Winner Lose All Page 15

“The American should not be difficult to spot,” Dietrich told his hastily assembled squad of SS Storm troops. “Look for muddy boots, some old bruises, and a shortage of fingernails. And need I say, God help the man who misses him. He had better have warm boots and be able to speak Russian.”

  The Steiner woman was more correct than she knew, he mused. The American would be far more dangerous to her on the outside, safely beyond her grasp, where he would continue to keep her off balance, muddle-headed, and vulnerable. However, she was the one Dietrich feared, not one lone American. The Chief Inspector needed her to get through the Red Army lines, so leaving Scanlon out there to keep her distracted and vulnerable was precisely the way to handle her. It was live and let live. Dietrich intended to live, so he would allow young Scanlon to stay alive, for the present anyway.

  When the Chief Inspector slipped out of his Maybach that night, he carried a small-caliber Mauser automatic pistol in his coat pocket, as usual. It was the very type of small pocket gun favored by petty thieves, pimps, and police detectives. When he saw the American had gotten himself hopelessly trapped between the old brick shed and the fence, the Chief Inspector took careful aim at the wounded SS trooper blocking the American’s escape and pulled the trigger without a second’s hesitation. Not to worry, though, Scanlon’s day of reckoning would come soon enough.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Liebchen, Liebchen, she moaned, why did you come back? Why now? In two more days, it would no longer have mattered. With some guile, some lies, and some outright threats, the previous afternoon, she and Dietrich had finally convinced Wolfe Raeder that his smartest move was to travel east with them, not west. That was how they would pry that arrogant aeronautical engineer and the Me-262 drawings away from the tight grip of the Luftwaffe. “Promise the good Doktor anything, my dear,” Dietrich told her. “Stalin will not quibble, and neither will that fool Raeder once you get him to Moscow.”

  So she went to work on him. “Only the Russians understand your unique talents, Doktor Raeder. You can have your own jet aircraft development program, your own factory, and build it from the ground up, with a huge salary, a car and driver, a dacha in the country, and the best test facilities money can buy. Best of all, you shall be the one in charge.” Flattery appealed to Raeder’s ego, but he continued to press for more details and guarantees. He was far more concerned about his future status than any lingering concern he may have had for Germany. Still, Raeder refused to give them a final commitment. He continued to play coy.

  “We shall see,” he said, “and we shall see what the Americans have to offer.”

  In the end, it was the rapid advance of the Red Army that forced Raeder’s hand. When Otto Dietrich and Hanni Steiner went to see him earlier the day before, he agreed to leave with them. He said he needed two days to pack, so tomorrow morning she and the Chief Inspector would arrive with a half dozen trucks and a contingent of SS troops to evacuate the camp. She would then have the Hermann Göring Research Institute’s staff and their most important drawings in her firm grasp. Once she had them safely back in Leipzig, she could radio Beria and make arrangements to deliver it all to the rapidly advancing Red Army further east. Beria had a company of specially trained NKVD shock troops waiting for her call. Tomorrow, just one more day, that was all she would need. She told herself to block out the pain, block out the memories of Edward, block out the worse memories of Otto Dietrich, block it all out, and concentrate on the job at hand. It almost worked, too, until darling Edward popped back into her life, bringing with him all those memories and waves of guilt that were now exploding in her head.

  After the abortive raid on the bookshop, Dietrich returned her to her makeshift cell on the top floor of Gestapo headquarters. If there was ever a lower point in her life, Hanni could not remember it. She hated herself, hated the terrible things she had done, and hated what she was about to do even more. Worse still, she was caught in a trap of her own making and could not do a damned thing about it. The next morning, she awoke to a loud knock on her door. “You have a visitor,” the guard said brusquely as he opened it and allowed Georg Horstmann to squeeze past him into the small room. Horstmann of all people, she thought. The old bastard was like the voice of her father, the voice of her own conscience, and the last person in the world she wanted to see, then or ever. She did not get up. She remained lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as the guard closed the door behind him and left them alone.

