‘And he’ll believe you?’
‘He always does. Or I wouldn’t have been given this mission.’
‘Do you and he – well . . .’
‘He likes to touch me, from time to time. But he has never done anything more.’
‘The man needs his head examined.’
‘Absolutely. And not only as regards sex. But he happens to be the second most powerful man in Europe, at this moment. So I suppose he is entitled to have his foibles. On the other hand, as he does regard me as his private property, the last man I had sex with was Reinhard Heydrich, the night before he was blown up.’
Clive frowned at her. ‘But . . . he was blown up on his way from his house outside Prague to the Hradcany Castle. Early in the morning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you had spent the night with him?’
‘His wife and daughter had already returned to Germany. He was going to follow them a day or two later, as he supposed; I am certain he would then have been officially appointed Hitler’s heir and virtual co-Führer. He was on Cloud Nine that night. So much so that, believe it or not, he told me he was going to divorce his wife and marry me. That was the only time I ever felt sorry for him.’
‘Because you knew the assassination had been arranged for the next morning?’
‘Partly that.’
‘What did you think when you saw him drive off?’
‘He didn’t drive off, Clive. I went with him.’
Clive released her hand. ‘You were in that car? You were told not to endanger yourself.’
‘So many previous attempts had failed, I realized I would have to adopt a hands-on approach. I had to persuade him to take the short cut down the side road where I had told the assassins to wait.’
‘You could have been killed.’
‘Not really. As I knew what was going to happen, I hit the floor of the car just before the grenade was thrown.’
‘That was still going above and beyond.’
The temptation to tell him just how far above and beyond she had gone was enormous, but she resisted it. ‘The assassination squad took a far greater risk, and paid for it with their lives.’
‘And no one suspected your involvement?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Anna pointed. ‘That piece of carrion. He was the Gestapo commander in Prague. He had me in his torture chamber, and was about to start . . . doing things to me, when an envoy from Himmler arrived to take me back to Berlin.’
‘And Himmler never suspected?’
‘He was just happy to have seen the back of a monster he had created and who was now scheming to displace him.’
‘Shit! And you never told us before.’
‘Well, I was just doing my job. You told me to set it up, and that is what I did. The point I am making is that it was fourteen months ago, and since then there are several parts of me that have become very lonely, if not atrophied, so . . . But we don’t want to be interrupted.’ She opened the door, checked that the corridor was empty, then wheeled the trolley out and stationed it against the wall. She returned into the room, locked the door and took off her dressing gown.
‘For God’s sake,’ Clive protested. ‘We can’t do it here.’
‘It’s my bedroom.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ He gazed at the two bodies.
‘I don’t think they are going to interfere. But if they bother you . . .’ She stripped the bed, draped the top sheet over Feutlanger, the bottom sheet over Otto. ‘There we are. Now we can just forget them.’
‘Can’t we put them in the bath?’
‘Well, no. I will want to have a bath tomorrow morning.’ She lay on the mattress, her head on the pillow.
Clive sat beside her. ‘Anna . . . God, I don’ know what to say.’
She held his hand. ‘Those two men belong to the organization, the society, that taught me how to kill, how never to feel remorse – never to blink, if you like. Is there not a biblical saying, that those who sew the wind must reap the whirlwind? They created the Countess von Widerstand. They must accept the consequences.’
‘But me . . . MI6 . . . Joe Andrews . . .’
‘You taught me that there might just be a calm when the wind dies down.’ She put her arm round him to draw him against her. ‘For you, the Countess von Widerstand does not exist. There is only Anna.’
The Conspiracy
To Anna’s surprise, the address she had been given was not a bank but an ordinary office block. She presented herself before the desk in the front hall. ‘My name is Anna O’Brien. I have an appointment with Herr Laurent.’
‘Seventh floor,’ he said, looking her up and down. She was again wearing her black dress and her black cloche. Well, she thought, she now had a reason to wear mourning. But, as always, he clearly liked what he was looking at. ‘The elevator is over there.’
‘Thank you.’ She went to the lift, pressed number seven and looked at her watch; the car seemed to be moving with agonizing slowness. It was three minutes to nine. She had actually left the Gustav at a quarter to, having been awake since Clive’s departure just before dawn.
They had loved with almost frantic desire. She always loved like that: physical sex was the only time she could give way to the passion that was always lurking in her mind, and so often threatening to overwhelm it – because the rest of the time that mind had to be so carefully controlled, so icy calm, so utterly sure of what she was doing and what she had to do to stay alive. She remembered that in her early days in this job she had thought of herself as swimming in a sea of sharks, all awaiting the opportunity to take a bite. Well, Feutlanger had felt his opportunity had come. Poor Feutlanger.
But Clive had not been relaxed. Well, she supposed, for all his years of experience, he had never spent the night in a room with two corpses, much less most of it making love. His obvious awareness of his surroundings had been inhibiting; she had been almost relieved when he had had to leave. When next they got together, she had told herself, it would be without any hang-ups. Supposing that was ever going to happen.
