“Did what?”
“Patience, Major Judge, and you’ll find out.”
Drawing up her skirt a notch or two, Ingrid guided a perfectly formed leg over him and straddled his chest. Slowly, she unbuttoned her blouse, freeing one arm, then another, from her sleeves. Slipping a hand behind her back, she unclasped her brassiere and dropped it onto his belly. Posture erect, breasts bathed in the waning moonlight, she placed an ivory hand in his lap and began kneading him, moving her palm in slow circles as he lifted his hips to meet her. He guided his finger to her nipple and brushed it gently back and forth until it was erect, and Ingrid quivered with anticipation. His body was suffused with a liquid warmth, an encompassing heat that pulsed in time to his heart. When he ran a finger over her lips, she shuddered noticeably.
“Now,” she said.
Judge lifted her with his hands and guided her onto the bed next to him. For a few seconds, they stared at one another, intimate beyond their time together, each inviting the other into their soul. Eyes open wide, lips trembling with anticipation, Ingrid looked vulnerable and supreme, eager yet frightened.
He moved slowly at first, tenderly. He kissed her shoulder and her neck, seeking diversion from the heat building in his loins. It was she who quickened their rhythm, she who rose to meet his thrusts. She was passionate and uncontrolled, and the volatile combination eclipsed anything he’d ever experienced. Her face grew flushed, her breath low and vibrant. She bit into his lip, fighting to stifle her moans.
“Devlin,” she whispered, “Halts-du nicht. Halts-du nie.” Judge tucked his face into her neck, aware that his movements were no longer his own. All of him — his hopes and dreams, his fears and worries — was concentrated into a white-hot core at the center of her being. He closed his eyes and, as he let himself go, he realized that his ardor for her extended beyond a physical craving and that Ingrid had rekindled in him the desire to love.
“What will you do?” she asked afterwards.
“I’m going to find him,” Judge said evenly. It didn’t matter that he’d never been to Berlin before, he added for his own benefit, or that he didn’t have so much as a scooter to get around, or that his own police were looking for him.
“Berlin is a big city,” she said. “We walked for three hours to get here and we didn’t even cross a quarter of it. He might be anywhere.”
“If he were hiding, I’d give up. I’d say it was impossible. But he’s not. He’s out and about. He’s got a job to do and he’s figuring out how to do it. Actually, I’m optimistic.”
Smiling, Ingrid sat up on an elbow and ran a finger over his lips. “Optimistic, even?”
“Didn’t you hear Sergeant Mahoney? President Truman is visiting Berlin today. All we’ve got to do is find out where and when and I’m betting Seyss will be there.”
“I hope you’ll let me go with you.”
“The police’ll be looking for the pair of us traveling together. We used up our ration of luck last night. Besides, there’s something else I need you to do. I want you to get in touch with Chip DeHaven. You told me he’d written you that he’d be in Potsdam for the conference. Did he ask you to come up for a visit?”
“Well, yes, but I’m sure he was just being polite.”
“Then let him show you his manners. He’s your cousin. He’ll have no choice but to see you when he learns you’re in town. As a counselor to the President, I imagine he’s quartered in Potsdam. Probably with Truman himself.”
“I can’t just go to Potsdam and tell Chip I’m here,” Ingrid protested. “It belongs to the Russians now.”
“That’s true. We have to find someone to let DeHaven know you’re in town.”
“I’m afraid we’re a little short of friends at the moment. Who do you propose?”
Judge asked himself who in Berlin might share his distrust of authority. The answer came in an instant.
Leaning closer to Ingrid, he ran a hand through her hair and whispered it in her ear.
Chapter 46
Seyss rose at dawn, showered, and dressed in one of the fresh uniforms he’d taken from room 421 of the Frankfurt Grand. The walk to the mess hall was like a stroll down memory lane. Images of morning formation flooded his mind. He dismissed them outright. Nostalgia had no claim on his time today. Instead of herring, sausage, and hardrolls, he took eggs, bacon, and toast. The talk at the breakfast table was confined to one subject: Truman’s visit to Berlin. The flag raising was set for twelve o’clock at the former Air Defense headquarters. On his way to the ceremony, the President would pass the length of the East-West axis in review of the Second Armored division. From the excited talk, Seyss gathered that practically every American soldier in Berlin would participate either in the parade or the ceremony. As would the cream of the American high command. Patton, Bradley, even Eisenhower, himself, were slated to attend.
It was, Seyss decided, the rarest of opportunities.
Newly confident, he crossed the parade ground and walked into the motor pool. A broad smile and a stiff bribe got him an MP’s Harley-Davidson WLA, complete with windscreen, siren, saddlebags and a rifle bucket (unfortunately empty). The mechanic was sorry he didn’t have anything speedier. Everything else had been dragged out for the parade.
With a few hours before his meeting with Herr Doctor Schmundt in Wannsee, Seyss decided to make a tour of the capital. He was anxious to see how Berlin had fared, and more importantly, to discover the disposition of occupying troops in the different parts of the city. At Yalta, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill divided Berlin into three sectors. The Russians took the east, the British the northwest, and the Americans the south and southwest. After the war ended, the French crowed about wanting a piece for themselves, so the Brits carved a chunk from their sector and handed it over. Germany had become a cake, with all the victors claiming a piece.
Leaving Lichterfelde, he motored north toward Charlottenberg, patrolling the East-West Axis from the Victory Column to the Brandenburg Gate to view the preparations for the parade. Armored vehicles of every sort lined both sides of the eight-lane road. Tanks, half-tracks, self-propelled guns. He stopped long enough to gape at the carcass of the Reichstag — still smoldering two months after its destruction — and the remains of the Adlon Hotel. Beneath the Quadriga, a crew of GIs was busily erecting a large wooden placard.
You are now leaving the American Sector, read the sign, with the message repeated in French, Russian and, lastly, German.
From the Brandenburg Gate, he motored west, following the contours of the River Spree. More than half of Germany’s electrical industry had been located within Berlin’s city limits and the waterway was a vital commercial artery. A few barges cut through calm green waters. Those heading east flew Russian flags and were loaded with machinery: boilers, presses, an endless assortment of steel plate. He wondered where reparations ended and theft began.
He sped past the giant Siemens factory — so big it was called Siemens City — and had a look at the AEG works in Henningsdorf. He checked out others, too: Telefunken, Lorenz, Bosch. Their premises had been stripped. A few pieces of scrap lay scattered across the barren factory floors. Nothing more. He sped by Rheinmetall-Borsig, Maybach, and Auto-Union, the firms responsible for manufacturing the Reich’s tanks and heavy artillery. Empty. Henschel, Dornier, Focke-Wulf — the mainstays of the aircraft industry: concrete husks all; nary a screw rolling on the floor.
Locusts!
The sight of the naked factories validated Egon Bach and the Circle of Fire’s every worry concerning the Allies’ intentions for Germany. They were hell-bent on stripping the Reich of every last vestige of her industrial might. An agrarian state wasn’t far away.