Nest of the Monarch Read online

  Kim looked down at her bloody hands, sticky and bitterly cold. Rikard’s nostrils flared. He did not care that his wife was dead. The world seemed pitiless and evil.

  “I will take you home,” he said. The clang of an ambulance close by.

  Her mind finally kicked into gear. He was offering to drive her somewhere. She did not want to get into a car with Rikard Nagel. Looking into his pale eyes, she feared him. “My husband . . . ,” she began, trying to think of something. “He is joining me at the Esplanade. I will go with him.” He looked fixedly into her face. Did he wonder why she had been with Sonja, what she had heard? Perhaps he would not allow her to go. But then he released her arm as the ambulance workers arrived.

  Using his indecision as a window of escape, Kim turned into the crowd, making her way across the lanes of traffic to the pavement.

  At any moment Rikard might change his mind. Still, he could not have heard what Sonja said to her. Or could he?

  Guests streamed out of the hotel to look at the accident scene. Kim pushed past them, entering the lobby, thrusting her bloody hands into her pockets. Sonja was dead, came the unreal thought. And Rikard had seen her bending over his wife, murmuring to her. Anxiety made its way to the front of her consciousness. He had hypercognition: enhanced speed of deduction, a profound, accurate intuition.

  She stopped an attendant. “Is there another entrance to the hotel?”

  There was. She found it and charged into the street to find a taxi.

  Tiergartenstrasse 44 was only a few blocks away. In moments they had pulled up in front of the mansion. Rushing up to the door, she managed to form a plan: she would decamp to her safe flat before Rikard Nagel thought better of allowing her to leave. She’d keep her meeting with Hannah in a couple days, and do so from her safe flat. She ducked into the downstairs lavatory to wash the blood from her hands. Her coat! A large, shockingly red stain fringed the hem. She yanked it off, quickly rubbing the stain under running water.

  That finished, and charging into the hallway, she heard someone coming down the hall from the solarium. Folding the wet coat in her arms, she rushed up the stairs to her room. There she packed a small suitcase. Grabbed the waterproof pouch from behind Travels in Europe.

  On the table, the daily flowers: lilies. She stared hard at them. They must go in the windowsill. Someone will come to help. But she paused. Duncan had been obviously unhappy that London had given the go-ahead to extract Hannah; he was convinced Kim was a loose cannon, not under station control. First, she had run from the Gestapo; then her break-in at Treptow. Now Sonja Nagel had died in her arms—something she could not reasonably be blamed for, but Duncan might well fault her for drawing the attention of a Nazi with hypercognition. Now, if Nagel tried to arrest her, there would be another black mark against her. She didn’t need Duncan’s help, not yet. At the very least she needed time to think. She turned away from the flowers.

  Bibi appeared at the door.

  “Bibi, I am joining my husband in Bonn after all.”

  “I can help you pack, ma’am,” she said in German, reminding Kim that she had wanted to practice her German.

  “Oh, not necessary, thank you,” she said, switching to German. “Is Albert free to take me to the station?” She needed to leave quickly. Nagel might well come after her. She was the wife of a consular official, so he wouldn’t dare hurt her—or, in his state of mental imbalance, would he? What would the Nazis dare if they thought Sonja knew about Monarch and had told Kim with her dying breath?

  Bibi looked at her, her glance traveling down to her legs. “Is anything amiss, ma’am?”

  “No, not at all. If you could find Albert, please, Bibi.”

  When she was gone, Kim examined her legs. A wide streak of blood soiled the silk stocking on her left leg.

  In the lavatory she washed her leg, rinsing the blood from the basin. Snatching her suitcase, she went downstairs.

  Bibi met her at the bottom. “Albert will be just a moment.”

  “A moment? My train, Bibi.”

  “He was not dressed to properly drive you. But he is bringing the car to the side door. I would be happy to help, ma’am. Albert and I know that you have special duties that may require assistance.”

  What? They knew? Her mind flooded with questions. And suspicion. Why had Duncan not told her this? “Nothing needed, but thank you, Bibi.” Turning on her heel, she took her suitcase down the hall to the back door to hurry Albert along. She found him in the garage, dusting off his chauffeur hat.

