Storm Front

Chapter Nineteen

Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA), Berlin

30 July 1985

“You’re late.”

“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. The summons to the RHSA had come at an inconvenient time and he’d been forced to come up with an excuse on the spur of the moment. “I offer no excuses.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Standartenfuehrer Erdmann Schwarzkopf said, sarcastically. “There is nothing more important than serving the Reich.”

“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. “However, if I were to act suspiciously, the other students might regard me as a potential spy.”

Schwarzkopf eyed him for a long moment, then nodded and turned to lead the way down the corridor. Horst followed him, feeling nervous; he hadn’t been summoned to the RHSA since he’d first come to Berlin, a year before he’d entered the university for the first time. Any citizen of Germany would feel worried at the thought of entering the building, knowing that the doors could slam shut at any moment, but Horst knew he had reason to be afraid. If his superiors had figured out what he’d done, he’d die slowly and painfully.

They don’t know anything, he reassured himself, as they entered the interrogation section and walked past a handful of unmarked doors. If they knew something, I would be in one of these rooms already.

“We interrogated the professor quite extensively,” Schwarzkopf said. “He knew nothing, it seems. It was a dead end.”

Horst kept his face impassive, even though Schwarzkopf was in front of him. Who knew who was watching through a hidden camera? “The professor was quite an important man,” he said, flatly. “Killing him will have unfortunate consequences.”

“The professor will not be returning to the university,” Schwarzkopf said, coldly. “His future is none of your concern.”

“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. There was no point in pressing the issue. As a good son of the east, he was meant to disdain computers and other American toys. “I…”

“Officially, he will have retired,” Schwarzkopf added, cutting Horst off. “No one will know any differently.”

They reached a small office and stepped inside. Schwarzkopf shut the door firmly, gestured to a chair and sat down on the other side of an empty desk. It wouldn’t be his real office, Horst knew; it was just a place to talk to the agents he handled, a place they’d never be able to describe if they ran into trouble. Personally, Horst thought Schwarzkopf was uncomfortably paranoid, but even paranoids had enemies. Besides, it was good tradecraft.

“The students know, of course,” Schwarzkopf said. It wasn’t a question. “How are they taking it?”

Horst took a moment to compose his answer. He wouldn’t be the only spy, of course; there would be others monitoring the university and if his answers didn’t match theirs, he would be in deep trouble. The only evidence that he was the only spy in Gudrun’s group was the simple fact that none of them had been arrested yet, not after they’d started distributing leaflets. Horst rather doubted that anyone, even Schwarzkopf, would allow a tiny rebel group to get that far.

“They are asking questions, Mein Herr,” he said, finally. “Many of them have family or friends who are currently serving in South Africa and quite a few have dropped out of contact with their relatives. They thought nothing of it until they realised that other families had had the same experience. Then they started wondering what else they might have been told that was also a lie.”

“Questions,” Schwarzkopf repeated. “You have attempted to distract them, of course?”

“I have tried,” Horst lied. “However, Mein Herr, the public arrest of a popular professor has only given the leaflets credence. I do not believe there is any way to stop the spread of the rumours.”

Schwarzkopf’s face darkened. “That is not good.”

“No, Mein Herr,” Horst agreed. “However, the students need to focus on passing their exams. They may well lose interest if the matter is allowed to die.”

“Perhaps,” Schwarzkopf said. He didn’t sound convinced, unsurprisingly. “Do you know who might have written the leaflets?”

“Mein Herr, there are too many students with relatives who are in South Africa,” Horst said, seriously. “I have no proof that any of them are responsible for writing the leaflets, let alone passing them out in the streets. I will, of course, keep my ears open.”

“You’ll do more than that,” Schwarzkopf said. “First, we expect you to find and infiltrate the rebel group. We believe a small cabal of students was behind the leaflets.”

That, Horst had to admit, was frighteningly accurate. He’d assumed they would deduce as much, to be fair, but… he couldn’t help feeling a shiver running down his back. Gudrun might be in more danger than she knew. And yet, with a policeman for a father and an SS boyfriend, she didn’t actually match the pattern of a rebellious student. Horst himself fitted the pattern better than she did.

And I am a rebel, he thought, with a flicker of wry amusement. The pattern fits.

He cleared his mind as he looked up at his handler. “Why a small group of students?”

“A large group would be easy to notice,” Schwarzkopf pointed out, dryly. “We’re looking, I suspect, for three or four students, close friends or family. Probably students with relatives in South Africa. We expect you to find that group and root it out.”

“I will do my best, Mein Herr,” Horst said. He’d have to seriously consider betraying a handful of uninvolved students, if only to give himself cover. By now, he was sure, there would be hundreds of other small groups in the university. “If the group can be found, I will find it.”

“Good,” Schwarzkopf said. “Your second task, however, is harder. We intend to insert more agents into the university. You will be responsible for assisting them to blend into the student population.”

