On the one hand, she felt sorry for them. She knew, all too well, what it was like to mourn civilian deaths, to spend nights in a bomb shelter, to see a beloved city attacked.
And yet, these were the same people who had given Hitler his absolute power, who didn’t question the Nuremberg Laws, who turned a blind eye to the horrors of Kristallnacht. Some—many?—were people like Herr Oberg, who wanted Berlin to be “Judenrein.” And his daughter, who’d been brainwashed into becoming a soldier-making machine for the Reich. As terrifying as it was to be on the run, there was relief in leaving the Obergs’ stolen villa. She longed to be home in London.
Maggie shook her head. Focus, she scolded herself. By now the SS must be looking for her. And she had to make contact with Madame Defarge before she was spotted. Gottlieb, she thought, heart pounding, Gottlieb will be able to help me.
When she reached his apartment, however, she pressed the buzzer again and again. Nothing. She leaned on it for a full fifteen seconds. Still, no response. Then she went to the street and threw a pebble at his window.
Above her, a window opened. “Go away!” she heard Gottlieb’s voice call down.
“Let me in!” Maggie called back. “You must—”
“I don’t know you.” The window slammed shut.
Hot, red anger welled up inside her, and all the German profanity she’d ever heard came unbidden to her lips. But his window did not reopen.
Maggie saw the knitting woman on the bench, took a calming breath, and crossed the street. She sat down near, but not too near, her.
The woman moved closer. “Your young man’s tough,” she said under her breath. “I saw him once in a boxing match—he has a technique of tiring his opponent out but not throwing any punches, and then, in the tenth round, scoring a knockout. Don’t take it personally.”
“He’s not my young man. And if I don’t make it back,” Maggie said, taking it quite personally, “you have to tell them that I’ve been found out and I’m on the run. I don’t suppose … that you …”
Could hide me? The unasked question hung in the air.
“No, child.” The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“One of your associates?”
“Nein.”
“I understand.” Splendid, Maggie thought, here I am risking my neck, and before the cock’s crow, they’ve denied me thrice. She saw a man in a black trench coat walking closer to them. And it wasn’t the usual quick, eyes-down Berliner walk. He was looking at everyone. Taking everyone’s measure. Looking for me?
“Goodbye,” she said, getting up slowly, in character.
The old woman kept her eyes on her knitting and nodded. “Viel Glück.”
In her office at the Abwehr, Clara Hess was seething. “What do you mean, they lost her?”
On the other end of the telephone line, Goebbels was unflustered. “She must have suspected something when I mentioned your name. By the time we reached Oberg’s, she was gone. We sent men by Gottlieb Lehrer’s flat, and one of them thought he spotted her, but she gave him the slip.”
Clara drummed her long red-painted nails on her desk. “Then she has to be a spy.”
“Oberg said all her paperwork was in order, that it had been checked when she interviewed for the position with Göring. But I dug a little deeper—since she didn’t get an interview, they actually never did check her papers.”
Clara wrapped the silver telephone cord around her fingers so tightly that they became white. “Bring in Gottlieb Lehrer for questioning.”
“Questioning by you, or by the SS?”
“Me. Immediately.”
It didn’t take long for Maggie to realize the man in the black trench coat was following her.
She began walking slightly faster, but still limping and not fast enough to draw attention to herself. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to break into a run. She stopped in front of a butcher’s window to see if he was still following behind.
He was.
Walking faster, she went to the entrance of the Gleisdreieck U-Bahn. The man followed, relentless. Maggie stood waiting on the platform, heart in mouth, for the train. When it pulled into the station, she stepped aside to let the passengers off, then stepped on.
The man stepped on, too, into the car behind her.
Then, moments before the train left the station, Maggie muttered, “Oh no! I’ve forgotten my ration card!” and pushed her way through the crowd. Just as the train pulled out, she slipped through the doors and jumped back onto the platform.
She turned to look at him—and saw the rage burn in the man’s eyes as he realized she’d given him the slip. Maggie looked across the tracks. Nazi guards were shouting at people to leave their luggage on one end of the platform, and line up on the other. The uniformed men held large dogs on leather leashes; the barking echoed off the station’s tiled walls. The people being herded were men and women, young and old, some rich, some poor, some alone and some in family groups. A few of the smaller children wailed.