Project Berlin
James Frey
The first story in a heart-stopping novella trilogy that follows a forbidden love that threatens Endgame in post-World War II Germany and takes place prior to the events in the New York Times bestseller, Endgame: The Calling.Humanity rests on the shoulders of twelve Players. But when the lives of a Cahokian Player and a Minoan Player intertwine over the search for an ancient weapon in post-World War II Berlin, the last thing they expect is to let their guard down, and fall in love. Now the success of their lines – and the fate of the world – is threatened.But this is Endgame. And only one can win.
Copyright (#u7aa71407-9d30-51bf-a604-a09137ccd39a)
First published in ebook in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016
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Endgame: The Fugitive Archives Volume 1: Project Berlin © 2016 by Third Floor Fun, LLC
Cover design and logo by Rodrigo Corral Design
Additional logo and icon design by John Dismukes
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780062332738
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007585311
Version: 2016-11-08
Contents
Cover (#uaf747fa2-3cf1-59f9-b4b4-5b45e7109f11)
Title Page (#u4f4caa7e-c609-5f7e-8f60-94e183cd7a3f)
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Keep Reading: Endgame: The Calling
Marcus Loxias Megalos
Chiyoko Takeda
Keep Reading for Endgame series (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books in the Endgame series
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1 (#u7aa71407-9d30-51bf-a604-a09137ccd39a)
BooneDecember 24, 1948
“How you doing, Peterson?” Driscoll asks as we descend through the thick fog. “You look a little green. Do me a favor and try not to lose your lunch all over my plane, okay?”
The C-54, buffeted by a crosswind, shakes fiercely, rattling us like peas in a can. It’s been like this the whole flight. Driscoll grins at me.
My name isn’t Peterson, but he doesn’t know that. He also doesn’t know that I’ve been in far more nerve-racking situations than a rough approach. I may look like any other 19-year-old GI, but I’m far more than that.
“Last time I flew over Berlin, I was dropping eggs on their heads,” Driscoll continues, shouting to be heard above the roar of the engines. “Now I’m bringing them eggs for their breakfast.” His joke about the bombing raids that destroyed huge parts of the city during the last days of the war isn’t funny. I smile anyway. I need him to think I’m just one of the guys, at least for a little longer.
The truth is, I am a little bit nervous. I’ve been training for war since I was a kid. I’ve been through more than Driscoll and all the other soldiers on the plane ever saw in boot camp. But this is my biggest mission yet. A lot is riding on it. And yet I don’t even know exactly what it’s about.
I know the basics. I’ve got to find a man and get him out of Berlin. I know his name and his suspected location. And I know that if he won’t come with me, or if someone else gets to him first, I have to kill him.
A simple plan. That’s why I know there’s more to it than the council has told me. For some reason they don’t want me to know the details of why this man is so important, which means they don’t want anyone else to have that information either. If I get captured, my enemies can try as hard as they want to get me to talk, but I can’t tell them what I don’t know. Not that I would talk anyway. I’d never do anything to jeopardize the safety of my line. The council knows that, so it bothers me a little bit that they’re taking this precaution. More than a little bit, if I’m honest. This is the first time since I became the Cahokian Player that they’ve kept me in the dark about something. I don’t like the feeling.
I push that irritation from my mind as the Tempelhof airstrip appears—seemingly out of nowhere—and meets the wheels of the plane. The rumbling intensifies, shaking my bones, and I hang on as Driscoll applies the brakes. Through the cockpit windows I see groups of children standing on top of piles of debris that line the runway. They wave at us, grinning and clapping their hands.
“Look at that,” Driscoll says. “It’s like we’re Santa Claus.”
In a way, we are. After all, it’s Christmas Eve. And along with the ten tons of eggs, milk, meat, flour, and other basic supplies in our hold, we’re bringing bags of wrapped gifts to hand out to the people of the city. Chocolate bars for the kids. Cigarettes for the men. Perfume for the women. The war ended in 1945, but more than three years later, Berlin is still trying to recover. And since the Soviets cut off all sea and land access to the city’s western zone earlier in the year, life has gotten even harder.
Thankfully, the airlift organized by the American, French, and British militaries has been successful in bringing supplies to the city. It’s also provided me with a handy way inside. Posing as an American soldier has been easy enough. There are so many young men being assigned to the dozens of daily airlift flights coming out of Rhein-Main Air Base that no one notices one more. All I had to do was put on a uniform and start helping load the plane.
When the Skymaster comes to a stop, we reverse the process begun three hours earlier, transferring everything in our cargo area onto the trucks that pull up one after the other.
“Nobody disappear!” Driscoll shouts as we launch into action. “General Tunner’s orders! We get this stuff off, turn around, and land back in Frankfurt in time for eggnog and cookies!”
The airlift is a well-oiled machine. Planes land at two-minute intervals, and the total time from unloading to takeoff is 25 minutes. Everything moves like clockwork, and everyone has a job to do. I can’t make a break for the main terminal or someone is bound to notice the missing pair of hands. But when we’re almost finished, one of the mobile coffee trucks arrives filled with pretty German girls who hand out drinks and smiles, and I take the opportunity to slip away while the others are distracted. I don’t look back, and nobody calls Peterson’s name. Even when they finally notice he’s gone, it won’t matter, as the United States Army has no record of him anyway.
