Chosen of the Valkyries

Chapter Twenty-Six

Berlin, Germany Prime

29 September 1985

Undisciplined wretches, Hauptsturmfuehrer Katharine Milch thought, as she strode along under cover of darkness. You should all be cleared off the streets.

It was annoying, she had to admit, even if it was helpful. The tidal wave of refugees heading into Berlin – as if they thought there was some kind of safety in the city – made it easier for her and her team to operate without being detected. And they would consume more and more food, forcing the traitors to decide between stamping down hard on refugees or allowing themselves to be starved into submission quicker than they’d planned. But it was annoying, a sign of the wishful thinking and soppy sentimentality that had plagued the west since the death of Adolf Hitler. A true government would have taken steps to remove the refugees before it was too late.

She clung to the shadows, keeping her distance from the refugees as she led her team towards the target. There were a couple of policemen in view, both of whom looked cold and nervous. Several policemen had been killed on the streets over the last few days and, so far, no one had tracked down their killers. Katharine had killed two personally, she knew; the remainder had either fallen to her team or had been picked off by criminals or people with private scores to settle. The Order Police had never been popular and, now the Reich had been badly weakened, the fear was gone.

Should have cracked down hard, Katharine thought, nastily. And then put the refugees to work.

The thought made her smile as she skirted yet another clump of refugees. In the east, people who had been forced to flee their homes – like she had, when she’d been seven – were put to work at once, earning their keep. She still shuddered at the thought of cooking, cleaning and washing for her adopted family, even though they’d been very kind to the orphaned girl. And they’d even sponsored her when she applied to the SS, even though only a handful of women were ever accepted for training. They’d known she wanted revenge on those who had killed her family. But the traitorous government didn’t seem inclined to force the refugees to work.

They could hew wood, draw water and build barricades, if nothing else, she thought, glancing into one of the makeshift tents. And the girls could help move weapons and supplies to the men.

She allowed no trace of her feelings to show on her face as their target finally came into view. A warehouse, protected by four armed policemen and a single armoured car. They must have taken it out of storage, she decided; the thin-skinned vehicle wouldn’t last a second on a modern battlefield, even if pitted against a Panzer III from the war. And yet, it was more than intimidating enough for a bunch of unarmed refugees. Katharine couldn’t help wondering if its machine guns were actually loaded, although she wouldn’t assume that was the case until the vehicle refused to engage the attackers. The defenders protecting the edge of the city wouldn’t be keen on releasing ammunition to the guards inside the city.

Keeping her footsteps even, she strode past the warehouse, covertly circling the building and checking to ensure there were no other guards hiding in the shadows. There were no other entrances, save for the big doors at the front; health and safety had never been a particular concern of the Reich, certainly when the workers had been Untermenschen. She smiled at their conceit, then used hand signals to tell her team what to do. And then she walked forward, right towards the policemen.

They reacted with surprising speed, the moment she made a beeline towards them, lifting their weapons into firing position. But it was already too late. Katherine yanked up her machine pistol and opened fire, gunning all four of the policemen down, while one of her men hurled a grenade under the armoured car. It exploded into a fireball, the heat scorching Katherine’s face as she hurried towards the doors. The grenade was designed to take out tougher vehicles than a single outdated armoured car.

The doors crashed open, revealing a colossal stockpile of everything from ration packets to industrial equipment. Katherine puzzled over it for a long moment, then decided that the traitors must have stripped food supplies and anything else that might be useful from the towns and satellite cities surrounding Berlin. It wasn’t a bad move either, she had to admit, but it was going to cost them She was tempted to call for the refugees, to offer them the chance to loot the warehouse, yet she knew the traitors would probably arrive in time to keep the refugees from stealing everything. They’d have reinforcements already on the way.

“Burn it,” she ordered.

She unhooked the grenade from her belt and hurled it into the warehouse. It detonated seconds later, sending out a wave of fire that ignited everything it touched. The SS had designed the grenades to burn Slavic hovels to the ground, tiny huts built of wood, mud and makeshift brick. They were tougher than they looked, according to her instructors, but the same couldn’t be said of the warehouse’s contents. The flames were spreading faster and faster, burning everything to a crisp.

“Time to go,” she said.

She turned and led the way back along the streets, hearing the sound of approaching cars. It was tempting to set up an ambush, to engage the policemen as they approached, but she had a feeling that it would prove pointless. She had only four men under her command, apart from the handful of SS operatives; she didn’t dare risk losing even one of them if it could be avoided. Besides, there would be soldiers on the way too. Her men were good, but they would be massively outnumbered.

