Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

  “What are they going to do with”—she could barely force the words out, but she had to know—“with Daniel’s body?”

  Hanfstaengl’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I have no idea. Does it matter, at this point?”

  “He should be buried by sunset. It’s important in his religion.” She realized what she was saying and hysteria bubbled in her chest, threatening to break loose in peals of wild laughter. What was she thinking—suggesting the National Socialists ought to bury Daniel in accordance with his faith, as though they cared a toss about their Jewish victims?

  Besides, he’d been executed illegally. They would be eager to conceal his body. Most likely, they’d dig a grave for him in an abandoned field or forest on the outskirts of Berlin, where no one would ever find him. She wouldn’t even have the luxury of visiting his grave.

  Hanfstaengl was talking, but she didn’t hear him. She clutched her purse, so that she had something to hold onto, her fingers curling over the bulge of her revolver. If only she hadn’t run but had stayed to shoot those men instead. . . .

  Knowledge blazed through her brain like a line of fire. She knew what she had to do. She could give Daniel’s death meaning. That could be her last gift to him, not her declaration of love.

  She would punish the men who had murdered him.

  “I beg your pardon,” she interrupted Herr Hanfstaengl. “Where was Daniel killed? I deserve to know,” she added when he hesitated, looking unsure of himself. “Give me that much at least.”

  “I really shouldn’t say—”

  “I want to know what his final moments were like,” Gretchen snapped. When Hanfstaengl remained silent, she stepped closer to him, trying to smooth out the anger in her face. Hanfstaengl would want her to act submissive and contrite, she knew. She’d let him think that was exactly how she felt. For Daniel’s sake, she would lie to everyone. “I promise, I’ll leave Berlin straightaway if you’ll tell me. I only want to know what sort of place he was in—and if he suffered very much.”

  “It would have been a clean death,” Hanfstaengl said hastily. “Göring was a military man, and I’m certain he would have insisted on a quick kill. Your Jew wouldn’t have been in pain.”

  Gretchen prayed he was right. The thought of Daniel, bloodied and bruised, enduring hours of torment before they finally shot him was more than she could stand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “What about”—she paused, steadying her voice, hoping Hanfstaengl didn’t notice her eagerness—“what about the place where he was held?”

  “It’s the cellar of a trade union office building,” he said. “The SA recently shut it down and took over the place.”

  Berlin probably had dozens of trade unions, and it could take her days to find out which ones had been closed by the National Socialists. She needed more information, but she couldn’t let Hanfstaengl suspect what she was planning.

  “Please tell me the street. Just so I can walk by and pay my respects. Then I’ll leave, I promise.”

  Hanfstaengl’s eyes focused on hers with lightning intensity. “You swear it?”

  “Yes.” The lie slid off her tongue.

  Sighing, he said, “Fine. It’s on the Lange Strasse. It’s in a poor neighborhood, so mind you keep watch on your pocketbook. Now that’s all I know, and if I talk with you much longer, I’ll be late for luncheon with Herr Hitler at the Chancellery. You know how impatient he gets.”

  She nodded and he rested his hand on her cheek, in his old familiar manner. Tears pricked her eyes. He still loved her enough to touch her—even though he must believe she’d been contaminated by Daniel and the so-called Jewish virus. His hand fell away, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  “I’ll never forget your kindness to me,” she said.

  His smile was sad. “God keep you safe, Gretchen.”

  She watched him walk out of the alley into the sunlight. He turned to the left, and then he was gone. For a long moment, she stood still, carefully blanking her mind so she could go out into the street and not break down in tears. She would not let herself think about Daniel. Only one thought would guide her actions now.

  Revenge. She would destroy the men who had killed Daniel. Thanks to Hanfstaengl, she knew where to find them.

  Again, she clutched her purse, feeling the weight of her revolver. She allowed herself a small smile. She would hunt down those men and make them pay. Hitler had taught her too well for her to miss.

