‘All charges against you have been dropped. I saw to that before I came here. The orders were direct from Heydrich himself. Too bad he will never know about them.’
Bethwig straightened to study the officer. ‘Aren’t you taking one hell of a chance doing this for me?’
‘Only if Heydrich should recover, and that is not likely. Blood poisoning has set in. Now, no more talk. We must hurry.’
Bethwig shook his head. ‘There is one more consideration – Inge. She has to come with us.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible.’
For a moment the irony of repeating Heydrich’s own words struck Bethwig as funny, and he almost laughed aloud.
‘This is.’ Ullman gripped his arm. ‘Listen to me. She is under guard. There is no way that I can get her out. If it is known that I even spoke with her, I will be in serious trouble and might find myself part of the clean-up. I can assure you that she is safe for now. She will be released from the hospital in three days’ time, then I can arrange for her to leave Prague. But until Heydrich is dead, it is impossible for me to do more.’
Bethwig hesitated, his mind a whirl of apprehension.
‘Make up your mind,’ Ullman snapped, if you are dead, you can do nothing for her. This way she still has a chance, and so do you.’
Bethwig’s face was a study in frustration as he nodded. When they left the apartment, Ullman walked behind and a sentry followed at his nod. The three flights of stairs and the ornate lobby seemed endless, but no one paid them the slightest attention. The chauffeur was stiff and correct as he held the door, and the colonel dismissed the sentry.
A curious silence seemed to have fallen over Prague. Military patrols were everywhere, and on some street corners groups of people huddled together under the hostile eyes of SS detachments. The car stopped at four separate checkpoints where their papers were meticulously examined.
‘The round-up has begun,’ Ullman observed. ‘Orders have come from Berlin to find the assassins at all costs. Examples are already being made. They say that the Führer broke down and cried like a child when the news was given to him. Heydrich was his favourite.’
Bethwig kept silent, troubled by the haunted eyes that had stared at their car as they stopped at an intersection for a convoy of military trucks. The people – men, women, and children – seemed to have been rounded up indiscriminately, and all were clearly frightened. If what had been done to Inge was merely a casual lesson to persuade him, they had every reason to be afraid.
‘And I thought the Czech people loved him so much,’ he observed bitterly after the car had started up again.
‘Who told you that?’
‘He did.’
The colonel’s laugh was bitter, ‘It’s hard to love your hangman. That’s what they called him, you know.’
Colonel Ullman’s estimate was not far wrong. It was just after midnight when Bethwig raced from the Peenemunde airfield to von Braun’s quarters. He pounded on the door until he heard a sleepy muttering on the other side.
‘Damn it, Wernher, open the door!’
‘Franz? Just a moment.’
The door opened and von Braun waved him in. ‘Damn it, Franz, couldn’t you have waited until morning to tell about the fleshpots of Prague?’ He shuffled back into the room, turning on the light and sorting through the jumble of papers on his desk for a cigarette.
Bethwig kicked the door closed. ‘Shut up and sit down. This is serious.’
‘What the devil are you…?’
‘British agents shot Heydrich on Wednesday morning. He is not expected to live.’
Von Braun gaped at him. ‘Shot… Heydrich?’ He swallowed. The packet of cigarettes found, Bethwig then waited while he lit one, allowing him time to absorb the shock.
‘There was nothing about it on the wireless… or in the papers…’
‘Of course not. And there won’t be until he dies.’
‘He isn’t dead yet?’ Von Braun’s voice was hopeful.
‘He is dying,’ Bethwig said harshly. ‘Blood poisoning. And good riddance as well.’
‘What are you saying, Franz? Without him, how can we continue the A-Ten?’
‘Damned good question. First you had better hear what happened to me. Then you might not be so saddened by our dear patron’s imminent departure for hell.’ Bethwig told him the entire story, leaving nothing out except the details of Inge’s mental history.
Von Braun listened with a growing amazement that quickly turned to grim anger. When Bethwig finished, he stubbed out his cigarette with a vicious twisting motion.
‘It’s damned good riddance then, as you said,’ he snarled. ‘Until things clarify themselves, I suppose we had better continue as we have. Try to get as much done as possible in case we have to persuade someone else to support us.’
Bethwig nodded. ‘That’s my feeling as well. As for finding someone else to back us, we’re still not out of the woods as far as the SS is concerned.’
‘Perhaps not,’ von Braun replied, his voice thoughtful. ‘But perhaps it is possible that we have enough results now to persuade the Army General Staff to back us, particularly if we let it slip that the SS, in the person of the soon-to-be-martyred Reinhard Heydrich, was behind it. That would scare the hell out of them.’
‘It might also get us shot by our own employers,’ Bethwig snorted.
Three weeks later two SS officers accompanied by the Gestapo officer Walsch arrived at Peenemunde to arrest von Braun. Walsch politely introduced himself and reminded von Braun that they had met several years before in Berlin, in the office of Colonel Dornberger. He smiled when von Braun recalled the circumstances, and they flew to Berlin that afternoon, in spite of Dornberger’s strenuous protests. The aircraft took off even as Dornberger was trying to get through to Gestapo headquarters.
Bethwig telephoned his father that evening to ask him to use his influence to fix an appointment with Reichsführer Himmler, reasoning that the order for the arrest of Wernher von Braun, an army employee, by the SD could only have come from his office. His father agreed to help, but it was three days before the meeting could be arranged. Dornberger threw up his hands in despair when he heard what Bethwig had done.
‘For God’s sake, Franz, now there will be two of you to get out of prison, or worse.’
Added to his worry about von Braun was the lack of any communication from Colonel Ullman. Twice he had tried to phone through, only to be told that lines were unavailable. And there was little news of any kind from the protectorate. God only knew what havoc the SD were causing there.
The following day Bethwig, taking a roundabout route through Hamburg, drove to Berlin to consult with his father.
‘Hah! British agents indeed,’ his father had exploded in anger. ‘Mark my words, young man, the deed was done and Heydrich murdered at the express order of that weak-chinned jealous little sadist Himmler.’ Bethwig had told him what he knew of the happenings in Prague.
‘Jumped-up chicken farmer!’ his father muttered, pacing about his cluttered office. The swastika armband he was never without seemed somewhat shabby on the sleeve of his suit jacket, Bethwig observed. As shabby as the party’s morals and mission were becoming. What happened to them? he wondered. It had all changed in such a short time. The war was to have tempered the movement; instead it seemed to be destroying it.
‘I do not understand why we must put up with such men as these. Even Goering has become a good-for-nothing drug addict. Such nonsense brings trouble in the end. Gangsters, that’s what they are. Nothing but gangsters.’
He spun and pointed a blunt finger at his son. ‘Do not let that little toad intimidate you. He is not quite as secure as he thinks. The Führer said to me not more than a week ago that perhaps it was time for the party to clean house again, and I heartily agreed. You know how he works; first the suggestions to high party members to test their opinion, then intensive planning and decisive action – swift, merciless action. That was the way it was when we got rid of Roehm. I suspect that this time he has people like Himmler and perhaps this Goebbels in mind. Never did like that little cripple. Too shrill.’ The old man sighed then. ‘Well, Franz, if you have told me everything, I doubt if you have anything to worry about. There seems to be nothing that monster can hold over your head. Be firm and remember your position and your strengths. We are Bethwigs and we are German. And the Führer knows who his supporters are.’