Horst kept his face expressionless with an effort. “It isn’t easy to blend in with the other students,” he warned. “I only fit in so well because I am a student. Anyone else would have problems fooling any of the other students.”

Schwarzkopf’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“You were trained as an SS officer,” Horst said, carefully. “From the moment you entered Wewelsburg Castle as a new recruit, you were steeped in the history and traditions of the SS, everything from songs to precisely how to stand when inspected by a superior officer. You aren’t posing as an SS officer, you are an SS officer. Every little detail confirms your identity as one of us. Could a civilian, even one with the correct uniform, mimic you so precisely that they’d fool a genuine SS officer?”

“Of course not,” Schwarzkopf said, flatly. “They wouldn’t be quite right.”

“Nor would your agents,” Horst said. “The university isn’t a parade ground, Mein Herr, or an army barracks. Your agents would stand out like a nude woman in the middle of the Victory Day parade. The only way to pass as a student is to be a student.”

“You could prepare them,” Schwarzkopf said.

“Not in less than six months,” Horst said. “They’d need to unlearn a great deal, Mein Herr.”

“But we have orders to insert more agents,” Schwarzkopf said. “You’ll just have to try your best.”

“Associating with them may blow my cover,” Horst warned. Unless he was underestimating the SS agents, Gudrun and the other students would have no difficulty identifying the spies and isolating them. Newcomers in the middle of term would raise more than enough eyebrows. “I’d have to be put in a position where I would be forced to work with them.”

“That can be arranged,” Schwarzkopf said. “Now, here’s what we want you to look out for…”

“He knew nothing,” the interrogator said.

Reichsführer-SS Karl Holliston peered through the one-way mirror. Herr Doctor Professor Claus Murken sat in a metal chair, his naked body strapped to the metal and his face battered into a bloody pulp. The interrogators had been quite precise, as always, combining physical torture with a brutal beating that rarely failed to drag answers out of uncooperative suspects. But it seemed as though it was nothing more than a waste of effort. Either Murken had the ability to fool a pair of experienced interrogators or he was innocent all along.

Karl turned to look at the interrogator. “You’re sure?”

“He was practically pissing in his pants as soon as we strapped him into the chair, Herr Reichsführer,” the interrogator said. “It took us some time to actually focus on the leaflets because he wanted to confess to fucking two of his female students. But he knows nothing about the leaflets.”

“I see,” Karl said.

He gritted his teeth. It was possible that the professor was concealing something – he might have given up one piece of information to keep the rest hidden – but he had faith in his interrogators. Besides, he rather doubted a pampered university professor, a man who hadn’t experienced real pain since the Hitler Youth, could have endured a torture session without breaking. The man really was disgustingly unfit. Karl took a look at his chest and shuddered at the thought of him huffing and puffing over a nubile young German maiden. No doubt he was on the verge of a heart attack every time he took off his trousers.

Torture worked, he’d been told, if the interrogators were careful to convince their subject that they would always be able to detect a lie. A proper session could take hours, with the interrogators confronting their subject – their victim – with what they knew about him, just so he would lose the habit of lying before they reached the questions they couldn’t verify. But it could be maddeningly imperfect if the victim retained his presence of mind. The fact that the professor had confessed to seducing not one, but two students was a good sign he hadn’t managed to keep himself under control, yet Karl knew he’d always have doubts. What if the bastard had managed to fool the interrogators?

“Take him to the cells and have the medics see to him,” Karl ordered, finally. He could have killed a rebel out of hand – or handed him over to the Reichstag for a show trial – but there was no point in killing someone who had been scooped up by accident. “And make sure he knows he won’t be returning to the university.”

He strode out of the torture chamber before the interrogator could reply and headed up to his office, barely noticing the uniformed officers who saluted as he walked past. It was frustrating. The only lead they’d had was the fingerprint and that had turned into a damp squib. Whatever the professor was guilty of – and Karl was sure that everyone was guilty of something – it wasn’t being involved with the rebels. And that meant… what? The professor’s fingerprints being on the leaflet suggested the rebels studied under him, but there were over two thousand students at the university. Tracking down the true rebels would take a long time…

…But Karl was no longer sure they had time.

He stepped into his office and closed the door behind him, then sat down and forced himself to think. There had to be a way of locating the rebels quickly, before word spread further… if, of course, it hadn’t already spread right across the Reich. The computer network was a security nightmare because it allowed instant communications right across the whole continent – the Americans had offered to link their network into the Reich’s network, a thought that had made the SS have a collective fit – and word could spread to every email address in the country. And who knew where it would go after that?

His intercom buzzed. “Herr Reichsführer, the Territories Minister requests an interview at your earliest convenience,” Maria said. “What would you like me to tell him?”

