A Traitor's Loyalty: A Novel (30 page)

For several long moments none of them said anything; they simply stood staring at each other. Then Ellie walked over to one of the settees and collapsed onto it, expelling a great breath of air, breaking the spell. Barnes sat on the other settee, and Gunning seated himself on one of the chairs.

“So this is it?” the sergeant said. “We’re done? Just like that?”

“It does seem rather anticlimactic,” Barnes agreed.

Quinn massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, but he did not sit down. Instead he wandered into the bedroom, passing the cherry-wood dresser to stand at the window. He pulled the curtain aside a crack and stared down at the view of the River Danube and, across it, the city bell tower and communal hall. Thousands upon thousands of people, all dressed in black, packed the park spread on the riverbank before the hall; he could see the straight line of empty space that marked the beginning of the processional route running across the park from the steps of the communal hall to In den Lauben.

After a few minutes he heard the soft padding of footsteps on the carpet behind him, but he did not turn.

“You should rest.” Ellie. He had expected as much.

He waited a moment longer, then turned to her. She was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded over her chest, watching him with a slight smile playing over her lips; it was possibly the first time he had seen her happy. Her hair was bedraggled, she wore no makeup, and her clothes were those she had thrown on when Barnes and Gunning broke into her flat. She looked radiant.

She straightened, closed the door behind herself, walked over to him and kissed him. When the kiss broke off, they stared into each other’s eyes. She was smiling, but he was solemn. Absently, he brushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face. She took him by the hand and fell onto the bed, pulling him down with her, and they lay there, he with his arm around her.

The low buzz of voices on the television or radio, Wagner playing in the background, emanated from the other room, and Quinn glanced at the closed door. “They’ll have the funeral on,” he said; there would be nothing else being broadcast. “We should join them. I imagine it’ll be a fairly interesting show.”

He made no move to get up, but all the same she rested her hand on his chest to keep him where he was. “What are we going to do?” she asked, still smiling.

“What do you mean?”

“After this. After . . . all this.” She lifted her hand from his chest to make an airy gesture at the room around
them. “What are we going to do after it’s all over? Where are we going to go?”

He frowned. “Well, you heard the general. The most likely outcome is still that Heydrich will be hopelessly outnumbered, and Himmler will overturn the will.”

“In which case the Waffen-SS will storm this floor and summarily execute all of us, yes?”

“Yes.”

She made a face at him. “Then let’s plan for the other eventuality.”

He smiled. “All right. Heydrich will be willing to take care of us, but he’ll probably want us out of the way. Won’t want to broadcast that a group of British spies brought him to power. We can live quietly somewhere in the Reich, a small flat in Berlin or Frankfurt or Prague.”

She considered this. “I’d like that. But you probably want to leave Germany.”

He nodded. “Yes. But Britain won’t take us. Even if another Government comes to power, one that repudiates this treaty, I’ve still crossed MI6.”

“There’s always the Warsaw Pact,” she suggested brightly. “Germany will let us stay somewhere in the Pact.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “A cottage in the Italian Alps, or a Mediterranean villa in Marseilles or Barcelona.” That made him think of Maurice and Karl, and he closed his eyes. He knew what would really happen, of course: even if Heydrich, embarrassed by their existence, did not simply have them killed, there was still MI6 to contend with, and disaffected followers of Himmler in the Gestapo. That had been the choice he had made: if he fought this treaty, even if he was successful, he would die. There simply was not anywhere on Earth they could hide from all the groups that would be out to get them.

But he did not want to think about that, especially did not want to think about that happening to Ellie, and all because of him, so he played along with her fantasy, because it took his mind away from what he knew to be the truth.

He opened his eyes, ready to continue, but saw that her smile had been replaced by a concerned, confused frown. Apparently his emotions had been a little clearer on his face than he thought.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said, mustering a wan smile. Then, to change the subject, he pushed on hurriedly, “We could go to America. Or Canada, or Australia. They’ll all owe us a favor if we keep Britain from going over to Germany.”

