“You don’t have to do anything else?”

He hesitated. Held his cigarette in the corner of his mouth for a while without taking a drag. Should he tell Lauren that the FBI had known about him for a while already, which meant she hadn’t betrayed him?

“You told them about the radio. Why?”

She plucked again at her neckerchief. She had turned red. Then she shook her head gently, as if responding to a thought, and looked him in the eyes. “I was worried, Joe. I didn’t know who you were anymore. Forgive me. Joe, please trust me again.”

He felt like he understood something. The problem was, he had always trusted too much. He needed more mistrust.

He stood up and put his arms around Lauren again.

A few days later he decided to do as Ettinger had told him. He called Max and set up a meeting. Not long after that he was sitting among clinking bottle crates. Ludwig stank of booze and held a Superman comic in his lap. Max shouted back from the driver’s seat, “The Reich propaganda minister has banned Superman—I’ll have to report you!” and laughed at his own joke. The car lurched from side to side. “Get a grip will you?” Josef shouted. “If we get stopped, it’s all over. Or how else do you want to explain why you’re driving around Manhattan with a radio?” Immediately it got quiet.

Two weeks later Ettinger summoned him for a meeting. He gave him instructions on the phone beforehand on how he could shake off anyone who might be following him.

The front car was almost empty when the train came to a stop. He got on, and as the door was closing, he propped it open with his hands and leapt out. He took the next train, got out at Grand Central, ran through the crowds, and then disappeared down another subway tunnel. He rode to Whitehall Terminal and from there went on foot to the Williamsburg Ferry landing.

Ettinger stood on the upper deck, seagulls circling overhead. Josef joined him, stared at the churning water, and waited for Ettinger to start talking.

“Have you found out what’s behind Operation Sonnenstaub?”

“No. Max acts like he knows. But Max likes to show off.”

He looked Ettinger in the eye. Ettinger let out a breath.

“He doesn’t trust you. Tell him you want to do something for the fatherland. You’ve been convinced by all the things Hitler has managed to accomplish in Europe. You want to start transmitting again.”

The buildings of Williamsburg grew closer; in a few minutes they would reach the shore. He would get off here. Ettinger would ride back. They saw kids jumping into the East River, then getting out and lying down on the hot rocks on the shore. Their lives in that moment consisted only of summer and water and heat.

“Anything else new?”