The Wolf's Hour (36 page)

Frankewitz complied with the colonel’s command and slipped into unconsciousness.

The Gestapo’s surgeons would put him back together, Blok mused. They would lace his bones with wires, sew together the gashes, and screw his joints into the sockets. Then he would look more like Frankenstein than Frankewitz, but drugs would grease his tongue and make him speak: why he’d drawn this picture, and who had seen it. They had come too far with Iron Fist to let it be ruined by this battered meat on the floor.

Blok sat down on the sea-green sofa, its arms protected with lace coverlets, and in a few minutes he heard the klaxon horn of the ambulance approaching. Blok reasoned that the gods of Valhalla were smiling on him, because Frankewitz was still breathing.

7

“A toast!” Harry Sandler lifted his wineglass. “To Stalin’s coffin!”

“Stalin’s coffin!” someone else echoed, and the toast was drunk. Michael Gallatin, sitting at the long dining table across from Sandler, drank without hesitation.

It was eight o’clock, and Michael was in the suite of SS Colonel Jerek Blok, amid Chesna van Dorne, twenty Nazi officers, German dignitaries, and their female companions. He wore a black tuxedo, a white shirt, and a white bow tie, and to his right Chesna wore a low-cut, long black dress with pearls covering the creamy swell of her breasts. The officers were in their crisp dress uniforms, and even Sandler had put away his tweeds in favor of a formal gray suit. He had also left his bird in his room, a fact which seemed to relieve many of the other guests as well as Michael.

“To Churchill’s tombstone!” the gray-haired major sitting a few seats down from Chesna proposed, and all-including Michael-drank merrily. Michael scanned the table, examining the faces of the dinner guests. Their host and his lead-footed aide were absent, but a young captain had seated everyone and gotten the party going. After another few rounds of toasts, in honor of drowned U-boat men, the valiant dead of Stalingrad, and the fried corpses of Hamburg, white-jacketed waiters began to roll in the dinner on silver carts. The main event was roast boar with an apple in its mouth, which Michael noted with some pleasure was set in front of Harry Sandler. The hunter had evidently shot the beast in the forest’s hunting preserve just yesterday, and as he cut slabs of greasy meat and slid them onto platters it was clear Sandler knew how to handle a carving knife as well as a rifle.

Michael ate sparingly, the meat too full of fat for him, and listened to the conversations on all sides. Such optimism that the Russians would be thrown back and the English would come crawling to Hitler’s feet with a peace treaty was worthy of a gypsy and a crystal ball. The voices and laughter were loud, the wine kept flowing and the waiters kept bringing food, and unreality was so thick in the air Harry Sandler might have carved it. This was the food these Nazis were used to eating, and their bellies looked full.

Michael and Chesna had talked most of the afternoon. She knew nothing about Iron Fist. Neither did she know anything of Dr. Gustav Hildebrand’s activities, or what went on at Hildebrand’s Norway island. Of course she knew that Hildebrand advocated gas warfare-that was a common fact-but Hitler evidently remembered his own sniff of mustard gas in the Great War and didn’t care to open that particular Pandora’s box. Or, at least, not just yet. Did the Nazis have a stockpile of gas bombs and shells? Michael had inquired. Chesna wasn’t sure of the exact tonnage, but she felt sure that somewhere the Reich had at least fifty thousand tons of weapons, kept ready in case Hitler changed his mind. Michael pointed out the fact that gas shells could be used to disrupt the invasion, but Chesna disagreed. It would take thousands of shells and bombs to stop the invasion, she said. Also, gas of the kind Dr. Hildebrand’s father had helped develop-distilled mustard during the Great War, Tabun and Sarin in the late 1930’s-might easily blow back on the defenders in the tricky coastal winds. So, Chesna told him, a gas attack on the Allies might backfire on the German troops instead. That had to be a possibility the high command had already considered, and she didn’t think one Rommel-who was in charge of the Atlantic Wall’s defenses-would allow. Anyway, she said, the Allies had control of the air now, and would certainly shoot down any German bombers that approached the invasion beaches.

Which left them where they’d begun, pondering the meaning of a phrase and a caricature of Adolf Hitler.

“You’re not eating. What’s wrong? Isn’t it raw enough for you?”

Michael looked up from his deliberations and stared across the table into Sandler’s face. It had grown more ruddy from all the toasts, and now Sandler wore a slack-lipped smile. “It’s all right,” Michael said, and forced the greasy meat into his mouth. He envied Mouse, eating a bowl of beef soup and a liverwurst sandwich in the servants’ wing. “Where’s your good-luck charm?”

