The Consummate Traitor (Trilogy of Treason)

by Bonnie Toews

  Erich gritted his teeth and picked up his watch. Ten minutes had passed. He was taking far too long. He eased the watch onto the dead man’s wrist and hurried outside again to the pickup truck. This time he went to the cab and retrieved a small tackle box from under the front seat. He brought it to his car. Placing the box on the convertible’s chassis, he opened it wide, exposing a Gammon grenade filled with enough plastic explosive to mutilate the corpse beyond recognition without destroying the planted identification papers. He inserted a delayed-reaction-detonating fuse and scrambled back to the truck.

  The truck grunted and sputtered as he turned over the engine. “Come on! This is no time to flood the bloody thing!” he reproached himself and gave the engine more choke.

  At once the truck growled and fired. Erich immediately shifted into reverse and catapulted the truck backward onto the roadway. Braking hard, he turned the wheels in the direction of Copenhagen and shot forward. The squeal of his tires stung the sudden calm. With foot to floor, Erich raced the old pickup down the country road.

  Thunder clapped. Lightning zigzagged over the rolling horizon. Sharp cracks split the air. The raging storm above handily masked the booming thunder of the sudden explosion behind him.

  He slowed down to look back. More than anything, Erich mourned for his car, the only thing left belonging to him. Hitler had confiscated his farm and champion trotters as the Allies cut through France on their advance to Berlin. No longer could he mingle with his prize trotters in the paddock or watch them jog on the farm’s training track. Blowing up his Mercedes felt as if he were betraying a friend.

  Slowly, he untied the scarf still wrapped around his face. With his free hand, he smoothed and folded it on top of his knee, again and again until it was no bigger than the width of a pfennig. Finally, he took the tight little ball and pocketed it.

  Drenching the fertile flat lands, rain splattered across the truck’s windshield as he drove through the storm. Beyond them, blackness consumed the tall leafy forests.

  Good. There will be no patrols in this weather. It will be hours before my pitiful remains are discovered. Even if Ketmann does suspect I let Nielsen escape and am fleeing to Sweden, he won’t have time to prove it. The SS report will read I was ambushed and murdered by the Resistance.

  He smiled ruefully. Who says God isn’t on our side?

  Torrents of rain whipped the truck and rattled its roof. He battled the wind, steering against its angry gusts. As he sliced through the thunder squall, he risked turning on his headlights on his way back to the outskirts of Copenhagen and to the Brothers of the Good Shepherd, a Basilian order of monks. The last sleeper in his network dwelled there.

  Erich would give him his message to carry to the Resistance and let them radio Churchill: CHARGES NEUTRALIZED … STOP … WATCHDOG.

  For now, it was not safe to inform London Grace was safely hidden or that Lee had been captured in Grace’s place. As long as the traitor, a triple agent if Ketmann was correct, believed the Gestapo had Grace, he might make a mistake. Erich was counting on that.

  PART FIVE

  “And we know that all things work together for good

  to them that love God, to them who are the called

  according to His purpose.”

  ROMANS 8:28

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Wednesday, March 7th, 1945

  No one questioned a Nazi security officer keeping a woman prisoner in his personal quarters. The SS and the SD always selected the prettiest internees as their choice concubines. No one cared what the Nazi officers did to them, and those women who were picked quickly accepted the prostitution of their body was the price they paid to survive, so they learned to please their masters. Some were treated better than others. Lee discovered she was one of the lucky ones.

  For the first three months, SD Major Tobias Baldur-Meyer behaved with obsessed delight chaining her to his bed, subjecting her to his fantasies. As the next two months passed, however, Lee observed changes in her Nazi captor. Tenderness entered into their strange relationship. They talked because their need to talk broke down their remaining barriers as enemies. With their increasing closeness came an emotional vulnerability, which tore open the old wound of Rolf’s death. The grief Lee had denied herself now consumed her.

