War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 96

Chapter 8

“I

’m sorry. I didn’t see you there,” she said with an apologetic smile.

“Sabine Mahler?”

“Yes. Why?” Sabine answered, wariness in her gaze and tension filling her limbs.

The man pointed toward a black vehicle parked at the curb. “Gestapo. You must come with me.”

Violent fear rushed through her body, making it impossible to follow his order. Out of habit, she raised a hand to control whether her elegant hairdo had become undone, even whilst her knees shook. Usually, large ring curls rolled back from her face, forming an elegance rivaling that shown by the actresses that graced the silver screen. A bevy of pin curls kept the rest of her hair secured at the base of her neck, adding to the sophistication of the hairstyle. The perfect rolls and pinup curls in her honey-blonde hair had become her one extravagance amidst the depression of living in war-torn Berlin.

But her hand found only a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She barely noticed it. None of her former preoccupations mattered right now. She’d discarded her own rules and poked her head into things that were better left alone. And now the spirits she’d conjured up by visiting the firestation wouldn’t be banished again.

“Frau Mahler? You need an extra invitation?” the Gestapo officer said with a movement of his right hand to his hip.

“N…n…no. I’m coming.” Sabine somehow managed to order her legs to move toward the black vehicle. No manual existed outlining how to behave when the Gestapo extended an

invitation

to follow them. But she assumed her best chance to stay in one piece was to cooperate fully with whatever this man wanted.

He opened the back door of the vehicle and commanded, “Get in.”

Sabine climbed inside, fear grabbing at her heart when he followed and sat beside her.

“Headquarters,” he told the driver and within seconds, the vehicle sped down the street. Bicycles swerved in haste when they heard the vehicle approaching them and Sabine imagined seeing the fear on the faces of passersby.

She inched as far away from the man sitting with her as the confinement of the backseat allowed. For a fleeting moment, she even considered jumping out of the moving automobile.

But that would defy the purpose. She’d visited the firestation not because she wanted to get involved in politics, but because her beloved husband had disappeared. She clasped her hands together in her lap in the vain effort to control the tremble in her limbs. Her breathing ragged, she started to count to fifty and then again.

The man at her side seemed to have noticed her distress, although he must have been used to causing anguish all round, and said, “My boss only wants to talk to you. For now.”

Sabine swallowed. Hard. His soothing statement hadn’t assured her one bit. On the contrary, it felt like a concealed threat. Going back to counting, her mind raced faster than the vehicle speeding down Berlin’s ruined streets. She tried to convince herself that there was no reason to panic. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe the rumors weren’t true? Maybe the Gestapo weren’t the thugs everyone painted them as. Sabine almost choked at her musings.

The Gestapo instilled terror into every German citizen, and with good reason. Werner had recounted numerous horror stories about the atrocities they committed on innocent and unsuspecting people. And now her beloved husband was in the hands of these depraved monsters. She had to be strong.

For him.

She kept her hands tightly woven together as they drove through the city, but her entire body trembled, giving away the ferocity of her terror. The driver finally stopped and Sabine looked outside the window, straight at the huge grey building with the beautiful ornaments over the windows and the pompous entrance.

The exterior beauty of the building stood in stark contrast to the terror it evoked in everyone who didn’t work there. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. Gestapo headquarters. Sabine was too young to remember, but the magnificent building had been an arts and crafts school before 1933 – a use much more suitable to its splendor.

“Get out,” the Gestapo officer said.

Her heart thumping against her chest, Sabine made an effort to leave the vehicle without stumbling from nerves. She managed to follow him with tiny steps, her head held high, a smile plastered on her face to try and fool any passersby that her arrival was nothing unusual and not a lamb’s being led to the slaughter.

The huge wooden door opened and the magnificence of the entrance hall took her breath away. Under different circumstances she would have relished the shining beauty of the marbled floor, the high ceilings decorated with artful stucco and the broad wooden stairs, polished by decades of use.

Passing through long hallways with closed doors, the officer led her up several stairways into the attic. With each step Sabine’s stomach tied into a tighter knot, until she struggled to draw breath. She raised her hand to touch her carefully done rolls, just to remind herself that she was still well and alive – for now. But she found only a messy bun, the embodiment of her current predicament.

