Nest of the Monarch Read online

  A crash against the door, splintering it. Franz grabbed her by the arm and hauled her into the living room. The kitchen door collapsed. Gunfire like the end of the world.

  Through the kitchen door, for a split second Hannah saw Leib fall against the counter, bullets riddling him, blood spraying on the windows.

  Micha was still firing, but there was no way he could make it to the escape door. In the living room, Franz pulled Hannah after him through the door to the basement and closed it. They rushed down the stairs. Muffled shouts and cries from above. Running to the tarp, they crawled under it to the tunnel hole. Once through, they pushed the steel drum over the gap. It would hold for a few minutes.

  Pausing just long enough to secure their guns so that they could crawl, the two of them scrambled along the rough dirt tunnel, an escape route dug over months, leading to the brewery next door.

  “Leib and Micha.” Hannah groaned.

  “Don’t think of them. You must escape. We all agreed you must be saved.”

  “They must have picked up Zev.” She had a black moment to imagine what he would have gone through before finally giving up their location.

  They came to the iron grate in the floor of the factory. Franz pushed it up and clambered out. Around them loomed distillation tanks and a tangle of pipes. Franz drew his pistol and they stood unmoving, listening. The sweet, cloying smell of hops. From clerestory windows high above, a dusty light shone through from the street. The Gestapo were certain to search the brewery. They had to get out.

  A door creaked from somewhere. They held still, barely breathing.

  After a few moments, they heard footfalls nearby. Franz pressed Hannah against a vat, cold on her sweating skin.

  A man in an SS uniform stopped within an arm’s reach of them, looking. His profile was just visible, his dark hair under his peaked cap.

  Ah, Hannah knew this one. The handsome one, the SS colonel who had opened the vehicle door last summer. The one they had sabotaged. His men had dragged him away after the bomb fragments settled. So, he had lived. This was her chance to fix that. Hannah raised her gun.

  Franz cupped his hand around the muzzle. The report of the gun would bring them all.

  The colonel moved away, hardly making a noise, in the way of Sicherheitsdienst, the spies of the SS. He disappeared in the gloom. After a few beats, Franz moved into the corridor between the vats, gun raised. He would kill this SS man if he had to. No matter what came next. But the colonel was out of sight.

  They crept through the brewery to the alley door and stepped out into the night. Faintly, the sound of voices shouting.

  With the arrival of the SS, the street had gone vacant. Franz and Hannah would be visible if they walked on the pavement, but they risked it. Hugging the side of the tenement buildings, they slunk along, avoiding shafts of light from windows here and there. All was quiet. A slice of moon, just visible through the tattered fog, looked down on them with indifference.

  They had known it would come to this someday. The sudden crash, the doors flying open. The carnage. Leib had died the way he wanted to. Quickly. Hannah hoped Micha would be as lucky. Hoped it for herself. Someday. Perhaps tonight.

  Then someone came around the corner a hundred meters away. Saw them. Gun raised, the man shouted for them to stop.

  Hannah and Franz ducked into a dark alley. At the end, a tall fence blocking the passage, barring escape.

  “Go!” Franz hissed. “Go!”

  “The fence. No use!”

  “Climb it, goddamn it. Go!”

  Then, to her horror, he walked out into the street, hands raised.

  He was giving her time to run, but how far could she get? Franz, you fool, we could have killed him, we could have . . .

  Franz said something to the Gestapo agent, the one just out of Hannah’s view. She began backing up. She turned and ran down the alley. The fence, very high, three meters or more. No handholds, none she could even jump to. She saw that the buildings here were built of stone, uneven and rough-hewn. Pushing her feet against the building and her hands against the fence, she began edging her way up the corner.

  In the street, Franz still stood with his hands in the air. Someone was shouting at him. Oh, Franz . . .

  Then he turned the gun inward, at his face. The sound of the gunshot.

  At the top of the fence, she let herself topple over. Hitting the ground with terrible force, her knees buckled, pain stabbed her feet, a hundred nails. The view of Franz in the street, gun rising to point not at the SS officer, but himself.

