Vengeance 10 (50 page)

Bethwig groped for a chair. Everything he had planned for, worked for, in spite of the ignorance and stupidity emanating from Berlin all these years, was crashing in a heap about him, owing again entirely to the same stupid, ignorant, grasping fools who put their own greed and desire for power ahead of the Reich. People like Walsch, Kammler, Heydrich, Himmler - he raged silently - they were the ones who had betrayed the Führer and Germany, and even now, in the fatherland’s death struggles, they were doing their best to twist the knife.

The agent pulled a chair around to face Bethwig. ‘Look here, I said I would help and I will. Walsch will not finish the interrogations before tonight. Even if one breaks, he still must break the others. One man’s testimony will not be sufficient to arrest someone of your stature. But even then, it will take time to get a warrant for your arrest. The teletype transmission lines have been broken. He will have to telephone to Berlin, persuade someone in Himmler’s office, if not the Reichsführer himself, to issue the warrants, and then they must be flown or driven here before he dare move. He cannot approach Kammler, as the general is counting on the V-Ten to restore his prestige with the Führer. If the rocket is successful, Walsch will not be able to touch you, so he must do so before it is launched.’

Bethwig took a deep breath. When he lit the cigarette offered by the Gestapo agent, his hands were rock-steady. Now that the first shock had passed, he was thinking clearly once more.

‘All right. You have obviously had time to think this through. What do you suggest?’

The agent lit his own cigarette and blew a stream of smoke towards the windows. ‘You must launch the rocket well in advance of the announced time.’

‘Impossible! The sequence is extremely complex and is dependent upon the completion of parallel activities. It can be delayed but not accelerated by more than a few minutes.’

The agent did not waste time arguing. ‘Then you must go about your business as usual. I’ll have a word with Hauptsturmführer Schulz who commands the SS security unit in Kammler’s absence. He and Walsch are at odds, and I am certain he’ll be most happy to make Walsch look bad. He is also in line for the position of aide to Kammler, which would mean a promotion and fat graft before the war ends.’

Bethwig nodded in an absent fashion, then glanced up sharply. ‘Look here, what’s your name?’

‘Prager, sir. Thomas Prager.’

Bethwig studied him a moment, noticing for the first time the thin scar that ran from his hairline, then down his left cheek, to end beneath his chin. Prager stood hunched slightly to one side. ‘Why are you doing this, Prager?’

The Gestapo agent looked momentarily abashed. ‘Until a year and a half ago I was a front-line soldier and proud to be so. Then I was wounded in Sicily. When I recovered, the army discharged me as unfit. My father had been a policeman in Hamburg before the war. He was killed in a bombing raid in 1943, but he still had many friends there. They needed men, and I was hired. A few months later I was transferred to the political police.’

His expression became angry, and he shook his head. ‘I don’t like what they have done to Germany, or the German people. I joined the Hitler Youth and the party at thirteen. But it’s all changed since the war. All the goals have been forgotten, all the good things. Now everyone is out for himself. The worst are the SS. After those army fools tried to murder the Führer, we were given lists of people to arrest. Most had nothing to do with the plotters. They were people who knew someone or had once been friends of, or even went to school with, others who had been arrested. Every name squeezed out by the Gestapo was added to the list and that person arrested. Trials were a farce. The accused were rarely allowed to defend themselves. Those who were not sentenced to death were sent to concentration camps. I escorted many such, and I can tell you that when the war ends, the German people will see how we have been disgraced.’

Prager was silent a moment. ‘Perhaps, if you succeed in this attempt to travel to the moon, you will show that not all Germans are like the SS, that we are still capable of great accomplishments.’

He stopped abruptly then, as if embarrassed, and went to the window. ‘Will this weather interfere with the launching?’

Bethwig stared after him, wondering how many other people there were like him in Germany. If they had only revealed themselves earlier, perhaps ... But then, Himmler was a shrewd enough judge of human nature to understand that. His answer to such a threat was the systematic terror that his SS and Gestapo had unleashed. Why had the Führer not stopped him? he wondered; and then the old rumours of Heydrich’s files filtered back. Perhaps they are true, he thought. Even the Führer could be afraid of such men.’

