Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) Read online

  Leopold blinked in surprise. “Of course I can,” he said. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

  Hilde stuck with Gudrun all through lunch, but had the common sense to keep her questions under wraps while they joined the line for food and drink, then ate as quickly as they could at a small table. The refectory was crammed with students, some wearing uniforms from the nearby military college, others daringly wearing American jeans and t-shirts that had been either smuggled into the Reich or sold at an enormous mark-up in one of the few American stores in the city. Gudrun winced inwardly as she saw one girl swaying past, her jeans so tight around her buttocks that she thought they were going to split open at any moment, then followed Hilde up the stairs and into the study room. Leopold was already there, attaching his stereo to the socket.

  “So,” he said, as he turned on the machine. “What’s all this about, then?”

  “Wait and see,” Gudrun said.

  She sat down and waited as the remainder of the study group - five girls, seven boys - entered the room, then waved to Hilde to close and lock the door. Konrad, the one time he’d visited, had shown her where the bug was hidden, within the spare power socket. She motioned for Leopold to put the stereo next to the bug, then tapped the table for attention. Konrad might never recover from his wounds, but at least he would have a little revenge. She hesitated, knowing that a single traitor within the group would spell her death, and then took the plunge.

  “This isn't about our studies,” she said. “It’s... it's political. If any of you are uneasy, please leave now and we won’t mention it to you again.”

  There was a long pause. No one left.

  Gudrun shuddered, inwardly. No one said anything overtly, but everyone knew that the SS had eyes and ears everywhere. Anyone could be a spy, anyone. Children were induced to betray their parents, if they said something against the Reich; wives could be convinced that their duties to the Reich were more important than their duties to their husbands. The university might be a lair for free-thinkers, it might have been designed to allow young Germans to think, but that only meant the SS would have more invested in keeping an eye on it. Hell, the only reason she believed Konrad had been a genuine visitor to the university, the first time they’d met, was that he’d worn his uniform.

  And I will not let him down, she thought, savagely. There were some risks that had to be taken, even if the consequences were severe. She was damned if she was letting them get away with crippling her boyfriend and then lying to his family. I will do whatever it takes to take revenge.

  “As you know, my boyfriend was sent to South Africa,” she said. It was a nice easy way to start the conversation. “I received two letters from him after his deployment began, then nothing. His family heard nothing too. It was only through a friend in the medical office that I heard he’d actually been sent back to the Reich, that he is currently in hospital right here in Berlin.”

  She swallowed hard, then outlined what she’d done, careful not to mention that Kurt had also been involved. His CO would be furious, at the very least; Kurt would probably find himself attached to a punishment battalion and sent to clear a minefield or chase insurgents in Russia, the insurgents who’d been defeated, according to the news, several times over. The more she looked at the news with a cynical eye, the more she saw the discrepancies. If Russia was safe, why were so many soldiers dying there?

  “They lied to us,” she said.

  “Konrad was nothing special,” Leopold said. He’d never liked Konrad. The SS was rarely popular outside Germany East. “Why would anyone bother to cover up his wounds?”

  “They wouldn't,” Gudrun said, and outlined what she’d deduced. “They must be lying about more than just one wounded soldier. How many others have died, or been wounded, in South Africa?”

  “The news says that only a few hundred soldiers have been killed or wounded on deployment,” Hilde said. She sounded shaken. “My... my boyfriend... could he have been killed or wounded too?”

  Gudrun winced. Hilde’s boyfriend was a tanker who’d been deployed to South Africa a month after Konrad. Martin had never seemed a decent guy to her, but Hilde had clearly liked him, even loved him.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Has he been writing to you?”

  “He sends letters, but they’re always delayed,” Hilde said. “I only get them two or three weeks after they’re posted.”

  “They’re censored,” Sven said. Too late, Gudrun remembered that Sven’s older brother was a soldier too. It was rare to find a German family who didn’t have at least one member in the military. “The REMFs always insist on reading letters before they’re forwarded to their recipients.”

  Hilde coloured. “But he wrote...”

  Gudrun could guess. “I don’t think they really care about endearments,” she said. She had a feeling that Martin had written something a little more passionate than Konrad ever had, but the censors probably wouldn't care. It wasn't as if he was sending racy postcards of himself back to his girlfriend. “However, they probably do black out anything to do with the war itself.”

  Leopold frowned. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this conversation is?”

  “Yes,” Gudrun said, flatly. “Yes, I do.”

  “She did offer to allow us to leave,” Hilde pointed out.

  Gudrun shot her a grateful look. “We’re being lied to,” she said, bluntly. “And many of us have relatives who may already be dead or wounded - and we don’t know.”

  “This could be just an absurd coincidence,” Leopold said, after a moment. “Konrad” - his face twisted for a moment - “might have been caught up in a covert operation of some kind.”

