2

GERHARDT SCHLICK pulled a cigarette from its silver case and drew the fragrant tobacco beneath his nostrils. He was appreciative of the little things that life in the SS afforded —good food, good wine, beautiful women, and the occasional gift of American tobacco.

He smiled as he lit his cigarette and inhaled —long and slowly. After tonight he expected to replenish his stock of at least two of those items. The rest would come in due course to a man of his station. He checked his reflection. More than satisfied, he squared his shoulders and tugged the coat of his dress uniform into place. Then he checked the clock, and his mouth turned grim.

“Kristine!” he barked. It would not do to be late —not tonight. Every SS officer of note in Berlin would be there, including Himmler, and every Nazi Party man of letters. Only the Führer would be absent, and that, Gerhardt was certain, was by Goebbels’s design —some scheme for greater propaganda, no doubt.

It was an evening to honor those entrusted with designs to strengthen Germany’s bloodline through eugenics —to create a pure race, free of the weaknesses introduced by inferior breeding with non-Nordic races. It was nothing short of a drive to rapidly increase Germany’s Nordic population. A perfect plan to restore Germany to its rightful position in the world —over the world.

Within that grand design Gerhardt saw himself rising through the ranks of the SS. Marrying the highly acceptable adopted daughter of eminent American scientist Dr. Rudolph Kramer would be one more rung in that ladder. A perfect blending of Germanic genes —Nordic features, physical strength and beauty, intellect . . . a perfect family for the Reich.

He smiled again. He wouldn’t mind doing his duty for the Fatherland, not with Rachel Kramer.

He could count on Dr. Verschuer and Dr. Mengele. And he suspected, since this afternoon’s telephone call from the Institute, that with minimal persuasion he could also count on the cooperation of Dr. Kramer where his daughter was concerned.

One thing stood in his way. Perhaps two.

At that moment Kristine Schlick walked into the room. She twirled self-consciously. The ice-blue satin evening gown brought lights to her eyes as it floated, rippling round her shapely form.

Their four-year-old daughter, Amelie, clapped delightedly as her mother twirled. Kristine lifted the child in her arms and planted a kiss on her cheek. Amelie patted her mother’s cheeks and gurgled an inharmonious stream of syllables.

Taken off guard, Gerhardt felt his eyes widen. There was no doubt that his wife was beautiful. Breathtaking —he would give her that. And there were other acceptable features. But she bore genetically deficient children, and in the New Germany that was unforgivable.

“Well?” she asked tentatively. “Do you like it?”

The question of a woman who knows the answer but is afraid to believe. The question of a woman who begs to be told she is beautiful.

But Gerhardt disdained begging as much as he disdained Kristine and his unacceptably deaf daughter. Turning off emotion —any form of weakness —was not difficult once he’d set his mind to it. And he had. He slapped his evening gloves against his thigh, ignoring the sudden terror in the eyes of his child as her mother set her on the floor, shielding her from his approach. “The car is waiting. You’ve made us late.”

Rachel turned one way before the full-length mirror in her hotel room, tilted her head, then turned the other. She loved green. But wearing it for the gala would’ve been fodder for yet another argument with her father. He’d insisted she wear royal blue, in a style that would frame her face and set her eyes and hair to best advantage. Because the gala would honor him and his work, celebrating the eugenics research shared between the two countries and the world, he’d asserted that it was essential, especially in these uncertain times, to appear their best and most gracious in every way. Rolling her eyes, she’d acquiesced.

She had to admit that the deep color, draped neckline, and fluid silk did more for her than anything she owned. And because it was the color he’d chosen, her father had not balked at the outrageous price. She supposed it would come in handy for events in New York City —maybe the opera house or a first night at Radio City Music Hall.

Rachel lifted her chin and straightened her spine. She didn’t mind turning heads, and she wouldn’t mind showing up Kristine and Gerhardt Schlick. She mightn’t have cared if Kristine had kept in touch. That’s what hurt most —her sudden abandonment.

She’d always known that Kristine wanted a life, a husband and family of her own —those were things girls told one another. And why not? Kristine was a warm, intelligent, and beautiful woman in her own right. Rachel admitted —if only to herself —that she’d relegated her friend to the shadows too often, too long.

Kristine had been so quick to comfort Gerhardt’s wounded pride five years ago when he’d stood in the Kramers’ New York parlor, furious and unbelieving, his marriage proposal rejected by nineteen-year-old Rachel. He’d married Kristine to spite her; of that she was certain. But Kristine had married him because she’d been swept off her feet, eager for her moment in the sun, her time to shine on distant German shores without Rachel to dim her reflection.

If she regrets her choice now . . . well, what is that to me?

“Rachel?” Her father knocked at her door. “It’s time.”

“Coming,” she called, pulling her light wrap over her shoulders and applying a last deliberate swipe of lipstick. She blotted, picked up the blue-and-silver silk purse dyed to match her shoes, and marched toward the arena.

