Perhaps, thought Steckel as he picked his way through the ancient wooden city, Himmler could be persuaded to protect him, if it appeared to be in his interests to do so. The SS-Obersturmführer decided that, when he returned to the Sutanto, he would devote his energies to researching the future of the Reichsführer himself. Things would not have gone well for him if the Allies had won, and the Soviets overran the country. Surely he would want to know how to avoid such a fate.

The Soviets. His stomach turned at the thought. Steckel was well informed of SS policy on the Eastern Front. To have Bolshevik savagery visited upon the soil of the Fatherland itself—it did not bear pursuing.

Steckel was so absorbed in thought that he tripped on a cobblestone and lost his footing on the wet ground. Twisting as he fell, he jarred his arm quite badly, sending a burst of pins and needles shooting up from his elbow. He cursed as he felt the filthy groundwater leaching into his pants. It was dark, with only wooden lanterns to light the way, and he realized, as he looked up from his ignominious perch next to a mound of rotting garbage, that he had wandered off his path.

He was lost.

Steckel had only a superficial familiarity with this part of the old city. He knew how to navigate to the bar and bathhouse, and that was it. He would have to ask directions. That realization led quickly to another. There was nobody about. The alleyway, framed by facades of ancient stone and wooden cottages, curved into blackness some twenty meters on. Steckel turned on his heel, but it was the same behind him, too. He stood in a small, isolated pool of flickering lantern light.

For some reason gooseflesh crawled over his arms and legs, and he shuddered as the hair on his scalp stood up on end. It was ridiculous. What was there to be . . .

Two shadows detached themselves from the inky void of a small side passage just behind the German spy and flowed like jet-black quicksilver just around the edge of his peripheral vision. A stifled cry caught in his throat and his heart lurched in response to a warning from the deepest, most reptilian part of his hindbrain. His hands fumbled at the buttons of his leather coat, frantically seeking access to the Luger he carried in a deep breast pocket.