The Bavarian Gate

"You are A

"I am. Though the cabby a

"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," A

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."

A

"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. A

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 A

A

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 A

"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 Gwy

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 perso

"I don't know that he's ever tried," A

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 A