The Nostradamus Traitor: 1 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  Kuche spoke for the first time. “You’re really going to kill him? Assassinate Himmler, here in his castle?”

  Frühling said of course. He sounded surprised that there should be doubt.

  “Then”—Kuche rose, clicking his heels—“I shall be very pleased to carry out that duty as my last act as an officer of the SS.”

  “Now there’s an idea.” Frühling slapped the table in good humour. “Another piece of trickery. He’s almost as good as you, Downay.”

  In the pause that followed, George asked Downay (“I was amazed to find how casual I sounded”) how he had managed the incapacitation of Joseph Wald. After all, he had seen the blood pouring from the man’s hand and wrist; saw him taken away to the baggage car where, he imagined, death waited.

  “We wanted you completely at ease with Kuche. It was clear he was unhappy about Joseph.” Downay went on to say he had always wanted to play the magician, but it really was quite easy: a device used for Grand Guignol in the theatre and cinema. As it happened the apparatus was an English device using what the British, with their macabre sense of humour, called “Kensington Gore.” Fake blood; a large, shaped bottle, tubes and clips, and a trick sword stick.

  “You magic my dreams in the same way?” George asked, bitter as aloes. “With a little something in my coffee? Dulwich Dream pills or something?”

  Downay looked disturbed. He knew nothing of George’s dreams.

  Wald, as it turned out, was on detachment to Frühling directly from Heydrich’s staff. His job had been to mastermind the Paris end—“Doing a little gentle pushing,” as he put it; and keeping one eye cocked on Kuche. It had been Downay’s people who had cut the throats of Balthazar and his girl. “We needed to separate you from anyone who might suspect what was going on. Balthazar, as I’m sure you know, was already suspicious of Downay.”

  That left only George’s mother and Angelle. Angelle, they said, had nothing to do with them. She was good cover, a girl like that in Downay’s apartment. As for Maman—Roubert looked quite serious.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve already said so. People do get hurt. Innocent people. She’s in custody. In the end it will depend on her.”

  George’s dream had her being dragged away in Paris.

  “So.” Frühling puffed out his cheeks. “Here we sit. Conspirators and conspirators. A moment of great history. Yet it feels normal. Strange that we can make history under these conditions.”

  “Do you accept my offer?” Kuche asked. “I’m quite genuine. I’ll do it for you. If I have to die now, then nothing would give me greater pleasure than to take the Reichsführer with me.”

  Frühling made a small shaking motion with the whole of his body. “The arrangements—the details—for the Reichsführer’s disposal have yet to be concluded. We shall see. Himmler, the chicken farmer, arrives at eleven tomorrow. There will be two cars. However it is done, his entourage will also have to die. How we do it depends, to some extent, on the cooperation of your friend Thomas. We shall see.” He made a dismissive movement, the hand raised as if to indicate that the prisoner was coming under starter’s orders. Flachs, accompanied by one of the sergeants, led Kuche from the room.

  They all turned their attention on George.

  “There will be questions.” Frühling’s small eyes looked dead. “I think you should be prepared for a long session. Some nourishment.”

  He nodded and they took George away: down steps and along passages so that he lost all sense of direction. Naturally he expected a dungeon. Instead, he was shown into a pleasant large room, done out in white. With some horror he reflected that it smacked of a hospital ward. There was a small bed, a table, two chairs. The rest was bare boards and white paintwork. The two windows had sets of very durable metal bars. George thought they need not have worried because when he looked down it was a long drop to the cobbled courtyard.

  They left a Waffen SS private soldier with him. Then another brought black bread and lentil soup. The soup gave him wind.

  42

  LONDON 1978

  “MORE COFFEE? A DRINK, perhaps?” At the back of Big Herbie’s mind an uncanny sense of unease had started to flower.

  George said that a drink would be nice, though it was barely eleven-thirty. “I go switch on the oven as well,” Herbie said. There was steak and kidney pie. The meat was cooked, but the pastry, well…

  The worry had been there yesterday and it was there, vividly, this morning. He fiddled about in the kitchen and built the drinks—gin again—while he thought about it. He had read the whole file on this operation and what followed. It was George’s show. George was here now, in the present in his own apartment; yet, as he told the story, the man in France and at Wewelsburg was not George.

  Natural, he calmed himself. After so many years how could it be this George? Are you, Herbie Kruger, the same Herbie as you were thirty—forty—years ago? We alter. We change sides, positions, attitudes. Time and memory shift the balance of perspective. Maitland-Wood’s warning came to mind—Remember that even he’ll only recall that which he wants to be retained.

  “They gave you a bad time in the room with the white walls then, George?”—sliding a drink over the table.

  At the Abbey, George said, they had told him how tough the SS and the Gestapo would be. “The full bit—rubber hoses, tearing your fingernails out. It wasn’t like that. Not the first time anyway.”

  Wald and the thin Flachs had been the main protagonists, with Michel Downay sitting on the sidelines.

  “They started by pointing out that, even though I was the obvious person on whom they could pin Himmler’s assassination, it might just be possible to come to some arrangement.”

  Herbie said, the carrot-on-a-stick technique.

