Agent of Death (24 page)

‘
Your
government?’ he said. ‘But what about the Americans? That’s what Herr Svart wants! He wants an agreement with the Americans to stop the Russians. It must be the Americans because they have the uranium bomb. Only they can influence the Russians. He has much to offer in exchange. The Mem Tav weapon, complete with counter-measures, is perfected. It is cheap to make. It can be delivered in many ways and our South American brothers are already …’

“Ah!” I thought …
with its countermeasures
…
South American brothers
… but that bloody Brunhilde interrupted.

‘Herr General!” she cried,  ‘With utmost respect, sir. Please say no more.’ She’d stepped forward; she was glaring at me in hatred while Schulinger stood, profoundly puzzled, and licked his lips with an old man’s tongue. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘we need proof from this man. We need written proof. No such signal as he describes has been received here, and we have had no further orders from The One.’ She looked at her girls and at the tecchies. They all shook their heads.

‘And who are you?’ I said to her.

‘Altemann,’ she said. ‘
Führerin
,
Nachrictenhelferin
SSA.’ Which formidable, Teutonic mouthful meant that she was a sort of sergeant in the SSA’s version of the Women’s Intelligence-Assistant Service. She was only a ‘sort of’ sergeant, because – like all German women in uniform – she wasn’t actually in their armed forces, unlike the British WAAFs, Wrens, and WAACs who were in the King’s service, and counted legally as combatants. Our girls were, but the maidens of Hitler’s Reich were not. The Nazi ideal was that they should stay at home with their hair in plaits, breeding hordes of fat, blond babies for the Fatherland. Thus those that were in uniform were perceived by the Hun as female civil servants whom the bold German soldier must protect and cherish.

So it spoilt the image somewhat that
Führerin
Altemann was as tall as me, had shoulders like a lumberjack, a chin like a brick, and was bellowing loudly at Schulinger. ‘Herr General,’ she said, ‘there is no proof that any signal, or any approach from the British government has been sent to this station. We cannot believe what this Englishman says and must assume he is attempting a deception.’ And there she stood: a strong, hard woman with a strong, hard face. She was the one who shot Bambi’s mother and proud of it. But she’d just given me two more pieces of information.

First, she had the same soft, melodic accent as Schulinger; the same accent as Grauber the Arado pilot. And there was something else, something uncanny like the uneasy, creepish feeling you get from looking a madman in the eye. Fraulein Altemann had just referred to Abimilech Svart as ‘The One’ –
Der
Einziger
in German – and I realized that when I’d spoken to Grauber and thought he’d asked about Goering, it hadn’t been Goering at all. I’d mistaken the word. He hadn’t said
Der
Eisener
– The Iron Man – which was Goering’s nickname. He’d said
Der
Einziger
, like Altemann had just had, and that means The One, which sounded religious. So just what did these people think of Svart? No wonder they were loyal to him.

Meanwhile I had an idea. I ignored Altemann and spoke to Schulinger. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I will immediately contact our High Command for the proof you need. But first I will need help from a fluent English speaker.’ I looked round the room and switched to English. ‘Who speaks English here?’ I said, and got silence. ‘I need a good English speaker. It’s very important. Herr Svart’s safety depends on it.’ More silence. So I was safe to speak to Leonard in English.

‘See those gorgets they’re wearing round their necks?’

He looked. ‘The things on chains?’ he said.

‘Yes. They’re SSA gorgets. They’re like our identity discs. They have name, rank, and number on them. I’m going out of the room, and when I go out, get your lads to collect all the gorgets, and bring them to me.’

‘Will do,’ he said.

‘And see those bods?’ I nodded at the tecchies.

‘Yes.’

‘Get them away from all the rest. Put them in room somewhere, because I don’t want that Altemann woman talking to them – and keep their gorgets apart from the rest too, so we know whose they are, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then we’ll have a look at the gorgets outside.’

He wasted no time. He just nodded. He was good at what he did.

So I switched right back to German. ‘Herr General,’ I said to Schulinger.

‘Herr Brigadier?’

‘I shall get what you need, sir,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile my men will need to record your identities, so we must collect your gorgets.’

Before he could speak I turned to Leonard. ‘Carry on!’ I said, in English. ‘And see you outside as soon as can be.’

‘
Suh
!’

Fifteen minutes later, outside the long gallery, I told Leonard and his officers what had gone on inside, and we had all the bronze-enamel SSA gorgets laid out on a table. There were twenty of them and I turned them over so we could see the identity information on the back. I felt a sudden bumping from my heart as I saw something else, and I separated the gorgets into two lots, one larger than the other. Leonard and his chaps watched over my shoulder.