The attic showed no trace of splendor or magnificence. It was a dimly illuminated place with closed metal doors and an eerie silence that seemed full of the shadows of tortured souls. Sabine didn’t consider herself superstitious, but right there and then, she sensed the presence of angry energy.

Her hand fell from her head to her heart, as she heard a bone-chilling shriek coming from behind one of the doors. She’d rather not know the source of the agony and tightened her lips to mask her expression, while secretly cursing her foolishness in investigating her husband’s disappearance.

The officer opened a door and shoved her inside a small room that held nothing more than a table and two chairs. A single bare lightbulb hung directly above her head, illuminating the windowless room with harsh and unforgiving light.

“Sit,” he said and disappeared, locking the door after him.

Sabine felt an icy chill crawling up her spine as she took a seat and stared at the grey walls covered with stains. Bloodstains.

She checked her wristwatch. Her superior would be livid because she hadn’t arrived for the shift. Should she tell this to the Gestapo? In case anyone ever arrived to talk to her.

After checking her watch about one hundred times, less than thirty minutes had passed. Her left leg did an annoying wriggling and she couldn’t stop it. What was worse, her left eyelid started twitching, too. Two more minutes passed and no sound or person entered the room. Would they leave her to rot in here?

She already imagined how her parched corpse would be hauled outside a few days from now. Another minute passed. The waiting grated on her nerves, making her an anxious wreck. She resorted to counting again. Slow, measured breathing and counting. One – Two – Seven hundred sixty-five – Four thousand two hundred eighty-one –

The door opened with a creak and she jumped.

“Kriminalkommissar Becker. You wished to see me?” The Gestapo officer offered a smile that did not reach his cold grey eyes.

Sabine would have liked to scream at his brazenness, but she returned the same fake smile and said, “Please, what is this about?”

Becker took the opposite seat, placed his elbows on the table and steepled his hands together beneath his chin. He stared at her for a long moment, before he spoke.

“I am here to make you an offer.”

“An…offer? I don’t understand.”

He smirked. “Oh, I think you do, but we will play this game all the way out. We need your help in a delicate case.”

“My help?” Sabine felt as if she was caught in a nightmare as Kriminalkommissar Becker’s words registered.

“Yes. We need information. I believe your neighbor Fräulein Kerber already discussed this topic with you.”

Sabine felt herself flush under his cold stare, memories of the unpleasant dispute with her former classmate Lily Kerber flooding her brain. Werner had, as always, been right. She shouldn’t have called Lily a tart. Actually, that woman was a million times worse than a tart, as no doubt,

she

was responsible for both Werner and Sabine being in Gestapo custody right now.

“She mentioned something about working for the government,” Sabine pressed out through clenched teeth.

“Fräulein Kerber is a good German citizen, and you should follow her footsteps and work for us.” He scrutinized her face, saying, “It shall not be to your disadvantage. The Party is generous to those who support her.”

The heat on her face intensified as she remembered what kind of

work

Lily did for the Gestapo. “Sir, I…I am a married woman…”

He cast her an amused smile. “We can change this, if you insist.”

Sabine’s eyes went round and she violently shook her head. “No. No, please.”

“Everything would have been so much easier if you had only agreed to Fräulein Kerber’s proposal. But since you didn’t we had no choice but to give you an incentive.” The smile suddenly reached his eyes as if he truly enjoyed the situation.

“An incentive?”

“Yes. Your husband is with us and I am willing to exchange his life for your collaboration.”

“You have my husband? Can I see him?” Sabine jumped from her seat, but fell back when she realized she was giving away how much Werner meant to her.

“I’m afraid not. You’ve done nothing to earn such a reward. Once you start bringing me the requested information I may reconsider.” He looked at her with an expectant expression on his face.

“But how do I know he’s still alive?” Sabine asked, despite tremors running through her entire body.

“You’ll have to trust me on this, Frau Mahler. He is alive. For now. But his fate lies in your hands.” For several long moments silence filled the room until he raised his voice again, “I need your answer. Now.”

