easy life as usual, he reflected bitterly. The British didn’t understand race, they understood national and Imperial pride and that was halfway to racial pride but they had never gone the whole way down that road. With time, if Mosley took the premiership, perhaps. He thought of civil war in Germany, the army against the SS. Even if the SS won, Germany would be terribly weakened. And after all they had achieved.
He had had a Christmas card from his son yesterday, a picture of a Christmas tree in Sevastopol, a letter inside. Michael said his mother and stepfather had been forced to have their Ukrainian servant arrested for stealing silver spoons that had once belonged to Gunther’s mother. She was to be hanged. Michael had said it was a shame but his mother had told him these things are necessary.
Gunther thought of Hans, his twin. He remembered that first Christmas when he came home from the Russian front. He remembered them speaking, with sad conviction, of how the Russian war was a historic climax of the fight between inferior and superior races. The racial hotchpotch of Eastern Europe which the Germans had stormed through was an abomination, a cesspit. Races couldn’t mix, must never mix. Hans had spoken of how he had seen thousands of Russian prisoners, captured in the great 1941 pincer movements, penned into giant encampments on the steppe, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards and left to die of hunger and thirst. He had seen the prisoners digging holes in the earth to escape the rain and cold. ‘You could smell the camps for miles,’ he had said. ‘They just reverted to an animal state.’
And yet, Gunther thought, the Russians were still fighting. And with some help from the Americans soon, from what Adlai Stevenson said. All Germany’s resources, all these years, had been ploughed into that war. If they had had better generals, what things they could be doing with Russia’s resources. If they finally won in Russia they could still build a new Europe, every country allied to Germany, but devoted to its own race and nationality. Perhaps then Germany could use its great rockets to go into space, perhaps put men on the moon. One day, he thought, we will.
He slept for several hours, an exhausted, dreamless sleep. He was wakened at seven a.m. by the telephone, Gessler’s assistant summoning him back to the embassy. He put on his white facemask and stumbled his way back through the fog. It was only just getting light and few were about yet; there was complete silence all around. He felt suddenly disoriented, as though he were alone in a great, endless void. He fixed his attention on the faint yellow glow of a streetlight ahead and told himself angrily that he must stay calm, not give way to ridiculous fantasies. This was just bad weather, the lights and machinery of civilization were all around, just temporarily hidden by the smog. One day, given long enough, no doubt German scientists would be able to change the weather, too.
Gessler, in his office, was full of confidence once more, eyes shining bright behind his pince-nez. Gunther noticed that his desk was tidy again. He waved a piece of paper on which he had scribbled some numbers. ‘We’ve located the submarine, Hoth,’ he said triumphantly. ‘We know where it’s going to surface! They’re being picked up tonight.’
Gunther felt his heart lift. ‘How? How did we get this?’
‘Partly thanks to you!’ Gessler beamed. Gunther was his golden boy now. ‘It was you that guessed a submarine would be picking them up, you that tricked Drax into revealing that it would be somewhere an hour from London. Every listening station on the Isle of Wight has been searching for transmissions concerning a submarine pickup since yesterday, and now they’ve just got it! Intelligence people, our SS people. There’s been a sudden burst of radio traffic. Muncaster and four others are being picked up from a cove at a little place called Rottingdean, in Sussex, at one a.m. tomorrow morning. Unless the weather gets rough, which we’re told it won’t.’
‘They managed to decipher the message?’
‘Yes. Thank God the British have given us all their Bletchley Park technology since 1940; smart that we made that a secret part of the Treaty. The Americans still have no idea we’ve broken their codes. Muncaster and his people will be sitting ducks.’ He beamed.
‘And we’re telling the British nothing.’
‘No. Nor anyone outside the SS.’ Gunther leaned back in his chair. He said slowly, ‘So now, with luck, Muncaster will fall right into our hands.’
‘Yes. There’s no fog on the coast, the weather will be bright and clear. A boat will take them off the beach at half past midnight, some local man. He’ll ferry them out to the submarine. It’ll be on the surface. Risky for a foreign sub, shows how important this is to the Americans.’
