“You are sick, Dietrich,” came her hoarse reply.
“Much better.” He clapped his hands. “It talks and it will soon be back to normal, perhaps a more respectful normal, shall we say, but alive. Marvelous!”
“The Russians are coming, Herr Dietrich. I am told some of the eastern troops have been in the woods so long that they do not care whether they find a woman or a man, especially when it comes to SS or Gestapo officers. So, we shall see how you enjoy it.”
Her eyes followed him around the small cell. She was burning for revenge, and he could see that nothing would stop her from it, nothing short of a large caliber bullet. “You know, a spy is a society’s ultimate ingrate,” he said. “I hope you were paid well for your treason against the Fatherland.”
“This is not my Fatherland. You and the rest of your Nazi ilk have twisted it into a horror-land that I can hardly recognize.”
“You are a Jew, I shall grant you that; but you were born here. Why would you betray us for a Russian dwarf like Stalin or a piece of sadistic trash like Lavrenti Beria?”
“I am not working for the Russians. I am working for a new Germany, something you can never understand.”
“A new Germany?” he sneered. “Oh, you are so naive, Fraulein. Was it an unhappy childhood? Did your father beat you? Is that what turned your warped little mind to spying? Surely it was more than your torrid love affair with the American?" Dietrich saw the flash of pain in her eyes. “We know all about you and Captain Scanlon. You forget he was a former guest in my little hotel here, and there was not much the fellow did not tell me — except he did omit some very important details about you, I must admit.”
“You are even more stupid than the Russians,” she spat. “They cannot understand anyone who works for a cause any more than you can.”
“God save us from the idealists and the zealots. Stalin has such a huge advantage over us in that regard. He pumps you up with all that Socialist ’one world’ crap. It never fails on women, social misfits, or the hopelessly romantic.”
“You will never understand.”
“Oh, but I do. If I know anything, I know spies. Comrade Stalin only sends us his very best — Ukrainians, Georgians, and you Jews, of course. They have all been on my tables down here, and I know. Deceit is in their blood, you see. We cannot possibly top that.”
“Here I thought you were just another arrogant Nazi, Herr Dietrich; I had no idea how truly evil you are.”
“Evil? That is high praise when it comes from a Major in Lavrenti Beria’s NKVD,” he said as he held up her brass badge. “I am impressed.” She glared at him, but said nothing. “As a good Red Army officer, I am certain you follow orders, do you not, Comrade Major Steiner? Not much choice, I guess. If not, that dwarf bastard Beria would put you up against the wall.”
“Yes, as he will do to you in a few weeks.”
“I think not, Hanni, because I have a delicious proposition for him,” he said, leering at her and watching her shrink back. “We found your radio transmitter. It is all connected upstairs and ready to go, and I want you to send a message to Moscow for me.”
“Never!”
“Never can be a very long time,” he laughed. “Many, many things can happen between now and then, and you would be amazed at how fast never can arrive, my dear.”
“Never!" she screamed at him again with clenched teeth.
“Humor me,” he said as he waved her protest aside. “You are going upstairs, even if I have to drag you up there myself. I have a room set up for you adjacent to my office. Call it your private little cell with a bed, a private bath, and your radio. You can relax, take a nap, and give Moscow a call when you feel up to it. Tell them about the weather, tell them about the war, or tell them anything you damned well please; but in the end, you will tell them about my proposition; because that is your duty, Major Steiner.”
“What proposition?” she finally asked, as she felt the jaws of a giant vice began to close around her.
“It is all about airplanes, my dear, about jet airplanes,” he beamed. “Tell your masters that I can deliver the Hermann Göring Research Institute at Volkenrode to them — lock, stock, staff, and engineering barrel — either to them or to Herr Churchill in London. It is their choice. If they do not know what the Me-262 is, tell them they should employ a better class of spy.”
“You really are mad.”
“Mad? Oh, not at all,” he laughed with the confidence of a diamond cutter who knows every facet of his stone by heart. “Moscow Center knows who I am, and they know I am a man of certain… capabilities.”
“They know you are a sadist and a pervert.”
“Which is precisely why Comrade Beria will so readily understand. Even a cretin like him will know what a jet airplane is by now, and what it means to Russia’s future. They may have two million Mongolians in uniform ready to die for the Rodina, the Motherland, but the Americans will soon have the technology to make them do just that, and to dominate the Soviet Union for decades. So, you will send the message, my dear, because you have no choice; and they will listen, because they have no choice, either. They must have those jet airplanes.”
Hanni spent the next few hours in a storeroom with a high, tiny window adjacent to Otto Dietrich’s top floor office. She stared at the radio before she even dared touch it. Finally, however, she realized Dietrich was right. She was doomed. She contacted Moscow Center and relayed Dietrich’s proposition with fear and loathing, because she knew precisely what Moscow would do. A decision of this magnitude would never be reached by a mere duty officer. It would be run upstairs to Beria and probably to Stalin himself, so they kept her waiting. Long, painful minutes stretched into hours before she finally received a reply. Dietrich had his deal and Major Steiner had her orders. It was a matter of “Utmost Importance to the State” that she cooperate “fully” with Dietrich. Those German airplane designers must reach Russian lines, or she would suffer dire consequences. Hanni knew precisely what that meant. If she did not succeed, her father would die.
