Hitler's Secret (3 page)

The girl settled herself behind the steering wheel and turned the key. The engine fired. This was always her treat at the end of the “blood run.” Judy allowed her to drive the last few miles back to her home, and now, after six months, she had become pretty good at it, it had to be said. Judy watched as she eased the car into first gear and pulled away from the bus stop where they always swapped over. She swiftly changed up to second and third with a hitch. She watched the needle on the speedometer flick up to fifty miles per hour and grinned. She loved being behind the wheel; it made her feel so grown-up, and there was the thrill of doing something illegal, too! Not that anyone cared — after all, young men only a few years older than her were being killed every minute.

“That’s it, duckie,” Judy said approvingly. “Feeling much smoother today.”

The sun was just beginning to drop when the girl turned the corner into the modest suburban road where she lived. She couldn’t resist accelerating the last hundred yards.

“Look out!” yelled Judy, and the girl had to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming the car parked outside her house. The car screeched to a halt, and Judy lurched forward.

“It’s practically the only other car in the street. You need your eyes tested, I swear,” she said, but she was smiling.

“Sorry, Judy,” the girl said. “See you next week.” She climbed out of the car, and Judy slid back behind the wheel.

The girl watched the car pull away, and only then did she study the blue Hudson outside the house. She knew all the different cars in London now. Hudsons were big American cars favored by the army and navy. This one had a navy pennant on one of its wings.

The girl hurried up the short path to her front door. A modest two-bedroom row house, with a vegetable patch and an Anderson air-raid shelter, which housed a zinc bath and an iron mangle to dry the clothes, it was a long way from their elegant villa in Vienna. No nanny, no maids. But it was home now. Their home.

The moment she opened the front door her two sisters, Zelda and Ruth, aged sixteen and eighteen, pulled her inside and quietly eased the door shut, their fingers on their lips.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

Zelda and Ruth were wide-eyed with excitement.

“
Es ist ein
admiral from the Royal Navy
in der Küche
,” hissed her second sister, Ruth, mixing her languages as she pointed to the room beyond the stairs. They had agreed to speak English at home, but Ruth had the most trouble keeping to this rule.

“Are you sure?” the girl said. It didn’t sound very likely, but there
was
the car outside.

“We’re sure. And he’s come to speak to you!” said Zelda. “He’s been in there with Mutti for over an hour.”

“Me?” said the girl. She was astonished.

“Well, go on,” said Ruth, giving her a shove towards the kitchen.

“All right,” said the girl. But she didn’t move. She was racking her brains trying to think why an admiral was calling to speak to a young Austrian refugee in Mill Hill. Nothing so dramatic had happened to them in the three years since their arrival in London. Well, except the Blitz, of course. But that had been terrifying rather than exciting.

“You’re not moving,” said Zelda.

“Stop bossing me, I’m going.”

She walked down the hall and knocked on the kitchen door. Mutti opened it almost immediately and stood looking at her with a grave expression. The girl glanced past her; she was taller than her mother now, having grown a good four inches in the last two years. A tall, thin man was standing in front of the small kitchen fire grate. He was wearing a dark three-piece suit, with
a gold watch chain hanging in two neat loops across the waistcoat. He smiled at the girl amiably, but his gray eyes were sharp.

“This is Admiral MacPherson,” said Mutti, shutting the door on Ruth and Zelda. “He is here to ask you something.” She sat in her usual place at the kitchen table, her hands tightly clasped and her lips pressed together. She was clearly agitated. The girl moved to the sink and remained standing.

“That is very valuable work you are doing for the Blood Transfusion Service, young lady,” MacPherson said. “And a first-class report from your school. Academic, good at languages, and a first-class runner, too, I see.” She noticed he was holding a small gray folder.

“Thank you, sir,” she replied, wondering what else was in the folder. “I enjoy the blood work. I mean … I am pleased to help after all Great Britain has done for us.”

“Good, we need all the help we can get right now. Which is the reason I am here. We would like you to do something even more important for the war effort.”

“Important but very dangerous. She’s just a girl, Admiral,” added her mother, sighing heavily.

“As you can imagine, your mother is understandably against your agreeing. However, she has consented to my asking you. So, do you wish to help?”

