“Too bad. These Germans were dead whether you were there or not.” Shrieve looked down at his notepad. He spelled out, “ ‘K R Z Y S Z T O F’? That doesn’t look German.”
“I don’t think he is German. I think he’s one of those aspiring Nazis from the Balkans. I don’t feel right about this,” she said. “All those people dead and here I am, drinking tea in a nice little house in Kiel. This terrible thing happened and the world just goes on, you know?”
“Malmagden’s being charged with mass murder. Does that make you feel any better?”
“Mass murder,” she said. “Somehow that seems barely enough.”
“How about mass murder and loitering with intent to commit lewd acts?”
She looked at him, What? He explained. Malmagden had been picked up in Cologne. Turned out the other side of his Angle Web had been the cellar of a church the last time he’d seen it. But the church housed a U.S. Army logistical support group now, and the cellar had been turned to other purposes as well.
Malmagden had cooked up an elaborate story to explain what he was doing in Cologne. He had no explanation for what he was doing in a women’s restroom.
It hardly mattered anyway. Shrieve had unhappy news.
“This Krzysztof Malmagden was at Faulkenberg Reservoir right up to the time it got vaporized. He’s the only lead we have left who can tell us what this Das Unternehmen was supposed to be. You and I, we’re the only ones who know enough to question him.”
“ ‘Till we meet again,’ ” she said.
“What?”
“The last time I saw him, that’s what he told me: Auf Wiedersehen. ‘Till we meet again.’ ”
* * *
In her dreams, Krzysztof Malmagden was a sepulchral presence, a portrait by El Greco in spectral light and black SS uniform. As she watched him stroll across the soccer field outside Plötzensee Prison on this shimmering-bright July morning, smiling and looping his arms across his teammates’ shoulders, he looked like a favorite Lutheran Sunday School teacher.
She had to remind herself, here was the man who had thrown three of his own soldiers to a horrible death. Simply to make a point.
Susan touched the heel of her Walther, just to make sure it was still handy. “Greetings from Boston College, Herr Malmagden. Class of 1941.”
He was confidential and cordial, happy in the good sweat of a morning spent with friends. He joked with an American private, and the kid was obviously enthralled.
Rank confers nobility, she realized, no matter whose army bestows it.
He excused himself all around and started across the field. Two of the other players stepped away with him—U.S. Army soldiers, she realized. Either they were guarding against his escape, or against his assassination. It was hard to tell. They smiled at Malmagden’s little asides as he came over. They gave Shrieve and Bogen hard looks.
Malmagden introduced them as sergeant Enders and Private Hobbs. He didn’t say which was which. He shook hands with Shrieve and Bogen.
Malmagden took her hand, just as she remembered. His smile held genuine warmth.
“Fräulein Berne, wasn’t it? Katje Berne?”
She found herself nodding dumbly.
“But of course, that wasn’t your real name, was it?”
“No.”
Malmagden laughed. “Please. We are no longer enemies. I confess, I found you enchanting.”
“Susan Gilbert,” she said. She managed to smile. She even managed to block the more egregious revenge fantasies out of her mind—the ones that involved setting him on fire just to see him run around. All in all, she thought she handled their introduction fairly well.
Shrieve extended a hand toward the interview room. They had reserved a room there for the afternoon. It was hardly a bistro on the Champs Élysées, but it had windows. It had a coffeepot. Malmagden accepted these small amenities with the grace of a dispossessed prince.
“Tell me, Liebchen. Do you still keep an L-pill inside of that silly fake wedding ring on your finger?”
She started to make some lame joke about keeping it around for the occasional blind date. It was a stupid joke. She dropped it.
Malmagden turned to the others. “The Gestapo harassed her briefly while I was attending to other matters. She thought I might let her be tortured for information.”
She laughed good-naturedly. “Silly me.”
Malmagden made an indignant sound. “As if I would harm an Allied agent when the Russians are fighting their way into downtown Berlin. Think what you will of me, Frau Malmagden did not raise no fool.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Did I get that right? With the double negatives, yes?” Malmagden shook his head in amazed good humor: You Americans and your double negatives.