She closed her eyes and snuggled herself more deeply into the pocket of his shoulder, choosing to accept his assertion that he was fine. “I’ll have to learn English,” she said.

“Yes, but it’s a beautiful language,” he said. “And you’ll have me to teach you. English can make you laugh. German makes you frown. It makes you sound angry.” He ran his thumb tenderly along her cheekbone. “When you’re forty, if you’ve spoken English you’ll be much prettier.” She giggled.

A forceful knocking sounded, but it was not at the bedroom door; someone must be at their suite door. Quinn got up, opened the bedroom door and entered the main room, followed by Ellie. The television was on. Barnes and Gunning were standing warily a few feet from the door. Quinn heard the key turning in the lock, then the door swung open.

A Wehrmacht major stood in the doorway, the badge of the Eastern Command on his greatcoat lapel. Their room guard’s shoulder and the muzzle of his automatic rifle were just visible in the doorframe.

The major strode into their room and took them all in with a quick, severe glance. He looked a little young for his rank; Quinn guessed he must be about thirty.

“You must come with me,” he said simply.

None of them moved. “Why?” Barnes asked.

The major surveyed him with disdain. At last he said, reluctantly, “The Commissar-General’s orders. He wishes you moved to a more secure location.”

Quinn and Barnes exchanged glances. “We’d like to see the Commissar-General, then,” Quinn said.

The major let out an exasperated sigh and spoke to Quinn as if he were a child. “The Commissar-General
has already left for the Führer’s funeral. You’ll just have to come along.”

Quinn did not like such a sudden change, and he could tell that neither did Barnes, but there was hardly anything they could do about it. Barnes nodded to the major. “All right.”

The major strode impatiently from the room, and slowly, the four of them followed. Quinn was last out the door. As he was leaving, he caught a quick glance of the picture on the television: rows of hundreds of people seated in a large hall before a podium and, beside it, the Führer’s casket draped in a swastika flag.

“The ceremony should of course have begun,”
the commentator was saying in a hushed, respectful tone,
“but we have been informed that this delay will last just a few minutes more. Apparently it is caused by the unexplained absence of SS-Oberstgruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, Reich Commissar-General of the Eastern Territories.”

Quinn emerged from the suite, and the guard fell into step behind them. The major led them back down the corridor to the entrance foyer, where the lieutenant behind the desk rose immediately and snapped to attention. The major ignored him, striding to the lift and pressing the button several times rapidly to summon it.

It took a few minutes for the lift to arrive. They all got in, and the bellhop asked their destination. “Parking level four,” the major said.

“Where are we going?” Quinn asked as the lift descended.

The major flashed him an irritable glance. “I told you. To a more secure location.”

“Yes, but where?” Quinn asked. “In the city? Outside the city?”

The major hesitated, then said, “I haven’t been briefed with that information. Your driver will know where to take you.”

“But surely,” Quinn pressed, “the most
insecure
place for us to be right now is in transit through Linz. The city is about to turn into a war zone. What’s going on out there? Has the Commissar-General secured the communal hall?”

“You will be given all the information you need at the time you need it,” the major snapped.

A bell chimed, and the lift doors parted, revealing the gloomy parking garage beyond. The major exited the lift and the four of them followed him, filing past the Waffen-SS trooper on guard at the lift entrance.

The car park was empty except for a single armored van a dozen meters away. “This way,” the major said, heading purposefully toward the van.

They followed him. He covered the distance between the lift and the van in quick, even strides, then walked around the van’s front and gestured down its far side. “This way.”

Once again Quinn was bringing up the rear, and so he was the last to round the van’s fender except for their guard and almost walked into the other three, stopped there. They had stopped when they had seen the Waffen-SS lieutenant and three Waffen-SS storm troopers standing concealed around the van’s other side.

“Oh, hell,” Quinn said.

The Wehrmacht major had stepped neatly away from them and unholstered his sidearm, which he now pointed levelly at them.