Once I’m away from the airport, I make my way into Berlin. In an attempt to maintain a balance of power, the city has been divided into four sectors, each one controlled by one of the Allied superpowers: Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. In reality, though, it’s become the Soviets on one side and everyone else on the other. Fortunately, Tempelhof is in the American sector, and a GI walking through the streets is a common sight. I’d prefer to be dressed like a civilian, but at least wearing a uniform means that nobody questions me. And in case they do, all my identity papers carry the name of Alan Peterson.
It’s early evening, a little past seven, and already dark. A light snow is falling. And even though the streets are dotted with rubble—some of the buildings I pass have shattered windows and walls that have crumbled, so you can see into living rooms and kitchens still filled with furniture—it somehow manages to feel like Christmas. There are wreaths on some of the doors, and trees decorated with ornaments are visible in the parlors of some of the houses. The shops I pass don’t have much displayed in their windows, but signs reading FRÖHLICHE WEIHNACHTEN are taped to the glass.
Bells chime, and when I turn a corner, I see people walking into a church. The inside is lit by candles, and the sound of a carol being played on an organ floats from the open doorway. This makes me think of my own family back in Illinois. It’s just after noon there, and I know my mother is getting ready for the Christmas Eve gathering. She’s been cooking all day. The Tom and Jerry bowl and glasses that only come out once a year are set out on the sideboard. She’s probably already hung the stockings from the mantel over the fireplace, one for each kid, arranged in order from youngest to oldest: Marnie, Evan, Lily, Ella, Peter, me, and Jackson. In the morning, the stockings will all be filled to overflowing. Even mine, although I won’t be there to open it. And even Jackson’s, although it’s been three years since he died. The people of Berlin aren’t the only ones who’ve lost something to the war.
I hurry by the church, clearing my mind by focusing on the address the council gave me. I memorized it, as well as the best route to reach it. Writing things down is risky. As my father told me repeatedly when I started my Player training, the brain is the only notebook nobody can steal.
It takes me another 20 minutes to find the house. It’s in a section of the city that was hit hard by the Allied bombing, one of a row of connected brick town homes. Most of the buildings are empty, uninhabitable because of the damage. This one looks empty too. Most of the windows are boarded up, and the front door has an official notice on it warning people not to enter due to unsafe conditions. But looks can be deceiving. Just because you can’t see somebody, it doesn’t mean nobody is there. Sometimes, you just have to look harder.
I don’t announce myself by knocking on the front door. This isn’t a social call. Instead, I go into the bombed-out house next door, climb the stairs to the third floor, and step through a shattered window onto a narrow ledge that runs along the front of the whole row of houses. I press myself against what’s left of the wall and slowly move one foot at a time toward the house next door. If anyone notices me, maybe they’ll just think I’m Saint Nicholas coming to deliver presents.
When I reach the closest window of the target house, I pause beside it and look inside. The bedroom behind the cracked, dirty glass is empty. When I push on the window frame, the window slides up. I slip inside, turn on the small flashlight I carry in my pocket, and look around. It’s just as cold in here as it is outside, and I can see my breath. There’s no heat. But coal is in short supply, and no one is supposed to be living here anyway, so this might not mean anything. More telling is that everything in the room is covered with a thick layer of dust. No one has been here in a long time.
Then I notice the footprints. They start just outside the door, run along a hallway, and disappear down a flight of stairs. A faint glow emanates from the second floor. Someone is here after all. I creep to the end of the hall and pause. I can hear voices. There are two speakers, a man and what sounds like a younger woman.
This is a problem. There’s supposed to be only one person here. A man. I haven’t seen him yet, but even if the man I hear talking is the one I’m after, who is the girl? Is she a wife? A daughter? Something else? I need to get a look at them.
I draw my M1911 standard-issue military pistol and walk down the stairs. It’s not my weapon of choice, but it’s what Private Peterson would carry, and nobody would think twice about me having it, so it’s what I’ve got. The voices grow louder as I descend. When I reach the landing, I pause. The speakers are in a room just to my left.
“I wish Oskar and Rutger were here with us,” the man says.
“You know how Oskar is,” the young woman says. “He didn’t want to risk anyone following us to you.”
“I think everyone must have forgotten about me by now,” says the man. “Still, he’s right to be cautious. I worry about you making visits here.”
“Perhaps it’s time for you to leave,” the girl says. “You’ve shut yourself up in here long enough. Pass the duty on to someone else. Oskar and I—”
“Lottie, please,” the man interrupts. “How many times have we talked about this? I cannot leave.”
“You mean you will not,” says Lottie. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life here?”
“I’m already a dead man. Remember?”
The man’s words chill me. What does he mean? And who is this girl? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m better off if I don’t know who Lottie is. I know from experience that it’s easier to kill someone when you know nothing about her.
“Let’s not discuss it further,” the man says. “It’s Christmas Eve. Play something for me. You know I always love to hear you play.”
A moment later, I hear the sound of a piano. It’s badly out of tune, but the melody is familiar. “Silent Night.” The girl begins to sing, and the man joins in.
I risk moving closer and looking through the doorway. Inside the room, a scraggly pine tree stands in front of a boarded-up window, its branches hung with silver tinsel and a handful of colorful glass balls. The piano is against a wall, with the young woman seated at it. The man stands beside her. Both of them are wearing long, thick coats.