  When she was alone, she thought of Rolf, of how wonderful their love could have been. She ached for his touch, his arms, his voice, his laugh. She knew what was happening between her and Baldur-Meyer was not love. It was a desperate act of survival… for both of them. She recognized the difference and felt only relief and gratefulness to Baldur-Meyer because Ketmann’s alternative for her was torture and death.

  Baldur-Meyer was convinced Ketmann was obsessed, insanely seeing a Communist plot in everything that happened, but his accusing words, She’s a Red agent, badgered her mind. She was not a Communist, nor a Russian spy, but Ketmann’s belief that there was a triple agent operating in London, who was betraying both the Germans and the British, made sense.

  If Project Amanita could be made to look incompetent, the Americans, in spite of their formal nuclear agreement with Britain, would not trust the British. That could well be the traitor’s motive, to support the destruction of the Nazis’ capabilities to produce their own atomic bomb while causing dissension between the British and Americans.

  But how could turning the western allies against themselves help Stalin’s objectives? Grace had to be the key. Sir Fletcher had said, if the Gestapo captured her, they were all in trouble. They. Who were they? Didn’t he mean Churchill?

  She could imagine the blazing headlines: HITLER HOLDS KING’S COUSIN FOR RANSOM. With such propaganda, the Nazis could discredit Churchill.

  Churchill. That was it. He was the real target. He had opposed Stalin’s demands for a second front, despite Stalin’s threat to make a separate peace with Hitler if the Allies would not join him in a squeeze play. He wanted to split the power of the Third Reich on two fronts, to divide their forces and to drain their resources. His position made sense except Churchill feared a western frontal attack would fail without the full co-operation and mobilization of the secret armies and civilian resistance groups within Europe. In his opinion, Stalin’s strategy was premature, and he had held that position until the Allies launched D-Day on June 6th the year before, according to their timetable and the partisans’ organized support, not Stalin’s.

  Yet Stalin still blamed the Allies for the Soviet’s suffering the worst from Hitler’s invasions. No doubt Stalin was looking to the end of the war when Hitler’s conquered lands would be divided amongst the victors. If the Allies were to bicker amongst themselves, Russia definitely gained more control of the negotiations. That must be it! Churchill would be a formidable opponent at the bargaining table. Stalin needed him out of the way.

  Who was Stalin’s triple agent? Mulling over the possibilities drew Lee away from the sinkhole of sorrow and despair during the long hours when Baldur-Meyer left her alone.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Wednesday, March 7th, 1945

  As the weeks turned into months, the world of Tobias Baldur-Meyer crumbled. The Allies were steadily gaining ground through Occupied Europe, but not as fast as the Ivans retook lands east of Berlin. This news devastated him.

  He feared the Ivans and their savage hate of Germans. Already horrific stories were returning from refugees fleeing the Red Army who witnessed the Russian soldiers’ mad pillaging and sadistic murder. Women, in particular, suffered brutal treatment. The Wehrmacht, entering recaptured towns in ethnic German settlements in Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, reported finding women, often totally naked, nailed through their hands in a crucified manner to barn doors or carts, their genitals bloodied from continual rapes, some with their breasts hacked off. Repeating such stories to Lee reaffirmed his dread of losing the war to Stalin before the Allies arrived.

  He studied the woman sitting across from him at the kitchen table. Lee encouraged him to talk, and she listened wit
h sensitive ears.

  She filled his glass with red wine. “Why have you never married?”

  He swilled the stem and watched the burgundy wine swirl in gentle eddies. This woman, whom he had originally hated, he now found endearing. Physically, he knew everything about her. He knew how to exploit her every weakness, but in her defenselessness to him, he discovered protective feelings for her. Since she was completely dependent on him for her survival, he enjoyed her needing him. This was an emotional element to the bonding process he had not considered. She knew what pleased him, and what pleased him most was her personal interest in him. The understanding was in her magnificent eyes, the way she looked at him. She understood what he was saying, what he was feeling. He expected her resentment. Instead, she gave him back a part of himself he thought he had lost, a part he liked. In the privacy of his own room, he had found comfort. This woman, his prisoner, was giving it to him. He lifted the glass to his lips and sipped.

