Wolf by Wolf

Yael rides slightly ahead and to the left of Luka. They both wait for Katsuo to try to pass them. As he approaches, Luka moves in and crowds Katsuo toward Yael’s bike. Yael grabs hold of Katsuo’s hand and prepares to pull him off his motorcycle. Seeing the look of fear in his eyes, Yael remembers her own terror in the concentration camp and hesitates for a moment: “She’d wanted for so long to be the hunter. The predator. The Valkyrie—chooser of life and death—above it all. But not like this” (316). When Katsuo tries to retaliate and grabs her glove, Yael slips her hand out. Now unbalanced, Katsuo loses control of his bike and crashes. Yael knows he hasn’t survived. She and Luka continue the race unchallenged. 

When the racers reach the Shanghai checkpoint, Yael is leading Luka by a mere 10 seconds. Yael keeps reliving the sight of Katsuo’s crash: “The memory of him, hitting the road so hard, dashing limbs and joints and life, seemed like a nightmare. Larger than life, clinging to her like an oily film, making her feel sick, dirty” (320). The contestants board a ship to take them to Japan for the final leg of the race. Everyone becomes queasy from the rough crossing. While trying to eat in the mess hall, Yael speaks to the only other female rider, Ryoko. The girl confesses that she was the one who left paper sculptures under Yael’s pillow at their various checkpoints. Yael has saved them, but Ryoko points out that Yael never opened them to reveal the messages inside. Each one contained a warning of danger.

Yael once more reminds herself that the truth of things is never found outside, only on the inside. She goes topside to watch as the boat prepares to dock in Japan. While she is talking to Luka about Katsuo’s wreck, he kisses her again. Too late, she notices that the petroleum jelly on his lips was coated with a tranquilizer. Before she loses consciousness, Luka tells her that he’s sorry, but he won’t let her steal another race from him.

Hours later, Felix arrives in Yael’s cabin to awaken her. All the other racers left the boat two hours earlier. She despairs of catching up until Felix informs her that he’s been tinkering with his own bike to improve its speed. He gives Yael his motorcycle and plans to follow on the slower bike. She catches up with the rest of the pack just short of its ultimate destination at the Imperial Palace. Racing neck and neck with Luka, Yael is forced to drop back when her accelerator can’t recover on the turns as well as Luka’s machine can. He beats her to the finish line by a few seconds. Yael thinks, “The empty spaces inside her were opening again—cobweb weak and wide. Yael was falling through them, grabbing on to only snatches of thoughts and words. She could only hold on to three: All. For. Nothing” (338). As she prepares to slip away and return to Germania, Luka suggests that she be his date for the Victor’s Ball. Realizing that Hitler will certainly want to dance with her there, Yael consents. Her plan to kill the Führer is still viable.

That afternoon, Yael is given a room in the Imperial Palace to wash up and prepare for the festivities that evening. Although she will be wearing a kimono, she finds a way to conceal her handgun in the waistband and her knife in her upswept hair. She removes the old bandage from her newest wolf tattoo and prepares to rewrap the arm. Just then, Felix enters, already dressed for the ceremony. He tries again to discourage Yael from her assassination plan.

Before he can stop her, Yael subdues him, ties him up, and knocks him out with the butt of her gun. Then, she repairs the damage from the scuffle and continues to dress her arm wound. As she does so, she thinks back to her first visit to the tattoo parlor in Germania when she wanted to cover her concentration camp ink with the wolf pack. She thinks of each in turn:

Babushka—the one who gave her purpose. Mama—the one who gave her life. Miriam—the one who gave her freedom. Aaron-Klaus—the one who gave her a mission. Vlad—the one who gave her pain. These were the names she whispered in the dark. These were the pieces she brought back into place. These were the wolves she rode to war (358).

That evening, Yael enters the ballroom on the arm of Luka, both looking like Aryan heroes. After being mobbed by the press, they mingle and make small talk with the dignitaries who have assembled while Yael tensely waits for Hitler’s arrival. During their first waltz together, Luka confesses his love for Yael and says he wants to marry her. Despite her attraction to him, Yael lies and says she could never love Luka. Their conversation ends abruptly when Hitler enters the room and makes the rounds of introductions. As expected, he claims a dance with Yael. Luka cynically comments that Yael is planning to become the Führer’s mistress.

During their waltz, Yael decides that she will tell Hitler exactly who she is just before she kills him. As she aims her gun, she announces, “I am Yael. I am Inmate 121358ΔX. I am your death” (370). She shoots Hitler through the heart at point-blank range. Much to her surprise, the Führer’s features begin to change as he slips toward death. He is a shapeshifter like her. She hasn’t killed the real tyrant after all. While the room erupts into turmoil, Yael crashes through a window, retrieves a change of clothing that she hid outside, and transforms herself into a nondescript Japanese woman as she determines what to do next:

She had to find a telephone, a telegraph, something to message Reiniger and Henryka, warn them.… But it was already too late. The shot had been heard around the world. The fuse had been lit. And there was no extinguishing it (372).

Dr. Geyer watches the live broadcast of the assassination and hears Yael’s defiant message to Hitler and the world. He is shocked to realize that the little girl who escaped his laboratory grew up to become a resistance fighter. He recalls that Yael was one of his favorite experimental subjects: “As soon as this girl stared back at him (and kept staring, through the fear and the pain and the wails of those so much older), Geyer knew she was something he could melt down. Something that might survive the forging” (374).

After Yael’s escape, Geyer continued to perform other experiments and realized the shape-shifting capabilities of his experiments. The operation became known as the Doppelgänger Project and was eventually used to plant decoys of important Nazi political figures. Because the assassination was recorded as a live broadcast, there will be serious repercussions for the Reich and for Geyer himself. 

The world has witnessed the assassination on live television. Even though the airwaves went dead immediately afterward, the consequences are immense. As Yael limps homeward, she thinks, “Her mission had faltered, yes, but it had not failed […] A man had died to make the world better, and though it was the wrong sacrifice, there was no taking back the blood. […] But this time, hope ran with it” (378). The resistance movement is mobilizing on a global level to topple the weakened Nazi regime.