Holcroft listened to her, watching for false notes. There were none. She was telling him what she knew, and it was not a great deal.

"About six weeks before we left Brazil," Helden explained, "I drove home one night after a seminar at the university; we lived out in the countryside then. There was a dark-colored limousine in front, so I parked behind it. As I walked up to the porch, I heard yelling from inside. There was a terrible fight and I couldnt imagine who it was; I didnt recognize the one screaming. He kept yelling things like 'killer, 'murderer, 'it was you ... things like that. I ran inside and found Johann standing in the hallway in front of the man. He saw me, and told the man to be still. The man tried to strike Johann, but my brother is very powerful; he held the mans arms and pushed him out the door. The last words the man screamed were to the effect that others also knew; that they would see Johann hanged as a murderer, and if that didnt happen, theyd kill him themselves. He fell on the steps, still screaming, then he ran to the limousine, and Johann went after him. He said something to him through the window; the man spat in my brothers face and drove off."

"Did you ask your brother about it?"

"Naturally. But Johann wouldnt discuss it other than to say the man was mad. He had lost a great deal of money in a business venture and had gone crazy."

"You didnt believe him?"

"I wanted to, but then the meetings began. Johann would be out until all hours, away for days; he behaved quite abnormally. Then, only weeks later, we flew to Recife with a new name and a new country. Whoever was killed was very rich, very powerful. He had to be to have friends like that."

"You have no idea who the man was inside your house that night?"

"No. Id seen him before, but I couldnt remember where, and Johann wouldnt tell me. He ordered me never to bring up the matter again. There were things I should not be told."

"You accepted that?"

"Yes. Try to understand. We were children of Nazis, and we knew what that meant. It was often best not to ask questions."

"But you had to know what was going on."

"Oh, we were taught; make no mistake about it," said Helden. "We were trained to elude the Israelis; they could force information from us. We learned to spot a recruiter from the ODESSA, a maniac from the Rache; how to get away, how to use a hundred different tricks to throw them off."

Noel shook his head in amazement. "Your everyday training for the high-school glee club. Its crazy."

"Thats a word you could use three weeks ago," she said, reaching for his hand. "Not now. Not after today."

"What do you mean?"

"In the car I said I felt sorry for you because you had no training."

"And I said I thought I was getting it in a hurry."

"But so little, and so late. Johann told me to teach you what I could. I want you to listen to me, Noel. Try to remember everything I tell you."

"What?" Holcroft felt the strength of her grip and saw the concern in her eyes.

"Youre going to Berlin. I want you back."

With those words she began. There were moments when Noel thought he might smile-or, worse, laugh-but her intensity kept him in check; she was deadly serious. That afternoon three men had been killed. He and Helden might easily have been the fourth and the fifth victims. So he listened and tried to remember. Everything.

"Theres no time to get false papers; they take days. You have money; buy an extra seat on the plane. Stay alert, and dont let anyone sit next to you; dont get hemmed in. And dont eat or drink anything you didnt bring with you."

His mind briefly raced back to a British 747 and a vial of strychnine. "Thats a suggestion I wont forget."

"You might. Its so easy to ask for coffee or even a glass of water. Dont."

"I wont. What happens when I get to Berlin?"

"To any city," she corrected. "Find a small hotel in a crowded district where the main business is pornography, where theres prostitution, narcotics. Front desks never ask for identification in those areas. I know someone wholl give us the name of a hotel in Berlin...."

Her words poured forth, describing tactics, defining methods, telling him how to invent his own variations....

False names were to be used, rooms switched daily, hotels changed twice a week. Phone calls were to be placed from public booths, never from hotel rooms, never from residences. A minimum of three changes of outer clothing, including hats and caps and dissimilar glasses, were to be carried; shoes were to have rubber soles. These were best for running with a minimum of sound, for stopping and starting quickly, and walking silently. If questioned, he was to lie indignantly but not arrogantly, and never in a loud tone of voice. That kind of anger triggered hostility, and hostility meant delay and further questions. While flying from airport to airport, a gun was to be dismantled, its barrel separated from the handle, the firing pin removed. These procedures generally satisfied the European customs clerks: Inoperable weapons did not concern them; contraband did. But if they objected, he was to let them confiscate the gun; another could be purchased. If they let the weapon through, he was to reassemble it immediately, in the toilet stall of a mens room.

The street.... He knew something about the streets and crowds, he told Helden. One never knew enough, she replied, telling him to walk as close to the curb as possible, to be ready to dash out among the traffic at any sign of hostility or surveillance.

