Alternate History The Flight of Werner Von Braun (Alternate History Stand-Alone)

[ChrisNuttall]

Hi, everyone

The Flight Of Werner Von Braun is a stand-alone alternate history novel. It forms part of the backstory for The Twilight Of The Gods series, otherwise known as the Nazi Civil War, but is intended to be more or less completely stand-alone. All you really need to know is that Hitler did not declare war on the United States in 1941, leading to America staying out of the European War, a German victory over the USSR and now an uneasy Cold War between the Third Reich and a British/American alliance. It is now 1949, and Adolf Hitler is dying. His cronies are now positioning themselves for the inevitable struggle that will follow his death.

The novel is set within Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, and represents my attempt to depict the horrors of a victorious Third Reich. If this offends you, please don't read.

(It also needs a better title – any suggestions?)

You can borrow the first book in The Twilight Of The Gods series from the Amazon Kindle Unlimited link below:

Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) | Azonlinks

All comments are welcome; spelling, grammar, continuity problems, moments of dunderheadedness, etc.

I hope to keep a steady pace, but there will be a pause - my family and I hope (pray) to take a short vacation during half-term, which will obviously cut down on writing time.

I've been working on expanding my list of ways for people to follow me. Please click on the link to sign up for my mailing list, newsletter and much - much - more.

The Chrishanger

Thank you

Chris

PS – if you want to write yourself, please check out the post here - Oh No More Updates. We are looking for more submissions.

CGN

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Prologue

Werner Von Braun was drunk.

He did not, normally, indulge. He was a celebrity within Nazi Germany, high in the favour of Adolf Hitler, and yet he was all too aware that allowing himself to get drunk, to lose control of himself, raised the risk of saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong set of ears. He liked to think he was apolitical, that the ebb and flow of politics in the Third Reich meant nothing to him as long as the government kept funding the space program, but even he understood the dangers. Good men – loyal men – had vanished from the site, and even the world itself, because their enemies had pounced on the slightest hint of disloyalty and used it to ensure their disappearance. Werner was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and even he couldn't find out what had happened to the disappeared. He knew better than to ask.

And now Korolev was dead.

Werner ground his teeth in silent frustration, cursing himself for a fool. Korolev and his men had been spared, in the wake of the Reich's conquest of the Soviet Union, to lend their considerable talents to the growing rocket and missile program. Werner had had to argue hard, back in 1942, to convince the SS to take the Russian scientists alive, even going to the Führer himself to override Himmler's conviction that Slavic Untermenschen could not possibly have anything of value to contribute. Werner knew better. He was a scientist and engineer above all else and he was almost painfully aware that the Reich's decision to drive Jewish scientists out of the country had been a dangerous mistake. No one was quite sure if the Americans had managed to produce an atomic bomb, but they certainly had a lead on the Reich's nuclear program. He supposed that explained the sense of urgency pervading the Reich's government. They knew what they would do, if they had a superweapon, and they assumed the Americans would do the same. And yet …

He took another sip of his drink, the fancy alcohol tasting sour in his throat. He was an engineer as well as a scientist, he knew things could go wrong. The rockets were put together using labour from the nearest concentration camp, by workers who were underfed and demotivated, following designs that were pushing the limits of human technology to breaking point. The process needed to be extensively tested before being streamlined, but the Reich was desperate. The Americans could not be allowed to develop intercontinental missiles first. They could not. It was bad enough that they had massive airbases in Britain, with heavy bombers that could carry atomic weapons into the heart of the Reich, but missiles would let them strike the industrial complexes in the ruins of Poland or even destroy Berlin itself. And the push for a success – any success – had led to disaster.

Werner felt sick, as helpless as he'd been when the SS led Korolev away to be executed. They'd blamed the disaster on the Russian, as if the Russian's work hadn't been checked by a dozen German scientists with impeccable bloodlines, and on a multitude of concentration camp workers. Werner had tried to close his mind to the suffering, only a few short miles from the missile complex, but even he knew what was happening now. Hundreds of workers, most innocent of any real crime, were being executed, pour encourager les autres. And there would be more soon, if the next test launch failed …

He shuddered, cursing himself for a fool. He had dreamed of space for his entire adult life and he had thought the Nazis, the sole party devoted to the renewal of Germany, would be able to put the human race in space. To stay. It had worked, at first – Werner knew his team had made magnificent advances – but the demands of war had slowly pushed space exploration back, time and time again, until it was no longer important. Werner had tried, hard, to argue the military importance of control of space, yet … the government wanted missiles to strike London or Washington, or rocket planes capable of flying across the United States, or …

Himmler needs something he can use to climb into Hitler's place, when he is gone, Werner thought. It felt wrong to even consider a Reich without Adolf Hitler – and anyone who voiced the suggestion out loud would be on a short trip to the nearest concentration camp – but the Führer was dying. He hadn't been seen in public for the last year, as far as Werner knew, and if he hadn't had a private meeting with Hitler only two months ago, before the disaster, Werner would have wondered if the Führer was already dead. He needs proof he can steer the ship of state.

He shivered, helplessly. He was a brave man – he had put himself in danger time and time again, just by being on site when prototype rockets were tested – and yet Himmler scared him. The Reichsführer-SS was cold and calm, a bureaucrat who was also a fanatic; a man who had no qualms about rounding up workers and putting them to work, forcing them to work until they dropped. Himmler had few emotions, if Werner was any judge, and no sense of human decency. He wasn't an outright sadist, unlike some of the other Nazis Werner tried to forget existed, but that almost made him worse. It was distressingly easy to convince himself that Himmler would calculate a nuclear war was winnable, as long as the Reich preserved a tiny fraction of its population, and push the button to launch the missiles. And he had thousands upon thousands of loyalists who would set the world ablaze for him.

And if Himmler becomes the Führer, Werner asked himself what happens then?

He took another sip, the alcohol burning through all the evasions and justifications he had used – over the last two decades – to convince himself he was doing the right thing. He had turned a blind eye to so much, in the name of science and simple self-preservation, but it was clear – now – that he had been cheated of the reward he had been promised, when he sold his soul. His rockets would be used for war, not space exploration; atomic science would be used for war, not lighting and heating the Reich … even the half-baked plan one of his subordinates had devised, to use nukes to launch a spacecraft into orbit, would be better than Himmler's plans for the future. He tried to tell himself that Hermann Göring or Albert Speer would win the coming struggle for power, but he could no longer convince himself of anything. Himmler had the edge, and even if he lost his bid for the title he would still have immense power. And that meant …

It was hard not to laugh, bitterly. Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?

You didn't, his conscience answered. How many are dead, because of you? How many will die, because of you?

Werner stared at his glass, then forced himself to stand and walk to the window, looking over the vast complex. He was proud of the missile and rocketry site he'd designed and built over the years, proud enough to hide from the grim truth that it had been built by slave labour and turned into a vital part of the Reich's war machine. The younger men didn't see it – they'd been raised in the Reich, taught only what the government wanted them to know – but Werner could no longer hide from himself. His complex was producing weapons of war, from small antiaircraft rockets to much larger antishipping or even city-busting missiles, and once the latter were mated with atomic bombs … Werner wanted to believe atomic weapons were a dream, or a nightmare, but he knew better. The science was sound. All that was left was engineering, and – given time – there was no engineering problem that couldn't be cracked. The Reich would have the bomb and throw the world into the fire.

He took a long breath, his mind spinning in circles. Retirement was not an option. He knew too much for Himmler to let him go. Suicide was a possibility, but it would be the coward's way out. He knew better than to think he could damage or destroy the complex himself … and even if he did, the damage would be repairable. The Reich would rebuild and carry on and … he swallowed, hard. There was only one choice left, one that might let him make up for his foolishness, and for the horror he'd helped unleash on the world.

Werner Von Braun was going to defect.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter One: Berlin, 1949

"And to think," Sir Cuthbert Dudley said quietly, "this used to be a great city."

Kathleen O'Brian said nothing as the ambassadorial car carried them through the streets of Berlin, their driver steering neatly between the rows of government and military vehicles that dominated the roads. Her mother had left Germany when she'd been a teenager, well before the Nazis had been anything more than a minor threat, but Kathleen had grown up hearing her stories about how peaceful and tolerant Berlin had been, before Hitler. Now ... she could feel a shadow in the air, a fear that was all the more dangerous for never being openly acknowledged. The Reich was feared by all, even the Germans themselves. Kathleen understood, all too well. To say the wrong thing in the wrong place was to sign your death warrant.

She sucked in her breath as the car drove past the towering new buildings, heavy gothic architecture making a statement to the world that the regime was here to stay. The bombing in the later years of the war had done immense damage, but the regime had taken advantage of the devastation to redesign the city to suit itself, giant new buildings overshadowing the remnants of an earlier age. Speer had an unlimited budget and unlimited manpower – guest workers from the east, slaves in all but name – and it showed. The towering grandiosity of the state was all too clear. There was nothing elegant in the design, nothing that showed a sense of historical awareness, just a plain blunt statement that chilled her to the bone. She'd seen the figures. She knew how many guest workers had died to build even one of the monstrous buildings. She wondered, numbly, just how many of the locals on the streets knew who'd done the work and why. Not many, if she was any judge. Far too many Germans preferred to look the other way, rather than risk drawing the gaze of the state. It was almost always lethal.

Her heart twisted, painfully, as she spotted a sign on the walls, ordering the Germans to watch for Jews, Communists, Homosexuals and others the Nazi regime considered undesirable. Kathleen was all too aware that most of the undesirables in Berlin had already been slaughtered, if they hadn't been smart enough to get out before it was too late, but the regime showed no sign of slowing down. They were still butchering their way across the eastern territories, what had once been the USSR, and poisoning the minds of the young. The only upside was that the propaganda was so bad the undesirables could probably remain unnoticed, as long as they kept their heads down. But even that wouldn't be enough to save them if they were denounced...

"They're still there," Sir Cuthbert said, quietly.

Kathleen followed his gaze. A handful of women stood in front of the gates, bravely protesting the regime. They were about the only ones who dared, these days, and Kathleen suspected their cause was futile. The Nazis had had to make use of feminine labour in the later days of the war, when every able-bodied man was required to go east and fight, but the regime was steadily driving women out of the workforce and back into the home, turning them into second-class citizens at best and property of their menfolk at worst. Kathleen had seen the crude propaganda, ordering women to marry and produce children for the regime, and she knew it masked a far darker reality. The regime might be unwilling to openly crush the female protesters – it might spark a riot – but that didn't mean it was powerless. Their menfolk would already be under immense pressure to bring the women in line, or else. She couldn't help feeling the protest was doomed.

She kept her thoughts to herself as they passed a handful of civilian trucks, carrying guest workers to their workplace. The men would be worked to death. The women would be assigned to Germanic households as slaves, handling the chores so their mistress could have as many children as she wished without needing to worry about housework or childcare. It was a horrific system, a nightmare given shape and form ... Kathleen thanked her lucky stars, every day, that her grandparents had been smart enough to get out of Germany before it was too late. She would be dead by now ... no, she wouldn't exist at all. Her parents would never have met, let alone married. And she would never have been given her father's name.

Her blood ran cold. She'd been in Occupied France. She'd been in Vichy France. Berlin was worse.

The driver stopped outside the Reich Hall, a towering monstrosity that was as ugly as the rest of the rebuilt city. A red and black flag flapped in the evening breeze, a grim reminder that the Nazis had left their mark everywhere; a set of SS guards stood outside, snapping to attention as the driver opened the door to allow Sir Cuthbert and Kathleen to leave the vehicle. Kathleen couldn't help feeling a frisson of fear as the guards looked her up and down, then motioned for them to enter the hall. If they had known about her mother, they wouldn't have been so welcome. But then, they couldn't tell a Jew when they saw one.

Sir Cuthbert offered her his arm as they walked through the inner doors and down the steps to the ballroom floor. It was as oversized as everything else in the city, bigger than a football stadium, but the floor was teeming with people. The walls were decorated with red and black banners, a large portrait of Adolf Hitler positioned neatly against the far wall. Kathleen kept her face under tight control as she spotted the uniforms, feeling as though she was walking into a lion's den. The rival power blocs were taking shape and form – the Luftwaffe, the Wehrmacht, the Kriegsmarine, the SS – all trying to position themselves to take advantage of the chaos that would inevitably follow Hitler's death. Kathleen had wondered if Hitler was already dead – he hadn't been seen in public for months – but their sources within the Reich's government suggested he was still alive. Pity. She didn't really believe the Reich would fall into civil war, upon his death, but she had hopes. There might be nothing else capable of stopping the Reich from taking the world.

"Ah, Sir Cuthbert," a man said. Kathleen silently placed him as a diplomat, probably working directly for Ribbentrop. The man was a fool, but beloved by the Fuhrer. "I must say ..."

Sir Cuthbert gave Kathleen a sharp glance, conveying a pre-planned message. Go mingle. Kathleen nodded and allowed herself to be swept away by the crowd, a handful of young officers – and others not so young – inviting her to dance. There weren't many women in the room, apart from the serving girls, and they were under strict supervision. It said something about the sheer importance of the Reich Hall, she supposed, that the servants were all German girls, rather than guest workers. The young girls should be getting married and having children, according to the regime. But then, who knew who they would meet at the gathering?

And if half the stories about the elite are true, she thought coldly, the lucky girls will be the ones who go home without a mate.

She forced herself to listen as the dancers swept her around the hall, silently picking up information that might be useful later. Men liked to brag, particularly when they thought their dance partner was too ignorant to understand what they were saying. One officer talked about a redeployment to the eastern front, chasing partisans, and another talked about being sent to the Iron Wall in Occupied France. Kathleen filed both pieces of information away in her mind for later, when she could discuss them with the analysts at the embassy. The Nazis might be having problems in the east – it wasn't as if they'd ever given the partisans any reason to believe they would be allowed to live, let alone any degree of freedom, if they gave up and went under the yoke – or they might be planning to invade England. It would be hellishly risky, and it would mean war with America as well as Britain, but it wasn't 1940 any longer. The Kriegsmarine might be the junior service, as far as the Reich was concerned, yet it hadn't wasted the six years of relative peace. They had – theoretically – the ability to land an invasion force on British soil. Would they try?

"My regiment is being rearmed with the latest Panzer X," another officer said, bragging to his companion. Kathleen listened with interest. The latest tanks were supposed to incorporate all the lessons of the last war, with everything from better armour to heavier guns. "The latest guns are really something and ..."

"We came back heroes, and all the girls are married to the boys in black," a third officer moaned. He wouldn't have talked so freely if he hadn't been well on the way to being drunk. "Doing their duty by their men ... pah!"

Kathleen memorised his face for later attention, if he survived the night. They'd heard rumours of discontent between the Wehrmacht and the SS before, but the disputes had largely been kept under wraps. After Hitler died ... the SS received huge benefits from the regime, from increased living allowances to preferential treatment, and she wasn't surprised it sparked resentment. She'd even heard rumours that racially pure SS officers had been encouraged to take multiple wives, to increase their chances of siring a small army of blond blue-eyed children. That had never been confirmed, but if it turned out to be true ... there would be trouble. The regime had promised its fighting men loving wives. If those promises weren't kept ...

A fat man caught her arm and pulled her away from her current partner. Kathleen had to bit her lip to keep from kicking him in the groin, particularly as her former partner backed away without a fight. The newcomer was almost certainly much higher up the hierarchy. His uniform was laden with medals, half of which were only awarded to officers who had served on the front lines. This man ... Kathleen let her eyes roam up and down his body. She'd never seen a combat soldier quite so overweight before.

"It is quite offensive that your government allowed the publication of Anne Frank's book," the officer said, instead of the sweet nothings mingled with titbits of useful information she'd heard from other dancers. "The Reich protests in the strongest possible terms."

Kathleen gave him her most gormless smile. Her cover story suggested she was nothing more than a pretty face, with some typing skills. Sir Cuthbert might enjoy looking at her – they'd played that up, whenever they'd been in public – but the idea he'd actually take her seriously was unbelievable, as far as the regime was concerned. A flicker of paranoia ran through her ... if her cover had been blown, she was deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. Escape would be tricky ...

"I'm afraid I know nothing about such matters," she said, lying through her teeth. She knew a great deal about the whole affair. Anne Frank's diary had exposed the true horror of being a Jew under Nazi occupation, and its publication had kicked off a major diplomatic incident. The Nazis seemed to want to hide what they'd done, and yet – at the same time – they wanted to glory in it. "I can pass your concerns to the ambassador, if you wish."

"Such lies cannot be allowed to stand," the officer said. He pressed closer to her, trying to make her uncomfortable. She had been in worse places, and she'd dealt with worse men. "It is nothing more than a conspiracy against the Reich."

Kathleen gave him another gormless smile as he whirled her around the dance floor, his eyes leaving trails of slime over her body. He wasn't a good dancer, not even trying to let her enjoy herself as he monopolised her attention. His chatter was crude and rude and largely pointless ... she guessed, despite herself, that he was pointless too. It wasn't uncommon in the modern day. The men who had built the Reich, or had served before the war, were being increasingly sidelined by the new elite. They weren't taking it very well.

"You must make the ambassador understand that the Reich will not take this lying down," the officer continued. Kathleen wasn't sure if he was passing on a message, or merely venting. Either was possible. It wouldn't be the first time a message was passed onwards in a thoroughly deniable manner, just in case it led to a diplomatic incident. "And there will be consequences ..."

"Excuse me," a polite voice said, as the musicians paused. "Can I have this dance?"

The officer started to object, then went quiet. Kathleen looked up and saw ... Werner Von Braun. It couldn't be anyone else. Ice prickled down her back as the officer let her go, allowing Von Braun to take her hand. He might be one of the most famous people in the Reich, his picture regularly displayed in newspapers and textbooks, but she had been told Von Braun rarely made public appearances. And he was here in front of her ... it was one hell of an opportunity, if she could take advantage of it. She could feel eyes lingering on them as they started to dance, her former partner heading off to harass the serving girls instead. Kathleen felt a stab of sympathy for them. The Bund Deutscher Mädel was supposed to protect the girls in its charge, even as it indoctrinated them with Nazi ideology, but she doubted any of the grim-faced matrons would dare stand in the way of a senior officer. The concentration camps took women too.

She found herself unsure what to say as they circled the dance floor. Von Braun was a surprisingly good dancer, but he was incredibly tense ... Kathleen was good at reading people and Von Braun felt more like a teenage boy asking a girl to walk out with him than a middle-aged rocket scientist. She wondered why he was here, although ... she supposed the rocket forces would want to stake a claim to power in the post-Hitler world too. British Intelligence had worked hard, trying to figure out how the rocket forces were actually funded and organised, but there was a great deal they didn't know. The man in front of her could answer all those questions, if he wished. Would he? Everything they'd heard about Von Braun suggested he was a loyal German.

Her heart sank as she saw the eyes watching them. One man, so tall and blond and handsome he could have stepped off a recruiting poster; other men, wearing a number of different uniforms, eyeing them with calculating eyes. The first would be a minder, she was sure. The Nazis hadn't taken power in Germany, and then kept it, through being overly trusting. Kathleen had heard rumours that senior officers, men who had risen before the Nazis and the war, were working against Hitler ... she suspected, rather sourly, that those rumours were nothing more than lies. If the officer corps hadn't moved against their Fuhrer when he had been on the verge of launching a seemingly-suicidal war, in 1939, they weren't likely to do anything now, after the regime had conquered much of Europe and Russia.

Von Braun leaned close as they whirled around another couple, his hands suddenly too close ... and dropping something into her pocket. It happened so quickly Kathleen had to fight to keep her expression under control, even as his hand darted back and they danced back into view of his minder. She leaned into him for a moment, her head spinning. It wasn't the first time she'd been passed a secret message, but ...

The music came to an end. Kathleen stepped back as the dangers started heading for the washrooms, hastily emptying their bladders before the speeches started. Kathleen didn't blame them. British politicians could be pompous windbags at times, but the Nazis had them beat. The speeches would go on for hours, until the following day. And the locals had to pretend to pay attention to each and every one of them. Kathleen wondered, idly, if she could get away with hiding in the washroom.

She stepped into the washroom, silently relieved there weren't many other women in the hall. The washroom was empty. The BDM girls would have their own washroom ... probably. Kathleen hoped they did, for their sake. Their uniforms were incredibly awkward, designed to be difficult to remove in a hurry, and they wouldn't have much time before the speeches started. She glanced around, trying not to roll her eyes at the décor as she carefully checked for peepholes and cameras. The Gestapo had a reputation for having eyes and ears everywhere, and at least some of those eyes and ears were mechanical. SOE was all too aware they were in an arms race, trying to circumvent ever-improving surveillance even as the Germans developed newer and better ways to spy on people. There was little freedom in the Reich, even for pureblood Germans, but even that would be curtailed, she was sure, as the regime found new ways to spy on its citizens.

The thought chilled her as she entered a stall, shut the door behind her, and checked her pocket. Von Braun had shoved a piece of folded paper into her pocket, folded time and time again ... she kept her mouth firmly closed as she unfolded it and scanned the paper. It was a missile diagram, something she wasn't qualified to evaluate, and a note.

Kathleen gasped, despite herself, as she read the handful of lines.

Werner Von Braun wanted to defect.

And he wanted to go quickly.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Two: Berlin, 1949

Sturmbannfuehrer Hans Schneider had to fight to keep his contempt from showing too openly.

If he had had a choice, he would never have allowed Werner Von Braun to visit the Reich Hall. There were just too many officers from the different services who might try to lure him away from the SS, to convince him to turn his attention to antiship or antiaircraft weapons rather than intercontinental ballistic missiles. Or even his planned manned spaceflight ... Hans knew, all too well, that Speer and Goring didn't agree on much, but one of the few things they shared was an understanding the Reich needed more spectaculars to excite the public and remind the neutral powers that the Reich could punish them if they refused to be neutral in the Reich's favour. They would give up real power for the appearance of power, if they were given a chance, and it could not be allowed. Himmler himself had said as much. But he had also said to keep Von Braun happy.

Hans kept his face blank as he surveyed the dance floor, keeping a respectful distance from his charge. Von Braun might be seduced on the dance floor – his womanising was well known to his personal protective squad – but he wasn't in any physical danger. The guests were a mixture of senior officers, bureaucrats and foreign representatives, the latter invited to remind them that the Reich was still strong and happy and there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the Führer's health. Hans doubted that was particularly convincing – Hitler hadn't been seen in public for months – but the decision to invite foreigners had been taken well above his pay grade. If he'd been making decisions, he'd have told the foreigners to get out and stay out – they shouldn't be polluting sacred German soil with their filthy presence – but orders were orders. He'd put up with them, until the war restarted and the Reich marched to inevitable victory. And then the foreigners would get precisely what they deserved.