I recognize the man from the photo the council showed me. It’s Evrard Sauer. I’m in the right place. But the council said nothing about the girl. Now I have to decide what to do about her. My orders were to leave no witnesses, which gives me only one option. I know what I should do—what I’ve agreed to do for my council and my line—but the thought of actually doing it doesn’t sit right with me. The girl is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hate to make her pay for that with her life.
They finish singing, and the man takes something from the pocket of his coat. It’s a present wrapped in newspaper and tied with plain white string. He hands it to the girl, who carefully opens it. A happy smile spreads across her face.
“Toffees!” she says. “Wherever did you get them?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer before taking one of the candies from the box and unwrapping it, the cellophane crackling in her fumbling fingers. She puts the toffee in her mouth and sucks on it, her eyes closed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone enjoy a piece of candy so much.
She opens her eyes and reaches into her own pocket. She takes out a package, this one wrapped in brown butcher paper. She gives it to the man. He opens it and holds up a red knitted scarf.
“I unraveled one of my sweaters for the yarn,” the girl says, sounding embarrassed. “Wool is still rationed.”
“It’s beautiful,” the man assures her as he wraps it around his neck. “Thank you.”
The girl turns back to the piano and begins to play again. This time the song is “O Tannenbaum.”
I’ve obviously interrupted their Christmas Eve celebration. And if I do what I’ve been instructed to do, I’m about to make it a whole lot worse. I still feel like something is off, but there’s no time to contact my council for further advice, so I have to make a choice based on the available information and what I’ve been told. That means completing the mission according to plan.
I accept the reality of my situation, even though I don’t like it, and prepare to act. Then the sound of a door being kicked open comes from the first floor. Wood splinters. Heavy footsteps pound up the stairs. The man and the young woman stop singing and look at each other. I have just enough time to dart back to the stairwell before three figures burst onto the landing. Two of them have guns drawn.
“Evrard Sauer,” one of them, a man, says. “You are under arrest for collaborating with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” He’s speaking in German, but with a heavy Russian accent. And although he’s used the more formal name for them, I know he’s just accused Sauer of working with the Nazis.
“Who are you?” the girl asks.
“Be still, Lottie,” says Sauer. “Do as you’re told.”
His voice is quiet, sad. As if he has feared this moment for a long time.
I huddle on the stairs, my pistol at the ready. Besides the two men, there is a woman in the room. She stands slightly behind the men, her hands in her pockets. As I lean forward for a better look, my foot presses against the floorboards, making a faint creaking sound. I see her tense. She turns her head toward the stairwell, and for a moment I think she’s seen me. But I can’t look away. She’s younger than I thought. My age. And beautiful. She has long dark hair and dark eyes, and for a second I’m sure that I’ve seen her before. Then it hits me—she looks like Wonder Woman from the comic books my sister Lily loves so much. I find myself frozen in place.
Then she turns away, and it’s as if a switch has been turned off and I can breathe again. I blend into the shadows, my finger on the trigger of my gun in case I need to use it. I know I will need to use it. I can’t let these people take Sauer. I think I know who they are. MGB. Russian intelligence. And apparently they want him because of his association with the Nazis. What he did for them, I don’t know. Just as I don’t know why he’s so important to my council. What I do know is that I can’t let them leave with him.
“If you come quietly, there will be no problems,” the first man says.
Sauer nods. He motions to Lottie, who stands up.
It’s time. I start to raise my pistol, aiming it at one of the Soviet agents.
Before I can fire, the woman draws her hand from her pocket. She’s holding a Tokarev TT-33. There are two shots, and her companions collapse to the floor. She lowers the gun.
“You have a choice,” she says to Sauer and Lottie. “Come with me and live, or join them.”
CHAPTER 2 (#u7aa71407-9d30-51bf-a604-a09137ccd39a)
Ariadne
Sauer and the girl look from the bodies lying at their feet to the gun I still have trained on them. Their fear is obvious. They know who the dead men are, or at least who they work for, but they don’t know who I am or why I’m here. They’re trying to decide if I am a greater or lesser danger.
“I’m not going to ask again,” I say, giving them their answer.
I point my gun at the girl. It has the desired effect.
Sauer holds up his hands. “We’ll come.”
He’s made the right choice. Had they resisted, I would have shot them both. If I had, they would have been my third and fourth kills. The men on the floor are my first and second.
I’m surprised how little I feel about the killings. I’d expected something more, a sense of excitement perhaps, or pangs of remorse. Instead, there is simply an awareness of having done what was necessary. It probably helps that the two MGB agents were not good people. After six months of working undercover within their organization, I’d come to despise them. For one thing, they’d been dismissive of me because of my gender and my age. That was a mistake.
Three weeks ago, I turned 18. But I grew up long before that. I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t feel the weight of responsibility. As a child, when I played, I played games of war. And always, I had to win. Even if it meant defeating someone close to me. When I was chosen as the current Minoan Player out of my group of trainees, it was simply the next logical step. This is a role I’ve been studying for my entire life.
