“You’re a bad, bad girl,” he breathed.
She turned onto her back with her legs wide open. “Hermann! I’m sorry! Come! Please! Pleeeaaase!”
He stood up. “Don’t you dare move.” He walked back to the dining table, sat down and finished his pork knuckle.
She stayed lying on her back, her face covered in sauerkraut and pork fat, her groin tingling with lust. “Hermann!”
He ignored her until his knuckle was scraped bare. Then he dabbed his mouth with the blue-check napkin, stood up, took off his shirt and trousers, folded them and draped them on the back of his chair. He stripped naked and walked over to her. She admired his slender, smooth-skinned, sinewy body. It was hairless. The lack of pubic hair made his erect penis seem even longer. He squatted over her chest and raised himself on his haunches, staring at her with his head cocked to one side, like a bird of prey. His glans, weeping with lust, dug into her navel. “Hermann please no, don’t shit on me! Please no shit! Please, I can’t …” He ripped down her dirndl to expose her breasts. He squeezed them hard and twisted her nipples to and fro as if they were radio knobs, all the time gazing into her eyes as if contemplating what punishment to exact on her next. Then he lowered himself again, slapped her face hard, twice, leant close to one ear and roared: “You lazy little bad bitch!” He tugged hard on one of her pigtails with each syllable, pulling her head to one side. Her ears started ringing.
He grabbed her neck with one hand. His fingers clasped tight around her windpipe. She felt him lift her skirt and tear off her knickers. Something warm and greasy rubbed up and down the outside of her vagina. The pork. Up and down, up and down, faster and faster, harder and harder. She couldn’t breathe. She was waiting for it to happen. It was so close. Soooooo close. Like a wave licking up the sand, coming closer and closer with every wash. Yessssssss!!! The delicious warmth exploded in her groin. Her back arched, her neck tingled, but he held her down. Her vision went black and starry and she passed out with a look of ecstasy on her face.
Tietjen let go of her neck and checked her pulse and breathing. She was unconscious. He removed the pork knuckle, lay between her legs and pushed into her. It took him only seconds to come.
He left her on the floor, wiped his hands on the napkin and extracted a USB stick from his jacket pocket. He ran into the bedroom and fired up her laptop. He knew the passwords and opened the file showing Gutman’s updated itinerary for the next two weeks. He pushed the stick into the port and copied the data onto it. After a couple of minutes, he returned to the living room and put the memory stick back in his jacket. He stepped over Gisela and went to the bathroom. She was still out cold when he returned from his shower. He roused her by slapping her face twice. “What’s for dessert?”
She blinked and smiled at him. “Apple Strudel.”
He gave a satisfied nod and stood up. “Like at mother’s.”
Chapter Twelve
En route to Wewelsburg Castle, north-western Germany, Friday, August 17
“You never told me how you got Hermann Göring’s underpants,” Carver said. It was a three-and-a-half hour drive from Berlin to the village of Wewelsburg, south-west of Hanover, and they had another 20 miles to go.
“Göring was wearing those pants when he took the cyanide at Nuremberg,” Renner said. “A U.S. army doctor got hold of them. He flogged them to a German collector in 1966, an antique dealer in Hamburg. I was sent to interview the man. The guy was in his 70s. He was gay. He took a shine to me.”
“What did you have to do to get the pants?”
Renner rolled his eyes. “I kept it platonic. But we became friends. I got a few good stories from him. And when he died, he left me Göring’s underpants.”
“Have you ever put them on?”
“No. They’re gigantic. You saw them! They were in the frame when I got them.”
“How can you be sure they’re his?” asked Carver.
“This collector was a serious guy. And technically, you could do scientific tests to prove it.”
“What?”
“DNA tests. They’ve got his skidmarks. Pretty big.”
“Wow,” Carver laughed. “The Chronicle would take a story on this, you know. What are they worth?”
“No idea. Thousands. But I’ll never sell them.”
They turned right and drove up a narrow country road. “My career’s riding on this,” said Carver. “If I don’t get a scoop, it’s curtains.”
