The following day Alice got there early. She had wedged the bread just beneath the bench footing at the far end, with the note of the time stuffed into the thickest part of the bread. It was gone, but she began to think of all the things that could have dislodged it—a city rat? There were plenty. A bird looking for crumbs? There was precious little to eat in the city. A park attendant picking up trash—would they really be that diligent to pick out a crust of bread? Or that hungry?

  She sat with a schoolbook and pretended to study. But this was impossible. She had been waiting at least thirty minutes when she saw a slender man approaching in what looked like work clothes. Dusty overalls and a workers’ cap with fur-lined earflaps. There was something slightly familiar about the way he walked. He came up to the bench.

  “Walter!”

  “Ja.”

  “So you’ve known all along about us?”

  “Ja.”

  “Does Papa know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And you’re not Rasa?”

  “No. Not at all.” He chuckled softly. “Not MI6 either.”

  “What are you?”

  “SOE—Special Operations Executive.”

  “Oh yes, of course.”

  “So what’s your problem?”

  “I think it’s a problem. Not sure.”

  “Just say it.” He bent his head as he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees. She bent over as well. They appeared to be talking to the ground.

  “Well, I think someone . . . uh . . . how should I put it . . . recognized . . .”

  “Remembered your face?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “A fellow in the Führerbunker.” She paused. “A Werewolf.” She whispered the word. The word felt hot on her lips.

  “Oh god!” Walter said softly. It was actually the softness of his reply that sent a chill through her.

  “How many times has it happened?”

  “Just once.”

  “Have you seen him again since then?”

  “Yes, maybe twice.”

  “And no sign of recognition?”

  “No, nothing.” She swallowed. “Should I be extracted?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to talk to my fios. I think they’ll be reluctant. The quality of your information has been extremely good. Excellent. Particularly the continuing state of denial of Starling about the Allied situation. He refused to believe they’ve made such headway.” Walter sighed.

  “The Allies have just trapped another German division west of the Rhine River. And yet Starling still thinks he can win there, as you reported. It’s going to be a complete debacle. The kind of information you’re giving us is vital. Vital for the spirits of the Allied forces. Eisenhower himself is feasting on this intelligence. Your intelligence, Ute.” He paused. “Starling is still planning this performance in the bunker—the Götterdämmerung?”

  “Yes, the Werewolf are actually building scenery.”

  “If only they’d just stick to scenery and such nonsense.” He paused again and inhaled before continuing. “Look, Ute, I must warn you about these Werewolf. They are really dangerous. They make the Gestapo look like clowns. They are trained killers. Their weapons are a slip-knotted garrote, a wire specially made for strangulation, or a Walther pistol with a silencer. You know about the mayor of Aachen?”

  She shook her head.

  “He was killed. Assassinated yesterday by a team of Werewolf.” There was a long silence that seemed to engulf both of them. Walter extended his hand and patted her knee. “Believe me, Ute, I’ll understand if you want to withdraw.”

  “No. The only place I want to withdraw to is . . .” Her words seemed to die on her lips as she thought of the golden cottage in the Cotswolds. But here she was, surrounded by darkness—the Starling, Fritz, and yes, even her own Louise! The thought startled her. “I have to go. Thank you, Walter.” She got up and walked away.

  Thirty-Three

  Tableau Morte

  In the last week of March, the last kilometer of the Russian railway was laid across Poland to bring millions of tons of rockets, ammunition, fuel, and food to support the invasion of Berlin. The word of the railroad completion rattled the citizens of the city. They were racked with despair and anxiety, and completely exhausted. But in the Führerbunker, Hitler’s favorite scene from the second opera, The Ride of the Valkyries, was being presented. The evening before, it had been the last act of Götterdämmerung. It seemed that the program was caught in an infinite cycle of Hitler’s favorite scenes from all four operas.