  She said nothing and neither did Horstmann. He stood there near the door, nervously fingering the brim of his battered felt hat as the long minutes passed. “If you have something to say to me, say it,” she finally demanded. “If not, get the hell out and leave me alone.”

  “The Chief Inspector said I could see you, but all he gave me was five minutes,” the old man began, his words coming slowly. “After they let me talk to you last night, they locked me in the basement and have been questioning me ever since.”

  “It comes with the territory.”

  “I have been there before,” Horstmann shrugged. “They did not hurt me much.”

  Still, she could not look at him. “If you want a medal, call Moscow. I am fresh out.”

  “No, after they had their fun, they released me. I suppose I have you to thank.”

  “I did nothing.”

  “Nothing? You told Dietrich where he could find the boy, did you not?”

  “It is none of your damned business what I did,” she said angrily as she swung around and sat up, her face pale and her eyes red. “I have my orders — and he is no boy.”

  “Orders?” he asked in a painful whisper. “Well? Did they kill him?”

  “No, he got away.”

  “Thank God for small favors.”

  “Thank God?” her voice cracked and her face turned angry. “You know what this means, old man? He will ruin everything.”

  Horstmann looked at her for a long, painful minute before he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “All I know is you, Hannelore. I know you and your family far better than you know yourself. That boy did not come back here to ruin anything. He came back to find you and to help you, because he is hopelessly in love with you.”

  “You have grown soft in the head, Georg.”

  “That is not you speaking. I know you too well to believe that,” he said as looked at her with those sad, forgiving eyes of his. “It is that terrible hold they have over you. I fought shoulder to shoulder with your father for forty years. We are like brothers. If he were here, he would tell you he is not worth the price you are paying, Hannelore.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “And he would not want that American boy on his conscience any more than I do.”

  “What? First you find God and now you find a conscience,” she mocked him. “What are you? A Communist or a priest?”

  “Neither, merely a tired, old man,” he replied sadly. “And if I have gotten a little soft in the head, I am entitled; but I will not let you harm him. He is a comrade of ours. He also fought at our side, as your father fought at my side in Spain, and that boy deserves better from both of us.”

  “Shut up, old man. Don’t you think I know that? I have my orders.” She could not look at him, afraid of the power in those soft, accusing eyes. They made her feel dirty.

  “Scanlon told me to tell you that he came here to get you out,” Horstmann whispered.

  “And you believed him, you old fool? He came here to grab Raeder and the scientists at Volkenrode, not me.” She swung her legs over the side of the cot and put her head in her hands. “Does he think I am that stupid? Do you think I am that stupid?”

  “That boy came back for you, Hannelore! You are all he asked about — you, nothing more. I can accept Otto Dietrich’s interrogation cells and all the rest of the filth we are forced to swim in these days, but I will not accept your scorn, or what you are doing to yourself.”

  “I am sorry I cannot live up to your grand expectations, Georg.”

  He saw h
er terrible pain and finally relented. “All right, but what will you do?”

  “I do not know,” she answered in a sad voice. “I truly do not. All my life, I have been pushed and pulled by people and causes — live ones and dead ones. Do you know what that feels like, Georg? To be left with nothing for yourself — no parts, no pieces, not even a tiny corner, nothing.” Hanni shuddered, as if an icy chill had swept into the room.

  “Yes, I know, and I can see it is killing you.” She was growing cold, remote, and desperately unhappy, but it was not her fault. It was Otto Dietrich’s and the rest of the sadists who worked in this building, as well as the equally sadistic ones in Moscow. Hanni had always been a creature of strong beliefs and ideals. They came from her father and her grandfather before him. These last few years, however, had turned those into dusty relics that were as useless as an old bookseller and a boarded-up bookshop in Nazi Germany. So, he wondered, would the book business be any better in Moscow? Horstmann doubted it.

  “Someday, we shall make them pay for this, Hanni, for all of it,” he said as she sat up, threw her arms around his waist, and began to cry.

