The wind howled through the skeletal remains of the apartment block, a mournful sound that seemed to mimic the sirens that had fallen silent only an hour before. Friedrich Müller pulled his threadbare coat tighter around his neck, the collar scratching against his stubble. The city was a graveyard of shadows. Berlin, once a beacon of stone and steel, was now a jagged silhouette of broken teeth biting into the smoke-choked sky.
Friedrich moved with the practiced gait of a survivor—head down, shoulders hunched, eyes scanning the pavement for obstacles and the horizon for the feldgrau uniforms of the patrols. In his pocket, the metal canister felt heavy, heavier than lead. It was a burden of conscience. The note burned in his mind: *The Angel of Charité. Sector 4. Tonight. 02:00.*
The clock in his head, a remnant of his profession, ticked relentlessly. It was 01:15.
The Charité hospital loomed ahead, a sprawling beast of red brick that had taken its share of punishment. Windows were boarded up with plywood, and the Red Cross painted on the roof was faded, a superstitious talisman that had failed to ward off the bombs. The entrance to Sector 4 was a gaping maw of activity. Even at this ungodly hour, the wounded were being carted in—soldiers from the collapsing Eastern front, civilians dug out from cellars, the debris of a losing war.
Friedrich slipped past a distracted guard who was arguing with a truck driver about fuel rations. The air inside was thick, a suffocating soup of antiseptic, unwashed bodies, and the metallic tang of old blood. The lights flickered, powered by a generator that coughed and sputtered in the basement.
He navigated the corridors, his eyes darting from face to face. He was looking for an angel in hell. He saw nurses with hollow cheeks and dead eyes, moving like automatons. He saw doctors with blood-stiffened aprons smoking cigarettes with trembling hands.
Then, near a supply closet in the trauma ward, he saw her. She matched the exhaustion of the others, but there was a frantic energy to her movements. She was young, perhaps in her late twenties, but the war had aged her. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes, and her blonde hair was escaping her cap in messy wisps. She was arguing with an orderly, her voice a harsh whisper.
"I need the gauze, Karl. Don't tell me about quotas."
Friedrich waited until the orderly left, grumbling. He stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Fräulein?" his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "I am looking for the Angel of Charité."
The reaction was instantaneous. The woman froze. Her shoulders stiffened, and she turned slowly. Her eyes, a piercing blue, widened not in recognition, but in sheer, unadulterated terror. The color drained from her face, leaving her looking like a porcelain doll on the verge of shattering. Her pupils dilated, swallowing the iris as she scanned the corridor behind him.
"Who are you?" she hissed, stepping closer, her hand instinctively going to the pocket of her apron where she likely kept scissors. "Did Weber send you? Is this a test?"
"No one sent me," Friedrich whispered, holding his hands up, palms open to show he was unarmed. "I found a book. In the ruins of the library. Inside was a canister."
She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong, and dragged him into the supply closet, slamming the door shut. The space was cramped, smelling of iodine and mold. The only light came from the crack under the door.
"Keep your voice down," she breathed, pressing her back against the shelves. Her chest heaved. "You have it? The insulin?"
Friedrich reached into his coat and produced the metal tube. The moment the candlelight from the hallway caught the reflection of the metal, the woman—Elise Wagner—sagged against the shelving unit. A sob escaped her throat, which she immediately stifled with a knuckle.
"I thought it was gone," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The courier... he didn't show up. I thought he was dead. I thought *she* was dead."
"She?" Friedrich asked gently.
Elise looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. She saw the brick dust in his wrinkles, the weary kindness in his eyes. She made a calculation, the kind one makes when death is the only alternative.
"A child," Elise said, the words rushing out. "Sarah. She's ten years old. Type 1 diabetic. She's been hiding in the sub-basement boiler room for three weeks. Her parents were taken to the camps in '43. I... I couldn't let them take her too."
Friedrich felt a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air. Hiding a Jew was a death sentence. Stealing medical supplies was a death sentence. They were standing in a closet, two corpses talking.
"She has been without it for a day," Elise continued, tears finally spilling over. "She's slipping into a coma. Without this, she won't last another twenty-four hours."
Friedrich handed her the vial. Their fingers brushed—his rough and calloused, hers cold and shaking. "Take it."
"Why?" she asked, clutching the vial to her chest. "You could have sold this. On the black market, this is worth more than gold. You could have bought food, papers..."
"I am a clockmaker," Friedrich said softly. "I fix broken things. I do not trade in lives."
Elise stared at him, a flicker of hope igniting in the darkness. "Thank you. But you must go. If they find you here..."
"I will go," Friedrich said. "But the note... it mentioned a time. 02:00."
"That was for the courier to move her," Elise said, panic rising again. "The boiler room is being inspected tomorrow. We have to move her tonight. But I can't do it alone. The courier is dead."
Friedrich looked at the door, then back at the desperate woman. He thought of his empty apartment, the ticking clocks, the senselessness of the war.
"I have a handcart," he said, the decision made before he even realized it. "For the rubble."
***
Three miles away, the wind whipped through the hollowed-out shell of the library. Inspector Hans Weber stood over a pile of debris, the beam of his flashlight cutting through the gloom. He was a man of sharp angles and sharper instincts, his leather trench coat buttoned to the chin.
At his feet, a man cowered in the dirt—a scavenger, a rat of a man with missing teeth and a sack full of copper wire.
"I told you everything!" the scavenger whined, shielding his eyes from the light. "It was an old man! Gray hair, looked like he was sleepwalking. He had a Volkssturm armband!"
"And he took the book?" Weber asked, his voice a low baritone, devoid of emotion.
"Yes! A thick one. He put it in his coat. I saw him! I thought it was just paper for burning, but he looked... guilty."
Weber clicked the flashlight off, plunging them into darkness. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating his face—handsome, severe, and tired. He knew the old man. He had felt the shape of the canister through the coat earlier that evening. He had let him go because he pitied him.
But pity was a luxury he could no longer afford. If the old man was looting valuables, that was a crime against the state. But if he was retrieving a drop... that was treason.
"Friedrich Müller," Weber murmured to the smoke. He remembered the name from the ID papers.
"Can I go?" the scavenger pleaded.
"Go," Weber said, turning his back. As the scavenger scrambled away into the night, Weber walked toward his patrol car. He didn't need to search the city. He knew exactly where the clockmaker lived. He would wait. And he would see what kind of time Friedrich Müller was keeping.