Angel of Doom (Anna Fehrback Book 5)

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Oh, really?’ Anna asked. ‘Haven’t you had enough?’

  ‘No,’ Katherine said.

  Anna regarded her for some seconds, but she was obviously in a recalcitrant mood, almost certainly brought on by jealousy: Anna had been watching her throughout the evening. Well, she thought, if the silly girl wants to have a head tomorrow, so be it. ‘Is there any champagne, Birgit?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Countess. There are several bottles.’

  ‘Then open one and bring it to Fraulein Fehrbach, with a glass. Good night.’

  She went up the stairs, and found Gutemann at her elbow. ‘Don’t you wish some more champagne?’ she asked.

  ‘I wish some more of you.’

  She paused in her doorway. ‘Not tonight, Gunther.’

  ‘Oh!’ His face fell. ‘I thought we . . .’

  ‘Yes, we do. But not to the extent that it becomes boring.’

  ‘Then when . . .?’

  She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe tomorrow?’

  *

  She undressed. The night was very close and hot, accentuated by the heat drifting their way from the many burning buildings. I am sleeping where I belong, she thought: in Hell. But even her hair felt hot. She went into the bathroom, and found a shower cap. Into this she scooped her hair, exposing her neck and shoulders, and then got into bed.

  But she knew she wasn’t going to sleep. She was, in fact, feeling just as recalcitrant as her sister, for an entirely different reason. She had been the belle of the ball, as always. But the situation, all those eager men, the ones she had met on her previous stops, the ones she had met tonight . . . all were going to die, perhaps quite soon. As she had thought earlier, they no doubt deserved to die for their crimes. But they were so eager. As for those who had called here tonight . . .!

  Her eyes opened and she stared at the darkened ceiling. That was what was keeping her awake. Whatever her hatred for the Nazi regime, she had never been able to fault the discipline of the German soldier. Throughout her tour so far, although more often than not surrounded by men most of whom could not have had a woman in weeks, perhaps months, not one had ever attempted to take a liberty, not even a hand ‘inadvertently’ brushed against her bottom. But twelve men, apparently including an officer, had called at this house tonight . . . seeking what?

  In any event, she would have supposed that just about every soldier in Warsaw who was interested would have known that tonight she was being entertained by their officers. So what had they been after? If they were would-be deserters out for what they could get, surely they would have taken whatever was available, Birgit and such food or money they could find? But when the maid had told them her mistress was not available, they had simply gone away again.

  After ascertaining that she would be there tomorrow. Or later tonight? They had to expect that she would report the incident to General Greiff, when they would almost certainly be rounded up. And they had not been SS! But the only German troops in Warsaw were all SS!

  She got out of bed and went to the window. The curtains were drawn, but she parted them sufficiently to look down at the deserted street. But it was not deserted. There was no light down there, but she could make out a command car parked beside the pavement and several shadowy figures, covering this house.

  She went to her door and pulled on her dressing gown, then opened her shoulder bag and took out her pistol and the two spare clips: Birgit had said there were a dozen of them.

  She put the clips in her pocket, stepped into the hall, listened. The light was still on in the drawing room, although there was no sound from there; Katherine must have fallen asleep with her bottle. She went along the hall to Gutemann’s room, listened to him snoring. She did not turn on the light, waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, and then went to the bed, and squeezed his arm.

  ‘Eh? Ah . . . Anna!’ His arm went round her thighs. ‘You have changed your mind.’

  ‘Get up and put something on,’ she said. ‘Find your weapon.’

  ‘What? What?’ But he sat up.

  ‘And hurry. Shit!’ She had turned back to the open door, and now heard a crash from downstairs. ‘Follow me,’ she snapped. She ran into the hall, and heard a scream. Katherine! She reached the landing and looked down. A man stood there, armed with a tommy gun, and looking up. He saw her shadowy figure and levelled the gun. But where she was a shadow, he was illuminated by the light from the drawing room; Anna shot him through the head.

  Another man emerged from the drawing room, just as a third, who must have been on guard outside the front door, came inside. Both were armed, and Anna shot them both before they could fire.

