Winner Lose All

by William F. Brown

  Otto Dietrich was not alone in the front seat of the old Maybach. In the dim shadows of the far corner sat the Steiner woman, trying to melt into the seat cushions and into a wet pool of her own despair. When the quiet night was suddenly torn by a burst of gunfire from the alley behind the bookshop, she bolted upright. They both knew the distinctive sound of a 9-millimeter Schmeisser machine gun. “You bastard, you said you would take him alive!” she accused in a hoarse, angry voice.

  “No, I said I would try, my dear. I said I would try, but it does not sound as if your young paramour intends to cooperate. How unfortunate,” he said in a syrupy voice as he reached over and laid his hand on her thigh.

  Her eyes flared as she pushed it aside. “If they hurt him, you will not last five minutes after the Russians arrive. I will kill you with my own hands. I swear it!”

  “My, my,” he smiled innocently, knowing that the angry bitch meant every word. “We seem to be forgetting our place. After all, you were the one who told me where to find the venturesome young American tonight.”

  “Remember what I said.”

  “His fate is entirely up to him, not me,” Dietrich held up his hands in feigned innocence. “I want him alive every bit as much as you do,” he replied, as he looked her over from head to foot. She was an interesting piece of work, he thought. “And you place a lot of confidence in the Russians. When we reach Moscow, you shall see whom they listen to; and you will wish you had been a bit more… shall we say accommodating with me.”

  She glared at him, her cold-blue eyes filled with hate. “I know how to hide sharp nails and razor blades. Touch me again and you will never live to see tomorrow, much less Moscow.”

  “Comrade Beria would not like that very much,” he smiled like a hungry alligator.

  “You will never know. You will be dead.”

  Adjusting his French cuffs, he looked out the window. “We shall see,” he said confidently. “Women are like cats, you see. Offer them a warm, dry spot near the fire, and they all come running soon enough. I never need to use force.”

  “No, you are the kind who likes to watch.”

  “Not usually, but in your case I confess I made an occasional exception.” He smiled as he saw her hands ball themselves into tight, angry fists. “Cry all you want. I chose to make the best of a bad situation, while you persist in bearing your little grudges.”

  “You saw what they did to me. You stood there and watched.”

  “Oh, you do not appear all that worse for the wear, not for someone who is now four months pregnant.” He smiled as her head snapped around, and she glared at him. “The doctor told me, my dear. Surely, you do not think there is such a thing as medical secrets or ethics in the glorious Third Reich, do you? The real question is, what will Comrade Beria do when he hears one of his top agents got knocked up by the opposition, by an American spy, no less?”

  “You bastard!”

  “Oh, be nice to me, my dear. You are the one who will need the help when we reach Moscow, not me.“ He knew she would have gone for his eyes right then, if they had not heard more gunfire in the alley. “Well,” he sighed, “it appears I must go rescue your young gladiator before he gets himself hurt.”

  That said, Dietrich opened the car door and walked away into the night. He knew she would be there when he got back, because she had nowhere else to go. Her orders from Moscow were specific. Unfortunately, Dietrich’s confident bravado was only masking an awful truth. Germany was steadily losing this war. If he listened hard, he could hear death’s heavy footsteps chasing him down at that very moment, faintly at first, but they were growing louder as each day passed. If Heinrich Himmler got so much as a whiff that he was dealing with Beria, of all people, Dietrich would find himself hanging from a meat hook in Spandau Prison or lined up against the wall in his own headquarters building’s courtyard. It was common knowledge that the Reichsführer himself was making overtures to anyone and everyone on the Allied side who might save his own delicate pale-white skin, but that was a privilege he reserved for himself. Himmler had better men shot for much less, so the Chief Inspector had to walk a very fine line.

