The Consummate Traitor (Trilogy of Treason)

by Bonnie Toews

  The voiceless screams of her nightmares were those of today and tomorrow’s generations helplessly trapped in a world gone berserk. Their pleas were for the words never written, her unborn children. In dying, she could bring them peace, and with that thought, she made peace with herself.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Wednesday, October 13th, 1944

  The electrical whir as the door slid open… the clump of jackboots … the murmur of guttural voices … the soft bang as the door slid closed again. The shutter over the window panel rattled when it was drawn back, and two pair of eyes looked into Lee’s cell. She had mercifully slipped into unconsciousness, and her chin had fallen forward on her chest. Lacelike strands of bleached hair trickled down her front. Quick anger sparked in the one pair of sky blue eyes.

  “Is she dead?” he demanded in German.

  The other pair of hard blue eyes blinked. “No, my colonel. She has fainted.”

  “How can you be sure?” he barked. “Release this woman from her bonds. At once!”

  The sound of the electric door sliding open again drew both pairs of eyes away from the pitiful sight of Lee.

  “Countermanding my orders, Colonel?”

  The most recent arrival coldly glared at the two officers from a piercing blackness under his hooded lids.

  The spark in the sky blue eyes of Erich von Lohren died.

  “Begging your pardon, General Ketmann, I was not aware this woman was your prisoner. She was delivered into my custody,” he informed him as he produced the orders from his breast pocket.

  “How convenient!” Ketmann’s sinister voice dripped with sarcasm.

  He took the orders Erich handed him and gave him a hard look, as if he were mentally flicking through his memory trying to remember Erich’s face. Erich stood at stiff attention, while Ketmann read through the papers. An evil smirk curled his lips when he looked up again.

  “These orders are useless, Colonel von Lohren. Your General Schellenberg has been relieved of command. You serve Reichsfuhrer Himmler now, and you take your orders from me.”

  Erich’s shock was genuine. For Grace’s sake, he had been willing to take the extra risk to try and rescue Lee, but Ketmann’s sudden appearance and this news jeopardized everything. Once Ketmann recognized Lee wasn’t Grace, he would remember where he had last seen Erich—at Grace’s recital in Berlin—and realize, of anyone, he not only should have known the prisoner was an impostor but who she was. Erich fished for time.

  “Since this woman is a possible cousin of England’s King George, my concern is that the British and the Allies may want to negotiate for her safe return. If she dies, we’ve lost our bargaining power.”

  Ketmann’s black eyes darkened and narrowed.

  “Colonel von Lohren, have you no finesse? We don’t want Lady Grace to die. We just want to show her who her real friends are.”

  The Gestapo officer flicked his gloves at the other SD officer beside Erich, directing him to open the door into Lee’s cell. The heavy metal door scraped against the concrete floor as Ketmann gestured with another flick of his gloves to Erich to precede him into the cell.

  Following him into the cold dank room, Ketmann remarked, “Precise and meticulous timing, Colonel, is of the essence.”

  Inside, he strode over to Lee’s slumped body. His piercing black eyes devoured her disgrace before he shoved Lee’s hair back from her forehead and lifted her face up by her chin for his inspection. Instant fury stained the whites of his eyes an inky red.

  “I’ve been cheated again!” he thundered and cruelly dug his fingers into her cheeks. “Wake up, whore!” He screamed. “Wake up!”

  Lee groaned. The zigzagging pain darting through her jaws stabbed the comfortable darkness. She gagged and coughed. That awful smell of garlic sausage … she had smelled it before … in Berlin! Her eyes flashed open.

  Above her loomed the hateful face of the SS officer she had challenged on Kristallnacht. She flicked her tongue inside her back tooth and tried to loosen the imbedded L-pill.

  “Oh no, YOU DON’T!” Ketmann roared.

  His fist slammed into her mouth and jammed it open. She bit into his flesh struggling to crush the poison capsule. He howled and swore and, with his fist still jammed up against the roof of her mouth, knocked her head against the wall.

  “You can’t bite it,” he hissed. “Now swallow it, you slut! The whole pill!”

  She couldn’t breathe and began choking. Instinctively she swallowed. The pill slipped down her throat unharmed.

