Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman

Author:Anne Blankman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

They took an omnibus across the river. It dropped them off on the Potsdamerstrasse and they walked down the street toward a massive white building with the black letters BERLIN SPORTPALAST spelled across its front. Lights blazed from its windows. The indoor stadium was set back from the road, and cars rolled along the pavement, disgorging fashionably attired Berliners, the ladies in furs, the men in camel-hair coats. Others, modestly dressed in rough jackets or plain dresses, strolled in from the street.

Gretchen and Birgit walked on either side of Daniel. None of them spoke. Gretchen shoved her hands in her coat pockets, so nobody could see how badly they were shaking. Hitler might be here already, sitting in a back room, sipping mineral water and waiting for the moment to make his grand entrance. Or he was being driven through the city, staring out the window at the buildings sliding past, reviewing his planned words in his head.

He won’t see you, she promised herself. Daniel had been right when he’d said that Hitler liked to keep the crowds waiting for a few minutes. They’d talk to the SA man Weiss and slip out before Hitler entered. Still, her stomach was roiling.

They joined the groups swarming inside and entered a cavernous room. Enormous swastika banners hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of folding chairs had been set up in rows across the floor, which Daniel had explained during the bus ride lay beneath an ice rink or a bicycle arena on other occasions. A main aisle ran between the rows of seats; it was lined with poles topped with National Socialist standards—carved metal swastikas surrounded by garlands, with silver eagles perched above.

Hundreds of people, perhaps as many as a thousand, walked to their seats, chattering with one another. The sight took Gretchen’s breath away. She’d been to the shabby Circus Krone in Munich countless times to watch Hitler talk, but back then the audience had usually consisted of a few hundred people. She had sat in a position of privilege in the front row, so close she could see the sweat pearling on Hitler’s forehead and hear the rasp of his voice. It had been nothing like the spectacle unfurling around her now.

“That’s him,” Birgit whispered. “Third from the left.”

A wooden stage had been erected at the stadium’s far end; it contained a dozen chairs and a podium. SA men ringed the stage, their feet wide apart, their arms folded behind their backs, ready to spring forward and drag out hecklers. The fellow who Birgit had indicated was burly and blank-faced. Gretchen suppressed a shudder. Just the sort of brainless hulk that Hitler preferred for his SA troops.

“Let’s go. Remember to follow my lead.” Daniel wove between the crowds, Gretchen and Birgit following. They stopped a few feet away from Weiss. Birgit fished her compact out of her purse and peered into it, pretending to fuss with her appearance, a ruse they had agreed upon during the bus ride. Gretchen fiddled with her wristwatch, trying to look bored.

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