“Help with what?” the girl asked.

MacPherson smiled. “I like your bluntness. But in order
to tell you anything more, I must ask your mother to leave the room.”

“What?” exclaimed the girl’s mother, alarmed now.

“At present this matter is known only to myself, the prime minister, and a small number of highly trusted individuals. I can only speak of it to your daughter alone, subject to the Official Secrets Act.”

Mutti reddened. “I’m sorry. I have made a mistake in allowing you to speak to her. She is far too young for such things. Far too young!”

But the girl was intrigued. “It’s all right, Mutti. Let me hear what Admiral MacPherson has to say.”

Her mother shook her head but, even so, she got up and walked out of the room.

Now they were alone, MacPherson wasted no time.

“We want you to go to Germany, southern Germany, and bring back an item to England. Is that something you think you could do?”

“Go to Germany?” The girl stared at the admiral.

“Just for a few days. You would be helping the war effort enormously.” MacPherson added, “Helping your father and brothers, too, and all of your people left behind.”

The girl turned to the sink and found a glass resting on the drainer. She turned the tap on and filled the glass, then gulped it down. It gave her time to think.

It had been a little over three years since the packet ship from Copenhagen had docked at Tilbury, three years since she had last seen her brothers and her father. Saying good-bye to them at the border between Austria and Czechoslovakia on that fateful night in 1938 was the hardest thing she had ever done. They were supposed to have followed her mother, her sisters, and her to England, but nothing had been heard of them since.

She felt her heart racing. “What is the item?” she asked.

MacPherson studied her, as if trying to decide something. “A child,” he said at last.

The girl tried not to look surprised by his answer. A child? A child who was very important to the war effort? Now she felt even more intrigued. “Would I be going alone?”

“No. You would go with a boy, a German boy. And rest assured, you would be trained and prepared.”

The girl could hardly think. It was all so unexpected.

“There, I have laid the matter out for you,” he said. “I don’t mean to pressure you but I have two other candidates to see tonight.” He smiled lightly back at her.

That’s
exactly
what he meant to do
, she thought.
Pressure me
. “Two other candidates?” she said.

MacPherson nodded. “You happen to have the required qualities for this mission: You speak German and have the right character, as well as athletic and academic aptitude. But
I would be a fool if I had placed all my eggs in one basket, if you are familiar with that English expression?”

She wondered if he was calling her bluff. She stared at him, trying to work it out.

He met her gaze unwaveringly, then looked at his watch. “Well, I shall have to go, I think,” he said.

“Mutti,” she called out.

There was a pause and her mother returned to the kitchen, her face etched with worry.

“I have decided to help the admiral, Mutti.”

MacPherson smiled.

“I want to do something important for Father and the boys.”

It was just after seven in the morning, and the girl had been awake for two hours already. She’d arrived at Wanborough Manor the day before. It was a beautiful old house, perched on a part of the Surrey North Downs called the Hog’s Back. MacPherson had told her that the house had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Defense at the beginning of the war and was now one of the main training establishments for Special Operations.

Special Operations
: She turned the words over in her thoughts as she took in the large, empty dining room. She couldn’t quite believe that she was a part of it. Not yet.

Her room was right up in the eaves, and it had taken her almost the whole of yesterday to find her way around the rambling rooms and staircases. She’d hardly set eyes on anyone, except for one or two Royal Marines, who paid her no attention.
A member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service — Wrens, as they were known — had been there to meet her and settle her in, and then she, too, had disappeared after supper. Perhaps the Wren and the marines would be training her? She also hadn’t seen MacPherson since he had dropped her off.

Suddenly the door opened and a boy walked in. He was tall and quite thin, with brown eyes. His hair was wet and rather disheveled, as if he’d washed it quickly. He stopped short when he saw her, and his cheeks colored a little. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Hello,” he said evenly.

“Hello,” she replied.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m your sister.” She smiled at his look of confusion and surprise.

“What on earth are you talking about?” the boy said. His English was very good, hardly a trace of a German accent.

“I’m ‘Leni,’ your sister. And you’re ‘Otto.’”

“Otto? Who told you my name was Otto?” She could see he was beginning to get rattled.

