Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [113]
"Just what I ordered," he said.
Cray then used the countess's pinking shears to slit open the envelope. He pulled out the envelope's contents: three typed pages and several photographs. "It's coded. More work for you." He passed the typed pages back to her, retaining the photographs.
He sat back down on the floor to share the lamplight. He studied the photographs. One was an aerial shot of Berlin, taken from perhaps three thousand feet, showing the center of the city from the Spree River on the north to Tempelhof Airport on the south. The runway was cratered. The second photo, taken at a much lower altitude, was of the Reich Chancellery—some of it open to the sky—and the garden behind it. A square blockhouse with two guards standing at each side of its en- tryway was clearly visible. The remaining photographs were of POWs, three of them. Each of these photographs showed a prisoner standing next to a camp guard. The prisoners wore Wehrmacht uniforms stripped of insignia. Judging from the guards' uniforms, two of the photos were taken in an American POW camp while the third one was from a Soviet camp. All three POWs looked confused and vulnerable.
Katrin pulled off her coat. "Auntie, may I heat some water? I found a little tea at the market. I think it's real."
"I've got the water, but not the heat."
Katrin stepped around a basket of yarn and entered the small kitchen.
The countess didn't look up from her work. "You look like her husband. Did she tell you that?"
Cray lowered the photos to look fully at the old woman. "No. She didn't."
"He was more handsome than you, of course."
"Of course."
"But he had the same size, same hair color. Same wicked smile." She glanced hopefully at the American. "I'll bet you had a way with the ladies, over there in America."
"Not really." Cray ran his finger along his chin.
"I'd guess you've some stories to tell about the American ladies," she tried again. "A fairly handsome young man like you."
"I'll never tell. And don't try to break me. I'm too tough for that." Cray returned to the photographs. The one taken from the greatest height had numbers printed along the top and letters along one side.
Katrin came in from the kitchen with three glasses of cold water, each with a sprinkling of loose tea leaves floating in it. The pages were under her arm. She handed a glass to the countess and one to Cray, then pushed a hassock into the circle of light near the old lady. She dug into the scraps in a basket near the countess's feet and retrieved the one-time pad. She sipped the cold tea, then began the transcription.
"I visited Philadelphia once, over in America," the countess said. "Did Katrin tell you?"
He glanced at Katrin. "As I said, she doesn't tell me much."
"This was in 1912. I was younger back then. Had fewer wrinkles."
"I haven't seen a single wrinkle."
She playfully tapped his arm. "You do have a way with the ladies, just as I suspected." She reached for her scissors. "Your country does not have nobility, and so I was entirely uncomfortable there. No one with titles and, worse, no one who understood titles. I don't think I was called 'Countess' once in all the time I was there."
"How dreary." Cray smiled again.
"That's why I loathe that little man with his tidy little mustache who has taken over the Reich Chancellery. He is not sensible to Germany's thousand-year heritage. He doesn't understand the courtesy due to his betters."
"Some people think he's done worse things."
"I met him once. Did Katrin tell you that?"
"She didn't mention it."
Katrin was bent over the pad. She might not have been listening. Her pencil scratched at a piece of paper.
"This was back in 'thirty-four, when Hitler was still trying to present himself as respectable. It was at a garden reception for Princess Maria Metternich-Wittenburg on her return from