‘I was told this by the Reichsführer himself,’ Werter said proudly.
‘Well, then, you see, we are going to blow up the entrance of the mine once the goods have been stowed there. When we stop, while the drivers take their trucks into the mine, your people will set the explosive charges.’
‘I understand. But the men in the mine—’
‘Will have to stay there.’
Rudent gave a startled exclamation. Werter was silent.
‘Those are my orders from the Reichsführer, given by the Führer personally. We should stop here, Joachim; there is the mine entrance.’ She turned round and signalled the trucks with her flashlight.
Rudent obeyed, and the trucks stopped behind them
‘Now,’ Anna said, ‘tell me what your orders were.’ She put her hand in her pocket.
‘To obey you in all things. And to make sure the mission is brought to a satisfactory conclusion.’
So many people, Anna thought, talk just a little too much. If he had just stopped at the end of the first sentence . . . But now her suspicions were confirmed, and thus her course of action was also confirmed. ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘It has been a pleasure working with you. Go back and tell your people to bring the explosives up. I will get the trucks moving.’
He got out and hurried along the line of vehicles.
‘Are you still with me?’ she asked Rudent.
He hesitated. ‘You mean to kill these men?’
‘I am acting on the orders of the Führer. This is for the Reich.’
‘And if I do not agree to help you, you will kill me also.’
She rested her glove on his arm. ‘I would hate to have to do that, Joachim.’
‘I have no weapon.’
‘All I require from you is to stay alive.’ She opened the door and got out. ‘Drive the cargo into the shaft,’ she told the first driver. ‘It stretches about half a mile. Go to the end of that and park. Then return to us here.’
‘Yes, Countess.’ He re-started his engine and the truck rolled down the slight slope.
Anna walked along the line, giving each driver the same instructions. Until she reached the last. He had already started his engine. ‘Are you armed?’ she asked.
‘No, Countess. I am only a driver.’
‘Very good. Switch off your ignition. I wish you to stay here. Remain in your cab, and keep your head down.’
‘Countess?’
‘Just do as I say.’
The rearguard had arrived, Werter sitting in front beside the driver. ‘What is happening?’ he enquired.
‘I am obeying my orders,’ Anna said. ‘I wish the explosive charges set,’ she told the SD agents.
They looked at Werter, received a nod of confirmation, got out and unloaded the sticks of dynamite.
‘How close can we be?’ Anna asked.
‘We need to be about two hundred metres further back, Countess.’
‘Very good. Off you go. You,’ she told the driver, ‘back up two hundred metres. And you, Captain Rudent.’
Werter watched them. ‘I do not understand,’ he said. ‘Why did that truck not go in with the others?’
His back was to her. Anna drew the silenced pistol from her left-hand pocket, and transferred it to her right hand. ‘Because I wish it to remain here.’
He turned back to her, blinked into the gloom. ‘What is that? What is happening?’
‘I am anticipating the orders that were given to you, by, I assume, Reichsführer Himmler.’
‘You—’
‘But I am also doing something that should have been done long ago. Signorina Ratosi sends her love.’
He took a step towards her and she shot him through the head.
*
‘Countess?’ Rudent called. Two hundred yards away in the darkness neither he nor the truck driver could see what had happened.
‘Stay where you are,’ Anna commanded. She replaced the pistol in her left-hand pocket, rested her hand on the gun in her right-hand pocket, watched the three men looming out of the gloom, unrolling their coil of wire. ‘All set?’
‘Yes, Countess, but we must go further back.’
‘Then go.’
Two of the men continued unrolling the wire. The third stopped beside her to peer at the mound on the ground. ‘What is that?’
‘Herr Werter. He seems to have had a heart attack.’
‘We must get him to a doctor.’
‘Later. Move back.’
‘We cannot leave him here. The blast—’
‘Is not going to affect him where he is,’ Anna asserted with absolute conviction. ‘But it will affect you if you stay here.’
The man hesitated, then walked at her side. ‘The drivers—’
‘Are also where they will have to stay.’
The other two men had stopped and were waiting for them.
‘Is this far enough’ Anna asked.
‘Yes, Countess, but—’
‘Blow it.’
They looked at their commander, and Anna drew her pistol. ‘I said blow it.’
The commander tried to unsling his tommy gun and Anna shot him, then turned back to the other two. One of them had also reached for his weapon and she shot him too. The third man dropped to his knees beside the control box.
‘Blow it!’
He drew a deep breath and pressed the plunger. The blast was greater than Anna had expected, a great gush of sound and wind that, as she had been standing with her back to the shaft, threw her forward on to her knees, gasping for breath. The man, kneeling, took the shock with less effect, and leapt at her, wrapping his arms round her body and rolling her on the ground. She lost her grip on her pistol before she could recover, and then he had her on her back, holding her shoulders to press her down. ‘You killed them,’ he panted. ‘You killed them all.’