“Blondi? Oh, not so far. My suite’s next door. You know, I don’t think she likes you very much.”

“What a shame.”

Sandler was about to reply-a gimcrack witticism, no doubt-but his attention was distracted by the red-haired young woman who sat next to him. They began to talk, and Michael heard Sandler say something about Kenya. Well, it took a bore to kill a boar.

At that moment the dining-room door opened, and Jerek Blok stalked in with Boots following behind. Instantly a chorus of cheers and applause rose up and one of the dinner guests proposed a toast to Blok. The SS colonel plucked a wineglass from a passing tray, smiled, and drank to his own long life. Then Michael watched as Blok, a tall, thin man with a sallow face, wearing a dress uniform studded with medals, made the rounds of the table, stopping to shake hands and slap backs. Boots followed him, a fleshy shadow.

Blok came to Chesna’s chair. “Ah, my dear girl!” he said, and bent down to kiss her cheek. “How are you? You look lovely! Your new film is almost out, yes?” Chesna said it was imminent. “And it’ll be a tremendous smash and give us all a boost, won’t it? Of course it will.” His gray-eyed gaze-the eyes of a lizard, Michael thought-found Baron von Fange. “Ah, and here’s the lucky man!” He approached Michael, held out his hand, and Michael rose to shake it. Boots stood behind Blok, staring at the baron. “Von Fange, isn’t it?” Blok asked. His handshake was loose and damp. He had a long, narrow nose and a pointed chin. His close-cropped brown hair swirled with gray at temples and forehead. “I met a Von Fange in Dortmund last year. Was that a member of your family?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. My father and uncles travel all over Germany.”

“Yes, I met a Von Fange.” Blok nodded. He released Michael’s hand, leaving it feeling as if Michael had gripped something oily. Blok had bad teeth; the front lower teeth were all silver. “I can’t remember his first name, though. What’s your father’s name?”

“Leopold.”

“That’s a noble name! No, I can’t quite recall.” Blok was still smiling, but it was an empty smile. “And tell me this: why isn’t a strapping young man like you part of the SS? With your heritage, I could easily get you an officer’s commission.”

“He picks tulips,” Sandler said. His voice was getting a little slurred, and he held his wineglass out to be refilled.

“The Von Fange family has cultivated tulips for over fifty years,” Chesna spoke up, offering information from the German social registry. “Plus they own very fine vineyards and bottle their private labels. And thank you for bringing that to Colonel Blok’s attention, Harry.”

“Tulips, eh?” Blok’s smile had grown a bit cooler. Michael could see him thinking: perhaps this wasn’t SS material after all. “Well, Baron, you must be a very special man to have swept Chesna off her feet like this. And such a secret she was keeping from her friends! Trust an actress to be an actress, yes?” He directed his silver smile at Chesna. “My best wishes to you both,” he said, and moved on to greet the man who sat at Michael’s left.

Michael continued picking at his meal. Boots left the dining room, and Michael heard someone ask Blok about his new aide. “He’s a new model,” Blok said as he took his chair at the head of the table. “Made of Krupp steel. Has machine guns in his kneecaps and a grenade launcher in his ass.” There was laughter, and Blok basked in it. “No, Boots was until recently working on an antipartisan detail in France. I’d assigned him to a friend of mine: Harzer. Poor fool got his head blown off-excuse me, ladies. Anyway, I took Boots back into my command a couple of weeks ago.” He lifted his filled wineglass. “A toast. To the Brimstone Club!”

“The Brimstone Club!” returned the refrain, and the toast was drunk.

The feast went on, through courses of baked salmon, sweetbreads in cognac, quail stuffed with chopped German sausage, and then rich brandied cake and raspberries in iced pink champagne. Michael’s stomach felt swollen, though he’d eaten with discretion; Chesna had hardly eaten at all, but most of the others had filled their faces as if tomorrow was Judgment Day. Michael thought of a time, long ago, when winter winds were raging and the starving pack had gathered around Franco’s severed leg. All this fat -grease, and running suet didn’t fit the wolf’s diet.

When dinner ended, cognac and cigars were offered. Most of the guests left the table, drifting into the suite’s other huge, marble-floored rooms. Michael stood beside Chesna on the long balcony, a snifter of warm cognac in his hand, and watched searchlights probe the low clouds over Berlin. Chesna put her arm around him and leaned her head on his shoulder, and they were left alone. He said, in the soft murmuring of an enraptured lover, “What are my chances of getting in later?”

