Nest of the Monarch Read online

  The streets, loud and boulevarded, were crowded with streetcars, motorcars, and double-decker omnibuses packed with people. They crossed the Pariser Platz with the monumental Brandenburg Gate hung with red, white, and black vertical banners, effectively conveying Teutonic grandeur. Alex had pointed out the British embassy, occupying the Palais Strousberg, with its three-stories-high portico and flanking columns. She had noted the British flag, and some distance away, the French on its own embassy.

  This was the Germany of the newsreels, the Berlin of Nazi propaganda. And it had been the home ground of Erich von Ritter, a most particular spy whom she had hunted, evaded, and eventually brought down during the Prestwich affair. Von Ritter, appearing at first to be merely a friend of a fascist-leaning Georgi Aberdare, had been Sicherheitsdienst, SD, the intelligence arm of the SS. As he lay dying in the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, von Ritter—she had called him Erich at the last, hadn’t she?—knew that the invasion plan had failed. Then, from behind the ancient stone walls, the fateful report of the gun. Rather than be captured, he had killed himself.

  After that, and to her delight, the exclusive club of the Secret Intelligence Service had decided to take her in. Kim had not only stymied the invasion plot, she had done so without any assistance whatsoever from His Majesty’s Government.

  And now here she was.

  A knock on the door. Bibi came in with a small stack of cards on a silver salver. No one, Kim had been told, went anywhere without leaving a calling card. Hers read Mrs. Elaine Reed, Tiergartenstrasse 44, Berlin, in flowing script with a gold edge. If one wished to appear more friendly to someone, one would remove a pen from one’s bag and cross out the last name.

  “Do you approve, ma’am?” Bibi said in German.

  “Ja, danke, Bibi.” How efficient they were here. In less than a week the entire house had been organized, staffed, calling cards made, and her first social engagements calendared, all without her even being here.

  When Bibi left, Kim opened the door, allowing the sounds of the household to float up. She really must study her German for an hour or so, an undertaking very suited to her. Already memorized: 472 words. She added eight words a day—Mein Gott, some of them frightfully long—and recorded them in a small notebook that she kept in her handbag. She did so like orderly lists. And if she was to have future postings, languages would be essential. She very much hoped that there would be future missions. Sometimes her thoughts drifted to Robert—often in uniform, always spotless—and he would nod to her. Not in admiration, nothing like that, but she imagined a sober approval.

  She went to the window and looked down on the sunny back garden. Red-orange leaves studded the manicured lawn, and in the herbaceous beds a few mounds of purple mums still lingered.

  Albert, his tonsured white head bent over his task, was crouched among them, dead heading, placing the spent flowers in a wicker basket.

  4

  THE STADTSCHLOSSE, BERLIN

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1. In the grand vestibule of the Berliner Stadtschlosse the servant carried an enormous silver tray with petit fours ringing a large-domed server. It was a heavy load that the girl must pretend to carry with ease, if she was to look like a waitress at the opening of the anti-Soviet, anti-Semitic art exhibition. Through the open doors of the palace entrance she could see a squad of black uniforms lined up in the plaza awaiting the motorcade. Soon the vestibule would be swarming with SS functionaries, including Reich minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

  She approached the rounded starting step of the staircase behind which she would place the tray. At that moment a Nazi guard turned from his survey of the plaza and spied her. He raised an abrupt hand.

  His boots clicked like breaking glass against the floor as he approached. Taking in her black server uniform with starched white apron, he barked, “Why are you here?”

  “The reception. . . ,” she began, but he stopped her.

  Reaching over the tray—her heart almost stopping—he snatched her identity card hanging by a lanyard around her neck. The card was among the Oberman Group’s best forgeries. The guard released the card and looked her over for any signs of non-Aryan stupidity.

  Her hands sweated so badly she feared she might drop the tray. “Please, I’m sorry, but the reception—”

  “Will be in the garden, you idiot!” Annoyed, but eyeing the sweets on the tray.