  “This isn't a story from one of those damned Otto Skorzeny books,” Sven snapped. “Konrad wasn't a superhuman commando, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

  Gudrun hid a smile. She'd been forced to read the Otto Skorzeny books herself, at school; Otto Skorzeny, who apparently had been a real person, had pulled off hundreds of death-defying stunts that had reshaped the face of the world. Skorzeny had been pitted against a multitude of villains - Evil Jewish Bankers, Evil American Capitalists, Evil Russian Communists, Evil British Monarchists - and emerged triumphant every time. The books had practically drooled over how Skorzeny proved that National Socialism was the way forward; none could stand against Skorzeny, they’d claimed, because he was a true follower of Adolf Hitler.

  And how many of those stories, Gudrun asked herself, were made up of whole cloth?

  Hilde held up a hand. “If there's one, as Gudrun said, there will be others,” she said. “And Martin could be among the dead.”

  “Let’s assume that’s true,” Leopold said. “What do we do about it?”

  “What can we do?” Isla Grasser asked. “It isn't as if we have any real power.”

  “The first thing we do is try and find out how widespread this is,” Gudrun said. She'd need more than a single wounded SS trooper to convince people that something was very badly wrong. “We all know people who are serving in South Africa. I want you all to ask questions, to find out when those people last wrote to their families, to find out when they last had leave from the front. We will all ask those questions.”

  “Martin’s family won’t talk to me,” Hilde said. “They don’t think I’d make a good housewife.”

  Leopold snickered. “Tell them you’re pregnant.”

  Hilde glared at him. “I’ve bled three times since he left,” she snarled. “I don’t have any way to convince them I’m pregnant.”

  Leopold turned red and started to splutter. Gudrun winked at Hilde. Sex education in the Reich was very limited, but they’d all been taught how their bodies worked and how to recognise a pregnancy. She’d always found it amusing how men turned deaf whenever the subject of female issues cropped up, although she was privately sure that men talked about them in private. Why not? She and her girlfriends often poked fun at male foibles.

  “You can just tell them tha
t you’re worried about him,” she said. “I think they’d appreciate that, you know.”

  “I doubt it,” Hilde said. She looked downcast for a long moment. “They were trying to set him up with some brainless bitch who came top of the class in basic housewifery.”

  “My mother is hardly brainless,” Gudrun said. “And I don’t think anyone else has a brainless mother either.”

  “That’s not very helpful,” Hilde said.

  Gudrun shrugged. “Are we all agreed on our first step?”

  “Yeah,” Sven said. “But tell me, Gudrun; what are we going to do if we discover there are more soldiers who’ve lost contact with their families?”

  “Then we decide what to do,” Gudrun said. She had half a plan already, but she needed them to understand what was going on before she could push them to commit to anything more than private discussions. “You can all think about it while we’re gathering data and then we can decide what to do.”

  “Escape to America,” Horst said, quietly. “My brother says he isn't planning to come back after his period in America comes to an end.”

  Gudrun sucked in her breath. She'd applied for the chance to become an exchange student, but she wasn't particularly hopeful. Even if she won one of the coveted slots, her parents would probably refuse to allow her to leave the country. But if she was allowed to leave... would she return? There was no shortage of whispered stories about students who tasted life in America, home of blue jeans, country music and freedom, and refused to come back to Germany.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Without one of the slots, it was unlikely she could get to Vichy France, let alone Britain. She wouldn't have a travel permit, for one thing, and an unaccompanied teenage girl would raise eyebrows. “We are supposed to be the smartest people in Germany. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “There were stories of student protests in America,” Isla said.

  “Those students weren't at risk of being gunned down like rampaging Gastarbeiters,” Horst snapped. “If we do anything with this information, we run a terrible risk.”

  “Yes, we do,” Gudrun said. She took a breath. “Konrad was - is - an SS trooper - I know, some of you detested him for wearing the Sigrunen lightning bolts. But he is a brave and decent man and he has been betrayed by the men he serves. A dead war hero is meant to be given a hero’s funeral, a wounded war hero is meant to lack for nothing. And yet, what does he have? A hospital bed in a crowded ward and no hope of recovery, while his family thinks he’s still in South Africa! What will they tell his family when he is due to return from the war?”

  She took a breath, looking from face to face. None of them had really known what they were getting into, not really. They certainly hadn't realised what she intended to tell them.

  “I’m not going to sit on my backside and do nothing,” she concluded. “We are going to find out the truth and then we’re going to work out what to do with it. It is our duty to our country. That is what we are going to do.”

  Chapter Seven

  Schulze Residence/SS Safehouse, Berlin

  20 July 1985

  “Gudrun,” Liana Schulze called, as she opened the door. “Have you heard anything from my brother?”