“I did.” MacPherson was standing in the doorway. “From now on you are the Fischer family from Salzburg.” He handed them each a buff-colored file, and plucked a piece of toast from the rack. “I realize this is throwing you both in at the deep end, but time is rather short. You’ll find your Reich passports and other items of identification inside the folders.”

The girl looked at the cover of the file that bore her new name. Leni Fischer. She knew she’d have to get used to it. She flipped open the folder and withdrew a gray passport. She stared at her photograph on the inside page. A good German, a Nazi now. And nearly nine months older than her real age. Fifteen at last. The Reich’s eagle was stamped across the picture, its talons holding a swastika.

She felt a familiar wave of fear return to her stomach. Living in England for the last three years had somehow blunted the feeling she had whenever she saw this hateful emblem. But now her mind flashed back to Vienna, her home, and to the Nazis parading down the street at night with their torches, their chants, and, most of all, their swastika banners held high. She closed the passport, dropped it on the table.

“It looks real,” she said.

“That’s because it is,” MacPherson said, ignoring her look of revulsion. “We’ve secured a source in Berlin who can supply us with anything we need in the way of identification. All the necessary stamps and inks, blank passports, the whole shooting match. Look at the rest of the stuff.”

Reluctantly Leni took out a series of documents from the folder: a membership card for the
Bund Deutscher Mädel
— the League of German Girls — and certificates for athletics and dressmaking, all made out in Leni Fischer’s name, with
her photograph where it was required. From a despised
Jude
to one of the master race. She glanced at the boy, her so-called brother. He was looking at the documents intently, but his expression was unreadable.

“Your father, Kurt Fischer, was a captain with the Afrika Korps under General Rommel in Libya. KIA, unfortunately,” said MacPherson.

“KIA?” asked Leni.

“Killed in action. Your mother is at home in Salzburg, suffering from the bereavement. Greta is her name. She has sent you to visit your godmother while she deals with her grief. All the details are contained in these files, and I would ask you to study them carefully and commit them to memory.”

“Do these people really exist?” the boy asked.

“Physically, no, Otto,” replied MacPherson. “Officially, absolutely. Again with a little help from Berlin, you will find birth certificates, medical and army records, electoral registers, Nazi memberships, Gestapo record cards, everything that establishes the existence of the Fischer family beyond any shadow of doubt.” He watched them look through the other documents. “I understand it must be strange to be these people all of a sudden.”

“To be perfect Nazis, you mean,” blurted Leni. She could feel her face reddening.

“You’ll get used to it,” said MacPherson.

“I will never get used to it, thank you.” She knew her voice had risen, and felt close to tears.

“I’m sorry, that was not what I meant.” MacPherson seemed taken aback.

There was an awkward silence.

“Well then, Leni and Otto Fischer, finish your breakfast. We’ll meet in the drawing room at nine o’clock. The briefing will continue then.” MacPherson swallowed down the last of his toast with a great gulp of tea, and left the room.

“Are you all right?”

Leni glanced up. The boy was looking at her with something like concern. She stuffed the documents back into the buff envelope.

“I’m fine,” she said, but she felt angry and afraid and not remotely all right.

“The second island on the lake is known as Fraueninsel, and on it is a Benedictine convent. The child is being held there.”

MacPherson was speaking in the darkened drawing room. The curtains had been drawn and a large screen erected in front of the marble fireplace. A projectionist stood at the back of the room. Leni and Otto were sitting next to each other on a leather sofa, staring at the grainy black-and-white image. The old sofa slumped in the middle, pushing them together like some inanimate matchmaker. Leni could feel Otto’s leg
pressing lightly against hers. She concentrated on the photograph. The nunnery was an ancient-looking stone building with an onion-shaped bell tower.

“Her room is on the fourth floor of the west side of the main building.” MacPherson paused. “Any questions?”

The briefing had begun after breakfast and it was now half past ten. Their mission was straightforward, in theory. They were to be parachuted into southern Bavaria in order to rescue a nine-year-old girl from the convent where she was being held. They were then to get the child as quickly as possible to a rendezvous point at Lake Constance — or the Bodensee — on the Swiss border. There the admiral would be waiting with a plane to fly them all back to England.

There was one question she wished to ask.