His mood darkened as he studied the other Germans in the hall, feeling a twinge of bitter contempt. They weren't fighters, not really. The uniformed clowns, their jackets heavily laden with medals, probably hadn't been within a hundred miles of the front. Hans would bet half his pay that most of them had spent the war safely at the rear, making life hard for the fighting men by day and living it up at night. The bureaucrats weren't much better. There was no fire in them, no zeal to spread the ideals of the Third Reich, just endless quibbles over minor details like budgets and assigned resources. The rocket program would have achieved great strides – even greater strides – if the bureaucrats had done their job and made sure the scientists and engineers had everything they needed. Instead, even a man as honoured as Von Braun had to fight for the bare minimum. Hans's lips twisted in disgust. If it had been up to him, the bureaucrats would have been put up against the nearest wall and shot. That would get them out of his way.

He kept his face under tight control as he spotted the English ambassador, exchanging polite nothings with his counterpart from the foreign ministry. The man was a bumbling fool, Hans had been told, and everything he saw only confirmed it. The Englishman looked like a particularly moronic aristocrat, the type of man who had tried to drag the Reich down before the Führer had started purging the old guard from the military and political ranks, so stupid he probably needed help to tie his shoelaces in the morning. He was old too, easily old enough to be Hans's father. The odds were good his thinking was still rooted in the pre-war world, when no one had feared the Reich and the French were the dominant power in Europe, rather than adapting to the New World Order. Everyone feared the Reich now, and the French did as they were told by their Germanic masters. His lips twitched in happy memory. It was astonishing what a Frenchwoman would do, in exchange for a handful of basic luxuries and favours from a German officer. Even a soldier could offer one hell of a lot to a Frenchwomen willing to open her legs for him.

His eyes sharpened, just for a moment, as he saw Von Braun dancing with a young woman he didn't recognise. She was pretty enough, with long brown hair and brown eyes ... maybe not the blonde blue-eyed girl he'd been promised, but still striking. Her dress was carefully tailored to cover her body, hinting at her curves rather than revealing anything below the neckline ... Hans approved, in a way. She was modest while still keeping an eye open for the main chance. She wouldn't get what she wanted from Von Braun, he reflected wryly. The rocket scientist might be quite happy to sleep with women, but his only true love was rocketry. The women in his life were moved on before they got attached and often ... encouraged ... to go elsewhere. Hans felt a flicker of disgust as the dance came to an end. The Reich's greatest science-hero should not be womanising like a male whore. But what Von Braun wanted Von Braun got.

The night wore on, with speech after speech that bored him to tears. Men who had never served, assuring the world of their bravery and their loyalty to the Führer. He saw a couple of Luftwaffe officers hunting a pair of BDM girls, chasing them into corners, and rolled his eyes in disgust. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was a sybarite, if rumours were to be believed, but Göring had been a genuine war hero. His subordinates might wear Luftwaffe uniforms, yet Hans would bet good money they'd never been in a cockpit, let alone flown the unfriendly skies. The girls wouldn't know the difference, either. They were young and naive and would probably believe everything they'd been told. He was tempted to say something, but Himmler would not be pleased if he sparked off yet another bout of rivalry between the SS and one of the regular military organisations. Instead ...

He breathed a sigh of relief as Von Braun signalled it was time to leave and escorted the rocket scientist down to the main entrance. Their car was brought around within moments. Hans opened the door, checked to make sure the interior hadn't been disturbed, and then helped Von Braun into the backseat before joining him. The driver – an SS officer of unimpeachable loyalty – put the car into gear, driving them back to the Reich's Science Commission. Hans would have preferred to put Von Braun in a simple apartment, or even a government-run hotel, but the older man had insisted on the Science Commission. It was a chance to catch up with his peers, he'd said, and see if they'd developed anything new that could be incorporated into the rocket program. Hans had been assured Von Braun was actually right about that, but he still didn't like it. The Science Commission – and the attached Reich University – was difficult, if not impossible, to secure. There were just too many people coming in and out of the complex at all times. They were lucky they could seal off the residential complex.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Von Braun said, as the driver parked outside the complex. "We have a lot of work to do."

Hans nodded curtly, hiding his irritation. Von Braun had never been pleased about having a minder and had made that clear, more than once. He watched the rocket scientist get out of the car and make his way through the security checkpoint, then tapped on the window and ordered the driver to take him directly to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the de facto headquarters for the entire SS. It was late at night, but Himmler's orders were explicit. Hans was to report to him immediately after leaving Von Braun at the Science Commission, no matter the hour. Hans leaned back in the seat as the driver picked up speed, the car's ID plates getting them waved past the checkpoints without delay. The hour was already late ... Himmler, thankfully, kept very long hours indeed. Hans had never seen or heard of the Reichsführer-SS taking a day off, let alone indulging in the manner of some of his peers. Hans approved, in his own way. A man with degenerate tastes would eventually become degenerate himself.

The guards at the gate searched him quickly and efficiently, then pointed him up the stairs. Hans felt his back prickle as he made his way towards the office, uneasily aware – suddenly – that he was stepping into the most feared place in the Reich. The Reichssicherheitshauptamt looked like an office block – the planned replacement had not yet been completed, despite the workers being literally worked to death – but it was the heart of a shadow empire, an organisation that was practically a second government in its own right. The SS had its own army, its own industries, its own intelligence service ... and it was completely loyal to Adolf Hitler. The other services might falter, Hans told himself, but the SS never would. He yearned for the day the SS took over the rest of the military, purged the disloyal and created a whole new world. The day could not be long delayed.

He felt another frission of fear as he passed through an inner checkpoint and stepped into Himmler's office. It was bland and boring, with no decoration other than a large portrait of Adolf Hitler, but it was the nerve centre of the SS. The man behind the desk looked like a bureaucrat or a doctor – it felt disloyal to even think such a thought – yet he was one of the most powerful men in the Reich. The Reichsführer-SS could make or break him, and millions of others, with a single order. He was cold and calculating, devoted to the Reich and its Führer, and rarely showed emotion, even as he hurled millions into the fire. Hans respected Himmler, and was loyal to him, but he also feared him. He was very far from alone.

It was hard not to shiver as Himmler looked up. Hans had joined the SS when it was a new and untested organisation, rising rapidly in the ranks as he switched to the Waffen-SS and then back again, and he'd worked directly for Himmler on several occasions, but he wasn't fool enough to think the Reichsführer-SS liked him. Himmler might trust him as much as he trusted anyone, yet ... Hans was painfully aware that the Reichsführer-SS would not hesitate to dispose of him if he became a liability. If he made a mistake ...

"Herr Reichsführer," he said, snapping a salute. "Heil Hitler!"

"Heil Hitler," Himmler returned. "I trust your charge is wrapped up in bed?"

"He's in the Science Commission," Hans said. Von Braun had a habit of reading late into the night, sometimes calling his peers – when they were sleeping – and summoning them for meetings and discussions. "I believe he will get a good night's sleep."

Himmler didn't smile at the weak joke. "And actual progress on the missile test, now the Untermenschen have been removed?"

Hans showed no trace of emotion. Recruiting Untermenschen had struck him as worse than useless, when he'd heard about the program, and he'd argued strongly against trusting any of the Russians. The Russian was either at your feet or your throat and if he was at your feet he was plotting against you. Hans had served in Russia. He knew their character. Relying on anything Russian was asking for trouble. Their tanks had been good, he conceded sourly, but they wouldn't have been designed if the Russians hadn't stolen technology from the Reich. No doubt their rocket program had been built from stolen technology too.

"The engineers are confident the next prototype will be ready to launch in a month," Hans said. He would have been astonished if Himmler didn't already know. The rocket program was riddled with spies, and not all reported to Hans. Himmler hadn't become Reichsführer-SS though trusting his subordinates, even his loyalists. "They believe the design should meet the parameters."

"Good." Himmler met his eyes. Hans forced himself to hold his boss's gaze. It wasn't easy. "You understand the importance of this test?"

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. The British and Americans could bomb nearly everywhere in the Reich, if they flew bombers out of Britain or Iran, and it wasn't clear if the Luftwaffe could stop them. The Americans had practically razed Japan to the ground in 1944-45, killing much of the population. There was no reason to assume they wouldn't do the same to the Reich, if war broke out again. "We will have the ability to strike targets within the continental United States."

He tried not to grimace. Von Braun was cleared for almost everything and Hans, as his handler, saw most of what passed across the scientist's desk. The Americans had looked weak and powerless, in 1941, but by 1945 they'd raised powerful armies and churned out enough war material to bury the Japanese in iron and steel. The Japanese had been Untermenschen, of course, yet ... Hans suspected, reading between the lines, that the Americans could outproduce the Reich too. There would be no stopping them if their factories remained on the far side of a giant ocean, churning out everything they needed to wage war, while the Reich's factories were being bombed into rubble. Hans knew officers who argued the Reich should have declared war on America in 1941, after Pearl Harbour, but it would have been a dreadful mistake. The Führer's decision not to join the American war with japan had been wise. But then, the Führer was always right.

"That too," Himmler said. "You are aware, of course, that the Führer is ailing."

Hans tried not to flinch. It wasn't a question. The rumours had spread all the way to the rocket complex, despite the best efforts of the security forces, and had probably travelled all the way to Kamchatka by now. Stalin, sitting in some dingy town on the far side of the Urals, trying to keep his rump state together, had probably heard the rumours ... Hans wondered, suddenly, if Stalin would try to take advantage in some way. The Red Army was no longer what it had been, but who could fathom the mind of a man like Stalin?

"It is vitally important that we take the lead in the government, after the Führer leaves us," Himmler said. "Our control over the rocket forces, and certain other programs, will give us an edge, if the test succeeds. It must not fail. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. "It will not fail."

Himmler studied him for a long moment. Hans tried to hold his gaze. "And your charge?"

"The doctor has not changed his habits," Hans said. He had no idea if Von Braun was indulging himself, or trying to annoy his minders, or simply asserting a little independence, or some combination of the three. If it was up to him, Von Braun would be chained to his desk until retirement. "Herr Reichsführer, if we could keep him sequestered ..."

"The other services would never stand for it," Himmler said, bluntly. The irritation in his voice was all too clear. "They all want rocket technology."

Hans nodded, submissively. The Luftwaffe wanted antiaircraft missiles, the Wehrmacht wanted antitank missiles and the Kriegsmarine wanted shipkiller missiles. The latter were particularly important, Hans had been told; the Royal Navy had fifteen aircraft carriers to the Kriegsmarine's three, while the United States Navy had over fifty. The British couldn't be pleased about that, Hans thought, but they could console themselves with the thought the Americans were their allies. The Kriegsmarine had no such luxury. It didn't matter how tactically inept the Americans were, when they had such an advantage. They could trade five ships for one and still come out ahead. The Kriegsmarine needed an edge of its own and antiship missiles might provide it, if they worked as advertised. No, there was no way to keep Von Braun away from the other services. Even trying might lead to the Luftwaffe, the Wehrmacht and the Kriegsmarine ganging up on the SS. And who knew where that would end?

"The test must succeed," Himmler said. The sudden insistence in his voice was striking."We don't know how long we have."

Hans took a breath, and took his life in his hands. "Herr Reichsführer, what do the doctors say?"

Himmler's lips twisted in disgust. The Reichsführer-SS and the Reichsmarschall agreed on only one thing, if the rumours were accurate, and that was disapproval of Hitler's personal doctor. Theodor Morell was a quack, plain and simple, and only the Führer's patronage had saved him from a noodle – a bullet – in the back of his head. Morell had an excellent reason to keep the Führer alive, Hans reflected. No matter who won the struggle for power, Morell was going to lose. Even if Speer came out ahead – he was the third and final candidate – Morell would still be for the chop. The concentration camps were too good for him.

"I had an assessment carried out by a trustworthy doctor," Himmler said. There was a hint of grief in his voice. Himmler was one of the few who considered Adolf Hitler a personal friend. "The Führer has less than six months to live. The test must be carried out before then. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. They had a week in Berlin, followed by a return to the rocket complex. He could keep Von Braun under control from then. After the design was finalised and tested successfully, the rocket scientist would be a great deal less important. "I won't let you down."

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Three: Berlin, 1949

It would have astonished most of the Germans, Kathleen was sure, to see how different Sir Cuthbert Dudley was when they were back in the embassy, safe from prying eyes and ears. The fatuous fool was gone, replaced by a sharp-witted man who had been carefully chosen for his ability to hide his intelligence while collecting as much information as possible. It helped, she supposed, that – no matter how Whitehall tried to hide it – Britain was a declining power in the world. The Americans were far more important, as far as Berlin was concerned, and they received much of the Reich's attention. She didn't mind, no matter how much it grated on the career diplomats. The less attention paid to her, the better.

She sat in her chair and studied the two men as they read Von Braun's message. Sir Cuthbert looked astonished. Campion Holmes – British Intelligence's man in Berlin, and her direct superior – seemed much more composed. Kathleen wondered, idly, if his sources had picked up something of Von Braun's dissatisfaction, if indeed it was dissatisfaction. She hadn't been briefed, if that were so. She didn't take it personally – she had no illusions about what would happen to her, if her cover was blown and she fell into enemy hands – but it was still a little irritating. It would help her assessment of the situation if she knew everything her superior knew about what was going on.

Her body ached, reminding her it was so late it was really the following morning. She had passed on the message, then sat down to write out her recollections while they were fresh in her mind, and then been called into the meeting. Her bed was calling to her, demanding her ... she gritted her teeth, reminding herself she was damn lucky to have a bed at all. She'd had some close calls in France, working with the French Resistance, and she knew what would have happened if she'd been captured. Hell, her superiors had asked her if she'd prefer to retire than be sent to Berlin. Kathleen didn't blame them, but ... her war wasn't over. She wanted – she needed – to do whatever it took to avenge her dead relatives, murdered by the regime and their ashes buried in unmarked graves. It was hard, almost impossible, to wrap her head around the sheer scale of the crime. In 1939, there had been millions of Jews in Europe; in 1949, there were almost none. And it hadn't stopped there.

"I suppose we have to answer a simple question," Campion Holmes said. "Is this a genuine message, or is it an attempt to lure us into a trap?"

Kathleen met his eyes. Holmes might look nothing like his detective namesake – really, he looked more like Mycroft than Sherlock Holmes – but he took her seriously, which made him one of the better station heads in the service. SOE had made use of women right from the start, as everything from covert spies to operatives, yet many old-timers had problems working with women and refused to take them seriously. Holmes knew better. He didn't look down on her for being female, or Jewish, or Irish, or anything.

"I don't believe they would use Von Braun as bait," she said. "He's just too important."

"Which would make him very good bait," Holmes countered. "They know we couldn't afford to pass this up."

"Which answers the question, doesn't it?" Sir Cuthbert spoke quietly, but firmly. "We have to take the bait."

Holmes grimaced. "And whoever we send will be incredibly vulnerable."

"Me," Kathleen said. She had known it would be her, even before she'd read the instructions for the meeting. "I understand the dangers."

"And you also understand we cannot get you out, if you are caught?" Sir Cuthbert met her eyes. "If this goes wrong, you will vanish."

"If this goes wrong, I will die," Kathleen said. Her tongue touched the cyanide capsule in her teeth. It went against everything she believed to commit suicide, but if she fell into enemy hands they would eventually make her talk. She dared not allow herself any illusions. The Reich had no qualms about torture, or rape, or anything else they could use to loosen someone's lips. "I understand the risks."

"It's a little too good," Holmes said. "A love hotel?"

Kathleen nodded, slowly. She supposed it made a certain kind of sense. The love hotel – one step above a brothel – was well known to be patronised by senior officers and bureaucrats, ones who wanted a quick tryst without their wives or superiors hearing about it. The SS would have problems monitoring the place without irritating a number of high-ranking personages, including some within the SS itself. It was ironic, she supposed, that a high-ranking official couldn't do whatever the hell he liked, but the Nazi regime had always had a surprisingly puritan streak. They'd demoted officers who'd allowed their extra-marital affairs to become a little too public, or worse. Any man who showed interest in another man would be lucky if he went straight into the camps, instead of being simply murdered on the spot.

"I can pose as one of the girls," she said. No one asked questions in love hotels. It was part of the attraction. "And ..."

Holmes shot her a concerned look. Kathleen hid her amusement with an effort. It would ruin her reputation if her family back home ever heard about it, but she found it hard to care. She had more important things to worry about, starting with the fact she was fighting a cold war that everyone expected to turn hot sooner rather than later. The peace treaty that had ended the war was nothing more than ink on paper, and the truce itself nothing more than a period of cheating between bouts of fighting, and everyone knew it. She would use every weapon she had to fight the war, and if that included her body ...

Her lips twitched. There had been few hopes of a good match, even before she'd gone into SOE. Now, there were none. An operative could not allow himself – or herself – to get too close to anyone, not when all hell could break loose at a moment's notice. The mission came first. Always.

"If you believe it can be done, then we must try," Sir Cuthbert said. "But why is he offering to leave now?"

"We'll have to ask him, sir," Kathleen said. "We simply don't know."

She sighed, inwardly. She'd made a point of reviewing the file on Von Braun – and the embassy's collection of newspaper cuttings – but they hadn't been very informative. Von Braun was, as far as anyone could tell, a loyal German, perhaps even a loyal Nazi. He certainly hadn't fled the country after Hitler became Chancellor, unlike so many others, and he'd been heavily rewarded. There weren't many others, outside the very highest levels, who enjoyed the perks he'd been granted, let alone the authority. And yet he wanted to defect ...?

The rocket program might be having problems, she thought. There was little hard data on just how far along the Germans were, as far as she knew. If Von Braun was failing to deliver, how long would it be before his enemies swooped in for the kill? And he might want out ...?

She bit her lip, reminding herself not to draw conclusions in the absence of solid data. Von Braun might have other motives, or ... it might be a trap. She had weighed the odds as best as she could, but ... if it was a trap, she was dead. Escape would be difficult, if not impossible. The embassy would deny all knowledge of her ... it would have no choice. She swallowed hard and composed herself. There was nothing to be gained through further speculation.

"I'll attend the meeting," she said. Getting out of the embassy wouldn't be difficult. Losing her shadow, if indeed she had one, would be a little harder. "And report back to you afterwards."

"And watch your back," Sir Cuthbert said. He held up the message. "I'll have to burn this."

Kathleen nodded, and took one final look to make sure she'd memorised the details. The embassy was supposed to be inviolable, and the Nazis had been surprisingly respectful of such things back in 1939, but if the regime worked out what was going on they'd react harshly. The embassy was almost defenceless, protected more by international custom than British arms. The handful of British troops in the embassy would be unable to do more than fire a handful of shots, for the honour of the flag, before they were overwhelmed. The regime might blame everything on a rogue officer and hold a handful of very public executions, afterwards, but it would be too late. She wanted to think the regime wouldn't take the risk of sparking a major diplomatic incident, yet the stakes were too high for them to do anything else.

Assuming it isn't a trap, she reminded herself. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

"Get some rest," Holmes advised. A flicker of teasing humour ran through his voice. "I'm sure Sir Cuthbert can spare you for a day or two."

"I'm sure I will cope," Sir Cuthbert agreed. "Ginny can do my tie tomorrow, if I have to leave the embassy."

Kathleen allowed herself a smile, then stood and headed for the door. Sir Cuthbert had five secretaries, not including her, and two had been carefully chosen because they could pass for her, at least at a distance. Keeping the regime confused about who was who wasn't easy – Holmes had cautioned her that his cover might already have been exposed years ago – but there was no other choice. The more the Nazis knew about who went in and out of the embassy, the more they'd be able to determine about their activities. It didn't help that the embassy had to account for each and every person assigned to the station. The Germans had been surprisingly persistent about offering to provide servents for the embassy staff.

Or perhaps it isn't surprising at all, she thought, as she stepped into her bedroom. A servant can be a very effective spy.

She put the thought aside as she locked the door, undressed quickly and slipped into bed. The bedroom was surprisingly large for a common secretary, if still much smaller than Sir Cuthbert's suite, but it was the one perk of living in the heart of darkness. Being assigned to an embassy was a boost to one's career, true, yet Berlin was a dangerous place even at the best of times. There were eyes and ears everywhere, watching and waiting. It wasn't easy to cope.

It felt as if no time at all had passed, when she opened her eyes again. The clock insisted it was late morning. Kathleen showered, changed into a fresh outfit and hurried down to the canteen to get something to eat. The soldier on guard duty winked at her; she held up her hand to show a fake engagement ring, then hurried past him before he could say a word. She didn't mind flirting normally, but she dared not allow herself many human connections in the embassy. She might have to go in a hurry, leaving them behind. And far too many of SOE's horror stories started with someone getting attached to the wrong person.

Like the bitch who betrayed an entire cell of resistance fighters, Kathleen thought. She had taken great pleasure in cutting the woman's throat, after escaping the SS. It was a shame there hadn't been time for an interrogation. She would have liked to know why the woman had betrayed so many good men, be it money or threats or even ideology. The latter wasn't impossible. There were too many people in Vichy France who believed that they would be rewarded for being more Nazi than the Nazis. Perhaps she felt sure she was doing the right thing.

She felt cold as she ate a basic breakfast and headed back upstairs to the office. There were a handful of messages in her box, mainly requests for more data from the analysts. Kathleen scowled – the analysts didn't seem to realise she couldn't ask her sources questions, for obvious reasons – and wrote back a sharp note, stating she'd already told them everything she could. There were some intelligence departments that were supposed to have sources – compromised sources – high in the regime, but she had little to do with them and knew better than to ask questions. She'd be lucky if she was merely sent home if she did. What she didn't know she couldn't tell.

Holmes joined her, at dinner time. "There haven't been any further rumblings from the regime," he said. "Or anything from him, for that matter."

"Better not to show too much interest," Kathleen said. The embassy did try to keep track of high officials, following the theory they'd be evacuated if the Reich intended to launch a surprise attack, but Von Braun wasn't on the list and shadowing him would be tricky even if he was. "If the message is correct, he'll be at the hotel tomorrow afternoon."

"If," Holmes said. "Take very good care of yourself."

Kathleen nodded. "I will, sir," she promised. "Do you have the field trip organised?"

Holmes smirked. "Apparently, I shall be pleasuring a lot of women tomorrow."

"Right," Kathleen said, trying not to roll her eyes. The joke hadn't been funny the first time and she'd heard it more times than she could count. "I'll see the party tomorrow."

She finished reading the files, memorising as much as she could, and headed down to the firing range in the basement. The range officer flirted cheerfully, even as he watched her draw her gun and open fire time and time again. Kathleen knew she was a good shot, and the Germans made good pistols, but it wasn't always easy to draw the gun from concealment in time to get off a few shots before she was grabbed. The Nazis disapproved of guns in private hands and she knew she'd be in trouble if they caught her, no matter what papers she was carrying. But then, if they caught her, she was dead. She just wanted to take a few of the black-clad bastards with her.

