“Oh god!” Walter said softly. It was actually the softness of his reply that sent a chill through her.
“How many times has it happened?”
“Just once.”
“Have you seen him again since then?”
“Yes, maybe twice.”
“And no sign of recognition?”
“No, nothing.” She swallowed. “Should I be extracted?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to talk to my fios. I think they’ll be reluctant. The quality of your information has been extremely good. Excellent. Particularly the continuing state of denial of Starling about the Allied situation. He refused to believe they’ve made such headway.” Walter sighed.
“The Allies have just trapped another German division west of the Rhine River. And yet Starling still thinks he can win there, as you reported. It’s going to be a complete debacle. The kind of information you’re giving us is vital. Vital for the spirits of the Allied forces. Eisenhower himself is feasting on this intelligence. Your intelligence, Ute.” He paused. “Starling is still planning this performance in the bunker—the Götterdämmerung?”
“Yes, the Werewolf are actually building scenery.”
“If only they’d just stick to scenery and such nonsense.” He paused again and inhaled before continuing. “Look, Ute, I must warn you about these Werewolf. They are really dangerous. They make the Gestapo look like clowns. They are trained killers. Their weapons are a slip-knotted garrote, a wire specially made for strangulation, or a Walther pistol with a silencer. You know about the mayor of Aachen?”
She shook her head.
“He was killed. Assassinated yesterday by a team of Werewolf.” There was a long silence that seemed to engulf both of them. Walter extended his hand and patted her knee. “Believe me, Ute, I’ll understand if you want to withdraw.”
“No. The only place I want to withdraw to is . . .” Her words seemed to die on her lips as she thought of the golden cottage in the Cotswolds. But here she was, surrounded by darkness—the Starling, Fritz, and yes, even her own Louise! The thought startled her. “I have to go. Thank you, Walter.” She got up and walked away.
Thirty-Three
Tableau Morte
In the last week of March, the last kilometer of the Russian railway was laid across Poland to bring millions of tons of rockets, ammunition, fuel, and food to support the invasion of Berlin. The word of the railroad completion rattled the citizens of the city. They were racked with despair and anxiety, and completely exhausted. But in the Führerbunker, Hitler’s favorite scene from the second opera, The Ride of the Valkyries, was being presented. The evening before, it had been the last act of Götterdämmerung. It seemed that the program was caught in an infinite cycle of Hitler’s favorite scenes from all four operas.
For this scene of the ride, Alice stretched her mouth wide, as instructed, and the cry of the Valkyries ripped through the theater of the bunker. Not from Alice’s throat, of course, but that of Martha Mödl, the famous soprano. Across the winged horse that Alice “rode,” there was a dummy slung—a dead hero who she would transport to Valhalla. She peered out into the audience, where the Führer sat in the front row, transfixed. His pale gray eyes were riveted on the Valkyries, who rode their wooden horses to Valhalla.
Hours before, an urgent appeal had been broadcast on the radio—that every German should join the effort to kill. The words still rang in Alice’s ears as she had prepared for the performance. “We must hit the enemy—every Bolshevik, every Englishman, every American—every traitor within our own city must be hit wherever we meet them. Our motto is conquer or die.”
And then on the very next day, April 2, following the previous evening’s performance, she was playing Brünnhilde again.
On April 9, dozens of well-known opponents of the regime were rounded up by the SS and Werewolf and sent to various concentration camps, where they were butchered.
On April 10, during a brief visit home, Alice and her parents were both eating dinner before she had to return to the Führerbunker when a radio announcer broke through. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like you to hear from a new broadcaster—a lovely lady. Yes indeed. We call her Lily the Werewolf.”
A silky voice seeped into the kitchen as they sat around the table eating yet another pea-meal and potato-skin concoction of Posie’s.
“I am so savage,” the voice began. “I am filled with rage. Lily the Werewolf is my name. I bite, I eat, I am not tame. My Werewolf teeth bite the enemy.”
“Well, that certainly takes away one’s appetite,” Posie murmured. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some beef tea and a smidge of Marmite on some bread—good bread, real bread.”
On this same night two hours later, Alice was once again getting into her Valkyrie costume. The stage was set and painted with flames—the flames of the pyre upon which Brünnhilde would hurl herself in her last desperate act. Alice just had to get through this night. The snow had cleared. The bikes were waiting for them. Her father had managed to build three relatively sturdy bikes.
He had told Alice that the Russian troops were actually making 358 kilometers a day. Her family had to get out before they arrived. So far, the Russians had left absolute massacres in their wake. They wouldn’t know that the Winfields were British citizens, spies, part of the Allied forces. They might not even care, Alan Winfield said.
Alice was backstage, waiting for the curtain to drop on the first scene, before the one she was to appear in. On the other side of the stage, she saw a girl named Ingrid, a kitchen worker, dressed in an outfit identical to her own—Brünnhilde. How odd, she thought.
Then, in that same moment, she gasped as she felt herself jerked backward. A knotted wire cut into her neck. She gasped for air. I am being garroted. The wire cut in deeper. The pain was excruciating, but the harder she resisted, the more it hurt. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire. Her head was being cut from her body. She saw her life guttering out of her like a candle flame with no air. There was no hope. Only a growing black void that filled her head. I am dying. Her thoughts came slowly. Her eyes slid upward . . . to be met by sky-blue Nazi eyes, white-blond hair across the brow.
Then suddenly the wire dropped. There was a split second of shock in the blue eyes, and then a thud on the floor. She looked down. The white-blond hair brushed his collar—and stuck in his neck was a hypodermic needle.
A hand grabbed hers. “Come along, dear.”
“Louise!”
“Shush! Follow me.”
Posie Winfield had been frying up some eggs, for which she had paid an astronomical price. She had just removed the pan from the burner as the two girls walked into the small basement apartment. She emitted a tiny shriek and dropped the pan. “Louise!!”
“Yes, Mum.”
“Alice—Alice— What happened to your neck?”
“Uh . . . uh . . . it’s hard to explain, Mum.”
At that moment their father entered the tiny kitchen with a bicycle chain.
“What’s . . . Louise?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Dad, we need another bike!” Alice said.