  At least a minute gone. “Have one, why don’t you?” she said.

  She saw that outside, the doors of a Mercedes were open and peaked hats were ducking out, receiving salutes. She longed for it to be Goebbels, and that he would come straight into the vestibule. So even if the device went off with her still holding the tray, at least that cockroach would be gone. The timing of the detonation had been a source of argument between her and Franz. Three minutes, they had finally decided. If only it could have been four!

  The guard looked up at the sharp Heil Hitlers coming from outside. Distracted, he waved her off.

  With sweat now gripping her neck with a cold fist, she scuttled away. The guard turned to Goebbels’ imminent arrival in the hall. Hannah quickly placed the tray out of sight on the floor behind the curve of the stair and walked purposefully away.

  Reaching the back hallway, she turned in the direction opposite from the kitchen. Her strides lengthened. Another person walked toward her, then entered a side room. She broke into a run. It was a long way to the square of light that marked the door into the interior courtyard. She charged down the deserted corridor as though in a dream, the exit impossibly far away.

  When the explosion came, it was a thunderous bellow accompanied by a tremor in the floor. At her side, a mirror fell from its perch, shattering, hurtling silver shards into her arm. She felt nothing but thornlike pricks and cold air as she ran. A drift of plaster dust escaped like smoke from a carved door. Then all was quiet. Her ears felt plugged with wool. Bursting into the courtyard, she found herself in unearthly quiet. A gardener stood, shears in hand, looking at the door from which she had just come. She whipped off her apron and covered her bloody arm before he could take note of her injuries.

  As she walked past him, she nodded. If he thought it odd that she had wrapped an apron over her arm, he gave no indication. The focus of his curiosity appeared to be the muffled noise that had come from the palace interior.

  Once on the other side of the courtyard, she slipped into the south wing and from there through stately rooms with pictures the size of houses. She ditched the bloodied apron and, to stanch her cuts, took up a brocaded napkin that lay on a table. At last she spied the exit and walked nonchalantly onto the great plaza.

  The Berliner Stadtschlosse was on an island in the Spree, a location once selected by a king to build a keep.

  As she emerged outside, she heard shouts and screams from the main entrance far behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw smoke billowing from the Stadtschlosse and soldiers spreading out to form a cordon. They were still some two hundred meters away. She meandered toward the bridge.

  Franz was waiting there. He held out a coat for her, but noting her injury, he placed it over her shoulders, leading her away. From his pocket Franz took out a scarf and helped her tie it around her head. The woman with the red hair was known to the SS.

  Looking straight ahead as they walked, he snarled, “Are you hurt, then?” They had argued about her placing the bomb. It could have been anyone in the Oberman Group, but Hannah had insisted she be the one.

  “I am all right. Some glass. Nothing.” People on the bridge had stopped to stare at the chaotic scene in front of the palace. She and Franz walked unhurriedly across the bridge as a breeze carried the smell of burning chalk and stone.

  “Did we get him?” Hannah whispered.

  “No. He stopped outside to talk.” With a firm grip on her good arm, he pulled her along faster. “You risked your life for nothing.”

  Their car was waiting for them on the Unter den Linden.

  When they ducked into the
back seat, Micha pulled the car into traffic, quickly finding anonymity in the lunchtime press of trams and motorcars.

  Franz pulled down the coat to look at her arm. Blood ran in rivulets from several slivers of mirror embedded in her skin. “You’ll live.” Wry. She was wounded, had accomplished nothing. No doubt he was thinking that next time perhaps she would listen to reason.

  Franz lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke in irritation. “You are too valuable for this kind of work. You need to get out.”

  “Out?” Her heart stopped thumping loudly in her chest, and she began to shiver. He replaced the coat around her shoulders.

  She went on. “How do I get papers to leave? They’re all looking for the red-haired Jewess.”

  “If you had listened to me from the start. If you didn’t love bombs so much.”

  She sliced a look at him. “You think I do?”

