Chosen of the Valkyries (Twilight Of The Gods Book 2) (6 page)

“
Mein Fuhrer
,” she said.  Her voice was a warm contralto, but there was a hint of sharpness in it that made his hindbrain sit up and pay attention.  “I understand that you have a special task for me?”

“I do,” Karl confirmed.  There was something about her that flustered him, more than he cared to admit.  “Please, take a seat.”

He sat down facing her, studying her carefully.  She was beautiful, in the ice-maiden fashion that was so popular in the
Reich
.  Her face looked to have been carved out of flawless marble, her hair was tied up in long braid that fell over her shoulders and her uniform drew attention to the size of her chest.  And yet, the more Karl looked at her, the more he became aware that she moved like a professional ... that she
was
a professional.  She didn't show him a single wasted movement.

This woman is dangerous
, he thought, as he leaned back in his chair.  Part of him wanted to take her to bed, but the remainder knew it would be a dangerous mistake. 
She might even have a realistic shot at the top job
.

“In two weeks, perhaps less, we will be launching a military operation to recover Berlin and eliminate the rebels,” he said, flatly.  Katharine could be trusted - and besides, the rebels weren't fools.  They’d
know
an offensive was coming.  “You and your unit have been held back for a reason.  I have a specific task for you.”

He met her eyes, levelly.  “Can you get into Berlin?”

Katharine showed no visible response to the question.  “I believe it shouldn't be too difficult,” she said, after a moment.  But then, he knew she wouldn't have shown any traces of doubt, whatever her real feelings.  She wouldn't show any weakness in front of a man.  “We would not have travel papers, of course, but the system for producing and tracking paperwork seems to have collapsed.  If necessary, we would pose as refugees making our way westwards until we reached Berlin.  Unfortunately, they have gained control of the air defence network to the west.”

Karl nodded.  They’d slipped one assault team to Berlin via helicopter, but that trick wouldn't work twice.  He’d be astonished if they even managed to get a helicopter over the front lines without it being intercepted and shot down.  Any assault teams would have to make their way over the border on foot, just to make sure they avoided detection.  Katharine would have to do the same herself.

“Very good,” he said.  “Once you’re in Berlin, you are to make contact with underground elements that have remained in place and plan the capture or assassination of the so-called provisional government.  This is to be done when they are coping with our offensive, so they have no time to put replacements forward to take command.  Ideally, I want them held in place until they can be forced to issue an order to surrender; if necessary, you are to kill them and smuggle their heads out as proof.”

“They would be fools,” Katharine observed tonelessly, “if they all stayed in one place.”

“Capture or take out as many as you can,” Karl said.  He shrugged.  “Taking them alive would be nice, but killing them is acceptable.”

He reached into his desk drawer and produced a file.  “Except for this one,” he said, holding the file out to Katharine.  “I want her alive.”

“Gudrun Wieland,” Katharine read.  She skimmed through the file with ease, her brow furrowing slightly.  “The one who started all this.”

“So they say,” Karl said.  He wasn't sure it was true.  Katharine might be a professional killer, but very few women could match her.  Gudrun Wieland’s file made it clear she was nothing more than a university student.  Maybe they
claimed
she’d started the chain of events that led to the uprising, but Karl rather doubted it.  There was a man hiding behind her, he was sure, someone who remained unidentified.  “I want her alive.”

Katharine quirked her eyebrows.  “May I ask why?”

“They have turned her into a symbol of their cause,” Karl said, bluntly.  “A true flower of German womanhood, the lover of a wounded boy, the heroine who avenged him ... such a symbol cannot be merely
killed
.  She must be forced to recant before she is patted on the backside and told to go back to the kitchen.”

He felt a sudden hot flash of anger that disturbed him.  It was impossible to
believe
that Gudrun was the true leader of the uprising, the person who’d started the first pebble rolling down the hillside.  Her background - father a policeman, brother a soldier, boyfriend an SS stormtrooper before he was badly wounded - told against it.  And yet ... if she
was
guilty, Gudrun had fooled a great many people.   She’d even been
arrested
, only to be released for lack of evidence.  It was far more likely that
someone
had talked her into posing as the founder, after she’d been arrested.

And if she is guilty
, he thought,
she will pay for it
.

There were ...
techniques
... used for breaking women, women and their male relatives.  He wouldn't hesitate to order them used, just to make it absolutely clear that Gudrun Wieland would not be able to hide behind her sex.  If she was guilty, she’d be tortured to death ... it went against the grain to inflict such horrendous punishment on a German girl, but it had to be done.  And then her entire family would be killed too ...

Serves them right for letting her get out of hand
, he thought, nastily. 
Her father should have beaten any trace of rebelliousness out of her before she grew into a young woman.

“I will certainly do my upmost to ensure she is brought here,” Katharine said coolly, breaking into his thoughts.  “But you do realise that smuggling one prisoner, let alone a dozen, out of Berlin will not be easy?”

“You may have to keep them under wraps in the city until it falls,” Karl said.  Berlin was vast, easily large enough for an experienced team to hide for weeks if necessary.  The normal surveillance systems were completely offline.  “I know it won’t be easy, but it has to be done.”

