"Yeah, well, we made a deal, the Germans and me. I forgave them for the war, they forgave me for the peace."

"Isn't that convenient," Gault said sarcastically.

"Look, Gault, I've made a lot of good friends over here. I'm sure some of them are in the Nazi party, hell it only costs six marks a month to belong. I don't ask them, it's none of my concern. If Hitler's their cup of tea, then I say they're welcome to him. It's none of our damn business what the Germans do."

"Please," Miss Dietrich pleaded, "can we change the subject? I am so tired of it, everyone you meet these days talks politics, politics, politics."

"It's the national sport," said Keegan. "We've got baseball, you've got the storm troopers."

She scowled painfully at the analogy.

"What brought you here?" Keegan asked her, attempting to remove the scowl.

"Haven't you heard? The American embassy is the social center of Berlin this season." Her lip curled into a faint and delicious smile.

"I hope that doesn't get back to Wally Wallingford," Keegan said. "His head's already ten sizes too big for his hat."

"Speaking of the devil." She nodded over Keegan's shoulder.

Wallace Wallingford was the protocol chief of the embassy and its social director. He was a slight man in his early thirties, tense and formal, with blond hair that was already beginning to thin out and anxious, watery eyes. Like many career diplomats, Wallingford affected an air of superiority, an attitude which intimidated some. But on this night he seemed nervous and distracted. Tiny beads of sweat twinkled on his forehead.

"Marlene, darling," he said, kissing her hand, "how generous of you to come."

"You're delightful, Wally," she said, "but you do have a tendency toward overstatement."

"And how are you, Francis?" Wallingford said.

"Just fine, Wally. Generous of you to ask."

Wallingford glared at him for a moment, then took his elbow.

"Marlene, may I borrow him for a moment or two?"

"Of course."

"I'll be back in a minute," Keegan said as Wallingford led him away.

"You've got to do something about that band, Wally," Keegan said.

"Like what?"

"I suggest deporting them. The sooner, the better."

"Just keep smiling and listen," Wallingford said softly. "You know where my office is on the second floor?"

"Of course I know where your office is. And stop talking without moving your lips, you look like Edgar Bergen."

Wallingford affected a frozen smile and said casually, "Wait about five minutes. Then go out on the terrace and come back in the side door. I'll meet you up there."

"Damn it, Wally, I was talking to the most beautiful, the most sensual, the most . .. "

"Don't be difficult, this is very serious," Wallingford said, still with that frozen grin. "Five minutes." And he moved back into the crowd.

Keegan looked back toward Marlene but Gault had already swept her onto the dance floor. The little hunchback was nowhere to be seen. Keegan went to the terrace and lit a cigarette.

From an alcove in the ballroom, Vierhaus continued to watch Keegan as he casually puffed on his cigarette, picked a carnation from the flowers at the edge of the garden, and fitting it into the slit in his lapel, strolled into the garden, vanishing into the damp, moonless night.

Keegan walked around the corner of the building, went back in through a side door and went up the stairs two at a time. Wallingford was waiting for him in the upper hallway.

"All right, Wally, what the hell is this all about?"

"You know who Felix Reinhardt is?" Wallingford asked nervously.

"The writer? Sure. He's the one who called Hitler the greatest actor in the world and said they should have given him a stage instead of the whole country."

"The whole world's the son of a bitch's stage," Wallingford said. "Reinhardt's here in my office."

"Why doesn't he come downstairs and join the rest of us peons?"

"Because he can't," Wallingford said, lowering his voice in exasperation.

Keegan laughed. "What's the matter, is he on the lam?" "Exactly."

They entered Wallingford's office, a large, book-lined room that smelled of leather and pipe tobacco. There were two men in the room. Keegan knew one of them casually. His name was Herman Fuegel, a tall, gangly, awkward-looking American immigration officer who worked in the embassy. Fuegel was an American but his parents had migrated from Germany and he was fluent in the language.

