GAMBLERS IT TOOK A WHILE TO WALK to the end of the pier. Jack figured it was about six football fields in length, maybe longer, and as he trudged farther out into the bay the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. He kept his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets and felt the heavy wooden trusses sway beneath his feet. There were small food concessions and gaming stalls and the occasional photographer’s booth, most of them boarded up and empty of life; it was only May, and the summer season came late to the Baltic. In August there would be an orchestra and a dance floor and colored lights strung along the pier, if the Nazis hadn’t bombed it by then. Most of the people strolling alongside him turned back well before the pier’s end. Jack could just make out a solitary figure etched against the blustery sky; in a close-fitting dark coat and a tweed cap, it seemed contained enough to be Gubbins. And if it wasn’t? If he’d been set up, and a knife waited at the end of the walk?
