. "Of course, Lieutenant Schweiger is, too. They make a handsome couple."

Macurdy said nothing. Hansi had been a good-looking kid, but gawky. Maturity had filled him out, and increased his self esteem. And his sexual ambitions.

"When do we notify Grosvenor Square?" Anna asked. "Schweiger intends to keep us here, keep close control of us. He's afraid we will do something foolish. Also, something may happen that he will recognize you.. For a moment, Macurdy didn't answer. There was still another consideration, more important than rounding up this Abwehr ring, and time was limited."

"Does he know the invasion date?"

"He was thinking about that on our way back from your little demonstration. There had been a specific target date-May 1st-but it was abandoned some time ago. Now they expect it at the beginning of June. Apparently it requires moonlight. And the Allies are bound to worry about dangerous information leaking, so they'll want to move at the earliest date possible."

Macurdy couldn't help remembering the snafus in Algeria and on Sicily. Both had turned out all right the Sicilian drops had been remarkably effective despite everything that had gone wrong-but this was so much bigger! So much was riding on it! So many lives would be invest!

"We'll act as soon as possible," he said.

"Good." Anna yawned. "Goodnight, Kurt. I'm going to bed."

He watched as she stepped to the bed, lay down and pulled the cover over her, then he lay down on his pallet across the room. Hansi considered Anna sexually desirable, he thought, and he was right. She was not actually pretty, but her features were pleasant. Attractive. And despite Berta's appraisal, she was not scrawny, just small. Wiry perhaps. Wiry might be exciting in bed.

From across the room, Anna spoke in an undertone. "Kurt?". "Ja?"

"Come and sit by me. I have things to tell you."

With a sense of unease, he went to her bed and sat on the edge. She sat up, holding the covers to her shoulders. Her aura told him she was sexually aroused.

"We are a strange pair," she murmured. "I read minds, or in your case moods, and you read auras. We do not easily keep secrets from one another."

He nodded, saying nothing, recalling how neither of them had discerned the other's intention to turn themselves in. "I have not had much affection in my life," she went on, "particularly in recent years. I have had to be very watchful, very guarded, avoid friendships. At times I have been horribly lonely." Her voice dropped to a whisper. In English. "Curtis, I want you to hold me. Make love to me."

He stared at her in the darkness, feeling both dismay and desire.

"Your conscience is troubling you:"

"Yes."

"If your Mary knew the situation we're in, would she feel deeply aggrieved if…?"

He knew the answer to that: She'd feel hurt, if she knew, but she'd also understand and forgive; before too long it would be almost forgotten. But would that excuse him?

He tried to make out Anna's features in the dark. "Have you ever had a man?" he murmured.

Anna chuckled softly. "A man? When I was fourteen, there was my cousin Steffan, who probably weighed forty-five kilos. He was also fourteen, and had been seduced by a woman. His parents had a summer place in Pommern, on the Baltic coast, and that July we went there with them, Papa and Mama and I. On the second day, Steffan asked me to hike in the forest with him. I knew what he wanted of course, but it sounded exciting, so I went."

She chuckled again. "In fact, we took walks in the woods each day for three days. Then our parents became suspicious. They didn't accuse us of anything, but Papa and Mama and I went home early." She sighed theatrically. "But have I had a man? No. Only a boy." She giggled then. "Though I'm lucky I didn't get pregnant."

She slipped a hand inside Macurdy's shorts then, and for a moment froze. "My God, Curtis," she whispered. He turned and threw back the covers. She was naked, had pulled off her gown beneath it before she'd called him over.

And suddenly Anna was unsure. "I don't want you to feel guilty," she murmured.

He didn't answer. He'd feel guilty all right; he knew it. But he would also make love to her. As he took off his shorts, she lay back, and crouching on the bed, he began kissing her.

After each had used the bathroom, Macurdy lay down on his pallet. Anna already lay curled in bed awaiting sleep. Where, he asked himself, was the strength of will he'd shown when he'd been married to Varia, and Melody had tried repeatedly to seduce him over the months? With Berta he'd been able to rationalize, and with Rillissa he'd had little choice, but he could easily have said no to Anna, and she wouldn't have been upset with him. She'd even offered him grounds for refusing. Guilt. He felt enough of that, for sure.

So what now, Macurdy? he asked himself. What about tomorrow night? And the next? Another reason to complete this mission quickly. What were the benefits of delay? At best a few more underlings reeled in.

Abruptly he sat up. Call headquarters now, he told himself. Use the phone here. If anyone tries to stop you, kill them. Then answered, easier said than done. To support his Montag role, he'd deliberately brought nothing more than a pocket knife, in case they were searched. He could, of course, take Anna's Beretta, if it came down to it. Pulling on shorts and trousers, he cloaked himself, then slipped barefoot into the hallway and down it to the living room. The phone table was by the day bed, where Bahn lay sleeping in flowered pajamas, the phone twenty inches from his head. Macurdy turned back down the hall to Hansi's office, where he'd seen another.

By light from the hallway, he found the office light switch, turned it on, closed the door softly, and stepped to the desk. There by the phone was a thick file folder titled Operation Overlord (3). Was Operation Overlord the code name for the invasion? Reaching, he picked up the folder instead of the phone.

He'd hardly looked inside it when the door opened and Hansi peered in, Luger in hand, frowning uncertainly, not seeing through the cloak. Macurdy froze-and the folder tilted, papers spilling onto floor and desk. Hansi's eyes widened.

"Montag!" he hissed. "What is this? You're a damned spy!"

"Ja, fur Reichsfuhrer Himmler! There are reports you've been turned, that you gave away Captain Streicher."

"You lie. Who would…" Hansi stopped in mid-sentence. "I know you!"

"That's right." Macurdy straightened, speaking American. "I'm the man who saved your life at Severtson's camp. The friend who took you and your suitcase to the depot when you left Nehtaka."

Hansi stared without speaking, confused by the mixture of coincidences, and by Macurdy seeming to materialize before his eyes. Suddenly his pistol was too hot to hold, and reflexively he flung it from him with aloud cry. Macurdy pounced, striking him powerfully in the forehead with the heel of his hand, and letting him fall, went for the gun. Aware of heavy running in the hallway, he snatched it from the floor-to him it wasn't hot-then jumped behind the metal desk. A gun fired multiple slugs into the file cabinet, desk, wall, and Macurdy popped up to fire the heavy Luger once. Bahn, crouched in the doorway, rose almost upright, then toppled, and behind him a woman screamed. Macurdy scrambled, dove, slid on the waxed oak floor to the open door, on his side, gun ready. Alice Gwynne stood wild-eyed in the hallway, a pistol in her hand. He fired at her leg, and she fell heavily, grabbing it with both hands, screaming again.

Anna, Beretta in hand, was peering out the bedroom door, then scampered naked into the hall and picked up Alice's gun. "That's all of them," Macurdy said to her, and getting up, stepped to the phone. Probably everyone else in the building is headed for the phone too, he thought. With one eye on the unconscious station chief, he dialed the confidential OSS number. "Hansi," he murmured while he listened to the phone ring on the other end, "I'm really sorry it came to this. But goddamn it, your dad was right."