Designated Targets

The more he thought about it, Brasch didn’t think the man was an SD agent. The state had no need to play games like this. If they had wanted him, they would have marched a squad of goons into the office and simply taken him. So, too, with his family.

He realized with a flutter of his already churning stomach that he still wore his Luger. The instructions had been quite explicit. He was to come alone—and unarmed.

Thus as he jumped from the trolley at the stop nearest his home, and half walked, half jogged the rest of the way, Brasch unbuttoned the clasp on his holster. His soldier’s training tried to assert itself, pushing him toward action. But his rational mind checked the warrior spirit.

This bastard wanted him, for whatever reason. If he had been an assassin, he wouldn’t have bothered with Willie and Manfred. No, the prize was Brasch, not his corpse.

He fumbled with his keys at the building entrance, and again at the door to their rooms. “It’s me,” he called out, closing the door behind him. The kitchen was at the end of a long corridor. He unloaded the Luger and slid it along the carpeted floor with an underarm throw.

“There,” he called out, “it is as you wished. And I am alone.”

A German voice replied. “I know. I can see. Come into the kitchen, slowly.”

When he was halfway down the hall, the voice spoke again. “Turn around, place your hands on your head, and walk the rest of the way backwards.”

Brasch did as he was told.

Müller watched the engineer as he felt his way into the small kitchen. When Brasch was a few feet from the table, Müller told him to stop and turn around.

“Bind your hands to the table leg with those plasteel cuffs,” he ordered, pointing to the objects on the table. “I’m sure you know what I mean, so don’t fuck around or I will put a bullet into your son. This pistol is silenced. Nobody will hear.”

He spoke in English, to spare the boy any more distress than was necessary. Even so, he fought to keep the disgust off his face and out of his voice. This wasn’t how he had imagined himself when he had enlisted, twelve years earlier. No, this was the moral equivalent of the evil he had volunteered to fight, although he had no real intention of murdering the boy or the woman.

Brasch however, could well be spending his last day on earth. When the engineer had cuffed himself to the table, Müller moved around to a spot where he could see the man’s hands.

“You have brought your flexipad, I see. Good, Herr Oberst. I will remove it now and place it on the table. My gun will be at your head the entire time. I doubt you will want your son to watch as his papa’s brains are blown out.”

Brasch was shaking with coiled tension as Müller removed the device, powered it up, and laid it next to his own on the table. He keyed in the command set that would effect a laser link transfer of all the data.

“What are you doing?” asked Brasch. “You’re not Gestapo, are you? You’re one of them. From the future?”

“Yes,” Müller admitted. “And I’m saving Germany from herself.”

“You idiot!” Brasch spat. “Why did you have to do this to my family? Look at little Manny—he is shaking with terror. You have tortured him, and all for nothing. I sent you everything I know. Everything! And this is my reward? What sort of a barbarian are you?”

Müller had no idea what the man was talking about. His mission brief had been simple. Brasch was one of the critical players in the Nazi’s accelerated weapons program. So Müller had been sent in to determine how much they had accomplished, and to liquidate Brasch once he had the information. The engineer’s outburst made no sense.

“Where do you think the data burst came from, on the Demidenko Center, the fast-fission project, the SS special-weapons directorate,” Brasch hissed, glancing around as if afraid they might be overheard.

“Just shut up, and slow down,” Müller barked when he finally recovered his wits. “What are you talking about? What burst?”

“It was yesterday! I sent a compressed, encrypted burst to the British ship, the Trident. It took me months to work out how to do so, without being caught. I sent everything I had on the special projects, and on Sea Dragon. Have they told you nothing?”

“Did you identify yourself?” asked Müller as he tried to understand what was happening. It was like wrestling with blocks of smoke.

“Of course not. Do you think I’m insane? I took enough of a risk, just sending the information as I did.”

Müller glanced at the wife. She must speak English, too, he guessed. He’d spoken to her only in German before. Her eyes registered a renewed shock—something beyond the trauma of being taken hostage.

He tried to think it through as quickly as possible. If Brasch had sent such a burst, but hadn’t identified himself, there would be no immediate reason for the special ops executive to contact Müller. Particularly if there was any risk of compromising the source of such valuable new information.