His eyes seemed to go darker still in his paste-white face as he looked at her, and in the quietness she heard a voice at the other end of the line as the connection was made. She felt certain he hadn’t been bluffing when he’d picked up the phone; there was a seriousness in his attitude that she could sense, and it ran true to character: there was only one way for him to relieve his fury, and that was by simple action. He hated to be disobeyed or in any way thwarted, and the danger for

  Franz at this moment was that Vogel might enjoy avenging himself more than he’d enjoy using her body.

  So she went over to him, smiling, and took his pale dry hand and held its palm against her, letting him feel how warm she was under the black crepe de chine; and for a moment she believed she’d lost, lost everything for her brother, because Vogel remained absolutely wooden with his hand motionless on her body. Then he slowly put down the receiver, and she closed her eyes in a mute prayer of thanksgiving.

  Spreadeagled naked across the bed, she had nothing to do. Perhaps this was what had been in his strange mind when he’d said, that first day, “I ask nothing uncivilized of you, Fräulein. Nothing . . . onerous.”

  He’d gone into the bathroom first to wash his hands; she always left out his own towel. It was just like the beginning of an operation: Dr. Vorst did the same thing every time, walking steadily to the handbasin and running the water.

  Superintendent Vogel wasn’t naked, as she was. He always took off his black decorated tunic but never his trousers nor even his polished boots, either because of some kind of fetish or because he didn’t see any need to. She was beginning to know how a prostitute felt as she lay exposed to his mouth and his dry, restless fingers: she could think, if she tried hard enough, about something else. When the revulsion became so bad that she thought she must throw him off her and run screaming out of the flat, she thought about her brother. Sometimes—usually when Vogel telephoned to make an appointment—she found herself wondering bitterly how Franz could have been so dangerously stupid, exposing himself and his whole family to unthinkable agonies for the sake of his adolescent ideals; then she would shrink in horror at her own thoughts, and get out the three photographs from the dressing table and make herself look at them again. She’d asked Vogel to let her have them, after his first visit under the “arrangement,” knowing that if she were to go through with this she must have the means of reminding herself of the necessity.

  “Turn over, Fräulein. . . . Yes, like that. .

  She moved for him as if it weren’t her own body but someone else’s—a patient’s body in the expert hands of a physiotherapist, a live model scrutinized and manipulated in an anatomy class, anyone but herself—to escape the reality of what was going on in this over-furnished flat in the house of Frau Hartnagel, the widowed ex-chorister from Dusseldorf ... of what was truly happening as this vile stranger moved his dry and busy hands over her defenseless skin, prying open the privacy she had once thought was sacrosanct in every woman, his hot mouth savoring her as if she were some kind of food for which he must come here every week to satisfy his hunger.

  “Up on your knees . . .” his soft voice ordered, still as precise, still as measured; and as she crouched for him it was easy, at least when he used his hands, to pretend he was her gynecologist conducting an examination; but when his mouth made contact she had to think quickly about the photographs of Franz in his crumpled prison shirt, with the SS man in the background holding his club aloft over another prisoner.

  She had formed the habit of studying that picture first, and then if her heart didn’t break immediately she’d look at the second picture, the one with the man whose face was bleeding; and then, this afternoon when she’d received the reminder at the hospital of “our nine o’clock appointment,” she’d had to look at the third picture, the minute she’d got home, to remind herself why she must open the door to the man in black—the man she hated more than she had believed possible— and allow him inside, and close and lock the door, and undress for him and let him rape her slowly and methodically, his trousers still on and the black leather belt creaking slightly like his boots, his dry hands pulling her this way and that while she lay with her eyes closed, thinking about the boy in the photograph whose dark curling hair had been shaved to the scalp, the still handsome boy who was unaccountably, unbelievably smiling.

  “On your back, please, Fräulein ..

  She moved again, aware of him for a moment and reminded of what she’d learned about him: that he looked strong and muscular only in his black tunic, because of the specially tailored padding; that she’d almost frightened him, the first time he’d come here for an “appointment,” by starting to unbuckle his belt for him, thinking he would want her to; that his sole interest was in her body, not his; that he was mentally cruel, but not physically: there were no marks on her skin, despite his continuous attention, but she sensed his calculated enjoyment of the power he held over her, and her total defenselessness.

  “You have never experienced an orgasm?” he was asking her casually.

  Quickly she said, “No. Never.”

  “Perhaps later,” he said.

  “Perhaps.”

  It had happened with Peter, of course, more than once, before he’d joined the SS; and it had happened in her school days, with two of her friends, and alone in her own bed when she’d dreamed of boys; but it would never happen here in this room, with this man. She’d come close to it, the first time, because of the rush of gratitude that had lingered for days, after he’d told her he had arranged for her brother’s protection from “harsh treatment”; then the feeling had been chilled into numbness by the idea of this foul creature’s satisfaction in knowing he could arouse pleasure in her. Since then she had lain lifeless, whatever he did to her.

  Suddenly it was over, and he was in the bathroom again, washing his hands while the relief flooded over her and she lay with warmth coming back into her body as her mind rekindled some kind of hope for the future, for a time when he wouldn’t come here any more, and Franz was free.

