The Soldier Spies

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach,” she said.

  “Well, then, go ahead and throw up,” Fulmar said. “Just do it where I can see you.”

  She looked at him with horror and loathing, but she did not throw up.

  There was a knock five minutes later at the door.

  “Is that your father?” Fulmar whispered.

  She shook her head.

  "He would have a key,” she whispered, and then raised her voice. “Who is there?”

  “Hauptsturmführer Peis, Fräulein Dyer,” Peis called.

  Gisella looked at Fulmar to see what to do.

  Fulmar walked on the balls of his feet to the door, then gestured for Gisella to open it.

  She walked to the door and opened it.

  “Guten Tag,” she said politely.

  “I understand we have a visitor from Berlin,” Peis said. “I thought I would ask if I could be of any—”

  Fulmar killed him as he had killed the Gestapo agent on the train, quickly, soundlessly, by inserting the narrow, very sharp Fairbairn blade into his skull so quickly that brain death was virtually instantaneous. Peis’s body, as Lorin Wahl’s had, flopped around in his arms for a moment before the nerve reflexes died. Then Fulmar let Peis’s body slide to the floor.

  He bent over him, put his boot on his face, and pulled the baby Fairbairn from Peis’s skull. He wiped the blade on Peis’s jacket and sheathed the knife. He looked at Gisella. She met his eyes for a moment, then turned her head.

  Fulmar dragged the body into the living room, putting it where it would be out of sight of someone standing at the door, but making no other effort to conceal it. Then he straightened the rugs he’d put into disarray dragging the body.

  “Did you have to kill him?” Gisella asked, very low.

  “It was necessary,” he said, then thought that sounded a little too harsh. He wanted her afraid of him, not hysterical.

  “I knew him, you remember. He would have remembered me. I haven’t changed that much.”

  She laughed nastily at that.

  “My God,” she said,“if they catch us, they’ll kill us.”

  Fulmar didn’t reply. He went to the window and looked down at Burgweg. There was a small, diesel-engined Mercedes parked by a No Parking sign.

  “Does Peis have a driver?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Then as soon as your father gets here, we’ll take his car to Frankfurt and catch the Vienna train.”

  “Why are we going to Vienna?” she asked. “It’s in the opposite direction.”

  “Because it’s safer,” he told her.

  They were going to Budapest, but if they were caught on the way, it was better that neither she nor her father knew their ultimate destination.

  “My father’s liable to have a heart attack when he sees Peis,” Gisella said. It was not a cliché; she meant it.

  Fulmar shrugged.

  “When you… left Marburg, the last time,” she said,“and he questioned me, he burned my breasts with lighted cigarettes. The pain… I should feel something now that you’ve killed him. But I don’t. I just can’t believe any of this is happening.”

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, the sound of a key in the lock.

  Professor Friedrich Dyer stepped into the room.

  “The door was not locked,” he said, and then he saw Fulmar. “You have a guest, I see.”

  Fulmar motioned for him to close the door.

  "Don’t go in the living room, Daddy,” Gisella said.

  “Why not?” he asked, and walked across to the living room.

  “Did you do that?” he asked Fulmar matter-of-factly.

  “It was necessary,” Fulmar said.

  Professor Friedrich Dyer leaned over Peis’s body and spat. Then he turned to Fulmar.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Erich von Fulmar.”

  Dyer nodded, as if that too came as no surprise.

  “What do you plan to do with that swine’s carcass?” Dyer asked.

  “As soon as you throw a couple of things in a bag,” Fulmar said,“we are going to take Peis’s car and drive to Frankfurt. We will leave the body here. It should be a day or two before it’s discovered.”

  Dyer looked at his daughter.

  “Are you all right, Liebchen?”

  She nodded.

  He turned to Fulmar.

  “And what if we are stopped at a roadblock?”

  “I have passports and travel authority for you,” Fulmar said. “And my SS-SD identity card.”

  “Do we have time to go by my office?” Dyer said.

  “No,” Fulmar said immediately.

  “Don’t answer that so quickly,” the old man snapped. “I have given a good deal of thought to why all this effort is being made on my behalf, and I have concluded it is my work that makes it worthwhile, not an old man.”

  “Work?” Fulmar asked. “What kind of work?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Dyer said impatiently. “Work on the molecular structure of metals.”

  “Nothing was said to me about papers,” Fulmar said.

  “I would like to either take them—some of the more important papers, not everything—or destroy them.”

  “We are not going to the university,” Fulmar said. “Discussion closed. Put a couple of shirts in a bag, Herr Professor.”

  Chapter TWO

  Organization Todt Bureau Hoeschtwerk,

  FEG Hoescht am Main, Germany

  1540 Hours 30 January 1943

  “Guten Tag,” the caller said. “Would you put me through to Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg, please?”

  “Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg does not work in this office, and she cannot be called to the telephone.”

  “I am calling for Generaloberst von Handleman-Bitburg,” the caller said coldly. “Please get Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg on the line, or let me speak with your superior.”

  "One moment, please, mein Herr,” the woman said.