“I understand,
Mein Führer
,” Katharine said.  She rose, a movement that drew his attention to her chest.  “And we will do our very best to deliver the traitors to you in chains.”

Chapter Five

Near Vichy, France

2 September 1985

“Wake up,” Horst said, poking her shoulder lightly.  “We’re almost there.”

Gudrun opened her eyes, then stretched.  Sunlight was pouring in through the windows, revealing that they were driving up a mountainside road towards a large French building half-hidden in the foliage.  Guards could be seen everywhere, manning the gates and patrolling the grounds, wearing desert tan uniforms and flat caps that reminded her of something she’d seen back in school.  The Foreign Legion, she recalled, as the driver took them through the gates and parked outside the chateau.  Foreigners who’d travelled to France to fight for her - and leave their pasts behind.

Horst scowled.  “They’re not supposed to be here,” he said, grimly.  “By treaty, the Foreign Legion isn't meant to return to Mainland France.”

“They’re probably making a statement,” Gudrun said.  “Trying to tell us they won’t be pushed around any longer.”

She rolled her eyes in irritation.  Being a councillor - even one without portfolio - had been an education in more ways than one.  She’d known there was something deeply wrong about the
Reich
ever since she’d discovered just what had happened to her former boyfriend, but she’d never truly grasped the full extent of its evil.  The Vichy French had been Germany’s unwilling allies since 1940, trapped within the
Reich’s
network of satellite states, unable to move to partnership or escape Germany’s grasp.  The slightest
hint
of nationalist sentiment would have been enough to get the panzers moving, back before the coup. 

And the French were lucky, compared to some of the others
, she thought, numbly. 
At least there’s still a nation that calls itself France
.

“Here we are,” Horst said, as a man in a light brown suit opened the car door.  “Just remember not to give away more than we
have
to give away.”

Gudrun shot him a dark look as she stepped out into the warm air.  France was warmer than Germany, she’d been told, particularly as the world inched remorselessly towards winter.   A number of her teachers had even made fun of the French, insisting that they were weak because they’d grown up in such a pleasant climate.  Gudrun wasn't sure if that was true - she’d been told thousands of lies at school - but she put the thought firmly out of her mind anyway.  This was a bad time for a three-sided war.

“We cannot afford major trouble on our western borders,” Volker Schulze had said, before she’d departed Berlin.  “If we have to make concessions to keep the French quiet, we will make concessions.”

Horst stayed behind her as she was escorted through a pair of doors and into a sitting room that was, quite evidently, a place for holding clandestine discussions.  She’d half-expected to travel to Compiègne Forest, where Hitler had laid down the terms for France’s surrender and submission to the
Reich
, but the French had offered the Chateau Picard instead.  In some ways, it was a relief.  Her predecessors might have enjoyed rubbing France’s collective nose in just how helpless it was before Germany, but she had to admit it would make it harder to hold talks now.  They needed the French in a reasonably cooperative mood.

“
Fraulein
Wieland,” the French Premier said, in excellent German.  “Welcome to Chateau Picard.”

Gudrun took his hand and shook it, firmly.  Premier Jean-Baptiste Jacquinot was an old man, easily in his seventies.  Vichy France didn't bother to hold elections.  Jacquinot had been deemed suitable by the
Reich
and any attempt to undermine him would have drawn the wrath of the
Reich
Council, as long as Jacquinot served them faithfully.  His position now was somewhat ambiguous, according to Horst.  Vichy might not overthrow him, for fear of what the
Reich
would do, but his real power was declining by the day. 

The younger man beside him underlined it.  Bruno Ouvrard was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes.  It was hard to be sure - the files hadn't been clear - but Gudrun suspected he was only five or six years older than her.  Old enough to be experienced, young enough to gaze upon her with interest.  His mere presence was a sign of just how badly events in Vichy were slipping out of control, she knew.  It said a great deal about the situation that the official government and the growing independence movement knew perfectly well how to talk to one another - and had probably done so for some time.

They should have locked him up
, she thought. 
They could have locked him up.

She sighed, inwardly.  The files had made it clear that Vichy had promised to do its upmost to keep the growing movement from disrupting food supplies to the
Reich
- and failed, miserably.  France had been on the verge of starvation for years now, as German demands grew harsher and harsher.  It was hard to blame the French for wanting to fight - or simply downing tools and refusing to serve the Germans at the expense of their own population.  But they didn't realise they might face a far worse threat in the near future.
 

“Thank you, Premier,” she said.  “Shall we get down to business?”

“Of course,” Jacquinot said.  He nodded towards the comfortable chairs.  “Please, take a seat.”

Gudrun sat, schooling her face into the impassive mask that every German schoolchild learned to master before reaching their second decade.  Showing what one was
really
thinking in school could mean a beating or worse.  She still shivered when she remembered one of her friends being expelled for questioning their teacher over a relatively minor point, even though her family were good Germans.  Gudrun had no idea what had happened to her after that, but she doubted it had been anything pleasant.  The SS hadn't tolerated any open dissent.

