It was very late in the evening. There were few people on the quiet residential streets of Harbiye and all of them carefully avoided the two German officers sitting on the edge of a small rectangular raised pool.
Holmes rested his leg while Häfner bathed his face with the chilly water and took a moment to clear his head.
“It won’t be long before the alarm goes up at the barracks,” Holmes said, continuing to speak in German.
“I know.”
“We’re not far enough away, yet. If they give chase….”
“From the gate I headed south toward the Horn. When he is asked, the gate guard will send the pursuit in the wrong direction.”
“I was aware we had turned around and were heading north again,” Holmes assured him. “But the deception will delay us from reaching the house by many minutes.”
“We’re safely out of the barracks. We’ll get there,” Häfner growled, holding his head.
“We’re not safe until we reach the house,” Holmes assured him. “If we are seen on the streets, we are both in bad trouble, for neither of us can run, right now. I would prefer we spend as little time as possible exposed in this way—especially wearing these uniforms.”
“They allow us to walk around freely,” Häfner pointed out.
“They’re also what will get me shot for impersonating a German officer,” Holmes added dryly. “Are you ready?”
Häfner groaned and got to his feet. “I should have gone to bed as Elizabeth said.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Häfner hoisted Holmes to his feet and they began their slow walk again. After a few paces, Häfner answered. “She shamed me. I could not let her go to her grisly night’s work while I slept off a moment of weakness. Besides, she was worried about you.”
The silence stretched another few paces.
“She has picked her people well, I see,” Holmes murmured.
* * * * *
Von Stein shoved Elizabeth toward the dining chair. “Sit.”
She pulled it away from the table and sat.
Von Stein dropped the dark man’s suit onto the opposite end of the table. Her revolver, which he had found in the pocket, he emptied of bullets and dropped on top. He pocketed the bullets and stood in front of her, his big hands loose at his sides.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“William? I assume he’s asleep.”
Von Stein lowered his head, apparently disappointed with her answer. Without warning he struck her, backhanded.
The blow drove her out of the chair, to sprawl across the hard marble floor. As she lay, dazed, she heard the chitter of the birds in the solarium, on the other side of the arch. Their noise was obscenely cheerful.
Von Stein caught a handful of her hair and pulled her back up into the chair. A few hairpins scattered, with tiny musical chimes, across the floor.
Elizabeth licked her lips. One side of her face was numb and she could taste blood. Her scalp at the back of her head stung where it had taken the strain of his grip. She looked up at Von Stein. “I don’t know who you are talking about.”
He leaned over her and she saw a heavy pulse in his temple. “Of course you were the only person who speaks English here. You are English. Just as he is. It must have been a delicious irony, being my interpreter. Does he speak German?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know—”
That was all the denial he allowed her. This time, the blow knocked the chair over backward and she fell with it, her head rapping on the floor. Dazed, her head and shoulders throbbing, she felt his hands on her shoulders, grasping folds of her gown. She was hauled to her feet and the gown ripped. He righted the chair.
“Sit,” he told her grimly.
She lowered herself onto the chair, holding onto the edge of the table to do so. Her hair fell around her face.
Von Stein leaned very close to her. “I will accept nothing but direct, candid answers,” he assured her. “Denying anything merely wastes my time, which I resent. Yesterday at the execution only you and the Englisher heard me say I was going to pick up the last agent tomorrow. Somehow you contrived between you to deal with the Turk. That weakness of yours, when you stumbled against him and he cried out in protest—it was a beautiful piece of playacting, my dear, but it has marked you indelibly.”
She swallowed and contrived to speak. “There were three guards there too.”
Von Stein looked at his left hand, which rested on the brown suit on the table. “But you were the one who came to deal with the Turk.”
In the moment when he was bringing his gaze back to her she threw her head forward, sharply. Her forehead smashed into his face, striking hard. The blow straightened him up and threw him backward, exposing his chest and abdomen. She pushed herself to her feet with a strong surge of power and used the momentum to drive her fist up into his diaphragm.
Von Stein’s entire body lifted and the torso and head snapped forward over the blow.
Doubling her fists together, she swung them in a big circle around and up, to hammer into the bottom of his chin.
The impact took his feet out from under him and he landed on the unforgiving marble floor squarely.
She stepped around him and hurried into the foyer, moving unsteadily. “William!” she called, her voice weak. “William!”
There was no answer and when she attempted to open the front door, she found it locked. The key was missing. She rattled the handle angrily and turned away. There was a back door she could use.
Von Stein walked slowly into the foyer, staggering a little. He was not hurrying, not pursuing her. “Did you think I would not search the house and secure any exits? Do you think I don’t know Häfner isn’t here?”
