The Double Agent, page 17
“At least you have an invitation,” chuckled some comedian in the truck, which drove off in a haze of blue petrol exhaust.
Two SD were standing guard at the front door. Gray uniforms with the SS lightning-bolt runes on their collars and the SD patch on their sleeves. Wearing helmets and carrying MP 40 submachine guns. Both first-class privates.
Alexsi pulled his orders from his tunic pocket and waved them under the nose of the nearest one. Who sneered, as if to say, So what?
This was no time to be timid. Not with these people, because they were all used to being bullies. Alexsi poked his finger in the SD guard’s chest. The boy’s eyes widened, and Alexsi could see his hands tighten around the MP 40. “Fetch your corporal of the guard. Now!”
The one beside him ducked in the door. Alexsi would have lit a cigarette, if he smoked. A little time in prison in Russia, watching all the smokers go mad, would cure you of any desire to take up that habit. The NKVD could get them to denounce their own mothers for the promise of a smoke.
The guard came out of the building with a corporal. The SS was so special that they even called their ranks different names from the army. For them a corporal was a Rottenführer, not an Obergefreiter. “What’s this?” he demanded in a loud voice.
Just as you’d expect. Alexsi thrust his orders at him. The corporal took them and read them right in front of his face, as if he wasn’t all that used to reading.
“I’m the new signals chief,” Alexsi announced. He aimed a thumb back over his shoulder. “Those are my bags.” Then he aimed the thumb at the two guards. “One of these can fetch them in. Or you can do it yourself. But if my bags don’t find their way to my quarters, it will be your ass.” He snatched the orders out of the corporal’s hand and marched up the stairs without another word.
He heard the corporal shout to his back, with a click of heels, “Jawohl, Herr Hauptscharführer!”
The first thing you saw when you went in the door was a life-size portrait of Hitler on the wall. Wonderful, Alexsi thought. Hello again, Adolf.
* * *
The SS lieutenant colonel behind the desk was laughing. “Please sit down, Oberfeldwebel Bauer,” he said to Alexsi. “When they told me a master sergeant signaler had just torn the balls off the corporal of my guard, I said: A signaler? But now I see.” He waved a hand idly in the direction of the decorations on Alexsi’s tunic. “I knew if I kept getting rid of the mice, Kesselring would eventually send me a tiger.”
He was in his late thirties, with a fleshy, jowly face and a sharp nose. Not quite fat, but he had obviously been living well lately. “My name is Kappler, and I am the police chief of Rome. I’m a busy man, so let me tell you my situation. My telephones are fine.” He paused at that. “Well, my telephones are Roman fine. Which means they aren’t any more terrible than all the other telephone lines in this city. My wireless communications are a shambles. I have a city to control, not enough men to do it, and the wireless sets in half my radio cars are out of action. I expect you to do something about it. Quickly.” He gave Alexsi a thin-lipped smile. “If you don’t, I’ll get rid of you too, and find someone else.”
He seemed to be waiting for Alexsi to say something. Alexsi waited just long enough, then said, “I understand, Herr Oberst. Will there be anything else?”
Now Kappler was smiling with amusement, as if appreciating Alexsi’s tone. “No.”
Alexsi popped a rigid, straight-armed salute. “Heil Hitler!”
Kappler raised his right hand off the desk. “Heil Hitler.”
* * *
The place was a nightmare. Alexsi understood exactly what the poet Dante was talking about in his circles of hell. Even though he had only read The Inferno in Russian. Because it wasn’t really a prison, the offices were on the ground floor, and the cells were on the floors above. The screaming and crying from above went on day and night. Alexsi could only believe that the SS wanted it that way. In the Lubyanka if you so much as farted the guards came piling in and kicked the living shit out of you.
