Angel of Vengeance: The thrilling sequel to Angel in Red (Anna Fehrbach)

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Yes, Countess.’ Birgit panted. Anna took long strides, and the maid, nearly a foot shorter, had to scurry to keep up with her. ‘Are we staying here long?’

  ‘I don’t think so, more’s the pity. But let’s enjoy it while we can.’

  The house was in sight now, the very picture of a southern mansion with its overhanging roof supported on the high pillars. It had apparently been in the Andrews family for two hundred years, and had thus seen both the War of the Revolution and the Civil War pass by. It was still surrounded by cotton fields, although the vast acreage it had once overseen had greatly dwindled as the years had gone by. It made Anna feel entirely humbled that while she had been forced to play the aristocrat over the past three years – so much so that she had almost come to believe her own pseudo-persona – Joe Andrews really was an aristocrat, who never attempted to impose his background upon anyone.

  To be able to live the rest of her life in such surroundings, without a care in the world . . . She waved her hat at the labourers in the fields, who had stopped work to watch her. Anna Fehrbach out walking in a summer frock and with her hair loose was always worth watching. They waved back enthusiastically, while she reflected that to men like Himmler and Heydrich, and even more Hitler, these amiable black people were sub-human.

  The dogs were barking, and Anna saw, parked on the drive before the house, one of those huge American cars that people of all classes seemed to drive. Her heartbeat quickened. She and Birgit had been driven down here, two days previously, in a similar huge car, by one of Joe’s assistants, a very serious young man who had definitely taken to heart his boss’s stricture, that the Countess von Widerstand was a person of great importance and not to be subjected to questions or even conversation. Well, she had not been in the mood for conversation herself. The events of the previous few days had been far more upsetting than she would admit even to herself; for all the sexual experiences of her life, that had been a new and most unpleasant one.

  She had become used to the fact that her beauty, her allure, seemed to attract men, and some women, to an extraordinary degree, just as she had come to accept that her survival depended upon sleeping with whom she was commanded. This had invariably been distasteful, but once the event had commenced, as it were, she had been in command. Except possibly with Heydrich. But he was merely a recurring nightmare. She had never been strapped to a bed and raped before. The sex itself had been meaningless; the humiliation had been equalled, in her life thus far, only by her session in the SD torture chamber. The desire to destroy those people had taken over her mind. For all her protestation to Donovan and Joe that she had not realized just how lethal a weapon a tommy gun could be – a protestation she had felt necessary – she knew that her fascination had been less with the weapon than the effect it was having on the hateful creatures in front of her. At that moment she had indeed been a monster. But it was not a moment she regretted.

  Since then she had been caught up in a situation she could not control. Explaining that she was engaged in something very big and very secret to the Ambassador had not been difficult. Realizing that her existence depended on two men she did not really know, and whose motives she could not entirely fathom, was disconcerting. Most disconcerting of all was knowing that she was virtually within touching distance of Clive, and she had not even been allowed to see him since he and Joe had come to her rescue.

  But now the presence of another large car meant that something was at last happening. Eleanor Andrews had a large car of her own, of course, and a chauffeur to drive it, but both of these were to be found in the garages behind the house when not in use. So, the dogs had charged ahead, still yapping loudly, and there was Eleanor standing on the downstairs veranda, waiting for her.

  She was a tall, stately woman, thin like her son, and – also like him – somewhat lugubrious of face, although she too could produce a flashing smile. What she thought of the situation Anna had not yet deduced; she apparently trusted her son absolutely and was prepared to fall in with his wishes, however unconventional. Thus she had accepted Anna, and her maid, without demur, asked no questions, and indeed had been absolutely charming. Now she was smiling.

  ‘We have a guest,’ she announced. ‘Who I believe you were expecting.’