The thought amused her as she went back to her room to sleep, then changed into a simple outfit the following morning before joining the shopping trip. The embassy's wives and secretaries were regularly allowed out to shop, visiting the fanciest stores the Germans could offer and purchasing a handful of goods to send home. Kathleen knew most of the goods were looted, or rationed when they hadn't been stolen, but ... she told herself, as they were driven to the centre of Berlin, that it was a good cover. The party was so loud, with orders to keep moving around like a fighter pilot dodging an enemy on his tail, that she had no trouble slipping away and changing her outfit as soon as she was out of sight. She walked fast, careful to keep an eye out for shadows. The Nazis were good at sneaking around, and Berlin was their home turf. If they were careful, if they had spotted her right from the start, they could devote an entire team to watching her. She wouldn't spot any repeated faces until it was far too late.

Her stomach clenched, then loosened as she kept walking, passing a school where the Hitler Youth boys were being drilled in military marches and the BDM girls were being trained to support them. A handful of boys were clearly in pain, having gotten something wrong; she shuddered, feeling a twinge of pity for the children who grew up in such an environment. They would hate, without knowing why they hated; they would fight, for a cause that cared nothing for them. And ... she swallowed, hard. The regime was tightening its grip, ensuring that everyone – no matter how lowly – was registered, and every small hint of independent thinking was noted and logged. The kids who messed up on the parade ground would have it following them for the rest of their careers, costing them opportunities; she shuddered to think what would happen to someone who didn't mouth the right platitudes, or asked the wrong question at the wrong time.

And they're digging into everyone's ancestry now, she thought, numbly. If they discover a hint of Jewish blood in one of those students, they'll be dead before they even know what's wrong.

She forced herself to keep going, passing bigger houses for the elite and a handful of apartment blocks, before turning to make her way towards the love hotel. There were a couple of men standing nearby, making a show of paying no attention to the unmarked building. If you didn't know what it was, Kathleen knew, you had no need to know. The men paid no attention to her, either, as she passed and stepped into the building. The lobby was deserted. Kathleen wasn't surprised. Anyone who entered would be hurried to a room as quickly as possible.

"I'm Maria," she said, hoping to hell Von Braun had remembered to brief the staff. "I'm here for ..."

The secretary motioned to a maid, who led Kathleen up a flight of stairs and down a long and twisted corridor. It was hard not to notice the maid's short skirt, revealing nearly everything she had, including a lack of underwear. Kathleen forced herself to look away. The walls were bare, clearly designed to make it harder for anyone to install listening devices without making it painfully obvious. There was no one in view, save for the maid, as she knocked on a door and pushed it open. Kathleen braced herself and stepped inside. If this was a trap, she was about to spring it ...

Von Braun was sitting on the bed, waiting for her.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Four: Berlin, 1949

Von Braun looked relieved, very relieved, to see her.

Kathleen relaxed, slightly. It hadn't been a trap. She could imagine the Germans using Von Braun as bait, but they would never risk putting him in the middle of a firefight. And there would be a firefight. She knew better than to let herself be taken alive and the rest of her comrades, and everyone else who fought the Nazis openly or covertly, felt the same way. The Germans might honour the laws of war if they captured uniformed soldiers, but spies were fair game.

She tapped her lips, then forced herself to inspect the suite. It was bigger than she'd expected, with a washroom – complete with a shower – and a small kitchen with a handful of bottles and tins waiting on the counter. She guessed there was room service too, as well as everything else. There was surprisingly little room to hide a listening device or two, although she suspected it was just a matter of time before the chambers were thoroughly bugged. The walls felt soundproof – she couldn't hear anything on the far side – but it was hard to be sure. She felt dangerously exposed, despite the apparent safety. There was no way out if they had to run.

"I got your note," she said, returning to sit beside him. The bed was soft and warm ... she checked around carefully before sitting down, just in case. "Are you serious?"

Von Braun met her eyes. "Yes," he said. "Can you get me out of the Reich?"

Kathleen didn't answer. Von Braun appeared honest, but the worst superior she'd ever had was a kind and decent man compared to the Nazis. The Germans – and everyone else trapped under the Nazi shadow – mastered the art of lying convincingly in a manner that could never be matched by anyone born in a free country. Kathleen wasn't blind to Britain's flaws – or to America – but at least British leaders didn't kill people for disagreeing with them. For all she knew, Von Braun was a practiced liar. He would almost certainly have to be.

She held his gaze, and asked the question that had bothered her ever since she'd gotten his first message. "Why?"

Von Braun said nothing for a long moment, then frowned. "I had a dream," he said. "I was going to put the human race in space. To stay. It would be the dawn of a whole new era, of humans settling on the moon and other worlds ... perhaps even heading to other stars! The science was sound – myself and Goddard and Korolev had proved it long ago – but resources were lacking."

Kathleen frowned, inwardly. His voice had hitched, when he'd mentioned Korolev. Kathleen had seen his name, mentioned as one of the early rocket pioneers, but the files hadn't said what had happened to him after Moscow fell in 1941. British Intelligence assumed Stalin had taken him and the other Russian scientists east, when the Germans had forced the Russians to concede vast territories in exchange for a fragile and unreliable peace, but there had been no hard data. Very little came out of the rump USSR, beyond demands the British rejoin the war or the Americans provide enough war material for the Russians to rebuild their might and drive the Germans out of their country. Kathleen had heard rumours Hitler intended to finish Stalin off before his death. She had no idea if the rumours were true.

"I went to the government, cap in hand, to ask for funding," Von Braun continued. "They looked at my proposals and laughed. The cost was too high, they said, and the reward too minimal. They thought I was dreaming! But then the Nazis began their rise and they were interested, very interested indeed. They promised me all the funding they could give me, as long as I produced results. And I did."

He broke eye contact and stared down at his hands. "I should have listened to Dornberger. He was never so impressed with the Nazis. He thought they were" – he shook his head – "never mind. His doubts didn't stop him from covering the rockets with swastikas and the rest of their symbols, just to keep them funding the program. We were making progress, great process, even before the war. And ... we didn't slow down, even as the panzers swept west and then east. They wanted missiles to strike London and ... and they told me that we'd get right back to the space program, as soon as the war was over. I built them their damned missiles."

Kathleen winced. She'd never been in London, during the final blitz, but she'd heard the stories. The V-1s had been bad, but the V-2s had been worse. There was no warning, no hint of an incoming missile, just a sudden explosion. The files suggested the program hadn't been worth the mountain of resources the Germans had poured into it, but it was hard to be sure. The rockets hadn't carried heavy warheads – they couldn't – yet the strikes had terrorised the population. She wondered, numbly, just what would have happened if the bombardment had continued.

"They kept saying we'd get right back to space," Von Braun said. "They flattered me. Gave me much of what I wanted. Even let me recruit Korolev and the rest of the Russian rocket experts, keep them nice and safe as long as they produced ... that's over now. They blamed Korolev for the disaster and shot him. And ... we never got back to space."

He looked up, meeting her eyes again. "They want me to build a very powerful missile, one that will reach all the way to new York or Washington. Accuracy is going to be shit, at least at first, but that won't matter. They're going to be mated with a new kind of bomb and ... missing by a mike will still ensure the destruction of most of the city. And space ... we're never going to get back to space. I sold them my soul, and for what?"

Kathleen had no answer. She wasn't sure if she believed him about the super-bomb. There had always been rumours of advanced German superweapons, from flying wings and saucers to concepts that came right out of pulp novels, but she had standing orders to report whatever she heard, no matter how fanciful, to her superiors. Von Braun might be lying or exaggerating ... she scowled inwardly, suspecting he was telling the truth. Or what he thought was the truth. It was quite possible someone had lied to him, although ...

She frowned. The cost-benefit analysis had been speculative, but ... she thought it was essentially accurate. The V-2 blitz hadn't been worth the resources the Germans had ploughed into it. It had been distressing, sure, yet hardly fatal. The British had kept calm and carried on, by and large, and the war had come to a pause shortly afterwards. The Germans would be fools not to carry out an assessment of their own, after the truce, and they'd probably drawn the same conclusion. And if hitting London had been a waste of resources, hitting New York would be even worse ... unless they really did have a super-bomb. Or thought they could get one.

Von Braun kept talking, as if he were confessing his sins to a priest. "I turned a blind eye to the workers, the slaves," he said. "I chose to ignore how they were treated, or how they were beaten for not being productive, or simply murdered when they could do no more. I didn't ask how the experiments to determine how a human could survive in outer space, or under heavy acceleration, were conducted, or all the other horrors I tried to ignore for the sake of the dream. I just told myself it was worth it, but I can't lie to myself any longer. I can't ..."

He turned his pleading gaze on her. "Help me. Please."

Kathleen took a moment to gather her thoughts. Von Braun was no ordinary German. He was a genius, a scientist-engineer without peer. The Germans bragged of him, and in truth they had reason to brag. He was one of the smartest men alive, and yet he had allowed himself to be lured into a morass that had dragged him into hell. How many would have lived, she asked herself silently, if Von Braun had had the sense to flee Germany when the Nazis took power? How many widows would not have been widowed, how many cripples would not have been crippled, if Von Braun had forced himself to take a good hard look at the demons he served before it was too late? The death of Korolev, one of the few men Von Braun had respected, might have opened his eyes, but it was already too late. Her fingers itched. Von Braun was an older man, and no fighter. She could drive her fingers into his throat and leave his body to rot as she slipped away. By the time the staff realised what had happened, it would be far too late.

But we need him, she thought. Von Braun's mind was crammed with enemy secrets, from rockets to fanciful – hopefully fanciful – weapons. If we could get our hands on everything he knows ...

"We can get you out," she said, with a confidence she didn't feel. The task wouldn't be easy. The embassies would be sealed off, the moment the regime realised Von Braun was missing, and the railway stations and airports would be put on alert. A great many preparations would have to be made, before they could put the plan into action. Hell, they'd need to come up with a plan. "How long will you be in Berlin?"

"I'm due to leave for the rocket complex in five days," Von Braun said. "Once we get there, escape will be impossible."

Kathleen suspected he was right. The giant complex was practically a military town. The SS was in tight control, with no one allowed in or out without papers signed in triplicate. British Intelligence hadn't managed to get a spy into the complex, or so she'd been told. Even if they had, getting Von Braun out would be impossible. She wasn't even sure they could remain in contact with him. The landlines would be tapped, if she was any judge, and the censors would read each and every piece of mail before it was allowed to leave the complex. The latter was practically a given. She had heard a number of letters from the eastern front had mysteriously vanished in transit, and some of their senders had vanished too. She was sure she knew exactly what had happened to them. The true horrors of the eastern front were never discussed openly, not in the Reich. It might upset people.

"Very well," she said. "It'll take us two or three days to get everything in place. We'll also have to fake your death."

Von Braun smiled, rather dryly. "If we meet at the Science Commission, and I have taken women there before, we can use one of the bodies there to fake my death," he said, after a moment. "If it works, they'll have no reason to look for me."

He paused. "We also need to set fire to the building," he added. "That'll slow the research and development program down a little."

Kathleen nodded, slowly, then leaned forward as they discussed the plan. Von Braun's original idea was a little too complex, and too much could go wrong, but it was easy enough to streamline the concept into something workable. The idea of pretending to be a streetwalker, or perhaps a honey trap sent by one of the other services to ensnare Von Braun was unpleasant, yet ... she'd been in worse places. She was tempted to suggest he just left the building again and went to the love hotel, but he had a point. They needed to destroy as much as possible, as well as getting Von Braun out of the city. And if they could confuse the enemy about what had happened, so much the better.

"I'll be there," she said, softly. "And make sure you have everything you need. Once you leave, there'll be no way home."

"I've no one left here," Von Braun told her. "I'm alone."

Kathleen nodded, although she feared what would happen if he realised – emotionally – just what he was committing himself to doing. It was not easy – never easy – to abandon one's homeland, no matter the crimes it was committing. A defector could never be wholly trusted, not ever, because he might realise he wanted to go home one day. Von Braun was old enough to be spared Nazi indoctrination – the Vaterland came first, always – but he might still be committed to his country. If he realised what he was planning to do, before it was too late, he might back off and leave her high and dry. Or worse. He might lure her into a trap, to prove his renewed loyalty to the Vaterland.

She stood. "I'll meet you as planned, then," she said. "If anything goes wrong, before them, don't give the lecture."

"Understood." Von Braun reached into his jacket pocket and held out a set of papers. "I think your superiors will find these interesting."

Kathleen nodded, and concealed them within her skirts. They couldn't be hidden from a full strip-search, but if the SS went that far the jig was already up. She looked at him for a moment, taking one last chance to gauge his sincerity, and then turned and headed out of the bedroom. Her back itched uncomfortably as she headed down the stairs, the staff pretending to ignore her as she left the building. A pair of passing women made a show of looking the other way. Kathleen hid her amusement with an effort as she started her meandering path back to the embassy. She'd wondered if the locals knew what the love hotel actually was. She had her answer now.

And to think some of their daughters have probably been in and out of the building too, she thought, with a flicker of dark amusement. Some have probably been sent their by their mothers.

It wasn't really funny, she reminded herself, as she kept walking. The Reich was increasingly stripping women of their rights, in the name of protecting them. A friend in a high place might be all that stood between them and a very unpleasant fate, if the worst happened, and if that came at a cost ... better that than the grave. Kathleen had heard stories ... she shook her head as she turned into embassy row, keeping a careful eye out for prowling stormtroopers. If they grabbed her before she reached the embassy, the guards wouldn't come to her aid. They couldn't. She didn't breathe free until she was inside the walls.

"He gave me these," Kathleen said, as soon as she was back in Holmes's office. "And we have a plan ..."

Holmes scanned the first paper, then muttered a word Kathleen had never heard him use before. Her mother would have washed her mouth out with soap if she'd even hinted at knowing the word. Holmes looked almost ... scared. He was no technical expert, but he would have received briefings that wouldn't – that couldn't – have been shared with her and if the papers made sense to him ...

"The sooner we proceed, the better," Holmes said, finally. "You intend to head to Switzerland?"

Kathleen shook her head. The Swiss border was heavily defended. The Swiss might be neutral, and they had enough military power to make even Hitler think twice about attacking them, but they were also landlocked. The Nazis could throw up an air blockade around the country, preventing anyone from travelling in or out until they surrendered and returned Von Braun ... hell, they might even try an invasion. The latest set of projections suggested it would take eighty to a hundred divisions to conquer Switzerland, but the Germans had a hundred divisions. More. Given what was at stake, they might not think twice.

"We'll have the papers to get us into France," she said. She had contacts there. They could arrange for a light aircraft to pick them up, or hire a boat to get them to Britain. There were a handful of other options, but going through France was the best. "You'll make the arrangements for pick-up?"

"Of course," Holmes said. There was a long pause. "You think he's sincere?"

"I believe so," Kathleen said. She knew she could have been tricked, but ... her boss had reacted, very strongly, to the papers she'd given him. If they really were highly-classified secrets, what sort of moron would use them as bait? They'd get Kathleen out of it ... and little else. A minor diplomatic incident wouldn't lead to war. Hell, the Nazis weren't known for bothering with excuses, if they wanted a war. "Do we have a choice?"

"No." Holmes stared at the papers for a long moment. "Did you look at these?"

"No, sir," Kathleen said. She understood the importance of not knowing too much all too well. Whatever the papers were, they were clearly important. "I just brought them to you."

Holmes stared at her for a moment, as if he were trying to gauge her sincerity, then shrugged. "I have to brief Sir Cuthbert," he said. "You start making preparations. If you're truly willing to do this ..."

"I knew the job was dangerous when I took it," Kathleen said. The Nazis would kill her if they caught her, after extracting everything she knew, but the prize was worth the risk. Her family would be avenged. She had the normal jitters, the same unease she felt before every mission, yet they'd go away once she got started. "I'll do my duty."

"I have no doubt of it, "Holmes said. "I just wish we had more time to prepare."

"Me too, sir," Kathleen said. "Me too."

 

[ATP]

Good story,and plausible.I quess,that at least here USA do not let commies take China,and keep Siberia for themselves.
It would be sad if Magadan death camps become german instead of soviets...

P.S about memories - better use Karolina Lanckorońska ones.Polish aristocrat,who wrote about both german and soviet crimes - and was released from camp only becouse important aristocrat families demanded that.
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://polishhistory.pl/karolina-lanckoronska-aristocrat-scholar-and-patron/&ved=2ahUKEwjU1LmKz4CFAxUTQPEDHd3CAuMQFnoECBoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3cuVjVy8HIJ1WGqJUhWbXU

In OTL,in USA 4 publishers refused to publis it - 2 becouse it wrote truth about germans,2 others bec ouse of soviets.
Here,at least those caring about soviets could publish it.
And,she would be still alive as witness.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Five: Berlin, 1949

Hans didn't care to admit it, certainly not in front of his charge, but he was bored.

The last two days had been a headache, so much so that Hans was counting down the days until they returned to the rocket complex. Von Braun attended meetings and briefings, gave lectures and went to parties he wasn't supposed to know existed, hosted by people Hans knew Himmler would prefer had nothing whatsoever to do with Von Braun. Hans had heard rumours about perverse, even deviant, sexual tastes at the very highest levels, but he hadn't believed them until he'd seen the parties himself. Naked dancing girls were the very least of it, with young girls mingled in with men old enough to be their grandfathers, a level of perversity that shocked even Hans. Himmler, at least, was free of such tastes. Hans gritted his teeth and told himself they wouldn't last forever. The rats were only brave enough to indulge themselves when the Führer was ailing, and when Himmler became the second Führer they would be purged. They deserved no less. One could not build the New Order on such filth.

It was hard to keep himself from dragging Von Braun back to the Science Commission, after a meeting with Hermann Göring that had turned into an orgy that would have disgusted the Romans. Göring's reputation for indulging himself – if he could eat it, drink in, smoke it, or stick it where the sun didn't shine, he'd done it – was clearly understated, given the conditions in which he kept himself. Hans promised himself such a deviant would not become the next leader, no matter what it took. The odds were good Göring wouldn't survive long enough to throw his hat in the ring. Hans had watched dispassionately as Untermenschen were drugged repeatedly, their bodies pushed to the limits to determine just how far the doctors could go, and they'd often died of overdoses. It was just a matter of time before Göring went the same way. He didn't have a team of doctors carefully measuring each and every dose.

Hans kept his thoughts to himself, even when Von Braun returned home – two nights in a row – with a couple of young and impressionable female students and took them to bed. The silly girls thought their degrees would get them somewhere in life, particularly if they had the backing of someone like Von Braun, but they'd be lucky if they were allowed a certain degree of choice in who they married. The university was closely supervised by the SS as part of the Lebensborn Program, to ensure that Germanic girls of above average intelligence were bred with equally smart German men, and no matter how smart the girls were the regime would never consider them anything more than mothers for the next generation of German male scientists. It was ironic that Von Braun had never had any children, despite being a fervent womaniser. Perhaps one of his conquests had borne his child and passed it off as her husband's. It wasn't uncommon, although it was incredibly illegal. There was nothing more important than monitoring bloodlines and ensuring the purity of the Germanic Herrenvolk.

And quite a few men have come home to discover their wives had children without their input, Hans reminded himself. Those women went straight into the camps.

He was quietly relieved when Von Braun turned down an invitation to a gathering hosted by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, even if it did mean attending another lecture. Ribbentrop wasn't anything like as perverse as Göring and his faction, but he made up for it by being incredibly boring and wilfully misinformed, perhaps even ignorant. Hans had served in Russia and he knew Ribbentrop had been wrong about a great many things, when he'd bored his captive audience to tears by making a speech about Russia's future prospects as a German territory. Hans wouldn't have trusted Ribbentrop to guess his weight, let alone provide reliable counsel on the Reich's relationships with Britain, Turkey, and a handful of other countries. He'd heard that Ribbentrop's influence was declining – and that he'd lose what little he'd kept when Hitler died – but it was hard to be sure. If the succession crisis ended in a truce, Ribbentrop might manage to keep his post – and even expand it. Who knew?

The lecture hall was packed with hundreds of students, a security nightmare even though the vast majority of attendees had been vetted already. A student could not enter the university – dodging military service at the same time – without a pure-perfect bloodline and an equally perfect record of political reliability. Hans rather thought that failing to report for military service was clear proof of the lack of any sort of reliability, let alone patriotism, but Himmler disagreed and Hans had to admit he had a point. Von Braun and his peers could be irritating at times, no doubt about it, yet they were also vitally important to the future of the Reich. A scientist or engineer who developed the next panzer tank, or jet aircraft, or rocket engine was worth a thousand infantry, no matter how loyal or fanatical. The Reich was locked into an arms race with Britain and America, a race it had to win. And if that meant putting up with students who might lack political reliability ...

He shrugged, mentally, and forced himself to sweep the hall as Von Braun talked. He could be inspiring, Hans supposed, but no man was a hero to his minder. His eyes roamed across young men who were keen to emulate Von Braun, and young women who dreamed of being the first female rocket scientists ... or, perhaps more likely, hoped to find a suitable partner amongst the brain trust. The handful of older men – returnees from the front, most crippled – paid close attention, Hans saluted them as he passed. Waffen-SS or Heer, they had seen the elephant. The Russians drew no destination between the two, and neither did Hans. There was no room for such nonsense in combat.

The lecture finally came to an end. A handful of students hurried out – they'd probably been ordered to attend by their superiors, a practice Von Braun had tried to ban – but the remainder crowded around Von Braun. Hans hid his concern with an effort, hoping and praying none of the students were carrying knives. It wouldn't be that hard to get a weapon into the university, despite the security precautions, and Von Braun was a target. Hans didn't like the older man very much, but he had to admit Von Braun had few peers. His death would be a blow to the rocket program, as well as to Himmler's ambitions.

He sighed, inwardly, as Vin Braun finally disengaged, a woman dangling from his arm. Another poor bitch ... contraception was explicitly forbidden in the Reich, and if she got pregnant it would be a disaster. For her. How would she prove paternity? How would she convince her husband that the child was his? Who knew?

Hans shrugged. It wasn't his problem.

We'll be back at the complex soon, he thought, tiredly. And then we can put an end to all this nonsense.

***
​

Kathleen felt dangerously out of place as she slipped into the lecture hall and listened to Von Braun's speech. It was surprisingly detailed, for such a highly-classified subject as rocketry, but most of the high points were already common knowledge. The Reich had made no attempt to classify the original technical papers, she thought, and most of the students had been vetted already. She wondered, idly, how many of them would go on to join the rocketry program, combining science theory and engineering practicality into one. They'd all want to work with Von Braun, she was sure, but most would be disappointed even if Vin Braun didn't flee the Reich. The Nazis were expanding their rocket program, if intelligence was correct, and most of the newly-graduated students would be assigned to the newer missile complexes.