‘Look,’ I said, and I pointed to the bigger pile. ‘Standard SSA gorgets, with name, rank, number, and blood group.’ They nodded. I pointed to the smaller pile: just four gorgets. ‘Now look at these,’ I said, and I touched them, one at a time. ‘This one’s Schulinger’s, the general. This one’s from the lovely Miss Altemann. This one’s from one of the colonels. And finally this one’s from the tecchies.’ I laid the four gorgets in a row. ‘And look here, every one of them has a capital letter K, as well as the other info, and I think it stands for Karoling.’

‘What’s that?’ said Leonard.

‘It means the elite of the elite of the elite,’ I said. ‘Abimilech Svart grew up among a set of religious nuts called the Karolings. Svart founded the SSA as an elite within the SS, and within the SSA I think anyone who is a Karoling is special.’ I looked at Leonard. ‘Remember that man Grauber I told you about?’

He nodded. ‘The one the Russians couldn’t break?’

‘Him,’ I said, ‘he had this K on his gorget. And I think it means he’s a Karoling, which means a super-fanatic, super-loyal, death-or-glory boy, who’d kiss Svart’s bumhole and never wash his lips again.’ I looked down and pushed the K-stamped gorgets to one side. ‘So we forget all this lot. I’ve probably gone as far as I can with them. I bet that big blonde is pouring words in Schulinger’s ear right this very minute, and we haven’t got much time, so what I want to do now is get all the rest out of that control room, and concentrate on the three technical types that don’t have the letter K by their names.’ I looked down and read out their names: ‘Heinz Kahler, Irmgard Schuster, and Margarethe Baumann.’ I tapped a finger on the gorgets. ‘They’re going to send a lovely radio signal to Herr Abimilech Svart in his U-boat, and get him to send one back.’

CHAPTER 29

The
Führerboat,

The
North
Atlantic.

Saturday
3 June
,
08
.
20
hours.

Weber did what he was good at. He stayed calm when others didn’t. He gave orders and made decisions. He did so even as other men yelled in terror, unmanned by the alien world of a pitch-black compartment in a submarine, wallowing horribly from an explosion that shook every seam in the boat, and set the monstrous, improvised, untried craft groaning and creaking as the beams that held its tubes together wrenched at their welded sockets and tried to rip open the four hulls and let in the ocean.

‘Shut up!’ he yelled, hanging on to the edge of a bunk. ‘It’s just the lights. They’ll come on again. The boat’s safe!’ Since the ocean didn’t come in and the boat steadied, they believed him. ‘Good,’ said Weber to the silence, and his memory pictured who was where in the compartment. ‘Sergeant Müller,’ he said.

‘Sir,’ said a voice in the black darkness.

‘Are you sitting on your bunk?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Listen to me.’

‘Sir.’

‘Swing your legs over the side and keep your back to the wall – the bulkhead.’

‘Sir.’ Müller moved.

‘The hatch to this compartment is now to your right. Do you understand?

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So, get out of your bunk, and feel your way to your right along the bunks.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then you will find the hatchway, and an emergency torch is clipped to the wall to the right of the hatch.’

‘Sir.’

‘Get it! Turn it on.’

Weber heard the rustle of Müller’s clothes, the scrape of his boots, and distantly other sounds from far away in the huge boat. Faint machine sounds, even voices, and the faintest of echoes of the explosion coming from far away in the sea, and creaks, and …

‘Ah!’ cried every man in the compartment, as Müller turned on the torch.

‘Good!’ said Weber, and looked at the rows of white faces gleaming in the light. The compartment was brutally simple: a row of three-tier bunks on either side of a walkway. The rest of the tube had a galley, toilets, five huge storage compartments, and a battery deck running the whole length below, and he and his men were in the undersea bunk-house in the middle of the rest. He looked at Müller – Zapp’s replacement – not as good a man as Zapp, but younger and bigger, and desperately eager to fill the sergeant major’s boots. ‘Good,’ said Weber again. ‘Now listen to me. This fuckin’ submarine is being sabotaged by the fuckin’ slavies, and the fuckin’ navy can’t stop it, and nor can one of our own officers neither, so we’re gonna sort it out, right?’

‘Yes, sir!’ they said.

‘Right. Sergeant Müller!’

‘Sir.’

‘The navy’s got guards on the hatches leading out of this tube, right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Müller.

‘So here’s what we’re gonna do with them …’

‘Ah!’ said everyone again as the main lights came on, and everyone smiled to see everything in detail: the familiar faces, the grey-painted bulkheads, the lockers, the cupboards, the pipes and conduits everywhere, the rows of bunks, the stacked helmets, greatcoats, and MP40s. It was immensely reassuring. Spirits lifted. Men breathed deep and who could blame them? Nobody wants to be trapped in the dark inside a dead submarine.