  As she hobbled and limped away, tears welled, slid down her face. Was it for Franz? Or was it just the cold wicking water from her eyes?

  All so dark, the moon useless, the tenements saving electricity and lamp oil. She ran blindly down alleys and pathways and through courtyards where dogs erupted in snarls and down stone steps smelling of piss and slime. Then, the danger past, she slowed. Normal steps, a plain woman, a regular night.

  It was bitterly cold. She remembered that she had left her jacket with the ivory buttons on the chair in the kitchen. Something welled up inside her at this loss, but then she recalled that she had no emotions.

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. So, then, it was the cold.

  PART III

  A TOUCH OF MADNESS

  27

  A TERRACE ON THE SCHIFFBAUERDAMM

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15. Just when Kim wanted it the least, the sun came out. Gone was the cloaking fog of the last weeks, now when she feared having been followed. If not by Alex’s Gestapo friends, then by the SS. And if so, she would be leading them right to Hannah Linz. The Spree glared in the sunshine where the early-morning rays slanted between the cafés and posh apartment buildings.

  Her disguise was simple: a long gray coat, wool hat, and glasses—all stored against necessity at her safe flat. But she found herself alone on the pavement, as she logically would be this early, with the cafés not yet open.

  It was 8:47 AM. She had fallen into bed the night before, exhausted, fleeing the shocking events of the day. At 8:10 AM she had jolted awake, knowing immediately that she should find a telephone and call Duncan’s secure line. But she had previously told Hannah to come to a meeting place at nine in the morning and then, if she could not, nine at night.

  She watched the approaches. On foot, by boat, the S-Bahn—there were many paths through Berlin, defying the Nazi preference for control. Just one of many circumstances that helped to foil their purposes.

  While she tried mightily to stay on mission, her thoughts staggered back to last night: the Esplanade, the traffic converging on the intersection, Sonja lying in the street, blood thickening in her hair. Rikard Nagel watching it all impassively. That agile mind—perhaps even at this stage festering, demented—trying to discern what place Elaine Reed had in relation to his wife, in relation to Monarch.

  But he had let her go. She played her diplomatic card, my husband is meeting me, and it had given him pause as she wound her way back through traffic to the Esplanade and Tiergartenstrasse 44.

  And now here Hannah was, her hair covered by a tam, wearing a raincoat belted tightly and carrying a prim little handbag that probably contained a Luger.

  “The Neues Theater, back door,” she said as she walked past.

  It was a place Kim didn’t know. She followed Hannah at a distance and saw her enter a side door of a baroque building with a distinctive tall roof.

  Kim entered, finding herself in an unlit hallway.

  “This way,” Hannah said, appearing for a moment on a flight of stairs, and then leading her backstage, behind the proscenium arch, a cramped space smelling of dust, glue, and sweat.

  Hannah faced her, waiting.

  “We’re going to get you out,” Kim said.

  Hannah snorted. “Are you. Finally you decide?”

  A lone lightbulb showed swags of curtains and high above, a catwalk with spheroid lights perching like owls. “We need to move quickly. I may be followed.”r />
  Hannah walked out of the wings onto the stage. It did not seem the right move, but Kim joined her. The auditorium was a cavern, washed with a gray light from the open doors leading into the lobby.

  “Franz is dead.” Hannah stood with her hands in her coat pockets, her shoulders slumped.

  “Oh no, Hannah. How?”

  “They captured one of ours. An interrogation, you understand? Then the raid. Geheime Staatspolizei and Schutzstaffel.”

  The Nazis were closing in on Oberman. “You need to come in today. We can get you to safety.”

  Hannah stared into the auditorium. “I’m not coming.”

  Kim tried to absorb the words. Not coming? After all this?

  “Franz was always the one in charge. He wished to keep me out of German hands. He wished me to help the British create better Talents. To get ready for war.” She turned to smirk at Kim. “A safe little job. Laying hands on your darkening Talents and hyperempaths.”