She gritted her teeth as she moved down towards the crowd of students surrounding Von Braun, trying not to respond to the handful of 'accidental' touches. It was an open secret that most of the female students were there to prove their intelligence, rather than go on to have careers of their own, and they got very little respect from their male peers. Kathleen had heard all sorts of horror stories, from students ordered to pair up by the administration to women being told to keep their rapist's baby, and she had a nasty feeling the stories were – if anything – understated. The Nazis had no qualms about kidnapping children from their conquests, if they were sufficiently Germanic, and bringing them up as Germans. Kathleen knew their eugenics program was nonsense, dangerous nonsense, but the Nazis believed they could breed a master race. She was mildly surprised Von Braun hadn't been ordered to sire hundreds of children. He really was as brilliant as the propagandists claimed.

Von Braun nodded to her, shortly, as she came up to him, and put a hand on her arm. Kathleen allowed herself to relax into his grip, even though she felt weirdly disgusted by the whole thing. A number of male students backed off quickly ... she grimaced inwardly, trying to hide her revulsion. It was just ... sick. Von Braun had claimed her, silently, and the younger men were surrendering to his claim. Kathleen couldn't help feeling sorry for the female students, even the ones who were clearly ardent Nazis, as Von Braun tugged her away. Britain wasn't perfect when it came to respecting women's rights, and she had lost count of the number of times she'd been talked down to by men who didn't have a tenth of her experience, but it was so far superior to the Third Reich that it simply wasn't any contest.

Up close, Von Braun smelt of alcohol. Kathleen hoped to hell he'd splashed it on himself – an old trick – rather than actually drinking it. They'd need clear heads, if they were to put the plan into action. She leaned into him, keeping her eyes open without making it obvious, as he steered her through a maze of corridors. The Reich University was huge, clearly designed for far more students ... she winced, inwardly, at just how many young men were doing their military service, or being assigned to plots of land in Poland or Russia with orders to turn them into functioning farms. She had been told that going to university was regarded as vaguely dishonourable, perhaps even cowardly. She hoped it was true. The German reputation for engineering wouldn't last long if all their best minds refused to go to university.

She leaned closer to Von Braun as they left the outer building, cold air slapping their faces, and stumbled towards the Science Commission. Her hands twitched, wanting to draw her pistol even though she knew it would be suicide. Von Braun had assured her the guards didn't search the women he brought back to his apartment, every night, but if they were suspicious ... she stayed close to Von Braun, letting her hands roam over his body, as they passed through the gate. The look the guards shot her was envious, not suspicious. Kathleen didn't show her relief openly as they entered the building and headed up the stairs. The interior was brightly lit, but it also felt deserted.

Sweat prickled down her back as she kept going. British Intelligence had never been able to get a spy into the Science Commission, and they had very little to go on beyond second-hand reports that might not be particularly trustworthy. The upper levels of the Third Reich were bewilderingly complex, without any sense of neatness or clear lines of authority; the Science Commission reported to the SS, she'd been told, but it wasn't actually part of the SS. Or was it? The SS was a murderous nightmare, but it was also a bureaucracy and bureaucracies had a tendency to grow.

The corridor was lined with black-and-white photographs, each one showcasing the Reich's scientific might. A propeller plane, a jet plane, a set of rockets – each one bigger than the last – and devices she didn't recognise; other photos, seemingly darker, showed experiments carried out on humans and animals alike, the placards underneath praising the researchers for their success in developing medical treatments and prosthetic limbs, without mentioning how many concentration camp inmates had died before the scientists had finally figured out how to make them work. Their success was built on a pile of corpses ... she wondered, suddenly, just how many doctors had their own doubts about the program, just how many would consider defecting if they thought they could get away with it. Not many, she feared. The SS only allowed volunteers to work in such programs. Anyone who had doubts would have removed themselves long ago.

Von Braun opened a door and showed her into a suite. Kathleen looked around with interest. The Science Commission was supposed to have apartments for all the Reich's top scientists, from what she'd heard, and it definitely had an apartment for Von Braun. It looked like a fancy hotel, complete with a bell to summon room service and – to her astonishment – a television. That was vanishingly rare. The Reich bragged that every house would have a television one day, so the children could watch regime-approved programs that promoted the right attitudes, but so far televisions had yet to enter mass-production. The video player below the television was even rarer. She suspected the only reason Von Braun had it was to watch recordings of rockets being fired from the launch sites in Occupied France.

He bent over the television and slipped a video cassette into the player. The screen came to life, displaying a couple making love loudly and passionately. Kathleen flushed helplessly. Dirty postcards were one thing, but this ... her flush deepened as she realised the man on the screen was Von Braun himself, breathing heavily as he mounted the woman and slipped inside her ...

"We can talk now," Von Braun said, so quietly she could barely hear him over the racket. She had to admit it was a nifty idea. If there were listening ears, all they'd hear was passionate sex. "Is everything ready?"

Kathleen nodded. "Are you ready?"

Von Braun inclined his head, indicating a simple suitcase. "I have everything packed," he said. "We just need to get a body."

"Yeah," Kathleen said.

She studied him for a long moment. Von Braun looked ... fearful, but also determined. She allowed herself a moment of relief. It had been possible, all too possible, that Von Braun would change his mind, that he'd throw himself on the mercy of the SS or simply pretend nothing had ever happened. The paper he'd given her, on their last meeting, had clearly been important, but ... she knew her superiors would never approve admitting its existence, even if it was the only way to take him off the board. And if he had changed his mind ...

"It's time," she said. The clock was ticking. "Let's go."

***
​

Hans took off his jacket the moment he stepped into the Science Commission, then made his way to the Security Office. If he'd had his way, the entire complex would be wired for everything and the SS would have sole control over who came in and out, but the Science Commission worked hard to maintain a precarious independence from everyone else, balancing its commitments to the SS with commitments to the rest of the military, as well as the Organisation Todt. It had been hard enough to get the apartments wired, and even that was unreliable.

The duty officer looked up as he entered. "Not much to report, Herr Sturmbannfuehrer," he said. "The doctor's gotten busy."

"I'm sure he has," Hans said. He felt a sudden flicker of annoyance. He was a Germanic German with a perfect bloodline, and a record of service that was second to none, and yet he wasn't married ... while Von Braun, a man old enough to be his father, had no trouble finding young women willing to bed him. Hans knew there were services that matched SS officers with young women, but asking to be matched felt almost like admitting defeat. "Anything from the perimeter?"

"No, Herr Sturmbannfuehrer," the duty officer said. He wasn't SS, but he knew better than to waste Hans's time. "The big brains are in their suites, or in their labs. Some aren't alone."

Hans grimaced. It was so much easier at the missile complex. He could say no, when the scientists wanted to bring their latest conquests back to the complex. Here ...

They want the scientists to sire children, he reminded himself. And that means giving them a certain degree of latitude.

"Keep an eye on things," he said. Going by his previous record, Von Braun would screw his latest paramour senseless and go straight to sleep, then screw her again in the morning before telling her to get lost. He didn't have any appointments until the following afternoon ... a cunning ploy, Hans was sure, to make sure he had plenty of time for fun before getting back to work. "And alert me if there's any trouble."

He turned away and headed back to his room. The minders didn't get to sleep next to their charges, not here, nor did they get to share the bedrooms ... something else he would change, if he could. Von Braun was important, too important. He couldn't be allowed to indulge himself much longer, not when the Reich was facing a multitude of internal and external problems. If the succession crisis turned violent ...

No, he told himself, firmly. The Reichsführer-SS has the edge. The others will fall in behind him.

And he hoped to hell, as he climbed into bed, that that was true.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Six: Berlin, 1949

Kathleen, dressed in a lab coat that made her look like one of the female assistants, followed Von Brain as he led her through a maze of corridors, keeping her eyes carefully open for possible threats. Von Braun had assured her that the Science Commission was open at all hours of the day – genius rarely kept regular working hours – and that no one would think twice about her presence, but Kathleen couldn't help feeling terse. The SS might give the scientists more freedom than the average Berliner, no matter how loyal he was, and raise no objections to them recruiting research assistants with bigger breasts than IQs, yet that didn't mean they weren't watching. The lower levels were lined with pieces of complex machinery, so far beyond her that she had no idea what they did; she couldn't help wondering, grimly, if the tangled wires and pipes concealed listening devices and spy cameras. It was quite possible the labs themselves were under close inspection at all times, everything being recorded for posterity. If something went wrong, at least they'd have a record of it ...

She gritted her teeth as they walked into a cold grey lab, a cross between a butcher's workshop and a classroom. The Nazis had no qualms about allowing their students to dissect actual bodies, and it would have been one of the less objectionable things they did if the students weren't encouraged to kill the victims first. She suspected it was a particularly sadistic test, to determine who might have the willingness to take part in inhuman experiments, mass slaughter and outright genocide, before putting them in a place where they actually had to do it. She felt sick as she eyed the next lab, decorated with diagrams of the human body in various stages of dissection. There hadn't been many escapees from the concentration camps, but the few that had made it to Britain had brought stories of unthinkable horrors. Forced sterilisation and abortion were the least of them. How many if her relatives had died on a butcher's table, their body chopped apart without anaesthetic to see how they went together? She didn't want to know. The Nazis were supposed to keep good records, but she had never been able to gain access. Even trying would be far too revealing.

Von Braun opened a drawer to reveal a dead body, completely naked. It wasn't the first body Kathleen had seen – no one could work for SOE without seeing dead bodies – but there was something about the sight that bothered her. The cold air brushed against her nostrils, bringing with it the stench of decay. The body should have been kept in a proper freezer, rather than a morgue ... she wondered, numbly, who the body had been and why he'd been murdered, before telling herself she'd never know. The Nazis had killed so many that even they had lost count, the numbers so high they were literally unimaginable. She supposed it was why the Reich had been so furious, when Anne Frank's diary had been published, and why they'd gone to such lengths to discredit it. She'd put a human face on numbers so high no one could understand them, exposed the human cost of such monstrous crimes ...

She helped him pick up the body and close the drawer, leaving the lab behind and hurrying back to the suite. They had to move fast now. There might be excuses for showing her around, although the television was still blasting its pornographic movies, but not for carrying a body. She couldn't hope to shoot her way out if they were caught, only to take as many of the bastards down with her as possible before she was captured and forced to take her poison pill. Von Braun moved with surprising speed for such an older man ... perhaps, she told herself, it wasn't that surprising. The Nazis insisted on everyone exercising constantly and it was rare to see a truly fat man in Berlin. Göring was the only major exception. He was a danger to shipping.

Her lips twitched as they returned to the suite and put the body on the bed, then dressed him in Von Braun's nightclothes. The limbs were stiff, difficult to move; she glanced at the penis, noting to her relief the man was uncircumcised. It wasn't absolute proof he hadn't been a Jew – if there were any Jews left in Berlin, they weren't circumcising their children – but it was enough to convince her she wasn't abusing one of her fellows. She liked to think the dead man would have approved, if he'd known what they were doing with his body. But it was also possible he'd been an ardent Nazi who'd offended the wrong person and found himself in the camps.

Von Braun splashed a little foul-smelling liquid on the body, then more on the floor and kitchenette. "The fire will spread rapidly," he said, as he changed into a simple outfit that was common amongst bureaucrats on the streets of Berlin. No one would look twice at him, as long as he didn't try to pass any checkpoints. "And the body will be badly scorched."

Kathleen nodded. She didn't expect the decoy body to fool the Nazis for long – an accident at the Science Commission would be suspicious under almost any circumstances – but a few days grace would give her enough time to get Von Braun all the way to France. How long would she have? She didn't know, which meant she had to hurry. The planned pick-up could not be missed, unless she wanted to find another way to get him to Britain. That wouldn't be easy. Occupied France was riddled with spies and traitors these days, as the French reluctantly conceded – at least in the privacy of their own hearts – that the Nazis weren't going to be defeated in a hurry. Vichy France was even worse. They just could not be trusted.

She smiled, thinly, as Von Braun put the simple little firelighter together, taking the gas stove apart to extract the ignition switch, then working it into a timer so it would spark – once – ten minutes from now. The air was filling with gas, slowly and surely, and combined with the rocket fuel it would trigger an inferno. The body would be so badly burnt that it would take a long time, she thought, for them to work out it wasn't his body. The only weak link was that they'd expect to find two bodies, but it wasn't that risky. They might assume she'd left earlier. Hell, if they were really lucky, all the records of her entry would be lost too.

Von Braun started the timer, a grim look of satisfaction on his face as he straightened and hurried to the door. Kathleen pulled her lab coat tighter as they hurried outside and down the stairs, picking their way through another maze of corridors. A handful of labs were lit up, their staff carrying out experiments ... she did her best not to think about what those experiments might be, as they hurried past. The Nazis had signed international treaties banning the use of chemical or biological weapons, at least at the front, but she feared they were quietly continuing research into such horrors. The idea of releasing a virus targeted on Slavs would be horrific to any sane or reasonable mind, yet to them ... it was just another day's work. Kathleen had been assured that such a virus was impossible, but who knew? A hundred years ago, rockets would have been considered impossible too.

She braced herself as the last few seconds ticked down, all too aware the timer might be unreliable. Von Braun was a genius, but how long had it been since he'd done any engineering with his bare hands? She didn't know. She hadn't through to ask. A single spark would be enough, but what if ...

The building shuddered. The alarms started clanging a second later, prompting a scramble. Doors slammed open, their occupants – in various stages of undress – fleeing into the corridors and hurrying down the stairs. Kathleen grinned, inwardly, as she spotted a number of lab assistants, one so desperate to get out that she hadn't bothered to don any clothes. She'd provide a more than suitable distraction, Kathleen told herself, as they joined the throng, heading down to the exits. The guards were running too, some heading into the building and others screaming for help. There was no time to check any of the runaways as they flowed past the checkpoint and into the night. Kathleen grinned, again, and caught Von Braun's arm. They kept walking, heading further away as more and more people flooded onto the streets. The chaos would take hours to sort out, even if the fire was put out quickly. More than enough time to get away ...

"Keep walking," she hissed. The safe house wasn't that far away, but she didn't want to be noticed by the neighbours. The regime had spent a great deal of time encouraging residents to report on their friends, if they were doing something the regime considered unpatriotic, as well as suggesting children should spy on their parents and other horrors that attacked the roots of civilised society. If someone saw them, and heard about the fire, they might put two and two together. "Don't stop now."

Grinning, she allowed the night to swallow them up.

***
​

Hans snapped awake, one hand grabbing for his pistol as alarms clanged through the massive complex. They were under attack ... he levelled the pistol at the door, half-convinced he was back in Russia, before remembering he was in Berlin and it was the fire alarm. Fire? He was out of bed in a second, silently relieved he hadn't bothered to get undressed when he'd stumbled into his bed room. There'd been no need. Von Braun wouldn't be doing anything of importance before noon, given how much he'd stank of alcohol. It was a minor miracle he'd been able to make love to the student girl. He'd been so drunk ...

Von Braun!

Horror rushed through him as he holstered his pistol and charged outside. Von Braun had been drunk, as drunk as a lord ... if he was sleeping it off, he might not recover in time to escape the fire. If there was a fire ... he dodged a handful of fleeing scientists as he made his way to the security office, only to discover it was empty. The fools had abandoned their posts ... he made a mental note to have them shot, or sent to the camps, as he grabbed a fire extinguisher and made his way up the corridor. The air was growing warm, heavy with the stench of smoke. The fire was spreading rapidly. If Von Braun and his new conquest were asleep, they were dead. There was no point in expecting the girl to save him. Women were prone to panic and screaming when confronted with the unexpected, not thinking coldly and logically and doing what they could to save their lives. Hans ducked down as the air grew thicker, wishing he'd thought to grab a mask before hurrying up the stairs. A dull explosion shook the building, seemingly below him ...

Ice washed through his veins. The suites were equipped with gas stoves, linked by gas pipes to the city mains. How far could the fire spread, he asked himself, and how much else might catch fire if the internal gas network exploded? He didn't know. The system was supposed to be safe, but that was relative. There were enough samples of harmful materials in the complex to guarantee the fire would be unstoppable, if it reached the lower levels. It might even spread into the neighbouring buildings or the university.

He forced himself to keep going. He wanted to believe Von Braun was already outside, but he didn't believe it. The man had been drunk, and accompanied by a foolish woman. If Hans left him to die without at least trying to save him, despite the risk, Himmler would use him as a scapegoat for Von Braun's death. He'd have no choice. Von Braun belonged to the entire Reich. And if that happened ... Hans swallowed, hard. Himmler would have him killed without a moment's hesitation. Or regret.

The door ahead of him was locked, and dangerously warm. He ducked his head and slammed the fire extinguisher into the lock, shattering it effortlessly. The locks hadn't been designed to keep people out, just to make it clear the occupant wanted privacy. The door crashed open, revealing a nightmarish blaze. Flames were crawling all over the room, daggers of fire reaching towards him like a living thing, an eldritch horror forcing its way into the human realm. The wave of heat was so staggering it drove him back ... he could feel his skin blistering, even as he opened the extinguisher and sprayed the bed with water. There was a body lying on the sheets, its garb already starting to catch fire. Hans sprayed the body too, then tossed the extinguisher aside, grabbed hold and dragged it out of the room. He couldn't tell if Von Braun was alive or dead, couldn't see any trace of the girl in the hazy room. The poor bitch was dead, if she was still there. He hoped she'd had the sense to leave, when Von Braun fell asleep. Perhaps she was counting her blessings even now ...

He dragged the body forward, eyes flickering from side to side. The gas stove was burning brightly, the television little more than flaming debris. He could see flames licking along the carpet, threatening to spread even further. He forced himself to keep going, even as he heard something crashing in the distance. The air was growing heavier, his throat constricting painfully as he breathed in the smoke and fumes. There was probably something poisonous in the air, his mind noted as his thoughts started to spin out of control. If the flames had reached the lower levels, it was quite possible the samples of poison gas had already started to leak.

Damn you, he thought, unsure if he was mentally addressing Von Braun, or Himmler, or himself. The heat was pressing around him, his universe shrinking to the burning corridor and staircase leading down to the exit. His mind was too dazed to think of any other way out ... the fire brigade would be on the way, he was sure, but how long would it take for them to get organised? They had standing orders to do everything in their power to save the complex, yet ... what was in their power? He gritted his teeth. Get up and walk!

Von Braun didn't move. Hans refused to consider, even for a moment, that the scientist might already be dead. He'd seen men escape burning tanks, their skin scorched and blackened, and go on to live their lives. Von Braun would be denied no medical care, from skin transplants to ... whatever else he needed. Hans felt a surge of naked hatred, telling himself that if they both survived there would be no more laxity, no more freedom. He'd make sure Von Braun got a proper Germanic woman and sired children with her, a woman with the right sort of mind to keep him in line. And he'd get a woman himself and have children of his own.

He staggered, nearly falling, only held upright by his iron willpower. He kept going, somehow, as dark shapes loomed up ahead of him. Panic shot through his very soul – if he'd gone the wrong way, it was unlikely he'd be able to correct himself before the heat or smoke killed him – before he realised they were firemen, garbed in masks. He tried not to collapse as strong hands gripped him, threw him over their shoulders and carried him the rest of the way. He tried to tell them to take Von Braun too, but it was hard to speak. His throat hurt, his skin hurt, everything hurt ...

"Sit still," the doctor said. Hans blinked, realising his mind had wandered too far and he'd nearly fainted. "You're badly burnt. Stay still!"

Hans shook his head, despite the bandages wrapped around his hands. His head felt thick, his thoughts slow and sluggish ... the doctor had shot him with morphine, he was sure, or something else to make the pain go away. He wanted to collapse into sleep, to let himself go completely, but he dared not. Von Braun had to be alive ...

"I brought someone out," he managed. It hurt to speak, despite the drug. "Where is he?"

The doctor's voice was cold, clinical. "He's dead."

Hans felt the ground shift beneath his feet. Von Braun could not be dead. He couldn't be dead. Hans was dead too ... he forced himself to stand upright, to channel all the authority of the SS into his voice. The doctor had wide authority, but nothing outranked the SS. Nothing.

"Show me the body," he ordered. It was a wild hope, born of desperation, but ... what else could he do? "Now!"

The doctor said nothing for a long moment, then shrugged and helped him stagger towards a handful of bodies lying on the ground. Hans thought there should be more, but ... half the staff had either fled or been caught in the blaze, their bodies burnt to ash or lurking somewhere within the rubble. Or ... Von Braun was lying there, dead. His nightclothes were scorched and blackened, but still recognisable, marked with the rocket complex's insignia. They were unique, in Berlin, and that meant .... Von Braun was dead, and Hans's career was dead with him. And that meant ...

His heart skipped a beat as he looked closer, eyes lingering on the scarred face. It wasn't Von Braun!

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Seven: Berlin, 1949

Kathleen awoke, slowly.

It wasn't the first time she had awakened in a strange room, but ... she felt a flicker of panic, even fear, as memory returned and she remembered just where she was. She'd led Von Braun right to the safe house, then put him into bed before crashing into bed herself, and that meant ... she couldn't go back to the embassy. She had no idea if the Nazis had already sealed them off, if they assumed the fire had been the result of sabotage from outside the Reich, but if she went there with Von Braun in tow she'd be putting her head into the noose. It was funny, she reflected darkly as she sat upright in bed, just how it hadn't felt real until now. But then, danger rarely seemed real until you faced it for the first time.

She stood and glanced into the spare bedroom. Von Braun was still asleep, tossing and turning in a manner that suggested he was having a nightmare. She'd have to keep an eye on him. Von Braun had been born in 1912, well before Hitler's rise to power, and he'd grown up in the days before the Nazis took over the schools, but he had still been raised to be patriotic and put his fatherland first. It wouldn't be long before he started having second thoughts, no matter how many times he told himself the Nazis were monsters who had to be defeated, so Germany could breathe free. Kathleen's mentor had been killed by a turncoat who had turned his coat twice, after the guilt of betraying his country had finally worn him down, or so she'd been told. Her superiors hadn't wanted to consider they might have been fooled all along. She knew just how they felt.

Her heart twisted as she headed to the shower, undressed and washed herself quickly. The safe house belonged, on paper, to a well-connected merchant company that handed business relationships between the elite and the outside world, a cover story that explained why so many people stayed briefly in the apartment and then went on their way, leaving the apartment free for the next set of occupants. It was hard to be sure how many of the neighbours truly believed the cover story, or if they suspected what purpose the apartment truly served. They might assume it belonged to the SS, or one of the other intelligence and security forces, and keep their eyes firmly closed. No one wanted to draw the attention of the SS, particularly now. She changed into a fresh outfit, then carefully applied a little makeup and darkened her hair. It was better to be careful. If anyone had seen her and Von Braun together, they might draw the right conclusions and put out an alert for a young woman with her features.

And we don't know if the body has been found, she reminded herself. We might be free and clear, or we might already be being hunted.