  Gutemann was at her shoulder, wearing a pair of pants. ‘Jesus!’ he muttered. He had never seen her in action before.

  But now several more men came out of the drawing room. Two were carrying a struggling, kicking woman who had to be Katherine – they had dropped a hood over her head – and Anna hesitated for a moment; they had switched off the light and were indistinct, and she had to be sure of not hitting her sister.

  Birgit emerged from her bedroom, screaming. ‘Countess . . .!’

  ‘Get back,’ Anna shouted. Several of the kidnappers were firing up the stairs; in the gloom their shots were wild, but they were ricocheting to and fro.

  ‘Countess!’ Gutemann also wanted to get back.

  The men had got Katherine to the door. Anna took careful aim and fired again, and another man went down. Then the door was open and they were dragging Katherine through.

  ‘Shit,’ Anna said. She still couldn’t go down the stairs as two men remained, spraying their tommy guns upwards. But they were now exposed, and she shot them both, aiming for the leg of the second man.

  The house was suddenly quiet, save for the reverberations of the shots and the groans of one of the stricken man. And the sound of a car engine being gunned on the street. ‘Shit,’ Anna said again. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

  Gutemann came forward to stand at her side. ‘Countess?’

  ‘They got away,’ Anna pointed out, ‘with my sister. We must hurry.’

  She ran down the stairs, switched on the hall light. Gutemann followed, gazed at the bodies. ‘My God!’ he muttered. ‘You shot six men. With six shots. Six men shot dead.’

  ‘This one isn’t dead.’ Anna nudged the wounded man with her toe; he had stopped groaning and appeared to have lost consciousness.

  ‘How do you know he is not dead?’ Gutemann asked, his voice trembling. ‘He looks dead to me.’

  ‘He is not dead,’ Anna pointed out, ‘because I did not shoot to kill him. I shot him in the thigh, because I wanted one of them alive.’

  ‘You . . .’ Gutemann seemed on the edge of a nervous breakdown. ‘You could make such a decision, in the dark, at such a time?’

  ‘I could see him,’ Anna reminded him. ‘But he may well die, if we do not stop this bleeding. Birgit,’ she called. ‘Stop that caterwauling and bring your first aid kit down here. You, Gutemann, get some proper clothes on and go sound the alarm. That car must be found, quickly.’

  ‘Yes, Countess. But you—’

  ‘I am going to patch this fellow up, and then ask him a few questions.’

  Gutemann gulped, his imagination clearly working overtime. Then he hurried back to his room to dress.

  *

  ‘What a terrible thing,’ General Greiff remarked. ‘German soldiers, SS men, behaving like that?’ He gazed across his desk at Anna.

  It was broad daylight, and she was fully dressed, as immaculately as always, a splash of magnificent colour in her pink dress and hat. ‘They were not SS, Herr General, they wore the uniforms of line soldiers, but they were not German soldiers, either,’ she said. ‘They were Russians, wearing German uniforms.’

  ‘What? Good heavens! How do you know this?’

  ‘I was able to interrogate one of them before he died. I’m afraid he was more badly hurt than I had supposed. I intended to hit him in the thigh, but I actually hi
t him in the groin, and must have ruptured his stomach. It was dark,’ she added apologetically. ‘But before he died he gabbled a few words. And they were Russian. I speak Russian, although I could not understand what he was saying.’

  Greiff did not appear to be listening. ‘You shot this man? You, Countess?’

  ‘She shot six of them,’ Gutemann said. He was seated beside her. ‘The other five were killed instantly.’

  Greiff looked at Anna.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ she explained.

  ‘My God!’ the general commented.

  Anna was getting tired of his apparent inability to concentrate. ‘The point is, Herr General, that there were several of these Russians, wearing German uniforms and driving a German car, who have kidnapped my sister. I think you need to find out how they managed this.’

  ‘I have checked,’ Gutemann said. ‘The car was stolen from outside the Officers’ Mess, last night. As you may remember, Herr General, there was a fair amount of merriment, and it does not appear to have been missed.’

