“Is it all right that I look out?”
“If you wish,” the corporal replied, then said more quietly, “what do you think you will see?”
“Bavaria,” Montag answered. “I have never seen Bavaria before.”
“Where do you think you were this morning? Where we picked you up?”
“In Kempten,” Montag answered.
“And where do you think Kempten is? In what state?” Montag shook his head.
“Kempten is in Bavaria!” Montag looked puzzled.
The lieutenant had overheard, and glanced back over his shoulder. “Herr Montag,” he said, “where are you from?” He suspected his passenger was Volksdeutsch, ethnic German from one of the Baltic countries. He’d known a Volksdeutscher from Latvia; his German had sounded much like this man’s.
“I am from Hermans Acker, Herr Kapitan.”
The lieutenant ignored the unexpected promotion. “I don’t mean what farm! What country are you from?”
“From Germany, Herr Kapitan.”
“Lieber Gott,” the lieutenant muttered under his breath. “Another idiot.” Some of these psychics, it seemed to him, were candidates for eugenic cleansing. “What state!?” he said aloud. “Ost-Preussen, captain, from Kleines Torfland Gebiet.”
Macurdy had kept part of his attention out the window. They were passing a longish lake that had to be der Kiefersee; he knew it well on maps. He wondered idly what kind of fish they caught there. A forested ridge backed the far shore, while the near shore was fields and pasture, with woods here and there. They’d be at Schloss Tannenber very soon.
They passed the lake’s upper end, were a lane ran down through pasture to a small wooden dock locked in ice. Briefly the road burrowed through woods, mostly of beech and fir, the latter shading patches of old gray snow. The car slowed, then turned onto a horseshoe drive that led to a preposterouslooking building: a large stone manor house three stories high, built in the shape of a U, its courtyard to the rear. Providing some pretense to the tide Schloss-castle-its ridged, redtiled roof was bordered by battlements, embellished at intervals with drain spouts in the form of gargoyles, and by a tower that stood like an afterthought at the end of the farther wing. Macurdy wondered what sort of man had designed the place.
The car unloaded its passengers in front of the entrance, and the driver pulled away. With the lance corporal’s hand on Montag’s sleeve, they followed Lieutenant Lipanov up several steps to a roofed porch with concrete pillars, and through the main entrance wit its black-uniformed guard. Behind Montag’s oafsh gawp, Macurdy’s eyes sized things up. The foyer, also with a guard, was as oddly laid out as the building, forming a U around a broad central flight of stairs leading to the second floor. The carpet was well-worn, both on floor and stairs. Pale rectangles on the walls showed where art had been removed. A front corner held the only furniture, a banquette and three club chairs, all of them threadbare. In a side wall toward the back was a door which might access a cellar stairway. The lieutenant took Montag to the broad cross corridor that passed beneath the staircase, and turned left to the first door. Its polished brass plate read PROJECT OFFICE. He opened it, and they entered a small reception room partitioned off from the office behind it. A corporal rose abruptly from behind a desk, his right arm snapping forward sharply. “Heil Hitler!” he barked.
“Heil Hitler! I am here to see Hauptsturmfuhrer Kupfer.” The corporal opened the door behind him, spoke to someone, then sent Lipanov throu , Montag following. Inside, Lipanov stopped at attention with a sharp clack of heels, and again his t hand shot out. “Heil Hitler!”
The man he’d saluted outranked Lipanov, his insignia marking him as a Hauptsturmfuhrer, a captain. “Heil Hitler!” he answer but though his words were as loud, his salute as stiff, from him they seemed awkward, a required formality. From Lipanov, the words had reflected fervor, or at least well-drilled false fervor.
“I am here to deliver your new psychic, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer,” Lipanov snapped, then stepped to the desk and handed over the papers given him by the Gestapo.
The captain-Kupfer, from the name plate on his deskscanned them, then laid them on his blotter. “Thank you, Lipanov. I will require Corporal Karlsbach’s services for a bit. You are dismissed.”