A Traitor's Loyalty: A Novel (32 page)

He hesitated, then extended his interlocked palms out to her. She put her foot in them and pulled herself up by the window frame; Gunning reached out, grasped her under the shoulders, and pulled her in. After she was through, Quinn climbed in after her, helped by Gunning and Barnes.

They were in a small office, its walls lined with filing cabinets. A desk with a typewriter sat immediately beneath the window to catch its light. The office was deserted, and no sound came from the other side of its frosted glass door. As Quinn slid off the desk, Barnes and Gunning took up positions on either side of the door. As soon as Quinn nodded that he was ready, Gunning reached out with his foot and pushed the door open, and Barnes stepped through into the hall beyond, rifle at the ready.

The Royal Marines captain scanned the hallway quickly in both directions, visibly relaxing when he did not see anything. He beckoned them after him. Gunning followed, but Quinn caught Ellie by the shoulder before she could follow too. She looked at him quizzically.

“Be careful,” he said. “Stay near us. Stay in the middle of us. Please.”

She seemed about to retort, but then changed her mind and nodded instead. “I will,” she said solemnly.

They set off down the corridor after the two Royal Marines.

THE CORRIDOR’S green linoleum tiled floor and stark white walls gave it a depressingly antiseptic feel. They followed it to the large doorway at its end and emerged into a stairwell. A door led into the street outside, and on the wall next to it was a simple schematic of the building.

Quinn studied the schematic. The building was square, shaped into four hollow squares around four large, open courtyards within its walls, rather like the outline of an oblong four-leaf clover.

Barnes came up behind him and looked at the diagram over his shoulder. Quinn pointed to the clover’s top bar. “We’re here,” he said. He moved his finger to the bottom of the clover, on the far side of the building. “Heydrich and his men should be somewhere down here.” He turned back to face the others.

“We’ll need to be careful in these uniforms,” Barnes said, addressing both Quinn and Gunning. “They got us past the SS, but they could get us killed when we come up on Heydrich’s men.” He glanced quickly at all three of them, then nodded. “All right, let’s go.”

They moved slowly and carefully through the building, pausing at every intersection and checking any open or ajar doors they passed. Gunning and Quinn took point, Ellie came next, and Barnes brought up the rear. They were able to move in a straight line, following the main corridor running all the way down one side of the clover; they would have been able to see right down the entire length of the building but for the closed doors leading to intersections and stairwells every twenty meters.

As they approached closer to Heydrich’s end of the building, they became even more cautious, and their going became slower. They had penetrated deeply down the building’s side; the stairwell they were approaching now must be either the last or second to last before the building’s corner. And yet there was still no sign of the Wehrmacht.

Quinn and Gunning took up positions on either side of the double doors leading into the stairwell. At a nod from Gunning, Quinn reached across and pushed the door open, gently but firmly. They waited: nothing. Gunning took a step through the doorway, rifle held ready—

A loud, staccato burst of automatic rifle fire greeted him. He screamed and fell back through the doorway clutching his left forearm, his rifle clattering to the ground. The door swung shut.

Barnes had taken cover in an open doorway, pushing Ellie through ahead of him. He and Quinn stood stock still, waiting for the sounds of pursuit. Gunning had propped himself up on his good right elbow—the arm where he had taken another bullet wound not twelve hours ago—and was panting heavily.

When he heard nothing after a few seconds, Quinn bent down, grasped Gunning under his right arm and helped him to his feet while Barnes continued to cover them. “Fucking bastards,” the sergeant said. “Got the other bloody one.” Together, the two of them walked through Barnes’s doorway into what looked like a conference room, with a long table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Quinn sat Gunning down in one of the chairs, then returned to the hall as Ellie knelt next to the sergeant and began gently prying his hand from the wound on his arm.

“I’ll go,” Quinn said, and Barnes nodded.

They were definitely Wehrmacht; they had had time to see Gunning’s uniform and would not have shot if they were Waffen-SS. Quinn walked back up to the doorway at the end of the corridor and placed his pistol on the ground, then opened the door a crack and kicked the pistol into the stairwell.

“I’m unarmed,” he called. “I’m coming out.”