It didn’t take him long to see what Colonel Kappler was talking about. Three-quarters of the SS signalers were doing radio interception, listening for spy and partisan wireless transmissions to triangulate and hunt down. Because of that, the message center was a madhouse, the wireless operators working twelve-hour shifts and falling asleep on their feet. The radios were all broken because the SD handled their radios with the same delicacy they handled their prisoners. There was nothing he could do about that, but he could do something about the repair situation. The handful of technicians were on the verge of shooting themselves because as soon as they got a set fixed another broke down, so they could never get ahead of all the other ones that were broken.
Alexsi gave serious thought to whether he really wanted to do a good job. He decided he had to. They could just as easily send him to a combat division on the front as back to Monte Soratte.
With that decision made, he also decided to follow the policy he had adopted during his previous time with the German Army. That he had not been able to follow with the British, and had unfortunately not worked on Monte Soratte. The first thing he had to do was work his ass off and make himself indispensable. Then if he ever came under suspicion, or something run-of-the-mill went wrong, then he would be given the benefit of the doubt. That seemed doubly important being stuck in the lair of the SD.
He quickly found out what the problem had been. The lieutenant they had sent from Monte Soratte was as green as spring grass, and the sergeant had been a wireless operator, not an organizer.
The SD radio cars were equipped with the standard FuG voice wireless. Instead of repairing the equipment himself Alexsi sent the cars to Monte Soratte two at a time, telling the drivers not to come back without the radios repaired, the vehicles serviced, and everything on the list of spare parts he’d given them. It was simple, but no one had thought of it.
Within a week all the radio cars were back online, and Colonel Kappler came down to the rooms used by the signals detachment and shook his hand. Alexsi had also become the hero of the repair section, who could stop pulling their hair out and go back to routine maintenance.
With that credibility in the bank, Alexsi next pulled a section of SS signalers off communications interception so he could staff the message center with three shifts, twenty-four hours a day. The pathetic part was that all he really needed on each shift was an extra pair of wireless operators so there could be another pair to run the Enigma coding machine without bouncing back and forth. With a backup to type or run messages if needed.
As soon as he did that, Alexsi kept one eye on the clock, because before the day was half over an SD major named Hass came stomping into his office.
Now, here was a real thug, with protruding ears like an elephant and white skin stretched tightly across his narrow face like a talking skull.
Alexsi, of course, stood respectfully. As a sergeant would.
Hass began, “By what authority do you take SS signalers off interception duties.”
“Mine, Herr Major,” Alexsi replied. He did not bother calling him Sturmbannführer, the SS rank.
“You will return the signalers to interception duty, immediately.”
“No, Major,” Alexsi said calmly.
The eyes bulged. The ghostly skin immediately took on a richer color. “That is an order.”
“I understand, Major, however signals assignments are my responsibility. My reassignments will stand.”
“You know I could shoot you on the spot for your disobeying an order.”
Alexsi ostentatiously placed his left hand on his holster. “You could, Major, but you will not.”
Hass was nearly shaking with rage, but he kept his eyes on Alexsi’s pistol holster.
Alexsi enjoyed watching bullies sweat when they were checked. After letting just a bit too much time go by, he said, “May I suggest, Major, that if you disagree with my performance of duty we should both discuss it with Colonel Kappler.”
“Come with me at once,” Hass snapped.
On his way out Alexsi snatched up a folder that he had been saving for just such an occasion.
Of course Hass made him sit in the outer office while he went in first. He hid a smile while Hass’s voice rose higher and higher in the room. At his desk Kappler’s adjutant, a lieutenant, did not bother to suppress his own smile. He caught Alexsi’s eye and just shook his head.
The door opened, and an angry hand waved him in.
Alexsi marched in, crashed to attention in front of the desk, and popped a perfect Hitler salute.
Kappler just raised his hand and said in exasperation, “What’s all this, Bauer?”