  ‘But the alarm was raised several hours ago,’ Anna said, ‘Surely . . .’

  As she spoke, the telephone rang. General Greiff took the receiver from its hook. ‘Yes? Ah. I see. Yes. That is all you can do.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘The car has been found, abandoned, twenty-five kilometres north of the city.’

  ‘Are there no checkpoints?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Oh, indeed. To get that far they would have had to pass through three checkpoints.’

  ‘May I ask how they managed that?’

  Gutemann swallowed. He had heard Anna use that softly menacing voice before.

  ‘Well, you know,’ the general said, ‘they were wearing German uniforms, and one of them was dressed as an officer. He apparently spoke perfect German, and, well . . .’

  ‘They were allowed through. Tell me, Herr General, what would have been the situation had they been the spearhead of a Russian advance coming down from the north to attack Warsaw?’

  ‘Ah, well, that would have been impossible. Had the Russians got across the river in any force, we would have known about it and all entrances and exits from the city would have been fortified and reinforced. You see, Countess, these people were leaving the city, not attempting to enter it. There was no reason for the checkpoints to stop them.’

  Anna sighed. ‘Very well, Herr General. But now we know where they left the car. They can’t have gone far on foot. I assume a search is being mounted?’

  ‘Ah. Well . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A search was mounted immediately, in the vicinity where the car was found. But it was on the river bank, and our people have found evidence of a boat having been brought into the bank at that very place, so I am very much afraid—’

  ‘Are you saying that it is possible for the Russians to cross the river as and when they choose?’

  The general produced a handkerchief to wipe his brow. ‘In small numbers, I suppose it is. It is quite impossible for us to patrol every metre of the river bank. We simply do not have enough men. If they attempt to cross in any numbers, now, well, we would know about it.’

  ‘As you knew about their crossing the river south of Warsaw, in force, two months ago. But they still crossed.’

  ‘Yes, they did. I was not in command there.’ Anna did not look the least convinced, and he hurried on. ‘What I find it impossible to understand is why they would have mounted an operation, in which the risk factor is very high, and in which indeed they lost six men, simply to kidnap your sister.’ He looked at her, eyebrows arched, his expression suggesting, now you try answering a question.

  ‘Herr General,’ Anna said, as patiently as she could, ‘they came to kidnap me, not my sister. In the dark, they made a mistake.’

  ‘Good Heavens! I never thought of that. What are we to do?’

  ‘If they have got her across the river, there is nothing we can do.’ Katherine, she thought. In the hands of thugs who were sworn to execute the Countess von Widerstand, even if they would hardly know that it was not her; it was four years since she had been in Moscow, and the only person she could remember who had known her at all well, and had lived to tell the tale, had been the young female gaoler in the women’s section of the Lubianka Prison. Her first name had been Olga; Anna had never learned her last name. Olga had tortured her with jets of water, sending them into her face and every orifice of her body until she could hardly breathe, with never a change of expression. When Joe Andrews had come for her, armed with that precious order of release issued by Beria, and it had been questioned by that ghastly woman Tserchenka, who had ordered the water torture, and she had killed both her and Commissar Chalyapov, she had fully intended to kill Olga as well, but had been persuaded not to by Andrews, appalled by the carnage that had already been committed, and anxious only to get out of the prison while he, and she, could. But it was very unlikely that Olga was still around, three years later.

  Even so, that was going to be Katherine’s fate, until they executed her. All because she had wanted to be like her big sister in everything. And there was nothing Anna could do about it. She felt quite sick.

  ‘Countess?’ Greiff had been watching her expression, and was anxious. ‘Would you like to return to Berlin?’

  ‘Am I not required to speak with your troops today?’

  ‘Well, yes. But in the circumstances . . .’

  ‘I will speak with your troops, Herr General. Otherwise I, and my sister, should not have been here at all.’

  *

  ‘Comrade Tserchenko,’ Lavrenty Beria said. ‘Welcome home. I understand that your mission has been completed.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Tserchenko spoke proudly.