Anna realized that he was too heavy, and too strong, for her to throw off, and as he was pressing on her shoulders she could not swing her arms for a blow. So there was only one thing left. ‘Shit!’ she muttered. She had grown very fond of this coat. She got her left-hand into the pocket, while he worried her like a dog, obviously afraid to release her but equally uncertain what to do next. She was not an expert shot with her left hand, but she managed to get the pistol up and against the material and against him, lying on her as he was. She squeezed the trigger and he gave a shriek of pain and rolled off her, writhing and clutching at his shattered thigh.
Anna sat up, drew the pistol, transferred it to her right hand, and put him out of his misery by shooting him in the head. Then she scrabbled around in the darkness to find her other gun; she was covered in snow and feeling distinctly chilled.
She looked up and saw Rudent and the driver coming towards her, curiosity making them unable to obey their orders any longer. ‘Countess?’ Rudent asked.
Anna stood up, shaking herself like a dog to get rid of some of the snow; remarkably, her hat had not come off. The noise of the explosion was still ringing in her ears and reverberating around the hills. She had no doubt that the inhabitants of Eisenach, who would have had their windows rattled at the very least, were sufficiently conditioned to bombing raids and to minding their own business that they would not immediately react, but she fully intended to be far away from here by dawn. ‘I will come with you,’ she told the driver. ‘In the truck. Captain, you will follow with the command car.’
‘But . . .?’ Both men looked from the other car to the dead bodies to the mine shaft, now completely blocked by falling stone and earth; the entire front of the hill had collapsed.
‘They will have to stay here,’ Anna said. The fact that Werter and his fellow agents would all carry SD identification wallets should delay an investigation still further; there were few people who would risk getting involved with that organization. ‘Now we have to hurry.’ She got into the cabin beside the driver, sat with a pistol in her hand. ‘You understand that I will shoot you also, if I have to.’
He gulped,
and engaged gear.
‘Go back to the river,’ Anna told him, ‘and follow the road along the bank.’
This he did, and they came to the bridge over the tributary that she had marked on her map. ‘There is a track just on the far side of the bridge. Turn down it.’ She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Rudent was following.
They followed the bumpy track, slithering on the snow, and came to a clump of trees, again as she had marked on her map. ‘Stop here,’ she commanded, ‘And get out.’ She followed him to the ground, still covering him with her pistol. ‘Now, open the tail gate and unload the contents. I wish you to stand on the bank beneath the trees, and throw them into the water.’
He obeyed, opening the first box, and gaping at the contents. ‘This is gold bullion, Countess.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ Anna said. ‘Otherwise we would have done all this for nothing.’ Rudent had joined them. ‘Perhaps you would give him a hand,’ Anna suggested.
The two men worked with a will, but it took them two hours to throw the last ingot into the water. Anna stood on the bank and watched each one sink out of sight. There was a fallen branch nearby. She picked it up and estimated it was some eight feet long. She prodded into the water and could find no bottom. But when she pulled the branch up there was soft mud on the tip, exactly as the guide book had indicated. The river might not be all that deep, but the soft bottom into which the heavy ingots would have sunk seemed to be as secure a hiding place as she could devise.
A cock was crowing by the time the task was completed, but she reckoned it still needed an hour to daylight. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get moving.’
Again she sat beside the driver in the truck as they regained the road. ‘You mean to go back for that gold, Countess?’ he asked, having considered the matter for several minutes.
‘That’s my idea,’ Anna agreed.
‘After the war,’ he mused. ‘I’ll take you back, for a share.’
‘I’m sorry. No shares.’
‘But I know where it is.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘You do.’
He gave her a startled glance.
‘This is far enough,’ Anna said. The road was empty, and there was nothing to indicate that the truck had ever left it. ‘Stop here.’
He braked. ‘Now Countess . . .’
Anna seized the handbrake and pulled it hard to make sure there wasn’t an accident, and shot him through the head. He slumped across the wheel while the truck, starting to move again as his foot slipped off the foot brake, stalled and skidded before coming to a rest.
Anna pocketed the pistol, opened the door, and climbed down. Rudent had brought the command car to a slithering halt behind them. ‘What happened?’
Anna got in beside him. ‘Can you get round that?’
‘I think so. But—’
‘Just do it, and drive.’
He gulped and obeyed, but could not stop himself glancing sideways as they passed the truck, and the dead driver. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘You have killed ten men.’
‘Fourteen.’ She took the two spare magazines from her pockets and reloaded.
‘But . . . fourteen men! You!’
‘Listen to me, Joachim, and remember what I say. For the past seven years I have worked for this ghastly regime. In that time I have been forced to kill, and lie, and cheat: I have been beaten, tortured by both water and electricity, raped, and shot. I am now making plans to leave, and I think they owe me some back pay. As for the fourteen men who have just died, ten were condemned to death, by our masters, to prevent their ever revealing where the bullion is hidden. The other four were sent to kill me, and you, the moment the task was completed, for the same reason. They were not aware of it, but they also were condemned to death the moment they returned to Berlin. I merely changed the order of things. Because it is my intention to survive.’
‘And you need me to get you back to Berlin,’ he said. ‘Then you will kill me as well.’
‘I would really not like to have to do that.’
He turned his head to look at her, then concentrated on the road again; they were entering Eisenach. ‘I know where the bullion is hidden.’
