The Leader And The Damned (18 page)

'Address your betters respectfully,' Gruber rasped as he gave her arm a further twist behind her back. 'You are the cow who attends all the Fuhrer's military conferences. Is that not so?
Answer me!
'

'Yes,' she gasped. One moment life had been normal - now this fat slug with the shrewd, lecherous eyes was staring at the open gap in her gown. She felt humiliated. Her breasts heaved as she winced with pain and the small eyes continued gazing at them with deep interest.

'So,' Gruber continued, still holding her helpless, 'what do you do with your notebook after you have typed out the signals and handed them in for encodement and transmission..?'

'It's kept locked in a drawer..'

'Which locked drawer? Where do you keep the key? Can anyone else read your shorthand.?'

'I don't know...'

'I think that's the wrong approach.' The voice came from behind Gruber. He swung round, released his grip on Christa, his stubby hand moving towards the gun under his armpit. The hand froze in mid-air. Hartmann stood facing him, pipe clenched in his mouth, his greatcoat unbuttoned.

'That's better,' the Abwehr man observed mildly. 'I'd have put a bullet through you before your fingers touched the butt..'

'You threaten an officer of the Gestapo?'

'I thought you were threatening me.' The same calm tone. 'And I have a witness..' Hartmann turned to Christa Lundt who had crossed her arms, closing the opened gown and massaging her arm which was badly bruised. 'We have an appointment, as you know, Fraulein.' His eyes conveyed a message. 'First, perhaps you'd like to retire and put on some clothes.'

He waited until the girl had left the room, closing the bedroom door. The mildness of manner changed.

He stepped close to the Gestapo officer, his tone low and grim.

'You stupid little toad..'

'How did you get in here? What is all this crap about you have an appointment?' croaked Gruber.

The outer door leading to the compound was shut. Hartmann had opened the door, slipped inside and closed it again without making a sound. Gruber was livid at the interruption, shaken by Hartmann's incredible ability to move like a ghost.

'The first question - I entered the same way you did. The second question - Fraulein Lundt and I have an appointment so I can begin my interrogation. Your methods are quite stupid - you scare her so her answers are likely to be confused. Beating people with a rubber truncheon may be your only normal resource - but it won't work here..'

'I shall report you to the Reichsleiter for interference in my duties.

'Supposing I report you for attempted rape..'

'A charge which I shall certainly corroborate,' called out Christa from the bedroom doorway. She had dressed hastily in a blouse and skirt and was finishing combing her long black hair. 'You caught him in the act, is that not so, Major Hartmann? The Fuhrer is most considerate to his staff, so what is the outcome likely to be?'

Hartmann possessed a splendid sense of timing. He knew exactly when to say nothing, when silence alone can break a man's nerve. Gruber's expression was a study in many emotions. He glanced from the Abwehr man to the girl with tilted head and contemptuous eyes and back again to Hartmann.

'You both know this is ridiculous,' he blustered. 'I was merely trying to shake some sense into her..

'When she was naked except for her dressing gown? A moment ago I hear her turn off a shower - which she was obviously about to take when you burst in on her. I find her pinned down on a sofa with you leaning over her...' Hartmann shrugged. 'For the moment I will record the events I witnessed, ask Fraulein Lundt to sign as a witness, and keep the report on file. Do I make myself very clear?'

Gruber picked up his hat from the table where he had tossed it on entering the hut. Hartmann noticed his hand was moist, that he had beads of sweat on his forehead. He left the building without another word, closing the door quietly. Christa came across the room.

'I am indeed in your debt, Major. Thank you seems a feeble reaction to what you saved me from. He is a lecherous brute..'

'No gratitude, please.. Hartmann raised a gloved hand which held the pipe he had courteously removed from his mouth as soon as Gruber had departed. 'But it is true that I must ask you a few questions. Do you feel up to it? If it is of any consolation to your dignity I start with you, then go on to the others - including Bormann, Keitel and Jodl.

'I will tell you anything you wish to know. Now would be a good time. But first, some coffee?'

"That would be most acceptable...'

Hartmann removed his greatcoat and cap while she was making the coffee out of sight. A less clever man than Hartmann would have refused the coffee and begun his interrogation at once - before Lundt had time to recover her poise. Hartmann preferred people to be at their ease - and his plan had worked far beyond what he had hoped for. I am, indeed, in your debt...'

Earlier outside in the compound Hartmann had manipulated the conversation with Gruber to trigger off his well-known savage temper. The Abwehr man had seen Christa Lundt going inside her but - had seen Gruber glance in that direction - and had guessed who was probably the Gestapo man's first target.

It was in the nature of a man like Gruber to bully all those he considered his inferiors, especially women. As Hartmann had hoped, the Gestapo officer had gone straight to Christa Lundt's but in a wild rage detonated by Hartmann's final remark. Things had gone further than the Abwehr man anticipated - owing to a pure chance coincidence that Christa was about to take a shower. Now, for the time being, he had Gruber in an arm-lock.

But more important, he had attracted Christa's sympathy and cooperation. Things could not have worked out better from his point of view.

'Is the coffee right for you?' Christa asked a few minutes later.

'Excellent! I think I shall apply for your transfer to my office in Berlin. Your job? Coffee-maker!'

