At first I assumed they were interested in the workings of the RSHA and my knowledge of Department VI, which was the office of Foreign Intelligence; but it seemed they knew almost as much about that as I did. Perhaps more. And only gradually did it become clear that they suspected me of something far more serious than a couple of local murders.

“You see,” explained Silverman, “there are some aspects of your story that just don’t add up.”

“I get a lot of that,” I said.

“You say you were a Kommissar in Kripo until—?”

“Until Kripo became part of the RSHA in September 1939.”

“But you say you were never a party member.”

I shook my head.

“Wasn’t that unusual?”

“Not at all. Ernst Gennat was the deputy chief of Kripo in Berlin until August 1939, and he was to my certain knowledge never a Nazi Party member.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died. Of natural causes. There were others, too. Heinrich Muller, the Gestapo chief. He never joined the party either.”

“Then again,” said Silverman, “maybe he didn’t need to. He was, as you say, head of the Gestapo.”

“There are others I could mention, but you have to remember that the Nazis were hypocrites. Sometimes it suited them to be able to use people who were outside the party system.”

“So you admit you allowed yourself to be used,” said Earp.

“I’m alive, aren’t I?” I shrugged. “I guess that speaks for itself.”

“The question is how much you allowed yourself to be used,” said Silverman.

“It’s been bothering me, too,” I said.

He was clever, but he couldn’t ever have played poker; his face was much too expressive. When he thought I was lying, his mouth hung open and he shifted his lower jaw around like a cow chewing tobacco; and when he was satisfied with an answer, he looked away or made a sad sound like he was disappointed.

“Maybe you’d like to get something off your chest,” said Earp.

“Seriously,” I said. “You don’t want me.”

“That’s for us to decide, Herr Gunther.”

“Maybe you could beat it out of me, like your friends in the Navy and the FBI.”

“It seems like everyone wants to hit you,” said Earp.

“I’m just wondering when you two are going to figure that it’s your turn.”

“We’re not like that in the Chief Counsel’s Office.” Silverman sounded so smooth I almost believed him.

“Well, why didn’t you say so before? Now I feel completely reassured.”

“Most of the people in here have talked to us because they wanted to talk,” said Earp.

“And the rest?”

“Sometimes it’s hard to say nothing when all your friends have ratted on you,” said Silverman.

“That’s okay, then. I don’t have any friends. And very definitely none in this place. So anyone who rats on me is probably a bigger rat himself.”