On Thursday evening, the third day, Nick arrived at the Catholic church in the old quarter of Berlin. Compared with the newer churches that were immensely grand and ornate, most of the Catholic churches in Berlin were quite small and dim but old enough.
Nick's skin color was an excellent camouflage. It took him some effort, but he managed to knock the Father unconscious and made his way to the back of the only confessional in the church.
A confessional is usually composed of two parts: the front has a small room, normally enough for one person to stand in; opposite the door is a side wall, some with windows, some without, and facing the wall stands the Father. The believer would face the Father through this setup to confess.
Of course, sometimes there is no one behind, or it might not be the Father who stands there, so many believers arrange to meet with a familiar Father to pour out the secrets in their hearts.
Today, Doctor Schiller was destined not to meet the Father. Nick, standing behind the wall, thought it was a pity that the confessional walls had no windows; he could not take advantage of his skills as an Agent to observe the facial expressions of the person opposite.
Soon the door opened, footsteps drew nearer, and Nick felt he could almost hear the other person's breathing rate. Yet, it was hard to imagine that someone with such light footsteps had killed three Gestapo agents the day before yesterday and hung them all on Crosses.
But when the person finally stood in front of the wall, Nick sensed a Beast trapped in a cage on the other side.
"I wish to confess, Lord..."
Nick coughed twice, and the voice on the other side indeed ceased. Nick spoke up, "I'm sorry, I'm not a suitable recipient for your confession."
"Oh?" A toneless voice of surprise came from the other side.
"I know what you did the day before yesterday. I saw… your work. There are some matters I wish to discuss with you concerning Artur, do you have time right now?"
"What happened to the Father?" the person on the other side asked with a voice that sounded ethereal, like the shadow of a tree reflecting on water that seemed like it could be dispersed by the slightest ripple, yet undisturbed when one tries to disrupt it.
"He's fine, I sent him to the rest room to rest." Nick said, "I swear my actions caused no harm to him, and I'm not here to harm any of you."
The other side remained silent and unresponsive, so Nick had no choice but to say, "Three years ago, we destroyed a lab with the goal of preventing the Axis Powers from having an Atomic Bomb, but subsequent investigations suggested that a Mysterious Organization known as Hydra might have stolen the research results from that lab beforehand and completed it somewhere else."
"There's a critical code number in one of the unfinished core components, and only by getting this code can we know what technology they have mastered, whether this technology can be perfected and turned into a weapon capable of destroying the world. Artur was the only person who knew this code."
"He died in a murder, and we do not know who acted. We found that you were the only person he had seen before his death, so you fell under great suspicion. That's why we've been watching you, but we didn't anticipate you'd also get into trouble with the Gestapo, or maybe even more."
"I do not know how you did it, but you killed three of their men in the church. To them, this is an unacceptable insult. In these last months, they will become increasingly insane. If you do not wish to leave Berlin, you're going to need our help."
Nick heard the frequency of the person's breathing change, but it wasn't rapid with nervousness; he seemed to be pleased, like a sated Beast resting.
"How would you help me?"
"At the very least, we can help you escape the pursuit of the Gestapo."
"And what do I have to give you in return?"
"I know that Artur may not have told you the code number. In fact, he didn't even realize how important it was, as no one ever informed him. But I need you to give me a detailed description of your interactions with him, including everything he said to you. This shouldn't be difficult for you, right?"
"You are a good Agent," came the voice from the other side. Nick felt his heart suddenly tighten for reasons unknown.
"But you've got the wrong person."
The moment that statement fell,
Bang! Bang! Bang!!
Nick spun around, and from the window at the back of the cramped space, he saw team after team of Gestapo agents breaking in, going from room to room busting doors down. He suddenly realized something and said, "Is this your trap?!"
He heard a soft chuckle from the other side, entirely different from the seriousness earlier, as if the voice now had the leisure to chat idly with him.
"You're a good Agent," the voice repeated, "You excel at dressing up all manners of unfair deals as fair trades, firmly and righteously placing them on the negotiating table, making all your adversaries think sitting at the table would be a good choice. But you're always the one who unexpectedly overturns the table first—despicable, crude, and nefarious."
Nick had no time to listen to him speak, as he had to figure out a way to leave this place. His leg injury had not fully healed; he definitely couldn't outrun them, and right now, the corridors outside were swarming with Gestapo.
Now, there was only one option left: break through this wall, exit through the door behind Shiller, and perhaps there would be a slim chance of escape. Damn it, Shiller must have anticipated this situation already.