“Why? They only just posted you here!”
“Restructuring at my paper. New guy in charge. They offered me a desk job in London, but I don’t want it. I want to stay in good old Deutschland for a while.”
“Whatever for?”
“I like it here. It fascinates me, seeing how everything’s changed.”
“I’d much rather live in England,” said Renner.
“Na, Germany’s a good story at the moment. Kick-arse economy. You’re the masters of Europe, and it didn’t take a single Panzer this time. And the beer! Boy do I love your beer.”
“Panzer. You Brits, always going on about Panzers. Move on! We’re not like that anymore! I did my military service in a Leopard. We were out on manoeuvres and had to spend the night in one. It got cold so we had the heating on all night. In the morning, the fucking tank wouldn’t start. That’s your modern German army!”
It was another five kilometres to Wewelsburg. “You know, we Brits are starting to realize we shot ourselves in the foot, shutting down our industries,” said Carver. “And now we’re jealous of you. And suspicious. Sometimes I think it’s a real shame what’s happened to us. Britain’s always had such balls, such creativity. It makes you wonder … why can’t we just get a grip, you know? We seem to be getting smaller, year by year.”
“Oh relax, man” said Renner. “There’s a lot about this country that’s really shit. Life’s not just about screwing cars together. And don’t forget where we’re heading! An SS castle to watch a pagan Nazi ceremony with torches and salutes and guys singing Third Reich songs. Is that so bloody great?”
Carver grinned. “Fingers crossed.”
They reached Wewelsburg, left the car in a side street and climbed a steep flight of stairs to reach the castle. The massive grey fortress towered over the sleepy village. It stood on a hill overlooking forests and meadows on its far side, like a violent intruder bent on ravaging a peaceful land. The former spiritual sanctum of the Schutzstaffel, Protection Squadron, the SS, was built in a triangle shape with a tower at each corner. A bridge swept in a bold curve over a dry moat to the gate. Carver imagined black-uniformed platoons of SS troops stomping across these cobblestones, their skull insignia glinting in the torchlight. It was built in the 17th century as a tranquil ducal residence but the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, ordered a redesign in the 1930s to give it a medieval, warlike appearance. Slave workers toiled to attach stone cladding to what had been a smooth Renaissance façade, and built an echoing crypt for SS ceremonies. The windows looked like arrow slits. Wewelsburg had its own concentration camp to accommodate the labourers.
A black crow gave out a volley of aggressive screeches from the roof of a stone sentry box next to them. Carver noticed that the bas-relief of what had probably been a swastika had been smashed out its gable.
A coachload of Dutch pensioners pulled into the square in front of them. They were a welcome sight. It would be easier to peel off from a large group and hide. They joined the crowd in the ticket queue for the last tour of the day. Inside the former guardhouse, a modern exhibition charted the history of the SS from its creation in 1925 as a Praetorian Guard for the Führer, and explained how it mushroomed into a huge organisation that guarded the concentration camps, carried out mass executions in occupied territories and fielded almost one million men in the “Waffen SS” combat units infamous for their war crimes. The museum also gave potted biographies of several prominent SS members who went on to have glittering careers in post-war West Germany after their marauding days were ove
r.
The guide then led them into the castle and down a spiral staircase to the infamous crypt. The chattering pensioners fell silent. Twelve pedestals lined the wall of the circular chamber. The gloom was pierced by thin shafts of blue light from slits in the walls. Runic symbols were hewn into in the high, domed ceiling. There was a circular recess in the centre of the floor, with a gas pipe running into it for an eternal flame, long since extinguished. “Himmler was obsessed with occult symbolism,” the guide said. The architecture played tricks with his voice. It echoed almost immediately, an octave deeper, so that his words didn’t appear to be coming from him but from the walls around him. “He invoked Norse mythology to enshrine the elite status of his SS. This chamber was part of that. It’s a mystery what went on here.”
The evil was still here. The hatred was almost palpable in the cold air. Upstairs, in a “Hall of SS Generals,” the occult symbol of a “Black Sun” was set into the marble floor surrounded by thick stone arches and tall windows.