William’s absence was news to her and she hid her dismay. She looked around, searching for anything useful and saw the rifle she had propped up in the corner a short while ago.
She lunged for it as Von Stein closed in on her. She whirled to face him, lifting the rifle up to point at him. She cocked it.
He stopped. “If you kill me, there will be no mercy for you. My officers will hunt you the rest of your days. They will find you and kill you and all of your family.”
She swallowed hard. “You are not the first madman to promise me that. I’m still here.” She pulled the trigger.
A dry click sounded.
Sickened, Elizabeth broke the gun open and stared at the empty chamber.
“Did you think I wouldn’t have the sense to disable any weapons you might think fit to use?” he asked softly.
She looked up, backing away from him.
He reached into his holster and pulled out the revolver. “Mine, on the other hand, is loaded.”
He fired.
* * * * *
Everything came back into focus with terrible slowness…until she moved and excruciating pain jerked her senses to full alertness immediately. She couldn’t prevent the tiny cry that escaped her. The pain centered on an icy, hot black area above her left hip and to one side.
“You shouldn’t have tried to shoot me,” Von Stein’s voice explained to her.
She looked around. She was back on the chair in the dining room, her upper body resting on the table. She straightened into a sitting position with slow, infinite care.
Von Stein was sitting in the chair next to her. He had turned it to face her. A glass of port rested on the table and the decanter from the sideboard was at his elbow. The revolver lay next to his glass. He had one foot resting on the tapestry seat of another chair he had pulled out to one side.
“If there had been doubt before you pulled that trigger, madam, there is none now. You understand?”
“Yes.”
She inspected her side gingerly. There was a lot of blood, which hindered her analysis. She thought, from the lack of difficulty she had breathing, that the bullet had grazed across her ribs, taking a good furrow of flesh but doing little other damage.
“Where is he?” Von Stein asked. “I want him for myself.”
“I truly don’t know,” Elizabeth told him. “The last time I saw him was this afternoon on the balcony.”
“Where you stood and watched an associate die,” Von Stein concluded. “Remember it, Madeline. You’ll be standing on that spot in a few days’ time.”
She grimaced. “Elizabeth. Call me Elizabeth.”
“Very well. Elizabeth. Is that your real name?”
“Yes.”
“And Häfner?”
“What about him?”
“Is he part of this?”
“Why don’t you ask him that?”
“Oh, I will, when I find him. Is he with the Englisher?”
“I don’t know.” She held up her hand, even though he hadn’t moved. “I really don’t know. I expected him to be here when I got home tonight. He wasn’t in a state fit to walk.”
She was light-headed. The urge to close her eyes and sleep was overwhelming. She clawed her wits back together. This was not the first time she had been shot and she recognized her body’s response to the shock of it.
She deliberately reached for the wound on her side and pressed it. Sharp tines of silvery pain speared her. The urge to sleep fled. She sat up.
Von Stein was studying her thoughtfully. “I think it is safe to believe you don’t know where Häfner is. You ran into the hall shouting for him, which is not the action of someone who knows the house is empty. Very well.”
He picked up the glass, drained it and placed it back on the table while he studied her. “But you can guess and I know your guess will be close.” He poured himself another glass of port. “You are clever, Mada—Elizabeth. I’ve always known your mind was quicker than those around us. So I know you could tell me the most likely place to find Häfner, and I suspect I will find my English agent right there with him. So where should I look? Where is he?”
“I will not abuse the intelligence you award yourself. I could guess, yes but it would be against my interests. So I will not pretend to think about it and I will not insult you by speculating aloud about the most unlikely places you will find him. You will not bother looking in those places.”
“You know me well.”
“We both know that if William is not here where he was expected to be and your English agent has disappeared, then there is most likely a connection. Now you know as much as I about this business.”
He sipped the fresh glass thoughtfully, then picked up his revolver again.
“I don’t believe you.”
She nodded. “Understandable, under the circumstances.”
“You see, I know you are not being as candid as you might be. You’re deliberately withholding key information from me, while trying to look as cooperative as possible.”
She stayed silent.
“You’ve carefully avoiding telling me the identity of the Englisher. I know you know it. You would not have done his bidding so willingly yesterday had you not known and trusted him.”
“If I were to give his name, how would it benefit you? You already know all you need to know about him. He is English and he is an agent here in Constantinople.”
“Indulge me.” His voice was smooth, gentle.
“If his name will convince you I am being candid with you, then I will tell you. His name is Sigerson.” She shrugged. “You see? It is of no advantage to you at all.”
He considered this a moment.
“Elizabeth, you are disappointing me,” he said softly. “Just before your bullet knocked him senseless tonight, Zeki had already told me the name Sigerson.”
“Confirmation disappoints you?”
