They came to another barrier, this one commanded by a lieutenant. ‘The general is at the town hall, Herr Major,’ he said.
Now it was necessary to enter the town centre. The passable streets were guarded and indicated by the military police, Wassermann’s own men, who saluted their commanding officer smartly. As these streets were obviously the least damaged, and had not yet been reached by the fires, Wassermann studied the windows of the houses beneath which they passed, particularly those on the upper floors; he did not suppose all these buildings had been adequately searched, and thus they could easily contain a sniper, determined on death and glory.
But although the occasional shot could be heard in the distance, none was fired close at hand, and moments later he arrived in the main square. This was crowded, lined round all four sides by armed soldiers, while in the centre there were a number of civilians, lying or sitting on the cobbles. ‘Who are these people?’ Wassermann asked as he stepped down.
‘Prisoners, Herr Major. They are nearly all wounded.’
‘And why have they been accumulated here?’
‘I think they are waiting for you, Herr Major. To escort them to Belgrade.’
Wassermann looked over the prisoners. There were more than a hundred of them, and many were clearly severely wounded. He went up the steps, returned the salute of the sentries, and was shown to Blintoft, who was surrounded by his staff. ‘Well, Wassermann,’ Blintoft said boisterously, ‘we have gained the day, eh?’
‘Indeed, Herr General. Were there many casualties?’
‘More than I had anticipated. The enemy fought well for a while, then they ran away.’
‘I was speaking of the Partisans, sir.’
Blintoft waved his hand. ‘What you saw outside. About twenty dead.’
‘And a hundred prisoners? There were three thousand men in the town.’
‘That was our information. Your information, Wassermann. It would appear to have been an overestimate.’
‘Have the defensive lines behind the town been occupied?’
Blintoft was frowning; he did not like being interrogated by a junior officer as if he was the junior officer, even if the man was to be his son-in-law. ‘Of course they have. Again, resistance was minimal.’
‘Then the bulk of the enemy has got away,’ Wassermann said. He had supposed a couple of hundred might escape, not a couple of thousand. ‘Defending the town was merely a holding action to delay us.’
‘A few may have got away,’ Blintoft acknowledged. ‘But I have sent for the bombers. Now that the bandits are in the open, the Luftwaffe will finish the job.’
‘If they can find them,’ Wassermann remarked.
‘If they do not, it will be because there are not enough left to find. I have received a message from Brigadier General Altman that his right-hand pincer has been attacked, but that he is coping with the situation. It is clearly a last-ditch rearguard action.’
‘May I ask in what strength he is being attacked, sir?’
‘He cannot say. But he does not think it can be more than a few hundred.’
‘And General Leesing?’
‘He hasn’t even come up yet. I am beginning to doubt his competence. Or his enthusiasm.’
‘Then the bulk of the enemy forces may have escaped to the south-west.’
‘If they have, they will run into the Cetniks, eh? But in any event, the planes will sort it out. You worry too much, Wassermann. Your business is to convey the prisoners back to Belgrade.’
‘For what purpose, sir?’
‘Well, to lock them up.’
‘Until they can be tried, and shot?’
‘Well, we shall leave that decision to Berlin.’
‘With respect, sir, I do not think Berlin will appreciate being asked to make decisions at a distance of several hundred miles, and concern themselves with what is, after all, a very small sideshow when compared with the Russian front.’ Blintoft glared at him. ‘If you would leave the matter in my hands, sir, I will deal with it. And with your permission, I would also like to lead a force in pursuit of the Partisans. You said they had to be destroyed. I will make it my business to see that this is done.’
Blintoft continued to regard him for some seconds, but the anger was fading from his eyes. ‘Very good, Major. But you will wait until our forces have evacuated the town. You will also have to liaise with the Luftwaffe.’
‘Very good, sir. I will need written orders.’
‘Oh, very well. I will give you carte blanche. But I do not wish to know how you handle it. I wish nothing to be done until the army moves out. That will be at dawn.’
‘Of course, sir. But I will also require permission to conduct a search of the town. We do not know how many of these scum are hiding, or being hidden, under our very noses.’
Blintoft nodded. ‘You have it.’
‘Then finally, sir, I will need to retain the use of a battalion of infantry and a squadron of tanks. To pursue the rebels.’
‘Very good, Major.’
Wassermann saluted, and left the room. One of the staff officers said, ‘He means to kill them all. The wounded, I mean.’
Blintoft sighed. ‘You may be right.’
‘But, sir, that is against all the rules of war.’
‘I have been instructed to treat these people, these guerillas, exactly as we are treating the guerillas in Russia. Do you know, Klepmann, I came here hoping to turn Yugoslavia into a useful and contented province of the Reich. And the first thing that happens is they murder my wife. Thus I have come to agree with Berlin; these people cannot be treated as human beings. They must be liquidated. I would say that we are lucky to have a man like Wassermann to take care of it for us.’ Major Klepmann made a remark under his breath. ‘What was that, Herr Major?’
