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Chapters (62)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. Dedication
  5. PART ONE - Berlin, 1934
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Chapter 11
  17. Chapter 12
  18. Chapter 13
  19. Chapter 14
  20. Chapter 15
  21. Chapter 16
  22. Chapter 17
  23. Chapter 18
  24. Chapter 19
  25. Chapter 20
  26. Chapter 21
  27. Chapter 22
  28. Chapter 23
  29. Chapter 24
  30. Chapter 25
  31. Chapter 26
  32. Chapter 27
  33. Chapter 28
  34. Chapter 29
  35. Chapter 30
  36. Chapter 31
  37. Chapter 32
  38. PART TWO - Havana, February 1954
  39. Chapter 1
  40. Chapter 2
  41. Chapter 3
  42. Chapter 4
  43. Chapter 5
  44. Chapter 6
  45. Chapter 7
  46. Chapter 8
  47. Chapter 9
  48. Chapter 10
  49. Chapter 11
  50. Chapter 12
  51. Chapter 13
  52. Chapter 14
  53. Chapter 15
  54. Chapter 16
  55. Chapter 17
  56. Chapter 18
  57. Chapter 19
  58. Chapter 20
  59. Chapter 21
  60. Chapter 22
  61. Chapter 23
  62. Chapter 24

The waiter bowed gravely and opened the door for my kidnapper as he waltzed me outside.

As soon as the cold air and rain hit my lungs, I started to retch into the gutter. The stuff I was retching you could have bottled and sold, as it tasted like pure Korn. A car immediately pulled up in front of me, and the spray from the tires splashed the cuffs of my trousers. My hat fell off again. The car door opened, and Krempel launched me onto the floor with the sole of his shoe. A moment later the car door slammed, and then we were moving—forward, I imagined, but it felt like we were going around and around in circles on a ride at Luna Park. I didn’t know where we were going, and I ceased to care very much. I couldn’t have felt any worse if I’d been laid out naked in an undertaker’s window.

Chapter 32

32

THERE WAS A STORM AT SEA . The deck shifted like an accelerating elevator car, and then a wave of cold water hit me full in the face. I shook my head painfully and opened eyes that felt like two scooped-out oyster shells that were still swimming with Tabasco sauce. Another wave of water hit me. Except the water wasn’t from a wave, but from a bucket in the hands of Gerhard Krempel. But we were on the deck of a ship, or at least a largish boat. Behind him stood Max Reles, dressed like a rich man playing ship’s captain. He wore a blue blazer; white trousers; a white shirt and tie; and a white, soft-peaked cap. Everything around us was white, too, and it took me several moments to appreciate that it was daytime and we were probably surrounded with mist.

Reles’s mouth started moving, and white mist came out of that, too. It was cold. Very cold. For a second I thought he was speaking Norwegian. Something cold, anyway. Then it seemed a little closer to home—Danish, perhaps. Only when a third bucket of water, gathered on a rope from over the side of the boat, was flung into my face was I able to grasp that he actually was speaking German.

“Good morning,” Reles said. “And welcome back. We were beginning to get a little worried about you, Gunther. You know, I thought you krauts could hold your liquor. But you’ve been passed out for quite a while. At considerable inconvenience to myself, I might add.”

I was sitting on a polished wooden deck, looking up at him. I tried to get up and found my hands were tied on my lap. But worse, given that the boat appeared to be on the water, was that my feet also were tied, to a stack of gray concrete blocks lying beside me on the deck.