  George agreed. “If I was co-operative, the new Reichsführer—Heydrich, of course—might be lenient. Some sort of execution would have to be carried out, but there were plenty of people they could use as stand-ins. It was pretty cold-blooded.”

  “What were they really after?”

  “I wondered that, to start with. I wondered what they really wanted, because they seemed to know most of it already. They knew a lot about my parentage, a bit about childhood—I put all that down to pillow-talk between Maman and Roubert. They were also well up on my academic qualifications and military service. Ramilies had recruited me—The same old professor who turned Kuche into a traitor—I think Wald said that. They talked about the Abbey as if they had been there; but their knowledge of Soldatensender Calais and its link with the operation was very sketchy, Nonexistent really. Also they didn’t seem to know how conversant I really was with the Nostradamus prophecies, or the occult in general.”

  “No threats. Just promises and letting you know they had a lot of information.” Herbie sipped his gin. “Advanced for those days.”

  “They knew it all. Not fools those confessors; no. It was like, let’s see? Like a friendly chat between the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and one who is suspected of not quite declaring all his assets.”

  “And you remained dumb?”

  “Of course. Stayed like the three wise monkeys. I wanted to see where they were leading me.”

  Herbie laughed. “You found out, I presume.”

  “Oh yes. Oh, I found out all right.”

  43

  WEWELSBURG 1941

  OBVIOUSLY, AT SOME POINT they were going to get technical and ask about the way George was prepared for the landing in France. Where he had gone from, and all that kind of thing. They began to throw in asides about the general organisation in England. Happily, George knew very little. Ramilies had seen to that.

  Eventually the important line of questioning emerged. It concerned George’s personal use in two different areas. They wanted to know if Ramilies had hired himself a genuine occultist, and, if so, would he be of use to them—maybe through Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry. The other possibility was whether George was suitable material to be turned and played back to London.

&nbs
p; To start with they began to harp on the occult and the quatrains he had provided.

  “We gather from Michel that you claim to have written these prophecies while in some kind of trance. You claim to be a genuine prophet?” Wald glanced towards Downay as if seeking confirmation.

  “I claim nothing.” George thought that sounded pompous and biblical.

  “But Downay says…”

  “I can’t help what Michel Downay says. He’s the bloody expert on Nostradamus. He’s even written a book about him, and unjumbled the prophecies. I’m surprised you can trust him; like I’m surprised he even told you that I had provided any of the prophecies at all. You know the French—steal the sweat off your balls.”

  Wald and Flachs thought that was quite amusing.

  “But you’re half French yourself?” Flachs, grinned.

  George spat. “So I’d only steal the sweat off one of your balls. I’m half English so I’d filch it off the most potent one.”

  The truculence did not work and that disappointed George. He would rather have them aggressive. Then Wald asked if he now denied having any occult powers.

  George shrugged. Downay came limping over to the table and leaned against it.

  “Explain to me”—he leered—“the quatrain you quoted on the train.”

  “Which one?”

  He came back with it very accurately:

  “At the castle death will come

  To those who shall rise again and mock.

  The Standard-Bearer shall link hands

  With one he trusts. The true one will not rise.”

  “You’re the great interpreter, Michel. Have a go,” George goaded.

  He asked again.

  Okay, George thought. He had no idea about where the dreams sprang from—except overwork on the quatrains—nor how he had come up with the words. But, as Master Shakespeare said, there are more things in heaven and earth. If he played along with them—took it all a stage further—he might just do the impossible.

  “You want my interpretation? Right.” Once more George felt he was pontificating, but it was part of the character now. “I believe it means that whatever’s being planned here against Reichsführer Himmler is doomed. It will fail.” Then, turning to Wald: “You’ve read the quatrains about the Reichsführer. He is destined to rise. He is destined to lead the Party and the Reich.”

  Wald hesitated, not exactly shaken. “On the train you said the true one will not rise.”

  “Maybe; then the one who is behind your present plan is the true one. But he will not rise. Everything points to it. How much Joseph Wald, do you really know about astrology, horoscopes, the occult, and the methods of divination?” George prayed that Wald knew very little, because he was now into a case of selling Tower Bridge to an idiot mark. The old con: the money game: alchemy.

  He forced his mind back to the nights in London, and at the Abbey, when he had culled some knowledge of these things from the books Ramilies had provided. Using all the technical phrases he could muster, George talked about divination, without actually saying that he was a seer. As he spoke, the confidence came. He sounded both lucid and authoritative: Nostradamus; the prophecies which really mattered; astrology; the quatrains he was supposed to have divined. “They are in exact keeping with Reichsführer Himmler’s horoscope. Check it with your own court astrologers.” Nobody, he said, could tamper with these forces.

  Wald tried to make light of it, but Flachs—who had a weak mouth and worried eyes, seemed edgy; disturbed.

  “There is no stopping us, George Thomas,” blustered Wald. “Here, we are a determined group, and we work under the direct orders of a very powerful officer….”

  “Heydrich’s ambition…” George began.