The police cars roared past, followed by a pair of red fire engines. Someone had seen the blaze then, she noted; she wondered, absently, just who had managed to call in a report so quickly. Unless they’d anticipated an attack on the warehouse… but surely, if they had, they would have made sure the building was actually secure. Clearing the nearby buildings and setting up a line of checkpoints would have made her job much harder.

It might be better to target the fire engines next, she thought, as she watched more police cars racing past. And make it harder for them to put out any other fires.

She glanced behind her – the inferno was still blazing, a towering pillar of flame rising into the air – and then smiled. It wasn’t much – four men, a single armoured car and a shitload of supplies – but it would hurt the rebels. Now the city was under siege, they would have no hope of replacing the destroyed supplies before the Waffen-SS attacked. And they would have to cover the other warehouses by drawing men from the front lines.

“A good day’s work,” she said, as they reached the hideout. “Get undressed, then get into bed and catch some sleep.”

She smirked as she walked into the bedroom and started to undress. As far as anyone knew, they were a family that had remained in Berlin since the uprising – and they had the papers to prove it. Katherine had expected to have to infiltrate London or Washington – she could pass for either British or American, at a pinch – but slipping into Berlin and operating within the city had been almost disconcertingly easy. Her instructors had told her never to break cover, never to do anything that might reveal her true nature… and yet, Berlin was hardly a challenge.

Don’t get complacent, she reminded herself, sternly. If they search this place, our cover will be thoroughly blown.

Closing her eyes, she went to sleep.

“Six men dead,” Herman said, tartly. “One armoured car destroyed. Half the supplies in the warehouse burned to a crisp and the rest probably of dubious value.”

He scowled at the mess in front of him. The warehouse was a blackened shell, the walls caved in and the steel girders looking as if they were on the verge of collapsing into a pile of debris. A hundred firemen had worked desperately to salvage what they could, but there just hadn’t been the time to get everything out of the building. He had no idea what sort of chemicals the strike team had used, yet – whatever it was – it had burned hot enough to set fire to almost everything in the building.

“A very basic strike team,” Horst commented. “Why weren’t there more guards in place?”

Herman felt his anger deepen. “Where would you have us leave undefended,” he snapped, “so we can cover a single building?”

Horst showed no visible reaction to his words. The former SS agent had been oddly distracted, when he’d met with Herman to discuss the ongoing investigation; Herman would have bet good money that it had something to do with Gudrun. And yet, he didn’t have the time to worry about it. Losing so much food would cause panic all over the city, once it sank in that rations – already small – would have to be reduced still further. Starvation – or the threat of starvation – might be enough to set off a riot that would tear Berlin apart.

“There just isn’t the manpower to cover everywhere,” Herman added, tartly. “It isn’t as if we can pull troops off the wall.”

“We might have to,” Horst said. “Taking out the food supplies… it’s always been part of the SS commando doctrine.”

Herman sneered. “Know a few commandos, do you?”

“I did,” Horst said. He sounded oddly nostalgic for a long moment. “They were the sort of men who would think nothing of crawling for hours, just to get to a target, then poisoning the wells.”

He swore. “We need to keep a careful watch on the water supplies and power stations too,” he added. “They’ll come under attack soon.”

Herman cursed. He’d gone without food for a couple of days, during his military service, but humans couldn’t live long without water. Three days, his instructors had said, if the person going without was in reasonably good health. The old and the young would need water far more frequently… the thought of being without water was definitely enough to spark off more riots. If the SS managed to cut or reduce the water supplies, Berlin was doomed.

He took one last look at the ruined warehouse, then glanced up in alarm as he heard an aircraft flying over the city. These days, with the Luftwaffe badly weakened, it was a dead certainty that it wouldn’t be friendly. The SS bombing raids were pinpricks, compared to the sheer immensity of the largest city in the world, but they did some damage and wore down morale. He couldn’t blame the civilians for slowly losing their cool under the constant sniping, shelling and bombing.

“We need to go back to the Reichstag,” he said. “And see if we can speed up the detective work.”

“I would be surprised if we cracked their cover so quickly,” Horst admitted, as they headed for the car. “They’ll have been trained for far more unfriendly places.”

“We have to try,” Herman said. He’d need to put forward recommendations, too. Random searches would annoy the population, but they might just uncover something of value. At the very least, it would warn the SS cell that they might have to be prepared to move at any moment. “Who knows? Maybe their cover will be too perfect.”

Horst snorted, sitting back in his chair. “Their papers will be perfect because they’ll have come from the official producer,” he said. “There won’t be any obvious forgeries to find.”

Herman smiled. “You mean, like yours?”

“I passed the entry exams for the university,” Horst said, flatly. “There was no fakery.”

