Rebeka gripped the edge of the table, her fingernails splintering into the wood. “I’ve seen the camps. I’ve smelled the fire from the burning bodies. The other Germans were laughing about it, because they knew exactly what was going on.”

Ilse faltered at that, and paused for an overlong sip of her ale. “Well.” She set her drink down. “If true, that is a very serious accusation indeed.”

Phillip’s head was starting to throb. “She just told you it’s true.”

“Mein Gott! No need to be so angry!” Ilse flattened herself back against the bench. “I was only trying to be certain we got the facts right.”

“No, you were refusing to believe her. A survivor of your own goddamned Nazis and their goddamned German-as-hell laws.”

Ilse narrowed her eyes. “For the last time, I’m on your side, all right? But if I’m going to help, then we have to make sure we get everything correct. We can’t afford to exaggerate or act before the time is right—”

“I need some air.”

Rebeka shoved her way out of the booth. A syrupy Bavarian waltz was playing on the radio now, punctuating her steps with croony marching lyrics, Liebe and Lebensraum. Phillip and Simone exchanged a glance.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Simone said, her English especially clipped, “we’d like to get on with our business with the radio sets and be on our way.”

“Oh,” Ilse said, setting her drink down carefully. She licked those red lips of hers, bright as a fresh wound. “Well, I’m afraid it can’t be done just now.”

“You said the radio’s in the cask cellar,” Phillip said. “That it’s right over there.”

“Yes, that’s all true, but . . . We’ll have to wait for Jürgen’s dinner workers to leave first. They’re in and out of the cellar all the time, you see, and if any of them were to spot you, it could cause . . . problems.”

“So we have to wait.” Phillip gripped his beer stein so hard he half hoped the handle might snap off. He was so tired of playing nice, of ignoring every stab. He hadn’t come here to give a strained smile at the same callous people he could have smiled at back home.

“It won’t be too much longer now. Just a few hours!”

“And I’ve got dinner,” Mitzi announced, returning down the basement steps with a tray.

Despite himself, Phillip’s mouth watered. The camping rations he’d scarfed down that morning, scavenged out of the bags of the dead German family in the cabin, had barely served as an appetizer. Mitzi’s tray was loaded with stacks of grilled sausage links glistening with grease and creamy cutlets. The smell of roasted meat unleashed a mighty rumble in his gut.

Then he noticed the looks on Simone’s and Rebeka’s faces.