The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow Read online

  The girl nervously smiled, stepped forward but tripped and fell down to her knees. As Ernst instinctually lowered his weapon, she suddenly thrust her arm up high, hitting the gun off his hand, caught Ernst’s other hand he was trying to grab her hair with and twisted his palm, making him lean to the same side and expose his neck to her next move: like a deadly snake she threw the side of her right hand right in the direction of his throat and stopped hardly an inch away from it.

  “That’s it, you’re dead.” Otto concluded. “She just broke your windpipe. Four seconds, Emilia, great job!”

  Ernst suddenly burst into laughter, shaking the embarrassed looking girl’s hand. “Otto! You deserve that goddamn raise, I swear!”

  “I told you. It’s the surprise factor, both that she faked her uncertainty, clumsiness and then when she got you when you least expected it. You see, us, men, are certainly physically stronger, so the women’s training program is a little different. We train the girls to strike fast, unexpectedly and deadly, because if it ever came to a real fight, she’d never match your physical strength, there’s no doubt about it.”

  Later that day we were having lunch by Otto’s ‘headquarters’ as he called it, a nice office he occupied in the local RSHA building. As Ernst’s closest friend he knew the story about Ulrich Reinhard, about his file that almost led to my execution, and even the fact that I was Jewish. It didn’t seem to bother him at all, as long as his friend was happy.

  Ernst was indeed very happy, having kidnapped me from my husband again and having me in his absolute control for at least two days. He pulled me from my chair onto his lap after the secretary served all three of us freshly brewed coffee and closed the door on the way out.

  “Don’t get too frisky, Herr Obergruppenführer,” I teased him when he slightly bit the tip of my ear. “I remembered all those things from the training camp and will gladly practice performing them on you!”

  “Promise?” Ernst playfully raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, get a room, you two!” Otto rolled his eyes, reaching for a biscuit.

  “We certainly will, as soon as I have detailed reports on each operation, ready and on this desk,” Ernst replied with a grin and squeezed my leg under my skirt.

  “All the reports are being prepared as we speak.” Otto took a sip from his cup. “And you know, it’s not polite: I haven’t seen you in months, and you can’t wait to get rid of my company!”

  “Can you blame me?” Ernst laughed, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist.

  “No, actually, I can’t,” Otto laughed back and winked at me.

  Wagner’s symphony, which had just started playing on the radio, made Ernst scrunch his nose.

  “Annalise, please, be so kind, and switch this radio channel for God’s sake!” he begged me with a pained expression on his face.

  “What happened? Not too patriotic today, are we?” I teased him, trying to catch a different radio wave.

  “I am the biggest patriot of the German Reich. I love my country to death and worship its beautiful culture,” Ernst declared in a playfully solemn tone and paused for a dramatic effect. “But if I hear one more fuckin’ Wagner’s symphony today, I swear to God, I’m going to puke my insides out!”

  I burst into laughter, thinking that the Minister of Propaganda Dr. Goebbels’ method of installing patriotic feelings in Germans by making them listen to Wagner – the Führer’s favorite composer – day and night, wasn’t working too well.

  “There you go, BBC, how about that? Some cheerful jazz concert.” I turned to the Austrians.

  “Anything, that is not Wagner, will do,” Ernst stated with a serious face, causing more chuckles from mine and Otto’s side.

  The smiling Chief of the RSHA petted his knee, inviting me back, and I gladly returned to his embrace. Otto comfortably leaned back onto his chair and put both legs, in shining black boots, on the table. Without the official entourage they were just two good friends, who couldn’t be more at ease with each other. They were talking about Austria a lot, gossiping about people they both knew and joking, like they always used to do.

  I couldn’t participate too much in their conversation since I didn’t know neither the people they spoke of, nor shared their common memories. So I placed my head on my lover’s shoulder and concentrated on the radio, imitating the British accent in my mind. I was taught American English by Heinrich’s superior, Rudolf, and sometimes found it difficult to understand British manner of speech.

