The Quiller Memorandum

20 : BUNKERKINDER

I walked towards the bridge.

KLJ had been found in the water but they said he'd been shot dead before immersion. Somewhere here, among these shadows where I walked, was the precise spot where he had crumpled to the bullet.

I still believed in my certainties that had led me to make this final single throw, but if some of them were wrong, if only one of them, the smallest, were wrong, my place would be here too: not at home nor down the road at the crossing nor far across the face of the earth – but here, and now.

It is a feeling that we sometimes have, when we've taken a calculated risk. We think: this move could kill me, so if I assume that it will, if I assume I'm already dead and finished, I won't have to worry or be afraid.

Fear of death can worsen the risk of meeting with it, because of stomach-think.

Just as I reached the beginning of the bridge a car came from a side-street and got up speed and as it passed me my nape shrank. The mental (brain-think) decision to assume death and so remove fear is a useful exercise, but the stomach thinks for itself.

The bridge was quiet, a chain of lamps and a gleam of water below. When I heard the footsteps I kept on walking and didn't turn round. There was probably no danger; if they decided to shoot me down they wouldn't hurry to catch me up like this.

They were nearing. I kept on. Then I knew. It was a woman in soft shoes.

"Quill… "

I stopped. She looked up into my face, panting. She said: "I had to make a show in front of them."

"Of course."

She gripped my arm. "It must have sounded terrible to you."

"A fraction embarrassing."

Her eyes flickered beyond me, checking shadows. "Please trust me. It's what I came to ask. Trust me."

"I trust you."

If I survived the mission there would have to be a full report sent in to the Bureau. Under the heading Inga Lindt there would be facts summarised. Give or take a few details the report would read:

First encounter: at the Neustadthalle Berlin. It was noticed that Lindt left the courtroom just ahead of me. It was likely that the driver of the crush-car (see elsewhere) was waiting for a signal that I was coming into the open street, so that he would have time to start the engine and get into gear. It was not thought at the time that Lindt made that signal, but later experience indicated it.

(Oktober mentioned that a portrait parle had been made of me subsequent to my having been seen in the courts – though not in the Neustadthalle. I was thus recognised going in, and Lindt was sent in with orders to leave just ahead of me and make a signal to the crush-car. It will be remembered from the earlier sections of this report that the crush-attempt was in fact made by a wild-head group in the Phoenix organisation, so that Lindt's orders would have come from them, not from Oktober. The top directive wanted me alive, for questioning under duress.)

Immediately following the crush-attempt, Lindt claimed that it was meant for her. This was an obvious line for me to follow. There was a conversation in her apartment during which she stated herself to be a defector from Phoenix. It is believed her description of early life and experiences in the Fuhrerbunker were perfectly true. It was now suspected, however, that she was still under the influence of Phoenix and might even be one of their operators.

This was confirmed by her mentioning to me that Rothstein was in Berlin. My immediate reaction was that (1) she knew I had once known him, (2) had been ordered to drop his name casually and (3) expected me to talk about him. I did not do this.

It was decided to visit Rothstein and discover if he knew of Phoenix, so that I could warn him that they knew his name. There were assistants in his laboratory and it was impossible to talk safely. He appeared to have a need to tell me something, but made no appointment to see me again.

The circumstances of Rothstein's death and my blame for it (by negligence) will be found under that heading. It is relevant to say here that in going to see him (as a direct result of Lindt's mention of his name) I exposed him to their increased suspicion. Had no visit been made, they might well have thought that there had never been any connection between us, and dismissed their suspicions. The fact of Lindt's mentioning his name led finally to his shooting. Thus I was now convinced she was a Phoenix agent.

It was decided that I should let her continue to play her part as a defector (anti-Phoenix) and that I should seem to continue to accept this. Certain personal feelings towards her were now intruding but they did not of course interfere in any way with the pursuance of my mission. It was in fact hoped that further contact with her might afford me information on Phoenix.

