The next day I went back to meet with Willi and Trudi at the brewery, which Fiske said his people already had under watch. It was Wednesday, the day it was all supposed to take place. Fiske assured me they wouldn’t make any move until I learned exactly what Bauer and his team were mapping out. What their plan was. And where Emma might be.
I wasn’t just a dupe. I was a double agent now.
“Charlie!” Willi Bauer said happily when I showed up exactly at noon. I rapped on the outer door in a series of knocks as they’d instructed me. “You remember our little brewery, don’t you?” he said with a wry smile, dressed in a sweater vest and knit tie. “I believe you were in here once before. And I’m very glad you’ve seen the wisdom of seeing this matter through. Emma will soon happily be back with your wife. And with you, I hope, if all goes well. Perhaps we will all be pleased with the outcome.”
“You’re a murderer,” I said, glaring at him and Trudi, who was dressed in a drab, gray suit with a floral hat, and who only glowered at me suspiciously.
“A combatant, as we choose to see it,” Willi Bauer said. “A slightly different view. One is never too old to do one’s duty for their fatherland.”
“Call it what you like. If this goes through, you’ll have thousands of lives on your conscience. I didn’t take you for that kind of man.”
“Don’t spend your time dwelling on that, Mr. Mossman. I’d spend it thinking about your daughter and how you’re helping to get her back.”
“What do you say we just get on with it,” I looked at him and said.
The same delivery truck I’d ridden in out to Bridgehampton was parked in the loading bay, its cargo doors open. I didn’t see any kegs around, or whatever it was the sub had dropped off. They led me into an office through a side door. Curtis was there, or Kurt now; Oberleutnant Leitner, as they were now calling him. Leaning back in a chair with his foot up on the table. His shirt open at the top two buttons. “Mossman.” He nodded brusquely, the “Mr.” now gone.
I had the feeling everyone in the room expected I wouldn’t survive the night.
Spread on a table was the large blueprint site map I had seen at the Bauers’ apartment.
The Kensico Reservoir in Westchester.
“Where’s Latimer?” I looked around.
“Probably back at his desk,” Willi said with a smile. “In Washington. He has an important job to do, now that his country is at war.”
“Yeah, we’re lucky to have him on our side.” I sniffed cynically.
And Noelle, I was about to add. Where was she? Having done her duty.
I didn’t see her anywhere either.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Curtis got up and came over to me and forced my arms outward. He patted me down brusquely, pulled open my jacket, felt my chest under my shirt until he was satisfied nothing was there. “Our man is clean as a baby.” He nodded to Willi.
“Good, Mr. Mossman. We wouldn’t want this to be over before you’ve had a chance to help yourself and Emma.” He smiled through his white mustache.
“So when is all this happening?” I asked. “All I want is to do what I have to do and have Emma released. I want to see her before I go.”
“Don’t worry yourself with so many details,” Trudi Bauer said. She was dressed in a dark suit and flat navy hat. “All will be revealed soon. Be assured. But I’m afraid what you ask won’t be possible. Emma is safe and in good hands. Hands that have cared for her. As soon as we are safe, a call will be made, I assure you. As Mr. Latimer has said, we have no reason to harm her once we accomplish our goal. We’re not exactly savages.”
Not only did I have to help them, she was saying, I now realized their mission had to be successful for Emma to be released. I prayed I hadn’t screwed it up by agreeing to work with Fiske. But what choice did I have?
“Let me speak to her then. I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”
“Now?” Willi Bauer shook his head. “Impossible.”
“Yes. Call her up. It’s the least you can do for me. Please. You say you care for her. She must be scared out of her wits. I’m living up to my word.”
My argument seemed to make a dent in Willi’s hardened demeanor. He glanced toward Trudi, who, with the slightest shrug and hardened gaze, gave her husband the answer.
“Tonight, perhaps,” he proposed.
“Tonight?”
“Yes. You’ll be here at midnight sharp.”
“Midnight? It’s happening tonight?” Nerves sprang up in me. Midnight meant Emma’s life and mine were on the line. A rat-tat-tat sped up in my blood.
“The less you know, the better, Mr. Mossman,” Trudi Bauer said. I inched as close as I could to the table, hoping to make sure of the target. My eyes glanced down, taking in as much of the map as I could. Before Willi started to fold it up.
“Unless I know she’s safe and unharmed, I’m not going through with it,” I said. “That’s not negotiable for me. I want to hear her voice.”
“I can’t promise, Mr. Mossman. You are certainly not in a position to be bargaining with us.”
“Maybe. But you’re the one who wants me to betray my country. What if you’ve already harmed her? That’s what it will take if you want me. To speak with her.”
Willi glanced at Trudi. She seemed to nod ever so subtly. “Just be here tonight. We’ll see what we can do.”
“I’ll be here.”
I looked around. Freddy, the dough-faced man who had driven the second car, was there too.
“Just one more thing…,” Willi said. “So what are you, Mr. Mossman…?” He seemed to size me up. “A fifty long perhaps?”
“Fifty long…?”
“So sorry. I always still think in European sizes. Force of habit after all these years. An American size forty, perhaps? In a jacket?”
“I don’t know. Forty. Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Why?”
“Twelve sharp, Mr. Mossman,” Willi said. “You can go now. But I must remind you, if you do anything stupid, if we feel even the slightest lessening of your commitment … if Mrs. Bauer or I don’t make a call at precisely the right hour, no one will ever see your daughter again. So her fate is in your hands. Just so you know. You understand me, don’t you?”
I looked back at him, and then at Trudi, with a coil wrapping tighter and tighter in my gut.
“I understand.”