Rosa (18 page)

“It was on your desk when I got back from Missing Persons. I assume just one of the boys and the wire operator. That’s it.”

“Evidently not.” Hoffner sat, thinking to himself: Why would anyone else have been looking for it in the first place?

“Why the wrong question?” said Fichte, resuming their previous conversation.

It took Hoffner a moment to refocus; he looked over at Fichte. “Because right now it doesn’t matter who’s doing the killing, or why. What matters is how he got to Berlin.”

Fichte’s all-too-predictable “I don’t understand” was out before Hoffner could explain.

“Look at what we have.” Hoffner settled back in his chair as he spoke: “You’d think the piece out of place would be Wouters—everything in the Bruges case is the same, everything points to him, except he’s locked away in an asylum seven hundred kilometers from here, a fact that is both frightening and astounding—but it’s not. That’s not the piece that doesn’t fit. Imitator or not—it doesn’t matter which—the killings are taking place here by someone who knows the Bruges case. By someone who must have been in Bruges. But not because he can make a few markings on a woman’s back. No, the reason he must have been in Bruges is that, unless he was there, how else would he have been able to bring the girl from Bruges to Berlin? Given her mental state, she clearly couldn’t have made it on her own. So how did anyone get from Bruges to Berlin over two months ago? The only transports would have been military. No one else could have crossed the lines, even after the armistice. How? And how does he bring a girl with him?”

Fichte needed a moment to absorb the information. “So the fact that it’s not Wouters doesn’t trouble you.”

“Of course it troubles me, Hans.” Hoffner’s tone was thick with frustration. “It horrifies me. But right now, it’s not the most inconsistent piece of information we have.”

“It’s a shame Kroll didn’t have anything for us on the grease. That might have been helpful.”

Hoffner nodded slowly. He had decided to keep this recent discovery from Fichte: until he knew what it all meant—and now, with the information from Bruges, he had no idea when that might be—Hoffner needed to keep everything as focused as possible. As much as he wanted to trust Fichte with it, he knew that would be unwise: the appearance of the Polpo had made that abundantly clear, not to mention the leak. The less Fichte knew, the safer it would be for everyone involved. “Yes,” said Hoffner. “We’ll have to wait on that.”

Fichte tried another tack: “Was the Wouters case well reported in Belgium? I mean, during the war, would they have spent a lot of time with it in the newspapers? That could be of use.”

Hoffner had been thinking the same thing. “Excellent question, Hans. You’ll have to ask the Chief Inspector when you see him.”

Fichte’s confusion returned, and Hoffner explained: “We need to know what they have in Bruges, and we need it quickly. More than that, we need to hear what Mr. Wouters has to say, and whom he might have said it to.” Fichte remained silent. Hoffner tried to lead him. “There is another way to get from Bruges to Berlin, Hans, also controlled by the military, although a bit quicker than a train.” When Fichte continued to stare back at him, Hoffner said, “You’ve never been in an aeroplane, have you, Hans?” Hoffner watched as the blood drained from Fichte’s face. “Not so bad, really. Just remember to turn your head away from the wind.” Hoffner smiled at Fichte’s blank stare. “Trust me,” he said. “You’ll know when.”

THE PACT

Victor Knig, Hoffner’s onetime partner, had spent the last hour of his life circling over a vast stretch of lake hidden beneath fog in the autumn of 1915. Knig had not realized it, but had he flown just another twenty kilometers east, he would have seen the lights of a village and been able to land his Fokker E-I in any number of open fields. At the time, the
“Eindecker”
had been a relatively new aeroplane, renowned for its synchronous Spandau machine gun—that clever little gear which allowed it to stop firing when the propeller blade was moving directly in front of it—but Knig had been flying in empty sky: what he had needed was light, not a miracle gun. With his fuel dangerously low, and the sun dipping out of the horizon, Knig had chanced a drop dive into the cloud cover. Thinking he was coasting just above the water, and only a few hundred meters from open land, he had hit the lake head-on at full speed. The impact had left nothing of the aeroplane to recover, let alone any traces of Captain Victor Knig of the German Second Aircraft Battalion.

It was an odd mistake for so experienced a flyer to have made. Knig had been flying since 1909, and had placed third in the
Rundflug
in both 1912 and 1913. It was why the Air Corps had overlooked his rather advanced age of thirty-eight on the application: a sky pilot with five years of flying under his belt was prime material. It was for those reasons that his squadron had assumed he had been hit somewhere over France. None of them had even considered the possibility of those final tormenting minutes that Knig had had to endure. Far from enemy fire, alone and blind, he had been done in by nothing more than the dark. It was probably better that no one had known. Victor had been a terribly proud man.

Next to Hoffner, Tobias Mueller had been struck hardest by Knig’s death. Mueller had been a brash twenty-four-year-old with a genius for flight, and Knig’s closest comrade in the squadron. Hoffner had met him once during one of their leaves: they had liked each other instantly.

Mueller had been something of a celebrity during the war. He had brought down eighteen French fighters in just over two years before being sent home in 1917: it had not been his decision. He had lost part of his right foot, along with a few fingers, in a crash landing, and now walked with a considerable limp. He had insisted he could still fight; the Air Corps, however, had seen it otherwise. Even so, Mueller had been too good with a stick to let go: he had been flying supplies in and out of Berlin for the past two years. True to form, it had taken Mueller no time to discover that a good deal of money could be made by a pilot willing to fly any number of other items in and out of Germany. He had been caught only once, luckily by the civilian police, and since the black market was Kripo jurisdiction, his case had landed on the third floor at the Alex. Hoffner had been the one to make it all go away, and Mueller had never forgotten him for that. The monthly supply of cigars and cigarettes was a particularly welcome treat.