The guard rounded the van’s rear behind Quinn. He halted suddenly, taking a step back and raising his rifle when he saw the Waffen-SS troopers, but the major had been ready for him. He fired two quick shots, and the guard collapsed backward, his rife clattering on the ground.

Ellie whimpered. There were several moments of silence. “I don’t suppose any of you are going to turn out to be Royal Marines?” Quinn asked.

This time the major didn’t even both to glance in his direction. “Shut up, Englishman.”

Quinn was the nearest of the group to the van’s front fender and he had taken a cautious step backward, but suddenly he felt a rifle muzzle pushed hard into the small of his back. He turned to find the Waffen-SS trooper who had been standing guard at the lift waiting behind him.

The major had taken a step back toward them and was surveying them, his lip curled in disgust. “Englishmen,” he muttered. “You sicken me. Servants of Jewry.” His eyes fell on Ellie. “And you. Treacherous bitch.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he struck her hard across the face with the back of his
hand.

She screamed in pain, her hands flying to her cheek, and dropped to her knees. Quinn snarled and made a lunge toward the major, but suddenly his world exploded in a flash of orange and white pain as the storm trooper behind him slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of his neck. He dropped to all fours beside Ellie, struggling to remain up, not to collapse face down in front of these Nazi German bastards.

After a few moments the pain had subsided enough for him to look up, though his head pounded like the worst hangover God had ever bestowed on man. The major was staring down at him, his Luger leveled inches from Quinn’s face.

“Now, now,” he said. “Don’t do anything foolish and you will at least have the opportunity to die like men, instead of being shot in the back like common Jews.” He gestured with his gun toward the wall of the deserted car park. “Against the wall. All of you.”

ELLIE HAD gotten back to her feet, and she, Barnes, and Gunning obediently walked toward the wall. Quinn was still in pain, gulping air on all fours. When he was too slow to get up, the major kicked him in the ribs.

That was all the opening he needed. He recoiled from the kick, using the motion to reach up and grasp the major around the calf while his foot was still in the air. He jerked hard, pulling the major off his balance and knocking him awkwardly to the ground. He heard the man’s Luger clatter across the pavement.

He threw himself sideways, pulling the major on top of him, wrapping his arms under his shoulders and around his neck, then rolled to his feet, pulling the major up with him. He heard the major gasping for breath as he struggled to get his feet under himself so that he could rise with Quinn.

Quinn saw the storm troopers and the SS lieutenant staring uncertainly at him, their rifles trained on him, and he took a step to the side, positioning himself so that the major’s body shielded him from both the row of three troopers and the storm trooper who had been behind him.

“Drop your weapons or I break his neck,” he ordered. When the troopers hesitated, he screamed, “Drop your weapons!”

He increased his pressure on the major’s neck; the major gurgled and let out a rasping,
“Do it!”

Obediently the troopers deposited their rifles on the ground, and the lieutenant unholstered his pistol and threw it away. “Now step away,” Quinn ordered, and they all took several steps back from the weapons in front of them.

As soon as the troopers were clear, Barnes and Gunning gathered up the firearms scattered across the ground. Each took an automatic rifle and pointed it at the group of SS troopers; as soon as they did so, Quinn released the major and gave him a hard shove in the direction of the group. He staggered forward, then stood there gasping and rubbing his neck.

Quinn nodded to the other storm trooper, the one who had come up behind him. “You too,” he said. The storm trooper stepped over to join his comrades.

“All right,” Quinn said, “take your clothes off.” They stared at him. “I said take your clothes off. I want you all naked.” When they did not respond, Quinn bent down, picked out a Luger from the small pile of weapons and leveled it at the major. “You really think I need a reason right now?”

Reluctantly, the major began unbuttoning his greatcoat, and the other soldiers followed suit. While they were undressing, Quinn turned to Ellie and gently pried her hand away from her cheek. It looked red and would probably bruise painfully, but it did not seem to be anything more serious than that. Tears had run down her cheeks.

“Are you all right?” he asked.