doing. About why. “I’m ready.”
“Come then.” Eleanor squared her shoulders. Inside the barracks, the floor was dirt and a rotten smell came off the stone walls. He led her from the room and down the hall, stopping in front of a closed door. “This is it.” It was different from the others, reinforced with steel and a peephole in the middle.
Eleanor peered through. At the sight of Hans Kriegler, she gasped with recognition, recoiling. The face she had seen so many times in reports and photographs was now just a few meters away. He looked the same, perhaps a little thinner, wearing khaki prison garb. She’d heard stories about Allied troops exacting their revenge on prisoners. But, except for a pinkish scar across his left cheek, Kriegler looked no worse for the wear. And he was so ordinary, like a bookseller or merchant one might see on the streets of Paris or Berlin before the war. Hardly the monster she’d imagined in her mind.
Mick gestured with his head. “You can go in.”
Eleanor stopped, unexpectedly frozen in her tracks. She stared at the one man who might have all of the answers she had been searching for. For the first time, there was some part of her that didn’t want to know the truth. She could go back, tell some of the families at least that she had found where and how the girls died. That much was true and for most of them it would be enough. But then she saw the girls’ parents, the agony in their eyes when they asked why. She had sworn to herself that she would find out what had happened and why. Nothing less would do.
The cell was a barracks room, small and rectangular. There was a bed with a blanket, a small lamp. A coffeepot sat on the corner. “This is how we house prisoners?”
“It’s the Geneva Convention, Ellie. These are high-ranking officers. We’re trying to keep it clean, no allegations of mistreatment.”
She shook her head. “Surely my girls received no such consideration.”
“You’d best go in,” Mick urged her. He looked uneasily over his shoulder. “We don’t have long.”
Eleanor took a deep breath and started through the door. “Herr Kriegler,” she said, addressing him as a civilian, refusing to use the title he did not deserve. He turned to her, his expression neutral. “I’m Eleanor Trigg.”
“I know who you are.” He stood politely, as though they were in a café and had arranged to meet for coffee. “So nice to finally meet you.” His tone was familiar, unafraid and almost cordial.
“You know who I am?” She could not help but sound off guard.
“Of course. We know everything.” She noticed his use of the present tense. He gestured toward the coffeepot. “If you would like some, I can ask for another cup.”
I’d sooner drink poison than have coffee with you, she wanted to say. Instead, she shook her head. He took a sip, then grimaced. “Nothing like the coffee back home in Vienna. My daughter and I loved to go to this little café off Stefansplatz and have Sacher torte and coffee,” he remarked.
“How old is your daughter?”
“She’s eleven now. I haven’t seen her in four years. But you didn’t come to talk about children or coffee. You want to ask me about the girls.”
It was as if he had been expecting her, and it made her uneasy. “The female agents,” she corrected. “The ones who never came home. I know that they are dead,” she added, not wanting to hear him say the words. “I want to know how they died—and how they were captured.”
“Gas or gunshot, here or another camp, does it matter?” She blanched at his dispassionate tone. “They were spies.”
“They weren’t spies.” She bristled.
“Well, what would you call them?” he shot back. “They were dressed in civilian clothes, operating in occupied territory. They were captured and killed.”
“I know that,” she said, recovering. “But how were they captured?” He looked away, still recalcitrant. “You know those women had children themselves, daughters like yours. Those children will never see their mothers again.”
She saw it then—something shifted in his eyes, a flicker of fear breaking through. “I won’t see mine again either. I’m going to hang for what I’ve done,” he said.
If there is a just God. “You don’t know that for sure. If you cooperate, perhaps you might get a life sentence. So why not tell me the truth?” she pressed. “The things I want to know have nothing to do with