The Man with the Iron Heart (23 page)

“Wunderbar,”
Heydrich said sourly. “Just killing them didn’t matter. Killing them and accomplishing something does.”

“The new men in those slots won’t be as sharp as the ones we got rid of,” Klein said. “That’s bound to help us later on.”

“Wunderbar.”
Heydrich sounded even more morose this time. He didn’t know what the hell to do about the Russians. In the western occupation zones, the resistance was going as well as he’d hoped, maybe better. Lots of Americans and Englishmen and even some Frenchmen were yelling that holding Germany down was more expensive than it was worth.

They hadn’t taken a blow even close to the one poisoned liquor gave the Red Army. But the Russians didn’t miss a beat. They hanged Germans and shot them and deported them and hunted Heydrich’s underground more ferociously than ever. Nothing seemed to faze them. The
Reichsprotektor
couldn’t understand it.

Well, Hitler hadn’t understood it, either. He’d said one good kick would bring the whole rotten structure of the Soviet Union crashing down. And he’d proceeded to deliver the good kick with 3,000,000 men, 3,000 panzers, and 2,000 planes. And the USSR staggered and lurched and reeled…and then, like one of those toys weighted at the bottom, bobbed upright again in spite of everything. And it started kicking back, and didn’t stop kicking till the
Reich
lay prostrate under its boot.

The same thing was happening now. Knock out that many top French or British or American officers—hell, knock out that many top German officers—and the army you’d just sucker-punched would do its best imitation of a chicken right after it met the hatchet.

(Which reminded Heydrich: what would happen to the resistance if he went down? Jochen Peiper, his number two, was a pup—he’d just turned thirty. He was a damned capable pup, though. He ought to be able to carry on. Heydrich had to hope so.)

As for the Red Army, the Germans had seen too often, to their dismay and discomfiture, that it had an almost unlimited supply of human spare parts. Take out a bunch of people and Stalin would simply bolt on replacements and carry on as before. Maybe the military engine ran rough for a while. But it kept running. Since it hadn’t had much luck rooting out Heydrich’s fighters, it avenged itself on the German people as a whole.

When Heydrich growled about that, Johannes Klein said, “It’s bad for even more reasons than you’re talking about, sir.”

“Oh? What am I missing?” Heydrich was always ready to acquire fresh fuel for his righteous indignation.

“They aren’t just killing Germans for the fun of killing Germans. Maybe they’re raping for the fun of it, but not killing,” the veteran noncom answered. Heydrich snorted.
Oberscharführer
Klein went on, “They’re being horrible to try and detach the
Volk
from us. If people start thinking helping us—or even keeping quiet about us—means they’ll get strung up, they’ll blab. You bet they will. They’ll blab like you wouldn’t believe.”

Heydrich thought that over, but not for long.
“Scheisse,”
he said crisply. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right, dammit. Now what do we do about it?”

“Beats me, sir,” Klein said, which made the
Reichsprotektor
want to clout him in the ear. Oblivious to that, or at least affecting to be, Klein continued, “As long as we look strong, we’ve still got a decent chance. The Russian partisans weren’t that much trouble till they saw we wouldn’t take Moscow, and our Frenchies stayed in bed with us till the Anglo-Americans landed. Hell, some of ’em stayed longer than that.”

A mocking smile stretched Heydrich’s thin lips. Some of the French collaborators had indeed clung to the
Reich
till the bitter end. What called itself Radio Paris went on broadcasting from Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany long after the real Paris fell. And some of Berlin’s last defenders were troops from the SS
Charlemagne
division (so-called; it never really got above regimental strength): Frenchmen with a few German officers and noncoms.

But things were different here. Now Heydrich’s followers needed the goodwill—or at least the silence—of the people among whom they moved. They tried not to compromise the wider populace…but how could you fight back at all without endangering them, especially when you faced a ruthless foe like the Russians?

You couldn’t. And, as Hans Klein reminded him, that carried risks of its own. Thinking out loud, Heydrich said, “I don’t want to have to pull out of cities in the Russian zone and in the parts of the
Reich
the Poles and Czechs are stealing from us. Harder to strike at the enemy if we stick to fields and forests.”

