Fatherland

braked hard.
    "Open the doors!"
    Krebs got out, came around to March's side and yanked him out. "Quickly! We haven't got all night!" To the driver: "One minute. Keep the engine running."
    Then March was being pushed—stumbling across rough stones, down an alley, into the doorway of a disused church, and Krebs was unlocking the handcuffs.
    "You're a lucky man, March."
    "I don't understand—"
    Krebs said, "You've got a favorite uncle."
    Tap, tap, tap . From the darkness of the church. Tap, tap, tap.
    * * * *

    "You should have come to me at once, my boy," said Artur Nebe. "You would have spared yourself such agony." He brushed March's cheek with his fingertips. In the heavy shadows, March could not make out the details of his face, only a pale blur.
    "Take my pistol." Krebs pressed the Luger into March's left hand. "Take it! You tricked me. Got hold of my gun. Understand?"
    He was dreaming, surely? But the pistol felt solid enough. . .
    Nebe was still talking—a low, urgent voice. "Oh, March, March. Krebs came to me this evening—shocked! so shocked!—told me what you had. We all suspected it, of course, but never had the proof. Now you've got to get it out. For all our sakes. You've got to stop these bastards!"
    Krebs interrupted, "Forgive me, sir, our time is almost gone." He pointed. "Down there, March. Can you see? A car."
    Parked under a broken streetlamp at the far end of the alley, March could just see a low shape, could hear a motor running.
    "What is this?" He looked from one man to the other.
    "Walk to the car and get in. We've no more time. I count to ten, then I yell."
    "Don't fail us, March." Nebe squeezed his cheek. "Your uncle is an old man, but he hopes to live long enough to see those bastards hang. Go on. Get the papers out. Get them published. We're risking everything, giving you a chance. Take it. Go."
    Krebs said, "I'm counting: one, two, three . . ."
    March hesitated, started to walk, then broke into a loping run. The car door was opening. He looked back. Nebe had already disappeared into the dark. Krebs had cupped his hands to his mouth and was starting to shout.
    March turned and struggled toward the waiting car, where a familiar voice was calling, "Zavi! Zavi!"

FÜHRERTAG

    The railway to Krakau continues north-east past Auschwitz (348 kilometers from Vienna), an industrial town of 12,000 inhabitants, the former capital of the Piast Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator (Hotel Zator 20 bedrooms), whence a secondary railway runs via Skawina to Krakau (69 kilometers in three hours)...
    BAEDEKER'S General Government , 1943

1

    Midnight peals of bells rang out to welcome the day. Drivers whipped past, flashing their headlights, hammering their horns, leaving a smear of sound hanging over the road behind them. Factory hooters called to one another across Berlin, like stationary trains.
    "My dear old friend, what have they done to you?"
    Max Jaeger was trying to concentrate on driving, but every few seconds his head would swivel to the right, in horrified fascination, toward the passenger seat beside him.
    He kept repeating it: "What have they done to you?"
    March was in a daze, uncertain what was dream and what reality. He had his back half turned and was staring out of the rear window. "Where are we going, Max?"
    "God only knows. Where do you want to go?"
    The road behind was clear. March carefully pulled himself around to look at Jaeger. "Didn't Nebe tell you?"
    "Nebe said you'd tell me. "
    March looked away, at the buildings sliding by. He did not see them. He was thinking of Charlie in the hotel room in Waldshut. Awake, alone, waiting for him. There were still more than eight hours to go. He and Max would have the Autobahnen almost to themselves. They could probably make it.
    "I was at the Markt," Jaeger was saying. "This was about nine. The telephone rings. It's Uncle Artur. 'Sturmbannführer! How good a friend is Xavier March?' "There's nothing I wouldn't do,' I said—by this time, the word was out about where you were. He said, very quietly, 'All right, Sturmbannführer, we'll see how good a friend you are. Kreuzberg. Corner of Axmann-Weg, north of the abandoned church. Wait from quarter to midnight to quarter past. And not a word to anyone or you'll be in a KZ by morning.' That was it. He hung up."
    There was a sheen of sweat on Jaeger's forehead. He glanced from the road to March and back again. "Fuck it, Zavi. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm scared. I'm heading south. Is that