Nest of the Monarch Read online

  A loose end: the cover I was given in Berlin is almost certainly compromised. Alex told me a piece of information that he got from a routine stop at a railway station where I was subjected to a few questions from a Gestapo agent. Clearly, they reported on me to him. If it’s important to you; maybe you already knew.

  So. All laid out now. I don’t trust your handling of this mission. I suppose that means, as you said, that I’ve fallen a very long way. It’s war, or nearly. I just wanted to say that as I see it, I am loyal to our country and doing the right thing.

  If the plane doesn’t show up, I’ll try to get to Berlin and will contact you. I guess I can’t leave flowers in the window, can I? And on that subject, I still think it was rotten to rent that mansion on Tiergartenstrasse when it belonged to a family who were hounded out of their home because of their religion. I hope you investigate and write up a report. We may not be able to stop the Nazis from their persecutions, but we don’t have to help them, either.

  —Elaine

  31

  THE POTSDAMER BAHNHOF, BERLIN

  LATER THAT DAY. Clutching her small suitcase, Kim stood in the great Potsdamer train station. All of Berlin’s train stations held a grandeur that Germans lavished on transport: a celebration of industry, timeliness, outsize beauty.

  Luther would find her here, next to the ladies’ powder room. She must stand holding her hat, not wearing it. She had not been given any clues as to his appearance, except that he would ask if she was Nora Copeland.

  Trapped between the distant ceiling and the tile floor, the unearthly rumble of a thousand voices echoed in the booking hall. By the great clock it was 3:19 PM. The meeting time, 3:30. If the meeting time had been just an hour later, she could have slept for an hour. If she could just lie down on a bench, even the roar of the depot would not disturb her.

  Through the boarding gates she saw the locomotives huffing and venting. In this temporary anonymity, Kim felt a momentary urge to flee. Maybe to Paris. This mission was exceedingly dangerous. And what if Hannah knew there was no emergency back way out of the Aerie? Did she consider Kim expendable? She could not really believe it, and yet Paris beckoned. One way, please. When is the next train? Until three thirty she would be unknown to anyone in the station. She could still escape this. But then she thought about the Nazi asset Irina Annakova and, like a bubble popping, her doubts evaporated. If it worked, it would be a triumph. As for Hannah, they were a team.

  Her intention was strong; her mood, calmly assured. Yet she had to admit that all this confidence was somehow . . . not quite right.

  The incessant clatter of voices made it seem as though she were adrift in a realm where everyone spoke their thoughts at once, interrupted by enormous, sonorous declarations from the gods: announcing, for example, the late arrival of the train from Frankfurt. How fanciful. But were her ears more sensitive? Were the lights suspended on decorative poles from the ceiling unnecessarily bright? What was her Talent rating?

  “Excuse me, are you Miss Nora Copeland?”

  Kim swallowed a chirp of surprise. “Oh. Why yes, I am.”

  Before her stood a stocky man in civilian clothes. “I am Luther,” he said in English. The hand outstretched. She shook it.

  “It has been inconvenient for you to be late.” Said reasonably enough. She was five days late, to be exact.

  “I’ve been sick. I couldn’t even leave my hotel.”

  He narrowed his eyes, appraising her. She had reddened her nose and used ample powder. No lipstick. “I’m so glad you didn’t give up on me.”

  “That remains to be seen.” He looked her over as she did him. He wore his hair shaved close on the sides of his head. White hair on top, grown longer. “You were told to be wearing a warm coat.”

  “I am wearing a coat.” It was a long jacket. All that she and Hannah had been able to find in the rush to get her to the appointment.

  “Carl Meed was supposed to tell you what to wear. Didn’t your New Mexico contact give you instructions?”

  “Meed? I don’t know him. My contact was Ken Meyers. And yes, he told me to dress warmly. As you see, I have.” Suddenly she had doubts about Nora Copeland. Who knew how far a committed fascist would go—even down to jeopardizing her own life—to resist divulging information? But Copeland didn’t know which information was crucial. She could not guess that someone would try to replace her and how crucial certain information would be to her captors.