  “I brought a small gift for you, Fräulein.”

  He was dressed in his tunic again, and reaching into a pocket.

  It was a tiny figurine on a brooch, an angel in gold bearing a diminutive harp, his face smiling seraphically and his wings perfectly detailed.

  “It’s exquisite,” she said, making an effort to sound pleased. “Quite exquisite.”

  “Is it not?”

  “Thank you,” she said, and smiled for him, detesting him, detesting the exquisite brooch.

  He was watching her eyes. “There are many Jewish artisans in the concentration camps, master craftsmen in gold and silver work, sculptors, jewelry makers and so on. The SS ensure they are not idle.” His tone was flat and matter-of-fact. “This little piece—it is solid gold, of course—was made from the melted-down dental fillings of prisoners who failed to survive the rather harsh conditions.”

  Something like a scream was beginning in her mind, a silent, rising scream that only she could hear.

  “It was fashioned by a man who tried to escape a few weeks ago, and was beaten to death. In a way, unfortunate—he was a good craftsman.”

  He picked up his cap from the little table by the door, while the scream rose in silence, filling her head until she had to clench her eyes shut. Perhaps, if the scream became loud enough, it would drown out what he was saying.

  “It happened at Buchenwald. I thought you might like to have the brooch, as a reminder of your brother.”

  She was not sure, afterward, whether he had gone, whether the door had clicked shut before she was running, still naked, to the bathroom, the little gold angel flying from her hand to hit the wall as she began retching and retching over the toilet.

  “You mean you don’t want the mission?” Haslam asked in surprise.

  They were in the cellar again—Tempel was there, but not sitting at his desk; Klinger and Veidt too, and of course Corbett.

  “It’s not a question,” Martin said impatiently, “of not wanting the mission. It’s just that you’re being stupid.” Like Haslam, he was speaking in German.

  There was a short silence. Corbett looked away.

  “Please explain,” Haslam said quietly.

  “Surely you should have realized that some of this would stick. I warned that idiot Tempel, but he gave me a lot of nonsense about an ‘integrated persona’— whatever that means.” He moved closer to Haslam, his hands clenched. “Well, it’s stuck, that’s all. You really think I’d do anything against the Führer? My God, you—”

  “Calm down,” Haslam said with distaste. “We’ve been driving you too hard, that’s all.” He turned to Corbett. “Make sure that door’s shut, will you? We don’t want anyone else in here.” He swung back to face Martin. “I’m going to give you a few days’ rest, under the psychiatrist, so that you can—”

  “You think I need a psychiatrist?” Martin took another step toward Haslam and saw Klinger close in. “Haven’t you heard of a personality change? It’s not that I’ve gone mad, it’s simply that I’ve become someone else. You mean you didn’t think it could happen? You haven’t heard of indoctrination? Psychic persuasion? What do you think that bloody fool’s been doing to me down here, week after week, fifteen or sixteen hours a day?” His fists were bunched and he moved again, and again the ex-SS man came closer between them.

  Haslam was keeping his distance, turning away. With an edge on his tone he asked, “Frankly, I refuse to believe any of this, Benedict. You’re—”

  “Brinkmann! Colonel Brinkmann!**

  Haslam exchanged a glance with Tempel. Martin heard Corbett coming down the steps again after locking the door.

  Haslam spoke with quiet bewilderment. “Do you mean your sympathies are now with Hitler?”

  “My loyalties! Yes—to the Führer! Who else?” He swung away, moving toward the steps, moving back to face them again. He wanted distance: he knew they were all probably armed. “You’ve been rather too good,” he said scathingly. “Rather too efficient. I didn’t realize what it was to have an ideal, the glorious ideal of the New Reich, blazing in my vision like—like the Holy Grail!” He swung to face Tempel. “JExactly what that idiot said! Exactly as he put it himself, you know that?” He laughed at them, enjoying the irony. “The Holy Grail! Thank you, gentlemen, for showing me the true way of glory! Heil Hitler!"

  Tempel had turned his back and stood with his hands behind him and his shoulders hunched. Haslam remained staring at Martin, as if he could think of nothing else to say.

  Corbett had moved closer. “Benedict—”

  “Keep quiet** He backed off, trying to get nearer the stairs, wary of them now, the sweat was running on him under the tunic with the effort of trying to make them understand.

  “Colonel Brinkmann,” said Haslam, almost soothingly. “This leaves you in an awkward position, as I suppose you realize. If we let you—”

  “The awkward position,” Martin told him curtly, “is yours.” The stone steps were immediately behind him now and slightly to his left. He’d have to be fast, very fast.

  “Colonel Brinkmann,” called Tempel authoritatively.

  “The door has been locked and we have the key. Now, please control yourself.”

  Corbett was moving one hand inside his jacket, but Martin had the gun out of its holster and was in the aiming position with the center of the* man’s forehead in the sights. “Corbett, don’t move!” One of the ex-SS men had dropped to one knee with a gun in his hand. Martin began to fire, three deliberate clicks sounding beneath the archway before Major Haslam nodded and said:

  “All right, thank you.” He lit a cigarette and looked at the others as Martin put his revolver back into its holster and came across from the steps. “Comments?” asked Haslam.