  “Never mind that, Albert. I wish to leave immediately.”

  “I will put your suitcase on the other side,” he said. Gott im Himmel, he was moving slowly.

  Actually, delaying her.

  She stooped down and picked up the suitcase before he could take it. Hefting it into the back seat, she said, “There and done.” She slid in beside it. “Ready then, Albert?”

  They got underway, driving under the port cochere on the north side of the house and onto the Tiergartenstrasse. As they pulled into the street, Kim saw the flowers in the upstairs window.

  They hadn’t trusted her to signal for help. Bibi and Albert had taken matters into their own hands, trying to alert Berlin station that there was trouble. It had been one of Bibi and Albert’s assignments, she thought with increasing distress. Paranoia washed over her. Somehow Bibi and perhaps Albert were under the impression that she needed extra caring for. How strange, if they knew she was an undercover agent. And if they did, that they believed she didn’t have the wits to place the flower vase herself.

  What had caused Bibi to panic? Kim thought she had handled the story of her trip to Bonn rather well. Perhaps her cool facade had not gone off well. Instead of the prospect of a spur-of-the-moment holiday, Bibi might have seen in Kim a wild-eyed alarm.

  The blood on her leg might have clinched it.

  To his credit, Albert actually followed her instruction and dropped her off at Lehrter Bahnhof Station. After watching until the car had disappeared, Kim hailed a taxi to the zoological gardens on the Kurfürstendamm. Then two trams to the Alexanderplatz.

  Arriving at the great square, she checked her watch. 10:21 PM.

  She climbed the stairs to her apartment, the one no one knew about, not even the Berlin station. With shaking hands she let herself into her safe flat and leaned against the door in her wet, stained coat. The neighborhood settled around her. Her ears rang with sounds, any of which could mean pursuit.

  Turning, she locked the door.

  25

  THE AERIE

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13. Irina had been hearing gunfire in her dream, but when Polina came into the bedroom, the light from the hallway stabbing into her chamber, she knew the shots were real.

  “Your Majesty,” her attendant said. “There is trouble outside.”

  Irina threw off the covers and swung her feet to the floor. The windows dark, her maid in shadow. “What—what is it?”

  “Evgeny Feodorovich Borisov is shooting on the hill. Among the cabins.”

  “Shooting?” Irina shook off sticky tendrils of sleep. “Evgeny, shooting?”

  “Yes, so the officer has told me.”

  “Send him to me.”

  “Majesty, you must dress. I will bring a robe.”

  Irina pushed the woman toward the door. “Bring him, I say!”

  Polina fled into the hallway. Voices, one a man’s. Lieutenant Strasser entered. He bowed.

  “Your Majesty, Evgeny Feodorovich has a pistol and is shooting at trees. He is raving.”

  “No one is to harm him!”

  “We have not fired on him, but he is threatening also to kill himself.”

  “My cape, Polina!”

  “You must have shoes, Majesty, you must . . .”

  “Bring them! Hurry!”

  Buttoning her shoes, she threw a cape over her nightgown and led the way down the stairs of the chalet and through the main entrance. A blast of icy air engulfed her.

  A thi
ck frost furred the paving stones as she left with Lieutenant Strasser. They rushed across the plaza toward the trees that crowned the residence hill. “Did you try to give him his injection, his sedative?”

  “We can’t get near him, Your Majesty.”

  “How long has he been out there?”

  “Twenty minutes. We waited for him to run out of ammunition, but he has one shot left.”

  They ascended the hill. Through the trees, Irina could see guards spread out. Foremost, Stefan, who was speaking to Evgeny Feodorovich at a distance of fifteen meters.

  Stefan turned to Irina. “Your Majesty, please stay back for your safety.”

  When Evgeny saw her, he began howling. In the harsh moonlight she could see that he aimed a pistol at his head.

  “Evgeny! It is your Irinuska. All will be well, my dear.”