Concerning the attempt by Oktober to force admissions from me in Lindt's apartment by seeming to submit her to physical torture in my presence, the full details will be found under the relevant heading Interrogation. It should be noted here that I became aware that Lindt underwent – at this precise time – a psychological change. My own theories on this may be untenable to a psychologist but they should be detailed in this report, since the whole of my subsequent course of action stemmed therefrom.

Lindt was obsessed with the concept of total strength. As a child she had been given faith in Adolf Hitler and it was no less feverish than was found in millions of her own country-people. Following the Fuhrer's suicide, and her own psychical trauma caused by the final hours in the besieged Fuhrerbunker, she retained that faith and was ripe for subsequent indoctrination into the Phoenix creed, which derived its very name from the idea that the Fuhrer had risen from his ashes. He was therefore – to Lindt – still a god, and still totally strong. She allied herself with men whom she believed to be unbreakable. (The personality of Oktober – a Reichsfuhrer in the organisation – gave an impression of total unbreakable strength.) It was during Oktober's attempt to interrogate me under pressures induced by my fears for her while she was apparently being tortured in my presence that she met with a psychological confrontation that unbalanced her values. During this interrogation I was aware (1) that she was not in fact suffering distress but lending herself to a new method of inducing me to talk, (2) I must appear to believe that she was being tortured and (3) I must get out of the corner without revealing that I knew her to be an agent, in case I could use her later as a source of information. (Reference Point 2: the moment I realised that Oktober had come to simulate a torture-scene, I made myself believe in it, so that all my subsequent actions should appear consistent. This deliberate self-deception was an aid in throwing the faint.)

Having induced genuine syncope by artificial stimuli, I recovered to find Oktober gone, and Lindt sobbing.

It is my theory that when she heard me tell Oktober to go ahead and kill her slowly, but that he would fail to make me talk, she imagined she had found someone as unbreakable as he. (She would have heard of his failure with the narcoanalysis, an additional sign of my reluctance to yield.) The important point here is that although she had always allied herself with men whom she thought were totally strong (unbreakable) she had never seen this characteristic evidenced in the enemy. This experience came at a time when our personal relationship had recently developed to a degree where other psychological influences carried their weight. Thus she suddenly found herself allied to me and – since I was hitherto an enemy – opposed to Phoenix, and I believed her fit of sobbing to be rooted in bewilderment (because of severe change in psychic attitudes) and fear (of the retribution to which she was now self-exposed, and which an organisation as ruthless as Phoenix would be quick to mete out).

Untenable though this theory might be in the case of a stable personality, it was the most applicable among many others in the case of a woman long unbalanced by grave trauma in childhood (in the Fuhrerbunker).

For reasons of caution I kept my beliefs to myself and proceeded as she would have expected, telephoning her doctor and asking him to come at once. (He would be a member of Phoenix and she would simply explain to him that his services were not in fact required, as nothing more than simulated torture had been undergone.) Note: the presence of blood on her legs (as evidence to me that the torture had been genuine) had been produced by the slight cutting of the flesh behind one ear-lobe. At our next meeting I looked for the scar left by the incision and remarked it; healing was not by that time complete.

Before leaving the apartment I put my theory about her violent change of loyalties to the test, by writing a number on one of her Kleenex tissues and telling her that she could reach me there by phone if she wished. This number – that of a bar named the Brunnen – had been picked at random from the directory while I waited for the doctor to answer. The same night I checked the Brunnen Bar for observers or start-point tags and found none. It was to be expected that one or more would have been posted there if Lindt had given the number to her people. I felt it safe to assume that she had not given it, and her omission confirmed my theory: she was now allied with me.