  Initially, he thought the Americans might offer an attractive alternative, but so far they had proven to be a very puritanical and unforgiving lot. Dietrich was a senior Gestapo officer, which put him near the top of their Most Wanted List. Since 1933, he had been catching criminals, foreign spies, Communists, Socialists, Jews, homosexuals, “enemies of the state,” and any other gutter trash that got in his way, and he had developed a very bad reputation for being exceptionally good at it. If they caught him, the Americans would stage one of their show trials, complete with judges and lawyers, just as the Nazis had done with the July 20 plotters; and they would hang him just as surely when it was over. No one put on a grander show than the Americans did, but Dietrich did not intend to stay around for the final curtain to fall. The British had been another choice, but they were a nation in slow decline and would have little use for someone with his unique talents, even if they could afford him. Besides, Churchill was a vindictive old sod, and he was never a man one could trust.

  That left only the Russians. They were a very different breed than the Americans or the British. He expected they would arrive in Leipzig first, and Ivan was still a bit peeved over things Herr Himmler’s men had done in the east. The Red Army would simply gun down anyone they found wearing SS silver and black or a Gestapo trench coat — no questions, no formalities, and no show trials. More importantly, like an old elephant, Ivan might be slow and plodding, but he never forgot. German medical researchers said that a Russian’s pea brain was taken up about equally by memory, anger, and lust. For all of his dim-wittedness, however, Ivan could occasionally be pragmatic. Dietrich smiled, thinking of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. It proved that you could cut a deal with Ivan, provided you had something Ivan wanted; and Otto Dietrich intended to have that something.

  For the Chief Inspector, that something would be the jet airplane designers at Volkenrode. Their research institute fell within his Gestapo district. Months before he made it his business to learn everything he could about them and what they did out there. More importantly, on a trip to Berlin in February he happened to see one of their new jet fighters tear into an American bomber squadron high over the city. Yes, the Russians would know all about the jet airplane by now, and Otto Dietrich knew that handing it to them was his best hope to avoid the hangman.

  Finally alone, Hanni leaned back in the car seat and closed her eyes. She was suffocating and wanted to scream. “Liebchen, Liebchen,” she moaned. “Why did you come back here?” It had only been two months since they broke him out of Dietrich’s headquarters and saw him safely off to England, but she already knew she was pregnant by then. She suspected it soon after they left that barn, but she decided not to tell him. Edward could be a sweet dear, and she loved him deeply; but he was a complication she could ill afford, then or now. He was right about one thing, however. Returning to Leipzig had been a suicidal miscalculation for her, and it would soon be for him as well. She should have gone to ground with a Communist party cell in Dresden or Meissen, but she refused to even consider that. Maybe it was the need to have her child born here in what would soon be a free Leipzig. It had never simply been another city full of quaint old buildings to her. It was the cradle of German socialism and her father’s personal shrine. It was his Rome, Jerusalem, and Mecca. It gave the world August Bebel, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and “Red Rosa” Luxemburg, all of his heroes, patron saints, and martyrs. As the hour of its liberation drew near, if he could not be there to see it, Hanni knew she must. That was why she stayed — to witness the birth of something new and good born from all the pain, violence, and destruction.

  In the beginning, in the hours immediately after they caught her, Otto Dietrich had no idea who she was. Was she just another young, attractive German blonde? Even if she was involved in the Communist cell, he assumed she was merely a minor player, perhaps a n
ew recruit, or someone’s mistress but little more. Leipzig had a tough, disciplined party that dated back more than thirty years; but it was male. Like every other Communist party cell in Germany, they were pawns of Moscow. Everyone knew of Beria’s sexual proclivities and that he, like all the others in the Moscow hierarchy were inveterate anti-Semites. Who then would expect Beria to put a young woman in her twenties in any position of responsibility, and a Jew on top of that. Impossible! The NKVD was no different from the Gestapo in that regard. They might keep her around for sport, but not for anything important.

  When Scanlon escaped to England, Otto Dietrich launched a massive manhunt that nearly tore the old city apart. Over the next few weeks, he managed to snare dozens of deserters, petty criminals, and the scattered remnants of what had once been the city’s massive Socialist and Communist networks. That included Georg Horstmann, a handful of other old men, their radio, a cache of small arms, and a young blonde girl. Dietrich had battled their type for twenty years and knew the old men would die before they talked; but the young girl — that was another matter. He vowed he would have her singing in a matter of hours, not that he suspected she knew very much. The Reds were too clever by half to permit that. Still, he was in no mood to be patient or to be forgiving. She might have overheard bits and pieces, and something was better than nothing.