But from then on she had been working, with no margin for error. When she had left the room at eight thirty, having not eaten breakfast – she would eat on the train – the dinner trolley had been removed and the maid was already in the corridor, working on the room three numbers away. Anna had smiled at her, but just in case she had seen her leaving her room, she said, ‘Please let my husband sleep for a few hours. He has had a busy night.’
The girl had not looked very pleased, and there was no telling how long she would wait; presumably she went off duty about noon. Anna had paid the bill, smiled at the clerk, and left the hotel to merge into the crowds hurrying to work. Walking a busy street which entirely lacked craters, in the midst of ebullient people who had never been bombed and presumably never would be, carried her back to Berlin three years ago or, better yet, her girlhood in Vienna . . . save that for as long as she could remember the people in Vienna had suggested strain and uncertainty, with the ever-looming menace of Nazi Germany dominating their thoughts. These people were happy.
Which was not to say that they would not hang her, or at least lock her up for life, were they to discover that she was the most recent occupant of the hotel room in which there were two dead men. And this lift was still ascending with damnable slowness. But at last it was stopping. It was two minutes past nine.
She stepped into a lobby, and through a swing door to another, faced a rather severe looking middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk and a large typewriter, who, unlike most men, did not look the least pleased to see her. ‘You have business?’ She spoke German.
‘My name is Anna O’Brien,’ Anna said in the same language, ‘and I have an appointment with Herr Laurent. It is to do with a donation.’
The woman checked her diary, and pressed her intercom. ‘Fräulein O’Brien is here . . . Very good, sir.’ She flicked the switch. ‘You are to go right in.’ She indicated the corridor, while looking even less approving
than before. ‘The third door on the left.’
‘Thank you.’ Anna proceeded along the corridor, gave a brief knock, and opened the door – to check in surprise. The man seated behind the desk was amazingly young; she would not have placed him as more than in his early thirties. He was also remarkably handsome, with aquiline features, very like her own, she supposed, carefully groomed black hair, and a body which was well displayed by a flawlessly cut dark three-piece suit.
For his part, Laurent appeared equally struck by what he was looking at. ‘Miss O’Brien?’ He spoke perfect English.
‘That is correct,’ Anna said in the same language, and advanced into the room, closing the door behind her, before placing the attaché case on his desk with some relief; it had been growing heavier by the minute.
He came round the desk to take her hand. ‘It is a great pleasure. I hope I am going to be allowed to take you out to lunch.’
‘I am catching the ten o’clock train,’ Anna said. ‘So I really am a little short of time.’
He regarded her for a moment, then released her hand and returned behind his desk. ‘Well, at least sit down for five minutes.’
‘You will need the key,’ Anna said. ‘Will you excuse me?’
He gazed at her in consternation as she reached behind herself to unbutton her dress, and then pulled it forward from her shoulders to expose the straps of her camiknickers, her crucifix, and the key. She lifted the cord over her head and handed it to him. He looked at it, and then at her as she replaced her dress. His expression had not changed, but there was a faint flush in his cheeks. ‘This cord is damp.’
Anna sat down and crossed her knees. ‘I was told not to take it off until in your presence, and I had a bath this morning.’
He looked at the cord, and then at her. ‘It has lived an exciting life.’ He sat also, opening the case. ‘Herr Himmler must trust you very much.’
‘Thank you. I will need a receipt. He said it was to be in both dollars and Swiss francs.’
‘Of course.’ He pressed his intercom. ‘Fleugel. Come in here will you, please.’
An even younger man appeared.
‘Would you check the contents of this case, please, and bring me a receipt for the total. In US dollars as well as francs.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Fleugel closed the case and left the room.
‘Will he be long?’ Anna said.
‘Ten minutes.’
Ann looked at her watch: nine fifteen. ‘It really is important that I catch that train.’
‘I will drive you to the station myself. It is only ten minutes away. But is Herr Himmler that hard a taskmaster?’
‘He makes up schedules, which his staff are required to meet.’
‘It is good to have such a willing staff. But then he is a very powerful man.’ He studied her. ‘How long have you worked for him?’
‘Five years.’
‘That is a long time to work for such an exacting boss. You must admire him very much.’
Anna returned his gaze. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I have never met him. Although I have heard a great deal about him, his reputation.’
‘Yet you accept his money.’
‘In the money business, certainly here in Switzerland, our clients are essentially both faceless and blameless. We invest their funds for them, and our percentage keeps us in business. Do you find that very immoral?’
‘How can I,’ Anna asked, ‘as I have worked for him for five years?’
‘You are a very intelligent young woman.’
‘Thank you.’ Anna looked at her watch. ‘It is half past nine.’
‘And here is Fluegel.’ He took the receipt, glanced at it, and then handed it to her. ‘Is that satisfactory?’
It was in both Swiss francs and US dollars. Anna was more interested in the latter, which apparently worked out at $533, 474.62. ‘From which you will take . . .?’
‘We only charge five per cent for handling the money, but of course we also hope to make a profit on the exchange rate and the source of our investment.’
