End of Spies by Alex Gerlis (best free ereader txt) 📗

and Wolfgang found the physical work had a positive effect on his mood. He felt fitter – mentally and physically – than he’d done for years.

Of course he still worried. Someone might discover he wasn’t Andreas Moser after all. And then there was his plan: as good as it was, it could still go wrong. His biggest worry, though, was his son. He had little idea what he was up to and whether he was doing as he’d been told.

The farm did have a telephone – he’d gone to some trouble to have it installed – and his only link with the outside world was Ulrich, a comrade in Frankfurt with an impeccable network of contacts himself, whom Wolfgang trusted implicitly to keep an eye on Friedrich. Once a week he’d telephone him to check whether there was any news.

Is Mother well? When do you think it would be a good time to visit the cousins?

And Ulrich’s replies would be the same.

Mother is well, you’re not to worry. No, now is not the right time for you to visit the cousins.

But in late July, his response was far from reassuring.

Mother is not good, actually: her old condition is playing up.

Wolfgang felt the air turn cold around him.

She was taken ill in Munich. I’m not sure what to do. One of the cousins appears to have found out about her.

Wolfgang said Ulrich was to find out more and he’d call back the following evening. In the meantime, perhaps he’d best go and visit Mother in Munich?

He told Frau Moser he felt under the weather and wouldn’t join her for dinner that night. He went to sit in the farmyard, thinking about what to do.

Ulrich had told him that Friedrich was in trouble, in Munich. As for the cousins, they were the Allies – an integral part of his plan.

Chapter 5

Munich, August 1945

Wolfgang Steiner arrived in Munich using the identity of Andreas Moser, the farmer from the Rott Valley. He’d had no intention of leaving the farm near Eggenfelden, where he felt safe and hoped to remain until the time came to put his plan into action.

But he’d not taken into account his Achilles heel, his son Friedrich. Ulrich’s initial warning on the telephone had been heavily coded, but when they’d spoken the following evening, he’d provided a bit more detail.

As far as Ulrich could tell, Friedrich had left the safe house his father had found for him in the Tyrol because he was bored, and travelled north to Munich of all places. The Bavarian capital was occupied by the American army and was the last place you would go if you were hiding from them. It was also a place where even the American troops not garrisoned there gravitated to when they had some free time. Despite the fact that the city had been half destroyed, it hadn’t taken long to dust itself down and start providing places where the American troops could spend their money.

Once in Munich, Friedrich had quickly begun to revert to his normal behaviour. He did at least use the new identity his father had gone to some trouble to supply him with, but he might as well have not bothered: in every other respect his behaviour was utterly reckless. If people asked where he was from – wondering about his accent – he’d happily volunteer that he was Viennese, and when the subject of the war came up, he’d give a knowing wink and would sometimes even take out his metal Gestapo identity badge, carefully allowing whoever he was showing it to a glimpse of the Reich symbol of an eagle on top of a swastika on one side, then quickly showing the reverse, with the words Geheime Staatspolizei. The only precaution he’d take was to cover his identity number with his thumb.

He hung around the area south-east of the main railway station, where every other building seemed to be a bar of some sort or the other. Some of them consisted of little more than a trestle table in a damaged building, the clientele having to take care not to lean on walls liable to give way at any moment. The area was the centre of the black market, and Friedrich was able to do some wheeling and dealing. He’d brought a dozen watches with him and used the money from selling these to fund a hedonistic lifestyle, albeit one edged with the danger of a fugitive.

But what most attracted him to this area was the brothels that had sprung up like a rash once the Americans had taken over the city. Almost every taste was catered for by women – and men – who’d never ordinarily have contemplated prostitution. But desperation had forced hundreds of them onto the streets, and Friedrich found it was a perfect outlet for his appetites.

Eventually he rented a room near the Theresienwiese fairground, where the Oktoberfest was held every year. He’d become particularly attracted to a fifteen-year-old girl he’d bought from her Polish-German pimp for a whole night in return for a watch. He’d become rather friendly with the pimp, Emil, who seemed to specialise in younger girls and, it had to be said, boys – though this was something Friedrich preferred not to think about. Emil told him that he’d done what he called ‘specialist work’ in Poland during the war; as far as Friedrich could tell, this involved helping to run and then clear the Jewish ghettos.

Friedrich was impressed, and felt he could confide in Emil. He showed him his Gestapo badge and then told him he’d been almost single-handedly responsible for defeating the resistance throughout Europe. ‘In fact, so good was my reputation, they called me das Frettchen!’

It was true the girl – her name was Gisela – seemed to have been forced into prostitution, but Friedrich found himself thinking more and more about her, and when he took the room by the Theresienwiese, he decided to move her in, ignoring Emil’s protests. Things began