  The enthusiastic announcer was rapidly chirping something about the upcoming programs when something about his words triggered something in my mind. Once you are taught a spy craft, you will always think like one, our superiors used to say, and now I understood why. The British broadcaster had just blurted out a secret code that I remembered from two years ago, when I was working as a radio operator under Heydrich’s supervision.

  “British patriots! Only the brave ones will survive the ordeal.”

  I memorized this very phrase calling to attention all the ‘sleeping agents’ waiting for the right signal. I knew it from long ago, it was universal for all the British infiltrated agents who sometimes stayed inactive for several months, and whose only means of getting a message was a regular radio. Of course they all knew the code to the message the radio broadcaster would deliver later. He had just named coordinates, masked as lottery winning tickets, where the ‘sleeping agents’ had to immediately activate.

  “Stay tuned not to miss today’s special announcement! 14:30, London time, Prime Minister Churchill’s new directive concerning the assistance to the Czech Resistance! Keep your radios on!”

  “Did you hear that?” Under the Austrians’ confused stare I snatched a piece of paper from Otto’s table and put down the time and coordinates. “They will transmit something important!”

  “I didn’t know you were that fond of old chap Churchill!” Otto chuckled.

  “It’s not from Churchill!” I impatiently shook my head, grabbed a map from Otto’s table, found the right spot and went on explaining. “They used a special code phrase calling for attention all the ‘sleeping agents’ in our area! Did you hear what he said? Czech Resistance! It has nothing to do with the real Resistance though, it means the area they’re planning the diversion in, but they can’t openly say it so they’re using allusions! Got it? And here are our coordinates.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Otto looked skeptical.

  “Positive. I was working as a radio operator solely for quite some time while Heydrich was still alive, I know what I’m talking about.”

  “What kind of diversion can they possibly be planning if they’re calling for ‘sleeping agents’?” Ernst chimed in. “Doesn’t sound like a well-planned operation to me.”

  “It isn’t, and it’s not supposed to be one,” I explained. “It’s the so-called ‘opportunity’ operation, the one that they didn’t anticipate, but suddenly got a chance to complete.”

  “And what could that be? They obviously aren’t going to blow up some factory, since they would need preparations and resources for that.”

  “No, it’s not that. Mostly it means something easy to complete and what doesn’t demand a lot of human power.” I shrugged. “Assassination for example.”

  “Assassination?” both Austrians asked in unison, and Ernst continued, “We aren’t even in the capital, there are no major officials here, and as far as I’m informed, no one is paying a visit to this middle of nowhere in the nearest future.”

  I kept staring at him, but seeing that he still wasn’t grasping my thought, I voiced it. “How about a certain Chief of the RSHA? Have you heard of one? Freakishly tall, mean looking, loves bossing everybody around, speaks with that annoying Austrian accent, prone to unpredictable anger fits…”

  “Anti-government propaganda,” Ernst replied with an indifferent face as if we weren’t talking about him. “I heard that he’s particularly good-looking, incredibly charming, highly intelligent and that all ladies
love him.”

  “And he’s very modest too,” Otto finished sarcastically.

  “You’re not seriously suggesting that someone’s planning to murder me?” Ernst was still in his playful mood and didn’t consider such a possibility credible. “I’m not that important.”

  “I hate to burst your bubble, but in case you forgot, you occupy the same exact position as Heydrich did. And look where he’s now.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “We planned his assassination!” Ernst whispered, just in case.

  “Yes, so what makes you think that someone from Berlin wouldn’t plan yours?”

  “Why would somebody do that?” He looked genuinely surprised.

  Otto suddenly burst out laughing. “Because they all hate you! I can name twenty people off the top of my head right now who would dance on your grave. Starting with Müller, who’s been mighty angry with you after you shot his loyal deputy.”

  “I did not think of that,” Ernst confessed.

