Murken’s eyes widened in shock. He offered no resistance as he was roughly searched and his hands were cuffed behind his back. Herman had been curious to discover what a professor of computer studies might carry in his pockets – he’d tried reading one of Gudrun’s books and found it completely beyond his understanding – but Murken wasn’t carrying anything apart from a pair of pencils, an American-made pocket calculator and a tiny device Herman couldn’t identify. He bagged everything, then nodded to Fritz and Caius, who frog-marched the professor through the door and out into the corridor.
Herman braced himself as they marched past a number of students. Many of them had their faces frozen in the expressionless masks they learned as children, when showing the wrong emotion could lead to a beating or worse, but a number were staring in horror – and hatred, even though it could be dangerous. Herman was tempted to snap and snarl at them as they passed, or to drag them in for interrogation, yet he knew it would be pointless. Instead, he merely ignored the students, counting on their uniforms to clear a pathway for them. It worked; no one barred their way as they half-carried the shocked professor through the corridors and out through the gates. They’d get Murken back to the station, where the SS would interrogate him harshly.
“I didn’t do anything,” Murken said. “I didn’t…”
“I’m sure,” Herman snapped. He felt a flicker of guilt as they walked past a pair of female students, both of whom stared in horror. Murken wasn’t big enough to justify carrying him around like a drunken soldier. But he knew they had no choice. “The SS will be the judge of that.”
Gudrun had liked Professor Murken. He was always friendly, always willing to explain some of the more difficult concepts and, unlike some of the other professors, never seemed willing to assume that a girl was automatically nowhere near as capable as a boy. She’d hoped he’d tutor her when she entered her second year of computer studies. But now, her father and two burly policemen were carrying him out of the university, in cuffs. She felt sick as she watched them go by, her father bringing up the rear… she shrank back into the shadows as they passed, hoping and praying that her father didn’t see her.
They came and took the professor, she thought, numbly. She’d half-expected to be arrested herself, or to watch helplessly as some of her friends were marched away; she’d never expected to see Professor Murken arrested by her father. Why did they arrest him?
“They arrested him,” she muttered, once the policemen were out of earshot. If her father had seen her, and he might have done, he’d shown no sign of it. “Why did they arrest him?”
“I don’t know,” Horst muttered back. “But we’d better get into class.”
Gudrun gave him a nasty look as they made their way down the corridor. “How can you be so calm?”
“There’s nothing to be gained by panicking,” Horst pointed out. “The professor knows nothing and he’s quite valuable, so I’m sure he will be released soon enough.”
“I hope you’re right,” Gudrun said. “But if you’re wrong…”
She left the thought unfinished. They’d poked the authorities in their collective eye – and now they were angry. Her father might be the face of authority – and he had complete authority over her and her siblings – but he wouldn’t be the one making the real decisions, not after her little group had embarrassed the entire state. The Reich Council would be angry and humiliated and… and who knew what they’d do? They might consider the professor an acceptable scapegoat for the leaflets – or they might genuinely believe that he’d been involved in the plot.
And we sent copies of the leaflets through the computer network, she thought, as her blood ran cold. They might well have good reason to blame the professor.
Classes, not entirely to her surprise, were a joke. The professors were clearly nervous; the students were chattering away in small groups, telling one another what they’d seen when the policemen had entered the university. Gudrun did her best to keep her head down by reading her book, waiting for a chance to meet up with her friends after lunch. The professor dismissed class early, to her mingled dismay and relief. They’d learned nothing – and they had exams coming up in a matter of months.
Not that exams will matter that much, she thought, as they ate lunch and headed for the study room. If we get caught, I’ll be lucky if I get exiled to the east.
“They must have taken the professor’s fingerprint from one of the leaflets,” Horst said, once the door was closed and the bug was neutralised by bad American music. “He was the one who loaded the printer, I suspect. They took his fingerprint and assumed it was one of ours.”
Gudrun swallowed. “Is there anything we can do about that?”
“Not unless you want to be arrested yourself,” Sven said. “We should just count ourselves lucky that the professor knows nothing.”
“But he’s innocent,” Gudrun protested.
“They’ll find that out while they’re interrogating him,” Horst reassured her, again. “But for the moment, we can only consider our next move.”
Sven took a breath. “We sent copies of the leaflet to every email address in the Reich,” he said, “and worked additional copies into some of the more complex computer programs in existence. They may wipe the first set from the network, but the second set will be resent every Sunday until a genuine computer expert removes them completely. It will take some time for them to even realise there is a problem.”
“A week, to be precise,” Isla added.
“More or less,” Sven said. “There have been some covert messages exchanged on the network, Gudrun, and promises to share the leaflets widely across the Reich.”
“I heard that copies were found on trains and aircraft,” Günter said. “Word is spreading, is it not?”
“Yes, it is,” Gudrun said. “How did the leaflets get so far?”
“I believe some people took them, read them and dumped them,” Horst said, calmly. “And the more people who read them, the better.”
“We did ask readers to pass on the leaflets as quickly as possible,” Sven agreed. He sounded surprisingly cheerful. “They might just be taking us at our word.”
“That’s good,” Gudrun said. She held up a hand. “What do we do now?”
“Nothing,” Horst said.
Günter stared at him. “You think we should do nothing?”
“Yes,” Horst said, unabashed. “Right now, the security services will be on the alert. I would be surprised if we don’t get a few dozen new spies inserted into the university, now they think they can pin everything on poor Professor Murken. Anything we do may be noticed and lead back to us. We keep our heads down and wait for an opportunity to spread the word still further.”
Gudrun frowned. “But shouldn’t we strike while the iron is hot?”
“We’re more likely to be struck,” Horst countered. “Besides, what are we going to do?”
“We don’t have any weapons,” Leopold pointed out. “But we could get some, couldn’t we?”
“We’d be smashed flat in an instant if we tried an armed uprising,” Horst said, curtly. “I thought you would have learned that in the Hitler Youth!”
“So we keep pressing the issue,” Gudrun said. “I could go to Konrad’s father and ask him about the leaflets, convincing him to go demand answers about the fate of his son…”