‘Good,’ said Weber. ‘So the navy knows how to mend a fuse!’ The men laughed. They liked Weber. He was a man. He got things done. ‘So listen,’ he said, ‘this has all got to be quiet, and done without guns …’

*

‘What’s he doing?’ said Sohler, and raised his voice. ‘Stop work all hands! Pass the word!’ The command went from compartment to compartment.

‘Stop work!’

‘Stop work!’

‘Stop work!’

So everyone stopped and listened. They wouldn’t hear much otherwise. Everywhere there were leaks and sparks, instruments failed, and clutter was shaken out of its resting places, because a submarine’s stores are everywhere for everything: tins and packets, boxes and jars, biscuits and cheese, surgical dressings, and condensed milk. Of sheer, life-saving necessity, the repairs had to be completed and the mess cleared away, and that meant tools and noise. It was like that in every compartment. So everyone stopped work and listened, but they heard nothing more from Feldman in the flooded bow.

‘Carry on!’ said Sohler, and the word was passed and the noise resumed.

‘At least he’s still alive,’ said Kuhnke. ‘I definitely heard his boots after the explosion. He’s still moving about.’

‘But he hasn’t flooded another tube,’ said Sohler, ‘and there are two more to go.’

‘Could the equipment be damaged?’ said von Bloch. ‘Or jammed in some way?’

‘We can’t know,’ said Sohler, but they discussed the matter so intently that they heard nothing until one of the planes men, at his wheel, turned in his chair and cried out from where he sat just aft of Sohler’s command post by the periscope housings.

‘Sir,’ he said, and Sohler, Kuhnke, and von Bloch turned to see Weber creeping forward from the hatch into the galley. There were two blackshirt SSA troopers immediately behind him; they went barefoot for silence. Each was holding a bayonet and more blackshirts were behind them, and the U-boatsmen and slavies were falling back out of their way. Sohler filled up with anger.

‘What the hell are you doing here!’ he said, and turned to von Bloch and pointed at Weber. ‘Get that man out of my control room! We have an agreement! Your men in your tubes, my men in ours!’

Von Bloch stood straight. He was as angry as Sohler. Even more so. He’d given his word. ‘Weber!’ he said. ‘Get out of here. That is an order!’

‘Shut your fuckin’ gobs, all of you!’ said Weber, and looked back. ‘Bring him in here,’ he said. ‘Now!’ A slavie was dragged forward from out of the galley: Gavriel Landau, number 416. Two SSA troopers pulled him forward and forced him to kneel, as two other blackshirts leapt forward and seized Sohler by the arms, while a third pulled open Sohler’s Tommy blouse and fumbled inside it.

‘Got it, sir,’ he said to Weber, holding up a PPK pistol.

‘Check the other one,’ said Weber, but they couldn’t get directly at Kuhnke because Sohler was in the way, and Kuhnke had time to pull his own pistol and aim it straight at Weber.

‘Get back!’ he yelled.

‘Grab him!’ said Weber. ‘He’s not gonna shoot in here. They’re scared to!’

The blackshirt with the pistol stuffed it into a pocket and went for Kuhnke, with the two who’d grabbed Sohler right behind him, and there was a short, ugly fight as Sohler leapt on one blackshirt the instant they let go his arms, and punched and kicked with all his strength, and the two fell struggling to the deck.

‘Come on lads!’ yelled a Kriegsmarine petty officer, and Sohler’s men fell on the blackshirts; there was stabbing and kicking and gouging, which the tough SSA with their bayonets would easily have won, except that the submariners outnumbered them in the control room, and kicked the hell out of the man trying to stab their captain. Weber and von Bloch were yelling at each other and the two men grabbed Kuhnke and fought for the pistol … with the result that three deafening, appalling concussions battered men’s minds as Kuhnke’s pistol went off in the cramped, metal space where the shock waves had no way to escape, and stabbed into human ears with stunning force. It wasn’t the crack of pistol-fire, it was the crack of doom, and three bullets clanged and banged their way around the control room, each one just a fifth of an ounce of lead and nickel and the length of a man’s fingernail, but each one going eight hundred miles an hour with such murderous fury that it was a miracle only two men were hit.

One of the blackshirts hanging on to Kuhnke took an already flattened, battered, and slowed-down bullet in the thick of his shoulder where it beat like a hammer and barely penetrated the skin but numbed the arm, so he let go of Kuhnke who shook off the other man – who was dazed like everyone else – and Kuhnke stepped back, still holding the pistol, master of the field since the only other firearm was in the tunic-pocket of the blackshirt who’d been hit on the shoulder and, before all others, Kuhnke aimed at him.

