Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) (8 page)

Gudrun hid a smile.  She'd been forced to read the Otto Skorzeny books herself, at school; Otto Skorzeny, who apparently
had
been a real person, had pulled off hundreds of death-defying stunts that had reshaped the face of the world.  Skorzeny had been pitted against a multitude of villains - Evil Jewish Bankers, Evil American Capitalists, Evil Russian Communists, Evil British Monarchists - and emerged triumphant every time.  The books had practically drooled over how Skorzeny proved that National Socialism was the way forward; none could stand against Skorzeny, they’d claimed, because he was a true follower of Adolf Hitler. 

And how many of those stories
, Gudrun asked herself,
were made up of whole cloth
?

Hilde held up a hand.  “If there's one, as Gudrun said, there will be others,” she said.  “And Martin could be among the dead.”

“Let’s assume that’s true,” Leopold said.  “What do we do about it?”

“What
can
we do?” Isla Grasser asked.  “It isn't as if we have any
real
power.”

“The first thing we do is try and find out how widespread this is,” Gudrun said.  She'd need more than a single wounded SS trooper to convince people that
something
was very badly wrong.  “We all know people who are serving in South Africa.  I want you all to ask questions, to find out when those people last wrote to their families, to find out when they last had leave from the front.  We will
all
ask those questions.”

“Martin’s family won’t talk to me,” Hilde said.  “They don’t think I’d make a good housewife.”

Leopold snickered.  “Tell them you’re pregnant.”

Hilde glared at him.  “I’ve bled three times since he left,” she snarled.  “I don’t have any way to
convince
them I’m pregnant.”

Leopold turned red and started to splutter.  Gudrun winked at Hilde.  Sex education in the
Reich
was very limited, but they’d all been taught how their bodies worked and how to recognise a pregnancy.  She’d always found it amusing how men turned deaf whenever the subject of female issues cropped up, although she was privately sure that men talked about them in private.  Why not?  She and her girlfriends often poked fun at male foibles.

“You can just tell them that you’re worried about him,” she said.  “I think they’d appreciate that, you know.”

“I doubt it,” Hilde said.  She looked downcast for a long moment.  “They were trying to set him up with some brainless bitch who came top of the class in basic housewifery.”

“My mother is hardly brainless,” Gudrun said.  “And I don’t think anyone else has a brainless mother either.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Hilde said.

Gudrun shrugged.  “Are we all agreed on our first step?”

“Yeah,” Sven said.  “But tell me, Gudrun; what are we going to do if we discover there are
more
soldiers who’ve lost contact with their families?”

“Then we decide what to do,” Gudrun said.  She had half a plan already, but she needed them to understand what was going on before she could push them to commit to anything more than private discussions.  “You can all think about it while we’re gathering data and then we can decide what to do.”

“Escape to America,” Horst said, quietly.  “My brother says he isn't planning to come back after his period in America comes to an end.”

Gudrun sucked in her breath.  She'd applied for the chance to become an exchange student, but she wasn't particularly hopeful.  Even if she won one of the coveted slots, her parents would probably refuse to allow her to leave the country.  But if she was allowed to leave... would she return?  There was no shortage of whispered stories about students who tasted life in America, home of blue jeans, country music and freedom, and refused to come back to Germany.

“I don’t know,” she said.  Without one of the slots, it was unlikely she could get to Vichy France, let alone Britain.  She wouldn't have a travel permit, for one thing, and an unaccompanied teenage girl would raise eyebrows.  “We are supposed to be the smartest people in Germany.  I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“There were stories of student protests in America,” Isla said.

“Those students weren't at risk of being gunned down like rampaging
Gastarbeiters
,” Horst snapped.  “If we do anything with this information, we run a terrible risk.”

“Yes, we do,” Gudrun said.  She took a breath.  “Konrad was - is - an SS trooper - I know, some of you detested him for wearing the
Sigrunen
lightning bolts.  But he is a brave and decent man and he has been
betrayed
by the men he serves.  A dead war hero is meant to be given a hero’s funeral, a wounded war hero is meant to lack for nothing.  And yet, what does he have?  A hospital bed in a crowded ward and no hope of recovery, while his family thinks he’s still in South Africa!  What will they tell his family when he is due to return from the war?”

She took a breath, looking from face to face.  None of them had really known what they were getting into, not really.  They certainly hadn't realised what she intended to tell them.

“I’m not going to sit on my backside and do nothing,” she concluded.  “We are going to find out the truth and then we’re going to work out what to do with it.  It is our duty to our country. 
That
is what we are going to do.”

Chapter Seven

Schulze Residence/SS Safehouse, Berlin

20 July 1985

“Gudrun,” Liana Schulze called, as she opened the door.  “Have you heard anything from my brother?”

