“Nobody but a few selected members of my cabinet and a handful of Schutzstaffel officials are aware of this suggestion.”
“Perhaps it would be wise to contact the Russo-American Pact, mein Führer?”
“Not while the Deutsches Reich still faces a crisis,” the Führer said, shaking his head. “We have to wait until we are stable once more. Only then will the Russo-American Pact take us seriously.”
“You could remain in England indefinitely, mein Führer,” suggested Klarsfeld. “Then we can be sure that you will be defended by a loyal force.”
“If I remain out of Germania for an extended period, it might not be possible for my return,” the Führer said. “My opposition are supporters of a Putsch. I fear that in my absence, such an event would take place. It may already have happened. I was surprised that the Reichsführer-SS was not here to greet me.”
“He had urgent business back in Germania,” Klarsfeld said. “Your flights crossed.”
Röhm coughed. “He had expressed concerns for your safety in our State, mein Führer. He was flying back to inform you personally.”
“Poor Heinz,” the Führer said, gazing into a faraway place. “I am touched by his loyalty … but I fear he made a bad decision in returning to Germania.”
“Mein Führer?”
The Führer shook his head. “If we could, I would like to go over my original itinerary with you, and discuss any alterations you might have.”
Klarsfeld nodded his head.
The Führer wanted to change the subject.
Both he and Röhm obeyed.
68
Maggie brushed her short hair and looked at her reflection in the mirror in front of her. Her face, as usual, was pale, and the bright red lipstick that was her trademark looked all the more obtrusive because of it.
She picked up her glasses, pulled them on. The blurred view of her reflection became crystal clear almost immediately. She smiled at her reflection – her reflection smiled back.
She pulled on her blouse and then her short skirt, and slipped her feet into the high heels. She was now dressed like the tart she was supposed to be. Her job was to attract the off-duty German officers, and invite them back to her house for a drink.
Of course, the officers never made it that far. They were invariably killed in the car park of the pub Maggie was working from. Maggie’s minders, three large Englishmen, were always waiting for her. They ensured that the Germans never got a chance to touch her. Not that she would’ve allowed another German to touch her, abuse her, like they had in the Konzentrationslager.
And now she had Jerome. Jerome, who would protect her, defend her from the Germans. Jerome, who would take her to the United States with him.
She smiled at her reflection again, and then frowned as there was a knock at the door. Not so much a knock, she thought as she stood up, but a loud thunderous banging.
She went carefully down the stairs – she knew how to walk in heels, but that didn’t make the task much easier, and she didn’t want to fall. As she reached the foot of the stairs, the banging started again. She had thought it was Jerome, but he wouldn’t be banging on her door like this.
She grabbed the door handle, twisted it, and pulled the door open. The face that greeted her was a surprise.
It was Ellen, Jerome’s old girlfriend. Maggie recognized her from the quick view she’d had of her at the Pig and Whistle. She was good with faces. But now, Ellen wasn’t dressed in her nurse’s uniform. Now, she wore casual clothes. A pair of jeans, a tee-shirt, an old pair of trainers, and a black bomber jacket.
Maggie didn’t know whether to smile or regard her visitor with a stern expression. After all, here was her love rival. A thought crossed Maggie’s mind – that she could take Ellen in, beat her to death, and ensure that Jerome could never see her again. She was only a Kraut, after all.
Another thought crossed her mind – that Ellen probably had the same idea. Maggie decided to smile.
Ellen smiled back.
“You must be Ellen,” Maggie said.
Ellen stopped smiling.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“I … I saw you with Jerome.”
In a subtle and extremely fast movement, Ellen drew a pistol from inside her jacket, a SIG Sauer P228 semi-automatic. She pointed its dull grey barrel at Maggie’s head.
Maggie said, “What’s going on?”
“I am SS-Unterscharführer Brauchitsch, Geheime Staatspolizei.”
“Gestapo?” Maggie gasped.
