“Shit! Stop that! Jesus, you’ll pull it off! A year’s pay! Everything!”

She loosened her grip and kissed him on the cheek.

“That’s more like it,” she said.

“Thanks for giving me my cock back.”

“Mon plaisir, Herr Hauptsturmführer.”

They lay in silence for a few moments, catching their breath.

“How’s your bureaucratic nightmare?” she asked, running her hand through his hair.

“Do we have to talk about that?”

“No, of course not. I just wondered, that’s all. The last time you were here it sounded as though you were having a dreadful time.”

“It’s better now. There’s much less paperwork, and the men are more or less behaving themselves.”

“That’s good.”

“It is. My British officer seems to be knocking them into shape, as he calls it. The unit’s turning out to be almost competent.”

“What’s he like?”

“Who?”

“The officer.”

“He’s good. But I’m keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Stupid? What sort of stupid?”

“I don’t know, but I have to make sure.”

“But how can you keep an eye on him?”

“Well I don’t exactly. One of the men does.”

“One of the men?”

“Yes, someone in the unit…All these questions, Leni! Anyone would think you were a spy!”

Leni laughed as naturally as possible. Even though Strasser was joking, the accusation unnerved her.

“I’d make a very bad spy,” she said.

“Really? And why’s that?”

“Because,” she said, rolling on top of him, “I like men too much.”

“Surely not all men.”

“No, but men who know what they’re doing.”

And with that, she kissed him, not a whore’s kiss, but a lover’s kiss. And she hated herself for it.

Lockhart couldn’t concentrate. During the lunch, a semiformal occasion one Saturday, he found himself sitting next to a somewhat drunk Sturmbannführer Parsch, the head of the Haus Germanien. Parsch was in his mid-fifties, bald, his cranium rippling with throbbing veins. He was quizzing Lockhart about the digs on Crete—which was far better than the lecture he had been expecting on the superiority of the Nordic peoples—but Lockhart’s mind was filled with thoughts about Anna, about whether she was alive. Coupled with that, Stafford had told him that they still hadn’t had a reply from “Hattie,” even though other members of the unit had received mail from back home, from families who still thought their men were suffering the privations of POW life.

But a chance comment by Parsch snapped Lockhart out of his reverie.

“I’m surprised that you don’t have something similar to the Ahnenerbe in Britain,” said Parsch, slurping noisily on a goblet of wine, a goblet that Lockhart idly reflected was in bad taste.

“What do you mean?” Lockhart asked.

“I’m surprised that there isn’t a single organization that is responsible for unearthing and examining the prehistory of your people—the Ahnenerbe is an immensely successful operation. We have even mounted expeditions to Tibet.”

“Tibet?”