Chapters (38)
- Cover
- Also by Philip Kerr
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
“He’s staying on in Königsberg. Bravely. As you might expect of a man like that. Right up until the very last minute, when I believe he has made plans to facilitate his own escape to a house on the coast and then on an icebreaker, to Flensburg. But you needn’t concern yourself with the governor’s safety. All you have to do is go and see your little lightning maid, show her this identity pass, and then tell her what to do. She won’t even have to endure the scrutiny of her colleagues as she carries out this important duty for the governor. As we speak, she’s probably the last one there. So, it couldn’t be simpler.”
“Suppose she says no.”
“You’d better make damn sure she doesn’t say no, hadn’t you? Not if you want to be a daddy in eight months. As soon as I’ve seen her give the signal—yes, I’m coming with you, Gunther, just to make sure—I’ll sign this pass and you can drive her to Gotenhafen yourself, where you can say your romantic good-byes. I’m afraid there’s no pass for you, my friend. Sorry about that. Not unless you’re part of the submarine training division; we need those boys to crew the U-boats. Or unless you’re badly wounded. Then again, I suppose we could always make that happen. Ordinarily, that might be the only alternative for a swine like you. For me to have those two thugs in the corridor take you outside and blow your brains out. But with you, Gunther, things are different, I think. You’d probably welcome a bullet in the back of the head. But failure to comply with the governor’s orders will only result in you being assigned to the concentration camp at Palmnicken, where your duties will include assisting the SS to dispose of three thousand Jewish female workers. Which I imagine you’ll probably think of as a fate worse than death. That’s what I can promise you. So, as you can no doubt see, you really don’t have a choice.” He looked around the room as if he expected that the fluff and the chairs were going to back him up. “Look, it’s not so bad what I’m asking you to do here. Anyone would think that I want something really difficult. All I’m trying to do is preserve the lives of everyone on that ship.”
“Including yours.”