‘I was praying, sir, that God may have mercy on our souls.’
Blintoft gave a grim smile. ‘What you mean, Major, is that God give us victory in this war. There will be no mercy for the losers.’
Tony’s brain told him he should not be doing this, because Sasha could never be his kind of woman: she took too much pleasure in killing. He did not suppose Sandrine was any less ruthless when it came to taking life, but in Sandrine’s case it was all passion. In Sasha’s case, the passion was too closely mixed with pleasure.
Equally, his heart told him that he should not be doing it. That was simply because he knew he should be mourning Sandrine’s death. Which he did, even if the true fact of it had not yet sunk in. Yet an even truer fact was that while Sandrine had been everything to him, and he had allowed himself to dream of a shared future after the war, he had known the chances of that ever coming about, of one of them, much less both, ever surviving this conflict, had been so remote as to be almost non-existent. As Tito had said, they had been living on borrowed time for six months.
But the feeling of utter nihilism which kept creeping over him was reinforced by the demands of his groin, which in turn was accentuated by the amount of femininity with which he was surrounded – especially when he held so much throbbing woman in his arms. Sasha, with her tumbling black hair, her full breasts, her narrow thighs, and her long, strong legs, the whole driven by her quite primordial passion, had to be the sexiest woman he had ever known, or had even been able to imagine. She was not only the present, she was the future, when he would fight as ruthlessly as her, seeking only vengeance. Perhaps he should have let her torture that unfortunate boy after all.
Her hands roamed over his body, and she followed them with her lips. The blanket was discarded, but most of the women were asleep, and she did not seem to feel the chill in the air. Neither did he, as he sought the secrets of her body with his hands in turn. She was delicious, as hard muscle slipped into soft flesh, and she began to moan and toss in the ecstasy of orgasm.
She exhausted him, and herself, more than once, then they both fell into a deep sleep in each other’s arms – to awaken to the huge crump of an exploding bomb.
PART
THREE:
COUP
The attempt and not the deed, Confounds us.
William Shakespeare
Eight
Pursuit
It was after dark before Ulrich regained Belgrade. There were still considerable troops, reserves, logistical trucks, ambulances, and food supply vehicles moving up behind the assault force, and the narrow roads were clogged.
He sat in the back of the command car, Sandrine beside him. He was acutely aware of her femininity as well as her attractiveness, although, while he could not get the image of her standing naked in Wassermann’s tent out of his mind – with all the erotic suggestiveness of what might just have happened to her, and even more, what was going to happen to her in the near future – he hastily rejected any erotic ideas of his own. His wife, in their house in Hamburg, might not be able to compare with the Frenchwoman as regarded looks, but theirs was a totally happy marriage – and Helga had never committed an act of violence in her life.
As instructed by Wassermann, he had handcuffed her, but he could not stop himself from feeling sorry for the beautiful little blonde. ‘If you were to give me your parole, I would release your arms,’ he suggested.
‘If you release my arms I will kill you,’ she said.
Ulrich let it go. But after they had been on the road for a couple of hours, he uncorked his water bottle, and held it to her lips. She drank greedily. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it might be a good idea for you to commit suicide.’ Sandrine turned her head, sharply. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we will have to torture you. Even if you admit to every crime of which you are accused, answer every question that is put to you, Wassermann will still insist upon it; he is a sadist. And then there will be only the rope, in public.’
‘Wassermann has explained this to me.’
‘Well, do you really want to endure all of that?’ Sandrine continued to look at him. ‘If,’ he said, ‘when we reach Belgrade and you are put in a cell, a loaded revolver was left in the cell with you, you could do the job.’
‘You would do this? What would happen to you?’
‘Oh, I would be reprimanded, of course. But only for a simple confusion of orders. What I have just suggested is standard procedure for prisoners whom we do not wish to bring to trial. Now, it is certainly the intention of my superiors to bring you to trial. But it is possible for the orders to be confused, and your guards to be under the impression that you are to be, shall I say, disposed of, secretly.’
‘Why should you do this for me? Wassermann specifically warned you against allowing me to take my own life.’
‘I know. As I said, I would be reprimanded. But … I suppose I have a weakness for pretty women. Besides, I know you are innocent of Frau von Blintoft’s death.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘We have the murder weapon. And therefore the fingerprints of the murderer. Svetovar Kostic. So will you accept my offer?’
‘When I am tortured, will you be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you enjoy that?’
He sighed. ‘Sadly, I am as gross as any of them when it comes down to it. But I will hate myself afterwards.’
‘Well then, you will have to hate yourself.’
‘You understand that it will be absolutely horrible for you? And you also understand that I will not be able to repeat this offer? Once I have delivered you, I must return to the front. And when I come back, it will be with Major Wassermann. Please consider my suggestion.’
‘I will thank you for making it, Herr Captain.’
‘But why? Why undergo all of that, to no purpose?’
‘I shall undergo all of that, as you put it, Herr Captain, because I hope to stay alive long enough to see you and all of your people destroyed.’