Alexsi handed him the folder. “Colonel, I have been going through the old incoming message stack. Here are three, two from General Wolff in Brescia and one from Berlin, that I believe were not passed along to you. Fortunately they are all routine. But they were not passed along to you because the message center was not organized properly. It is now because signalers who were on interception have been moved back to their correct duties. I have only moved a few men, and if the interception teams were distributed more rationally there would still be more than enough operators on those duties.”
Kappler was reading the three messages. “You are right. I did not see these. That is unacceptable.” He looked up at Alexsi. “And you say the interception will not suffer?”
“There is already duplication of effort in that, too,” Alexsi replied.
“Major Hass disagrees with you,” Kappler said with barely concealed amusement.
Alexsi flashed a glance at Major Hass, who was quite literally quivering with rage off to the side. “I would never dream of trying to tell the Security Service their duties, Colonel. Similarly, technical questions should be properly left to technical specialists.”
Kappler laughed out loud at that. “The master sergeant is telling you to stay out of his patch,” he told Hass. “Which is probably not a bad idea. Thank you, Major.”
At that, Hass stomped out of the office. The door cracked shut.
“Did you really threaten to shoot him?” Kappler asked mildly.
Mildly, but Alexsi could recognize a loaded question when he heard one. “I did not, Colonel. The major threatened to shoot me for not obeying his orders, and all I told him was that I knew he could but I doubted he would.”
Kappler chuckled. “Probably for the best. I heard about those three Italians at Monte Soratte, you know.”
Alexsi didn’t say anything.
“I imagine you saw some action in Russia,” said Kappler.
He had no idea, though not with the German Army. Though once again, Alexsi said nothing.
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Kappler. “Look, as long as none of my signals from Berlin are missed I’ll be happy. I also expect that we also won’t miss any enemy radios in Rome because of it,” he added pointedly.
“We will not, Colonel.”
“Good,” said Kappler, returning to his paperwork. “And if you need to take a look at that area, go right ahead.”
Alexsi snapped off another salute. Time to take his victory and get out. “Yes, Colonel!”
30
1944
ROME, ITALY
A head poked in the door of Alexsi’s office. Actually, more of a small room that barely fit a desk, but it served. Not to mention a welcome sanctuary.
The visitor was an SS sergeant, not a signaler. “Come in,” Alexsi said. “What can I do for you?” Another communications problem, no doubt.
An earnest young man. Brown hair, lean and hard, but an open and outwardly kindly face. He charged around the desk and extended his hand. “I’m Klaus Kuhn.”
“Peter Bauer,” Alexsi said, shaking it.
“I’m taking my section off to do some target practice, and I wondered if you would like to come along?”
“Shooting practice?” Alexsi inquired. He wasn’t getting roped into any SS firing squads that needed another rifle to make up the regulation number.
“Yes. There’s a range just over the Ponte Milvio.”
As always, Alexsi was suspicious. But he might as well see what this was about. Not to mention that he had barely been outside since he arrived. “All right. Thanks. What are we shooting?”
“Automatics and pistols.”
“Where can I get an automatic?”
Klaus grinned. “They didn’t issue you a weapon when you checked in?”
“A signaler? Just a screwdriver.”
“Come with me to the armory.”
Much to Alexsi’s surprise, other than Mauser rifles all they had left were Italian Beretta 38 submachine guns. He had seen nearly every single SS with an MP 40, so no wonder they were all accounted for. He signed a Beretta out, along with a German magazine pouch and four magazines.
A truck was waiting outside with Kuhn’s section inside. As they drove north through the city Alexsi broke open one of the ammunition cans and began loading his magazines.
“You don’t need to do that. I promise we’ll let you shoot first,” Klaus shouted over the road noise, laughing.
“Have you seen the looks we’re getting from the street?” Alexsi shouted back.
“Italians are cowards,” said one of the Soldaten.
“You don’t have to be a hero to shoot from a window,” Alexsi retorted, still loading.
When they drove onto the range, which was just an open field with targets and a few trenches and piles of sandbags, there was a company of SS troops in battle dress just forming up to leave.
