Chosen of the Valkyries

Chapter Fifteen

Berlin, Germany Prime

13 September 1985

Herman shook his head in grim disbelief as he stood near what had once been the Ministry of Economics. It had been a towering building, once upon a time, but now it was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The police and firemen who’d approached the building and set up lines to keep the public back weren’t trying to do anything to recover bodies, he noted, even as the sun was starting to rise. They knew there was little hope of anyone surviving the holocaust.

“Quite a mess,” a voice said. “Do you think it was deliberate spite?”

Herman turned, then straightened in alarm and snapped out a salute as he recognised Hans Krueger. He’d never actually met the man, not even after the uprising, but every policeman in Germany knew the names and faces of the Reich Councillors. A single word from one of them – even now, he assumed – would be enough to send a policeman to a very unpleasant duty station in Siberia or Germany South. But Krueger didn’t look angry, merely contemplative.

“I do not know, Mein Herr,” Herman said. He wasn’t sure if Krueger knew who he was. It was unlike a Reich Councillor to confide in a mere policeman, even one with a very powerful relative. “It might have been a lucky shot.”

“Holliston always hated economics,” Krueger said. He sounded more as if he were speaking to himself, rather than to anyone else. “I would keep telling him we couldn’t afford his grand projects and he would keep arguing, as if we could just print some more money and solve all of our problems.”

Herman nodded. “How many people were in the building?”

“We evacuated most of the bureaucrats last week,” Krueger said. “There shouldn’t have been more than a skeleton staff.”

“That’s a relief,” he said. A large percentage of the Reich’s population would probably have cheered, if a few thousand bureaucrats were killed, but they were the ones who kept the Reich going. “Did he know that?”

“I have no idea,” Krueger said. “But he wouldn’t want to hit the Reichstag itself.”

Herman frowned, inwardly, as Krueger strode off, a handful of armed bodyguards appearing from nowhere to escort him. No, the SS wouldn’t want to target the Reichstag, but accidents happened. It was easy – all too easy – to imagine a missile going astray and coming down on top of the building, killing his only daughter. He hoped Gudrun would have had the sense to stay out of such an obvious target, but he hadn’t heard anything from her since her return from France. She hadn’t even found time to join the rest of the family for dinner.

He shook his head slowly as he turned his attention to the wreckage. Kurt was in danger too, somewhere along the border line, but Kurt was a young man. Kurt could handle himself. Herman had made sure of it, teaching Kurt how to take a punch and come up fighting. Gudrun, on the other hand, was a young woman, someone who needed protecting… and he felt helpless to protect her. He couldn’t help wondering if he’d failed as a father.

“Get the buildings around the debris evacuated,” he ordered, tiredly. He’d been on duty all night, but there was little hope of actually getting some sleep. “And then see if we can organise teams to drag the bodies out of the wreckage.”

His radio buzzed. “Wieland?”

“Here,” Herman said, lifting the radio to his mouth. “Go ahead.”

“Take a car and go to the transit barracks,” the dispatcher ordered. “There’s been a murder.”

Herman cursed under his breath as he passed command to one of the other policemen – the chain of command had been blown to hell by the uprising – and then summoned a driver to take him to the transit barracks. It was a relief – an immense relief – that the streets were almost deserted. Far too many young men and women had defied the curfew in the days following the uprising – and the police couldn’t give them a good kicking any longer – but the bombardment had brought home the realities of war to Berlin. There were no cars on the streets. Most people, he hoped, would have the sense to stay inside.

He fiddled with the radio as the police car raced through the lightening streets, but heard nothing apart from patriotic music. That might be a mistake, he told himself; the provisional government needed to make some kind of statement before the rumours started to get out of hand. He made a mental note to discuss it with his superiors, then braced himself as the car came to a halt outside the transit barracks. The gates were wide open, with five policemen standing guard. None of them looked very happy to be there. He climbed out of the car and strode towards him. They stood to attention slowly, too slowly. It wasn’t hard to deduce that they were retired policemen who’d been called back to the uniform.

“Report,” he snapped.

“Karl was killed,” one of them said. He sounded furious, yet scared. “Someone rammed a pencil into his eye.”

Herman sucked in his breath as they led him towards the guardpost. The ordinary inhabitants of the transit barracks were watched at all times, but they hadn’t had the manpower to keep an eye on the refugees, even if they hadn’t been good Germans. And yet, if they’d murdered a policeman… he glanced towards the closed and locked door, then cursed mentally. The murderer was probably long gone.

“I assume you locked the door,” he said. “Did you think to count the refugees?”

“There was never an accurate count,” the spokesman reminded him. “We don’t know who’s missing.”