"Remember," she said, "youre the amateur, theyre the professionals. Use that position; turn your liability into an asset. The amateur does the unexpected, not because hes clever or experienced but because he doesnt know any better. Do the unexpected rapidly, obviously, as if confused. Then stop and wait. A confrontation is often the last thing surveillance wants. But if he does want it, you might as well know it. Shoot. You should have a silencer; well get you one in the morning. I know where."

He turned, stunned, unable to speak. She saw the astonishment in his eyes. "Im sorry," she said, leaning forward, smiling sadly and kissing him.

They talked through most of the night, the teacher and the pupil, lover and lover. Helden was obsessed; she would invent situations and then demand that he tell her what he would do in the hypothetical circumstances.

"Youre on a train, walking through a narrow corridor; youre carrying important papers. A man comes toward you from the opposite direction; you know him; hes the enemy. There are people behind you; you cant go back. What do you do?"

"Does the man-the enemy-want to hurt me?"

"You dont know. What do you do? Quickly!"

"Keep going, I guess. Alert, expecting the worst."

"No, my darling! The papers. Youve got to protect them! You trip; you fall to the floor!"

"Why?"

"Youll draw attention to yourself; people will help you up. The enemy wont make his move in that situation. You create your own diversion."

"With myself," said Nod, seeing the point.

"Exactly."

It went on, and on, and on, until the teacher and the pupil were exhausted. They made quiet love and held each other in the comfort of their warmth, the world outside a faraway thing. Finally, Helden fell asleep, her head on his chest, her hair covering her face.

He lay awake for a while, his arm across her shoulders, and wondered how a girl whod been entranced by The Wizard of Oz had grown up to become so skilled a practitioner in arts of deception and escape. She was from another world, and he had entered that world with alarming speed.

They awoke too late for Helden to go to work.

"Its just as well," she said, reaching for the phone. "We have shopping to do. My supervisor will accept a second day of illness. I think shes in love with me."

"I think I am too," said Noel, letting his fingers trace the curve of her neck. "Where do you live?"

She looked at him, smiling as she gave the number to the operator. Then she covered the mouthpiece. "Youll not extract vital information by appealing to my baser instincts. Im trained, remember?" She smiled again.

And was maddening again. "Im serious. Where do you live?"

The smile disappeared. "I cant tell you." She removed her hand from the telephone and spoke rapidly in French to the Gallimard switchboard.

An hour later they drove into Paris, first stopping at his hotel, to pick up his things, then moving on to a district profuse with secondhand-clothing stores. The teacher once more asserted her authority; she chose the garments with a practiced eye. The clothes she selected for the pupil were nondescript, difficult to spot in a crowd.

A mackinaw and a brown topcoat were added to his raincoat. A battered country walking hat; a dark fedora, its crown battered; a black cap whose visor fell free of the snap. All were well worn. But not the shoes; they were new. One pair with thick crpe soles; a second, less informal, whose leather soles were the base for a layer of rubber attached by a shoemaker down the street.

The shoe-repair shop was four blocks away from a shabby storefront. Helden went in alone, instructing him to remain outside. She emerged ten minutes later with a perforated cylinder, the silencer for his automatic.

He was being outfitted with uniforms and the proper weapon. He was being processed and sent into combat after the shortest period of basic training one could imagine. He had seen the enemy. Alive and following him ... and then dead in the streets and alleyways of a village called Montereau-faut-Yonne. Where was the enemy now?

Helden was confident they had lost him for a while. She thought the enemy might pick him up at the airport, but once in Berlin, he could lose that enemy again.

He had to. She wanted him back; she would be waiting.

They stopped at a small cafe for lunch and wine. Helden made a final phone call and returned to the booth with the name of a hotel in Berlin. It was in the Hurenviertel, that section of the city where sex was an open commodity.

She held his hand, her face next to his; in minutes he would go out on the street alone and hail a taxi for Orly Airport.

"Be careful, my darling."

"I will."

"Remember the things Ive told you. They may help."

"Ill remember."

"The hardest thing to accept is that its all real. Youll find yourself wondering, why me? why this? Dont think about it; just accept it."

Nothing is as it was for you. Nothing can ever be the same.

"I have. Ive also found you."

She glanced away, then turned back to him. "When you get to Berlin, near the hotel, pick up a whore in the street. Its a good protective device. Keep her with you until you make contact with Kessler."

The Air France 707 made its final approach into Tempelhof Airport. Noel sat on the right side of the plane, in the third seat on the aisle, the space next to him unoccupied.

You have money; buy an extra seat ... and dont let anyone sit next to you; dont get hemmed in.

