The most powerful men in the world were throwing him a party at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
The Fuhrer himself had offered Luka a job and called him a fine specimen of the Aryan ideal.
The compliment was not undeserved.
Credit: David Strauss
Hed conquered the Axis Toura cross-continental motorcycle race from Germania to Tokyonot once but twice.
A 20,780-kilometer journey of sandstorms, sabotage, and secrets.
Two first-class Iron Crosses draped around Lukas neck, signifying that he was a double victor.
The best of the best twice over.
The one whod stared straight into his eyes and said, I do not love you.
And I never will.
A fraulein like no other.
There were fewer frauleins still whod slid their way into Lukas heart soeffectively.
Not once, but twice.
Hed been such averdammtfool.
He should have learned his lesson after Osaka.
After shed chewed up his heart, bloodied his head, and won his race.
To Lukas (very small) credit, he hadnt meant to fall in love with Adele again.
Hed plunged into the 1956 Axis Tour bent on a single thingrevenge.
His plan was this: Watch Adele Wolfe like a hawk.
Pretend he still loved her.
The plan played out well at first.
He watched her through the curtain of rain at Germanias Olympiastadion.
He watched her sitting in front of the fire at the Prague checkpoint.
He watched her eating spaghetti at the Rome checkpoint.
He watched all these things and came to a single conclusion.
Adele Wolfe had changed.
But there seemed to be a new depth to the fraulein.
She cared about things she hadnt before.
Asking about Hirakus wreck.
Going all bleeding-heart over Katsuos accidental death.
Shed even saved his owngottverdammtlife.
It was all very, very confusing.
(The truth did not make a very good lie.
He wasnt even sure when it happened.
In the middle of the desert, when shed called his cigarettes Scheisse but smoked them anyway?
In the guerrillas camp, when shed saved him from becoming Soviet target practice?
On the train, when the kiss Luka meant only as bait became all too real?
As sappy as it sounded, Luka decided it was the kiss that clenched it.
When their lips met, he knew for certain that he was in love with this fraulein again.
He loved her.Scheisse,he loved her.
It was a painful, razor feeling.
Yes, Adele had stolen his heart, but shed stolen his victory, too.
Only when they were evena heart for a heart, a victory for a victorycould they be together.
So Luka placed a soporific on his lips and kissed her a second time.
He meant every moment of it.
(Turns out, truths make the best lies.)
Luka Lowe won the race, but Adele had still managed to beat him.
Who did not love Luka.
So now he was here, standing outside his ownverdammtparty.
The leather of his jacket was battered.
Luka could still see Adele, through the ballroom window.
It was a special form of torture, watching her dance with the Fuhrer.
A pure, concentrated feeling.
Like love…
Or hate.
Luka wasnt sure he could tell the difference between these emotions anymore.
Luka jammed the tar-stick between his lips, plucked out the final match.
The first strike came to nothing.
So did the second.
His third attempt sent the matchstick flying into the gravel of the Imperial Palaces garden path.
He was just leaning down when he heard pieces of Adeles voice through the glass.
I am (something).
I am (something, something, something).
I am (something) death.
Death?What was she going on about?
Probably confessing to the Fuhrer that she loved him to death.
Like every other lemming soul in this
BOOM.
Luka looked up and saw the Fuhrer falling.
His chest looked as if it had been turned inside out.
Standing over the bodyleft hand stretched out, still holding the gunwas Adele.
She gathered up the hem of her kimono and turned, aiming her Walther P38 at the window.
The pistols muzzle flared; glass exploded in a hundred different angles.
Luka flattened himself against the ground.
A flash of teal-and-crimson fabric, pale hair, glinting pistol.
Leaving gunshots, screams, broken glass, a shattered body in her wake.
Adele Wolfe had just shot the Fuhrer.
It was all happeningagain.Just like the rally at the Grosser Platz, in front of the old Reichstag.
They would accuse him of collaborating, treason…charges not even Lukas Double Cross could shield him from.
Only one person could clear Lukas name, and she was currently sprinting away from him.
Running as if the very hounds of hell were at her heels.
They werent, just yet.
All of them were another few seconds from reaching the window.
The hunt was all his.
Luka lunged to his feet.
Milky limbs, undergarments, and electric movement.
She took four determined strides down the path before leaping over a hedge.
The kimono lay rumpled under the lamplight.
Luka left it for the SS.
Let them get distracted, waste valuable seconds fussing over a false trail.
He needed to catch Adele before they did.
When Luka spotted her, he slowed, crouching until the hedges were eye-level.
Adeles pistol still had six bullets left by his count.
No need to go blazing in and get himself shot.
The fraulein was bent over a stretch of bushes, tugging a knapsack out of the leaves.
She was breathing hard, pulling dark clothes from the bag and twisting them on.
Luka held his own breath, edged closer.
As his eyesight sharpened, he began to notice things he hadnt before.
There was a bandage on the lower half of her left arm.
The flesh beneath was wreathed in black.
Its lines ebbed and flowed in distinct shapes.
Tails, paws, fangs… Tattooed on her arm.
Ink Adele most definitely did not have last year.
These disappeared as Adele shouldered on a jacket and bent over to lace up her boots.
The SS should be finding the kimono now, fanning men and guns into all parts of the garden.
Luka had to make his move soon.
He was certainly close enough.
It would only take him a second to leap out and blitzkrieg Adele.
