“It might be dangerous,” Horst warned her. “He could report you to your father – or the SS.”
“We’ve already crossed the line,” Gudrun snapped. “If we can’t do anything spectacular, Horst, we can at least try to do something on a smaller scale.”
“I suppose,” Horst said. “But, right now, they will be wary. We need to be wary too.”
He was right, Gudrun knew, but it galled her. She didn’t want to admit it, yet she had a sense that time – her time – was running out. Maybe, just maybe, it would be better not to go visit Konrad’s family, not to ask his father to demand answers. Because, once they got an answer, Gudrun’s father would start insisting she looked for another potential husband…
He could at least give me time to mourn, she thought, bitterly.
“We could talk to our mothers,” Hilde offered, shyly. “My mother hosts bake sales and dozens of other activities. She’s involved in everything. She might well start asking questions of her friends.”
“That’s a possibility,” Gudrun agreed. Hilde’s mother was the kind of person who pulled everyone into her orbit. “My mother might be interested, if she were invited… so might Konrad’s mother.”
Horst nodded in agreement. “The SS would have problems if they tried to round up mothers running bake sales,” he said. “There’d be a riot.”
Gudrun nodded. “But be careful,” she warned. “Not all of our families are going to be happy when we start asking questions – and suggesting that they ask questions.”
“Everyone knows about the leaflets now,” Sven said. “The risk may not be as great as you think.”
“I hope you’re right,” Horst said. “But be careful. Be very careful. Because if we are caught, we will be killed.”
Chapter Nineteen
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA), Berlin
30 July 1985
“You’re late.”
“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. The summons to the RHSA had come at an inconvenient time and he’d been forced to come up with an excuse on the spur of the moment. “I offer no excuses.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Standartenfuehrer Erdmann Schwarzkopf said, sarcastically. “There is nothing more important than serving the Reich.”
“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. “However, if I were to act suspiciously, the other students might regard me as a potential spy.”
Schwarzkopf eyed him for a long moment, then nodded and turned to lead the way down the corridor. Horst followed him, feeling nervous; he hadn’t been summoned to the RHSA since he’d first come to Berlin, a year before he’d entered the university for the first time. Any citizen of Germany would feel worried at the thought of entering the building, knowing that the doors could slam shut at any moment, but Horst knew he had reason to be afraid. If his superiors had figured out what he’d done, he’d die slowly and painfully.
They don’t know anything, he reassured himself, as they entered the interrogation section and walked past a handful of unmarked doors. If they knew something, I would be in one of these rooms already.
“We interrogated the professor quite extensively,” Schwarzkopf said. “He knew nothing, it seems. It was a dead end.”
Horst kept his face impassive, even though Schwarzkopf was in front of him. Who knew who was watching through a hidden camera? “The professor was quite an important man,” he said, flatly. “Killing him will have unfortunate consequences.”
“The professor will not be returning to the university,” Schwarzkopf said, coldly. “His future is none of your concern.”
“Yes, Mein Herr,” Horst said. There was no point in pressing the issue. As a good son of the east, he was meant to disdain computers and other American toys. “I…”
“Officially, he will have retired,” Schwarzkopf added, cutting Horst off. “No one will know any differently.”
They reached a small office and stepped inside. Schwarzkopf shut the door firmly, gestured to a chair and sat down on the other side of an empty desk. It wouldn’t be his real office, Horst knew; it was just a place to talk to the agents he handled, a place they’d never be able to describe if they ran into trouble. Personally, Horst thought Schwarzkopf was uncomfortably paranoid, but even paranoids had enemies. Besides, it was good tradecraft.
“The students know, of course,” Schwarzkopf said. It wasn’t a question. “How are they taking it?”
Horst took a moment to compose his answer. He wouldn’t be the only spy, of course; there would be others monitoring the university and if his answers didn’t match theirs, he would be in deep trouble. The only evidence that he was the only spy in Gudrun’s group was the simple fact that none of them had been arrested yet, not after they’d started distributing leaflets. Horst rather doubted that anyone, even Schwarzkopf, would allow a tiny rebel group to get that far.
“They are asking questions, Mein Herr,” he said, finally. “Many of them have family or friends who are currently serving in South Africa and quite a few have dropped out of contact with their relatives. They thought nothing of it until they realised that other families had had the same experience. Then they started wondering what else they might have been told that was also a lie.”
“Questions,” Schwarzkopf repeated. “You have attempted to distract them, of course?”
“I have tried,” Horst lied. “However, Mein Herr, the public arrest of a popular professor has only given the leaflets credence. I do not believe there is any way to stop the spread of the rumours.”
Schwarzkopf’s face darkened. “That is not good.”
“No, Mein Herr,” Horst agreed. “However, the students need to focus on passing their exams. They may well lose interest if the matter is allowed to die.”
“Perhaps,” Schwarzkopf said. He didn’t sound convinced, unsurprisingly. “Do you know who might have written the leaflets?”
“Mein Herr, there are too many students with relatives who are in South Africa,” Horst said, seriously. “I have no proof that any of them are responsible for writing the leaflets, let alone passing them out in the streets. I will, of course, keep my ears open.”
“You’ll do more than that,” Schwarzkopf said. “First, we expect you to find and infiltrate the rebel group. We believe a small cabal of students was behind the leaflets.”
That, Horst had to admit, was frighteningly accurate. He’d assumed they would deduce as much, to be fair, but… he couldn’t help feeling a shiver running down his back. Gudrun might be in more danger than she knew. And yet, with a policeman for a father and an SS boyfriend, she didn’t actually match the pattern of a rebellious student. Horst himself fitted the pattern better than she did.
And I am a rebel, he thought, with a flicker of wry amusement. The pattern fits.
He cleared his mind as he looked up at his handler. “Why a small group of students?”
“A large group would be easy to notice,” Schwarzkopf pointed out, dryly. “We’re looking, I suspect, for three or four students, close friends or family. Probably students with relatives in South Africa. We expect you to find that group and root it out.”