Maybe we should get married, she thought. But getting married would cause more problems than it would solve.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. She’d contemplated it when her period had been a few days late and she’d feared the worst, but it would cause too many headaches. Ironically, getting pregnant before the uprising wouldn’t have been a serious problem – even if her parents had exploded with rage – but now it would be disastrous. She wouldn’t be taken seriously by the remaining councillors.
She pushed the thought aside and leaned forward. “If we do have a very high-ranking spy,” she mused, “would he have to be a councillor?”
“No,” her father said. “One of their trusted aides might be the real spy.”
“They’re not supposed to discuss such matters,” Schulze said, flatly.
“They do,” Horst said. “A single boastful fool could cause us all sorts of headaches, if one of his aides is a spy.”
He sighed. “But someone on the council might think they could buy their own safety through helping the other side,” he added. “They’d be ahead whoever came out on top.”
“At least they’d be alive,” Gudrun muttered. She’d talked about such matters with Horst, after all. “And they might even be in a position of power.”
“But we don’t even know there is a spy,” Schulze said. “The SS might just have gotten lucky.”
“That’s possible,” Horst said. He paused. “And there’s another possibility. They may be trying to test me, Herr Chancellor. It may not have occurred to them that there might have been actual contacts with America.”
Schulze scowled. “So what do we do?”
“We keep telling them that you know nothing about any such contacts,” Gudrun’s father said, bluntly. “If they think there have been contacts, it’s still a believable answer. And if this is nothing more than a fishing trip… well, nothing is betrayed. There’s no reasonable excuse for you to be in possession of such knowledge.”
Horst nodded.
“But we have to catch the spy in the Reichstag,” her father continued. “And we have to track down the cell before it does something drastic.”
Schulze nodded. “Any ideas?”
“The Easterners have been dropping bombs on us,” Gudrun’s father said. “It shouldn’t be hard to make it clear to the staff that anyone who leaves the Reichstag should sign out of the building, like we do in the police station. There was enough chaos, wasn’t there, the first time everyone had to run into the bunkers? We can use that as an excuse to build a list of who goes in and out of the building.”
Gudrun nodded, seeing the sense of it. “Most of them live in the Reichstag,” she said, feeling a flicker of pride. Her father might be strict, but he was no fool. “Anyone who leaves might be the spy.”
“Or a spy,” Horst said. “If I was in their shoes, Gudrun, I’d want more than one.”
“Brilliant,” Schulze said, sarcastically. “There might be more than one – or two – in the building.”
“It’s a start,” Gudrun’s father said. “Once we know who leaves regularly, we can start shadowing them.”
“They may be trained to avoid pursuit,” Horst pointed out.
“And if they were trying to avoid us,” Gudrun’s father said, “we’d know who we were looking for.”
Gudrun sighed. “Why can’t everything be simple these days?”
Horst smiled at her. “Life is rarely simple,” he said.
“Make it happen,” Schulze ordered. “But don’t try to investigate the councillors.”
Gudrun nodded in sympathy. She was the only councillor without a staff – and a small army of subordinates. Investigating the others would spark off discontent, if not paranoia. A man like Voss, far too used to watching his back for the SS knife, might see advantage in striking first, if he believed his life to be under threat. Or Kruger… fearful that he might be blamed for the economic nightmare gripping the Reich. Or…
Just one of them betraying us would be a nightmare, she thought. Even if we found absolute proof, and we might, bringing them to justice would be impossible.
“As you wish,” her father said. He looked at Horst. “You are not to share Gudrun’s schedule with them.”
Horst didn’t argue. “I’m planning to give them false information, then explain that the schedule kept changing on short notice,” he said. “Which is what happens…”
“Too risky,” her father insisted.
“If I don’t give them something, they will suspect me,” Horst said. “And if that happens, they will pull in their horns and disappear – right up until the moment they attack.”
Gudrun held up a hand. “I don’t mind the risk…”
“You should,” her father growled. “Last time, when you were arrested, they didn’t know who you were. This time… they will.”
Gudrun shuddered, despite herself. She’d been stripped naked and locked in a cell for hours, exposed to the gaze of every passing male guard. And yet, that was tenderness incarnate compared to what they’d do now they knew who she was. She’d be lucky if she was only hung from meat hooks, after being tortured to death. The SS might normally hesitate to kill girls of good breeding, but in her case they’d probably make an exception.
“If there’s a chance to lure them out on our terms,” she said, “we should take it.”
“But not at the risk of your life,” Horst said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Her father nodded in agreement. “I forbid it,” he said. “Your life is already in too much danger.”
“So is Kurt’s,” Gudrun snapped.
“Kurt is a young man,” her father said. His voice softened. “I don’t want to see you dead.”
Gudrun scowled, but said nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Near Berlin, Germany Prime
21 September 1985
“They’re coming into range, Herr Leutnant,” Loeb warned
Kurt nodded. The SS had punched through the next set of defence lines two days ago, pushing forward despite taking increasingly heavy casualties. He would have admired their determination if they weren’t breaking into territories where the evacuation program had barely begun, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians stranded.
And we had to clear the roads just to keep moving, he thought, grimly. The roads had become snarled with refugees as they retreated west, forcing the soldiers to push them out of the way just to get into position to engage the SS again. How many of them are about to die.
He cursed under his breath. They’d taken up position near a town, a town that had barely even started to evacuate its population by the time the war reached them. There was no time to order an evacuation, even if it wouldn’t have blocked their line of retreat. The hell he knew was going to break across the town was coming and there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing anyone could do about it.