Ellen pushed her into the house and entered, the pistol aimed inches from Maggie’s face. In her other hand, she held an identification card that confirmed her as a member of the Gestapo.
Behind Ellen, four young men appeared, each one brandishing a firearm. Two held MP5s, another had a pistol, and the fourth was carrying a Franchi SPAS assault shotgun.
Maggie was thrown against the wall of the hallway by Ellen, who holstered her gun and proceeded to search her. Maggie did not resist. Two of the men rushed up the stairs, the other two checked the downstairs room. As Ellen finished her basic search of Maggie, the four men returned. One of them handed Ellen an object that was so small, it was difficult to see.
Ellen regarded it with a sneer, then slipped it into her pocket. She cursed in German, then slapped Maggie around the side of her head. “You bitch. You whore Engländer. Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Jerome Varley. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do not lie to me,” snarled Ellen, grabbed Maggie’s hair and yanking her head back, “or I will blow your knees out. Now, where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie pleaded, fearful now. The men surrounded her. She had a flashback of the men surrounding her, her mother and her sister in the Konzentrationslager, their hot breath, their dripping saliva, their cold, rough hands …
Maggie screamed.
“Shut up!” ordered Ellen, slapping her head again. “Shut up, you little bitch!”
“I don’t know where he is,” gasped Maggie, dropping to her knees. Ellen kicked her in the face with a well-placed trainer. Maggie’s head rebounded off the wall behind her. She screamed again, and blood seeped from a small wound on the back of her head.
Ellen turned to one of the men. “Give me that fucking radio,” she snarled in German, but Maggie was fluent in German. The radio was handed to her. “SS-Unterscharführer Brauchitsch to Polizeipräsidium.”
“Go ahead.”
“Get me SS-Standartenführer Rauter.” Static bursts sounded from the radio. On the floor, Maggie shivered, her nose bleeding, her lip cut and swollen. She was stunned from the blow to her head, but she still listened in.
“Rauter here.”
“Herr Standartenführer, we are at the house,” Ellen said. “There is no sign of Varley.”
“The location device?”
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. That was what the small object was that the officer had handed Ellen. She must’ve put it on Jerome when she met him at the Pig and Whistle.
“It was found upstairs,” Ellen said, looking at the officer who had found it. The officer mouthed a word, and Ellen said, “In the bedroom. It must have fallen from his clothes.”
“Do you think he found it?”
“Highly unlikely, mein Herr.”
“ Anything to indicate where he might be?”
Ellen looked at Maggie, sobbing and shivering on the floor. She said, “There is a woman here. We will interrogate her.”
“Do not bother to bring her in,” Rauter said. “Just do it there.”
“Yes, mein Herr.”
“And remember, Frau Unterscharführer, it is of the utmost urgency that we find Varley. Do not mess this up.”
“I will do my best, mein Herr.”
“Rauter out.”
Ellen handed the radio back to one of the men, and turned to another. “Get the Folterwerkzeug from the car.” The man nodded his head and disappeared through the fro
nt door. “Take this bitch upstairs,” Ellen told the other officers. “Strip her and cuff her to the bed.”
“Yes, Frau Unterscharführer.”
Maggie was hauled to her feet and dragged up the stairs, losing one of her shoes in the process.
She didn’t resist.
She slipped back into a past life, when men were brutalizing her on a daily basis. When it was just part of her normal routine, when she didn’t resist because she knew the consequences.
She didn’t resist now.
69
Maggie opened her eyes and looked at Ellen, who glared at her. Maggie had never before seen a woman, a young woman, with such a hateful expression on her face. Ellen had removed her jacket, and stood over Maggie, her tee-shirt tight across her breasts. Maggie could see the outline of her bra running beneath them, lifting them up. The holster for her gun ran over both shoulders, and around her back. The pistol hung limply beneath her armpit, nuzzling against her left breast.
Ellen looked attractive, Maggie thought.
Maggie lay naked on the bed, her body on display for the four young officers. And they were all looking at her. But remarkably, they hadn’t touched her yet.
