“… and accuse them of things,” the general was saying. He heard them from his hiding place in one of the unused wine cellars. That was the great thing about German mansions: so many places to hear and not be seen.

“It will be like nothing else, they’ll be indicted and executed before they can utter a word. Un donnerschlag.” The general was smiling at his cleverness. A thunderclap, he called it. So this is what they had been planning; this was the meaning of the sudden cease of confrontations. It was secret, a donnerschlag.

He’d have to warn them.