The Nostradamus Traitor: 1 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  It was now plain why no bullets were reaping the harvest in the courtyard. The two gunners—Roubert and Sturmbannführer Flachs—were engaged in a duel of their own, between the serrated battlements, below the two smaller-base towers.

  The bursts of fire were irregular, short and long; alternately, then together; both men’s concentration drawn away from what was happening below them by some necessity to deal with the personal threat they created to each other.

  Himmler’s entourage, from the second car, had come out into the rain. Two officers ran towards the Reichsführer’s car, while a third made for the small knot of men kneeling and bending over Kuche.

  From where George lay, beside the car, he could see Kuche’s face, grey, the lips moving, like someone making a deathbed confession. The officer nodded and spoke to the men around him, who lifted Kuche gently, carrying him back towards the doorway. The officer then came, at the run, towards Himmler’s car, almost kicking George out of the way, speaking rapidly as he leaned in.

  The fire from the MG 34s was still constant. Burst after burst, discordant, a strange beat and counterbeat, heavy and lethal, reverberating down into the canyon of the courtyard.

  George turned towards the car, thinking—everyone’s soaking wet except bloody Himmler. Then he heard what the officer was telling the Reichsführer.

  Himmler sat bolt upright in the wreck of his car. He did not look dazed, bewildered, or frightened anymore. He looked very angry, as a child might look if some treat had suddenly been pitched from its grasp, or a beloved toy broken wilfully.

  The officer—a short, greying, elderly man who looked more like a schoolmaster than SS—was passing on what Kuche had said. With relief, George realised that the German had told the most obvious tale—that he had discovered a wholesale plot to assassinate the Reichsführer; that he had confided in Georges Thomas, the Frenchman, because Thomas’ confederate from the Sorbonne—Michel Downay—was heavily involved in the intrigue. They had tried to stop the whole business. It was also plain that Kuche was not badly hurt.

  Himmler remained impassive as he listened, his eyes cold and weak, jaw moving slightly, the eyes flicking between his aide and George; occasionally distracted by the duelling machine guns. At last, he gave two blunt orders, nodded a curt “Danke” to George, and began to get out of the car.

  Over by the door of the north tower they were clearing up the remains of Frühling and Streichman. The Reichsführer turned towards the battlements as the machine-gun fire became more concentrated, and then walked slowly in the direction of the north tower.

  George glanced towards the doorway that had been marked out as his private pass gate to the next world. They had put Kuche down on the cobbles in the relative shelter of the wall, and were seeing to his wounds. Just as he took a first step towards Kuche, George caught a sudden movement in the doorway. Michel Downay, propped up by the sergeant George had knocked cold, stood there, both hands grasping an Erma machine pistol. He had a clear field of fire towards Himmler, and the weapon was pointed directly at the plodding figure.

  It went through George’s mind that nothing was going to happen. They had left only the two useless Ermas in the corridor. But he should take no chances. With the courage of one who knows he is quite safe, George made a final effort and ran, placing himself between Himmler and Downay, squeezing the trigger of his own Erma as he moved.

  There could have been only a few rounds left in the magazine, so he was lucky. They sprayed directly across Downay and the sergeant, catching both in the chest. The sergeant slithered away, and Downay went over backwards as if someone had caught him full tilt with a lance. As his heels lifted from the ground, the muscles of his right hand must have tightened around the grip and trigger. There must have been at least one more spare magazine lying around in the corridor. The muzzle was pointing too high for any damage to be done—except to brickwork and the upper part of the doorway. There was just the one long burst, arcing upwards, and then, as Downay landed on his back, spraying around the corridor until the magazine was empty and he stopped twitching.

  As the echoes died away, George saw that people were running for cover. Even the Reichsführer had broken into a trot. Above them the two MG 34s kept up their chattering dialogue, but Downay’s last attempt seemed to have injected a new urgency into the situation.

