Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [13]
Colonel Becker had also told Katrin of the Gestapo's new radio direction finder, a circular antenna mounted on a black Opel. She was not to broadcast twice from the same location, and she was never to send for more than thirty seconds. Buildings with ACHTUNG.' MINEN! on them were free from squatters and looters. She knew the risk of treading inside buildings where high explosive duds had fallen, but she no longer feared anything.
Berlin was a city of widows, and they had grown to look alike, with vacant eyes, compressed lips, and the timid expressions of those eternally fearful of more dreadful news. Katrin had fought this sameness. She wore lipstick and a light stroke of eyeliner, though not much because heavy use of makeup was unpatriotic. Her face was slightly over- featured, with vast Prussian blue eyes. Adam had said they were the color of the Havel River. Her eyes had once been able to switch from glacial to gay in an instant. They had an inexhaustible supply of expressions. Now they were only mournful. The slightest of webs had begun around her eyes, giving her a delicate majesty. Her nose was sharp. Her smile had been luminous, as if lit from within. She could not remember the last time she smiled. Adam had reveled in her black hair, and had called her "my little raven." The ebony hair, blue eyes, frost-white skin, and her full rose lips were jarring in their kaleidoscopic colors. Adam had trouble finding his voice that day they had first met each other on the Esplanade terrace, he had later admitted.
She removed the one-time pad and a pencil from a pouch in the suitcase. She waited until the dial on her watch clicked onto the hour. Her radio was set at 13,500 kilocycles. She removed her hat to place the headset over her hair. The set painfully pinched her ears. She tapped her call sign, PAT, arbitrary letters she had chosen during her first broadcast. Then she sent a series of Vs so London could precisely tune to her signal. She repeated the dit dit dit dah three times. Her next letters were NA, meaning she had no message to send that night.
From her headset came a series of Vs. England was acknowledging her signal. The Morse ended. That was all she ever received. She was about to remove her headset when the receiver stuttered into life again. An actual message. She fumbled for the pad. Unable to see the paper clearly in the dark, she jabbed her dots and dashes across the pad. Twenty seconds later it ended. She clattered an acknowledgment of Vs.
Deep clefts grew between her brows, and a moment passed before she could take off the headset and lift herself from the chair. The message was brief, so she decoded it as she sat there, squinting mightily, as if that might help her see better in the dim light. Decoded, the message said only, "Follow Horseman's instructions."
She knew of no one named Horseman.
Her sudden responsibility slowed her as she wound the antennas and packed the suitcase. Carrying the case, she cautiously descended the stairs, again whiffing the body hidden in the ruins of the bakery. She paused at the door, checking the street. A dozen refugees were tramping along, kicking up puffs of new snow, looking for shelter for the night. She waited until they had passed, then darted from the building, and she was worried.
And she would have been more worried had she known of the black Opel two blocks away. The car had been traveling back and forth along the roads, but always closer and closer to her, its radio direction finder moving left and right. But when Katrin ended her broadcast, the car slowed, then stopped, having failed again to find her in time.
5
DIETRICH WAS STARING at his wooden bowl, attempting to occupy his mind by guessing whether the white bits floating in the clear fluid were rice or maggots. He tried to push