“What have you done with his clothes?”
“They are in the laundry room,” the girl said.
“Come,” Eva said.
The washer was in the cellar. They went down the rickety steps. Perhaps decades before, someone had made an attempt to whitewash the stone foundation walls, but moisture had turned the paint brown. Previous residents of the old house had left behind boxes and castoffs that Eva had not bothered to open, but they had cleared a path to the washer and laundry sink beneath the single bulb that struggled to illuminate the dingy space. More like a dungeon than anything, Eva thought.
She grabbed up Hess’s shirt. It was grimy and stank of sweat and salt. Eva nodded at the rest of his clothes. “Go through the pockets,” she ordered.
Their search turned a package of cigarettes, a book of matches, a jackknife. It was Petra who found the real prize in the back pocket of his pants. When she held up the billfold, Eva snatched it out of the girl’s hands. There were several American bills inside.
“Look at all that money,” Petra said, her eyes wide. “What did he do, rob a bank on his way here?”
Eva quickly counted out one hundred dollars and set it aside. She thought a moment, and then took out another twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Petra.
“He will know we took his money,” the girl said, but she made no effort to put it back in the billfold.
“We can use it,” Eva said.
The billfold also contained a Maryland driver’s license, nicely forged. The only other item was something hard wrapped in a tiny square of silk. Curious, Eva opened it to reveal an Iron Cross.
“A medal?” Petra wondered.
“The stupid fool,” she said. She shook her head. “Men and their medals. If he had been caught with his, he would have been hard-pressed to explain it.”
She considered the medal a moment, then carefully wrapped it up again and slid it deep into the billfold. She knew Hess would not say anything about a few missing dollars, but she did not dare take the medal.
Petra gathered up the clothes and dumped them in a pile. “That is all, Frau Von Stahl.”
“There was nothing else in the bath?”
“A pistol, which I left where it was. A knife. I left that too. Do you want me to get them?” Petra said nothing to Eva about the rifle in the kitchen. The girl did not doubt that Hess would keep his promise to hurt her if she revealed his secret to anyone. She had seen what the SS men were capable of in Poland.
“No, leave them. They won’t tell us anything, Petra.”
Petra felt better that she hadn’t said anything about the rifle. Maybe it did not matter.
Eva climbed the cellar stairs, leaving the girl to wash the clothes. She was disappointed that they had found nothing more than they had. She was hoping there might have been some clue to Hess’s mission. Perhaps he was a saboteur, after all, but she couldn’t help wondering what he planned to blow up using nothing more than a book of matches. What was he doing in Washington? This was her city now. One way or another, Eva was determined to find out what Hess was up to.
Chapter 9
The morning of December 30 was a busy one for Hess. As was his habit, he woke before the winter sun rose, leaving Eva asleep in bed. He could smell coffee downstairs. Petra was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She mumbled a greeting but barely looked up as Hess came in and helped himself to coffee and toast slathered with real butter. Petra soon found something else to do that took her far from the kitchen.
While she was gone, Hess hid the suitcase containing his rifle in the broom closet, putting it behind the mops and a box of rags. He knew that Petra would be afraid to touch it and that Eva Von Stahl was unlikely to rummage through the broom closet anytime soon.
Petra returned to find him eyeing the tray of muffins she had taken from the oven to cool.
“Don’t touch!” Her sharp voice snapped. “Those are for Frau Von Stahl’s breakfast.”
Hess just shrugged and sipped his coffee. When she left the kitchen again, Hess took two muffins and a mug of coffee and went out the back door. He gulped down the hot coffee as he traversed the alley that led to the street, then flung the mug away to shatter against a garage wall. Seeing the shattered pieces tumble to the ground felt curiously satisfying.
Hess spent the morning getting familiar with the city. He knew from the maps he had studied in preparation for the mission that Washington was on the Potomac River, surrounded by Maryland countryside. To the west lay the state of Virginia — once home to the rebellion that had taken place during the American Civil War. He knew enough American history to understand that Americans had a particular capacity for war and could be ruthless in their own way.
He also knew that the city had been laid out in 1791 by a Frenchman named Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Major L’Enfant had envisioned a city structured in a grid pattern with long and stately avenues that befitted a republic. He also had possessed a practical eye for defense. L’Enfant had overlaid the street grid with diagonal avenues that radiated from a central hub like spokes from the center of a wheel. The theory was that artillery placed in the hub could easily defend the city by having a clear line of fire against an enemy invading Washington. The soldier in Hess appreciated Major L’Enfant’s ingenious plan, even if it hadn’t done the Americans much good. During America’s second war with the British, Redcoats had marched into Washington and burned the city.
The diagonal avenues bore the names of states Virginia, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Georgia and Pennsylvania. This last avenue was the one Hess sought, and when he reached it after several minutes of walking he paused to admire the Capitol dome in the distance.
He walked another five blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue and came to the White House. It gave him pause to stand outside the home of the United States president. He stared through the tall iron fence at the presidential mansion, somewhat disappointed by its modest size. It was certainly no European palace. Guards with rifles slung over their shoulders stood at the gate at Pennsylvania Avenue and at several points along the fence. Hess must have lingered too long, because one of the guards seemed to notice him standing there. He turned to go.
“Excuse me, sir.”
A tall man in a dark overcoat moved toward him. Hess groped in his pocket for the Luger, ready to fight or flee. But this was not Germany; the man was not from the Gestapo. He was holding out a boxy camera.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind taking our picture?” the man asked.
“It would be my pleasure,” Hess said.
“You must be Dutch,” the man said. “My grandfather was too, you know. Had an accent just like that.”
“Yah. I am from Amsterdam. That was many years ago, of course, but you never really lose the accent.”
The man smiled and motioned at a woman and a small boy nearby, who joined him in front of the gate. Hess looked through the window of the Kodak and framed the family against the White House, then pressed the button. The shutter clicked. As the man came forward to thank him and reclaim the camera, Hess noticed that the guard had lost all interest in him.
Hess walked on, then turned off Pennsylvania Avenue. A couple of blocks down he found a shop sign that read “Abe Cohen’s Exchange — Kodaks” selling boxy cameras identical to the model he had just used and bought one, along with three rolls of film. He put the film in his pocket and hung the camera around his neck.
Hess returned to Pennsylvania Avenue and walked several more blocks toward the Capitol. Soldiers filled the streets. Everywhere Hess looked, he saw khaki uniforms. Mixed in were blue Navy uniforms. At first, whenever Hess passed a soldier on the street, he tried not to meet the other man’s eyes. But with the camera around his neck, Hess grew more relaxed. He didn’t go out of his way to make eye contact, but if it happened, a nod and smile would do the trick. For the most part, however, no one paid any attention to him. He was just another tourist.