Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver

you coming to breakfast?”
    “Yes, tell your grandmother I’ll be down in ten minutes. Did you eat an egg today?”
    The boy said, “Yes, I did.”
    “Excellent. Eggs are good for you.”
    “Tomorrow I’ll draw a hawk.” The slight, blond boy turned and ran back down the stairs.
    Ernst returned to his exercising, thinking about the dozens of matters that needed attending to today. He finished his regimen and bathed his body with cold water, wiping away both sweat and alkaline dust. As he was drying, the telephone buzzed. His hands paused. In these days no matter how high one was in the National Socialist government, a telephone call at an odd hour was a matter of concern.
    “Reinie,” Gertrud called. “Someone has telephoned for you.”
    He pulled on his shirt and, not bothering with stockings or shoes, walked down the stairs. He took the receiver from his wife.
    “Yes? This is Ernst.”
    “Colonel.”
    He recognized the voice of one of Hitler’s secretaries. “Miss Lauer. Good morning.”
    “And to you. I am asked to tell you that your presence is required by the Leader at the chancellory immediately. If you have any other plans I’m asked to tell you to alter them.”
    “Please tell Chancellor Hitler that I will leave at once. In his office?”
    “That is correct.”
    “Who else will be attending?”
    There was a moment’s hesitation then she said, “That’s all the information I have, Colonel. Hail Hitler.”
    “Hail Hitler.”
    He hung up and stared at the phone, his hand on the receiver.
    “Opa, you have no shoes on!” Rudy had come up beside Ernst, still clutching his drawing. He laughed, looking at his grandfather’s bare feet.
    “I know, Rudy. I must finish dressing.” He looked for a long moment at the telephone.
    “What is it, Opa? Something is wrong?”
    “Nothing, Rudy.”
    “Mutti says your breakfast is getting cold.”
    “You ate all your egg, did you?”
    “Yes, Opa.”
    “Good fellow. Tell your grandmother and your mutti that I’ll be downstairs in a few moments. But tell them to begin their breakfast without me.”
    Ernst started up the stairs to shave, observing that his desire for his wife and his hunger for the breakfast awaiting him had both vanished completely.

    Forty minutes later Reinhard Ernst was walking through the corridors of the State Chancellory building on Wilhelm Street at Voss Street in central Berlin, dodging construction workers. The building was old—parts of it dated to the eighteenth century—and had been the home of German leaders since Bismarck. Hitler would fly into tirades occasionally about the shabbiness of the structure and—since the new chancellory was not close to being finished—was constantly ordering renovations to the old one.
    But construction and architecture were of no interest to Ernst at the moment. The one thought in his mind was this: What will the consequences of my mistake be? How bad was my miscalculation?
    He lifted his arm and gave a perfunctory “Hail Hitler” to a guard, who had enthusiastically saluted the plenipotentiary for domestic stability, a title as heavy and embarrassing to wear as a wet, threadbare coat. Ernst continued down the corridor, his face emotionless, revealing nothing of the turbulent thoughts about the crime he had committed.
    And what was that crime?
    The infraction of not sharing all with the Leader.
    This would be a minor matter in other countries, perhaps, but here it could be a capital offense. Yet sometimes you couldn’t share all. If you did give Hitler all the details of an idea, his mind might snag on its most insignificant aspect and that would be the end of it, shot dead with one word. Never mind that you had no personal gain at stake and were thinking only of the good of the fatherland.
    But if you didn’t tell him… Ach, that could be far worse. In his paranoia he might decide that you were withholding information for a reason. And then the great piercing eye of the Party’s