  “No! You will kill me!” he shouted. He looked around at the guards, some with their guns drawn.

  “Put away your weapons,” Irina called out to the soldiers. The men looked to Stefan, who nodded permission.

  “Oh,” Evgeny moaned. “Not yet, then! But soon! By your order . . .”

  “Never, Evgeny Feodorovich. Never.”

  “I have seen it.” He moaned piteously. “Put down like a useless thing, like a horse, an animal!”

  As she began to approach him, Stefan put out an arm, barring her.

  “Leave me be!” Irina hissed.

  “Your Majesty, please. Do not go closer, he is deranged.”

  Glaring at him, she said, “Stand aside.” He gave way. She moved closer to Evgeny, looking for her old friend in his wild eyes, the man who had once been all courage and strength, now standing with a gun barrel resting against his temple.

  “I am your Irinuska,” she whispered to him. “Always your Irinuska. You had a false dream, nothing more.”

  He cocked the gun.

  Stefan ran forward, and Evgeny swung the pistol around to him.

  Then from behind, an officer rushed in and threw Evgeny to the ground. As two more held his thrashing body down, one of them administered a shot. He fell limp.

  Irina knelt beside him, shaking now in the cold, in the dark of the trees. What did his vision mean, that she would kill him? That he could believe it of her . . .

  She looked around at the German soldiers. The soldiers that were sworn to protect her, but only for what she could offer Adolf Hitler: Russia. Even Stefan was not a true friend. Only Evgeny Feodorovich, only him. She put a hand on his ravaged face, wrinkled and stony cold, as though he were in fact dead . . .

  Soon he would have his well-deserved rest. Stefan had arranged that after Christmas he would go to a convalescent facility, one of the most renowned in Switzerland. They had always been together; she could hardly think what it would be like to lose him.

  Stefan helped her to her feet. “Come, Your Majesty.”

  They made their way out of the copse of trees onto the path winding among the cabins, as two guards carried Evgeny to his cabin.

  “The doctor will stay with him.” Irina said, and Stefan snapped an order to see it done.

  In Stefan’s quarters on the second floor of the Festival Hall, he turned on a lamp and settled Irina on a small couch facing the fireplace. His room was simple and spare: the couch, a desk, a small bed, a chest of drawers. She looked for some sign of Erich Stefan von Ritter the man, but he displayed no photographs or decorations of any kind. Everything in military order.

  He brought two whiskies in water glasses, nodding at her that she must drink. “Evgeny will be fine. In the morning he will have forgotten.”

  Irina began to relax, taking a sip of the harsh whisky. “What will become of us?” she whispered.

  “You will reclaim the throne, and Kolya beside you.”

  But tonight she doubted herself, and Hitler, too. “Stalin is strong. Russia is strong. You have no idea how strong.”

  “He does not have Panzers,” Stefan said. “He does not have the Wehrmacht.”

  He meant to reassure her, but his words only raised new alarms. “I send your soldiers against my own dear people.”

  “The Russian army, without a worthy leader, is undisciplined, Irinuska. I am sorry to say so, but this is the fact. If they fight, we must defeat them, but they will have a new reign of plenty once you are in the palace.”

  It was too much to contemplate. They cradled their drinks, staring at the dark fireplace as though conjuring a light that was not there.

  The divan they sat on was not wide. Stefan’s hand rested on his thigh, holding his drink, turning the glass. Warmth rose into her chest and throat in a flush of wonder that he was so close.

  He put his drink on the floor beside his boots. Then he took hers from her hands. That, too, put aside.

  The moment stretched long. She would not touch him, no, not unless he decided to take her in his arms. His choice.

  He turned to her. Then he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. The taste of him, the pressure of his lips—exquisite, as she had so often imagined. Oh, but he played with fire, did he not? Then, almost immediately, he pulled back. So he did not wish to become one of hers.

  He drew his hand down the side of her face, gently, touching her again. But one more time he pulled away. His voice, very low and deep in his throat. “I do not wish to be . . . more than I am.”

  “Does not every man wish for something more, more than he has ever had?”