  “There was a girl once …”

  His voice trailed off with his memories. As they consumed him, he felt an urgent need to talk, to vent his hurt.

  “When I was in the Hitler Youth, she belonged to the League of German Girls. Everything was so simple then. And happy. Everyone was happy.”

  He smiled at the thought. “We met at the Nuremberg Rally in ’34. As it happened, we both came from Munich. We had been selected by our local chapters to represent our districts. It was a great honor, you know. I was graduating from Hitler School at the top of my class and looking forward to joining the SS. We were 18. Inga had a flawless background. Everything was perfect for us. The festival… Ah, the festival! How can I describe it to you?”

  He paused. “Every September, hundreds … no, thousands of Nazi Party members along with the labor corps and regiments of Brownshirts and storm troops gathered in Nuremberg. We came to hear the Fuhrer speak and to celebrate the rebirth of our Fatherland.”

  The memories intoxicated him. “It was an exhilarating experience. I was so proud to be a part of it. Through the packed streets, the crowds cheered us as we marched by. When you looked up, all you could see were our swastika flags draped over every building. The sight filled me with power. We were invincible I thought. At night, we swarmed around Hitler’s hotel shouting—We want our Fuhrer! We want our Fuhrer! And then, when he finally appeared and waved to us, it seemed as if he were waving just to me. I was so overcome with joy. I can’t describe that joy. He made me proud to be a German. I wanted only to please him, to serve him.”

  He fell silent, lost in his memories, reliving the moment.

  “Each day,” he went on, “through the festival, there were grand pageants and torchlight parades. Inga and I bumped into each other at the Old Congress Hall in the Luitpoldhain. There were so many people. The crowds pushed us to our seats. I have never seen anything like it. Flags everywhere. The platform was dressed to look like a Gothic cathedral. Giant klieg lights lit the stage. An orchestra played Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. When the music stopped, Rudolf Hess read out the roll call of Brownshirts killed during street fighting for the Nazi cause. It was a solemn memorial. This was the night Hitler promised the Third Reich would last one thousand years … one thousand years … it hasn’t even been ten.”

  “What happened?” she prompted him.

  He took another sip of wine. “We cheered and clapped. We felt as one body, strong and indivisible. Inga and I were both affected. All of us were. Couples conjugated in the heat of joyous fervor, as if in anticlimax to Hitler’s speech.”

  “During the rally?” Lee’s voice betrayed her amazement.

  Her question startled him. “No, of course not. Afterwards … after the sing-songs around the campfires … under the stars and the cloak of night, we joined our hearts and souls in physical unions … thousands of us … it was truly beautiful.”

  “Good grief! A national orgy!”

  He stiffened and protested. “It was our patriotic duty! We were chosen to be the fountainhead of the new Germany. It was an honor. Many married after the Nuremberg rallies.”

  “Did you and Inga marry?”

  “No,” he said, and in shame hung his head. “Shortly afterward, my mother caught my father working secretly for the Communists. She was a loyal party member. She turned him in, and I was disgraced. She believed the Fuhrer, when he said that, if war comes to Europe, the Communists would be to blame. She believed she was saving Germany from war when she informed on my father to the Gestapo.”

  Lee asked, “How did you feel about your dad working for the Communists?”

  “I hated him. I couldn’t enter the SS then, and Inga married someone else the SS approved of.”

  They sat in silence. She broke their silence first.

  “What did you feel about your mother?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But Tobias, if she had kept her mouth shut and protected your father, you might have been accepted into the SS. Then you would have been able to marry your Inga. Surely your mother is as much to blame for your disgrace as your father.”

  He scowled, agitated, and shook his head. “No. She was my mother. She did her duty. She was a good woman.”

  Lee sighed. “Where is your mother now?”

  “Dead. Killed in a bombing raid on Munich.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. She still believed in Hitler. What do the rest of us have to believe in now?”

  “Yourselves.”

  “Ourselves?”