"Many people regard force as the last resort, but I think the opposite," Nick heard the other say. "If you can't even survive from violence, then once you're on the table, you're nothing but ingredients."
Nick punched the wall hard twice, knowing it should open, but the switch wasn't on his side. He had no choice but to hammer the adjacent wall with his hand and say, "Listen, I've never wanted to resort to any violence against you..."
"Do you think I am obligated to reciprocate?"
Nick was choked up and couldn't say a word. Hearing the knocking on the door getting closer, he had to lower his voice and say, "Alright, it's true we need your help, especially now that I need your help. Let me through."
"How do you plan to repay me?"
Nick's eyeballs trembled rapidly, indicating he was thinking at high speed. He knew that nonsense about helping him escape the Gestapo's hunt wouldn't work. The other played these fools like a fiddle and could even direct them to strike wherever he pleased; pursuing him was nothing but a joke to him.
"What do you want?" Nick had to ask.
"I need a sufficient amount of medicine, especially hemostatic drugs. Additionally, I need a medical guidebook for delivering babies to pregnant women."
"Someone's about to give birth?" Nick asked instinctively, but he knew he shouldn't have asked too much, so he simply said, "I have some anti-inflammatory and sedative medicines, as well as disinfectants, but I can't get hemostatic drugs; they are regulated too strictly."
"I think I can find the guidebook, and maybe even find doctors and nurses who can deliver a baby, but most of them are far from here now."
"I just want a guidebook."
"No problem," Nick readily agreed, saying anxiously, "Hurry, let me through, they're almost here!!"
He knew he absolutely couldn't be arrested in his current state because in the last crazy months, they were capable of anything. He didn't want to die at the crack of dawn.
There was a click, something loosened, and when Nick pushed, the wall turned. He rushed through the wall, but there was nothing on the other side. With the footsteps getting louder, Nick had no choice but to restore the wall and sneak out.
When Nick limped back into the house, he saw Jones holding a wanted poster that didn't differ much from waste paper in these months. Even if you looked in the wrong direction when you went out, you might be wanted. Nick had long been desensitized to it.
However, Jones looked at it seriously. Nick took a glance at the wanted poster while changing his bandages. Strangely, there was no photo on the poster; the portrait section was all black, meaning they were pursuing a mysterious person, which is to say, they had found a bad deed committed by an unknown perpetrator.
Looking further down, indeed, there was a photo of a church, the one with three bodies found inside. The description read, "A terrifying church killer has betrayed his great country, creating a dreadful crime. He must be brought to justice."
The wording contained German rhetorical devices that Nick didn't quite understand, but Gestapo slogans were always like that, fiercely intimidating and incendiary, yet on closer inspection, they were absurd.
If they really could bring the criminal to justice, they wouldn't have issued this wanted poster. Everyone knew they had laws to prevent arrests, and during their heyday, they could even round up everyone in the church area and send them to concentration camps, just for being potential suspects or for seeing the killer without reporting it.
But now, they could only issue this ridiculous wanted poster, and Nick thought, this actually provided Shiller with an excellent opportunity. He just needed to anonymously tip himself off; whenever he appeared at a certain church, the Gestapo would swarm in, just like today.
Because the more powerless they felt, the more they had to prove they were as strong as ever. Under such pressure, no one had time to think about being exploited; they just rushed in triumphantly.
A tiger hides its presence as much as possible before hunting, but a dog always has to snarl a few times.
Nick lamented their intelligence but also lamented his own future, thinking, this guy was really too difficult to deal with. Why did it have to be him?
But Nick had no intention of giving up. He still had a lead; Shiller asked for a childbirth guide for pregnant women, which meant he might know a woman who was about to give birth.
Although Shiller was a surgeon, delivering babies was highly specialized, and assessing the condition of the fetus and the pregnant woman was not within the expertise of a cardiac surgeon. Nonetheless, being a doctor, things would be much better with a guidebook.
Combined with Shiller's prior visits to the civilian houses, the woman about to give birth was very likely to be Mrs. Eisenhart. Although he didn't know what relationship Shiller had with the Eisenharts, it might be his vulnerability.
The fireplace was warm and cozy, and a tender-eyed redhead woman with a large belly leaned on a recliner, knitting under the fireplace light, while two men sat opposite the coffee table, moving the chess pieces in their hands.
The one with the black pieces was Shiller, and the other man, with brow and eyes reflecting intermittently from the fireplace light, appeared particularly stern. It was indeed a young Magneto.