I don’t have time to waste thinking about the dead men. I motion for Sauer and the girl to walk ahead of me. They start to leave the room, which is when a figure detaches itself from the shadows of the stairs and rushes at me. I have only a moment to curse myself for not heeding an earlier feeling and checking to make sure no one else was in the house before a man is tackling me. He hits me low and hard, and before I can get off a shot, I’m falling backward. I land on the floor, and my breath is knocked out of me. Also knocked away is my gun, which my attacker sweeps out of my reach.
He, however, is still holding a weapon. He straddles me and points it at my face. “Who are you?” he asks in German.
I take inventory, trying to figure out who he might be. He’s wearing the uniform of an American soldier. Then, as I look up at his face, an odd thought passes through my mind: his eyes are the same blue color as the cornflowers that grow in the fields around my grandparents’ house outside Kamilari. The same color as the Aegean Sea in summer. I feel a pang of homesickness, and I’m so shocked that this is what I’m thinking about in this situation that I don’t say anything for a moment. He mistakes my silence for not understanding and tries again in Russian.
“The only reason for you to know my name,” I say in English, “is so you know who it is who has killed you.”
I thrust up hard with my hips, trying to throw him off. I am surprised when it doesn’t work.
“I’ve been riding horses bareback since I was four,” he says, grinning down at me. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Or what?” I ask. “You’ll shoot me? You should have done that when you had the chance. You won’t get a second one.”
Before he can answer, I lift my torso and grasp him around the chest, pulling him down toward me. My right leg traps his left foot while I hook my right arm over his shoulder. Then I push up on my left foot while swinging my left arm over. The next moment, our positions are reversed and I’m the one on top.
“I guess you were too busy riding horses to get in many street fights,” I say.
He surprises—and annoys—me by laughing. Then he says, “You’d better hurry up and decide what you’re going to do next, because those people you want so badly are getting away.”
That’s when I realize that Sauer and the girl have disappeared. I can hear their footsteps in the hallway, so I know I still have time to catch them. But only if I go now. I look down at the man—a boy, really, or at least not much older than me. I don’t know what he’s doing here. Is he working with Sauer? Do the Americans (I assume he’s American because of his uniform and accent) want the man too? Or is he somehow connected to the girl?
“What’s the matter?” the soldier says. “You trying to decide whether to kiss me or kill me?”
I pick up his gun, which is on the floor beside us. “I’ve decided,” I say, pointing the pistol at him.
He doesn’t flinch. “Come on,” he says. “You wouldn’t shoot a guy on Christmas Eve, would you?” Then his eyes flick to the bodies already on the floor. “Actually, I guess you would.”
I probably should kill him, just to be safe. Unlike the MGB agents, however, I don’t think he’s a real threat, just an inconvenience. A GI who happens to be in the wrong place. Besides, there are those blue eyes that make me think of a place I love. For this small gift, I will spare him. “Merry Christmas,” I say, and bring the gun down on his temple. His body slumps beneath me as he passes out.
I scramble to my feet and run after Sauer and the girl, who are trying their best to get away from me. They’ve already reached the first floor. But they don’t run out the now-open front door. Instead, they run for the kitchen at the rear of the house. I assume that they’re going to try to escape through a back entrance. They won’t.
What they don’t know is that I don’t want to have to kill them. They’re worth much more to me alive. To me and my entire line. If Sauer really has the information that we believe he does, it could change everything about how Endgame is played—that is, when it finally begins. And whoever controls that information might just be unstoppable.
The MGB agents were not lying when they said that Sauer used to work for the Nazis. Whether he agreed with their politics or not is another story, but that doesn’t concern me. I’m only interested in what he knows. The Minoans don’t believe other lines are aware of Sauer and what he might have discovered while working for the Nazis. But they could be. After all, we aren’t the only ones with agents planted in strategic places. And the American solider I just ran into suggests that some world powers might be interested as well. I obviously know the Soviets want him. Multiple parties looking for him makes sense.
Of course, none of this matters if I can’t get Sauer to cooperate. I was hoping that my killing the MGB agents who came for him would be proof enough that I’m one of the good guys. Then again, maybe I’m not. At least not in Sauer’s eyes. It’s funny how your perspective changes depending on which end of a gun you’re on.
I reach the kitchen in time to see Sauer step through a door to a pantry. The girl is ahead of him. “Run, Lottie,” he shouts as he pulls the door closed. “Go now!”
He’s holding the door shut from the other side. Or trying to. I step back and aim a kick at the handle. The wood splinters as Sauer cries out. I kick it again, and it flies open. Inside the pantry, Sauer stands staring at me as, behind him, the girl disappears through another door that was hidden by shelves filled with jarred foods. A secret passage.
Sauer turns, grabs a jar of pickled beets, and hurls it at me. I dodge, and it hits the wall behind me, shattering and staining the wallpaper with red juice. He grabs another jar, and another. He’s panicking. This gives me an advantage over him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell him, keeping my voice low and calm, as if I’m speaking to a frightened animal. I set the American’s gun on a nearby tabletop and hold my hands up to show him that I’m now unarmed, at least as far as he knows. In reality, I remain as deadly as ever. “I want to help you,” I continue. “I can get you out of Berlin. You and the girl. To safety.”
He pauses, a jar in his hand. “Who are you?” he asks.
“A friend,” I tell him.
“Some friend,” says a voice from the hallway.