“What?” She almost pulled away from him.

“Getting in here,” he explained. “I’d like to take a look around Blok’s suite.”

“Not very good. All the doors have alarms. If you don’t have the proper key, all hell would break loose.”

“Can you get me a key?”

“No. Too risky.”

He thought for a moment, watching the ballet of searchlights. “What about the balcony doors?” he asked. He’d already noticed there were no locks on them. Locks were hardly necessary when they were on the castle’s seventh floor, more than a hundred and sixty feet above the ground. The nearest balcony-to the right, belonging to Harry Sandler’s suite-was over forty feet away.

Chesna looked into his face. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Our suite is on the floor below, isn’t it?” He strolled to the stone railing and peered down. A little more than twenty feet below was another terrace, but it wasn’t part of Chesna’s suite. Their quarters were around the castle’s corner, facing the south, while Blok’s terrace faced almost directly east. He searched the castle’s wall: the massive, weatherworn stones were full of cracks and chinks, and here and there were ornate embellishments of eagles, geometric designs, and the grotesque faces of gargoyles. A thin ledge encircled every level of the castle, but much of the ledge on the seventh floor had crumbled away. Still, there were abundant hand- and footholds. If he was very, very careful.

The height made his stomach clench, but it was jumping from airplanes that he most dreaded, not height itself. He said, “I can get in through the balcony doors.”

“You can get yourself killed any number of ways in Berlin. If you like, you can tell Blok who you really are and he’ll put a bullet through your brain, so you won’t have to commit suicide.”

“I’m serious,” Michael said, and Chesna saw that he was. She started to tell him that he was utterly insane, but suddenly a young giggling blond girl came out onto the balcony, followed closely by a Nazi officer old enough to be her father. “Darling, darling,” the German goat crooned, “tell me what you want.” Michael pulled Chesna against him and guided her toward the balcony’s far corner. The wind blew into their faces, bringing the smell of mist and pine. “I might not have another opportunity,” he said, in a lover’s moist and quiet tone. He began to slide his hand down her elegant back, and Chesna didn’t pull away because the German goat and his nymphet were watching. “I’ve had some mountaineering experience.” It had been a course in cliff climbing, before he’d gone to North Africa: the art of making a hairline crack and a nub of rock support a hundred and eighty pounds, the same skill he’d used at the Paris Opera. He glanced over the railing again, then thought better of it. No use stretching his courage before he needed it. “I can do it,” he said, and then he smelled Chesna’s womanly scent, her beautiful face so close to his. Searchlights danced over Berlin like a ghostly ballet. On impulse Michael pulled Chesna against him, and kissed her lips.

She resisted, but only for a second because she also knew they were being watched. She put her arms around him, felt the muscles of his shoulders move under his tuxedo jacket, and then felt his hand caress the base of her spine, where the dimples were. Michael tasted her lips: honey-sweet, with perhaps a dash of pepper. Warm lips, and growing warmer. She put a hand against his chest; the hand made an effort to push him back but the arm didn’t agree. Defeated, the hand slipped away. Michael deepened the kiss, and found Chesna accepting what he offered.

“That’s what I want,” Michael heard the old goat’s nymphet say.

Another officer looked out through the balcony doors. “Almost time!” he announced, and hurried away. The goat and nymphet left, the girl still giggling. Michael broke the kiss, and Chesna gasped for breath. His lips tingled. “Almost time for what?” he asked her.

“The Brimstone Club’s meeting. Once a month, down in the auditorium.” She actually-it was ridiculous-felt a little dizzy. The altitude, she thought it must be. Her lips felt as if they were on fire. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to find good seats.” She took his hand, and he followed her off the balcony.

They descended in a crowded elevator, along with other dinner guests. Michael assumed the Brimstone Club was one of those mystic leagues the Nazis prided themselves on, in a country of orders, fellowships, and secret societies. In any case he was about to find out. He noted that Chesna had a very tight grip on his hand, though her expression remained cheerful. The actress at her craft.

The auditorium, on the castle’s first floor in the section behind the lobby, was filling up with people. Fifty or so Brimstone Club members had already found their chairs. A red velvet curtain obscured the stage, and multicolored electric lanterns hung from the rafters. Nazi officers had come dressed in their finery, and most everyone else wore formal attire. Whatever the Brimstone Club was, Michael mused as he walked with Chesna along the aisle, it was reserved for the Reich’s gentry.