Gudrun had never really liked eating meals at school – every student was served the same meal and the teachers were quite happy to punish anyone who failed to eat every last bite – but she rather enjoyed eating in the university cafeteria. There was a wide selection of choices, tables and chairs were scattered everywhere instead of being placed in neat little rows, while students could sit anywhere they wanted rather than being tied to a specific chair for their entire year. Just being allowed to choose her own food, instead of choking down something that smelled suspiciously like manure, was enough to make her actually enjoy herself.
“They say university fees are going to rise,” Hartwig was saying, loudly. He was a year older than Gudrun, a blonde boy with a reputation for chasing women as well as scoring high marks in all of his classes. She would have liked him if he hadn’t been loud and boastful as well as intelligent. “We may have to start paying to attend.”
She smiled, inwardly, as she ate her meal. That was one of the rumours the Valkyries had started, a suggestion that the students would soon have to actually pay to attend the university. It was a terrifying thought. Of all the students she knew, only Hilde’s family was wealthy enough to afford the prospective fees. Three-quarters of the student body would have to leave if they found themselves being charged to attend.
“That’s outrageous,” Lin said. She was Hartwig’s current girlfriend, a girl as blonde as Hartwig or Gudrun herself. Gudrun sometimes wondered if she had paid someone to take her exams, because she seemed to lose half her IQ whenever Hartwig smiled at her. “I couldn’t afford to attend!”
Idiots, Gudrun thought. One of the spies wasn’t too far away, listening intently. Hartwig and Lin might find themselves in trouble, if the spies couldn’t find anyone more significant. Or was Hartwig’s family important enough to escape the consequences of their son having a big mouth and no brain cells? You’ll get yourselves in hot water.
She glanced up, sharply, as Tomas charged into the cafeteria. “There’s a strike,” he bellowed, as everyone turned to look at him. “The workers are going on strike!”
Gudrun listened, surprised, as he babbled out an explanation. Seven factories had gone on strike? How many workers had believed the rumours the Valkyries had started? And how many more would go on strike before the affair came to an end? And what would the government do?
“We have to go help them,” Hartwig said. He rose. “Come on!”
Gudrun hesitated. The spy had already started to hurry towards the edge of the room, clearly planning to find a telephone and alert his superiors. And not every student looked enthusiastic about leaving the campus and hurrying down to the factories before it was too late. But Hartwig was drawing dozens of students in his wake, pointing out that the government would never dare harm young men and women. Gudrun hoped, as she rose to follow him, that he was right.
She jumped as a hand caught her arm. “You shouldn’t be going,” Horst muttered. “Gudrun…”
Cold logic told her he was right. She’d started the Valkyries; she’d started the rumours and proclamations that had probably helped spark off the strike. If there was a riot, if she was arrested or killed, the entire movement might fall apart. And yet, she couldn’t let her fellow students – and the strikers – go into danger alone. She owed it to her conscience to share the same risks.
“I have to go,” she muttered back, confident that the student babble would make it hard for any listening ears to overhear. “Tell Sven to start sending out messages encouraging others to join the strike.”
Horst gave her a worried look. “I can go with you…”
“Don’t,” Gudrun said. She brushed off his arm and turned towards the door. It was a risk, but it was one she had to take. “We can’t both be caught.”
“There’s a what?”
“A strike,” Holliston said, with heavy satisfaction. Hans couldn’t help wondering what he was so pleased about, not when he would have bet good money that Holliston’s policy had started the strike in the first place. “Twelve factories have gone on strike, so far, and rumours are spreading across the entire city.”
Hans swore under his breath as Holliston outlined the situation. There was no time to check with his own sources, no time to do anything but rely on the Reichsführer-SS’s version of the tale. He doubted Holliston would actually lie to the Reich Council – his career wouldn’t survive a deliberate lie – yet he would definitely paint the situation as darkly as possible. A strike, right in the heart of Berlin…
“You tried to fire someone for forming a union,” he said, when Holliston had finished. “And that led to an immediate strike.”
He groaned as the full implications struck him. Attacking the striking workers would weaken the economy at the worst possible time, but conceding their demands would be even worse, as Holliston’s corporate allies had probably already pointed out. The strikers would be emboldened; they’d demand more and more until they hit something the Reich literally could not give them. And then…? The Reich would not be in a good position to put a stop to the whole affair.
“We have to take action,” Holliston said, curtly. “I have two battalions of military police on alert, ready to handle the strikers.”
“So you do,” Hans said. “And then what?”
“We move in, arrest the strikers and then dictate terms from a position of strength,” Holliston insisted, firmly. “They’re breaking the law by forming an independent union.”
“Yes, I know,” Hans said. “And are you going to arrest all of them?”
“The ringleaders will be executed,” Holliston said. He thumped the table with his fist. “And the others will go back to work.”
Hans glared at him. “And what if they don’t?”
“Then we’d hardly be in a worse position,” Holliston snapped. He looked up, his gaze skimming around the table. “I call for a vote. Do we send in the police or try to ‘negotiate’ with law-breakers? We cannot allow the strikes to spread.”
“They will,” Hans said.
He forced himself to keep his voice calm. “There’s a saying I heard from my son, who went to work in China,” he said. Helping the Chinese Nationalists build up their industrial base might have been a mistake, in hindsight; China might pose a threat to Germany East in the next few decades. “There was a Chinese ruler who punished everything with death. One day, a bunch of men discovered that they were late for work. If they arrived, they would be executed. But the punishment for revolting against the ruler was also death. What did they have to lose?”
“We cannot let law-breakers get away with it,” Holliston said. “I call for a vote.”
Hans sighed. Put like that, the result was a foregone conclusion. The strike would be brutally crushed and the strikers would be arrested. And then…?
He kept his face impassive. It might be time to start coming up with some contingency plans of his own.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Berlin, Germany
12 August 1985
Herman stared at the Captain. “They want us to do what?”