  Precisely two minutes and forty-one seconds later—the caller was looking at his watch—Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Ich liebe dich,” the caller said.

  “How are you?” Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg said.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I think I already knew,” Fräulein von Handleman-Bitburg said. “But thank you for telling me.”

  The caller hung up.

  Then he ran across the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and boarded the Danube Express for Vienna.

  Chapter THREE

  Leitha, Ostmark

  31 January 1943

  There was a customs house just beside the station at Leitha. It was sturdily constructed of brick, and above the door there was, carved in sandstone, the double-headed eagle of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A stark sign, black on white, had been fixed to the building, "GRENZPOLIZEI” (Border Police), but it did not quite cover the sandstone crest. The two eagle heads were visible, for all the world as if they were looking over the sign.

  The border divided what had been the two major divisions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Hungary was now an independent state. And Austria too had been independent, but it had been taken into Greater Germany and was now officially the State of Ostmark, on a par with Bavaria, or Prussia, or Hesse.

  Twenty miles north of Leitha was the border between Ostmark and what had been another two parts of what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These were the former Provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, which for a few years had been the Republic of Czechoslovakia.

  The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, in exchange for “peace in our time,” had allowed Hitler to take over that country. But it hadn’t fared as well as Hungary and Austria. It was now a “Protectorate,” which meant that the Bohemians and Moravians were not considered quite as good as Germans, and were not permitted to send re
presentatives to the Central Government in Berlin.

  Richard Canidy had given this snippet of history a good deal of thought before deciding that the safest place to cross the border between Germany and Hungary was at Leitha. Hungarians and Germans were allies.

  Residents of the Protectorates of Bohemia and Moravia seemed not to understand the privilege of their association with Germany, as nearly equal citizens. Not only had they assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the Protector himself, but they seemed to be always trying to get out of Bohemia and Moravia into either Hungary or Ostmark.

  Consequently, the borders between the Protectorates and Ostmark or the Protectorates and Hungary were more closely guarded than the border between Ostmark and Hungary.

  At Leitha there would be only one inspection of documents, and that one inspection would probably be more or less perfunctory.

  But an inspection was conducted, and it was not pro forma. The primary concern of the authorities was the disparity between food supplies in Germany and Hungary. Hungary, which had been the breadbasket of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, still had surplus supplies of food that farmers or their agents were perfectly willing to sell to anyone with the money.

  On the way from Hungary to Germany, travelers were searched for contraband sausage, salami, and smoked pork. That was considerably easier to find than excess-of-the-limit money, which was usually the contraband carried in the other direction.

  The inspection of documents and the searching of luggage began almost as soon as the train left Vienna’s Hauptbahnhof on Mariahilferstrasse. It was only fifty kilometers from Vienna to Leitha, and the train covered this in about forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes was not sufficient time for the border police to search all luggage and to inspect all documents.

  The Budapest Express had been stopped at Leitha for thirty minutes as the inspection continued, when the inspecting quartet—the conductor, two border policemen, and a Gestapo agent—slid open the door to a compartment that held an Obersturmführer SS-SD, an attractive young woman, and a tall, erect man whose documents identified him as both the young woman’s father and as an engineer employed by Siemens.

  Their documents seemed to be in order. The young Sturmbannführer had even naively confessed to have in his possession far more Reichsmarks than the law permitted. He had not, in other words, tried to conceal them, which would have been suspicious. But, as everyone knew, anyone attached to the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, even a lowly Sturmbannführer, tended to be a little loose as far as any regulation was concerned.

  In ordinary circumstances, after satisfying himself of the bona fides of the Sturmbannführer’s identification, the Gestapo agent would have turned a blind eye to the extra currency he had in his possession.

  But there had been an urgent teletype message from Berlin that morning. The body of a Gestapo agent had been found near the Swiss border the previous evening.

  He had been brutally stabbed to death before being thrown from the Baseler-Frankfurter Express. The murderer was believed to be a Swiss national, or at least someone equipped with a Swiss passport, in the name of Reber. “Reber” had disappeared from the train, and there was not much of a description available of him, but what there was fitted the Sturmbannführer.

  It was a delicate situation for the Gestapo agent. If this young officer was on the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, then clearly he had friends in high places, friends who were going to raise all kinds of hell if he was dragged off the train and accused of being either a Swiss black marketeer or an enemy agent. But on the other hand, duty was duty. It simply called for a little tact.

  “I am sure the Herr Sturmbannführer will understand the situation,” the Gestapo agent said.

  “What situation?”

  “There is a certain situation which I do not wish to discuss in public,” the Gestapo agent said.

  “You would like to talk to me in private,” Fulmar said, and stood up.

  “If you would be so kind,” the Gestapo agent said.

  “Very well,” Fulmar said, and stepped out of the compartment.

  The Gestapo agent led him to the vestibule at the end of the car.

  I’m going to get bagged five kilometers from the fucking border!

  “Would it terribly inconvenience the Herr Sturmbannführer to give me a number we could call of someone who could vouch for the Herr Sturmbannführer? ”

  “What’s this all about?” Fulmar demanded impatiently. “What is it you did not want to discuss before the others?”