  32

  BIRGIT WAS WAITING FOR GRETCHEN WHEN SHE returned to the lodging house. “Well?” she demanded, rocketing off her chair, swiping at the dust ringing her nostrils. “What did your friend say?”

  Grief swamped Gretchen, and she couldn’t speak. Shaking her head, she closed the door. With the slow, automatic movements of a sleepwalker, she slipped off her coat and gloves. Then she sat on the bed, covering her face with her hands, trying to close herself into her own world.

  “Daniel’s dead,” she said. With dull eyes, she stared through her fingers at the cream-colored bedspread. She wished she could surrender to the relief of tears, but she was wrung dry. “Minister Göring had him shot this morning.”

  “Oh my God!” Birgit tried to embrace Gretchen, but she eased out of her friend’s arms.

  “Please don’t,” Gretchen said. “I’ll be all right as long as nobody touches me.”

  She couldn’t explain this sudden need to feel separate and isolated from everyone else; all she knew was that if someone showed her kindness, she would shatter. Turning away from the hurt in Birgit’s eyes, she added, “There’s nothing more we can do. You ought to go back to Frau Fleischer’s rooming house.”

  “I won’t leave you alone.” Birgit sounded shaky. “How can the National Socialists hope to get away with this? With killing Monika and Friedrich and now Daniel?”

  “Because the National Socialists are taking over the police.” Gretchen’s tone was so harsh she didn’t recognize it. “Our country’s disappearing in front of us, and we can’t stop it. The best thing you can do for yourself is return to your life. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  There was no way that Gretchen would tell her the plan she’d devised. It was too dangerous, and anyone who took part in it probably wouldn’t survive. For herself, she didn’t care. She was ready to die for Daniel’s sake. Her only regret was that the Whitestones wouldn’t know what had happened to her. She wished she could spare them the agony of wondering about her fate. But this had to be done. She wouldn’t let Daniel’s death go unpunished.

  She realized that Birgit was watching her, waiting for an answer. “I’m going back to England,” she said quickly to cover up the awkward silence. “Daniel would want me to be safe.” That, at least, was true. “Please, Birgit, go home.”

  “I’m not sure I should go back to the rooming house.” Birgit bit her lip. “No doubt the National Socialists are keeping a close eye on my Ring. You know how they want to stamp us out—sooner or later, they’ll strike.” She turned to Gretchen. “You’re truly returning to England?”

  Gretchen got up and washed her hands in the basin on the bureau, so she could hide her face from Birgit. “Yes. It’s for the best.” She sounded breathless even to her ears.

  “Maybe this could be my chance to get out of Berlin. I could go to one of the Ring’s brother groups in Dresden or Hamburg. Maybe they can get me a job as a nightclub hostess. It’d be a vast improvement over what I’ve got here. And I’ve always wanted to live by the sea.”

  “Good. That’s settled then.” Gretchen pulled a few bills from her purse and stuffed them into Birgit’s hand. She wouldn’t need them anymore. “This should be enough to pay for a train ticket to Hamburg. You should leave straightaway. Don’t go back to the rooming house, if you think it might be dangerous.”

  “I can’t take this.” Birgit tried to return the money, but Gretchen clasped her hands behind her back.

  “I’ve got plenty to
get me home,” Gretchen lied. “You’ve been a true friend to me. I’ll always be grateful to you for wanting to help Daniel.” She blinked away tears, forcing a smile. “You deserve to make a good life for yourself.”

  Birgit flung her arms around Gretchen’s neck. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You don’t have to.” Gretchen hugged her back. The contact didn’t break her, as she had feared, but felt warm and soothing. “You’d best get going.”

  “I’d better get my things from the rooming house—oh, what does it matter?” Birgit laughed, although tears glittered in her eyes. “I barely own anything, and this way I can make a fresh start.”

  She put on her hat and coat, then paused at the door to look at Gretchen. “Daniel was a good person. I hope that comforts you. After Monika was murdered, it made me feel better to remember what a sweet girl she was.”

  Gretchen swallowed against the emotion welling in her throat. “He was good. The best person I’ve ever known.”