“In the end, only two meetings of SS generals were ever held there – the last taking place from June 12 to 15, 1941, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa,” said the guide. “At that meeting, Himmler told his generals that the aim of the campaign was to kill 30 million Slavs.”
“Well they came close,” Carver murmured. He nudged Renner. “Come on, let’s fall back and try some doors.” The group was filing down a long, second-floor corridor towards the exit. It was lined with heavy oak doors. The first three were locked. Carver saw that the guide was about to turn round to check for stragglers. He tried a fourth door. It opened and they slipped in. They waited and listened. The corridor outside was quiet. The group had gone.
It was a storeroom filled with all manner of forest creatures. Stuffed hares, foxes, deer and birds of prey were arranged on metal shelves along the walls and on a massive oak table in the middle. A sea eagle stared down at them from the top of a grand, carved wall cabinet next to the window.
“Fucking freak show,” Renner said. “Some of these have got to be centuries old.”
“Indeed,” said Carver, inspecting a cross-eyed, moth-eaten fawn in the corner. “Check out Bambi here.”
A panelled window looked out on to the central courtyard. They settled down to wait. After an hour, a woman locked up the museum shop across the square, walked to her Golf and drove off. A few minutes later, they heard the gate being slammed shut and locked. It was eight o’clock now, and getting dark. They took turns sitting in an old armchair in the corner. “They’re looking at me,” Renner frowned.
The minutes crept by. The light faded until only the outlines of the animals were visible.
“What will you do if you lose your job?” Renner asked.
Carver shrugged. “Don’t know. Freelance, probably.”
“Could you imagine doing something else?”
“You mean give up reporting? Become a corporate spokesman, something like that?” said Carver. “No. Seen too much. Done too much. Can’t give up. Journalism beats working. Let’s face it, in what other job do you get to sit in an SS castle in the dead of night, surrounded by badly stuffed rabbits, waiting for a bunch of neo-Nazis to show up? And get paid for it?”
Half an hour passed. Bats looped around the courtyard, their high-frequency squeaks piercing the stillness.
“My grandfather was in a concentration camp,” said Renner. “He was a Social Democrat. They locked him up in Sachsenhausen. He caught pneumonia there. They released him, but he died a few months later.”
“Brave man,” said Carver.
“Yes. There weren’t enough like him. And after all these years, these bastards are still around.”
Carver nodded and peered down at the courtyard, dimly lit by lanterns. “I’m going to scout around,” he said. “Maybe they got in through a back entrance and are already here.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. You stay here. Ring me if you see anything.” Carver picked up his torch and slipped out of the room. He walked along the corridor and made his way down a flight of steps to the ground floor. After a few minutes his phone vibrated. “What’s up?” Carver hissed.
“Turn your torch off,” Renner whispered. “It’s bright. I can see it from here.”
Carver froze. “I haven’t got it on. Where do you see it?”
“Ground floor. In the wing to my right,” said Renner.
Carver turned and saw a faint light against the wall at the end of the corridor. It got stronger, and footsteps approached.
He darted away from the light, leapt up a flight of stairs and stopped to listen. Several men were talking. They hadn’t seen him. This place wouldn’t employ two night watchmen. And if it did, they wouldn’t do their rounds together. He ran back towards Renner, cursing the creaking floorboards. Renner was waiting for him at the door. “Frank, quick! They’re here!”
They crept over to the window and crouched down to peer over the sill.
The main gate was open and the outlines of several people appeared in the gloom. More men filed in. Then the group started moving towards the centre of the courtyard. “There must be 50 of them,” Renner said. “What are they carrying? Sticks?”
The men formed a rectangle. Someone barked a command, and they set the sticks alight. “Wow,” Carver whispered. “Of course. Can’t have a proper Nazi fest without blazing torches.”
The flames threw flickering phalanxes of shadows on the walls of the square.
They were all wearing black shirts, army camouflage trousers tucked into ankle-length boots and army-style peaked caps. Carver got out a small digital video camera and started filming.