She went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of what passed for coffee, complete with powdered milk. The Reich still had shortages, five years after the formal end of the war, at least if you didn't have connections. The black market was banned – of course – but it thrived nonetheless. She didn't know any Germans who didn't know someone who knew someone who had black market connections, no matter how much they denied it. The SS rarely bothered to try to track it down. Her lips twisted in dark amusement. They probably had black market ties too.

The coffee – or whatever it really was – tasted foul. She grimaced as she put together what breakfast she could, then looked up as Von Braun staggered into the kitchen. He looked to have aged a decade overnight, his face haggard and worn. She poured him a mug of coffee and watched him drink, his lips twisting like hers. Von Braun had been one of the elite, only a day ago, with access to real coffee from the outside world. Now, he was a fugitive on the run. If they didn't get to safety before they were tracked down, it would be too late.

"You need a shower," she said, as she passed him a plate of bread, cheese and pickled onions. It wasn't a very good breakfast, but it would have to do. There was no time to go shopping and she didn't want to push their luck any further. "And then we have to talk."

Von Braun nodded. He was clearly not a morning person, no matter how much fake coffee he poured down his throat. Kathleen encouraged him to eat, reminding him that there might not be another chance for quite some time, then pointed him into the shower and organised his suit. It was old, old enough to suit a man playing at being her father. She scowled angrily as she put it into place, not so much for herself as for all the other young women in Nazi Germany. It wasn't precisely illegal for a young woman to travel alone, but she'd be questioned and then harassed by single young men. Inch by inch, their freedoms were being curtailed. It was already legal for a husband to forbid his wife to own a bank account, or own a business, or any of a hundred other freedoms that had been won for than a century. And if the woman complained, her husband was allowed to beat her ...

We need to start shipping poison into Germany, she thought, morbidly. Her paternal grandmother had confessed, on her deathbed, to murdering her abusive husband. She'd had no choice. Divorce hadn't been an option in those days. See how many prominent Nazis get bumped off by their wives.

The thought chilled her. Some women - Magda Goebbels in particular – were fanatical about the Nazi Party, but others were trapped within a society that demanded their complete submission and refused to grant them any freedom at all. How many of those women were trapped in unhappy marriages, unable to leave and yet unable to cope if their husbands were abusive, or adulterous, or ... who knew? She suspected the number was terrifyingly high. The Nazis didn't care. Their perfect woman was silent, cooking food and bearing children and always – always – doing as she was told. Kathleen suspected it was just a matter of time before Magda Goebbels got put in her place.

Von Braun returned. Kathleen helped him to dress, then lightened his hair and adjusted the suit to make it look older still. Von Braun looked nothing like his pictures when she was done, just old enough to have served during the First World War and thus deserving of respect from modern servicemen. Hitler himself had served, and he'd made a point of ensuring his former comrades were treated well. If rumour was true, he'd even extended such consideration to a Jew! Kathleen shuddered at the thought. It sounded like a cruel mercy.

"You will be Werner Schmidt," she said, holding out a set of forged papers. Schmidt was one of the most common surnames in Germany, ensuring there should be no reason to connect an elderly ex-soldier with the missing rocket scientist. It was a shame they couldn't find something a little closer to Von Braun, but it would be far too revealing. Anyone with the same surname would be held for questioning, once the alarm was raised. "I will be Käthe Schmidt, your daughter. You will be escorting me to my fiancé's household in Occupied France."

She frowned, inwardly, as she ran through the cover story. It would be difficult to pose as husband and wife, even without the supposed age difference. An elderly man with a young wife would be noticed, and people would start asking questions; posing as a middle-aged daughter would be a great deal more believable, although there would still be issues that would have to be resolved. If she worked the story just right, she could make it sound as if her fiancé had been stalling on the marriage question, and her father was taking her to confront the young man and give him hell. The regime was surprisingly harsh on breach of promise of marriage, although perhaps it wasn't that odd. An engaged couple could sleep together, and if one of those encounters resulted in pregnancy ... marriage was the only protection women had. It was no surprise the Reich tried to protect it.

"Just remember you're slightly deaf," Kathleen added. "Let me do the talking."

She sighed, inwardly. They'd had to put the whole plan together at breakneck speed. There had been no time to stress-test for missing links, let alone drill Von Braun in his cover story or remind him not to say anything more than the bare minimum. The papers were good, she'd been assured, but if one of the guards got suspicious and ordered a full investigation the story would unravel soon enough. She suspected they were already running against the clock. There was no way to know what was happening ...

"I'm already partly deaf," Von Braun said. "The rockets are very loud, you know."

"Transfer your papers to the tricked-out briefcase," Kathleen reminded him. The safehouse might not be compromised, but they dared not take too many chances. If Von Braun was strip-searched, his identity would be uncovered anyway. She would have to put a bullet in him, if she could, to deny the Nazis the use of his brain, or to ask him just what he'd already told the British. "And leave the other one here."

Von Braun nodded. Kathleen drank the last of her coffee, then stood and checked the documents one final time. If they were traced to the apartment, they dared not leave anything behind. Nothing useful, at least. She was tempted to leave behind something to mark a false trail, but there were dangers in trying to be too clever. Von Braun went to the washroom, then returned. Kathleen looked him up and down, then nodded to herself. He looked old enough to be absolutely harmless. And nothing like Werner Von Braun.

"The train leaves at 1100," she said. The Nazis boasted they'd made the trains run on time and they weren't wrong, at least in Western Europe. "We have to be on it."

Von Braun gave her an odd look. "Why don't we take a plane?"

Kathleen tried not to show her dismay. Von Braun had spent the last five years being incredibly privileged, at least by German standards. He had a private plane, a driver, a small army of servants and bodyguards ... she didn't mind acting the servant, as was expected of young daughters before they left the home, but ... how many other silly questions would he ask? Questions he didn't have the understanding to know were silly? And who would hear him asking the questions? And what would they think?

"There aren't many commercial flights going to France," she said, finally. The Third Reich had been more interested in railways than passenger aircraft, at least when it came to allowing civilians to travel around their new empire. Their best aviation designers were trying to devise a bomber capable of reaching the United States, rather than designs that would fly passengers from Berlin to London in reasonable comfort. "And the airports are closely monitored. If they spy us there, we're dead."

"I see," Von Braun said.

Kathleen checked the apartment – just to be sure - then peered through the peephole to check the outer corridor and stairs were empty before opening the door and leading the way down the stairs. Her back prickled – it was hard to escape the sense she was being watched – as Von Braun followed her. The apartment blocks were dominated by middle-aged women who thought it was their duty to spy on the younger women, and gleefully report them to their parents if they put a foot out of place. Kathleen remembered her own childhood and grimaced. Some things were just universal, and people minding other people's business was one of them. And the old biddies here could call the Gestapo or the SS if they thought it would earn them a reward ...

She didn't breathe easily until they were outside, mingling into the people walking up and down the street. A pall of black smoke hung over the centre of the city, a grim reminder that the fire had spread out of control. Kathleen hoped that was a good sign. She'd assumed the fire wouldn't spread that far, but if it had all the evidence would have been destroyed in the blaze. They wouldn't know where the fire had started, let alone how many researchers and lab assistants were dead, their bodies nothing more than ashes. It was quite possible they'd blame the disaster on another scientist, rather than foreign agents.

Von Braun made a show of leaning against her arm as they walked down the street. Kathleen shrugged and let him. Most elderly men did the same, at least in Britain and she assumed it was true of Germany too. She kept her eyes open, watching as they passed a handful of policemen ... seemingly paying little or no attention to them. Von Braun didn't react, thankfully. It might not have dawned on him that the SS stormtroopers – and everyone else – was no longer on his side. As far as they were concerned, Von Braun was dead.

The thought haunted her as they made their way towards the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. The railway station had been heavily bombed during the later years of the war and though the damage had been largely cosmetic – according to her sources – Speer had taken advantage of the devastation to tear down the remainder of the building and rebuild it in a distinctly Nazi style. The towering gothic edifice made her feel small, as they walked under the giant arches and past a large statue of Adolf Hitler, surrounded by red and black flags. The interior wasn't much better, at least to her eye. The proportions felt all wrong, as if the world was slightly out of kilter. The row of shops, ticket offices and everything else looked as if they'd been designed and built by a child. She wondered, suddenly, if Speer assumed the next generation of Herrenvolk would be larger than their predecessors. Who knew how much he might buy into his own propaganda?

She put the thought aside as they stopped outside the ticket office and bought a return ticket to Luxembourg. It was a popular tourist destination for Germans, almost as popular as Denmark or Norway, and no one would question her story about her future husband living and working there. The state was ruled directly by Germany – the government in exile had no authority within the former country – and the locals were being pushed aside by immigrants from Germany, a number taking advantage of the offer to migrate to Britain and then further to the United States or Australia. She had no intention of going all the way there, but it would hopefully confuse any pursuers. In theory, she could keep going west and find a ship to Britain.

Which would be incredibly risky, she thought, as she listened to the instructions. Two changes, both very tight. They check everyone who wants to leave these days.

She kept her face under tight control as she led the way down to the platform. The guards were checking tickets, of course, and she could see a pair of SS stormtroopers further down the platform. They didn't seem to be watching her, but she was all too aware that was meaningless. The passengers were giving them a wide berth, unwilling even to look at the black-clad men. Kathleen understood. The SS could do what they liked, as long as they didn't pick on anyone with connections. The propaganda insisted they were the reincarnation of the Teutonic Knights, ready to lay down their lives in defence of their people, but the reality was very different. Everyone was afraid of the SS, with good reason. A person they took into custody might never be seen again.

The guard checked her tickets, then her ID papers, then the tickets again. Kathleen forced herself to remain calm, mentally mapping out how quickly she could draw her pistol and put a bullet through Von Braun's brain before he could stop her. The guard grunted something, stamped the tickets and waved them through. Kathleen hid her relief as best as she could as the train pulled into the station, a massively over-engineered steam locomotive that hissed loudly as it came to a halt. The crowd surged forward, even though everyone already had an assigned seat. Kathleen sighed inwardly, guessing they were spooked by the SS. She knew just how they felt.

"In here," she said, finding their compartment. She'd taken the risk of buying first class tickets, the exact opposite of what a fugitive would try to do. They wouldn't look as if they were trying to hide. She hoped. "Take a seat and wait."

Von Braun nodded, resting his hands on his lap. She wished, suddenly, she'd thought to bring a book. The journey was going to take hours, even before they reached the first changing point. For all she knew, they'd have to leave the train a great deal earlier. The SS wouldn't be fooled for long.

A whistle blew. The train started to move, puffing out of the station and picking up speed as it glided through Berlin, passing the upper-class buildings and middle-class homes and miles upon miles of worker barracks and camps, home to the army of slaves giving their lives to rebuild the Reich. She felt freer already, even though she knew they had a long way to go. The SS wasn't as strong in the countryside, but it was very far from weak ...

... And she had no idea, no matter how much she thought about it, just how much time they had before the enemy gave chase.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Eight: Berlin, 1949

Hans felt wretched, his exposed skin itching under the bandages, as he stared at the body, but he dared not pass the responsibility to anyone else. The doctor was muttering to himself as he poked and prodded at the corpse, yet one thing was clear right from the start. It was not Werner Von Braun. The face was charged, but enough had survived to convince Hans his first impression had been correct. The concentration camp tattoo on the corpse's buttocks had clinched it.

He gritted his teeth, trying to think clearly. Von Braun had brought a woman back to his suite, and then ... there had been a fire, which had probably started in his suite, and a corpse that really shouldn't have been there. The suite itself was a blackened ruin, along with most of the building, and if Hans hadn't dived in to save Von Braun's life the corpse would have been unrecognisable, the tattoo and all the other little tells destroyed beyond recognition in the fire. It was almost painfully clear that Von Braun had intended to fake his death, and that meant ... Hans's blood ran cold. Von Braun wouldn't have needed to indulge in such a pretence if he was abandoning his loyalty to the SS and going to the Luftwaffe, but if he intended to flee the country itself ...

Horror washed through him. He'd thought the last few days had been nothing more than mere indulgence, but now he saw they had been intended to lull him into a false sense of security. Von Braun had brought back so many women that Hans hadn't bothered to keep track of them, or do any vetting, or ... the conclusion seemed inescapable and so did the consequences. Von Braun was trying to defect, on his watch. Himmler was not going to be pleased. And if he had some help ... was the girl dead, her body lost in the fire, or was she a foreign agent? It was hardly impossible. If there was anyone more likely to be targeted by foreign intelligence services than Von Braun, Hans couldn't name him.

He looked up at the blackened building, feeling his career dying around him. Von Braun was gone, on his watch, and ... he fought temptation for a long moment, his duty to the Reich colliding with his sense of self-preservation. He could lie, he could report Von Braun dead in the blaze ... and when Von Braun surfaced again, in Britain or America or even Sweden, his lie would be exposed. He'd be lucky if he wasn't marched in front of a firing squad and shot, without even a semblance of a trial. Or stripped of rank and title and dispatched to one of the harsher camps, the ones where doctors performed experiments that were both innovative and completely lacking in anything resembling scruple. Hans had told himself, when he had been young and foolish, that there was no room for doubt or scruple in the service of the Reich, but that had been before there'd been any prospect of him being thrown into the camp, along with his remaining family. The idea of his sister being strapped to a doctor's table, her legs wide open as he performed an experiment on her womb ... his stomach heaved and he had to turn away, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up. It was unthinkable. It could not be allowed. And that meant he had to face up to his master before it was too late.

"Keep the area sealed off," he ordered the officer on the spot. The policeman saw his uniform and didn't argue, thankfully. "Don't let anyone leave."

Too late, his thoughts mocked, as he turned and started to hurry towards the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Von Braun and his mysterious ally couldn't have known Hans would recover the body, but they couldn't have counted on the deception going uncovered forever. The bastard is already far away.

He forced himself to keep going, as the sunlight glimmered over the city. Himmler had eyes and ears everywhere. He'd probably been awoken already, his agents bringing him the news, if he hadn't already been awake. There were times when he didn't seem to sleep at all. Hans felt cold as he reached the gate and passed through the guardhouse, silently relived the guards didn't grab him and throw him into the nearest cell. Himmler was waiting for him ... either that, or he hadn't realised the scale of the looming disaster. Hans shuddered as he walked through a corridor, passing an elderly man held between two massive guards ... the man was a dissident, no doubt, but Hans couldn't help a flicker of unaccustomed sympathy. The man's bruised face was a grim reminder of his own fate, if Himmler ordered him arrested and interrogated. And to think there had been a time when Hans would have felt no pity at all for those foolish enough to defy the Reich.

It was early morning, but Himmler's office was brightly lit. His secretary waved Hans through the door, a clear sign he was expected. Hans marched into the chamber – Himmler looked as neat and precise as always, making Hans feel vaguely out of sorts - and saluted sharply. It probably wouldn't make any difference, but there was no point in taking chances. Himmler returned the salute, then frowned. His face was grim.

"What happened?"

Hans took a breath. He wanted to deny it, to downplay it, but he couldn't. "Von Braun is trying to defect."

Himmler's face didn't change, but his body tensed. "Explain."

"Last night, after his lecture, Von Braun took a young woman back to his suite in the Science Commission," Hans said. His skin crawled as he spoke, as if Death himself was standing right behind him. "They made love, then apparently went to sleep together. Apparently. Shortly afterwards, a fire broke out at some point within the building and the alarm was sounded. Everyone followed procedure; the building was evacuated at breakneck speed, while the local fire department responded to the emergency. I myself made my way up to Von Braun's suite, to make sure he could out of the building before it was too late."

His voice rasped, a grim reminder he'd breathed smoke. "The suite was burning brightly when I got in, but I found and recovered a body and dragged it outside, before the flames got too intense. It was not Von Braun. The body had a concentration camp tattoo, and when I called the office they confirmed the number had been assigned to an Untermensch who had expired, his death noted and his body passed on for scientific investigation. If I hadn't saved the body, it would have been impossible to tell Von Braun hadn't died in the fire."

Himmler nodded, slowly. "Continue."

"The fire brigade quenched the fire," Hans continued. "The damage was substantial. There were no other bodies within the suite, as far as they could tell, but it is impossible to be sure. There was no sign of the woman's body, nor any report of her leaving the complex before the fire. She may have left through the north gate – the security guards on duty did not escape the blaze, and most of the records were destroyed – but we don't know."

He paused. "Herr Reichsführer, that body should not have been anywhere near Von Braun's suite. The only reason for it being there was to fake his death. And the only reason for doing that, at least as far as I can tell, is to hide a defection."

Himmler said nothing for a long moment. Hans held himself steady, vowing to himself he'd face death with dignity. It had been his mistake to let Von Braun have so much freedom, to let him roam the city and attend parties and even bring strange women back to the suite. In hindsight, it was clear Von Braun had been trying to create a pattern, to ensure Hans didn't question when he brought the enemy agent into the Science Commission. And the agent had to have helped him move the body into his suite, set the blaze, and then escape in the chaos.

"I see," Himmler said. His voice was cold. Hard. "There is no other explanation?"

"No, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. "Von Braun would not have to fake his death for any other reason."

He scowled, inwardly. Von Braun had enjoyed the favour of Adolf Hitler himself. There was nothing he could not have, if he wanted it, from drugs and female company to pleasures that would horrify Hermann Göring. Everything the Reich could provide, Von Braun could have had. He had been wealthy and powerful, living a life of ease; there was no rationing in the rocket complex, no restrictions even as the rest of the population faced shortages that threatened to bring the entire supply chain crashing down. Even in the darkest days of the war, Von Braun and his peers had been denied nothing. And look how he'd thanked the Reich!

Himmler's tone didn't change. "And was there any sign of dissatisfaction?"

Hans hesitated. The rocket scientists and engineers had considerable freedom of speech – Hans had heard them express opinions that would have sent almost anyone else to the camps – but he'd always thought of Von Braun as a loyal Nazi. The scientist had always spoken well of Adolf Hitler, with a kind of personal warmth that was so often missing from other paeans to the Führer's greatness ... Hans had always had the impression Von Braun had genuinely admired the Führer. And yet ... he forced himself to think. He'd known Von Braun for years, served as his minder for the last three ... there had to have been a sign. But what?

He scowled. "Von Braun was very upset about the death of the Russians," he said, after a moment. Hans had never been keen on the idea of allowing Russian Untermenschen into the rocket complex – there was nothing they could do that a German scientist couldn't do better – but, back then, Von Braun had always got whatever he wanted. If he wished to keep a handful of Russian pets, he could do it. And he could escape the blame for their sabotage. "He protested their execution in the strongest possible terms."

Himmler frowned. "And that was enough to turn him against us?"

Hans didn't know. The Russians had been, at best, prisoners, forced to serve the Reich. He refused to believe they could have made any advancements on their own, let alone repay the Reich for letting them live when so many other members of the Russian elite had been summarily executed. The SS had been through, very through. Everyone from teachers to bureaucrats had been purged, systematically destroying every last trace of education from the Russian population. They were nothing but beasts of burden now, working to serve the Reich as it rose from the ashes of war into the heavens of perpetual peace. And they would never be anything more.

"I do not know, Herr Reichsführer," he confessed. "But it is clear he was planning his escape for some time."

But not perfectly, his mind pointed out. If he hadn't stolen a body, we might have assumed that he and his bitch had died in the blaze, their bodies reduced to ash ...

His lips twisted. Von Braun was a genius, true, but like all geniuses he was prone to overestimate his own intelligence. There was a difference between being book-smart and street-smart, and it was quite possible he – or his handler – would make a mistake through sheer ignorance. They had to have thrown the plan to fake his death and get him out very quickly, and that meant they'd probably made mistakes. Hell, the body had been a mistake.

They couldn't have been in touch with Von Braun before I brought him to Berlin, he thought, trying to put the pieces together. The rocket complex was sealed. Hans refused to believe Von Braun could have gotten a message out of the complex, certainly not one that went to anyone who might have ties to British or American intelligence. Von Braun had never been an enthusiastic letter writer, apart from missives demanding more money and resources; he'd rarely, if ever, written to his family. And that means they couldn't have started thinking about ways to get him out before they knew he was coming.

Himmler looked up. "It is vitally important that Von Braun be recovered as quickly as possible," he said. "He knows too much."

Hans couldn't disagree. Von Braun had been briefed on everything even remotely connected to rocketry, from the latest long-range guns to atomic science. Hans himself had only the barest idea of what the latter was about, but the combination of near-complete secrecy and massive resources poured into the program suggested it was vitally important. And there was no denying Von Braun was still making breakthroughs, still designing newer and better rockets ... he had peers, and apprentices, but none were as capable as him. They could not allow Von Braun to fall into enemy hands.

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said.

"His defection must not become public, either," Himmler continued. "It would weaken us at the worst possible moment."

Hans felt cold. The succession crisis would begin the moment Adolf Hitler breathed his last, and there was no way to be sure who would win. Himmler held many cards, and had supporters and clients throughout the regime, but so did Göring and Speer. The SS had its admirers amongst the Heer, yet it also had enemies and detractors, the latter preferring Göring or Speer to Himmler. If the SS was embarrassed in front of the entire Reich, Himmler's position would be weakened at a crucial moment. And losing a man like Von Braun wouldn't be a harmless error like cashiering an officer for having Jewish blood and discovering afterwards, too late, that the files had been faked by a jealous rival. It would threaten the entire Reich.

And if they blame us for the disaster, he thought, we might not be allowed to take the lead in shaping the New World Order.

"You have made a terrible mistake," Himmler continued. He sounded more like a schoolteacher than the head of the most feared security service in the entire world. "Your conduct is inexcusable."

Hans bit his lip to keep from pointing out that he had questioned the decision to allow Von Braun so much freedom years ago. He had wanted to keep the scientist in the rocket complex, to deny him all contact with the outside world, to bar the Russians from entering the complex and simply having them purged, like so many others. It would have been easy enough to prevent the defection, if he'd had the authority he'd asked for. But political considerations had overridden common sense. Again. And now he was going to become the scapegoat for a decision made so far above him that arguing was worse than useless.

"However, you will have one chance to redeem yourself," Himmler said. "You will assume personal control of the recovery effort."

It was hard, so hard, for Hans to hide his surprise. He knew Himmler trusted him ... had trusted him ... but still ... "Yes, Herr Reichsführer."

"We cannot afford to make a public announcement," Himmler cautioned. "The recovery effort will have to be conducted in secrecy, without informing the public. Or our enemies."

Hans frowned. "Herr Reichsführer, if no one knows to watch for him ..."

"We must not admit to his loss until there is no other choice," Himmler said. "You will have access to the full resources of the SS, but you must not involve anyone else. The search and recovery effort must not go public."

"Herr Reichsführer," Hans said, slowly. "We could claim he was kidnapped."

"It would still make us look bad," Himmler said. His voice hardened. "You must recover him, alive and well, without word getting out. Do I make myself clear?"

