She yelped as Horst grabbed her foot and pulled. Her fingers lost their grip on the ladder and she fell, straight into his arms. She struggled, pulled herself free and found her footing, then whirled around to glare at him. She’d never been so tempted to slap a man since one of her distant relatives had visited and spent the whole time staring at her chest. And the little bastard had had the nerve to ask her out afterwards…
“They are already sniping into the city,” Horst snapped. “I don’t want to lose you too.”
“They couldn’t hit me…”
“They can and they will, if they think it’s worth taking the shot,” Horst snarled. “What happens if you die?”
Gudrun glared. “You think I’m that important?”
“I think you’re very important,” Horst snapped back. “Who is going to stand up and tell the Chancellor that he’s in the wrong? And who is going to make damn sure that the Reichstag actually lives up to its title?”
“I don’t think I’m the only idealist out there,” Gudrun said. She wanted to yell and scream, but she knew it would be pointless. The hell of it was that he had a point. Germany had no real tradition of political debate, of the give and take that characterised democracy. And it would be easy to slip back into fascism. “And do you care more about me than about the Reichstag?”
“You,” Horst said. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, very lightly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Gudrun shook her head in silent frustration. She loved Horst, but his over-protectiveness got on her nerves. And yet, he was better than many other boyfriends or husbands… who knew what would happen when they got married? Perhaps he’d change, or she’d change, or everyone else would change. And if they didn’t get married…
Father would go mad, she thought, as they slipped away from the ladder. He’d expect me to marry someone sooner or later.
She smiled, despite herself, as she heard aircraft buzzing over the city. A missile – an American missile – lanced up towards one of them, blowing the aircraft out of the sky. Its comrades scattered, dropping bombs at random as they fled. The bombing didn’t seem to be very effective, but it would definitely add to the fear and panic threatening the city. All of a sudden, getting married – or living in sin – no longer seemed a real problem.
Horst caught her arm. “Gudrun, I want you to stay inside from this moment on,” he said, firmly. “You’re in great danger.”
“No more than anyone else,” Gudrun said. They reached the car; the driver opened the door for them, then carefully ignored their argument as he started the engine. “We’re all in danger, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Horst said. The reports of refugees being raped and murdered had continued to flow into the city, as if the SS had decided to simply take off the gloves. “And yet you’re definitely one of the people the SS really wants. Everyone else… has at least a reasonable chance of survival.”
Gudrun snorted. She’d read the reports from Stalingrad, the reports that had been deemed too sensitive to be published. The Russians had come very close to fighting the Wehrmacht to a standstill. If the stormtroopers chose to press into Berlin, the bloody slaughter would catch thousands of civilians as well as soldiers. The provisional government had even asked the SS to allow the refugees and civilians to leave, but the SS hadn’t even bothered to reply. Voss had noted that the refugees actually weakened the defenders. Either the defenders refused to feed the refugees – which would cause riots – or they fed the refugees and ran out of food quicker, ensuring that the SS could take the city without a fight.
“No one has a reasonable chance of survival,” she said.
“You certainly don’t,” Horst said, flatly. “And nor does anyone else on the purge list.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. “How many names do they know?”
“They’ll be settling old scores as well as merely purging the provisional government,” Horst said. “I expect they’ll kill just about every high-ranking military and civil official in the west.”
Gudrun couldn’t disagree. The SS had carried out a number of random atrocities, but they’d also rounded up and arrested – or killed – hundreds of government bureaucrats in captured towns. They’d even arrested mayors, policemen and a number of soldiers who’d resigned, rather than fight their fellow Germans. Gudrun had no idea why the SS had considered them suitable targets for a purge, but she couldn’t deny the results. Hundreds of other officials, caught in the path of the SS’s advance, had deserted their posts, making the evacuation efforts – already badly strained – completely impossible. And, from what little she’d heard, the SS’s replacements were more concerned with political reliability than getting the occupied territory running again.
“The country will fall apart,” she protested, weakly.
Karl Holliston had to be mad. Gudrun knew – whatever Horst might say – that she wasn’t particularly important. She had no true power base of her own. But Hans Kruger and Field Marshal Voss did have power bases, power bases that were part of the system that held the Reich together. Murdering every last senior bureaucrat in the Reich might make the SS popular again – Gudrun had heard her mother grumbling about filling in form after form just to get a driving licence – but without them the system would simply collapse.
“I don’t think Holliston cares,” Horst said. “He just believes that purging the rot from the Reich will be enough to purify it.”
“And he thinks I’m the rot,” Gudrun said.
“Yes,” Horst insisted. “Which is why you need to take very good care of yourself.”
He paused. “If nothing else,” he added, “don’t give him the satisfaction of dancing a jig on your grave.”
Gudrun nodded. “I…”
“Shellfire,” the driver snapped. He yanked the car to one side as shells crashed down on the city. “Get ready to jump if necessary.”
The ground shook. Gudrun braced herself, but the shells hadn’t landed that close to their position. She breathed a sigh of relief, then looked backwards to see flames and smoke rising from the impact point. God alone knew who had been caught by the shells, if anyone had been caught by the shells. The SS seemed to like hurling bursts of shellfire into the city at random.
“That was alarmingly close,” Horst said. He slapped the partition. “Get us back to the Reichstag as quickly as possible.”
“Jawohl,” the driver snapped.
Gudrun caught Horst’s arm. “We’re going to the hospital!”
“Not this time,” Horst said. “Those shells could have been aimed at you.”
“I doubt it,” Gudrun said. “If they knew where I was, surely they would have sent a commando team after me.”
“We’re not taking the risk,” Horst said. “I’m taking you home.”
Gudrun saw the grim look in his eyes and decided that further argument would probably be futile. Horst was determined to keep her safe, even from herself. At least he wasn’t trying to tell her she couldn’t stay on the council… she scowled at him, then sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. Was it normal to feel so mad at someone who was actually trying to help, she asked herself, or was it just the strain getting to her? There was no way to know.
She rose as soon as the car slipped into the underground garage and came to a halt. “I need to talk to my mother,” she said. “I’ll see you in the bunker?”