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to feel the pressures and disapproval of her friends, especially since her “German” husband was not in the armed forces. Subtly she began to persuade Tom not to wait to be drafted but to volunteer—to show he was really an American. He did.
    Because of his language abilities, he ended up in Military Intelligence Service at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, and finally in the CIC.
    He had earned the Bronze Star for his work in the ETO. He had been involved in countless cases, investigations and interrogations. The Maria Steinmetz search was not his first such body search.
    But he still felt unclean. It was an uncleanness he knew he couldn’t wash off. And he still had not conquered the nagging feeling of guilt that worried his mind. He—a German —fighting his own people.
    He stepped away from the door. He looked at his hands. He went to wash up.
    When he re-entered the interrogation room the girl was sitting in her chair. Her handbag lay forgotten on the floor next to her, her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, and her bleak eyes stared unseeing into space.
    Tom took his place opposite her. He picked up the real Kennkarte. He frowned at it. Why? Why, with a false ID card that could pass any inspection, had she hidden this real card on her person? Was there a reason?
    Or was it just another manifestation of that peculiar Germanic trait that made it impossible for them to give up the last tenuous link to past power and glory? Was it the fear of not being able to prove conclusively to officialdom their true loyalties should the Nazis still prevail and once again seize power? He’d run into that sort of thing before. But if that were the case, what was the link?
    Tom studied her quietly for a moment. The fact that the girl was the wife of a wanted Gestapo officer meant nothing by itself. Unless she had knowledge of her husband’s whereabouts and activities. The CIC did not wage war on the families of their enemies. The fact that she had been using false papers was a relatively minor violation. One that could easily be rectified. Anyway, he suspected he knew why.
    But he couldn’t shake the feeling that in this frightened, humbled girl with all her vulnerability there was hidden a greater, a more dangerous secret.
    He also instinctively knew that she would not be easy to break, despite her deep apprehension. She would have to be handled with special care. He decided that the soft approach would be the best. He had a quick thought that his decision was prompted by his feelings of pity for the girl because of the traumatic suffering he had been forced to inflict upon her. He dismissed it His choice was the correct one.
    He glanced at Larry. He spoke in German. “I think Section eighty-seven, Paragraph nine applies in this case. Agreed?” he asked crisply.
    It was their own special code. It simply meant Let’s use the good-guy/bad-guy routine. You be the bad guy.
    Larry picked up on it immediately. He scowled. “Of course,” he snapped. He turned to the girl. He stared at her. Coldly. “Now, Frau Steinmetz,” he said, his voice sharp with the ring of malevolence. “It is about time that you come up with some real answers. You hear me?”
    The girl cringed.
    “You are the wife of a Gestapo colonel, are you not? An SS officer? A wanted war criminal?” Each epithet was rapped out with hateful vehemence. “ Answer me! ”
    The girl winced. “Yes,” she whispered almost inaudibly.
    “You were using false papers, a criminal offense, were you not?”
    She nodded.
    “I want to know why! I want to know everything you know. About your husband. Where he is. What he does. And I want to know it now! You understand?”
    The girl stared at her clenched fists in her lap. She remained silent.
    “ Answer me! ”
    She flinched as if physically struck by Larry’s shouted demand. “I . . . I don’t understand what you mean,” she whispered. “I know nothing. Nothing at all.” Her voice was unsteady.
    “Well, Frau Colonel