Fleeing now, though, was no answer. If she didn’t return to the Three Kings—and to the SS men on table ten—they would put two and two together even more quickly. So quickly that Max and the others might not be able to escape at all.

She took a deep, steadying breath, knowing what it was she had to do, praying that when her bluff was called and she was taken to Gestapo headquarters to be interrogated, God would give her the strength to survive whatever awaited her there.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Berlin, June 1941

Backstage at the Three Kings Lotti hurled herself out of her black sequinned stage dress and into the red dress she had worn on her way to the club from home. The men at table ten were even noisier and drunker than when she had left them.

Feverishly, as she joined them she wondered how long ago that had been. Eight minutes? Ten minutes? Whatever the length of time, it had certainly been longer than the five minutes it would have taken her to step out of a champagne-sodden dress and into a dry one.

None of the men remarked on the length of time she had been away. Champagne was flowing. They were jubilant at the prospect of the glory about to come to their section for the capture of the high-flying Grunewald traitors, speculating recklessly as to who would be among their number, certain there would be a general or two, certain others would be members of the old aristocracy.

Lotti kept an admiring and provocative smile on her gamine-like face, her eyes straying almost constantly to her small wristwatch. Max and Nicholas and the other conspirators would be well away from Grunewald by now. The SS swoop on the house was scheduled to happen in another five minutes. How long it would be before a message as to its failure was given to the men carousing around her she didn’t know, but she did know it would be best for her if, by the time such a message arrived, she were long gone.

Other women joined the table and as the men erupted into a raucous rendition of the Horst Wessel song, she slipped from the knee she had been perched on and squeezed between the crowded, smoke-wreathed tables towards the rear of the club, leaving it as unobtrusively as possible. She had to get home. She had to collect money and personal items and disappear somewhere safe until she could make contact with Max.

The darkness of the blackout was all enveloping and as she hurried along the bomb-damaged streets she speculated ceaselessly as to what was happening now that the SS knew their birds had flown. How long would it be before they realized who it was who had tipped off the conspirators? And how long would it take them to find her?

Her relief, as she turned into her street and saw that no sinister-looking cars were parked in it, was immense. With the relief came another thought. For the men in the club to point the finger of suspicion at her, they would have to admit to their criminally careless drunken talk. And for all of them, the consequences would then be dire. That being the case, the likelihood of them saying nothing about it—and therefore saying nothing about her—was high.