Fatherland

the porter?"
    "In the bathroom."
    "Did you look at them again?"
    "What do you think?" She brushed her sleeve angrily across her eyes.
    "All right, Fräulein. It's enough. Wait in the sitting room."
    The human body contains six liters of blood; sufficient to paint a large apartment. March tried to avoid looking at the bed and the walls as he worked—opening the cupboard doors, feeling the lining of every item of clothing, skimming every pocket with his gloved hands. He moved on to the bedside cabinets. These had been unlocked and searched before. The contents of the drawers had been emptied out for inspection, then stuffed back haphazardly—a typical clumsy Orpo job, destroying more clues than it uncovered.
    Nothing, nothing. Had he risked everything for this?
    He was on his knees with his arm stretched beneath the bed when he heard it. It took a second for the sound to register.

Love unspoken

Faith unbroken

All life through ...
    "I'm sorry," she said when he rushed in. "I shouldn't have touched it."
    He took the chocolate box from her, carefully, and closed the lid on its tune.
    "Where was it?"
    "On that table."
    Someone had collected Stuckart's mail for the past three days and had inspected it, neatly slicing open the envelopes, pulling out the letters. They were heaped up
    next to the telephone. He had not noticed them when he came in. How had he missed them? The chocolates, he could see, had been wrapped exactly as Buhler's had been, postmarked Zürich, 1600 hours, Monday afternoon.
    Then he saw that she was holding a paper knife.
    "I told you not to touch anything."
    "I said I'm sorry."
    "Do you think this is a game?" She's crazier than I am. "You're going to have to leave." He tried to grab her, but she twisted free.
    "No way." She backed away, pointing the knife at him. "I have as much right to be here as you do. You try and throw me out and I'll scream so loud I'll have every Gestapo man in Berlin hammering on that door."
    "You have a knife, but I have a gun."
    "Ah, but you daren't use it."
    March ran his hand through his hair. He thought, You imagined you were so clever, finding her, persuading her to come back. And all the time, she wanted to come. She's looking for something. ... He had been an idiot.
    He said, "You've been lying to me."
    She said, "You've been lying to me . That makes us even."
    "This is dangerous. I beg you, you have no idea—"
    "What I do know is this: my career could have ended because of what happened in this apartment. I could be fired when I get back to New York. I'm being thrown out of this lousy country, and I want to find out why."
    "How do I know I can trust you?"
    "How do I know I can trust you ?"
    They stood like that for perhaps half a minute: he with his hand to his hair, she with the silver paper knife still pointed at him. Outside, across the Platz, a clock began to chime. March looked at his watch. It was already ten.
    "We have no time for this." He spoke quickly. "Here are the keys to the apartment. This one opens the door downstairs. This one is for the main door up here. This fits the bedside cabinet. That's a desk key. This one"—he held it up—"this, I think, is the key to a safe. Where is it?"
    "I don't know." Seeing his look of disbelief, she added, "I swear."
    They searched in silence for ten minutes, shifting furniture, pulling up rugs, looking behind paintings. Suddenly she said, "This mirror is loose."
    It was a small antique looking glass, maybe thirty centimeters square, above the table on which she had opened the letters. March grasped the ormolu frame. It gave a little but would not come away from the wall.
    "Try this." She gave him the knife.
    She was right. Two thirds down the left-hand side, behind the lip of the frame, was a tiny lever. March pressed it with the tip of the paper knife and felt something yield. The mirror was on a hinge. It swung open to reveal a safe.
    He inspected it and swore. The key was not enough. There was also a combination lock.
    "Too much for you?" she asked.
    "'In adversity,' " quoted March, " 'the resourceful officer will always discover opportunity.'"
    He picked up the telephone.

8

    Across a distance of five thousand kilometers, President Kennedy flashed his famous smile. He stood behind a cluster of microphones, addressing a crowd in a football stadium. Banners of red, white and blue streamed behind him—"Reelect Kennedy!" "Four More in Sixty-four!" He shouted something March did not understand and the crowd