Captain Karl Von Duesen sat at his desk at gestapo headquarters in Borta as a clerk dropped another stack of intelligence reports in front of him. He sighed. He took the top folder off the pile, opened it, and started reading. It was a boring, poorly written after-action report of a skirmish between an SS armored column and a partisan militia. There was nothing useful in it. He stamped it as “read,” signed his initials, and closed the folder, placing it on the to-be-filed stack.

His grand plan had backfired. When he killed the prisoners he was supposed to be transporting and commandeered the truck, he’d thought he’d found a way to fix all his problems. If he could just recover the Juden he’d lost, General Steuben would see his ambition and tenacity and be impressed. But he’d scoured the countryside for weeks looking for the fugitives, and had not found them. When he returned he was demoted to captain, given three months in the brig, and after his release, assigned a desk job. He hated it.

General Steuben had informed him that he was lucky to have avoided a court-martial. Von Duesen could not fathom the logic of it. He had simply executed Jews, something the Nazis did all the time with impunity. These were not important people. They were not military prisoners who could reveal strategic information. They were barely more than animals. He had saved the Reich the time and money it would have taken to provide care for them.

But gestapo leadership did not view it that way. General Steuben had berated him for the damage he had done to the Nazi cause. When word of such incidents got out, the German cause suffered. Collaborators became less trusting of the gestapo, and sometimes stopped cooperating. And it became more difficult to reach the führer’s goal of making Ukraine Judenfrei. Once the Russians and Americans were defeated, Ukraine would become an important agricultural center for the new Reich. It would be the breadbasket of the Aryan nation. When German families and farmers were moved into the formerly Ukrainian territory, the cooperation of the people would be essential for a peaceful transition. Von Duesen’s actions had made such cooperation much more difficult.

But Karl cared for none of that. For the last year and half he had used his newly assigned duties to search for the old woman who had caused his professional demise. He had spent countless off-duty hours combing the countryside, looking for any sign of the two of them or any group they might have traveled with. In truth, he did not have much to go on. The description he gave to the villagers and farmers he met was vague. An old woman dressed like a peasant, using a walking stick. A young boy about twelve years old, his face covered in mud and grime, also dressed like a peasant. It fit the description of hundreds of people in the surrounding area.

He had even gone to the old cave where the Juden had first been captured. He had combed every nook and cranny of it himself. It had taken hours and hours. He hoped they might have left behind some clue to where they would go next. Perhaps a note or a hand-drawn map. But his search had proved fruitless. There was nothing left in the cave but a few cooking utensils, articles of clothing, and children’s playthings.

Now he was stuck. And the worst part of it was, as much as he hated—refused—to believe it, the war was not going well for the Reich. Italy was lost. The cowardly Italian army and government had folded like a cheap tent the moment the Americans showed up on their soil. They had surrendered and left the heavy fighting to the German troops. Yet the führer had no choice but to try to force them back—he could not allow an attack on Germany from the south.

And somehow, despite the fierce resistance of the Reich’s finest soldiers, the Americans had invaded Western Europe. Landing on the beaches of France, they were now pushing the Reich back to the homeland. They had already retaken Paris, forcing the mighty German army to turn tail and retreat.

In the east, the news was perhaps worst of all. The Russian dogs refused to die. After the vicious battles of the previous two years, they had licked their wounds and regrouped. Now they were on the march, pushing ever westward. It was as if the Americans and Russians were in a race to reach Berlin. If something did not change soon, the Reich would perish. How had things gone so wrong so quickly?

Karl could not bring himself to care. Just a short while ago, he was a major in the gestapo. He wore his uniform with a fervor that flowed from his very pores. He had done everything he was supposed to: joining the Hitler Youth, graduating from college, and rising through the ranks of the gestapo. All because he believed in the invincibility of the German army and the führer’s plan. But ever since that Jewish child and tired, old woman had escaped his grasp, his fervor had turned to bitterness. Peasants had humiliated him. Things had gone inexplicably wrong. If only he could find the brat and the old bat. He would take their throats in his hands and choke the life out of them if it would somehow set everything right again.

He pulled another file off the stack and opened it, glancing down but hardly paying attention. The reports were so boring they made his eyes water, and oftentimes he had to fight the urge to fall asleep. Especially on a day after he had been on one of his off-duty excursions.

Just as he was about to skip to the bottom and give the report its official stamp, a sentence caught his eye. He sat up straight at his desk. “Informant reports a merchant near the village of Holsta who trades supplies with two men who are believed to be sympathizers. After questioning, the merchant admits the men will bring him scrap metal at night in exchange for milk, flour, and other staples. He has tried to learn their whereabouts with no success. The men trade for far more than they need. Informant suspects large group of Juden hiding somewhere nearby.”

A pair of Jews coming out of the shadows to gather large quantities of supplies. It was a lead. The first that Captain Von Duesen had found in months. It might be nothing. But the report came from the same area where his group of Juden had first been captured. Perhaps these Jews would know where the boy and the old woman were. He hoped they had not died. He wanted to be the one to kill them.

Von Duesen took the report and stuffed it inside his coat. He had a map of the area in his desk drawer, so he grabbed that, too. And because none of the other officers were paying attention to what he was doing, he stuffed a few extra clips of ammunition for his Luger in his pockets.

He left headquarters and hurried down the street to the motor pool, where he signed out a truck. The sergeant in charge made no notice of his request. Von Duesen fueled it up and headed north.

He would find these Jews, and he would kill them. Or he would die trying.

Before this had happened, he would never have disobeyed orders, would never have taken such rash action. He always did what he was told in support of the führer.

But now, the fate of the führer no longer mattered. All Karl cared about was revenge.