Angel From Hell, page 14
part #1 of Anna Fehrbach Series Series
‘What news?’
‘It is that the British are determined to go to war.’
Heydrich stared at her for several seconds. ‘Over Czechoslovakia? You said they would not.’
‘That was in October. And I was proved right, was I not? But the English believed what the Fuehrer told them, that he had no more territorial ambitions in Europe. Now they feel betrayed.’
‘Are you calling the Fuehrer a liar?’
‘Of course I am not, Herr Colonel. I am reporting what the British are saying, as you are employing me to do. Herr Chamberlain especially feels betrayed. I do not believe that he is going to go to war over Czechoslovakia, but my husband says that he is going to issue a public statement that any further German aggression – that is his word – will be a casus belli.’
Again Heydrich considered this for several seconds. ‘We moved into Czechoslovakia over a week ago. But you are only telling me this now.’
‘I only learned of it two days ago, Herr Colonel. And as, by then, I knew I was coming to Berlin in any event, I thought it best to bring the news myself, with everything else I had for you.’
‘You thought it best!’ Heydrich scoffed. ‘When I wish you to think, I will inform you. I think being married to an English aristocrat has gone to your head. You need to remember that being Mrs Bordman is a façade, a cover story. You are employed by the Reich.’
‘I have said I will not forget that again, sir.’ Anna could not prevent her voice from rising an octave as she realized that she might have dug herself a deeper hole than the one she had previously been in.
‘Oh, I intend to make sure of that, Anna.’ He pressed his intercom. ‘Is Captain Blaner in the building?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘He is with Commandant Gehrig.’
‘Is she in Berlin? Excellent. Ask them both to come in, please.’
Anna drew a deep breath. ‘What . . . I mean . . .’
‘You see, Anna, when a young girl wishes to remember something, she ties a knot in her handkerchief, does she not? We are going to tie a knot in your brain, to make sure that you never again forget who you are working for, and the rules you have to follow.’
Anna gasped. ‘My family . . .’
‘Ah, yes, your family. That is an interesting point. Would you rather your family was punished for your errors? Or would you prefer to suffer that punishment yourself?’
Another deep breath. But she still had a weapon left. ‘I would prefer you to punish me.’
‘Oh, good. I had intended to do that anyway, but it makes it so much simpler if you are in agreement.’
Anna licked her lips. ‘My husband is expecting me back at the end of next week.’
‘And we mustn’t alarm the good fellow, must we? I would expect you will go back, Anna, a wiser and more compliant woman. Come.’
The doors were opened, and the two people came in. Both wore uniform, and both stood to attention, arms outstretched. ‘Heil Hitler!’
‘Heil! Gehrig, you remember Anna Fehrbach?’
Frau Gehrig looked at Anna. ‘I do, Herr Colonel. She is looking well.’
‘Well, we don’t want to interfere with that, do we? She seems to have a loving husband. However, she also seems to have forgotten who and what she really is, and must be reminded of this. I would like you to assist Blaner in this duty, as you know the girl already.’
‘Of course, Herr Colonel. I shall enjoy that.’
Anna tried to catch her eye; this woman had almost been a friend when last she had seen her.
‘May I ask exactly what you have in mind, Herr Colonel?’ Blaner enquired.
‘She is to be punished for disobeying orders,’ Heydrich said. ‘It is neither necessary nor desirable for you to know what those orders were. However, it is necessary, as I have said, that she should suffer no permanent injury, or that any mark be left on her body that will not fade within forty-eight hours. For this reason she should be caned, not whipped, and the blows should be strictly on her buttocks.’
Anna’s head jerked. My God! she thought. He is talking about me! She remembered Karen screaming for mercy. Am I going to scream for mercy? Never. But she could not stop herself saying, in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, ‘I have done everything you required of me, Herr Colonel. I have committed . . .’
Heydrich laid his finger on his lips. ‘No secrets, Anna. The betrayal of State secrets is a very serious breach of rules, and your punishment will be at least doubled.’
Anna found that she was panting.
‘Apart from the caning, Herr Colonel,’ Blaner said, ‘what else is to be done to her?’
‘Anything you like, within the parameters I have outlined. Your business is to make her feel pain to the extent that she will never wish to suffer such a punishment again. What did you have in mind?’