  She wasn’t going to come over. The conviction was clear in her face. But now what? Kim found herself on a stage without knowing the play.

  Hannah murmured, “Now it is up to us to stop Monarch.”

  “Us?” Outside, a boat horn blared. Kim was conscious of the life of Berlin swirling around this theater, the conflicting desires, ideologies, plotlines. And here she was, engulfed in Hannah’s raison d’etre. To strike at the Nazis. By whatever means.

  “We will kill Irina Dimitrievna Annakova.”

  Kim looked at her in mute incredulity.

  “I have the way in. To the nest. But it must be now, when they are preparing for their operation—”

  “The operation? They are launching an operation now, with the Nachkommenschaft?”

  “Yes. The day after Christmas. And because of this, many people are arriving to have purification from Annakova. You will not be noticed among so many.”

  Her? She wanted her to go in? No, she was so wrong. Deluded.

  “Hannah,” she said, hoping to reach her with logic. A logic that might have no effect on someone with her frightening focus. “We’re all at risk if one of your group goes under questioning. Did they know about your mole at the Aerie? Did they know about me, who I am? It will all come out.”

  “No, no. Zev was a supplier. He knew nothing except where we were last night.” She maintained her gaze, waiting for Kim to step up. Become one of them.

  That was not going to happen. Going into the Aerie was outrageous; it was surely fortified, heavily guarded, impossible. Even if such a thing could be done, it could not be her. It would require a trained assassin.

  “Come in first, Hannah. Before we go so far.”

  Hannah rounded on her. “Franz is dead. Germany is dying by degrees. I will not run to England. I never wanted to, and now that Franz is gone, I do not report to him. And I am going to stop Monarch.”

  “If you fail, you’ll expose your informant among them. After that, they will be much harder to penetrate. You’re rushing into this. It won’t work.”

  Hannah was unmoved. “You can get in. I have arranged it.”

  The woman was infuriating. “My people won’t allow it. I’m not an assassin. I don’t have enough German. I’m a spill, that’s all.”

  “You are perfect. I need a woman who does not speak German.” She paused. “Besides, I will not work with anyone else.”

  Kim doubled down, trying to salvage this. “You need to work with us. We already know that the operation, the Aerie you described, is near a place called Tolzried. Give us a chance to form a plan.”

  Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Tolzried? What makes you think so?”

  “I knew Sonja Nagel, wife of a Nachkomme named Rikard Nagel. I met him at a diplomatic function. She was afraid of him, I think. And died in a traffic accident Wednesday.”

  “Murdered, then.”

  “Maybe. But she wanted me to know where the Aerie was.” She thought of Sonja lying in the street, dying, and her husband watching her, providing no comfort. “I think Rikard Nagel may suspect me of spying.”

  Hannah’s chin jerked up. “Why would he suspect you?”

  “Because, when his wife lay dying, she unburdened herself of things she knew. I was alone with her for a few minutes. And when he came to Sonja’s side, I thought he knew that she had told me things. He disliked that Sonja and I were friendly. But we were in the middle of a busy street, and I told him my husband was on the sidewalk. I left before he could decide to arrest me. I’m at a safe house no one knows about.”

  “Your people leave you to fend for yourself?”

  “I’m to come in and let someone else deal with you.”

  “Ah. I am to be dealt with. Forgive me, but I do not think so. I have had enough of obedience and of your people here in Berlin and your chiefs in London. They have been saying no for weeks. Now I am saying no.”

  They stared at each other. Kim’s curiosity got the best of her. “How can the nest be infiltrated?”

  “I will tell you. Later.”

  Kim smirked. “A better plan than the sanatorium?”

  “Oh, yes, much better. You will approve it.” Hannah’s gaze went up to the balcony as though looking for something.