  A crueler smile twisted his face. “So, we meet again, Lee Talbot,” he sneered.

  “Lee Talbot!” gasped Erich, from behind him. “Let me see her.”

  Ketmann stood aside. “Am I to believe this is the first time you’ve seen your prisoner?” he snarled.

  “I only received my orders to take over Lady Grace’s interrogation this morning. I was not the arresting officer. Major Baldur-Meyer was.”

  Erich gestured to the SD officer they had left standing in the hallway and looked down at Lee. “She is indeed the journalist, but her hair and coloring are different. Her likeness to Lady Grace is astounding.”

  “It’s more than astounding! Her appearance is a perfect duplicate of the drawing London sent us.”

  In a rage, Ketmann slapped his black leather gloves against the concrete wall. “We’ve been tricked.” He turned on Erich. “You said she’s a journalist. How do you know that?”

  “You were there too, General Ketmann. At the International Press Club in Berlin when Lady Grace performed. Lee Talbot was among the journalists.”

  “Berlin. Jawohl. She was there, and I remember you … and Lady Grace …”

  “I was fascinated with Lady Grace’s remarkable performance and her fine beauty. We did play a duet. Perhaps, I would have pursued her then, but it was not meant to be. Indeed, if she is a spy … that is why as soon as I received these orders, I came at once to see if our prisoner is truly Lady Grace. But, instead of a royal prize, we find this …this impostor.”

  Ketmann clamped Lee’s face between his squared finger tips. Renewed rage reddened his cheeks.

  “The swine!” he cursed. “I want that traitor. I want him!”

  “Who? What traitor?” Erich demanded.

  “The Abwehr,” Ketmann impatiently explained. “Admiral Canaris himself set up a double agent in London … a plant inside British Intelligence. Only he’s not working for them or us. Moscow runs him.”

  The idea triggered a mean laugh. “He makes the British look like such fools. The Americans can’t trust them. Divide and conquer. A typical Stalin trick. And this woman …” he said, pointing at Lee, “works with the traitor. She is a Red agent, a Red whore.”

  Stunned with horror, Lee stared into his mad black eyes and cried out in denial.

  Erich likewise absorbed Ketmann’s assumption with concealed dismay, but it confirmed Amanita agents were being betrayed and why. He looked on Lee with even graver pity and wished, as he resigned himself to her sacrifice, he could free her from Ketmann’s inevitable torture. Now, however, it was more important he survive to get to London as quickly as possible.

  Lee’s fear fed Ketmann’s obsession. “Ah, my Red whore. You are afraid,” he smirked. “That is good. Very, very good. You and I have a lot to talk about. It would be easier if you co-operated. Easier and shorter.”

  The meaning of his words toyed with the darkness of his eyes, their pools upon pools growing and growing into wider and wider circles of sinister ripples. With a swift movement, Ketmann yanked out a switchblade from his polished jackboot and released the blade.

  Erich watched dry-mouthed.

  Lee’s eyes widened with expectation, and when she glanced at Erich, the shock of recognizing him magnified her fright. Ketmann loomed over her. With the tip of the cold steel knife, he drew an imaginary line from her throat down to her breast. Lee shivered.

  “No doubt you have other duties to attend to Colonel von Lohren,” he said. �
�See to them at once and forget this treachery. I will get at the truth.”

  Staring at Ketmann, Erich swallowed and squared his shoulders. “Of course.”

  Then he abruptly swung about and left Lee’s cell, forgetting to salute Hitler.

  Erich’s oversight did not escape Ketmann’s notice. Once von Lohren left, Ketmann folded the switchblade and slipped the knife back into his boot. He motioned to the SD officer in the hallway.

  “Unlock her,” he ordered.

  As the other officer moved to do his bidding, Ketmann paced the floor of the cell.

  “I don’t trust von Lohren. Have him watched day and night.”

  He paused.

  “Major Baldur-Meyer?”

  “Yes, my general.”

  Ketmann’s black eyes bore into the other man.

  “What do you think of whores?”

  “I hate them.”

