Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘ Quiet , Captain.’

‘File?’ asked Verhein.

‘- but neither of them really knows what’s in it. Only I do. They just want to use it against you. The film was bad enough, but they could handle that, just about. The file, though, was something else.’

Ascher snarled something at Mamagedov as Reinhardt was talking, and the Kalmyk slammed the butt of his MP 40 into Reinhardt’s kidneys. The world went red, and Reinhardt collapsed to his hands and knees. He looked up at the ring of faces around him and gasped as he went back onto his haunches. From outside, the distant thunder of gunfire rolled down over the clearing.

‘The thing I couldn’t figure, Colonel, is what Becker had on you. He had to have something. What was it? Dirt from the past?’ He managed to duck his head just in time, taking Mamagedov’s swipe across the back of his neck instead of across the ear. The blow still floored him, though.

‘I’m guessing it’s the knife. Stolic’s knife.’ Ascher’s mouth went firm. ‘You killed her with Stolic’s knife.’ Mamagedov kicked him in the thigh. ‘You took it from him when he caused all that trouble in the bar. Then put it back in his room when you’d finished with it.’ Ma shy;magedov kicked him again, then stamped on his calf. ‘Did Becker suggest you pin it on him? Or did you think that one up yourself?’

‘Clemens, what is going on?’ breathed Verhein. ‘What is this about a file? A knife?’

‘General, it’s under control. You have nothing to worry about.’

‘Oh I doubt that,’ muttered Reinhardt from the floor. Mamagedov’s kick flopped him onto his stomach, where he curled slowly into a ball. ‘It’s blackmail, sir,’ wheezed Reinhardt. He raised an arm to fend off another kick and took the blow on the biceps. It knocked him over again. ‘Vukic was going to blackmail you with what Hendel had. Ascher was blackmailing you with thinking you’d killed Vukic. Becker was blackmailing Ascher over the cover-up. But the file trumps everything.’ Mamagedov’s boot thudded into his back, and pain flared along his ribs. The Kalmyk had a kick like a mule, and this was the second beating he had taken in the last hour or so. He did not know how much more he could take, not this close to the end. He made himself small, raising a hand he did not have to force to shake. ‘ Please. Make him stop.’

‘Mamagedov, enough,’ whispered Verhein, but it was at Ascher that Mamagedov looked for direction, and only after a moment did the colonel nod. The Kalmyk stood back, his heavy fists at his sides and his flat, round face blank. Reinhardt put one hand in the small of his back, wincing, and carefully as he could, drew his baton out, letting it lie up the inside of his palm and into his sleeve.

‘Stand him up,’ said Ascher.

Mamagedov hauled Reinhardt to his feet and kept him steady with a hand in his collar. His body ached from the blows, but he managed to look at Verhein. ‘There is a file on you, which Major Becker is after, and as he and Colonel Ascher have been working together, I see no reason to doubt that he,’ he said, jerking his thumb at Ascher, ‘is after it too. It’s his ticket out of here.’

‘And here I was thinking you were about to start making sense,’ erupted Ascher, furiously. He jerked his head at Mamagedov, and the Kalmyk rammed his boot into the back of Reinhardt’s knee. It was the old injury, and there was an agonising wrench as it seemed to tear, and Reinhardt dropped with a cry. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Mamagedov, go and find Geiger and Ullrich and see if they’re finished.’ The Kalmyk grunted and turned for the door. ‘I’ve had them preparing the ground for you, so to speak. Just in case things turned out… well, turned out the way they have.’

‘Just tell me one thing, Colonel,’ said Reinhardt, tamping down on the pain and desperation he felt. ‘What was it between you and Becker?’

Ascher chewed his lower lip, glancing at Verhein. ‘He was there when I brought the knife back. He was putting Stolic to bed. He agreed to cover things up, help out, in return for… unspecified favours that he would call in when it suited him.’

‘So he caught you with the knife. There was nothing more? Nothing to do with an altar boy in Zagreb… ? Or… one in Munich, in 1937?’ Ascher paled, and his eyes narrowed, and he shook his head, but from the surreptitious swallow he made, and the slight twitch from Verhein, somehow Reinhardt knew he was not far from something. He could not help but smile at Ascher. ‘You were had. Becker had you over a barrel.’

Ascher flushed, but never responded. The light from the door blacked out as Mamagedov walked backwards into the room. There was a blur of movement, the thud of a blow landing; Mamagedov staggered, one hand held to his head. Claussen slid quickly inside, shutting the door and sliding along the wall, covering the room with an MP 40. Seeing his chance, Reinhardt flicked the baton out and slashed it into the side of Mamagedov’s knee, then back across the other. He fell to one side and, lunging forward, Reinhardt whipped the baton’s tip across Mamagedov’s shins, seeing his broad face dimple up as he hissed with pain.

‘ Stop it! ’ barked Ascher, his pistol aimed at Reinhardt but his eyes fixed on Claussen. ‘ You. What do you think you’re doing ?’

Claussen’s eyes ran hard around the room. ‘If he’s your man down there, sir, you tell him to keep still, now.’

‘Damn your impudence, man,’ snarled the colonel.

Claussen glanced at Reinhardt. ‘You all right, sir?’ Reinhardt nodded, then struggled to rise to one knee, then to his feet. ‘Let’s just all of us relax, shall we?’ murmured Claussen. ‘You especially, big man,’ he said, nudging Mamagedov’s head with his boot.

‘Mamagedov, keep still,’ ordered Ascher. ‘You. Drop that stick.’

There was a tense silence in the room. Faintly, now, came the sound of fighting from somewhere on the hill. The three of them stared at each other, Reinhardt at Ascher, Ascher at Claussen, and Claussen back at the colonel. Someone cleared his throat, and they all jumped. ‘Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’ demanded Verhein. The general seemed frozen to the spot. Whatever authority he normally exercised, he had none here.

‘What’s going on, General, is you’ve been betrayed by your chief of staff, here -’

‘That’s a bloody lie!’

‘- and you’re a marked man. You’re in a bad situation. You look good for Vukic’s murder, even though you didn’t do it. He did it,’ he said, pointing at Ascher.

‘I told you, I did it for you,’ said Ascher, his eyes flashing at the general.

‘Then he killed Hendel…’

‘That was Mamagedov,’ blurted Ascher. Mamagedov shifted where he lay, his flat gaze fastening on the colonel.

‘… and then you wept and prayed on your knees in a church,’ finished Reinhardt, looking at the colonel. ‘You prayed for forgiveness for what you’d done.’ He held Ascher’s gaze, looking past the foreshortened barrel of the pistol, seeing him flush and glance at the general.

‘It was for you, sir. You deserve better. You deserve better than this… this shithole !’

‘Sir, someone in Berlin wants your head,’ said Reinhardt, ‘and it doesn’t matter to him whether you stuck the knife in Vukic or not. Hendel was working for him and had been following you since Russia. This someone’s been watching you, General. Since Chenecourt, July 1940.’ Verhein sucked in a sharp breath. Ascher’s eyes flicked between them, and he knew he was missing something. ‘There’s an SD Stan shy;dartenfuhrer called Varnhorst who has had it in for you ever since that day in France. You know the one. He thinks he’s found a pattern in your life. One involving -’