Ernst turned away from him, went back outside, and saw that residents of the other two buildings were already being led out into the road. Most were carrying suitcases. The men looked shocked and confused, some women sobbed, the children seemed dazed, as all were urged up into the back of the trucks. Satisfied that the operation was proceeding in an orderly fashion, he went back inside just as Willi Brandt, who would never make a good soldier, walked into the first ground-floor apartment, looking pale and distraught. Ernst went to the doorway, looked in, and saw that Willi had stopped in front of the two old people. Instead of packing, they were holding one another on the sofa, the man trying to comfort his wife as she sobbed into his shoulder.

'You're not in danger,' Willi was saying. 'You won't be harmed, I promise you. You've committed no offence and are simply being rehoused. Wherever you go, you will not be harmed. It's unfortunate, but at least you're in no danger, I can promise you that. Now, please, before you make someone angry, pack your suitcases.'

Ernst wanted to laugh at Willi's naive a.s.sertion that the old people would not be harmed, for he knew that they were merely another two of the estimated one million Poles who had so far been expelled from their homes to make way for the Germans from the Baltic and outlying regions of Poland. True enough, they would not necessarily be killed outright; but it was from such unfortunates that Ernst would be selecting the men, women, and children who would be used as slave labour in the underground weapons research factories of the Third Reich, as guinea pigs in the so-called anthropological medical experiments that Himmler and the icy American, Wilson, were hoping would lead to the secrets of longevity, or as prisoners branded fit enough to be shipped secretly to Neuschwabenland in the Antarctic where, under the most appalling conditions, they would help construct Himmler's SS base under the ice and snow.

However, as this particular couple were too old to be of much use in any way, they would almost certainly end up in a concentration camp, which they would be unlikely to survive.

Still, Brandt's well-intentioned remarks did the trick. Upon hearing them, the old woman actually managed to stop sobbing long enough to whisper, 'Thank you, Lieutenant,' and then lead her husband into the bedroom to start packing their suitcases.

'You're too kind for your own good, Lieutenant Brandt,' Ernst said laconically, thus making an embarra.s.sed Brandt turn around to face him. 'Some day that kindness will be misconstrued as weakness and you might pay the price for that.'

'I was merely ' Willi began.

'Yes, Willi, I know.' Ernst grinned and stepped past him to glance into the bedroom. The old couple were indeed packing their two suitcases, both with tears on their pale cheeks. 'Hey, old man!' Ernst said. 'Does the owner of this building actually live in it?'

'Yes, sir,' the old man said, his voice trembling. 'Mrs Kosilewski, who lives in the attic.'

'Thank you. Auf Wiedersehen.' Ernst grinned and turned away. 'Keep your eye on them,' he said to Brandt, 'and make sure they get into one of the trucks. It's either them or you, Willi.'

'Yes, sir,' Brandt replied.

Reminded, as he left the room, of the striking difference between Brandt's kindness and Ritter's growing cruelty, convinced that the latter would profit more than the former in the Third Reich, Ernst started up the stairs, to ensure that everything was proceeding properly on the floors above. When he heard the bawling of his soldiers and saw those respectable, middle-cla.s.s Polish citizens shuffling sobbing from their apartments, each carrying a single suitcase and otherwise leaving behind not only their possessions but their homes, he realized just how far from home he was... far from Germany, far from Projekt Saucer, far from what he had been. Now, once more, he was a policeman instead of an engineer.

He was a party to genocide.

Someone on the second floor was slow to leave his apartment and Ernst saw a submachine gun, speedily reversed, its b.u.t.t swinging, as Ritter struck the unfortunate man between his shoulder blades and made him lurch forward. The man cried out as he started falling, but his wife quickly jerked him upright, then both of them hurried down the stairs, even as Ernst went up the next flight. When on the third floor he saw more adults and children leaving their homes forever in the belief that they would at least be rehoused somewhere decent, he thought again of the spread of Himmler's underground research factories, of the medical experiments that Wilson wanted, of their ultimate destination, Neuschwabenland, and felt bitter at the recollection of just how brief his return to k.u.mmersdorf had been. He had no sooner settled back into the supervision of Projekt Saucer than the blitzkreig against Poland had commenced, the Polish air force had been destroyed, and Poland's ground forces routed. Then Himmler, having deprived him of his rightful place in that historic event, had sent him here to organize the rounding up of the human labour force required for the underground factories and the colonization of the Antarctic.

He tried to think of it as a great honour, his guarantee of a place in history; but sometimes, as right now, surrounded by sobbing women and shocked children and beaten men, he could only yearn to be back in Berlin, overseeing Wilson and the German engineers.

Sometimes, it had to be admitted, this work made him feel dirty.

Pushing his way through the hara.s.sed Poles milling about on the third-floor landing, he glanced through the window and saw his armed troops forming a pathway from the front door of the building to the trucks, their shadows elongated in the yellow lighting of the streetlamps and falling over the bowed heads and shoulders of the Poles who shuffled dispiritedly between them. Now viewing the Poles as mere numbers, his allotment for this evening, he climbed the last flight of stairs to the closed door of the attic. Because he knew that the cow of a landlady would be hiding inside, he hammered his clenched fist repeatedly on the wooden door.

'I know you're in there, Frau Kosilewski!' he shouted. 'So please open the door!'

'The door's not locked,' a surprisingly sensual voice replied. 'You have only to enter.'

Feeling foolish but also amused, Ernst opened the door and looked in. The attic was enormous and beautifully furnished. When he stepped inside, he saw the landlady seated in an armchair, calmly smoking a cigarette. She was wearing a black silk dress, which clung closely to her luscious body, and her feet were in high-heeled shoes that emphasized the curves of her legs, one of which was crossed over the other, exposed from the knee down.

No cow at all, Ernst thought.

'I have packed, as you can see,' the woman said, indicating the suitcase nearby with a lazy wave of the hand holding the cigarette, 'but thought I would wait until I was called.'

Ernst advanced farther into the attic and stopped close enough to the woman to observe that she had pitch-black hair falling to her shoulders, as well as eyes as dark and deep as the ocean.

'You thought we'd forget you?' Ernst asked, aware that he was becoming aroused by the sight of those elegantly crossed legs, the artfully arched foot, the high, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s under the tight black silk, that steady, measuring gaze.

Mrs Kosilewski smiled and shook her head. 'No, Kapitn,' she said. 'I didn't think that for a moment. We all know how efficient the Germans are. I merely decided to wait until the last moment to avoid the crush and chaos.'

She pursed her brightly painted lips, sucked on her cigarette, pursed her lips again to blow some smoke rings. She knew just what she was doing.

'You live here alone?' Ernst asked, feeling hot and somnolent with desire, his thoughts slipping and sliding.

'Yes, Kapitn. I'm not married. I was married, but my husband died four years ago, which is why I now run this place on my own.'

'Ran it,' Ernst corrected her. 'You run it no longer.'

She nodded, her gaze steady upon him. 'Yes, Kapitn, I know. May I ask whom you intend moving in here instead?'

'Germans from the Baltic and outlying regions of the country. No Jews. No Poles.'

'I am not a Jew, Kapitn.'

'But you are a Pole,' he reminded her.