Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“On your feet, Gunther.”

Friedrich Korsch was stuffing the gun he’d found on the floor by my leg under the waistband of his trousers and slowly backing away. In the low light I could just make out the triumphant expression on his face, as if he was looking forward to killing me; he appeared to be alone.

“Why?” I said wearily. Once before I’d escaped being shot in the Schlossberg Caves and I scarcely thought I was about to manage it again. There’s a limit to how lucky one lucky man can be. Then again, good luck is merely the ability and determination to overcome bad luck; anything else looks like capricious fortune. But my determination to do anything other than sleep inside that mountain for a thousand years was sorely lacking. “What’s the point?” I added. “You might as well shoot me in here, Friedrich. As mausoleums go, this place is as good as any.”

“Because those aren’t General Mielke’s orders. I’m to make your death look like a suicide. Something the local cops can explain away. The Blue Train murderer takes his own life. Which can hardly happen if I kill you now. So please get up. I’m not a sadistic man, and I’d hate to have to blow your kneecaps off. But I can assure you, not nearly as much as you would.”

He had a point. My luck had finally run out and, as coincidences go, this one seemed more meaningful than not; it looked very much as if fate had always meant me to meet my end in the Schlossberg Caves and was determined not to be disappointed in that respect. God moves in mysterious ways but it’s best to recognize that most of the mystery relates to why people still think he gives a damn about any of us. I stood up reluctantly and brushed some of the sand off my trousers. “I expect they’ll give you a promotion for this. Or a medal. Perhaps both.”

Korsch circled away some more now that I was on my feet. But he certainly wasn’t about to miss me from wherever he was standing in the cavern. Not even with one eye.

“For catching an old fascist enemy of the people like you? Yes, I expect so.”

“Is that what I am?”

“It’s how it will be reported in Germany, probably. And why not? These days we need our villains just as much as we need our heroes. There’s a lot we can blame on the Nazis and usually do. Now, then. Do you have any more guns?”

“Sadly, not.”

Korsch moved around the wall of the cave to where my jacket was hanging on the light switch and patted it down. “Just making sure. You always were a slippery bastard, Gunther.”

“That’s how I managed to stay alive, Friedrich.”

“You can keep telling yourself that if you like. But I rather think you stayed alive by doing exactly what the likes of Heydrich and Goebbels told you to do.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Sure. But you were the police commissar, not me. I was just your spanner for a short time.”

“I guess you have to tell yourself that now that you’re a spanner for the Ivans. More importantly, I guess you have to tell them that, too.”

“Not the Ivans, no. There’s a new Germany that’s being constructed. A socialist Germany. We’re running our own show, now. Not the Russians. Us. The Germans. It’s better this time because there’s a proper goal we’re all working toward.”

“Even in this light I can see you don’t believe any of that crap. I look at you and see myself all those years ago, trying to keep my mouth close to the Party line and pretend that everything was fine with the way our masters were running Germany. But we both know it wasn’t — and it still isn’t. The GDR and the communists are just another universal tyranny. So how about you pretend you never saw me in here and let me go? For old times’ sake. Does it really make such a difference to the new order if I’m dead?”

“Sorry, Bernie. No can do. If General Mielke ever found out I let you go it wouldn’t just be me who suffered, it would be my whole family. Besides, there are a couple of my men waiting by the entrance outside, just in case you manage to give me the slip in the dark. If I let you escape, they wouldn’t like it, either. You’ve led us on a real polka since the Riviera.”

“And why? Because I wasn’t prepared to go to England and poison Mielke’s own agent, Anne French. That’s why. That should tell you something about your new masters, Friedrich. They’re cowards. Still, it was brave of you coming in here on your own, I suppose.”

“Wasn’t it? You were joking before about my getting a medal and a promotion. But that’s not a joke to me. I will get both of those things now. My men will see to that. Catching you is my big chance of preferment with Mielke. I could get my fourth pip for this. Maybe even a major’s whipped-cream shoulder boards.”

“You do know Erich Mielke was a cop killer. Before he became a cop.”

“I remember he shot some Freikorps police bully, if that’s what you mean.”

“My, the commies really have done a good job with your reeducation, haven’t they? I bet you could even spell ‘dialectic’ and ‘bourgeoisie.’”

Korsch brandished the automatic and grinned. “Since I’m the one holding the Bismarck, it would seem as if my reeducation has turned out better than yours, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Therein lies the true essence of Marxism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ only ever works with a gun in your hand. How did you find me, anyway?”

“I’d like to say I know you better than you think, Gunther. But I can’t claim it was the result of any great insight on my part. That moto rider from Saarbrücken reported bringing you here to one of our police informants. It was him who told us you were in Homburg. He suspected you from the beginning, apparently. After that it was more or less obvious to me that you’d return to the Schlossberg Caves, given what happened here just before the war.”

“I was always under the impression that no one ever knew about that. Not precisely. Certainly Wilhelm Zander never talked about it, for obvious reasons. I never talked about it, either. Not even to Heydrich. For equally obvious reasons. I thought I was safer that way, given what Bormann had said about keeping my mouth shut concerning what happened on the Berghof terrace. And before he left the area, Zander removed anything that would have identified Johann Diesbach. Including Johann Diesbach, now I come to think of it. I believe Zander had some local Gestapo come to fetch the body so they could dump it somewhere else. So how did you ever think to connect me with this place?”

“Does it matter?”

“You might call it an itch on my nose that needs scratching now that I’m standing on the gallows with my hands tied behind my back. That is, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Maybe I’m just cleverer than you give me credit for.”

“It’s always a possibility.”

“When you and Zander showed up in Homburg looking for Diesbach, it was his sister who suggested that he should hide in the caves. After a few days she came up here to bring him some food and found the floor of the cave entrance littered with empty cartridges. From their number she guessed there had been some sort of shoot-out and when, weeks later, Diesbach still hadn’t contacted her, she naturally assumed the worst.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Because she wrote to Diesbach’s wife, Eva, informing her that she suspected Johann might have met a violent end. And when Eva forwarded me the letter, asking for my help in finding out what had happened to him, I agreed.”

“I don’t remember the two of you being that friendly.”

“After you left me behind in Berchtesgaden, she and I got on quite well. You might say that I was a real consolation to that woman. Very soon after her husband disappeared, Eva moved to Berlin. And, for a while, we were lovers.”