Horst frowned, inwardly, as he took the set of folders. Every student had a dossier, kept within the RSHA; he had no doubt that the SS’s bureaucrats were hastily updating them even now, at least for the students who’d been arrested. They might be released – computer experts were invaluable – but being arrested in such a compromising position would haunt them for the rest of their lives. And yet, they were the lucky ones. Someone without their training would be halfway to Germany East by now.
The first batch of students were largely unfamiliar to him, although he vaguely recognised one of the young men as a braying fool who’d bragged of his family connections to anyone who’d listen. One of the young girls – his eyes lingered on the photos of her processing for longer than he knew they should – had a brother who’d gone to war and never returned; he hoped, as he returned the first stack of files, that her loss wouldn’t be held against her. She had an excellent motive for joining the Valkyries.
“That young man is a loudmouth,” he said, tapping his folder. “But I don’t think he’s a real troublemaker. He has too much to lose.”
Schwarzkopf eyed him, sharply. “Two of the other spies have classed him as a potential dissident.”
Horst forced himself to keep his voice level. “Mein Herr, he talks too much,” he said. He was tempted to drop the idiot in hot water, but that would be cruel. “A dissident would be quieter, I believe.”
“His talk is already seditious,” Schwarzkopf pointed out. He picked up the next set of folders and held them out. “And these?”
The first two folders showed boys he didn’t recognise, but the third folder belonged to Gudrun. He glanced at her photographs first, hoping that his superior would think he was admiring her body if he showed any reaction, then checked the rest of the file. Thankfully, Gudrun seemed to have been classed as someone who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than a potential dissident. The bureaucrats hadn’t known she’d been engaged to Konrad before he’d been sent to South Africa. Having a policeman for a father probably told in her favour, although she also had a tie to the SS. Horst made a mental note to consider that later, wondering what the tie actually was. Gudrun’s elder brother was in the Berlin Guard, not the Waffen-SS, and her other brothers were still in the Hitler Youth. It was unlikely as hell they were already marked down as potential SS recruits. Only bad fiction for impressionable young men involved children serving as full-fledged secret agents charged with hunting down spies.
“I know her from my classes,” he said. He made a show of looking back at the pictures. “I was planning to court her.”
“I can understand why,” Schwarzkopf said. “Pretty, definitely; her bloodline shows no trace of non-Aryan blood.”
Horst flushed on Gudrun’s behalf, silently praying she never found out that he’d looked at her naked photographs, then frowned as the implications struck him. If she’d wanted to marry an SS officer, she needed a certificate of racial purity, a confirmation that her parents and grandparents had been of pure German blood. He wondered, suddenly, why someone had looked up Gudrun’s bloodline – it wasn’t normally done outside the SS – but the file provided no answer. There had to be a connection between Gudrun and the SS he wasn’t seeing.
“I may still do so,” he said. He put the file back and took the next one. “Unless it would impact on my career…”
“It probably wouldn’t,” Schwarzkopf assured him. “She doesn’t seem to be one of the ringleaders.”
And let us hope you’re telling the truth, Horst thought, as he checked the next file. If a competent spy saw us together, you might wonder…
“Another loudmouth,” he said, dismissing the subject. The male student was two years older than him and completely unconnected to Gudrun. “This one, however, was involved with inciting students to go to the factories.”
Schwarzkopf frowned. “Are you sure?”
“He wasn’t the only one,” Horst said. He would have preferred not to mention it, but the idiot just had to shoot his mouth off in public, where one of the other spies would definitely have heard. Better he ended up in an interrogation chamber than Horst himself. “There were a couple of others I don’t know so well.”
“Several students are also dead,” Schwarzkopf said. “They may have hoped to be killed.”
“Only the Arabs charge into battle praying for death,” Horst said. The SS praised death before the dishonour of running away, but even the most fanatical unit understood the value of a tactical retreat. “I don’t think the students would have enough bravery to make a fight of it.”
“This one did,” Schwarzkopf said. He held up another file. Inside, there was a picture of a brutally-wounded young man. “Do you recognise him?”
“Hartwig,” Horst said. He hadn’t liked the young man – he’d lured Gudrun into danger – but he hadn’t deserved to die so savagely. “Hartwig Rhineland. Another loudmouth.”
“Noted,” Schwarzkopf said. They ran through the rest of the files quickly. “Do you know any of the students personally?”
“A few,” Horst said. Thankfully, he knew more than just Gudrun and the Valkyries. “I have classes with them.”
“We have orders to release them tomorrow morning, save for a handful who merit further investigation,” Schwarzkopf said. “Do you want to drive any of them home?”
Horst kept his expression blank with an effort. He needed to talk to Gudrun – and he needed to do it before she vanished into her home. Her father was a policeman, after all; he’d be embarrassed when he discovered that his daughter had been arrested, even if it didn’t blight his career for the rest of his life. Horst knew what his father would have done if he’d gotten into real trouble and he doubted Gudrun’s father would take it any better. But then, Gudrun was a girl. She might just be grounded for the rest of her life instead.
But if he showed any interest in any of the girls, his superior might wonder why… unless, of course, he gave them a good reason.
“I can drive Gudrun home,” he said, pasting a smile on his face. “She might appreciate it.”
“She might,” Schwarzkopf said. “We’re asking students to drive the arrestees home, rather than allow their parents to collect them in a body. Listen carefully to what she says as you drive her home. If she happens to say anything actionable, report it to us.”
“I will,” Horst said. He’d check the car overnight, just to make sure no one had added any new bugs. Disabling the one he knew about and making it look like an accident would be easy, but disabling a new bug would raise eyebrows. “Will you inform her parents she’s going home?”
“I believe there will be a formal announcement,” Schwarzkopf said, casually. “For the moment, however, I suggest you wait. The streets are not safe at the moment.”
Horst managed to keep himself, barely, from making a sarcastic remark. The police, instead of arresting strikers or rioters, had managed to dump an SS agent into a processing centre. If they’d known what he’d done, it would have been a great success, but as it happened it had merely been a minor hiccup. But when his superiors complained, the police would be less willing to take suspects into custody, even ones who were clearly breaking the law…
“Yes, Mein Herr,” he said, instead.
Volker listened to the radio broadcast in some disbelief. The government was… surrendering? The strikers were to be forgiven? The fired workers were to be allowed to return to work? The union was to be legalised – along with many of the other rights they’d demanded when they’d taken over the factories? It sounded almost too good to be true.