‘As our American friends would say, holy shit! And then you say they spent a night together?’
‘Yes.’
Baxter knocked out his pipe. ‘I suppose you’d take deep offence if I said, you have to laugh.’
‘Yes, I would. Take deep offence.’
‘Then I won’t say it. However, if I have ever known a man hoist by his own petard, you are that man. You mean you never suspected that Anna was a lesbian?’
‘Anna is not a lesbian. God, or the Devil, endowed her with certain gifts mostly denied to mere mortals. The intelligence of a genius, the speed of thought and reaction of a wildcat, the guts and determination of a champion boxer, and the beauty and allure of a supreme courtesan. Our concept of morals does not exist in her world; it was knocked out of her at the SS training camp. To achieve her immediate objective, she will employ any or all of those strengths that she considers necessary.’ He sighed. ‘And being Anna, for the most part she enjoys what she is doing.’
Baxter pointed with his pipe. ‘And you are in love with her.’
‘Yes, Billy, I am in love with her. I think I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her, so utterly beautiful and, as I supposed, so utterly innocent, at that SS ball in 1938. But more important, when I persuaded her to come over to us, I swore to her that I would get her out, the moment it was practical, and she was willing to come. That is, the moment we could ensure the safety of her parents.’
‘Another of those impossible commitments you keep making. Well, of course she must be warned, and if Belinda is the only courier we have who can do it, then we must use her. If she’s willing to risk it.’ He gazed at his sidekick. ‘And if you are willing to risk it.’
Clive blew a raspberry.
*
‘Why, Clive,’ Belinda Hoskin said. ‘How nice to see you. Have you come for a drink, dinner or the night?’
‘Can’t it be for all three?’ Clive scooped her from the floor to kiss her; she was several inches shorter than him.
Her diminutive size went with her personality, inherited more from her Italian forebears than copied from her English stepfather, whom her mother had married after their flight from Italy only a couple of steps ahead of the Fascist blackshirts who had murdered her real father. That had been more than twenty years ago, and since then, apart from adopting her stepfather’s name, she had become so English as to be indistinguishable from the real thing, on the surface. Only Clive knew how deep there remained the memories of her girlhood and the hatred for the thugs who had turned her life upside down. A deep-seated phobia which he had used in the past, callously as many people would say, and which he had to admit had now turned out along the lines of a French farce. Clive Bartley did not like French farces.
They had now been partners for eight years. Very early in their relationship he had asked her to marry him. But she had just been appointed editor of the fashion section of a prominent London glossy, and had been thinking of careers more than sock-washing. And then had come Anna, both to disrupt their relationship, and then, it seemed almost certain, to replace him entirely. So now he would use her again, callously, but with an even greater risk to his ego.
‘I suppose you could do all three,’ she agreed. ‘I have nothing on this evening. Let’s start at the beginning. You can pour us both a drink, and then you can sit down and tell me what’s really on your mind. Apart from nookie.’
Clive released her and went to the sideboard to pour two scotches, while reflecting that her perception was sometimes too sharp for her own good. But having been given the opening, there was no point in hanging about. ‘We were wondering,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘if you would like to see Anna again.’ There was no reply, so he turned to face her, a glass in each hand. There were pink spots on her cheeks. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t.’
Belinda took the glass and drank. ‘I am perfectly willing to see Anna again,’ she said. ‘If it will help the war effort. And if it can be done. I offered to go back several months ago, and you said it would be too dangerous.’
‘Things have changed. Now we can easily get you into Switzerland, and from there you should have no problem crossing the border.’
She considered, looking into the glass. ‘Would I use the same cover?’
‘Not the same name. It’s quite possible that Claudia Ratosi is in a file somewhere. You’d stay in clothes, obviously, as a moment’s conversation would convince anyone that you’re an expert in that field. But we’d give you an entirely new identity, as an Italian-Swiss.’
‘And the Gestapo?’
