"You sound like one of Goebbels's propaganda films."
"The truth isn't quite so entertaining. Berlin is very bad. The Americans come with their B-Seventeens by day, and the British come with their Lancasters and Halifaxes at night. Some days it seems the city is under almost constant bombardment. Most of central Berlin is a pile of rubble."
"Having lived through the blitz myself, I'm afraid Germany deserves whatever the Americans and British can dish out. The Germans were the first to take the war to the civilian population. I can't shed many tears because Berlin is now being pounded into dust."
"You sound like a Brit yourself."
"I am half British. My mother was English. And I've been living among the British for six years. It's not hard to forget whose side you're supposed to be on when you're in a situation like that. But tell me more about Berlin."
"Those with money or connections manage to eat well. Those without money or connections don't. The Russians have turned the tables in the east. I suspect half of Berlin is hoping the invasion succeeds so the Americans can get to Berlin before the Ivans."
"So typically German. They elect a psychopath, give him absolute power, then cry because he's led them to the brink of destruction."
Neumann laughed. "If you were blessed with such foresight, why in the world did you volunteer to become a spy?"
"Who said anything about volunteering?"
They flashed through a pair of villages--first Stickney, then Stickford. The scent of woodsmoke from fires burning in the cottages penetrated the interior of the van. Neumann heard a dog barking, then another. He reached in his pocket, removed his cigarettes, and gave them to Catherine. She lit two, kept one for herself, and handed one back to him.
"Would you like to explain that last remark?"
She thought, Would I? It felt terribly strange, after all these years, even to be speaking in German. She had spent six years hiding every shred of truth about herself. She had become someone else, erased every aspect of her personality and her past. When she thought about the person she was before Hitler and before the war, it was as if she were thinking about someone else.
Anna Katarina von Steiner died in an unfortunate road accident outside Berlin.
"Well, I didn't exactly go down to the local Abwehr office and sign up," she said. "But then, I don't suppose anyone in this line of work gets their job that way, do they. They always come for you. In my case, they was Kurt Vogel."
She told him the story, the story she had never told another person before. The story of the summer in Spain, the summer the civil war broke out. The summer at Maria's estancia. Her affair with Maria's father. "Just my luck, he turns out to be a Fascist and a talent spotter for the Abwehr. He sells me to Vogel, and Vogel comes looking for me."
"Why didn't you just say no?"
"Why didn't any of us just say no? In my case, he threatened the one thing in this world I care most about--my father. That's what a good case officer does. They get inside your head. They get to know how you think, how you feel. What you love and what you fear. And then they use it to make you do what they want you to do."
She smoked quietly for a moment, watching as they passed through another village.
"He knew that I lived in London when I was a child, that I spoke the language perfectly, that I already knew how to handle a weapon, and that--"
Silence for a moment. Neumann didn't press her. He just waited, fascinated.
"He knew that I had a personality suited to the assignment he had in mind. I've been in Britain nearly six years, alone, with virtually no contact with anyone from my side: no friends, no family, no contact with any other agents--nothing. It was more like a prison sentence than an assignment. I can't tell you how many times I dreamt about going back to Berlin and killing Vogel with one of the wonderful techniques he and his friends taught me."
"How did you enter the country?"
She told him--told him what Vogel made her do.
"Jesus Christ," Neumann muttered.
"Something the Gestapo would do, right? I spent the next month preparing my new identity. Then I settled in and waited. Vogel and I had a way of communicating over the wireless that didn't involve code names. So the British never looked for me. Vogel knew I was safe and in place, ready to be activated. Then the idiot gives me one assignment and sends me straight into the arms of MI-Five." She laughed quietly. "My God, I can't believe I'm actually going back there after all this time. I never thought I would see Germany again."
"You don't sound terribly thrilled about the prospect of going home."
"Home? It's hard to think of Germany as my home. It's hard to think of myself as German. Vogel erased that part of me at his wonderful little mountain retreat in Bavaria."