I always stood up to the men, Katherine thought. She had stood up to her relatives; her strict father, her bully of an older brother, her teachers who had tried to force her to wear dresses and act like a meek little child. But Gudrun did nothing of the sort.
It galled her, in some ways, to realise just how much Gudrun had accomplished. And yet, how much of that had been through her personally? Katherine had shot and killed the enemies of the Reich; Gudrun had manipulated countless Berliners to rise up against the Reich, eventually overthrowing the Reich Council itself. Katherine had strangled an insurgent with her bare hands; Gudrun had won the loyalty of some very dangerous men — and done it on her own terms. Katherine couldn’t help wondering if the Provisional Government understood Gudrun any better than her husband. If she’d been born a man, she would have been running the Reich by now.
But if she’d been born a man, there would have been no need for the uprising, Katherine thought.
Just for a moment, she felt an odd flicker of kinship with the girl in the cell. They were both intelligent and capable women, yet they’d both had to fight to gain even a fragment of respect from the men. Katherine wasn’t just a good shot, she was a great shot; she’d beaten the Hitler Youth’s reigning champion, only to have her record dismissed because she hadn’t been in the Hitler Youth herself. She needed to be better than the men to win respect… and Gudrun, she suspected, had had the same problem.
She turned as she heard the door open, just in time to see Doctor Müller walk into the compartment. Katherine felt her lips thinning with disapproval. Doctor Müller — and she had grave doubts about his doctorate — was a monster. Worse, he was a pervert. He made her feel naked and unclean every time he looked at her, although he was smart enough not to do anything stupid. No one would have complained if she’d drawn her knife and sliced off his balls.
“Katherine,” he said. He never addressed her by rank. “Our prisoner is doing well.”
Katherine scowled at him, leaning forward and meeting his eyes. She had no doubt that Müller enjoyed the perks of his job. Fondling helpless girls — girls he’d drugged into comas — was definitely one of them, as far as he was concerned. And she’d heard whispered rumours about the experiments Müller liked to perform on Untermensch women. Katherine held no love for the Untermenschen, but there were limits. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty was simply absurd.
“How well?”
“The first dose of the drug should be working its way out of her system now,” Müller informed her. “She will already have lost track of the days. The next dose will weaken her resistance to some of our… other techniques and then…”
“Just remember that the Führer wants her alive and intact,” Katherine reminded him. She was due a reward for her service in Berlin. Perhaps she could convince Holliston to let her be the one to finally execute Müller. “Play your games with someone else.”
Müller flinched. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know,” Katherine said. She took a step forward, deliberately forcing her way into his personal space. “And the Führer knows what I mean.”
She watched, feeling nothing but disgust, as Müller stepped backwards. The man had no fire in him, no bravery… he loathed women, he saw women as his helpless prey, yet he couldn’t even stand up to her. The boys at school had been braver when they’d told her she couldn’t play with them because she was a girl.
“I’ll go start the next set of treatments,” Müller stammered, finally. “I…”
“Go,” Katherine said.
She forced herself to watch as he scurried out of the room, then turned her gaze back to the security cameras. Müller wouldn’t try to restrain Gudrun himself, of course; he was far too much of a coward to take the risk. He’d have his orderlies do the job before he dared go anywhere near his prisoner. Gudrun would castrate him if he did anything else.
And her mere existence would emasculate him, Katherine thought with a flicker of dark humour, if he’d been masculine in the first place.
She cursed under her breath as she watched the orderlies enter the prison cell. Most of the records from Germany Prime had been sealed, after the uprising, but she did have a few contacts in low places. Gudrun had been engaged to a young stormtrooper — she was listed as his prospective bride in his file, a standard procedure for a young man going to war — and that stormtrooper had been badly wounded in South Africa. The medical report had made it clear that he wasn’t going to recover, even before he was shipped back to Berlin. His parents had never been informed of their son’s injury.
And if that is true, Katherine asked herself, how many of Gudrun’s other charges are true too?
It wasn’t something she’d ever expected to have to consider. She had nothing but contempt for the weaklings of Germany Prime. Life was safe there, life was soft… she had no doubt that their weakness had bred weakness. They certainly didn’t face the risk of constant attack from Untermensch bandits…
And yet, was Gudrun right?
She gritted her teeth as Müller walked into the cell, his face twisted into a leer that made Katherine want to hit him. He would enjoy himself playing with a helpless girl, steadily wearing down her resistance… except Katherine had the very strong feeling that Gudrun couldn’t be broken. It wasn’t in Katherine’s nature to submit — she would have sooner died than let a man play with her — but Gudrun might just surprise the doctor. And then… what?
And if she’s right about her boyfriend, Katherine asked herself again, what else is she right about?
They were all plotting against him.
Karl Holliston was no fool. He’d known that declaring himself the Führer would invite challenges, particularly from those who didn’t owe their positions to him. Victory in Berlin would have buried all doubts, leaving him secure long enough to make his position impregnable. But now…
It was a delicate balancing act, he had to admit. The more men he conscripted into the army and sent west, the weaker the defences in the east. He had no doubt that they could recover any lost territory, in time, but many of the Gauleiters disagreed. Their wealth and power depended on them remaining firmly in power, which would be put at risk if he weakened the eastern defences. It gave them ample reason to drag their feet, to refuse to send men west, to plot against him. And there were limits to how many of his subjects he could purge.
He cursed under his breath as he studied the map. Germany East was a competing network of fiefdoms, each one operating with considerable autonomy. Himmler himself had set the system up, back when the SS had been granted unrestricted control over the vast swathes of Occupied Russia; he’d parcelled great estates and plantations out to his supporters and the men willing to turn the desolate steppes into genuine farmland. It hadn’t seemed a mistake at the time, but now the chickens had come home to roost. Karl couldn’t help wondering if his former master had made a deadly mistake.