I turn and see GI Joe standing there. He’s holding my own gun, and it’s pointed at me.
“I figured since you coldcocked me with mine, you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed yours,” he says. Then, addressing Sauer, he says, “She’s going to turn you over to the Soviets. They have a bounty on your head, and she plans to collect it.”
I see Sauer’s face contort in fear. Then, with a glance at the American, he throws the jar of sauerkraut in his hand at my head. I duck. Sauer turns and darts into the opening behind him. He pulls the shelves shut with a bang. I start to run after him, but a bullet whizzing past my head stops me. It just misses, and inside the pantry, several jars of pickles meet their deaths.
“I missed on purpose,” the soldier says. “Next time I won’t. Now turn around.”
I do as he says. But even as I do, my mind is working out my options, formulating a plan. “He’s getting away,” I say.
“That’s kind of the idea,” he tells me. “Well, the idea is for him to get away from you. I can find him again.”
He sounds sure of this, and I wonder why. Was he assigned to protect Sauer and the girl? But then why did they run away when we were fighting? If they were so sure of him, wouldn’t they stay? Maybe, I think, he wasn’t protecting them; maybe he was waiting to claim them for himself. Still, I can’t help but be impressed by his confidence. Also by the fact that he came to much sooner than most people would have after I’ve hit them.
“Why don’t we start by you telling me exactly who you are?” he says. “I made up that stuff about the Soviets, although it’s obviously true that they want him, right?”
There’s no point in lying about this because he’s going to be dead in a minute, so I nod.
“But you’re not Russian, are you?”
“No,” I tell him. “I’m not.”
“And I don’t think you’re German,” he says. “So what are you? French?”
I snort. I wonder what he would say if I told him I was Minoan. Would he even know what that means? Instead, I say, “I’m Greek.”
“Greek?” he repeats. “How about that. Well, I guess Greece has no love for the Nazis either.”
This is true. Hitler’s army did untold damage to my country and killed many of our people. But I’m not here to discuss history with an American soldier, and with every second we spend talking, Sauer is getting farther and farther away. I say nothing.
The soldier waves the gun at me, as if this will encourage me to answer him. “What’s your business with Sauer?”
Does he really not know? I don’t see how this is possible. Anyone who would take the time to find Evrard Sauer would have to know who he is. For one thing, he’s been living under a different name.
Maybe, I think, the American is testing me to see what I know. Since he’s wasting my time, I decide to play with him. “The Nazis took many things from my country. Including works of art from our museums. They’ve been hidden somewhere and haven’t been found. Sauer knows where they are.”
He looks puzzled. “You just killed two people so you could kidnap a … museum director?”
“An art historian,” I lie. “And what was taken from us is priceless. It’s our history. Your country is young, so perhaps you don’t understand.”
He shakes his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.” He sounds as if he’s speaking to himself, not to me. I take the opportunity while his attention is elsewhere to look around the kitchen. I see a knife on the counter beside the sink. I could use that, if I could get to it. But even closer is a bag of flour.
I snatch the bag and hurl it at the soldier’s head. He reacts immediately, bringing the pistol up and firing, exactly as I’d hoped he would. The bullet hits the bag, and the paper wrapper explodes. A cloud of flour erupts, filling the air like a snowstorm. The soldier is completely hidden from view, which means he can’t see me either.
I run into the pantry and pull on the shelf hiding the secret entrance. Luckily, there’s no trick to it, and it flies open. A set of stairs leads down into a brick-lined tunnel. I step inside, pull the shelves closed, and look for a way to secure it so the soldier can’t follow me, at least not easily. I’m surprised to discover that the back of the door is covered in metal sheeting, and that there’s actually a very solid bolting mechanism attached to it, making it easy to secure from this side and virtually impossible to open from the other. Sauer must have been in too much of a panic to bother with it. Or he hoped that I wouldn’t be in any condition to chase him.
I lock the door. A moment later, the pounding begins.
I ignore it, knowing that the American can’t get through, at least not for a while. Now it’s time to turn my attention back to Sauer. I wonder how far he’s gotten and if I can catch up with him. Everything is now in question. At least the American is no longer in my way. I run down the tunnel I now find myself in, leaving him to whatever the Fates have in store for him. My own destiny lies ahead of me in the darkness, and I rush to meet it.
CHAPTER 3 (#u7aa71407-9d30-51bf-a604-a09137ccd39a)
Boone
It becomes clear pretty quickly that I’m not going to be able to open the door. From this side it looks like an ordinary door, one I should be able to kick down, or at least shoot my way through. But as my aching foot and the bullets lodged in the wood prove, this isn’t the case. This door has been designed to keep anyone from getting through it. Whoever installed it meant business.
Berlin is riddled with former safe houses, places where people who might have reason to hide could hole up and wait until the coast was clear. My line has a safe house here as well. I’m supposed to take Sauer to it and await extraction instructions. Now, unless I can get through this door and catch up to him, I’ll be waiting in that house alone, trying to figure out how to explain to my council how I let a girl get away with my prize. An amazingly smart girl, and one who was able to knock me out, but nobody’s going to care about that part. All they’ll care about is that she took what should be mine.