He raised his arms over his head and stepped slowly into the stairwell, stepping over Gunning’s rifle. The door swung shut behind him. Turning, he found himself staring up at three Wehrmacht infantrymen midway
up the flight of stairs above him, automatic rifles trained on him.

“We’re not Waffen-SS,” he said. “We’re friends of the Commissar-General. My name is Simon Quinn. He knows me. I’m an Englishman.”

None of the infantrymen said anything. One of them stepped rapidly down the stairs and patted Quinn down. Finding nothing, he nodded to his fellows.

“I have three other people in there,” Quinn continued, nodding to the closed door. “We’ll surrender ourselves to you.”

“Have them come out here,” one of the soldiers up the stairs ordered.

“Barnes,” Quinn called, “all of you come out here. Unarmed.”

There was a pause of several long moments, and then the door opened and Barnes, Ellie and Gunning filed out. Barnes and Ellie held their hands above their heads, but Gunning was clutching his wounded forearm. The infantryman who had frisked Quinn patted them down, then, at a nod from the infantryman who had spoken, headed back through the door into the corridor. He re-emerged a few moments later carrying Barnes’s rifle.

“Who are you?” the lead infantryman asked.

“I told you,” Quinn said. “We’re known to the Commissar-General. We’re here to render assistance.”

The infantryman regarded him skeptically, then shrugged and turned to his fellow on the stairs with him. “Stay here.” He descended the stairs and said to Quinn, “You will come with us,” then headed over to the doorway on the opposite side of the stairwell. The four of them followed him.

The infantryman holding Barnes’s rifle gathered up Gunning’s rifle and Quinn’s pistol, then brought up the rear. He made to rest a helping—and securing—hand on Gunning’s elbow, but the sergeant shrugged him off, snarling in English, “Keep your fucking hands off me, you filthy Nazi. You fucking shot me.”

The commanding infantryman led them down the next corridor. Quinn was next to Ellie as they walked.

“How is he?” he asked, nodding back at Gunning.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” she said. “I think he’ll be fine. But it must be intensely painful.”

The lead infantryman paused at the door to the next stairwell and gave a coded knock before he walked through. In the stairwell, they were met by a sergeant and another infantryman.

The sergeant looked at the four prisoners with surprise. “What are these?” he asked.

“They claim to be English,” the lead infantryman said. “They claim to know the Commissar-General.”

“Or Hauptmann Meier,” Quinn added. “If he’s here.”

The sergeant eyed them suspiciously but then nodded. “All right. Return to your post. You four, come with me.”

He led them through the door into another corridor. Here they found Heydrich’s command center: every door down one side of the corridor was open, and Wehrmacht soldiers hurried back and forth between them.

The sergeant went up to one open doorway. “Hauptmann Meier,” he said into it, “I have a matter here that requires your attention.”

Meier emerged from the doorway. He started when he saw the prisoners, reaching for his sidearm, but paused when he saw Ellie. His eyes widened and he scanned the others’ faces, recognizing them.

“They say they know you, sir,” the sergeant said.

Meier nodded dumbly. “They do.” He visibly took hold of himself and turned to the sergeant, authority reasserting itself in his voice. “Thank you, Feldwebel. That will be all.”

The sergeant saluted and returned through the doorway to his post. Meier turned back to the four of them.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“The Waffen-SS set a trap for us,” Quinn said. “They disguised themselves as Wehrmacht and snuck onto your floor of the hotel to kill us. Someone tipped them off, Herr Hauptmann—they had advance warning of the Commissar-General’s plans.”

Meier gave him a curious look. At last he said, “Well, now that you’re here I’m not sure what good you can do. This looks like a losing fight to me. But the Commissar-General will want to know you’re here. Come with
me.”

He led them down the corridor to a closed door on the opposite side from the row of open doors. He knocked once, then opened the door and stepped inside. Quinn and the others followed.

They were in another conference room. Heydrich and Remer had been staring out the window at the paved courtyard outside, and the building’s opposite wall on its far side, but at Meier’s entrance they had turned. Their eyes widened when they saw Meier’s charges, as they thought first that they were SS, and then recognized them.

“Herr Generalkommissar,” Meier said. “They say they escaped from an SS assassination attempt.” He made a vague gesture, as if to convey that he knew that did not cover all the information it needed to, but that he was helpless to expand more.