“I am curious,” Ouvrard said.  “Why have they sent you,
Fraulein?
”

He made
Fraulein
sound like an insult, Gudrun noted with some amusement.  Perhaps it was, to him. 
Fraulein
was hardly used to address French girls, let alone
Untermenschen
servants and slaves.  The Racial Purity Laws insisted that good Germans could not marry French women, let alone have children with them.  Gudrun could marry a Norwegian or a Dane, if she couldn't find a pure-blooded German, but a Frenchman would be right out.  They were forever isolated from the
Reich
, trapped between the
Volk
and the
Untermenschen
.

“I started the movement that brought down the
Reich
Council,” she said, simply.  “Chancellor Schulze felt you would listen to me.”

“We would listen to anyone,
Fraulein
,” Jacquinot assured her. 
He
didn't make it sound like an insult.  “But doing what you want is quite another matter.”

“I would expect as much,” Gudrun said.  She cursed under her breath.  She knew how to haggle in the market - her mother had taught her - but not how to hold a sensitive diplomatic discussion with a foreign power.  “May I be blunt?”

“Of course,
Fraulein
,” Jacquinot said.

Gudrun leaned forward.  “Right now, the SS is readying its offensive against us,” she said, curtly.  There was no point in trying to hide it.  The BBC and Radio Free Europe had been broadcasting the truth for the last week.  Normally, the
Reich
would have tried to jam the outside broadcasts, but right now the jamming stations were offline.  “If they successfully retake Berlin, the most you can expect is a return to your previous status - servitude to Germany.”

“Unacceptable,” Ouvrard said.

“You do not have the firepower to keep them from pushing into Vichy France and putting your people to the sword,” Gudrun said, bluntly.  “And you have already compromised yourselves, in the eyes of the SS.”

“Just by being born French,” Ouvrard sneered.

Gudrun nodded.  “If we win the war, however, we will be in a position to make a number of concessions,” she added.  “And we have no inclination to keep France permanently subjected to Germany.”

“A pretty speech,” Ouvrard said.  “Why don’t I believe you?”

He met her eyes.  “Why should we not ally with the SS to regain our independence?”

Gudrun stared at him in genuine astonishment.  The French ally with the SS?  Were they out of their minds?  It was so absurd that she refused to believe it was anything more than a negotiating gambit, yet it was
worthless
.  The SS had tormented France ever since 1940, conscripting slave labourers and purging the French of anyone they deemed anti-German.  No Frenchman in his right mind would ally with the SS.

“That’s what the Arabs said,” Horst said, into the silence.  “And remind me - what happened to the Arabs after they were no longer useful.”

“They were slaughtered,” Jacquinot said, flatly.

“Quite,” Gudrun said.  She regained her balance and pushed forward.  “If we have to fight you, now, it may well cost us the war.  Therefore, we would prefer to avoid fighting you ...”

“So would we,
Fraulein
,” Jacquinot said.

“But we also need food supplies from you,” Gudrun continued.  “Our stockpiles are already dangerously low.”

“So we have leverage,” Ouvrard said.

“Not as much as you might think,” Gudrun countered.  “We might simply
take
what we want, devastating France in the process ... or we might lose, leaving you exposed to a vengeful SS that intends to use you as the enemy to reunify the
Reich
.”

“You make a convincing case,
Fraulein
,” Jacquinot observed.

Ouvrard leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his lap.  “There are terms, of course.”

“Of course,” Gudrun echoed.

She looked from one Frenchman to the other, wondering precisely what the balance of power actually was.  Jacquinot controlled the government, in theory, but Gudrun knew from bitter experience that the government was hardly a solid monolith.  Who knew which way the different departments would jump, if their loyalty was tested?  The French generals had to know they were badly outmatched, if push came to shove, but the French soldiers might want to fight.  And, while the French were constantly mocked as military weaklings, they
did
have a hard core of tough professional soldiers, men who had served multiple terms defending French North Africa from insurgents.  Overrunning France would be a distraction the
Reich
could not afford. 

“First, we want political and economic independence,” Ouvrard said.  “Once the war is over, we want complete freedom to make whatever political alliances we like and trade with whoever we like, on even terms.  You will no longer be allowed to dominate us.”

Gudrun nodded.  Volker Schulze and Hans Krueger had expected as much, when they’d discussed the different possibilities with her.  The French economy was in a mess, at least in part, because they were forced to sell their wares to Germany at ruinously cheap prices.  They wouldn't want to
remain
under the
Reich’s
economic thumb.  She was just surprised they hadn't demanded military independence too.

But that would worry us
, she thought.  She’d taken the time to study the true history of German-French relations and they hadn’t proved encouraging.  France and Germany had been at loggerheads from the very first day of the Second
Reich
. 
A France armed with modern weapons - and perhaps even nukes - would be a lethal threat
.

“Those terms are acceptable, with one caveat,” Gudrun said.  “You may not join any outside military alliance or allow outside forces to station troops, aircraft, ships or anything else within your territory.”