Luka was just tensing his muscles, getting ready to launch, when the unbelievable happened.
Adele Wolfe became…not-Adele.
Her corn-silk hair changed color from the roots out, until it was all black.
The blue in her eyes vanished, irises growing so dark they blended with the pupil.
Even the shape of her face shiftedfrom Adeles long oval features into those of a Japanese girl.
If Luka hadnt witnessed the change with his own eyes, he wouldve said it was impossible.
Even now that hehadseen it, he wasnt quite sure he believed it.
Maybe he fell and hit his head when he went looking for the lost matchstick.
That would make much more sense.
It was all too real.
Loud German commands rose just meters away.
The fraulein who was not-Adele shouldered her pack and took off in the opposite direction.
Operation Save His Skin and Clear His Name had taken a drastic turn.
What exactly was he supposed to do now?
Run down this Japanese fraulein and tell the SS guards shed swapped out her body?
Luka might as well just pull out his Luger now.
Save them a bullet.
Save himself a world of pain.
The cries of the Fuhrers bodyguards grated on his ears as they drew closer.
He kept his eyes fixed on the vanishing darkness and started running.
Chapter 2
For the second time in a month, Felix Wolfe woke up with a headache.
One Felix was becoming much too acquainted with.
He found himself staring at box springsthe underside of a bed.
Rolling over was a difficult task, since Adele had bound his wrists behind his back twisted bedsheets.
Felixs feet thrashed the bedframe as he turned onto his side.
Something silver dropped to the floorMartins pocket watchlaying open, cracked-face first.
His sister was gone.
Growing up, Felix had kept a multitude of his sisters secrets, both big and small.
They wereafter alla team.
It didnt matter that they werent identical: male versus female, homebody versus wanderer.
There was iron in their blood, and it bound them together.
But this time his sister had wandered too far.
This time the secret was too vast.
One does not murder the Fuhrer of the Third Reich and walk away from it.
If Adele went through with her plan, she and the entire Wolfe family would pay the price.
It was ten past six, according to the spindly hands of Martins pocket watch.
The Victors Ball had only just started.
There was still time for Felix to stop this madness.
There were nearly a dozen sharp points.
Something had to catch… Thrashing his numb wrists at the beds underside again and again.
His dead brothers watch kept ticking.
It was ten past eight when the first bit of bedsheet began fraying.
At twelve past, the tie broke.
Felixs arms flopped to his side, wrists braceleted in deep purple.
First order of business?
Getting rid of this stupid gag.
Felixs tongue was a vast, cracked wasteland.
It felt too big for his mouth as he dragged himself out from under the bed.
Black, white, gray images of the Victors Ball cast their spell through the darkened room.
Thatat the risk of everything they held dearshed joined the resistance to right it?
Dont do it, Ad.
just dont.Felix hoped there was still some semblance of a connection between them.
That these pleas werent just beating useless against the curved glass screen.
Adele went rigid in Hitlers arms.
Hed witnessed his sisters angerfelt it buzz through his own veinsmany times over.
But this…this emotion was something else.
A fury Felix could not understand, much less feel.
It wasnt just in Adeles face.
It raged through her whole being: Her arm, as it ducked into her obi.
Her hand, as it drew out a pistol and pointed it at the Fuhrers chest.
Her finger, as it squeezed the trigger.
The screen cut to static.
Felixs fingers fell away from the knotted sheet on his knees.
He retrieved Martins pocket watch and snapped its warped casing shut without checking the hour.
It didnt matter what time it was because he was too late.
There was nothing to stop.
Screams followed, punctuated by more bullets.
Felix tried not to think what each of them meant.
He tried not to imagine her gravestone next to Martins, lonely lumps of granite over mounds of earth.
What was he thinking?
Adele wouldnt be given a gravestone.
Not after what shed just done.
None of the Wolfes would.
All records that they ever existed would be burned by the SS.
Forgotten forever and ever.
And there was nothing,nothing,Felix could do to save them.
He couldnt stay here.
This room would be the first place the SS searched.
The gunshots were gone.
The screen was still a mess of electronic noise.
Were those footsteps he heard or the thud of his own heart?
The third strip had just fallen from Felixs legs when the door slid open.
A trio of men stood in the doorway.
All three wore the sharp black dress uniforms of the SS.
All three had their Luger barrels pointed at Felixs face.
Felix lifted his hands above his head.
He felt his own emotions well enough: Fear, piss-warm against his crotch.
Shock, shaking under his fingernails.
The leader of the group frowned.
he barked to the soldier on his left, then turned to the other.
The first man hauled Felix to his feet, binding his arms once more behind his back.
Theyre still looking for Adele.
Relief…Felix should not have felt it rushing down his throat, cutting new paths through his heart.
Shes not here, Standartenfuhrer Baasch, the second soldier announced from the washroom once he finished scouring it.
Baasch didnt look particularly surprised or displeased at the news.
He pulled a spotless white kerchief from his pocket and coughed into it.
A single, dry wheeze.
He folded the kerchief back into his pocket.
You saw how she moved through that window.
Bulbous Nose stepped back into the bedroom, itemizing everything he saw.
The screens light caught the silverTotenkopfon the officers hat: cracked skull, crossed bones, leering grin.
The eyes beneath the cap were the same mixture of dead and shining as they settled on Felix.
I wouldnt be too certain about that.
