Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘Me?’ Meissner nodded, slowly. He felt the pull of the colonel’s eyes, pushed past them to those memories of those last days in Berlin. Huddled in the corner of Meissner’s study, seeing it again. Seeing it differently.

‘Will you go back in?’ Meissner asked, finally.

‘I’ll do it for you, sir. For nothing else.’

Meissner sighed softly, nodded, the fire playing across his white hair. ‘Thank you.’

‘Me,’ said Reinhardt, again.

‘You,’ whispered Meissner. ‘We placed you carefully. Moved you as we thought best. It was always a difficult business. Now, it is becoming all but impossible. The Nazis are strong, and they are clever. They have broken many groups. Broken many men, and no few women. You may have heard of those young students, The White Rose. Such bravery in ones so young. But the noose is tightening, and I fear it is only a matter of time before it closes around me. For now, although I am free to move around more or less as I please, I have noticed things – small things – are different, and so the work I am doing, the work I need to try to finish, has become that much more important.’

Meissner looked down and away. ‘The problem is, for all our good intentions, we are just a group of faceless Prussians, crotchety old businessmen and nobles and pensioned soldiers meeting in the shadows, bumbling on about uncouth Bavarians. My boy,’ he said, turning his eyes back on Reinhardt, ‘what I’m going to say to you, now, you will not like. My group’ – he sighed – ‘has been talking to Verhein. We need him. We need someone with his charisma. We need someone with the loyalty he inspires. With the contacts he has in the army.’

Reinhardt swallowed slowly, forcefully, against the tightness in his throat. ‘And… ?’ he managed. He knew the answer, but he needed Meissner to say it.

Meissner seemed to know that, or at least understand it. ‘And, Gregor, I need to know what you know. I need to know what you are planning now that you know about Verhein. And, if possible, I need to know whether you can give me what you’ve found and be persuaded to look away.’

‘Look away ?’

‘Yes,’ replied Meissner. His mouth opened as if to say something else, but he stopped.

‘Don’t,’ whispered Reinhardt, hoarsely. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t say “Just this once”, because you know, and I know, that’s not true.’ He bent forward, hunching around the weight he felt, feeling the frustration, the rising anger. ‘I suspected something,’ he said, finally. ‘I suspected Freilinger was obstructing me. Deftly, I’ll give him that. He tried to keep me away from investigating senior officers. He gave me a list without Verhein’s name on it. He steered me towards an SS Standartenfuhrer… I didn’t know why, though.’

‘Freilinger was put in a difficult position. He is one of us. He has tried to talk to Verhein, but the general won’t listen.’ He looked over at the major.

Freilinger unfolded his hands. ‘When the murders happened, I suspected Verhein’s involvement and I decided to do something that I suspected you would find distasteful.’ He paused, swallowed around the scrape in his throat. ‘I decided to let you proceed, to gather evidence, to then try to orient you in another direction, and to use that evidence to persuade Verhein to at least listen to us. Verhein was offered a staff position at Army High Command.’ Reinhardt nodded. ‘It would have put him at the heart of operations and close to Hitler himself. We needed him to take that post but as one of us. Or with us. He has been refusing it, but all of sudden I hear he is taking it. We think something has happened to make him change his mind.’

The telephone on Freilinger’s desk rang. Reinhardt jumped, looking at it. Freilinger ignored it. There were footsteps in the outer office, a voice, and the ringing stopped. ‘You are talking about blackmail.’

‘We are,’ said Meissner. ‘I am. Exactly that. We did not know of Verhein’s Jewish origins, although we suspected something like it because of what he has done and said – or rather didn’t do and say – throughout his military career. Especially in Russia. We did check his records. If they were falsified, they were very well falsified. Now we know. We can use this to talk to him.’

Reinhardt hunched forward again. He screwed his eyes tight shut and shook his head. ‘My God,’ he whispered. ‘You will use this…’ He looked up. ‘You are asking me to take no further action against a man who may have committed murder, or ordered it done.’ Meissner nodded. ‘Why? Because you need him?’

‘I am convinced Verhein will help us. He already is, only he can’t seem to see it. And if he can’t bring himself to help us willingly, then, yes, I will force him. I lose nothing but a pawn in a game. He stands to lose much, much more.’

His life. His career. Reinhardt thought back to Hendel’s dossier. ‘His sister.’

‘Yes,’ said Meissner. ‘His one weakness.’

‘You are talking about sacrifice. Two lives for one.’

‘No,’ rasped Freilinger. ‘We are talking about one life for many. For thousands. For hundreds of thousands.’

‘Think about it, Reinhardt,’ whispered Meissner. ‘Think what Verhein could mean for the resistance.’

‘I’m thinking, believe me,’ snapped Reinhardt. He screwed his palm into his forehead in frustration, and in embarrassment at having talked in such a way to Meissner. ‘Do you know,’ he said, his head in his hands, then looking up, ‘do you know what you’re taking away from me? For the first time in I don’t know how long, I had found myself again. Found a reason to be. To live.’

‘I can give you a reason, my boy. Now you know what I’m doing, what I stand for, you can join us. I can take you with me to Italy with Freilinger. This place is a slaughterhouse. It’s bad enough now, just wait until we’re gone, and everyone here is at each other’s throats again.’

Reinhardt thought about Dr Begovic and wanted to shake his head no, to tell Meissner it did not have to be that way, but he was distracted again by a telephone in the outer office, more voices. ‘I am sorry, Colonel. I… it just seems… wrong, to me.’

‘It’s a bit late to get a conscience , Reinhardt,’ snapped Meissner. Reinhardt froze, as a child freezes under the whip of his father’s voice. Meissner’s eyes bored into his, then softened. He passed a hand over his face. Reinhardt saw how the hand shook, like an old man’s. For the first time, he seemed to see that Meissner’s skin was dotted with spots, stretched tight, clawlike, over the bones. ‘I am sorry, my boy,’ Meissner whispered. ‘I should never have said that.’

‘No,’ said Reinhardt. ‘It is a bit too late. But better late than never. I can do this. I can do this right. I need to.’ He looked down at the floor, back up. ‘Please.’

There was a knock at the door. Meissner and Freilinger froze. The colonel reached into his jacket, then nodded to Freilinger, who rose and crossed the office. Reinhardt saw that Freilinger’s holster was unbuttoned. He opened the door, then stepped out.

Meissner saw Reinhardt looking at his hand under his jacket. He swivelled his eyes to look at the office door where it stood ajar. Voices leaked in from the other room, words on the edge of comprehension. Meissner looked back at him with a flat expression, and Reinhardt was suddenly afraid. He did not recognise this man staring at him.

Freilinger shut the door and stood listening at it for a moment. Meissner looked at him, then cocked his head towards the door, eyebrows raised. ‘Nothing to do with us,’ Freilinger said, looking at shy;Reinhardt.

‘Sir. Colonel. Even if I wanted, even if I could help you, I can’t control Thallberg. I can make any promise to you but I don’t know what he would do.’