  “Don’t be so sad, not everybody hates you, we both love you very much!” I smiled.

  “That’ll help me a lot when someone will shoot my brains out later today!”

  “Maybe it’s not about you,” I tried to comfort him. “I just took a wild guess. We’ll wait for their message at 14:30 and will try to decode it as soon as possible. And meanwhile we’ll all stay here, but just make sure that all the guards are on high alert and pass the signal to all the Gestapo agents in the area as well.”

  After all the commands had been passed, we gathered around the radio, waiting.

  _______________

  “Do you know what any of this means?” Otto inquired once again.

  I wrinkled my forehead trying to put together familiar associations, but the message still didn’t make any sense.

  “No. It’s not a code phrase, it’s a coded message, and only those who they’re addressing have the means of decoding it. You’ll have to bring it to your specialists downstairs.”

  “Decoding takes long hours, sometimes even days.” Otto frowned, but nevertheless picked up the phone and in short, clipped sentences informed his subordinates of what their new priority was. “We won’t have enough time, you two are leaving tomorrow. They will most definitely try their luck today.”

  “So we’ll have to stay here then,” I concluded. “And tomorrow we’ll call for a military escort to make sure we make it safe to the airport.”

  “I say let’s go out and get them.” Ernst’s phrase made both Otto and me turn our heads to him.

  “Are you insane?!” I finally regained control of my voice.

  “How many ‘sleeping agents’ can the British possibly have in a small town like this? One? Two, if they’re lucky. And obviously if they were sent here, they aren’t the cream of the cream, if you know what I mean. Most likely they aren’t even equipped, maybe armed with a gun or a knife. It’ll be a piece of cake to pretend we know nothing of their mission and grab them when they least expect it. How did you call it, Otto? The surprise factor?”

  The two Austrians exchanged similar grins, and if I were that unlucky British agent, I wouldn’t like that gleam in their eyes.

  Even though I kept insisting on going with them, the two men refused to listen to me and almost physically brought me to the hotel, where Ernst and I were supposed to be staying for a night. All my protesting was met with a simple “Stay here, hold this gun, and don’t come out until we tell you.” Right after that both of them left and locked the door to the room, leaving me absolutely furious with their typical manner to give orders like that. However, ten minutes later I was already smiling, thinking how much they cared about me and didn’t want me to get hurt.

  It was getting dark out, but I decided not to turn the lights on, just in case. The good news was that our German radio kept quietly playing its Wagner and not announcing anything drastic. Bored and not able to distract myself with anything, I started to nod off on the big bed, when I heard Ernst’s loud laughter outside the door. I quickly got off the covers and hid behind the bed, like he instructed me.

  The next thing I knew was that he opened the door and let his female guest in, judging by her voice. The Chief of the RSHA himself sounded deadly drunk. For a second a thought crossed my mind, Did this bastard forget what he was supposed to do, got drunk and brought some girl home, forgetting that I was still here?!

  Unlikely, I replied to myself and stayed in my hideout, clicking the safety off my gun. Two seconds later I heard a muffled thud of something hitting the door and then the floor, and Ernst, calling me in his regular voice, confirmed my latest guess.

  “Annalise? Are you here?”

  He flipped the lights on and I squinted, getting up to my feet and observing a body next to him.

  “Is that an agent?” I inquired, walking up to him. The girl with wavy golden brown hair was very young and pretty, and didn’t look threatening at all.

  “Judging by how persistently she was hanging herself on me in the bar, she is.”

  “All the girls are hanging themselves on you.”

  “That’s the whole point, she’s just not the ‘hanging’ type. I seriously doubt that she has ever been to a bar before. She acted very nervous and had no idea what she was doing. I pretended to be really, really drunk to lure her in here, so she’d think that I’d be an easy target. Anyway, she’ll let us know herself when she wakes up.” Ernst picked up the girl’s hand with the end of his boot, and it fell right back on the floor. “I guess I banged her head a little harder than I should have. But otherwise she’d start screaming.”