‘The only Gestapo you encountered were the people in Lubeck, that’s at the other end of Germany.’
‘His name was Werter.’ Belinda spoke quietly, but her voice was consumed with venom. ‘I hope he rots in hell.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Clive agreed. He knew that before Anna had got to the scene Belinda had been subjected to a strip search with all the unpleasantness that entailed. ‘He probably is already, rotting in hell. But whether he is or not, I would still say that the odds on your running into him again have to be several million to one. So . . . are you game?’
Belinda finished her drink and held out the glass. ‘I’m game.’
‘Then listen very carefully to what I am going to say.’
The Scheme
Heinrich Himmler marched into the office and stood there, hands on hips. In his superbly tailored black uniform, his black tie neatly knotted against the collar of his white shirt, his highly polished black belts, his high-peaked black cap which he was now taking off, he suggested a dominating figure, so that it was almost possible to overlook the pale complexion, the thinning, equally pale hair, the coldly blue eyes sheltering behind their rimless spectacles. ‘Anna!’ he announced.
Anna Fehrbach had risen from behind her desk at his entry. Like him, she was in uniform, but hers was far more prosaic. She wore a black skirt and tie, a white shirt, and black silk stockings, but this rather austere garb only served to illustrate the length of her legs, the slenderness of her waist, the thrust of her bodice; her long pale yellow hair was confined in a tight bun on the back of her head, and this again served to enhance the superb bone structure of her face, slightly aquiline but utterly flawless, the big, relaxed but always watchful, deep blue eyes. She stood to attention. ‘Herr Reichsführer! Welcome back. Is . . . ah . . .?’
‘Come here,’ Himmler commanded.
Anna went round the desk, and advanced, cautiously. With this man she never knew what was going to happen next. She had worked for him for six years, the last two in conditions of considerable intimacy . . . at work. She knew she was his trusted aide, his partner in crime, as it were. But except for one or two almost accidental occasions, he had never touched her. As he was the only man she had ever encountered who had not immediately reacted to both her beauty and her sexuality, she found it impossible to understand his reserve. Of course she had the reputation in the SS of being a lesbian, but that had never put other men off, and this man had to know that she was his to command, utterly and without reservation. At the same time, knowing him as well as she did, she was certain that he was not homosexual. So she had been forced to conclude that he was totally asexual.
Throughout their years together, whenever they had met, after even the briefest of separations, he had looked as if he was about to embrace her, and then apparently changed his mind at the last moment. She was therefore taken completely by surprise when he waited for her to come right up to him, then put both his arms round her and hugged her with surprising strength.
As she was some inches taller than him, her gasp went over his head, but she managed a strangled, ‘Sir?’
He released her, looking somewhat embarrassed. ‘The Führer is well,’ he announced. ‘Well, as well as can be expected after such an ordeal.’ He peered at her. ‘I had no idea you had spent the night with him.’
‘He sent for me,’ Anna explained.
‘And you never told me?’
‘I was instructed to tell nobody.’
‘Instructed by whom?’
Anna drew a deep breath. ‘Dr Goebbels.’
Himmler went to the chair in front of the desk and sat down. ‘Goebbels set up this meeting?’
Anna sat behind the desk. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you never told me that either?’
‘Dr Goebbels insisted that my meetings with the Führer had to be kept absolutely secret.’
‘Meetings?’
‘I had been to Rastenburg once before last Wednesday, sir.’
Himmler considered for a few moments. ‘I had supposed we had no secrets from each other,’ he said at last.
If only you knew, Anna thought. ‘I do not like having secrets from you, Herr Reichsführer. You know that my life is devoted to you.’ Until I am in a position to destroy you. ‘But this was a directive from the Führer. I did not dare disobey.’
He continued to stare at her.
Anna drew another deep breath. ‘Would you like to punish me, sir?’ With her perverse wish to experience, she was actually curious as to what he might wish, or do. When she remembered the horrendous pain Heydrich had inflicted on her naked body with his electric shocks . . . Himmler was reputed to be far more demonic than even his dead henchman.