  “I once had a theater,” she said. “In the old days it was a stage, but in my time, a cinema. Years before, my father and I assumed I would go into the law. Not a profession for women, but I wanted it. He had a friend at university, and they had a program where the chair allowed women. It was all arranged. After the National Socialists grew strong . . . it was all over. We took on the cinema. For a while. But now there is nothing left, not even the Oberman Group.” She looked at Kim, her face all of a sudden very young, lost in memories of things she could not change, things that required her to be hard. “Life is different now. But there are still things I can do.”

  “Hannah . . . I need to think.”

  “All right. One day.” She wrapped her trench coat belt more tightly around her waist. “And do not betray me, Elaine Reed.”

  Was she talking about betrayal to the Germans? Or the British? Kim badly needed to sort things out.

  “I may be followed by the Gestapo,” Kim said. “I’m staying in a safe flat, so don’t call me at home. How can we meet?”

  “Come to Prenzlauer Berg.” She gave an address. “Take the little path on the side next to the brick shed. At 4:10 tomorrow afternoon. I will find you in the back. If you are followed, go to the used bookstore at the end of the block and buy books by Friedrich Hegel, their specialty, and turn the spine of The Philosophy of Right to face the back. Then I will know to find you instead back here at 11:00 PM.”

  They walked into the deeper shadows of the stage wings.

  Hannah said, “You are not going to do it, are you.” Despite these words, her face uncharacteristically held hope and vulnerability.

  “I have no bloody idea what I’m going to do.”

  Unfortunately, it was the truth.

  THE ALEXANDERPLATZ

  AN HOUR LATER. “Let me speak to Duncan.”

  The person who had answered the telephone said, “Give me your number, and we will call you.”

  Ten minutes later the telephone in the phone box rang. She picked up the earpiece. Duncan identified himself; it was his voice.

  “I’m using my safe flat,” she told him. “Things have happened.”

  “Yes, all right. What’s happened?”

  “Well, you already know some of it. Because you’ve had Bibi and Albert watching me.”

  “Watching your back.”

  Making sure she toed the line. Maybe that was normal procedure. Or was it? Duncan might be playing for the wrong side. Why wouldn’t he have told her at the start that she could rely on Bibi in a pinch?

  “I’m being watched. Gestapo.”

  “We’ll come for you. Where are you?”

  She watched the street, the pavement. She was like Franz and his group in their hideout, expecting a chase at any moment.

  “Last nig
ht Sonja Nagel was struck by a car and killed. I was with her. She was lying in the street. She told me her husband is a Nachkomme, called him a fiend. This is the operation I was sent here to uncover.”

  She couldn’t prolong this call, but she did want to put Alex on the watch list. “I don’t trust Alex Reed. He might have put them onto me.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  Absurd. There she went again, jumping to conclusions.

  Then his voice, more conciliatory. “What makes you think so?”

  In the crowds of the plaza, two men in fedoras, long coats. She kept them in view. She had things to report and must do so quickly.

  The silence stretched out. “Elaine, let us come for you. Where are you?”

  In a phone box in the Alexanderplatz, she didn’t say. Surprising herself. Instead: “I’m in contact again with Hannah.”

  “If you’re being followed you’ll lead them right to her. Listen. Someone else will handle the extraction. Come in.”

  Kim scanned the busy square, watching for men pretending to look in shop windows. She should have waited for the cover of night. But it was all happening so fast.

  “I don’t think I can come in.”

  A long silence.

  “Hannah says they’re going to let the Nachkommenschaft loose right after Christmas. And she won’t work with anyone else.”

  “What does she want to do?”

  “Kill the catalyst.” She was using all the forbidden words, forgetting the code terms. Demonstrating incompetence. And there was worse to come.

  “This is too big for you,” Duncan said.

  “I know. But if I leave her now, she cuts us off.”

  “She needs us, though. Offer her money. Fifty thousand would not be too much. If it’s not money, then anything she wants.”

  “That’s the trouble. She wants me.”

  “Christ. And she won’t work with people experienced at this sort of thing?”

  How to convey to him the sort of person Hannah Linz was. A woman who only trusted those whom she had tested. A woman whose family and friends had been brutalized, murdered, and their just cause ignored by British interests. But no was her simple answer.