V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,81

tops of the men’s shoulders were clad in SS black.

He stepped quickly into his bedroom and closed the door. The suitcase full of microfilm rolls was still on top of the wardrobe. He looked around. There was nowhere he could hide it, and no time anyway – the door was already being struck by a rifle butt. He grabbed his shirt and called out, ‘Wait!’ but the door was flung open and the SS soldiers stamped in. One put his rifle to his shoulder and covered Graf, who immediately raised his hands, while the other threw open the wardrobe door and stabbed at his clothes with the barrel of his gun. He ducked to search under the bed, prodding at the dust, then went over to the window and drew back the curtains, raised the sash and stuck his head out into the night. He withdrew it and turned to look at Graf. He was young, no more than eighteen.

‘You are alone?’

Graf still had his hands up. ‘As you can see.’

‘And the other men in the building – have you seen them bring in women?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone all evening.’

The SS soldier frowned at him. His gaze swept the room again. Abruptly he turned on his heel and the two men left.

Graf lowered his hands and quickly finished buttoning his shirt. He put on his tie and jacket, grabbed his coat and hat and hurried down the stairs. A couple of NCOs were standing in their vests and underpants on the next landing. On the ground floor the doors hung open and the passage was crowded with outraged rocket troops. He bumped into Schenk, who was in his shirtsleeves, his braces dangling round his knees. ‘Fucking SS!’

‘Did they find anyone?’

‘No. Arseholes!’

Out in the street were maybe twenty SS men – standing in the middle of the road with machine guns, going in and coming out of the hotels. Some had dogs. A searchlight was mounted on the back of a lorry. Its beam moved methodically up and down the buildings. Graf set off round the corner. From the boarding house that served as the other-ranks’ brothel, the women were being led out, shivering in their flimsy dresses, carrying their suitcases. One by one, occasionally prodded by a rifle barrel, they climbed up into the back of a lorry.

‘Oh God,’ muttered Graf. ‘Oh God, oh God …’

He turned around and headed in the direction of the seafront. SS men had sealed off the Hotel Schmitt. He had to show his pass to get through. In the officers’ mess, Huber stood at the windows with Seidel and Klein and a couple of others, looking down into the street.

Graf said, ‘Are they searching here as well?’

‘They’re searching everywhere,’ said Huber. ‘On Kammler’s orders, given to Drexler on the phone. They even searched my room! As if I’d be hiding a spy under my bed!’

‘They’ve gone crazy,’ said Seidel. He was still watching out of the window. ‘Look at Party Comrade Biwack over there, directing operations. Anyone would think he was flushing out reds on the Eastern Front!’

Graf said, ‘They’re taking away all the girls from the brothel. What’s going to happen to them?’

For a moment nobody spoke.

Huber shook his head. ‘It’s a bad business.’

Graf turned to Seidel, ‘Do you have your car outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I borrow it?’

Seidel stared at him. ‘Don’t even think of it!’

‘Please.’ He held out his hand.

The lieutenant’s expression was incredulous. He sighed. Reluctantly he put his hand in his pocket and took out the keys.

The SS had first started seriously sniffing around Peenemünde as soon as it became apparent that the rocket was going to work. Two months after the successful test flight, in December 1942, the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, had made the trek up to the Baltic to watch a launch. Graf had been present. It had been a fiasco – the rocket had crashed after four seconds – but that didn’t deter Himmler. ‘Once the Führer has decided to give your project his support,’ he told General Dornberger, ‘your work ceases to be the concern of the Army Weapons Department, or indeed of the army at all, and becomes the concern of the German people. I am here to protect you against sabotage and treason.’

‘I am extremely interested in your work,’ he added, just as he was getting into his aeroplane to fly back to Berlin. ‘I may be able to help you. I will come again alone and spend the night here, and we can have a