His Majesty's Hope(31)
Hugh and Masterman showed their identification to the Yeoman Warders at the East Drawbridge entrance, then were met and taken inside by the Constable of the Tower, Sir Claud William Jacob. “Welcome to His Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, gentlemen.”
Together, the three men walked through the rain to the Queen’s House, a row of Tudor buildings with their decorative half-timbering on a square green. A few ravens strutted through the lush grass.
They went to one of the Tudor doors, guarded by two Yeomen Warders, and were let in by yet another Yeoman. He led them up the narrow stairs to the top floor, and opened a multitude of locks. The men then walked inside the chamber.
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.