“Zeki told me that was his pseudonym. He has another name. His real name. If Zeki knew it, so must you.”
“We worked independently. I didn’t know Sigerson was in the city until you caught him.”
“Yet you obeyed his order to shoot Zeki without question.” Von Stein shook his head. “You know him,” he repeated.
“As a fellow Englishman, yes. But that is all.”
“This is quite a minuet we’re dancing through, is it not?”
She licked her lips. Dry. She was thirsty. Another symptom of the bullet wound. She must watch her words most carefully, for it was easy to fall into thoughtless speech when the body was behaving this way.
“I don’t think you quite understand your role here,” Von Stein said quietly. “We’ve established that you are an agent—a very clever agent, who is probably working for the British, as you have just revealed you are English too. You’re resourceful and you do not falter at cold murder. That makes you dangerous and I do not underestimate your role in this little charade we’re going through.
“But you are wasting my time, Elizabeth. Do you think I am sitting here, forcing Heinz to wait in a cold car, on a whim? I could avoid significant aggravation by simply taking you to Harbiye, processing the paperwork and having you shot on the morrow but I do not. Why?”
“You want Sigerson,” she said dryly.
“Yes and so does Berlin. That puzzled me until I met friend Zeki. Do you know what he told me, Elizabeth?”
“I’m afraid I do,” she said softly. “Zeki gave you his real name.”
“Precisely. I know that name and I know why Berlin wants him. The great Sherlock Holmes embarrassed them before the war began.” He shrugged. “It is of little consequence to me, for I have greater issues to deal with in my own territory. Berlin’s interest in him simply confirms what I have grown to suspect. Holmes is the key agent who has been feeding all my most delicate information to the Divine Wind.
“I’ve long suspected that there was a single conduit between the city and the Arab who has been harassing me for the last three years. Now I know I’m right and I know who he is. When I find him again, I will trace that conduit to the Divine Wind and rid myself of the troublesome guerrilla once and for all.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Where do I fit into this?”
“You’ve been systematically milking me for information ever since Häfner was posted here. Since before the war. I assume you and the others like you passed it onto Holmes, who channeled it eastward to the Arab. The woman—Fairuza—was one too.”
She felt a smile forming and suppressed it.
“I’m impressed, Alex,” she said softly. “You have deduced so much from so few clues.”
“Naturally. I have no intention of handing you over to the army’s administrative machinery until you tell me where I can find Holmes. I want the Divine Wind and I will do anything to find him. Anything, madam. You and then Holmes, are merely stepping stones that will let me reach him.”
The urge to laugh suddenly gripped her. Dizzy relief was part of it but the irony in Von Stein’s passionate mission struck a deep chord of amusement in her.
He picked up the glass, tossed back the contents and got to his feet. The revolver was still in his hand. “So, I repeat. Where is he? Where is Sherlock Holmes? I know you know. I want your answer. Tell me where he is!”
The wave of laughter that swept her was silent but her shoulders shook with it and she was helpless to prevent the wide smile that came with it.
Von Stein’s eyes narrowed and his face darkened. “You laugh at me? You dare to laugh at me?”
She shook her head a little, not prepared to speak and risk vocalizing the laugh. But the laughter was not going away. If anything, it was swelling, growing deeper, as she repeatedly acquainted herself with the biting paradox.
Von Stein struck her across the cheek again, the gun still wrapped in his fist, doubling the solidness of the impact. She was thrown against the wall.
The impact ejected her laughter but the hilarity did not evaporate with it.
Von Stein hauled her to her feet and forced her to look at him by pulling her hair back. “Tell me where he is!” he shouted.
She smiled. “I don’t know.”
He shook her, his face turning a dark red, the veins through his temples swelling and beating visibly. “Tell me where he is!”
She thought anew of the absurdity of the moment and this time she laughed aloud, venting her mirth.
Von Stein became a mad creature. He slapped her face, sending her to the floor again and he followed the blow with a kick that landed on her thigh, making her cry out and all the while he was swearing at her, proclaiming his obsession with the Divine Wind, his determination to find him and all he would do to her if she did not give him the information he wanted.
She scrambled across the floor, trying to anticipate each blow from his heavy boots as he followed her one step at a time, kicking her with each step. She found herself in the corner of the room and knew she had no way out. She dragged herself to her feet, taking three or four efforts to achieve it, as Von Stein’s kicks took her feet out from under her each time. Finally, she gained her feet and turned to face him.
He had halted and was staring at her. His chest was heaving as he panted heavily. His face was contorted with rage. “Tell me!” he cried and lifted the revolver to point at her and deliberately cocked it.
She wiped the blood and spit from her mouth and winced as her ribs creaked with protest. “Kill me, Alex. Go ahead. Kill me and you will never find your Divine Wind. I guarantee it.” She deliberately smiled, although all her humor had evaporated.
