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“I don’t know,” he said. “I am. I’ve never… been successful… with women.”

“You are with this one,” Gisella said, and took his hand. “See? Feel?”

Chapter TWO

12 Burgweg

Marburg an der Lahn, Germany

1000 Hours 18 January 1943

No one really knew how old Burgweg was. Presumably, it had been there before the fortress was built. The guidebooks said the fortress had been built “circa A.D. 900 (?) around an earlier watchtower.”

The road itself, paved with cobblestones, was steep. And covered as it was now with a thin layer of snow over ice, it was slippery. The rear end of Müller’s Opel Admiral slewed from side to side, frequently bouncing against the curb on the down side of the hill. Several times it almost scraped the buildings that were flush with the side of the road.

The numbering ran from the top downward. They were almost at the gate in the fortress itself when Müller carefully bounced the right wheels of the car over the granite curb and brought the Admiral to a stop. The big car was now half off the road, with its nose almost touching a large sign.

The sign carried the standard No Parking symbol: a P crossed by a diagonal red bar as well as (for special emphasis) the legend “Parking Absolutely Forbidden at Any Time.”

Müller was unconcerned. Few policemen would even consider issuing a citation to an Opel Admiral. None would be foolhardy enough to even look twice at this Opel Admiral. Müller’s vehicle carried not only Berlin license plates, but also, in the spot where common citizens and lesser officials carried the stamp signifying the payment of taxes, his plates bore a small, inconspicuous stamp signifying that taxes had been waived for this vehicle as it was in the service of the Schutzstaffel-Sicherheitsdienst.

He pulled the keys from the ignition, pulled on the parking brake, stepped out of the car, and moved quickly around the rear to open the door for Gisella. By the time he got there, she had her door open and was swinging her feet out, carefully, because the car was so close to the edge. Her coat had opened and her skirt was hiked up, and a flash of white flesh was visible above the silk stockings he had brought her from Berlin.

He felt his heart jump.

Goddammit, she’s beautiful!

“I can make it,”Gisella said. Standing up and supporting herself on the car, she made her way to where he stood. She held in her hand a tissue-wrapped bottle. The proprietor of the Kurhotel had been more than pleased to present Herr Standartenführer with one of his two bottles of Courvoisier.

“Wait,” Müller said,“there’s more.”

Gisella raised her eyebrows and looked at him curiously.

He opened the trunk of the car and took from it a large cardboard box.

“What’s that?” Gisella asked.

“A few little things I picked up for you in Berlin,” he said.

She looked at him with a warm sparkle in her eyes. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and her voice caught. “Thank you very much.”

She likes me!

As they entered the foyer of the old house, a door opened a crack and an eye peered out.

Peis’s resident snoop, Müller decided.

He followed Gisella up the stairs and waited for the answer to the knock at her door.

Although he had examined his dossier carefully, Professor Friedrich Dyer was not what Müller had imagined. He expected an academic type, an absentminded professor in mussed and baggy clothes. Dyer was tall and erect with a full head of curly hair. There was a Hungarian somewhere in the bloodline, Müller decided. Perhaps that explained his rebellion.

“Heil Hitler!” Professor Dyer said, raising his arm.

“Heil Hitler,” Müller mumbled. He stepped inside the apartment, and Gisella closed the door after them.

“Father,” Gisella said,“this is Standartenführer Müller.”

“How do you do, Herr Standartenführer?” Dyer said formally, neither coldly nor warmly. But his eyes, Müller saw, showed both contempt and shame.