She spoke softly. “Jerome, you have to help me.”
“You betrayed me,” gasped Jerome. “You were working for the Krauts all along. You lied to me. You were just using me … to get information.”
“I loved you,” Ellen said quietly, looking embarrassed, as she spoke in front of her colleagues. “And you betrayed me. You went with another woman.”
“I didn’t–”
“Do not lie to me. I saw her. Maggie Reddish.”
“Maggie?” gasped Jerome.
“You betrayed me.”
“Then we’re both the same, aren’t we?” Jerome said with a bloody smile. “I betrayed you, and you betrayed me. But your betrayal … it cost me my life. I didn’t cost you anything.” He thought he saw tears in Ellen’s eyes.
“Jerome, I loved you. I could have spared you.”
“The Gestapo spare nobody, Ellen,” Jerome said.
“But I loved you.”
“And you betrayed me,” Jerome said, “and now I’m going to die.”
“Tell me where Ben Fabian is.”
“I don’t know. If he’s not in his room, he could be anywhere.”
“He escaped?”
Jerome was smiling as he said, “Probably.”
“Where would he go?”
Jerome remembered the song that Ben had taught him last night, and as he looked at Ellen, at the mass of Germans behind her, he started to sing. “Hitler has only got one ball. Goering has two but they are small. Himmler has something similar, but poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.”
He closed his eyes, and he started to laugh.
Ellen looked up as a man walked towards her, holding a rifle in his hands. He held it up for her to inspect, and she got to her feet.
“What is this?”
“Sniper rifle,” explained the man, “a fifty calibre. This is the weapon that would have done the job.”
“Well, it will not be doing the job now,” Ellen said, looking down at Jerome. “It would appear as though we have frightened the sniper away.”
“What about this one, Frau Unterscharführer?”
“I will deal with this one,” Ellen told the man, and he walked away. Ellen got back down onto her knees, but as she looked at Jerome, she realized that he was dead.
She closed her eyes, felt the tears well up and roll between her eyelashes and down her face. She held one of Jerome’s bloody hands, felt the warmth that was still within his body.
She kissed his hand.
She touched his face.
He didn’t stir.
He was right – she had betrayed him, and it had cost him his life.
But they were two different kinds of people – they could never have shared their lives.
Now, Jerome would not be sharing his life with anybody.
Ellen started to cry, and she didn’t care who saw the tears.
75
The Orpo units moved in first and sealed off Ostmünchenstrasse, and they were quickly followed by the black BMWs belonging to the Gestapo. There was only one house in Ostmünchenstrasse that was on the list Loritz and his men had found at the Pig and Whistle the previous night. The Gestapo had worked all through the night, going down the list of streets in alphabetical order, breaking into houses and rounding up suspects as they did.
Right now, they were on the ‘O’s, and Ostmünchenstrasse. It was Loritz who led the assault on the house, which was a large, detached property owned, no doubt, by one of the few wealthy Englishmen in the State.
Loritz led the way up to the front door, the shotgun in his hands, and pounded on the knocker. As he did, more of his men disappeared around to the rear of the house.
Finally, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman, who frowned at Loritz, and then looked past him at all the police activity. She looked innocent, Loritz thought, but appearances could definitely be deceptive.
“Geheime Staatspolizei,” Loritz said, holding up his ID card. “We are here to search these premises.”
“On what grounds?” the woman asked. It was a question that Loritz was rarely asked.
“We do not need any grounds to search this property,” Loritz snapped. His officers pushed past the woman and stepped into the house. “What is your name?”
“Johnson – Sarah Johnson.”
“Well, Frau Johnson,” Loritz said, entering the house and closing the door behind him. “If you are concealing nothing, then you have nothing to fear.”
“What am I supposed to be concealing?” the woman asked.
“Are you alone in the house?”
“No, my husband is–”
But Loritz heard the husband, as he was dragged from the bathroom still pulling up his trousers to cover his embarrassment. Loritz raised his eyebrows as Keitel hauled him down the stairs.
