Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

on the fence any longer.

“My supper is waiting for me,” he said weakly.

“I’ll buy you supper. And a beer, too,” Schlechter said. He started across the square, and Deland hurried to catch up.

“What’s going on, Rudy? Why the mystery?”

“Just wait and see, my boy. Just wait and see.”

They had to wait for an Army jeep to pass; then they crossed the cobbled street and entered the Hansa Haus. It was early, yet the Bierstube was already crowded and noisy. A pall of smoke hung just below the wood-beamed ceiling, curled around the wild boar and deer heads on the walls, and completely wreathed the heads of the old men at the long Stammtisch. Deland had never been in this place, although he had heard it was popular with the young office workers of Wolgast. Many of the routine administrative functions for the research station were carried on here in town.

Schlechter seemed to be well known in the place; they stopped a half a dozen times to shake hands and say hello. But finally they reached a small table around, the corner from the long mahogany bar. Two women were seated there. One of them was older, with a thin, angular face and a self-assured expression, while the other was much younger, much prettier, with long blonde hair up in a bun, a tiny round face, and lovely hands folded in front of her on the table. The swell of her bosom rose and fell beneath her white blouse. She seemed nervous. They both had been drinking wine.

Schlechter kissed the older woman on the cheek and smiled at the other. “You’re looking lovely this evening, Katrina,” he said to her. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

The girl nearly jumped out of her skin, and Deland realized with a sinking feeling exactly what it was Schlechter had in mind. A couple of weeks ago they had talked over lunch at the mess hall on station about Deland’s love life, which was zero.

Schlechter had pried. This was the result.

“This is Edmund Dorfman, who works out at the station with me. He is not nearly as serious as he seems at this moment, but I think the poor boy is frightened.” He laughed; the older woman tittered. “Dorfman, I’d like you to meet Katrina Mueller. She works in Kwe/3 in town.”

“Herr Dorfman,” she said politely. She had a gently enchanting voice.

Deland nodded, flustered.

“This is Maria Quelle,” Schlechter said, introducing the other woman. “We’ve been friends since Berlin.”

The woman smiled. “We go back too far,” she said. “I’m pleased to meet you, Herr Dorfman. Rudy has told me so much about you.”

Schlechter shoved Deland down next to Katrina, and Maria got to her feet and collected her handbag.

“Sorry we have to run like this, Katy, but I’ll see you in the morning,” Maria said.

“You’ll like the sauerbraten here,” Schlechter said, and before Deland could do a thing, or even remember about his bicycle, Rudy and Maria had turned and were threading their way toward the front door. They stopped to talk with the big, burly woman behind the bar, and then they were gone.

Deland turned back and Katrina jumped again. She had been studying his profile.

He smiled. “I’m sorry.”

“About what, Herr Dorfman?” she asked timidly.

“Please,” he said. “My name is Edmund.”

She hesitated a moment, but he smiled. “Edmund,” she finally said.

“I didn’t realize that Rudy was going to pull something like this.”

“Neither did I suspect it of Maria,” she said. She reached for her purse and started to get up.

“Where are you going?”

She looked down into his eyes. “Home,” she said matter-of factly.

Deland’s heart was pounding. He felt like a complete fool.

“Please don’t. We’re here together now. Have supper with me?”

Again she hesitated.

“Please?”

She smiled. It was warm. “They did go through a lot of trouble,” she said, sitting down.

The barmaid brought him a beer and Katrina another glass of wine. They both ordered the sauerbraten.

“I’m not sure I know what Kwe/3 is,” Deland said when they were alone again.

“Kriegswerke Erwerbungen. It is the war plant acquisitions office. I’m in section three. Nothing very important, I’m afraid.”

“You’re being modest.”

She laughed; the sound was like music, and it went right through him. He shivered. “No,” she said. “We purchase soap and towels and bed sheets, those sorts of things.” She lowered her eyes. “And you?”

“I’m a mathematician.”

Her eyes widened. “You must be brilliant, then, like Maria’s Rudy.”

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of Amt/Ausland Abwehr, hesitated a moment on the top step of his private railway car before stepping down to trackside, as an extraordinary thought crossed his mind. There was no one—not one single person here in Germany—whom he could completely trust.

He and his wife Erika had never been close. Which in a way was good; when it all ended, his taint would not reflect on her.

His adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Jenke, was a fool. He was a reasonably capable administrator, but he had no vision, no creativity, and he certainly was not one to be relied on.

Hansen in Abteilung I, who had taken over from old Piekenbrock, was a raging Nazi, as were Loringhoven and Jacobsen.

There was no one. It gave him an odd feeling at the moment to realize it, almost a sense of freedom.

They had stopped outside Hamburg, near the tiny suburb of Reinbek, but even this far out the destruction from the Allied bombing raids was awesome. The air smelled of plaster dust and burned wood.

Several large staff cars were parked on the road behind the burned-out shell of a station. Two officers and a half-dozen men were waiting as Canaris stepped down.

They all saluted.

“So good of you to meet me here with a car,” Canaris said.

His voice was very soft, and he spoke with a slight lisp. He was a small man, five feet three, slight of stature, with white hair, bushy eyebrows, and an air of fatigue about him, as if he had not been getting enough sleep. His uniform was on the shabby side.

The Iron Cross on his tunic was just visible