Gritting his teeth, he ran through the possibilities as he donned his greatcoat and checked his holstered pistol. There was no denying that there was a stay-behind cell in place, a cell that could do a great deal of damage if allowed to operate unmolested. He could not let the chance to locate the cell pass, whatever the risk. And if they wanted to kill him… he added a handful of other weapons, burying them within the greatcoat, then scribbled out a quick note for Gudrun he could put in her room. She, at least, would know that something had happened to him.
Horst walked out of the building, passing the guards at the gates without trouble, then removed and folded the greatcoat as soon as he was in the nearest alleyway. It was pathetic, compared to some of the disguises he’d used during his training, but it was amazing how many people missed the obvious. He looked like another trainee, heading home after a hard day prancing around the sports field, rather than an SS officer or a policeman. No one would pay much, if any, attention to him.
He kept a wary eye on his surroundings as he walked further into the residential part of the city. The apartment blocks were massive, intended to house young men and women who had travelled to Berlin in hopes of a better life. Some of them looked like nice places to live, others looked like homes he would have preferred not to visit without armed backup. A handful of older men were sitting by the roadside, drowning their sorrows in cheap booze and shouting obscenities at passing cars. They’d have been arrested by now, a year ago, but the provisional government had other problems than the growing number of homeless on the streets. There just wasn’t the manpower to deal with it.
The landlords started kicking them out, Horst thought. There had been laws, once upon a time, about kicking veterans out of their homes, regardless of who actually owned the building. Landlords had hated the laws because it left them stuck with tenants who could neither pay nor be evicted, tenants who lowered the tone so much it made it impossible for them to attract tenants who could pay. And no one gives enough of a damn to take them in.
He couldn’t help feeling a flicker of sympathy as he reached the safehouse and paused outside the door. Gudrun’s grandfather had been a disgusting old drunkard, but his family had never given in to the temptation to dump him onto the streets. But not everyone was so patient, not everyone was willing to give their parents a home. It was depressing, really, to think that he might end up like that, had things gone differently. And yet, if he treated his family like servants, how could he really blame them?
The door opened. A hand beckoned him inside.
Horst braced himself, keeping his hand in position to draw his pistol if necessary and stepped through the door into the darkened building. Someone had taken the advice offered by the provisional government literally and covered the windows in newspapers and tape to keep even a chink of light from shining out into the darkness. And yet, the only source of light in the building was an open door at the end of the corridor. He kept his face expressionless as he walked into the room, only to be caught by strong hands that frisked him expertly and removed the weapons before letting him go.
“He’s clean,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Good,” a very familiar voice said. “Horst, my boy, perhaps you have an explanation?”
Horst kept his face under tight control as Standartenfuehrer Erdmann Schwarzkopf stepped into the light. He’d lost track of Schwarzkopf after the uprising had begun, although a handful of Schwarzkopf’s spies – his laughably ill-prepared spies – had been brutally beaten to death. Horst had hoped that Schwarzkopf had gone the same way, but the damned Standartenfuehrer had clearly managed to go underground before his first safehouse could be torn apart by the mob. Schwarzkopf had always been good at covering his ass.
“At last,” Horst said. He pushed as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Schwarzkopf lifted his eyebrows. “You have?”
“Of course,” Horst told him. “I put myself close to the traitors and waited.”
“You have been very close to one of the traitors,” Schwarzkopf said. “I hear you have been in bed with her.”
His voice hardened. “A traitor you told us was not a traitor.”
“I do not believe she was, at the time of her arrest,” Horst said, carefully. If they realised he’d lied to them, back before the uprising, he’d never leave the building alive. “She was pushed into treason by the way she was handled, after her arrest.”
“She is hardly the first person to have been arrested and then released,” Schwarzkopf observed.
“That is correct,” Horst said. “She was merely the right person at the right time.”
He paused, then went on. “When I realised she had become entangled with the traitors, it was far too late to do anything about it,” he added. “Therefore, I attached myself to her and waited for you to make contact. I knew you would have someone within the Reichstag.”
“You could have used one of the dead-drops to make contact,” Schwarzkopf pointed out, darkly. “Why didn’t you?”
“A number of files were captured by the traitors,” Horst said. “I knew they were watching for signs of treason. There was no way I dared trust any of the dead-drops.”
He held himself immobile, meeting Schwarzkopf’s eyes without flinching. If Schwarzkopf bought it… he knew the man well enough to know that telling him what he wanted to hear was never a waste of time. And yet, Schwarzkopf had probably had a truckload of shit dumped on him by his superiors after Gudrun had become the public face of the student movement. It wouldn’t be out of character for him to suspect that Horst was either an idiot or a traitor himself. God knew he had good reason to be furious.
“And you spent your time having your knob sucked,” Schwarzkopf said. “I do trust you enjoyed it?”
Horst had to fight to keep his face expressionless. No true German youth would allow such a sally to go unpunished, not if he had genuine feelings for the girl. Insulting a girlfriend was the easiest way to start a fight, even better than a suggestion that a young man’s mother might have been an Untermensch. And yet, he knew Schwarzkopf was probing. If he suspected that Horst did have feelings for Gudrun…
And he has someone watching us, he thought, grimly. They’d thought they were being discreet, but someone who kept their head down and merely watched might have a very good idea of what they did together. How much does he know?
“I know my duty, Herr Standartenfuehrer,” he said, stiffly. He couldn’t allow himself to get angry, not now. “It is my job to do whatever is necessary to insert myself into their innermost councils.”
“I’m sure you hated every last minute of it,” Schwarzkopf said. His face twisted into an ugly smile. “How long can you remain here?”
Horst checked his watch, wondering just what sort of answer he could give. Schwarzkopf had a source within the Reichstag. Horst wouldn’t have bet a single forged Reichmark that he didn’t have a good idea of Horst’s schedule already. Getting caught in a lie would be very dangerous.
“At least an hour, perhaps two,” he said, finally. He forced himself to leer. “I normally seduce her after the council meetings, so we can discuss matters in a pleasant haze. She might be suspicious if I am not available as soon as she leaves the council chambers.”