“Herr Johnson, I presume?”
“What the fucking hell is going on here?” Mr Johnson demanded to know.
“SS-Obersturmführer Loritz, Geheime Staatspolizei. We have reason to believe that this house is being used by the terrorist group Combat UK.” Loritz saw Mrs Johnson look at her husband, catching the anger on her face. “How do you answer to that allegation, Herr Johnson?”
“That’s … outrageous,” fumed Johnson. “Who told you that? Who told you?”
“We have sources, Herr Johnson,” Loritz said, turning to Keitel. “Check the floors,” he instructed, “for anything that sounds hollow – and check the basement.”
Keitel nodded his head and disappeared with four Gestapo officers. Loritz turned back to Johnson, whose eyes were widening. Beside him, his wife was silent, but she was staring at her husband with a look that could’ve curdled milk.
“Where do you work, Herr Johnson?”
“I’m a solicitor with Karslake, Bough and Robson,” Johnson answered.
“A solicitor?” Loritz said with a smile. “So, naturally, you will understand the predicament you are in, yes?”
“This is preposterous! My wife and I are respectable English citizens.”
“Herr Johnson, you are German citizens,” reminded Loritz sharply, “not English citizens. You would be wise to remember that.”
An uneasy silence descended on the hallway. “I don’t know what makes you think–” began Johnson, but he stopped as a young officer rushed up to Loritz and saluted.
“Mein Herr, mein Herr, SS-Sturmscharführer Keitel has discovered a tunnel in the basement!”
“Really?” Loritz said, turning to face Johnson. “You were saying, Herr Johnson?” The English couple did not speak. They looked like what they soon would be – dead people.
Loritz followed the young officer, and the Johnsons were handcuffed and dragged down to the basement behind the Obersturmführer. In the basement, Keitel was standing beside a dozen tea chests. Some of them had been moved aside, and a paving slab was lifted to reveal a hole that led deep down beneath the surface of London. A spiral staircase led down into the gloom. Loritz took a torch from one of the officers and shone it down the hole.
He couldn’t see the bottom. He looked at Johnson, frowned, and said, “Herr Johnson, how deep is this tunnel?” Johnson didn’t answer. “Where does it lead?” Johnson remained silent. “Keitel, take five men down with you. Shoot anybody you see.”
Keitel and five junior officers, each armed with MP5 submachine-guns, disappeared down the hole. Loritz looked at Johnson and raised his eyebrows.
“You know, Herr Johnson, you could save us all this trouble if you just tell us where this tunnel leads to.” Johnson didn’t answer, and Loritz sighed in frustration. It was five minutes later when one of the officers returned, an excited look on his face.
“Mein Herr! The hole leads hundreds of feet down, and then into a horizontal tunnel.”
“And where does this horizontal tunnel lead?”
“SS-Sturmscharführer Keitel believes it leads beneath the city of London to a different location, but the tunnel curves away, and he did not think it would be wise to explor
e without knowing the ultimate destination.” Loritz nodded his head and then looked at Johnson.
“Herr Johnson, would you care to elucidate?” As expected, he got no answer. He turned to an officer who held a large radio handset. “Call the Polizeipräsidium. We do not know what is at the end of this tunnel, and I am not prepared to risk the lives of my men. We need a platoon from the Waffen-SS.” He looked at Johnson. “They will eradicate whatever they find down there.” He said it as though it were a promise.
The platoon of Waffen-SS troops arrived in a number of large trucks, and they disembarked and made their way into the house, watched by the neighbours. All telephone lines into Ostmünchenstrasse were switched off at the exchange, and nobody was allowed in or out of the street. No communication was allowed to pass through to the place where the tunnel would eventually lead.
The troops went down one by one, and Loritz followed. The troops’ superior officer, an Obersturmführer, the same rank as Loritz, was the leader of the operation, and he led all fifty members of his platoon along the dimly lit tunnel.