An hour later, Dietrich returned. Apparently, the suspense was more than even he could stand. “I assume they believed you, Fraulein?” he asked confidently.
“The Kremlin? They believe no one — not me and certainly not you. To them, you are worth nothing more than the goods you carry, so, yours had better be good. Yours had better be very good.”
Otto Dietrich kept Hanni Steiner alive and comfortable on the top floor of Gestapo headquarters with a cot, the radio, and two guards on the door, where she had nothing to do but think. He even released Horstmann and the other old men. “I will always know where to find them,” he said with a smile. And there is no telling what useful information they might pick up and bring back to you, he thought. As the days passed, the full impact of his cynical plan became clear to her. It was so simple and so logical that she knew he would get away with it. Despite the litany of crimes on his head and all the blood on his hands, the bastard would walk away scot free, or so he thought. If he looked carefully into her bright-blue eyes, he would see the cold fires still burning behind them. She had become a woman on a mission, a woman who would have her revenge. However, she must also find a way to give Moscow what they wanted, because they had her father. She would get them the German scientists, but Otto Dietrich was not part of the bargain. He and his Gestapo medallion would get them out of Leipzig and out of Germany, but he would die at her hands when they reached the Red Army lines. It was only a question of when and how, not if.
Unfortunately, her pact with the devil would prove very bad for poor Edward, she realized — poor darling Edward. Between her hatred for the Chief Inspector, her orders, and her love for her father, there was no room left for anyone else, least of all the young American Captain. He had been the only true, honest, and clean thing to come into her life in too many years to remember. When she sent him safely away on that small boat bound for England, she thought that at least one good thing would outlive this wicked war. Whatever
else happened, whatever other disgusting things they forced her to do, she could die knowing that Edward Scanlon was alive in England, and he would know nothing about them.
Later, when that stupid old cripple Horstmann showed up at the front desk downstairs and asked to see her, Dietrich laughed at the old man’s nerve; but he allowed it, thinking he might yet have some use for whatever was left of her old network. When Horstmann told her that Edward had returned, that he was at the bookshop, and that he insisted on seeing her; Hanni broke down and wept. That damned fool! Why did he come back, she asked hopelessly, and why now? Horstmann did not need to tell her why. Deny it as she might, she already knew the answer; he came for her and nothing would stop him.
She felt ashamed and embarrassed. Having Edward learn the sick truth about what she was doing was more than she could bear. Worse, he would charge in and jam his fist into the gears of Otto Dietrich’s carefully laid plans. That would cost him his life and her father his life, too. She could not allow that, which was why she made her Faustian bargain with the devil and told Dietrich where he could find Scanlon, and why she insisted on being there to watch. Edward must be stopped; but if he were to be captured or killed, it would be at her hands, not the hands of that arrogant Nazi bastard. She owed Edward that much — to save him from Otto Dietrich’s basement or see him dead. Those were her only choices. It was tragic, she thought. She had had many lovers over the years, but he was the first man she had truly loved in return. It was tragic for him, and now it would be tragic for her, too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
With Paul Von Lindemann behind the wheel of the small coupe, the two men drove southwest from Leipzig along a succession of narrow farm lanes. The dark sky behind them slowly brightened to a rich purple, then to a soft pink as the burnt-orange pall over the shattered city faded with the dawn. Gradually, the flat land gave way to the fog-shrouded foothills and dense pine forests of the Harz Mountains. Despite their time together riding through the countryside, the Luftwaffe Major remained a mystery to Scanlon. His skin was pale and his face appeared tired and drawn. Obviously, he had no more recovered from his airplane crash than Scanlon had from his session in Otto Dietrich’s basement.
“You’re sure that new airplane is worth all this trouble?” Scanlon asked.
“Like nothing you have ever seen before, Captain,” Von Lindemann said as a glow spread across his face. “I can tell you are not an aviator. The power, the raw speed she has… well, it is like having a rocket between your legs. Give the throttle a kick and stand her on her arse, and she will toss you around like a small child. The stick shakes, the blood drains from your face, and the fuselage gets so hot you sweat like a pig in the cockpit. Is she worth it, you ask? She is worth any price; you shall see, any price.”
“She?” Scanlon asked.
“Like any beautiful, powerful beast, she has a personality and demands a man’s full attention. What pronoun would you use?”
“Well, if she’s that good, why do I still see all those B-17s up there?”