Hans shivered. Himmler might look harmless, but he would have Hans and his entire family purged if Hans failed a second time. There was no point in arguing, either. His mind raced desperately, trying to think of a plan. They'd need to send out some kind of alert, even if it only went to the SS rather than the police and everyone else. Hans felt his heart sink as he considered the problem. Word would get out, sooner or later, and if they didn't have Von Braun back in custody by then ...

"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. "With your permission, I would like to seal off the embassies. And the Swiss border."

"The latter may be impossible, without informing our rivals," Himmler observed.

"We could call it a security exercise," Hans said. "Or even just hold military training sessions near the border."

Himmler nodded, slowly. The Reich had a habit of parading its military might around the Swiss border, just to remind the Swiss that they were surrounded on all sides by Nazi German and its allies and if they made too big a song and dance about being neutral they might be reminded that the only reason they were allowed any pretence at all was that Adolf Hitler wished it so. A major Waffen-SS exercise wouldn't raise too many eyebrows, and with a little effort the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht might be convinced to take part too. They wouldn't think anything of it, and word would spread rapidly. Von Braun and his ally might think twice about risking a bolt to Switzerland, if they thought they'd be walking into a trap. He certainly hoped so. If they got into Switzerland without anyone noticing, they'd be home free.

"You have complete authority," Himmler said. "Do not fail."

"I understand, Herr Reichsführer," Hans said. The unspoken message was quite clear. If he failed, returning home was not an option. "Heil Hitler!"

 

[ATP]

Hans is smart,and Himmler still blame him on his own mistakes.Well,von Braun have chance only becouse Himmler is fighting for power now....

P.S No matter what happen,we would have humans on Mars here.And,when it is regretable that we poles die here,at least jews and germans would not blame us for german crimes here....

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Nine: Berlin, 1949

Hans took a long breath as he stepped into the situation room, his eyes darting from face to face as his subordinates jumped to their feet and snapped out a salute. He knew some of the men from the rocket complex, soldiers and guards who had served under him for the last two years, but others were strangers, SS officers and officials who had been assigned to Berlin and had little or nothing to do with the rocket program. He hoped they hadn't allowed their skills to lapse, in peacetime, now the streets were free of Jews and the dissidents were largely keeping their heads down. The SS had vast resources, from uniformed troops to a small army of informers and spies, but it would take time to mobilise them and give chase. He didn't even have a rough idea of where to send them ...

Sweat prickled down his back. There had been no time to call his family and, realistically, what could he tell them? Pack an overnight bag and be ready to leave? The thought was appalling. No, he'd be better off finding Von Braun and quickly, before it was too late. Himmler would make sure Hans carried the blame, if the entire mission failed or if Von Braun was killed in the crossfire. Hans ground his teeth in frustration. When he had the scientist in his hands, again, it would be different. Von Braun would have no freedom at all.

He studied the large map of Berlin pinned to the far wall and scowled as the sheer magnitude of the taste facing them dawned on him. Berlin was immense, with millions of citizens and guest workers, the latter crammed into barracks that made prison cells look appealing. If Von Braun was somewhere within the city, finding him would be an absolute nightmare ... his eyes lingered on the roads and railways leading out of the city, watched by guards who had no idea who they should be watching for. Hans had given the matter some thought, as he issued orders and waited for his subordinates to assemble. The smartest thing for Von Braun and his mystery ally to do would be to flee the city as quickly as possible and head straight for Switzerland. But would they outthink him and go somewhere else? West, to France? South, to Italy? North, to Sweden? It would be risky, but they couldn't stay in the Reich.

"What I am about to tell you has been classified at the very highest levels," he said, leaving them in no doubt he meant Himmler. His new authority had already been widely spread through the SS, at least in Berlin. He had no doubt he'd have rivals soon, if he hadn't already, but they'd be reluctant to act openly. Himmler's wrath was to be feared, at least as long as Hans didn't screw up. Again. "You are not to discuss it with your subordinates without my prior permission. The consequences will be extremely unpleasant."

He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "Werner Von Braun has been kidnapped."

The room seemed to grow colder, just for a second. There wasn't a man amongst them who hadn't heard of Von Braun, who hadn't felt a patriotic pride in his accomplishments and gloried in the fact they'd been carried out under the aegis of the SS. They knew how important Von Braun was to the Reich, even if they didn't know any of the specifics, and they knew how big a disaster it would be if he fell into enemy hands. He would talk, eventually. Everyone did. The men in front of him had interrogated hundreds of suspects over the last few years. They knew how easy it was to break a man down to nothing, babbling everything he knew ...

"Our mission is to recover him, alive," Hans continued. He didn't dare tell them that Von Braun was trying to defect. The risk of someone shooting Von Braun was too high. "His kidnappers are of secondary importance, compared to recovering him. Do I make myself clear?"

He paused, again. "We must also keep the recovery effort very quiet. The kidnappers must not know we are on their tail, until we swoop down and catch them."

The words hung in the air. Hans could guess what they were thinking, what questions were going through their minds. It would be easier, so much easier, if they could mobilise the entire population to watch for Von Braun, but there was no way to spread the word without admitting the truth. Von Braun was almost as popular as Adolf Hitler, his photo regularly displayed in magazines extolling the greatness of the Reich and drawing a veil over the price paid for the Reich's territories. He would be recognised, if they used his photograph, and that would alert the rest of the Reich. And who knew what would happen then?

"We do not know how many kidnappers there are, or how they're armed," Hans continued, coldly. "The one member we know for definite is a young woman, probably in her early twenties, who posed as a student, but there will be others. We will, of course, be examining the university records to see if she actually is a student, yet that seems unlikely. It is far more likely that she is a foreign agent, as are her peers. We will find out when we find her."

There was another pause. The Reich wasn't unused to carrying out covert operations on foreign soil, although there had been only a handful of successes weighed against hundreds of failures. It wasn't easy to operate in a relatively free country like Britain or America, let alone Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, and the odds of being spotted were dangerously high. He had to admire the nerve of the enemy agent, when she'd entered the Science Commission, even if she had been hand-in-hand with Von Braun. She could have been easily walking to her doom.

"The embassies are already sealed," Hans said. "The observers report that no one left the embassies between yesterday evening and now, suggesting the kidnappers did not take him back to the embassies. They are somewhere else; perhaps within the city, perhaps planning to leave or even already on their way. We will find them, and quickly. We have no choice."

He tapped the map, and started to issue orders. The SS guards on the railway stations were to be doubled, then reinforced by plainclothes officers who'd mingle with the crowd while keeping their eyes open for Von Braun. Roadblocks would be set up on all the roads leading out of the city, with everyone on their way out being checked before they were allowed to proceed. The underground was going to be shook up, the black marketers given a flat choice between betraying the foreign agents – there was a good chance the foreigners had obtained forged papers through the black market – or going straight to the camps. It was quite possible the underground would know where the agents were hiding, even if they hadn't supplied them with anything. The criminal underground would do anything to avoid the attention of the authorities.

"We must not fail," he finished. "Any questions?"

"Yes, Herr Sturmbannfuehrer," Hauptsturmfuehrer Heinz said. "Should we not alert the Heer? Or the Abwehr?"

Hans bit down hard on the urge to snap at the younger officer. It wasn't a bad question, he supposed, but the Abwehr was firmly in Göring's camp and the Heer generally opposed to allowing the SS any more power and authority than it already had. Hans couldn't wait for the day when the remainder of the Heer was merged into the Waffen-SS, with the old guard of officers purged so they couldn't oppose the New Order any longer. It would not be long in coming, once Himmler was Führer. There would be no more dissidence once his loyalists were firmly in control.

"The kidnappers must not be aware we are after them," he said. "And the Abwehr cannot be trusted not to leak."

He allowed his eyes to sweep the room. "We must not fail," he repeated. "We will not fail. Heil Hitler!"

They left the room, leaving Hans alone. The map hung in front of him, taunting him. How much time had already been wasted, when the doctors had been trying to treat his burnt hands and cautioning him about the dangers of smoke inhalation? Too much, if he was any judge. The roads were quiet before daybreak, and there were no trains or passenger aircraft, but now ... hundreds of cars and dozens of trains had already entered and left the city, along with thousands of trucks bringing food and fuel to hungry Berliners. The roadblocks should have been set up earlier, much earlier. He wanted to believe Von Braun was still in the city, but he dared not believe it. There were eyes and ears everywhere. The longer he stayed put, the greater the chance of being caught.

There was a tap on the door. "Herr Sturmbannfuehrer?"

Hans looked up, fighting the sudden surge of disgust that threatened to overwhelm him. The young Untersturmfuehrer was supposed to be clever, or so he had been told, but it was laughably obvious he was no fighting man. There was something ... soft ... about him, a hint of a paunch that would be much worse if his uniform wasn't loose and slovenly, something that would have earned Hans a slap during his training. The idea of giving such a creature an SS rank – he even wore glasses – was absurd. Hans wondered, not for the first time, who'd cleared the way for his young relative. It had to be nepotism. The softie might have been better off turning his considerable intelligence to rocket research.

"Yes?"

The Untersturmfuehrer flinched, then held out a set of photographs. "Herr Sturmbannfuehrer, as per your request, I went through the records of Von Braun's engagements over the last week," he said. He didn't point out that most of the orgies were unrecorded, either out of ignorance or prudence. "I found a familiar face."

Hans scowled. "Show me."

The young man held out the photographs. "This woman danced with Von Braun at the Reich Hall," she said. "She was actually the last person he danced with, and the only one he actually asked to dance. He even took her away from a high-ranking officer ..."

He paused. "It's hard to be sure, but I think she's the young woman he ... ah ... took back to his suite after the lecture," he continued. "She's clearly wearing a disguise, a very good one, but the jawline is practically identical and there are a handful of other tells. My guess is that she's wearing a wig during her first appearance ... I cannot tell for sure. I don't think her presence at both events, and her departure with Von Braun, are a coincidence."

Hans stared at the photographs. He hadn't paid much attention to the woman, the first time around, but ... that might have been a mistake. Von Braun had clearly made contact at the first gathering, and it was quite likely he'd done it through the woman. She had made an effort to change her appearance, without making it obvious, and yet ... the more he looked at the photos, the more convinced he became it was the same woman.

He looked up. "Who is she?"

The officer flinched, again. "I looked her up," he said. He sounded like someone who knew he was bringing bad news, to an officer who wouldn't take it very well. "She's officially listed as Kathleen O'Brian, a secretary at the British Embassy. Her file suggests she's actually the ambassador's mistress. He's got more secretaries, but she's the only one he's taken out more than once. If his wife has any thoughts on the matter, we don't know what they are."

Hans frowned. He'd met Sir Cuthbert once and the Englishman had struck him as someone whose fires, such as they were, had gone out. A latter-day Sir William Hamilton, perhaps, someone quite happy to turn a blind eye to his wife's adultery because he could no longer bring himself to care. And yet, doing it so publicly was unusual amongst the English. Sir Cuthbert would be lucky if he was merely recalled in disgrace, if he were caught having an affair. Perhaps there was another reason ...

He stared at the photograph, again. "Are they related? Uncle and niece?"

"Unknown," the officer said. "There's nothing in their files to suggest they might be related, but the information they provided us is bare-bones. She was never considered important enough to investigate ..."

"And yet she played a major role in getting Von Braun out of the complex before it was too late," Hans finished. It went against the grain to believe women could be dangerous – it was unnatural for a woman to be anything but sweet and submissive – but he had to admit they could be. He'd lost a comrade to a Russian female sniper, who had died in a manner that had sickened even him, and watched the female fliers show off their skills at air shows. "If we look for her instead, we can bring in others without alerting them to the truth."

He allowed himself a tight smile. It was daring of Sir Cuthbert to send a young woman to shepherd Von Braun, but he had to admit it would have worked perfectly if she hadn't been photographed with the rocket scientist on two successive occasions. He made a mental note to send a team to the love hotel, to demand answers from the staff. They were discreet, normally, and even the SS wasn't supposed to know who went in and out, but these were far from normal times. Perhaps he'd go personally, to threaten the woman who ran the place with a fate worse than death if she didn't collaborate. She might have friends in high places, but right now he had the very highest friend of all. Himmler would back him, as long as he produced results.

"Good work," he said. The Untersturmfuehrer looked surprised. He'd probably expected a slap, or another reprimand. "Have copies of the photographs printed, and some sketches of how she might look with different appearances drawn out, then prepared for distribution. I'll prepare a message packet to accompany the photographs."

"Yes, Herr Sturmbannfuehrer."

"And leave those photos here," Hans added. He wanted to study them, to fix his enemy's face in his mind. "You may go."

The Untersturmfuehrer turned and practically ran out of the room. Hans resisted the urge to reprimand him for forgetting to salute, or forgetting to say Heil Hitler. The young man really shouldn't be in uniform, but he had done Hans a vast service ... who knew? Perhaps his uncle or whoever had ensured his smooth passage into the ranks had had a point after all. It still defied belief that anyone would think of the young man as an officer, no matter what uniform he wore, but he'd definitely proved his value.

He shrugged and studied the photograph for a long moment. The first showed a middle-aged woman with bushy auburn hair, her dress carefully designed to entice without revealing any skin below the neckline; the second showed a woman who had gone to some trouble to make herself look younger, aping the BDM hairstyle without wearing it in a manner that suggested she really had been in the BDM. It was astonishing how much younger she looked, he supposed, and her dress was artfully cut to make it harder to look at her face. No wonder no one had realised she wasn't supposed to be there. There was no solid count on how many women attended university – they often left without notice, after getting married or pregnant or their fathers decided they had better things to do with their time – and it wasn't uncommon for girls to accompany their brothers to lectures, even if they weren't formally enrolled.

"Something will have to be done about it," he mused. It had been foolish to grant the students so much latitude, no matter how much the Reich needed them. "But afterwards."

He reached for a sheet of paper and wrote out a brief message. A young woman matching the photographs or the sketches, probably travelling with an elderly companion; if she were found, she was to be detained until the identity of her companion could be checked against the fingerprint records. There probably wasn't any record of the Englishwoman's fingerprints, but Von Braun's were held on file at the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. They could be copied and sent to all the police stations, without any names attached. If he were caught, he could be held secretly until Hans could arrive and escort him back to Berlin. Himmler would be displeased if Von Braun was seriously hurt, Hans was sure, but he could make sure the trip was as uncomfortable as possible. And the woman would go straight into an experimentation camp, her body committed to pushing the limits of scientific experimentation as far as they would go. Her fate would make the Russian sniper's agonising passing look like the most peaceful death imaginable.

His eyes rose and lingered on the map. They had a hard task ahead of them, but it wasn't futile. It couldn't be. They knew who they were looking for, now, and they had a plan. It wasn't much, but it was all they had. Failure was not an option. Himmler was right. Von Braun knew too much to be allowed to fall into enemy hands, including secrets Hans himself wasn't cleared to know. Hans would do everything in his power to keep him from crossing the border and escaping, whatever it took. He would not fail. He would not.

And if you do fail, Hans told himself as he strode from the room, you had better die in the attempt.

 

[ATP]

If brits were smart,they would add third person,and made von Braun cosplay as old woman....
I hear story from my family about soviets murdering priests in Poland after WW2 - one manage run cosplaing as old woman.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Ten: Near Potsdam, 1949

Kathleen knew better than to let herself sleep so close to Berlin, even though the tiredness was threatening to catch up with her. Von Braun was snoring loudly, head lolling back as he slept, but she dared not join him in slumber. The train was racing away from Berlin, yet a radio or telegraph message to the next station would be enough to see them caught, if the SS had seen through the deception and figured out what she'd done. It was hard, trapped in the compartment at the rear of the train, not to second-guess herself. The train was fast, faster than any car, but it also ran along a set of very fixed railway lines. Perhaps it would have been wiser, she mused, to take a car instead. Germany was heavily developed, but there were plenty of hidden ways to get cross-country without using the autobahns or passing through toll booths that could be easily turned into checkpoints. Perhaps she'd made a mistake. But the logic was sound. They had to get out of the city, and the surrounding region, as quickly as possible. The further west they went, the harder it would be for the enemy to flood the area with troops.

She leaned back in her seat and forced herself to think, putting herself in her enemy's shoes. What would she do? She would shut down the city as quickly as possible – that hadn't happened, or they would never have been allowed to leave the station – and send out a general alert. Everyone in Germany knew Von Braun, or at least everyone who mattered, and telling them to watch out for him would be easy. There'd be no need to send out a photo, or a half-witted description, and confirming his identity – when they caught him – would be easy too. She wished, not for the first time, that they'd dared take a plane, but the risk was just too great. The Reich had thousands of air defence fighters between Berlin and the coast and they'd all be scrambled, the moment they worked out what was happening. Kathleen could fly a plane – it was something that had been carefully left off the resume they'd supplied to the regime when she'd joined the embassy staff – but she knew she was no combat pilot, even if she somehow stole a fighter jet. Hell, she'd never even flown a jet! SOE had a small fleet of propeller aircraft at its disposal, but the RAF had been reluctant to let SOE train its operatives on jet aircraft. In hindsight, perhaps that had been a mistake.

Von Braun shifted again, his snores growing louder. Kathleen eyed him thoughtfully, wondering what he was dreaming about. He'd thrown away a life of unimaginable wealth and power, and his dream of taking the human race into space, even though the dream was on the verge of becoming a nightmare. He would be more than human if he didn't have regrets, if he wasn't wondering – already – if he'd made a mistake. Kathleen told herself to be firm, but patient with him. And if he did change his mind, she'd make sure he never returned to the Reich.

The train started to slow, whistle blowing as it pulled into a station. There were only a handful of people on the platform, far fewer than she would have seen back in Britain. The Third Reich had a very capable railway network, but it was largely for troop and cargo movement and passenger services were very much an afterthought. The noose was tightening around Germany's collective neck, Kathleen thought, as she saw a handful of people clambering onto the train. It wouldn't be long before they'd need papers to leave their hometown and go elsewhere, and face arrest and detention if they tried to travel without it. She had heard dissidents arguing that the Reich would liberalise, after it punched out all its enemies and turn into a more civilised state, but she thought that was just wishful thinking. The regime had committed so many crimes, atrocities that would shock even the average German, that it just couldn't stop, or risk a harsh judgement from its children. Or would tghe children even know, or care? She'd seen the latest set of textbooks, published by the Reich's educational authorities. They were terrible beyond words, pushing a strange combination of absurd pseudoscience and historical determination that shocked her to the bone, and asserting that the Reich's victories were proof of its right to win. What would become of any child, she asked herself, that grew up learning such hate? She didn't want to think about it.

The compartment door opened, revealing a soldier in basic uniform. Kathleen tensed as his eyes flickered over her, then relaxed as he took the seat facing her. He winked as their eyes met, then glanced at the snoring Von Braun. Kathleen shrugged, expressively. If she was any judge, he'd intended to flirt with her, but doing it in front of her father would be a step too far. The railways might have a reputation for allowing illicit sexual encounters, yet there were limits. Kathleen had always wondered if such rumours were spread by the railways themselves, although she could see how they might have come into being. It wouldn't be that hard to seek privacy in a darkened compartment.

Her new companion leaned forward. "Travelling with Father?"

"Off to see my husband-to-be," Kathleen said. She almost laughed at the way his face fell when she showed him the ring. "Yourself?"

The soldier leaned back, clearly deciding he wasn't going to be lucky. "I was on leave, when I got a call ordering me to Singen. You know it?"

"No," Kathleen lied. Singen was well known to SOE, an industrial city that served as one of the places where escaping POWs had crossed the border into Switzerland and freedom. The border had been closed after the end of the war, the Nazis sealing the Swiss territory off as much as possible before setting up new road and rail lines into Switzerland. There was, if she recalled correctly, a major German military base just outside the city. "In Denmark?"

The soldier snorted. "Near Switzerland," he said. His voice took on a plaintive note. "I only just got home!"

"They must have missed you," Kathleen teased, although she felt his pain. If he had family near Potsdam, it would have taken several days to reach them ... and now he'd been recalled. Even if he had an emergency pass, it would still be tricky to get there in less than a day. "Did you overstay your leave?"

"No," the soldier said. "They rang up, said there was some kind of emergency exercise underway, and that we were all to report to base immediately. Didn't even wait to hear me remind them where I'd gone ..."

Kathleen's blood ran cold. She hadn't heard of any planned military exercises, certainly not near Switzerland. They tended to be announced in advance, if they were being held on a grand scale, and even if they were intended to be surprises it was rare for soldiers to be allowed to go on leave when they might not be able to return in time to take part. If it was a coincidence, she'd eat her hat. Their trick had been uncovered, or ... hell, for all she knew, the body had never been discovered and the firemen had assumed Von Braun had vanished. It didn't matter. She had to assume the worst.

"I'm sure they'll understand," Kathleen said, keeping her voice steady. The Heer wasn't that bad to its soldiers, although the SS tended to be a great deal less understanding. Common sense should indicate that a man who had no reason to think he would be recalled couldn't be blamed for leaving the region, but who knew? "Perhaps they're trying to see how quickly they can recall everyone."

"Or they're planning to invade Switzerland," the soldier said. He leaned forward, until his lips were almost brushing against her ears. "You want to find a bathroom and make a man who might be about to die very happy?"

Kathleen shook her head, firmly. She'd checked out the toilets and there was barely enough room for a single adult, let alone two. They were clean enough, and serviced by guest workers from the east, but .... besides, as far as he knew, she was travelling with her father and she was on her way to visit her fiancé. It might raise more eyebrows if she raised her dress and let him have his fun.

He didn't seem to take it personally, leaving back again and chatting constantly about himself and his military career. Kathleen listened, occasionally asking a gormless question as she filed everything she said away for later consideration, although she doubted anything he said was particularly important. He was a very young soldier, someone who hadn't seen any real action beyond tours of duty in Russia, and much of what he said was all too clearly bragging. A more experienced soldier wouldn't have bragged so much. Kathleen supposed it was largely harmless. Besides, most local women wouldn't know enough to catch the lies, half-truths and exaggerations.

The door opened again, revealing a young woman wearing a railway uniform and pushing a trolley. Kathleen bought herself a cup of coffee – or something that passed for coffee – and a pair of sandwiches; the soldier bought a small mountain of food, while flirting with the young woman in a manner that made her blush. Kathleen felt herself blush too, despite having heard much worse in her career. She tried not to roll her eyes as the soldier waved to the departing women, having agreed she'd come back after she finished her rounds, and sighed inwardly. What would he say if he knew she was Jewish? Would he be horrified at himself for flirting with her, or insist she'd deceived him by not being one of the caricatures from educational textbooks? Kathleen would have smiled, if it hadn't been so terrible. There wasn't a Jew in the world – there wasn't anyone – who looked like the misshapen creatures of Nazi legend.

Perhaps it isn't a bad thing, she thought. They're not going to find any Jews if they think we all look like those monsters.

