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“I knew when you went back and helped all those other people locked up with me in the jail,” she said. “I knew it before then, if I’m being honest.”

“I’ll never be a cop again.”

“Oh, c’mon, Tom.” She faced him, putting a trembling hand on his cheek. She forced a smile on her quivering lips. “You’ve never been a cop. Not really. You’ve always been a soldier. A fighter for things you believe in. It’s…” She shrugged, shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s why I love you.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “I don’t think I can stop him.”

“Oh, honey.” She wrapped her arms around Bauer. “I don’t think you can, either. But I know you’ll never be able to live with yourself if you don’t try. Just do one thing for me.”

“Anything,” he whispered.

She stepped back, held his face in her hands. “Don’t you dare say good-bye to me,” she said. “As soon as you can, Tom. As soon as you can, come back to us.”

85

Present Day

Vienna

I TAKE THE ELEVATOR up to my floor. When I step off, I feel a chill run through me. This was the precise spot earlier today where the man pulled a gun on me and took the letter from Hitler to Geli that I had just obtained. It was the first time I’ve ever had a gun pointed at me. I hope it was the last.

I card my way into my hotel room. The first thing I see is my corduroy jacket lying on the floor. I dust it off, fold it, and place it neatly in my suitcase. This will be my last night in Vienna.

I look out the window, down at the street level by the garish Burger King. The young Asian woman is no longer at the table outside, but I spot her down the way, seemingly browsing through books at an outdoor bookstand.

I will need to lose her, as a spy might say. And I think I know how. I pick up my burner phone and make a call.

The next morning, I check out of my hotel and take an Uber to the Vienna train station. There I buy a cup of magical Viennese coffee. I swear, even purchased from a bistro at a train station, the coffee here is better than any in the world.

Next, I buy a train ticket with my credit card. When I turn away from the ticket window, I see the Asian woman, now in a blond wig, pretending to be looking at her phone.

I am getting better at imagining the creativity of these spies. I assume, for example, that she sees not only that I purchased a ticket to Berlin, but also that it will be leaving in forty minutes from platform 11, and that I will be sitting in car 9, seat A-1.

When it’s time, I walk down the lengthy platform and line up for the train. I find my seat, the one closest to the door, and keep my rolling bag with me, my knees nearly touching it.

I settle in for the ride. It’s a good eight hours to Berlin. I scribble my thoughts on a small notepad I carry with me. I don’t know if my suspicions are correct. It’s possible I’m chasing something that can’t be found.

I nod off for a while, too, jarring awake with my head craned unnaturally forward. Odd that I could fall asleep, given how tense I am. It shows the depths of my exhaustion. The past few days have been a bit more than I’d been prepared to handle.

Regensburg is the first stop, a large Bavarian town some three hours into the journey. A few people get up from their seats to disembark.

I am one of them. But I don’t do it right away. I wait until most passengers have filtered out and others have begun to climb onto the train, starting to hunt and peck for their seats. At the last moment, as I sense the doors about to shut, I pop up from my seat and slip out, mumbling wie bitte several times as I hurriedly rush off the train.

Was the Asian woman watching me? Was she ready for that maneuver? Did I telegraph my plan? Was I too obvious in allowing her to see that I had paid for a trip all the way to Berlin? Maybe. I am entirely out of my league in this world of espionage.

At the exit from the train station, I step into a small red car waiting at the curb. Monica Bauer, Thomas Bauer’s great-granddaughter, winks at me as she puts the car in drive.

However far removed she is from him in lineage, I like to think I see something in Monica that I surely would have seen in Thomas, if I’d the pleasure of knowing him. A spark, an energy, a soft-spoken power.

“Just over an hour to Munich,” Monica says as she looks in the rearview mirror. “Did we shake your tail, Eleanor?”

We both laugh. She’s trying to break the ice. But she is not unaware of the danger. I heard imminent relief in her voice over the phone last night, when I called her, just knowing I’d survived the encounter, even though I didn’t return with the prize.

“I want to hear this theory you mentioned on the phone,” she says.

“Go back to the night it all happened,” I say. “The night that your great-grandfather robbed Hitler’s safe. What do we know from his journal?”

She thinks it over. “He opened the safe. Everything was in envelopes. He swept all the envelopes into his backpack and closed it up. So the next thing he does once he leaves the Brown House… is hand off the backpack to Peter Helldorff.”