  “Give her to the guards,” he ordered as he looked down at her, already stripped naked and tied to a table. “When she starts to talk, let me know.” Normally the mere threat was enough, but this one continued to glare up at him with those defiant, bright-blue eyes. That should have been a clue, he thought later; but at the time, he could only laugh at what he thought was a lame attempt at heroics. “In a few hours they will lose interest and she will be beyond caring; then she will tell me what she knows.” How sad, he thought as he looked down at her splendid body. It was like opening a coconut with a fire axe; it got the job done, if one did not mind a bit of waste.

  That afternoon, in a routine but thorough search of her apartment, his men struck pure gold. They found a black leather wallet hidden beneath the floorboards under the sink in the kitchen. When he opened it, Dietrich saw a polished brass badge with a red enamel star, sword, and sickle on it. It was an NKVD officer’s badge! He had never seen a real one, but he knew all too well the awesome power it commanded. To the Red Underground, it was the whispered voice of Josef Stalin himself, striking terror into a generation of Russian peasants every bit as much as his own thin, nickel-plated Gestapo medallion had to his own countrymen. To top it all, the identity card accompanying the badge had her name and photograph printed on it. Amazing, he thought, and how utterly diabolical.

  He gazed at her wallet and considered the infinite possibilities it opened up for him. The only place they issued these was in Moscow at NKVD headquarters from the hand of that sly old Georgian fox Lavrenti Beria himself. The little blonde bitch was no mere courier; she ran the whole damned network, he now realized. That was the moment when a plan sprang into his head, and he issued orders to stop the axe before it completely destroyed the coconut. His tricks and schemes usually evolved over time from bits and pieces of half-formed ideas, but not this one. It popped into his head so completely and perfectly formed that he could only marvel at its simplicity and its beauty. Hanni Steiner, her brass badge, and her network’s radio would be Otto Dietrich’s ticket out of hell, and the last chance he might get to save his neck from the hangman’s noose.

  “Have Fraulein Steiner cleaned up,” he ordered his disappointed goons. “Get her some new clothes, some food, and send her back to her cell. Then send the doctor to see her and leave her alone. From now on, I shall deal with her personally.”

  Later that night, after the doctor told him the interesting things he had discovered, the Chief Inspector visited her. She sat on the floor in the far corner with her knees drawn up to her chest, her face battered and swollen. However, as the Chief Inspector entered, her eyes focused on him, radiating enough heat and anger to scorch the walls. Dietrich stepped closer and towered over her. Reaching down, he slowly stroked her blonde hair until her arm lashed out and knocked his hand away.

  “Excellent,” he said contentedly and backed away. “The last thing I wanted was to find a vegetable in here.” Her hands trembled and she was whimpering. “Ah, the violated woman,” he commented abstractly as he toyed with her. “I always find them uniquely attractive, you know — sad, vulnerable, hateful, perhaps a bit more humble, but very much alive.” He watched her eyes, knowing how powerful the weapon of humiliation could be when used on a woman. Her spirit might have been badly trampled, but he could see it was not broken. There were flashes of angry pride in those bright, blue eyes, as they burned with a raw intensity. Dietrich made a mental note not to trust her around sharp objects or a loaded gun. He opened his arms and sang, “I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, because we had that silly fight,” mocking her. “That is Frank Sinatra, the American crooner, and we both know how much you like dark-haired Americans, do we not, Fraulein Steiner?” he said, watching her eyes. If looks could kill, he thought, if looks could kill.

  “You are sick, Dietrich,” came her hoarse reply.

  “Much better.” He clapped his hands. “It talks and it will soon be back to normal, perhaps a more respectful normal, shall we say, but alive. Marvelous!”

  “The Russians are coming, Herr Dietrich. I am told some of the eastern troops have been in the woods so long that they do not care whether they find a woman or a man, especially when it comes to SS or Gestapo officers. So, we shall see how you enjoy it.”