  ‘Oh!’ Suddenly Anna was breathless. It was actually only just over three months since she had last been in Clive’s arms, and on that never-to-be-forgotten day in the American Embassy in Moscow she had been as disoriented as she was now. Two days at the mercy of Ludmilla Tserchenka had done that to her. There again she had known only the desire to kill, to be avenged, and miraculously she had been given the opportunity. To find herself suddenly alone with Clive so soon after that event had been overwhelming; she could remember little of what they had said, or even what they had done. And now he was here again, and again courtesy of Joe Andrews. She wondered if her gratitude to Joe was not more for arranging these meetings than for saving her life.

  Eleanor had been studying her face. ‘You do want to see him?’ she asked, suddenly anxious.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Oh, I am glad. He had a letter from Joe, and, well, after reading it, I put him in your apartment, and told him to wait there for you.’

  ‘I owe you so much.’ Anna kissed her cheek. ‘You must think I am an awful liability.’

  ‘I would describe you as an unequalled asset, in any society, my dear. So, off you go. Lunch is in an hour. I’ll have yours sent up, shall I?’

  *

  Anna opened the door of the suite she had been given, Birgit having tactfully remained downstairs; the maid spoke only a word or two of English and was therefore a rather isolated figure, although Eleanor’s housekeeper was enthusiastically trying to teach her the language.

  Clive had been standing by the window, looking out. He turned at her entry and she was soon in his arms, kissing him with a desperate intensity. ‘I didn’t think you were missing me that much,’ he said when he got his mouth free. ‘Especially as you were having such a busy time.’

  She blew a raspberry and sat on the bed to unlace her walking shoes. ‘Do you believe everything you hear?’

  He sat beside her. ‘In your case, yes. Because it’s usually true.’ Gently he forced her back to lie down, rested on his elbow beside her. ‘Oh, my darling girl. When I think of those thugs . . .’

  ‘I had to do it, Clive. Once they got me on a boat to Europe . . .’

  ‘Absolutely. I was thinking of the fact that they raped you.’

  ‘Well, that made it easier.’

  ‘And you’re not harmed?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But you’d better make sure.’ She got up, took off her dress, then her underclothes.

  ‘We have a lot to talk about,’ he remarked.

  ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘I’m afraid only a couple of days. You know what Billy’s like.’

  ‘How is the old buzzard?’

  ‘More buzzard-like every day.’

  ‘And I assume I am still not his dish of the day.’

  ‘I have an idea that he is secretly as much in love with you as any other man.’

  ‘Brrr.’ Naked, she lay down beside him. ‘Hold me, Clive. Hold me very tight.’

  ‘You don’t mean you want sex? After what you’ve been through.’

  ‘No, I do not want sex, not right this minute. Although I’m hoping it will happen, eventually. I just want to be held in your arms.’

  He obliged, nuzzled her hair as he hugged her. ‘What was the worst?’

  ‘The knowledge that out there, all the time, there are people waiting, watching, planning my destruction.’

  ‘There are going to be a hell of a lot more, when this breaks. You do realize that?’

  ‘Must it break?’

  ‘Here in the States, perhaps not. I have tremendous confidence in Donovan. And Joe. But what happened must filter back to Moscow in due course. You have to pray that no Russian army ever marches into Berlin, at least whil
e you are there.’

  Anna frowned. ‘Can that possibly happen?’

  ‘It doesn’t look too likely, at this moment. But . . . You know your people have come to a complete halt, still short of Moscow?’

  ‘That’s because of the weather. As soon as it improves they’ll be on the march again.’

  ‘Darling, the weather is not going to improve, until next April at the earliest. You know that.’

  ‘They are still totally confident in Berlin.’

  ‘Yes, but none of your big boys has ever spent a winter in Russia. You have.’ She hugged him tighter yet, and he kissed the top of his head. ‘You know we’ll bring you out, whenever the going gets really rough.’

  ‘And you know I can’t come out, at least for the foreseeable future.’

  He tilted her head back to kiss her mouth. ‘I just wish I had your guts.’