‘Why did the Englishman come to Peenemunde?’

The Gestapo agent turned to rest against the windows and rubbed his head against the cold glass as if to relieve a headache. ‘Only rumours so far. I was told that one of the people helping him, a woman and a German national, confessed that this Major Memling had been sent to try and persuade you, Doktor von Braun and the scientific staff to revolt against the SS and defect to England. Foolishness! But that is what Walsch believes, or wants to believe. The man was probably sent to sabotage the V-Ten project.’

Bethwig wondered. He lit another cigarette but said nothing more. He suspected that Walsch was closer to the truth than he knew, and if so, all of them were in real danger. Himmler could very well be persuaded to carry out his threat to shoot all scientific personnel. Wernher was convinced that he was badly frightened of their capture by the Russians. Something would have to be done, but what?

The interior was pitch-black. There was no sound. They designed it this way, he told himself over and over until it became a chant. They designed it this way to make you concentrate on your own terror. Memling gagged and tried to vomit again, but his stomach was empty and the retching went on and on. When the spasm subsided, he lay back on the wet cement floor and tried to breathe through his nose.

It was a set-up, Memling thought for the hundredth time. They were waiting; the SS troops rose, seemingly from the ground, as he was gathering his parachute. Within seconds he and the three Germans were disarmed, handcuffed, blindfolded, and pushed and kicked towards waiting lorries. The Germans even knew how many of them there would be, as there were exactly four empty lorries.

They were driven for what seemed like hours over rough tracks before the lorries stopped and they were taken one by one inside. Blinded by the lights, he was stripped and searched, photographed and fingerprinted, then taken naked into an administrative area where three female clerks had giggled and darted glances at him as he was shoved on to a hard bench and ignored for an hour or more before a door opened and a tall, very gaunt man in a black, ill-fitting civilian suit emerged. Memling went rigid.

‘Major Jan Memling, I believe. We have met before, if you recall. Twice in fact. You worked for your secret service, MI-Six, at the time. At our first meeting you jumped from a train to avoid a conversation with me. The second time you ran away from a very fine position in Liege.’ He chuckled. ‘Unfortunately you do not have those options this time.’

Memling remembered the skeletal figure unfolding from a seat to pursue him through a crowded train racing towards the Belgian border, a grinning death’s-head leering at him from across a scaffolding in a factory yard. He rarely dreamed, but for the past seven years he had endured nightmares in which Walsch’s face predominated.

‘My name, in case you have forgotten, is Major Jacob Walsch, of the Secret State Police Office, Division Three. I would suggest that a great deal of time and pain can be spared if you are prepared to co-operate and answer my questions.’

Memling nodded, fearful that his voice would betray his terror. ‘Good. Then perhaps you will tell me about your mission here on Peenemunde - most particularly, the names of the three traitors who agreed to assist you, and any others of whom you may have knowledge?’

‘My name,’ Memling began, speaking softly to disguise the tremor, ‘is Jan Memling. My rank is major, Royal Marines. My identification number is S5698034. I am a member of the regular military establishment of the United Kingdom and, as such, am entitled to the treatment accorded to prisoners of war under terms of the Geneva Convention.’

‘That may well be true, Major Memling. But you must realise that you have forfeited all rights to such protection, as you are out of uniform.’ Walsch chuckled at his own joke. ‘I suppose you will make the usual protest that your clothing was taken from you, and so it was. I did instruct my people to make certain that it was properly labelled and stored. I can show you if you wish, but you will find, I am afraid, that they are still civilian clothes. In any event, Peenemunde is not a military installation but a secret research centre owned and operated by the SS and therefore not subject to civil or military law. I might also add that I have had a request from the local SS commander to have you released to their custody. It seems they wish to settle an old score.’

Memling had expected nothing else when they had taken his uniform away. He strove not to allow his fear to show.