Karl frowned. “Tell him I’ll see him in twenty minutes,” he said. He had no idea what the Territories Minister would want with him, but it would distract him from his thoughts about the future. “And have a pot of coffee sent in when he arrives.”

“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Maria said.

And so another lead is gone, Karl thought, as he skimmed through the reports from the earlier interrogations. The Gastarbeiters had known nothing, of course, and they were now on their way to the great slave labour camps in the east. Their masters had taken the commission without checking it carefully – let alone reading the leaflets – and had very little to offer to mitigate their crimes. They’d probably wind up in the camps themselves once the Reich Council met to confirm their fate. And so we are left blind.

He was still mulling it over when Marie showed Philipp Kuhnert, the Territories Minister, into his office. Kuhnert was an odd duck, caught permanently between the Finance Minister, the Foreign Minister and the SS; Karl respected Kuhnert, even though he didn’t particularly like the man. It was his job to keep Germany’s satellites in line, obedient to the will of the Reich, without provoking them into futile rebellion.

We should just take over, Karl thought, as he rose to his feet. The Ministry of Territory was no match for the SS, but its master was not to be despised. Just make the French do as we tell them.

“Herr Reichsführer,” Kuhnert said, as Marie poured coffee for them both. “Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”

“It was my pleasure,” Karl said. Marie retreated through the door, which she closed firmly behind her. “What can I do for you?”

“The leaflets have spread to France and Norway,” Kuhnert said, flatly. “I don’t expect trouble from the Norwegians, but the French may become a problem.”

Karl swore under his breath. “The computer network?”

“Someone printed them off at the far end, then started to pass them around in a dozen cities,” Kuhnert said. “Vichy caught a couple of distributors, but they escaped before they could be taken for interrogation.”

“They escaped?” Karl asked. Losing prisoners was rare. It almost always spoke of gross incompetence – or a deliberate decision to allow the prisoners to flee. “How?”

“The French aren’t saying,” Kuhnert said. “But from what I picked up from my sources, they were simply allowed to escape by the security forces. Deliberately.”

He leaned forward before Karl could say a word. “That’s not the only problem,” he added, grimly. “There’s a rumour going around France that we’re planning to send French troops to South Africa.”

Karl let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Do they really expect us to send cowards to fight in a war?”

“The French lost – and lost badly – in 1940,” Kuhnert said, calmly. “But they were betrayed by their leaders, not their fighting men. And now there are many Frenchmen wondering if the chance of freedom is worth the risk of death.”

“Every time we have fought the French,” Karl countered, “we have beaten them. We would have crushed France in 1914 if the British hadn’t intervened and the Jews hadn’t stabbed us in the back. They are not fool enough to lift a hand against us now.”

“I’m not worried about them fighting us,” Kuhnert said. “Vichy knows what will happen if they challenge us and yes, they will do whatever it takes to root out their own rebels so we won’t do it for them. I’m more worried about the economic effects such rumours will have on our industry.”

“You sound like Krueger,” Karl said.

“The French supply us with various raw materials, foodstuffs and a considerable amount of manpower,” Kuhnert said, ignoring the jibe. “Their production level has been poor ever since the sixties, when they realised they weren’t going to get out from under our thumb. Why should they produce anything when nine-tenths of what they produce goes straight to the Reich? They’re still on pretty low rations and they resent it. Far too many of the best Frenchmen are immigrating to North Africa or fleeing to Britain.”

Karl frowned. “So?”

“Their government is, if anything, more repressive than ours,” Kuhnert continued. “The workers in France haven’t been allowed a proper trade union for years, ever since we defeated them in 1940, and the worker associations they do have are more concerned with pleasing the government than assisting the workers. There have long been rumours of plans to set up secret unions and demand change…”

“Which we will crush,” Karl interrupted.

“They may no longer care,” Kuhnert said. “The Spanish and Italians have the same problem, Herr Reichsführer. Their populations have long resented slaving for us. Now… they are starting to wonder what would happen if they simply refuse to work.”

Karl scowled. “And what will happen?”

“We’ll start having supply problems of our own,” Kuhnert said. He nodded towards the map hanging on the wall. “These issues aren’t going to fade away in a hurry, Herr Reichsführer.”

“I see,” Karl said.

He gritted his teeth in frustration. The only French department he’d thought the Reich could rely on was the Vichy government itself. Massively unpopular, caught between the Reich and its own people, it was hellishly effective at sniffing out trouble. But if the French security forces were starting to rot, if the French military thought it would be sent to fight in South Africa, Vichy might lose control. And who knew what would happen then?

We have contingency plans, he reminded himself. We could get the Panzers rolling into France within hours of trouble breaking out in Vichy… except those forces are earmarked for South Africa…

His blood ran cold. And if the Americans start to meddle in France itself…

“Thank you for letting me know,” he said. Something would have to be done, but what? “I will consider your concerns.”

“Thank you, Herr Reichsführer,” Kuhnert said. “I appreciate it.”