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“Don’t laugh,” Fulmar said. “As she stood up to dance with the colonel, that kindly old gray-haired lady grabbed me on the cock.”

“Well, you can’t say Stanley didn’t warn you,” Canidy said, laughing.

“I didn’t believe him,” Fulmar said.

The Packard was outside, but the driver was a tall, thin WRAC corporal. Which meant, Canidy thought, that Agnes was off somewhere with Bitter.

“We’ll take the car,” Canidy said. “I don’t think that Jimmy and Her Gracefulness are going out anywhere.”

On the way to meet Joe Kennedy and John Dolan at the Air Corps Officers’ Club, Eric said,“Before we get schnockered, what should I do about my mother? See her or not?”

“That’s up to you, pal,” Canidy said. “She’s not my mother.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “What the hell, she is my mother.”

“If you’re asking if there is any reason you shouldn’t see her, some OSS reason,” Canidy said,“the answer is the OSS doesn’t give a damn, one way or the other.”

“I wonder where she is, how I could find her?”

“Take care of that little detail for the lieutenant, Stanley, will you?” Canidy said.

“Sure,” Fine said.

“Thanks,” Eric Fulmar said, emotionally.

XII

Chapter ONE

The Kurhotel

Marburg an der Lahn, Germany

17 January 1943

After Peis brought Gisella and some trollop into the restaurant, it was a little awkward between Müller and Gisella. Stiff and formal. Which was understandable. Gisella was embarrassed. Everyone would think she, too, was a whore Peis was serving up to him.

Gisella is not a whore, Müller thought. She did what she did because she had no control of it. A whore is a whore because she wants to be a whore, because it is easier. Gisella was forced to sleep with other men because Peis is an asshole.

But what other people think about Gisella tonight can’t be helped. Actually, it’s useful: It will be safer for both of us if everyone thought she was what she looked like: a young woman being sweet to an older man because he was a Standartenführer who could provide nice things that younger, less important men could not.

Even when Müller and Gisella danced—despite what had happened between them on New Year’s Eve—it was awkward. They danced like a father with his daughter. Which was also understandable, though he wasn’t quite old enough to be her father.

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sp; But as they came off the dance floor, Gisella caught his hand in hers. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. When they reached the table and had to let go, he knew she really wished she could continue holding his hand.

Right after dinner, Müller let Peis know it was time for him to go and take his whore with him. Peis predictably made it clear he was quite aware that Müller was anxious to take Gisella to bed. As she rose to leave, Peis’s whore kissed Gisella.

“Liebling,” she said, wearing her most ravishing smile, “I know we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

This upset Müller more than he wanted to admit.

Peis then came to attention, clicked his heels, threw a stiff Nazi salute, and bellowed loud enough for everybody in the room to hear him (which was clearly his intention),“Guten Abend, Herr Standartenführer. Heil Hitler!”

Müller returned the salute with a casual movement of his arm.

After Peis and his whore had left, Gisella started smiling. Müller looked at her quizzically.