Tanya felt Klaus tense up beside her, his arm rising for the customary Heil Hitler!

But the flame of excitement died instantly, his hand turned into a fist, and he grunted. She remembered the Wehrmacht’s intelligence reports he had shown her, patiently explaining the military jargon and the implications of color-coded arrows. The Ardennes Offensive continued in full force, with all surviving Panzer divisions thrown against U.S. forces. Hitler had refused a negotiated surrender and boasted of turning the tide with a wonder weapon of destruction. But the Fuhrer was delusional. The most Germany could expect was a brief reprieve from Allied pressure on the Bulge. “And then,” Klaus had said, “the total destruction of the Third Reich.”

The Mercedes took another hairpin turn. In the windshield, Tanya could see the emblem glisten at the far end of the hood like a gun sight seeking a target.

The road leveled off, and the thin headlights hit a steel gate that blocked the way. A sign warned: Halt! Schweizerische Grenze!

The driver stopped the car, came out, and opened the door. “ Herr Obergruppenfuhrer! ”

Klaus put on his gloves. He helped Tanya out of the Mercedes and raised the hood of her fur coat to shelter her from the biting frost.

A moment later the truck stopped behind the Mercedes. It was enormous, with a solid, steel-braced box resembling a train car.

Klaus took out a silver cigarette lighter and used it to signal up and down.

A reply came from the other side of the border, a point of light moving from right to left.

The Swiss guards opened the gate, and a dark Rolls Royce limousine glided through. A young man in a dark suit stepped out from behind the wheel. He knocked his heels together, bowed curtly, and opened the rear door. “ Guten Abend, Herr General! ”

“And to you, Gunter,” Klaus said. He helped Tanya into the Rolls Royce, and the door closed.