  Luther snorted as though her knowing that it was Ken, not Carl, was some kind of trick that he was too clever to believe.

  “I should leave you here. Our project does not favor irregularities. Or people who do not follow orders.”

  She didn’t need to fake dismay. “I am so sorry, Herr Luther. Sir. I have done everything I thought was required. Perhaps I did not understand?”

  Glancing at the tower clock in the hall, he made an impatient face and picked up her suitcase. He gestured her to accompany him past the booking desks.

  She had passed. So far. Her confidence surged as she began to trust her cover. Kim had an alter ego that over the past few months she had learned to use. The sincere, rather clueless woman, eager to please. Her witless American role, as Owen Cherwell had first identified it when they had been hunting down the Ice conspiracy.

  “Will we be traveling by train? I love trains. So much more dependable than ships. I mean, one can debark at any time. Not all cooped up.” She looked around her in a show of amazement at the station.

  “Oh, yes. Our trains go everywhere. They will need to when Berlin is the capital of the world.”

  “How thrilling!” He led her to a little eatery tucked behind the front portal of the station. She hoped she was not going to have to eat. Her stomach, all nerves, sent zinging waves across her middle.

  He ordered two coffees, black, and one pastry.

  “You do not appear ill to me, Miss Copeland. I am no doctor, but . . .” He shrugged amiably, as though catching her in a lie to her Nazi employers would be merely a faux pas. Now with a good view of him sitting opposite her, she noted his dark, intelligent eyes. She had hoped for someone brutish and slow. A flunky. But now: Luther.

  She trotted out her story of the bad shellfish. A few embellishments, creating a drama of being on board a rolling ship and nauseated, the food on the room service trays never touched, the worry at having missed her appointment . . .

  He smirked. “You did not foresee the poisoned seafood?”

  She ignored this with a little frown of confusion. Nora Copeland could not guess that they had mistaken information about her precognition Talent. And this reference was a tad obscure to focus upon.

  “I hope that my not speaking German won’t be a difficulty,” she said. “I’ve been studying, but haven’t gotten far along.”

  “Don’t give them any reason to reject you,” Luther said, as though her not speaking German was a transgression she could avoid. It would be a long journey with this man who apparently enjoyed putting people in their place and making them squirm.

  “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  He looked at her skeptically. “Your passport, then.” He held out his open hand. She put Joel’s handiwork in it.

  After studying it for several minutes, he said, “The woman from the unpronounceable city.”

  She smiled. “It’s not unpronounceable, it’s just spelled badly.”

  His expression remained locked. No room for lightness. “Tell me about Albuquerque.” Murdering the word. She did not correct him.

  “Flat, but mountains ringing it. Hot and dry like every cowboy movie you’ve ever seen. Not a grand city like Berlin. Ruined by the remnants of native culture. A lot of cheap silver jewelry crafted by people who can’t hold their liquor. You’re lucky you don’t have to put up with that.”

  “We have our own vermin.”

  She paused too long before saying, “Yes, we have those too.”

  He looked at her as though having Jews in America were her fau
lt. The coffee having arrived, the conversation—the interview—lapsed, and he cut the pastry in half, shoving her portion toward her. German thrift.

  At her expression—sincere repulsion this time—he laughed. “You would prefer a rare slice of veal?” He shook his head. “Never mind, you will see the joke, eventually.”

  “I’m afraid I can eat nothing right now.” The echoing shouts from the Great Hall and the train shed had begun to exceedingly grate on her. Her senses, painfully vivid. She put her hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. This seemed to help.

  “You do not feel well?”

  She collected herself, her hands in her lap. “Better every day.” Worse by the hour. Unless it was her imagination. Hannah had said, Do not talk yourself into something.

  Luther finished his pastry, then her portion. Wiping the crumbs from his mouth with a napkin, he checked his pocket watch. “We must be going, Fräulein.”

  Instead of heading for the train platforms, he led her outside to the taxi stand.

  “I thought we were going by train.”

  He beckoned a taxi. “We are.”

