Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'I have some questions, sir,' I said.

Heydrich nodded.

'First of all, I don't speak French.'

'That's not a problem at all. In Paris you will liaise with Hauptmann Paul Kestner, whom I believe you know from your time together in Kripo. Kestner is from Alsace and speaks fluent French. He's ordered to offer you any assistance that you require. The two of you will report to my own deputy, General Werner Best of the Gestapo. Together with Helmut Knochen, who's the senior commander of security in Paris, he'll assign you some French police to assist in your mission, codenamed FAFNIR.'

I nodded. 'Fafnir, right you are, sir. I'm glad you didn't say Hagen.'

It didn't happen very often but Heydrich looked puzzled.

'In the Ring cycle, sir,' I explained, 'Hagen kills Gunther.'

Heydrich smiled. 'Well, I'll kill you if don't find Mielke,' he said. 'Understand?'

I was glad he was smiling. 'Yes, Herr General.'

'He'll need a uniform, sir,' said Schellenberg.

'Have you a uniform, Gunther?'

'No, Herr General. Not yet.'

'I thought not. Good. That gives us an opportunity to talk privately. Come with me. And bring Mielke's file with you. You'll need it.'

He stood up, collected his hat and walked to the door. I followed him to the outer office, where he was already telling Bettina to have his car brought to the front door and collecting a briefcase from Schellenberg. He took the file from me and placed it inside the briefcase.

'Are we going somewhere?' I asked.

'My tailor,' he said, and marched towards the huge marble staircase.

As we came out of the building the guards on Prinz Albrechtstrasse came to attention, and for a moment we waited for the car to appear. Heydrich permitted me to light his cigarette and then handed me the briefcase.

'Everything you need for Operation Fafnir is in that briefcase,' he said. 'Money, passes, travel documentation and more besides. Much more. Which is why I wanted to talk to you in private.' He glanced around at the two SS guards as if making sure they were out of earshot and then said the most extraordinary thing:

'You see, Gunther, we have something in common, you and I. Years ago both of us were denounced as Mischlings because, allegedly, we have a Jewish grandparent. Nonsense of course. But not unconnected with what I told you before.'

'You mean about how someone is trying to kill you.'

'Yes. Having failed to persuade the Fuhrer that there was any truth in these wicked rumours, it is certainly Himmler's intention to have me assassinated. Of course, I am not without resources of my own. Certain records pertaining to my family's past in Halle, and which might be open to misinterpretation, have been erased. And the person who denounced me – a naval cadet I knew at the academy in Kiel – that man met an unfortunate accident. He was killed in the Deutschland Incident of 1937, when the Republican Air Force attacked the port of Ibiza. That's the official version anyway.'

The car arrived. It was a large, open-top, black Mercedes.

The driver, an SS sergeant, sprang out, saluted and then opened the big suicide door and tipped the front seat forward.

'What took you so long, Klein?' said Heydrich.

'I'm sorry sir, but I was filling her up when your call came through. Where are we going?'

'Holters, the tailors.'

'Sixteen Tauenzienstrasse. Right you are, sir.'

We drove south, as far as the corner of B u low Strasse and then west.

'That briefcase I gave you,' said Heydrich. 'It also contains a file about the man who denounced you, Gunther. In fact, that file is not unconnected with Mielke's file, as you will discover. You see the man who denounced you was Hauptmann Paul Kestner. Your former schoolmate and Kripo colleague.'

'Kestner.' I nodded. 'I always thought that was someone else, sir. This girl I used to know, who also knew Mielke.'

'But you don't look surprised that it was Kestner.'

'No, perhaps I'm not, Herr General.'

'He was a member of the KPD before he was a Nazi. Did you know that?'

I shook my head.

'It was Kestner who tipped off his friends in the KPD that you and he were travelling to Hamburg to arrest Mielke. After you left Kripo, he hoped to divert suspicion from himself by alleging that it was you who had tipped off Mielke. Something that was easier to do if it turned out that you were part Jew.'

I shook my head.

'Oh, it's all in the file,' said Heydrich.

'No, that's not it, Herr General. I'm just disappointed, that's all. As you say, I've known Paul Kestner since we were at the same gymnasium, here in Berlin.'

'It's always disappointing when one discovers that one has been betrayed. But in a sense it's liberating, too. It serves as a reminder that ultimately one can only ever truly rely on oneself.'

'There's something I don't understand,' I said. 'If you know all of this, why am I meeting up with Paul Kestner in Paris?'

Heydrich tutted loudly and looked away for a moment as we drove onto Nollendorf Platz. There he pointed at the Mozart Hall Movie Theatre. 'The Four Feathers,' he said. 'A marvellous picture. Have you seen it?'

'Yes.'

'Quite right. It's one of the Fuhrer's favourites. This is a movie about revenge, is it not? Albeit a very British and sentimental kind of revenge. Harry Favisham returns the four white feathers to the same men and woman who had accused him of cowardice. Absurd really. Speaking for myself I should have preferred to see my former comrades suffer a little more than they did. And perhaps die, although not without revealing myself as their Nemesis. Do you follow me?'

'I'm beginning to, Herr General.'

'As your superior officer I should inform you that it's no crime to have been a communist party member before one saw the light and became a National Socialist. I should also inform you that Paul Kestner is not without connections in the Wilhelmstrasse, and that these people have decided to overlook his dishonest role in the Mielke affair. Frankly, if we were to cashier every Sipo officer with an unfortunate past there would be no one left to wear the uniform.'

'Does he know?' I asked. 'That his superiors are aware of what he did?'

'No. We prefer to keep things like that in reserve. For when we need to bring a man into line and persuade him to do what he's told. However' – Heydrich flicked his cigarette into the street and lifted his injured arm – 'as you can see, accidents happen. Especially in time of war. And if some harm were to befall Hauptmann Kestner while he was in occupied France I doubt that anyone would be surprised. Least of all me. After all, it's a long road between Paris and Toulouse, and I dare say there are still a few pockets of French resistance. It would be a tragedy of war, just like the death of Paul Baumer reaching to protect a fledgling bird on the last page of All Quiet on the Western Front.' Heydrich sighed. 'Yes. A tragedy. But hardly a matter for regret.'

'I see.'

'Well, it's entirely a matter for you, Haupsturmfuhrer Gunther. Your chief inspector rank in Kripo entitles you to the rank of SS captain. The same as Kestner. It makes no difference to me if he lives or dies. It's your choice.'

The car purred along Tauenzienstrasse toward the stalagmite steeples of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and came to a rumbling halt in front of a tailor's shop. In the window was a tailor's dummy that looked like the torso at the scene of a crime, and several bolts of pewter-coloured cloth. Pedestrians shot Heydrich a curious look as he climbed out of the car and walked his bow-legged walk to the front door of Wilhelm Holters. You could hardly blame them for that. With all the medals and badges on his Luftwaffe tunic he looked like an accomplished Boy Scout, albeit a rather sinister one.

I followed him through the door with the shop bell ringing in my ears as if warning other customers of the plague we brought with us. Something fearful anyway.