“Sure,” I said. “But now that you’ve pulled me, you’re going to do it all the same. You have to, now that you’ve partly undermined all that black propaganda I’d been giving to the French about Mielke being your agent—and before that, an agent of the Nazis. Without the cherry on the cake—me identifying de Boudel for them—maybe they won’t find all those lies I told about Erich so persuasive anymore.”

“It’s true that we would like to get our hands on Mielke. With his father in our back pocket, we could even perhaps turn him into the spy you told the French he was. Of course, then we’d have to blacken your name to the French. To make sure they formed the correct impression about Mielke again. That he was and always had been a perfect communist bastard.”

“You see, I knew you’d think of some way around these problems.”

“And you. What will you want to help?”

I frowned. “I can show you where the restaurant is. Maybe even get you a table.”

“We shall want more help than that. After all, you’ve met Erich Stellmacher. He took a swing at you. You arrested him. You must have got a good look at him that day. No, Herr Gunther, we shall want more than your help in obtaining a table at this man Stellmacher’s favorite watering hole. We shall want you to identify him.”

I smiled wearily.

“Something funny about that?”

“You’re not the first intelligence chief to have asked me to do this. Heydrich had the same idea.”

“I’ve often wondered about Heydrich,” said the Chief. “They said he was the cleverest Nazi of the bunch. You agree with that?”

“It’s true he had an instinctive understanding of power, which made him a very effective Nazi. You like facts, sir? Then here’s a fact about Reinhard Heydrich you might appreciate. His father, Richard Bruno, was a music teacher and before that a composer of sorts. Ten years before his son was born, Richard Heydrich wrote an opera entitled Reinhard’s Crime. Oh yes, and here’s another fact: Heydrich was murdered.”

“You don’t say.”

“I was the investigating detective.”

“Interesting.”

“More interesting to me right now is the money that was taken from me when I was arrested in Cuba. And the boat that was impounded. That’s part of the price for my help. Actually, it was the price of the deal we had in Landsberg in return for me bullshitting the French, so you’re only agreeing to what your people have already agreed to. I want the boat sold and all of the money paid into a Swiss bank account, as we agreed. I also want an American passport. And, for delivering Erich Mielke, the sum of twenty-five thousand U.S. dollars.”

“That’s a lot.”