Like a wilderness lit by lightning, Germany was a dark, flickering void at night. The necessary wartime blackout robbed it of the illumination of civilization, turning its nocturnal hours as opaque as those of the Middle Ages. From the air where Hart and Kohl flew in a light plane, only far horizons blinked. Artillery and antiaircraft fire, distant flames, the searchlights of probing air defenses- these were the signs that the Third Reich remained inhabited. Somewhere in the abyss below Greta still lived.
Hart had simply left. It was a necessity. The American air force would never permit him to go behind enemy lines to look for a woman. So he'd taken a plane and risked the loss of one empty life in a gamble for another.
Kohl had thought their scheme through. The pair commandeered a jeep, telling Hart's superiors that the wily German was going to lead Owen to a cache of stolen art near Paris in return for the American's plea for leniency. But instead of hunting for Impressionist loot, Hart accompanied Kohl to a forger who supplied them with Reich papers in return for all the dollars he could extort from the American's savings. This was followed by the borrowing of a light plane to allegedly fly the informant Otto Kohl, reputed vessel of critical strategic information, to Third Army headquarters.
"It will work if we move quickly enough," Kohl promised. And it had. Once the fugitives were aloft they turned and streaked low in the night for Berlin, skimming treetops to stay off radar screens. "They'll presume you're shot down and missing," Kohl explained. "If it soothes your conscience, you can play the spy. Your superiors would gladly give up a light plane to get a ground observation of conditions in Berlin."
"How do we get back?"
Kohl exuded confidence. "I have a farm on the outskirts of the capital. We hide the airplane there, contact Greta, then fly to Switzerland. I have access to money- enough to grease the proper palms. The Swiss will help us invent new lives, and we'll go on to wherever we want to go."
"And Greta will come with us?"
"That's up to you, of course."
Hart had gambled everything she would. And yet, he couldn't help wondering about her marriage to Drexler. Should he believe Otto's assurances that it was a loveless union, that Greta carried a torch for her so-far-as-she-knew dead American pilot? Was the relationship that of two people leading parallel but separate lives? He questioned the German more closely. "I never quite understood the hold Jurgen seemed to have on her," he said. "What is the basis of it?"
Kohl stared somberly out the cockpit window, seeming to pluck memories from the inky darkness. "Even before Jurgen," he began, "there was a man. A husband, in fact. An older German biologist at the University of Hamburg. In retrospect, the attraction wasn't entirely surprising: Greta's mother had died in childbirth, and I… well, I was abroad a lot. The girl was raised in convent and boarding schools."
Kohl shook his head wearily. "Her childhood was lonely, Owen. That was my fault, of course."
He went on to explain that the awkward union abruptly ended when Professor Heinz died in an automobile accident. For Greta, it was a crushing blow, and not just because of the loss of his security. She'd curtailed her own studies for the marriage. Its end meant her career as an unproven female biologist in a male-dominated profession suddenly held meager promise. Both her mentor and her academic momentum were gone.
Kohl had come back to Germany from Washington, D.C., to help his daughter decide her future and improve his own connections to the Reich government. He quickly decided she must find a new husband: some bright young official likely to emerge at the top of the new regime, a man who would prove as useful to him as to her.
And so he'd cultivated Drexler, the poster-boy Nazi, who in turn saw Kohl as a quick-witted advisor with friends and connections.
Kohl took Greta to a party celebrating the Fuhrer's birthday and persuaded Drexler to be there too. The young Nazi was clearly smitten; a moth to a flame. Yet she was hesitant. Yes, he was handsome, bright, and ambitious. Yes, his vision of Germany's future was heady, even thrilling. And he campaigned for her doggedly: it was flattering. Women thought him gorgeous.
"He's just a bit cold, Papa," she confided. "I mean preoccupied. I suspect he's already married- to his career."
"All successful men have the mistress of their work! That man could be your future. Our future! He'll open doors for you."
She sighed. "I know. He's an… amazing person. But he doesn't always seem to see what I see, care for what I care for. Sometimes we run out of things to talk about. He's actually a bit awkward."
"With women, perhaps. Not with the people in power."
Then Drexler let slip the coming Antarctic expedition, boasting that he'd been picked to represent its political side. Goring himself was the power behind it! Those who accompanied it would become heroes. And the science team for the voyage was being assembled.
For Kohl, the expedition was an answer to a prayer. It just so happened that he had a brilliant young biologist to suggest for the ship's company. And while her presence as a woman was unusual for a Reich sea voyage, it would give Drexler the time to really get to know her.
Greta was uncertain. What if she and Jurgen fell out? But she was also thrilled. Antarctica! She'd be the first German woman to visit the place. It was heady, momentous. The biologist felt her abilities merited a second chance to establish her professional reputation. She asked the young Nazi if he was recruiting her as a capable scientist or as a woman.
"I'm recruiting the best person I can find," Drexler replied.
The memory of the day Greta received confirmation she'd been accepted for the expedition came back to Kohl now as a gust of wind buffeted the plane. "You should have been there, Owen," the German said. "She was delirious. Never had I seen her so radiant." Suddenly, his face darkened. "The exact opposite of the girl who was returned to me three months later when the Schwabenland tied up at the Hamburg docks."
Hart continued staring straight ahead, though his fingers were beginning to feel moist and clammy on the controls. "She told you about… about us?"
