People began running, and mothers dragged children along by the arm.
“There’s a shelter a few minutes’ walk away,” Hahn said. A shrill whistle cut him off, and a loud explosion rocked the street behind them. A storefront several hundred yards away exploded, showering the street with rubble and debris. A burglar alarm sounded. The sirens still howled. People scattered. Franka looked back and saw bodies on the asphalt. Hahn grabbed at her wrist as the whistle of bombs came again. A hundred people or more were running down the street now. It was impossible to know how far away the bomb shelter was. She couldn’t see it, could only see the scattered figures of people running. Hahn was slow. She was almost dragging him as another bomb struck, landing a hundred feet behind them. A man was flung into the side of a building as if swatted to the side by some giant hand, his corpse falling in an untidy heap. Another bomb, and then another, collided with the houses on either side of the street. Glass and debris sprayed out. Franka turned around and saw a man running behind her, his entire body consumed in yellow flames. He fell. People sprinted past, the sound of screaming left in their wake. Blind panic. Another bomb fell, and the building just in front of them exploded into the street, showering their path ahead with dust and rubble. There were dead all over the road in front and behind. And still the whistling of bombs filled her ears. Hahn slowed.
“How far are we from the shelter?” she screamed.
“Half a mile perhaps. Usually, there is more warning. The clouds.”
Another explosion rocked the air around them, and Franka could see that the street they’d just run down was now a trail of fire. Several bodies lay burning like torches in the dimming light. The sky above was blackening. The planes were invisible. She saw a bomb, caught sight of the flare of black before it hit the ground, obliterating a grocer’s shop, scattering glass and wooden boxes of vegetables like confetti. Another bomb fell, and the mutilated body of an old woman skidded to the asphalt a few feet in front of them. Her clothes were burned away, her skin charred black underneath, her jaw sheared off. Franka ran around her as another bomb exploded behind them. She lost Hahn for a few seconds in the haze of smoke and then picked him out about fifty feet to her left. She made for him just as another bomb hit, scattering debris. Dozens of people were lying broken all around her, screaming. Dozens more ran on. Franka stopped, rubbing at her eyes. She lost Hahn again, scanned the ground for him.
Another explosion almost blew out her eardrum, knocking her off her feet. The buildings all around her were a sea of flames sending black smoke billowing into the air. She wiped grit out of her eyes, tried to focus despite the ringing in her ears. She checked her body. No blood. She could move. Only a little pain. She rose to her feet, falling behind most of the crowd now.
Another bomb exploded, but several hundred yards away this time. The thought emerged from the swamp of her mind that she was alone and still had to get to a bomb shelter. The crowd in front of her was still running toward the air-raid shelter, which she could now see was a few blocks away. Where was Hahn? She felt a warmth flowing down the side of her face, and her hand came back stained with her own blood. The cacophony of the sirens was changed now, mixed with the agonized moans of the wounded. She stumbled across rubble and broken glass, searching for Hahn. She counted seven dead within fifty feet of where she was standing, some missing arms and legs, others crushed under bricks and mortar. The whistling of the bombs came again, farther away now. The bombers had passed over, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t come again. She still needed to get to a shelter. Staying out in the open meant death.
Franka screamed as she saw him. Hahn was on the other side of the street, lying on his side in a pool of thick crimson. She stumbled to him and passed the outstretched hands of several wounded and begging for her help. It was against every instinct in her to ignore them, but she did. A faint voice inside her head reminded her to focus on the mission.
“Hahn,” she said. Her voice seemed to echo within her, as if inside a deep black cavern. More explosions rocked the earth as she bent down to him. People were still running past. A young man shouted at her to come, tried to grab at her, but she shrugged him off. Hahn opened his eyes and lifted his head. Blood oozed out the sides of his mouth. He coughed, brought his eyes to hers. His clothes were wet with blood, the pool in front of him thickening by the second. His eyes implored her to help, though she knew there was nothing to be done. A loose piece of masonry lay on his legs, pinning him to the ground. She thought to drop him, to keep running toward the shelter. She remembered John, waiting for her in the cabin.
“Where is the microfilm, Hahn?”
His eyes flickered, and he managed nothing more than a grunt.
“Don’t let your research die on this street. You said that the Nazis didn’t value your work. Let the Americans finish what you started.” He opened his eyes and was looking at her as she spoke now. “Where is the microfilm? Let me safeguard the work you’ve dedicated your life to.”
Hahn tried to turn over, tried to move the concrete block off his legs. Franka reached under the block and strained as she attempted to lift it. It didn’t budge, and Hahn, resigned to his fate, fell back to his original position. His breathing was getting shallower, the color running from his face. Franka knew he had only seconds now.
“Dr. Hahn? Don’t let your work fall into Nazi hands. Let the Americans do something good with it.”
Hahn curled his lips back in a bloody, macabre smile. “Like they’ve done here today? Do you even realize what I’m working on?”
“Nuclear fission? I don’t know what that is. I know it could change the tide of the—”
“It’s a bomb—the most powerful bomb in history. A bomb that could level an entire city.”
“One bomb that could destroy a city?”
“That could incinerate thousands in seconds.”
“Don’t let it fall into the Nazis’ hands. Think of what they did to your Jewish friends and colleagues. Think of what they could do with that power.”
Hahn closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again for what Franka knew could be the last time. “It’s in my apartment, 433 Kronenstrasse. It’s close.” He coughed again. “Make sure they complete it. It’s all there. Go now, while the raid is on and the police are in the bomb shelter.”
“Where is it hidden?” More bombs went off, only a few hundred yards away. Franka knew she had to move. The bombers would come again.
“The picture of my mother,” he said, his voice weakening. “Look into it . . .”
His head fell back, his mustache coated in blood, his eyes open, staring into nothing.
People flashed past. Franka was the only person not running who was able. Hahn’s apartment was being watched. Why else would he have told her to go there now while the Allied bombers rained death on the city below? This could be Franka’s only chance to resurrect the mission, to do her part to defeat the evil that had killed Hans, and Fredi, and her father.