  Twenty minutes later they were at the Lehrter Bahnhof. The great, vaulted transport palace. This had been her first real look at Berlin. That had been in October, seven weeks ago, a period that found her in Europe for the first time, pretending to be married to a charming man who betrayed her, being shot at by the Gestapo, making friends with a cynical journalist and a desperate wife of a Nachkomme, and meeting and coming under the spell of Hannah Linz, the woman who had no fear of death, who reveled in danger, free of nuance and the craving for love.

  October seemed very far in the past.

  Luther took her arm and pulled her directly through the arched entry to the train platform. A locomotive waited in its bay, venting gouts of steam as passengers boarded. Leipzig, Nuremburg, Stuttgart. He had already bought their tickets; the train was preparing to depart. Anyone following them who had not previously bought a ticket would miss this train. Luther was careful. He’d done this before.

  Boarding the train she was very conscious of being on her own. She worked alone, or practically so. These last few days with Hannah had been a welcome comfort. But Kim did not have an Oberman Group; she had SIS, for what it was worth. There had been a time when she’d been thrilled to be part of it.

  The club of spies. And was she in that club, truly? Perhaps always a marginal player; women made good informants but were not trusted as agents.

  Well, now she had proven them right.

  Hannah watched as the two of them boarded the train for Stuttgart. Kim had passed her first test with the Nazis. And if she had failed? Hannah had a Luger in her coat pocket, but unless inspiration struck, she would have had little chance of rescuing Kim had they arrested her.

  She checked Kim’s watch. It was a jeweled watch with a square face, too delicate for Hannah’s taste, but it did keep good time. 5:10 PM. They would arrive at the nearest station, in Miesbach, by 2:00 AM. Here, the SS stored a car in a garage, and from there, it was twenty-five minutes to the Aerie.

  Then Kim’s second test: the intake center at the control post. It was a delicate matter to substitute the spill for precognition as Nora Copeland’s Talent.

  But when lying, it was best to be outrageous. To let them catch you in a big mistake, and then acknowledge it. Yes, a mistake. How clever of you to notice this. You are right, I am not a precognition! And then she is female, and looking so innocent. Not too pretty—the Nazis think female spies will be beautiful to snare officers—but then pretty enough, so the SS are disposed to help her, maybe a little. Add to that getting the sanitary pads past security, where they normally took all your possessions; Kim would pretend to be having her monthly so she could at least wear a pad in.

  The third test: the Russian witch. The purification. Nothing must prevent Kim from fitting in with the others, being a part of the Christmas Day ceremony.

  Kim would do very well. She had faced off with several Nachkommen already, so she would not lose her resolve. She had seen the worst.

  There was nothing more Hannah could do for her. A pang of worry hit her squarely. She was used to taking on the most dangerous jobs herself and now it was Kim Tavistock out in front. If the mission fell apart, it would do so disastrously. Kim’s life would be on her conscience for a very long time.

  Her cigarette had burned down while she had watched the train leave the station. She ground it out in the ashtray by the wall. You grind it out on the cement platform and they scold you. If you are a Jew, maybe they shoot you.

  Ja. And some Jews shoot back.

  Buttoning her coat, she left the Lehrter Bahnhof and walked into the Berlin night, snowflakes falling here and there, catching the lamplight.

  32

  THE INTAKE CENTER, THE AERIE

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17. The Nachkommenschaft had begun arriving at the intake center for the Christmas purification ceremony.

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner put on his most reassuring demeanor in front of the patient seated opposite him. He leaned forward, clasping his hands on the desk, using the soothing, calm smile he had perfected as medical officer to what the Party called the Progeny.

  This Nachkomme presented as characteristically slim. His wrists, heavily corded with muscle. Blond hair, what little there was, combed neatly over the enlarging dome of his head.

  “And how are you sleeping, Herr Stuckart?”

  This one was a civilian. He had been valuable in augmenting pro-Nazi demonstrations in Vienna. His 7.6 transport Talent, most useful. He had a finely tuned mastery of aim and could create panic in crowds. Rocks, small articles, sent hurtling a distance of five meters or more. Unfortunately, Josef Stuckart might be losing value.

