Page 5 of Beehive

I never knew a person could hurt so intensely.

As much as I believed in the Reich and the better future we sought to build, I would have given anything to return to when Julia’s smile spread sunlight across my face. I would have moved mountains to hear her laugh, just one last time.

Alas, despite all my wishes and wants, the world moved on.

Father was a schoolteacher, a man who valued knowledge above almost all else. He said understanding the world and our past helped us shape a better future. He said it also helped us understand those around us. He once told me that divining a person’s motivations was the key to grasping their actions.

At the time, the wisdom of his words had fallen on fallow ground.

Now, they guided everything I did.

He was a kind man, yet stern in the way German fathers often were. I wasn’t old enough to remember how he struggled with Mother’s loss, but in the years that followed, there were lingering signs of the scars her death had left.

He bore remarkable strength for such a broken man.

When Julia died, what strength remained in him shattered.

Despite my youth, I knew, in my soul, how he felt. Something deep inside me had shattered, too.

The first time I betrayed someone, I was twenty-two.

It was a small betrayal—a friend who’d spoken out of turn about the Party. I reported him because it was expected, because loyalty demanded it. It was my patriotic duty, and I was proud to do my part.

The guilt that followed had been a dull ache. Over time, that faded, replaced by a deeper sense of purpose.

Betrayal, I realized, was simply another tool.

Two women chatting loudly passed by, their too-loud conversation snapping me back to the present. I refocused, lifting a photo of my target from his file and searching for hidden clues.

Hours slipped by as I pieced together Markov’s web.

By evening, I had a clearer picture. He was methodical, disciplined, but not infallible. His greatest weakness, I suspected, was his humanity. Like all men, he had desires, fears, and blind spots. Unlike most in clandestine service, he acted on his.

Exploiting his weaknesses would be my task.

Someone knocked at my door.

“Enter,” I called.

A young courier, no older than twelve or thirteen and wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth, stepped inside. Unruly brown hair poked out the sides of his too-small cap.

The boy extended an envelope. “For you, Herr Müller.”

The moment the door closed behind him, I opened the envelope. It was brief but significant:

MARKOV CONFIRMED AT RENDEZVOUS POINT. ORDERS TO FOLLOW.

The game had begun.

1. The Abwehr wasthe German military-intelligence service for the Reichswehrand the Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1944.

3

Heinrich

Poland, Late Winter 1944 (six years later)

Konrad flinched as therat-tat-tatof a distant rifle echoed off pockmarked buildings. The Nazi army were the only predators lurking about Poland for the past few years, and, while we had jointly occupied the country with Stalin’s men for a brief span, we were still unused to the odd Soviet-style gunfire.