  Birgit embraced her a final time, then slipped out the door. Motionless, Gretchen listened to her heels clack down the hallway and away from her. For several minutes she sat on the bed, listening to the sounds of the building: the low hum of a jazz tune from a room upstairs, a toilet flushing, voices from the lobby downstairs. Through the window, she glimpsed the sun, a gold coin turning to white as clouds floated across it. The world was continuing to rotate, like it had after her father’s murder. It was the same, but she was different, just as she had told Daniel when she’d tried to explain how the death of a loved one tore a hole in one’s life.

  But Daniel’s execution wasn’t merely a hole; it was an abyss. And she didn’t want to climb out of it.

  Memories streamed through her head: dancing with Daniel in a nightclub, memorizing the way the golden chandelier light reflected in his eyes, bewildered because he had seemed so human, utterly unlike the monster she’d been taught to expect; peering through a train window with Daniel, bloodied, dirty, and exhausted, watching a tiny Swiss village appear in the valley below them; and feeling Daniel’s lips brush her cheek as they stood on a ferry deck and the white cliffs of Dover rose above the blue-gray waters of the English Channel. We made it, he’d said. I knew we could do it, as long as we were together, she’d replied.

  She sagged onto her side and sobbed. How could he be dead? He’d been the most alive person she’d ever known, laughing and loud and confident. It seemed impossible that he could be gone.

  In her mind, she traced the curves of his face. His mouth would be silent now, his eyes dulled, the broad chest that she loved to rest her head on no longer rising and falling. One instant, one snap decision, and he was dead, just like Papa and Reinhard.

  Unsteadily, she got to her feet. She needed something of his, just one small thing to hold on to. She went through his suitcase. A pair of trousers. Two white shirts, a navy suit jacket. Socks, one with a hole in the heel. A comb, a toothbrush. A spiral-bound notebook. She flipped through it, but the pages were empty. Of course. Daniel hadn’t written anything down, in case the book fell into the National Socialists’ hands. Now she wished he hadn’t been so cautious. She would give anything to see his untidy handwriting again. She loved the way he wrote her name: the messy loop of the G blending into the r. He wrote exactly as he talked: quickly, the words running into one another when he was excited.

  Burying her face in his shirts, she breathed in his light, clean scent. This was all that was left of him: a couple of garments and an unfilled notebook. It wasn’t enough. Nothing here indicated that he had been a fearless reporter, a brother, a son, a friend. And the love of her life. Sobs shook her shoulders.

  Finally, she sat up, mopping her face dry with his shirt. The sky had turned the hard blue of twilight. She must have lain on the floor for an hour or two, clutching his clothes. It felt more like minutes.

  She went to the window, peering down into the street painted navy and black by the descending dusk. It was too dark for her to see clearly enough to shoot accurately. She would have to wait until tomorrow to go to the old trade union building. She knew exactly what she would do: She would surprise the men there and kill them. It didn’t matter if they were the ones who had shot Daniel. They worked at this secret execution cellar, and so they were all guilty.

  Her traitorous stomach growled and she frowned. How could she be hungry when Daniel was dead? She didn’t want to feel anything anymore, not even something as simple as hunger.

  Ignoring the cramping in her belly, she crawled onto the bed. Holding Daniel’s shirt to her chest, she inhaled his scent and lay quietly, waiting for morning.

  33

  GRETCHEN FORCED HERSELF TO EAT BREAKFAST the next day. The rolls and cheese tasted like ashes, but she choked them down anyway. She’d be useless if she didn’t keep her strength up.

  The Lange Strasse was a quiet street lined with dilapidated brick and stone buildings. A man she passed pointed out the former trade union house to her; it was a three-story structure whose windows looked like black rectangles, empty and unlit. One front door, Gretchen thought as she studied it from across the street. Presumably a back door, too, but the front would be her best bet; the back courtyard could be bordered by walls or a fence, making it difficult for her to get in and out. Not that she was concerned about escaping. She already knew that her chances of getting away were low.