  “There was an incident, Herr Sturmbannführer, in which a Gestapo agent lost his life. There was a teletype this morning, giving a description of the man who is the prime suspect.”

  “And you think I’m the man you’re looking for?” Fulmar asked. “Incredible! ”

  “The Herr Sturmbannführer will, I am sure, understand my position.”

  “Well, let’s get it over with,” Fulmar said. “Can we get through to Berlin from here? Standartenführer Müller will vouch for me. Would that suffice? Or will it take the Reichsführer-SS himself?”

  “Herr Sturmbannführer,” the Gestapo agent said,“the Gestapo agent was brutally murdered. He was stabbed to death. It is believed that his murderer is an enemy agent. The situation, as I’m sure you will understand, calls for extraordinary measures, even to the point of checking out someone like the Herr Sturmbannführer.”

  “Well,” Fulmar said,“you should have told me the situation right off. No apologies are required. To the contrary, I should offer, and do, my apologies for my resentment. You say there is a phone here?”

  “In the Grenzpolizei office, Herr Sturmbannführer.”

  Müller, obviously, has changed his mind about this whole thing. When he comes on the phone, he is either going to say he never heard of me, or tell this guy to arrest me, that I’m an agent. In either case, I have between now and the time Müller answers his phone to do something.

  The only chance I have now is to get alone with him, before he gets on the phone, and kill him, and hide the body, and get back on the train, and hope the body isn’t discovered until we’re across the border.

  I’m bagged, and that’s it. Shit, and so close!

  Well, if the Gestapo doesn’t go apeshit when they find they’ve bagged me, and the Dyers don’t go apeshit when they find out I’ve been arrested, they may make it.

  The obvious solution to this situation is for me to check out now. If they interrogate me, Elizabeth’s name will come out.

  Fulmar swiped at his face as if at an insect, and knocked his hat off.

  The Gestapo agent quickly bent and retrieved it, and handed it to him.

  “Danke schön,” Fulmar said, and brushed the front of the crown. He looked at it and straightened it, and when he took his hand from the inside, he had the Q pill. He put the hat on his head and coughed, and the Q pill was between his teeth.

  Here? he wondered, surprisingly calm. Or should I wait to see what happens?

  “The call will go from here to Vienna, which is sometimes difficult,” the Gestapo agent said. “But from Vienna, we have a direct line to Berlin.”

  “Fine,” Fulmar said, not moving his jaws. He ran his tongue against the slippery vial between his teeth.

  “Eric!” a male voice called. “Eric von Fulmar!”

  Fulmar and the Gestapo agent turned to see who was calling.

  A tall, thin, aristocratic man wearing a Homburg was standing on the platform of one of the cars.

  “Heil Hitler!” Eric said. The Q pill was now loose in his mouth. He was afraid he would either swallow it, or cough and spit it out. He coughed again, aware that it must sound artificial, and had the Q pill in his hand again.

  “Where in the world are you going?” the man said.

  “Tell him,” the Gestapo agent said,“that you’ll be back in just a moment.”

  The sonofabitch is suspicious.

  “I’ll be right back,” Fulmar called out. “We have to call Berl
in.”

  The man jumped off the train and walked quickly to them.

  Now the Gestapo agent was annoyed.

  He dug into the pocket of his ankle-length leather overcoat and came out with his aluminum Gestapo identity disk, holding it out for the man to see.

  “Gestapo,” he announced.

  “I surmised as much,” the man said. “Be good enough to explain this.”

  “This is none of your business, mein Herr!”

  “Oh, but my dear sir,” the man said icily,“it is my business.”

  The man then reached into the breast pocket of his suit and took out a pigskin folder, something like a thin wallet. He held it in front of the Gestapo agent’s face.

  “Be so good as to examine this,” he said softly.

  The Gestapo agent took a good look. He had never actually seen one before in the hands of the person it had been issued to. He had seen examples of them, of course, in school.

  It was an identity card issued by the Minister for State Security, signed by Heinrich Himmler himself. In the name of the Führer, it commanded all German law-enforcement authorities to place themselves at the orders of the bearer, Brigadeführer SS-SD Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz.

  “I am at your orders, Herr Brigadeführer,” the Gestapo agent said.

  “Then you will be so kind as to explain what you’re doing?”

  “If I may be so bold, Herr Brigadeführer,” Fulmar said. “This officer was simply doing his duty.”

  “Indeed? How is that?” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.

  “There is a call out for someone meeting my description. What this gentleman was doing was making sure I am who I say I am.”

  “Obviously, Herr Brigadeführer,” the Gestapo agent said, “that will no longer be necessary.”

  Von Heurten-Mitnitz ignored him.

  “Your aunt Beatrice told me you were probably going to be on this train,” he said. “I looked for you in Vienna but couldn’t find you.”

  “I almost missed the train,” Eric said.

  “With your permission, Herr Brigadeführer,” the Gestapo agent said, “I will return to my duties.”