I stare at the door, trying to figure out a way through it, my frustration growing. Then I hear my trainer’s voice in my head. If you can’t go through, then go around, go under, or go over. He used to put me in seemingly impossible situations and make me figure a way out. A nine-foot wall I had to scale. A rushing river to get across. A trap to get out of. Anything to force me to think differently. There’s always a way. Always.
I start by asking myself what’s behind the door. While it’s possible that the door leads to just another room, it’s more likely that it leads to some kind of an exit. And if there’s an exit, I should be able to find it. But I’ve already lost a lot of time trying to get through. I have to hurry.
The kitchen has another door leading to the backyard, but it’s boarded up, and there’s no time to pry the boards off. So I run back down the hallway and out of the house, a cloud of flour flying around me. I have to admit, the girl’s trick was pretty clever, even if she has made me look like a fool twice now. And I still don’t know who she is or what she’s doing here. She’s become a mystery that I’m determined to solve. First, I have to catch her.
Getting into the backyard of Sauer’s house is as simple as running through the downstairs of the deserted house next door and climbing over a fence into the small yard. I stop and survey, sketching a map in my head. There is a set of steps leading down to a cellar, but I know this isn’t where the secret passage comes out. The whole point is to get as far away from the house as possible before you have to come up into the open. Most likely, it runs the length of the yard, then opens up into a sewer system or some other network of already-established tunnels.
I cross the yard and climb over yet another fence. This street looks much like the one I’ve just left, a row of town houses, many of them bombed out and empty. The tunnel could lead to, or pass under, any of them. With each second taking Sauer farther away from me, I run in one direction, hoping to find something that will provide a clue.
I find it in the form of a garden. It appears as a small break in the line of houses, really just an empty space where normally another building would have been. Instead, there’s a gated fence behind that sits on a lot that contains a small fountain, a bench, and a toolshed.
It’s the shed that interests me. It’s the perfect spot for an underground tunnel to come out. Then, as I peer through the bars, I see something else: footprints coming out of the shed. Everything in the garden is covered in snow, so the footsteps are easy to see. And there’s more than one set of them. They lead to the opposite side of the lot, where another gate opens onto another street. The gate is open, and the footsteps continue through it. My guess is that the girl has recently passed through there with Sauer and Lottie.
The gate on my side is locked, but it’s easy enough to scale the fence and get inside the garden. I run to the other side and follow the footprints. The street is deserted, so it’s easy to see them. But then they turn onto another street filled with people and disappear into the crowd. I scan the block for the mystery girl, Sauer, or Lottie, but there are too many bodies, and everyone seems to be wearing heavy coats that look the same. Between that, the dark, and the snow, my chances of finding them are almost nonexistent.
Then something crunches under my foot. Curious, I bend down to see what it is. It’s a candy. A toffee, wrapped in cellophane. I think back to the gift that Sauer gave the girl. It can’t be a coincidence. Candy is heavily rationed, and it’s unlikely someone would just drop one by accident.
I start walking and find another about 20 feet farther on, then another. Now I’m certain that they weren’t dropped by accident. Someone has left me a trail to follow.
It’s not easy searching for them in the snow, and I’d look crazy shining my flashlight around, but the light from the streetlamps helps. I see a sparkle and find another candy. I pick it up and add it to the growing lump in my coat pocket. Approximately every 20 feet, I find another one, although sometimes there are gaps where either the candy has been kicked away or perhaps picked up by somebody else.
The trail of toffees leads down the street and around a corner, where it comes to an end. Then I notice a child, a little boy of about four or five. He and his mother are standing together. He’s holding something in his hand. As I watch, he unwraps it and puts it into his mouth.
“What is that?” his mother asks.
The boy shrugs. “Candy?” he says doubtfully.
His mother, clearly alarmed, snatches the wrapper from his hand and looks at it. “Where did you get this?”
The boy points. “A man gave it to me,” he said. “As he was getting on that streetcar.”
I turn my head just in time to see a streetcar rounding a corner at the end of the street, tethered to the electric line above it. I run to the boy and his mother. “Where does that streetcar go?”
The woman puts her arm around the boy and draws him closer to her. “To the Soviet sector.”
I thank her and take off after the streetcar. It’s not going very fast, but it’s difficult to keep pace running on the slippery pavement. Also, if the mystery girl is keeping an eye out for me, I don’t want her to see me running behind the streetcar like a madman. I still don’t know if she’s caught up with Sauer and Lottie, or if she’s trying to follow them too. Until I can figure out which of them—or any of them—is on the streetcar, I need to be careful.
Fortunately, the streetcar makes frequent stops to let people on and off, which gives me a chance both to rest and to try to get a glimpse inside. Unfortunately, the cold has made the windows frosty, and I can’t see through them. And if the girl is with Sauer and Lottie, I don’t want to get on and risk a confrontation in front of so many people. So I watch to see if Sauer or either woman gets off, but they don’t. I can only hope that I’m right about them being on it.
Once again I wonder who the girl is. Twice now I’ve had the chance to kill her, and twice I haven’t. I can’t explain why, except that, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, I want to know who she is. And it’s not just that she’s undeniably beautiful. It’s more than that. There’s something about her that at the same time feels both very familiar and completely foreign. For one thing, she also could have killed me but didn’t. And I know she has no problem killing. She took down the two MGB agents without blinking. No ordinary soldier would do that—or even be able to. You have to be a certain kind of person to kill so easily, or at least to make it look so easy.