‘Punish you?’ he muttered. ‘The Führer has commanded me to tell you that you will be for ever in his heart and mind as the greatest of all German women.’
Except that I am not German.
‘He says that your company during that night helped him overcome the traumatic effects of the explosion. He is also very pleased with the list of potential conspirators you provided, not to mention the way you handled the situation here.’
‘What will happen to the people on the list?’
‘You should not ask. He is very angry. I have never seen him so angry. He wants them hunted down, every one, and their wives and their children, and exterminated.’
Oh, my God! Anna thought. I have committed mass murder without realizing it. She had had no choice but to provide the list, because Hitler had demanded it. But she had warned the conspirators, and they, and herself, had felt it would not matter, because he would be dead before he could act on the information. Instead of which he was alive . . .
‘And you have already started on that, from what I have heard,’ Himmler went on. ‘Is it true you shot both Steinberg and Essermann right here in this office?’ He looked right and left as if expecting still to see blood on the floor. ‘I don’t understand about that. Were they not both your lovers?’
‘I have no lovers, Herr Reichsführer,’ Anna said bravely. ‘Where the lives of the Führer, and you, and Germany, are concerned.’
‘But what happened? Essermann was working with you on the investigation.’
And had suddenly stumbled on the truth. ‘I do not know the truth of it, Herr Reichsführer. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on. As you now know, I had spent the night with the Führer. He dismissed me just before ten that morning, and I was flown back here. As you were not here – I did not know that you had gone to Rastenburg yourself that very morning – I came to the office. Then my door was suddenly thrown open, and Steinberg rushed in. He was distraught, and babbling about something having happened to the Führer . . .’
‘But he was not on your list,’ Himmler interjected.
Because I dared not put him on it: he was the originator of the entire conspiracy, and if arrested, the first person he would have incriminated would have been me. ‘No, sir,’ she agreed. ‘As you know, I investigated him very thoroughly, and found nothing to connect him with any plot. In fact, I don’t think he was involved. I believe that he had found out something important, and had come to tell me about it. But Essermann had followed him in, and he shot him before he could say anything more.’
‘But that means . . .’
‘Yes, sir. It means that Essermann was in the conspiracy, and was determined to stop Steinberg telling me his suspicions. I can only say that I am sorry. He had always appeared so loyal, to you, to me, to the Reich . . . it never occurred to me to investigate him.’
‘It never occurred to me, either,’ Himmler said. ‘And so you shot him. That is a pity. He would have had much to tell us.’
‘I shot him, sir, because having killed Steinberg, he turned his gun on me.’
‘And you are the fastest shot alive, eh? Ha ha.’
‘I have managed to survive, sir,’ Anna said modestly.
‘Yes. And we have more than enough to work on.’ He mused for a few seconds. ‘Anna . . . you have never mentioned anything to the Führer about our private business?’
‘Of course not, sir.’
‘Or to Dr Goebbels?’
‘Certainly not.’ I did not mention it, she recalled; he mentioned it to me. Because, you silly little man, Goebbels knows everything about you. But then, he is also a silly little man. Because like you, he trusts me absolutely.
‘That is excellent judgement,’ Himmler said. ‘Our private arrangements are our private arrangements, eh. And in fact it is time for you to make another trip to Switzerland.’
Can it be true? Anna thought. Switzerland! Peace and tranquillity! Henri! The only man she had ever met who wanted nothing from her but her love! How desperately she craved both of those avenues of escape from this madhouse in which she now found herself. ‘Of course, sir,’ she said. ‘When do I leave?’
‘Tomorrow. Laurent will be waiting for you in Lucerne. I want you back here as quickly as possible.’
There was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice. ‘Sir?’ Anna asked.
