Gudrun looked at him. “Father, I’m already a target,” she said, gently. “This is a chance to turn that into an advantage.”
“Or a chance to get a bullet through the head,” her father snapped. “You’re in quite enough danger without walking straight into a gunfight!”
“They have orders to take her alive,” Horst said. He didn’t sound as though he believed himself. “I don’t think they’ll kill her deliberately.”
“Accidents happen,” her father said. He sighed, heavily. “I should never have let you go to that damned university.”
Gudrun heard the pain – and fear – under his words and bit down, hard, to keep from mustering a sharp response. Her father might be stern, her father might expect her to be more of a traditional girl than she wanted to be, but she’d never doubted her father loved her. Boys were expected to go into danger, to put their bodies between the Reich and all harm; girls were expected to remain at home, safe and warm. And yet, she had started the ball rolling that had eventually brought down the Reich. She was very far from a traditional girl.
“I will be fine,” she said, softly. “Horst is looking after me.”
“Too much can go wrong,” Horst said, sharply. “There is no way we can guarantee your safety.”
Gudrun swallowed, but refused to back down. “Start drawing up the plans,” she said. She’d challenged the Reich at the height of its power. She was damned if she was backing down now. “And then we will make them work.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Berlin, Germany Prime
25 October 1985
“All is in readiness, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer,” Strumscharfuehrer Brandt said, as the sun started to peep over the horizon. “We are just waiting on the order to move.”
“Yeah, we must wait for the order to attack before attacking,” Hauptsturmfuehrer Hennecke Schwerk mused. “To launch without support would be disastrous.”
He smiled as he inspected the men. Four days of rest and recuperation – and intercourse and intoxication – had done wonders for morale. The men had been able to sleep in comfortable beds for two nights, often sharing them with girls eager to show the Waffen-SS stormtroopers that black uniforms were still the very height of fashion for young men. Hennecke himself had spent two days in bed with a blonde girl who might have been a boring conversationalist, but knew precisely what to do with her mouth and breasts to give a man a very good time indeed. By the time he’d headed back to the lines – and sent the girl to the next stormtrooper who required servicing – he felt so much better that he was tempted to lead the charge into Berlin himself.
And that girl wants to regain her racial certificate, he thought, nastily. And the only way to do that is to carry an Aryan child to term.
“I assume the reservists kept prodding the defenders,” he said. “Did they actually learn anything useful?”
“Very little,” Brandt said. “They confirm that the enemy has dug in over there” – he smiled as he jabbed a finger towards Berlin – “but very little else.”
Hennecke shrugged. The stormtroopers might have been pulled out of the line, but the shooting had never actually stopped. Intelligence kept insisting that the enemy was on the verge of running out of bullets and, for once, Hennecke was inclined to believe they were right. He’d heard enough rumours about ammunition shortages confronting the Waffen-SS to make it easy to believe that the enemy would have the same problem. And Berlin was completely sealed off from the rest of the Reich. They didn’t have a hope of shipping more ammunition into the city.
They could try to fly it in, he thought. But we have enough air defences surrounding the city to make it very difficult.
He glanced at Brandt. “Did you hear anything about the timing?”
“No, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer,” Brandt said. “There’s no set time for the offensive.”
“Odd,” Hennecke mused. Taking advantage of a fluid battleground was one thing, but preparing an offensive without setting a start time was odd. If nothing else, some units could practically be relied upon not to get the word and sit on their asses while everyone else engaged the enemy. “But I’m sure they have their reasons.”
He sighed, then turned to look towards Berlin. The battleground was a wasteland, countless buildings knocked down by gunfire or blown up by emplaced IEDs. Hennecke knew just how lucky he had been to escape being wounded or killed in any one of a dozen traps he’d stumbled across during the endless battle. And yet, one final push might just be enough to destroy the enemy defences and carry the stormtroopers into Berlin itself.
And then we can put an end to the war, he thought.
Horst hated to admit it, but he was terrified.
Not terrified for himself, he knew. He’d long since grown used to the idea of putting his fragile body at risk. Growing up in Germany East – where one might have to fight at any time – had shaped his mindset, reassuring him that it was better to die in battle than watch helplessly as his family were ravished or murdered by Untermenschen. But putting Gudrun in danger was something else. The thought of losing her was terrifying.
He was her husband. He had a right – he knew he had a right – to tell her what to do. And yet he also knew that trying to enforce that right would destroy their relationship. No one could object – legally – if he laid down the law to her and enforced it with his fists, but Gudrun would never tolerate it. He’d never be able to sleep next to her again, not without having her slit his throat while he was sleeping. And yet, it was almost worth it just to know she would survive.
But she’s right, the coolly pragmatic part of his mind observed. There’s no other way to lure the cell into the open.
He cursed under his breath as he led the way down to the car. He’d done everything he could to guarantee success, placing trustworthy soldiers in position to intercept the commandos when they finally showed themselves. And if everything went according to plan, Gudrun would never be in any real danger. A volunteer, wearing a blonde wig, would play her role long enough to lure the commandos into the open. Gudrun should be safe and sound in the bunker when all hell was let loose.
And yet he knew, all too well, that too many things could go badly wrong.
Gudrun looked nervous, he noted, as they stopped by the car. The driver didn’t look much better. He’d been trained in evasive driving – Horst had read his record very carefully before authorising him to work as Gudrun’s driver – but deliberately leading someone into a trap was new. And using the person he was supposed to protect as bait… Horst was surprised the man hadn’t objected more forcefully. No close-protection team worthy of the name would want anything to do with the plan.
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” he muttered. The driver opened the door, then turned and headed back to the front seat. “You can back out now and no one will think any less of you.”
“Because I’m a woman,” Gudrun said, crossly. They’d argued for hours as the plan came together, Horst trying to talk her out of it while Gudrun insisting they went ahead. He still found it hard to believe that she’d come up with the plan, then forced it though despite opposition from both her father and husband. “No one expects much from me either.”