«We’ve exhausted that approach.»
«We’ve only begun.» The blond man reached for a pencil and paper. «Now, from the beginning. We’ll write down everything he said, everything you can remember.»
The scholar sighed. «From the beginning,» he repeated. «Very well. According to Holcroft, the man’s first words referred to the killing in France, the fact that Holcroft had not hesitated to fire his pistol then…»
Kessler spoke. Tennyson listened and interrupted and asked for repetitions of words and phrases. He wrote furiously. Forty minutes passed.
«I can’t go on any longer,» said Kessler. «There’s no more I can tell you.»
«Again, the eagles,» countered the blond man harshly. «Say the words exactly as Holcroft said them.»
«Eagles?… ‘You won’t stop the eagles. Not this time.’ Could he have meant the Luftwaffe? The Wehrmacht?»
«Not likely.» Tennyson looked down at the pages in front of him. He tapped his finger at something he had written down. «Here. ‘Your Wolfsschanze.’ Your Wolfsschanze… Meaning ours, not theirs.»
«What are you talking about?» said Kessler. «We are Wolfsschanze; the men of Wolfsschanze are Sonnenkinder!»
Tennyson ignored the interruption. «Von Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Von Falkenhausen, and Höpner. Rommel called them ‘the true eagles of Germany.’ They were the insurrectionists, the Führer’s would-be assassins. All were shot; Rommel, ordered to take his own life. Those are the eagles he referred to. Their Wolfsschanze, not ours.»
«Where does it lead us? For God’s sake, Johann, I’m exhausted. I can’t go on!»
Tennyson had covered a dozen pages of paper; now he shuffled them, underlining words, circling phrases. «You may have said enough,» he replied. «It’s here … in this section. He used the words ‘butchers and clowns,’ and then, ‘you won’t stop the eagles.’… Only seconds later, Holcroft told him that the account would be tied up for years, that there were conditions … ‘the money frozen, sent back into the ground.’ The man repeated the phrase ‘back into the ground,’ saying it was the flaw. But then he added that there would be ‘no scorched earth.’ ‘Scorched earth.’ ‘There will be no … scorched earth.’»
The blond man’s upper body tensed. He leaned back in the chair, his sculptured face twisted in concentration, his cold eyes staring rigidly at the words on the paper. «It couldn’t be … after all these years. Operation Barbarossa! The ‘scorched earth’ of Barbarossa! Oh, my God, the Nachrichtendienst. It’s the Nachrichtendienst!»
«What are you talking about?» Kessler said. «‘Barbarossa’ was Hitler’s first invasion north, a magnificent victory.»
«He called it a victory. The Prussians called it a disaster. A hollow victory, written in blood. Whole divisions unprepared, decimated… ‘We took the land,’ the generals said. ‘We took the worthless, scorched earth of Barbarossa.’ Out of it came the Nachrichtendienst.»
«What was it?»
«An intelligence unit. Rarefied, exclusively Junker, a corps of aristocrats. Later, there were those who thought it was a Gehlen operation, designed to sow distrust between the Russians and the West. But it wasn’t; it was solely its own. It loathed Hitler; it scorned the Schutzstaffel—‘SS garbage’ was the term it used; it hated the commanders of the Luftwaffe. All were called ‘butchers and clowns.’ It was above the war, above the party. It was only for Germany. Their Germany.»
«Say what you mean, Johann!» shouted Kessler.
«The Nachrichtendienst survives. It’s the intruder. It wants to destroy Geneva. It will stop at nothing to abort the Fourth Reich before it’s born.»
27
Noel waited on the bridge, watching the lights of Paris flicker like clusters of tiny candles. He had reached Helden at Gallimard; she had agreed to meet him after work on the Pont Neuf. He had tried to persuade her to drive to the hotel in Argenteuil, but she had declined his offer.
«You promised me days, weeks, if I wished,» he said.
«I promised us both, my darling, and we’ll have them. But not Argenteuil. I’ll explain when I see you.»
It was barely five-fifteen; the winter night descended on Paris quickly, and the chill of the river wind penetrated him. He pulled up the collar of his secondhand overcoat to ward off the cold. He looked at his watch again; its hands had not moved. How could they have? No more than ten seconds had elapsed.
He felt like a young man waiting for a girl he had met at a country club in the summer moonlight, and he smiled to himself, feeling awkward and embarrassed, not wanting to acknowledge his anxiety. He was not in the moonlight on some warm summer’s night. He was on a bridge in Paris, and the air was cold, and he was dressed in a secondhand overcoat, and in his pocket was a gun.
He saw her walking onto the bridge. She was wearing the black raincoat, her blond hair encased by a dark-red scarf that framed her face. Her pace was steady, neither rapid nor casual; she was a lone woman going home from her place of work. Except for her striking features—only hinted at in the distance—she was like thousands of other women in Paris, heading home in the early evening.
She saw him. He started walking toward her, but she held up her hand, a signal for him to remain where he was. He paid no attention, wanting to reach her quickly, his arms held out. She walked into them and they embraced, and he felt warm in the comfort of being with her again. She pulled her head back and looked at him, then pretended to be firm, but her eyes smiled.
«You must never run on a bridge,» she said. «A man running across a bridge stands out. One strolls over the water; one doesn’t race.»
«I missed you. I don’t give a damn.»
«You must learn to. How was Berlin?»
He put his arm around her shoulder and they started toward the quai Saint-Bernard, and the Left Bank. «I’ve got a lot to tell you, some good, some not so good. But if learning something is progress, I think we’ve taken a couple of giant steps. Have you heard from your brother?»
«Yes. This afternoon. He called an hour after you did. His plans have changed; he can be in Paris tomorrow.»
«That’s the best news you could give me. At least, I think it is. I’ll let you know tomorrow.» They walked off the bridge and turned left along the riverbank. «Did you miss me?»
«Noel, you’re mad. You left yesterday afternoon. I barely had time to get home, bathe, have a very-much-needed night’s sleep, and get to work.»
«You went home? To your apartment?»
«No, I—» She stopped and looked up at him, smiling. «Very good, Noel Holcroft, new recruit. Interrogate casually.»
«I don’t feel casual.»
«You promised not to ask that question.»
«Not specifically. I asked you if you were married, or living with someone—to which I got a negative to the first and a very oblique answer to the second—but I never actually promised not to try and find out where you live.»
«You implied it, my darling. One day I’ll tell you, and you’ll see how foolish you are.»
«Tell me now. I’m in love. I want to know where my woman lives.»
The smile disappeared from her lips. Then it returned, and she glanced up at him again. «You’re like a little boy practicing a new word. You don’t know me well enough to love me; I told you that.»
«I forgot. You like women.»
«They’re among my best friends.»
«But you wouldn’t want to marry one.»
«I don’t want to marry anyone.»
«Good. It’s less complicated. Just move in with me for the next ten years, exercisable options on both sides.»