  Ketmann nodded. “I thought I remembered that correctly about you. You have not served me long, Major Baldur-Meyer, but I am going to leave this Red whore in your capable hands until I return.”

  Turning his attention back to Lee, his eyes hardened with hate, and he spoke to her in flawless English.

  “How I long to direct your interrogation myself, dear lady, but alas,” he affected a long deep sigh, “I have been transferred to Poland. It’s only a temporary assignment, you understand. I shall come back, Miss Talbot, and I trust that, when we next meet, you will be more agreeable.”

  Smiling with self-satisfaction, he turned away from her, back to Major Baldur-Meyer. His face darkened. The smirk died. In German, he said, “I don’t care what you do to her. Understand?”

  “Jawohl.”

  “Make her talk. Heil Hitler!”

  He clicked his heels and tromped out of Lee’s prison cell.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Wednesday, October 13th, 1944

  To Lee’s astonishment, immediately after Ketmann left her cell, the SD security officer Ketmann assigned to interrogate her unbound her. She was too weak to stand.

  “My name is Major Tobias Baldur-Meyer, and you serve me now,” he told her as he pulled her to her feet, and supported her with his arm around her waist.

  “First we will find you a coat. Then we will go to my quarters.”

  She felt light headed and started to slump. His hold braced her.

  “Wrap your arm around me and I’ll help you, but it would be best if you could walk yourself. The elevator is just outside your cell.”

  She nodded and tried to take a step. As the circulation crept back into her legs, the tingling became excruciating pain. She cried out.

  “Wait a minute. It will pass.”

  He continued to hold her.

  “You speak English like an Englishman,” she said once the pain had receded and she dared to move her feet.

  “Most Germans do. Why does that surprise you?”

  She straightened and looked at him face on for the first time.

  “I don’t know. Most Germans I’ve met have an accent. The few who speak like a Londoner seem less like the enemy, I suppose.”

  “General Ketmann speaks the eloquent English of a stage actor. Yet he is your worst enemy.”

  She bit her lip. “True.”

  He guided her out of the cell to the elevator.

  “I don’t believe we will see General Ketmann in Copenhagen again. He is so proud the Fuhrer himself assigned him to Poland, but with conditions as they are on the Eastern Front, he will be too busy staying alive to remember you.”

  Once they reached his residence, he provided her with a basic wardrobe he kept in a trunk. When she changed, he left, but before leaving, he chained her to his bed so she could not escape.

  Each night, when he returned from Gestapo Headquarters at Shell House, he brought her a day’s supply of sandwiches and ersatz coffee. He made no effort to question her and no attempt to touch her. At night—for six, long, silent nights—he lay on the bed beside her and slept.

  Not sure what to make out of this treatment, Lee eventually decided to take advantage of it and welcomed the relief, if only to regain her strength from the ordeal suffered during the first days of her imprisonment.

  In his early, maybe middle thirties, Baldur-Meyer seemed a remote man. He had chiseled features and a cleft chin. The way his locks of short flaxen waves flopped over his smooth brow reminded Lee of dried wheat fringing his forehead. A broad delta ran between his hard blue eyes and down his square-tipped nose. Across his face, his straight mouth formed an upside down T-square to his short nose. He never smiled. Lee sensed sadness beneath the hardness.

  On this night, as soon as he walked in the door, she knew something had changed. He carried no food with him. Instead, he stood at the foot of the bed and deliberately undressed, revealing his firm, well-muscled frame. Emotions she could not identify twirled and twisted in the depths of his eyes like shadows eddying in layers under their steel-smooth surface. Without a word, he bent down and began massaging her feet.

  “You are my own private experiment,” he whispered, and his fingers eased upward, stroking her legs.

  She closed her eyes. NO! NO! NO! she cried out against herself. I must not feel. If there is a god, please don’t let me feel anything!

  “Oh, this is just the beginning,” he crowed. His pale lips curled back over model-perfect teeth in a sly smile.

  “Hitler has his Eva, and I have you. Who is luckier, ja?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Friday, October 15th, 1944

  Two days later, Erich welcomed the pregnant rain clouds looming over the deserted stone cottage with its thatched roof and wind-battered sign squeaking on rusty hinges in rhythm with the howling night. He could still make out the inscription, HAVNEHUS, of the letters peeling off the sign’s wooden plaque.

