A few hours later, when darkness had fallen, as Allied bombs fell from the sky and Berlin blazed and crumbled, Ernst made loveless love to Brigette, burying himself in her slick thighs, and accepted that any future he might have would be mapped out by Wilson.

Berlin burned all around him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Bradley awakened late in the morning to the familiar sound of broken gla.s.s being shovelled out of the gutters in the street below. Slightly hungover from the previous evening's pub crawl with the indefatigable Gladys Kinder, and not helped by a restless night in which new, disturbing sounds had been added to the German bombings, he groaned melodramatically, rubbed his eyes, then sat up on the bed.

It was nearly eleven o'clock. Sunlight was slanting in between the curtains, illuminating the empty s.p.a.ce beside him in the bed, where he wanted Gladys to be, though he sometimes said otherwise. She had been there for drinks and he had often walked her back to her room in the Savoy Hotel, but beyond good-night kisses and the silent touching of foreheads, he and the notoriously bold-tongued Gladys had done nothing at all.

It made him feel like an adolescent, which was not a bad feeling. Slipping out of bed, he pulled the curtains back and looked down into the street just off Shepherd Market. A bomb had fallen nearby, a few streets away. While the buildings opposite had been untouched, the blast had shattered the windows and the broken gla.s.s was being shovelled up into a garbage truck by men in navy-blue coveralls.

That familiar sight made Bradley think of the previous night's air raid which seemed to have lasted throughout the early morning and reminded him that in his restless, drunken state of semi-consciousness, he'd been convinced that the sounds of the raid were different from normal.

I'm hallucinating, he thought ruefully, shaking his head from side to side,.

He was about to go into the kitchen to make some coffee when the telephone rang.

'Hi,' Gladys said. 'It's me.'

'Who's me?' he asked, teasing her.

'Don't even bother trying,' she responded. 'Are you at least out of bed?'

'Just about, Gladys. I don't think I can keep up with you. All those years mixing with hard-drinking service guys have made you immune to hangovers.'

'You have a hangover?'

'Yep. And that air raid didn't help me, either.'

'It wasn't an air raid,' she replied.

'Pardon?'

'It wasn't an air raid. Not one German plane was seen. We were attacked by the long-rumoured German secret weapons: pilotless planes or remote-controlled rocket bombs, depending on which report you accept. Either way, those pilotless things were buzzing down on London and the south of England all night and exploding all over the G.o.dd.a.m.ned place.'

'Jesus Christ1' Bradley whispered, hardly believing what he was hearing. His thoughts turned instantly to the rocket program at Peenemnde and Wilson's unofficial involvement with it and other unknown projects.

'A shock, eh?'

'Yeah,' Bradley replied. 'It's a shock, all right.'

'Wanna join me for breakfast, Mr Bradley?'

'I'd love to, but I think I should go straight to Baker Street and have words with my stubborn British controller.'

'You think you can use this to make him send you to Europe?'

'I don't see how he can refuse now.'

'He's British : that's how he can refuse. They're pretty good at refusing. Quietly... always politely... but not budging an inch.'

'He doesn't have a leg to stand on now.'

'The Brits are notoriously good at balancing acts.'

'You're such a G.o.dd.a.m.ned pessimist, Gladys.'

'I don't want you to go, that's all.'

'That's nice to hear, Gladys, but you know I have to do this.'

'Yeah, Mike, I know. So what about lunch before you leave?'

He chuckled at that. 'I won't be leaving today, that's for sure, so lunch sounds great.'

'There's a Lyons Corner House near Piccadilly Circus. Let's meet there.'

'Terrific. Twelve-thirty?'

'Don't get lost.'