“Who is this?” Alexsi asked Klaus, both the sergeants watching as their own soldiers lifted the ammunition cases from the truck.
“The Bozen.”
“I’m sorry?”
“SS Police Regiment Bozen,” said Klaus. “Their Third Battalion started arriving in February. This is the Eleventh Company, just coming to the city for duty.”
“Bozen?” Alexsi said again. “Never heard of them.”
“Ethnic Germans from the South Tyrol,” said Klaus.
“The Alps?” said Alexsi, trying to remember his geography.
“Yes. When it was incorporated into the Reich, those who chose German citizenship were eligible for military service. These joined the SS as their patriotic duty.”
“I see,” said Alexsi. Well, patriotic duty was all well and good. But he could think of another reason. Better to volunteer for an SS police regiment and persecute your former countrymen than be conscripted into the army and be persecuted by Russian tanks.
“They’re barracked over near the Interior Ministry,” said Klaus. “Every morning they march up here to train in crowd control. Soon they’ll be ready for us to put them on the streets.”
The troops stepped off and began singing as they marched. “Hupf, Mein Mädel.” If you had to do it, there were much better marching songs. What a bunch of arseholes, Alexsi thought. But what he said was “They look all right.”
“We need all the help we can get,” said Klaus.
“They do this every day? March singing down through the streets. At the same time?”
“Yes. Rain or shine. Very dedicated.”
Just asking for it, thought Alexsi.
The shooting was fun. It was good to be out in the open spring air. Good to be shooting at targets, not people. The Beretta was a fine gun. It had a wooden stock like a rifle, and was rock solid when firing automatic. Alexsi thought it was actually much better than an MP 40, and after adjusting the sights he was hitting targets well past a hundred meters.
Driving back, Klaus had the truck make a detour and drop the two of them off. “Weapons inspection before supper,” he informed his section, who of course let off some obligatory groans before he shut them off by slamming the tailgate.
The truck drove off, and Alexsi wondered what was up.
“Have you had a chance to see the Forum?” Klaus asked.
Alexsi shook his head. “Signals was such a shambles when I arrived, I haven’t had a chance to even leave the building.”
“I know,” said Klaus, as they began walking. “You have your section running like a Swiss watch. Everyone says so. The signalers love you.”
“Do they?” Alexsi said wryly.
“Don’t laugh, they do. Everyone used to shit on them, and because of you none of the officers dare to.”
“That is my job.”
“I know,” said Klaus. “All the other signals chiefs went out drinking and whoring every day and left their business to the lower ranks. You’ve just done your job correctly, with dedication, and it’s an example to every NCO.”
“If it hadn’t been such a disaster,” said Alexsi, “I would have had more of a chance to go whoring.”
Klaus laughed. “It was important to greet you in a spirit of comradeship. All these divisions between army and SS are foolish. We are all Kameraden, and should meet each other as such.”
Alexsi had been wondering whether Klaus was sent by Kappler or one of the other officers to keep an eye on him. Now, instead of suspecting the worst, he was instead suspecting that this was another one of those earnest Hitler Youth all indoctrinated in the concept of soldierly brotherhood.
They entered the Forum, and the Italian watchmen made themselves scarce at the sight of two German soldiers carrying submachine guns.
Alexsi found it incredibly evocative. Though he had to remind himself that little had changed in a millennium. Men in togas trying to rule the world, and men in field-gray uniforms trying to rule the world.
As they passed the ruins of the Roman senate, Klaus said, “When I walk here I try to feel as if I am standing on the spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated.”
Et tu, Brute?—Then fall, Caesar, Alexsi thought, remembering the Shakespeare he had read in London. It made him want to learn more about Caesar. “I believe that took place in the Theater of Pompey, which is a bit farther to the northwest.”
“Ah, a reader!” said Klaus. “I will check my Michelin map. We shall have to go see it.”
“Yes,” said Alexsi. “You may feel something.”
