And he’d trusted them. He’d trusted them even after the uprising, even after much of the Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe had switched sides and joined the rebels. The Waffen-SS had obeyed his orders to march west to Berlin, terrorising the rebels as they marched; the Waffen-SS had held the line at Warsaw, fighting to lure the rebels into the nuclear trap. But now that loyalty seemed a joke. Old certainties were falling everywhere. Was the loyalty of the SS just another certainty that was about to break?
He couldn’t understand it. The Waffen-SS had fought countless battles for the Reich. They’d dominated the Russian steppes, crushed the Greek resistance, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of rebels in Arabia and Germany South… they’d purged countless thousands of Germans who had family ties to rebels, traitors, dissidents and people who’d been in Holliston’s way. Surely, they would not betray him now…
…But they had.
He reached for the nuclear briefcase, positioned by his chair. The launch codes were calling to him, urging him to burn mutineers off the face of the planet. He could, he knew. The nuclear formations were the most intensely conditioned soldiers in the Reich. They’d obey orders, if he issued them, to fire nuclear-tipped shells towards the mutinying camps.
Or would they? Could they be trusted? Could anyone be trusted? He felt the pistol at his belt, wondering if his closest friends and allies would turn on him now. Germany East was already unstable. One good push would be more than enough to bring the entire edifice crashing down. It couldn’t end like this, he told himself. Adolf Hitler’s dream of a reborn Volk dominating the world couldn’t end with a whimper. But it could…
He rose, picking up the briefcase as he strode through the door, into the outer office. Maria took one look at his face and clearly thought better of what she was about to say. Probably another appointment with some political aristocrat who needed his hand held or his head patted. It wasn’t important, not now. The mutineers would probably hang all of the aristocratic fatheads he’d been lumbered with, when he’d taken power. He couldn’t help smiling at the thought as he stepped into the corridor. His bodyguard fell in around him as he headed straight to the lift.
Could they be trusted? He found himself glancing at them, out of the corner of his eye, as they walked into the lift and headed down into the bunker. They were the best of the best, survivors of some of the most intensive training programs — and combat — the Reich could offer. Once, he’d had no doubt that they would put their bodies between him and a bullet, if necessary. Now… now he couldn’t help wondering where their loyalties actually lay. Might they be leading him straight into a trap?
Hauptsturmführer Katharine Milch rose as Karl stepped into the security room, hastily snapping out a salute. Karl had no doubt of her loyalty, if only because she’d faced a far harder set of challenges than almost everyone else in the SS. Women could be spies, women could be secretaries… but commandos? Katherine was one of the handful of women who’d made it, passing one of the hardest training programs in Germany East. She would have given up years ago if she’d had the slightest doubt of her vocation.
“Mein Führer,” Katherine said.
“I need to see your prisoner,” Karl said. “Open the cell door, then turn off the bugs.”
Katherine looked unsure. “Mein Führer, she isn’t cuffed or shackled…”
“She’s still behind bars, isn’t she?” Karl asked. “I’m sure I will be safe.”
“Jawohl, Mein Führer,” Katherine said.
Karl motioned to his bodyguards to stay behind as he stepped through the metal door and into the cell. It was larger than he recalled from his time as an interrogator, the room utterly devoid of fittings, save for a single bed firmly locked to the wall. Gudrun lay on the bed, staring up at the featureless ceiling. The nasty part of his mind noted that she was still completely naked. But it didn’t seem to bother her any longer.
He stepped up to the bars as Gudrun sat upright. She was beautiful, he had to admit; long blonde hair splashing down to brush against her breasts, muscular arms — a legacy of the BDM — covered in flawless pale skin. Konrad Schulze had been a lucky man, Karl noted, or perhaps he’d had a lucky escape. A woman who could bring down an entire government — who had brought down an entire government — was unlikely to be cowed by her husband’s fists. And anyone who did try to beat her into submission would be very unwise to fall asleep beside her afterwards.
And she betrayed her entire country, he reminded himself, sharply. He stared at her for a long moment, feeling a strange mixture of emotions. Opposition from outsiders — Americans, British, Russians, Chinese — he understood, but not Gudrun. She had been born into a world that had given her every advantage and asked for very little in return. Sending her east is too good for her.
“Mein Führer,” Gudrun said. He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or not. “What can I do for you?”
Karl met her eyes. “Why did you do it?”
“I think I already answered that question,” Gudrun said, coolly. She didn’t seem bothered by his presence — or his stare. She certainly made no move to cover her nakedness. “Why are you here?”
“Your… influence has spread,” Karl said. Perhaps it was unwise to talk to her, but who else could he talk to? “An SS unit has mutinied.”
Gudrun smiled, just for a second. “Perhaps you pushed them too far.”
Karl reminded himself, sharply, that Gudrun had been in the cell for nearly a month. She couldn’t have done anything to influence the mutineers, one way or the other. And she couldn’t have added to the discontent spreading through Germany East either. Displaying her naked might have been a mistake, but it hadn’t been her mistake. She was more important as a symbol than as a living, breathing person.
“They knew the job was dangerous when they took it,” Karl said, dismissively. “Your boyfriend knew the same.”
Gudrun nodded, once. Her father had been in the military, Karl recalled; her brother was still in the military, unless he’d been killed in the fighting. And the remainder of her siblings would be called up too, in time. She knew that death could come to a soldier…
“He didn’t expect to be betrayed,” she said, quietly. “And neither did his family…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Karl snapped. “Soldiers exist to serve the Reich; nothing more, nothing less. It is their job to fight and die in defence of the fatherland…”
“They’re people,” Gudrun said. “They have thoughts and feelings, lives and loves… you had to earn and keep their loyalty, not treat them as disposable pieces of shit.”
“The Reich demands sacrifices,” Karl said. He fought to keep his tone even. “Surely even you understand that!”
Gudrun met his eyes. There was no hint of fear, as far as he could tell. Gudrun hadn’t broken during her imprisonment, she’d hardened. Karl would have been impressed if she hadn’t been on the other side. As it was, the sooner she was shipped east the better.
“I understand,” she said. “Do you?”
Karl glared. “What do you mean?”
“I read your file,” Gudrun said. “You have never been in combat. You have never even been in real danger. Your entire career was spent in internal security. You never joined the Waffen-SS, you never even served alongside its fighting men. You have no wife, no children…”