Sabine stared at him, half expecting him to hit her, but he just gazed at her with that cruel smile, apparently truly enjoying the cat and mouse game. Soon enough, her fear won the internal war and she dropped her gaze. After taking several breaths, desperately attempting to gain a small measure of control over her emotions, she asked, “What do I have to do?”

A glimmer of victory entered Becker’s eyes. “Good choice. As Fräulein Kerber already explained, we need you to infiltrate a particularly devious resistance group and report back to us with the names of those in charge. We will take over from there.”

The tiniest part of her still hoped she was having a nightmare and would soon wake up, but this cruel sadist sitting across the table was as real as the muffled cries behind the steel doors.

For the past ten years she’d kept her head down and minded her own business, convinced that cautious behavior would keep her out of harm’s way. And suddenly she’d been thrown into the middle of a conspiracy plot with the Gestapo, some devious resistance group and her former classmate as main players. For God’s sake, she wasn’t a spy. She was a housewife enlisted to help the war effort by working in a munitions factory.

“Fine. How do I make contact with these subversives? And won’t they be suspicious of me?” she asked, still reeling from the shock.

“Fräulein Kerber was right, you are an intelligent woman,” Becker said, jotting down some notes on a piece of paper. Sabine wasn’t sure whether she should acknowledge his compliment or not. In fact, she wasn’t sure about anything, except that she would do everything in her power to save her husband’s life.

“You must become friendly with Frau Klausen. We believe she’s a key part of this group.”

Sabine gasped. “The sweet elderly lady? She’s a subversive?”

“She may look sweet on the outside, but in reality she’s a devious and mean-spirited woman conspiring against the regime,” Kriminalkommissar Becker said. “What do you know about her?”

“Not much. She came to work at the factory a little while ago. She has the workstation next to mine and had difficulties adapting at first, because as a mother of four she’s never had to work before…” Sabine cast him an accusatory glance, before she continued, “I gave her some tips and after the first week she caught up and now always meets her quota.”

“It’s an unfortunate, albeit temporary, setback that mothers have to work outside the home to further the war effort. But Frau Klausen’s children are all grown up and at least one of her daughters is involved in the hideous conspiracy against the core beliefs of our nation.”

Sabine wondered what atrocious deeds Frau Klausen had done. She couldn’t fathom the kind woman doing anything to hurt someone. “If you know she’s an insurgent, why don’t you simply arrest her?”

Becker shot her a hard glance that made her shiver. “It seems you’re not so intelligent after all. We don’t care about Frau Klausen. She’s a minnow. We want the leaders of this heinous organization. Understood?”

“Yes, Herr Kriminalkommissar,” Sabine pressed out before her voice could abandon her.

“You will befriend Frau Klausen, earn her trust, and report back to Lily Kerber everything you find out. Every last detail could be important, no matter how small.”

Reporting to Lily? Sabine sensed the disgust forming a big lump in her throat, but she nodded her agreement and then launched the question burning on her tongue, “And my husband? Will you return him once I have finished this… task?”

Becker cocked his head. “That’s what I said. If you work well, you’ll get him back safe and sound.”

“I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t kill him,” Sabine said, before she could temper her impassioned plea. But he probably already knew her feelings. The satisfied smile that pursed his lips gave him away. He walked to the door and then gestured for her to follow him.

“Where are we going?”

“I will take you back to your work, unless you would prefer to walk the five miles.”

She didn’t want to spend a single moment longer in his presence, but she also didn’t want to walk the long way back. If he drove her to work, she’d at least be there for the second half of her shift. As she hurried behind him through the long hallways of Gestapo headquarters, she saw him greet several other men who seemed to work here.

“Any luck?” a dark-haired man asked.

Becker answered with a smile, “If you don’t break them with fear or pain, love for a family member will always do the trick.”

Sabine felt rage taking hold of her. For him, holding her husband hostage was nothing more than a part of his atrocious game. What kind of depraved monster was he?

It dawned on her that maybe Werner’s tales had painted the Gestapo in too good a light. The icy hand of desperation clenched around her heart. Could she even believe a promise made by a Gestapo officer?

How on earth had her ordinary life become such a muddled mess?