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Rolf Stolle didn't have a bullhorn. With his big bass voice, he hardly needed one. "Not likely, so
A great cheer rose behind his words: "Rolf! Rolf! Rolf!" His name in the crowd's mouth sounded like the baying of a pack of hounds. Were they baying for freedom? Heinrich didn't know, but he shouted, "Rolf!" along with everybody else.
Stolle pushed through the crowd till he stood alongside the panzer. The officer in charge of it had to lean over awkwardly to keep an eye on him. The Berlin policemen got between the Gauleiter and the next panzer farther back. They might protect him against its machine guns. If its ca
But Rolf Stolle wasn't thinking about getting shot. He aimed to cause the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich as much trouble as he could. The still photographer and the televisor cameraman both captured his scornful kick at the panzer's iron road wheel.
"If those don't turn into famous photos-" Heinrich began.
"It'll be because Prutzma
Stolle shook his fist at the panzer officer leaning out of the cupola. "Go back to your barracks!" he bellowed. "Get the hell out of here! Using force now is intolerable-intolerable, I tell you. The Volk of the Reich will not let this illegal, tyra
"Rolf! Rolf! Rolf!" the crowd shouted, and, "Down with the SS!" Heinrich got a good look at the panzer officer's face. The man looked as stu
Stolle and a couple of his biggest bodyguards had their heads together. The policemen raised him up onto their shoulders so the crowd could see him better. They staggered a little-he was a big man himself-but they held him. The cheers came louder and fiercer than ever. Stolle waved, not just to the crowd but also to the panzer commander.
"It doesn't look like they're going to shoot your Gauleiter right this minute," he called.
"Rolf! Rolf! Rolf!" The people shouted louder than ever. Heinrich's ears rang. He was yelling, too: "Down with the SS! Down with the SS!" And then both chants faded and a new one rose, driven straight into the face of the lead panzer commander: "Go home! Go home! Go home! Go home!"
If he'd looked stu
Inside the panzer there, he was bound to be on the radio again. What were his distant superiors telling him? Kill! Strike! Destroy! Now! What else could they be saying? If they bagged both Buckliger and Stolle, the game was theirs. What was he telling them? That wasn't so obvious.
He came out again. He still looked as if he didn't know what hit him. Along with everyone else, Heinrich poured abuse down on his head. Then Rolf Stolle raised his right hand. Silence rippled outward, even to those who couldn't see the Gauleiter. Into it, Stolle spoke to the panzer officer: "You have taken your oath to the Volk. You ca
An avalanche of cheers thundered down on him. He gri
Lise Gimpel dialed Heinrich's number. In her ear, the phone rang once, twice, three times. Someone picked it up. "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht,Analysis section." A woman's voice.
"Ilse? I want to talk to Heinrich. This is his wife," Lise said.
"I'm sorry,Frau Gimpel, but he's not here," the secretary answered.
"Do you know when he'll be back?"
"I'm sorry, but I have no idea. As soon as we heard…what had happened, he and Herr Dorsch and some other people, uh, left the building."
"Left the building?…Oh." Lise needed a moment, but she figured out what Ilse meant. They'd headed for Rolf Stolle's residence. That had to be it. Ilse wouldn't come right out and say so, though, not when the phones were bound to be monitored. She might have round heels, but she definitely had strong survival instincts. "Thank you," Lise said, both for the information and for the nonincriminating way the secretary had given it to her. She hung up.
Survival instincts,she thought, and shook her head. She'd always believed Heinrich had strong ones. But if he did, why had he gone ru
The trouble with Erika…Lise saw, or thought she did. Before the blackshirts grabbed Heinrich and flung him into prison, he never would have done anything so crazy. Now, though, he'd lain in the hands of the SS. Maybe he thought anything that might help stop that committee with the silly name was worth doing.
It will happen just the same, with you there or without you. Lise couldn't shout that to Heinrich, no matter how much she wanted to. He'd had an attack of patriotism-and wasn't that a strange fit to come over a Jew at the beating heart of the Third Reich? Was the difference between Lothar Prutzma
Lise wished she hadn't asked herself the question that way. The answer looked much too much like yes.
She turned on the televisor. Most of the stations were broadcasting reruns of daytime dramas or quiz shows or weepy advice shows. Every so often, words would glide across the bottom of the screen.You are ordered to obey the decrees of the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich, the crawl said, over and over and over again.
The Berlin cha
Was that a warning to Prutzma