  Micha made a half turn toward them. “Shut up, can’t you? She’s bleeding.”

  Pulling the coat more firmly around herself, Hannah murmured, “And it wasn’t for nothing. Once again, they notice us.”

  Franz snorted. But he patted her knee. They were both hunted Jews. They had to stick together.

  5

  THE TIERGARTEN, BERLIN

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3. Kim strolled through the Tiergarten. Berlin’s enormous central park was a paradise of mature sentinel trees, statuary, and meandering pavements. At 11:30 AM the park was full of people, including a man on horseback on one of the trails.

  Across the lawns the morning sun threw long shadows of the almost-bare trees, creating a scene of romantic charm. Through the lacework of tree branches, Kim could just make out the Reichstag’s dome, but other than that, she might have been in Paris or London. Benches along the path were meeting places for lovers, housewives, and solitary old men reading newspapers.

  Passing a knoll where a young man threw a stick for his Alsatian, she entered a small plaza with a fountain, the place where she was to meet Duncan. The fountain was dry now, skittering with golden brown leaves in the breeze. Two nannies strolled through pushing prams netted against insects. Stopping next to the fountain, Kim took out her tourist map and pretended to study it. At the same time she noted two people approaching her down one of the walkways. Uniforms. By the brown shirts, knee breeches, and gray jackets, they were Sturmabteilung, the SA.

  She had expected to see Hitler’s loyal thugs at some point, but this first sighting sent a knife of anxiety through her. The men’s bulk and their ill-fitting uniforms distinguished them from their more fit and stylish SS brethren. Would they give a Nazi salute? She had been told not to return it, as it would not be in character for the wife of a consular representative. Still, sometimes the SA did not hold with diplomatic niceties.

  They noted her, and she looked at them, fleetingly, innocently. Her smile wobbled. Should one smile at the SA?

  As they passed, they did not give the stiff-armed salute but walked purposively, taking in the park, its activities—and briefly, herself. A red flash of their swastika armbands, and they moved on.

  When the men passed out of sight, peace returned to her patch of the Tiergarten. She had need of a deep breath and took it.

  Just as she began to wonder if the presence of Hitler’s militia would abort her meeting, a man appeared along one of the paths converging on the plaza. He wore a hat and a long coat, open to show a sweater-vest and suit. As he approached, she noted that he wore spectacles and carried a lunch sack. All as expected.

  Entering the plaza, he sat on a cement step of the fountain, digging into the sack from which he pulled out a sandwich. He broke off pieces and tossed them to the birds that had begun to converge on him.

  She walked up to him, the birds giving way. In English, she asked, “Excuse me, but do you know where the Siegesallee is?”

  He looked up. She judged him to be in his midfifties. His round face held the placid expression of a man in the park on his lunch hour.

  He gestured. “You’ll find it over there.” His English, posh. “Ninety-six statues line the street.”

  The double passcode completed, she thanked him and stepped away a few feet, consulting her travel brochure.

  “Welcome to Berlin,” he said, as he aimed a crust at a pigeon.

  “Thank you.” She turned the brochure around as though getting her bearings with a map. “I don’t suppose Duncan is your real name?”

  “For now. Are you comfortable at number 44?”

  “It’s fine. But I haven’t got my sea legs yet. I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Good. Keep it that way.”

  “Was that a test? That I’m not comfortable?”

  He cut a glance at her. “You’re far beyond tests. Flying colors. Don’t start by doubting me.”

  “You saw our large friends?” she asked, glancing in the direction the SA men had gone.

  “No, I missed them.” Heavy irony. “Have you secured the safe flat?”

  “Not yet.” She had only arrived yesterday. “How do I get away to do so? They almost wouldn’t let me take a walk by myself.”

  He threw another crumb to the pigeon flock. “Become a shopper. Silver, jewelry, gifts.”

  “What neighborhood?”

  “Perhaps Niederwallstrasse or Hausvogteiplatz.”

  A crow flew into the growing mass of pigeons, taking a choice tidbit.

