He caught himself. “And I want everyone in this room to get some sleep,” he added, knowing it wouldn’t be easy. He was tempted to uncork the bottle of wine in his quarters and have a stiff drink before he went to bed. His wife would have a fit, but he found it hard to care. “We are not in any fit state to face the world.”
Sitting back, he watched as his cabinet slowly left the room. None of them looked happy; Voss was shooting nasty looks at Krueger’s back, while Krueger himself was mulling over the costs of coping with the nuclear blasts and rebuilding the economy. Even if the war came to an end tomorrow, it wouldn’t be easy. The Reich was very short of hard cash. Volker knew — all too well — that there would be many hard years to come.
And it doesn’t matter, he thought, numbly. I’ve just sentenced hundreds of men to death.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Germanica (Moscow), Germany East
4 November 1985
Something was in the air.
Gudrun could feel it as the orderlies entered her cell, two of them glaring at her as if they expected her to spring to life and attack them, the third carrying a long set of chains that she recognised from the last time she’d been taken out of the underground complex. She offered no resistance as they hauled her to her feet, searched her roughly — she honestly couldn’t understand how they thought she could obtain and conceal a weapon when it was blatantly obvious that she was being watched continuously — and then shackled her hands behind her back so tightly that she winced in pain.
“Forward,” the leader grunted.
It wasn’t easy to walk while shackled, but Gudrun had had plenty of practice. She inched forward, delaying as much as she dared; the guards, for once, didn’t seem inclined to either slap her to force her to move quicker or pick her up and carry her. It was funny how she didn’t feel concerned about the prospect any longer, but she’d been a prisoner for too long. The first time she’d had fingers poking and prodding at her most intimate places had been humiliating, yet it had lost its horror after the seventh or eighth time they’d done it. It was just something else to be endured.
She shuffled down the corridor, feeling the odd sensation in the air growing stronger as she passed a couple of black-clad men. They didn’t seem to be interested in her, neither leering at her naked body nor treating her as a potential threat; they seemed distracted, instead, by some greater thought. Gudrun puzzled it over as she was pushed into a white-walled room and marched over to a solid metal chair. The guards forced her to sit, snapped extra cuffs around her wrists and ankles, then marched off leaving her alone. Gudrun rolled her eyes at the cameras, trying to pack as much defiance as she could into an expression that had always annoyed her mother. Did they seriously believe that a woman — or a man — could hope to escape so many chains?
The door opened. She turned her head, just in time to see Doctor Müller stepping into the room.
Gudrun kept her face as expressionless as possible, drawing on her experience at school to keep from showing him a hint of fear. Doctor Müller was a sadist, as bad — no, worse — as any of the BDM matrons. And there was no one else in the room, no one who could take the brunt of his feelings. Gudrun had never been alone with any of the matrons, but she’d heard plenty of rumours about what happened to girls — and boys — who had. She hoped that none of them were true…
…But given how much she’d uncovered, after the uprising, she rather suspected they were understated.
“Gudrun,” Doctor Müller said. He walked around to face her, his eyes leaving trails of slime all over her body. “I have some questions and you are going to answer them.”
“You’re finally going to ask me questions,” Gudrun said. She forced herself to giggle, although she doubted she’d fooled anyone. “You’ve had me as a prisoner for weeks and you’re finally getting around to asking me some questions.”
“You’ve been in this complex for months,” Doctor Müller said, calmly. “And there was no need to ask you questions before.”
No, I haven’t, Gudrun thought. Her period was approaching rapidly. She could feel the first pains in her womb. I can’t have been here for more than two weeks at most.
“I don’t know anything you can use,” she said, instead.
“You were on the rebel council,” Doctor Müller said. “You were sent to France and Italy to speak with their treacherous rulers. I don’t think you were unimportant.”
He reached out and twisted her nipple, hard. “You were important, weren’t you?”
Gudrun gritted her teeth to keep from yelping in pain. Her trip to France had been secret — and she’d never been to Italy. And yet the SS knew she’d been to France… how? A spy in Berlin, a spy in Vichy… she cursed, mentally. She’d probably never know.
“I was just a girl,” she said. It hurt her pride, but it was probably better to let him underestimate her. “They didn’t tell me anything important.”
Doctor Müller slapped her, hard. Gudrun felt her head snap to one side, tasting blood in her mouth as he stared down at her. She bit her lip, hard, to keep from screaming, forcing herself to lower her eyes instead of showing defiance. If she knew sadists — and she’d met too many BDM matrons — submission was the only thing that would save her from a beating. But as she felt blood dripping from her mouth and splashing on her legs, she knew it wouldn’t be enough to save her.
Something has changed, she thought. But what?
“You were important,” Doctor Müller said. “And smart too, smart enough to understand what I’ve told you.”
He caught her hair and pulled it, forcing her to look up at him. “You do understand what I’ve told you, don’t you?”
Gudrun nodded, wordlessly. He’d told her that he knew she’d been to France, although his knowledge clearly wasn’t perfect. And that meant that he might catch her in a lie, giving him all the excuse he needed to give her a proper beating. Something had definitely changed if the SS had abandoned mind games, if they’d decided they no longer needed her looking unharmed. But what?
“Very good,” Doctor Müller said. He let go of her hair and stepped backwards. “Who is in charge of the nuclear weapons in Berlin?”
“Not me,” Gudrun said. Her jaw hurt. “I…”
“I think we know that,” Doctor Müller said. “Who is in charge?”
Gudrun swallowed, hard. She knew the answer — did she dare lie? Would he know if she did? Or would he just keep piling on the pressure until she confessed to a lie? Or…
“The codes were shared out,” she temporised. “I don’t know…”
“Yes, you do,” Doctor Müller said. “Who has the codes?”
Gudrun sighed. “The Chancellor, the Field Marshal and the Finance Minister,” she said, reluctantly. “It takes two of them to unlock a warhead.”
“They basically kept the same security protocol the Reich Council used,” Doctor Müller mused. “Under what conditions would they use the weapons?”
“I don’t know,” Gudrun said.
Doctor Müller reached out and pinched her nipple, again. “Under what conditions would they use the bombs?”