Her mood darkened. It was difficult, almost impossible, to trust any German. The rot ran deep. Germany had been dangerous for Jews – mostly – even before the Nazis had come to power, the powerless locals blaming the equally powerless Jews for problems caused by their rulers, the fools who had plunged Germany into a war she could not win. Now ... she knew better than to think the Reich would ever liberalise, or even if it did it would make a difference to the mountain of corpses buried under the towering new cities and giant military bases. The dead could not be brought back to life.

She tensed, again, as the door opened once more. The ticket conductor, wearing a fancy uniform that made the soldier snicker, stepped into the compartment. The two men exchanged nasty looks; the conductor wasn't much older, suggesting his military service had been cut short so he could join the railways instead. It wasn't uncommon amongst young men who had come of age in 1942-43, when the Reich had seemed unsure if it wanted to continue imposing universal military service or start a draft lottery instead, and ended up giving the young men only two or three years of service before releasing them. They had been allowed a chance to stay in the military, if Kathleen remembered correctly, and the conductor had clearly chosen to leave.

"Tickets, please," the conductor said.

He took the soldier's pass and examined it carefully. "A little far from base, are we?"

"Emergency recalls are unplanned," the soldier said, equally nasty. "My orders are to return as quickly as possible, little else."

The conductor said nothing as he examined the pass again and again, drawing the moment out as long as possible. Kathleen cursed inwardly, hoping the wretched man wouldn't pay anything like as much attention to her papers. They'd been forged by experts, but the numbers wouldn't match the ones on file if the conductor got suspicious and put in a call to the SS. If the alert had already been sent ...

"You'll be able to get a train heading south at Potsdam," the conductor said, returning the pass. "You should have ten minutes to find the right platform before the train arrives. Do try not to mess it up."

Kathleen kept her face impassive, as the soldier snarled. She'd never been to Potsdam, but if the station was anything like as immense as the one in Berlin it might take longer than ten minutes to find the right platform. The train wouldn't wait for a soldier, no matter what sort of pass he carried, and his superiors might not be very understanding if – on paper – he could have made the train. She doubted one man would make a difference, if they really were planning to invade Switzerland – or even just seal the borders – but that probably wouldn't matter to them. Why would it?

The conductor turned his eyes to her. "Tickets, please?"

"My father is asleep," Kathleen said, as she passed over the tickets and forged papers. "Please don't disturb him."

The conductor shrugged as he checked the tickets, then the papers. Kathleen felt ice crawling down her spine as she tried to map a way out, if he realised the papers were forged. She could put a fist in his groin very quickly, then get her pistol out and shoot the soldier ... perhaps. He was young and strong, almost certainly stronger than her, and he might throw himself at her the moment he realised she'd hit the guard. He certainly wouldn't have done anything to deserve it, as far as the soldier was concerned. If it all went wrong ...

"You're travelling all the way to Luxembourg?"

"Yes," Kathleen said, bowing her head as she braced herself. If she struck, she'd have to strike hard and fast. The man was just too close for her to take risks. "We'll be changing later on."

"You should have no difficulty changing," the conductor said. He passed the papers back without comment. "Have a good trip."

Kathleen tried not to show her relief as the conductor turned and left the compartment, the soldier making a rude gesture at his back before he closed the door. The idea of a young woman, no matter how well trained, taking on two men – bigger and stronger men – with nothing more than her bare hands and winning was the stuff of pulp fiction, not real life. SOE had drilled her thoroughly, training her in techniques drawn from all over the world, but her instructors had made it clear she had to rely on her wits, rather than brute force. They'd knocked her down often enough, no matter how hard she tried, to make the point very clear. If a man got his hands on her, it was over.

"Feigling," the soldier muttered. The word literally meant coward, a not-uncommon term amongst the Reich for those who never saw the front lines. "You think he was playing with the girls while we were in the field?"

Kathleen shrugged and turned to peer out at the countryside. The farms were growing smaller, she thought, the farmers – from what she'd heard – reluctant to industrialise too much, no matter what the Nazis said. It was different to the east, if the rumours were true. The former collective farms were being turned into vast granaries, the local population worked to death or driven off the land, then replaced by modern farming machinery that would ensure the famines after the Great War would never be repeated. She wondered, numbly, just how many farmer's children were heading east, drawn by the promise of vast estates, loans for equipment and unpaid labour that could be exploited ruthlessly. The western farms were passed down to the eldest son, if she recalled correctly, and the younger ones were left with nothing. Going east might make the difference between having a farm of one's own and being a cog in someone else's machine.

The trolley woman returned, a faint smile on her face. Kathleen pretended not to see money changing hands, or the soldier following the woman out of the compartment and down the corridor. She guessed it wasn't the first time for the woman, and hoped she'd timed it well to minimise the risk of pregnancy. The regime had done what it could to ensure young girls knew almost nothing about how they could get pregnant, but secret female groups made sure the girls knew more than the regime wanted them to know. It was just a shame it was harder for them to get any sort of contraception. It was almost completely illegal in the Reich.

And if my mother had remained here, she mused, I'd be as ignorant as any BDM maiden.

Her mood darkened again. No, she corrected herself. Her mother was a Jew, a known Jew. There hadn't been many Jews who could have passed for gentiles, not then. Everyone had known who the Jews were, back then, and they'd been marked for death. I would be dead.

Von Braun shifted, again. Kathleen glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the window. A plane was flying overhead, heading west. Something to do with them? Or was she overthinking it? Or ... the door opened, the soldier returning with a smile on his face. Kathleen kept her face blank. Poor woman. That hadn't been very long at all. But then, the more time she spent with him, the greater the chance of being caught. And who knew what would happen then?

Nothing good, Kathleen thought. She felt a shiver run down her spine, despite the heat. It was hard to escape the sense they were running out of time. Nothing good at all.

 

[ATP]

Yes,jews were blamed for loosing WW1 by germans - but,fun thing is,germans could win if they followed Schieffen plan.
But their generals fucked it,and one of them,Ludendorf,blamed jews for his own mistake.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Eleven: Berlin, 1949

The woman tried to be defiant, when Hans barged into her office, but there was no mistaking the flash of fear in her eyes when she saw his uniform. It made him smile, after the frustrations of the last few hours – and the grim awareness that the more time it took to recover Von Braun, the greater the chance his career would be destroyed even if he managed to return the doctor to the rocket complex. He had enjoyed the favour of Himmler, something worth far more than formal rank and title, but that favour was now gone. He'd be lucky if he wasn't reassigned to the east, after Von Braun was recovered and ... convinced ... to change his mind. Hans had no doubt Himmler was already choosing his replacement. He was hardly the only young SS officer, a man who could have stepped off a recruiting poster, to enjoy Himmler's favour.

He closed the gap rapidly, looming over the table. The woman looked surprisingly genteel for someone who ran a glorified brothel – she could have passed for any upper middle-class woman on the streets of Berlin, the wife of an industrialist or a party bureaucrat – but her shirt was a little too tight and her face a little too painted. It wasn't right to see a woman slathering her face in foreign crap that hid her natural beauty, but ... Hans gritted his teeth as he saw her flinch again. She had connections, lots of them, yet would they be enough to save her from the SS. He didn't know. Neither did she.

"You had Von Braun as a guest here," Hans snarled, without bothering with any preamble. The silly woman might have a mouth like a steel trap, but he'd be surprised if she didn't know who her clients were ... unless she had some interest in not knowing. If half the rumours were true, everything from brutal assaults to heart attacks had taken place in the building ... and then been covered up, the bodies quietly removed to be either placed elsewhere or transferred to the incinerator. "Who did he meet here ...?"

The woman tried to school her face into a blank mask. Hans clenched his fists, making no move to hide it. The love hotel promised discretion, if the customer happened to be high enough to cause real trouble, but this time it couldn't be allowed. He had gone though everything that had happened, between the dance at the Reich Hall and the fire at the Reich Commission, and Von Braun hadn't had many chances to speak to a foreign agent without supervision. The love hotel was the most likely of the few, in his opinion. There were no cameras, no recorders, and the staff knew to turn a blind eye to everything.

"My customers have absolute discretion," the woman managed, finally. It would have been more impressive if her voice wasn't trembling slightly. She had nerve, but nerve meant nothing in the face of a full interrogation. If she vanished, shipped to the camps under a false name, none of her clients would ever know what had happened to her. "We do not discuss their ..."

"The security of the Reich itself is at stake," Hans growled. He held out his paper from Himmler, granting him wide authority to do what must be done. Anything and everything would be forgiven, as long as it brought results. "We are not interested in anyone, but Von Braun ..."

The woman swallowed. Hans could practically read her thoughts. If she refused to answer, he could take her to a cell and have her interrogated until she cracked; if she talked, her reputation for discretion would sink faster than HMS Ark Royal. The love hotel was only allowed to exist because powerful people trusted her to keep their secrets and if that trust was broken, it would never be regained. The degenerates would indulge their degeneracy somewhere else. They might even have the woman killed, just to make sure their secrets died with her. Or to revenge themselves, if she had talked before they realised she'd been arrested ...

Hans felt his temper snap. The silly woman stood between him and answers, between recovering Von Braun and salvaging what he could of his career or a trip to the camps if he failed to complete his mission. How dare she? She sat in a comfortable office, aping the manners of her betters, while he was fighting to protect the Reich. The urge to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze was almost overwhelming. No one would say a word if she died in his custody, no matter the cause. She'd hardly be the first person to go into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and never come out. It happened all the time.

He paced around the table, the woman trying to shrink back without making it obvious. He would have admired her nerve – he was sure she would have made someone a fine wife one day, if she hadn't been a madam at a brothel – if she hadn't been standing in his way. He reached out and ripped away her shirt, exposing her bare breasts to his gaze, then reached down and squeezed her nipples. Hard. She squeaked in pain, her face paling rapidly. Hans felt a rush of sadistic pleasure, driven by the sudden awareness he could do anything to her and she couldn't stop him. Even in pain, she was too afraid to raise a hand or even scream for help. The love hotel had guards, of course, but they couldn't stop the SS. No one could.

Hans leaned closer, enjoying the moment. He had carried out all kinds of field interrogations in Russia, threatening wives and daughters to make their husbands and fathers talk, but they were Untermenschen. The woman in front of him was not ... she would have been a wonderful wife, if she hadn't been running the love hotel. Exerting power over her was thrilling, more than he could expect from bullying Untermenschen. They didn't have the nerve to make breaking them truly rewarding.

"If I give the word, my men will take you to a cell and break you," he hissed. His manhood stiffened, reminding him that no one would say a word if he bent the woman over her desk and raped her. "But if you tell me what I want to know ..."

The woman shuddered, helplessly. Hans smelt the tell-tale stench of urine. "What do you want to know?"

Hans let go of her nipples and stepped back, admiring the swell of her breasts. They were fantastic, just perfect for a Germanic woman, but he'd left marks on her bare skin. Nasty marks. It didn't matter. All that mattered was finding Von Braun.

"Von Braun came to this hotel," Hans said. "Who met him?"

"I don't know her name," the woman said, pleadingly. Hans believed her. She'd been broken completely, left too terrified to even think of a lie. "The doctor hired her through an ... ah ... escort service, and we didn't ask for details."

Hans believed her. The love hotels – and the lower-class brothels – weren't only populated by Untermenschen. There were quite a few Germanic girls who had fallen on hard times, or wanted to sleep with their boyfriends before marriage, or ... he ground his teeth in frustration. It was all the men at the front, he was sure. If husbands and fathers did their duty, and kept their women in line, they wouldn't be turning to de facto prostitution. When he got married, he was going to make damn sure his wife was a virgin, and if she did anything without his permission he'd beat her. It was perfectly legal, in the Third Reich.

He stuck his hand into his pocket and took out the photographs. "Was this the bitch?"

The woman took a look, then nodded slowly. "I think so," she managed. She was too shaken to even try to cover herself. "She changed her appearance a little, but ... that's here."

Hans felt his heart sink. The meeting between Von Braun and the foreigner had happened on his watch. Covering that up would be difficult, if not impossible. He scowled at the unfairness of it all. The doctor had been allowed great freedom, as long as he kept delivering. What had Hans been supposed to do? Sit in the room and watch as Von Braun made love to a string of brainless beauties? Von Braun would have complained to his superiors, after suffering performance issues, and Hans would have been reassigned. It just wasn't fair!

He met her eyes. "Did you ever see her before she met Von Braun?"

The woman shook her head. Hans wasn't surprised. British women didn't have a reputation for being whores, and if she was uncovered it would be very embarrassing to Sir Cuthbert and his staff. His lips twitched at the thought. Being revealed as a prostitute would be less awkward than being revealed as a spy ... probably.

He pressed on. "Talk to her?"

"No," the woman said. "She didn't talk to anyone."

"And you didn't ask any questions," Hans said. The love hotel would have to be closed down. There was no other choice. "Thank you for your time."

He turned, hearing the sound of the woman trying to cover herself as he walked through the office door and closed it behind him. A handful of staff and whores, the latter almost all Untermenschen, sat on the door, their hands cuffed behind their backs. The clients had already been marched away, no doubt planning the complaints they intended to make to their superiors. Hans knew he'd been lucky the raid had been carried out in the middle of the day – if they'd struck in the evening, they might have netted someone really important and triggered off a political crisis – but it still annoyed him that they hadn't had the chance to arrest a few senior degenerates. Purging such filth from the Reich was the only way to make progress.

Obersturmfuehrer Seetzen snapped to attention. "Herr Sturmbannfuehrer?"

"Take everyone into custody, and I mean everyone," Hans ordered, curtly. He was sure the woman he'd left behind was already trying to call her contacts ... pointless, given that the very first thing his squad had done was shut off the phone lines. "The prisoners are to be shipped to the detention facility outside the city, not the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and held there until I give further orders."

"Jawohl."

Hans nodded, curtly, and headed outside. The street had been sealed off, SS stormtroopers manning the barricades and discouraging questions with brutal efficiency. The apartment blocks on each side of the love hotel had been sealed off too, in case the walls had been covertly weakened to provide an escape route, but it seemed they'd taken the degenerates by surprise. His lips twisted in disgust as he spotted a handful of middle-aged women on the far side of the barricades, watching eagerly as the first set of prisoners were marched to the trucks. No doubt they were looking for gossip, to see who's husband might have been caught with his pants down. Hans knew, and despised, the type. He'd taken great pleasure in denouncing one, back when he'd been a young boy. Now ...

Their husbands should keep them under control, he thought, sourly. They have far too much freedom right now.

He put the thought out of his mind as he clambered into his car and snapped orders, the driver starting the engine and taking them through the barricades. There were fewer cars on the streets beyond than he'd expected, something that made him wonder if people were seeing the roadblocks and turning away, rather than driving into Berlin. It wasn't uncommon. The black marketers could normally get in and out of the city without trouble, and carrying a load for them was a good way to earn some additional cash, but if they were caught they'd be headed straight for the camps. His lips twitched. He wasn't trying to stop anyone from coming into Berlin ...

The driver stopped outside the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Hans clambered out, let himself be searched by the guards – they were much more through about it, a clear sign that Hans was no longer in favour – and marched through the corridors to his commandeered office. The map on the wall was marked with hundreds of possible sightings, mostly – he was sure – misidentifications. The British spy had an average face, one that could allow her to blend into the background. They were lucky, Hans reflected sourly, that she wasn't blonde. The vast majority of women in the Reich were either naturally blonde or dyed their hair. But there were still thousands of aubern-haired women ...

"Herr Sturmbannfuehrer," the young Untersturmfuehrer said. "We have a possible contact ..."

Hans told himself to be calm. The Untersturmfuehrer had done better than most, over the last few hours. It was still absurd to see him in a combat uniform, with a combat rank, but ... if he led Hans to Von Braun Hans would put up with anything.

"Tell me," he said.

"We got a phone call from the Hauptbahnhof," the Untersturmfuehrer said. "A couple – father and daughter – passed through the station, noticed only by the guards on the gate. The daughter apparently matches one of the sketches, or is at least close enough to pass for her."

Hans felt a flicker of excitement. "Where did they go?"

"Unknown," the Untersturmfuehrer said. "We assume they're travelling under a false set of papers, but so far we haven't been able to isolate the forgeries. The station staff are not always very consistent about checking names and papers and ..."

"They will be dealt with," Hans growled. He forced himself to think. "When was this?"

"Roughly 0800hrs," the Untersturmfuehrer said. "The busiest time of the day."

Hans nodded, curtly. There weren't many railway services before 0700, at least going out of Berlin, but by 0800 there would be dozens of trains passing through the city, ensuring the station was crowded and making life difficult for the guards. He'd have to have the other guards interrogated, along with the staff, to see if they could narrow it down, yet ... he doubted they'd get any bigger break. And yet, how could he be sure the guard was right?

"Check all the services that left the station between 0800 and 1000," he said. His heart sank. There would be dozens, perhaps hundreds ... no, they'd want to put as much distance as they could between themselves and Berlin. "Get squads out to check each and every passenger on every long-distance train, particularly the ones heading towards the Swiss border. I do not want any excuses, not now. Get it done."

The Untersturmfuehrer swallowed, visibly. Hans understood – checking even a handful of trains would cause delays, which would mount up rapidly until the entire country was affected – but there was no other choice. Von Braun had to be caught, and quickly. His mind raced, considering the options. The runaways might have had two hours on a train and that meant ... he stared at the map, cursing under his breath. They could be halfway to Switzerland by now. And despite calling a security drill, there was no guarantee they wouldn't be able to slip across the border.

"Do it," Hans snarled.

The Untersturmfuehrer forgot to salute – again – as he hurried out the door and closed it behind him. Hans felt his temper flare and turned to the stack of reports, flipping through them in the hopes of finding something he could use. There was nothing. The SS had shaken up the black market – reading between the lines, Hans suspected that a handful of officials were deeply involved in the underground network – but drawn a blank. The forged papers – apparently – hadn't come from the black market. He hadn't expected to find an easy solution, but it was still maddening. The British could easily have bribed some clerk in the government to create genuine papers, or simply forged the papers themselves. Hans had heard rumours about German plans to flood Britain with forged banknotes, good enough to pass undetected until it was far too late, and he was fairly sure the British would try to do the same to the Reich. ID papers were supposed to be hard to forge, but someone with the resources of a state and a safe harbour on the far side of the English Channel would have no trouble producing perfect forgeries. The numbers wouldn't match, yet it wouldn't matter as long as no one grew suspicious and called to check. Hans wanted to think the staff would notice something wrong, but he knew better. They saw so many papers over even a single day that they didn't have time to scrutinise them all.

He looked at the map again, silently tracing the railway lines as they left Berlin and fanned out across the countryside. They could be anywhere within an ever-expanding circle ... they could have doubled back and headed east, or gone north, or ... simply found a place to hide near the city and settled down to wait. It would be risky, but there were limits to how long they could keep searching without admitting the truth. Hans already knew his enemy had nerve. She had the body of a woman – the old saying ran through his mind, one he was sure every Englishman learnt in school – but the heart and stomach of a man. If only she'd been a German ...

We will find her, he promised himself. They might be on a fast train, if the report was accurate, but they couldn't outrun a telegraph message or a radio signal. The message would get to SS stations right across the Reich, mobilising their troops to search the trains, before their quarry could reach safety. And we will find Von Braun with her.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Twelve: Past Potsdam, 1949

The young soldier got off the train at Potsdam, somewhat to Kathleen's relief. His flirting, aimed more to tease Von Braun rather than trying to get her to raise her skirts, had grown tiresome, as had his bragging about his military exploits. Kathleen knew better than to consider herself a military expert – SOE had no interest in training its operatives to fight on the battlefield, certainly not as infantry – but even she was sure his tales were nonsensical. It was tactically unsound, to say the least, to march towards the enemy when your story made it clear you'd be fired upon from at least two machine gun nests, leading to the complete destruction of your company. She rather hoped the Heer was that stupid, but it was nothing more than wishful thinking. The war had come to an end – or a pause – five years ago, hardly long enough for the lessons of 1939 to 1944 to be forgotten. The soldier was just a fool.

She didn't breath easily until the train pulled out of Potsdam and continued heading west. There had been more SS troops on the platform than she'd expected, something that had worried her even though they hadn't shown any sign of planning to board the train. She wanted to believe the body had fooled everyone, that the SS thought Von Braun was dead, but she knew the trick wouldn't last forever. The trolley woman passed again, this time bringing newspapers as well as food and drink. Kathleen bought a copy of Der Stürmer and the Völkischer Beobachter, checking to see if there were any reports from Berlin, but neither paper was particularly informative. The former was as foul as always, the combination of blatant anti-Semitism and outright pornography making her cringe. She'd heard the paper was so vile that even the Nazis had wanted to ban it, although she suspected it was more a degree of envy amongst the elite - Der Stürmer was very popular – than any moral issues. It might not be marked with a Swastika, but it was still Adolf Hitler's favourite paper. Or so she'd been told. The cover story – Hitler had attended a party dinner and given a long speech – was so bland she was certain it was nothing more than propaganda. She certainly hadn't heard anything about it in Berlin. The other paper didn't mention it at all.

Von Braun met her eyes. "How much longer ...?"

"Hours," Kathleen said. He had the grumpy old man act down pat. She suspected it would be wiser to disguise him as an older woman – there'd be fewer eyebrows raised if one was clearly too old to be interesting – but that would have to wait. "I think we'll change trains somewhere nearer the border."

She frowned inwardly, mentally evaluating the possibilities. If no one knew to watch for them, they could get to the coast fairly quickly and then make their way to the pickup point. If the alert had already gone out, the noose might already be tightening. She'd gone though the odds time and time again, trying to put herself in her enemy's place, but there was no way to be sure what the enemy already knew. If they hadn't been fooled at all, the alert might already have gone out ... there was nothing in the papers about Von Braun going missing, but that was meaningless. If there was any real news in Der Stürmer, it had got in by accident. The Völkischer Beobachter might be a more reasonable newspaper, but it was still a tool of the regime. She'd be surprised if the Reich admitted to losing Von Braun at all, no matter what happened. It would be one hell of a black eye for them.

Her heart twisted as she read the papers again, just to be sure she hadn't missed anything, then went to answer the call of nature. She felt grimy after reading the papers – they were disgusting, even the more reasonable articles reeking of Nazi sentiment – but the washrooms were pathetic, smelling unpleasant despite the cleaning crews. Kathleen suspected the crews – slaves, in all but name – weren't inclined to do a very good job, at least up until the moment the train pulled into the station. It was a petty revenge, but what else could they do? Anything more overt would simply get them sent to a camp, or worse. If half the stories were true ...