There was a loud shout of “Achtung! Stillgestanden!” and a lone figure marched across the courtyard towards the group. He stood at one end of the rectangle and clicked his boots. Carver zoomed in on him. Suddenly, the man raised his right arm in a Hitler salute. Every man followed suit in a split second. A roar of “Sieg Heil!” echoed around the courtyard.
“That’s Tietjen,” Carver breathed. “Fuck me, that’s Tietjen!” Renner strained his eyes. “No way. Are you sure? You getting this? Nice and sharp?”
Tietjen started to address the men. “Kameraden! Martyrs never die!” Fifty torches were held aloft in a silent salute. “Kameraden! We are here tonight to honour the memory of our fallen comrade Rudolf Hess, the loyal deputy of our Führer, murdered by the British in jail. His memory will live on for a thousand years, as will the national movement! We will restore our father land to greatness. Sieg Heil!” He raised his arm again. Another deafening “Sieg Heil!” reverberated around the walls.
Tietjen began walking among the line of men, shaking each one by the hand.
“I don’t believe this,” Renner said. “This is like newsreel footage from the Third Reich.” Carver went on filming. After five minutes, Tietjen and a dozen men left the crowd and strode towards the north tower.
“They’re heading down into the dungeon for the ceremony,” said Carver. “We should try and get closer.”
“Look.” Renner pointed. “The others are preparing a festival.”
The men were setting up a large coal barbecue and long trestle tables. Two skinheads rolled a barrel of beer across the square.
“They’re going to have a spit roast!” said Renner.
“Come on,” said Carver. “Time to get nearer. Maybe we’ll hear something.”
They left the room and made their way down to the ground floor. Suddenly a door behind them burst open and a furious, whining screech tore down the corridor. They turned to see the outlines of a hoofed animal thundering towards them. Carver hurled himself against the wall. “Watch out!” He heard a scream and a snorting snarl as the beast sent Renner flying. Renner landed on the stone floor with a thump. The clattering of hooves subsided as the creature vanished into the gloom, unfazed and unslowed by the collision.
Renner lay on his back, but was conscious. He groaned. “What the fuck?”
“Anything broken?” Carver
hissed.
“I don’t think so.”
“I reckon that was a pig,” said Carver, helping Renner to his feet.
“What?”
“Dinner. Remember? The spit roast? Nice and traditional.”
Two powerful electric torches blinded them. “Halt!”
Carver grabbed Renner by the arm. “Fucking run!” Boots pounded the flagstones behind them. They reached a staircase and raced down it. There were shouts echoing all round the castle now. A door opened ahead of them. Several men came tearing towards them. Carver rammed his shoulder against a side door. It opened. They dived in and slammed it shut. A lavatory. No lock. Carver held the handle and leant against the door as fists hammered against it.
“Renner! The window! Smash it! Smash It!”
There was an almighty thud against the door.
“I can’t keep them out any longer!”
Renner clambered onto a sink by the window and started kicking at the frosted glass. “It’s got wire in it!”
“Keep kicking!” Carver heard a tinkling of glass, then a violent crash and a rush of water. The sink had broken off the wall and a powerful jet of water was spraying out of the pipe. But Renner had smashed enough of the window to climb through.
“Come!” Renner got to his feet, climbed onto the sill and looked down. Carver let go of the door and darted towards him. He slipped on the wet tiles. The door smashed open. “Jump!”
Renner disappeared. Carver leapt on the sill and hurled himself into the darkness. He landed on a bush and tumbled head over heels until he hit a tree, jarring his spine. A steep, wooded slope ran down to a narrow stream some 100 metres below. Electric torches were shining down from the window. Renner took his arm. “Are you OK? Quick.”
They scrambled and slid down the hill. They could hear shouts behind them. “Pray they don’t have dogs,” Renner gasped. They reached the stream. It was shallow enough to wade across. They panted along a forest path. Behind them, they could make out the black hulk of the castle high above, and a line of a dozen torches snaking down the hill.
The Jewish Candidate Page 7