The boy knows nothing of poker, although he hears it’s not all that different from chess in that it requires a straight face and a good bit of strategy. But his father has always told him that chess is a thinking man’s game and that he’s raising Werner to be a thinking man, not one who relies on the luck of the draw. So that’s how they spend their time together when he is home. Sitting at the kitchen table beside the fire escape, discussing the merits of the Sicilian Defense over the Alekhine Defense. The Queen’s Gambit. The English Opening. The Stonewall Attack. They rehearse the moves, pieces in hand, eyes on the board, the name of each play and the name of each piece suggesting arcane military tactics. And he wonders if the men in the kitchen have names for their own moves. Is it just a bluff? Or a blindman’s bluff? A fold? Or a Folded Hat? Is there room for such creativity in a game of chance, or does a man simply rely on his own luck and powers of subterfuge?
As he listens, conversation moves to flying, how long each man has served aboard the Hindenburg, and then on to military service. This topic of conversation seems to interest the American more than the others. He is very curious about Ludwig Knorr and the time he spent flying over England during the Great War.
The American has not won a game yet. Or is it a hand? Werner isn’t sure. Regardless, they’ve dealt the cards a number of times, and the American has come up short on all of them. However, he suspects that is about to change because he lost something valuable in the last hand and now he tosses something heavy and metallic into the middle of the table that sends coins scattering in all directions. The other men gasp. Someone whistles.
“I told you I had more,” the American says.
“That confident, are you?” This sounds like Heinrich Kubis.
The American. “My wife had a thick neck. That never looked good on her anyway.”
So a necklace, then. The American is betting jewelry. No wonder they let him in the game. Werner tried to get in a game once, but all he had to bet was the five marks he’d earned as a tip the day before, and the men had sent him scuttling out the door. He suspects they wouldn’t let him play because the entire crew knows he works to help support his family and none of them wants to be responsible for any damage his brother and parents would suffer because of a loss. Most of them are rough and dirty men, but they are honorable. And many of them have wives and children of their own at home. They know what it’s like to come up short for the month, and how bitter it is when their own stupidity is at fault.
Around the table they go, betting, raising, folding. Two players leave the game in disgust. Eventually the American calls. Cards slap the table. Someone curses. The American has kept his necklace and everything else along with it. Werner does his best to remember these details so he can report them to Gertrud Adelt.
More money goes in the pot. Cards are dealt again. The men swap war stories. And the American wins again. Only now Werner isn’t paying attention. He is fascinated. He rarely hears of battlefields and brothels when they know he is within earshot, so he misses the signal that the American is calling it quits for the night. He hears the footsteps but doesn’t have time to scramble away. Before he can get to his feet, Werner is knocked backward by the door. He doesn’t grunt or call out when he lands hard on his tailbone, so his presence goes undetected by the crew in the other room. They hover over the table, looking at new cards, trying to recover their losses. As the door swings shut, the American bends low over Werner’s crouched form, murder in his eyes.
DAY FOUR
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1937—5:35 A.M., EASTERN STANDARD TIME
THE EASTERN COAST OF THE UNITED STATES NEAR PORTLAND, MAINE
13 HOURS AND 50 MINUTES UNTIL THE EXPLOSION
I rated the Zeppelin much lower as a weapon of war than almost anyone else. I believed that this enormous bladder of combustible and explosive gas would prove to be easily destructible.
—Winston S. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty
THE JOURNALIST
“Do you think he believed you?” Gertrud asks. Their stateroom is dark—nothing more than a suggestion of light coming from the westward-facing windows—and filled with pre-dawn quiet. Her voice sounds like an intrusion. But she knows Leonhard is awake, has been for at least an hour, because he’s tracing tiny circles around the knobs of her spine. Slowly. Methodically. From her tailbone to the base of her skull, he does not miss one vertebra.
She can feel his answer from where she lies across his chest—a shake of the head. “No, Liebchen,” he says. “I do not.”
There’s no need to explain her question. He knows well enough what she means. And he’s angry with himself for falling into such a neatly laid trap. Of course there’s no way the two of them could have figured out the owner of the dog tag on their own. And Leonhard’s nonchalant explanation about the deductive skills of journalists did nothing to convince Captain Lehmann last night in the bar. He knows that Leonhard lied to him, and that leaves them at a disadvantage. They talked for over an hour and, when pressed, Leonhard had been forced to tell Lehmann their suspicions regarding the American and his interest in Ludwig Knorr. He had, thankfully, left out Emilie’s part in their discovery.
Gertrud burrows deeper into the warmth of Leonhard’s bare arm. “Thank you for protecting her.”
“Never give up a source, right?” He murmurs it against her hair.
“She’s a friend,” Gertrud says, and then amends her comment, “for my part, at least.”
“I didn’t think you made friends.”
“End of days.”
He laughs at this and rolls her over so she’s lying on her back, pinned to the mattress by the weight of his body. “What am I going to do with you?”