Jason Young checked his hat outside the lavish ballroom door, tightened the knot in his tie, and squared his shoulders. He couldn’t believe his luck. For two years he’d tracked the elusive Dr. Rudolph Kramer through Cold Spring Harbor’s Eugenics Research Association. Not once had the “mad scientist,” as Jason had dubbed him, been available for an interview on either side of the Atlantic —and Kramer visited Germany frequently. Not once had he returned the phone calls his secretary promised he would. But that hadn’t kept Jason from dishing up the dirt on the man’s research and splattering it across news copy —research Jason saw as inhumane and, with Germany’s unchecked collusion and Hitler’s sterilization campaign, inescapably criminal.

But those obstacles were past. Because tonight he had a press pass to the gala —a legitimate opportunity to watch and record, word for word, everything the man and his cohorts said. If all went well, he’d get directly in Kramer’s face before the clock struck midnight. Jason wasn’t about to miss this flying saucer to stardom. “Watch out, Pulitzer, here I come!” he whispered.

“Hold on, hotshot.” Daren Peterson laid a hand on his colleague’s shoulder, gently pushing him toward a linen-covered table with a direct view of Rudolph Kramer and his stunning daughter. “All things in time. Let the man get comfortable. Let him get through his glad-handing. Then I’ll shoot the artwork and you can eat him alive.”

Jason rubbed his hands together and licked his lips.

Rachel had had more than enough. Nearly three hours of sanctimonious speeches on the growth of Aryan purity and toasts brimming with laudations for the scientific community’s systematic plans to rid the world of diseased and inferior stock had passed before the music and dancing, the serious tippling of champagne, and the ultimate loosening of tongues began.

She’d felt undressed by nearly every roving masculine eye and sized up and scathed by every feminine one. Gerhardt Schlick’s undisguised stare reminded her of Margaret Mitchell’s scene in Gone with the Wind —when Rhett Butler’s gaze seared Scarlett O’Hara ascending the stairs of Twelve Oaks. Only she doubted that Gerhardt’s intentions were as gentlemanly as the ungentlemanly Rhett’s.

She actually felt sorry for Kristine. Gerhardt had clearly distanced himself from his wife, paying her mind only to reprimand her with openly superior and snide remarks. Kristine, though tipsy, just as clearly felt his rebukes.

“You must dance,” her father whispered, distracting her from watching the couple on the inside of the horseshoe-shaped seating arrangement several feet away.

Rachel bristled. “I don’t want to dance.”

“Allow me.” He stood and, ignoring her response, led her to the dance floor.

At least it was better than dancing with the SS officers or the fawning Dr. Mengele. Rachel was always surprised and pleased when dancing with her father. The moment he stepped onto a dance floor his carriage, his entire demeanor, changed from intent, slump-shouldered scientist to man about town. He bowed, lifted her hand, and they began a Viennese waltz. Perfect frame, perfect timing with the orchestra, and just the right pressure on her back, against her hand. Ballroom dancing was something he and her mother had shared, and though Rachel could not waltz as wonderfully as she remembered her mother waltzing, in his arms she knew she could be made more beautiful still.

They’d taken one sweeping turn round the ballroom floor when her father stopped in response to a tap on his shoulder. He smiled, bowed slightly, and stood aside.

Sturmbannführer Gerhardt Schlick was waiting, smiling in a way that made Rachel shudder, though she refused to show it. She allowed herself to be led round the floor. On the second turn he pulled her closer. “It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you again, Rachel.”

She swallowed, smiling confidently, but her throat was dry. “Has it? And how is Kristine, and your daughter?”

A coldness passed through his eyes. “You must judge that for yourself.”

She raised her brows.

He sighed. “Oh, come now. There must have been signs before. You should have told me, warned me. I thought we were friends, at least.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your friend is not —” he hesitated —“genetically sound. She is not emotionally . . . I would use the English word stable.”

“Kristine is more stable than any girl I know.”

“And so I thought when I agreed to marry her. But as I said, you must judge for yourself.”

“What have you done to her?”

He looked the aggrieved, terribly injured party. “You wound me, Fräulein, and do me injustice.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Ever the champion of the underdog.” He smiled. “And as beautiful as the moment I first saw you.” He pulled her closer still.

“And you are married, Herr Schlick.” She stepped away from him.

He snorted softly. “Truly, my mistake.” Gerhardt bowed, but held her hand and kissed it. “I should have waited for you, no matter how long.”

She turned, but he did not let go of her hand. “You’ll be in Berlin for several weeks, I understand, Fräulein Kramer.”

She didn’t respond.

“I look forward to seeing more of you, and often.”

“That will not be possible.” Rachel pulled away, more disgusted than frightened. She sensed that he followed her toward her seat. Her father was not there, but standing oblivious, deep in conversation within the doctors’ circle several feet away. Kristine was gone.

All the you-should-have-known-better cuts she’d loaded in her arsenal, ready to aim at Kristine, evaporated. No matter the headlong foolishness of her rebound marriage, Kristine didn’t deserve Gerhardt Schlick.

Rachel retrieved her bag from the table and headed for the ladies’ room, trusting that Gerhardt would not follow.