The parlor windows were covered with blackout curtains. Perhaps half an hour after the tea and bread had been served, Michael heard the sound of a car stopping outside. He went to the window, pushed the curtain aside, and peered out. Night was falling, and there were no lamps along the street. The buildings were dark against the darkness. But Michael saw a black Mercedes parked at the curb, and he watched as the driver got out, walked around, and opened the door for the passenger. A woman’s shapely leg came out first, then the rest of her. She glanced up at the crack of yellow lamplight that spilled around the blackout curtain’s edge. She had no face. And then the driver closed the door, and Michael let the curtain fall back into place.
He heard voices from downstairs: Gunther’s, and a woman’s. An elegant German accent, very refined. There was aristocracy in its syllables, but it held a strangeness, too, something that Michael couldn’t quite define. He heard someone ascending the stairs, heard the woman reach the closed parlor door.
The knob turned, the door opened, and the woman without a face walked in.
She wore a black hat, and a veil that obscured her features. She carried a black valise in her ebony-gloved hands, and she wore a black velvet cloak over a dark gray pinstriped dress. But golden curls escaped the hat, the thick blond hair falling in ringlets around her shoulders. She was a slim, tall woman, perhaps five feet ten, and Michael could see the glint of her eyes behind the veil as her gaze fixed on him, went to Mouse, then returned to him again. She closed the door behind her. Michael smelled her perfume: the faint aromas of cinnamon and leather.
“You’re the man,” she said in blue-blooded German. It was a statement, directed at Michael.
He nodded. Something strange about her accent. What was it?
“I’m Echo,” she said. She put the black valise on a table and unzipped it. “Your companion is a German soldier. What’s to be done with him?”
“I’m not a soldier!” Mouse protested. “I’m a cook! Was a cook, I mean.”
Echo stared at Michael, her features impassive behind the veil. “What’s to be done with him?” she repeated.
Michael knew what she was asking. “He can be trusted.”
“The last man who believed anyone can be trusted is dead. You’ve brought along a dangerous liability.”
“Mouse… my friend… wants to get out of the country. Can that be arran-”
“No,” Echo interrupted. “I won’t risk any of my friends to help yours. This…” She glanced quickly at the little man, and Michael could almost feel her cringe. “This Mouse is your responsibility. Will you take care of him, or shall I?”
It was a polite way of asking if Michael would kill Mouse, or if one of her agents should do the job. “You’re right,” Michael agreed. “Mouse is my responsibility, and I’ll take care of him.” The woman nodded. “He goes with me,” Michael said.
She was silent for a moment: an icy silence. Then: “Impossible.”
“No, it’s not. Back in Paris I depended on Mouse and he came through for me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proven himself.”
“Not to me. And for that matter, neither have you. If you refuse to do your duty, I refuse to work with you.” She zipped up the valise and started toward the door.
“I’ll work without you, then,” Michael said. And then the answer to her accent’s mystery came to him: “I don’t need a Yank’s help, anyway.”
She stopped, her black gloved hand on the doorknob. “What?”
“A Yank’s help. I don’t need it,” he repeated. “You are an American, aren’t you? It’s in your accent. The Germans around here must have lead ears not to hear it.”
This seemed to touch a nerve. Echo said frostily, “For your information, Brit, the Germans know I was born in the United States. I’m a citizen of Berlin now. Does that satisfy you?”
“It answers my question, but it hardly satisfies me.” Michael gave her a thin smile. “I imagine our mutual friend in London gave you some of my background.” Except the part about his affinity for running on all fours, he knew. “I’m good at what I do. As I say, if you refuse to help me, I’ll get the job done on my own-”
“You’ll die trying,” Echo interrupted.
“Maybe. But our mutual friend must have told you I can be trusted. I didn’t live through North Africa being stupid. If I say I’ll be responsible for Mouse, I mean it. I’ll take care of him.”
“And who’ll take care of you?”
“That’s a question I’ve never had to answer,” Michael said.
“Wait a minute!” Mouse scowled, his eyes still swollen from tears. “Don’t I have anything to say about this? Maybe I don’t want you to take care of me! Who the hell asked you, anyway? I swear to God, I was better off in the loony bin! Those nuts made sense when they talked!”
“Quiet!” Michael snapped; Mouse was a breath away from an executioner’s bullet. The little man cursed under his breath, and Michael returned his attention to the veiled woman. “Mouse has helped me before. He can help me again.” Echo grunted with derision. “I didn’t come to Berlin to murder a man who risked his life for me,” Michael plowed on.
“Uh… murder?” Mouse gasped as he got the whole picture.
“Mouse goes with me.” Michael stared into the veil. “I’ll take care of him. And when the mission’s over, you help us both get out of Germany.”
Echo didn’t respond. Her fingers tapped on the black valise as the wheels went round in her mind.
“Well?” Michael prompted.
“If our mutual friend were here, he’d say you’re being very stupid,” she tried once more, but she could tell that the dirty, bearded green-eyed man standing before her had chosen his position and would not be moved. She sighed, shook her head, and returned the valise to the table.
“What’s happening?” Mouse asked fearfully. “Am I going to be murdered?”
“No,” Michael told him. “You’ve just joined the British Secret Service.”
Mouse choked, as if he’d gotten a chicken bone stuck in his throat.
“You have a new identity.” Echo unzipped the valise, reached into it, and brought out a dossier. She offered it to him, but when Michael stepped forward to take it, Echo held her other hand to her nose. “My God, what a smell!”
Michael took the dossier and opened it. Inside were typewritten sheets of paper, in German, outlining the history of a Baron Frederick von Fange. Michael couldn’t help but smile. “Who suggested this?”
“Our mutual friend.”
Of course, he thought. This bore the rather wicked fingerprints of the man he’d last seen as a chauffeur named Mallory. “From a pig farmer to a baron in one day. That’s not bad, even for a country where money buys royal titles.”
“The family is real enough. They’re in the German social registry. But even though you may have a title,” Echo said, “you still smell like a pig fanner. Here’s the other information you requested.” She gave him another dossier. Michael looked over the typewritten pages. Camille had radioed coded inquiries ahead to Echo, and Echo had done an excellent job in putting together background material on SS Colonel Jerek Blok, Dr. Gustav Hildebrand, and Hildebrand Industries. There were black-and-white photographs, blurred but serviceable, of the two men. She also provided a typewritten page on Harry Sandler, and a photograph of the big-game hunter sitting at a table surrounded by Nazi officers, a dark-haired woman on his lap. A hooded hawk gripped its talons to his forearm.
“You’ve been very thorough,” Michael complimented her. Looking at Sandler’s cruel, smiling face made his gut clench. “Is Sandler still in Berlin?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“Our primary assignment,” she reminded him, “doesn’t involve Harry Sandler. It’s enough for you to know that Sandler won’t be leaving Berlin anytime soon.”