“I need some time.”
She went to the kitchen and set the tray on the table. Her heart felt like a stone. She dipped her hands in the water pooled in the sink before bringing them up to rinse her face. She thought of all the people she’d known who’d been swept up and seduced by the National Socialists and their lies. She wasn’t like them. She was a criminal, a convicted enemy of the state, and now she was harboring another enemy. She couldn’t be any less of a Nazi. It was impossible. Turning him in wasn’t an option—she would rather die. So what then? She could let him go his own way and keep her silence as he slipped secretly into the belly of the Reich, but where would she go then? What would she do? Would she go back into the woods to finish what she started the night she found him? Or would she just do her best to survive the war? This man offered more.
“Continue your story,” she said as she walked back in. “Tell me why you’re here. If you want my help, I need to know everything.”
“The flak hit the plane I was in, and I bailed out over the mountains. Then you found me.” He paused for a long two seconds before continuing. “My mission is a man,” he said. The tension seemed to evaporate with every word. “His name is Rudolf Hahn. He’s a scientist—one of the most brilliant minds in the world. He’s pioneering work in a new field of physics, which could change the war in Germany’s favor. One of our German agents infiltrated his laboratory and made contact with him. Hahn agreed to defect to America. I’m here to get him out.”
“Why couldn’t the agent that contacted him do it?”
“He’s a diplomat, and not suited to the more dangerous elements of the task. The Gestapo seemed to be onto him, so he had to melt into the background. Hahn is still in place. They haven’t arrested him yet.”
“So how did you plan to get him out of the country?”
“Let’s slow down a minute.”
“You need my help, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“You can’t do anything, because he’s a hundred twenty miles from here, and you’re stuck in that bed with two broken legs.”
John reached for the glass of water beside the bed and took a sip.
“So you want my help but still don’t trust me enough to tell me everything,” she said.
“Can you learn to trust me, and to agree with what I stand for?”
His question was met with silence.
“We were planning on traversing the Alps south of Munich and getting into Switzerland because the mountain passes offered the most secret way to cross the border. Although getting there would have been no easy feat. We had a guide, and the OSS trained me in mountain climbing, for all the good that’s going to do me now.” He looked at his legs and ran his hands over the casts that encased them.
“How is this scientist going to change the course of the war for Germany? What’s he working on?”
“I can’t meet him myself,” John said, ignoring her question.
“What’s he working on?”
“You’re going to force me to tell you, aren’t you?”
“If I’m going to risk my life for you, and your cause, I want to know why. I want to know what’s at stake.”
“Professor Hahn and his colleagues have been working on a new technology called nuclear fission. They published a paper in 1939 about the new process, and the Allies have been trying to monitor their progress ever since.”
“And what’s so special about this nuclear fission?” She fumbled the words.
“I wouldn’t tell you even if they’d told me, but I believe it’s enormous and that it could turn the tide of the war. Without Hahn, the project will die. He’s the brains behind it. The Nazis don’t realize what they’re on the cusp of. The project has been underfunded and almost ignored by the hierarchy. Hitler’s obsessed with jet-propulsion engines. They’re more focused on that end.”
“So why has this Hahn decided to turn?”
“He’s not happy with the treatment of the Jewish population by the regime. Many of his friends and colleagues before the war were Jews. The Nazis excluded all Jews from the work on account of their race. Many of them are dead, or in exile now. We’ve taken some in ourselves. He’s also frustrated with the lack of funding. The United States realizes how important his work is. He’ll receive all the funding and support he could ever need once we get him back to the States.”
“So the Americans can develop this new technology themselves?”
“We need to develop it before the Nazis, or even the Soviets, get their hands on it. It’s a race that could determine the outcome of the war. If the Nazis realize what they could potentially have on their hands, it could change everything. That won’t happen if Hahn disappears. We need his knowledge and expertise. If they’ve made a breakthrough, we need to know about it.”
“Where do I come in?”
“The arrangement was that I make contact with Hahn, gain his trust, and then spirit him across the border into Switzerland.”
“You want me to get him across the border?” Franka said, wide-eyed.
“No, I just need you to meet with him, to tell him what happened to me, and then . . .” It was hard to fathom it had come to this.
“What?”
“Then bring him back here so I can take him across the border myself once I recover.”
“It’s going to be a month before you can walk again, and you certainly won’t be climbing any mountains then.”
“Let me worry about the details.”
“I would say that’s more than a detail. You want me to go to Stuttgart to meet this man, don’t you?”
“I can’t see another way.”
“I’ve no training in espionage. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“It’s just the matter of meeting someone, hearing him out, and delivering a message.”
“What if he won’t speak to me, or if I get caught?”
“I don’t see how you could unless you turn yourself in, and I’ll give you the code words that will force him to listen to you. Will you do it? Will you help me?”
“I don’t know—it seems like a lot . . .”
“It’s much simpler than it seems. You can do this. You can make a difference.”
“Okay,” she said, her eyes closed.
“Thank you,” he said, taking her elbow. It was the first time they’d ever touched without reason, and she felt a chill from it. It was ridiculous.
“The arrangement was to meet him in the public park. He was to sit on a bench reading the newspaper.”
“In this weather?”
“He was to be there for a short time, between five fifty and six p.m., and only one day a week—on Mondays. He was there earlier today waiting for me.”
“Will he be there next week? Should I go then?”
“With Christmas coming on Saturday? I don’t think so. It’s likely he’ll go home to Berlin for the week. I think it’s best if we go the week after, on January third. That way I’ll have some more time to heal, and you’ll be better prepared. You won’t have to do anything too spectacular, just meet the man and tell him what happened to me.”
“How will he know I’m not Gestapo?”
“The code words. Once he hears them, he’ll know you’re with me. You’ll just need to make contact with him and perhaps give him the option of coming here once I’m better, but we can decide that later. We’ve plenty of time.”
“Two weeks,” Franka said. “I’ll need to get you some crutches. No use in having you confined to that bed. You’ll start to develop sores. The best thing for you is to get up and moving. I need to go into town to get some food tomorrow. I’ll pick some up there.”
“They’ll have crutches in the store with the rationing going on?”