  “I do sleep. Very occasionally.”

  “How often do you sleep?”

  “On Sundays.” Josef Stuckart stared rudely at him, half amused. This was typical of the Progeny. An attempt at dominance, even here, in a physician’s office. Perhaps Stuckart did not understand that he was facing a man whom Himmler trusted absolutely in evaluations of this sort.

  He checked a box. Once a week.

  “Your appetite?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a strong appetite?”

  “It is difficult to find a good cook.”

  “Naturally. But your wife prepares adequate meals?”

  “She died.”

  The doctor checked Loss of appetite.

  Stuckart turned toward the window, frowning. The blinds were drawn, but little cracks between the slats let in vicious strips of light.

  Kaltenbrunner got up and pulled the drapes closed. While he did so, he felt a frisson of anxiety, having his back to the Nachkomme. The reports of insubordination, lapses of judgment. He took his seat safely behind the desk again. In the upper right-hand drawer, his pistol.

  “Your mood is . . . ?”

  “My mood?”

  “Yes. You are reasonably content? Troubled in any way?”

  “An interesting question.”

  “I mean for it to be.” He would not tolerate insolence.

  “Let me see. This morning I woke in the hostel where I have a room. My flatmate was playing the gramophone, which woke me. I rid him of the phonograph record. I flung it into the hillside snow bank where it buried itself. My roommate objected. For this, I beat him soundly. The proprietor knocked at the door, objecting to the noise, for Alfred was howling most annoyingly. I had stuck the phonograph needle in his eye. Then I demanded that the pension cook find me a suitable meal. When she offered bread and no apology, I caused her some consternation by wrapping her apron around her neck and squeezing, just a little. Eventually a meal was found, and my mood improved. Then the car came for me and, upon arriving here, I have had to endure your aimless and pompous questions. But I would say my moods are within range of what is normal. Wouldn’t you?”

  Another tick mark on the sheet. Mood swings.

  When the form was completely filled
out, Kaltenbrunner handed Stuckart an issuance card marked Special Assignment. It was unfortunate, but some individuals did not seem to tolerate repeated purifications, slipping into mental conditions that made them undependable, not useful to the Reich. Stuckart’s record showed compliance with the ninety-one-day uplift intervals, but his constitution appeared unsuited to further enhancements.

  As he opened the door for the patient, he observed a commotion in the waiting room. An SS captain strode up to Kaltenbrunner and clicked his heels. “Herr Doctor, Her Royal Majesty is outside.”

  “Outside?”

  “Yes, she is just getting out of the motorcar.”

  “Mein Gott,” he hissed under his breath, and shoved past the officer toward the front door. “Why is she here, Captain von Lossberg? Why did no one inform me?” He straightened his smock coat, furious that he did not have time to change into a decent suit.

  “We had no word that she would come down, Herr Doctor.”

  Kaltenbrunner burst out onto the icy, shoveled steps just as Madame Annakova—as he thought of her; he would not think of her as Her Royal Majesty—was handed out of the car by an attendant. Her son followed her out, that fool of a boy in a tsarist naval uniform, and there they stood, dressed in furs as though this was a Russian winter.

  “Your Majesty.” Kaltenbrunner turned to her son. “Your Highness. What a delightful surprise.” His French was imperfect; he hoped he could understand hers.

  “Oh, Dr. Kaltenbrunner, we were eager to see the arrivals,” she said in French. “I hope it is not inconvenient.” A light snow was falling and, settling into Annakova’s dark hair, it looked fetchingly like jewels.

  “Of course not! We are delighted. And the Nachkommenschaft will be honored by your visit.” It was an alarming turn of events. The Progeny had not been sorted through yet. If any of them got out of hand in her presence, it would raise uncomfortable issues.

  He led her into the intake center—a converted barracks—and instantly, those occupying it were on their feet. The SS officers, straight as sticks, saluting; the civilians bowing, the few female Nachkommin curtsying.