  For this scene of the ride, Alice stretched her mouth wide, as instructed, and the cry of the Valkyries ripped through the theater of the bunker. Not from Alice’s throat, of course, but that of Martha Mödl, the famous soprano. Across the winged horse that Alice “rode,” there was a dummy slung—a dead hero who she would transport to Valhalla. She peered out into the audience, where the Führer sat in the front row, transfixed. His pale gray eyes were riveted on the Valkyries, who rode their wooden horses to Valhalla.

  Hours before, an urgent appeal had been broadcast on the radio—that every German should join the effort to kill. The words still rang in Alice’s ears as she had prepared for the performance. “We must hit the enemy—every Bolshevik, every Englishman, every American—every traitor within our own city must be hit wherever we meet them. Our motto is conquer or die.”

  And then on the very next day, April 2, following the previous evening’s performance, she was playing Brünnhilde again.

  On April 9, dozens of well-known opponents of the regime were rounded up by the SS and Werewolf and sent to various concentration camps, where they were butchered.

  On April 10, during a brief visit home, Alice and her parents were both eating dinner before she had to return to the Führerbunker when a radio announcer broke through. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like you to hear from a new broadcaster—a lovely lady. Yes indeed. We call her Lily the Werewolf.”

  A silky voice seeped into the kitchen as they sat around the table eating yet another pea-meal and potato-skin concoction of Posie’s.

  “I am so savage,” the voice began. “I am filled with rage. Lily the Werewolf is my name. I bite, I eat, I am not tame. My Werewolf teeth bite the enemy.”

  “Well, that certainly takes away one’s appetite,” Posie murmured. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some beef tea and a smidge of Marmite on some bread—good bread, real bread.”

  On this same night two hours later, Alice was once again getting into her Valkyrie costume. The stage was set and painted with flames—the flames of the pyre upon which Brünnhilde would hurl herself in her last desperate act. Alice just had to get through this night. The snow had cleared. The bikes were waiting for them. Her father had managed to build three relatively sturdy bikes.

  He had told Alice that the Russian troops were actually making 358 kilometers a day. Her family had to get out before they arrived. So far, the Russians had left absolute massacres in their wake. They wouldn’t know that the Winfields were British citizens, spies, part of the Allied forces. They might not even care, Alan Winfield said.

  Alice was backstage, waiting for the curtain to drop on the first scene, before the one she was to appear in. On the other side of the stage, she saw a girl named Ingrid, a kitchen worker, dressed in an outfit identical to her own—Brünnhilde. How odd, she thought.

  Then, in that same moment, she gasped as she felt herself jerked backward. A knotted wire cut into her neck. She gasped for air. I am being garroted. The wire cut in deeper. The pain was excruciating, but the harder she resisted, the more it hurt. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire. Her head was being cut from her body. She saw her life guttering out of her like a candle flame with no air. There was no hope. Only a growing black void that filled her head. I am dying. Her thoughts came slowly. Her eyes slid upward . . . to be met by sky-blue Nazi eyes, white-blond hair across the brow.

  Then suddenly the wire dropped. There was a split second of shock in the blue eyes, and then a thud on the floor. She looked down. The white-blond hair brushed his collar—and stuck in his neck was a hypodermic needle.

  A hand grabbed hers. “Come along, dear.”

  “Louise!”

  “Shush! Follow me.”

  Posie Winfield had been frying up some eggs, for which she had paid an astronomical price. She had just removed the pan from the burner as the two girls walked into the small basement apartment. She emitted a tiny shriek and dropped the pan. “Louise!!”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  “Alice—Alice— What happened to your neck?”

  “Uh . . . uh . . . it’s hard to explain, Mum.”

  At that moment their father entered the tiny kitchen with a bicycle chain.

  “What’s . . . Louise?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “Dad, we need another bike!” Alice said.

  “Yes, yes. Give me fifteen minutes. I have all the parts.”

  During those fifteen minutes, Louise explained that she had acted as a double agent. “Same as you, Mum. But they wanted my face to be remembered.”