“I see, Hauptmann,” Heydrich said slowly. “Return to your duties.” Meier turned to go, but Heydrich hastily added, “How does it look out there?”

Meier paused in the doorway, half turning back to face them. “Still quiet, sir,” he said. “The men are nervous, but they are determined to fight for you.”

Heydrich nodded, very solemn. “Very good, Hauptmann.”

Meier saluted and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Heydrich turned his gaze on the four of them. He focused on Quinn. “You seem rather old for a lieutenant, Herr Quinn.”

“I was the best fit for it of the three of us, Herr Generalkommissar.”

Remer was staring at them with his eyes narrowed. “How did you come by those uniforms? And how did you get here?”

Quinn spoke slowly, considering his words. When he spoke, he addressed Heydrich. “I believe that someone on your staff betrayed you, Herr Generalkommissar. A Waffen-SS officer disguised himself as a Wehrmacht major and removed us from the rooms in which you had placed us, claiming he was acting under your orders. He took us to the hotel parking levels, where an SS execution squad waited. We—” He paused again, then said, “We were able to disarm them. We had hoped to come to your aid, but . . .” He gestured toward the door. “Your situation seems rather bleak.”

“It does indeed,” Heydrich said. “Though perhaps not hopeless. We had a battalion expecting to rendezvous with us at the communal hall across the river; they will surely discover what is going on and attempt to relieve us. And we have been under cover here for almost half an hour without sustaining any attacks from the SS; I am beginning to wonder if they have the force to overcome us.”

Quinn gestured to his uniform. “I was able to survey the SS lines a little while ago, Herr Generalkommissar. The forces outside are too few to overcome you without heavy losses, yes, but they are waiting to attack because they are expecting imminent reinforcements to flush you out from behind. They seem . . . very confident.”

Heydrich stared at him, not reacting to this news at first. His face was typically inscrutable, but Quinn thought he detected a mixture of disappointment and defiance when the Commissar- General spoke. “Then our chances are not what I might have hoped, Herr Quinn. But one circumstance remains the same—at worst, we shall die here nobly, fighting for the Fatherland.”

There was silence in the wake of this statement. Then Quinn spoke again. “Actually,” he said, “there is another possibility. How many men do you have?”

“I had an escort of forty men,” Heydrich said. “Fewer than half made it to safety here.”

“We have an armored van at the other end of the building,” said Quinn, “where the SS presence is currently very light. With the three of us in disguise, we can get you and your men out of the building and attempt to escape the city. You can return to the East and muster your forces.”

Heydrich considered this, but before he could give an answer, Remer drew his pistol and pointed it at Quinn. “Herr Generalkommissar,” he said, “this Englishman claimed we had a traitor in our midst, and he has just revealed it to be himself. First he comes here in this uniform, concocting a ludicrous story about escape
from the hands of the SS. Then he suggests leading you into an ambush—into
another
ambush. It is exactly as I first feared, Herr Generalkommissar.” He looked at Heydrich. “Their presence in Linz, their attempt to contact you, it has all been an elaborate ploy to provoke you into destroying yourself. And so far, they have been largely successful.”

“Even if that’s true, Otto-Ernst,” Heydrich said, “why would they try to lead me into an ambush now? The SS seem to have us pretty well at their mercy right now.”

Remer walked around the table to where the four of them stood lined against the wall as he spoke, never taking his eyes or his gun off Quinn. “To minimize bloodshed, Herr Generalkommissar. If the Reichsführer-SS can get you to walk yourself into the trap this,” his lip curled in distaste,
“untermensch
proposes, he can kill you without losing a single SS soldier.” By the time he had finished, he stood toe to toe with Quinn, the nose of his Luger stuffed painfully into Quinn’s chest.

Several moments of tense silence followed. Quinn and Remer stared at each other. Then, without warning, the colonel-general spun on his heel, brought his weapon to bear on Heydrich and fired. But Quinn had reacted lightning quickly, bringing his fist up and smashing it into Remer’s elbow, and the shot went wide. Ellie screamed at the loud noise in the small room, and the windowpane over Heydrich’s left shoulder shattered.