He slammed his fist into the wall and then, exhausted, sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I am sorry, Keegan,” Wolffson said. “But we also love her.
She’s my sister, not just my half-sister, my sister in my heart, you understand? Werner has loved her since they were born, they grew up together, same street. Joachim went to school with them, all the way through college. We share your agony. We understand what is happening inside you. But there is nothing we can do.”
Keegan did understand the awesome frustration of the tragedy. Jenny was just one of hundreds, thousands, who had been lost in these camps. And these people were becoming immune to the pain because of the enormity and futility of the problem.
“I can’t relate to all that,” said Keegan fiercely, pacing the room. “I can’t relate to thousands of people, I can only relate to her, that’s all the tragedy I can handle right now. Right now I hate the world. I hate you for telling me it’s hopeless.”
“I think the time has come to get rid of all Judenopferers, teach them they must stop betraying their own,” Weber said.
Wolffson flicked an ash off his cigarette and shrugged. “And become just like them?”
“Why not?” said Keegan. “For the first time I understand the meaning . . . the true meaning . . . of an eye for an eye.”
“Listen to me,” Wolffson said. “Please, it is important. What we are doing, it is very delicate, a very fragile thing. A very dangerous thing. But it is important. Even to save one life is important, more important than killing.”
“But not hers, right?”
Gebhart stood very close to him, his eyes also misty, his fists also clenched. “Don’t you get it, Ire, vunce the Gestapo has dem it iss over. No matter who it iss, even your own mother or father, it iss over. Ye are not an army, ye are students and teachers and old men mit no training. Ve cannot take on the SS and the Gestapo. Ve must help those who half not been caught.”
“We understand how you feel,” said Wolffson. “Please understand our frustration is just as agonizing.”
And suddenly Keegan realized how sorry he was feeling for himself. These three men were family, lifelong friends, silent lovers. His anguish was no deeper than theirs.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was being bloody selfish.”
“It is all right,” Wolffson said. “We know all the feelings.” He stopped for a moment, then said, “Keegan, you must leave Berlin and the sooner the better.”
“I won’t leave, not without her,” Keegan answered.
“Don’t you understand, man, if you go on the list, they will torture you too. You know too much about us.”
“I don’t know anything they don’t know already.”
“You know about our Paris connection,” Weber snapped, moving very close to him. “How we got Jenny over here, how big the network is. As long as you are in Germany, you are a danger to us.”
“Or Wolffson said thoughtfully.
“Or what?” Keegan asked.
“Or you could go to Vierhaus. Pretend you know nothing. Tell him Jenny is missing and ask for his help.”
“Ask for his help! I want to kill the little freak.”
“Exactly what he would expect, so if you can keep calm you will convince him you know nothing,” Wolffson said. “He may give up some information we can use.”
“You want me to spy for you?”
“For me, for Jenny, for you.”
Keegan settled down again. Maybe the kid was right, maybe he could beat Vierhaus at his own game. It was certainly worth a try.
“All right,” he said, “what can I do?”
“Go back to your hotel
“I don’t have a hotel, I was planning to take Jenny out of here tonight.”
“You usually stay at the Ritz, correct? Go there and check in. Call Vierhaus. Tell him you came back to get Jenny and she is missing. Her apartment is torn up. That’s all you know. It will throw him off, convince him you know nothing.”
“That’s a long shot. That’s about a two hundred-to-one job.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Keegan said. “What else?”
“If we should learn they are after you for any reason, we will call,” Wolffson said. “The message will be, ‘This is the tailor, your suit is ready.’ If you get that message leave immediately. Avoid being followed, of course. Go to the city zoo, the Tiergarten. There is a phone booth near the carousel. Wait there and we will call you. So you will know it is us, when you answer we will ask if you picked up your suit yet. Your answer will be, ‘No, they did not fix the torn pocket.’ Then we will give you instructions.,,
“Come on, all this is conjecture and
“Keegan, we’ve been at this for a long time. Believe me, it is not conjecture. If it happens, do not even think, move. Get out of the hotel and to the zoo.”
A silence fell over the room. Cigarettes were lit. Wolffson got a cup of coffee. Gebhart sat in a chair and cracked his knuckles, slowly, one at a time.
“Okay,” Keegan said finally. “I’ll give it a shot. What do you really think they’re doing to her?”
“They will torture her. Even if they know she knows nothing, Hitler wants revenge against the Black Lily. They know she is a Kettenglied. They’ll do anything to find out what she knows. Thankfully it is not much.”
“What’s the best we can hope for?”
“That she can convince the Gestapo she knows nothing,” Wolffson answered. “And that they let her die quickly.”
“If she survives?” Keegan kept his voice steady.
“If she stays alive? Dachau,” said Wolffson.
“What’s Dachau?”
“A little town about thirty kilometers from Munich,” said Wolffson. “They have built a camp there, an enormous prison stockade for political enemies. It is like a Russian slave camp.”
“How long will she be in for? How much time will she get?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Weber said.
“There is no sentence,” Gebhart said in a low voice. “She will be there forever. Dachau is a forever place.”
He lay in bed all night watching the phone, waiting for Vierhaus to answer his calls. He had called three times, talking to the same icy male SS operator on the other end of the line. On the last call the operator became abusive.
“Don’t you understant,” the Schutzstaffel man snapped in his thick German accent. “He iss not here! He vill call you yen he iss ready to call you. Auf wiedersehen.”
Sleepless, Keegan lay clothed on the bed thinking about Jenny. Wondering where she was at that moment. Wondering what horrors the Gestapo was wreaking on her. Imagining himself attacking the prison, killing all the guards, and whisking her to freedom in some mad, outrageous rescue scheme that could only happen in the movies. And, too, he wanted to get even. Vierhaus, Conrad Weil, von Meister, each had contributed in a different way to the tragedy, each for a different reason, and each was equally responsible.
The minutes crawled by. Dawn sneaked through the drapes, spreading a crimson stain across the carpet. He watched the spear of light lengthen and widen and slowly illuminate the room.
The phone was a silent threat. He stared at it, reached out, then drew his hand back. He wouldn’t call the miserable bastard again. Pain laced his stomach and he reached out again, asked for room service and ordered coffee and rolls. When he heard the knock on the door he opened it, expecting the bellman. Bert Rudman was standing there.
“Can I come in?” he said softly.