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She smiled in the mirror. “To me either.”

“If you really want to see lust in action, drop that towel.”

“My God!” Rachel said, and shook her head in disbelief.

Then she put down the comb and dropped the towel.

[ NINE ]

1615 30 October 1945

“The kids get home from school about five,” Rachel said. “I have to go.”

She got out of bed and went to the armchair onto which she had put her clothing after gathering it up from where it had been on the floor.

“It was nice bumping into you, Mrs. Schumann. We’ll have to try to get together again real soon.”

“I’m going to do my best to see that doesn’t happen for a long time. But when it does, you better remember to call me Mrs. Schumann.”

“Yes, ma’am. Are you going to tell your husband about me?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell him everything, mein Trottel. It wouldn’t surprise me that he’s already heard that you were here with Colonel Mattingly.”

“I should have thought of that.”

“Yes, you should have,” she said, turning her back to him to put on her brassiere.

“Rachel, about this unfounded rumor your husband has heard about some people smuggling Nazis out of Germany . . .”

“What about it?”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say, hypothetically, that there’s something to it.”

“And?”

“You don’t seem to be very upset about it.”

“I don’t like it. But I think General Greene must know about it. And I’m sure Colonel Mattingly knows about it, and probably is involved with it. And I know you are—”

“You know nothing of the kind,” he interrupted.

“If Tony strongly suspects you’re involved, you’re involved. And you as much as admitted to me you are. What did you expect I would think when you told me you had just been in Argentina? That you were on one of those ninety-nine-dollar all-expenses-paid Special Service tours, a little vacation from your exhausting duties in the Army of Occupation?”

She turned to face him as she stepped into her skirt.

“Rachel, you could cause a hell of a lot of damage to something very important if you dropped that little gem into any conversations you have with your husband.”

“As I started to say, if General Greene and Colonel Mattingly know about it, and they do, then the fact that it’s still going on tells me there has to be a good reason for it.”

“There is.”

“Hypothetically speaking, of course?”

“Hypothetically speaking.”

She put her blouse on and buttoned it, and then tucked it into her skirt, and then she reached for her jacket.

“Where do you live?”