Caitrin listened to them, especially when they changed over, and made her assessment. She gave them names, alphabetically, and the first one was called Adolf, a precise heel-clicker of a man, much given to speaking in clipped sentences. Throughout his shift he rarely stayed still, and Caitrin heard his jackboots squeaking up and down the hallway. He also constantly muttered to himself, although what he said was a mystery to her because she spoke only a little German. Adolf would be an obedient soldier who would follow orders, a suspicious man and not easily overcome.
Boris was next, a big, shambling man with a heavy foot and an asthmatic wheeze. He sat with a great thump and did not move until his shift was relieved. By pressing an ear to the door, she could sometimes hear him snoring. Boris would be easier to fool, but fighting a big man in a small room could cause both of them damage. Big men were often deceptively fast, could absorb punishment, and there was no guarantee of success.
Curt she named the last one, and he worked from afternoon until midnight. He was not a big man—Caitrin guessed he was about her height and size—and walked with a light scuffing of one foot, which meant he had a limp. Like Boris, he did not move much, and she sometimes heard the sound of pages turning. Perhaps Curt was a reader, which might be a problem because it suggested he was intelligent. There was a squabble outside the door when Boris was relieved by Curt.
“Was kostet liebe?” she heard Boris say with groans and a loud lip smacking, as though he was pretending to kiss someone. “Es is Jüdischer müll.”
“Zumindest lese ich!” Curt shouted. She heard Boris shambling away, Curt’s chair scraping on the floor, and then silence. She had decided. Curt was the one.
During her 512 training, Caitrin had been taught to use every weapon in her arsenal, but there was one she was reluctant to deploy. Until today.
* * *
Curt was halfway through reading Was Kostet Liebe? (What Price Love?). It was a book of which his wife Gartrude would not have approved, and perhaps it was lascivious Jewish garbage, but he had not seen her in such a long time and a man had needs that demanded satisfaction. Caitrin’s scream startled him. He dropped the book, pulled out his Luger, and opened the door.
The woman was agitated, hopping from one foot to the other, tearing at her shirt as she screamed, “Spider! Spider!”
He had no idea what that meant, but he did know that she looked terrified, and the front of her shirt was almost completely open to expose such lovely breasts. If Curt had been a dispassionate observer watching at some remove, he would have seen himself staring at her breasts and then, distracted, crumpling in pain as a foot hammered into his side. And almost before the pain of broken ribs registered, he would have watched as the woman’s right hand caught his jaw and rendered him unconscious as her left closed over the pistol. It was all performed in one fluid and deadly movement.
But unfortunately for Curt he was not a dispassionate observer, he was a participant, albeit a passive one. All he remembered later was seeing her breasts, hearing his ribs fracture, and feeling something explode against his jaw. When he regained consciousness, it hurt to breathe, his fellow soldiers were standing over him, the woman was gone, and so too was his Luger. Was Kostet Liebe?
38
From her hiding place, Caitrin watched as SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg commandeered the conservatory at the north side of the house. A long, glass-walled room with a parquet floor, it was the only space large enough to accommodate all of the Crown Jewels and display them properly. He had the furniture removed and replaced with a long table set up down the center with a riser at one end to form a T. Blackout curtains shrouded the windows, and they had found red damask drapes somewhere in the house and used them to cover the tables. Hector stood with Schellenberg and James at his side, as the soldiers, supervised by Heiko von Eisen, carried in the cases.
“You have the inventory with you?” Schellenberg asked James.
“Here,” James said and took a list from his pocket.
“The most important crown should be placed at the head of the T, with the others to the left and right. Less important things, such as swords, orbs, and scepters will be set up along the long table. I will depend upon your knowledge. First one?”
“There are crowns dating back to the 1600s,” James said as he scanned the list. “But I would say the Imperial State Crown is probably the most important one.”
“Why?”
“It is worn as the monarch leaves Westminster Abbey, after the coronation. It has St. Edward’s Sapphire, belonging to Edward the Confessor in 1163, the Stuart Sapphire, the Black Prince’s Ruby, and the Cullinan II Diamond.”
Von Eisen read the case labels until he came to the right one. He placed the box on the table, unlatched it, and brought out the crown. It glittered with diamonds, and a murmur of admiration swept through the room. Von Eisen put it at the head of the T.
“Then the modern crowns, I think,” James said. “Queen Alexandra’s Crown, Queen Mary’s and the Queen Mother’s Crowns.”
As the crowns were placed on the tables, and there were so many, followed by the swords, scepters, and orbs, the atmosphere changed in the room. These were remarkable objects in their own right, but much more than that. They were also the history of a country, a record of a nation’s life and endurance. Its heart. Its soul.
Schellenberg picked up a sword and unsheathed it. “Beautiful craftsmanship.”
“That is the Sword of Spiritual Justice, 1626,” James said, and there was a quiver to his voice.
A door opened, and a tall, blonde woman entered. She stopped, surveyed the table, and turned to Schellenberg. “A majestic display. Walter, I am here, ready to make history again.”
They embraced. “That you are, Leni, and that you will. Let me introduce you to our British Die Brücke friends. This is James Gordon, and Hector Neville-Percy, Lord Marlton. Gentlemen, this is the renowned Leni Riefenstahl.”
Hector and James were impressed. Riefenstahl, a devout Hitler disciple, was a legendary filmmaker, with Triumph of the Will and Olympia to her credit. She was also a beautiful woman with open features and shrewd, confident eyes that missed nothing.
She spread her hands to encompass the Jewels. “We will start with close-ups of all of these, and then I will place two cameras”—she turned and pointed at the corners of the room—“there and there to film the people who come to see the display.”
“Today is Thursday. The first invitation goes out tomorrow morning, and all of this will be shown to the world on Monday,” Schellenberg said. “That gives you three days to shoot whatever you wish.”
“Good, that is good. I will have my cameraman Albert Ben-tiz and his lighting crew—”
Adolf hurried in and whispered to von Eisen, who whispered to Schellenberg.
“There is a problem?” Riefenstahl asked, irritated at being interrupted.
“A small one,” Schellenberg said. “It seems our Welsh Houdini has again pulled one of her amazing disappearing acts. She has vanished.”
“No, I haven’t,” Caitrin said as she stepped into the room and to one side of Riefenstahl, her Luger pointed squarely at Schellenberg. “If any of your men even blinks, I will shoot you.”
“Tales of your ability did not underestimate you.” Schellenberg rubbed the length of his jaw and tapped a fingertip on his chin. “Hmm. I would not like that.”
“No.”
His hand moved deliberately toward his pistol.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, but I will,” he said and unclipped the holster flap.
Caitrin lowered the pistol, aimed at Schellenberg’s leg, and fired. The shot echoed in the room, but he was unhurt. She fired again, with the same result. He raised his Luger and pointed it at her face.