‘He is going to rape me,’ Anna muttered.
Heydrich looked at Blaner.
‘Well, sir, it would seem a pity to . . .’
‘Pass up the opportunity to have sex with a beautiful woman? I have said that you may do what you wish, as long as she finds it unpleasant and is not marked.’
These people are talking about me, Anna thought again. And it is going to happen! Now she did have an urgent desire to scream. She had only had sex with one man in her life – her husband – and while Bally was an absolute gentleman in everything he did, she had still never enjoyed it. To be at the mercy of this lout . . .
But Blaner was still speaking. ‘I was wondering, sir, if we might try out the new method on her.’
‘What new method?’
‘It is the use of electricity, developed by our scientists.’
‘I do no wish her electrocuted.’
‘No, no, sir. The emissions are strictly controlled. But attached to certain selected parts of the body, they are supposed to inflict exquisite pain. The technique is being suggested for interrogation, but of course it can be used for other purposes as well. The important point is that, however severe the pain, no mark is left upon the body.’
Oh my God! Anna thought. Oh, my God! But God could not possibly come to her rescue; she had forsaken God when she had shot that desperately running convict. Was that not yet a year ago?
‘That sounds very interesting,’ Heydrich said. ‘Call me when you are ready to proceed, and I will come down and see how it works. Off you go, now, Anna. We will talk again later.’
Chapter Six – Revenge
‘Come along, Anna,’ Frau Gehrig said kindly.
Anna stood up, but her knees gave way and she sat down again.
‘You don’t really want to be carried downstairs, do you?’ Frau Gehrig asked.
Anna held the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. Blaner was actually holding the door for her. This can’t be happening, she told herself. I am the Honourable Mrs Bordman. I am the darling of London society. But no doubt Karen had also told herself that this couldn’t be happening as she was strapped to the triangle all those months ago.
Frau Gehrig walked beside her on the stairs, holding her arm against a stumble, as she did from time to time.
‘I thought you were my friend,’ Anna muttered.
‘We are all your friends, Anna,’ Gehrig said. ‘That is proved by the fact that you are not to be permanently harmed and that Colonel Heydrich wishes to give you a second chance.’
‘But you intend to torture me first.’
‘We intend to punish you, and there can be no punishment without pain.’
They had reached the lower floor. Clerks and secretaries looked at them curiously, and then hastily looked away again. And in front of her was another flight of steps, these also leading down. She shuddered; she had been here before, even if not in this building. And the cell level was surprisingly similar to that in Vienna, save that there were no barred cells, merely closed doors, although they all had their sliding inspection hatch.
But the room at the end of the corridor was different, and again Anna’s knees threatened to give way, so that Gehrig’s grip tightened and jerked her upright.
‘Listen,’ she said in a low voice, ‘let me give you some advice. Do not attempt to resist them. Submit to everything without a word. But when they hurt you, forget your pride and scream as loudly as you can. This will please them. But if they feel you are defying them, even in your mind, they will wish to hurt you more than ever.’
‘But are you not one of them? Will you not be hurting me as well?’
‘Yes, I will be hurting you, and I will enjoy doing so, because it is always enjoyable to hurt a beautiful, wilful woman, but that does not mean I wish you to be destroyed.’
Because you are hoping to have the opportunity to work me over again sometime, Anna thought.
Blaner was holding the door for her again, most politely, but inside the room there waited two men. Both were large, and both were in their shirt sleeves. Both had been looking rather bored, but their eyes brightened at the sight of Anna.
She entered the room, and the heavily padded door clicked shut behind her. She waited, keeping absolutely still, trying to convince herself that this was going to be nothing worse than a visit to the dentist.
‘Would you undress, please,’ Blaner asked courteously.
Anna looked at Gehrig. ‘You would not like that lovely dress to be torn, now would you?’ Gehrig asked. ‘I will help you.’ She released the buttons at the back of the dress, her fingers nimble. Anna drew a deep breath and shrugged the dress from her shoulders, allowed it to slide down the petticoat and gather round her ankles. ‘I will hang it up for you,’ Gehrig offered again.