“Yes, sir.” Klein nodded. “Chances are it wouldn’t do us any good anyway. Just ’cause we move out of Breslau, say, nothing to keep the Russians from reaching in and hanging a hundred people there, or a thousand, on account of we blew up a panzer somewhere else.”

“Himmeldonnerwetter,”
Heydrich muttered. The
Oberscharführer
was right again, however much Heydrich wished he weren’t. All the Germans in the land lost to the Soviet Union were hostages. The NKVD wouldn’t need long to figure that out, if it hadn’t already. And it would be as vicious as Stalin decided it needed to be…and if Stalin’s viciousness had a limit, the world hadn’t seen it yet.

Although Hitler was almost eight months dead, even thinking that someone else might be harder than he was made Heydrich want to look over his shoulder and make sure no
Gestapo
or
Sicherheitsdienst
man was standing there and writing him up for disloyalty.

Heydrich knew that was ridiculous. If anyone qualified as
Führer
these days, he did. But, like the men he led, old habits died hard. And knowing in your head was different from knowing in your belly. As far as Heydrich’s belly was concerned, Hitler still ruled the
Reich
from Berlin.

I will rebuild it,
mein Führer.
I promise I will,
the
Reichsprotektor
thought.
I’ll make it as much the way you would have as I can.

“
Herr Reichsprotektor,
I’ve got another question for you, if you don’t mind too much,” Klein said.

You would,
flashed through Heydrich’s mind. But he forced himself to patience; as he’d seen, the noncom sometimes thought of things he’d missed himself. And so his voice held no snap—or he hoped it didn’t, anyhow—when he asked, “What is it?”

“Suppose the Amis do decide to pack up and go home. Then suppose they don’t like what we’re doing once we come out of the caves and mines and bunkers and start running things. Will they drop one of those goddamn atom bombs on us?”

“I don’t know if they will, but they can. I’m sure of that—how could we stop them?” Heydrich said. “That’s why we’ve got to get one for ourselves as soon as we can. Till we do, you’re right—we live on their sufferance. So do the Russians, but Russia’s a lot bigger than Germany.”

“We found that out the hard way,” Klein remarked.

“Didn’t we just! I was thinking the same thing a little while ago. And that reminds me of something else…. Where the devil did I see it?” Heydrich pawed through papers. He didn’t like being an administrator; he craved action. But unless he knew what was going on, he wouldn’t know what to act on. His desk wasn’t especially neat, but after a few seconds he found what he was looking for. “They grabbed as many of our nuclear physicists as they could catch and took them over to England right after the surrender.”

“Did they? I hadn’t heard that, but it doesn’t surprise me.” Klein nodded to himself. “Nope, doesn’t surprise me one goddamn bit. The British’d want to grill ’em, and they wouldn’t want the Russians to grab any of them.”

“Right on both counts,” Heydrich agreed. “Same kind of race with them as there was with the engineers who built our rockets. You can bet the Ivans got their hands on some of both groups, too, damn them. But that’s not the point.”

“Well, what
is
the point, then, sir?” Klein asked reasonably.

“The point is that ten of these fellows with the high foreheads came back to Germany on the…” Heydrich paused to check the sheet of paper he’d uncovered. “On the third of January, that’s when it was. Just a couple of weeks ago. They landed at Lübeck, in the British zone. Now they’re staying at a tricked-out clothing store in Alswede, not far away.”

“Lübeck? Alswede?” Dismay filled Klein’s voice. “That’s up by the Baltic—and no more than a long spit from the edge of the Russian zone. The Tommies’d better hope the NKVD doesn’t try a snatch-and-grab.”

“They do have
some
security,” Heydrich admitted reluctantly. “And they make sure the physicists can’t just go wandering off on their own. They have an evening curfew. The brains can’t leave the British zone, and their families are hostages to make sure they behave. The Tommies don’t say that’s how things are, but it’s what they amount to.”

“Better than nothing, I suppose. Still not good,” Klein said.

Now Heydrich nodded; he felt the same way. But he turned the talk in a different direction: “I’ve made inquiries up there. The British are going to really start letting people go any day now. Harteck and Diebner plan to go the Hamburg. Heisenberg and Hahn aim to start up their old institute in Göttingen. Von Weizsäcker and Bagge and some of the others are thinking about joining up with them there. They all know more than they did during the war. If nothing else, they’ve learned a lot from the enemy. And that means…” He let his voice trail away and waited.