Gunther felt a moment of pure, joyous satisfaction. He ticked the names off on his fingers:. ‘Muncaster, Hall, Fitzgerald and this Natalia woman. The fifth is probably Fitzgerald’s wife.’ He looked at Gessler. ‘How will we do it, sir?’
Gessler folded his hands across his flat stomach. ‘It’ll be our operation, an SS mission out of the embassy. I want to send you down there, with some good men, half a dozen if I can lay my hands on them. I thought of sending Kapp, who was at Drax’s interrogation.’
Gunther nodded agreement. ‘He looked a useful man.’
‘I’ve been studying the maps, and we’re sending someone down to spy out the land now. The place, Rottingdean, is nothing more than a village in a fold between the cliffs, just a small cove. You hide there and then get Muncaster and his people when they arrive.’ He looked at Gunther seriously. ‘But we’ll have to play it carefully, we don’t want the British getting any wind of this.’ His tone became less enthusiastic. ‘They were going to start transporting the Jews on to the Isle of Wight today but the fog’s put paid to that. From what I hear they’re going to leave it till after the New Year now. I wonder if that could be politics. There’s a rumour that Rommel told Beaverbrook there wasn’t any hurry with the transports.’
Gunther frowned. ‘The army have never objected to Jew transports before.’
‘No, but they’ve often needed a push from above, from the Fuhrer, heaven rest him. You know what they’re like, saying it’s a distraction from winning the Russian war, taking up resources.’ He stared at Gunther again. ‘Everything has changed with the Fuhrer’s death. If there is going to be – God forbid – a change in policy in Berlin, the Waffen SS are ready to fight the army. And if that turns into a long struggle, I’m told that what Muncaster knows could be very important.’
Gessler looked at Gunther seriously. ‘Heydrich knows what it is and he’s told me now. It’s about nuclear weapons. The Bomb. The biggest prize of all, and it could be about to fall into SS hands. So that’s why the mission is even more of a priority now. I was authorized to tell you.’ Gessler smiled. ‘See how trusted you are.’
To be able to do this, Gunther thought, for Germany, for his son, the memory of his beloved brother. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.
Gessler coughed. ‘William Syme will be coming with you.’
Gunther sat up. ‘Is that wise, sir? If Muncaster were to say something, if Syme even got a hint of what he knows—’
‘We need an Englishman there. The local police will be told there’s something going on and to steer clear, they’ll be reassured that a Special Branch man will be coming down to deal with it. And Syme knows as much as anyone about Muncaster and his crew. And if he did get any knowledge he shouldn’t – well, we spoke before about the option of disposing of him.’
Gunther felt an unexpected stab of regret. Gessler noticed, and inclined his head. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’
‘I don’t. But he’s helped us a lot on this.’ Gunther took a deep breath. ‘But if it comes to that, it won’t be a problem.’
‘I want you to keep Syme close, during tomorrow’s operation and afterwards. I want you to bring him back here to the embassy. With Muncaster and his friends.’ His eyes stared into Gunther’s. ‘Do you have any difficulties with that?’
Did they mean to kill Syme after all? Had they decided he knew too much already? It seemed hard, but this was war. ‘No, sir,’ he answered.
‘When you bring Muncaster in I want you to assess him first, Hoth, weigh up the best ways to interrogate him before he gets sent to Berlin. Remember he’s not – normal.’
‘Yes, sir.’ This was the sort of work Gunther was confident with; and it would be interesting to discover how Muncaster’s mind worked, how and why it had malfunctioned. A thought occurred to him. ‘What about the Bennett woman?’
Gessler waved a hand. ‘Oh, we turned her over to the British yesterday afternoon. She’ll probably get a secret trial, then five years in Holloway,’ he laughed. ‘Five years and a finger gone. Do they give women corporal punishment here? I can’t remember. Anyway, they’ll probably think what we’ve done to her is enough.’
