He signed, knowing he was going to lose the battle. There was no way he could force Gudrun to accept more bodyguards, if she didn’t want to accept more bodyguards, any more than he could force her to stay in the bunker. And she had a point, he had to admit. None of the common citizens had ever seen the Reich Council, not without hundreds of bodyguards, detailed security vetting and a strip search before they entered the dome. Gudrun, walking the streets without bodyguards, was far more capable of making a connection with the common citizens.
“I have to take the risk,” Gudrun said, stiffly. “There’s no choice.”
Horst gave her a sharp look. Didn’t she know the danger? But then, Gudrun had always been brave, sometimes to the point of recklessness. Her family connections wouldn’t have saved her, if she’d been fingered as an underground leader, any more than they would save her now from a bullet through the head. A single sniper, perched on a nearby rooftop, could pick her off before anyone realised he was there. But hiding in the bunker would only undermine her connection to the rest of the city.
He said nothing as the car pulled into the underground garage and they made their way down to the bunker. The guards checked their names and faces, then waved them through without comment. Horst had hoped there would be a chance to pick up a briefing from one of the military officers, but the note waiting for them in their suite made it clear that there wouldn’t be another formal meeting until later in the day.
“I know you worry about me,” Gudrun said, once the door was closed. “But I owe it to myself to take some risks.”
“You don’t have to,” Horst snorted.
“That’s the point,” Gudrun said. “I don’t have to, but I’m going to take them anyway.”
She did have a point, Horst conceded, reluctantly. He wouldn’t have wanted to be a woman, not when a woman’s opinions could be easily dismissed – and her life ruled by the men in her life – but there were some advantages. No one in the west expected women to actually fight, to stand and die in defence of the Reich. Gudrun might stand up and tell men to fight, yet she would never be asked to fight herself. And while a man would be called a coward if he shirked duty on the front line, a woman would be spared that particular insult.
But she needs to prove herself to the men, he admitted, silently. Or they won’t take her seriously.
He gave her a quick kiss, then walked out of the bunker, up the stairs and into his bedroom, hoping his habit of checking the room each day hadn’t gone unnoticed. The spy – whoever he or she might be – had to be keeping an eye on him. He worried, constantly, about finding the bastard, but a covert check of everyone in the building had turned up nothing. And yet, it wouldn’t. The SS would hardly have failed to make sure that their observers had genuine covers. Horst himself was proof of that!
His blood ran cold as he saw the note, positioned provocatively on top of his bed. He sucked his breath in, sharply, as he picked it up, unsure if he should be damning the spy for sheer lack of tradecraft or not. Putting the message in such a blatant position was stupid, but it was also a warning that he was under observation. He’d already known that, of course, yet the message rubbed it in. He wondered grimly just what the observer – and his handler – was thinking, then opened the message. It gave a location, a date and a time, two days in the future. That struck him as more than a little odd.
He retrieved the street map of Berlin he’d obtained from the library and checked the location, hoping his memory had failed him. But it hadn’t. The location the cell had selected was quite some distance from the Reichstag, a place where it would be easy for them to make sure that Horst was alone before he met them. Bringing a small army with him would be impossible, Horst conceded reluctantly. Even getting a pair of covert observers into position to watch proceedings would be fraught with difficulty.
Damn it, he thought. Schwarzkopf – or whoever had taken over, if Schwarzkopf wasn’t in charge – had picked a very good spot. And if I don’t show, all hell is going to break loose.
He sighed. It was time to talk to the Chancellor. Again.
Herman wasn’t entirely sure why he had been called off duty and told to report directly to the Reichstag. Ordinary policemen were never invited into the Reichstag, even when they were in very deep shit indeed. Gudrun was the only person who might have called him, but he found it hard to imagine his daughter summoning him as though he was her minion. She would know better, surely. And yet, who else would call him?
It has to be something to do with the missing refugee, he thought, as he passed through security. Someone has taken my concerns seriously.
He watched the security guards, gauging their performance. The security procedures were admirably tight, although they were more concerned with removing his pistol than anything else he could use as a weapon. Given just how innovative some suspects could become, when it became clear they were going to spend the rest of their lives in a work camp – if they were lucky – he rather suspected the guards needed a crash course. But that, thankfully, wasn’t his concern.
“Leutnant Wieland,” a man said, when he was shown into a small room. Another man – it took Herman a moment to recognise him as one of Gudrun’s friends – was standing by the window, watching Herman through bright blue eyes. “Thank you for coming.”
“I wasn’t aware I had a choice, Mein Herr,” Herman said, tartly. Even now, with soldiers and reservists joining the police on the streets, Berlin remained uneasy. “Why did you call me off the streets?”
“You have an interesting record, Leutnant Wieland,” the man said. He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, which in Herman’s experience probably meant he was either SS or an intelligence officer. Hopefully, the latter. “You’ve moved from being a street cop to a detective and then back to being a street cop… may I ask why?”
“It’s in my file, Mein Herr,” Herman said.
“But I am asking you,” the man said. “Why did you choose to return to the streets?”
Herman took a moment to formulate his answer. “I grew frustrated with being a detective, Mein Herr,” he said, finally. “It was rare, very rare, to solve a case – and there were quite a few times when the perpetrator enjoyed political cover. There was no hope of bringing the guilty man to justice. I requested a transfer back to the streets and it was accepted without comment.”
The man lifted his eyebrows. “Why?”
“Policemen, as they grow older, often try to get off the streets,” Herman said. “An experienced officer who volunteers to return to the streets is a blessing.”
“For his superiors, I imagine,” the man said. “What did your wife say about it?”
Herman shrugged. “Kurt had joined the military by that point, so we didn’t need so much income,” he said. “But she wasn’t too pleased about it.”
He sighed, inwardly. That was an understatement. Adelinde had thrown a colossal fit, shouting and screaming in rage when she’d heard he was going back to the streets. A street policeman had a significantly higher chance of being injured or killed on duty than a detective, meaning that she would fear for his life every time he went on patrol. But he couldn’t remain as a detective. The work had crushed his soul.