Anna stepped out of the dress. Gehrig picked it up, shook out the creases, and took one of the hangers from the hook on the door, replacing the dress beside the two men’s tunics. Anna waited. ‘Now come along, Anna,’ Gehrig said. ‘The petticoat. The sooner we get it done the sooner it will be over.’
Anna took off her cloche hat and her hair tumbled down. The two men’s eyes gleamed some more, as did Blaner’s. Then she lifted the petticoat over her head and handed it to Gehrig, just as if the commandant were her maid.
‘Continue,’ Gehrig said.
‘You mean you wish everything?’
‘We wish you naked, yes.’
Anna opened her mouth. The only men, apart from Bally, before whom she had previously appeared naked had been Cleiner and Blassermann, and that had been in the quick act of changing from her uniform into her gym clothes. More importantly, neither of them had revealed the slightest sexual interest in her, while when she had been receiving instructions in male desires the man had fondled her through, or beneath her clothing – and he also had been merely doing a job of work. But these men reeked of sexual desire, and if they too would be doing a job of work, they clearly intended to enjoy it.
She closed her mouth again without speaking; to protest would be a waste of time, and might merely make things worse.
‘Do not make them think you are resisting them,’ Gehrig had said. She removed her cami-knickers, and Gehrig took them from her hand while Anna endeavoured not to meet anyone’s eye. ‘And the shoes and stockings,’ Gehrig said. ‘You may use that chair.’
There was a straight chair beside the desk. This was the most humiliating moment of the morning so far as, having released her suspender belt, she had to sit facing the men to roll down her stockings. Then the cold of the stone floor struck upwards through her body and she could feel her nipples hardening. Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t think.
‘Now use the toilet,’ Gehrig commanded.
Anna looked from her to the open toilet against the far wall in consternation. She had never done that before another person in her life, not even Elsa.
‘We don’t want a mess, do we?’ Gehrig asked.
Anna stood up uncertainly, crossed the floor, and obeyed her; it actually was very necessary and a considerable relief.
‘Now stand against the bar,’ Gehrig commanded.
Anna had not noticed the bar before; she had been too busy trying not to look at any of her surroundings. The bar, a rounded steel tube, was situated to one side of the room, raised horizontally some three feet from the floor on two other rounded steel tubes. These had grooves into which the parallel bar fitted, and handles by which it could be raised and lowered as required. She drew a deep breath, then stood up and slowly crossed the floor. Her knees felt weak and she almost fell. This time no one assisted her. But she had no doubt that if she did fall she would be dragged to her feet, and the thought of them touching her was unbearable.
She reached the bar and stood against it; the steel pressed against her thighs.
‘Now bend over,’ Gehrig said.
Anna obeyed, bending from the waist, every muscle tensed, because now she knew she was going to be touched, as intimately and indecently as it was possible to imagine.
One of the men came into view as he stood in front of her, grasped her right arm, and pulled it down, so that she all but toppled over, prevented from actually falling by the bar. Then she saw the handcuffs attached to a ring in the floor. He did the same to her left wrist. Before he had finished she felt other hands on her legs, as they were pulled apart and each ankle in turn attached to another pair of handcuffs.
‘Make her tight,’ Gehrig instructed. ‘She must not be able to move.’
The men cranked the handles, and the bar came up until it fitted into her groin, stretching her away from her wrists and ankles, leaving her both helpless and utterly exposed, buttocks highest.
Gehrig stood in front of her. ‘If one is allowed to move when being caned,’ she said, ‘one runs the risk of suffering serious harm, or permanent scarring. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? You are such a beautiful creature.’ She reached under Anna’s arms and gently caressed her breasts. ‘There is no aspect of you that is not superb.’ Anna stared at her legs, feeling tears running down her cheeks and hearing them plop on the floor. Was there perhaps a glimmer of hope? But now Gehrig said, ‘You may commence, Captain. The cane, remember. Not the whip.’
‘Ahem,’ said one of the men.
‘What is it?’
‘We have our perks, Frau Commandant.’
Gehrig looked at Blaner.
‘That is correct, Frau Commandant. It is boring work being confined down here, and there is so seldom anything . . . shall I say . . . worth handling.’