“I have a question, sir,” Otto said, just as Leni was about to speak.

“Yes, Otto?” MacPherson was addressing them by their cover names at every opportunity. It was vital, he said, that they become second nature as soon as possible.

“Why me, I mean …” Otto shot a glance at Leni. “… why us? We’re …” He hesitated, looking for the right word. “… untrained.”

“You’re right to ask,” MacPherson said. “In the normal course of events, we would choose to send in two adult agents, ideally a man and a woman. With the child, they could pose as
a family traveling together. But this, we feel, is an obvious cover. We believe that, in the event of the authorities searching for the girl, three children traveling together will attract the least attention and suspicion. In addition, although we have plenty of French, Flemish, and even Dutch agents to call upon — and we’re sending them across into those countries as we speak — the truth is, we simply have very few suitable German agents. The Reich has agents in this country whose job it is to report on any natural-born German or Austrian they can find. We believe you two have slipped through their net.”

Leni nodded. It made sense now to her. But her heart had skipped a beat at the mention of a hunt by the “authorities.”

“But,” said MacPherson, staring down at the two of them, “let me make this clear: We also happen to believe that both of you have what it takes to carry out this mission. If we didn’t think that, then you wouldn’t be sitting here. Simple as that.”

Leni found herself smiling self-consciously, a little embarrassed by the gruff compliment. She glanced at Otto, but he was staring ahead at the screen, frowning, deep in thought.

“All right, moving on, next slide please,” said MacPherson. A Bavarian lakeside town appeared on the screen. “Your cover story on the way in will be that you are joining the Hitler Youth —
Hitler-Jugend
— camp at the village of Stock, which lies on the west bank of the Bavarian Sea, or the Chiemsee, as
the lake is known in Bavaria. The camp runs throughout the summer months for children of officers serving in the Balkans and North Africa. Nobody will question your presence — another reason for choosing people of your age. Most of the time is spent swimming and sailing.”

“And singing,” added Otto.

“Of course, you were a member,” said MacPherson.

“Not of the Hitler-Jugend, sir, but of the
Jungvolk
.”

Leni shifted on the sofa, moving away from him. The Jungvolk was the junior branch of the Nazi Party’s youth wing, for children aged ten to thirteen.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said defensively.

MacPherson broke in. “Once you have got the child off the island, you will follow a preplanned escape route taking you south towards the border. You will travel mostly by train. Your cover for this return part of the mission will be that you are visiting your godmother in Bregenz.” A map of Bavaria and the Tyrol was now on the screen, and MacPherson pointed to the Austrian town on the shore of Lake Constance. “Your mission should take no more than three days at the most. We will wait at the rendezvous point for as long as it takes.” The implication in MacPherson’s last sentence was left hanging.

“When are we going?” asked Otto.

“In a little over two weeks, on the eighteenth of June,” said MacPherson.

Otto and Leni looked at each other, and Leni spoke for them both. “We’ll never be ready.”

“It’s my job to make sure you are,” said MacPherson. “This opportunity will not come again, and we must seize it.”

A silence fell on the room as each of them contemplated what lay ahead.

“It is only fair, now that you know the whole picture, to ask you one last time. Particularly you, Otto, as you didn’t really know what you were getting yourself into when I took you from school.” MacPherson spoke softly, but in a measured, calm voice, like a judge passing sentence. “If you wish to step down from this endeavor, please do so now.”

Silence once again. Leni didn’t dare look at Otto. Was he about to back out? If he did, she felt she most probably would, too. Then she spoke up, her voice firm.

“Who is this child?” she asked.

MacPherson pursed his lips and held up his hands. “I don’t know, Leni. I have not been told her identity.”

Leni studied the admiral. Did admirals lie? She supposed they did, that sometimes, in wartime, lies were necessary. But if he was lying, why?

“But I can tell you this,” MacPherson went on. “Her name is Angelika. And if you succeed in your mission, you will have performed a very great service to this country, your adopted country, and to the war effort.”

At that moment, the projectionist snapped back the curtains
and a shaft of sunlight cut through the darkness. Otto and Leni shielded their eyes from the brightness.

Maybe he did know who this girl was, maybe he didn’t, thought Leni, but one thing was certain in her mind. She would find out.