A low shudder ran through the train as it started to slow down. Kathleen tensed, cursing under her breath. There weren't supposed to be any stations for at least another hour – they were deep in the countryside – and she knew she hadn't lost track of time that badly. She wanted to believe the train was merely slowing to pass a corner without risking disaster, but it felt too drastic for that. No, the driver was going to stop in the middle of nowhere. Kathleen felt ice prickling down her spine as she opened the window and peered out, looking west. A handful of vehicles were clearly visible, ahead of the train. She couldn't see them clearly, but she knew what they were. The SS intended to search the train before it was allowed to proceed.

And the papers won't hold up to close scrutiny, she thought, as she hurried back to the compartment. If she'd been conducting the search, she would check the fingerprints of every old man on the train, and every old woman too. The idea of a man dressing up as a woman, in the hyper-masculine Third Reich, was unthinkable, but so was the idea of Von Braun defecting. We have to move.

Von Braun looked up at her, surprisingly calm. "Is it ...?"

"We have to move," Kathleen told him. The train was coming to a stop ... she risked a look out the window and breathed a sigh of relief. The vehicles – SS trucks and armoured cars – were right at the front, rather than spread out. They'd move to surround the train, if she was any judge, but that would take time ... if they had the manpower. They couldn't have zeroed in on the right train or it would have been stormed at Potsdam, rather than letting them continue into the countryside. "Hurry."

She grabbed the briefcase and led the way into the corridor, silently congratulating herself for choosing the carriage right at the end of the train. The SS would check the front coaches first, she was sure, giving her time to get off the train and into the undergrowth. If they did it without being spotted, they might have a chance to get clear. She kept moving, hurrying towards the final door, right at the end of the train. It was closed and locked, obviously, but it was fairly easy to figure out how to get it open. The warm air – the sweet smell of the countryside, mingled with the train's smoke – brushed against her nostrils, bringing back memories of her training back home. She bit her lip and dropped down to the rails, then helped Von Braun down too. There was plenty of cover, if they could just get into the undergrowth without being spotted and stopped. They'd chosen to halt the train at a level crossing ...

"Keep your head down," she hissed. They weren't exactly dressed for escape and evasion. Kathleen had been told, during training, that moving objects were easier to spot, but ... she briefly considered trying to hide behind the train, before dismissing the idea as stupid. The SS would go through every last inch of the interior, just to be sure, and then open and close all the doors. "And follow me."

Another train rumbled into view, heading towards Berlin. Up close, the sound was deafening, the smoke tickling her lungs and threatening to make her sneeze. Von Braun did sneeze, the sound lost in the rumble of the passing train. The SS made no attempt to stop it ... Kathleen seized the opportunity and darted into the undergrowth, motioning for him to follow her. Someone had worked hard to ensure the railway passed through a gully ... she couldn't tell if they didn't want to spoil the countryside, or if they wanted to make sure a derailment didn't lead to total disaster, but it hardly mattered. Von Braun followed her, keeping low as they scrambled up the edge and into cover. If someone spotted them, there was no sign of it, Kathleen stayed low, breathing in the smell of earth and smoke, and did her best to watch from a distance as the SS searched the train. A couple of people were pulled off, both middle-aged men. She didn't like the implications. If they were looking for middle-aged men, the odds were good they were looking for Von Braun.

Von Braun nudged her. "What'll happen to them?"

Kathleen tried not to jump. "Keep your voice down," she muttered, pitching her voice as low as she dared. The other train was gone, and their train was producing nothing more than a hissing sound. The countryside was hardly quiet – she could hear birds and insects flittering through the air, or rodents rustling through the undergrowth – but anyone who lived in the countryside long enough to get accustomed to the wildlife might be able to pick out a human voice, even at a distance. "Don't say a word."

She understood what he meant, as the air grew hotter. The men would probably be perfectly safe. They'd be taken on a ride to their nearest SS station, their fingerprints checked and cleared, and then probably told to make their way to their final destination. Probably. The SS was supposed to be respectful of men old enough to have fought in the Great War, but they wouldn't have time to help the poor bastards get home if they were searching for Von Braun. A flicker of alarm ran through her as she realised the trolley woman could easily report them missing, if she was paying attention. Or ...

It can't be helped now, she told herself. The SS had finished sweeping the outside of the train, checking windows as well as doors. She would have admired their technique if she hadn't been so aware of what they'd do, if they caught her. We'll just have to hope for the best.

Her mind raced. How much did the SS know? If they were looking for middle-aged men, they presumably knew about Von Braun, but did they know about her? Would they have connected Kathleen with his disappearance? Perhaps they were looking for middle-aged men travelling alone ... her lips twisted in dark amusement. There were a lot of those. Men didn't have to worry about being harassed, not on trains. At least not normally ... right now, if she was any judge, they had to be sweating buckets. They were on the SS's list.

She scowled. And how much did they get from the stationmaster?

It wasn't a pleasant thought. She'd deliberately purchased open tickets, to make sure they could change trains from time to time without raising eyebrows, but it was hard to be certain the train conductor wasn't sure they'd stayed on the train after Potsdam. He hadn't come around again, but that was meaningless. He might have been watching as passengers left the train, to be replaced by others heading further west. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to wait, hoping and praying they got lucky. The Nazis had a reputation for keeping extensive files, but there were limits to how much could be relayed over the telephone. Would someone sit down and read out a list of names, of everyone who was supposed to be on the train? On every train? It would be an utter nightmare. But she could just imagine the Nazis doing it.

The hour ticked by slowly, very slowly. She watched as the SS troopers finished their sweep, then disembarked and waited for the train to puff away slowly. She had no doubt the driver and everyone else was relieved to be on their way, leaving the SS behind. The SS might insist it was the guardian of the Reich, clearing away the Untermenschen weeds so the Herrenvolk could thrive in bright sunlight, but she'd never met any German who wasn't shit-scared of the SS. She didn't blame them. It didn't matter how blonde-haired or blue-eyed you were, with an Aryan pedigree that stretched back hundreds of years, if the SS decided it wanted you dead. You could do everything right, by the Reich's twisted standards, and still wind up in a camp or dead. The only good SS stormtrooper was a dead one.

"Don't move," she hissed. The SS checkpoint was still there. She wondered how many other trains had left Berlin, between their departure and the alert being sent. Dozens perhaps. Most would be small, linking Berlin to the constellation of satellite towns surrounding the big city, but there'd be at least three or four trains heading much further away. It wouldn't be impossible for the SS to stop and search them all. "We don't know what they're doing."

She heard engines roaring to life and looked up, just in time to see a handful of vehicles drive over the level crossing and vanish into the distance. She muttered a command for him to stay still, then crawled upwards until she found a place where she could look down at the signal box. It looked empty, deserted by the SS as well as the operator ... if there was an operator. Her uncle had been a railway man and she'd heard him complaining about signal boxes being abandoned during the war, the signals operated remotely ... somehow. She eyed the box for a long moment, then kept looking around, listening carefully for the slightest sound of trouble. There was nothing, and yet she dared not assume the SS had left completely. She wasn't even sure where they were.

"Shit," she muttered. She had memorised maps, of course, but the map was not the terrain. The road in front of her could be any road ... logically, it had to be one of the roads that crossed the railway lines, yet there were hundreds of such roads between Potsdam and Brandenburg. She didn't think they'd gone all the way to Brandenburg ... they couldn't have. "This is not going to be fun."

She turned and hurried back to Von Brain. His outdated suit was stained with mud, and there was a nasty mark on his face, but he seemed surprisingly confident. Kathleen hoped he'd keep that attitude, as they walked to the signal box and pushed the door open. She was ready to shoot the signalman, if she'd missed someone inside the tiny cabin, but the interior was deserted. A long row of levers, each one connected to a set of wires, ran down one wall. One moved on its own, making her jump. She guessed there was a manned signal box further down the line.

"There's a map," Von Braun pointed out. He seemed fascinated by the signal controls, judging by the way he poked and prodded at them. "Where are we?"

Kathleen looked at the map, frowning inwardly. It was difficult to be sure it could be trusted. A great many maps in Britain had been removed, or artfully redrawn, to make life difficult for any invader. The Reich had no reason to fear invasion, now the French and Russians had been crushed and the British driven back across the English Channel, but it was impossible to trust the map completely. It didn't help it was drawn to outline the railway lines, rather than the surrounding area. It took her several moments to parse it out.

"Near Werder," she said. The train had passed through the wilderness park and crossed the river ... they were lucky, she reflected, that the SS hadn't waited until the train reached Werder to strike. But then, a very public search for Von Braun was the last thing they wanted. "We have a long walk ahead of us."

Von Braun winced. He was in good shape for an older man, but there were limits. She knew he couldn't go on forever. Nor could she. "We can't find a car?"

Kathleen shook her head. "There isn't one here," she said. She hadn't seen any cars outside the signal box, nor any bikes. They might be able to hijack a car, if one passed, but the risk of getting caught was too high. She didn't know enough to be able to evaluate the risk properly. How much did their enemy know? "And we really can't stay here."

She took one last look at the map, mentally comparing it to the maps she'd memorised, and then led the way back outside. They'd have to stay clear of the main roads, but as long as they kept heading west they'd be moving in the right direction. The western countryside was farmland, mainly, and they'd have little trouble finding somewhere to stay. Most farmers were quite willing to rent out a room for the night, if the money was good. She had done it before ...

Yeah, her thoughts pointed out, sarcastically. The earlier missions had been little more than recons, sweeps through the German and French countryside to try to get a feel for what the locals really thought of the Reich. There had been no real danger, beyond the farmer's wife making sure she was never alone with the farmer or his son. Kathleen had thought it a little amusing, at the time. It wasn't so funny now. If she trusted the wrong person now ... she was dead. You weren't the subject of a national manhunt at the time, were you?

She shook her head, and started to walk. There was no other choice.

Time really was not on their side.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Thirteen: Near Werner, 1949

The landscape changed as they walked across the level crossing and headed up the road, carefully to keep to the side so they could take cover if necessary. The map had suggested they were close to a town, but it was hard to believe as they picked their way through patches of trees and hillocks that made it hard to see for more than a few metres, then passed farmland that was being worked by Germans rather than imported slaves. Kathleen hoped that was a good sign – farms run by families were much more likely to mind their own business – but she didn't try to stop as they passed the farmhouses and headed onwards. She wanted to put as much distance between them and the SS as possible, if only because she had no idea how far the alert had actually spread. The SS idolised the small farmer, although that didn't stop the blackshirts from harassing him if they thought he was insufficiently patriotic. It was quite possible the men who'd stopped the train had relatives nearby, relatives who might have been quietly asked to keep their eyes open ...

She winced, inwardly, as the walk took its toll. The countryside was supposed to mind its own business, from what she'd seen, but there was no telling just how many farmers and farmhands might betray them. They might not be Nazis, certainly not in any real sense, yet they would be stanchly patriotic in their own way. The farmers certainly had good reason to think highly of the party, even if they refused to join it. And ... it was quite possible some of them had. Membership wasn't precisely compulsory, but there were a great many benefits that were only offered to party members. If you wanted to farm without being harassed by the government, you damn well needed to be a member.

Bastards, she thought, as she passed another field. They don't need to force anyone to do anything. They just have to make it advantageous to sign up and do as they want.

She studied the field thoughtfully as they paused to take a breath. It was being worked by BDM maidens, young women from the towns and cities who had been moved to the farm to learn a farmer's trade. Some would marry farmers and remain on the farm for the rest of their lives, others would hate every moment they spent in the countryside and count the days until they could go home. The farmer himself was sitting on a log, watching the girls with a gimlet eye. His wife was watching him. Kathleen hid her amusement with an effort. On paper, the farmer ruled the roost with his fists, backed up by the full weight of the law; in practice, it would be a very unwise farmer who didn't listen to his wife, treating her as a partner rather than a servant. A farmer's wife knew how to run a farm, and how to be dangerous. It was easy to imagine a particularly brutish husband suffering a terrible accident ...

They kept walking, leaving the farm behind. Von Braun was starting to breathe heavily, despite frequent pauses. Kathleen felt weary too, her body aching painfully. It wasn't evening yet, but perhaps it would be wiser to find a place to stay for the night. The next farm would have a bedsit ... hell, she wouldn't mind if they had to sleep in the barn, as long as they had somewhere to rest. She'd slept in worse places. And yet ... Von Braun was ailing fast. She was starting to fear she'd pushed him too hard.

A low rumble echoed behind them. She glanced back, just in time to see a farm truck come into view. She was too tired to hide, too drained to think clearly, as the driver slowed to a halt. A farm worker judging by his outfit, probably not the man in charge. He would have been handsome, in a way, if his face hadn't been scarred and pitted by a life in the fields. He was tanned too, perhaps a little too tanned. Kathleen grimaced, inwardly. The young man couldn't be more than couple of years younger than her, but if his skin was darker than the average the odds were good his racial classification was not perfect. And that meant ... Kathleen felt sick. He was lucky he hadn't been thrown into a camp long ago.

Probably Italian blood, she thought. There had been a handful of Germans who'd brought home Italian wives, after the Great War. Italians weren't officially Untermenschen, at least according to the Reich Race Classification Bureau, but Germans who remembered Italy siding against them in 1914 and then being a worse than useless ally in 1940 had little time for Italians, even if they were still allies. Poor bastard.

The farmer stepped out of his cab, his eyes flickering over them. Kathleen tensed as his gaze lingered on her breasts, before sharpening slightly. God alone knew what he was thinking. They didn't look like farmers, or city-folk on holiday, and they were a long way from town. And that meant ... the only upside, she supposed, was that they didn't look like concentration camp inmates either. She didn't recall any camp nearby, but half the camps weren't listed on official maps. The locals might have been told to pretend they didn't exist, and most knew better than to do otherwise, yet they knew the camps were there ...

"What are you doing here?"

Kathleen stepped forward, bracing herself. "My father thought we could walk around the countryside before returning to our hotel in town," she said. It wasn't a very good lie, and it made them sound like idiots, but there was no way to put together a better lie. They didn't know enough to have a rough idea of what might be convincing, or what might be a huge red flag. "The driver dropped us off at the wrong place, or we got badly lost, and now ..."

The driver smirked. "You are a very long way from town," he said. He didn't bother to ask which town. "Would you like a lift?"

His eyes flickered. "Your father can sit in the back, you can sit in the front. Oh, and I want payment up front."

Kathleen made a show of reluctance. "I have money ..."

"I don't want money," he said. "I want ..."

Kathleen hastily tapped her lips, trying to send some very mixed signals with her eyes. It was one thing to try to lure or compel a girl into bed – she'd heard some horror stories from BDM maidens – but quite another to do it in front of her supposed father. Let him think she would do it, if she could maintain some dignity ... and plausible deniability. She guessed he was resentful of the way he was treated, in the Reich, and took what little revenge he could by harassing pureblood girls ... she shuddered, inwardly, as she helped Von Braun into the back of the truck. It smelt like a pigsty. She was surprised Von Brain didn't object. The stench was horrendous. But then, he had worked in a missile complex. Rocket fuel stank too.

The interior of the truck wasn't much better, she noted, as she scrambled into the passenger seat. The vehicle was so old she was tempted to wonder if it predated the Great War, although she couldn't recall how common trucks had been back then. The driver took his seat, started the engine, and put the truck into gear. The engine was appallingly loud. Kathleen felt her ears ringing within seconds, her head started to spin. The driver reached out and touched her knee, his hand feeling grimy even through her thick skirt. She shrank away, letting herself seem vulnerable. He smirked and let his hand wander further down, to the hem ...

It wasn't hard to pretend to be scared. "Keep your eyes on the road!"

He winked at her. "It isn't the first time," he said. Somehow, she didn't doubt it. It was rare for rape to be reported in the Reich, unless there was clear evidence the woman had been forced, and when it was reported the woman was often blamed for being raped. It was sickening – Kathleen knew how much stronger the average man was than the average woman – but the Reich didn't care. A woman who got raped, in its view, was an inferior woman. "I can do both."

Kathleen glanced back, then braced herself as the driver turned onto a smaller road and drove up to a ramshackle farmhouse. Pigs and chickens roamed freely, but there were no other humans in evidence. The farmhouse looked as if it were on the verge of falling down and the barn was little more than a framework, patched up so often she couldn't tell if there was anything of the original building left. She felt her heart sink as she realised she'd been wrong. The driver was a farmer and this was his farm ...

"Your father is asleep," the driver said, stopping outside the farmhouse. "We'll come back for him later."

Kathleen clambered out of the cab and peered into the rear. Von Braun was asleep, snoring loudly ... she winced at the stench, then gasped in pain as the driver grabbed her hand and pulled her into the farmhouse. The interior was dark, yet warm; the driver shoved her into the room, then found a match and lit a candle, using it to light a pair of lanterns. Kathleen almost wished he hadn't bothered. The farmhouse wasn't as unpleasant as an interrogation cell – she didn't want to think about the dreaded training sessions, which had been known to make ground men weep – but it was still thoroughly unpleasant. It was clear the farmer lived alone.

He turned, pushed her against the wall and kissed her, hard. His mouth tasted foul. She didn't want to know what he'd been eating. She groaned like it was enjoyable instead, then brought up her knee as hard as she could. He doubled over, screaming in pain, and she drove her hand into his throat with all the strength she could muster. He choked, violently, and swung his fist at her. She dodged the blow – he put his fist right through the wooden wall - then hit his throat again. He stumbled forwards and collapsed. Kathleen rolled him over – he was incredibly heavy – and crushed his throat with her foot. It was excessive, but she knew her instructors would approve. If he'd gotten his hands on her, it would have been the end.

She spat, to get rid of the taste, as soon as she was sure he was dead. She had used her body before to manipulate men, and she had few qualms about it, but the farmer was unlikely to be helpful, if he let them go. She had no idea how much of their story he'd believed, if any, yet the fact he'd tried to openly rape her suggested he intended to make sure neither of them escaped. It wouldn't be hard for him to snap their necks, cut up their bodies, and feed them to the pigs. And then ... it would be ironic indeed, she reflected, if the Nazis never worked out would had happened to them. They'd assume they'd made it to safety, while her own superiors would figure the Germans had caught and quietly murdered them. The mystery would only grow deeper, if the cold war ever came to an end and both sides compared notes, and they realised Kathleen and Von Braun had vanished without trace ...

The thought mocked her as she pulled her clothes back into place and dragged the body, then returned to the truck and helped Von Braun into the farmhouse. It wasn't much – she didn't feel the urge to inspect the dead man's bedroom – but it would do for a night, giving her time to think and plan how to keep moving. They had a truck now ... she thought it would be enough to get them several miles further west, particularly if they stayed off the main roads. At some point, she'd have to ditch the truck for something a little less noticeable ...

Von Braun stirred, then stared at her. "What happened?"

"Our friend had to go out for a bit," Kathleen lied. She had no idea how much he'd heard, given his state, or how much he'd thought she'd done with him. "Don't worry about it."

She steered him to the sofa and told him back to sleep, then forced herself to go back outside and drag the body into the pigpen. It was open, the foul creatures shuffling in and out as they pleased. Kathleen hoped Von Braun didn't want to eat pork. She'd had to force herself to eat the forbidden meat – it was one of the ways the SS tested suspected Jews – and she'd found it disgusting. It didn't help that she knew pigs ate almost everything, from kitchen slops to dead bodies. Pork was healthy enough, if cooked properly, but it still disgusted her.

And men in the camps had to eat it to survive, she thought. She'd heard the horror stories. The rabbis had relaxed the proscription on eating pork, but some had starved to death rather than force themselves to eat ... and the remainder, when their time had come, had been marched to the gas chambers and murdered. Only a few survived to tell us ...

She staggered, feeling a wave of despondency fall over her. She had heard the stories, but by the time she'd first been deployed to Occupied Europe the Jews had been forced to flee or exterminated, save for a handful who had managed to remain hidden or obscure their bloodline. The sheer scale of the atrocity was just ... hard to comprehend. It was harder still to recall the old historical records of impossible numbers of troops in medieval battles, then realise the reports of how many had been murdered by the Nazis were – if anything – understated. Jews and Slavs, Arabs and Egyptians and Africans ... hell, they'd killed Germans for being homosexual, or political unreliable, or simply being crippled, The horror they'd unleashed was inconceivable.

And Von Braun helped them do it, she thought. Rage boiled through her, the urge to turn back and snap the bastard's neck. It wouldn't be hard. She could make her escape alone, and ... she knew he had to reach Britain, that he had to be debriefed, and yet part of her wanted to make damn sure he paid for his crimes. What can he do to make up for it?

She sighed and sagged, knowing it was foolish. The Nazis had lured thousands into their clutches by promising them whatever they wanted, from fame and fortune to funding to put together a rocket program that would eventually put a man on the moon. She knew thousands of people had been fooled into complacency, or deluded themselves about the contents of Mein Kampf, or even thought that trying to stop the Nazis wouldn't be worth the cost. If Chamberlain, that fool of fools, had stood up to Hitler in 1936, or 1938, millions of people would be alive. Or if Stalin had been smart enough to attack Hitler's rear in 1940 ...

There's no point in worrying about what cannot be changed, she told herself, grimly. Just concentrate on the task at hand.

Darkness fell rapidly, falling over the land. The surrounding hills and trees were dark, not a single light flickering in the shadows. They were alone, miles from civilisation ... she felt ice run down her spine as she heard an aircraft high overhead, although she couldn't see it in the night sky. A spotter, hunting for them? She felt naked and exposed, even though she knew the plane couldn't pick them out on the farm. The dead man probably didn't have any friends ... she hoped to hell that was true. There was no sign he had any visitors, but ...

She picked her way back into the farmhouse and looked around, then forced herself to search the rest of the rooms. The bedroom was as grimy as she'd expected, the bed large enough for one person alone. The bathroom was ghastly, the toilet nothing more than a hole cut in a piece of wood to allow their waste to fall into a cesspit. Kathleen vaguely recalled that manure could be used to fertilise crops, but ... it was one of the things she didn't want to think about. The farmer had a little money, tucked away in a sock drawer, and a pistol that dated all the way back to the Great War. His kitchen was hardly worthy of the name. She was mildly surprised he hadn't poisoned himself long ago.

And if I hadn't been a Land Girl, she thought, I would have been completely lost.

Shaking her head, she returned to the living room to rest. Von Braun was still asleep ... hopefully, he wouldn't wake until the morning. They would need to look for clothes so they could disguise themselves as farmers, just in case their original outfits had been described to the SS. And then ...

She shook her head. They could plan a little, but mostly they'd have to play it by ear. There would be checkpoints everywhere by now, forcing them to stay off the main roads as much as possible. Going on another train would be risky, but ... they might not have a choice. If they got to the pickup point in time ... they'd be home free. If not ... they'd have to improvise. And that would be very difficult indeed.

We can do it, she told herself, as she closed her eyes. We have no choice.

 

[Saturnus-Ouranus]

Chapter Six: Berlin, 1949

Chapter Seven: Berlin, 1949

Did you accidentally threadmarked chapters 6 and 7 as Omakes?