But things were different here. Now Heydrich’s followers needed the goodwill-or at least the silence-of the people among whom they moved. They tried not to compromise the wider populace…but how could you fight back at all without endangering them, especially when you faced a ruthless foe like the Russians?
You couldn’t. And, as Hans Klein reminded him, that carried risks of its own. Thinking out loud, Heydrich said, “I don’t want to have to pull out of cities in the Russian zone and in the parts of the Reich the Poles and Czechs are stealing from us. Harder to strike at the enemy if we stick to fields and forests.”
“Yes, sir.” Klein nodded. “Chances are it wouldn’t do us any good anyway. Just ’cause we move out of Breslau, say, nothing to keep the Russians from reaching in and hanging a hundred people there, or a thousand, on account of we blew up a panzer somewhere else.”
“Himmeldonnerwetter,” Heydrich muttered. The Oberscharfuhrer was right again, however much Heydrich wished he weren’t. All the Germans in the land lost to the Soviet Union were hostages. The NKVD wouldn’t need long to figure that out, if it hadn’t already. And it would be as vicious as Stalin decided it needed to be…and if Stalin’s viciousness had a limit, the world hadn’t seen it yet.
Although Hitler was almost eight months dead, even thinking that someone else might be harder than he was made Heydrich want to look over his shoulder and make sure no Gestapo or Sicherheitsdienst man was standing there and writing him up for disloyalty.
Heydrich knew that was ridiculous. If anyone qualified as Fuhrer these days, he did. But, like the men he led, old habits died hard. And knowing in your head was different from knowing in your belly. As far as Heydrich’s belly was concerned, Hitler still ruled the Reich from Berlin.
I will rebuild it, mein Fuhrer. I promise I will, the Reichsprotektor thought. I’ll make it as much the way you would have as I can.
“Herr Reichsprotektor, I’ve got another question for you, if you don’t mind too much,” Klein said.
You would, flashed through Heydrich’s mind. But he forced himself to patience; as he’d seen, the noncom sometimes thought of things he’d missed himself. And so his voice held no snap-or he hoped it didn’t, anyhow-when he asked, “What is it?”
“Suppose the Amis do decide to pack up and go home. Then suppose they don’t like what we’re doing once we come out of the caves and mines and bunkers and start running things. Will they drop one of those goddamn atom bombs on us?”
“I don’t know if they will, but they can. I’m sure of that-how could we stop them?” Heydrich said. “That’s why we’ve got to get one for ourselves as soon as we can. Till we do, you’re right-we live on their sufferance. So do the Russians, but Russia’s a lot bigger than Germany.”
“We found that out the hard way,” Klein remarked.
“Didn’t we just! I was thinking the same thing a little while ago. And that reminds me of something else…. Where the devil did I see it?” Heydrich pawed through papers. He didn’t like being an administrator; he craved action. But unless he knew what was going on, he wouldn’t know what to act on. His desk wasn’t especially neat, but after a few seconds he found what he was looking for. “They grabbed as many of our nuclear physicists as they could catch and took them over to England right after the surrender.”
“Did they? I hadn’t heard that, but it doesn’t surprise me.” Klein nodded to himself. “Nope, doesn’t surprise me one goddamn bit. The British’d want to grill ’em, and they wouldn’t want the Russians to grab any of them.”
“Right on both counts,” Heydrich agreed. “Same kind of race with them as there was with the engineers who built our rockets. You can bet the Ivans got their hands on some of both groups, too, damn them. But that’s not the point.”
“Well, what is the point, then, sir?” Klein asked reasonably.
“The point is that ten of these fellows with the high foreheads came back to Germany on the…” Heydrich paused to check the sheet of paper he’d uncovered. “On the third of January, that’s when it was. Just a couple of weeks ago. They landed at Lubeck, in the British zone. Now they’re staying at a tricked-out clothing store in Alswede, not far away.”
“Lubeck? Alswede?” Dismay filled Klein’s voice. “That’s up by the Baltic-and no more than a long spit from the edge of the Russian zone. The Tommies’d better hope the NKVD doesn’t try a snatch-and-grab.”
“They do have some security,” Heydrich admitted reluctantly. “And they make sure the physicists can’t just go wandering off on their own. They have an evening curfew. The brains can’t leave the British zone, and their families are hostages to make sure they behave. The Tommies don’t say that’s how things are, but it’s what they amount to.”
“Better than nothing, I suppose. Still not good,” Klein said.
Now Heydrich nodded; he felt the same way. But he turned the talk in a different direction: “I’ve made inquiries up there. The British are going to really start letting people go any day now. Harteck and Diebner plan to go the Hamburg. Heisenberg and Hahn aim to start up their old institute in Gottingen. Von Weizsacker and Bagge and some of the others are thinking about joining up with them there. They all know more than they did during the war. If nothing else, they’ve learned a lot from the enemy. And that means…” He let his voice trail away and waited.
People talked about watching a light come on on somebody’s face. Heydrich watched it happen with Johannes Klein. “Sweet suffering Jesus!” the Oberscharfuhrer exclaimed. “We can grab ’em ourselves, put ’em to work making bombs for us!”
“We can sure grab them. I aim to try,” Heydrich agreed. “That way, we deny them to the British-and to the Russians. I don’t know how much they can actually do for us. We won’t have a lot of the equipment they’d need, and we may not be able to take it-steal it-without giving away too much. Still, all we can do is try.”
“Yes, sir!” Klein’s eyes glowed. “When we’ve got a bomb like that for ourselves, nobody will be able to kick us around any more, not ever again.”
“That’s right, Hans. As a matter of fact, we’ll be able to do some kicking ourselves.” Reinhard Heydrich’s predatory smile said he looked forward to it. But then the smile faded like an old photograph left too long in the sun. He started shuffling through the papers on his desk again.
“What’s up, sir?” Klein inquired.
“Some other business that needs taking care of,” Heydrich said: an answer that wasn’t. “All this stuff happens at the same time, and you can’t let any of it get away from you or you’re screwed. It’s a miracle the Fuhrer handled so much so well for so long.”
“And then after a while he didn’t,” Klein said. Heydrich gave him a look. The noncom stuck out his chin. “Oh, c’mon, sir. you know it’s true. He screwed up the Russian war like nobody’s business. And when we still weren’t doing real bad, you know, nobody’d make terms with us, ’cause the Anglo-Americans and Stalin only figured the Fuhrer would use the time to rebuild and then jump ’em again. And he would have, too. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Heydrich couldn’t. Every word was gospel. All the same…Klein must not have had that internalized Fuhrer looking over his shoulder. “Will you say the same thing about me?” Heydrich asked dryly.
“Sure hope not, sir,” the Oberscharfuhrer answered. “But wouldn’t you rather have somebody tell you to your face you’re going wrong instead of being too scared to open his mouth till after everything’s down the shitter?”