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By Root 1132 0

see through the tumbledown building. Then an SS officer followed him down the stairs. The collar tabs on his gray-green greatcoat collar identified him as an SS-Standarten- führer, the equivalent of a colonel. The SS version of the national emblem was on the coat's upper left arm, and a silver cord adorned each shoulder. Under the coat were a brown shirt and a black tie. A silver death's head was on the gray peaked cap. He carried a briefcase. His mouth was a stiff, pedagogic line. He had spent the war indoors, and his face was as white as a skull. The man was an SS bureaucrat, an author of orders and a keeper of files and an attendant at meetings. He glanced at the Wehrmacht private, who ducked his head. Then the colonel sat next to Cray.

The first bombs tore into the neighborhoods. Debris flew skyward and had started its descent before the sounds reached Cray. And it was less a noise than a pulse. Then fireballs rose, mushrooms of bubbling flame, out of sight of the troglodytes in the cellar. The basement's walls trembled, then bucked. Cray's ears popped with the sudden changes in air pressure. The sound was as if thunderclaps were going off between his eyes. A shroud of dust drifted down from the flooring planks. The bombs roared, one indistinguishable from another. The room shimmied. The baby wailed. A bicycle that had been leaning against a wall fell over. Empty canning jars fell from a shelf and shattered on the floor. The SS officer coughed, then brought a handkerchief to his mouth. Added to the bombs' deep retorts were the eerie sibilance of fire-driven wind and the shrieks and moans of structures giving way.

Cray's thoughts—those that could form between the pounding of the explosives—settled on Katrin, and their conversation last night. She had thought his comments about Merri Ann to be manipulative, offered to show that Cray and Katrin were kin in suffering, offered to open her up and get her to help. But Cray's memory of his wife, and of her death, had come forth unbidden, as it did every hour of every day, and would until he left this earth, he grimly supposed. This time, though, someone other than a combat-hardened Ranger had been near him when a wave of sorrow washed over him, and Katrin's grief had caused his own to escape his mouth before he could control it.

Only part of it had escaped him, a fragment of the story. He was surprised by his unexpected moment of confiding in Katrin, but he had reined himself in and had not told her all of it. The horror of that day, and of the subsequent weeks and months when Cray had almost left this life, had remained locked within him, available only to torment him and to push him. Katrin had been right. The Hand knew of his wife's death, and of Cray's wild grief and guilt, and was using it. The Hand knew that Jack Cray gave most of his energy to accomplishing his assignments, and little to getting back to safety. Cray would seldom be diverted from his goal by the frivolous complications of escape plans. He had lied to Katrin when he said he didn't go through a door unless he knew he could get back out. If he got out, fine. If not, well, he deserved to find the door closed.

He had never allowed this knowledge of himself to fully form. It had been partly hidden by his vast pool of self-loathing. But Katrin had put it bluntly, had thrown it up in front of him. Cray sat in the trembling cellar, realizing fully for the first time—just as the Hand had perhaps long known—that Cray didn't care if he returned from his missions. If Cray didn't have the courage to resolve his overwhelming guilt, perhaps the Germans would do it for him. And the dreadful days would end, and the long, long nights. Despairing and angry, Cray squeezed the bridge of his nose, his mouth pulled back in a snarl. Jesus, if he could just have that night back. Just that one night. The woman under the basin yelped, and Cray lessened his grip on her hand.

Time in the cellar had an odd elasticity. With the crushing noise and the heated rushes of air and the basement's jarring, Cray could not determine whether