People talked about watching a light come on on somebody’s face. Heydrich watched it happen with Johannes Klein. “Sweet suffering Jesus!” the
Oberscharführer
exclaimed. “We can grab ’em ourselves, put ’em to work making bombs for us!”

“We can sure grab them. I aim to try,” Heydrich agreed. “That way, we deny them to the British—and to the Russians. I don’t know how much they can actually do for us. We won’t have a lot of the equipment they’d need, and we may not be able to take it—steal it—without giving away too much. Still, all we can do is try.”

“Yes, sir!” Klein’s eyes glowed. “When we’ve got a bomb like that for ourselves, nobody will be able to kick us around any more, not ever again.”

“That’s right, Hans. As a matter of fact, we’ll be able to do some kicking ourselves.” Reinhard Heydrich’s predatory smile said he looked forward to it. But then the smile faded like an old photograph left too long in the sun. He started shuffling through the papers on his desk again.

“What’s up, sir?” Klein inquired.

“Some other business that needs taking care of,” Heydrich said: an answer that wasn’t. “All this stuff happens at the same time, and you can’t let any of it get away from you or you’re screwed. It’s a miracle the
Führer
handled so much so well for so long.”

“And then after a while he didn’t,” Klein said. Heydrich gave him a look. The noncom stuck out his chin. “Oh, c’mon, sir. you know it’s true. He screwed up the Russian war like nobody’s business. And when we still weren’t doing real bad, you know, nobody’d make terms with us, ’cause the Anglo-Americans and Stalin only figured the
Führer
would use the time to rebuild and then jump ’em again. And he would have, too. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Heydrich couldn’t. Every word was gospel. All the same…Klein must not have had that internalized
Führer
looking over his shoulder. “Will you say the same thing about me?” Heydrich asked dryly.

“Sure hope not, sir,” the
Oberscharführer
answered. “But wouldn’t you rather have somebody tell you to your face you’re going wrong instead of being too scared to open his mouth till after everything’s down the shitter?”

If you told Hitler he was wrong to his face, you’d pay for it. If you were lucky like some of his generals, you’d retire whether you wanted to or not. If you weren’t…well, that was one of the things concentration camps were for.

“A point, Hans,” Heydrich admitted. “Still, even if you do tell me I’m going wrong, I reserve the right to think you’re full of crap.”

“Oh, sure,” Klein said. “Officers always do. Every once in a while, they’re even right.” He sketched a salute and ambled out into the rocky corridor. Heydrich stared after him. Noncoms who’d been around for a long time always thought they deserved the last word. Every so often, you had to remind them why you were in command. Every so often—but maybe not today.

L
OU
W
EISSBERG HELD UP A COPY OF THE
I
NTERNATIONAL
H
ERALD
-T
RIBUNE.
It had a front-page story about a demonstration in California against the continued American occupation of Germany. The story called the demonstration “the largest and loudest yet.”

Captain Howard Frank grimaced when he saw the paper. “I already read it,” he said. “Hot damn.”

“Yup.” Lou nodded. “Story didn’t make the
Stars and Stripes.
Funny how that works, huh?”

“Funny, yeah. Funny like a truss.” Captain Frank made a small production out of lighting a cigarette. He held out the pack to Lou. “Want one?”

“Thanks.” Lou flicked a Zippo to get his started. After a couple of puffs, he said, “Y’know, we can lick our enemies. We knocked these Nazi assholes flat. If Stalin fucks with us, we’ll wallop him into the middle of next week. He’s gotta know it, too. But how the devil are we supposed to beat the people who say they’re on our side?”

“Good question. If you’ve got a good answer, go tell Eisenhower. Hell, write it up and tell Truman,” Frank said.

“Thanks a bunch—sir.”

Howard Frank held up his hand. “Hey, I’m not kidding—not even a little bit. We can’t stay here if the folks back home decide we ought to pack up and leave. If your Congressman tries to buck ’em, they’ll throw him out on his ass this November. If Truman tries, they’ll throw him out in ’48. And where will we be then?”

“Up shit creek, that’s where. And they’ll be
‘Sieg heil!’
ing from what used to be the American zone twenty minutes after the last C-47 takes off,” Lou said.