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and wide green steps led down to the towpath; he had planned to use it as his escape route afterward. Instead, he headed directly down toward the dark water. Nothing to be done; he’d come back later, once he’d changed his appearance. How much time left till the train? He had to put his watch up to his eyes to read the hands. Then he saw night become day.
    The whine of planes high overhead and the distant bark of anti-aircraft fire explained the light immediately. He knew the shining signal rockets on parachutes would dazzle the air defense systems, but instead of fleeing he stood mesmerized, watching the whirl of countless foil strips designed to distract the German gunners.
    The fireworks had to be a thank-you message from her!
    The unearthly light show found Morava in Jitka’s company. “Take a motorcycle, drop Jitka off, and go home; I want you here bright and early tomorrow,” Beran had decided. The tram lines to Pankrac and Podoli were out of service and the superintendent had felt guilty keeping them late into the night under these conditions.
    Morava turned cartwheels inside at this unexpected assignment; it turned a bloody day into a private celebration. Despite his good fortune, he would have seen her to the door of her suburban house (hidden in a romantic blind alleyway on a craggy wooded slope) and said good night with a courteous handshake—if not for the bombardiers. At that very moment, instead of dropping their bombs, they decided to rain a slowly descending radiance onto the city. Evidently they were trying to avoid another tragic error, but Jitka saw it as a warning of impending doom.
    “Hurry,” she ordered with a firmness he had never seen in her before, “into the shelter!”
    Of course, he did not protest, trembling as he obeyed the command. So they waited with last year’s potatoes, alone in a quite ordinary cellar. Half of it had been quickly cleared and redecorated with garden furniture; the landlords—a waiter and a cook—were working for a German military hospital in a former north Moravian health spa. When the all clear finally sounded, she invited him up to her attic room for tea with rum, since the kitchen downstairs was unheated.
    Finally, he was warm enough to reclaim his courage.
    “Please excuse me…” He had to clear his throat again before continuing. “Please excuse my rudeness in asking, but I’m not in the habit… do you think… that I could… that you could… that we might get to know each other better… ?”
    Meckerle was on the rag again; the entrance guards spread the word as usual after he had chewed them out. Immediately there were rumors as to why. Yesterday’s firestorm at Dresden had swallowed the villa the colonel “Aryanized” some years ago; it had been a symbol for him of his station. Of all the officers, only Buback was not quaking in fear.
    Buback knew the rest of them were incompetent amateurs who owed their posts to their connections; he was the only one who understood his craft. He was sure Meckerle realized this. The giant SS agent was capable of anything, it was true, but Buback found him particularly capable of pulling the right strings in the occupation government’s crucial central office—even in times when there had been no recent victories.
    Buback agreed with him that the baroness’s murder offered a unique chance to illuminate the inner workings of the Czech police, which had so far proved surprisingly resistant to the Gestapo. German informants found themselves isolated from all interesting information with amazing speed, a fact that pointed to the existence of hidden structures. Just yesterday Buback had turned his brigade, based in the former Czech college dormitory in Dejvice, over to his deputy Rattinger, an experienced detective he’d brought with him from Belgium. Buback recognized both Rattinger’s yearning for promotion and the primary impediment to his career. Rattinger drank too much and Buback covered his blunders,