Someone like a Player, I think.
Maybe my line isn’t the only one that’s after Sauer. Maybe the girl is Playing too.
She’s the right age. Also, she’s a, well, she. Most militaries don’t train women to fight. They’re mainly nurses or some other kind of noncombat personnel. Yet she fights like a soldier—a highly trained soldier. She had to learn it somewhere, and despite her remark about street fighting, there’s no way she got this good from a couple of brawls on a playground.
If she is Playing, then the question is: for which line? She said she was Greek, so if she wasn’t lying, she’s a Minoan. If another line wants Sauer badly enough to kill for him, then what he knows has to have some bearing on Endgame. I don’t believe for one second the girl’s story about him being an art historian. Something bigger is happening here. Once again, I question why my own council hasn’t told me what it is.
I think again of how she reminds me of Wonder Woman. The Amazon princess. What was her real name? Diana Prince. Maybe that’s what I should call her. Diana. Diana was also the goddess of the hunt, so it fits there too. We’re both hunters, after the same quarry. Has she already caught them? I still don’t know.
The streetcar stops, and again the doors open. I peer through the open door as people get out, and just for a second I see a face looking back at me. It’s Sauer. Our eyes meet, and a look of panic appears on Sauer’s face. His eyes dart away, then back to me, and for a moment I think he’s about to run off the streetcar. Then the doors close.
What did the look mean? Was he afraid because he saw me? Or was it because Diana was with him, making sure he didn’t get away? I don’t know. But now at least I know that he’s on the streetcar, and it renews my desire to follow it wherever it goes.
When the streetcar crosses from the American sector to the Soviet sector, I worry for a moment that I might be stopped. Although people are still free to move around the city, an American soldier walking into Soviet territory could be suspicious. But it’s Christmas Eve, and lots of people are going back and forth to visit friends and family, so I risk it. As I walk past the big sign announcing YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR, I barely get a glance from the grim-faced Red Army soldiers standing around cradling their rifles in their arms.
Even though it’s the same city, the Soviet sector of Berlin feels different. There’s a tenseness here, as if the residents and even the buildings are holding their breaths. The people walking around seem to be in a hurry to get wherever it is they’re going. Instead of looking at one another, they look at the ground. Even the snowfall seems heavier here, the cold more biting. I pull up the collar of my coat and glance over my shoulder, more on guard than usual.
The streetcar makes less frequent stops as it moves deeper into Soviet-controlled territory. Thanks to the snow and the outdated and unreliable overhead wires that power the streetcar, it moves slowly enough that I can keep up with it without having to do an all-out run. Then it stops at the corner of a street lined with nondescript apartment buildings, and half a dozen people get off. Three of them detach from the group and walk away, and as they pass through the glow of a streetlight I see that one of them is wearing a red scarf. Sauer. And the other two are Lottie and Diana.
The trio walks quickly. Diana stays one pace behind the other two. I wonder if they’ve come willingly or if she’s got a gun to their backs. If she’s a Player too, Sauer is the one she wants, so perhaps she’s told him she’ll kill Lottie if he doesn’t play along. As my father always says, love is the greatest danger of all. It’s why he’s warned me not to fall in love until I’m no longer a Player. When you have something you’re afraid of losing, it gives your enemies a weapon to use against you.
Three blocks later, the group walks into a building that looks like all the other ones on the street. Five stories tall. Surprisingly undamaged. They disappear through a door, and I wait outside across the street. I keep my eyes on the windows, scanning the floors in an orderly manner from top to bottom, then back up. As I’m scanning for the fourth time, a light goes on. I note which apartment it is. Fourth floor, third from the left.
“Bingo,” I say aloud. “Got you.”
CHAPTER 4 (#u7aa71407-9d30-51bf-a604-a09137ccd39a)
Ariadne
I am not happy about how things have played out.
As I draw the shade on the window facing the street, I wish that the Minoans had a safe house in Berlin. But we do not, and so advance agents set up this apartment, which is occupied by an elderly woman of our line who calls herself Lydia. Sixty years ago she was known by another name, one that is familiar to all Minoan Players. She was one of our greatest, a legend. Often when one of my class of candidates was struggling during an exercise, our trainers would yell, “Europa would be at the top of that cliff by now!” or some such thing. Often, I pictured her in my mind, fighting or swimming beside me, urging me on. Now she looks like one of the yia yias who crowd the markets of Greece, haggling over the price of olives and fish, yet still I feel I am in the presence of a great fighter.
“Do you think you were followed?” Lydia asks as she stirs the pot of avgolemono soup on the stove. She tastes it, then adds more salt. As I smell it, my mouth waters.
I’ve told her about the American soldier. I had to, as his interference prevented us from following our original plan, which was to have my compatriots meet me at the house where Sauer was hiding and take him by car out of the city. Instead, I had to take the extremely risky move of getting on the streetcar and coming here. By now, Theron and Cilla will have realized that something has gone wrong and should also be making their way here.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“You’re not sure?”
Once a Player, always a Player, I think to myself.
“I didn’t see him anywhere,” I tell her. “But it’s dark, and I was focused on making sure Sauer and the girl didn’t try to run.”
