As far as he could see, there was nothing useful left to do there, so he started for the schloss, hiking along the lakeshore to avoid sharp eyes that might otherwise penetrate his cloak in the bright sunlight.

Avoiding the road, Macurdy approached the schloss through the forest. On this lovely, if chill and breezy spring morning, the SS platoon was doing morning exercises on the large front lawn, shouting cadence, young voices strong and vigorous. So he crossed the lawn behind the building, to the end of the near wing and the cellar's rear entryway. Presumably the whole platoon was in front. No one would be in a position to see him unless they were on duty in the stable, perhaps feeding the colonel's horses.

Moving quietly down the entryway steps, he tried the door to the cellar. It was Thursday, and he didn't really expect to find it unbarred, except perhaps on Friday and Saturday evenings when guardsmen would bring party girls from town. But to his surprise, it gave. Opening it a few inches, he listened hard, and hearing nothing, peered in. The long corridor was empty, so he entered, closing the door behind him, beginning toy eel optimistic again. Someone, he noticed, had put fresh bulbs in two fixtures that had been lightless before. It was still poorly lit, but lighter than it had been.

Though his initial business was not in this wing, he paused to pick the lock of the first explosives magazine, to make sure the TNT was still there. It was. He checked the second with the same result, then moved on into unknown territory, the cellar beneath the south wing, the Voitar's wing. It seemed indistinguishable from the wing he knew, except that it had a back entrance. Nor did it open into the sacrificial chamber at the base of the tower.

From its end, he worked his way back toward the main section, doors. None that he checked were locked. Three were half full of furnishings protected by large sheets. The others had nothing more than some bugs and a damp earthy smell until, halfway to the ell, he found the one he'd use.

It appeared to have been a machine shop, and later, storage for old plumbing and other junk, most of it since hauled away, probably melted down for the war effort. What remained was non-metallic, except for small odds and ends: pipe caps, tee joints, short cut-off pieces of pipe, rusty bolts, a corroded brass hinge, cuttings from threading pipes… Beside the door was a light fixture with its bulb burned out.

The room's most important feature was a long dining table, lying on its side near the back wall, shoulder high. When it had graced some dining room, it would have seated 20, he thought. Now its veneer was warped and curled, but for him it looked ideal-a bonus he'd never imagined.

This is the room, he thought. Taking the dead bulb from its fixture, he went into the corridor and exchanged it with one of the good bulbs there. Back in the room, he installed and lit it, then digging the towel from the drop bag, blocked the space beneath the door so the light couldn't be seen from the corridor. Next he moved the heavy table some 10 feet from the wall, and emptied the drop bag on the floor behind it.

Finally, taking the towel, packframe and drop bag with him, he went back to the SS wing, to one of the magazines, closed the door behind him, turned on the light, and put the folded towel against the crack.

So far, so good, he told himself, now the work begins. Taking the packframe from his back, he went behind the large pile of TNT and began loading half-kilo blocks into the drop bag till it was full. After hoisting the now-heavy packframe onto his shoulders, he peered up and down the corridor, then lugged the explosive to the south wing and unloaded it behind the concealing table top. Cat-footed and quick, he repeated the procedure, trip after trip without a break, till he'd transferred 800 blocks, almost 900 pounds of the powerful explosive, none of it visible from the door.

In the magazines, he'd taken only from the back of the stacks. From the door, they looked undisturbed. Far more remained than he'd taken.

There'd been no interruption, no guard patrol, no one at all but himself. Clearly the SS considered their building security satisfactory, for who but they and the Voitar knew the magazines existed? Besides, there was always a guard outside the main entrance, and another in the foyer.

Phase two of his plan had to be carried out that night, Thursday, because the guardsmen would probably have party girls in on Friday and Saturday nights. One squad would be given passes on one night, another on the other, while the other two would have theirs the following week. So it was important he rest now, by day. He looked for a mattress in one of the rooms where furniture was stored, and settled for three large sofa cushions, which he lay as a bed behind his stack of transplanted TNT. Taking a K ration from his musette bag, he ate, then drank from his canteen, turned out the light, and removed the towel from the bottom of the door. Finally, using his GI penlight, he went to the cushions and lay down.

For a minute or two he lay awake thinking: He still didn't know how to blow the building, short of suicide, but he'd come up with something. Meanwhile first things first: He did know how he'd blow the gate. The problem there was the timing; if it wasn't just right, it wouldn't work.

He awoke having to relieve himself. Taking the toilet paper from the K ration he'd eaten, he cloaked himself, checked the corridor, returned to the unbarred entryway and left the building. It was still daylight but the sun was low, the side yard mostly shadowed by bordering trees.

Even so, crossing it made him twitchy. This was the SS wing, and if someone saw him through a window… His jumpsuit didn't look remotely like an SS uniform, or anyone's uniform except the American airborne.

Macurdy, he told himself, quit your damned worrying. It's worked every time. Even Hansi didn't see you till you fumbled that file folder.

After relieving himself in the forest, he walked to the lake, and in the early dusk, refilled his canteen. Then he returned to the building, to one of the magazines. Once more he filled the drop bag with TNT, this time taking it not to the stack behind the old table, but out the back entryway. He packed it about 500 yards, including a couple hundred feet up the four-wheel-drive road that climbed the Witches' Ridge. There he stashed it behind a patch of fir saplings, cloaking the stash. He marked the place-it would soon be too dark to find it otherwise-by breaking off a dead fir sapling and laying it across the truck trail. Using the pen light would be risky, so near the county road.

That trip too he repeated, till he'd transferred some 300 half-kilo blocks, and had started back for more. By that time it was fully night, and moonless. When he'd almost reached the graveled road, he heard footsteps walking in the direction of the schloss. Motionless, he listened while the person passed, invisible to him in the moonless, tree-shadowed dark. Even after he could no longer hear the sounds, he waited a couple of minutes before following. Sound could betray him.

But he did take something for granted. In the entryway he opened the door-to find two SS men coming toward him down the corridor, talking! One glanced toward him, stopped and stared, then swore. "That damned Josef! The fool left the door wide open! If Mueller or Lipanov find it like that, it will ruin everything!"

"It could have been the woman."

"That's beside the point! It's Josefs responsibility!" He strode toward Macurdy, who backed away, holding his breath. Grabbing the door, the soldier closed it in his face. Chagrined, Macurdy climbed the dozen steps to the yard and retreated to the forest's edge. The person who'd passed on the road had been "the woman," it seemed to him: some farmer's wife or daughter whose husband or boy friend was fighting in the Ukraine, or sitting in a bunker on the Channel coast. A woman feeling desperate with life, and perhaps short of money.