She almost giggled at the thought. Karl Holliston and his cronies had to be having fits, after losing everything to a slip of a girl! They’d never seen her as a real threat — they’d never seen any woman as being fit for anything other than bearing children and raising them. Now… they had to come to terms with what she’d done to them. They might kill her — if they could bring themselves to sentence her to death — but it wouldn’t change the facts on the ground…
Her throat cracked. She tried to swallow again, but her mouth was too dry. Her entire body felt dehydrated. How long had she been asleep? She could generally get by on four or five hours of sleep per day, but now? How long had it been since she’d been captured? It felt as if she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for days, yet there was no way to know for sure any longer. Konrad had been fed through a tube. She saw no reason why they couldn’t feed her while she was drugged out of her mind.
A thought struck her, sending shivers down her spine. What had she told them while she’d been drugged? Horst had told her that the SS could get anything out of anyone, once they started using the right drugs. Could she have been interrogated? She didn’t recall anything past the moment she’d eaten the drugged food, but what did that mean? Could she have been interrogated without any memory of it? And if so, what could she have told them?
But I don’t know anything, she thought, numbly.
It was true, she thought. She knew who was on the Provisional Government, but that was no secret. The SS had still had agents within the Reichstag, even after the uprising; they’d know who had taken a seat at the table, who had resigned, who had headed east to join the remainder of the former government. She knew who’d been part of the original protest movement, but the SS would know that too. And she didn’t know anything about the Provisional Government’s future plans.
We were concentrating on staying alive, she reminded herself. We didn’t have any real plans for what we’d do after we broke the siege.
The door opened, again. This time, she managed to turn her head in time to see two more masked men enter the cell, one carrying a tray of food. His companion took her by the arms and hauled her up to the bed, pushing her bare back against the cold stone wall. She shivered, helplessly, unable to avoid a flicker of bitter gratitude as they held a cup of water to her lips and forced her to drink. It tasted normal, as far as she could tell, but that proved nothing. She was sure there were plenty of drugs that had no taste at all.
She couldn’t help feeling like an invalid — or a baby — as they fed her, placing the soft food on a spoon and pressing it into her mouth. She’d always feared that she would have to feed Grandpa Frank like that, one day; now, she couldn’t help feeling an odd sense of guilt for how badly she’d disliked him, before the uprising. But then, Grandpa Frank had had his own reasons for feeling guilty too. The memory made her look up at the two masked men. What did they have to feel guilty about? What had they done to countless helpless victims?
The men finished feeding her and withdrew, as silently as they’d come. Gudrun watched them go, feeling stronger as the food worked its way through her body. It didn’t feel as if she’d been drugged again, although she had no way to be sure. All she could do was hope and pray that she hadn’t been drugged. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stand up and stride from one end of the cell to the other, then back again. Her legs still felt wobbly, as if they were made of spaghetti, but she pushed them forward anyway. Horst had warned her that she would need to do something — anything — to keep her mind together. And yet, the thought of him almost brought her to her knees. Would she ever see him again?
She closed her eyes, leaning against the metal bars as the full weight of what she’d lost struck home. Horst had loved her — no, he did love her. He’d turned on his masters, on his comrades, for her. And he’d risked everything just to keep her safe. And now… she tried to imagine what he would do, if he’d survived the ambush. He’d come for her, wouldn’t he?
He was born in Germany East, she thought. He could get to Germanica without problems…
She shook her head, bitterly. Horst might not have survived the ambush, back when she’d been captured. And even if he had survived… Germanica would be heavily defended, with countless stormtroopers dedicated to keeping Karl Holliston alive. If a team of SS commandos hadn’t been able to purge the Reichstag in Berlin of the makeshift Provisional Government, how could one lone man get into the Reichstag in Germanica and get her out?
And if they catch him, she told herself, they’ll make sure his death is slow and painful.
She heard the outer door opening again and looked up. Two more masked men — she thought they weren’t the same men — were looking at her, their eyes travelling up and down her naked body. She was just too wretched to care, even though she knew they might intend to rape her. The SS wanted to break her — and how better to make it clear that she no longer had any control over herself than by raping her? She braced herself as they came closer, intending to fight even though she knew it would be futile. Perhaps she’d land a blow that would force them to kill her…
“We have to talk,” the lead man said. He glanced up at the cameras. “My people are watching us at the moment.”
Gudrun stared at her. “What… what is this?”
The man ignored her question. “Is there any way to end the war?”
“You could try talking,” Gudrun said. What was this? Who was he? A friend and ally, or just someone playing a mind game? She had no doubt the SS would use every dirty trick it could think of to break her. “This war could go on for a very long time.”
“Your comrades are planning an offensive,” the man said. “But whatever happens, the Reich itself will be gravely weakened.”
Gudrun forced herself to meet his eyes. She was dead anyway, no matter what she said. It was rare for girls of good German blood to be executed — the SS normally exiled them to Germany East, marrying them off to settlers who would keep them in line — but she doubted she’d be that lucky. Karl Holliston would want to make a terrible example of her — or, if that proved futile, shoot her in the head and dump her body in an unmarked grave. There was no hope of survival.
“Does the Reich deserve to survive?”
The man shrugged. “Can we survive?”
Gudrun fought down the urge to laugh. “Who are you?”
“Some people who want to find a different way,” the man said. “We need to know if there is a different way.”
“Overthrow Holliston,” Gudrun said, sarcastically. She doubted the man would do anything of the sort. “And then we will talk.”
The man looked back at her, evenly. “And what terms will we receive?”
Gudrun lost it. She started to giggle, helplessly.
“I’m locked in a prison cell, stark naked,” she said, when she managed to regain control of herself. Someone had removed the last of her clothing while she’d been asleep. “What sort of terms do you think I could offer you?”
“Your government,” the man said. There was a hint of… something… in his voice that nagged at her mind. “What sort of terms would they offer us?”