  *

  They were interrupted by the arrival of lunch. Anna put on a dressing gown and left Clive in the bedroom while she admitted the housekeeper into the sitting room. ‘Is Birgit being looked after?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, indeed, Countess. She is such a sweet child.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She closed the door and was joined by Clive. ‘A bottle of cold hock.’ She held it up. ‘Quite a good one, too. Isn’t Eleanor a dear?’

  He sat opposite her. ‘Almost too good to be true. How long have you known her?’

  Anna poured. ‘Two days.’

  Clive put down his fork.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Anna said. ‘She’s Joe’s mother, and absolutely trustworthy. Joe says so.’

  ‘And you trust him.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure.’

  ‘Ah.’ She drank some wine. ‘I should explain that.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I want to. You remember Chalyapov, my target in Moscow?’

  ‘I never actually met him.’

  ‘But you knew all about him. Well, of course, Heydrich knew all about how I got out of the Lubianka. He is quite sure Joe wouldn’t have risked so much if he hadn’t been my lover. So Joe was my target here. A job of work. It took some time. My brief was the same: don’t push, let him come to me. They were quite sure this would happen very rapidly. Well, so was I. But it didn’t. We even saw each other at a couple of parties, and he took no notice. I won’t pretend I wasn’t a bit miffed. But he was apparently sizing me up, and watching what I was doing, very carefully. He’s a cautious man in some ways. Then all of a sudden he picked me up, took me back to his flat, and, well . . . I was working, and he gave me a lot of valuable information. But I also felt I owed him a lot more than one. It was only afterwards that he confessed that he had moved, then, because he had learned you were in New York, and reckoned that once you got to Washington, there’d be no more room for him.’ She gazed at him. ‘And he was right.’

  It was his turn to drink some wine. ‘As Joe himself confessed. But you didn’t have to confess anything.’

  ‘I told you, I wanted to.’

  He leaned across the table to squeeze her hand. ‘This information . . .’

  ‘Berlin wanted to know under what circumstances the States would enter the war. Joe convinced me there were no circumstances, barring an attack on America, that would bring them in.’

  ‘What about the Final Solution?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him about that. I asked him, hypothetically, what would be US reaction if the Nazis started murdering the Jews on a big scale, and he said they would not even regard that as a casus belli. So, what about the Final Solution?’

  Clive grimaced. ‘They won’t buy it.’

  ‘Do they suppose I made it up?’

  Her tone had not changed, but he could tell she was bristling. ‘No, no. But they suppose you must have overheard some hypothetical conversation and taken it seriously. It’s just too outrageous a concept for the average civilized Englishman to be able to accept.’

  ‘Suppose I told you that I was present in the Chancellery, seated in a chair before Hitler’s desk, when Heydrich made the proposal.’

  ‘You mean you’re that close to the Fuehrer?’

  ‘I was on that occasion. And the odds are I will be again. He seemed to take a shine to me.’

  ‘Well, that at least proves he’s human. But that could be very interesting. It could be vital.’

  Anna put down her knife and fork. ‘I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking. Berlin is not Moscow, and Hitler is not Stalin. And I didn’t even make that one. Anyway, I thought you British didn’t go in for skulduggery like political assassination.’

  ‘As Billy said to me just before I left London, if we are going to win this war we are going to have to start thinking as thuggishly as the enemy. But there is no way we are going to sacrifice you. So you reckon your job here is finished?’

  ‘Yes. But no one knows that except us. I can stay here as long as you’re here.’

  ‘And then it’s back to Heydrich. You’ll be going to Prague?’

  It was Anna’s turn to pull a face. ‘No. I have been seconded to Reichsfuehrer Himmler. Anyway, I don’t have very happy memories of Prague, as you know.’

  He nodded. ‘And you’re probably well out of it now. Your ex-boyfriend has been cutting quite a swathe.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Well, just for starters, the day after he arrived, he arrested the Bohemian prime minister, Elias, and had him deported to Germany and sentenced to death.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘The sentence has, we believe, been commuted to imprisonment, but we’re not sure that’s much of an improvement. Anyway, Heydrich is arresting people all over the place, and hanging quite a few of them.’