  “His backing is of more importance than mere personal ambition.” Wald turned, furious, his face thrust close to George. Then, he whispered, “We have the means; we also have the scapegoats—yourself and the traitor, Kuche. Nothing, you hear me, nothing, can stop what will happen tomorrow.”

  “Except the stars and fate itself.” George shivered, tensing his muscles to control himself.

  “I have no belief in that rubbish. The fact that others believe it…”

  George, still conquering the fear and shaking, forced a smile—as casual as he could manage, the facial muscles battling hard. “Makes no difference. What is written in the stars will happen. There are courses which will not be changed because men believe or disbelieve. You may well kill Kuche and myself. You will not kill Reichsführer Himmler. Not yet. His destiny is quite plain.” He went on; a line of dogmatic obstinacy. When they finally left him alone, George was certain he had convinced them at least that he was a confirmed and devoted believer.

  While Wald remained unmoved, you could not tell what Michel Downay thought. Flachs, however, was another matter. It was at this point that George thought Flachs started to waver.

  It must have been late afternoon by the time the first session ended. They had taken away his watch, so George had no idea of the real hour.

  He stretched out on the bed, trying to recall everything Ramilies had told him—both about Himmler and Heydrich. Not much in fact, for they had concentrated more on Goebbels.

  That the pair disliked one another was obvious knowledge. Facts had come via the Berlin Embassy during the thirties. It was thought, however, that the two men were mutually dependent one upon the other: Himmler being the faithful and close friend of Hitler; while Heydrich was the cold, calculating organiser.

  Himmler, even in his great position of power, was unpredictable, while Heydrich could usually be predicted up to a point—being the logician of the pair. He was also the one with fine Nordic looks, a master sportsman—riding, fencing, and shooting. Himmler had none of these attributes.

  There had already been at least one attempt to overthrow Heydrich. Some bureaucrat had suggested that this Nordic god had Jewish blood in him. There were also stories about his sexual excesses and drinking. One tale concerned a drunken bout, after which he had entered his mirrored bathroom, caught sight of his reflection, and emptied his pistol at the mirrors shouting, “I’ve got you at last, you swine.”

  Both men were to be feared. Heydrich was positively disliked by the bulk of his fellow SS officers, and the wives were at loggerheads—Frau Heydrich openly referred to Frau Himmler as “Size Fifty Knickers.” Frau Himmler had even pressurised her husband into trying to order a divorce between Heydrich and his wife.

  In the end, George felt the first pangs of despair. He had played a psychological game with Wald and Flachs, just as he had played it with Downay. There was little he could dredge from his memory about either Himmler or Heydrich that would help now. Lord knew what Kuche was doing, offering to carry out the assassination himself.

  The light was going, greying inside the room. In spite of the swirl of nervous tension, George drifted off to sleep. It was a sleep that brought two dreams (“They were not like the other experiences. Just vivid dreams. Though as you’ll see, they eventually brought words”).

  First, there was the car. A long Merc. It could have been coming into the castle, but in the dream it seemed to be in a more open place. The car was halted by a figure carrying a machine pistol, but he did not fire. Then an explosion ripped open the back of the car and a tall blond man staggered out of the wreckage. Shouts and shots. Then the tall figure fell to the ground, his uniform cap rolling away in a cloud of blood.

  The cap went on spinning, like a coin on a bar counter, slowing and finally coming to rest. The man who had leaped from the wrecked car had been in uniform. Now, when George—in his dream—looked back, it was a different man. This one was in shabby civilian clothes, his jaws tightly clenched, his head close-cropped, and the steel-rimmed glasses he had worn were askew.

  Voices called out George’s name. A hand shaking him.

  Wald, Flachs, and Oberstgruppenführer Frühling were in the room. There was light. For a second, George still thought he was asleep, moving like a
n automaton as they ordered him to stand up. He started to speak, but Wald told him to be silent. Then Frühling asked him to repeat what he had been trying to say. The words were there, clear in his head—a shape: familiar, yet strange, like a view you think you have seen before.

  “He who leads the skull heads will die,

  But not as a military officer.

  The one who wishes to be leader will meet his end

  From a carriage.”

  They listened and then ordered him to sit at the table. The words and the dream still rang loudly in his own head: a sense of disorientation. Frühling asked what it was supposed to mean. George told him to get his tame expert.

  “You mean Michel Downay?”

  “Tell us”—from Flachs.

  George felt he was back among them now, playing the same con game. “It means what it says. Himmler will not die in uniform.”

  “So?”

  “Presumably he will be in uniform tomorrow. So he will not die.”

  Frühling laughed. “Michel Downay says that you are a fraud.”

  “Downay,” said George, “is an historian and a psychologist. He is also a sceptic. He has never believed me.”

  “No. He does not believe you now.” Very final.

  George shrugged and said it made no difference. Somehow, the dreams had given him renewed confidence in the part he was trying to play. Maybe he was only doing it to cut himself off from the unpleasant prospects of his circumstances. He went on speaking directly to Frühling.

  “I’ve already told these two. Now I’ll tell you, Herr Oberstgruppenführer. Your plan against Reichsführer Himmler cannot and will not work. For him there is another destiny.”