  “No, Georg,” she answered as she looked up at him, her blue eyes gleaming as cold as ice through the tears. “I shall settle my own scores. They can take everything else away from me, but my revenge is the one thing I will never be denied, never!”

  The door to the hallway suddenly swung open, and she heard Otto Dietrich’s smug voice. “Did I hear the word, ‘never’? I told you before, my dear; never can be a very, very long time.” The Chief Inspector sauntered into the room, his eyes moving back and forth between them, until he turned his attention to the old man. “Ah, Herr Horstmann, how goes the spy business these days? Even worse than the used book business, I expect.”

  “Chief Inspector,” Horstmann mumbled as he bowed and backed away.

  “Oh, do not leave on my account, Georg. It is so nice to see old friends,” he grinned with a mouth full of sharp white teeth. “Unfortunately, Fraulein Steiner and I have some unfinished business out of town; so the gentlemen in black in the hallway will escort you out — unless, of course, you would like another tour of the building. We have a few new toys in the basement, which I’m sure you would find of interest.”

  Eyes lowered, Horstmann reached for the doorknob. “I was just leaving,” he mumbled as he dared one last, sympathetic glance back at Hanni.

  “How forgetful of me; you had the one-Mark tour last night.” He laughed as he watched the old man scurry out the door and down the hall.

  “Why do you enjoy tormenting people?” Hanni asked him.

  “Why? Because I can, my dear. It is one of the few pleasures that come with this distasteful little job of mine.”

  “Some day soon, someone will cut off your pleasures.”

  His smile slowly faded. “A less charitable person would take that as a threat, my dear; but not I. To me, it is merely another delicious challenge, and a good challenge always arouses me. But, enough of that,” he said as he turned away. “It appears your ever-so-meddlesome American lover has eluded my slough-footed men in black once again. They tore the city apart all morning, all the usual places, and found nothing. Like the dashing Scarlet Pimpernel, he has disappeared; and as it was with Leslie Howard, it is obvious our boy could not have done it by himself. He had help.”

  “Help? That is ridiculous. Who? There is no one left.”

  “Oh, come, come, my dear,” he laughed derisively. “The list begins and ends with you. I could put the whip to old Horstmann again, but we both know where he was last night, do we not? What about your other henchmen, Johannes and Peter? Which one was it?”

  “They are tired, broken old men. Do you have any idea how preposterous that sounds?”

  He stepped closer, the humor now completely gone from his voice. “The stakes are very high, my dear, the highest of my life and yours. You see, there is only one reason why the OSS would send Scanlon back here, especially now. They want the jet airplane research out at Volkenrode, just as we do. They sent him here to find you, blow some sweet nothings in your ear, and talk you into helping him grab Raeder and his blueprints. Any fool can see that, even one as hopelessly in love as you are.”

  She glared up at him, but his eyes were as cold as a grave.

  “Do not think for a second that I would not throw you back in the basement if I thought you really were helping him,” he continued. “There is nothing like a long night in one of my interrogation rooms with my men to open the doors and windows into a man’s soul — or a woman’s, especially when they know exactly what is coming.”

  “No one was sorrier to hear he came back than I was,” she glared at him, trying to keep her emotions in check. “I know my orders.”

  “Ah, but you lie so beautifully, Hanni,” he said as he leaned closer, looking into her deep, blue eyes. “Try another one, my dear. Tell me all is forgiven; tell me bygones are bygones, please?” he mocked her. “You sound so innocent, so convincing, like the lovely Ilsa Lund in Casablanca. You have your man and you have your cause; now you must choose between them, and you are incapable of making the choice.”

  She wanted to argue with him, but she knew he was right. Despite everything Horstmann told her, she knew Edward was after exactly the same thing she was. That made them instant adversaries, no matter how much she would hate herself for it later.

  The Chief Inspector glanced at his watch. “It is already past noon. Our boy has gone to ground somewhere, so I suggest you and I drive out to Volkenrode again and see what that fool Raeder is up to.” He looked at her and paused. “I am certain we have not heard the last of your gallant young Pimpernel, my dear; but you had better pray I am wrong.”

