“Well, there’s Allied feeling for you,” Brian said to Jake.

The plane dropped slightly, not much more than a dip in a road, but evidently enough for the soldier, who groaned.

“I’m going to be sick,” he said, barely opening the bag in time.

“Careful,” the congressman said, trapped.

“Just get it out,” Liz said to the soldier, a big-sister voice. “That’s it. You’ll be all right.”

“Sorry,” he said, half choking, clearly embarrassed, looking suddenly no older than a teenager.

Liz turned away from the boy. “Did you ever meet Hitler?” she asked Jake, the question bringing the others with her, as if she were drawing a privacy curtain in place for the soldier.

“Meet, no. Saw, yes,” Jake said. “Lots of times.”

“Up close, I mean.”

“Once,” he said.

A sultry early evening, coming up from the Press Club, the street almost in shadow, but the new Chancellery still catching the last of the light. Prussian moderne, the broad steps leading down to the waiting car. Just an aide and two guards, curiously unprotected. On his way to the Sportpalast, probably, for another harangue against the devious Poles. He stopped for a second near the bottom stairs, looking down the empty street at Jake. I could reach into my pocket now, Jake had thought. One shot, put an end to all of it, that easy. Why hadn’t anyone done it? Then, as if the thought had carried like a scent, Hitler raised his head and sniffed, anxious as prey, and looked back at Jake. One shot. He held the look for a second, assessing, then smiled, just a twitch of the mustache, lifted his hand in a languid heil of dismissal, and headed toward the car. Gloating. There was no gun, and he had things to do.

“They say the eyes were hypnotic,” Liz said.

“I don’t know. I never got that close,” Jake said, shutting his own, making the rest of the plane go away.

Not long now. He’d go to Pariserstrasse first. He saw the door, the heavy sandstone caryatids holding up the balcony over the entrance. What would she say? Four years. But maybe she’d moved. No, she’d be there. A few more hours. A drink at the cafe down the street in Olivaerplatz, catching up, years of stories. Unless they stayed in.