For now, Mueller was favoring the aerodrome at Tempelhof as his base of operations. It was little more than four or five buildings scattered across a stretch of wide-open grassland, and was still considered second-rate when compared to the airfields at Johannisthal—the site from which the
Rundflug
fliers had set off and returned during those wild, prewar days of summer—but it did have the advantage of being closer in to town. It was the preferred stop of the supply runners for that reason, more so because no one really paid it much attention. Planes could come and go as they pleased. On occasion, a little something for the station guard was advised, but aside from that, sky pilots had the run of the place. It also meant that Tempelhof was always in need of a good overhaul.

Hoffner and Fichte were finding that out for themselves firsthand as they slogged their way across a field that was more like a mass of dense pudding than a runway. It was clear why boots were a staple of the aviator outfit.

Hoffner was the first into the hangar. It would have been difficult to call the domed tent a building, as it was nothing more than a tarp hung over several very long poles. Ten or so aeroplanes of every color and design stood in a row along the side wall, half of them stripped for parts in aid of the other five. Mueller was pilfering something from one of the stray engines when he looked around at the sound of footsteps. He was wearing a pair of coveralls, streaked in oil and grease from collar to foot. His boots, however, were immaculate. He started toward them.

Still far enough away not to be heard, Fichte said quietly, “I’m getting into an aeroplane with a cripple? Wonderful.”

Under his breath, Hoffner answered, “I won’t tell him about your lungs, and you don’t mention the limp. Fair enough?”

Mueller drew up to them, and, wiping the grease onto a cloth from his remaining fingers, he extended his hand. Without hesitation, Hoffner took it. “Hello, Toby,” he said.

“Nikolai,” said Mueller. “Nice to see you.”

“This is Hans Fichte. Your passenger.”

Mueller extended his hand to Fichte, who tried a smile and took Mueller’s hand. Fichte squeezed gently and felt the gaps in the grip. “It’s an odd sensation,” said Mueller, “but you get used to it.” Fichte nodded awkwardly. Mueller smiled. “I was talking about flying. You never get used to the hand.” Mueller laughed. Again Fichte nodded, as he pulled his hand away.

“How soon until you can go?” said Hoffner.

“The sky’s clear enough, for now. Up to you. Everything’s ready on my end.” Mueller nodded over to a biplane along the row, one with a tapered undercarriage and a high skid under the back fin. From the little Hoffner recalled, it could have been anything from a Siemens-Schuckert D-IV to an English Sopwith Snipe. Hoffner was putting nothing past Mueller, these days. Mueller had been talking about getting his hands on a Bentley engine for weeks: the 230-horsepower B.R.2, if memory served. It was a bit tougher to handle, but the power was unmatched, over 300 kph in a dive, according to Mueller. Hoffner had trouble even conceiving of those speeds. The chances, however, of one having “fallen” into Mueller’s lap during his travels was just too good. Hoffner knew Georgi would have been able to spot it instantly.

Mueller turned to Fichte. “We can fly above the rain, but you’ll need something warmer than what you’ve got on. There are some things back in the office you can try.” Fichte nodded.

“So I can leave him with you, Toby?” said Hoffner. “I need you there for a day, two at the most. You can work that?”

Mueller said, “Bruges is as good a place as any to find castor oil.”

Seeing Fichte’s expression, Hoffner said, “To grease the cylinders, Hans. An old sky pilot’s trick.”

Mueller headed for the office as Hoffner lagged behind with Fichte so as to give the boy some last-minute instructions. “Get what you can and wire me, Hans.” Not that Hoffner was thrilled to be sending Fichte off like this—there had been only time enough for Fichte to throw an extra pair of socks and some shaving equipment into a satchel—but given the leak, Hoffner had no interest in having the Bruges story come out before getting the information firsthand. Fichte would have to make do. “And mark the wire ‘restricted.’ I’ll have a boy waiting at the desk, day and night. Send it whenever you can.”

Fichte said, “You don’t think it would be better for both of us to go?”

Hoffner had explained this twice on the ride over. He tried to be encouraging. “Of course it would, Hans, but then who’s going to find that leak?” Hoffner paused. “You’re from the big city. Use it to your advantage.”

Mueller had reached the office. He turned back. “All right, boys, we’ve got about three and a half hours of light left. We need to be in the air in ten minutes if we’re going to get as far as Kln by tonight, and I want to get as far as Kln by tonight.” He stepped into the office and headed for a locker. “Now,” he said to himself in a loud voice, “let’s see if we’ve got anything big enough for Herr Kripo in here.”

Hoffner patted Fichte on the shoulder and started for the field. “Safe trip, Hans.” Almost at the opening flap, he added, “And try not to fall out.” Hoffner was gone by the time Fichte turned around to answer.

T
he Ullstein Building is the site from which most of Berlin’s popular news is processed and packaged for daily consumption. Having stood its ground for the past forty years, the building had survived relatively unscathed during the weeks of revolution. In the distant past, its editors had made it through Bismarck’s right-wing barrages, and later the left’s equally vicious attacks for the paper’s support of the war. The men of Ullstein had even found ways to defuse the ever-recurring anti-Semitic assaults. Leopold Ullstein, the publisher and founder—along with his five sons—had done a remarkable thing for Berlin by giving her workingmen newspapers written just for them; Ullstein senior had even sat on the city council in thanks for his services. But Jews were Jews, and there was always something so threatening in that, and so, whenever things got a bit slow, the Ullstein papers were the inevitable target. According to the current editors, however, if they had managed to weather those storms, a few shots from some disgruntled soldiers weren’t going to stall the presses.