  “So you just pretended to be tired of your . . . your old face?”

  “Not really. When I went to the director and said I might be considering surgery, he told me that there was a need for a young woman with a memorable face. They needed her to infiltrate this new paramilitary organization that was being created. The war was about to turn, he felt. With the Normandy invasion, and the Russians miraculously turning back the Germans. Plus, the Red Army was absolutely uncrushable. This new organization, the Werewolf, was started to terrorize Allied soldiers and any collaborators, spies and so on, as they pushed farther into Germany.”

  “And my cover was discovered? My face remembered?” Alice asked.

  “I’m not sure. Your face wasn’t exactly remembered, but word got out, maybe a month ago, that there was an infiltrator. Somehow a link was made to Stauffenberg. It was that link that finally convinced them that you were the infiltrator. But look, Stauffenberg died almost nine months ago, and it’s taken them all this time to get to you.” Alan Winfield had reentered the room. “All right. Time to leave.”

  “Yes, right away. I can imagine that when they find Fritz, they will be here soon.”

  “They’ll find him right away, won’t they?”

  “Not if Frau Weissmann has her way.”

  “Frau Weissmann!” Alice exclaimed.

  “Yes, can’t explain now. Later. Let me just say this. Frau Weissmann is not exactly a Frau.”

  “Wh . . . what is she?” Alice stammered.

  “Colonel Reginald Griffith. A decathlon champion from the 1928 Olympics, I believe. Quite strong. She removed the body and took it to her quarters by a secret passage, and then fled the Führerbunker.”

  Alice blinked. “My head is spinning.”

  “Hey, at least it’s still attached!” Louise said.

  Thirty-Four

  To the Elbe

  On the night of April 10, the four members of the Winfield family, with their bikes and backpacks, boarded the subway, or U-Bahn, train at Alexanderplatz, the number eight that headed west. They took it to the last station on the western line. The autobahn was clear of snow, but not of troops. Within ten kilometers they could see that they were closing in on the tail end of a German tank division.

  Alan sighed. “Too bad we don’t have tanks. The road ahead has already been bombed by the Allies. That’s what you need—a tank—to get over it. We’ll have to get off the Autobahn and go across these fields,” Alan announced. “There will be country roads on the other side. Let’s hope they weren’t bombed.”

  “Mum,” Alice said. “This looks so much like the field that we parachuted into.”

  “Well, the good news is that this would not be a good road for the army at all. But we’re still heading west. And look, a sunny day, I think.” Alan Winfield turned his head toward the east, where the dawn was just breaking.

  Within five miles they came to a village. The sun was barely up, but there was an unusual bustle in the street as they rode through.

  An elderly man on a cane walked up to Alice. He looked delighted as he greeted the four Winfields.

  “Willkommen in unserem Dorf. Es wird bald amerikanisch sein.”

  “What?” Posie exclaimed.

  “Ah yes, Frau. The Americans have reached Magdeburg, and tomorrow they will cross the Elbe. We are celebrating!” He giggled. Then, in a very somber voice, “So much better to be captured by the Americans than the Russians.”

  They all suddenly realized that they could hear the crackle of radios pouring out from open windows in the village.

  “It’s Alvar!” Alice gasped. Alvar Lidell was their favorite newsreader from the BBC. The four Winfields rushed to the window from which the familiar voice was coming.

  “The American Ninth Army today reached the city of Magdeburg. They are expected to establish a link between their troops and the Russians on the east bank of the Elbe. This should occur in a matter of days . . .” Alvar Lidell’s crisp voice seeped into the air. Posie closed her eyes, as if she was tasting the most delicious thing in the world.

  “Mum, you look so happy. Like when you smell good things cooking.”

  “I am savoring his voice. It’s so, so wonderful. It’s Sunday roast and pudding. It’s fish-and-chips.” She sighed. “Indulge me children. May I quote Mr. Browning?