He quivered with the dilemma and his face writhed with it. She thought he might even stamp his foot in frustration. “Where is Sherlock Holmes?” he screamed.
“Behind you,” came the quiet rejoinder.
Standing at the top of the two steps into the dining area stood Sherlock Holmes, dressed in a German officer’s greatcoat. The splinted leg was thrust out a little to one side. He held a revolver of his own and it was pointed at Von Stein.
Von Stein turned jerkily, like a puppet answering to the pull on strings. As soon as he faced him, Holmes fired.
The shot took Von Stein in the heart and he was flung back against the wall a few feet from Elizabeth’s corner.
She stood very still and watched him die at her feet.
* * * * *
William tied Heinz to the newel post on the stairs and took Von Stein’s body up to the bathroom and left it there. He was moving slowly but he seemed to be more sober than the last time Elizabeth had seen him.
Elizabeth lay on the table while Holmes sat before her and doctored her wounds, following her directions and using the supplies from the comprehensive medical kit William retrieved from her bedroom.
While he worked, Elizabeth told him of all that had happened since the execution that morning, her tone dry and quiet.
Häfner returned and sat on another chair, listening intently.
When she had finished, there was a small, reflective silence.
“It is the end of Hadiya,” Holmes remarked. “He will not survive this night’s work. Häfner must depart too.”
“William intends to go to St. Petersburg.”
Häfner, who was frowning as he followed the quick exchanges in English, nodded. “Ja. St. Petersburg.”
“That is where you go too?” Holmes asked Elizabeth.
“I must go east and find Cyrus. The unit will have reassembled by now.”
Into the little silence that followed, William said, “I don’t….” and his frown deepened, as he searched for the word he wanted. Then he grimaced and switched to German. “I don’t understand why Von Stein wanted to find the Divine Wind so badly that he would defy Berlin to do it. It makes no sense. He was not interested in Holmes at all beyond his use in leading him to the Divine Wind.”
“The Divine Wind killed his son.” The voice was Heinz’s.
They all turned to look at him, with a range of surprised expressions.
Heinz shook his head. “You should not have used German,” he explained. “The sound carries too well around this echoing hall.”
“Explain yourself,” Elizabeth demanded. “I thought Von Stein was childless, or else his children were tucked away in Bavaria. He never spoke of an adult son.”
“He only had the one child. There were complications and the mother will never bear again. In 1915, his son was barely eighteen but threatened to enlist with the infantry fighting in France. Von Stein thought he could minimize the boy’s danger if he got him a posting in Anatolia. Conrad died in a raid by the Divine Wind, barely a week after arriving there.” Heinz shook his head. “He never spoke of his son again but Von Stein’s drive to find the Divine Wind became…relentless.”
“You give information to the enemy most freely,” Holmes observed.
“It is harmless information. I offer it to garner goodwill.” Heinz licked his lips. “I know too much. It would not profit you to let me live but I would bargain with you for my life.”
“You would not die for the Fatherland?” Häfner asked, his lip curling.
“No more than you would,” Heinz shot back. “I was not given a choice when I was posted to this place. For four years as Von Stein’s assistant I have been riding a tornado. The Turks are losing. Soon, all will be lost and the allies will take Constantinople. I would like to be able to go home.”
Elizabeth slid off the table and walked gingerly toward him. “Why would we risk leaving you behind to wire ahead of us and have troops waiting for us at the next check point?”
“You must trust me.”
She stood before him. “I do not.”
Heinz pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I will sign travel papers for you. They will serve you if you’re stopped and questioned. By signing them, if you are ever caught I will be implicated with you. It would be in my best interests to see you are left free.”
“That does not prevent you from having us arrested. You could always say you were coerced.”
Heinz dropped his gaze to his knees. “I just want to go home,” he muttered.
“Elizabeth,” Holmes said quietly.
She turned to look at him.
“Let him sign the papers.”
“It isn’t a full guarantee,” she protested.
“He is not alone in the desire to return home. Take his papers. His word will be enough.”
“A gentlemen’s agreement? The world does not work that way anymore, Holmes. Ask any man in the trenches. The unwritten rules no longer exist. There is nothing to stop him from betraying us the moment we leave the city.” She shook her head. “His word is not enough.”
“Then shoot him where he sits,” Holmes said. “If the world has changed that much, then you must shoot him now.”
She considered Heinz for a long, silent moment, then dropped her gaze. She turned to face the others. “I want to be a good twenty miles from the city by daylight. Hurry. We have much to do.”
Holmes held up his hand. “Wait! There is one other thing Heinz can do for us.”
“What?”
He grimaced. “Actually, it is for me….”