The other person was Felix Reinhardt. He was sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room, a heavyset man in his early forties with thick, black hair that tumbled almost to his shoulders and deep-set, dark-circled eyes. His tie was pulled down and he was disheveled and nervous. A partially eaten plate of fruit and vegetables sat on the coffee table in front of him.

"Mr. Reinhardt, this is Francis Keegan, an American. We can trust him. Francis, this is Felix Reinhardt."

"My pleasure," Keegan said. Reinhardt merely nodded. It was obvious he was deeply disturbed.

"They killed Probst," he blurted suddenly. "You wouldn't believe it. They just walked in his office, four of them, and emptied their guns into him." He made a gun from his forefinger and fist and said very slowly, "Bang . . . bang . . . bang . . . like that, over and over until their guns were clicking empty. Bang . . . bang . . . then they burned the building with him inside. It was . . . worse than awful. Worse than . . ."

"Easy," Wallingford said, handing him a brandy. The writer sipped it and seemed to calm down.

"Who's Probst?" Keegan asked, bewildered by the entire scene.

"A young German artist," Reinhardt said. "We put out The Berlin Conscience together. He also counterfeited passports for us."

"Us?" Keegan said. "Who's us?"

Reinhardt stared at him for a moment. "Enemies of the state. Communists, Jews, anyone who disagrees with our great Fhrer," he said bitterly.

"They killed him for making phony passports?" Keegan said with disbelief. "Who? Who did it?"

"The Sturmabteilung, " Reinhardt said.

"Am I missing something here?" Keegan asked. "Here we are, standing in front of an immigration man, and we're talking about phony passports."

"Christ, Keegan, you are thick," Wallingford said.

"As long as he has papers nobody will question him," Fuegel explained. "But if he comes in without papers, we have no choice but to deport him."

"Even if you know his papers are phony?" Keegan said.

"As long as he has a passport and a hundred dollars in his pocket, there'll be no questions asked. But he must have papers."

"Christ, what a silly game."

"Not silly, Keegan, necessary," Wallingford said. "If we permit German refugees to enter the country without passports, there will be hell to pay with the German government. We've got to maintain some semblance of diplomatic relations with Germany. We have to know what the hell's going on here and we can't do it if they shut the embassy down."

"So you're on the run?" Keegan said to Reinhardt.

"Ja."

"Running for his life," said Fuegel.

"What did you do?" Keegan asked quietly.

Reinhardt looked up slowly and said, "I disagreed with Hitler. Unfortunately I am also a Jew. That's what I did, sir. I have a big mouth and a Jewish mother."

"You've read his articles," Wallingford said. "He's an enemy of the state."

"What the hell's he doing here? Half the SS is down in the living room," Keegan said.

"There was no place else for him to go," Wallingford said. "No place safe."

"What am I doing here, Wally?"

"We have to get him out of Germany tonight."

"Tonight!"

"There's a warrant for his arrest. Specifically he's been charged with sedition for publishing The Berlin Conscience. If they catch him, he's finished."

"What do you mean, finished?"

"For Christ sake, Francis, you heard what he said. The brownshirts broke into his partner's place this afternoon, shot him in cold blood, then burned the building. You know what's going on here!"

Keegan thought about the storm troopers on their nightly forays, torch flames whirling in the wind as they drove through the streets in their open trucks, chanting their persistent dirge, "Down with Jews, Death to Jews," as they sought their prey. It was a common sight and like most people in Berlin, Keegan had become immune to its dreadful portent. Like most foreigners, he was reviled by the brownshirts but felt powerless to do or say anything against these drunken bullies with their insatiable appetite for violence. They had more power than the local police and they traveled in packs like hungry predators. Besides, it was a temporary thing, he thought. It would pass. And if the German people did not feel compelled to speak out against them what could he do? After all, it was their country. Germany was going through the trauma of revolution-death and fear were the companions of revolt. So he had learned to shut out the sounds of shattering glass and the cries of the victims, to turn his eyes away from the Sturmabteilung as they looted Jewish stores, beat up the owners, and painted crude, six-sided stars on the doors.

