Fatherland

good-bye."
    He rapped on the glass partition with the top of his cane. The driver came around and opened March's door.
    "I'd offer you a lift into central Berlin, but I prefer traveling alone. Keep me informed. Find Luther, March. Find him before Globus gets to him."
    The door slammed. The engine whispered. As the limousine crunched across the gravel, March could barely make out Nebe—just a green silhouette behind the bulletproof glass.
    He turned to find Globus watching him.
    The SS general started walking toward him, holding a Luger outstretched.
    He's crazy, thought March. He is just about crazy enough to shoot me on the spot, like Buhler's dog.
    But all Globus did was hand him the gun. "Your pistol, Sturmbannführer. You will need it." And then he came very close—close enough for March to smell the sour odor of garlic sausage on his hot breath. "You have no witness" was all he whispered. "You have no witness. Not anymore."
    March ran.
    He ran out of the grounds, across the causeway and off, up, into the woods—right through them, until he came to the autobahn that formed the Grunewald's eastern boundary.
    There he stopped, his hands clutching his knees, his breath coming in sobs, as beneath him the traffic hurtled toward Berlin.
    Then he was off again, despite the pain in his side, more of a trot now, over the bridge, past the Nikolassee S-bahn station, down Spanische-Allee toward the barracks.
    His Kripo ID got him past the sentries, his appearance—red eyed, breathless, with more than a day's growth of beard—suggestive of some terrible emergency that brooked no discussion. He found the dormitory block. He found Jost's bed. The pillow was gone, the blankets had been stripped. All that remained was the ironwork and a hard brown mattress. The locker was bare.
    A solitary cadet, polishing his boots a few beds away, explained what had happened. They had come for Jost in the night. There were two of them. He was to be sent east, they said, for "special training." He had gone without a word—seemed to have been expecting it. The cadet shook his head in amazement: Jost, of all people. The cadet was jealous. They all were. He'd see some real fighting.

3

    The telephone booth stank of urine and ancient cigarette smoke; a used condom had been trodden into the dirt.
    "Come on, come on," whispered March. He rapped a one-Reichsmark piece against the cloudy glass and listened to the electronic purr of her telephone ringing, unanswered. He let it ring for a long time before he hung up.
    Across the street a grocery store was opening. He crossed and bought a bottle of milk and some warm bread, which he gulped down beside the road, conscious all the time of the shop's owner watching him from the window. It occurred to him that he was living like a fugitive already—stopping to grab food only when he happened across it, devouring it in the open, always, on the move. Milk trickled down his chin. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. His skin felt like sandpaper.
    He checked again to see if he was being followed. On this side of the street, a uniformed nanny pushed a baby carriage. On the other, an old woman had gone into the telephone booth. A schoolboy hurried toward the Havel, carrying a toy yacht. Normal, normal . . .
    March, the good citizen, dropped the milk bottle into a wastebin and set off down the suburban road.
    "You have no witness. Not anymore . . ."
    He felt a great rage against Globus, the greater for being fueled by guilt. The Gestapo must have seen Jost's statement in the file on Buhler's death. They would have checked with the SS Academy and discovered that March had been back to reinterrogate him yesterday afternoon. That would have set them scurrying in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. So his visit to the barracks had been Jost's death warrant. He had indulged his curiosity—and killed a man.
    And now the American girl was not answering her telephone. What might they do to her? An army truck overtook him, the draft sucked at him and a vision of Charlotte Maguire lying broken in the gutter bubbled in his mind, "The Berlin authorities deeply regret this tragic accident. . . . The driver of the vehicle concerned is still being sought..." He felt like the carrier of a dangerous disease. He should carry a placard: keep clear of this man, he is contagious.
    Circulating endlessly in his head, fragments of conversation...
    Artur Nebe: "Find Luther, March. Find him before Globus gets to him."
    Rudi Halder: "A