It was concluded, at about the same time, that Oktober had decided to change his tactics after my exhibition of syncope. The narcoanalyst (Fabian: see under Interrogation) had described to Oktober a technique used at Dachau, whereby information was successfully extracted from people believing themselves to be threatened with certain death. They would be ‘reprieved’ and offered the promise of sexual congress at the height of stimulation (return of life and positive forces granted by ‘reprieve’). These particular circumstances were in fact my own, not long before I had been expected to go to Lindt soon after believing that I had been ‘reprieved’ (Grunewald Bridge episode, q.v.). Oktober, in my view, had been so impressed with Fabian's technique that when I passed out in the Lindt apartment he went in to her and told her to interrogate me herself on an implied promise of sexual congress. The prospect was the more hopeful since I was thought to be in a state of compassion for her, following the simulated torture session. (It was to increase my compassion that blood-drops were then taken from the ear-lobe and applied to the inside thighs, indicating to me that an attack had been made on the urethra, in line with classical method).

She was too distressed mentally by her bewilderment and fear (see foregoing) to tell me that she had now, in truth, defected from Phoenix. It would not have been easy for her to explain her position, since she believed that at that time I assumed her to have defected a long time ago. She would have simply told Oktober that she would try out the new tactics, and let him leave the apartment. Her actual breakdown came at that precise moment, leading to the fit of sobbing once we were alone.

From the time when I left her apartment that night there was a noticeable reduction in tagging and observation. Example: my meeting with Pol was unobserved and there had been no tag on my journey to the park. It was assumed the adverse party was giving me rope so that I should – being off-guard – try to visit Lindt again. She would then be expected to try their new tactics as ordered by Oktober. I did not go to see her. Their patience became exhausted and she was next ordered to contact me and ask me to see her at the apartment. I then went there and found the agent Helmut Braun. (Note: she had put on clothes of a vivid red. I had seen her only in black, before. I believed this to be an expression – not so much to me as to herself – of her radically-altered attitudes (red=life, black=death), and I accepted this as further confirmation of my theory that she was now allied with me and opposed to Phoenix. There follows the section on Helmut Braun.

I could hear the water lapping at the legs of the bridge.

Helmut Braun? It was difficult to think about him when I stood so close to her.

"There's no time, Quill, to talk. As long as you trust me."

I said: "I do."

She took my hand. Her eyes shone in the lamplight. She said: "Then I can come with you." "Are you walking out on them?"

"Running. I don't know when you found out I was working for them, but you know when I stopped."

"It hasn't been long."

"But it will be. They suspect me now – that's why I had to give that exhibition in there. I'll be safe if I go with you. Take me."

"I'm going to my Control. There might be time to stop Sprungbrett if there's a last-minute hitch. And I've seen their faces, and I know their names. So I've got to send a signal."

"Take me with you. Wherever you go I'll be safe. You're my life, Quill."

I said: "It's no go. There's still a risk. They told me it's too late but they know I'll try to put a signal in to Control, in case there's a last hope. And there's a risk they'll try to stop me."

Her face had gone bleak. "You won't take me?"

"I can't. Not safe."

"It's that you don't trust me." She took her hand from mine.

I looked past her along the span of girders and then looked again at her face. "Listen to me. This is how much I trust you. There's a risk of their shooting me down if I try to send that signal. If they do, it won't ever reach my Control. Unless you'll help me."

Her head came up. To reassure her I gave a smile. She said nothing.

I told her: "Fix this number in your memory. 02.89.62. Berlin exchange. "I made her repeat it twice. "Oktober won't get on your track for a time – you made a convincing show in there. You're more free than I am, and safer. Phone that number. Give them the code-word: Foxtail. Tell them about Sprungbrett. All of it. Then ask them to pick you up. Once you're with my people you'll be safe."

"Then… I'll see you again?"

"If we both get through."

I kissed her mouth for the last time and turned away and walked quickly to the end of the bridge without looking back, but I knew I would always remember her as she was then, my lost little bunkerkinder, slimand erect and triumphant in her soldier's coat with the light on her helmet of hair.

It would take her five minutes to return to the house and report to her Reichsleiter, and five minutes for them to phone that number and find it was a fake. It would give me ten minutes' start and a chance to live.