They finished the drive in silence, and reached the Gestapo courtyard just after eight. Ulrich opened the door for Sandrine, then escorted her along the passageways and down the stairs to the cell section. ‘Who is on duty?’ he asked the sergeant. ‘Ah, Anke,’ he said as the woman emerged from the corridor. ‘I have a prisoner for you.’ Anke looked at Sandrine; if she immediately guessed who she had to be, she did not let it show in her face. She had a placidly pretty face, which matched her somewhat overweight but still statuesque figure, but her eyes were like drops of blue ice. ‘Now listen very carefully,’ Ulrich said. ‘I wish her placed in a good cell, with furniture. You will feed her properly. She is not to be ill-treated. Her handcuffs will be removed, but you are not to enter the cell unaccompanied. She is a very dangerous woman.’
Anke continued to gaze at Sandrine; as she was twice the size of the Frenchwoman, she obviously did not take the suggestion seriously. Besides, as she allowed her gaze to drift down Sandrine’s body, past the half-open blouse, it was apparent that she had other things on her mind. ‘She will need to be bathed.’
‘Then you will escort her to the showers, and give her a piece of soap. You may watch, but you may not touch. She belongs to Major Wassermann, and must be in perfect condition, mentally and physically, when he returns.’
Anke turned away. ‘Come,’ she said.
‘Again, thank you, Herr Captain,’ Sandrine said. She followed Anke down the corridor.
Ulrich watched them go. He was a romantic, and could dream of how different things could be … but those were dreams. He was a soldier as well as a policeman. But he could still follow a private path.
He got back into the command car, and was driven to the palace. Guards presented arms, and he was shown into the dining room. Curious as to what he would find there, he was taken aback at once by the size and splendour of the room – he had not been here before – and by the young woman, exquisite in a low-cut black evening gown, seated alone at the head of a vast table, surrounded by servants who were waiting on her every move. ‘Forgive this intrusion, Fräulein,’ Ulrich said.
‘You have come from Major Wassermann?’ Angela asked. ‘And my father? Has the campaign gone well?’
‘I have not come from the general, Fräulein, but I understand everything is going according to plan.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Well, no, Fräulein.’
‘Then sit down. Serve the captain,’ she instructed the footmen. ‘And pour some wine. Now tell me, Captain, the major sent you all the way back here to see me? He isn’t hurt?’ She asked the question almost casually.
‘No, no, Fräulein.’ Ulrich took a long drink of wine, and had his glass immediately refilled. ‘Major Wassermann is fine, and is doing his duty as always.’ Now he had a strong temptation to tell her about the massacre at Kragujevac, but that was too risky. But he could still impress her. ‘I was actually sent back to convey a prisoner to our cells. As I was returning to Belgrade in any event, the major asked me to bring you up to date with events.’
‘You have captured a prisoner so important he had to be brought here by you? It’s not General Tito?’
‘Sadly, no. But almost the next best thing.’
‘Not the man Davis?’
‘Again, sadly, no.’
Angela regarded him for several seconds, then she snapped her fingers. ‘Fouquet. You have the woman Fouquet!’ She looked past him, almost as if she expected to see Sandrine standing in the hall. ‘Where is she?’
‘She is in our cells. But her capture is a secret, and must remain so.’
‘Why? What have you done to her?’
‘Absolutely nothing. This is Major Wassermann’s command. He wishes to interrogate her personally, and until then he wishes no one to know of her capture.’
‘But you have told me.’
‘Well, I’m sure that the major has no secrets from you.’
Angela drank some wine, slowly. ‘Is she as beautiful as they say?’
‘She is a very handsome woman,’ Ulrich said cautiously.
‘I should like to see her. When you have finished your meal, Herr Captain.’
Ulrich could have kicked himself. He had not wanted her to come down t
o the cells in the first instance the previous month, and now he had practically invited her there himself. He had been an utter fool to tell her about Sandrine. He had succumbed to the desire to appear important in her eyes. But what did her impression of him matter? She, like Sandrine, belonged to Wassermann.
Angela watched him finish his food and drink the last of his wine. ‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said. As he had expected, it was a sable fur, but in fact it was now quite cold.
She sat beside him as they drove to the headquarters. He inhaled her perfume, and thought that Wassermann was a lucky man. But he was growing increasingly nervous.
‘Does she speak German?’ she asked.
‘I doubt it. But you speak Serbo-Croat, don’t you, Fräulein?’
‘A few words.’
If only he could gain some inkling of what she sought, what she intended. She was a teenage girl, and could know nothing of hatred and violence. But she had watched her mother being killed before her eyes, and she had watched Svetovar Kostic being tortured with obvious relish. ‘I should say, Fräulein, that Major Wassermann has given orders that she is not to be harmed. And in any event, she did not kill your mother.’
Angela had been staring ahead, along the line of the headlamps. Now she turned her head. ‘She was there, Herr Captain.? And she shouted to her lover to shoot.’
Murder's Art Page 17