Herman scowled. He’d been there when the refugees had been counted, but record-keeping hadn’t been a priority. There had been so much chaos that he wouldn’t have been surprised if a handful of the refugees hadn’t been registered at all. And even if the murderer had been registered, he might well have given a false name. In theory, every citizen of the Reich was supposed to have a dossier; in practice, the registry system had broken down during the uprising and never recovered.

He knelt down next to the body, examining it thoughtfully. There was no reason to doubt the guard’s deduction, not when the pencil was clearly visible. It had been driven through the poor bastard’s eyeball and thrust straight into his brain, causing instant death. There was no sign of a struggle, suggesting that he had been caught by surprise. And yet, what manner of policeman let a complete stranger approach him without going on guard. The old fear was gone now. A civilian on the verge of being arrested might just try to fight back.

A refugee left the barracks, he thought. And he wouldn’t have left unless he had business somewhere within the city.

A thought struck him. His frown deepened. He… or she?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it had to be considered. Someone had caught an experienced policeman – and former soldier – by surprise. It was unlikely that a hulking refugee – a male refugee – would have managed to do that, not when policemen knew and confronted all of the nasty tricks in the book. But a woman? A woman might be physically weaker than a man – Kurt was stronger than his father now, but Gudrun wasn’t – yet she might just be able to surprise her victim. He’d told Gudrun to kick a man between the legs as hard as possible, if she felt threatened; there was no way she could trade blows with a man and survive the experience. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, but life was not fair. Besides, only idiots liked the idea of a fair fight.

He sucked in his breath as he stood. A refugee had escaped, perhaps more than one. And, perhaps, a woman… there was no way to be sure, but the theory fitted the facts. And if the murderer was a woman, she had to be working for the SS. There was no other reason to kill a guard and make an escape in the middle of chaos.

“Keep the doors locked until we can get reinforcements,” he ordered, finally. He would have to call his superiors and pass on his theory, assuming they didn’t demote him for talking nonsense during a war. “And then we can speak to the refugees and find out who’s missing.”

“There might be more than one,” the spokesman said.

Herman shrugged. “We’ll find out,” he said, as he reached for his radio. “And then we’ll find the murderer.”

Horst couldn’t help feeling that the Reich Council – and he included Karl Holliston – had been slipping towards degeneracy long before they’d started hiding the truth about the number of soldiers killed or wounded in South Africa. Building a bunker network below Berlin was a sensible precaution – the British had bombed Berlin repeatedly during the last war – but there was no need to decorate it like some perverse version of Buckingham Palace. His instructors had made him read about the Gates of Fire, back during his training, pointing out that the Spartans had survived on black broth while their Persian enemies had eaten countless fancy dishes at each meal. And each Spartan had been worth a thousand Persians…

And then the Spartans started eating like the Persians, he thought, morbidly. Their king had brought back a fashion for enemy cuisine, according to his instructors. It had been the chink that led to Sparta’s inevitable fall. And here, we are living like the British monarch.

He turned his head slightly to look at Gudrun, sleeping next to him. Her breasts rose and fell with her breathing, perfect little handfuls that made Horst want to reach out and hold them with his hands. In her unguarded state, she was perfect, the epitome of Germanic beauty. Her mere appearance made him want to hold her, to protect her, to safeguard her from all harm. And yet, she didn’t really understand just how hard life could become. The cruise missiles that had struck the city were merely the opening moves in a war that could last for years.

And you are being stupid, he told himself, tartly. She wasn’t born and raised in the east.

It was an odd thought, one he perversely contemplated for a long moment. Gudrun was strong, although not in the way he’d been raised to respect. A weak woman who’d been arrested and held prisoner would have broken long before the strip search, just through not knowing what would happen to her. And Gudrun had kept going, daring the world to do its worst. Maybe she wasn’t an eastern woman with one hand stirring the stew pot and the other near a loaded gun. She was still strong and determined to do the best she could, even if she wasn’t quite sure what that was now.

The phone rang. He picked it up quickly, hoping it wouldn’t disturb Gudrun. “Albrecht.”

“Herr Albrecht,” a voice said. Horst vaguely recognised it as belonging to one of the operating staff, one of the men he’d met when he was surveying the Reichstag. “Councillor Wieland is expected in the briefing room, one hour from now.”

“Understood,” Horst said.

He was tempted to order breakfast, but he had a feeling the staff had far too many other things to do with their time. Instead, he reached over and kissed Gudrun’s forehead, gently tapping her until her eyes opened. She tensed automatically, then relaxed as she recognised him. Horst didn’t blame her for feeling unsure of herself, even though she’d slept well as far as he could tell. She’d had quite a few nightmares over the last two weeks, after they’d started sleeping together. Now she’d actually overthrown the government – or at least started the ball rolling – she was all too aware of everything that could have gone wrong.

