FERENCY SNEEZED WITH HIS USUAL STYLE.
“Gesundheit,” she said automatically. “Bad cold you got there.”
“Is not cold. I am allergic to—” he waved to the trees “—these. How you call them?”
Roxy looked up. “Horse chestnuts?” They were in full bloom all over Berlin. More words were mumbled. “What did you say?” Ferency’s voice was muffled not only because of his allergies. His wolf mask helped.
“What do we try now, Fräulein Loewen?”
“I have no idea.”
She chewed at her lower lip. She’d assumed that the Air Ministry would be one building, filled with offices and maybe one hall for a party. Göring’s headquarters was built more along palace lines, with vast grounds—now occupied by a combination of Bavarian village and fun fair. The theme of the extravaganza was taken from German fairy tales, mainly the work of the Brothers Grimm. So all the staff were in costume, as were a majority of the guests. Snow Whites served foaming tankards of beer to stags and foxes. From a castle turret, seven singing Rapunzels let down their hair, a blond backdrop to the firepits, where whole boars were being roasted. Hansels and Gretels offered gingerbread and other dainties from tables piled high with food.
Many people were dressed like fashionable peasants. Well-tailored lederhosen for ham-thighed guys, while beautifully cut frilly blouses accentuated the deep cleavages of their sturdy German Frauen. At the main entrance spare costumes and props had been laid out for those who wished to borrow them. Ferency had opted for the wolf. She had opted for a simple domino that covered only her upper face but had gone back to grab a Red Riding Hood cloak because within twenty yards of the front gate at least three drunken Herren had propositioned her. She’d save her charms for the Reichsmarschall.
That was their plan, beyond getting through the gate—get Göring to give her a private tour with her new Hungarian pal, and flirt with him aside while Ferency made his study of the artwork. What they hadn’t reckoned on was the size of the turnout. If the host was present, they hadn’t seen him. At least a thousand people were there. Between their inebriated yelling, the shrieks of riders on the six fun-fair rides and the continuous playing of the oompah band, it was hard to think.
“One more time?” she said.
Their revised plan was somehow to sneak into the only place they figured the painting could be. So now they circled the main building again. But the rear still had no unlocked doors; the windows were still closed and bolted. Back at its front entrance, the same eight black-clad guards were standing at attention.
“SS,” Ferency murmured. “Hitler’s elite. No way past them.”
“There’s gotta be a way.”
They stood, watched. A Cinderella and her prince swayed up the stairs, laughing—to be hustled swiftly down them again and firmly ejected back into the whirligig of people.
“Shit.” Roxy took Ferency’s arm to steer him away. “Let’s try and bluff our way in there again.”
She pointed. Right in front of the Air Ministry was the most luxurious of the beer gardens. A further invitation was needed to get into it—as they’d found out when they’d tried to gain admittance and been refused. Most of the people in there weren’t speaking German; it was the enclosure for the foreign press. She felt sure that the central table, a microphone before it, was where Göring would eventually show up. What was all this but an opportunity to show the smiling face of the Third Reich to the world? Find him, charm him, maybe get that private tour. But all tickets were still being scrupulously vetted.
They stood before the gate, uncertain, until they were shoved aside by four soldiers in field-grey overcoats. “Hey! Watch it!” she called, but they paid her no attention, passing fast through the gate; past the ticket checkers, who could not delay them. It was strange, overcoats on a hot summer night. None of the other guards wore them. Then she saw that they didn’t carry weapons but a rolled-up six-foot cylinder of cloth. They ran with it up to the small stage, threw off their coats—they wore simple civilian clothes underneath. They unfurled the cloth. It was a banner and on it, painted in red, were words in English:
“Let the world know: Hitler murders all who oppose him. Help us.”
The oompah sagged like a punctured bladder. People shouted in fury. The men began to chant, again in English: “Hitler…Killer. Göring…Killer. Goebbels…Killer.”
They got out three renditions before men rushed them. Men in black uniforms. She swivelled—they’d come from the ministry. The entrance was unguarded. “Come on!” She grabbed Ferency’s arm and ran.
They took the stairs fast, pushed open the heavy oak doors, halted in the entrance hall. Outside, the chants had changed to screams. She had no doubt who was winning that fight.
Ferency was looking at the board listing the Air Ministry’s departments and their floors. “Where would he keep this painting?” He sniffed. “In the cellar?”
The words on the board were typically German—compounds of endless, near-unintelligible syllables. Only one stood out because it was a single word. And because it was borrowed from English. “No,” she replied. “Didn’t Jocco say he had an apartment in the ministry set aside for his seductions? What better line than ‘Come up and see my Bruegel’?” She grinned. “The painting will be in the penthouse.”
“You are right.”
Ferency took a step toward the stairs—but Roxy stopped him. “In these shoes?” She lifted her foot, displaying the four-inch spike. “I don’t think so.” Moving across to the elevator, she pushed the call button. It was only one floor up. It had a door, not a grille, and when he pulled it open, they saw it was one of the newer fangled ones that didn’t require an operator. They stepped in, the Hungarian pulled the door shut, and she hit P.
He sneezed. “What if there are other guards up here?”
“Bless you.” She’d thought the same thing. Now she could only shrug. “Too late. Get ready to act drunk.”
The elevator rose rapidly, and glided to a smooth stop with a soft but distinct bing. They waited, listening. No one approached. “Tallyho,” she said.
The door opened directly onto a room, not a corridor. It was dark in there, the light spill from the elevator and flashes from the party through tall windows revealing little more than larger shadows that could be furniture. No sounds came from inside the room, only the world beyond. The oompah music had recommenced. Voices rose again in laughter. No doubt the little unpleasantness had been dealt with discreetly. Painfully.
