Robert Butler - The Empire of Night

He started to salute.

Instead, I offered my hand to him.

We shook.

He held my hand for a moment, even after I’d stopped the shaking. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

My mind thrashed.

Dettmer turned to walk away.

And then I thought of the ground crew and their supervision.

“Major,” I said.

He turned back.

“Does the watch officer fly with you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How do you account for his weight in your preparation?”

“He is the last to come on board, once the ship is outside the hangar. Till then we have a man with us to take his place.”

My mind settled.

“May I have the honor of sharing the last hour before your launch? Perhaps I could take the place of your watch officer’s substitute.”

Dettmer straightened instantly to attention. Of course.

But he had a practical matter first.

He broke from his uprightness to give me a once-over.

Apparently I was close enough in size. He stood at attention again and snapped me a salute. “It would be our honor, sir.”

Perhaps it was the sudden impression I had of myself as a fraud that prompted the question that came then to my mind. A fraud especially to this man before me. Perhaps the question was prompted by the way I dealt with that, thinking I was no fraud at all, that I was no more a fraud than any actor in any role, that my role in this drama was crucial, that I had lives in London to save and I had no alternative. Perhaps this most important reality led me back into the character of Colonel Klaus von Wolfinger and it was he who prompted me to ask the question. Or maybe it was my true self — the newspaper reporter looking for the arresting personal detail in a story of life and death — maybe it was Christopher Cobb the reporter, who could be as hardened as any secret service officer when necessary, who prompted the question. Whatever or whoever it was, to my shame, I finished with Major Dettmer by asking, “If the day comes that you dream about, which are you? Earth or sky?”

He did not hesitate. “I am afraid of fire,” he said. “I will jump.”

Major Dettmer saluted me smartly. I saluted him. I did not watch him leave.

Jeremy ate. I did not. We neither of us said a thing.

Then he rose.

“May I borrow your case?” he said.

It was sitting on the floor at my feet. I retrieved it and handed it to him.

We nodded at each other and he went off to activate the bomb.

I touched the handle of my coffee cup and I let it go. I did not know my way forward. Not yet. Which was the nature of improvisation, after all, not to know the next thing to do until the present thing is done. For now, sit here. That was clear. Receive a phone call. Passive things, however. The other actors in our little drama were the ones presently at work. The plot went forward only if the weather was clear. Which it likely would be. So after the waiting, my own next move would be to make sure that Sir Albert Stockman — British parliamentarian, crypto-Hun, aspiring poisoner of London, and paramour of a world-famous actress — was prevented from arriving at the Zeppelin air base this afternoon.

Did we need to kill him?

Was he intrinsically dangerous?

If either Jeremy or I made it out of this alive, Stockman would never be able to return to his phony life in England. He would be known for what he was and Germany would be stuck with him. And if our plan to expose and discredit the poison gas air attack worked, his dangerous usefulness would mostly vanish.

There were, of course, other considerations on this question, personal to me, that would fit into either pan of the balance scale. But, in fact, I did not have to decide right now. We couldn’t kill him this afternoon anyway. Not in the hotel room, certainly. Not in broad daylight in a German town. We couldn’t effectively remove him from the hotel, either living or dead.

Then I thought: The body could stay in place. Isabel could play the role of terrified witness and grieved lover with ease. But the deed might get noisy in the doing. And word of his killing could make it to the air base before the mission and stymie things.

I picked up my cup of coffee and drank from it. Thick and bitter and no longer hot. It was clear to me that Jeremy had to sit with Albert till my part with the Zeppelin was done.

That decided, I ate my lunch.

And soon thereafter Jeremy returned.

He presented my bag to me with both hands.

I took it into my lap and opened the weather flap.

Wedged inside was a dark blue tin that once held Stollwerck Chocolade . It nearly filled the dispatch case.

Jeremy sat in the chair Dettmer had occupied, nearer to me, and he drew it nearer still.

He said, in almost a whisper, “You’re free, of course, to admire my handiwork in private, but I’d strongly recommend you let it be. I’ve packed it all tightly in cotton wool.”

In answer I closed the flap and set the case gently on the floor.

Perhaps it wasn’t answer enough. He added, “The connection from the clock to the device is delicate.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I wish we didn’t have to trust it,” he said.

“We have no choice,” I said.

We let that be for a moment.

He remained near; we could still talk low; the bar was empty. I said, “We need to speak of what’s next.”

“Stockman,” he said.

“Stockman.”

Jeremy said at once, “It would be difficult to kill him this afternoon.”

“I entirely agree,” I said.

“You have a thought?”

“I do. As soon as the bell rings on the London raid, we go to the hotel, take the room, and you hold Stockman at gunpoint till I return.”

He’d been listening to all this with his ear turned my way, his eyes averted. Now he looked at me. There was a grim fixedness about him.

I figured I knew why. “The Stollwerck Chocolade part is a one-man job anyway,” I said.

He nodded. The grimness loosened. Then he had a sudden thought. He said, “You’re putting the actress in the center of things.”

That was true.

I said, “Can you think of another way?”

He tried for a moment, though I was sure he’d already been working at the Stockman solution for a while. “I can’t,” he said. “But I’m not the one who has problems with her.”

“She’ll know enough just to sit and look terrified,” I said. “She’ll be fine at that. She can act.”

Did I believe myself? I had no choice.

Jeremy rose. He said, “Bring your lock tools.”

He was right, of course. But a very dark shadow passed through my head. I would have to slip unbidden and unwanted into a hotel room that held my mother and one of her men.

Jeremy went away to sleep, and I ordered a beer.

Merely one long beer.

Dettmer’s limit.

When I lifted it, I paused as if to touch steins with the major.

Over the next few hours I looked at my watch a dozen times.

My twenty-one-jewel, railroad-grade Waltham.

I had time to admire the watch.

The minutes went slowly.

At last it was three o’clock but no call came and then five more minutes went by without a call and then at last, at ten minutes past three, I heard the ring of a telephone from the direction of the kitchen.

I stood up.

I waited.

The innkeeper appeared at the doorway.

As soon as we made eye contact, she turned and disappeared.

I put the strap of the dispatch case with the ticking bomb over my head and onto my shoulder and cupped my hand beneath the case and pressed it against my hip. And I followed.

She was standing in the doorway to a small office immediately before the entrance to the kitchen. She stepped aside.