  Once a tourist teahouse, the owner had abandoned it soon after the occupation forces overran the northern outskirts of Copenhagen and had escaped to England with some merchant marines. Behind it, neglected terraces and wild lawns stretched down the lap of the forest clearing to the sea. In daylight, the Oresund reflected a breathtaking blue, and the Swedish coastline was clearly visible across the narrow waterway connecting the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.

  Tonight, syrupy darkness spread across the Oresund. The wind stirred, and the air smelled of rain. The coming downpour would wash away his tire tracks, Erich thought with relief, as he cautiously opened the garage door of the forgotten country teahouse. Inside, covered by a tarpaulin, was his car, a 1938 Mercedes-Benz convertible, the object of his getaway plan.

  Returning to the pickup truck outside, he unloaded the long bulky bedroll clumsily wrapped in oilcloth and sail twine, and hoisted it over his shoulder. Under the rigid deadweight, he lurched as he hauled it inside and dumped it on the running board of his car. Squatting, he propped up the bundled truss against the car door, but no sooner did he let go than it slid down and fell on the cement floor. He thought about lifting it back up again, and then decided against it, while reaching over the front seat of the open convertible to yank up the rear seat cushion. Under it, he found the duffel bag exactly where he had stashed it. Lugging it out, he loosened the draw string and, turning it upside down, shook the contents on the ground: his SS boots, black and silver uniform, cap and waterproof pouch with all his identification papers tucked inside. From it, he removed his family ring and his wristwatch.

  It was a few minutes after midnight.

  Slipping a penknife out of his pant pocket, he took the tied-up bundle and cut the cords holding it together. The oilcloth slackened, and Erich unrolled it.

  A corpse, about his age and size with thick blonde hair, tumbled free. The sudden release of the body’s wretched odor overwhelmed him. He gagged. Coughing and spitting, he groped in his hip pocket for his scarf and hurriedly tied it over his nose and around his face. This done, he set himself to dressing the corpse in his uniform.

  The jackboots were a struggle. He tugged and cursed. There was no
give. He started to sweat. Impatiently, he jammed the boots on as far as they would fit and opened the driver’s door. Locking his arms around the dead man’s chest, he dragged him up onto the seat and pushed and shoved … and pushed and shoved … until he had him facing the steering wheel. But rigor mortis had set in so he could not fold him into the seat. He pushed and shoved some more, but the cadaver would not bend. It was literally standing on the gas pedal.

  “What the devil…!” Erich groaned in disgust. “They should have drugged the traitor instead of killing him.”

  After a moment’s rest, he decided to lay the corpse down across the front seat. Next, he checked his pouch. All of his papers were there. For a second he held them, reflecting. He was about to snuff out his whole existence with one tap of his finger. Reluctantly, he straightened his shoulders, folded the papers into a small, flat square and inserted them into the hollow extension of his steel belt buckle.

  He fingered his ring, his mother’s Uradel seal. From landed nobility, Erich felt the heavy responsibility of being the only one left in his family to pass on his aristocratic heritage. It grieved him to give up the ring that traced back to the Junker knights, but it was the only thing that would confirm his identification. He sighed and slipped the ring on the fourth finger of the dead man’s right hand. It fit as if it belonged. He felt no remorse about the man delivered to Erich to die in his place. He was a Nazi collaborator the Resistance gladly executed to save the life of a secret Allied agent.

  At this moment, Erich thought of Gunther, how his best friend had become a posthumous hero in Hitler’s bombing of London, how their noble life of horse breeding was lost to them forever. And then he thought of Grace. She was his life now. He loved her with all his heart. For the time being, he had safely hidden her with the nuns in the convent across the street from Gestapo headquarters. There was a certain irony to the proximity of the enemy that tickled his sense of humor. The abbess of St. Joan’s was one of the sleepers he recruited for his secret network before the war. He avoided using her, but protecting Grace altered his gallant intent not to involve the nun in his subversive activities. Until he could determine who had betrayed Grace, there was no one else he could trust except God’s angel of mercy.