Herman was reluctant to admit it, but he was impressed. Gudrun had almost worked herself into a coma, preparing for the exams. He’d even seriously considered withdrawing permission for her to attend the university when he’d realised it was affecting her health, unlike the exams he and the boys had taken when they’d left school. And yet, he knew she had done well. He wished, suddenly, that he’d told her just how proud he was… back before she’d turned into a politician. It might not have been traditional for a girl to go to university – it made it harder for her to find a husband – but he’d been proud of her. Those exams had been nightmarishly hard.

And that means that Horst is smarter than he looks, he reminded himself. He couldn’t have passed for a student if he wasn’t.

Horst leaned forward and closed the partition, ensuring that the driver couldn’t eavesdrop on them. “Herr Wieland,” he said, formally. “I have a question.”

Herman kept his amusement off his face. He had a feeling he knew precisely where this was going. But he merely nodded, inviting Horst to continue. There was nothing to be gained by making life too easy for the younger man.

“I would like to marry your daughter,” Horst said, after a moment. He sounded nervous, too nervous. Herman found himself torn between amusement and concern. “I… I believe I could make her happy.”

Herman considered it, carefully. He knew that Horst and Gudrun had some kind of relationship, if only because he wasn’t blind. They inclined towards each other, particularly when they thought they weren’t being watched. They’d been careful, he had to admit, but nowhere near careful enough to conceal the truth from him. And, even a mere year ago, it would have been cause for a number of pointed questions.

And yet, the thought bothered him. Gudrun was hardly his youngest child, but she was his only daughter. Putting her into the hands of an unworthy man would torment him for the rest of his life, if the marriage went sour. Divorce was almost unheard of in the Reich, if there were children. He’d been called out to far too many domestic battlegrounds where the husband had beaten the wife, or the wife – desperate and unable to escape – had mortally wounded the husband. He was damned if he would allow Gudrun to remain in such a household…

“I see,” he said, carefully. He kept his face carefully blank. At least Horst was doing it properly, seeking his approval before formally popping the question. There were no shortage of horror stories about young couples, fancying themselves in love, who ran away when their parents rejected the match. “Is she pregnant?”

Horst flushed bright red. “Not… not to the best of my knowledge.”

Herman allowed himself a moment of relief. Everyone joked that a blushing bride could deliver a baby in six months, rather than nine, yet it wasn’t something he would have wanted for Gudrun. Most people would politely ignore the proof that a happy couple had been sleeping together before exchanging vows, but Gudrun was a politician. She had enemies, he suspected – and if she didn’t have them already, she’d have them soon enough. One of them would be happy, no doubt, to call her out for sleeping with her husband before the actual marriage.

And then he frowned. If Horst and Gudrun had been sleeping together, she might already be pregnant and not know it.

He met the younger man’s eyes. “And how do you plan to support her?”

Horst looked back at him, evenly. “Right now, I am drawing a salary from the Reichstag,” he said, simply. “If I lose that position, for whatever reason, I am a trained commando and covert operative. I should have no difficulty volunteering my services to the Wehrmacht.”

He smiled. “Technically, I am also entitled to an SS stipend, but I suspect that won’t be paid.”

Herman had to smile, despite his concern. “And how will you treat her as a wife?”

“I recognise that she has a career,” Horst said. “And I will do nothing to interfere with it.”

“Really,” Herman said. “And will you be a house-husband?”

“If necessary,” Horst said.

Herman frowned, inwardly. House-husbands were vanishingly rare in the Reich, more common in dramas about the horrors of living in America than in the real world. A man was expected to work to support his family, leaving the wife to take care of the home and raise the children. Indeed, the only house-husband he’d ever met had been a cripple, whose wife worked as a secretary to pay the bills. And no one could have denied he was unable to work.

But for a young man, barely out of school, the humiliation would be unbearable.

He put that thought aside for later consideration, then glanced out of the window and nodded towards a destroyed building. “One would argue that this is hardly the time to get married,” he pointed out. “You might both be dead tomorrow.”

“We are aware of the dangers,” Horst said, stiffly.

Herman nodded, considering it. He had no reason to dislike Horst personally, even though the young man had been in the SS. At least he’d done the right thing at the right time, saving Gudrun’s life before she’d ever realised it had been in danger. And he’d been willing to approve Konrad as a prospective husband…

“I must discuss the matter with my wife,” he said, finally. Adelinde would kill him, perhaps not metaphorically, if he made the decision without consulting her. “But then you will have to convince Gudrun to marry you.”

“I know,” Horst said. He looked relieved. If Herman had said no, it would have made his life very awkward. “But I wanted your approval first.”