  “Make friends with a local woman. Busy yourself with excursions so that your absences won’t attract attention.” He stood up, brushing the crumbs from his great coat. “Your drop will be in Wertheim’s Department Store, Leipziger Platz, Women’s Daily Wear, second-floor WC, fourth stall from the entrance. The toilet water tank. A waterproof pouch is in your bookcase, behind the Travels in Europe book.”

  “You’ve been in my bedroom?” Who would replenish the bag? Perhaps Albert was in on it. Or Bibi.

  “If you need urgent help, place the flower vase in the window. The staff is instructed to always have fresh flowers on the bedroom table.”

  “And you’ll come to the rescue? Someone is always watching my window?”

  “We watch. More so if you have some success and the locals take an interest. If you give a signal of distress, a courier will knock at number 44 with a telegram that must be placed in your hands only. He will deal with any unwanted company. It then becomes a bit of a sticky situation. We hope not to see the vase.”

  “Then why have it?”

  “To save your life.”

  “Or to protect the Office’s assets. To make sure I’m not interrogated.”

  “Naturally, it is both.”

  “I doubt I’ll need it.”

  “I’d rethink that attitude if I were you.” He stared at the lunch sack. It was then that Kim noticed he had two fingers missing on his left hand. “Everyone has their limits.” He stood. Their rendezvous was over.

  She asked, “How do I get in touch with you?”

  “Just come here to the fountain. I’ll find you.”

  She didn’t know how he could always be in the park, or near it. Perhaps he was in one of the fine apartment buildings close by and kept the plaza in view.

  He tipped his homburg to her, saying in a louder voice, “I hope you enjoy the statues. Frederick the Great is especially fine.” And with that, he walked away, throwing the remains of his sandwich into the bin.

  A courier will knock with a telegram. Dead drop in Wertheim’s, Leipziger Platz, second-floor WC, fourth stall. Make a friend, exploit her for cover. The flower vase in the window. But the last thing she wanted was to be rescued as the result of some misstep. She had a reputation to uphold: the American woman who derailed German plans. She keenly wished there to be an assignment after this one. Although she had been with the Office less than a year, she had found in the service a fierce sense of purpose. A way to give her life, her spill Talent, meaning. Women could be assets—often were—but not many were agents. She always felt vulnerable, lacking the club and school connections of her mal
e SIS counterparts.

  All in all, the morning had been a success. Evading notice of the SA. Meeting her handler from the Berlin station. Duncan exuded confidence and calm, helpful qualities in case things got “sticky.” It all felt completely real for the first time, even if so far all she’d had to do was maintain her cover in the park and show up at the right fountain.

  She headed toward the Siegesallee to grab a look at Frederick the Great. It was all going to be smooth sailing. And if it wasn’t, there was Duncan and the full force and authority of the Berlin SIS station.

  6

  THE AERIE, BAVARIAN ALPS

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Irina Dimitrievna Annakova stood on the chalet terrace high on the mountainside trying to see Mother Russia. It was not such a long way. Merely across Slovakia and Poland, those dismal lands, if one faced northeast as Irina did this raw, blue morning.

  In the distance, fathoms of clouds stacked up over the Alps. Always she kept the motherland in her mind, so that even as she looked out on the German valley far below, she sometimes saw Russia instead. Today she imagined her homeland with its forests of aspen, birch, and pine nesting among cold fogs, and beyond, the grassy, immemorial plains.

  A door closed behind her, interrupting her reverie. She turned in annoyance, but it was Sir Stefan, a man she could easily forgive.

  “Your Majesty.” Leaning on his cane, he moved with a rhythmic dip in his gate to the terrace railing. “It is magnificent, is it not?” He looked out on the carved valley, the white-glazed mountains. Black hair set off his handsome face, as did his finely tailored SS uniform. If only he spoke Russian, he would be perfect. She could have spoken to him in a language of intimacy. Instead French was their shared language, since she spoke only a halting German.