It was a journey that took longer than expected, because the troops moved stealthily and slowly, pausing at each curve, and waiting until scouts returned with their brief reconnaissance reports. Loritz, as an official observer, watched with interest, noting that the Waffen-SS troops were armed with assault rifles. Half of them carried the Austrian-built Steyr AUG, the Armee Universal Gewehr – the rest carried Heckler und Koch G41 carbines. By comparison, Loritz’s own weapon, the Franchi SPAS shotgun, looked lightweight and worthless.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of walking, the Waffen-SS platoon halted twenty metres from another gentle curve, and the scouts were sent out. This time, they returned with a different message, and the way they communicated this told Loritz that there were people around the curve.
Nobody spoke, they all gesticulated urgently. The Waffen-SS Obersturmführer, who went to have a look for himself, returned and posted his men on either side of the tunnel, and prepared them for an assault. He came back to Loritz, who was a good hundred metres from the curve, and spoke in a barely audible whisper.
“There are soldiers around the curve – at the end of the tunnel.”
“Soldiers? Ours?” Loritz asked.
“American soldiers. There is an American flag.”
“What is this? Where are we?”
“I calculate that we are probably near Hitlerhofstrasse,” explained the Obersturmführer. “The embassies.”
“Of course!”
“Shh!”
“What are you going to do?” Loritz asked.
“We are going to kill the US soldiers,” the Obersturmführer said, “and then we will storm the embassy – if that is where we are.”
“What shall I do?” asked Loritz. For the first time in his life, he felt quite useless, like a spare part.
The Waffen-SS Obersturmführer said with a smile that told Loritz he was enjoying the experience, “Stay here and observe.” And he returned to his men.
What occurred next happened so fast that Loritz had problems keeping up. The Waffen-SS troops rounded the curve, and immediately opened fire. There was a sporadic and feeble return of fire, and a few screams, before the Obersturmführer raised his fist triumphantly.
Apparently, the enemy was not as formidable as he had expected. Loritz ran up to the curve along with the rest of the platoon.
He saw a couple of Waffen-SS troops triumphantly wrapping themselves in the US flat as they danced over the corpses of a number of US Marines. He also saw the step ladder leading upwards, presumably to the embassy.
And inside the embassy were, presumably, more armed soldiers.
The fighting was not over.
Not by a long shot.
76
Barney Kitchener burst into the Ambassador’s office, a look of sheer terror on his face. Clark Rydell looked up from the file he was reading, and immediately read his colleague’s emotions. Behind Barney stood Clark’s secretary. She too looked terrified, although she probably hadn’t fully understood Barney’s ravings.
“What’s wrong, Barney?” Clark asked, getting to his feet.
“The Germans are in the tunnel,” gasped Barney. For the first time, Clark noticed the pistol, a Colt .45, in his hand. “They’re coming up into the embassy.”
“Shit, how the hell did that happen?”
“Stupid question, Clark, at a stupid fucking time,” snapped Barney. “Come on, we have to move!”
“Where to?”
“The Germans are coming up through the basement,” Barney explained. “We can still get out through the gates. They obviously stumbled across the tunnel without realizing where it led to. But they know now, so we don’t have long. Now, come on, clear out!”
Clark jumped around the desk and followed Barney, who ushered the secretary out of her office and to the stairs. All around, there was pandemonium. Embassy staff were rushing around, not knowing in which direction they should be heading. The news had spread quickly – then Clark heard the gunfire, staccato, loud, vibrating the walls. It came from beneath them.
“Shit! Too late!” snapped Barney.
“What do we do?”
“Fuck knows.” Barney looked around frantically. From the end of the corridor, a woman screamed and started running towards them.
“They’re coming up the drive!” she yelled. “A whole bunch of German soldiers.”
“Fuck!”
“What do we do, Barney?” There was panic in Clark’s voice.