Himmler got up and took a turn around the office. Anna watched him in amazement; she had never seen him so agitated. In fact he prided himself on his habitual calm. He halted in front of her desk. ‘I,’ he announced, ‘have been appointed, by the Führer, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army!’
Now Anna stared at him in consternation. She had long understood that Hitler’s powers were fading, but this? Himmler already commanded the Abwehr, the Gestapo, the SS, the SD, and therefore, by extension, every local police force in the country. The only possible counterweight to such enormous power was the Wehrmacht. But if he was now also to command every soldier in Germany . . .
‘You do not approve?’
Anna pulled herself together. ‘Of course I approve, Herr Reichsführer. But . . . General Fromm . . .?’
‘Fromm is under arrest.’
‘His name was not on my list. I found nothing against him.’
‘But the fact is, he is, or was, Stauffenberg’s commanding officer. He sent Stauffenberg to Rastenburg last Thursday.’
But he didn’t know that Count von Stauffenberg was carrying a bomb.
‘It really is a pity that stupid fellow Stieff shot Stauffenberg so immediately,’ Himmler grumbled. ‘He could have given us an even greater list than yours. And of course it raises questions as to his own loyalty. I have ordered his arrest as well.’
Oh, my God! Anna thought; General Stieff, commander of the Berlin Garrison, was a member of the conspiracy, which was no doubt why he had executed Stauffenberg the moment he had learned that Hitler had survived the explosion.
‘There is so much to be done,’ Himmler went on, still standing in front of her desk as if he were addressing a meeting. ‘Guderian is to be my chief of staff.’
A touch of sanity in the madhouse. Guderian, the man who had led the Panzer army to victory in France in 1940, was probably the most capable general in the German Army.
‘And do you know what he tells me?’ Himmler complained. ‘That within a fortnight, perhaps even a week, the Russians will have crossed the Vistula.’
‘Oh my God!’ This time Anna spoke the words aloud. She had a sudden pain in her chest.
‘Oh, don’t worry. We are not going to let them into Germany. Certainly not.’
Anna was not interested in meaningless optimistic rhetoric. ‘Sir!’ she said urgently. ‘If the Rus
sians are going to get across the Vistula, my parents . . .’
He frowned at her. ‘I had forgotten about your parents.’
Does this cretin seriously suppose that I would still be seated behind this desk if he didn’t hold them hostage for my loyalty? She drew another deep breath. ‘I would like permission to bring them out.’
‘Of course you must do that. We cannot let them fall into the hands of the Russians, eh?’
Anna could not believe her ears. The moment she had waited for, for six years. ‘Thank you, sir. I will leave immediately.’
‘No, no. The delivery first.’ He watched her expression change. ‘You are panicking. You, Anna, of all people, are panicking. I have told you, the Russians cannot possibly get across the Vistula for another week, at the very earliest. You will leave tomorrow morning, make the delivery to Laurent in Lucerne as usual. But instead of returning directly here, I will arrange for you to be taken to Poland to fetch your parents. You will bring them to Berlin. Will that satisfy you?’
‘Of course, Herr Reichsführer.’ Her brain was spinning with ideas, possible plans . . . and actually, going to Switzerland first might help to carry those plans forward, if she dared risk it.
‘Excellent. Now we must get on. You will . . .’ He was turning away from her, and now for the first time noticed that the door to the inner office was slightly ajar. ‘What is in there?’
Shit! Anna thought. ‘The Record Section, sir.’
Before she could move, Himmler had crossed the floor and opened the door wide, gazing at the young woman seated at the desk beyond. ‘Who are you?’
‘Ah . . .’ The girl hastily stood up. ‘Katherine Fehrbach, Herr Reichsführer.’
‘Katherine . . . my God!’
‘My sister,’ Anna said at his shoulder. ‘My secretary. You appointed her, Herr Reichsführer. To assist me in my investigation of the conspiracy.’
Angel of Doom (Anna Fehrback Book 5) Page 3