Keegan shook his head and his eyes opened fully. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't get involved in local politics." He leaned over to Wallingford, and added, "This isn't your problem either, Wally."

Wallingford turned to Reinhardt. "Will you excuse us a minute," he said, and led Keegan into the adjoining office.

"We can't just ignore him," he said flatly.

"I admire him for going to bat for his country, but it's his country. We have to live with these people. It's none of our damn business."

"Listen, Reinhardt is one of the few outspoken German writers left," Wallingford said, his voice brittle with tension. "His articles and editorials have a strong impact on Germans. Hell, he could be nominated for a Nobel Prize this year-if he lives that long." He paused for a moment, then leaned over and said softly, "President Roosevelt wants him out."

"Ah," Keegan dragged the word out, "we get to the payoff."

"Call it anything you want, we need to move quickly, Francis."

"What do you mean we?"

"This is everybody's business. This man is a symbol. We need to get him out of Germany."

"You need to get him out of Germany. You blow this and you'll end up third assistant attache in some banana republic with tarantulas for a staff. Hell, you got the whole damn diplomatic corps, spies crawling out your kazoo and you want me to find you a forger. What am I supposed to do, go over to the Kit Kat Club and ask around? Why don't you just grant him political asylum?"

"It's too late for that," Wallingford said, lighting a cigarette. "This man is a very hot potato, he's been accused of treason. Asylum would not go down well at all, not well at all. My instructions are to get him out of Germany tonight and keep the government out of it. You've got a plane. Let us use it to get him to Paris. It's two hours away. I'll take care of the rest of it."

"So that's what this is all about. You want my plane."

"Just to fly him to Paris. Two hours, for God's sake."

"First of all it isn't just my plane," Keegan said brusquely. "It belongs to four of us, a Frenchman and two Brits are in on it with me. We share it and we schedule a month ahead so we can all make our plans. I'd have to check with all three of them and I don't even know where they are right now. It could take hours. And if the Nazis find out, and they will find out, they'll probably confiscate it. I can just see myself explaining that to my Parisian partner. You're going to have to eat a hundred and fifty thousand bucks, Louie, Hitler decided to use our plane for weekend picnics. "

"Listen to me," Wallingford said desperately. "If they catch this man they're going to execute him."

"Then don't let them catch him. Just leave me out of it. This isn't my fight."

"It's everybody's fight. You'll learn that soon enough."

"Stop preaching. Call in your intelligence chief and lay it off on him."

"I can't involve them, damn it!"

"You're a real case, you are. You can't get involved because you're a diplomat. Fuegel can't get involved because he's in the immigration service. Reinhardt can't get involved because he's on the dodge. But I can get involved because I'm just plain good old Frankie Keegan, rich American sucker, that it?"

"No one would suspect you," Wallingford said. "We get him out in your car, take him to the airport and he'll be in Paris before morning. All he needs is a passport."

"For the last time, I'm not going to get involved in local politics. What's the matter, don't you know anybody else with an airplane?"

"Nobody that's here now, no."

"That's flattering."

"Look, we're not talking about politics here, we're talking about a man's life," Wallingford implored. "You heard what the SA did to his best friend. You know what they'll do with Reinhardt? They'll take him over to the basement of Landsberg prison and behead him. Behead him!"

"I don't believe that."

"That's the way they do it these days. I can show you intelligence reports. Last month they beheaded three university students simply for distributing The Berlin Conscience. This guy writes the fucking paper. You wonder why he's panicked?"

Keegan shook his head.

"Damn it, Keegan!" Wallingford sat down heavily on the secretary's chair and shook his head. "There isn't any politics here anymore," he said wearily. "It's a one-party situation. There won't be another election in Germany until Hitler is dead."