  George ran towards the door and had to hold back as they carried Kuche through. Kuche smiled weakly. His leg appeared to have been mangled by Frühling’s bullets, but they had put a dressing on it, and a tight bandage, already blood-soaked.

  Pausing inside the doorway, George peered out to the right where the machine-gun duel still continued. As he watched, there was final rattle of fire, both weapons sounding as if they were hammering towards the end of a deadly symphonic orchestration. Then the gun on the far side of the courtyard—Roubert’s—stopped. It was like a voice being cut off in mid-sentence, a line suddenly going dead. The other weapon continued to fire, a long long stream of bullets chipping away around the castellated stonework.

  Through the rain, George could see a grey shape slumped sideways, a white splodge, which could have been a face, lolling back—the whole thing caught on the big tripod mounting of the gun. So George lost his stepfather.

  He craned around the door to see if he could glimpse Flachs, and saw the man standing, leaning out between two of the great teethlike battlements. He had spotted George and was waving, swaying and waving, his mouth moving as though shouting something which was carried away with the wind and rain.

  For a good minute he stood there, against the dark, bruised, and sponged sky, and his wave seemed to carry a message—You were right, Herr Thomas. Today was the day of victory for the Reichsführer, and disaster for those who planned treason.

  Then, suddenly, his arm dropped and his lips stopped moving, his head drooping onto his chest. The whole body sagged, and slumped forward onto the space between the battlements, where it rocked twice before toppling over, turning full circle in the air before landing in a huddle of arms and legs on the cobbles. Blood immediately began to spread from it, gushing out to join the puddles of rain. The blood and water were now the only things that moved within the triangle of stone.

  48

  LONDON 1978

  “YOU THINK YOU FINALLY convinced Flachs, then?” Herbie shook himself from the mental picture, described so vividly by George.

  Who knew? George spread his hands. Perhaps he had convinced him—as he had convinced himself at one point. Maybe Flachs went to his place that morning with the intention of knocking out Wald and Roubert. Maybe he got cold feet when things went wrong for them.

  “And you were asked to explain yourself?” Not for a while, George told him. He had collapsed and remained unconscious for a couple of days. They nursed him, and one of Himmler’s people—Gestapo as well—came to do the interrogation: mainly to verify Kuche’s story, and the names of those involved. “Interesting, Heydrich was never mentioned.”

  “You didn’t see Himmler again?”

  Not then, but George had received a message of thanks from him. He had returned to Berlin and felt that he had work for a man like George. Work of national importance. “I said that I thought the Ministry of Propaganda wanted me, but they said the Reichsführer was putting in a special request. There was also talk of my being decorated.”

  “And Kuche?”

  “Eventually came to see me. Nasty flesh wound, in his thigh. Soon mended. We were both posted together; to the same organisation.”

  “Yes.” Herbie tapped his nose. He had read the file and knew that both Georges Thomas—the French Georges—and Heinrich Kuche had, indeed, gone together. To Berlin, where they were sent to the building in the Wilhelmstrasse: to the headquarters of Amp VI—the Ausland SD: the SS Secret Service Abroad. “You became a spy, George. Right?”—giving him a flash of the big stupid grin.

  “Right.” George laughed. Yes, they had put Kuche and himself straight into the heart of things. The plan
was to play George back into France with Kuche as his controller. “It was splendid. Kuche said we’d have cover for life.”

  “You got to Berlin, when?” Herbie was oddly serious: very concentrated now.

  Around the middle of April, George said. The Ausland SD was undergoing a transformation. Heinz Jost, who had directed the service since 1939, was in the process of handing over to Walter Schellenberg.

  “Who did not take over until June,” Herbie interrupted him.

  True, but he was there. “Running himself in. Kuche and myself went with the Reichsführer’s special blessing. We were small legends.”

  Herbie said that George did not go back into France—saying it, not asking.

  No, George agreed. That was the idea. He worked close to Kuche. They thought they had accomplished a first-class penetration.

  “You worked with Kuche. Did you play together also?”

  Drank together, yes.

  “Whored together?” Herbie asked.

