Robert Butler - The Empire of Night

I spun around.

He was standing only a few paces away.

His hands were raised. As if I were holding a pistol on him.

I wasn’t. I put my hand to my own Luger, but he was not moving and he even lifted his hands higher. I did not draw.

“I have no other weapon,” he said.

I looked at him closely. He was still buttoned up tight as a German officer.

He nodded down to his tunic. “They don’t make provisions for concealed weapons, do they.”

I said nothing.

“You did it,” he said.

“You sound surprised,” I said.

“As you know.”

“As I know,” I said. I drew my own Luger now. Calmly, slowly.

I pointed it at the center of his chest.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “They all think highly of you in London and Washington, and I could see why all along.”

“They think highly of you too,” I said. “In London and Berlin.”

“No,” Jeremy said, instantly and ardently. “Not Berlin. Not the way you mean it.”

In the silence now I pondered his tone. I understood performance. It was the gift of my upbringing. He sounded real.

“Our little bomb,” I said.

“Our little bomb,” he said. “We came to Spich. We took our rooms at the inn. We slept. We ate breakfast and I assembled the bomb. Nothing had changed. It was to go as we both had expected.”

“Your telegram,” I said.

“My telegram.”

He paused.

Okay. True enough so far. But. I said, “It wasn’t the Brits who ordered you to allow the poison gas attack on London.”

Jeremy hesitated. He looked away. Not to prepare for a lie. Not an aversion of the eyes. He flipped his face a little to the side and his mind worked at something and he squared his gaze around to me again. As if I’d slapped him across the face and even though he was a man trained to counterpunch, he accepted it as just.

His hands were still up and he seemed utterly oblivious to the fact. They were natural there.

“Not the Brits,” he said.

“You pulled a Stockman,” I said. “You were the one dropping the gas bomb.” I heard my vehemence. I’d once liked this guy.

He gave a single sharp nod, casting his eyes down.

And then he looked at me straight.

“I work for the English,” he said, “but only when their goals are the same as the goals of my own country. I am German. But the Kaiser is not my country. Hindenburg and Moltke and Falkenhayn are not my country. None of the Kaisers. None of the generals. My Germany wishes to be like your country. A country governed by the people and protecting the people — all the people — from their government and from themselves. A republic.”

I believed he was speaking the truth about himself.

I said, “And what of the people of London tonight?”

“It was not my decision to make,” Jeremy said. “We have our own leaders. They know we will never remake Germany as long as the Kaiser rules and these generals are heroes. The march into Belgium. The poison gas at Ypres. The sinking of the Lusitania . These acts of cruelty and the government’s rabid defense of them are already undermining its position. Not just in the world but here among the true Germans. The attack on London could have been decisive.”

“But it would have been your attack as well,” I said.

We looked at each other in silence for a long moment.

Jeremy said, “I’m glad you are good at what you do.”

I could only shake my head at this.

He laid the poisoning of London upon his leaders and then did what they asked. He laid the salvation of London upon me and was passively glad it went that way. I doubted this was a viable frame of mind for an aspiring republic.

He misinterpreted my reaction. He said, “I’m here, am I not? I didn’t have to come. I came with hope, even though it was scant. Hope you were alive. The explosion rattled the windows at the hotel. I was afraid you’d died in the deed. You are capable of that sacrifice. I knew that. I’m very glad you were good enough also to survive.”

I still found no words.

He said, “I gave you my pistol freely. My hands are raised. For my betrayal of you, I am happy to offer this proof of my regret and of my regard for you.”

He turned around.

He offered me his back.

He did not look over his shoulder.

He did not see that I was indeed still holding my Luger steadily upon him.

He said, “If it is your decision now to kill me, I am ready to accept that.”

I lifted the Luger and pointed it at the back of his head.

He waited.

I waited. Not to make a decision. That was made. I waited to adequately clear my head of how dangerous this well-intentioned and obedient man was.

“Turn around,” I said.

Jeremy did so, slowly.

The Luger was pointed now at the center of his forehead.

He waited.

“Put your hands down, Jeremy,” I said.

He did.

I lowered my pistol.

He let out a held breath.

I slipped the Luger into my holster.

“May I shake your hand?” he said.

I thought about that. Briefly.

“Yes,” I said.

And we grasped hands.

When our hands parted again, I said, “What have you done with Stockman and Madam Cobb?”

“You underestimate her,” he said.

This didn’t sound good.

“We had a useful chat,” he said.

“When?”

“Not to worry,” Jeremy said. “Stockman was out cold and tied up.”

I was worried.

Jeremy had left Stockman with his lover. A woman so blind with love she still couldn’t accept or reasonably assess what he was capable of doing. But this man before me was capable of at least one of Albert’s most heinous intentions. And he’d been my friend. He was quickly becoming my friend again. Mother’s feeling for Albert, her desperate need for her feeling for him: couldn’t I understand that?

“We should go to them,” I said.

“I’ll crank,” he said.

And he did. When he slid into the passenger seat, I handed him his Luger.

I drove out of the trees and turned east onto the Uckendorf road.

Jeremy said, “From what you must have thought of me, you need now to understand. I was never allied to Stockman. I am ready for us to kill him. I will do it myself if you wish. He will compromise us both.”

I looked at him. It was only a glance, but just before I took my eyes from him, he glanced too.

He knew what I was thinking.

“I will not return to England,” he said. “I’m asking you to keep no secrets about me.”

“Good.”

He said, “I will be a more serious enemy to Berlin by working here for the republic.”

I advanced the throttle in this open, empty stretch of good road.

I said, “So did you leave her guarding him?”

“Not to his eye, if he wakes,” he said. “She’s got the right stuff, but I don’t think she realizes we intend to kill him and I didn’t say otherwise. She thought it prudent that she continue to seem his ally. We feigned her bonds. She can slough them off at will. But she wants him to think they were in it together.”

This was all right.

Perhaps she was still taking her role as spy seriously.

I had something to do now. The thing she did not yet see coming.

It would be for the sake of Jeremy and his work. A democratic Germany could perhaps prevent another great war. It would be for the sake of my work, for the work of the American republic.

And it would be for me.

For her.

I sped into Spich.

Then I had to slow down drastically.

The town square was dense with people. As in Liebour, Spich had turned out to share this disaster and do what it could. I eased the car in among them, and when people felt others yielding, they turned and yielded too, all of them doing so willingly, readily, respectfully, many of them greeting us, officers in their army.