Lydia ladles soup into a bowl and carries it to the table. “You worry too much,” she says, patting me on the cheek.
“Perhaps you don’t worry enough,” I reply gently. I am not arguing with her, as I respect her too much. Also, she reminds me of my own grandmother.
She laughs. “Sit,” she says. “Eat. Theron and Cilla will be here soon, and then you’ll be on your way.”
“In a minute,” I tell her. “First, I need to speak with our guest.”
I pass through the living room, ignoring the girl, who is tied to a kitchen chair, a cloth around her mouth to prevent her from calling out. I go into one of the bedrooms, where Sauer is likewise tied up, and I shut the door behind me. I go to him, remove the gag, and sit on the edge of the bed.
“Who are you?” he asks.
There is no point in lying, so I tell him. “My name is Ariadne Calligaris.”
“You are not Russian,” he says.
“No.”
“What do you want with me?”
“You were working on a project involving a weapon,” I say. “We want that weapon.”
“Who is we?”
This I do not tell him. Instead I say, “The weapon is of alien design. You were asked to build it, or rebuild it, from plans that the Nazis discovered.”
He looks genuinely surprised but says nothing.
“There is going to be a war,” I continue. “A war that will make this most recent one look like a child’s game. The weapon you discovered may decide who wins and who loses.”
He shrugs. “Why do I care who wins?”
“Maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t care if you live or die. I think you do care whether the girl out there lives or dies.”
Sauer looks at me, and I know that I’m right. Actually, I knew already, as my threat to shoot her if either of them tried to run is what allowed me to get them here after escaping from the American. At first I was irritated by the unexpected presence of the girl. Now I am grateful for her, as I can use her as a bargaining chip in dealing with Sauer.
“I don’t have the weapon,” he says.
“Where is it?”
“Destroyed,” he says. “In the bombing. Along with the blueprints.”
I stand up and take my weapon from its holster. “Then I have no need for you or the girl,” I say, chambering a round. I walk to the door and put my hand on the knob.
“Wait,” he says, as I knew he would.
I turn and look at him, saying nothing.
“I don’t have them,” he says. “But I know where they are.”
“Are they in Berlin?”
He nods.
“Can you get to them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have half an hour to decide,” I tell him as I open the door. I shut it behind me, leaving him to think about his situation. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not. He might be trying to buy time. If he’s lying and the weapon and the plans really have been destroyed, it will be unfortunate for him. Some of what he’s discovered will still be in his head, and we can’t allow him to live with that information. It’s too valuable.
I return to the kitchen and sit down at the table. Lydia sits down across from me. She doesn’t speak, but her lifted eyebrows ask a question.
I know the girl is listening from the living room, and even though I have no reason to think that she speaks Greek, I don’t want to say too much. “The soup is wonderful,” I say to Lydia. “You’ll have to give me the recipe. I had it, but it might have been lost.”
She nods to show she understands my meaning: Sauer might or might not have what we want. And as I told him, he has until Theron and Cilla arrive to make up his mind. Until then, there is nothing else I can do, so I eat Lydia’s soup and think about how, if all goes well, in a few days I’ll be back in Greece with this mission behind me, and perhaps something that will greatly strengthen the Minoan line’s resources. If I am successful, my name will perhaps join Europa’s in the list of the great Players. Second only to winning Endgame itself, this would be a great achievement, and it would show my council that they chose the right Player.
When there’s a knock at the door, Lydia stands. “Theron and Cilla,” she says.
As Lydia goes to answer the door, I get up and go into the living room. Although there is a short hallway between the door and the living room, and the girl is out of sight, I train my gun on her anyway as a reminder not to make any noise.
“Who is it?” I hear Lydia ask.
“Dagmar, from next door,” says an elderly woman’s voice. “Can you help me? My stove has gone out, and I need a match.”
“Just a moment,” Lydia says. As she comes back to the living room she tells me, “The gas is always going out in the building. I’ll pass her a match through the door. It will look bad if I refuse.”
Again I wish that we were not in an apartment building. There is nothing to be done about it, however, and soon the old woman will be gone. I keep my eye and my gun on the girl as Lydia fetches a box of matches and returns to the door. I hear the click of the lock as she opens it.
“Here you are,” she says.
A moment later Lydia returns to the living room—but she’s not alone. There’s a man behind her. He has one arm around her neck and is pointing a gun at me. A second man appears, holding an old woman I assume is Dagmar. She’s whimpering softly, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Shut her up,” the man holding Lydia says.
The man holding Dagmar places a knife at her throat and slices it, as if she’s nothing more than a chicken being readied for the stewpot. The old woman’s eyes widen, and her hands flutter to her neck. The man lets go, and she crumples to the floor. He looks down at her, grinning, her blood on the blade of the knife in his hand. I consider shooting him, but I can feel the other man watching me.
“Put your gun down,” that one says now. “Or she’s next.” He tightens his grip on Lydia’s neck.
“Don’t. Kill him,” Lydia says to me in Greek.
“Quiet,” the man orders.
I look into Lydia’s eyes and try to telegraph a message to her as I hold my hands up and gently place my gun on a nearby end table.
“Good girl,” the man says. He looks at Lottie, who throughout all of this has remained in her chair, watching everything. Then he says to the other man, “Go find the engineer.”
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