They are talking about me as if I were a piece of furniture, Anna thought as she desperately tried to raise her head far enough to catch Gehrig’s eye. And in fact the commandant did return her desperate gaze. But she merely shrugged.
‘If that is the custom, I will allow one touch each. Colonel Heydrich is waiting to be called.’
Anna closed her eyes and felt hands on her buttocks. Then other hands passed between her spread legs to close on her groin.
‘I suppose you are included?’ Gehrig suggested.
‘Well,’ Blaner said, ‘I like to know what I am about.’
Anna felt his hands on her buttocks, kneading the flesh, which she tried to keep as tensed as possible – a difficult task when she had been so tightened as to be standing on tiptoe.
Gehrig picked up the phone on the desk. ‘Colonel Heydrich,’ she said.
Anna felt the hands move, and heard a swishing sound. She turned her head, and one of the men grinned at her.
‘Herr Colonel?’ Gehrig asked. ‘We are about to commence the punishment. Very good, sir.’ She replaced the receiver. ‘He is on his way, but he says to continue. It is the electrical treatment he is interested in. Remember, she is to be struck only there.’ She touched Anna’s buttocks herself.
Anna drew a deep breath. The commandant had said not to attempt to defy them, to scream as loudly as she could. But she wanted to defy them. They could not destroy her. She was the Honourable Mrs Bordman. More important, far more important, she was Annaliese Fehrbach, and she was a woman who had been trained to fight, and to kill, and to survive. Perhaps these morons had forgotten that, or considered her no more than a lump of meat, to be chewed up and then spat out, when they were tired of the taste of her. But one day, she told herself, one day . . .
It seemed as if a knife blade had been drawn across her flesh. She gasped, and her mouth sagged open, even as her body drooped, to be held only by the bar pressing into her groin, still stretched taut so that she could not twist.
Before she could draw a breath, she was struck a second time, making her body stiff again. There seemed to be no air in her lungs, and she thought she was choking. But when the third blow came she involuntarily sucked at the air. At the fourth blow she couldn’t control a whimper, and her eyes were burning as the tears started again. Now her whole body seemed to be in pain, which was even penetrating her brain, and she hardly felt the last two blows, but between them – and even above the drumming in her ears – she heard the door opening and closing and realized that Heydrich had joined them.
The blows ceased, and she hung across the bar, feeling her cheeks suffuse as the blood rushed into them. The room was rotating about her, but she refused to open her eyes. I did not scream, she told herself. They could not make me scream.
‘Is she all right?’ Heydrich asked.
Gehrig stooped beside her, held her wrist and felt her pulse. ‘She is all right. But perhaps we should wait a few minutes . . .’
‘I am a busy man,’ Heydrich pointed out. ‘And I wish to see this new method. Show us, Blaner. And explain it.’
‘Of course, Herr Colonel.’
Heydrich was apparently peering at her bottom. ‘You are sure there will be no permanent marks?’
‘None,’ Gehrig assured him. ‘That is the beauty of the cane. Those marks will fade within forty-eight hours. But she will remember the beating.’
‘She will remember this more,’ Blaner said enthusiastically. ‘Now, sir, you see this box. It is the generator, which is activated simply by turning the handle. The faster it is turned, the more current is delivered, so that the interrogator can control the strength of the charge according to the mental and physical strength of the subject. Now, these two wires, each ending in an alligator clip, are attached to whatever part of the subject’s body the interrogator wishes to use. One is negative and the other is positive. The charge will flow from one to the other, causing the severest discomfort to the part of the subject’s body through which it travels. Favourite places are the big toe, on each foot – so that the current passes up one leg, across the groin, and down the other – or the ears, in which case the current passes through the head. But I would not recommend that in this case, if it is your wish that the subject be, shall I say, preserved intact. The current passing through the brain can induce permanent damage. However, there are other useful places. The nipples, for example. This is especially useful for women, who – if you will forgive me, Frau Gehrig – have more . . . how shall I put it . . . flesh for the interrogator to play with. But of course the most efficacious of all are the genitals. One of these clips inserted into the anus, and the other clipped to the male penis can rob a man of any ability to resist further. A woman of course is even more susceptible, as she possesses two orifices, the invasion of which by steel and then electricity is both humiliating and agonizing.’