The ways of survival, spoken by a survivor, thought Holcroft. And then he remembered that his mother had called herself a survivor. Althene had taken a certain pride in the term, her voice four thousand miles away, over the telephone.

She had told him she was taking a trip. It was her way of going into hiding for several weeks, the methods of evasion and concealment learned more than thirty years ago. God, she was incredible! Noel wondered where she would go, what she would do. He would call Sam Buonoventura, in Curaao, in a few days. Sam might have heard from her by then.

The customs inspection at Tempelhof was swift. Holcroft walked into the terminal, found the mens room, and reassembled his gun.

As instructed, he took a taxi to the Tiergarten park. Inside the cab, he opened his suitcase, changed into the worn brown topcoat and the battered walking hat. The car stopped; he paid the fare, got out, and walked into the park, sidestepping strollers, until he found an empty bench, and sat down. He scanned the crowds; no one stopped or hesitated. He got up quickly and headed for an exit. There was a taxi stand nearby; he stood in line, glancing around unobtrusively to see if he could spot the enemy. It was difficult now to single out anything or anyone specifically; the late-afternoon shadows were becoming longer and darker.

His turn came. He gave the driver the names of two intersecting streets. The intersection was three blocks north and four blocks west of the hotel. The driver grinned and spoke in thickly accented but perfectly understandable English.

"You wish a little fun? I have friends, Herr Amerikaner. No risk of the French sickness."

"Youve got me wrong. Im doing sociological research."

"Wie?"

"Im meeting my wife."

They drove in silence through the streets of Berlin. With each turn they made, Noel watched for a car somewhere behind them that made the same turn. A few did, but none for any length of time. He recalled Heldens words: They often use radios. Such a simple thing as a change of coat or the wearing of a hat will throw them off. Those receiving instructions will look for a man in a jacket and no hat, but he is not there.

Were there unseen men watching for a certain taxi and a certain passenger wearing certain clothing? He would never know; he knew only that no one appeared to be following him now.

During the twenty-odd minutes it took to reach the intersection, night had come. The streets were lined with gaudy neon signs and suggestive posters. Young fair-haired cowboys coexisted with whores in slit skirts and low-cut blouses. It was another sort of carnival, thought Holcroft, as he walked south for the prescribed three blocks, toward the corner where he would turn left.

He saw a prostitute in a doorway, applying lipstick to her generous mouth. She was in that indeterminate age bracket so defiantly obscured by whores and chic suburban housewives-somewhere between thirty-five and forty-eight, and losing the fight. Her hair was jet black, framing her pallid white skin, her eyes deep, hollowed with shadows. Beyond, on the next block, he could see the shabby hotels marquee, one letter shorted out in its neon sign.

He approached her, not entirely sure what to say. His lacking German was not his only impediment: He had never picked up a whore in the streets.

He cleared his throat. "Good evening, Frulein? Can you speak English?"

The woman returned his look, coolly at first, appraising his cloth topcoat. Then her eyes dropped to the suitcase in his right hand, the attache case in his left. She parted her lips and smiled; the teeth were yellow. "Ja, mein American friend. I speak good. I show you a good time."

"Id like that. How much?"

"Twenty-five deutsche marks."

"Id say the negotiations are concluded. Will you come with me?" Holcroft took his money clip from his pocket, peeled off three bills, and handed them to the woman. "Thirty deutsche marks. Lets go to that hotel down the street."

"Wohin?"

Noel gestured at the hotel in the next block. "There," he said.

"Gut," said the woman, taking his arm.

The room was like any room in a cheap hotel in a large city. If there was a single positive feature, it was to be found in the naked light bulb in the ceiling. It was so dim it obscured the stained, broken furniture.

"Dreissig Minuten," announced the whore, removing her coat and draping it over a chair with a certain military elan. "You have one half hour, no more. I am, as you Americans say, a businessman. My time is valuable."

"Im sure it is," said Holcroft. "Take a rest or read something. Well leave in fifteen or twenty minutes. Youll stay with me and help me make a phone call." He opened the attache case and found the paper with the information on Erich Kessler. There was a chair against the wall; he sat down and started to read in the dim light.

"Ein Telephonanruf?" said the woman. "You pay thirty marks for me to do nothing for you but help you mit dem Telephon?"

"Thats right."

"That is... verrckt!"

"I dont speak German. I may have trouble reaching the person Ive got to call."

"Why do we wait here, then? There is Telephon by the corner."

"For appearances, I guess."

The whore smiled. "I am your Deckung."

"What?"