‘Nobody move!’ cried Kuhnke. ‘None of you bastard blackshirts, ’cos I’ll shoot the first man that moves!’ And they did stand still, all of them. They stood gasping and panting and stunned by the pistol shots. There was a moment of quiet when nothing happened other than a search for wounds and injuries by those who’d received them and, fortunately for them, finding that mostly the wounds were not serious.

But Manfred-Erik, the
Freiherr
von Bloch, had been hit by a bullet that was not spent. Bouncing from its last ricochet it struck an inch below his navel and failed to emerge on the other side, having delivered its remaining energy within von Bloch’s body. At the moment of impact, von Bloch didn’t fall or even think much damage had been done. He just felt slightly sick, and sat down in the planes man’s vacant chair and examined the wound. His fingers came away with blood on them, though not much because the entry wound was so small. But von Bloch was an old soldier and knew what such a wound must mean.

So he seized his moment in the silence, forced himself to stand, and made a speech, and the speech was listened to by exhausted men who were already ashamed of what they had done, and who were impressed by a man whose voice was the authentic sound of authority, so correct in all its expression and so beautifully and poetically German. He spoke well, and was most happy to do so because much of what was happening on this monster vessel with its monster weapon was becoming sickeningly distasteful to von Bloch, and he was hungry for the old virtues, and the old certainties. So he spoke from the heart, seeking to crush even his own doubts, which were now great and growing greater.

‘This must stop!’ said von Bloch. ‘It must stop now. We are comrades. We are brothers in arms. We are in our country’s service in time of its uttermost need. We are all that stands between the Fatherland and the menace from the east.’ He looked round the control room. He let them think about that. ‘Therefore I say that if we raise our hands against one another, we are shamed before our folk, our blood, and our history.’ He paused again. ‘If any man disagrees, let him speak now.’ There was profound silence because von Bloch was touching the roots of their beliefs. Men were listening even in other compartments. ‘So,’ he said, and looked at Sohler. ‘Herr Captain?’ he said.

‘Herr
Freiherr
?’ said Sohler, instinctively giving the title.

‘Can this boat carry our Mem Tev weapon within range of New York so that we can fire, and allow Herr Svart his chance to negotiate with the Americans?’

‘Yes, Herr
Freiherr
.’

Von Bloch turned to Weber. ‘You have heard the captain? You have listened with respect? You agree that nothing must interfere with our mission?’

Weber struggled within his mind; a mind still stirred with anger, but it was a simple mind with few byways, and he was persuaded. ‘Yes, Herr
Freiherr
,’ he said.

‘Then what have you to contribute to our mission? You have come to the control room with something to say. So now let us hear it, and we in our turn shall listen to you with respect.’ He looked at Sohler to confirm this. ‘Do you agree, Captain? That we shall listen to this officer with respect?’

Sohler’s mind was far from simple, but von Bloch was speaking obvious sense. ‘Yes, Herr
Freiherr
.’

‘Thank you,’ said Weber, and looked at one of his men. ‘Now, bring that slavie,’ he said, and Gavriel Landau was dragged to his feet. ‘Right!’ said Weber. ‘It’s all down to the slavies. Him and the other one – that Feldman – it’s them two that set off the …’

Clump … clump … clump …

‘Listen!’ cried Sohler, interrupting Weber. ‘He’s on the move again! Feldman’s moving again.’ Everyone listened and looked towards the bow. Everyone but Gavriel Landau, held by two SSA troopers, one on each arm. By chance he was standing within sight of the attack board. The operator’s chair was vacant and the board’s lights were on. Landau was not quite in this world. He was sunk into despair and left without hope. If it had been Weber’s aim to force information out of him, even with torture, Landau would have said nothing. He would simply have died and welcomed death. He was nearly dead already. Dead in spirit.

Then life stirred in Landau’s mind, because as everyone listened to Feldman’s boots in the torpedo compartment, Landau looked at the semi-functioning attack board where rows of lights – some live, some dead, some flickering – tried to show the condition of every torpedo in the boat, including those that had been fired, giving their condition when fired. Landau stared in fascination because, knowing how he and Feldman had rewired the attack board circuits, Landau could see what Feldman had done, and was trying to do now, all of which would have been impossible in a flooded compartment in a standard boat with standard Kriegsmarine equipment. But with the novel, waterproofed, electric/hydraulic SSA equipment, and with a uniquely gifted expert in electrical control mechanisms …