To the undiscerning eye looking on the outside, he would seem to have all that one in his position would wish for.

What he desired most, however, still eluded him.

Sabina von Dortmann was never far from his mind.

Gustav strode across the small room he occupied and gazed out. It was a dingy and unappealing part of the city. But it was Berlin, the center of the empire. The Reichstag was only two kilometers away. How could he hope for closer proximity to the center of the world’s destiny?

So he thought, at least a year ago. Now he wasn’t so sure. Nobody voiced such things. To even think aloud these days could get you shipped to Auschwitz along with the Hungarian Jews. But in the privacy of his own thoughts Gustav saw disturbing signs. Ever since the surrender of the German army in Stalingrad in the winter of 1943, the fortunes of the Third Reich had been on a downhill slide. The collapse of the Russian invasion was followed by surrender in North Africa. Last January, the Allies had landed in force at Anzio, Italy, then just two months ago in Normandy, France.

They were coming this way, that much was clear. The generals of the Wehrmacht could say what they wanted, but Gustav knew this war was winding down. If something wasn’t done quickly, it was going to be over soon, with the Germans on the wrong side of the surrender table!

Then just two weeks ago Count Stauffenberg had attempted to assassinate Hitler.

It was all unraveling.

Gustav continued to stare out into the night.

He hadn’t had many opportunities in the last four or five years to feel lonely. Had such sensations nagged at him, he would quickly have dismissed them as weak and effeminate. He had been too busy, too puffed up with the arrogance of being a feared agent of the Gestapo, too caught up in the importance of the Nazi mission. Honest introspection was no element of the Nazi creed. Humility was as hated a commodity of personhood as Jewish blood. Loneliness smacked of everything Gustav despised. His mother was lonely, and he pitied her for it. He would never submit to such an admission concerning himself.

But… one must be practical. His years in the Gestapo had taught him that if nothing else.

It was time to give serious thought to what would become of him if the unthinkable did happen and the great and glorious Reich of Der Führer collapsed.

He was twenty-five. What would there be for him at home? His father would return from his post to the estate. There Gustav would be, a grown man, single, still under the roof of his doting, neurotic mother. It was not a prospect to arouse jubilation.

The war had changed many things, but it had not changed his passion to make Sabina von Dortmann his own.