  “Yes,” she affirmed. “You’ve put all your faith in one man, in his dream, instead of believing in yourselves. Hitler obviously believes in himself, or he couldn’t have achieved what he has. But at the moment Germany is collapsing. His dream is not working because, to deify himself, he robbed you of your faith in yourself. Once you lose the freedom to make your own choices, all is lost.”

  Her candid opinion made Tobias feel awkward. His mouth pursed in a grim line. She was saying things he didn’t want to hear, so he felt relieved when Lee switched the direction of their conversation.

  “How did you get in the SD?”

  “Through the Abwehr.”

  “Under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Ja. Counterintelligence. When I couldn’t get into the SS, I joined the Navy. Admiral Canaris wanted an aide with a photographic memory, so he searched military records for a candidate and picked me. I have this ability. He then transferred me to the Abwehr where he reassigned me to his personal staff. After the Gestapo arrested Canaris for treason, Schellenberg absorbed the Abwehr into his Combined Secret Services. The Gestapo interrogated those of us who served the Admiral directly. Their reasoning was, if he was a traitor, we must be traitors too. But, for some reason I still don’t understand, Schellenberg reassigned me to Copenhagen to serve under General Ketmann. And now Schellenberg’s been arrested.”

  A car door slammed, and a sudden commotion downstairs interrupted him. Tobias jumped up, rushed to the window, and cautiously pulled the curtain back. He stared in disbelief.

  “It’s Ketmann!”

  “Ketmann?” Lee cried in fear.

  Tobias bolted to the closet for his uniform and yanked his jacket from the hanger. It fell to the floor. He whisked it up and slipped into the sleeves.

  Lee pulled on her shoes and grabbed her sweater from the back of the chair.

  Jackboots hammered up the bottom flight of stairs.

  Wrestling with the six buttons in front, Tobias felt his breath catch on his ribs. Where was his cap? He clamped his black belt around his waist and then noticed his peaked cap on the bureau. He checked the alignment of the Waffen-SS eagle and Totenkopf death head on the black cap band before tapping it on his head.

  Lee glanced at their unmade bed.

  “Tobias!” she hissed through frightened lips. “You should have arrested Lady Grace, not me. I replaced her when I found out she had been betrayed. Who turned her in? I must know.”

  Her words raced as s
he went back to the bed to straighten the sheets and fluff the pillows.

  “An unsigned message was delivered to me,” he answered breathlessly. “And a sketch that looked like you.”

  “The double agent Ketmann said Canaris planted in British Intelligence,” she persisted. “Do you know who it is? A code name? Anything?”

  “I know nothing.”

  Loud knocks banged on his door.

  “Lee,” he turned to her, “no matter what happens, hang on! Do you understand? Save yourself. Tell Ketmann anything he wants. He’s mad!”

  A shot shattered the end of his sentence as a Waffen-SS trooper kicked in the entrance door. Three more troopers burst into the tiny room and aimed MP40 submachine guns at Lee and Tobias. General Ketmann followed. His menacing figure filled the doorway.

  “So, this is your love nest, Major,” he sneered and looked around. “Surely you could do better than this.”

  From under his hooded lids, a catlike satisfaction narrowed his zealot eyes and thin lips. Even from across the room, his breath reeked of Polish sausage.

  Tobias looked into Lee’s tragic eyes, and lost all hope for them both.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Wednesday, March 7th, 1945

  The view from St. Joan’s bell tower overlooked Gestapo Headquarters across City Square. Crouching on the top step of the tower, Grace clung to the shadows and cautiously scanned the square from there. All was strangely quiet. As usual, her gaze settled on the converted office building directly across from the convent. The Danes still called it Shell House. If asked, she would probably concede it was a trick of her imagination, but to her, the snow-packed square seemed soaked in translucent red, a mirrored image of the massive Nazi blood flag draping the front of the building. The Gestapo had marked Shell House boldly, mocking the Allies in the belief, if British squadrons bombed Copenhagen, they would not target their headquarters so close to a convent filled with a cloistered order of nuns and Danish schoolgirls. Beside her, a cold wind jingled the chapel bell’s clapper. Its tingling seemed to clang in Morse code.