Quest for Anna Klein, The by Thomas H. Cook

anti-German rallies. If they find out what we’re doing, they’ll do whatever has to be done to stop it.” Bannion looked at Danforth in a way that made Bannion’s doubts about him quite plain. “So the point is to get Anna in place before anyone has a chance to betray her.”
    â€œI would never betray her,” Danforth said firmly.
    Bannion’s smile was hard to read. “Let’s hope you’re never tested.”
    With that he turned and made his way across the wintry park.
    There was something both comforting and scary in his determined stride, Danforth thought, the robotic severity of a man who could be trusted to do whatever had to be done, no matter how extreme. Such was the way of men whose Great Ideal had failed them, he supposed, and in that failure left scar tissue on their souls.
    With Bannion gone, Danforth had no reason to remain in the park, but he found himself compelled to linger there awhile. He did not know why, save that the park gave him a sense of comfort, of rootedness. The bandstand was freshly painted, the perfect symbol of a small town whose inhabitants had no reason to mistrust the world. The still-naked trees, the distant swings, the small fountain, all of it now seemed terribly vulnerable, a naive realm that had to be protected by men like Bannion, who he suddenly imagined as quite capable of anything. This had not come from what Bannion had said but from the flinty nature of the exchange, the dead earnestness he’d seen in Bannion’s eyes. Danforth knew that in a less perilous time, he would have been the last to entrust any aspect of his country’s good to such a man. But now history seemed to demand the Bannions of the world, men without reserve, men without limits, men who cared little for the usual dictates of governance and who made those who could be ruled by them seem weak and dithering.
    Ah, so this is what it feels like,
he thought as Bannion got into the car at the far end of the park,
to lose your innocence.

Century Club, New York City, 2001
    I felt a pang of disappointment. To lose his innocence? Was this to be Danforth’s story, some little moment of moral quavering?If so, it was familiar in the extreme. Worse, it was irrelevant, since Danforth’s personal transformation, however trivial or profound, had nothing to offer in terms of useful tactical information. I could almost hear Dr. Carlson, my superior at the center, fire off the inevitable question:
Is that all you got out of him, a tired tale of lost innocence?
    â€œInnocence,” I said blandly, “that’s a hard thing to nail down, don’t you think?”
    Danforth picked up the dessert menu. “Not in terms of knowing who they actually are,” he said. “We always know who the innocent are.”
    â€œBut as a concept, it’s somewhat complicated, isn’t it?” I asked.
    â€œOnly when it should more accurately be called naiveté,” Danforth said. “I had a contact in the French Resistance.” He continued to peruse the menu as he spoke. “He was of no great value. A courier, not much more. He was arrested and taken to Hotel Lutetia. Do you know it?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œIt’s at forty-five boulevard Raspail,” Danforth went on. “During the war it served as Gestapo headquarters in Paris, and so there were quite a few interrogation rooms. Augustin was taken to one of these rooms, of course. He was interrogated for a while. There were a lot of people screaming in his face and a few stinging slaps, but nothing really unbearable. He didn’t know anything, so he couldn’t tell them anything. After a time, the treatment became more severe, and before it was over he was pretty well broken.” He looked up from the menu. “The apple tart isn’t bad.”
    I nodded.
    Danforth returned to the menu, studying it thoughtfully as he continued. “All of this shouting and slapping was