  For several minutes, she pretended to flip through the newspaper she’d swiped from the lodging house lobby, studying her surroundings from the corner of her eye. Up and down the avenue, children streamed from their apartment houses, chattering with one another as they headed to school.

  A gleaming black automobile coasted to a stop in front of the union building. As Gretchen watched, two men in SA uniforms got out and jogged up the front steps. Daniel’s killers. They might not have pulled the trigger, but they worked at this place. They all had blood on their hands.

  Her heart felt as though it was being squeezed in someone’s hands, tighter and tighter until she thought it would burst. Calm down, she ordered herself. She started to let her mind empty, then stopped. This was one of the concentration tricks Hitler had taught her. It doesn’t matter, she thought fiercely. She didn’t care what she had to do, or whose advice she had to take—not as long as she could get revenge. Once again, she forced her mind to go blank, her vision sharpening until all she saw was her target, the two brown-clad backs of the SA officers. She pulled out her weapon.

  A group of little boys charged past her, giggling.

  Gretchen dropped the revolver into her purse. What the devil was wrong with her? She’d been so carried away that she’d forgotten the street was swarming with schoolchildren. Leaning against a wall, she waited for her pulse to slow. Across the street, the trade union’s front doors closed behind the men. She’d missed her chance. She couldn’t go inside—into a building whose rooms and corridors she didn’t know, with too many places where the men could hide from her.

  Cursing to herself, she huddled into her coat and resigned herself to wait.

  Over an hour passed before the doors opened again. Gretchen swept the street with her gaze: deserted except for a couple of housewives down the block, gossiping on a building’s front steps. It was time. She pulled out her revolver, hiding her hand between the folds of her coat.

  Two SA men emerged from the building. They stood on either side of a man in a dark suit, gripping his arms tightly. Slowly, the three of them started down the steps. The man in the middle moved gingerly, as though he was in pain. He tripped, his head jerking forward and his hat falling off. As he looked up, Gretchen could see his face clearly.

  Shock slammed into her. It was the fireman, Heinz Schultz.

  Why in heaven’s name was he still alive? She’d been certain that the National Socialists would kill him as soon as he was captured. They would only keep him around if he had something that they wanted. Which meant . . . whatever incriminating secret he knew about the Reichstag fire, he must not h
ave shared it yet with the National Socialists, or he would have been coming out of that building as a corpse.

  Her plans unspooled like thread. She could free Herr Schultz and find out his secret. Then she could tell it to Herr Delmer and he’d have it published in his British newspaper, just as Daniel had wanted. Whatever this fireman knew, it must be a threat to the Party’s reputation. Perhaps it would be enough to convince President Hindenburg to order Hitler expelled from office, or would forever disgrace the National Socialists. This would be her revenge, not merely on the men who’d killed Daniel, but on the entire Party. It would be a far better tribute to Daniel. He would be so pleased.

  Squinting, she raised her gun and bent her knees slightly, so the Webley’s recoil wouldn’t knock her backward. One of the men’s voices carried to her; he was saying something about his son. Her hands started shaking. They were real people, with families. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill them.

  She would have to hurt them instead. She aimed. The rest of the world melted away until all she saw was one of the SA men’s hands, raised as he gestured to his companion. She fired.

  He screamed and fell to his knees. Clutching his bloody hand in his good one, he moaned, “Help me!”

  “What—” the second SA man started to say, turning toward him. Gretchen didn’t hesitate. She aimed at his right knee and squeezed the trigger. His body jerked. Blood instantly seeped through his trouser leg. Screaming, he grabbed at his knee and sank to the ground.

  Herr Schultz stood between the two men, looking from one to the other, obviously dazed.

  “Run!” Gretchen shouted at him. “Herr Schultz, come with me right now!”

  Limping, he hurried across the street toward her. She snatched a quick impression of him—black hair, dark eyes, tattered suit, a match to the photograph she’d seen in his apartment—and she grabbed his hand, pulling him with her. Together they raced down the street, away from the SA men who were still screaming behind them.