Radl said, 'Go on, Karl, there's a good fellow and thank you.'
Hofer went out and Radl ran a hand over his face. His empty socket was burning, the invisible hand ached. Sometimes he felt as if they'd wired him up wrongly when they'd put him back together again. Amazing how disappointed he felt. A sense of real, personal loss.
'Perhaps it's as well,' he said softly, 'I was beginning to take the whole damn thing too seriously.'
He sat down, opened Joanna Grey's file and started to read it. After a while he reached for the ordnance survey map and began to unfold it. He stopped suddenly. He'd had enough of this tiny office for one day, enough of the Abwehr. He pulled his briefcase from under the desk, stuffed the files and map inside and took his leather greatcoat down from behind the door.
It was too early for the RAF and the city seemed unnaturally quiet when he went out of the front entrance. He decided to take advantage of the brief calm and walk home to his small apartment instead of calling for a staff car. In any case his head was splitting and the light rain which was falling was really quite refreshing. He went down the steps, acknowledging the sentry's salute and passed under the shaded street light at the bottom. A car started up somewhere further along the Tirpitz Ufer and pulled in beside him.
It was a black Mercedes saloon, as black as the uniforms of the two Gestapo men who got out of the front seats and stood waiting. As Radl saw the cuff-title of the one nearest to him, his heart seemed to stop beating. RFSS. Reichsfuhrer der SS. The cuff-title of Himmler's personal staff.
The young man who got out of the rear seat wore a slouch hat and a black leather coat. His smile had the kind of ruthless charm that only the genuinely insincere possess. 'Colonel Radl?' he said. 'So glad we were able to catch you before you left. The Reichsfuhrer presents his compliments. If you could find it convenient to spare him a little time, he'd appreciate it.' He deftly removed the briefcase from Radl's hand. 'Let me carry that for you.'
Radl moistened dry lips and managed a smile. 'But of course,' he said and got into the rear of the Mercedes.
The young man joined him, the other got into the front and they moved away. Radl noticed that the one who wasn't driving had an Erma police sub-machine-gun across his knees. He breathed deeply in an effort to control the fear that rose inside him.
'Cigarette, Herr Oberst?'
'Thank you,' Radl said. 'Where are we going, by the way?'
'Prinz Albrechtstrasse.' The young man gave him a light and smiled. 'Gestapo Headquarters.'
When Radl was ushered into the office on the first floor at Prinz Albrechtstrasse, he found Himmler seated behind a large desk, a stack of files in front of him. He was wearing full uniform as Reichsfuhrer SS, a devil in black in the shaded light, and when he looked up the face behind the silver pince-nez was cold and impersonal.
The young man in the black leather coat who had brought Radl in gave the Nazi salute and placed the briefcase on the table. 'At your orders, Herr Reichsfuhrer.'
'Thank you, Rossman,' Himmler replied. 'Wait outside. I may need you later.'
Rossman went out and Radl waited as Himmler moved the files very precisely to one side of the desk, as if clearing the decks for action. He pulled the briefcase forward and looked at it thoughtfully. Strangely enough, Radl had got back some of his nerve, and a certain black humour that had been a saving grace to him on many occasions surfaced now.
'Even the condemned man is entitled to a last cigarette, Herr Reichsfuhrer.'
Himmler actually smiled, which was quite something considering that tobacco was one of his pet aversions. 'Why not?' He waved a hand. 'They told me you were a brave man, Herr Oberst. You earned your Knight's Cross during the Winter War?'
'That's right, Herr Reichsfuhrer.' Radl got his cigarette case out, one-handed, and opened it deftly.
'And have worked for Admiral Canaris ever since?'
Radl waited, smoking his cigarette, trying to make it last while Himmler stared down at the briefcase again. The room was really quite pleasant in the shaded light. An open fire burned brightly and above it there was an autographed picture of the Fuhrer in a gilt frame.
Himmler said, 'There is not much that happens at the Tirpitz Ufer these days that I don't know about. Does that surprise you? For example, I am aware that on the twenty-second of this month you were shown a routine report from an Abwehr agent in England, a Mrs. Joanna Grey, in which the magic name of Winston Churchill figured.'
'Herr Reichsfuhrer, I don't know what to say,' Radl told him.
'Even more fascinating, you had all her files transferred from Abwehr One into your custody, and relieved Captain Meyer, who had been this lady's link man for many years, of duty. I understand he's most upset.' Himmler placed a hand on the briefcase 'Come, Herr Oberst, we're too old to play games You know what I'm talking about. Now, what have you got to tell me.'
Max Radl was a realist. He had no choice at all in the matter He said, 'In the briefcase, the Reichsfuhrer will find all that there is to know except for one item.'
'The court martial papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Steiner of the Parachute Regiment?' Himmler picked up the top file from the pile at the side of his desk and handed it over 'A fair exchange I suggest you read it outside.' He opened the briefcase and started to extract the contents 'I'll send for you when I need you.'
Radl almost raised his arm, but one last stubborn gram of self-respect turned it into a smart, if conventional salute. He turned on his heel, opened the door and went out into the anteroom.
Rossman sprawled in an easy chair reading a copy of Signal, the Wehrmacht magazine He glanced up in surprise Leaving us already?'
'No such luck,' Radl dropped the file on to a low coffee table and started to unbuckle his belt 'It seems I've got some reading to do.'
Rossman smiled amiably. 'I'll see if I can find us some coffee. It looks to me as if you could be with us for quite some time'
He went out and Radl lit another cigarette, sat down and opened the file
.
The date chosen for the final erasing of the Warsaw Ghetto from the face of the earth was the 19th April. Hitler's birthday was on the 20th and Himmler hoped to present him with the good news as a suitable present. Unfortunately when the commander of the operation, SS OberFuhrer von Sammern-Frankenegg and his men marched in, they were chased out again by the Jewish Combat Organization, under the command of Mordechai Amelewicz.