‘And I know that only you can know that, Joachim. Would it not be better for you and I to be friends than for you to spend the rest of you life, no matter how rich you might then be, waiting for me to step out of the shadows to settle accounts? I always do, you know.’
He considered for a while. ‘And you are not afraid I may betray you to Herr Himmler?’
‘You would be signing you own death warrant. Herr Himmler does not know who I am employing as my driver. But I was instructed to kill him. Your only hope is to melt into the background and wait for me to contact you.’
‘Will you do that?’
‘As soon as it is safe.’
‘But are you not also still intended to die to keep the location of the gold secret?’
‘Of course.’ Anna squeezed his hand. ‘But I have friends in even higher places than the Reichsführer.’
She could only hope and pray that she was right. It was nearly midnight before they regained Berlin, and the bombers were overhead. None of the night staff in Prinz Albrechtstrasse seemed surprised to see her at that late hour, but they were able to confirm that the Reichsführer had not yet returned from his trip to the north. So she went to bed and slept soundly, and at breakfast informed Birgit that they would probably be moving out.
‘Oh, Countess! We are leaving Berlin? Oh, that will make me so happy! I am so frightened all the time.’
‘I think in the first instance we may just be leaving this apartment. But you never know your luck.’
She had her morning bath then walked through the pitted streets and between the still burning fires to the Ministry of Propaganda. She understood that she was taking perhaps the greatest risk of her life, but however much she loathed the man, he was about the only completely sane leader left in the regime, and she had also come to realize over the past couple of years that when he gave his word, he kept it. And he had once promised to protect her.
‘Dr Goebbels is not in yet,’ the secretary said.
‘Then I will wait for him, in his office,’ Anna told her.
The woman raised no objection. She no doubt knew all of the doctor’s peccadilloes, and that Anna was one of them.
He arrived an hour later, actually wearing uniform, although entirely lacking in any medals or insignia. ‘Anna!’ he said. ‘You are as always a ray of sunshine on a gloomy morning. You want my advice. Or is it my help?’
‘Sir?’ Not for the first time he had surprised her.
He sat behind his desk. ‘I am sure you are perceptive enough to know that the game is up.’
Again she had to collect her thoughts; if she had known the Nazi game was up for some time, she had never expected to hear a man like Goebbels admit it. ‘The Führer . . .’
‘Oh, he knows it as well as anybody. The Russians are over the Oder, the Americans are at the Elbe, the British are on to the north plain. But he means to fight to the end, here in Berlin. Did you know that he has given Eva permission to join him? He has always refused to allow her to come to Berlin before, because of the danger from the bombs. Now, he wants her with him at the end.’
Anna drew a deep breath. ‘Then . . .’
‘He has no more use for you?’ He smiled. ‘My dear Anna, he has had no more use for you for a long time. Have you not gathered that? He has no more use for sex, and you are a sexual animal. Now he wants company and comfort, in his last days, and you are not a comfortable person. Does that upset you?’
Anna met his gaze. ‘No, sir.’
‘Do you know, I did not think it would.’
‘But you . . .?’
‘I of course will remain with him. I have no future without the Führer. Magda is joining me.’
To die? ‘But, your children . . .’ She knew he had five.
‘She is bringing them.’
Now she spoke the words aloud. ‘To die?’ She also knew that the oldest was not yet ten.
‘Of course. They have no future without me.’
She swallowed.
‘But you do not wish to die, because you have never been a Nazi, have you?’
Another deep breath. ‘Yesterday I was condemned to death.’
‘By whom?’ He seemed genuinely concerned.
‘The Reichsführer. You know that I was placed in charge of the detail to place the gold reserves beyond reach.’
Goebbels nodded. ‘You were selected by the Führer personally, as both best fitted and most capable for such an assignment.’
‘The SD escort was under orders to execute me the moment the assignment was completed.’
‘My God! But—’
‘As you can see, they did not complete their assignment.’
He stared at her for several seconds. ‘And they . . .?’
‘They are dead, sir.’
‘You are unique. Which is probably a good thing. And Herr Himmler?’
‘Would you like me to tell you what Herr Himmler is doing at this moment, sir?’
‘Don’t tell me you have disposed of him as well? I thought he was inspecting troops in the north-west. However, tell me.’
Anna related the reasons for her two trips to Stockholm, sticking strictly to her meetings with Bernadotte. Goebbels stroked his chin. ‘I can see that he would regard you as a highly dangerous person to have around,’ he said when she was finished. ‘And as he also has no more use for you . . .’
‘Will you use this information, sir?’
‘I am glad to have this information, Anna. For use as and when I consider it appropriate. However, as I have said, you are clearly too dangerous to be allowed to remain around.’
Anna drew a sharp breath. Had she made a terrible mistake?
‘That being the case,’ Goebbels went on, ‘I do not see that any of us have any more use for you, here in Germany. But I believe you can still be of enormous use to the Reich, to the legacy of the Third Reich. You are like an enormous, powerful bomb, just waiting to explode and cause immense destruction. To toss you into the world from the ruins of Berlin to wreak havoc is the best possible parting present we can give to mankind. Do you not agree?’
Angel of Doom (Anna Fehrback Book 5) Page 24
