Berlin stood as a city of smoke and silence, half-ruins and half-fear, its heart still beating only because the Führer demanded it. The lamps burned low, as though afraid to give too much light, and the streets whispered with footsteps and secrets.
Christian followed the agent through crooked alleys and shuttered boulevards, past buildings gnawed by bombs, until they stopped before a house that looked too plain, too quiet, the sort of place one overlooked because to notice it might be dangerous.
Inside, smoke and candlelight.
Men in officer's tunics without insignia. Two women in plain civilian dress. Faces that didn't relax even when they saw each other. They sat around a long oak table like jurors at their own trial.
At the head of the table: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.
The spymaster's eyes met Christian's and held them, calm but weighing, as though to judge whether the young man had returned from the grave or from betrayal.
"Sit," Canaris said softly.
Christian obeyed, his heartbeat loud in his own ears.
The talk began obliquely, as though each word had to pass through a veil before being spoken.
"The garden is overrun," said a colonel with a lined face. "Weeds choke it. The keeper waters only them."
"The house is aflame," murmured another, adjusting his glasses with a trembling hand. "The master insists we feed it."
They did not name Hitler. His presence filled the room regardless, heavier than the smoke.
Finally, Canaris lifted a hand and the room stilled. His voice was quiet, yet sharp as a blade.
"You all know why you are here. But tonight, one among us has seen more than whispers. He has walked through the fire."
His gaze pinned Christian.
"Tell them what you saw in Stalingrad."
The room seemed to shrink. Christian's mouth was dry. He thought of Kristina's ring burning cold against his skin, of Katia's words: We haven't seen her in a long time.
Slowly, he began.
"I saw a city that ate armies," he said, his voice low but steady. "Streets where rubble was more permanent than walls. Snow stained black with soot, and red with blood that froze before it cooled. We fought not men, but ghosts who knew every ruin and every shadow. They moved in silence, and when they struck, it was as if the city itself rose against us."
No one stirred. The silence begged for more.
Christian's hands clenched on the table. "We starved. We boiled belts for broth, fought over the carcass of a horse. Men envied the dead because at least they were done. The Red Army knew it, and they pressed until we cracked. Not with bullets alone, but with hunger, with cold, with time itself."
He hesitated. The images swelled behind his eyes: Antonov's face, the warmth of his blood, the funeral flames, the Soviet tide rising. His voice broke when he continued.
"They mourned their dead. I killed a general, his name was Antonov. His blood ran over my hands. I thought it would break them, but it bound them. They buried him, and the next day they fought like wolves driven by grief, not fear. I have never seen men fight with such fire."
His chest felt tight. He almost stopped, but Canaris's eyes urged him onward.
"Paulus did nothing. He sat in his command like a man waiting for fate. His silence starved us more than hunger. When surrender came, it was no relief. It was… emptiness. The Sixth Army laid down its arms, not in defeat but in numbness. I crawled through sewers to escape.
When I came out… I was no soldier, no spy, just a ghost. A ghost of Germany, of what we once believed."
The words hung heavy.
For a long while, no one moved. The colonel's hand trembled on the table. The woman bowed her head, lips pressed tight. Another officer's jaw worked as if to swallow back bile.
A scholar at the far end whispered, "If Stalingrad is the measure, then the Reich is already dead. Only its shadow fights on." "The shadow still kills," someone muttered.
The debate grew, layered with metaphor but edged with raw fear.
Some argued that striking now was madness, that the Allies must weaken Germany further. Others said delay was suicide, that every day the Führer lived, more men, more cities, more futures were burned.
Their words clashed like knives muffled in cloth. They distrusted the walls, each other, even their own breath. But they were bound by the knowledge that silence was its own death sentence.
Christian listened, his stomach twisting. In their words he heard the same futility that had buried Stalingrad, only now dressed in whispers instead of snow. Betrayal hung in the air like incense, acrid yet intoxicating.
At last, Canaris leaned forward. His voice was calm, almost gentle, but the room stilled at once.
"We are not debating whether the house is on fire," he said. "We are deciding whether to smother it, or let it consume us all. I tell you: we cannot wait."
His gaze locked on Christian.
"You have lived where loyalty dies. You know the cost of obedience. I trust you because you understand what survival demands."
The words sank like a stone into Christian's chest. He felt the weight of trust, the terror of expectation.
And then Canaris said the words that froze the room: "We are going to overthrow Hitler."
The candles seemed to flicker, the air itself to recoil. No one dared breathe.
Christian sat in silence, the taste of ash on his tongue. He had lived through armies collapsing, men dying, blood soaking into frozen earth. Yet nothing felt as dangerous as this single whisper in a quiet Berlin room.
Here, a whisper could kill more swiftly than any bullet.