  “Is she even alive?”

  “She’s fine.” Ernst made a dismissive move with his hand, moved the girl out of his way with his foot and opened the door to the corridor. “Otto? Come here.”

  The diversionist appeared in the doors in a split second; it looked like he was waiting outside the whole time ready to come to his friend’s rescue right away.

  “Did you knock her out?”

  “No, I hit the back of her head on the door.”

  “Same thing,” Otto smirked. “What shall we do now?”

  “Are the Gestapo waiting outside?”

  “Outside and on every staircase, plain clothed, ready to arrest anybody following our girlfriend here, just like you ordered.”

  “Good. Tie her to that chair, and let’s wake her up.”

  I sat on the bed and watched Otto skillfully tying tight knots on the girl’s wrists behind the chair. After he was done he stepped away, allowing his friend to proceed. Ernst slapped the unconscious girl several times on her cheeks, and after she opened her eyes with a slight moan, he harshly picked her chin up, looking her straight in the eye.

  “Wakey, wakey, princess. In case you didn’t grasp it yet, we know who you are and who you’re working for. So I suggest you start cooperating and tell us everything we want to know. And don’t even try to lie to me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  Ernst wouldn’t let her finish. Instead he grabbed her hair and yanked her head backwards, making the terrified girl yelp.

  “I said. Do not. Try. To lie to me.”

  He was staring at the petrified girl without blinking, and I remembered how scared I was the very first time he walked into my interrogation room. Ernst could look very intimidating when he wanted to, and needless to say I could understand the girl’s emotions written on her suddenly paled face. With the other hand he searched the girl’s pockets and produced a small bottle with white powder in it.

  “What the hell is this? Cyanide? Rat poison? They didn’t even arm you? You know, if you were smarter, you would have put it in my drink right there, in the bar; you shouldn’t have waited till we’d be alone, stupid. Oh, let me guess, you didn’t want to get caught by the Gestapo red-handed, right?”

  The girl didn’t answer anything, but her look confirmed what Ernst just said.

  “Well, let’s try this again.” Ernst continued in the same stern voice, still
holding the girl’s hair in his hand. I could see her throat move as she tried to swallow nervously. “What’s your name? Your real name?”

  “Reika. Reika Kovacs.”

  “Are you Hungarian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Resistance or the British?”

  “British. MI5.”

  “Who are you working here with?”

  “I’m alone, as far as I know.”

  “Are you lying to me again?” Ernst tightened the grip on Reika’s hair. “Do you know what I do to people who try to kill me and then lie to me about it? I start cutting their fingers off with this knife. You can still talk without your fingers, you know.”

  Ernst menacingly waved his long and very sharp service dagger in front of Reika’s face. The poor girl broke down and burst into tears.

  “No! I swear, I’m not lying! I swear! I was approached by the British agent about a year ago, I was in a terrible financial situation, I had my elderly parents to take care of, and he promised to give me some money if I started working for them. So I agreed and went for training on their base in Britain, together with three other men from here, but they all got caught a long time ago by the Gestapo. Even if MI5 had sent new agents here, I wouldn’t know about it, we have no means of communication. I only knew about the arrests from newspapers. I swear, it’s true!”

  Both Ernst and Otto seemed satisfied by that reply. Ernst was right about the girl, even I could tell that she was trained hastily and definitely wasn’t prepared for getting caught. I knew how we trained our agents: they were able to endure the highest levels of pain and not say a word. However, most of the times it didn’t even get to that. If a German agent knew that he had been compromised, he’d bite on his cyanide capsule without blinking an eye. Reika wasn’t ready to die, and more than that, wasn’t ready to suffer in pain keeping her superiors’ secrets.

  “I believe you,” Ernst said in a calmer voice. “Now answer me this. Who gives orders like the one you received today?”

  “The head office.”