  ‘And you had no difficulty?’

  ‘Well, Comrade Commissar, it was not easy. We lost six men.’

  ‘I told you it might not be easy. But six men?’

  ‘The woman was well protected. She gave us no trouble, herself, beyond a lot of screaming, and we soon put a stop to that. She was alone in the downstairs of the house, you see, and I suppose we took her by surprise. But her bodyguard was quite deadly. He opened fire from the top of the stairs, and as I reported, shot six of my people before we could get out of the house. With the woman.’

  ‘You mean he had a tommy gun, and opened fire indiscriminately while you were carrying the countess?’

  ‘No, sir. There was no tommy gun. It sounded like a pistol. He fired six shots, and killed six of my men. I have never seen such speed and accuracy. I think we need to be thankful that the Germans do not have many marksmen like that in their army.’

  Beria was frowning. ‘And this man was not hit himself?’

  ‘Well, no, Comrade Commissar. It was dark and we could not see him clearly . . .’

  ‘But he seems to have been able to see you. You will be telling me next that the Germans feed their troops on raw carrots. Anyway, you got the woman.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She is not hurt, I hope? I gave orders that if taken alive she should be brought here unharmed, to face trial.’

  ‘She is not harmed,’ Tserchenko said. ‘Nothing that shows, anyway. At least while she is wearing clothes. It was necessary to restrain her from time to time.’

  ‘And to amuse yourself, no doubt.’

  ‘Well, sir, it is a long way from Warsaw to Moscow.’

  ‘And did she say anything?’

  ‘Oh, she kept insisting that she was not the countess, but her sister. Frankly, I had expected something more.’

  Beria stood up. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘I handed her over to Major Morosova in the Women’s Section.’

  ‘Then let us go down and see this monster.’

  They took the elevator to the ground floor, and the guard on the door of the Women’s Section opened it for them. The commandant, having been warned by phone, was waiting, a small, pretty young woman who wore her black hair cut short and was immaculate in her green uniform. ‘Comrade
Commissar!’

  ‘Good morning, Olga. You have a prisoner for me.’

  ‘Of course, sir. You wish to see her?’

  ‘That is why I am here.’

  Olga hurried in front of the two men, waving subordinate female warders out of the way. They went down various corridors between locked doors, into a world of women, both audibly and odorously, and finally stopped before a cell in the ultra security section. Olga slipped the panel over the window to one side, looked in, and then stepped aside.

  Beria took her place. ‘She is certainly a beauty.’

  ‘Yes, sir. She is not so beautiful as her sister, of course.’

  Beria turned, slowly. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That is what she kept saying,’ Tserchenko complained.

  Beria ignored him. ‘What makes you think this is the countess’s sister?’

  ‘I once had the countess in this very cell, Comrade Commissar.’

  ‘Three years ago. She has undoubtedly changed.’

  ‘Not that much, sir. Besides, the countess had a vivid blue scar on her right rib cage. I believe it was caused by a bullet wound. This woman has no such scar.’

  Beria looked at Tserchenko.

  ‘But –’ the colonel stuttered – ‘I had the photograph. A tall, very handsome woman, with yellow hair . . .’

  ‘Who when you approached her did nothing but scream. While her “bodyguard” picked off six of your people in rapid succession,’ Beria observed. ‘I knew there was something familiar about your story, and I have just remembered what it is. In the summer of 1941 we discovered that the countess was in Washington, and gave orders that she was to be arrested and brought to Moscow for trial. So she was seized by six of our people. And do you know what she did? She shot all six of them dead. Does that not sound familiar to you?’

  ‘But . . .’ Tserchenko looked at Olga for support, and found none.

  ‘Six appears to be her favourite number, when it comes to killing our people,’ Beria observed. ‘So, Comrade, you have not succeeded in your mission. One could say that you have not even started your mission, as you had the opportunity and let it slip through your fingers.’

  Tserchenko swallowed. ‘I shall return to Warsaw, Comrade Commissar. I shall—’