  Her eyes followed him around the small cell. She was burning for revenge, and he could see that nothing would stop her from it, nothing short of a large caliber bullet. “You know, a spy is a society’s ultimate ingrate,” he said. “I hope you were paid well for your treason against the Fatherland.”

  “This is not my Fatherland. You and the rest of your Nazi ilk have twisted it into a horror-land that I can hardly recognize.”

  “You are a Jew, I shall grant you that; but you were born here. Why would you betray us for a Russian dwarf like Stalin or a piece of sadistic trash like Lavrenti Beria?”

  “I am not working for the Russians. I am working for a new Germany, something you can never understand.”

  “A new Germany?” he sneered. “Oh, you are so naive, Fraulein. Was it an unhappy childhood? Did your father beat you? Is that what turned your warped little mind to spying? Surely it was more than your torrid love affair with the American?" Dietrich saw the flash of pain in her eyes. “We know all about you and Captain Scanlon. You forget he was a former guest in my little hotel here, and there was not much the fellow did not tell me — except he did omit some very important details about you, I must admit.”

  “You are even more stupid than the Russians,” she spat. “They cannot understand anyone who works for a cause any more than you can.”

  “God save us from the idealists and the zealots. Stalin has such a huge advantage over us in that regard. He pumps you up with all that Socialist ‘one world’ crap. It never fails on women, social misfits, or the hopelessly romantic.”

  “You will never understand.”

  “Oh, but I do. If I know anything, I know spies. Comrade Stalin only sends us his very best — Ukrainians, Georgians, and you Jews, of course. They have all been on my tables down here, and I know. Deceit is in their blood, you see. We cannot possibly top that.”

  “Here I thought you were just another arrogant Nazi, Herr Dietrich; I had no idea how truly evil you are.”

  “Evil? That is high praise when it comes from a Major in Lavrenti Beria’s NKVD,” he said as he held up her brass badge. “I am impressed.” She glared at him, but said nothing. “As a good Red Army officer, I am certain you follow orders, do you not, Comrade Major Steiner? Not much choice, I guess. If not, that dwarf bastard Beria would put you up against the wall.”

  “Yes, as he will do to you in a few weeks.”


  “I think not, Hanni, because I have a delicious proposition for him,” he said, leering at her and watching her shrink back. “We found your radio transmitter. It is all connected upstairs and ready to go, and I want you to send a message to Moscow for me.”

  “Never!”

  “Never can be a very long time,” he laughed. “Many, many things can happen between now and then, and you would be amazed at how fast never can arrive, my dear.”

  “Never!" she screamed at him again with clenched teeth.

  “Humor me,” he said as he waved her protest aside. “You are going upstairs, even if I have to drag you up there myself. I have a room set up for you adjacent to my office. Call it your private little cell with a bed, a private bath, and your radio. You can relax, take a nap, and give Moscow a call when you feel up to it. Tell them about the weather, tell them about the war, or tell them anything you damned well please; but in the end, you will tell them about my proposition; because that is your duty, Major Steiner.”

  “What proposition?” she finally asked, as she felt the jaws of a giant vice began to close around her.

  “It is all about airplanes, my dear, about jet airplanes,” he beamed. “Tell your masters that I can deliver the Hermann Göring Research Institute at Volkenrode to them — lock, stock, staff, and engineering barrel — either to them or to Herr Churchill in London. It is their choice. If they do not know what the Me-262 is, tell them they should employ a better class of spy.”

  “You really are mad.”

  “Mad? Oh, not at all,” he laughed with the confidence of a diamond cutter who knows every facet of his stone by heart. “Moscow Center knows who I am, and they know I am a man of certain… capabilities.”

  “They know you are a sadist and a pervert.”

  “Which is precisely why Comrade Beria will so readily understand. Even a cretin like him will know what a jet airplane is by now, and what it means to Russia’s future. They may have two million Mongolians in uniform ready to die for the Rodina, the Motherland, but the Americans will soon have the technology to make them do just that, and to dominate the Soviet Union for decades. So, you will send the message, my dear, because you have no choice; and they will listen, because they have no choice, either. They must have those jet airplanes.”