“Because Hitler is a fool. His astrologers told him his wonder weapons would turn the tide of the war, so he kept them in reserve for his great counter-attack. What nonsense. By the time he released them, it was too late.” Von Lindemann wagged his finger. “However, if he had listened to us and turned them loose in October or November, even piecemeal as they became available, things would be far different today. Those B-17s you see would be parked on their runways back in England gathering dust, at least the ones that were still flying. Without all that airpower, your army would be stalled in France, our cities would still be standing, and the Me-262 would own the sky. God help us, but Hitler could actually be winning this damned war, Captain; and that would be a far worse abomination than the prospect of our losing it.”
Scanlon looked at him and could not quite be sure. Was the man serious, or had his demons already gnawed one too many pieces out of the poor guy?
“By the way,” Von Lindemann announced. “Our plan to take the Institute’s staff south may have run into a snag. The Gestapo is now responsible for internal security and counterespionage for the Reich’s most sensitive installations, so Uncle Heinrich now has its nose under our tent. SS headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht Strasse has told the Air Ministry that security is paramount, and their regional security chief in Leipzig is now in charge.”
“Otto Dietrich?”
“I’m afraid so, and he has decided that the Volkenrode center cannot be protected. It is too isolated and too risky, so the staff must be relocated. It appears we may only have a day or two before Herr Dietrich marches in and takes over. That is why our timing is so important, why I was so upset when you missed the drop zone.”
“I see, but can the Gestapo do that? Do they have that much power now?”
“Himmler versus Göring? A year ago, I would have said no; but now? Our fat Air Marshal cares more for his art collection than his airplanes, so I would not put my money on the Luftwaffe.”
“That means Dietrich knows about us, doesn’t it?”
“It is a strong possibility, so I have scheduled a meeting with Raeder and his staff for this morning. They are not stupid men nor are they very brave, so they will need some coaxing before they go running south with us.”
Scanlon frowned. What was it Bromley said? It has all been arranged — a piece of cake? Isn’t that what the deceitful bastard said? “Tell me," he asked, “in London, I heard about a new Führer Order. Something about if Germany loses the war…”
“When, not if.”
“Okay, when Germany loses the war,” Scanlon continued. “They say Hitler has given orders that everything is supposed to go up in flames with him — the factories, the laboratories, even the men behind them — everything. They say he wants the country destroyed, all of it.”
“It sounds like him,” Von Lindemann answered with a fatalistic shrug. “He thinks we all failed him, so it will be like Wagner’s ’Twilight of the Gods.’ He thinks he is Wotan, and he wants his Valhalla to go up in flames with him in one big Viking funeral.”
“Is it possible that’s what Dietrich’s up to? Do you think he’d kill them?”
“Dietrich?” Von Lindemann paused, thinking. “You have had more contact with the man than I; but no, I do not think so.”
“I don’t think so, either. He is a sadist, but he was never one of Hitler’s true believers. All he believes in is Otto Dietrich.”
“However, the man is Gestapo. Even if he will not do it, there are men under him who would without a second’s hesitation. He must follow orders and lead, or get out of their way. If he will not, they will kill him, too.”
Scanlon was getting a bad feeling. “There must be something in it for him, though, something big. If there weren’t, Dietrich wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Perhaps, but we cannot allow those engineers to fall into the hands of the Gestapo or of the Russians.”
“Agreed. So, do we go ahead and take them south?”
“Yes and quickly. We have two trucks at the Institute. If we only take the most important blueprints and files, we can pack them today and leave when it gets dark. When Herr Dietrich knocks on the gate tomorrow, we will be long gone and half-way to Bavaria." Von Lindemann turned toward Scanlon with a broad smile. "You can lose an army in those lovely alpine valleys and not find it for weeks.”
“If we can get there. They’ll have a dozen checkpoints between here and the Alps. You and I were lucky back there, but we won’t catch them by surprise the next time,” Scanlon said as he looked through the window at the rugged hills closing in around them. Bavaria was two hundred miles the wrong way, two hundred miles further away from Hanni; and there was nothing he could do about it now. Bromley! This is exactly how the bastard planned it. He let Scanlon think he was running fast and free, while all along Bromley was pushing him down the narrow corridor he had crafted for him.
“One other thing,” Scanlon offered. “The skies will be full of Allied airplane
s, and London wants us to paint some white circles on the roofs of the trucks. That’s supposed to keep them from shooting us up on the road.”
“London said that?" Von Lindemann asked. “Painting targets on them seems a strange way to protect us; but I guess we have to trust they know what they are doing, don’t we?”
“This is turning out to be one hell of a strange war, isn’t it? Trust? I’m not even sure I know what that means anymore,” Scanlon replied. White circles? He could already hear the faint alarm bells going off in the back of his head. What was Bromley up to, anyway? "I’ll tell you one thing," Scanlon added as he turned and looked at him, “If I were calling the shots, I’d send a flight of B-17s over your Research Institute and level the place. Nothing personal, of course;" he smiled, “but it would save everyone a lot of trouble.”
“As long as we are being candid, Captain, that is what I would do, too. I do not trust the Russians, nor do I trust the British. For that matter, I am not entirely certain I trust you Americans with weapons like this either. Nothing personal, of course.”
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