‘I am concerned most with three traitorous German citizens,’ Walsch continued, ‘arrested while aiding an enemy of the Reich. I intend to root out and eliminate the rest of their pack. You can spare yourself a great deal of pain, very severe pain, and perhaps even death, if you co-operate. You will have time to think the matter over while I discuss the situation with your comrades.’

As Walsch turned back into his office, Memling was yanked to his feet and hustled down a bare corridor to a heavy wooden door. A uniformed guard unlocked it, and he was shoved inside. The door slammed shut, and Memling sank down on his haunches, enduring the recurring waves of fear that washed over him with an intensity he had never known before.

The cell door was opened without warning, and two guards jerked him up and dragged him out into a small yard. Floodlights glared at each corner of the enclosure. Against the building stood two uniformed SS men with rifles slung. Opposite, a badly chipped brick wall edged the yard. At first its significance did not register, but then Memling realised that the scars and chips had been made by bullets and that the two soldiers were executioners. The omnipresent fear receded for a moment; they were going to shoot him immediately, rather than subject him to torture. An emotion approaching gratitude swept through him. Memling took a deep breath, bracing himself as he was pushed against the wall.

It was dark; an entire day must have passed since he had been dragged into the prison at dawn. Rain spattered intermittently, and he shivered horribly in the freezing cold. A dull roaring noise puzzled him; it came from beyond the wall, advancing and receding, but he could not identify the sound even though he concentrated with all the intensity at his command. What were they waiting for? he screamed silently.

An eternity passed before the door opened again and Walsch appeared. He stopped in the centre of the yard and glanced at the riflemen, then at the half-frozen man drooping against the wall. He smiled and motioned towards the building.

A non-commissioned officer pushed something sprawling into the mud. He bent, grabbed a handful of hair, yanked and ran across the yard to slam the figure against the wall beside Memling. Only then did Memling see that it was the woman. Shock coursed through him at the sight of her. Blood streamed from several places beneath her hair. Skin had been flayed from her back and buttocks, and there were burn marks on her breasts and abdomen. She was only half-alive, and they had to fasten a chain around her neck to hold her upright. For a moment she looked at Memling; there was no recognition in her eyes, only the starkest, staring terror.

Walsch had sauntered over then. ‘You may be interested to know, Major Memling, this piece of swine flesh has told us everything.’ He drew deeply on his cigarette, then reached out and yanked the woman’s chin up. ‘As a reward, we are going to give her a surcease from her labours. She has worked quite hard, you know. And it shows.’ He laughed. ‘Pity. She was rather attractive. My men appreciated that.

‘Ah well, as we no longer need her services, of any kind ...’ He chuckled at his joke and nodded to the unterscharführer who slowly drew his pistol.

The woman’s eyes fastened on his movements, and in spite of what must have been terrible pain, she mouthed over and over again, ‘No, please, no.’

The unterscharführer raised the pistol and brought it down to rest on the bridge of her nose. The chain collar prevented her from twisting her head away, and the man smiled and pulled the trigger. There was a loud click, and feigning astonishment, the SS man turned to Walsch who shook his head in mock dismay.

‘Once again, Unterscharführer.’

The performance was repeated, and again there was a loud click. Memling lost his head then, dived for the sergeant, and was clubbed to the ground by his guard. Walsch knelt and twisted his head around, forcing him to watch.

‘Once again, please.’

The woman had collapsed against the chain and was choking. The unterscharführer slid a magazine home, racked the breech back, and gently held the woman up while he aimed the pistol once more and pulled the trigger. The gun went off this time, and blood spattered Memling. The bullet had shattered her skull, and she slipped through the chain into a crumpled heap.

Walsch smiled down at him. ‘Perhaps it will be your turn next. Are you strong enough to endure what she did?’

Twice more, at long intervals, Memling was dragged forth to witness similar executions. Each time, Walsch smiled at him around his cigarette and promised that his turn was next.

The countdown stood at minus six hours. Bethwig turned away from the controller’s ready board, crossed the room, and stepped out into the windblown night. The sea air eased his headache, and he lit a cigarette, ignored by the SS guard huddling in the corner of the entryway for shelter from the wind.