“Will the lady be joining us?”
“A possibility, sir,” Wilhelm said, and that was all.
Michael closed the flap. He glanced at Mouse, who was busy trying to stretch his shirt collar with a forefinger. Last night, while they’d slept in the same room, Michael had heard Mouse sobbing. Mouse had gotten out of his bed and stood at the window in the darkness for a long time. Michael listened to the soft clink of the Iron Cross as Mouse had turned it over and over in his hand. Then, sometime later, Mouse had sighed deeply, snuffled his nose on his sleeve, and crawled back into his bed. The tinkling noise of the Iron Cross had ceased, and Mouse slept with the medal clenched in his fist. For now, at least, his crisis of the soul had passed.
Wilhelm was an expert driver, which was good because the streets of Berlin were nightmares of horse-drawn wagons, army trucks, tanks, and streetcars, not to mention the areas that were clogged with smoldering rubble. As they drove toward the address of Theo von Frankewitz and a light rain began to patter down on the windshield, Michael mentally reviewed what he’d learned from the dossiers.
There was no new information about Jerek Blok; the man was a Hitler fanatic and a loyal Nazi party member whose activities since leaving his command of Falkenhausen concentration camp were shrouded in secrecy. Dr. Gustav Hildebrand, son of a German pioneer in the field of gas warfare, had a home near Bonn, where Hildebrand Industries was located. But there was a new item of interest: Hildebrand also maintained a residence and lab on the island of Skarpa, about thirty miles south of Bergen, Norway. As a summer home, that would be quite a journey from Bonn. And as a winter retreat… well, the winters were very long and very arctic that far north. So why did Hildebrand work in such an isolated place? Surely he could have found a more idyllic location. It was a point that merited looking into.
Wilhelm drove slowly along Victoria Park, as rain slashed through the budding trees. It was another area of row houses and small shops, and pedestrians hurried along under umbrellas.
Michael opened the flap once more. “Are we expected?”
“No, sir. Herr von Frankewitz was home at midnight; we’ll find out if he’s still in.” Wilhelm was just creeping the Mercedes along the street. Looking for a signal, Michael thought. He saw a woman cutting roses in the window of a flower shop, and a man standing in a doorway trying to get an uncooperative umbrella open. The woman put her roses in a glass vase and set them in the window, and the man got his umbrella open and walked away. Wilhelm said, “Herr Frankewitz is in, sir. That’s his apartment building.” He motioned to a structure of gray bricks on the right. “It’s apartment five, on the second floor.” He braked the Mercedes. “I’ll be driving around the block. Good luck, sir.”
Michael got out, his coat collar up against the rain. Mouse started to get out, too, but Wilhelm grasped his arm. “The baron goes alone,” he said, and Mouse started to pull angrily away but Michael told him, “It’s all right. Stay in the car,” and then he strode to the curb and into the building Wilhelm had indicated. The Mercedes drove on.
The building’s interior smelled like a damp tomb. Nazi slogans and epithets had been painted on the walls. Michael saw something slink past in the gloom. Whether it was a cat or a very large rodent, he couldn’t tell for sure. He went up the staircase, and found the tarnished number “5.”
He knocked on the door. Down the hallway, an infant squalled. Voices, a man and woman’s, raised and tangled in argument. He knocked again on the door, aware of the small two-shot derringer in its special pocket of his vest: a gift from his hosts. No answer. He balled his fist to knock a third time, beginning to wonder if Wilhelm had gotten his signals crossed.
“Go away,” a man’s voice said from the other side of the door. “I don’t have any money.”
It was a tired gasp of a voice. The voice of someone whose breathing wasn’t right. Michael said, “Herr von Frankewitz? I have to talk to you, please.”
A silence. Then: “I can’t talk. Go away.”
“It’s very important.”
“I said I have no money. Please… don’t bother me. I’m a sick man.”
Michael heard footsteps shuffling away. He said, “I’m a friend of your friend in Paris. The opera lover.”
The footsteps stopped.
Michael waited.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Frankewitz rasped, standing close to the door.
“He told me you’d done some painting recently. Some metal work. I’d like to discuss it with you, if I may.”
Another silence stretched. Von Frankewitz was either a very careful man or a very frightened one. And then Michael heard the clicking of locks disengaging. A bolt was thrown back, and the door opened about two inches. A slice of a white-fleshed face appeared in the crack, like the visage of a ghost emerging from a crypt. “Who are you?” Frankewitz whispered.
“I’ve traveled a long way to see you,” Michael said. “May I come in?”
Frankewitz hesitated, his pallid face hanging in the darkness like a quarter moon. Michael saw a gray eye, bloodshot, and a thicket of oily brown hair tumbling over a high, white forehead. The gray eye blinked. Frankewitz opened the door and stepped back, allowing Michael to enter.
The apartment was a close, dark place with narrow windows filmed by the soot of Berlin’s factories. A threadbare black and gold Oriental carpet covered the wooden floor, which felt none too sturdy under Michael’s shoes. The furniture was heavy and ornate, the kind of things kept in dusty museum basements. Everywhere there were throw pillows, and the arms of a sea-green sofa were protected with lace coverlets. The apartment odors assailed Michael’s nostrils: the smoke of cheap cigarettes, a sweet floral cologne, oil paints and turpentine, and the bitter scent of sickness. In a corner of the room, near one of the slender windows, was a chair, an easel, and a canvas with a landscape in progress: a red sky above a city whose buildings were made of bones.
“Sit here. It’s the most comfortable.” Frankewitz swept a pile of dirty clothes off the sea-green sofa, and Michael sat down. A spring stabbed his spine.
Frankewitz, a skinny man wearing a blue silk robe and slippers, circled the room straightening crooked lamp shades, pictures, and a bunch of wilted flowers in a copper vase. Then the artist sat down in a high-backed black chair, crossed his thin white legs, and reached for a pack of cigarettes and an ebony cigarette holder. He screwed a cigarette in with nervous fingers. “You’ve seen Werner, then? How is he?”
Michael realized Frankewitz was talking about Adam. “He’s dead. The Gestapo killed him.”
The other man’s mouth opened, and a small gasp came out. His fingers fumbled with a pack of matches. The first match was damp, shooting a tiny spark before it went out. He got the cigarette lit with the second match, and he drew deeply from the ebony holder. A smoky cough welled up from his lungs, followed by a second, third, and then a flurry of coughs. His lungs rattled wetly, but when the fit of coughing was over, the artist puffed on his cigarette holder again, his sunken gray eyes damp. “I’m sorry to hear that. Werner was… a gentleman.”
It was time to take the leap. Michael said, “Did you know that your friend worked for the British Secret Service?”
Frankewitz smoked his cigarette in silence, the little red circle glinting in the gloom. “I did,” he answered at last. “Werner told me. I’m not a Nazi. What the Nazis have done to this country-and to my friends… well, I have no love for the Nazis.”
“You told Werner about taking a trip to a warehouse, and painting bullet holes on green metal. I’d like to know how you came to do that work. Who employed you?”
“A man.” Frankewitz’s thin shoulders shrugged beneath the blue silk. “I never knew his name.” He pulled on the cigarette, exhaled smoke, and coughed harshly again. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m sick, you see.”