The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

He kept looking at her until finally she nodded her head, and said, very softly,“All right. All right.”

He nodded, then turned from her and stripped down to his underwear and got in the bed.

Baffled, she crawled in bed beside him, careful not to touch him.

Was Müller up to something with Peis? Or was he up to something deeper than Peis was ever capable of?

She had a nightmare. Peis was slapping her face, and this time Müller was watching. When Peis ripped her blouse and brassiere off and applied the tip of his cigarette to her nipple, she woke up, breathing heavily, soaked in sweat.

"What’s the matter?” Müller asked.

“I had a nightmare,” she said.

He sort of chortled. But it was not unkind.

“I was in it?”

“You and Peis,” she said. “He was burning my breast with a cigarette.”

“He did that to you?”

“Yes, when Eric disappeared and I had no idea where he was, or even that he was going.”

“That may happen again,” Müller said,“I am sorry to say.”

She started to shiver.

He rolled over and put his arm around her.

He held her until she stopped shivering, then started to turn away from her.

“Don’t let go of me,” Gisella said.

“I’m not a fucking saint,” Müller said.

"Neither am I, Herr Standartenführer,” she heard herself say faintly, but very clearly.

VII

Chapter ONE

Washington, D.C

5 January 1943

Although Ed Bitter was about to leave his wife and child and—at last— approach, at least, the field of battle, he, and they, were in much better shape than other families whose head had been ordered overseas.

For one thing, he didn’t have to worry about where Sarah and Joe would live. Just after Ed announced he was going overseas, his parents and Sarah’s father began a very polite but quite serious competition for the privilege of housing Sarah and Joe until Ed came home.

Thus, Ed’s mother argued that there was more than enough room in the Lake Shore Drive apartment. And besides, she’d love the chance to get to know her grandson better.

Joseph Child, on the other hand, argued that while it was of course up to Sarah, he thought she would be more comfortable in New York, as she had so few friends in Chicago. And besides, happily, a very nice apartment had just become vacant in a building “the bank owned” not far from his own apartment.

Sarah, Solomon-like, announced that if there was no objection, she would like to go to Palm Beach. Her father’s house there was, of course, closed. But there was the guest house, right on the beach, which could be easily opened. Six rooms were more than enough room for the two of them. And even for her father or the Bitters, if they decided to drop in for a week or ten days. Besides, she said, Florida would be good for Joe.

With exquisite courtesy, the grandparents split the problem of transporting Sarah and Joe to Palm Beach. Joseph Child would come to Washington and provide Sarah company until the guest house in Palm Beach could be made ready. Pat Grogarty, who had been the Childs’ chauffeur more years than Sarah was old, would then drive Sarah and Joe to Florida, where Ed’s mother (who now liked to be referred to as “Mother Bitter”) would be waiting,“to help Sarah get settled.”

Meanwhile, Ed had managed to convince both Sarah and the grandparents that he was simply moving from one desk assignment to another. Not, in other words, to sea, much less to war. Though their anxieties about his safety annoyed him, he was nevertheless a little touched as well. He was, after all, a professional naval officer, and the nation was at war. He had obligations on that account.