On a chair by Ellen’s side was the Folterwerkzeug, the torture instrument, a small, dark grey, steel box probably a foot square. The top of the box was open to reveal a number of tools used for torture, including scalpels, thumbscrews and pliers. But the main purpose of the box was to deliver electric shocks to the victim, and for that reason, it was plugged into the nearest socket on the wall.
The front of the box, sloping at a slight angle, housed a number of switches and dials, and a green LCD display. Ellen flicked one of the switches, and the screen lit up. The box hummed as it powered up.
Ellen took two wires, at the end of which were affixed large crocodile clips, and handed them to one of the men. He attached the clips to the big toes of both feet and then stood back.
Ellen smiled at Maggie. “Now, Frau Reddish, you will answer our questions, or you will be hurt. I want you to tell me about Jerome Varley. How long have you known him?”
“Not long,” Maggie answered quickly. There was no point in denying any knowledge of Jerome – they knew that she knew him.
“Where did you first meet him?”
“In a pub.”
“Which pub?”
“The Pig and Whistle,” Maggie said.
“And how well do you know him?”
Maggie looked around at the faces of her tormentors. They wanted to know where Jerome was. But it appeared as though Ellen also wanted to know how closely she had got to know Jerome. Clearly, she still had some feelings for him, although she couldn’t have thought much of him because it seemed she had attached some kind of locating device to him the last time they had met.
Ellen repeated the question. “Frau Reddish, how well do you know Jerome Varley?”
“Extremely well,” Maggie said with an evil smile. “He was my lover.” At that, Ellen tensed up. Maggie saw the German clench her jaw, and then reach down for the controls of the Folterwerkzeug. At the last moment, she seemed to have second thoughts, and her hand remained hovered over the button Maggie presumed would deliver a charge of electricity through her body.
“Were you aware,” Ellen said, her voice shaky to begin with, but steadying as she continued, “that Jerome Varley was wanted by the Gestapo for questioning concerning a murder?”
“No.”
“Why not? It was in every newspaper.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“So, you suspected nothing?”
“No.”
“Do you know where Jerome Varley is now?”
“No idea.”
Ellen pushed the button, and first jolt of electricity rushed through Maggie’s body. She jerked violently, gasped, and knew that the worst was yet to come. The machine was clearly on the minimum setting, and they would no doubt continue raising the voltage until she passed out.
Maggie came to a rest a couple of seconds later, her entire body tingling. She was sweating now. She looked down to her feet, saw her big toes clamped between the teeth of the clips. They were red, as though slightly burnt, and they stung like hell.
Maggie looked at Ellen, who was smiling.
“What is your occupation, Frau Reddish?”
“I’m a barmaid.”
“A barmaid. Of course. And where do you work?”
“I’m between jobs.”
“And how long have you been … between jobs?”
“For a few weeks.”
“Where did you last work?”
“The Pig and Whistle.”
“Ah, the Pig and Whistle again,” Ellen said, nodding her head. “That place seems to be very popular. Why did you leave their employ?”
“They didn’t need so many–”
“Where did you work before the Pig and Whistle?” Ellen asked quickly.
Maggie floundered. “I … I don’t, uh, recall. It was … it was–” Another jolt of electricity jarred through her body. Maggie jerked, clenched her teeth, tore a small chunk of flesh from her tongue. She gasped, her muscles tensed up, and then the electricity vanished.
She flopped back down onto the bed, coughing blood from her mouth. Saliva and blood splattered across her breasts, across the double-bed. Ellen grimaced, took a couple of steps back. Finally Maggie was finished. Her tongue was still bleeding but it was not overwhelming her. The salty fluid ran down her throat and she continued swallowing.
Ellen waited a few moments before continuing.
She said, “We have witnesses who have seen a woman matching your description luring off-duty Schutzstaffel officers out of various bars across the city. Those officers never returned. What have you to say about that?”
