While the Corsican called the roll, Bömelburg checked his clipboard, looking for names that tallied; and while they did that I walked between their ranks, like the Kaiser come to hand out a few Iron Crosses to the bravest of the brave, looking to see if I could pick out a man I hadn’t seen in nine years. But I never saw him there, and I never heard his name called out. Not that I put much faith in a name. From everything I’d read about him in Heydrich’s file, Erich Mielke was too smart to have been arrested and interned using his real name. Bömelburg knew this, of course. But there were others who had not been possessed of the same presence of mind as the German Comintern agent; and as these few men were identified they were led away to the administration barracks by the gendarmes.

“He’s not in this barrack,” I said finally.

“The adjutant says there’s another all-German barrack in this section,” said Oltramare. “This one is all International Brigade and it would make sense for Mielke to keep away from them, especially now that Stalin has closed his doors to them.”

The men from barrack 32 were driven back inside and we repeated the whole exercise with the men from barrack 33. According to the yellow-faced Corsican—he looked like a careless tanner—these were all communists who had fled from Hitler’s Germany only to find themselves interned as undesirable aliens when war was declared in September 1939. Consequently, these men were in rather better shape than their comrades from the International Brigades. That wouldn’t have been difficult.

Once again, I walked up and down the lines of prisoners while Bömelburg and the Corsican called the roll. These faces were more defiant than the others and most of the men met my eye with unshifting hatred. Some were Jews, I thought. Others were more obviously Aryan. Once or twice I paused and stared levelly at a man, but I never identified any of the prisoners as Erich Mielke.

Not even when I recognized him.

As the Corsican finished the roll call, I walked back to Bömelburg’s side, shaking my head.

“No luck?”

“No. He’s not there.”

“Are you sure? Some of these fellows are a shadow of their former selves. After six months in this place, I doubt my own wife would recognize me. Have another look, Captain.”

“All right, sir.”

And while I looked at the prisoners again, I made an announcement, for the sake of impressing Bömelburg.