  ‘He said he’d clean the situation up in a year, and be back in Berlin.’

  ‘When he will want you back again.’

  ‘I suppose he will.’

  ‘Anna . . .’

  ‘Please, Clive. You know there is nothing either you or I can do about the situation, until you win the war. I wish to God you’d hurry up and do that. Meanwhile . . .’ She wiped her lips with her napkin. ‘Let’s make love. These two or three days may have to last me a long time.’

  *

  ‘I won’t say welcome back,’ Baxter commented. ‘You’re two weeks overdue.’

  Clive seated himself before the desk. ‘A few things came up.’

  ‘Including your dick, I suppose.’

  ‘I will overlook that piece of gratuitous vulgarity,’ Clive said. ‘And I won’t bore you with the difficulties, not to mention the hazards, of getting across the Atlantic, especially coming this way. However, have you heard of the OSS?’

  Baxter considered. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell. Does it stand for something?’

  ‘It stands for the Office of Strategic Studies.’

  ‘Is that supposed to interest me?’

  ‘It should, because it certainly will in the days ahead. It is a brand new and top-secret US State Department. Something like us, with knobs on.’

  ‘Which is so secret they told you all about it?’

  ‘Things came up.’ He held up his finger. ‘Just don’t say it. This department is headed by William Donovan. Maybe you’ve heard of him?’

  ‘The fellow they call Wild Bill? And they’ve put him in charge of a secret government department? They need their heads examined.’

  ‘Or they are moving in our direction, for all their denials. He’s still recruiting, finding his feet. But one of his first recruits was Joe Andrews.’

  ‘Your old buddy-buddy. So?’

  ‘Well, there was a problem, with Anna.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ! There is always a problem with Anna. What now?’

  ‘It involves the Russians.’

  Baxter reached for his pipe.

  ‘Obviously, they regard her as a German assassin who tried to bump off Stalin.’

  ‘She is a German assassin who tried to bump off Stalin.’

&
nbsp; Clive ignored the interruption. ‘And who managed, mysteriously, to escape the Lubianka. Obviously, they would like her back, to stand trial. And unfortunately they discovered that she was in Washington.’

  ‘Don’t tell me they nabbed her?’

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Why, Billy, I never knew you cared.’

  ‘I have never denied that she is useful to us. And I had something important for her to do. Ah well, if she’s gone, she’s gone. I don’t imagine they are going to let her get out of the Lubianka again.’

  ‘Anna is alive and well and is at this moment sunning herself in Virginia.’

  ‘You mean this OSS lot got involved and got her out? Good for them. But won’t there be repercussions?’

  ‘The repercussions are likely to be endless. She wasn’t actually rescued by the OSS. Well, not until after the event. Anna very seldom needs rescuing by anybody.’

  Baxter paused, fingers deep in his tobacco pouch. ‘Oh, Jesus! Don’t tell me. How many?’

  ‘There were apparently six Russians, or Communist sympathizers, involved in kidnapping her and taking her to a remote location.’

  ‘From which she escaped. How many did she have to shoot to get out?’

  ‘Ah . . . all of them.’

  Baxter dropped the pouch; tobacco scattered across the blotting pad.

  ‘Fortunately,’ Clive hurried on, ‘she had already contacted Joe, and his people were able to help. As I said, there are bound to be repercussions, but I know they are hoping to get Anna out of the country before the story breaks.’

  Baxter used his hand to sweep tobacco back into the pouch, clearly concentrating hard. ‘You do understand, Clive, that the Russians are our allies?’

  ‘I prefer to think of them as bed-mates of convenience.’

  ‘That may be so, but we simply cannot have one of our people going about bumping off their operatives in droves.’

  ‘The Russians do not know that she is one of ours.’

  Baxter began to fill his pipe. ‘I suppose that’s something.’

  ‘But the Americans now do. At least, the OSS does.’

  Baxter struck a match. ‘You mean your buddy-buddy Andrews did not prove as trustworthy as you thought?’