She closed her eyes. "Where's Owen?"
"Waiting for your decision. Waiting for you to rescue him."
"What decision?"
"I ask you to look at your situation." He leaned toward her. "An American Intelligence officer in the heart of Berlin. A spy, by any nation's definition. A German woman consorting with him. Both of you could be shot, certainly. In fact, I've been working very hard to keep you from being shot."
"It would be a relief to have it over."
"I'm sorry to hear you say that. For Hart, though, it won't go so quickly. The Gestapo will have questions for an American spy. Inquiries that will take days to complete. By the end, he'll be begging for a bullet."
She looked him up and down, as if seeing him for the first time. "You came here to tell me this?"
"No, of course not. I am your husband, Greta. Our relationship has of course changed: I'm hurt, I'm angry. But despite your betrayal I still came here to help you. So you can help me."
She looked wary.
"I need your help, Greta." He nodded solemnly. "Germany needs your help. No, I don't want to see you dead. I might like to kill Hart but I can't afford to see him dead either. Because somehow he found his way out of that sealed cave, which means he can find a way back in. Accordingly, I want to offer you both a chance at redemption. A chance for us to work together again for a common good."
"What chance?" Her tone was skeptical.
"To return to Antarctica."
She had a sharp intake of breath. "No! That's where all this started!"
"To develop your cure, Greta. I didn't think it a real possibility until I saw Hart. And the need was not entirely apparent to me when we first visited Atropos Island. But the war has brought it home. What if we had a new antibiotic? It would make all the difference in our hospitals."
"Jürgen, there's a war on! We can't get back to Antarctica."
"But we can. On a submarine. The Reich is willing to make one available."
"But the time, it's so late in the war…"
"This war may go on longer than you think."
Her eyes became skeptical. "No. You're going for the microbe."
He shook his head, considering his words carefully. "I'm afraid Dr. Schmidt was one step ahead of both of us, Greta." He kept his gaze dead level with hers, trying to communicate the utmost sincerity. "I assumed all the cultures were destroyed, as you said, but it turns out Schmidt quietly created some of his own cultures, borrowing from your dishes."
"What?"
"He brought the disease back to Germany and it's been tested in the camps," Drexler lied. "The Reich is desperate, and may be forced to use it. All this came as a complete shock to me. Göring shares my fear but there is growing pressure coming from the Führer's headquarters: Bormann, maybe other advisors, I don't know. So the Reichsmarschall wants us to return to Antarctica to get an antidote as a safety valve. To get your antibiotic. To save lives, not take them." He watched her closely to see if she saw through him.
"You just want the drug?"
"Yes."
She looked confused, tired, hopeful. "If I helped you'd let Owen live?"
"I need Hart, to help get us back into the cave quickly. I can't risk the chance he'd lie in directing us on such a dangerous trip: I need him there to show us. And I need you to persuade him. I need you to help gather and culture the compound. I need you both. Just as you now need me. A partnership."
She shook her head in wonder. "The three of us returning again?"
"Greta, we're all in desperate straits. Do you think this is what I want, you in a prison cell? That's no victory. But Hart's appearance perversely means we can do something together to produce a good in this war. In partnership with my wife, even if she no longer loves me. We've all made mistakes, Greta, great and terrible and bitter ones. And I thought Hart's return was the worst mistake of all. Then I realized he's a sign of new opportunity, a chance to try again. It's late, very late. But not too late, perhaps."
"Jürgen…" It was a groan as she tried to sort out his motive.
He took a breath. "The war will end someday, in victory or defeat or stalemate: who knows? And then there'll be an accounting of what was done on all sides. I want that accounting to include a miracle new drug. A drug that we discovered. This is our chance to salvage something from catastrophe, Greta, regardless of what happens between you and me. Something that will be remembered in the postwar world. So come with me to Antarctica to do the expedition over, more completely this time. To correct the mistakes of the past. To succeed instead of fail."
"And afterward? You and me and Owen?"
"Your heart is your own. I've learned that. To be honest, I still hope to change your mind. But go where you will, with him if you must. My mission is for Germany. Do it and we'll all be saved."
She closed her eyes. "What do I have to do?"
"Convince him, Greta. Convince him he must cooperate."
"To save his life?"
"To save his. To save your father's. And to save yours."
She looked at her husband, her eyes sad, contemplating a return to the island. Finally she nodded. "I'll talk to him."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Greta inhaled the night air of the harbor. Northwestern Spain was cool in November but still warmer than Germany, its sky ablaze with stars. Smells both sweet and odorous wafted from the port of Vigo, the scent of sea and forest and fishing quay a heady reminder of better times. For two weeks she and Owen had been locked in a sterile world without windows: a succession of cells, paneled trucks, and then an airplane, its viewing ports taped over with blackout paper. They'd been kept more than twenty-four hours at opposite ends of a frigid metal hangar in Switzerland, sleepless and cramped on its hard concrete floor. Now, still stiff from the long journey, she had a moment's respite on the edge of the Atlantic in a nation that still granted refuge to Nazi ships.
A few lights twinkled on the water and music drifted from the whitewashed buildings stacked around Vigo's natural amphitheater. This is what life is like without war, she remembered. It was only a glimpse. Stone steps slick with seaweed led to a landing being approached by a motor launch. Across the bay was the low dark shadow of a U-boat. An impatient Schmidt was already down the steps, his gaunt silhouette identified by the glow of his cigarette. He'd not so much as glanced at the beauty of the harbor.
Despite being within fifty feet of her husband and her father and the man she loved, Greta felt helplessly alone. Jürgen had been warily polite, Otto had been kept separate, and any contact with Owen was prevented by the squad of granite-faced SS troopers that had flown with them out of Germany. The isolation hurt. She didn't think she'd survive to stand on a temperate shore again, and before being sealed into the submarine she wanted to share this final moment with the man she loved. For just that reason Drexler wouldn't allow it. While he needed both Owen and Greta to accomplish his plan, he didn't need them together. Not yet.
The pair's last conversation in Berlin had been hasty and anguished. Drexler had reluctantly agreed to allow his wife to go into Owen's cell alone to persuade the pilot to come on the new expedition. But the SS colonel was hammering on the door and hollering "Time!" long before they'd said all they needed to say. Greta had presented the cruel choice— Antarctica or a painful death— quickly, never doubting that Hart would agree to come. "It's all right," he'd assured her. "I know I'm not done with that place yet. Or this war. And I have an idea." But she wept when he agreed, hating herself for asking him to come and yet enormously relieved that he'd do so.