To show her confidence in him she had sat down on the sofa beside him. He took out his pencil and a notebook. They were the tools of her profession so they were hardly likely to inhibit her.

'Very efficient, Major!' she said mischievously.

'First question? Ready?' He paused and smiled, then lit up his pipe after obtaining her permission. His gentle eyes watched her closely as he threw his shaft.

'What is your impression of this Wing Commander Lindsay who says he flew to the Berghof solely to meet the Fuhrer?'

It was not the reply she gave he noted; it was the wary look which came into her hitherto friendly eyes.

'Jodl, the situation here ever since the Fuhrer returned from Smolensk has become intolerable! Intolerable! Did you hear me?'

Field Marshal Keitel was striding round his colleague's office, unable to keep still. The foxy-faced Jodl had observed something was wrong from the moment, unannounced, Keitel had stormed into his quarters.

For one thing the Field Marshal's face was flushed with annoyance. For another he kept revolving his baton in his hands and now he threw his cap on a table with a violent gesture.

Jodl, of a calmer temperament, watching his visitor closely, chose his words with care. You always assumed that every word you spoke, even in confidence, would be repeated by Keitel to the Fuhrer if it suited his book.

'Have you isolated the cause?' he enquired.

'Isn't it obvious! We have two obnoxious outsiders poking their noses into everything that is going on..

'You are referring to Hartmann of the Abwehr and Gruber of the Gestapo?'

Always ask questions. Never make statements. Never express an opinion. It was a lesson Jodl had learned long ago.

'Who else?' Keitel blazed. 'I have just had that supercilious bastard, Hartmann, subjecting me to a cross-examination. Me! Chief of the Oberkommando!'

Supercilious?
Jodl suppressed a smile. Hartmann - he had already sensed - was by far the cleverer, the more dangerous of the two interrogators. Clearly he had employed the tactic of exploiting Keitel's weakest point - his vanity and consciousness of his rank.

'You protested?' asked Jodl, still cautious. You could never tell with Keitel. He sometimes suspected the Field Marshal of simulating a posture of arrogance and limited intelligence.

'How could I protest?' Keitel raged. 'His authority derives direct from the Fuhrer himself. I suppose Gruber will turn up next. A fat slug!'

'It is not often that these men get the chance to grill those way above them in rank,' Jodl remarked shrewdly. 'They will make the most of it, submit their reports, and go away. We shall not hear from them again..'

'All this nonsense about a Soviet spy inside the Wolf's Lair

'The Fuhrer carries a great burden...

'I never mentioned the Fuhrer.

Keitel retrieved his cap, gripped his baton more firmly, glared at Jodl and walked out, slamming the door. Jodl's face had remained expressionless at the reference to a Soviet spy. Now he sat slowly tapping the fingers of his right hand like a man tapping out a Morse signal.

What Keitel said was true. The atmosphere within the claustrophobic confines of the Wolf's Lair was tense. It was bad enough to live in this unhealthy climate - there were marshes as well as lakes nearby in the dense enshrouding pine forests. The God-awful, insidious, creeping mist slipping between the trees depressed you. And now they had spy fever!

Jodl had noticed the change in personal relationships since the arrival of Hartmann and Gruber. Mistrust was in the air like the drifting grey mist. Conversations were forced and tentative. Jodl was convinced that Hartmann - the clever one - was deliberately creating this mood to put the spy under intolerable pressure...'

Intolerable? How odd that word had popped into his head. It was the same word Keitel had used twice when he had arrived, ranting at the Hartmann grilling. Jodl checked his watch. Time for the midday conference.

He stood up, put on his cap, straightened his jacket, checked his appearance in a wall mirror. The cap was at the normal jaunty angle. Always present the same impression - the Fuhrer disliked departures in others. And today, Jodl suspected, would see a new disposition of the troops on the Eastern front.

It was the evening of the day when Keitel had visited Jodl. In the depths of the pine forest amid the swirling mist a figure was crouched over the 'hide'.

The logs concealing the entrance had been removed, revealing the high-powered transceiver. With the aid of a masked torch - night had fallen and there was no moon - the expert fingers completed tapping out the signal which had been preceded by the word 'Wagner'. This indicated that the signal concerned Army dispositions. 'Olga' would have indicated a signal concerning Luftwaffe movements.

The crouched figure, seen as little more than a ghost in the mist-bound night, checked the dial of an illuminated wristwatch and waited. There was rarely a signal in the opposite direction - originating in Switzerland and beamed to East Prussia. But if there should be one, it would be transmitted from Lucerne in the next two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds passed - an endless-seeming pause. A hand reached out to switch off. The machine began to talk...

RAHS. The call-sign from Lucy. A message was coming tonight. The torch was tucked under an arm, a notebook and pencil held at the ready for the series of dots and dashes in code. The signal was brief.

The operator switched off the machine, replaced the logs, stood up, grasped a branch and shook snow down to cover all traces of disturbance.

Walking some distance along a track, his feet crackling ice, the operator stopped again by a large tree trunk, reached inside a hole and withdrew a code book protected by a waterproof sachet. Crouching down, the operator used the torch to decode the signal, replaced the code book inside its hiding-place and was lost in the mist. The signal was a death warrant.