“Why me?”
“Because you are the least likely suspect. You’re a small woman, a dutiful housekeeper. You’re attractive and young enough to garner sympathy. Just be sure to act shocked and put on some hysterics if you can.” Müller studied her. “You fooled me for a time, Fräulein. You are well suited to the dramatics. Tell them you went out to fetch the milk and found his body on the pavement, nothing more. The fewer details, the better. Liars always say too much.”
Audrey nodded. She was still trying to grasp all that had transpired, reaching for the details like marbles scattered in all directions. She remembered the blood on the floor upstairs. It would need to be cleaned before Ilse took her room back. But they could share the bed in Audrey’s old guest room for tonight. In the morning, she’d call the police. And then what? She looked down at her glass, decided to drink it after all. She knocked it back, tasting the bitter orange, vanilla, and spice.
“You said there are other resistance groups?” she asked.
“A few. We have a distant relationship with one other group. It isn’t centralized though. Its members hail from all over Germany and Holland, whereas ours is Berlin based,” he said. “I would imagine it has its advantages, though, to be spread out. Less chance of discovery. But much more difficult to communicate without being exposed. There isn’t any kind of organization,” he continued. “It’s all very fractured, different groups advocating for different things. But the SS refers to all the cells collectively as the Red Orchestra.”
“Why the Red Orchestra?”
“The people in my office, the counterintelligence officers, suspect some of the resisters have ties to the Soviets. And they may be right. But they have no idea how deep this runs within their own ranks. It is my job to divert and distract them, to prevent them from learning the true extent and identity of the resisters here.”
Audrey felt a tingle of something at the thought of these clusters of resistance. “What’s your objective then?”
Müller met her eyes. “To kill Adolf Hitler.”
Chapter 14
Audrey
BERLIN, GERMANY | DECEMBER 1938
Audrey woke suddenly the following morning, as though a loud noise had roused her. She opened her eyes into the darkness of the winter dawn, blinking several times until she made sense of where she was.
It was her old room, the Kaplans’ guest room, and all was quiet. Ilse was still asleep beside her, her form rising and falling softly beneath the quilt. For one short-lived moment, Audrey forgot why they were in the guest room together, but then the events of the previous night crashed over her like an icy wave.
Vogt’s breath on her face.
Ilse raising the lamp.
Müller’s revelation and the Red Orchestra…
It was all too much. Curling her body in closer to Ilse’s, she pulled the blanket up around her neck and took a steadying breath.
“Kill him?” she’d asked Müller last night, incredulous.
“Yes,” he’d replied. “He’s a madman. He’s going to destroy Germany, and who knows how many other countries along with it. He’s driving us into another great war within Europe, make no mistake.”
“But how do you kill someone like that?” she’d asked him. “It seems impossible.”
The whole regime of the Third Reich was so grand in scale, they breathed Hitler like an intoxicant. He was larger than life.
Müller had smirked, eyes hard. “He is not a god, Fräulein. He is only a man. Flesh and bone and blood, just like you or me. Any man can be destroyed. All you need is the right weapon.”
But where did that leave Audrey and Ilse? Audrey looked at her friend. They hadn’t lain awake whispering the way they would have years ago. There was much more to talk about now than there ever had been before, but it was all so complicated, so violent, that it was difficult to find the words.
At least Ilse would be free to move about the house now. She had been clear she wouldn’t leave Germany without knowing Ruth and Ephraim’s fate, but they couldn’t live in the house with Müller indefinitely; they couldn’t wait around for the end of Hitler’s rule.
Action. That’s what was needed. A plan.
Audrey could provide emotional support to Ilse in the best way she knew how, but her role in their relationship had always veered toward what she could do. That was the sphere in which she was most comfortable, where she knew herself best. But what to do now? Audrey felt as though she had only just secured her footing from the tectonic shift of that fateful day at the department store, and now here they were again, scrambling to steady themselves on a ship that kept pitching in stormy seas.
The Kaplan fortune had been stolen by the Reich, but Audrey would have access to her father’s money in England. If they could only get to London, they could live in the Kensington house together until—Audrey’s throat tightened at the thought—Ilse eventually married. Her mind turned over possibilities, then she remembered something Müller had said the night before.
Tucking the quilt around Ilse, she slid out of bed and dressed quietly. In the hall, she caught the aroma of coffee. It was early, but Müller was already up.
She found him sitting in the kitchen, steam curling from his cup, but before she could say good morning, he spoke.
“You should call the police straightaway. Before the post or the milk arrives. It’s still dark, but once it’s light, someone else will find him.”
“Oh.” Audrey’s stomach turned, remembering Vogt’s body outside. She hoped she would never see anything that grisly again. “Yes. Of course.”
“Don’t forget the theatrics,” he said with a wry smile.
Audrey went to the telephone room and dialed the number for the police. As the line rang, she tapped into the mindset of a woman who had just found her employer dead on the pavement outside the house. With false alarm in her voice, she reported Vogt’s body, then hung up and returned to the kitchen.
“It’s done,” she told Müller. “They’re on their way over though. We haven’t long.”
“They will interview you, ask questions,” Müller said. “Stick to the story. You know almost nothing. You retired before Vogt returned home last night, and you came out to get the milk this morning and found him outside the house. Leave it at that.”
“All right,” Audrey said.
“I will take care of the rest.”
He’d made toast in her absence, something she’d never seen him do. He pushed a plate and pot of jam toward her. Gingerly, she took a seat across from him, another first, and tucked into her breakfast. He and Vogt had always sat at the dining table to eat, she in the kitchen or—unbeknownst to them—upstairs with Ilse. Their relationship had altered overnight, the entire dynamic of the house tilted onto an unfamiliar angle.
