Michael continued picking at his meal. Boots left the dining room, and Michael heard someone ask Blok about his new aide. “He’s a new model,” Blok said as he took his chair at the head of the table. “Made of Krupp steel. Has machine guns in his kneecaps and a grenade launcher in his ass.” There was laughter, and Blok basked in it. “No, Boots was until recently working on an antipartisan detail in France. I’d assigned him to a friend of mine: Harzer. Poor fool got his head blown off-excuse me, ladies. Anyway, I took Boots back into my command a couple of weeks ago.” He lifted his filled wineglass. “A toast. To the Brimstone Club!”
“The Brimstone Club!” returned the refrain, and the toast was drunk.
The feast went on, through courses of baked salmon, sweetbreads in cognac, quail stuffed with chopped German sausage, and then rich brandied cake and raspberries in iced pink champagne. Michael’s stomach felt swollen, though he’d eaten with discretion; Chesna had hardly eaten at all, but most of the others had filled their faces as if tomorrow was Judgment Day. Michael thought of a time, long ago, when winter winds were raging and the starving pack had gathered around Franco’s severed leg. All this fat -grease, and running suet didn’t fit the wolf’s diet.
When dinner ended, cognac and cigars were offered. Most of the guests left the table, drifting into the suite’s other huge, marble-floored rooms. Michael stood beside Chesna on the long balcony, a snifter of warm cognac in his hand, and watched searchlights probe the low clouds over Berlin. Chesna put her arm around him and leaned her head on his shoulder, and they were left alone. He said, in the soft murmuring of an enraptured lover, “What are my chances of getting in later?”
“What?” She almost pulled away from him.
“Getting in here,” he explained. “I’d like to take a look around Blok’s suite.”
“Not very good. All the doors have alarms. If you don’t have the proper key, all hell would break loose.”
“Can you get me a key?”
“No. Too risky.”
He thought for a moment, watching the ballet of searchlights. “What about the balcony doors?” he asked. He’d already noticed there were no locks on them. Locks were hardly necessary when they were on the castle’s seventh floor, more than a hundred and sixty feet above the ground. The nearest balcony-to the right, belonging to Harry Sandler’s suite-was over forty feet away.
Chesna looked into his face. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Our suite is on the floor below, isn’t it?” He strolled to the stone railing and peered down. A little more than twenty feet below was another terrace, but it wasn’t part of Chesna’s suite. Their quarters were around the castle’s corner, facing the south, while Blok’s terrace faced almost directly east. He searched the castle’s walclass="underline" the massive, weatherworn stones were full of cracks and chinks, and here and there were ornate embellishments of eagles, geometric designs, and the grotesque faces of gargoyles. A thin ledge encircled every level of the castle, but much of the ledge on the seventh floor had crumbled away. Still, there were abundant hand- and footholds. If he was very, very careful.
The height made his stomach clench, but it was jumping from airplanes that he most dreaded, not height itself. He said, “I can get in through the balcony doors.”
“You can get yourself killed any number of ways in Berlin. If you like, you can tell Blok who you really are and he’ll put a bullet through your brain, so you won’t have to commit suicide.”
“I’m serious,” Michael said, and Chesna saw that he was. She started to tell him that he was utterly insane, but suddenly a young giggling blond girl came out onto the balcony, followed closely by a Nazi officer old enough to be her father. “Darling, darling,” the German goat crooned, “tell me what you want.” Michael pulled Chesna against him and guided her toward the balcony’s far corner. The wind blew into their faces, bringing the smell of mist and pine. “I might not have another opportunity,” he said, in a lover’s moist and quiet tone. He began to slide his hand down her elegant back, and Chesna didn’t pull away because the German goat and his nymphet were watching. “I’ve had some mountaineering experience.” It had been a course in cliff climbing, before he’d gone to North Africa: the art of making a hairline crack and a nub of rock support a hundred and eighty pounds, the same skill he’d used at the Paris Opera. He glanced over the railing again, then thought better of it. No use stretching his courage before he needed it. “I can do it,” he said, and then he smelled Chesna’s womanly scent, her beautiful face so close to his. Searchlights danced over Berlin like a ghostly ballet. On impulse Michael pulled Chesna against him, and kissed her lips.
She resisted, but only for a second because she also knew they were being watched. She put her arms around him, felt the muscles of his shoulders move under his tuxedo jacket, and then felt his hand caress the base of her spine, where the dimples were. Michael tasted her lips: honey-sweet, with perhaps a dash of pepper. Warm lips, and growing warmer. She put a hand against his chest; the hand made an effort to push him back but the arm didn’t agree. Defeated, the hand slipped away. Michael deepened the kiss, and found Chesna accepting what he offered.
“That’s what I want,” Michael heard the old goat’s nymphet say.
Another officer looked out through the balcony doors. “Almost time!” he announced, and hurried away. The goat and nymphet left, the girl still giggling. Michael broke the kiss, and Chesna gasped for breath. His lips tingled. “Almost time for what?” he asked her.
“The Brimstone Club’s meeting. Once a month, down in the auditorium.” She actually-it was ridiculous-felt a little dizzy. The altitude, she thought it must be. Her lips felt as if they were on fire. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to find good seats.” She took his hand, and he followed her off the balcony.
They descended in a crowded elevator, along with other dinner guests. Michael assumed the Brimstone Club was one of those mystic leagues the Nazis prided themselves on, in a country of orders, fellowships, and secret societies. In any case he was about to find out. He noted that Chesna had a very tight grip on his hand, though her expression remained cheerful. The actress at her craft.
The auditorium, on the castle’s first floor in the section behind the lobby, was filling up with people. Fifty or so Brimstone Club members had already found their chairs. A red velvet curtain obscured the stage, and multicolored electric lanterns hung from the rafters. Nazi officers had come dressed in their finery, and most everyone else wore formal attire. Whatever the Brimstone Club was, Michael mused as he walked with Chesna along the aisle, it was reserved for the Reich’s gentry.
“Chesna! Over here! Please, sit with us!” Jerek Blok rose from his chair and waved them over. Boots, who might have taken up two chairs, was not in attendance, but Blok sat with a group of his dinner guests. “Move down!” he told them, and they instantly obeyed. “Please, sit beside me.” He motioned to the seat next to him. Chesna took it, and Michael sat on the aisle seat. Blok put his hand on Chesna’s and grinned broadly. “Ah, it’s a wonderful night! Springtime! You can feel it in the air, can’t you?”
“Yes, you can,” Chesna agreed, her smile pleasant but her voice tense.
“We’re so glad to have you with us, Baron,” Blok told him. “Of course you know all the membership fees go toward the War Fund.”
Michael nodded. Blok began talking to a woman sitting in front of him. Sandler, Michael saw, was sitting up on the front row with a woman on either side of him, talking animatedly. Tales of Africa, Michael thought.
Within fifteen minutes, between seventy and eighty people had entered the auditorium. The lanterns began to dim, and the doors were closed to shut out the uninvited. A hush fell over the audience. What the hell was this all about? Michael wondered. Chesna was still gripping his hand, and her fingernails were beginning to dig into his skin.