into their home, against her better judgment, because what else could she have done? If the SS found it, she and Adam would be shot, and Ule—what would become of Ule? No doubt he would be given to some childless Aryan family to raise as their own, to bring up as a proper little Nazi.
She choked back her sobs and forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths until she stopped shaking.
That was how Adam found her an hour later when he and Ule came home, windswept and smiling. One glance and Adam sent Ule off to his room to play. “What happened?” he asked, and she gestured to the closet. He opened the door, found the suitcase, and turned to her, his expression stormy. “Why is this here?”
“Because our man in Moscow said so.” She told him about Erdberg’s clumsy mishap during the handoff. “I should have insisted that he take it back to his embassy and test it himself, but it all happened so fast. I had no choice but to bring the radio home. I couldn’t abandon it in the alley.”
Grimacing, Adam ran a hand over his jaw. “Let’s see if it works, and if it does, I’ll deliver it to Schumacher tonight.” After checking to make sure the front door was locked, he retrieved the suitcase and carefully opened it on the living room floor. “A manual,” he said, taking out a thin booklet.
“I suppose that’s Moscow’s idea of technical training.” Greta drew closer as he turned the pages, glancing between the manual and the device built into the suitcase. It was a transmitter-receiver, and according to the book’s diagrams and instructions, it had a range of up to six hundred miles and a battery that lasted two hours between recharges. That was, of course, when the radio functioned. As Adam established after clearing away some unidentifiable shards of broken glass, this one did not.
They waited for Erdberg to inform them how to return the radio, but when he did not contact them, Greta consulted Arvid, who arranged for her to hide it in a shed in Spandau until Edberg could retrieve it. Greta’s apprehensions lifted the moment the incriminating suitcase was out of her home, but a few days later when Adam told her the device had been repaired, she summoned up her courage and volunteered to collect it. The second handoff went flawlessly. Suitcase in hand, Greta took a circuitous route to the Schumachers’ flat, delivered the radio to Kurt, and went home, almost giddy from relief.
That night, Adam kissed her tenderly and praised her for handling her part of the operation so well, and he assured her that her services would not be required for the second radio. Hans Coppi, the passionate young Communist who had agreed to take charge of it, would receive it directly from Erdberg. “This was a dangerous job, darling, but well worth the risk,” Adam said. “These radios are going to be more essential than we realized.”
“Because of the invasion?”
“Yes, and because soon the Soviets will be our group’s only foreign contact. Donald Heath is leaving Berlin. The U.S. State Department is transferring him to Santiago, Chile.”
“What?” Greta exclaimed. “That’s insane. He’s the Americans’ best and most informed analyst of the Reich in Germany. Why would they send him to South America when his expertise is badly needed here?”
Adam had no answer, and neither did Arvid or Mildred. Mildred took the Heath family’s departure especially hard, for she and Louise Heath had become dear friends. Greta’s heart went out to Mildred. With each American acquaintance who left Berlin, her homeland surely seemed more distant yet.
With the loss of their only remaining contact within the United States government, the Soviets seemed to be the group’s last hope. When Adam told Greta that Kurt Schumacher and Hans Coppi were working steadily to establish radio contact with Moscow, she was glad that she had not let fear keep her from doing her part.
In early June, even as Arvid and Harro were gathering reams of evidence that Operation Barbarossa would launch within the month, the group suffered another setback—Schumacher was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Not only would he be forced to fight for the regime he despised, not only had they lost their radio operator, but they must persist in their work knowing that their success could cause their comrade’s death. Nor was he the only friend whose life their work put in jeopardy. Arvid’s younger brother Falk had been drafted by the