“We’re okay,” said Roxy, running her hand up the wall beside the elevator. She found a switch.
“What are you doing?” Ferency snapped. “If anyone looks up…”
“Just getting my bearings.” She flicked it off. She’d seen enough to verify that the room was just an office, though a large and pretty ornate one. A huge desk dominated one end before a vast hearth, closed doors either side of it. Above the fireplace was a tall painting of Göring in full military flying gear, an elk hound at his feet. Smaller desks were positioned under the three windows. To the right were twin entranceways, their doors closed—though from under the right one came a faint gleam.
“Let’s try there,” she said softly.
They were halfway along the wall when the searchlights came on.
They froze. The room was suddenly filled with bright light and deep shadows. The brightness wasn’t inside the room, though, but beyond it. She crossed to the windows, then glanced outside and along a beam.
On the roof above them someone was playing with searchlights. Six powerful beams were directed onto the people below, some of whom screamed in shock, while others yelled in delight. The band struck up the “Horst Wessel Song”; people immediately joined in. Then, as one, the beams rose to the clouds above, like six columns holding up the heavens.
“Göring playing God, that’s all,” Roxy said, moving back to the door.
It opened easily to her touch, onto a bedroom. She flicked a switch and the ceiling light came on. To her left, a tall lamp stood behind a leather wing-backed chair, a small table beside it. She crossed to it, saw papers, reading glasses, a crystal decanter with snifters and a book. It was open, and she glimpsed some naked flesh in photos. Next to the book was a small leather whip.
She shuddered. Across the room, there was a desk, with thick velvet curtains behind it, folded back before two windows that looked onto the unlit rear of the Air Ministry. Between her and those was a large sleigh bed, headboard and bottom curved and carved from dark wood. Three animal skins were spread near it—a brown bear on one side, a polar bear on the other, a huge tiger skin at the base.
A closet stood beside the door, Göring tall, twice Göring wide. There was another door to the right of the bed, open; light spilled onto the black-and-white tiled floor of a bathroom.
“So Jocco was right about the seduction room.” She swivelled, then pointed. “And I guess I’m right about one of its lures.” There was only one other object in the room. It was under the windows, behind the desk. It was out of place in all that polished smoothness—a rough-hewn trestle. Someone had thrown a blanket over it. It stuck out at four corners. “There,” Roxy said.
Ferency carefully peeled back the blanket. He hadn’t gotten a third of the way down before he started sniffling—and cursing. The words were Hungarian, unknowable. His emotions were clear. When the blanket was all the way down, curses gave way to English. “Good God! I didn’t believe…I couldn’t…I am amazed…”
“Yeah, it’s spiffy.”
“Spiffy?” He shook his head. “I have been studying Pieter van Bruegel all my life. He is one of art’s true geniuses. And here is one of the first examples of that genius.” He slowly stretched a quivering finger out and laid it on the edge of the board. “It is like I am reaching down the centuries to touch him.”
“Yeah, well, do you think you can reach down these next few minutes and copy him?” Roxy tipped her head to the distant party sounds. “Don’t want to rush your rapture, or anything…”
Ferency straightened; wiped his nose. “Of course. I will get time to study. I will get time to…commune. When I recreate.” He reached into his coat, took out a small camera. “Bring that lamp over here, please.”
It was easier said than done. It was heavy, all brass, and the nearest outlet was a little far away. She managed to tip it to shed some light on the subject. Grunting, muttering, sniffing, shooting, the Hungarian moved up and down the painting. After ten minutes, he took out a penknife and five tiny plastic bags, then scraped small amounts of paint off different parts.
At last he just stared down again, totally still except for his eyes ceaselessly moving—and one wet drop forming on the end of his nose.
“Hey. We better move.”
“Ja, ja,” he muttered, and stooped for the blanket. But as he did, a clear sound came, a distant single bell—followed immediately by the sound of a motor.
“The elevator!”
Ferency quickly covered the painting and stepped back. “Where do we go?”
His voice was panicky. Roxy tried to get calm into hers. “There have got to be stairs. Come on.”
They went into the main room. After glancing at the floor indicator—the elevator had just reached the ground—Roxy led the way across to the door on the left of the hearth. It was locked. So was its twin on the right. “Windows. Maybe there’s a ledge.”
She moved. He didn’t. “I cannot,” he said. “I have vertigo.”
She crossed to the windows anyway, tried each one. All locked.
Sounds rose from the elevator shaft. A door opened, closed. Gears engaged. The arrow moved. “They may not be coming up here,” Roxy breathed.
The arrow pointed to 1. Kept going.
“They’ll stop.”
The arrow reached 2. Passed it.
“We should hide.” Ferency grabbed her arm. “Behind the chairs!”
“Are you crazy? Göring’s probably sent someone for papers.”
The arrow hit 3. Sailed by.
“Then the bedroom?” He pulled at her. “They come for papers, they go, we—”
She jerked her arm free. “Wait!”
The arrow moved to 4…and stopped. “Ha!” she exhaled on a long breath.
They listened, waiting for the door to open on the floor below. Instead they heard a single word: “Scheisse.” Then the sound of the elevator, rising again.
“Bedroom,” she said. They ran in; she closed the door behind her, continued to the bathroom. But it had only a bath, no shower, no curtain. She left it, knelt—the bed base was too close to the floor. They heard the elevator glide into place. She looked about. “Closet,” she said, hitting the ceiling light switch before moving to it.
He followed, too slowly. “But I have also claustrophobia,” he whimpered.
“Of course you do,” she sighed. Voices came from the main room. “But we have no choice.”
Seizing his arm, she shoved him in, and followed. As the bedroom door opened, she pulled the closet one almost closed, leaving only a crack.