‘Of course.’ Anna put the receipt in her shoulder bag, and stood up. ‘And now . . .’
‘You are in a hurry. Thank you, Fleugel.’
‘Before we leave, may I use your toilet?’
‘Of course. It is through there.’
It took Anna just five minutes to remove her hat and dress, put on her other dress, which was pink with a knee-length skirt, fluff out her hair and let it lie on her shoulders, stow her discarded dress and hat in her bag, and return to the office.
Laurent stared at her. ‘My God! Do you do that often?’
‘Do I do what, often?’
‘Completely change your appearance and, indeed, your personality.’
‘Which one do you prefer?’
‘I thought I was dealing with a woman; now I find that you are a girl.’
‘I am a girl in a hurry.’
‘Of course.’ He held the door for her, and escorted her to the lift leading down to the basement garage. He continued to study her as they descended, standing facing each other. ‘I cannot help but feel that I have seen you before,’ he remarked. ‘Or is it just that you are the dream of every man to have seen before? – and perhaps met?’
‘You put that very nicely,’ Anna conceded. ‘But you do know that is the standard approach of every pick-up artist?’
‘Touché.’ He ushered her to the predictable Mercedes, and a moment later they were on the street. To Anna’s dismay the route took them past the Gustav, and sure enough there were three police cars parked outside, with a cluster of spectators standing around them. The maid could have waited no more than half an hour before going in; Anna hoped she had had hysterics. Laurent slowed. ‘I wonder what has happened here.’
‘We really do not have the time to stop,’ Anna reminded him.
‘Of course.’
Five minutes later they were at the station. There were the usual policemen to be seen, and as usual they gave her a second and then a third look, as did most other people, but no one attempted to interfere with her departure. Laurent accompanied her to the door of her carriage. ‘Will I see you again?’
‘I suspect you will, Herr Laurent, if you wish to.’
He kissed her fingers. ‘I shall be counting the days.’
*
Berlin was blacked out, and the streets were largely deserted, even at nine o’clock at night, and yet, as she stepped off the train Anna had a sense of tension. ‘Something has happened,’ she said.
Essermann bent over her hand. ‘Of course you would not have heard, Countess. Yes, something has happened. Hamburg has been wiped off the map.’
‘Say again?’
He escorted her to the waiting car. If he had to have noticed that the attaché case was no longer as heavy as yesterday, he did not comment. But then she had no idea whether or not he was in Himmler’s confidence. ‘The RAF, and the Yanks, bombed it for three consecutive nights as well as during the day. They are calling it the Battle of Hamburg. The last raid was mainly incendiaries, dropped where there were already many fires. They are still burning out of control, because the damage is so great the various services cannot reach the conflagration. As I say, the city is virtually destroyed.’
‘My God!’ Anna commented. ‘When did this happen?’
‘The final raid, the fire raid, was last night.’
While I was in bed with Clive, she thought, and wondered if he had known what was going to happen. If that were true, he had no business accusing her of having too clinical an approach. ‘Were there many casualties?’
‘It will take time to evaluate. So many bodies were consumed entirely by the fire storm, and numbers of others are too badly burned to be identified. But they are talking of more than fifty thousand dead.’
‘My God!’ Anna said again, and gazed out of the windows at the empty streets, the bomb craters. Supposing something like that was to happen here?
‘The R
eichsführer’s instructions were that you were to be taken direct to him, no matter what time you got back,’ Essermann said.
‘He told me he wanted that. Is he very upset?’
‘The Reichsführer conceals his feelings very well. Perhaps you have noticed this.’ The car stopped outside the apartment building. ‘I had better accompany you in.’
He opened the door for her and escorted her past the SS sentries on the door, having, despite his uniform and the fact that they obviously knew who he was, to show a pass. ‘It is the third floor,’ he explained. ‘I will wait for you in the lobby to take you home.’
‘Thank you. I hope I shall not be too long.’
Enigmatically, he did not reply. But one of the guards must have called up, because when she exited the lift on the third floor there was an obvious butler waiting for her. But he was also a bodyguard. ‘Good evening, Countess,’ he said. ‘Will you place your bags on that table, please.’
‘It is the contents of these bags that the Reichsführer wishes to see,’ Anna pointed out.
‘Of course, Countess. But I must see them first.’
Anna placed both the bags on the table, and he looked into the attaché case, then emptied the shoulder bag, picking up the Luger and looking at her.
‘It was the Reichsführer’s command that I carry a weapon,’ Anna explained.
The butler opened the chamber and sniffed. ‘This gun has been fired, recently.’
‘Yes, it has. I have not had the time to clean it. But that is a matter for the Reichsführer and myself.’
‘Of course. But I must require you to leave it here until instructed by the Reichsführer.’
Anna shrugged.
‘And now, Countess, would you stand facing the wall, and place your hands on it, above your head.’
‘You intend to search me?’
‘It is my duty to do so.’
Angel in Jeopardy: The thrilling sequel to Angel of Vengeance (Anna Fehrbach Book 4) Page 6