  “Some do.” But not me, he left unsaid. “I would be as much as I can be. But not beyond my . . . limits.”

  Behind her hungry longing, resentment built. He could afford to think so, but he had not the touch, had not lived with its blessing. Which she knew came from God. If God had given her this gift, did he not wish for her to use it, and for souls to accept it? She could not think otherwise, lest she despise the world and God with it. She looked into Stefan’s dark eyes. Had he, even for just a moment, considered coming to her, to grow in power? Perhaps, for a moment. A split second between yes and no. Bitterness dragged at her heart.

  A knock at the door.

  Slowly, Stefan got to his feet to answer it. At the door stood Lieutenant Juergen Becht. A conversation in harsh German, and then Stefan was back.

  “Forgive me, Irina, I must leave. For Berlin.”

  “The middle of the night?”

  “They have cornered one of the Oberman Group. A terrorist.”

  She stood, laying the blanket aside. “Is it the red Jew?”

  “We have learned where she is. Lieutenant Becht will go with me, since he can identify her, having dealt with her once before.” He pulled on his greatcoat. Perhaps he had already forgotten their intimacy. “I will walk with you to the chalet.”

  “No. You must hurry. Send one of the guards to escort me.” She put her hand on his arm, cushioned by the wool of his jacket. “Take your revenge. You have waited long enough.”

  He nodded, searching her face. If he looked for signs of heartbreak, she was sure he found some.

  26

  PRENZLAUER BERG, BERLIN

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 14. Hannah and Leib shared hard tack and sardines at the kitchen table. No plates, and the table so dirty they ate from their hands. Not that they could see much of the table in the dark house in the middle of the night.

  Franz watched them eat, smoking and leaning against the sink. Micha kept vigil out the window, scratching at his neck. It had been weeks since any of them had had a bath.

  “We have a new target,” Franz said. “Belgian. Set to meet his SS handler on Friday.”

  Hannah licked her fingers clean. Her father would have cringed to see her do this. “I am tired of these miserable creatures.”

  “And what will we do with that American from Alba Cookie? There is such a city?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. Albuquerque, so her passport says.”

  Franz shrugged. “We could let her go.” Sarcastic. Prodding her.

  “Where is Zev? He was supposed to bring
the nitroglycerin.” They would assemble the dynamite at the dining room table. They depended on Zev, who had a cousin in a chemical supply company.

  No one responded to her question. They weren’t looking forward to the assembly of the shock-prone explosive.

  Hannah pushed the package of hard tack closer to Leib. He was so thin, no trousers could be found that were not twice his girth. He used a rope to hold up his pants. “We intercept them, but more come in their place. Like standing outside a cockroach hole with a hammer.”

  Leib cut a glance at her. “Please.” Delicate sensibilities, that one, when he wasn’t stuffing Gestapo exhaust pipes with flammables.

  Hannah went on. “We should strike so they feel the pain.”

  “You and your bombs,” Franz wheezed through a stream of smoke. “It is too dangerous to bomb vehicles. Now they inspect the undercarriage.”

  They were all tired, discouraged. Sometimes, when Hannah felt despair waiting at the edges, she thought of the Nazi officer, Becht, who had executed her father. The one with the scar down the middle of his cheek. The skin puckered around it, his white skin pink along that line. A face chiseled in memory. She hoped to see Lieutenant Becht again. She dreamed of it.

  Franz threw his cigarette in the sink. “We are small.” He spread his hands. “Look at us. The whole group, merely fourteen people, and some are afraid to do more. Once you are out, we have thirteen.”

  “Fourteen people can take out an SS staff car.”

  Franz ignored this as Micha crossed the room to check out the other windows. “The British aren’t going to get you out of Germany. You know that.”

  Hannah shrugged. “An open question. Maybe.”

  “Have you tried the French embassy yet?”

  The same conversations over and over. “Not yet.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t still believe that the British will help you. You must go to the French.”

  “Hear that?” Micha hissed. The sound of people running. The steps, the porch.

  Franz pulled his gun from his waistband as Hannah knocked back her chair, drawing her own.