  It was not a question of whoring. Reluctantly, George told him there were women, yes. Plenty of women—the grey mice, the uniformed secretaries. Everyone was making the best of things. They’d had it good until then. Only later, after Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia—did things get really bad, but the RAF had started bombing. Unpleasant.

  “And you didn’t go back into France,” Herbie repeated.

  No. Something came up suddenly. “But you know all about it, Herbie.”

  Herbie said he knew the bare bones, like he had known about Stellar. “Not all.”

  George nodded and said there was not much more to tell. Really the main details were on file. Not much to add.

  Herbie pushed. “Wermut came up, yes?”

  “Wermut, yes. Operation Wormwood.”

  “That was what we would now call an ad-lib operation, yes?” Herbie moved his huge frame in the chair, which creaked under him. “An operation mounted quickly because of sudden and unexpected circumstances.”

  George said that was right. It was organised and put into effect very fast. “It had to be. Three days.” For him it began suddenly on the morning of Monday, 12 May 1941. They sent for him and said he was needed for special training.

  “Who did you see?” Herbie had to do this as an interrogation routine.

  “One of the adjutants. One of Jost’s adjutants.”

  “You didn’t see Kuche?”

  “Kuche? No. Not then. Later, when they had the team together.”

  “It was early in the morning on Monday, May the twelfth?”

  “They telephoned me. Early, yes. I went into the Wilhelmstrasse building and one of the adjutants gave me the orders. There was a car waiting. They took me to an airfield outside Berlin, gave me an hour’s instruction on the ground, then took me up in a Ju fifty-two and made me do a parachute jump. Then we hung around until dark. Bit of weapon work. On the range. After dark I did another jump.”

  “Then back to Berlin?”

  “Yes.”

  “To meet the others concerned in Wormwood?”

  Agreed.

  “You must remember it well. Name the others, George.”

  “You know already. Myself and Kuche. A captain called Fenderman, and another major—von Tupfel. They were professionals, those two. Young ex-hoods who’d made a place for themselves in the SS. Tough as they come.”

  “All English speakers?”

  George said they had to be and Herbie asked if there was anything special about them. “Anything, however small.”

  “They were fed up. Both called back from leave. I think one of them came back from his honeymoon.”

  Herbie asked which one. Fenderman, George thought, but he couldn’t be sure. “It was a very busy time.”

  “Before I get tea, George, tell me how they broke the news to you—told you the scope of the operation.”

  They had been taken into one of the offices on the second floor. There was coffee. Sandwiches. Then Jost came in with Schellenberg and three or four staff officers. The four men were officially introduced to each other. “Kuche and myself excluded, of course, having been together for so long.” Then they were cautioned that what they were to hear was of the utmost secrecy. George paused as though he had said enough.

  “What was so secret, George? Come on. Pretend I know nothing.”

  “It was a bombshell.” George appeared to have tightened up. Even he had been shaken by the news. Rudolf Hess, they were told, had flown off on a private peace initiative to England. Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Führer himself; an old Party member, trusted friend of Hitler, had got into a twin-engined Messerschmitt 110 on Saturday night and flown to England with no authority.

  The briefing officers feared that Hess was mad. The orders came directly from Hitler himself. The four-man team was to be dropped by parachute as soon as they had proper information regarding Hess’ whereabouts. Their job was to execute him.

  “Why?” Herbie spoke quietly.

  “Well, we all know now, don’t we? Hess knew as much as anyone about the plans for the invasion of Russia—Barbarossa. He had tried to make the trip a couple of times before, but aborted. The official line was that he had a brainstorm. He was convinced that, if he could speak with the king, together they might persuade Churchill to turn against Russia and save Europe from communism. You know it all, Herbie.”

  “Were they shocked—the briefing people?” Herbie was not to be sidetracked.

  “Shaken, yes. But determined. At all costs we were to get to Hess and kill him.”

  “Before he talked.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I get the tea.” Herbie rose, then paused. “Why you, George? Why did they send you?”

