“I’m sorry, Strasser, but—”

“I told you! Stop acting dumb! I want to know the truth!”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

Enraged, Strasser knocked his coffee cup onto the floor.

“Stop lying! You know full well who she works for!”

“All right, Strasser, yes I do know who Leni works for.”

“Who then? Who do you think?”

“She works for me, Carl.”

Strasser sat up. How was this possible?

“For you?”

“That’s right.”

“But…but how?”

“I don’t think I need to tell you that. All you need to know is that things are going to change.”

“Change? How?”

“Well, for a start, I’m no longer going to take orders from you.”

Strasser tried speaking, but his cough got the better of him. For the next half a minute, he hacked violently, until at last he managed to speak. This was monstrous, appalling. He wasn’t going to take this…this arrogance. He knew how to shut Lockhart up.

“I’ll have your wife shot for that!”

Lockhart shook his head calmly.

“No you won’t, because she’s already dead, as I’m sure you know.”

This was news to Strasser. He had been told the woman was alive. She would probably be little more than a skeleton, but she would be alive all the same.

“Dead?”

“Now you’re the one acting the innocent.”

“But she’s in a camp!” Strasser protested.

“No, Strasser, she isn’t anywhere. She’s dead. Just dead. Killed by you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A crime in your book.”

“What makes you think…” Strasser began.

“What makes me think that she’s dead? The letters are forgeries, Strasser, something else I’m sure you’re aware of, cooked up by your little friends in Berlin, and of course our very own Mr. Worstead, your late informer.”

“Worstead wrote them?”

“Don’t expect me to believe that you don’t know anything about this. I won’t buy it.”

“I assure you, Lockhart, that if she is dead, then I have been lied to. I was told that your wife was alive, and that the letters were from her.”

As far as Strasser was concerned, this was the truth.

“Where did they come from?”

“They were sent from Berlin.”

“But from where exactly?”

“From the Germanic Administration.”

“That’s where Stranders works, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

Strasser watched Lockhart stand up and walk to the window. He felt like a pawn, caught between Lockhart and his superiors in Berlin. He had been misled by everyone, even those on his own side, and for what? For the success of this ridiculous unit? What a joke. The unit had created an opportunity for someone of Lockhart’s intelligence, and he had grasped it successfully. All the time, those idiots in Berlin had been playing their little games, and all it was doing was losing them the war. It was farcical. What had happened to them? The Reich was surely dying, starting to decay.

“You realize that you’re trapped, don’t you?” Lockhart asked, still staring out the window.