The Mark of the Assassin

learned that the
    British were engaged in a massive deception to conceal the truth. But in
    February 1944, Hitler fired Canaris and placed the Abwehr under the
    control of Himmler and the SS. Vogel kept his information to himself,
    and joined the anti-Hitler plotters of the Schwarze Kapelle, the Black
    Orchestra. When the July 20 coup attempt ended in disaster, many of the
    Schwarze Kapelle plotters were arrested and executed. Vogel fled to
    Switzerland. Lizbet's eyes were damp when Ulbricht finished the story.
    She stared at the lake, watching the wind ripple the surface.
    "Who was the other man who came with Himmler to my mother's house?" she
    asked. "He was Walter Schellenberg, a very senior officer in the SD. He
    took over the Abwehr when Canaris was fired. Your father deceived him
    about the invasion."
    "The woman who was his agent ... ?" Lizbet asked, voice trailing off.
    "Was he in love with her? Mother always thought he was in love with
    someone else."
    "It was a long time ago."
    "Tell me the truth, Herr Ulbricht."
    "Yes, he loved her very much."
    "What was her name?"
    "Her name was Anna Katerina von Steiner. Your father forced her to
    become an agent. She never came back from England." Astrid's obsessive
    fascination with her grandfather began that afternoon. Her own
    grandfather, an ally of Wilhelm Canaris, a brave Schwarze Kapelle
    resister who tried to rid Germany of Hitler. In the attic she found a
    chest of his things her mother had saved: old law books and a few
    ancient photographs, brittle with age, some clothing. She studied them
    for hours on end. When she was old enough she even imitated his
    appearance: the spiky hair that looked as though he had cut it himself,
    the pebble-lensed eyeglasses, the dour undertaker's suits. She tried to
    imagine the agent named Anna Katerina von Steiner, the woman he had been
    in love with. In her grandfather's papers Astrid could find no trace of
    her, so she painted a portrait of Anna in her imagination: beautiful,
    brave, ruthless, violent. When she was eighteen, Astrid returned to
    Germany to attend university in Munich and immediately became involved
    in leftist politics. She believed Nazis were still running Germany. She
    believed the Americans were occupiers. She believed industrialists had
    enslaved workers. She imagined what her grandfather, the great Kurt
    Vogel, would have done. He would join the resistance, of course. In 1979
    she gave up her studies at the university and joined the Red Army
    Faction. The leaders said she would have to give up her real name and
    choose a nom de guerre. She chose Anna Steiner and vanished into the
    world of terrorism.
    SHE WAS LIVING ON A HOUSEBOAT on the Prinsengracht. At three o'clock in
    the afternoon she walked out of the bookstore, freed her bicycle from
    the rack, and set out across the square. Delaroche signaled the waiter
    for a check.
    SHE WALKED FOR A TIME, pushing the bike, obviously in no hurry.
    Delaroche trailed softly after her. She had changed little in the years
    since he had seen her last. She was tall and vaguely awkward, with
    beautiful but graceless legs and long hands that seemed forever in
    search of a comfortable resting place. Her face was from another time
    and place: luminous white skin, broad cheekbones, a large nose, eyes the
    color of mountain lake water. Her hair always changed with her mood and
    her politics, but now, in early middle age, it had returned to its
    natural state: long, blond, held back by a plain black clasp. He
    followed her north along the Keizersgracht. She crossed the canal at
    Reestraat, then headed north again along the Prin-sengracht. She passed
    into the shadow of the Westerkerk, the site of Rembrandt's unmarked
    grave. Delaroche increased his pace, closing the distance between them.
    Hearing his footfalls, she spun quickly, hand reaching inside her
    handbag, alarm on her face. Delaroche took her gently by the arm. "It's
    only me, Astrid. Don't be afraid."
    KRISTA WAS FORTY-FIVE FEET LONG with a wheelhouse aft, a slender prow,
    and a fresh coat of green and white paint. It was tied up next to a boxy
    barge, and to get aboard Astrid and De-laroche had to scamper across the
    neighbor's aft deck. The inside was clean and surprisingly large,
    complete with a galley kitchen, a salon, and a bedroom in the prow. The
    weak light of late afternoon trickled through a pair of skylights and a
    row of portholes along the gunwale. Delaroche sat in the salon, watching
    Astrid as she