  Gudrun felt a stab of guilt as she looked at the younger girl. Liana was sixteen, on the verge of adulthood; hell, she could marry with her parents’ permission, if she didn't want to finish her final year of schooling. And she’d always looked up to Gudrun, chatting happily to her about nothing in particular; Gudrun had always thought she’d make a good sister-in-law. But she didn't dare tell the younger girl the truth. She’d speak to her father and he’d report Gudrun to the authorities.

  “I haven’t heard anything from your brother,” she said. It was true enough. “I actually came to speak to your father.”

  Liana’s face fell. Gudrun understood. She was the only child left in the house, now that Konrad had gone to war; she’d have no one to talk to, merely chores to perform for her mother. And she had to have known, at some deep level, that Gudrun hadn't come to talk to her. Gudrun was eighteen and a university student to boot. Socially, they had very little in common. They’d hardly spend time together when Konrad wasn't around.

  “I understand,” she said. “Are you...”

  Pregnant, Gudrun thought. She hadn't gone all the way with Konrad. And it would have obvious that I was pregnant four months ago, if I was pregnant.

  “No, but I do need to speak to him,” she said. “Is he in his study?”

  “I think so,” Liana said.

  She held the door open long enough for Gudrun to step inside and then closed it before leading the way through the living room and up to the door of Volker Schulze’s study. It was firmly shut, perhaps locked; Liana tapped on the door and waited for her father to invite her in before opening the door. Gudrun stepped past her and into the study.

  “Gudrun,” Volker Schulze said. He lifted an eyebrow as he turned to face her. “What brings you to my house?”

  Gudrun hesitated, bracing herself. Volker Schulze had always made her a little nervous, even though she had the feeling that her father was meant to make Konrad nervous. He looked like an older version of his son, his face marred by scars from a long career in the SS before he’d retired and found work as a factory foreman. His study was covered with mementos of his career, from a spiked helmet he’d salvaged from somewhere to a pistol he claimed to have taken from a British commando team in North Africa. A large chart hung on the far wall, showing the spread of the Reich.

  And just how much of that chart, Gudrun asked herself, is a lie?

  She pushed the question to one side. “Since we last spoke, I haven’t heard anything from Konrad,” she said, simply. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from him yourself.”

  Volker Schulze looked pensive. “I haven’t heard anything, no,” he said. Gudrun trusted he wouldn't have kept anything from her, if he had heard something. “Do you have reason to worry?”

  “I miss him,” Gudrun said.

  “Young men have always gone to war,” Volker Schulze said, as reassuringly as he could. “I believe that young women like you have always waited for their heroes to come home.”

  Gudrun winced before she could catch herself. One thing that had been hammered into her head at school was the importance of remaining faithful. A girl who dumped a boy while he was on deployment could expect to be a social pariah, even if the boy had been abusive and beaten her while they were together. Even if there had been someone else, she knew, it would have been cruel to dump Konrad while he was away. She would have waited for him to come home before telling him the bad news.

  “But I’ve heard nothing,” she said, plaintively. Perhaps it would cover her lapse. “Where is he?”

  “On deployment,” Volker Schulze said. He stood and patted her shoulder, awkwardly. “I was often out of touch for months at a time, Gudrun. Konrad may well be in the same position.”

  He paused. “Are you...?”

  “No,” Gudrun said, firmly. She groaned inwardly, resisting the urge to rub his nose in how she knew she wasn't expecting a baby. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “That’s good,” Volker Schulze said. “Gudrun, I understand how you feel, but Konrad isn't choosing not to write to you. I believe he will contact you as soon as he can. He does love you and we, his parents, approve of you.”

  Gudrun felt another stab of bitter guilt. Hilde wasn't atypical; parents, particularly those who had lived through the deprivation of the war, wanted their sons to marry good housewives, women who could cook, clean and bear their grandchildren. They didn't want academics, career women or even the handful of girls who’d made a career in the military; they assumed, perhaps correctly, that such women would never let their husbands boss them around in public. Konrad’s parents could easily have told him that they would never approve his relationship with Gudrun and the hell of it was that they might have had a point. Instead, they’d welcomed her into their house.r />
  “I thank you,” she said, lowering her gaze. “Have you heard anything else from the front?”

  Volker Schulze gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

  “The news is always bland,” Gudrun said, carefully. “I was wondering if you’d heard something a little more detailed.”

  “There are endless skirmishes with the insurgents,” Volker Schulze said. It wasn't much more than she could have deduced from the news broadcasts, reading between the lines. “It may take longer than we had thought to defeat the niggers.”

  Gudrun blinked. “The news said it would only be a short commitment.”

  Volker Schulze gave her a long considering look. “There are people in my office,” he said, “who don’t really understand how the factory actually works. Therefore, they make promises they cannot keep to people who are equally in the dark about what’s actually happening and rely on the managers on the ground to cover for their failings.”