The bartender is smart enough to say nothing. Schulze escorts Emilie through one air lock and then the other. Her chin is lifted, her unwavering gaze directed at the corridor. She does not speak to Max or look at him. Once she has departed, Schulze steps back behind the bar and laughs. “Good luck. You may need more than one bottle of Armagnac to win her over.”
“Do you have more?”
“No.”
When Max returns to his cabin, Balla is waiting for him.
“I may have solved your problem,” the steward says.
His broad mouth is curved into an unfamiliar smile. The steward is pleased with himself. Max registers this first—it’s so unusual to see the man smile—before he can actually make sense of what Balla has just said. Max hears the words, but from a distance. He simply wants to deposit the Armagnac and goblets in his cabin and finish his shift.
“I’m sorry. What was that?”
“Emilie.”
“What now?”
“You want her to stay?”
“Of course I do.
“Let’s just say it will be very difficult for Emilie to follow through with her plans if she is no longer in possession of her papers.”
Max steps around Balla and unlocks his cabin door. He deposits the brandy and goblets next to the sink so he won’t break them over the steward’s head. He turns slowly. Fists clenched at his side. “What have you done?”
THE JOURNALIST
“Who else have you shown this tag to?” Leonhard asks. The chain lies wadded in the palm of his hand. He pokes it with his finger.
“Only the stewardess.”
He is surprised at this. “Why?”
Gertrud thinks for a moment, looking for a way to explain. “There’s something about her mind. She seems to remember everything. Names and places. Dates. Insignificant details. They say she’s fluent in seven languages. Can you imagine?”
“I know exactly what this is,” Leonhard says. “But I can’t tell you what half of it means. Much less who it belongs to. Why would you think that she could?”
“It was a hunch. Not to mention damned good timing. She showed up in the bar while I was puzzling through it all. And I was right. I know I was. She just wouldn’t tell me.”
“Don’t you think that was an unnecessary risk?”
“We have to do something, Leonhard. I don’t know what that American is up to. But it can’t be good.” She closes his fist around the chain. “This man has to be warned.”
“Who would you have me tell? We know nothing! Only the whisper of a threat.”
“Tell Captain Lehmann. You’re friends. He trusts you.”
“We will not speak a word of this to him. Not now.”
“So we just keep it to ourselves?”
“What exactly are we keeping, Liebchen? A rumor. My God, last I checked that was called discretion.”
“What if something happens to the man who owns that tag?”
“So your plan is to run to the captain and babble about this like a crazed goose? You want to figure this out?” He shakes her by the shoulders a bit too roughly, then lays his palms gently on her arms, apologetic. “Yes? Then we use our minds, Liebchen. That’s our greatest weapon. We learn something useful. Then we speak.”
“What about the bomb?”
“We don’t know if there is a bomb! This ship has been picked over with a fine-tooth comb.”
“But the threats—”
“There are always threats, Liebchen. They multiply like a venereal disease everywhere Hitler goes. We must learn to maneuver them if we are to survive.”
A slow, constricting panic crawls up her throat and tightens around her vocal cords. Gertrud feels as though she can’t breathe. She has assumed all this time that Leonhard isn’t concerned. That he has simply been frustrated with her wild theories and tired of accommodating her fear of this trip. But she sees now that a deep concern has taken root. His eyes have grown tight. Dark. Leonhard pulls her into his chest. His shirt smells of books and pipe smoke and the faintest traces of his cologne. “We can figure this out.”
“But can we do it in time?”
“I hope so.”
“I hear the clock ticking, Leonhard.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve worked on deadline. And,” he tucks a curl behind her ear, “this time we don’t have to mess with the writing itself. Just the investigation. I have always suspected that is your favorite part anyway.”
She grins. “I do love having written.”
“Don’t we all.”
Gertrud snorts. “Oh, don’t lie. You’re a purist. You don’t struggle with the actual craft the way the rest of us do. You enjoy the construction. I just want the finished product.”
He does smile at this. It’s true after all. Leonhard very much enjoys the process of writing. In the years that she has known him, Gertrud has never once heard him complain while at work. He’s happy to sit in his study and collect his thoughts on paper.
“I do like my job,” he concedes.
Gertrud sniffs and raises up onto her toes to look him in the eye. “Well, it would be easy for me too,” she says, “if I had a wife to make my dinner and care for my son and press my trousers.”
“You look terrible in trousers.”
She smacks his shoulder.
“I look quite nice in trousers, thank you very much. All the men tell me so.”