Gudrun felt a stab of guilt as she looked at the younger girl.  Liana was sixteen, on the verge of adulthood; hell, she could marry with her parents’ permission, if she didn't want to finish her final year of schooling.  And she’d always looked up to Gudrun, chatting happily to her about nothing in particular; Gudrun had always thought she’d make a good sister-in-law.  But she didn't dare tell the younger girl the truth.  She’d speak to her father and he’d report Gudrun to the authorities.

“I haven’t heard anything from your brother,” she said.  It was true enough.  “I actually came to speak to your father.”

Liana’s face fell.  Gudrun understood.  She was the only child left in the house, now that Konrad had gone to war; she’d have no one to talk to, merely chores to perform for her mother.  And she had to have known, at some deep level, that Gudrun hadn't come to talk to
her.
  Gudrun was eighteen and a university student to boot.  Socially, they had very little in common.  They’d hardly spend time together when Konrad wasn't around.

“I understand,” she said.  “Are you...”

Pregnant
, Gudrun thought.  She hadn't gone all the way with Konrad. 
And it would have obvious that I was pregnant four months ago, if I
was
pregnant.

“No, but I do need to speak to him,” she said.  “Is he in his study?”

“I think so,” Liana said. 

She held the door open long enough for Gudrun to step inside and then closed it before leading the way through the living room and up to the door of Volker Schulze’s study. It was firmly shut, perhaps locked; Liana tapped on the door and waited for her father to invite her in before opening the door.  Gudrun stepped past her and into the study.

“Gudrun,” Volker Schulze said.  He lifted an eyebrow as he turned to face her.  “What brings you to my house?”

Gudrun hesitated, bracing herself.  Volker Schulze had always made her a little nervous, even though she had the feeling that
her
father was meant to make
Konrad
nervous.  He looked like an older version of his son, his face marred by scars from a long career in the SS before he’d retired and found work as a factory foreman.  His study was covered with mementos of his career, from a spiked helmet he’d salvaged from somewhere to a pistol he claimed to have taken from a British commando team in North Africa.  A large chart hung on the far wall, showing the spread of the
Reich
. 

And just how much of that chart
, Gudrun asked herself,
is a lie
?

She pushed the question to one side.  “Since we last spoke, I haven’t heard anything from Konrad,” she said, simply.  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from him yourself.”

Volker Schulze looked pensive.  “I haven’t heard anything, no,” he said.  Gudrun trusted he wouldn't have kept anything from her, if he
had
heard something.  “Do you have reason to worry?”

“I miss him,” Gudrun said.

“Young men have always gone to war,” Volker Schulze said, as reassuringly as he could.  “I believe that young women like you have always waited for their heroes to come home.”

Gudrun winced before she could catch herself.  One thing that
had
been hammered into her head at school was the importance of remaining faithful.  A girl who dumped a boy while he was on deployment could expect to be a social pariah, even if the boy had been abusive and beaten her while they were together.  Even if there
had
been someone else, she knew, it would have been cruel to dump Konrad while he was away.  She would have waited for him to come home before telling him the bad news.

“But I’ve heard
nothing
,” she said, plaintively.  Perhaps it would cover her lapse.  “Where
is
he?”

“On deployment,” Volker Schulze said.  He stood and patted her shoulder, awkwardly.  “I was often out of touch for months at a time, Gudrun.  Konrad may well be in the same position.”

He paused.  “Are you...?”

“No,” Gudrun said, firmly.  She groaned inwardly, resisting the urge to rub his nose in how she
knew
she wasn't expecting a baby.  “I’m not pregnant.”

“That’s good,” Volker Schulze said.  “Gudrun, I understand how you feel, but Konrad isn't choosing not to write to you.  I believe he will contact you as soon as he can.  He does love you and we, his parents,
approve
of you.”

Gudrun felt another stab of bitter guilt.  Hilde wasn't atypical; parents, particularly those who had lived through the deprivation of the war, wanted their sons to marry good housewives, women who could cook, clean and bear their grandchildren.  They didn't want academics, career women or even the handful of girls who’d made a career in the military; they assumed, perhaps correctly, that such women would never let their husbands boss them around in public.  Konrad’s parents could easily have told him that they would never approve his relationship with Gudrun and the hell of it was that they might have had a point.  Instead, they’d welcomed her into their house.

“I thank you,” she said, lowering her gaze.  “Have you heard anything else from the front?”

Volker Schulze gave her a sharp look.  “What do you mean?”

“The news is always bland,” Gudrun said, carefully.  “I was wondering if you’d heard something a little more detailed.”

“There are endless skirmishes with the insurgents,” Volker Schulze said.  It wasn't much more than she could have deduced from the news broadcasts, reading between the lines.  “It may take longer than we had thought to defeat the niggers.”

Gudrun blinked.  “The news said it would only be a short commitment.”

Volker Schulze gave her a long considering look.  “There are people in my office,” he said, “who don’t really understand how the factory actually
works
.  Therefore, they make promises they cannot keep to people who are equally in the dark about what’s actually happening and rely on the managers on the ground to cover for their failings.”