Kohl nodded. "Through her tears. After her narration of the events leading… well, to your death, she went back to being numb. I wasn't sure quite how to deal with her, what to say. But Jurgen was- what's your American term? Johnny-on-the-spot. He made it his mission to distract Greta from her grief. I tell you, the man was a force of nature. He would not be denied. And in time, Greta relented. She had no momentum of her own, no direction. And Jurgen, he is direction." Kohl smiled bitterly. "Myself, I thought: this is the best thing for her."
"But it wasn't?" said Hart. His eyes lowered to check the compass heading. Still on course.
"Jurgen is very complex. Admirable in so many ways, but also, I've come to realize, undeveloped. He is like a child who battles for a toy, only to tire of it once it ceases to be an object of contention. I have no doubt that, were someone to try to wrest away his plunder, he would show his claws, but it is not because he derives much enjoyment from it. My daughter's loneliness is profound."
The dull ache that had resided in Hart's chest since returning from Antarctica now filled him completely, but he said nothing. Germany- dark, wounded- continued to unreel beneath them.
Their plan was hopeless in its sheer simple audacity, the pilot knew. Somehow get into Berlin. Somehow find Greta. Somehow persuade her to abandon her husband. Somehow avoid Drexler's claws. Somehow escape to Switzerland. Somehow make a new life.
Somehow. It was the clearest plan Hart had had in six years.
They flew on and the sky began to lighten. Fires glowed on the horizon and by Hart's dead reckoning they were about twenty miles from Berlin. Soon they'd cross the flak batteries. To be aloft at daylight would be suicide. "Where's that farm of yours?"
"Swing that way. We cross the Autobahn, and then several miles beyond…"
Hart was nervous. Their plane had American markings. "We have to get out of the sky soon or we're going to be jumped by a prowling fighter."
"If we don't get the plane hidden we'll be trapped in Germany. Be patient."
They flew in anxious silence for several more minutes. Then Kohl pointed. "All right. Werder's in that direction. And I recognize my buildings. Beautiful, from the air. You can put down in that pasture."
They bumped down in the dawn light and taxied up to the barn, climbing out stiff and weary. Somewhere a rooster crowed.
"It looks like the Germany I remember," Hart said, glancing about. "Tidy."
"Caretakers come. But not for a few days. Here, help me push this plane into the barn." They rolled it forward, the wings sliding over empty stalls. Another vehicle was already inside under a tarp and Hart peeked. A Mercedes.
"No petrol," Kohl explained. "And a vehicle invites inspection. We'll bicycle. It's several hours into the city."
Hart nodded. "I didn't know you were so athletic, Otto."
"I'm not. Merely cautious. We're in the heart of Nazi Germany."
There were only occasional signs of the war at Berlin's edge. A bomber's burned-out husk had skidded to the edge of a school yard. Silvery strings of chaff dropped by Allied planes to confuse radar were draped on autumn trees like Christmas tinsel. A line of water-filled bomb craters marched across a field to record an Allied miss. As they pedaled into the suburbs they found a checkerboard of normalcy and destruction: here a street retained an aura of prewar order, there a stick of bombs had fallen to splinter four houses and a park. At Berlin's core the ruin became more complete. They passed whole neighborhoods that had been reduced to ridges of shattered masonry, blocks and streets undulating like a series of sand dunes. Rising above this manmade talus were the ghostly ruins of gutted buildings that had not yet completely collapsed, empty window openings lighting apartments that no longer existed.
Kohl wobbled his bicycle around a litter of broken glass and stopped to pant.
"Are you all right, Otto?"
"Not my tailbone. I may never walk again."
The pause made Hart nervous. Passing Germans barely glanced at them but half the men he saw were in uniform. A word from Kohl and he was betrayed. What reassured him was the devastation. Kohl wouldn't wish to stay here, and Owen Hart was his only exit.
"Is she nearby?"
"She was." Grimacing, he hoisted himself back onto the seat. "Pray that your airplanes haven't gotten to her neighborhood." They pedaled on.
Jurgen and Greta had been lucky. The town houses on their tree-lined avenue stood ranked and redoubtable with prewar confidence. A milk wagon trundled reassuringly down the pavement. Normalcy. Kohl pointed. "That one."
It was four stories, as fashionable as a New York brownstone. Jurgen Drexler had done well, it seemed. Confronted by the man's intact home, Hart suddenly felt doubt. It was the kind of house he'd never had and perhaps never would have: strong, secure, stylish. The kind of home a woman would like.
"I can't visit her in his house."
"No, of course not," Kohl said. "That would be dangerous. They have servants and maybe even a security guard, who knows? Jurgen is a Standartenfuhrer now, a colonel, in the civilian branch of the SS. He moves in the highest circles, which means his telephone is probably tapped. But I'll approach briefly. Any staff present should take only casual note even if I'm recognized: they may assume I escaped France and am on routine travels. I'll explain the situation and then leave to do some business, I have some money to assemble in Berlin before we go. Now, as for you. There's a statue of Frederick the Great opposite the Bebelplatz, not far from the Hotel Adlon where you once stayed. Do you remember it? About a mile east of here?"
Hart nodded uncertainly.
"Meet her there in an hour. Understood?"
"Yes, but what if she doesn't- "
Kohl held his hand up, looking back at the imposing town house. Hart noticed now that its windows were blank, covered with blackout coverings. It would be dim inside.
"She'll come."