‘Then . . .’
‘He told us to act immediately. But that idiot Stieff won’t move. He says he must have proof that Hitler is dead. Proof! What more proof does he want?’
Presumably, Anna thought, his nerves are still shattered from Sunday’s fiasco. But Katherine might be listening. ‘Why have you come to me?’ she asked, coldly.
‘Tell me what we must do – how we can make him move.’
The door opened again, before she could think of a reply. ‘Anna!’ Hellmuth stared at Steinberg. ‘You? Here?’
Steinberg reached for his pocket, and Essermann drew his pistol and shot him in the chest. Steinberg fell without a sound.
Katherine appeared in the inner doorway. ‘Oh, my God!’ she shrieked.
Essermann ignored her. ‘Anna?’ he said again, and her phone rang.
She picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’
‘Anna?’
‘Yes, Herr Doktor.’ She kept watching Essermann, who was staring at her while he tried to figure things out, but he had holstered his gun. She was holding the receiver in her left hand; with apparent absent-mindedness she opened the shoulder bag that lay on her desk. ‘Can you tell me what is going on?’
‘There has been an attempt on the life of the Führer.’
‘An attempt?’
‘Someone planted a bomb in the conference room.’
‘You mean the Führer . . .’
‘He is badly shaken, but he is not dead.’
Another dud, Anna thought. An utterly catastrophic dud. ‘That is a miracle,’ she said.
‘It is, you know. It has to be. The blast wrecked the room. It was contained in a briefcase, planted next to where the Führer was standing by some traitor on the staff. Purely by chance, or, as you say, by some miracle, an officer talking to the Führer found his feet blocked by the case and moved it to the other side of a solid upright, seconds before the bomb went off. The upright absorbed the force of the explosion.’
‘A miracle,’ Anna said again.
‘As the Führer said, it was a divine intervention. But listen, almost his first words on leaving the conference chamber were of you.’
‘Me?’ Her squeak was genuine.
‘He said, “Anna knows who these scum are. She told me so, last night. Tell her to have them all arrested, now. Shoot any who resist. Give her carte blanche.” That is what I am giving you now. Get the SD moving, and then report to me, with your list. If anyone refuses to obey you, refer him to me.’
‘Yes, Herr Doktor,’ Anna said slowly.
‘Then carry on. I expect to hear from you within the hour.’
The phone went dead. She and Essermann remained looking at each other, and Katherine still stood in the doorway. Goebbels had a penetrating voice, and both of the others had heard every word he had said.
Now Essermann spoke, almost in a dream. ‘You! You knew what was going to happen. You planned it. You have obstructed the investigation from the start.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Anna slipped her hand into her bag. Essermann might know something of her reputation, but he had never seen her in action.
‘Then why did Steinberg come running to you? Why did he attempt to shoot me the moment he realized I would find out?’
‘I think you will find that he was unarmed,’ Anna said, ‘and you have committed murder.’
‘And now you have carte blanche to make sure the conspiracy continues.’
‘Hellmuth, I think you want to be very careful what you say.’
‘You! The arch-traitor!’
He reached for his holster, but Anna’s fingers were already curled round her pistol. In one lightning-fast movement she drew, aimed and fired, hitting him in the centre of the forehead.
Feet drummed in the corridor, and several men and women burst into the room. ‘Countess! Those shots . . .?’
‘These men were plotting against the Führer,’ Anna said. ‘Remove the bodies, and then report to me here. We have a lot to do.’
The bodies were lifted and carried away.
‘Anna,’ Katherine said. ‘Those men . . . weren’t they your friends? Your lovers?’
‘Sleeping with a man does not necessarily make him a lover. Or even a friend. They were traitors.’
‘Yes. But just to shoot Colonel Essermann! I don’t understand.’
‘You must have heard what Dr Goebbels said. The conspiracy must be stamped out, and he has given me full authority to do this. Do you want to go on working with me?’
‘Well, yes, of course. But—’
‘Then you do not have to understand.’ Anna got up, went to her sister, and embraced her. ‘Just obey me, without question.’
Epilogue
‘As you say,’ I suggested, ‘a total catastrophe.’
Anna gave a little shiver. ‘Do you know the truth of it?’
‘I know there were quite a few . . .’
‘Five thousand, men and women, died. Once a few were arrested, as I had warned Freddie from the start, everyone implicated everyone else. One or two escaped the worst. Rommel, for instance, was allowed to commit suicide and given a state funeral. But the majority were quite horribly executed – senior officers like Beck, strung up on piano wire with no belts to their pants so that they slipped down to their ankles as they wriggled while the cameras rolled . . . ugh!’
‘Do you regret any of it?’
Anna sighed. ‘I have reminded myself, often, that they were all Nazis, enemies of the free world, that they were happy to see the Jews driven into the gas chambers, that they were interested only in saving their own skins. But then I think, If only my bomb had gone off, or the conspirators had been less elaborate and used the first opportunity they had instead of wanting anything to be just so . . .’
‘What about Steinberg?’
She made a moue. ‘He was a boy trying to operate in a man’s world. I was fortunate that Essermann shot him, or I would have had to do it myself, or risk betrayal.’
‘And Essermann? He had been – well . . .’
‘My lover? Yes. But I had always known I would have to kill him one day. Oh, the whole thing was such a mess.’
‘But you were triumphant, as always. The heroine of the hour.’
‘It was not my proudest achievement.’
‘Yet you were there, to see the end of it all – of them all: Goebbels and Göring, Himmler and Hitler – and to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes, with three knights in shining armour waiting to set you free. Will you tell me who won the prize?’
Anna Fehrbach smiled.
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Angel in Jeopardy: The thrilling sequel to Angel of Vengeance (Anna Fehrbach Book 4) Page 28