Himmler immediately replaced him with SS Brigadefuhrer and Major-General of Police, Jurgen Stroop, who, aided by a mixed force of SS and renegade Poles and Ukrainians, applied himself seriously to the task in hand to leave not one brick standing, not one Jew alive. To be able to report to Himmler personally that The Warsaw Ghetto is no more. It took him twenty-eight days to accomplish.
Steiner and his men arrived in Warsaw on the morning of the Thirteenth Day on a hospital train from the Eastern Front bound for Berlin. There was a stopover time of between one to two hours, depending on how long it took to rectify a fault in the engine's cooling system, and orders were broadcast over the loudspeaker that no one was to leave the station. There were military police on the entrances to see that the order was obeyed.
Most of his men stayed inside the coach, but Steiner got out to stretch his legs and Ritter Neumann joined him. Steiner's jump boots were worn through, his leather coat had definitely seen better days and he was wearing a soiled white scarf and sidecap of a type more common amongst NCOs than officers
The military policeman guarding the main entrance held his rifle across his chest in both hands and said roughly. 'You heard the order, didn't you? Get back in there!'
'It would seem they want to keep us under wraps for some reason, Herr Oberst,' Neumann said.
The military policeman's jaw dropped and he came to attention hurriedly 'I ask the Herr Oberst's pardon I didn't realize.'
There was a quick step behind them and a harsh voice demanded, 'Schultz-what's all this about?'
Steiner and Neumann ignored it and stepped outside. A pall of black smoke hung over the city, there was a crump of artillery in the distance, the rattle of small arms fire. A hand on Steiner's shoulder spun him round and he found himself facing an immaculately uniformed major. Around his neck was suspended on a chain the gleaming brass gorget plate of the military police Steiner sighed and pulled away the white scarf at his neck exposing not only the collar patches of his rank, but also the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves for a second award.
'Steiner,' he said. 'Parachute Regiment.'
The major saluted politely, but only because he had to 'I'm sorry, Herr Oberst, but orders are orders'
'What's your name?' Steiner demanded.
There was an edge to the colonel's voice now in spite of the lazy smile, that hinted at the possibility of a little unpleasantness 'Otto Frank, Herr Oberst'
'Good, now that we've established that, would you be kind enough to explain exactly what's going on here? I thought the Polish Army surrendered in thirty-nine?'
'They are razing the Warsaw Ghetto to the ground,' Frank said
'Who is?'
'A special task force SS and various other groups commanded by Brigadefuhrer Jurgen Stroop Jewish bandits, Herr Oberst. They've been fighting from house to house, in the cellars in the sewers, for thirteen days now. So we're burning them out Best way to exterminate lice.'
During convalescent leave after being wounded at Leningrad, Steiner had visited his father in France and had found him considerably changed. The General had had his doubts about the new order for some considerable time. Six months earlier he had visited a concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.
'The commander was a swine named Rudolf Hoess, Kurt Would you believe it a murderer serving a life sentence and released from gaol in the amnesty of nineteen-twenty-eight He was killing Jews by the thousand in specially constructed gas chambers, disposing of their bodies in huge ovens. After extracting such minor items as gold teeth and so forth!'
The old general had been drunk by then and yet not drunk 'Is this what we're fighting for, Kurt? To protect swine like Hoess? And what will the rest of the world say when the time comes? That we are all guilty? That Germany is guilty because we stood by? Decent and honourable men stood by and did nothing? Well not me, by God I couldn't live with myself!'
Standing there in the entrace to Warsaw Station, the memory of all this welling up inside, Kurt Steiner produced an expression on his face that sent the major back a couple of steps 'That's better,' Steiner said, 'and if you could make it downwind as well I d be obliged.'
Major Frank's look of astonishment quickly turned to anger as Steiner walked past him, Neumann at his side 'Easy, Herr Oberst Easy,' Neumann said.
On the platform at the other side of the track, a group of SS were herding a line of ragged and filthy human beings against a wall It was virtually impossible to differentiate between the sexes and as Steiner watched, they all started to take their clothes off.
A military policeman stood on the edge of the platform watching and Steiner said, 'What's going on over there?'
'Jews, Herr Oberst,' the man replied This morning's crop from the Ghetto. They'll be shipped out to Treblinka to finish them off later today They make them strip like that before a search mainly because of the women. Some of them have been carrying loaded pistols inside their pants.'
There was brutal laughter from across the track and someone cried out in pain. Steiner turned to Neumann in disgust and found the lieutenant staring along the platform to the rear of the troop train. A young girl of perhaps fourteen or fifteen, with ragged hair and smoke-blackened face, wearing a cut-down man's overcoat tied with string, crouched under a coach. She had presumably slipped away from the group opposite and her intention was obviously to make a bid for freedom by riding the rods under the hospital train when it pulled out.
In the same moment the military policeman on the edge of the platform saw her and raised the alarm, jumping down on to the track and grabbing for her She screamed, twisting from his grasp, scrambled up to the platform and ran for the entrance, straight into the arms of Major of Police Frank as he came out of his office.
He had her by the hair and shook her like a rat. 'Dirty little Jew bitch I'll teach you some manners.'
Steiner started forward, 'No Herr Oberst!' Neumann said, but he was too late
Steiner got a firm grip on Frank's collar, pulling him off balance so that he almost fell down grabbed the girl by the hand and stood her behind him.
Major Frank scrambled to his feet, his face contorted with rage. His hand went to the Walther in the holster at his belt, but Steiner produced a Luger from the pocket of his leather coat and touched him between the eyes. 'You do,' he said, 'and I'll blow your head off. Come to think of it, I'd be doing humanity a favour.'
