It had about it the quality of a dream, this waiting in the service elevator as the Nazis prepared their scaffold and unfurled their banners—as the sky began to darken in the west and the first pellets of rain slanted between the bars; as Charlotte tried not to break down, the sadness and incomprehensibility of the Flashback threatening to take full possession of her at last. He’d said something about a ritual—Dieter was his name; she’d heard someone call him General Dieter—which was to take place just before the arrival of the stormfront. Whatever it was, their preparation for it must have been almost complete, for they began to assemble in rows as Dieter ascended the platform and tapped the microphone, saying, simply, “Testing ... testing”—which echoed throughout the parking lot and boun