“I know nothing about it,” Maggie said, tensing up in anticipation. Sure enough, another shock of electricity jolted through her body, this one more violent than the previous. This time, as well as the pain, she pissed herself, soaking the bed.
Maggie relaxed as the charge was cut, and squeezed her eyes shut, gasping for air. She was swallowing more blood, her whole body tingled as though she had pins and needles in every limb, every organ, every muscle, bone and sinew. Her feet were numb, and her legs were wet from the piss.
“Frau Reddish,” Ellen said calmly, “please tell us what we want to know.” She took from the container inside the box a pair of pointed-nose pliers, silvery, new, and handed them to one of the men.
He stepped up to Maggie, gripped her hand which was cuffed to the bedpost, and used the pliers on one of her fingernails. He wrenched the nail from her finger, spraying blood across the wall.
Maggie screamed, tried to clench her hand, but the man was strong. He performed the same, brutal manoeuvre on another of her nails. Tears of pain streamed down Maggie’s face.
Finally, he stepped away from her.
She felt blood pouring down her wrist, from the sore, open wounds at the ends of two of her fingers. She looked down to where Ellen was standing. The Kraut bitch was smiling.
“You will answer my questions satisfactorily,” she said, “or I guarantee that you will be in more pain than you ever thought possible.” Maggie closed her eyes. Ellen was an Unterscharführer, basically only a couple of rungs up the Schutzstaffel ladder. She was young, twenty, and clearly very inexperienced, as were the men with her. She had been given orders to interrogate Maggie, and that was what she was doing. There was a good chance that Ellen had interrogated only a few suspects. Maggie might even be her first solo interrogation. In which case, there was a distinct possibility that she would go over the top, too far in doling out the pain.
If that was the case, it would be Maggie who would suffer.
Ellen smiled through clenched teeth. She said, “Where is Jerome Varley?”
“I don’t know, for fuck’s sake!”
Another jolt of electricity pulsated through Maggie’s body. Maggie tensed up. This time, the charge lasted for mo
re than ten seconds, before it was switched off. Maggie fell limp, gasping, twitching, blinking.
She passed out.
She came to as one of the men bolted a device firmly to her right thumb. From this device, which she took to be a thumbscrew, an electric cable ran back to the Folterwerkzeug. A bulging lump hung from the side of this apparently electrically operated thumbscrew.
Ellen said to Maggie, “I will ask you again to tell me where Jerome Varley is. I know you are aware of his whereabouts. I want you to tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said, expecting another jolt of electricity to wrack her body.
It didn’t.
But something else did. The device clamped to her thumb vibrated gently as Ellen pushed a button. Frowning, Maggie looked at it.
She saw the blood squirt across the room before she felt the agonizing pain, as a tiny dentistry drill carved into the bone of her thumb with a sickening, high-pitched, whining sound.
Maggie screamed, tried to shake the thing from her thumb, but it was clamped firmly in place.
“Stop it!” she screamed.
The device continued drilling. The pain was intense.
Maggie passed out again.
When she came to, the device was gone, but the pain was still there. She twisted her head around to look at the damage to her thumb, and immediately wished that she hadn’t. A large lump of congealed blood hung from her thumb, along with bloody chunks of flesh, some hanging in long, thin slivers. She saw tiny chunks of bone on her blood-speckled flesh down her forearm.
And the pain was still as intense as it had been when the device had first cut into her bone.
Maggie turned her head, winching and clenching her teeth. She saw Ellen looking down at her, a smile on her face. Ellen handed one of the men a small lump hammer, and then looked at Maggie’s delicate ankles, which were cuffed to the bedposts at the bottom of the bed. Maggie saw her ankle bones jutting out invitingly.
She knew what was coming next.
Ellen asked, “Where is Jerome Varley?”
Maggie didn’t answer at first, as though she could delay the agony that she knew was to come. It didn’t work. The man slammed the lump hammer into her left ankle bone. It gave with a grisly crack. The sound was immediately drowned out by the high-pitched scream that burst from Maggie’s lungs.
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