  “Oh, to be in England

  Now that April’s there

  And whoever wakes in England

  Sees, some morning, unaware,

  That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

  Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

  While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

  In England—now!”

  As she recited the Robert Browning poem, Alice thought of their cottage in the Cotswolds with its trailing ribbons of roses and ivy. The cottage softly glowing softly like a beacon of peace and comfort and happiness.

  Alan Winfield came up and gave his wife a hug and an extra squeeze around her shoulders. “Come along, old gal. We’ve got to push on!” He pressed his lips together, which he often did when he was in deep thought.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “I’m calculating. If the Americans just arrived at Magdeburg, and Alvar said something about the Red Army closing in on Torgau, there are maybe two hundred kilometers between them.” He pulled a compass out from his pants pocket. “We are closer to the Russians than the Americans. We don’t want that!” he said forcefully. “We have to press on. We have to get to the Elbe before the Red Army does.”

  No one asked why. They knew why. The Red Army was brutal, particularly to women. The soldiers didn’t care if they were German, American, or British. They were savages.

  The people in the village were actually quite helpful. The Winfields’ cover story was that they desperately need to get to the next village, where their eldest daughter was expecting a baby. And when they got to Beendorf, they told the same story and moved on to the next village.

  And so they went. Rarely stopping to rest, they pushed through a rainstorm and a flurry of snow showers. When they did rest, they sought culverts and wooded areas. They had made good time considering they were walking their bikes for miles on end. The bikes themselves had suffered flat tires and other problems. But Alan had brought a small pump with him, glue, and patching material. In the villages, people were very supportive of the raggedy family trying to get to their eldest daughter and what would be their first grandchild. The people shared what they had, which wasn’t much.

  Well past midnight on this particular evening, they had retreated to a thickly wooded patch half a kilometer from the road. They could hear the gunfire and the rumble of tanks—the Red Army tanks, Alan said. “It seems we and the Russians are proceeding together. The Russians undoubtedly are trying to get the German Twelfth Army, which is stationed at Dessau and most likely preparing for the Americans’ Ninth Army. I’d estimate that we’re twenty miles from the Elbe River.” He sighed. And stared down at the pieces of thick felt in his hands. “We could tear up a coat and improvise, with these brake pads gone. But I doubt I can repair them. And honestly it’s too dangerous right now to proceed on the open road.” He looked up at his family. “We’re simply going to have to walk . . . walk right into the Americans’ arms. No other way.”

  They would rest briefly. Alice volunteered to stand watch at the base of a spruce tree, where she propped herself again its trunk and watched the gray of the night dissolve. Within moments, the rest of the Winfields were slipping into a thin sleep. No one slept deeply anymore. The sky began to swell with clouds as the dawn broke, ugly and red. It seemed to Alice as if the war had literally bled into the sky, as if the earth had hemorrhaged with its burden of the dead and the dying and simply could absorb no more. No birds spilled their song into the dawn sky. There was only the distant pounding of artillery.

  The morning was cold, and they were wrapped up in every scrap of clothing they had. A shallow layer of ground fog was beginning to rise as Alice unwrapped a candy bar. She was just about to bite into it when a small figure emerged from a thicket of slender birches not twenty feet away.

  My god! she thought. It was a child dressed in a raggedy coat that was several sizes too big. A flat hat, also too large, with a shiny black visor that almost covered his eyes. He carried a huge, ancient-looking weapon. And on his sleeve he wore an armband—a Volkssturm armband. Alice heard her father say, “Good lord, I haven’t seen one of those bolt action rifles since the Great War and Verdun.”

  “Ja, ja. As good as a Panzerfaust—a tank fist. I can blow up a tank with this.” A high, piping voice emanated from somewhere under the dark visor.

  “I’m sure you can, young man.”

  The boy, who could not have been more than eight or nine years old, smiled slightly and narrowed his eyes.