Muller could only wish that human nature could be as constant.
He had volunteered for this mission, knowing that he would most likely not return from his personal journey into the darkness of Hitler's Germany. But that didn't concern him. If captured, he was wetwired, not just to resist the pain of torture, but to laugh in the face of his tormentors. However, there was no spinal insert that would dull the horror of seeing the children he had really come to save. He wasn't supposed to seek them out-in fact, he had been specifically ordered to avoid them at all costs.
But Muller had come fully intending to disobey his controllers. He would carry out his primary mission: the capture, hostile debriefing, and termination of Colonel Paul Brasch. But once that was done, he would be a free agent. And then he intended to save his family.
Unfortunately, it wasn't turning out to be so simple. He wasn't concerned about Brasch. No, that would run smoothly. But as he obsessively polished Heinrich Muller's watch, sitting in the small park across from the apartment block of his prime target, he felt like a man who was slowly being drained of life by a succubus. His eyes were hollow and his soul withdrawn. He appeared haunted and lost, which was to his advantage, in one sense. It fit perfectly with his cover.
But it wasn't an act. For he had broken the one promise he'd made to himself-that he would execute the mission first.
Muller had been unable to resist the urge to seek out his family, just to catch a glimpse of the children. Of Hans, who would be beaten to death protecting his little brother, Erwin, from a homosexual rapist. Of little Erwin, gunned down without reason by an SS guard. He had seen them with their sisters, Lotti and Ingrid, but it had been a terrible mistake.
To his horror Hans was dressed in the uniform of the Hitler youth, and as Muller had stood there, completely numb, they had all skipped past, laughing merrily at the eldest boy's story of having chased and kicked an old Jew, while away at camp.
Muller was so lost in his dark thoughts that he almost missed Brasch, exiting the door of his building and hurrying off to catch the tram to work.
He hadn't needed the overcoat. It was, unfortunately, an unseasonably warm day.
Brasch had been praying for foul weather, for anything that might hinder the success of Sea Dragon. He had done what he could to, at great risk to his family's survival. Now it was down to Providence, and the Allies.
He still found it hard to believe that he-a winner of the Iron Cross-had actually betrayed his homeland to them. As he made his way into the foyer of the Armaments Ministry, through the hive of National Socialists and their Wehrmacht mercenaries, he wondered if any of the self-doubt and fear showed on his face. He knew it was a common conceit of the treacherous that they stood at the center of events, and thought themselves to be the object of everyone's attention. But he was a rational man, with enough strength of will to be able to avoid that potentially fatal self-absorption.
Colonel Brasch returned each of his colleagues' greetings with an appropriately enthusiastic "Sieg Heil." He maintained his facade of dour industry as he climbed up to his second-floor office. And he tried to brick off that small part of his mind that constantly screamed at him, expecting to open his marbled glass office door and find half a dozen Gestapo men waiting for him with guns and rubber truncheons.
"Good morning, Herr Oberst." His secretary smiled in her anteroom office.
"Good morning, Frau Schluter," he replied. "No calls for an hour, please. I shall be very busy."
Brasch closed the door on her answer and collapsed into his chair, shaking and sweating. He recognized the scent of his own terror, a really foul, sour sort of rankness. He opened the windows as far they would go and sat on the ledge, hoping the slightly cooler air outside might clear his head and remove the fug of anxiety that seemed to hang in the room.
On the desk, his flexipad beeped, causing his heart to skip. Then he calmed down. Only a few high officials had access to the devices, and Reichsfuhrers didn't ordinarily bother themselves with low-level administrative tasks such as calling traitors in for questioning.
Brasch picked up the pad, expecting to find a small envelope, the standard icon of a text message. He was amazed to discover full-motion video on screen-the Reich did not have the bandwidth that would allow for such indulgences.
His surprise was quickly supplanted by panic and confusion as he observed the content of the movie.
His wife and son were gagged, and bound to kitchen chairs in the apartment, their eyes bulging in fear while a man he vaguely recognized stood behind them.
The image disappeared, and was replaced by a text screen.
i will kill them if you are not home in fifteen minutes. i will kill them if you come armed or with company.
The connection dropped out-just as the world dropped out from under his feet. Brasch grabbed at the edge of his desk to stop himself collapsing to the floor. Gray spots bloomed in front of his eyes, threatening to join together and drag him down into unconsciousness.
He had to tell himself to breathe, mechanically forcing his lungs to draw in air. He spun around and lunged for the open window, leaning on the sill and dragging in long drafts of fresh air.
His eyes throbbed and tornadoes blew through his head.
Who could it be? The Gestapo? Had they discovered his treason? But no, if that had happened, I would not be alive.
Then who? Where had he seen that man before?
Willie's wide eyes and Little Manny's white, terrified face loomed out of the gray spots that still lurked in his peripheral vision. When he was almost sure he could walk without getting tangled up in the wet spaghetti strands of his own legs, he grabbed the flexipad, attempted to compose himself, and headed out the door.
"Herr Oberst?" said Frau Schluter. "Is there anything-?"
"No," he croaked, waving the pad at her. "I simply forgot a meeting at OKH. I am late. I shall be back later today."
"But there is no meeting at-"
"I got the message last night," he called back over his shoulder, as he left the office. "It was too late to call you. Please carry on updating the Two Sixty-two files."
He broke into a trot in the corridor, almost knocking a Kriegsmarine officer off his feet as he hurtled around a corner.
"Excuse me," he called out as he dashed past the elevators, which were notoriously slow. He headed straight for the stairwell instead, trying to get out of the building as quickly as possible, without looking like a madman. Others were also hurrying about, no doubt on important state business, so no one paid him any mind.
Brasch hit the street and ran for a tram that was pulling up a hundred yards away. As he struggled to put his flexipad away, he realized he had no change for the fare, but rushed on anyway, leaping onto the bottom step just as the streetcar began to move.
A conductor began to amble toward him as he puffed and prepared to browbeat the man into letting him ride for free. But as he began the pantomime of searching his pockets for coins he knew weren't there, the man nodded at the Iron Cross on his breast and turned away.
Brasch examined the decoration somewhat dubiously. So it had a use after all.
He rode the entire way home, bunching the muscles in his legs, silently urging the driver to hurry up. He checked his watch at least twice every minute, cursing himself for not noting what time the message had come in. Would he make it in fifteen minutes?