“It’s time to get up,” he said, quietly. “We have a meeting in an hour.”

Gudrun sat upright, holding her arms over her breasts. Horst couldn’t help finding it amusing – they were hardly strangers, after all the time they’d spent exploring each other’s body – but she’d been raised to be modest. It wasn’t as if girls in the east went around topless, he had to admit; they just knew there were worse things than being seen naked by a lover. There were more important things to be worried about.

“Joy,” Gudrun said. She looked at him until he turned his back. “What time is it?”

Horst glanced at the wall-mounted clock. “Nine in the morning,” he said. He was surprised they’d been allowed to sleep in so late, but circumstances were hardly normal. His old instructors would have roared with laughter at the suggestion that the trainees should be allowed to stay in bed until six in the morning, then sent whoever dared to suggest it on punishment duty. “Are you hungry?”

“Just feeling dirty,” Gudrun said. She rose and headed for the shower; Horst turned, just in time to see her bare backside heading through the door. Her voice echoed back a moment later. “Can you order coffee?”

“Of course,” Horst said. He picked up the phone and checked the number. “Do you want anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Gudrun called.

Horst placed the order, then hunted for his pants and shirt while Gudrun showered herself thoroughly. He was tempted to join her in the shower, but time was definitely not on their side. He’d make sure to have a quick wash once Gudrun was finished, rather than escort Gudrun to the briefing smelling like a pig. He doubted that would go down well with the other councillors. There was a knock at the door five minutes later, which he opened to discover a young dark-haired woman carrying a tray of coffee. He wasn’t too surprised to discover that the bunker’s kitchens had sent a plate of pastries too.

They must think we acquired a taste for them in France, he thought, as he took the tray and thanked the servant. It’s hard to get French pastries in the Reich without connections.

He looked up as Gudrun stepped out of the shower, already wearing her bra and panties, then poured the coffee as she finished dressing. Gudrun had had a set of trousers altered to fit her, making her look surprisingly masculine despite her hourglass figure. Horst wasn’t sure if it encouraged the other councillors to take her seriously or not – she hadn’t sliced off her long hair – but he had to admit the outfit suited her. She definitely looked like someone who should be taken seriously.

“This is good coffee,” Gudrun said, as she took a sip. “Where does it come from?”

Horst shrugged. “It tastes a bit thin to me,” he said. The coffee he’d drunk in Germany East had been a great deal stronger, blacker than Karl Holliston’s soul. “It probably comes from France.”

Gudrun blinked. “The French grow coffee?”

“I have no idea,” Horst admitted.

He contemplated the problem for a long moment. The Reich grew coffee in Germany Arabia, if he recalled correctly, but the real coffee connoisseurs spent hundreds of Reichmarks on imported coffee from South America. Argentina had even tried to flood the market after the country had been defeated in the Falklands War. Maybe they’d sold it to the French who then skirted import/export restrictions by selling it onwards to Germany. And somehow he wasn’t too surprised that the bunker had good coffee, at least by Germany Prime’s standards.

There’s probably a wine cellar somewhere below us too, he thought, darkly. And I’d bet good money that the staff don’t get to drink either the wine or the good coffee.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, instead. “All that matters is surviving the next few weeks.”

He rose, leaving her to eat the pastries as he showered. They hadn’t had the time to bring spare clothes down into the bunker, but one of the wardrobes held a selection of basic clothing in various sizes. It didn’t take him long to find something suitable, even if it clearly had been designed for someone with a paunch. He made a mental note to bring more clothes down into the bunker, if they stayed where they were, then headed back to Gudrun. She’d wiped her hands and was now eying the clock nervously.

She glanced at him as they opened the door. “Is it wrong of me to be nervous?”

“Only a complete fool isn’t scared,” Horst said. His instructors had taught him that everyone – almost everyone – felt fear. It was how they coped with it, they’d warned, that determined what sort of man they were. But then, after weeks of running through hazardous death traps pretending to be tactical exercises, it was hard to feel fear in actual combat. “But you’re not on the front lines.”

Gudrun looked down, her face briefly stricken. Horst felt a stab of guilt – Gudrun’s brother was on the front lines – and pushed it aside, savagely. She was at a loose end; she needed to find a purpose, now that the war had begun. And he had no intention of letting her fall back into bad old habits, after all she’d already done.

“There’s nothing you can do about the danger,” he added, after a moment. He had no idea just how many cruise missiles had been stationed in Germany East, but Holliston had quite a few bombers at his disposal. It wouldn’t be long before they started hitting Berlin, unless the Luftwaffe kept them back. “All you can do is carry on as best as possible.”

“Thanks,” Gudrun said, dryly.

Horst smiled. “You’re welcome.”