  She closed her eyes and moaned. Oh, Liebchen, why did you have to come back? This time, it will cost you your life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ed Scanlon’s first glimpse of the Hermann Göring Research Institute came as the thin line of a dull gray dawn slipped over the horizon behind them. The coupe entered a broad, wooded valley, where an old, faded warning sign had been posted on the road shoulder. “Achtung!” it read, with a skull and crossbones for the dim-witted, followed by the words “Security Zone” and “No Stopping” in German. The road then entered the forest and came to a series of twists and turns through a tunnel of trees, before Von Lindemann braked sharply and swung the car into a narrow, gravel lane that suddenly appeared through the trees to the right. It did not need any additional camouflage, Scanlon thought, as the oaks and thick pine forest on each side formed a natural canopy, hiding the road.

  “You will not find this installation on any map,” the Major said. “There are dozens of other secret bases from one end of Germany to the other. The High Command began building and camouflaging these in the mid-1930s, long before the rest of the world even considered that another war might be possible. They are well-hidden, with deep underground bunkers and escape tunnels for troops and even tanks that lead deep into the woods, making them virtually immune to aerial reconnaissance and attack.”

  A quarter mile down the twisting, narrow lane, they came to an old wooden guard shack complete with a candy-striped gate pole to block the road. The pole was up, and from the dirty windows in the shack to the faded paint and weeds around it, a lot of time had passed since it had been manned. “More camouflage?” Scanlon asked.

  “No, the sad truth is, we barely have enough troops to guard the central compound now. They sent the rest of the men to the front in December.”

  Beyond the guard shack, Scanlon saw the sprawling facility, largely set back into the trees. As his eyes took in the scene, he felt his heart pounding and his nerves tingle with that keen sense of anticipation. He was alive again! He was not all the way back, not by a long shot; but the rust was slowly working itself loose. He could barely hear the creaks and groans any longer. Watch out, Dorothy, he thought. The Tin Man is on the prowl again.

  The once-bustling Hermann Göring Research Institute con
sisted of dozens of low-slung wooden buildings set between the trees in a dense forest. There was a small grass runway in the central meadow, but it was doing little more than sprouting weeds now. Similarly, most of the buildings appeared as neglected as the guard shack. In its prime, however, the complex included large assembly rooms, wind tunnels, barracks, labs, offices, and a staff of hundreds, including Germany’s finest aeronautical engineers and technicians. Only a skeleton staff remained now, primarily from the jet fighter project, Von Lindemann told him. “When you meet the scientists and engineers, you must make certain allowances,” he cautioned. “Most of these people were a bit odd to begin with — brilliant, but odd — and then they were packed off here to the woods and kept in strict isolation for the past year or two. Some have been here even longer. What little they know about the war and the outside world is gleaned from the official radio broadcasts, which are mostly the manufactured swill Herr Goebbels feeds them.”

  “Surely they know what’s going on?”

  “Defeat can be a bitter pill, Captain, especially when the only world they see is so peaceful and green, with trees, blue skies, and pretty wildflowers. They hear rumors and third-hand stories from delivery men, of course; but locked in here, they do not have the same grasp on reality as we have.”

  “Reality?” Scanlon shook his head in disbelief. “The white contrails of Allied bombers crisscrossing the sky should have given them a hint.”

  “Perhaps, but since July 20, when Claus Von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler, the national paranoia and resulting denial have gotten much, much worse. Many people have completely retreated into a shell.”

  “I take it you were involved with him, with Stauffenberg?”

  Startled, Von Lindemann’s head shot around. “How did you…?” He stopped and stared at the American for a moment before replying with a fatalistic shrug. “One of life’s little vagaries, I am afraid. Klaus and I had been friends since childhood, classmates, and you know how incestuous the Prussian upper class can be. However, they transferred me to a new squadron in Mannheim a few weeks before Klaus planted the bomb in Hitler’s conference room in Rastenburg. I was flying non-stop combat missions over France and they seem to have overlooked me.”