  “I suppose that I had worked with Kuche before; I was an English speaker as well as French—they still regarded me as a Frenchman.”

  “That’s no reason.”

  George agreed. He knew that and had thought about it often. “Perhaps because I was mixed up with the astrology. It was mentioned. There were those who believed that Hess was motivated by his horoscope and by the occult. Rubbish, of course, but I believe they thought I might come in useful if we could interrogate the Deputy Führer before burning him.”

  “That was in the briefing?”

  “The first object was to locate and kill. If circumstances permitted, we were to interrogate him before death. Find out if he had talked.”

  Nobody knows, thought Herbie as he switched on the electric kettle. Poor strange Rudolf Hess, who spent the rest of the war in prison, was tried with the other war criminals at Nuremburg and had remained a prisoner—at the insistence of the Russians—ever since. And nobody really knows. All that was on record were the outside facts—that the Deputy Führer had flown the nine hundred miles over the North Sea alone, parachuted from his aircraft over Renfrewshire, and was first picked up by a ploughman. Hess gave his name as Horn and told the authorities that he wished to go to Dungavel House as he had an urgent message for the Duke of Hamilton.

  When the red tape was unravelled he was later taken to England—on a special coach of the Glasgow-London night mail. Nobody knew if he had disclosed any details of the High Command’s plans for the Russian invasion. There were many doubts. Originally the invasion of Russia had been set for a few days after Hess’ lone flight.

  To the duke he said that he was on a mission of humanity; that Hitler wanted no war with Britain. Churchill did warn Stalin, several times, of the imminent threat to his country. Stalin appeared to take no notice, and the Russians were not prepared when the onslaught burst upon them. Whether Churchill’s intelligence came directly from Hess or not was another matter.

  “There were reprisals against the German occult community,” Herbie stated as he carried the tea tray from the kitchen.

  George grunted an affirmative. “Aktion Hess.” He nodded. “Happened a month later. Purge of the astrologers. Orders issued by Bormann—astrologers, faith healers, fortunetellers, clairvoyants, graphologists. Even Christian
Scientists. Face-saving action. Like the Jews, the astrologers became scapegoats, accused of having driven Hess out of his mind.”

  Herbie paused as he poured the tea. “Lucky they put you on Wermut.”

  “Very. I’ve always been aware of that.”

  Herbie said they already knew about Kuche; what did the other two look like? George was vague. He recalled Fenderman as tall, light-haired (“He seemed preoccupied—self-contained”); the other one was a big bloke—“Cropped head, bullish sort of man. Didn’t speak much.”

  “Cover?” Herbie asked.

  “Amazing cover. Plainclothes police. We had a series of warrant cards—Metropolitan Police, Special Branch; three or four sets of Scottish cards. They knew then, on the Monday night, that Hess was in Scotland.”

  “Contacts?”

  “Telephone numbers. London, Carlisle, Manchester, Glasgow.”

  “They briefed you completely, then and there?”

  “More or less. We would be dropped, under cover of an air raid. Civilian clothes under flying suits. Weapons—pistols, two machine pistols, grenades, explosives. If we were spot on the DZ we could walk to a telephone and get the latest information. They said a car would be arranged. The rest we would play off the cuff.”

  “You went from Berlin?”

  “No. We went that night—well, the early hours—to France. I never knew the place. There wasn’t time. Somewhere in the north. Bomber station—HE 111s. Got there on the Tuesday afternoon. Left the following night. The Wednesday. About seven-thirty. Christ, we were in Manchester by midnight.”

  “You had a chance to speak with Kuche?”

  George said yes and that they had formulated a plan. Kuche felt they should put a block on the operation very quickly. “After all, we had the telephone contact and the passwords. We felt they could be traced and picked up by the local constabularies.”

  “That what happened?”

  “Sort of. Bloody thing went wrong though, didn’t it?”

  “Kuche was in charge?”

  “Very much so.”

  “How then did it go wrong, George?”