The church door opened. So soon? Kate curled her finger, keeping focus on the church pillar in her trigger hairs. But it was the woman with the blue hat, leading the toddler in the yellow dress by the hand. The little girl was crying.
Why in the world did the child have to cry right now?
It all happened in a few seconds. A gray-uniformed bodyguard herded the woman and child to the side and the Führer stepped back out into the sunlight. Hitler, without his cap, stood on the top step by himself. He swiped the hair across his forehead. That signature gesture, so full of himself.
The wolf was in her sights. Like her father had taught her, she found his eyes above his mustache.
Never hold your breath. Her father’s words played in her head. Shoot on the exhale. She aimed and squeezed the trigger.
But Hitler had bent down to the crying toddler. Over the tolling of the church bell, the crack of the rifle reverberated off limestone. A spit of dust puffed from the church pillar. The child’s mother looked up, surprised, finding dust on her shoulder. Any moment the guards would notice.
Concentrate.
As calmly as she could and willing her mind still, Kate reloaded within three seconds, aimed at his black hair above his ear as he leaned over, extending his hand to the little girl’s head, ruffling her hair. The guards were laughing now, focused on the Führer, whose fondness for children was well-known.
Kate pulled the trigger again just as Hitler straightened. Damn. The uniformed man behind him jerked.
As the shot zipped by him one of the guards looked around. She couldn’t believe her luck that no one else had noticed. She had to hurry.
Reloading and adjusting once more, she aimed at the point between his eyes. Cocked the trigger. But Hitler had lifted the little girl in his arms, smiling, still unaware that the man behind him had been hit. The toddler’s blonde curls spilled in front of Hitler’s face.
Her heart convulsed, pain filling her chest. Those blonde curls were so like Lisbeth’s. Why did he have to pick this toddler up just then?
Killing a child is not part of your mission. This time, the voice in her head was her own, not Stepney’s. Agonized, she felt her focus slipping away.
Now. She had to fire now. Harden herself and shoot. Ignore the fact the bullet would pass through the little girl’s cheek. That the woman in the blue hat would lose her daughter.
The hesitation cost her a second.
The uniform slumped down the church pillar. A dark red spot became a line of blood dripping down his collar.
Hitler was still holding the child as she heard the shouts. She hadn’t yet taken her shot when all hell broke loose.
A guard snatched the little girl from his arms. Guards forced Hitler into a crouch and hurried him to the car. In the uniformed crowd now surrounding Hitler a man pointed in Kate’s direction. Through the telescopic sight she saw his steel-gray eyes scanning the building. She could swear those eyes looked right at her.
Sunday, June 23, 1940
Le Bourget Airfield outside Paris | 9:00 a.m.
“Thirty-six hours,” barked the Führer, pausing at the plane cabin door. Despite the heat, he was wearing a leather trench coat. It was bulletproof, and after what had just happened at Sacré-Cœur he refused to take it off. “Verstehen Sie?”
“Jawohl, mein Führer.” Gunter Hoffman blinked grit from his gray eyes.
Thirty-six hours to find the sniper.
The cabin door slammed shut and the Focke-Wulf taxied down the airstrip. Gunter was thirty-two years old, a Munich homicide detective in the Kriminalpolizei before he’d been folded into the Reichssicherheitsdienst, RSD, the Reich’s SS security service. He sucked in his breath. He knew his job; he’d headed the southern Bayern section. But he’d never investigated solo in an occupied zone.
Beside him, Lange, the trim Gestapo agent, stood at attention until the plane’s belly lifted off the runway. “Better you than me,” Lange said, shielding his face from the hot engine’s updraft. “I’ve got Berlin and Lindau’s successor to deal with.” He nodded to the stretcher carrying poor Admiral Lindau’s corpse. The admiral had taken the bullet intended for the Führer. Lange would be accompanying the body to the troop transport plane at the refueling depot.
After the shooting, Hitler had instructed the guards to round up all the Sacré-Cœur churchgoers, as if any of them would know anything about the gunman—but of course the Führer’s orders were to be followed. Gunter would have chosen to head the detail to comb the surrounding buildings for the sniper, but he had ordered him and his superior to accompany him to the airfield.
For the duration of the car ride, the Führer had issued wild demands: “Bring me that little girl, my good luck charm.” “Take the priest and his parishioners to the church crypt and get the truth out of them, you know how.” He raged at suspected traitors. “My suspicions were all correct. I knew it as soon as I saw those reports. This plot started in London. I’ll pay them back.”
After months on the job, Gunter had grown to distrust the man who led the Third Reich. At home in Munich, he focused on his work, kept his head down and avoided the Reich’s inner politics. But today he had attracted the Führer’s attention, for better or for worse.
“Better dig up a few suspects for the chopping block, eh?” Lange said.
The Führer’s penchant for mock trials before the Fallbeil, a stationary guillotine, was well-known, but Gunter would conduct his investigation his own way—to the extent he was allowed to. “I’m still a Kriminalpolizei, Lange. We follow the law.”
When he’d heard the shots fired at Sacré-Cœur, Gunter had caught sight of the glint of the rifle in a fourth-floor window. The sniper wouldn’t get far. Chances were the squad had already apprehended the shooter and the Sicherheitsdienst, SD, the SS intelligence, had the shooter waiting for Gunter’s interrogation.
Lange shook his head. “Our Führer’s as slippery as an eel in the Elbe. How many times has he escaped death? But you already know all about that.”
There had been eight attempts on Hitler’s life on record since the National Socialists’ rise to power, and Gunter knew that almost double that number hadn’t been reported.
But he didn’t voice agreement; he didn’t trust Lange. After seven years under National Socialism, Gunter knew better than to comment on the Führer, lest Lange twist his words and backstab him Gestapo-style. How often had Gunter witnessed someone slip up and make an untoward remark, leaving behind nothing but an empty desk.
“My job is to bring the perpetrator to justice,” Gunter said instead. The standard line.
As Gunter turned away from the still-smirking Lange, his boss, Gruppenführer Jäger, a broad-shouldered dark-haired man in full SS regalia, strode toward them from an airplane hangar.