  “Convincing,” Klinger said. “Perfectly convincing.”

  “I agree,” Veidt nodded, and borrowed a cigarette from Haslam.

  “I would have liked a longer scenario,” Tempel said plaintively; but no one expected him to be completely satisfied with anything.

  Haslam moved his head again. “Sadler?”

  “He took me in completely. No question.” Haslam had asked him an hour ago if he’d join them downstairs for a moment, saying, “They’re having a bit of trouble with Benedict, some kind of mental trauma.”

  “Fair enough,” Haslam said, and looked at Martin. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “Sit down,” Haslam said, unlocking a drawer in his desk. “How do you feel?”

  “Confident.”

  “Good show. You did rather well last night—only seventeen wrong answers out of more than three thousand. Even Tempel was pleased.” He took a thick envelope out of the drawer and broke the seal.

  “Did he say so?” Martin remembered it was Haslam’s left eye you had to look at; the other side of his face had been remodeled at some time by a surgeon.

  “Tempel wouldn’t say a thing like that,” Naslam smiled gently. “But I know him pretty well. Now, these are your papers.” He spread them out on the desk. “Klinger has compared them under magnification with the real thing and he’s satisfied. It’s identical straw paper and identical ink; the actual wording and numerals are, of course, no problem. As you see, they look appropriately worn: you would have been issued this particular set two years ago when you were promoted to Standartenführer. Questions?”

  Martin took the papers and studied them. “No.” “Put them into your wallet, or wherever you decide to keep them.” Haslam sat back, tilting his chair and squinting over his cigarette. “Now listen carefully. This is your final briefing, although you’ll be here with us for a day or two longer. There are seven men somewhere in Germany who are wanted urgently in London. We are counting on you to get them for us; that is, to rescue them from the concentration camps if that is where they are, to bring them out of hiding, if they’ve gone underground, and to get them safely to our escape lines for secret escort to England, either through France or the northern territories.”

  Martin sat perfectly still. This was the first intimation he’d been given of what they wanted him to do.

  “As you see from your papers, you are a member of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, and one of the officers responsible for visiting the camps and reporting on their efficiency, requirements, problems and so on.” He dropped another envelope on to the desk. “You can take this with you when you leave here. It’s a batch of such reports, duly stolen and copied, so that you’ll be perfectly familiar with the job. You’ll be joining an officer who has been doing it for the past eighteen months: SS-Sturmbannführer Wolfgang Scheldt. He will be your subordinate officer and will assist you in your duties. Questions so far?”

  “How are you getting me in?”

  “I’ll come to that in good time.”

  “How much information have you got for me on Scheldt?”

  “It’s in this envelope.” Haslam’s patched face took on the hint of a smile. “We haven’t managed to get anything on him that you could use against him, if you had to; but that doesn’t mean you might not find out something yourself. In fact, you should make it your business, the moment you start work with him; and we’d like to be told of anything useful. Anything else?”

  “I’ll wait for a bit,” Martin said. He’d worked up a sweat down there in the cellar, anxious to give them a convincing performance, and now his skin was growing cold as he listened to Haslam’s quiet voice.

  “There were originally some fifteen of these people, and we got four of them out during the last five weeks. It wasn’t too difficult, and we left the field clear for you; two of them were winkled out of hiding, a man and a woman already on the Gestapo lists as ‘missing, believed no longer in Germany.’ The other two were in Mauthausen, and are now in the records as ‘succumbed to injuries received during recapture.’ Their identities were exchanged with two other prisoners. Now that we are at war, things are rather more difficult, and it was decided to place someone right inside the SS. One or two people have said you can’t possibly bring it off.” He was gazing at Martin with his one real eye. “I think you should know that.”

  Martin was suddenly aware that for the first time Corbett wasn’t sitting in with them. Probably the final briefing was ultrasecret.

  “That doesn’t worry me,” he told Haslam. “In any case, I assume you’ll be training others to take over in the event of an accident. Corbett, for instance.”

  Haslam looked down momentarily. “Did he tell you?”

  “No.”

  Quietly the Major said, “We’ve only the one training team over here, and only one Otto Tempel. Corbett will be put under instruction right away. When he’s ready, there’ll be someone else. My orders are to go on training men and sending them in until those seven people are safely on British soil.”

  “But we’ll be going in,” Martin asked carefully, “one at a time?”

  “One at a time.”

  “Then you can tell Corbett he’s going to be disappointed.” Martin’s skin was cold, and his awareness of Haslam and this small quiet room, and the ticking of the watch on his wrist was now becoming supersensitive.

  “No one,” said Haslam gently, “would be happier in his disappointment than Corbett. But I’ve let you know what the position is, partly in fairness to you and partly to emphasize the extreme importance of this mission. We are not counting the cost, even in lives.” He made a small gesture with his cigarette. “But if you’re as good as I think you are, we shan’t have to worry about that.” Martin got up and paced the small cluttered room, wanting movement and warmth. “Who are these people?”

  “These people?”