“I don’t know,” Barney answered, looking left and right, up and down. “They’re below us – all we can do is go up.”
“To the roof?”
“It’s the only place–”
“And be trapped like fucking lemmings? No way, pal.”
“Well, what do you suggest? Speak to them, try to explain why we’ve got a fucking tunnel beneath our embassy? I don’t think they’ll listen to anything we have to say, buddy. Face it, we’re up Shit Creek with no fucking paddle.” Sporadic gunfire vibrated the floor beneath their feet, and screams pierced their ears. Clark shook his head in disbelief. It was his worst nightmare, having the Germans find the tunnel. He thought about his wife, Anne, back in the US, waiting for him to come home. He’d told her he was safe, that no harm would come to him.
He was wrong.
Barney gripped his arm and pulled him and his secretary to the staircase. Clark had little choice but to follow – running was a natural instinct, he did it without thinking. And the stairs made more sense than the elevators, where they would be trapped in inescapable tin cans.
As they reached the stairs and began to rush up, followed by half a dozen of the embassy staff, there were more gunshots – these ones sounded closer. From down the corridor, a man screamed, “They’re on this floor!” before another blast of gunfire announced his undignified end.
Barney began to pound up the stairs more quickly, followed by his small entourage. They reached the next floor, with two more to go, as the Waffen-SS troops reached the stairs. Gunfire sounded, and two of the embassy staff with Barney and Clark fell down, one of them dead, the other mortally wounded.
Barney pointed to the next set of stairs, and turned to face the Waffen-SS troops. He let loose with his hand cannon, and blew two of them away. The Germans quickly returned fired, and Barney realized he’d have to move before he became overwhelmed.
He pounced along the corridor to the next flight of stairs, and rushed up them after the embassy staff following Clark. There were more screams from beneath them, and the pounding of boots as the Germans climbed the stairs.
Barney and his group reached the top of the stairs and started up the next flight, the flight that would lead them onto the roof. This staircase was narrower, less grandiose than the others, but since it lead nowhere other than the roof, it was seldom used by anybody other than maintenance workers. At the top of the stairs, they came across the emergency exit door, and Clark pus
hed down on the bar. The embassy staff piled through, and Barney slammed the door shut after them.
They now stood on the roof of the embassy. To their right was the massive dome that topped the building, and to their left, a short tower. Beneath them were the troops from the Waffen-SS.
Barney looked around at the people with him. Four members of the embassy staff, Clark’s secretary, and Clark Rydell himself, the American ambassador. And Barney was the only armed person amongst them – and his pistol hardly compared to the assault rifles the Germans were carrying.
Barney ordered two of the embassy staff to block the door leading down into the embassy with a pair of brooms that lay discarded on the roof, and then led Clark to one side.
“We’re not gonna get away,” he said.
“I know that!” Clark bellowed. “Jesus, I know that!”
“The Germans are gonna capture us.”
“That is a fact.”
“They’ll torture us, Clark,” Barney said quietly, looking to the embassy staff standing around the doorway. “We can’t let them do that.”
“And how do you propose we stop them?”
“We have this gun,” Barney said.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m staying that the best way to escape the Germans is to take our own lives.”
“No way!”
“They’ll kill us anyway, after they’ve tortured us.”
“I’d rather take the chance.”
“You know what they did to those two Australian diplomats? They dismembered them, removed their feet, then their legs, then their hands, then their arms. Those diplomats were alive, Clark. Alive, conscious, and they felt it all. We’re talking–” There was a scream. Barney looked to the door. The Germans were pounding on the other side. “We haven’t got long, Clark.”
“I don’t want to kill myself.”
“Then allow me,” Barney said, raising the gun. He aimed it at Clark’s head. Clark’s jaw dropped and he stared in disbelief at Barney. Behind them, rifle fire sounded, and two of the embassy staff dropped down. The Germans were shooting through the door. Barney looked at Clark, and tears started to roll down his face. “We haven’t got long, Clark.”
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