"You are Anna Hofstetter?" she asked.

"I am. Though the cabby announced me as Miss Henderson." The woman ignored the comment, and did not give her own name. Without looking at him she asked, "I take it then that this is Mr. Monday."

"That's right."

"When did you arrive?"

Macurdy's guts grabbed. This was a moment of threat.

"I might better ask why you didn't," Anna replied. "We were put ashore three nights back and spent several hours freezing on the beach while we waited. When dawn came and your people hadn't, we walked to a road, caught a ride, took a room and slept."

She paused, staring critically at her questioner. "The next night we walked back to the beach, which was not an easy task for Mr. Monday, with his war wounds. Hopefully you can appreciate the risk, going about like that so near the coast, with Mr. Monday speaking only German! No one came that night, either, so we returned to East Dunsford and called my Aunt. We'd have been quite stranded if it weren't for her."

The young woman had stiffened. "You must recognize the strain on operations here," she countered. "Captain Streicher and two others were arrested last Wednesday, and operations were totally disrupted. We'd expected you some time, but didn't know on what night. We never received the signal."

Anna nodded. "Quite understandable. And I suppose one never knows if the-transportation-will get through the naval and aerial patrols."

"Of course."

It felt to Macurdy as if the two women had worked out a needed basis of mutual respect. For a moment he'd been prepared to cast a shock wave at the Oriental, if there were trouble. For at that moment he realized what had been missing in his lessons at the schloss: To cast an emotion effectively, he, at least, needed to feel emotion.

"You've eaten, I presume," the woman said.

"Within the hour. After your Scandinavian questioned us."

"Well then. You'll have another bit of a wait, but it shouldn't be extreme. Meanwhile I've work to do." She gestured at the oriental. "Bahn will look after you. You'll find magazines and newspapers. Don't believe the news from the war fronts. It's all lies."

"Naturally."

The woman turned away, then paused and looked back. "By the way," she said, "my name is Alice," then left the room. Anna caught Macurdy's displeasure at the prospect of sitting around for an indeterminate time with nothing he could safely do, so she translated aloud to him from the paper, from articles on the war. Pausing several times to repeat in German, "You see now, Kurt, why it is so important to the Fatherland that you are here. When it is all over, you will be a very great hero."

The wait was shorter than he'd expected. The buzzer sounded three short blasts in rapid succession, startlingly loud and harsh.

There'd been no call from the front entrance-this was someone with access to the building-but Bahn got quickly to his feet, stepped to the door, and opened it.

The new station chief stepped inside and spoke in pure American English. "Hello, Bahn. Have we had visitors yet?" Stepping into view, he looked toward Anna and Montag, and Macurdy's blood froze. He made a flash self-review: His hair had been lank then, now it was bur-cut. And he'd known no German.

Anna was getting to her feet. Slowly, clumsily, Montag followed suit, standing round-shouldered, gaze fixed on the floor, looking as small as he could, creating an image of a different him, while opening his mind to Anna.

The man switched to German. "Ah! Fraulein Hofstetter I presume. And this must be Herr Montag." Abruptly he stiffened, and his right hand shot out in the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!" he barked, but not too loudly, then relaxed and smiled. "You will excuse my slowness in greeting you properly. It is a practice I've had to repress since I've been here."

He stepped toward them and shook first Anna's hand, then Montag's, showing no suspicion. Macurdy had regained his composure, but did not relax his exaggerated Montag persona. Apparently since they'd passed the preliminary vetting by the Irishman, Geltman, and the Swede or whatever he was, Hansi was accepting them at face value.

"I am Oberleutnant Hans Dietrich Schweiger, and as you have realized, I am the station chief here. I am also known as John Sweiger, of Portland, Oregon, USA. I report on the war for the Associated Press, and on occasion have spoken to the American public via NBC radio." He smiled wryly. "Journalists are the only contact Americans have with what, to Europeans and the English, are the realities of war."

He examined Montag more closely now, looking not for falsenesses, but at a claim he found hard to accept, even from Berlin-that this creature, this refugee from the eugenics authorities, was an actual, functioning psychic who could cast confusion and panic through SHAEF, and disrupt the invasion.

Or had the eugenicists already had him? The fellow certainly seemed cowed; he could almost smell his timidity. He'd heard rumors that thousands of the feeble-minded had been sterilized, and assumed it meant castration.

"Well," he said, "we have work to do, you and I. Fraulein Hofstetter, if you and Herr Montag will come with me to my office…" He turned and led them down a hall to the study: a fairly large room with a desk, file cabinets, supply cabinets, work table, and a gas fireplace. "I'm afraid I'm not fully operational here yet," he told them, "though Fraulein Gwynne has made major headway. We've had to move some of my things out to make room, and assemble, move in and organize a good deal of material for my new responsibilities. All having to be done very carefully, you understand. I have also been obtaining the materials which Herr Montag must have to carry out his mission here. And of course, I must continue my duties as a journalist, which not only provide my cover identity, but provide important contacts and information."

From the supply cabinet he took a map tube and laid it on the work table, then from a file cabinet, several large envelopes, meanwhile continuing to talk. "I've arranged locations from which Herr Montag can see both the Bushy Park headquarters and Norfolk House. I have even-" he paused to flash a grin at them "-have even obtained floor plans of both buildings, marked with the departments assigned to different areas."

"There may be difficulty getting near enough to recognize individual personnel, but perhaps we can work around that." From one envelope he took photo prints of uniformed men. "Here are enlarged photos of all the major ones: Eisenhower, Tedder, Montgomery, Smith, Leigh-Mallory… all of them. The names are on the bottom. And here are photos of some of the lesser fish, with their names and what they do. Can he work from photos?"

"I don't know that he's ever tried," Anna said. "And I must tell you, being in a strange country has affected him. He has always been shy; now he's become somewhat depressed. He will be happier when he has things to do. In training he was sometimes like a happy child."

She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Do you have a photo of someone we can test him on? They'd need to be in a building he can see-in a known part of the building-and we'd need some way of knowing whether he's had an effect or not. We should look into that before we go further."

Hansi nodded. "I believe you are right. But first we should eat."

He took them back into the sitting room, where Bahn was already fixing lunch. They had open-faced sandwiches with cheese paste, a kind of fish Macurdy wasn't familiar with, potato, rice pudding, and tea-not a lot of any of it. Macurdy decided that in countries where civilian rationing was tight, he'd been fortunate in eating military meals.

After lunch, Hansi showed Anna and Montag a picture of a man, obese and middle-aged. After having Montag study it, he took them by cab to a small park not far away, where he pointed out a building across the street and down half a block Speaking English, he directed Anna's attention to a 3rd-floor window. "That's his office. He's probably there right now. I know him well, and his secretary even better. He's an underworld associate of mine, a barrister who sometimes provides me with useful connections. Have Mr. Monday give it a try, then I'll drop in on him."