It took Gudrun a moment to realise what he was trying to tell her.  If someone could be so out of touch in a small factory, and she had no trouble in believing it, how much
more
out of touch were the people in the
Reichstag
, the men who ran the country?  Had they started the war in South Africa because they believed, honestly believed, that victory would be no harder than baking a cake?

“I believe my daughter misses you,” Volker Schulze said, after a moment.  “You are, of course, quite welcome to visit any time you like.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gudrun said.  It wasn't
entirely
proper, but there would be a chaperone in the house if necessary.  “And I’m sorry...”

“For not being pregnant?”  Volker Schulze asked, dryly.  “I respect the
Reichsführer’s
feelings regarding the need to raise the next generation of German men, but I am enough of a traditionalist to believe that the happy couple should be married before they start producing children.  A child should know his father.”

Gudrun blushed, furiously.  No one would really care if she was a virgin or not on her wedding night, not when everyone would understand her giving herself to her boyfriend before he went off to the war.  The only real question would be if she’d had a child - and, if she had, what benefits the child could claim.  Konrad’s baby could draw an SS pension as well as state child support; hell, if she claimed he’d been planning to marry her - and his family would likely back her up - she could claim his SS pension as well.  But it was immaterial.  She’d never let him take off her panties, let alone go inside her...

“I agree,” she said, torn between an insane urge to giggle and a growing urge to just turn and run.  Talking to her mother about men had been quite bad enough.  “Please will you let me know the moment you hear anything?”

“I’ll call your house directly,” Volker Schulze promised. 

He escorted her to the door - there was no sign of his wife or daughter - and waved her through.  Gudrun gave him an impulsive hug, then hurried down the steps and back onto the road that led home.  She had several other people she wanted to talk to before night fell, before she was expected home to assist her mother with the cooking.  And then...

His family doesn't know
, she thought, as she walked past a handful of soldiers making their way to the barracks on the outskirts of the city.  She’d been sure of it, but it never hurt to make sure. 
They would have told me something if they’d heard anything.

She glanced at her watch, then turned the corner.  A couple of boys she'd known from her first house lived there; she’d played with them as a little girl, before they’d gone to school and emerged too stuck-up to play with girls.  They too had gone to the wars.  No one would mind if she asked after them, surely?  And one of them had been in the same unit as Hilde’s boyfriend.  It would be interesting to hear what they had to say.

***

Horst Albrecht knew, without false modesty, that he was a very smart young man.  Everyone had told him so, right from the day he’d entered upper schooling in Germanica and impressed his tutors with his intelligence.  Indeed, his family had been so proud of him that they’d entered him into the SS Academy two years before the normal application date; the SS, somewhat to Horst’s surprise, had accepted him without question.  It had taken him a while to see why his superiors might be interested in a spy who was barely old enough to shave.  But, by the time he’d graduated from one of the covert programs, he’d come to see the value of an agent who was
literally
eighteen years old.

“The university is a breeding ground for ideas,” his trainers had told him, when he’d finally passed the course.  Being a spy was far more than charging around like Otto Skorzeny, riding hot motorcycles and winning the hearts of beautiful women.  “Some of those ideas will be very bad.  Your task is to watch for those who spread bad ideas and report them.”

It hadn't been hard, at first.  Horst had entered the university with the 1984 class; he’d made friends, chatted happily to everyone and was generally well-liked by his peers.  The students didn't
want
to look beyond the surface, not when they were escaping a regimented existence for the first time in their lives.  Horst had no trouble making friends and generally being popular; hell, he’d even had a couple of girlfriends. 

He hadn’t expected
Gudrun
to be a troublemaker.  Even now, hours after he’d made his slow way to the SS safehouse - it doubled as a boarding house for students from Germany East, supervised by a grim-faced matron who provided all the explanation other students needed for why they weren't invited to the safehouse - he still couldn't quite believe it.  Gudrun was intelligent, true, and strikingly pretty; he might have dated her himself if she hadn't been involved with an SS trooper.  Her father was a policeman, her brother a soldier in the Berlin Guard... she hardly fitted the profile of a potential troublemaker.  There were few petty little resentments in her life, save for being born female...

And she could overcome most of those problems by being a good student
, Horst thought, as he opened the door into his apartment. 
A computer expert or rocket scientist would be worth her weight in gold, if she truly hated the thought of becoming a housewife
.

And yet, she’d said, quite clearly, that her boyfriend had been quietly shipped home, his wounds covered up.  Her concern - and her anger - was quite justified.

The apartment wasn't big, although it was vastly superior to the military barracks or slave pens for the
Untermenschen
in Germanica.  He dropped his bag on the bed, clicked the kettle on and prepared a mug of coffee.  He’d long since grown used to the idea of never touching a drop of alcohol, even on Victory Day.  Who knew
what
would come out of his mouth when he was drunk?  Once his drink was ready, he placed it on the bedside table and lay down to have a bit of a think.